Chapter 41

It had been two months since the Team 10 mission to Takigakure and Ino's apparent sudden understanding of just why Naruto and Shikamaru were leaving. She still didn't like it, wishing that she could go with them, but without an invitation extended to do so there wasn't anything she could do so she just gave her not-so-silent support.

She even took Shikamaru's idea to take more missions without the two of them to get her used to the process altogether, and while she wasn't happy about it at first, she came forward with the mindset that they would still be there for her when she returned; be it to gripe at them over the mission's difficulty or lack thereof, her teammates on said mission, or any myriad of things that the blonde girl could find something to fill their ears over.

But on this particular day, Naruto himself could be found using his day of training being stuck in the Konoha Archive Library. With a new rank he was granted higher clearance, and while not particularly interested in reading anything he had hoped that he could find something worthwhile for himself now that he wasn't restricted to the general knowledge crap that everyone genin and lower got.

He had neglected to recall this fact after getting promoted despite having made a few visits to the place since receiving his cool flak jacket to take Shiho to lunch with his team. He had not been there in fact to look for anything in general. There wasn't particularly anything he wanted to know, and his first full library experience while bearing practical fruit was pretty traumatizing in the long run. All Naruto wanted was to see just what his newfound authorization would grant him.

It was just too bad that the library was so crushingly boring.

Chatting with Shiho was cool, and he even managed to drag Shikamaru along for a bit before he decided to split that scene. He didn't seem to mind talking with the girl either, and Naruto couldn't really tell from the way the light hit her glasses, but Shiho seemed to take a lot of sneaking glances at Shikamaru when she figured he wasn't looking.

Either was it was a good place for a nap though… quiet, pretty warm, and the open pages of a book made for a damn good pillow.

THUD!

Naruto's head snapped up off of the table and out of the book he had fallen asleep trying to get through reading. His head swung around trying to locate the source of his awakening only to see someone pretty familiar taking a seat directly across from him at the table, a series of scrolls out in front of him for reading purposes, "Sasuke-teme?"

"Don't drool in the books." Sasuke said grumpily as he sat down and unfurled a scroll to begin reading through, "…Other people have to read those later."

Naruto looked down and saw a small drool trail on the page before shrugging and shutting it. A little drool never hurt anyone, and it would be dry by the time someone else read it. A yawn escaped Naruto's mouth as he slowly rejoined the waking world, "What are you doing here? Aren't you supposed to be training with Sakura and Chouji?" All Sasuke did in response was shake his head without lifting it to look at him, "No? Why?"

"Mitarashi Anko is the most insane woman on the face of the planet." Replied Sasuke cryptically as he continued to read.

Upon hearing that name, Naruto remembered the lady that had been in the forest when Sasuke's seal had broken out of control and they had gone to get him back, "What about her? Did you piss her off or something?"

"I don't have to piss her off." And Sasuke hadn't overtly upset Anko since she had taken it upon herself to train with Sasuke in his free periods of time. She was just inherently sadistic and mean-spirited without the emotional fuel needed, "I just have to be within view."

"It can't be that bad." Naruto found himself the victim of a momentarily Sharingan enhanced glare for his callous comment. Sasuke never really showed that much outward expression about anything so he couldn't really be lying or exaggerating… because Sasuke was never really one for hyperbole in the first place, "Really?"

Sasuke let out a quiet sigh and set his scroll aside to pay more attention to Naruto to get this forward, "She's completely insane. The sparring is like a fight with a wild animal-." Usually because the fights consisted of him fighting snakes of various sizes, "-And the missions always end with me limping back home and her barely having a scratch on her at all." Because the bulk of the missions that Anko ran were assassination or combat missions and Sasuke was her diversion nine times out of ten, "That's why I'm here."

"She told you to come here?" That lady really was cruel, making Sasuke go to the damn library against his will. At least Naruto chose to subject himself to such an excitement crushing experience.

"Not a chance." Sasuke said, raising an eyebrow at the thought of Anko telling him to go to the Konoha Archive Library for anything other than looking up information on some missing-nin that she might have an inkling to go after, or terrain on the operation ground of a mission, "I'm here to stay away from her. She'll never come here looking for me. I can't go to Kakashi and the rest of the team, I can't go home, I can't go… anywhere without her finding me." It took a second for the thought of such to register through Naruto's head, but when it did a grin marred his face that Sasuke didn't exactly find reassuring, "What's your problem dobe? What's funny?"

"Nothing." It was a blatant lie as Naruto had to block his own laughter just to get that much out, "It's just… the way you say it, it's like Anko is the world's most aggressive fangirl." Before he could descend into too much humor over his own witty observation, a kunai nicked his cheek enough to draw a cut from him, much to Sasuke's horror as someone was hovering right over Naruto that he didn't want to see. Naruto blinked before letting out a chakra pulse to feel what was behind him, "That's Anko isn't it?"

"World's most aggressive fangirl am I?"

Naruto turned his head around enough to see Anko giving him a smile that promised nothing good for him, especially if she was willing to cut his cheek in a public place, "I mean; wow Anko-san, you sure do look pretty today." He said, eying the blade that had just been used to cut his cheek. His attempt at flattery had fallen quite flat, "You can't maim me in broad daylight." Anko's smile just grew further and Sasuke just shook his head, forcing Naruto to backtrack his statement, "…You can't maim me in broad daylight in the middle of the library, you'll get blood all over the books and the scrolls."

"Hmm…" This actually seemed to give Anko a moment of pause, "Well you have a point brat. I don't want you to bleed all over things that I might end up reading at one point so you're safe." She said, giving Naruto a pat on the head that got him to sigh in relief before she smirked at him, "But… you've got to leave sometime. And when your foot touches the ground outside your ass is mine, understood?" Before a frightened response could come from Naruto, a clipboard that was winged across the room smacked corner-first off of Anko's forehead and headband, "Ow!"

The Konoha Cryptanalysis Squad Head that had responsibility over the archive library adjusted his glasses on his face after drawing his hand back from the throw he had just nailed Anko with, "Stop threatening people inside the library. And be more quiet damn it."

Anko growled and was grateful that she had the metal plate on her headband or else that would have left a mark. She didn't know that record keepers would have such good aim, "Atsuto… there's no one here except me and the brats. Who am I being quiet for?" She said, glaring daggers at the man that had just hit her.

"Actually, your 'brats' as you called them, they aren't even here anymore."

"Huh?" Anko looked down at where Naruto was sitting to see that he was still there, only with a nervous look on his face now. Sasuke however, sitting in his place was Shiho, who was looking quite confused on just what had happened. She was walking past, vision obscured by multiple scrolls she was checking back in, and then she wound up in that seat. At that point Anko remembered something important about Naruto's particular skill set and glared at him in the chair, "…You're one of those stupid clones aren't you?"

'Naruto' took a moment to think about his response before doing so, "I don't think it matters if I say yes or no, because you're still gonna hit-." His statement was discontinued when Anko's hand passed through his head and knocked him into a puff of smoke. Apparently he didn't think enough.

No satisfaction was gotten out of punishing a clone of the kid as there was no lesson learned there. The lesson being to tread lightly around Mitarashi Anko. She figured that Sasuke had learned by now that running away only made things worse, but apparently not. It was a good challenge for the day though; chasing down two chunin runts to give them their just desserts.

All fired up from the challenge at hand, Anko prepared to leave when she saw the scrolls that Sasuke left on the table in his haste to leave, "Ugh, this could either be really good or really bad…" She said upon seeing that the top open scroll on the table was a record of sanctioned missions under the name Orochimaru.

XxX

"I can't believe I pulled that off so clean." Naruto said, proud of substituting himself with a shadow clone right under Anko's nose without her noticing. It did not meet its demise in vain as he and Sasuke got themselves the hell out of there as quickly as possible, "I'm so awesome." He gloated before glaring at Sasuke as the two of them ran back through the village to put as much distance away from the library as possible, "Did you have to use Shiho-chan for a Kawarimi?"

"You weren't complaining when I did it Mr. Morality. You were running ahead of me." Sasuke replied, cutting the same pace as Naruto as he was well aware that eventually he'd have to pay for skipping out on Anko after she located him once more. He'd deal with that when the time came though. Kami that woman was annoying, "I was there for an actual reason unlike you, just sleeping in the books." Naruto stuck his tongue out at Sasuke in response, "I barely got into what I was looking up on."

"Well what was it?" That was right. Sasuke had actually been there with a real reason in mind. He had been there too, but he hadn't been looking at anything in particular. His new clearance didn't really net him anything cool to look at. That left him pretty much checking out solo training suggestions for certain types of shinobi. Since he was responsible for himself at this point in time he didn't want to be one of those types that withered on the vine after making it to chunin, "I've been all over that place with clones. I haven't found any ninjutsu there to learn."

A scoff came from Sasuke as they continued moving from rooftop to rooftop. He didn't need to scrounge for jutsu like some others did. Not only did he have the Sharingan and the capability to learn most forms of jutsu from looking at them, he had his own clan techniques to study thoroughly, "I wasn't looking for any new jutsu. I was studying what I could on this Orochimaru person. The guy that put this on me." He said, pointing at the seal on his neck, "Anko never really says much about him even though he was her sensei."

"Oh." Naruto said, squinting his eyes as he tried to think. That seal was a nasty piece of work from what he had seen. What was with that foul chakra it produced? It was totally nasty, "Well I was going to go find Ero-sensei right now. You can come if you want to." He offered amicably.

"Why would I want to go with you to find someone called 'Ero-sensei'?"

"Well he was Orochi-whatever's teammate."

Hm, that was interesting enough. Of course. That was an avenue he hadn't tried to explore yet… mostly because he didn't know where to find the other sannin, but Naruto could? There was probably something that could be said about that, but instead Sasuke just decided to follow along and see what he could see. Besides… he'd be safer with Naruto. He was quite certain that if Anko came upon them again he could outrun Naruto if need be.

XxX

(Konoha Hot Springs)

When Sasuke heard Naruto say that he was looking for one of the most powerful ninja that Konoha had gone on record of producing, he did not believe that such a man would be found at the damn hot springs, but Naruto seemed to be treading around the property as if he knew exactly where he was going, and it wasn't inside of any of the springs.

Still, he kept his mouth shut since Naruto seemed to be doing so as well. But he didn't even seem to be looking around or asking for anyone's assistance or anything.

All he did was take them both past a changing room and a conjoining bath area to the brush and shrubs alongside it, pushing his way through to a spot at the side of the fence where he… actually seemed to find the person that he was looking for judging by how he was impatiently standing behind the person peeking through a hole in the fence, "Ero-sensei." Naruto said, tapping his foot impatiently.

"Oh." Jiraiya said, still not taking his view away from the hole in the fence, "Long time no see kid." Technically he still hadn't seen Naruto because he was still getting an eyeful of whatever was behind that fence instead of paying attention to the boy standing behind him, "What's up?"

"You told Gamakichi to tell me to come find you on Tuesday. It's Tuesday, so what did you want?" Naruto sounded a bit agitated because apparently the message had been passed along through his summons had been forgotten by the only other living toad summoner that had left the message in the first place.

"Oh will you chill out and just enjoy the sights with your master since you found me in the first place?" Jiraiya said dismissively, using a hand to wave off Naruto's question, "You really don't want to be in such a rush these days anyway do you? Take things slow, enjoy the days you've got before the you-know-what."

Damn it Jiraiya, you and your negligence of noticing the second presence. Luckily Sasuke didn't notice or care what Jiraiya was talking about as he walked forward to address the man himself, "Are you seriously doing this? You're a legendary ninja. What if someone caught you peeking on girls in the hot springs?"

A shrug from Jiraiya's shoulders was his initial response, "The fact that I like women doesn't make me any less of a badass shinobi kid. In fact… since you probably think I suck you'd more than likely underestimate me in a fight if you didn't already know me. And you'd be dead before you even got the superior look off of your face." He turned his head towards Sasuke with a grin, "A little quirk here or there actually helps you out a bit… and it just so happens that my quirk is my pure, unfiltered love of the ladies."

Sasuke's eye twitched while Naruto palmed his face and spoke, "Ero-sensei… even if you weren't just sitting here trying to rationalize peeking on girls in broad daylight, you're talking to the wrong guy about it anyway. Sasuke doesn't like girls." He then felt low killing intent radiating off of Sasuke, "What? How else can you explain not letting girls like Sakura and Ino-chan date you in the Academy."

"We weren't even 13 then you idiot." Sasuke said with a slightly red face, "Those harpies don't know anything about love or crap like that. They should have been focusing more on being kunoichi than focusing on me. Just because I didn't care about them being stupid doesn't mean I don't like girls." He stated flatly, "I've got more important things to do these days anyway."

Jiraiya just looked between the two boys before shaking his head and returning his attention to the hole in the fence, "Kami kid, you are a total buzzkill." Apparently not enough of a buzzkill to keep him from getting his jollies. He needed to be writing down some of what he was seeing. The star of his next book could be in that water somewhere, "I'm going to do you a favor and let you take a look through this opening. See if it doesn't change your whole worldview."

"No thanks." Sasuke grit out verbally before deciding to get down to business with this apparent legend, "I just want to hear about what you know of Orochimaru. That's all."

Hearing the name of his old wayward teammate, Jiraiya once again looked up from where he was paying attention moments before to take a better look at Sasuke, "Hmm… you're that kid." He said, remembering what he had heard from the Hokage on Orochimaru's underlings marking a young Konoha ninja during one of his missions, "You know… I don't really feel like talking about my bastard ex-best friend and partner and Sarutobi-sensei's favorite asskisser/backstabber at the moment… unless you look through this hole in the wall right now."

Now in the mind of one such as Naruto, the ultimatum wasn't much of one. He'd have already looked through the hole in the wall without even needing to think about it, and he would have blamed it on Jiraiya's influence corrupting him all the while knowing that he would enjoy every sight he got from it. Sasuke had a little thing called personal pride, and the last of a proud clan such as his was not going to be accused of having voyeuristic tendencies.

Still. It was just one quick look through a hole in the wall at a few women.

And to get his questions answered it didn't seem like a difficult request. Just one peek and then he'd grill that white-haired old coot for everything he wanted to know.

As Sasuke walked towards the hole in the wall to acquiesce to Jiraiya's request, the man himself had slipped up to Naruto's side, both crouched down to observe the process, "Hey brat." Jiraiya whispered to Naruto, "You're telling me that this kid never paid attention to a class full of kunoichi all fighting over him?"

"He never talked to a single one of them." Naruto tried to talk to them (i.e. Sakura) and got hit for his troubles. Maybe he should have tried not focusing his pick-up attempts on just one girl? He might have gotten astronomically lucky and gotten an actual date in the past if he had, but he doubted that would have improved his chances any.

Somewhere across the village the only female genin on Team 8 sneezed and gave away her position during tracking and stealth training.

But hearing what Naruto had just said put a huge grin on Jiraiya's face. Someone like Sasuke probably hadn't realized just what was so magical about the female frame at this point in time. The kid was such a loner he probably never had the life-changing experience that most men had of 'accidentally' bearing witness to their first naked woman. He was thirteen and a total wet blanket so it was completely plausible that he had never seen such before.

That meant that this had the potential to be epic in either one of two ways. Either outcome would be satisfactory to Jiraiya as far as entertainment value went.

Gravely unaware of the shock to his system that awaited him, Sasuke reached the hole in the wall and crouched down to get to eye level with it, a single onyx orb peering through to see what lay on the other side. And there he froze. Sasuke's whole face turned red and his eyes widened. Much to Naruto's surprise instead of blacking out, he actually turned his Sharingan on.

Both Naruto and Jiraiya looked at each other, both snickering quietly as Sasuke continued to burn this image inside of his brain for life, "Ah, we did a good deed today brat." And it was something possible lucrative as well, as Jiraiya was already jotting down ideas for a new main character in a future chapter of his novels, 'A prudish bishonen elite gets his first look at the most lovely female forms available to male viewing on the planet and finds himself addicted. Man this crap writes itself!'

Still laughing as blood began to trickle from Sasuke's nose, Naruto suddenly stopped as he felt the cold hand of death touch his spirit, "Whoa. I feel like I just did something to piss somebody off." Who in the world would be mad about something like this?

XxX

(Meanwhile – Konoha Hospital)

A bandaged up Sakura sat on an examination table and gnashed her teeth momentarily before looking around in confusion, 'That was weird. I really want to smack Naruto one right across the head for some reason. But I haven't wanted to do that since graduation, he isn't even here, and he really isn't the one I should still want to beat up right now.' She finished her thought and looked next to her at an equally injured Ino who was sitting on the table as well pouting.

"Damn you Forehead…" Ino muttered despondently, really glad that there wasn't a mirror in the room because she didn't want to know what she looked like at the moment, "It was a spar. You don't fight like that during a friendly spar. What's wrong with you?" Despite saying such, Ino had absolutely no problems with retaliating in kind which did nothing to deescalate the situation.

"What, you can't handle it?" Sakura taunted back with a somewhat weak smirk, "I thought you were supposed to be a chunin. Doesn't that make you better than me? I had to fight you harder." And they had both nearly killed each other had it not been for Shikamaru and Chouji who were also in the room stopping them. Deep down it hurt their hearts to stop a catfight in progress, but 'The Code' states that explosions mark the end of a catfight and the beginning of a blood war.

"Jealous?"

"I can't be jealous of livestock Ino-pig."

Before the two could butt heads and continue where they had left off from the training field, Shikamaru's shadow bound the two in place to prevent them from fighting.

A sigh of relief came from Chouji who was seated in a chair next to his old friend, silently thanking him as he didn't want to referee another fight between the two rabid kunoichi, especially in a place of tranquility like a hospital.

"Stop fighting damn it." Shikamaru muttered, holding the two girls in place as they continued to glare at each other. This was a total waste of his chakra, playing mediator between the most volatile best friend/worst enemy relationship currently existing in the village.

The door opened to reveal Kabuto walking in with a nervous smile on his face, seemingly uneasy at the fact that he had walked in at such an unstable time, "You two are fine." He said, getting both Ino and Sakura's attention, "Well, other than the injuries of course, but these aren't anything that won't heal by tomorrow if you two can promise me that you won't fight again." The two looked away from Kabuto getting him to laugh without humor, "Ha… well either way, you two can check out."

"Thank you Kabuto-san." Both girls chimed in unison before glaring at one another once again.

Seeming to shrink into himself a bit out of bashfulness at the praise, Kabuto waved his hands and his clipboard in front of himself, "Ah, it's nothing. With Tsunade-sama in Konoha spending a lot of time around the hospital everyone's here is working hard trying to impress her. She says she doesn't take students but no one's really taking that at face value."

"Wow…" Sakura said quietly to herself, "Tsunade-sama's student. But she's only taught one person before right? The Shizune lady that she usually has with her."

Frankly, Ino didn't particularly see what the big deal really was about Tsunade. After getting to experience a big part of her personality in Tetsu no Kuni before and after the chunin exam final rounds she didn't particularly wish to be her student. First of all she wasn't the medic type, second of all she more than likely had just as big a sense of person that Tsunade had and that would lead to way too many clashes of ego that would stress the training dynamic out.

This was clearly visible to Sakura who grabbed Ino's cheek and pulled on it once she heard the blonde girl yawn at the proposition of being trained by a sannin, "You really don't think it would be great to be trained by one of Hokage-sama's three famous students?"

"Goldie-kun's getting trained by Jiraiya and I've been around that guy." Ino replied as she chose not to refer to Jiraiya with any honorifics. In her mind that man didn't deserve any. She was the only one that could corrupt Naruto and get away with it, "If it's anything like that I don't want any part of it thank you very much. Our specialties don't match up anyway. All she can train me in that we actually match up on is using poisons, and I study that on my own."

It was true. While it wasn't that bad, Ino didn't have the best chakra control which one needed to be damn near perfect to be a medic-nin. She did not have the patience to deal with stubborn injuries and this patience was not improved upon during her past year working with the laziest man on the face of the planet and an equally as impatient as her fellow blonde with infinite times more energy.

She also wasn't a fan of blood or of grievous wounds at all. It wouldn't keep her from operating at full ability, but it was never something she could just be comfortable with. This was why nothing she did, even her killing techniques, made any kind of gory or graphic mess. She now almost exclusively used senbon to fight instead of kunai and shuriken at this point for this very reason.

So being trained by a legendary medic-nin would not really be her thing. She wanted to delve further into her clan techniques anyway. They were just starting to get practical as far as direct combat was concerned.

You couldn't train with just anyone anyway. You had to be compatible to what you were learning, which was why many jounin-sensei didn't train their students in their own techniques move-for-move. They were more for guidance and insight on actual real-world shinobi life for young genin than actual handing down of combat techniques.

With a point like that, Sakura took on a slightly dejected look. She didn't know anything about medical ninjutsu and she was more than certain that if Tsunade ever did take a new student she would most definitely avoid having to train one from the ground up. She was a genjutsu-centric kunoichi.

But wait. It was just something she couldn't ignore. It was too useful a skill to have, especially after what had happened to Team 7 in the wilderness.

"Kabuto-san." Sakura asked with shining emerald eyes, "How would someone go about learning medical ninjutsu?" There had to be a scroll or a class or something somewhere. Hell, he was a genin and learned it which was why he worked at the hospital after his team was killed during the chunin exams.

"Well you have to be a chunin to get yourself accepted into the training program." Kabuto replied apologetically, running a hand through his silver hair, "Sorry, my dad is the Captain of the Konoha Medic Corps. He adopted me and taught me everything I know." He then stroked his chin as he tried to think of something, "But I guess maybe since I don't work here that much, and I don't really have an active genin team I could teach you a little bit."

Shikamaru, Ino, Chouji, and Sakura's eyes all widened at the offer. That was… extremely gracious of the elder genin. He hadn't even asked for anything in return. Nothing at all. In some circles this could be seen as suspicious.

Any circle that involves Nara Shikamaru for instance.

"Why?" Shikamaru asked, narrowing his eyes at the purple-clad medic.

For some reason this guy had been latching close to them since the very beginning of the chunin exams. He seemed like a good guy, but it was just kind of weird. It was more than just being friendly. It was to the point where Kabuto was overly helpful and pleasant, more so than any of them were to each other, but like he didn't see them as close enough to banter with; still at the stage of a relationship of trying to keep them liking him. After all of these months he still didn't seem like a friend.

Still, Kabuto's answer seemed pleasant, good-natured, and logical enough, "There can never be enough medics out there in the field." He looked towards the rest of them with a smile at that point, "I can teach you all if you'd like. I'm not doing any chakra control training though. You guys are handling that on your own."

"No thanks." Shikamaru replied, trying to play off his earlier suspicious attitude towards the young man, "I do enough training on my own, and I'm not doing the work to get my chakra control to a needle point… more trouble than it's worth."

"Me either." Chouji quickly declined the offer as well, "Heh, what would I look like fumbling through medic-nin training? That's not for guys like me."

Ino was about to decline as well, seeing no reason to do it since Shikamaru had always been smart enough to keep himself from being hurt even in sure-fire danger situations and Naruto seemed to be able to heal from damn near anything aside from being decapitated. But then she remembered that they were mere weeks away from leaving, and that she'd be working with others from then on out.

Sakura's follow-up taunt was just the thing that drove the stake into the heart of her accepting Kabuto's offer, "Well I'll take you up on it Kabuto-san." She said with a bright smile, "Ino-pig already said she didn't want to learn any medic techniques. I guess she's just scared of getting left in the dust like she did in the Academy."

A tick mark formed on Ino's head as she started staring at Sakura with a twitching eye and a smile that did not bode well for the peace of the room, "Oh really? Who was the top scoring kunoichi and had the best overall grades? Who got promoted before who? And who kicked whose ass today? If you really want me to prove how much better than you I am again then I guess I can do that."

A palm struck Shikamaru's forehead from his own hand as he shook his head. Chouji just lamely lifted up his finger and pointed out at the two kunoichi with dueling glares, "Ino just got goaded into medic training." A nod came from his genius friend, "Why aren't we telling her that right now?"

"Because I don't want to deal with the yelling."

XxX

Jiraiya sat at the edge of a cliff, calmly drinking sake while enjoying the view, Sasuke seated next to him. He took a sip of his alcoholic beverage and sighed contently, "Oh, my manners need some work I guess. Do you want some?" Sasuke just gave him a deadpan stare in response, "Right. Well, what did you want from me again?"

"To tell me about Orochimaru." Sasuke requested. He had followed Jiraiya outside of the village for just this purpose and now it finally looked like the goof was going to tell him seomthing.

"Interested in the guy that tagged you?" Jiraiya said before getting down to the point of Sasuke's presence, "He was a lot like you around that age. A pretty cold guy. His parents were killed too." He noticed a trace of anger appear on the boy's face and nodded as that was what he had expected, "It was back during the good old bad days of constant fighting and I don't think he ever had time to just sit back and deal with it. Even with me and Tsunade there, and Sarutobi-sensei too, he just started drifting further away eventually. Even more than normal."

"He started taking more joy in fighting foreign shinobi and seeing their skills and jutsu. He loved that part of the whole thing. If he had a Sharingan I swear he would have been happier than a pig in-." Jiraiya then stopped and looked at Sasuke before getting back on track, "…Either way, he never just gives anyone anything. That nasty seal on your neck makes you a war machine like you felt, but it corrodes your mind and makes you easier to manipulate. That's Orochimaru's M.O. more or less. He loves the head games." He poked Sasuke on the neck, getting him to recoil a bit, "Nothing from him is free. Trust me, he just wants your eyes to pull a Kakashi… or worse."

'Or worse' because he could have just had his Oto ninja take out Sasuke's eyes instead of just marking his body with that damnable seal. That meant that Sasuke's entire being was of interest to the snake.

"My Sharingan…" Sasuke said, touching at his neck and looking out at the view of Konoha's gates from the cliff they were sitting on. He let out a scoff at the thought of giving anything to someone like that, "He'll have to come and get me himself if he wants to have even a prayer of taking my kekkei genkai, because the clods he sent the first time won't be enough again to beat me. An Uchiha doesn't lose to the same opponent twice, and I know their trick if I have to fight them again."

"You tell him teme…" Both Sasuke and Jiraiya turned towards the cliffside to see a single hand plant itself at the summit, pulling a sweaty, slightly bleeding Naruto up with his other hand tied behind his back. After reaching the top he rolled over onto his back, chest heaving up and down heavily as he stared up at the sky, "There… I climbed your stupid cliff."

Jiraiya poured himself another cup of sake and raised it in recognition of Naruto's achievement, "Good. Now go back down and do it again with your other arm this time." Naruto's head turned robotically towards Jiraiya with a look of astonishment on his face while Jiraiya just proceeded to drink to his leisure, "I don't know why you're staring at me. You're burning your daylight. If you want to climb in the dark that's your thing, but you can't really see that well tonight. New moon and all."

Copious amounts of curses, mostly aimed at Jiraiya, spewed from Naruto's mouth. Still, he picked himself up and started climbing his way back down the cliff to start over on climbing the cliff with his other arm tied behind his back and no usage of chakra allowed.

This training was intense.

Watching Naruto begin his descent back down where he could actually walk back down with his chakra, Sasuke had to admit he liked what he was seeing. It was right up his alley as far as something demanding went, "So how did you train him for this?" Sasuke asked.

"I didn't train him for this at all." Jiraiya admitted with a chuckle, "I just told him I was going to make him do this months ago and put the fear of Kami into him. He did the rest himself. I still don't know how he prepared for it though."

"Do you think you could train me as well?"

The smile dropped from Jiraiya's face as he could see that Sasuke was earnestly asking this of him. Though he tried to hide it, the look on the young chunin's face was one of smoldering hope, "You're good. You're very good. I saw you during the chunin exams and you earned that vest. You just ran out of luck when you went up against a trained jinchuuriki. But I can't train you."

Sasuke's eyes widened before his head sank in disappointment, "Why not?" He asked, hiding his discontent over Jiraiya's answer.

Jiraiya didn't answer at first; instead letting the fading sound of Naruto griping and cursing as he walked down the cliff fill the silence of nature. Eventually he sighed and decided to address the topic, "You probably know me as the Yondaime Hokage's sensei don't you?" Sasuke nodded. That was a very good reason to want Jiraiya as his sensei. The man had a track record of talent, "What if I told you that I barely taught him how to do anything?"

"What? That can't be true."

"I'm being honest here." Jiraiya assured him, "I gave him the signs for Kuchiyose no Jutsu (Summoning Jutsu). I let him sign the toad contract. I gave him drills and I watched him grow up into a fine young shinobi. But that was it. He never needed my help, he'd have been great even without me." As proud as he was to have a hand in Minato's development, the most Jiraiya ever taught him was a crash course on seals, "Minato was a genius like you, and that was the thing. I'm no genius, and nothing I do is smooth. All of my techniques are hard-nosed power moves. You're a finesse fighter from what I saw. Even your Chidori (One Thousand Birds) is meant to attack a certain, exact place in particular."

A frown crossed Sasuke's face as he more or less broke down what Jiraiya was working his way around to saying, "Our fighting styles aren't compatible."

A sad smile came from Jiraiya as he nodded. The kid really was sharp. He didn't even have to say it, "If I were to train you I'd have to break you down and remake you from the ground up. You don't want that do you?" Sasuke just shook his head. He was an Uchiha, he fought like an Uchiha Clan member. That was his pride and he would never wash his hands of that, "Me and the brat; Naruto, we work even better than me and Minato did." He pointed down the cliff at Naruto who was finally at the bottom, tying himself up to try and climb again, "Minato… if I had tried that with him when he was the kid's age he would have fallen to his death."

"What makes Naruto so special?" Wondered Sasuke aloud. In around a year, Naruto had gone from the laughable dead-last to someone he considered right there on par with him. If Sasuke considered himself number one, Naruto was definitely 1-A. What on earth was the deal?

Jiraiya pointed over the edge to where Naruto had started climbing, "Well… first of all, he just went up and down… and he's about to climb back up here with one arm." Love Naruto or hate him, you had to respect that sheer stamina, "Second of all, he gets my style of fighting even though he's not one for hand-seals so I don't know how many of my own techniques would suit him. He's a grinder, a room-sweeper, a party-crasher. The exact opposite of you if you want to look at it that way."

A grunt of acknowledgment escaped Sasuke as he began to glower at not getting a chance to learn from Jiraiya, even a little bit, "I get it."

Well he didn't just want to leave the kid bitter. Spending so much time with Naruto was softening him up when it came to the brats, "Alright kid. Since you clearly recognize the amazing contributions that the incomparable Jiraiya-sama can provide you in your career I'll throw you a bit of a bone. I'll give you the hand-seals for summon creatures."

"What good will that do?" It wasn't a refusal of the offer, but it was more of a question of what that would do for him. Sasuke was quite certain that Jiraiya wouldn't let him sign the toad contract so what would he be summoning, air?

"This doesn't leave the mountain, do you understand kid." Jiraiya said sternly, getting Sasuke to raise an eyebrow at his sudden change of demeanor before quickly agreeing to do so, "*sigh* If you don't have a contract with any particular animal you'll be immediately sent to the home of the animal that you have a natural affinity for. But it's dangerous. Just because you show up doesn't mean you can establish a contract. More hot-blooded creatures will either deny you and test you or just try to kill you if they don't want you there at all."

And that was why Sasuke could see how showing him summoning was potentially dangerous. There was something about that he liked. Another way to prove himself, another way to get stronger. He turned his Sharingan on and Jiraiya quickly went through the seals, but Sasuke saw them all and had them committed to memory with just one showing.

Feeling like he had done his good deed for the day, Jiraiya felt that had freed him up for some debauchery. He stood up and walked to the edge of the cliff as he fished a frog wallet out of his vest, "Hey kid, I swiped your wallet! This is boring so if you don't finish up within thirty minutes I think I'll go back to town and find Tsunade-hime! Maybe I'll treat her to a few stiff drinks on your dime!"

That little distraction almost loosened Naruto's grip on the cliff wall enough for him to plummet a few hundred feet to his death but he reestablished it and kept himself climbing, now with a vengeance, "Oi! I need that! I don't have a bank account!"

"I'll invest your hard-earned money into the stock of earning Tsunade-hime's eternal love with booze!"

"When I get up there I'll kill you!"

"You'd better cut your other arm free first brat!"

And after watching that back and forth banter and the treatment of master to pupil, Sasuke kind of figured that he'd be better off sanity-wise not being trained by someone as overtly eccentric as Jiraiya.

XxX

(Sometime Later – Undisclosed Location)

A rather large squad of Otogakure shinobi were moving through the woods on their way towards Degarashi Port. The ships were up and moving in and out like clockwork and Orochimaru's planned joint operation with the current Mizukage was beginning to take shape as their force kept building up in Mizu no Kuni's outlying islands.

If things went well he would have bases in Mizu no Kuni, he would have his pick of domestic bloodlines to pick and choose to study, and he would possibly have a potential ally to get into his ear. Orochimaru required an ally due to the fact that he had his eyes on turning that village to a smoking crater in the ground.

At the head of the travelling team was Kimimaro. While the Sound Four would remain running Orochimaru's own missions he would be heading towards his birthplace to run things there. Failure would not be an issue as long as he was there.

Suddenly the entire squad came to a halt while Kimimaro continued to jump from branch to branch. He quickly realized that he wasn't being followed any longer and turned around to find his team no longer there. It was strange because he had only taken two more hops prior to turning around.

Without saying a word, Kimimaro pulled a dagger made of bone right from his body and stabbed himself in the shoulder without pause. The scope of the genjutsu shattered to find that the lot of Otogakure shinobi with him happened to now be unconscious and littering the forest floor, strewn about.

"I've come for you to send a message to your master."

Standing directly behind Kimimaro was a taller figure wearing a concealing black cloak with red clouds and a straw hat. Before the figure could even finish his statement, bones jutted out of Kimimaro's body like spikes and impaled the person that then burst into a flock of crows.

Amidst the crows, Kimimaro immediately dropped down to the ground from his branch and landed on the ground, holding his dagger and ignoring his shallow self-inflicted wound with almost robotic concentration. He would need every bit of it for someone as skilled as this. Kimimaro couldn't objectively judge how long he had been in the genjutsu, but it was long enough for whoever was there to defeat the entire squad and not long enough for them to finish the job against him.

"A message to my master?" He said, settling himself in a gracefully refined taijutsu stance in preparation to defend from any direction, "Well please, tell me of this message. I'll make sure Orochimaru-sama receives it after I report to him on your death… whoever you may be."

"How foolishly arrogant to believe you can simply kill me." A voice spoke again, seeming to reverberate in Kimimaro's head. A nice little parlor trick, but he had dealt with far more attempts at intimidation in the past. This couldn't even cause him to blink, "The only reason you still live is by the virtue of my mercy."

Still, Kimimaro did not move an inch, his body coiled to spring to assault at the first given opportunity, "From your attire you are clearly Akatsuki, one of Orochimaru-sama's sworn enemies. What you have to say means nothing to me, and less to him. The only thing that has any meaning here is your death." With something of a sixth sense, Kimimaro turned in the direction of where he felt the enemy and aimed his hand and fingers straight out, "Teshi Sendan (Ten-Finger Drilling Bullets)!"

From his fingertips, ten hard bones were shot out, spinning as they hurtled through the air. The shots missed the enemy, but drilled right into the tree that they hit afterwards.

Bearing witness to the target of his attack darting around the forest faster than Kimimaro knew he could reasonably keep up with, black marks spread across his body from the strange tattoo on his collarbone, "I see I will have to take you seriously. As far as trash goes you are admittedly something special to force me to this point."

Having had enough of the whole song and dance, the cloaked figure appeared a ways away in front of Kimimaro, standing there nonplussed at his first stage Cursed Seal appearance, "I'll repeat myself." The person said, reaching for their straw hat to take it off of their head, "I have a message for your master… from Uchiha Itachi."

This only made Kimimaro's anger spike higher. Orochimaru often cursed the name of the man that took his right hand in battle years ago. How dare Itachi choose to refuse allowing his body to play host to Orochimaru's soul.

Still, Itachi ignored the younger man and continued to speak, "Tell him that I hold no lingering feelings towards his previous attempt to take my body. I acquired my pound of flesh in return in the end. But, I have heard of him taking something of an interest in my younger brother." At that point, Itachi's Sharingan eyes morphed into a strange, foreign pattern, "If he is foolish enough to continue down this avenue I'll teach him more about the power of the Sharingan than he would have ever wished to know. I still need something from Sasuke that overrides Orochimaru's revolting ambition."

In a flash, Itachi was not only gone… Kimimaro was not on the ground.

He was still standing on the tree branch he had stopped on, just short of burying his bone dagger into his body as he had figured he had done previously to break the genjutsu, 'Uchiha Itachi…' Kimimaro thought to himself, 'He didn't kill a single one of these shinobi.' He took note of as he observed his defeated force closely, 'What a frighteningly powerful man. If this is an example of his abilities then I must get stronger for the sake of Orochimaru-sama.'

This trip to Mizu no Kuni would serve as his method of growing in strength. To destroy his beloved master's enemies… to crush any threat intending to cause that great man harm… Kimimaro would gain enough strength to bring down the five kage themselves.

XxX

(Later that Week – Konohagakure no Sato – Team 10 Training Ground)

Well this was it. Tomorrow morning at the crack of dawn Naruto and Shikamaru would be departing for the capital of Hi no Kuni. He hadn't been so nervous since the night before team assignments.

He sat underneath the large tree in the middle of the mostly open field that comprised the area with a water balloon in his hand that Jiraiya had told him to pop by using his chakra to spin the water in it. Apparently the process of getting him prepared to climb that cliff one-handed was to ensure that he had the strength of will and focus to make learning the forthcoming jutsu easier.

Still, it was too hard to focus on learning a step toward piecing together a jutsu during a time like this. For all intents and purposes he was moving out of Konoha for a few years, and that was a big deal. He supposed he could just see it like one really long missions since that was in essence what it just so happened to be, but that would have seemed a little impersonal.

There he went again, overthinking things. Feeling that way about the way things would work out tomorrow and onward wouldn't change anything, and he wouldn't just wake up the next morning to realize that the entire job acceptance was a dream of some sort.

With a sigh he reached for his vest pocket and grabbed a cigarette that was then placed into his mouth and lit. He was going to miss that thing, and his headband too. He couldn't wear anything in the field during his mission with the daimyo connecting him with Konoha so no flak jacket or village identifying plate. Naruto spared a glance at the water balloon in his other hand and then at the spent cigarette butts lining the ground under where he was sitting. How long had he been there again?

"Man… if Kurenai saw this I'd never hear the end of it about me being a bad influence and all of that."

"Hey Asuma-sensei." Naruto said in a reserved manner, not even turning to face the man that was standing and leaning against the side of the tree he was sitting underneath.

"Damn." The bearded jounin replied in a seemingly disappointed manner, "I was expecting to scare the hell out of you at least one more time before you go off on your great adventure of a lifetime. There's got to be something renting out space in that empty head of yours if I couldn't get a jolt out of you."

Naruto spared Asuma a glance and smiled slightly, "Adventure of a lifetime? There's no way this could be any worse than some of the stuff I've done already." He was just a daimyo's guard ninja… and apparently there would be at least two more just like him, not even counting Shikamaru. How off the wall could it be? And then Asuma started laughing.

"Oh, that's the best joke I've heard in a while." The older man said, finding it prudent at the moment to ruffle Naruto's hair even if he knew the boy hated being treated like he was short, "Kid, working for the daimyo… do you know what that includes?"

"Um, protecting him?"

"Yeah." Asuma nodded, still grinning widely, "Protecting him… and his family… and his family's close acquaintances… and anyone that provides a decently important service to the daimyo." It was clear that it wasn't lost on Naruto just how many people that could potentially be, "Not to mention that the protection of the daimyo also means protecting the daimyo's affairs as well. So you're going to be running missions of great importance for him, and failing could lead to strained international tensions to say the least."

What?

Now a few thirteen year olds would think that it was pretty cool that this many lives would directly depend on them, and that they would be guaranteed to be doing so many important jobs. But then again, Naruto could now see why it was invite only, and why that Kotoko girl said something about them needing to push their numbers back up to twelve.

Because with job expectations like that it was kind of easy to see there being a lack of an adequate work force willing to venture that way and work for the man. The daimyo wasn't really loyalty-inspiring to hidden village shinobi, and dying for something trivial for him clearly didn't suit most ninja.

How did the daimyo become daimyo in the first place? Probably because the original was a person rich and influential enough to fund the hidden villages comprised of all of the clans he regularly hired for work, so they put control of the countryside into his hands while they maintained a standing military in the villages.

Why was he thinking about that when he barely knew what he was talking about?

Damn Shiho.

"So more or less-." Asuma continued, stroking his beard in an astute manner as a man of experience, "-You've just signed up for a nonstop series of B-to-S-rank missions until your contract runs out." Hey, times weren't as tumultuous these days as they were back when he himself worked for the daimyo, so maybe things would be slow?

Then again every older person figured that their time was harder than the time the future generation was coming up in.

Naruto had just been sitting there for the last several moments, just taking in what he had been told. It had been so long that his cigarette in his mouth had burned down almost all the way to his lips without him ever even taking a decent puff.

Ever the helpful sensei, Asuma yanked the shortening stick out of Naruto's mouth before his lack of attention ended up giving him the lovely taste of ash on his tongue.

That seemed to be enough to snap the young blonde out of his own thoughts that continued to pile on one after another. Naruto jumped up from where he had been sitting on the ground and swung a kick at the sturdy tree that held up with not even a quiver. Asuma raised an eyebrow at the sporadic behavior.

"Fine! Give me all the B-rank, A-rank, S-rank-! Hell I'll take a fucking Z-rank mission and I'll still come back, not a scratch on me!" Naruto shouted with supreme authority and confidence, "And I dare those useless Akatsuki guys to try and take the Kyuubi out of me!" He tightened his grip and popped the water balloon in his hand purely by squeezing it, getting him to blanch in embarrassment, "Oops."

Instead of finding Naruto's behavior curious, by now Asuma was more than accustomed to his eccentric method of choosing to address his problems and concerns and merely grinned, extending his hand in the process, "When you get back I want to fight you."

The stunned look on Naruto's face was just what he had been going for when he said that, "You want to fight me?" Naruto asked in a bit of amazement.

Asuma nodded and followed up on his statement, "I've never been able to say that I've wanted to fight anyone. Almost a year ago you were as soft as a wad of cookie dough. Well now you proved you can be a chunin, and in a few years I'll bet you, Shikamaru, and Ino will be as tough as diamonds. So when you and lazy-ass come back I want to fight you. All of you. For old times' sake."

Since Team 10 wasn't his team anymore he couldn't give them routine asskickings. He kind of missed it.

However, on the other hand Naruto seemed quite inspired by hearing that Asuma wished to eventually fight him and test his skills after he returned. And he'd be ready for that, for Akatsuki, and for anything else that his life as a ninja seemed suitable to throw at him next.

And he didn't think twice as he eagerly extended his own hand to Asuma's in a thorough and hearty shake.

XxX

(The Next Morning)

The streets of the village were quiet and empty as it was still extremely dark outside. The only real sounds over the fading sounds of the nighttime insects that could be heard were a pair of shuffling footsteps on the road towards one of Konoha's gates.

"It's too early for this crap. I'd have a clone carry me, but my clone would just complain and it would just end up being a waste of chakra. It's so troublesome."

"Shika are you going to bitch all the way to the capital? No, nevermind, that's not the question. Are you going to bitch for the next three years?"

"Yes. Yes I am. Someone has to, and since Ino's not coming I guess I'm the one that'll do it."

"…You bitch more than Ino-chan ever did anyway."

Their stride was stopped by a rather loud clearing of one's throat, attracting Naruto and Shikamaru's attention to a tree sitting behind a picket fence with Ino sitting in the branches and leaning against the tree trunk as she looked down at them both, glaring at Shikamaru, "…Shika, did you just call me a bitch?"

Instead of saying yes or no, Shikamaru froze in place much like a deer with a light shone on it until he came up with an appropriate response, "You see, the fact that I had to hesitate to think of an answer that wouldn't make you want to jump down here and give me a goodbye beating should answer the question right there."

Contrary to what would be expected of Ino, she did not jump down and begin assaulting Shikamaru for more or less admitting to her face that he called her a bitch. She simply kept an even looking expression on her face and made a sucking noise with her teeth, "I'm just going to save that. And I'll get you when you come back." She stood up and jumped down from her place in the tree to give Shikamaru a hug, "I'll miss you, you jerk. Shiho would have come to say goodbye too, but with her shifts she barely gets enough sleep as it is."

It was a hug that Shikamaru easily returned. Even if he found her troublesome more often than he would have liked to, she was still one of his closest friends, "Yeah, yeah. She's a nice girl. Way less trouble than you. Tell her I said I'll see her around. Just don't cry on me alright?"

Ino pulled away and thumped him on the shoulder with a smirk on her face, "You think I'll cry over you leaving? Ha, don't flatter yourself Shika. But if you go and get yourself killed to make me cry, I'll never forgive you."

Rolling his eyes, Shikamaru couldn't help but smile a little bit, "I won't. Even if I died you'd probably still find a way to gripe at me beyond the grave."

With that being said, Ino turned to Naruto and extended her hand expectantly, getting him to raise his eyebrow in confusion until she spoke up, "Your apartment. Come on, who else is going to watch it and keep it looking halfway decent until you stumble back into town?"

"Oh! Yeah, sure." Naruto said, reaching into his pocket and dropping his key into her hand. In response, Ino gave him a beaming smile and a hug as well that he happily received. If he wasn't going to see her for a long time he was going to make it count. She was the girl or woman that was the closest to him in his life by an extremely considerable margin.

And much like him, Ino did as well with her arms wrapped around Naruto's neck to keep him close in the embrace, "The same goes for you too hero. Don't go and do something stupid like die on me. I'm sure you're smart enough to know how I'd take that one." She said quietly from her proximity to his ear with a sly smile on her face, "I want you back here soon."

"Yeah I know you'd take it badly." Naruto said, taking his time and rubbing her back gently, "Me and Shika are your friends, of course you would. We'll be back for sure. I promise."

'*sigh* Swing and a miss…' Ino thought to herself. Maybe he still wasn't sharp enough to figure what she was talking about with her last statement. Oh, well at least he was cute. And he had three years to get the picture. She'd have to make sure she developed into a knockout to take him off of his feet so that he couldn't miss her signals no matter how subtle she tried to be about it, "You'd better you gold-tinted bastard."

"Oi." Naruto said, feigning offense at Ino's comment, "I'm half of a bastard. I know who my mother is thank you very much." He really didn't want to let go though. He could have stood there holding on to Ino until the sun came up if he were to be honest about it, and he was pretty sure she wouldn't have minded in the least either. Ino was just like that. He liked it.

Much to Naruto's disappointment he eventually had to end the hug once Shikamaru played moment killer and spoke up, "Hey. If this is going to keep going on I'll just go home and go back to bed. Come get me and wake me up when you two get enough of each other."

Both of the blondes could have punched Shikamaru for that reason and he realized it when they let go of each other to shoot a glare at him. He had to take a few steps back to make sure they didn't attack him.

Ugh, Kami help him if those two actually got through the brick wall of both Ino's own desire to get boys to fall for her as opposed to the alternative, Naruto's own density when it came to other people's more discreet feelings towards him, and they got together.

He was not going to be the uncle to perhaps the most troublesome child ever conceived. Taking the most stressful personality traits in the village thrown together to make one single, solitary child? Oh goodness. No way in hell was there going to be any Shikamaru-oji to Naruto and Ino's offspring.

"Fine." Naruto growled out, jerking his head towards the path that led out of town, "We should get going anyway… it should take a day or two to get there." He said, shifting his backpack on his back and stomping off down the road.

Shikamaru rubbed the back of his neck, knowing that this was going to come back to bite him in the ass sooner rather than later. It was a long trip to the daimyo's court and Naruto didn't need much time to formulate a scheme for horrific revenge pranking. No amount of strategic planning could keep him safe 24/7.

As the two of them walked away, Ino just waved goodbye and stood there until they were out of sight. Once they were gone her gaze softened fondly and she kicked at the dirt on the ground before turning towards the tree behind the picket fence she had made herself known from, "Why didn't you come out and say anything? He would have loved to say goodbye to you even if you didn't say a word. You didn't even have to say that you liked him."

No answer.

Ino's eye twitched and she jumped up onto the fence to look down at the base of the tree, hopping down to the ground to speak to the pale-eyed person that had been leaning with her back against the tree just as long as she had been there, "You came all the way out here so early in the morning to not say goodbye to him? Come on Hinata."

At first Hinata didn't say anything, just choosing to remain leaning against the tree, inwardly cursing the fact that she couldn't get over how embarrassing it would be to try and deliver some kind of significant goodbye to Naruto's face the way she had played out repeatedly in her own head. Ino didn't have any trouble doing so at all. That was just the kind of confidence that she had.

"You won't win." Hinata's naturally quiet voice was heard as clear as day in the quiet of the still dark Konoha early morning. Ino's eyes widened at the declaration, but then again she had expected as much from someone that had a long-standing crush on Naruto, "When he comes back… when Naruto-kun returns, I'll be strong enough to tell him how I feel. I'll be the kind of person that can get him to look my way and walk with him. He isn't going to be yours."

It was very surprising to hear the conviction in Hinata's voice. And damn it she could relate because even though they were on the same team Ino often felt like she was always a step or two behind. Hinata had never spoken that way before, but with the way that Ino almost put herself forward while bidding the maverick jinchuuriki farewell it probably grated on the Hyuuga Clan kunoichi in a major way. She had not been going for that at all. That was admittedly her mistake.

But still…

"Well you'd better get some self-confidence by the time he does." Ino responded, hands on her hips with a tough look on her face, "Because the only way anyone's getting through to that thickheaded lug is by being as direct as you can possibly stomach. And I'll tell you a little secret." She then leaned forward towards Hinata closer as the girl did the same and narrowed her eyes at the escalating challenge before whispering next, "He already belongs to me. So try and take him if you want, I want to earn him the right way anyway."

Hinata didn't say anything outside of a small 'hm' noise as the two stared each other down intensely before choosing to go their own separate ways home.

A few hours after this encounter, the sun would hit Ino's face and officially wake her up. At that point she would curse loudly in the middle of opening the door of her clan's flower shop to customers for the day. This prompted Inoichi to rush into the storefront from the back of the storage room and ask her what was wrong. The answer was simple of course.

She had inadvertently created another rival out of a friend for a boy all over again.

…Damn it.

Omake: Training Day 8

(Two Months Ago – Naruto's Apartment)

While not really the most suitable place for a meeting of this size, Naruto's apartment was still the only place that was secure enough for what was proposed to go on when it came to the events of this particular day.

The male representatives of the (former) genin squads of Team Kakashi, Team Asuma, Team Kurenai, and Team Gai were in attendance for this particular happening… even Sasuke, who while not pleased to be there still made it a point to show up regardless.

After finding out the necessary reason for his requested presence however, he deemed the entire endeavor to be stupid and a total waste of time as far as he was concerned.

"Are you serious?" Sasuke said, arms crossed over his chest as he stood against a wall, far away from where all of the other seven young men were sitting on the floor in a traditional negotiation setup, "You called me here for this? I could be doing something useful right now instead of this dumbass crap."

"Just sit down already." Naruto exclaimed, sick of Sasuke's attitude if this was how he was going to treat the entire thing, "The faster you get with the program and help us finish, the faster you can go home and do… whatever you were doing when my clone came to get you." Even Neji was playing ball so to speak, so what was Sasuke's problem?

A scowl crossed the young raven-haired Uchiha chunin's face at the suggestion, "This is so stupid."

"It serves a purpose to all of us Uchiha-san." Neji said coolly, seemingly the main negotiator of the terms before them all due to his level-headed attitude and arbitration skills. Getting back to business he cleared his throat and returned attention to the list of things in front of them all, "Now due to the fact that we all seem to interact more personally than we do with most other shinobi in the village it has been established that a code of mutually agreed upon terms would be best for future dealings."

A unanimous nod came from Shikamaru, Shino, Chouji, but only a blank look came from Naruto, Lee, and Kiba. Shino let out a sigh and decided to simplify things, "What Neji-san is saying is that this is being done to keep things civil between us and establish a stronger bond."

"I knew that!" Naruto spouted with some red lining his cheeks, "…I didn't want those two to feel dumb though." He finished, taking a swat on the back of the head from Kiba at the insult, getting the two to almost come to blows were it not for their respective teammates physically holding the two hotheads apart.

Once civility reigned once more over the imposed meeting, main speaker Neji proceeded to give them all the rundown of the terms established between the lot of them thus far, "We will now go over a few of the more disputed terms of the pact."

Receiving the papers from Neji, Shino read first, "Number one: Clan jokes and comments will be kept to a wide generalization, they will not be personally aimed at any one person of a clan or family in particular not a part of this agreement. No innocents. An example would be; no commenting on the physically attractive traits of another's mother, sister, etc. This includes running past one's clan property and asking a member of the agreement's sister if she is 'ready to go on that date next week.' Even as a joke." Kiba glared heatedly at sheepishly grinning Naruto as this point was made, "Comments on the general traits of a clan will be kept good-natured taunts at worst unless there is ample provocation for more tepid remarks."

Finding something else about that topic to speak on, Kiba raised his hand, "Does your team sensei count?"

"No." Everyone said unanimously as Akamaru barked in kind. The jounin that had taught them were still fair game for personal taunts and other comments… as were the rest of them directly.

"Just wonderin'."

The papers were passed on to Shikamaru who began to read next, "In the case of a fight between two kunoichi of separate teams, a scale will be used to determine the need for intervention between those that are a part of this agreement. In the instance of small weapons being drawn we must move closer and be prepared to intervene. In the instance of actual ninjutsu with potentially lethal consequences intervention must be immediate with each male teammate on any given team responsible for restraining their respective kunoichi teammate. Anything less than these stipulations and the scuffle will be allowed to go on uninterrupted to deescalate naturally."

Both Naruto and Kiba exchanged a heartily agreed upon handshake in regards to this rule, more enthusiastic towards it than any other of those present who had agreed to the rule for their own reasons.

Shikamaru handed the papers back to Neji who quickly began to read the next thing out that held great importance to him and no one else really, "In the instance of future combat against one of the members that possess a doujutsu kekkei genkai, Chakura Hankyouteii no Jutsu (Chakra Echolocation Jutsu) is outlawed." He rattled off seamlessly before passing the page to Shino quickly while Naruto wasn't paying attention, still all jazzed up with Kiba over the catfight law.

Sasuke nodded unnoticeably in silent agreement to the decree or for whatever reason he chose to do so. Despite this though, he still didn't join the assembly directly.

"Let's wrap this up already." Complained Shikamaru. They'd been sitting there writing that thing out and arguing for hours to get what they wanted on the form. How Neji managed to slip in the little addendum about Naruto's sonar jutsu he didn't know, but that wasn't really important… to him, "My head hurts from putting this troublesome thing together. We all know what's on it so let's just sign it and get on with it."

He was not going to sit there while they went through fifty plus rules that ranged from astute and fully reasonable to asinine vanity requests. Either way, they were more like guidelines instead of actual rules… like Konoha's list of shinobi rules. Nobody followed those things all the way through; they picked and chose what they liked out of it.

Agreeing with his oldest friend, Chouji nodded just in time with his stomach growling, "Yeah, let's get out of here and get something to eat already. I'm hungry and Naruto's cup ramen sucks!" In Chouji's opinion he definitely needed more refreshments in his house.

Naruto of course took immediate offense to this, especially since twelve empty containers of his 'sucky' cup ramen sat around Chouji on the floor.

"You weren't saying that when you were sucking all of my food down like air were you, you f-!" Naruto's mouth was swiftly covered before he could get out the rest of the potentially harmful (emotionally for Chouji, physically for him) comment on the boy's weight, "Just sign the damn contract and get out of my house." Naruto said in a muffled voice from behind restrictive hands.

Not needing to be asked again, all of them took out a pen and started signing their signatures one after another.

When it was finally his turn to do so, Shino skimmed through the pages of the contract before raising an eyebrow at one of the addendums which he brought to the attention of those it mattered to. Looking at Naruto, Kiba, and Lee who had already signed the agreement, he spoke, "I have to wonder if you three all read this particular part. It says-."

Lee cut Shino off with flames in his eyes, "A youthful pact between comrades! Everyone should be aware of such a magnificent showing of unity between fellow Konoha ninja! I will not rest until I have memorized each one of these laws! I will do so by the end of the day or I will do 500 one-handed pushups! Where is Gai-sensei? He needs to know of this!"

As the green-clad taijutsu specialist sprinted out of Naruto's house, almost ripping the front door from its bolts in the process, everyone just stared after him until Neji broke the unilateral silence, "Lee just broke one of the rules. I'll rebuke him later." Lee would also be doing 500 pushups… because he didn't even wait for copies of the rules to be made before leaving.

With a nod, Shino was about to read the rule in question as he adjusted his sunglasses like reading glasses, "What does this rule state? I'll tell you. It says-."

"Shino." Naruto said in a deadpan voice, cutting him off, "I don't care. What are the chances that I'm actually going to break anything on this list?" A fine showing that he hadn't been paying much attention to any of the rules other than the ones that were cool to him or that he had a direct hand in making, "I'll read it later."

"Naruto-san you already signed it."

"I'll. Read it. Later."

The two engaged in something of a stare off before Shino signed the papers, never breaking eye contact from the blonde, at least as far as Naruto could tell. If his head didn't move Naruto couldn't tell he was looking down from behind his sunglasses.

At this point, Sasuke's curiosity won out and he made his way over, subtly activating his Sharingan to scan over the contract and its rules where he noticed what Shino had been referring to when it came to the what some of the others didn't read and what Rock Lee had violated within seconds of signing his consent to the rules.

"When indoors, indoor voices must be used. Yelling is legally allowed to be reprimanded with a strike to the head and the recipient is not allowed to retaliate. Also when outdoors if your voice can be heard further away than half a mile and someone isn't about to die or you are not in horrendous pain the same punishment applies."

Immediately, without being prompted, Sasuke picked up a pen and signed his own name before walking out of Naruto's apartment with his hands in his pockets. That was his kind of rule.