AUTHOR'S NOTE: I am so glad for the reviews and comments.

I want to thank the following for their reviews:

kaprice80

Dobbyhasnomastr

Guest (who is a new reader )*welcome to fanfiction! where you shall find all or most of your reading fantasies * (or most of them anyway)

DISCLAIMER:

I DO NOT OWN NARUTO

Last time:

**** NARUTO MADE CLONES! AND SHE WAS SO HAPPY SHE CRIED! IT WAS AWESOME!****

*AHEM , I'M DONE*

Putting his face close to her's he whispered "I love you, Dobe." And he could swear she smiled a bit more.

Chapter 14: Fish

'I can't believe I'm doing this, it's so degrading.' She thought as she lay on her stomach among the leaves of particularly thick bush she had found.

Her target was less than a hundred feet in front of her and she'd been hunting it all day with four failed attempts at catching her target. Every time she got close it would disappear further into the forest causing her to rethink and re-plan how she was going to capture her target.

Finially she had decided on bait.

Smelly, stinky, bait.

So for the past hour she'd been laying under the bush smelling ever ripening fish while she waited.

As her target slowly crept towards the fish Naruto held her breath hoping this would be the time and she could go home and shower. Creeping forward the target didn't notice the rope net lightly covered in leaves as it got closer.

Just a few more inches. Then she'd throw the kunai to release the counter weight.

One.

Two.

NOW!

Throwing the kunai she sprung out of the bush as the net wrapped around her target, shooting it up into the air above her head, while causing the smelly fish to fall through the holes and into her hair.

"Good job Naruto." Sasuke chuckled into her ear through the comms as she glowered at the hateful cat yowling in the net. Sasuke was assigned as her partner for this mission even though she told Tsunade she could handle it on her own.

"Yeah, just wonderful." She muttered reaching up to take the nasty fish out of her hair, giving it a disgusted look. 'Shower, I am definitely in need of a shower.'

Deciding it was probably safer to leave the cat in the net until she could return it to it's owner she made her way over to the tree it was hanging from.

Stupid mission.

Complete waste of her time.

Stupid cat.

She should have known it was too good to be true when she went to the Hokage tower asking for a mission and Tsunade finally agreed to give her one. Her training had been progressing steadily lately and she could even complete the first part of the training for the Rasengan now with little effort. She had only managed to create a half assed version of the actual Rasengan once and only for half a second, and that was a couple weeks ago. It was dreadful. She had managed to knock herself out for two days due to exhaustion and throwing herself into a tree. Sasuke was so mad at her he refused to let her train for almost a week. And he had refused to touch her or talk to her for almost three days before she broke down and begged him to at least smack her for being stupid because even that was better than being ignored.

She had almost started to believe that the kiss that they had shared was a figment of her imagination until then since he hadn't done more than hold her hand here and there for a few second since then. And that had been a couple weeks before her attempt at the Rasengan. He had looked so shocked at her pleading before he was suddenly right infront of her cupping her face between his hands.

"Ignore you? How could I ever ignore you?" His eyes were locked on hers as his thumb lazily traced along her cheek and she relished in the feeling of his hands, barely managing to keep herself from purring like a cat. " Every time you walk into a room everything else just disappears Naruto. Everyone and everything, just gone. All of my thoughts are always centered around the most amazing girl I have ever met." His words caused her heart to skip and her eyes to go wide. She could feel the heat rising in her face to color her cheeks, and seeing her reaction he smiled softly before continuing. " I feel like I'm going crazy half the time trying to think of anything else and then you go and work yourself to the point of passing out or giving yourself a concussion. And I'm left worrying what you're going to do to yourself next trying to put things back to normal before you go crazy." "No Dobe, I'm not ignoring you. I love you too much for that." He kissed her then, his hands fisting into her hair as hers snaked around him holding on for everything she was worth. The sparks she had felt during their first kiss evolved into an inferno as heat flooded her. His hand left a trail of heat in it's wake as it trailed from her hair, down the back of her neck, to the small of her back, holding her to him. She moaned as his tongue made his way into her mouth to tangle with hers only for them to be scared out of their skins by a knock at the door causing them to spring apart like cats doused with a hose.

Fucking Sakura.

And now they were on this cursed mission. If it even really qualified as a mission.

Fucking Tora the fifth is what the crazy old bat called the yowling monster sporting a pink bow. This monster was worse than the one that team seven had been hired to find back in the beginning. She winced at the memory of Tora's claws when she had managed to catch the cat the first time.

Standing under the net she tossed a kunai through the rope holding it to the tree and let it drop down for her to catch before picking up her kunai from the ground where it landed with a dull thump. Hauling the netted cat over her shoulder she hissed as Tora V decided to dig it's claws into her back in revenge. For what she couldn't say since really it could be any any number of things from being caught to being slung around like a sack of potatoes to just hating Naruto.

"Alright, lets go." she huffed as she looked over to where Sasuke came strolling out from behind a tree looking as smug as ever, and not smelling like rotten fish.

"Stupid cat." Naruto muttered as she trudged behind Sasuke, netted cat and all.

They arrived at the Hokage tower in record speed mainly because Naruto kept threatening to feed the cat to Gamabunta if it didn't stop digging it's claws into her. Damn thing must have stabbed her fifty times before they reached the tower.

Rather than climb all the stairs to get to Tsunade's office Naruto decided for the sake of her back and for the intention of giving the cat back alive she should probably just go through the window. It was faster.

Tsunade looked up from the mountain of paper work in front of her as she heard the sound of feet landing just outside her window right before said window was thrown open with a harsh clatter.

"Really Naruto, was that the best way you could come up with?" she asked eyeing the net dangling from the blonde's hand as it twirled slowly and the cat protested it's confinement. "I mean look at the poor thing." It really looked pissed off not poor.

Naruto looked at the monster hanging from her grip before raising an eyebrow at her adopted grandmother like she had some screws loose. "Poor thing? I'll have you know-"

"It could have been worse." Sasuke interrupted as he came up from behind taking the cat from Naruto and walking over to the cat carrier in the corner.

"You didn't have to take it away. I could have put it in there." Naruto huffed as she stuck her hands in her pockets and faced the Hokage.

Sasuke on chuckled as the latch clicked on the carrier before coming to stand next to her.

Tsunade watched as Naruto moved closer to Sasuke, almost touching him, before catching herself and stepping away. 'Interesting'

"So what was with that mission Granny? You know I've gotten better, I can handle more than the stupid cat." She took her hands out of her pockets and crossed her arms across her chest before looking down at the floor.

"And it took you all day just to catch that 'stupid' cat as you put it. And what is that smell?" At her words the blonde's cheeks began to turn pink and Tsunade's face scrunched in distaste.

"T-That cat is demon spawn! I swear it!" Naruto sputtered while Tsunade merely looked over at the Uchiha asking with her eyes how it really went. Tsunade got up to open another window to help air out the office better. Sitting back down behind her desk she merely waited as Naruto stared a the Uchiha.

She knew that Naruto wanted out of the village on an S-ranked mission but wasn't sure if she could handle it just yet. She'd had the Uchiha giving her reports weekly on how her progress was going in training and quite honestly wasn't sure she shouldn't just knock the girl out for a month and let the fox try and rebuild what she had lost. But who knoew what the consequences of that would be or if that was even possible for him to do. No it would be safer for Naruto to do it on her own, unless something drastic happened she wouldn't even broach the subject tot he girl, lest she want to jump right in and do it, the consequences be damned.

He could feel Naruto's glare burning into the side of his face as he thought of what to tell her, he knew that Naruto was getting antsy wanting to do anything to get out of the village. She'd probably murder him he he made it so that Tsunade added more time to her recovery period.

"Well, she held up fine, as you can see she didn't exhaust herself getting the cat. She actually sat down and thought of a plan that succeeded in catching the mon- er cat." He could see Naruto's small smile then wince as she muttered fish, causing him to smirk. "I'd say she's pk for smaller missions, but I'd hold off on anything too excessive for now since she still has a but further to go before she's ready for anything to strenuous." The Hokage simply nodded at his statement before jotting down some notes on a piece of paper before her. Yeah Naruto's progress was slow but she was improving of that there was no doubt. Maybe she could handle a few C and B-rank missions though Tsunade's was sure she would hear about them not being tough enough.

If looks could kill Sasuke was sure he'd be dead from the daggers Naruto was throwing his way and risked a glance over at the fuming blonde who now had her hands resting on her hips and a scowl on her face. "Sorry?"

"Sorry? You know she's not going to let me do what I want now!" She pointed a finger at him before turning to face Tsunade who was leaning back in her chair, hands steepled in front of her, elbows resting on the arm rests. "Granny, I don't want to do anymore of these lame ass D-rank missions that academy students are sent to do. I want to go beyond the borders of the village again! I feel trapped here!" Sasuke couldn't help the pang he felt at hearing her say she felt trapped, he knew it wasn't because of him, well not totally. Tsunade wasn't fully sure she could trust him to leave and come back, even with Naruto in tow. Naruto caught Sasuke looking away and halted her rant to make her way over him.

Taking his face between her hands she had him look at her. "It's not you Sasuke, I love being with you. It's the walls of the village that are suffocating. I want to help the village, really help the village." Tsunade watched as Naruto comforted the Uchiha and eased his fears.

'Seems he may stay after all. Maybe.."

"I know Naruto, I was just being stupid." Leaning forward on her toes she placed a chaste kiss on his cheek much to both his and Tsunade's surprise.

"Ahem, Naruto." Said blonde ripped her hands away from Sasuke and leaped across the room, her face as red as a tomato. Tomatoes.

"Yes Granny?" she mumbled to the floor too embarrassed to look at the Hokage.

"For the next few weeks you will be doing C and B-rank missions-" Naruto snapped her head up about to Protest when Tsunade held her hand up for silence. "Yes, you are getting better, but you are still not at a hundred percent and until you are we need to make sure you're only given what you can handle." Naruto dropped her head in defeat knowing she wasn't going to get Granny to budge on this especially if she was still concerned for her health.

"Sasuke will be accompanying you on any and all missions you may acquire, along with Kakashi and Sakura." The groan that came from Naruto's direction wasn't completely unexpected. "I would send Sai but no one has been able to locate him since the mission he was sent on a few weeks ago, which isn't unusual." The glare that came from Sasuke on the other hand was a bit of a surprise. She wondered if Sai knew how much the Uchiha hated him. "I'll let you know in a few weeks after another check up if we can promote you into higher rank missions."

"Yes Granny." Naruto scuffed her sandal on the carpet of the Hokage's office while Sasuke managed to calm his nerves about Sai.

"Dismissed."

"Thank god." Naruto left before either of the remaining ninja could blink leaving Tsunade alone with Sasuke.

"Sooo, what exactly did she do to cause such a smell?" She asked causing him to smirk and chuckle.

"Well, you see she had this bright idea to-"

Author's note:

I hope you enjoyed the chapter!

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