Naruto dragged himself tiredly home from the escorting and diplomatic detail he'd been assigned. It barely registered what day it was today, the day of the Defeat of the Kyuubi festival, October 10th, and his birthday. He usually spent it either locked up in his apartment, training, or in another country on mission. It wasn't that he didn't know he should be enjoying the day, but rather the day held more bad memories than good ones.

As he reached his floor, and felt chakra signatures in his apartment, one of those self-same bad memories arose to his mind. Civilians and shinobi had broken into his apartment while he was out at class and training, trashing everything and waiting until he got back to beat him to a pulp. The ANBU had broken it up before it got too bad, but he still was in pain for the rest of the day. Deciding to do something about it this time, he created three kage bunshin, who set to work sealing the place in a way he'd developed since Jiraiya had taught him the basics.

Once the seal was in place, he poured his chakra into it, adding just a hint of Kyuubi's to spice up the seal. Turning away he walked away, going to find the Hokage or someone to help him deal with these intruders.

An hour of searching later, and Naruto had to admit two things. One, he had a lot of friends in Konoha. And Two, he had no clue where they could be.

The Hokage Tower was empty, as were the usual hangouts of the Konoha 11 as the Rookie 9 and Team Gai had become known as. Also, oddly enough the academy was empty, and Iruka's apartment was the same. It was as if all his friends and teammates had just vanished somewhere.

As he was about to check Ichiraku's Ramen, he finally spotted two people he recognized. Anko and Yugao were rushing his way, looking at the sun nervously.

"Hey Anko-nee-chan, Yugao-san!" Naruto called out getting the attention of the two women, who hid a package behind their backs. "Man, I'm glad to find you two... Have you seen the others? I've got a lot of intruders in my apartment, and I don't feel like dealing with those jerks alone..."

The looks on the women's faces were priceless, as they knew exactly who was inside Naruto's apartment.

Meanwhile, back at Naruto's apartment, Ebisu and Jiraiya picked themselves up from where the seal they'd tried to release had blasted them to. Jiraiya sighed and scratched the back of his head. "Man, that brat... he really outdid himself this time..."

"You're correct there Jiraiya-sama..." Ebisu moaned as he stretched out the lingering pain from his arms. He didn't know that the blonde knew how to manipulate lightning and fire chakra together in a seal. That was certainly high level fuinjutsu and Jiraiya had a right to be impressed, after all it was his pupil who had created the seal.

"I'm going to kill him..." Jiraiya stated calmly through gritted teeth, "I'm going to kill him, bring him back to teach me this seal, and then kill him again..."

Everyone looked curiously at Jiraiya, who was currently inspecting a pile of ash and slag metal in his pocket. Ebisu reached into his own pocket where he kept his money pouch, and noticed that it too was in a similar state of destruction.

"This is the thanks we get for trying to throw him a surprise party?" Kiba asked curiously to the others. "Never doing this again..."

"N...now K...Kiba-kun... I... I'm sure..." Hinata started speaking up, to grow oddly quiet as all eyes fell on her.

Shino meanwhile saved her, speaking up from his position in front of the kitchen doorway. "I believe she means that she's certain Naruto-san had a very good reason for this..."

"Didn't you say that he'd never celebrated this day before Iruka-sensei?" Sakura asked curiously from where she had settled in to rest after healing the two that had attempted to unseal them.

"Yes..." Iruka stated calmly, though one could see the twinkle of mischief in his eye that Naruto always sparked with his pranks. "At first it was because of... difficulties with the villagers while he lived alone... normally the Third and I would just bring gifts to him before the festival. Then after he got older, he just never saw it as a big deal."

"So... these 'difficulties' might be the reason he locked us in here?" Tenten asked calmly while picking under her nails with a kunai. No one dared correct her on that, especially after Neji backed away carefully from her, protecting his hair. They also didn't want to ask about the fort she built around herself made entirely of senbon. Most just figured it was best to not let her get bored and left her alone.

"Most likely," Ichiraku added in from by the stove, waiting with a pot of water for Naruto's return.

"We can at least hope that Anko and Yugao will find him and get him to release us," Shizune added in from the couch next to Tsunade.

"We can hope..." Kakashi stated with a great amount of doubt in his voice.

Back with our intrepid hero with the two women mentioned previously, they had stopped in at Anko's favorite dango store, where they were currently stuffing as many dango as possible into Naruto while finding out more about his last mission, the seal on his apartment, the fact his toilet needed repaired, his worry about the missing friends, his thoughts on his birthday, and various other topics.

They knew where the others were, but most of them would owe them money if they got the brat there in another two hours. Not that any of them would likely remember with bursting bladders, but it was the principle of the matter. After all, this seemed like perfect teasing opportunity.

For Naruto's part, he decided, that despite the people who had broken in his apartment, this was the best birthday he'd ever had. Now if only he could find the rest of his friends...