I do not own Naruto. or any other Manga/Anime for that matter. All i own is my mind and the book that I'm working on that will make a appearance later on in this series.

Chapter IV: Fishy Noodles

Naruto held on to the pipe tightly. That little monster sucked up enough water for a week in five minutes. At the size of a regular straw, that could be a bit hard to handle. He remembered with some amusement when he first tried this. The force of the water had actually sent him flying. Now, with just a little chakra focused on the bottom of his feet, holding him in place, he was stable from anything the little pipe could put up.

Exactly five minutes later, the pipe shut off and he slipped it back into his pocket with a sigh. Reenergizing the portal, pulling water, and training were too much to do for one day. Despite the fact that he was strong, he was still human. Kyuubi had also grown steadily more lazy in the last few years, and would only lend chakra if he was doing an intense workout or about to die. Or when he just plain felt like it. Great. Just great.

He took a quick look around, and when he didn't see or sense anyone nearby, stripped off and dove into the brook. Even though he had installed the shower, he rarely used it. It was too far off and he like this way better. It was more relaxing.

Making a series of rapid signs, ending with one of his own, a forbidden one that required massive amounts of chakra to perform, a single duplicate appeared. Both copies of himself surfaced at the same time, gasping for air. They both took a deep breath and started swimming around, looking for fish.

What Naruto had neglected to mention to Hinata was that this creek was very deep. Therefore, fish were easy to come by. It wasn't deep enough so that the bottom was all murky mud, but deep enough that it was possible to catch catfish every now and then. However, this was early in the season, and fish were still rare.

He dove in, along with his clone. They fought the current saw a handful of small fish swimming along beside them. But they were tiny; barely bigger then his index finger. They couldn't eat that. Heck, the only thing that could eat that would be the cat that hung around the entrance of his house.

They swam further upstream, surfacing every now and then to breathe. The clone had exactly the same eyesight as he did, but it could smell underwater, where he couldn't. However, what they had both forgotten was that Hinata was further upstream, taking a shower. They swam closer and closer…

Hinata was at the waterfall, but there was one more problem. She couldn't figure out how to turn the damn thing on. There were no knobs on the pipes, so she couldn't figure out how to get the water flowing. In fact, the shower wasn't so much in the waterfall, but behind it. The rapidly falling water was the perfect curtain from peeping eyes, or so she thought.

How wrong she was.

Hinata had just figured out how to turn on the water, by striking a certain part of the pipe with fine-tuned chakra from her palms. However, it wasn't perfect. The first time she hit the pipe, it resulting in her getting blasted by scalding hot water. The second time, she got hit by icy water. Finally, the third time, she hit it just right and warm water started to pour from the spigot.

She sighed and stepped into the flow of warm water, allowing it to relax her tense muscles and wash away the dirt that had built up on her. After everything had been washed off, she just sat there, enjoying the feeling. However…

COME BACK HERE YOU STUPID FISH!

Naruto and his clone had seen a very big fish swimming upstream, but they were having trouble catching it. Despite the fact that he had massive speed on land, swimming upstream against the current while trying to catch a very strong fish was still hard for him. If he had been thinking clearly, he would have just jumped out of the water and continued the pursuit on land, but he was too angry at the moment.

As the fish continued to swim upstream, Naruto could hear the faint roar of the waterfall. The fish here were special, as they could swim wherever there was water, and that included waterfalls. Well, damn. He had hoped not to use any more chakra then he had already that morning, but it looked like he didn't have much more of a choice.

He kicked furiously with his legs as he and his clone rapidly made seals, ending with another forbidden sign.

Suiton: Aqua Tension no Jutsu!

At once, both Narutos were streamlined and swam faster then ever before. However, this particular jutsu not only streamlined them, it allowed them to flow with the surface of water as if it was still flowing. In other words, he could now follow the plane of water wherever it went, and that included up and down the waterfall…

When the moment of exhaustion had passed, they both swam with renewed vigor after the fish. Seeing them come, the fish swam even faster and started to climb the waterfall. Naruto, having eyes for nothing except for the fish, plunged right after it, climbing the waterfall that hid the shower…

Hinata was just opening her eyes to allow them to get used to the light before she went back to Naruto's house when a silvery fish caught her attention. It wasn't so much as the fish was there, it was rather how it was swimming. Straight up the waterfall.

However, the bigger shock was about to come. The moment the fish left her field of view, she saw something that gave her a minor nosebleed.

Two Narutos were swimming up the waterfall after the fish, wearing only a pair of boxers. Their faces were curled back in a snarl of determination, the same one that had had made Hinata respect him so much in the first place. Now, however…

She blushed and turned away quickly, but not quickly enough. The image of Naruto wearing only a pair of boxers was burned into her memory. Now she would have dreams, updated dreams. For years, her dreams were of the twelve-year old and her, but now she was updated to a nineteen-year old.

As if that wasn't bad enough, the fish and Naruto went up and down the waterfall several more times, further reinforcing the image.

She was so busy staring that she forgot to cover up. When Naruto finally caught the fish on their seventh try, he gave his trademark foxy grin and relaxed his neck, allowing him to look straight… and right at Hinata in the tub.

His eyes remained locked for a few seconds, and then blood started flowing in massive proportions from his nose. When he shut his eyes, Hinata passed out cold and fell backwards. Luckily the towel covered her… assets. Naruto, however, wasn't quite so lucky as to get off that easily.

When he squeezed shut his eyes, the Jutsu automatically cut itself off and he fell forward. When he tried to stop the bleeding, he let go of the fish, which shot up toward the top of the river, scared out of its mind. Naruto and his clone fell with a crash and landed with a massive crash right in front of the tub.

In the span of three seconds, both Naruto and Hinata were out cold. Hinata from embarrassment, Naruto from seeing her embarrassment and hitting his head on the hard cold ground behind the waterfall.

Hinata recovered first. She woke up, naked except for a towel covering her form. After making sure nothing was broken, she tied the towel around herself and stood up. What she saw nearly madder her pass out again.

Two Narutos were on the ground, hands splayed in front of them. Wearing only their boxers, it would have been enough to make any other girl to have a massive nosebleed right there and then, but she had more control over herself… or, rather, she thought she did.

After a second of staring, the faucet in her nose turned on again and blood began gushing out. Some of it landed on the heads of the inert Narutos, who woke up groggily. They shook their heads to dislodge the drops of blood in their hair and looked up, wary of a repeat of the previous sight.

However, there was no danger of that. She had covered herself very thoroughly and was busy washing the blood off herself. He stood up and Naruto directed his clone to follow that fish and bring it back. With a nod, it turned and plunged back into the waterfall, fighting the current to the top and after the fish.

To say that Hinata was red would have been completely missing the point. To say that he looked like she had just spent two days on the beach would still be not enough. It would barely be enough to say that she looked like a lobster that had just gone though a seven-hour steaming.

Naruto was also embarrassed, but he was dense enough that he could hide most of it. He would forget everything he saw in about five minutes, at any rate. His mind was so tuned toward training and eating that anything else would quickly fade from his memory.

"Umm… Hinata? Why are you so red?"

Hinata looked like she had just seen him go mad. "N-N-Naruto-Kun? Don't you r-r-remember anyt-t-thing?"

Naruto scratched the back of his head, confused. "Remember… what? I think you might have caught a cold. Let's get back."

At that point, the clone spun back into the cave, the flopping fish in his hands, a disgusted look on his face and scales all over itself. The clone dropped the fish at his feet and jumped back into the waterfall, determined to get away from Naruto for a while.

Naruto just grinned; kneeled next to the fish, hit it with a simple immobilization jutsu, and picked up the inert fish. He looked over at Hinata, who was still clutching the towel like a lifeline, chuckled, and said, "Come on, I think Jiriaya had some stuff stashed away. Let's go see if any of it fits you."

Hinata nodded, still red in the face. Was it possible that Naruto was even denser then he was before? She began twiddling her fingers, one of her old habits. She watched as Naruto raised his hands and the waterfall split like an arch above his hands. He looked back and gestured for her to follow, grinning like a fox again.

Naruto charged off into the forest, trying to get the fish back before it started smelling. However, halfway back, his jutsu wore off and the fish flopped back into the creek and swam downstream as quickly as it could manage.

Naruto sighed, dove back into the water to get all of the scales off of him, then leapt back onto the bank, shaking his head like a dog and spraying everything around him. That included Hinata, who turned red and started playing with her fingers again.

Naruto shook his head again and grumbled about slippery fish before turning back to Hinata with a foxy grin and saying, "Never mind then. I guess we'll just have to make do with the canned Miso and the salted pork. Just be careful what you eat, not everything that I make is eatable by most other humans."

She nodded, still red in the face after seeing Naruto shaking himself all over to get the water off. Trying not to imagine what he looked like underneath those boxers of his, she followed him back to the pine tree and dropped back into his home.

When Hinata stood up, the water was already boiling and the uncooked ramen was just sitting there. Naruto rummaged in a cupboard and pulled out a small bag and a small can, which he threw to the counter, and which point a series of knives and a can opener started working themselves.

Hinata just watched in amazement as Naruto kicked the door close and held out another small bag. When she looked inside, the smell of dry tea invaded her senses. She realized that he never drank that stuff and it had been sitting there for a special occasion. Out here, far away from a major village like Konoha or the land of tea, tea would be very expensive, even when available.

Naruto grinned at her and threw the pouch over to the counter as well. The moment that the bag hit, two teacups emerged and some of the boiling water was siphoned from the pot. As she watched, the two cups were floated over to them, water still steaming from the recent heating.

The cup wasn't the only thing that was hot though. Naruto's grin faded as he caught sight of her face, which was red as an apple. Hinata took deep breaths and sipped some of her tea to try to calm herself down. That didn't really work too well, since the hot liquid only made her heat up even more.

Naruto, however, was busy with making the ramen. He took the dough, put it in a machine that flattened it, and cut it up with a kunai. He put the sliced noodles in the water and added pre-made broth from a package. He dumped in the pork and the miso, slammed the lid on, and let it simmer.

By this time, Hinata had taken her cup of tea over to the table and sat down in the sturdiest chair. She sipped the hot liquid, trying to untie the knot in her stomach that formed whenever she looked at Naruto. It was futile, however. If anything, it made it worse, since the tea had been prepared by Naruto.

Naruto was too busy to notice this, however. Two of the blades, a Meat Cleaver and the Kunai used to cut the noodles were hacking at each other. Apparently, Naruto had lost control of the restraint of both blades. He grabbed both of the hilts, and after some major wrestling, shoved both back into their holders and sealed them inside.

Naruto then turned to the cutting board, which was busy cutting up fresh vegetables from his garden boxes. He scooped them up and dropped them into the pot, which was at a rolling boil again. After making sure the two blades were still secure, he dug two large, clean bowls out of somewhere.

After making sure that the ramen was indeed cooked through by tasting a good third of the pot, he scooped out a decent amount of ramen and put it into Hinata's bowl. This he served, along with a pair of chopsticks that he had dug out of a drawer. Naruto turned back to the pot and rummaged at the bottom of the sink for a moment, pulling out a bowl half the size of his bed.

He ran it with water once to get all of the stuff from the last meal off of it, carried it over to the pot, and poured the contents out into it. He then pulled out a series of other pots from under the stove and poured the contents in as well. Before long, the bowl, if you could call it that, was filled to the brim.

It was so full that Naruto had trouble carrying it over to the table. With an almighty crash, the ramen container landed on the table, shaking the floor and making the table groan in protest. Naruto kicked it and sat down. With an almighty sniff of the scent, he half-yelled, "Itadakimasu!" and dug into his ramen bowl.

Hinata blushed again and said quietly, "Umm, Naruto-kun?"

Naruto looked up from his steaming lake of ramen just long enough to glance at her. "Yesh? Ded you kneed somefing?"

Hinata turned sunset red again. "I don't have any clothes on… I'm still wearing the towel…"

Naruto swallowed the mouthful of ramen he had been chewing, a feat upon itself, and stood up. "Well, let's change that, shall we? Though it's not too bad as is…"

Hinata turned purple from the amount of blood in her face and started to sway in her seat. Naruto had the sense to rush over to stop her from passing out again.

With another foxy grin, he pushed open the door to what used to be Jiriaya's bedroom. It was just as messy as it was the day he had last set foot in it. That was hardly surprising, since he had never set foot in the place since the day of Jiriaya's death. However, this was something special.

Naruto sighed and leaned up against the wall. It had been too long since Jiriaya's death. He still dwelled on it sometimes, even thought it wasn't in his nindo to do so. He remembered all of the time that they spent together, the days spent training next to the waterfall before the third test of the chuunin exams, the time he had been pushed off the cliff, and even the time where he had been caught peeking by Tsuande after they had gotten back to the village.

Naruto sighed again and started rooting around in the closet. In the years that had passed since the primary resident of the room died, spiders and small mice had claimed the lower parts of storage hall for themselves. He had to be careful not to be bitten by the mice as he extracted a set of undergarments, a top, a pair of shorts, and socks. Everything looked as though it would fit properly.

Naruto grinned again, his prankster side emerging. Despite all those years of extreme training, he still had a huge urge to perform pranks whenever possible. Not that he could really pull them on himself or his clones, and Kyuubi really wasn't in the mood for that sort of thing, so half the deer around here were walking around with a orange antler or two, the fish had almost no scales left, and all of the rabbits were painted to look like retarded grey foxes. (Kyuubi had really lost his temper with that last one)

He walked back into the dining area, handed the clothes to Hinata, who was blushing and said, "I picked those out for a reason. If you'll look closely at the panties and bra…" he pointed at the appropriate garments, "The middle matches your hair and the borders match your eyes."

Hinata turned redder then ever as she accepted the clothes from Naruto with a murmured word of thanks. She walked into the space that he had just vacated and started to dress herself. The clothes were a perfect fit; it was obvious that Naruto had been working on more then his jutsu in the last seven years.

Naruto, however, just chuckled and made a series of rapid hand seals before returning to his boatload of ramen. He picked up his chopsticks and dug eagerly into the meal again, ready to replenish his energy reserves after that morning's training. He had just swallowed another mouthful of ramen when a voice broke out in his head.

Kid… when are you going to let me out?

Oh, right. I did promise… didn't I?

Kyuubi didn't bother to respond, just growled and shook his head.

Well, alright. Don't get your tails in a knot. Let me just do the seals and I'll let you out for a bit.

It's about time.

Naruto regretfully leaned away from his ramen and stood up. He bit his thumb to draw blood, as he would for a normal summoning, but the hand seals required for such a powerful summoning meant that he had to do many more seals to prevent draining too much of his chakra. He could summon Kyuubi directly without the use of his seals, but it would drain almost all of his considerable chakra supply to pull off such a feat.

However, if he went though the seal process, it would cut the amount of chakra used a hundredfold. Despite the fact that he could easily let the Kyuubi out every day, he chose not to simply because of how much it ate. Besides, making all of those seals every day would grow tiresome after a while.

Stopping on the last sign, a forbidden one, he slammed his hand into the ground and whispered, so Hinata wouldn't hear in the next room, "Demon Summoning no Jutsu!"

There was a cloud of smoke which quickly dissipated, and in the spot where Naruto had placed his hand was a small red fox. Technically, Kyuubi could manifest himself in any type of fox, including his past self, if he cared give Naruto enough chakra to do so. The first time he had come out, Naruto had given him too much chakra and he wound up the size of a large deer.

Needless to say, Naruto kept a careful eye on how much chakra he put into the jutsu now. He did not need Kyuubi losing control and attacking another village. In his current size, even if he tried to run away and attack someone, he would have about two hours at best. When those two hours were up, the Jutsu would break and he would be returned to his cage within Naruto.

Kyuubi shook himself once to make sure he was all here, then took off and dove through the portal, desperate for some rabbit to sate his hunger. Naruto grinned and went back to his ramen. He would be back soon, and despite having fun with the fox's sense of humor, it was nice to have his thoughts for his own, at least for a while.

Naruto looked up and saw Hinata coming out of the bedroom. He turned red and choked on his ramen.

"Hinata! You're… naked!"

Author's Note:

Heyo!

Sorry about the late update, everyone. I've been kinda busy with school and all.

Not only that, but writer's block seems to be spreading at the speed of light. i cant seem to shake it off and now this project is tainted with it. ill make my best effort to publish on a timely fashion, but thats no guarentee. However, reviews dont hurt. It helps to know that im actually writing for people who will read it.

As mentioned at the top, im writing a book. Some of the characters and their stuff will appear later on in the series, along with a majorly powerful enemy.

Yep, i said it. Now you just have to know what happens in between.

Anyway, i was talking to the cast again yesterday, and this is what they have to say.

The Day Before Today

Xingster: Alright, everyone. Lets try not to pass out or break any more of my stuff today.

Hinata: G-G-Gomen.

Ino: Hey, forehead girl, what are you doing here?

Sakura: What do you mean, should i be here? You havent even made an appearance in this series yet!

Xingster: For once, i have to agree with her. Why are you here?

Ino: How dare you! Mind Transfer no Jutsu!

Xingster yawns and transforms into his armor, deflecting the jutsu into his fishtank. Ino possesses one of the goldfish.

Xingster: You were saying?

Ino-fish: Blurb! Blurb! Blurb!

Xingster: Sigh. Hey, neji. Could you open the door?

Neji opens the door and Xingster throws Ino out of it. The fish she was possessing returns to normal and she can be heard cursing outside.

Xingster: Anyway, as i was saying. The fluff isnt due for a while. Thanks to my current state of mind, i can barely come up with humor.

Lee: But could you not just change that? After all, the power of youth burns within you!

Xingster: If only that were possible. Dont let my appearance fool you. Its not the years, its the mileage that ive got. Let's just say that ive seen enough to make me a fifty year old man.

Naruto: Just how old are you, grandpa?

Xingster: Well, thats a difficult question to answer. My physical appearance makes me look like around your age. My body's systems, however, put me in my mid-forties, and my mental and emotional stability put me in my later eighties. That balances to around forty or fifty years. But for the sake of your mind, just call me a teenager.

Shikamaru: So, just call you around our age?

Xingster: Yeah, that sounds about right. Anyway, everyone have your parts somewhat down for the next episode. Right now, thats just Hinata and Naruto. Nods at the two. But the rest of you should have your parts down by the time i get to you, since you've had so much extra time to do so. Nine o clock, here, tommorow. Now, i need to talk to my video production crew about a possible upcoming AMV. I'll see you guys tommorow, and bring your own lunches! i cant afford to feed all of you again. No offense, Chouji, but you eat more then i do.

Everyone stands up and stretches. Says their goodbyes and walks out. Xingster closes the front door while chuckling at the ammout of slipping and falling outside due to the ice storm that put an inch of ice on the ground outside. Walks upstairs ans starts talking to Master chief, the Arbiter, and Snake about a good video production.

End transcript

Well, there you have it. Pay attention to what i say in these, because techinally, they're just a add-on the story, so they could have some truth in what they say.

Until next time,

Xingster

Signing off.

P.S. Naruto needs to eat less ramen, but i hate to torture the guy.

Review plz.