Hello there, and welcome to the twientith chapter of 'Diamond in the Sky'! If you made it this far then I commend y'all for your courage. Just as a heads up, be aware that this story will wrap up in 5-7 chapters with epilouge pending. Depends on how fast we get to Konoha.
So it's the beginning of the end, fret not though. The ending will be worth the wait.(And I mean that in the nicest possible way.) -_-' Oddly enough, I planned out the ending before I started, kinda depressing really, pfft. XD
This storyboard is nearly 2 years old. /_-
Also I got a few PMs regarding Shisō and Yotaka. Well, I see it like this...Ya they're idiots for following Akahoshi, but I feel that they are redeemable since Akahoshi pretty much showed no remorse whereas they did. At the end they wavered, so it's possible that they were duped by their leader and weren't told certain aspects of the star training. After all Akahoshi doesn't seem like the kind of guy that would tell his lackeys everything.
Now with that said, let's begin.
Recap: The lighting budget for the last chapter was outrageous. XP
'Why does this keep happening!'
Why indeed. For the life of her, Hokuto couldn't understand it. Here she was once again, on top of someone she may have feelings for. She continued to grow flustered by the moment. What was Naruto to her anyway? Whatever the answer was the girl knew she wouldn't find it by straddling the guy, not unless she...
Hokuto blushed at the thought. 'Mou, why did I let Mayo-sempai talk me into reading those accursed books...' She hung her head glumly in defeat, as her older friend tittered into a fit of laughter, much to her discomfort. Mayo continued watching the actions of the former and nearly got a stitch in doing so. Hokuto was just too easy sometimes. Mayo sighed in remembrance of just how shy she use to be, and look at her now! Mayo beamed with a certain perverse pride.
"Having fun are we, Hokuto?"
"Sempai! This-this isn't what it looks like!"
Mayo's eyes sparkled mischievously with glee. "If you say so Hokuto, but I must say you sure can pick them."
"Seeemmpai!" Here we go again... Once more, Mayo had successfully baited the girl into another verbal confrontation, which quickly began to deteriorate into nothing more than childish bickering. At least Hokuto unlike Mayo, has the comfort of arguing from her very own Naru-saddle! Wait, what?
Naruto for the moment was in a daze as pressure continued to build on his chest. 'Damn it, that freakin' hurt dattebayo! Err, I could just lay here for awhile, but this doesn't seem like a good alternative either, this sucks.' The blond finally concluded that he should get up, anything had to better than this.
"Excuse me...Uh guys?" Naruto went igorned, for the most part as the two continued arguing.
"Hey Hokuto, remember that time you-"
"Don't you dare bring that up here!"
"Er..Guys, hey!"
"What? I'm just saying that maybe if, you were to-"
"How dare you...Stop saying such things! You're a bad influence Mayo-sempai!"
"HEY!" Naruto screamed at the top of his lungs, but soon regretted it afterwards. At least he finally caught their attention.
"Kerr..Urrrgh…" Naruto winced. "Hokuto, not that your heavy or anything..." There's a lot of truth to that really, but at the moment Naruto felt as though someone had placed a cement block onto his chest. "If it isn't too much trouble for you...Could you get off...?" He said motioning.. Wordlessly the blushing brunette quickly jumped from him, and extended her hand, to help the blond up.
"Ara, Naruto-san I'm so sorry..."
"Don't worry about it." Naruto shrugged, accepting the pre-offered hand as he pulled himself up. "I've been through much worse."
"Yes, but even so I..." She paused trying to find the right words, as she played with one of her wristbands. "I must apologize for earlier, I didn't mean to startle you."
Pain briefly flashed over Naruto's face before his expression sobered and changed abruptly into a pensive smile. "Yeah, well...It's nothing. You just kinda surprised me that's all."
"Ah, gomen."
An awkward silence fell over the room; Mayo was having none of that. She cleared her throat gaining both ninjas' attention. "Good to see you out and about Naruto-kun. Under normal circumstances we'd have had to place you into a coma, to just control the bleeding." If Naruto was surprised, he hid it well. Hokuto cautiously glanced over as he continued to stare forward.
'Normal circumstances?'
Noticing Naruto's lack of surprise, Mayo decided to go ahead and cut to the chase. "You have seem to have an unnatural regeneration ability; it's really none of my business but I'm curious...You wouldn't happen to have a bloodline would you?" For his part, Naruto sheepishly grinned with a smile that didn't quite meet his eyes.
"Ehehe...Something like that."
"Hm, interesting..." Mayo's face blanked as if trying to remember something; her eyes sparkled upon recognition. "Aha!" Her sudden exclamation made Hokuto jump, while Naruto looked on nonplussed. "That's right, your little feathered friend is doing just fine."
"Fukurou! Where is he?" Naruto said eagerly as he bounced on the balls of his feet.
"Woah, woah, woah! Before you go off again your friends brought that for you." Mayo pointed toward the corner of the room. Upon following her finger Naruto's sight landed on an all too familiar green backpack. Without further word Naruto pounce on the backpack and began to rifle through it.
'I'm so glad a remembered to pack a spare change of clothes. I guess Sakura-chan has some pretty good advice after all.' His face grimaced when he recalled how much they bickered one week prior regarding the importance of bringing a another set of clothes on missions that could be last more than one day. Needless to say, when Sakura heard of Naruto's ' three day rule'...She was a little less than impressed; however, since that encounter though the blond always tried to pack at least another change in clothes, when he remembered that is.
Still who packs five sets of clothes for a mission expected to last five days, that didn't even add up! Maybe it was a chick thing? Naruto's face scrunched up in mild contemplation as he glanced over he shoulder at Hokuto, who was currently engaged in another lively conversation with Mayo. '...Looks like she's changed recently, so maybe it is a chick thing!'
The blond only shrugged as he continued to dig through his pack; going through his mental checklist 'Shirt, check. Jacket…' He glanced around the room for the article of clothing, spotting it on the picking it up and a brief examination he noted it felt slightly heavier for some reason but in the end shrugged it off entirely. Pants, kunai holster, shuriken pouch, sandals...Check, check, check...Check...' Naruto tilted his head to the side in confusion. "Funny, I thought I packed more underwear than this..."
"Hey Hokuto, look what I have!" Mayo announced in a sing-song voice.
The girl in question turned her head. "Hn? What is...IT?...Please don't tell me those are his."
"Un-huh!"
Hokuto's blush was quickly replaced by a deadpanned expression. "What is wrong with you!"
"Oh, lighten up."
"YOU will return those to him immediately!" She growled.
"I think not."
"Sempai!"
"Ok! Fine spoiled sport, here."
Hokuto didn't fail to notice Mayo's sly look as her blush resurfaced once again. "W-wait, I don't want them!"
"Ah, yeah ya you do!"
"N-no.." The brunette said as she shook her head and began to inch away. "Get those away from me!" With that Hokuto took off in attempt to escape from the crazed medic; what she didn't count on was Mayo's impeccable aim and was promptly clocked in the back of her head by the pair of boxers. The force of impact sent her reeling as she skidded to a stop just a few centimeters short of a certain blond.
Naruto blinked momentarily as the girl struggled to right herself, and smirked slightly as he noticed that her ponytail was caught in the underwear's placket, poor girl. Hokuto looked away; face ablaze, while the blond helped her gentility detangled the boxers from her hair. "Naruto-san…I'm.."
Naruto quickly silenced her as he pulled her into a small hug. "What are you apologizing for, silly girl? Thank you for finding these…I mean I didn't really have many pairs to begin with, arigato."
Hokuto's face flushed brighter with the praise. "Uh-he, no problem." She said as he pulled away.
"Well I gonna get dressed now, try to keep.." Naruto pointed at Mayo. "HER away from me."
"Right…" Hokuto replied as she watched Naruto collect his things and entered the adjacent washroom.
"So….How was it?" Mayo asked curiously as she began to straighten up the bed.
A small smile appeared on the girl's face as she closed her eyes. "It…It was nice."
Sorry, guys there was a small problem with Doc manager so it took a little while to get this chapter out. Thank god though.
'Til next time
Later…