Chapter 20: The Article

(With Iaf)

After the teacher showed Iaf her log on screen she thanked him and started searching through lots of articles, finding one that was interesting she filled out the sheet and sent it to the teacher.

With twenty five minutes to go Iaf decided to check in at home, changing her language bar to Dutch she pulled up the latest local Dutch newspaper and flinched at the title 'Duchess still missing after attempted assassination 7 year ago' biting her lip in worry Iaf began reading the article…

Even though it's been seven years since the attempted assassination of Duchess to be Iaf Aros, daughter of Afina Aros Dame of Shirani, the case is still unsolved and the princess still in hiding. The correnation ceremony is going to be next year and with a potential killer on the loose people are wondering if the princess is going to make it. Will the princess become the new successer or will she remain a duchess to be?

Iaf winced and let out a sigh, skimming through the rest of the page she saw another small artical about her mum and her refusing to comment on Iaf's location, frowning Iaf poked Neji in the shoulder "can you show me how to print please?" she asked when he looked over, Neji nodded and rolled his chair next to hers "it's real simple, just right click on the webpage, someplace where there are no hyperlinks, and go to print... now the printer in this room is C3700, so we go to that one and then click print and it's printing" he explained, Iaf nodded "I think I got that, thank you Neji-san" he nodded and moved back to his desk, Iaf stood up and moved over to the printer. Grabbing the paper she sighed sadly at it before she folded it and put it in her pocket.

Ding Dong Ding Dong!

"well, that's class, make sure you log off and clean up your area" Asuma told everyone and waited until everyone was up before moving towards the door, Iaf neated up her computer keyboard and mouse and pushed her chair in "hey you walk with Hinata right?" Neji asked, Iaf nodded "yeah part of the way, why?" Neji grabbed a book out of his bag and handed it to her "can you please give this to her, she needs it for the homework she got but I won't see her in time" he explained, Iaf smiled at him "sure no problem" she said and put the book in her bag "so what was it you were trying to print?" Neji asked as they walked towards the door, Iaf winced slightly "um, just something from home. Nothing big" she told him. They left the room and walked down the hallway towards their lockers, Shikamaru having left to talk with Asuma.

(?)

A shadow moved over to the printer in the dark room and pressed the 'reprint' button. The news page Iaf had printed came out of the printer, picking up the paper the shadow grinned before disappearing into the hallway.

(On the street towards Iaf's home)

Naruto was happily chatting about the day he had with Hinata while Tenten and Kiba were talking to Iaf about her Career choice "it was hard for me to choose what I wanted to do but I love animals so any job I can get that allows me to interact with them would make me happy" Iaf told them happily "cool, you can play with Akamaru anytime you want" Kiba told her, Iaf's face lit up "really? Thank you, you can come to my house when ever you want. You know where it is" Iaf replied "what?! How come he knows where your house is and we don't?" Naruto complained, Iaf looked at him surprised "you want to come to my house?" she asked "of course, you're our friend, that means we hang out at each other's places and have parties and set up group date where we'll all go out to the movies, play games, go for lunch or something like that" Tenten explained, Iaf's eyes sparkled "really?! I've never done any of those things before! It sounds like so much fun!" she cheered, the other four looked at her surprised "by the way what's a movie?" Iaf asked, the four fell anime style.

(At Home)

"I'm back!" Iaf called out as she took off her shoes "welcome back Iaf-chan" Shadow called out as she stepped into the hallway, Iaf grinned and walked towards her "you'll never guess what I found out today, I lernt that friends have random get togethers and they also play games and there is this thing ca- Why are you here!?" Iaf screeched pointing at the two boys sitting at her kitchen table "how nice, is that how you greet all your friends? No wonder you don't have many" Sorrow commented as he drank his coffee "hello Iaf-chan, it's good to see you" Natsume said with a smile "hi Nat, Sorrow piss off" Iaf growled pointing to the front door "ha I'm not going anywhere unless you want your mother to know about your little escapades" Sorrow replied, Iaf froze "wait you know about that? Wait why are you here anyway?" Iaf asked "your mother felt that you wouldn't obay her orders for long and sent us here to reinforce them and watch over you" Natsume explained, Iaf clenched her fists "oh come on, she treats me like I'm made out of bloody glass, I'm sick of it!" she shouted and ran upstairs to her bedroom.

"She didn't even let me give her the good news" Sorrow commented before going back to his coffee "we should probably let her calm down before telling her" Shadow said as she placed a cup of tea in front of Natsume who thanked her "it makes me feel really bad though, I mean she was so bright and happy when she arrived and i believe it's because of those friends she has made" Natsume commented sadly "well she was practically isolated at the castle so all this is new to her, she couldn't really have this experiance at any of the other countries because she always had bodygaurds with her" Sorrow added "oh my..." the boys looked over at Shadow who was holding a piece of paper "this fell out of Iaf's pocket when she ran off" she said and handed it to Natsume "it's a newspaper artical... on the princess's unknown whereabouts" he said with a sigh and passed the artical to Sorrow who skimmed over it "it does raise a good point though, do you know if Iaf can have her corrination with him on the loose?" he wondered, Natsume shrugged "I don't know the Dame hasn't said anything on the matter" he replied, Shadow gave a sigh and shoke her head "in any case, we should not worry about that now. When Iaf comes back down we'll give her the good news and try to enjoy our time here" she said with a smile, the two boys smiled back at her "of course, can't forget we're also that brat's friends" Sorrow said "and that means we make sure she's happy" Natsume finished.

A/N: Sorry for the long wait but you'll be happy tto know that I'm already halfway through the next chapter and it's longer then this one. R & R