Naruto Fanfic (Untitled for now) *in writing*

Ok. This is long, i know.
Disclaimer- I DO NOT OWN NARUTO Masashi Kishimoto (i may have spelled that wrong) TV Tokyo, and Viz Media do.
I do own the characters i made up (Giru, Kurea, Kerushi, Leiko, Kairu, Kyorain etc) and my friends Bethany and Vanessa own Besani and Jaki, respectively.

Maturity: huge crushes and maybe some kissing but i haven't decided yet.
Violence: fights, they use knives and shuriken (throwing stars) and other weapons, so there will be some blood, however i won't go into excessive, gory, nauseating detail. xD i love saying stuff like that. excessive. GORY. NAUSEATING! don't worry- there won't be any of that in the story.
Fantasy: Naruto stuff like Jutsu's, Chakra, monsters, etc
This is written from a Christian point of view. I believe in God and i made all the good guys beleive in Him too.
Enjoy the story! (so far)

Leaves crunched underfoot as a mysterious traveler approached the large gates to the Leaf Village. The teenage girl smiled and tugged at the strap of her backpack. I’ve finally arrived. I’m finally here. And I beat her, just like I said I would.


Chapter 1: Arrival and biscuits

The sun came up on the next morning, bright as always. Konoha was the same as ever- the early risers already opening their shops, or walking to early morning appointments. Even the ones who usually slept in decided it was time to get up. But today, something was different in the Hidden Leaf Village of the Land of Fire. The day before, in late afternoon, a new face had arrived in town, but only a few people had noticed. The gate guards, the registration officials, a few random people who were out and about.
Kurea Akihoshi groaned as a ray of sunlight hit her face. She turned over and put her pillow over her head.
I know I have something to do today. She thought to herself. But I don’t feel like getting up. What was it…? Oh yeah! Today’s my first day on the job. I better not be late.
She sprung out of bed, and didn’t even bother to make it. She quickly got ready and soon sat down on her bed again, wearing a sky blue shorts outfit with a long sleeveless vest/coat. She pulled on her sky blue socks, and looked over to where her matching blue headband lay on her bedside table, because her new boss preferred that she not wear it while working. She moved it over and picked up her Bible. Smiling, she opened it and soon became oblivious to the world around her, not even noticing the commotion outside her open window.

“What do you mean you won’t let me have ramen for breakfast?!?” a loud, obnoxious voice came from the ramen stand down the street.
“I’m concerned about your health, Naruto!” a kindly voice replied. The chef at Ichiraku knew this boy all too well.
“Besides,” he explained, “Kakashi was looking for you. He said he wanted to teach you something today!”
“Really! That’s so cool! I’ll learn it quick! But to do training, I need my Ichiraku Ramen! Dattebayo!” the stubborn blonde boy exclaimed.
“How about this instead?” A gray-haired, but not old, man came down the street. The man’s face was half covered by his mask, and his headband covered his left eye. The right eye drooped lazily, giving him a sleepy, uninterested appearance. With him was a black haired youth, who frowned at the sight of Naruto.
“Kakashi-Sensei!” Naruto said to his teacher as he turned around. He only glared at the boy, his best friend and rival, Sasuke Uchiha.
“Here, catch!” Kakashi tossed an apple at Naruto. Naruto caught it, and disappointedly looked it over.
“I don’t like this kind of stuff.” Reluctantly, he bit into it. He looked up at the Hokage faces, and smiled reminding himself that his image would be up there someday, with the greatest of the greats.
I wonder what kind of training Sakura’s getting from Lady Tsunade… well never mind, she can handle herself. He made a fist and turned to Kakashi and Sasuke.
“What are we waiting for? Let’s get going!” He yelled.

At the Hokage mansion, the fifth Hokage was sitting at her desk, procrastinating. “Lady Tsunade, you still have to do that paperwork.” Shizune reminded her. “And Sakura Haruno wants to talk to you.”
“Let her in.” The blonde ‘princess’ sighed.
“Milady! I did it!!!” a pink haired girl excitedly ran in when Shizune opened the door. “I finished the assignment! The mouse is completely healed!” She presented a small white rodent who squeaked and ran across the floor and out the window.
Sakura smiled and turned back to her Senpai.
“Go get some rest. You’ve been up all night. You can take today off.” Tsunade instructed.
“Alright.” Sakura sighed. “Come to think of it, I’m really tired!”
She left the Hokage’s office and intended to head straight home, when she saw her friends inside a restaurant and decided to join them.

Kurea had come down from her room to work. She now stood in the kitchen of the sandwich shop down the street from Ichiraku’s, kneading dough.
“We’ve got another order for those biscuits.” her boss, Andoryu, told her. “This next batch needs to be done extra well. There’s some ninja returning from a big mission who have stopped to eat here, and we would like to treat them to the best.”
“Ok!” Kurea smiled. She tore off a bit of dough and stretched it, squeezed it, and rolled it into a ball. She repeated this process until she had a dozen perfect spheres.
Ninjas, huh? She thought. I’ll probably end up working with some of them once I get a real job as a ninja. I’ll just have to find out how- I think I have to find the Hokage and talk to her. But my first priority needs to be getting to know people, and getting some money. So I’ll put up with this job for a while. She stared at the neat rows. They were all identical. So… boring. She picked one up and flattened it, pinching four spots until it was a square. She then squished in the sides, and pushed her finger through the middle. She twirled it to make the hole bigger, then dipped it in a bowl of butter, and laid it back on the pan. A smile spread across her face, and her hands began flying.

Out in the dining area, two teams of shinobi sat in a booth.
“This is such a drag. I hate waiting.” Shikamaru tugged at his new Chunin vest.
“Don’t be so rude, Shika-san!” Ino reprimanded him. She didn’t admit it, but she was getting impatient too.
“Girls are so troublesome. Always telling me what to do…” Shikamaru complained, ignoring his comrade and staring out the window.
“I heard that they are creating something extra special. I think we should wait a little longer and see.” a round-eyed, shiny-haired boy said. “Right, Guy-Sensei?” He looked to his teacher, who he admired very much.
“That’s right, Lee!” Guy said, as he gave a huge smile and thumbs up. Lee did the same.
“Booth five, your food is ready.” Andoryu called from the front counter.
“I’ll get it.” Neji got up and glanced at his team. “But I’ll need some help.” As he said that, his pale eyes rested on a girl with her hair in Chinese buns. She smiled at him and got up.
“I’ll help.” Tenten followed Neji to the front.
“Alright, Tenten, you carry this tray, then.” Neji handed it to her, smiling, and then got one himself.
“Has anyone seen Choji?” Ino asked. “It’s not like him to miss having food.”
Just then a chubby boy rolled out of the kitchen.
“I’m here- I just wanted to see what the kitchen was like.”
“And you got kicked out, didn’t you?”His teacher, Asuma, inquired.
“Yeah…” Choji sulked. “Some girl told me she’d eat my food if I didn’t leave.”
Guy stood up. “I have to go report to Hokage-sama.”
“I will come with you!” Lee said and started to follow, but Guy told him to stay there.
“Hey guys!” Sakura came into the shop and walked over.
“Sakura!” Ino said. “We were just about to eat. Want to join us?”
“Sure!” Sakura sat down and elbowed Ino. “Hey, I wonder if Sasuke-kun will stop by?”
“Hey! If he comes, you’re going to sit on the floor and let him sit with me.” Ino elbowed Sakura right back.
“Grr… pig.” Sakura said under her breath.
“What’s that?” Ino turned in anger. “I didn’t hear you; your big ol’ forehead got in the way!”
“Shut up.” Sakura turned away. “I don’t feel like a cat fight right now.”
“You started it.” Ino turned away as well.

Back in the kitchen, Kurea slammed the oven shut and sank to the floor in exhaustion.
“Whew… The biscuits are only going to be a little late.” She wiped sweat from her brow with the back of her hand.
“What took you so long? So far you’ve been dishing out biscuits faster than anybody I’ve worked with before!” Andoryu stood above her, annoyed that they were behind schedule.
“Well, I got a little creative.” Kurea grinned and jerked her thumb at the oven. Andoryu opened the oven and peered inside. A strong buttery smell drifted out and filled the kitchen.
“Alright, I’ll make an exception, this time! But if you must be creative, do it efficiently.” Andoryu turned and walked to the counter where some lettuce leaves were waiting to be made into salad.

Naruto, Sasuke, and Kakashi were walking by a bit later to the training field so they could practice. Just then Ino came dashing out of the sandwich shop holding a brown kunai, Sakura right on her heels.
“SASUKEEEEEEEEEE!!!” Ino squealed, waving the kunai around. “You gotta try this!!!”
“Hey, I was going to say that!” Sakura insisted.
“But I did it first-so HA.” Ino stuck her tongue out at Sakura. She shoved the weapon into Sasuke’s hand.
“Sasuke, really, try it!” Sakura ignored Ino’s teasing. She gave Sasuke hers as well.
“What? You mean eat it?” Naruto yelled. “You don’t eat knives!”
“No! It’s a biscuit, baka!!!” Ino yelled.
“I’d rather not.” Sasuke said, handing the biscuits back to the girls.
“But they’re really good!” Ino said. She looked like she was about to cry.
“Don’t even start, Ino!” Naruto said. “I’LL try it.”
“It’s not the same as Sasuke…” Ino sniffled, handing him the biscuit.
Naruto bit into it.
“WOW!! WHAT’S IN THIS???” he yelled. “It’s not as good as ramen, but it sure beats fruit!”
Naruto threw the apple Kakashi had given him at the fence. Kakashi caught it.
“You still need to eat this.” Kakashi handed it back to him.
“Aw, man…” Naruto complained.
Just then a shuriken flew through the air and headed straight for Sasuke.
“Sasuke! Look out!” Naruto yelled.
Sakura screamed.
Ino fainted.
But it was too late.

Chapter 2: The Boy who brought back memories

“Mghchnnech!!” Sasuke said. His mouth was full of biscuit.
“Good shot, Tenten!” Neji’s voice came from the inside of the sandwich shop. Tenten high-fived him and laughed.
“I never miss!” She told him, even though he already knew.
Sasuke’s eyes got wide as the bread melted in his mouth.
“Not bad.” He said.
“Let’s take a break here.” Kakashi said. “We can’t train on an empty stomach, anyways.”
“YEAH!!” Naruto was ecstatic. “Now I can have some REAL food instead of this junk stuff!” He threw the apple up in the air, and it landed on Ino’s head, waking her up.
“HEY!” She yelled, seeing Sakura next to Sasuke as they entered the shop. She got up and ran after them.

Back in the kitchen, Andoryu was talking to Kurea.
“I guess you are done for the day.” He said. “The noon shift workers will be coming in soon.”
“Ok” Kurea said, taking off the apron. “I probably need to train anyway.”
“Those ninja really liked your biscuits. They’re still sitting there talking with some of their friends.”
“Umm, ok.” Kurea wasn’t sure why he was telling her this.
Just then someone called Andoryu and he went to go talk to them.
Kurea turned to go upstairs to her room. She was renting the apartment above the shop, since it was cheap and work was only a few steps away.
“Wait a minute.” Andoryu said, coming back.
“Huh?” Kurea turned back around.
“Those ninja want to meet you and thank you in person.”
“Oh, great. I’m not good at talking to people I don’t really know.”
“That’s fine.” Andoryu said. “But the customers must be satisfied!”
“Alright, if I have to.” Kurea said. “Just let me get it over with.”
She pushed the door open.
“Hey, those biscuits were really good, dattebayo!” Naruto yelled.
“Keep it down, Naruto!” Sakura banged him on the head.
“Thank you for the food. It was all very good!” Asuma said.
“Uh, yeah… sure.” Kurea mumbled.
“Huh? What did you say? I couldn’t hear you.” Ino said.
“Oh.. uh, nothing important” Kurea said. She looked around at the group of ninjas who would most likely become her colleagues. A pretty diverse crowd. Each person quickly introduced themselves.
Kurea listened, but kept her eyes to the ground, not noticing faces at all.
Just then Kakashi whispered something to Sasuke, whose eyes opened wide like if he had a great idea.
“Well, uh, it was nice meeting you, but I have to go…” Kurea said.
“Already?” Lee complained. Then he smiled. “I hope I see you around then!”
Kurea looked up at him. Her eyes grew wide.
H-he’s the spitting image of... of… Giru…
“What are you planning on doing this afternoon?” Sasuke asked. Kurea tore her attention away from thoughts of her old Sensei and the boy who looked almost exactly like him.
“Training…. and exploring.”Kurea absentmindedly told him.
“Hey, you’re a ninja?” Naruto asked.
Kurea nodded.
“Oh, well I was thinking maybe we could go see a movie or something… I know of some good ones that are playing.” Sasuke said, smiling.
Kakashi smiled. This plan was an excellent idea. He thought. Good thing someone showed up so Sasuke could put it into action.
Kurea scrunched up her face. “Uh, no thanks….” She looked over again at Lee, who was now saying something to Sasuke, who looked totally uninterested.
“I’ll go with you Sasuke!!!!” Ino and Sakura yelled at the same time.
“Come to think of it I have some things to do at home.” Sasuke said, not thrilled with the fact that both girls obsessed over him all the time.
Lee turned back to Kurea and waved, smiling.
Kurea almost couldn’t take it. She forced a small smile and turned and ran back through the kitchen, and up the stairs to her room, where she threw herself onto her bed and started sobbing into her pillow.
Her gaze fell upon her headband, wrapped around her Bible. She picked it up and clenched it in her fist.
“Giru-Sensei… I miss you so much.” She whispered. A tear fell onto the metal plate, sliding around the grooves cut into the metal, and then fell onto the pillow.
After laying there for a few minutes, she picked up her Bible, asking God for anything to jump out at her, anything to help her get over this sadness. She knew that Giru had loved God, and he was now as happy as he could be. She knew he hadn’t wanted her to be sad for him. She flipped through the pages. Suddenly the word comfort caught her eye, and she opened the Book to that page.
Jeremiah 31:13 (NIV)
13 Then maidens will dance and be glad,
young men and old as well.
I will turn their mourning into gladness;
I will give them comfort and joy instead of sorrow.“
God, please give me comfort and joy!” she cried and clutched the Bible to her chest, sobbing, but soon her sobs turned into laughs, and she choked on the tears that stopped flowing.
She sat up and wiped her face with her sleeve.
“Thank you, God.” She sent a smile in an upward direction. A breeze blew through her window and she almost heard words carried through the wind-
Anytime.
Kurea tied her headband onto her forehead, and ran downstairs and outside.
“I’m going to learn this town inside out and backwards.” She said aloud. “When Besani gets here, I’ll be able to show her around.”

Chapter 3: Overdue papers and mysteries solved

Tsunade had snuck out of her office, and was taking a walk around town. Suddenly a blue and brown streak whizzed past her.
An intruder? She wondered, and grabbed the stranger by the arm.
“I don’t recognize you.” Tsunade told her. “You’re going to have to come to interrogation.”
“Wha?” the girl looked confused. “What did I do?”
Tsunade ignored her and dragged her towards the ANBU dispatch station.
She was not happy to see Shizune waiting for her.
“Lady Tsunade, you slacker!” her assistant held a bunch of papers in her hand. “These are all overdue!”
“Well, I caught an intruder. I wasn’t wasting time.” Tsunade presented the confused Kurea to an ANBU official.
Shizune sighed and showed one of the papers to the official.
“Lady Tsunade, Kurea Akihoshi has already filled out the village registration form and gotten a legal lease to stay here.” He handed the paper to the Hokage.
“Oh..” Tsunade seemed embarrassed. “Sorry about that.”
Kurea smiled. “That’s ok.”
Shizune grabbed Tsunade by the arm and began dragging her back to the office. “It’s most definitely NOT okay! If Tsunade had been on schedule with the paperwork this never would have happened.”
“Can I go now?” Kurea asked the ANBU.
“Yes.”
Kurea took off running after Shizune and Tsunade.
“Wait!! You’re the Hokage right? I need to talk to you!”
Shizune stopped and dropped Tsunade on the ground.
“I can’t get any respect around here.” Tsunade complained. “What did you need?”
Kurea pointed to her headband. “I’d like to become a registered shinobi of the Leaf. My sensei and I were always traveling, so I don’t have a village that I can call home. I was born in the Star Village, but ever since I was one year old I have been moving around everywhere. I wear this cross headband, even though there’s not a cross village, to show my loyalty to God above any village.” Kurea explained. “But I still would like to become an official ninja and go on missions and stuff.”
“Well then.” Tsunade said. “Maybe I can fix that problem of yours.”
“Really?”
“I can give you a test and depending on how well you complete it, maybe I can make you an official Genin.”
“That’d be neat!” Kurea said. “And I have a friend who should be showing up soon- she traveled with me a lot, so maybe she could take the test too. Her mother was from this very village originally, and she decided to return here to live with her relatives.”
“Well, then as soon as she shows up, I’ll have you two take the test together. Who’s she related to, anyway?”
“Her mother was an Inuzuka, and her father’s surname was something really long that nobody could remember, so she calls herself Besani Morihana.”
“Hm. Her mother wouldn’t happen to be the Kyarorain who ran away from the village some time ago, would she?”
“That’s the one.”
“Hm. Ok. Well, as soon as Besani gets here, you’ll find me at the round red building over there. Then you can meet with me about the tests.”
“Ok then, can I train until she shows up?”
“That’s ok by me.” Tsunade said. “There’s a practice field over that way.”
“Great! Also I have another question, do you know where I could find a Might Guy? I have to ask him something.”
“He’s most likely training Lee, Tenten, and Neji in that practice field I just pointed out to you.”
“Thanks!” Kurea took off running.
Lee’s his student? Actually that makes sense now, since he looks a lot like Giru. He seems like a cool guy. Maybe I should get to know him better. Kurea smiled. Who am I kidding? I’m too shy for something like that. He’s really cute when he smiles though.Kurea laughed at herself. I think I’m crushing…
She was closing in on the training field. She slowed her pace to a brisk walk and as she got even closer, tiptoed over and peered through the fence.
Tenten was throwing weapons as Neji skillfully dodged every single one. Lee was doing upright push-ups on his thumbs.
Wow. That takes some serious perseverance. Kurea thought. He’s so cool!
“Are you spying?” Naruto came up next to Kurea and also looked through the fence.
“Eh, not really, I’m gonna go in there in a sec.” Kurea said. She barely knew Naruto, but he was easy to talk to- unlike most other people.
“Lee’s really amazing.” Naruto said. “It’s really encouraging to anybody to watch him train. I sit here to watch Guy’s team practice a lot.”
“Cool. So are we going to just sit here watching them forever?” Kurea asked.
“I was just planning to go train too, so let’s go in now.” Naruto said.
“Alright.” Kurea said, adjusting her socks.
Naruto pushed the gate open.
“Hey guys, are you coming to train with us?” Tenten asked.
“Yep” Naruto said.
“I think so” Kurea said quietly. She searched the area. There! There he was! Might Guy- Konoha’s famed green beast- the man she really had to talk to.
“Well then let us begin!” Lee said from behind Kurea and Naruto.
Kurea jumped.
How did he get here so fast?
“We can train in a mock battle!” Guy proclaimed.
“ALRIGHT!!!” Naruto yelled. “Multi shadow clone Jutsu!!” The field was suddenly filled up with clones of Naruto.
Lee started practicing Taijutsu on them.
“Leaf Hurricane!” Another few clones went down.
“Well don’t just stand there!” Tenten said. “It’s all of us against Naruto’s clones!”
“Oh, ok!” Kurea said. She hadn’t exactly figured out what was going on.
Poof! Another clone vanished.
Tenten pulled out a scroll, bit her thumb and ran it along the middle, causing it to transform into a large ball on the end of a chain. She whirled it through an entire row of Naruto clones.
“Byakugan!” Neji yelled as several Naruto clones came rushing toward him. He fended off each attack perfectly.
Kurea silently used the Leaf Hurricane to finish off the last few clones.
“How… how did you know the leaf hurricane?!?” Guy-Sensei asked.
“My Sensei taught it to me.” Kurea responded.
“But the only people alive who know that technique are Lee and I!”
“Well, maybe I can clear some things up.” Kurea said. “I need to talk to you.”
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“Are you absolutely sure?” Guy-Sensei asked Kurea later as they were talking behind a big rock. The others were sitting in the open farther away.
“As sure as I can be.” Kurea said.
“I can’t believe it!” Guy said. “I thought my brother was dead all this time, but he was really just travelling and training you!”
“That’s right.”
“Where is he now?” Guy asked.
Kurea looked at the ground sadly. “He died helping the Village Hidden in the Sand defend itself from a group of Rouge Ninja. As he lay dying, the last thing he told me was to go to Konoha and have you help me complete my training.”
“My poor brother!” Guy wailed. “At least he died for an honorable cause!”
“I was sad too. In fact… I was pretty down about it just this morning when I saw Lee…” Kurea said. “But Giru-Sensei told me not to waste my time crying for him. He’s in a better place now after all- I should be happy for him. Instead he wanted me to keep following my Nindo.”
She wiped her eyes, and sniffled a little bit.
“I will always do what I am convinced is right. I will resist evil, trust God, and I will always fight for the things I believe in, no matter the cost.” She recited. “That is my Nindo, my Ninja Way.”
“I will honor my brother’s wishes.” Guy said. “I’ll ask the Hokage if she can make an exception and allow me to have 4 kids on my team instead of three.”
“Thank you so much!” Kurea said.

Chapter 4: Party plans and test preparation

“Hey, Hinata, Shino!” A boy and his dog came running up to his teammates, who were walking toward the training field.
“What is it, Kiba?” The small girl asked, as she petted Akamaru.
“I just got a letter from my cousin, Besani! She’s coming tomorrow! I’m going to throw a welcome party and I’m gathering people to help set it up! Wanna help?”
“Sure!” Hinata said.
“I’m in” Shino said.
“Can we find N-N-Naruto-kun to help, too?” Hinata asked quietly.
“I was just going to look for him next.” Kiba said.
They arrived at the training field and found Naruto there, along with Lee, Tenten, and Neji. They were sitting in a circle in the grass.
“What’s up?” Naruto asked.
“W-w-we’re, um, throwing a welcome party for Besani Morihana, Kiba’s cousin!” Hinata said.
“Besani.” Naruto said. “That name sounds familiar…”
“Of course it sounds familiar! She’s Kurea’s best friend!” Sakura said, joining them. “I heard Lady Tsunade talking about them both taking the ninja test together.”
Kurea and Guy walked over from the rock where they had been talking.
“Hey, you’re Kiba, right?” Kurea asked, pointing at him.
“How did you know?” Kiba asked.
“You have the same face markings as Besani!” Kurea said. Then it hit her. “Besani’s going to be showing up anytime now and I totally forgot!”
“Don’t worry, I didn’t forget.” Kiba said.
They got hard to work getting the party together.
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The next day, Besani Morihana and her little black dog, Uwagi, were sprinting down the path towards the Leaf Village.
“They are within 100 feet of the gate.” Lee said into his walkie-talkie, from a tree nearby. Everyone else was hiding near the entrance.
“Alright. We’re all ready here.” Kiba replied.
“You’re going to have a new friend, Akamaru!” Kiba told his dog.
“Arf!” Akamaru seemed excited.
“Thanks to Shikamaru’s elaborate plans, the party is sure to go off without a hitch.” Ino said.
“I’m so excited!” Kurea yelled while jumping around. “I haven’t seen Besani in AGES!!”
“Keep it down, will ya?” Neji hushed her.
“Sorry!” she whispered.
“20 feet and closing!” Lee’s voice came over the walkie-talkie.
“Get ready…” Tenten began.
“NOW!” Choji said.
“SURPRISE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” everyone yelled as they jumped out of their hiding places.
“What is all this?” Besani asked, while Uwagi went crazy barking.
“It’s your welcome to the village party!” Kiba said.
“Kiba!! It’s been forever!” Besani said, hugging her cousin.
“Yeah.” He replied.
“Besani!” Kurea came over, waving.
“Kurea! I haven’t seen you since that one trip to Suna!”
“Yup!” Kurea grinned. “I got here first, as promised.”
After introductions were made, the whole group went to Ichiraku Ramen to eat.
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Meanwhile, at the Hokage’s place…
“They sure look like they’re having fun.” Lady Tsunade said.
Shizune came to the window to watch the group running down the street toward Ichiraku’s. Akamaru and Uwagi ran ahead of the rest, barking at each other.
Tsunade smiled. “Soon we’ll have two more ninja, which is good. We’ve been a little short lately.”
“Who are you going to place them under?” Shizune asked.
“Hmm.” Tsunade pondered this for a moment. “I hadn’t thought of that. I think I’ll put Besani in Kakashi’s group since Sakura’s training under me to be a medical ninja.”
“And what of Kurea?”
“Hmm… she’ll probably do well in Asuma’s group… and since Shikamaru is a Chunin now, he doesn’t really need to be in a group anymore.”
Just then Guy burst through the door.
“Sorry for not knocking- but I’ve got an urgent request.”
“Let’s hear it.” Tsunade said.
“I’d like to request that Kurea Akihoshi be on my team once she has passed the ninja test.”
“Any specific reasons, Guy? I was going to put her on Asuma’s team.”
“Yes, actually, a most important reason.”
“Continue…”
“Her Sensei who traveled with her and did her training was none other than Might Giru!”
“Your brother? I thought he had died!”
“He did die. But very recently. He was Kurea’s traveling Sensei, and she told me that his dying wish was that I continue her training.”
“Very well then. Starting immediately after the ninja test, in the event that she should pass, she will be part of Team Guy.”
“Thank you ma’am.”
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About a week later, after Kurea and Besani had gotten used to Konoha and met most of the people there; they were taking a walk together. Uwagi ran ahead, barking playfully.
“Kurea! Besani!”
They both turned to see Shizune running towards them.
“What is it, Shizune?”
“Lady Tsunade would like to see both of you right away. It’s about the Ninja Tests.”
“Alright!” Kurea said.
“Race you!” Besani said to Kurea.
They both took off running with Uwagi close behind. Shizune smiled. “I think they will be very good ninja, how about you, Tonton?” she asked her pet pig.
“Oink!” Tonton agreed.
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Meanwhile, Lee and Guy were training in the woods.
“Did you… find… out… why… Kurea knew… the leaf hurricane?” Lee asked his teacher, as he repeatedly practiced a side kick on a tree stump. The bark was getting thin.
“Yes, actually I did.”
“That is wonderful! I must know! Please tell me, Guy-Sensei!!”
“Well it turns out that her traveling teacher was my brother.”
“That is impossible, Sensei! You told me your brother died when you were both young!”
“Apparently I was mistaken.”
“But Sensei, you are never wrong!”
“I never knew for sure.”
“Hmm.” Lee stood still and thought for a moment. “Why did she come to the leaf village?”
“Apparently Giru’s dying wish was that I complete her training.”
“That is a noble reason. I will help you train her! It would do me good, right?” Lee resumed kicking the stump.
“That seems reasonable. But she may not like to be trained by someone her own age.”
“In that case, I will leave it to you. But I hope Kurea does not mind.”
“Hope I don’t mind what?” Kurea jumped down from a tree.
“Aaah!” Lee was so startled that he didn’t control the force of his kick and knocked the entire top off of the stump.
“Were you eavesdropping?” Guy asked her.
“No, I just got here.” Kurea said. “Besides, if I had been listening to the entire conversation, I wouldn’t have had to ask my question.” She turned to Lee. “What do you hope I don’t mind?”
“When you become a member of Team Guy, Lee would like to help with your training.” Guy answered for his student.
“That is right!” Lee agreed. He tilted his head a bit to the left and smiled.
“Of course I don’t mind!” Kurea said. “Oh, I almost forgot, Lady Tsunade needs you two.”
--------------------------------------
“I’m glad you’re here.” Lady Tsunade said after Lee and Guy got to her office. “I need you two to go on a mission for me.”
“What kind of mission?” Guy asked. “Guarding a national treasure?”
“Actually no, it’s a C rank escort mission.”
“Excuse me if I am being rude, but why are you putting us on an easy mission like this one?” Lee asked.
“I need someone who’s fast to do this job. You two seemed perfect. Here’s the deal. I need you to get Gaara, Kankuro, and Temari from the Sand village. Nobody’s after them, so I don’t think you’ll be attacked. I need them here within a week though.”
“May I ask why?” Guy asked.
“They will be conducting the Ninja test for Besani and Kurea.”
“We are not using a local instructor?” Lee asked.
“No.” Lady Tsunade said- “I need someone to do it that they are not so familiar with, and who can evaluate their skill without knowing their personality.”
“Alright, we’ll be back soon, Lady Hokage!” Guy and Lee saluted, then rushed off.
---------------------------------
Meanwhile, Besani and Kurea were hard at work training.
Besani had a gong hanging from her arm. It was one of her weapons.
“Ninja Art- Gong Shattering!” She banged on it, and a deep resonating sound echoed throughout the training field. The kicking posts cracked, and the ground started shaking.
Kurea compacted herself into a ball and covered her face with her hands. When the vibrations stopped, she jumped at Besani and pulled out a Kunai. Besani blocked her attack with her gong. Then she whistled, and Uwagi jumped on top of Kurea and bit her shoulder.
“Ow!” Kurea pried the dog’s jaws off of her shoulder and set him on the ground. “Bad dog!” she said.
Uwagi whimpered.
“Hey, Uwagi, she’s the enemy right now!” Besani yelled. “Don’t hesitate to attack just because you’ve known her your whole life!”
“Arf!” Uwagi growled and jumped.
“Prayer Protection!” Kurea formed a cross sign with her fingers and closed her eyes. Uwagi hit an invisible wall, and bounced off.

(Note: This technique isn’t a jutsu. It is a shield of protection that Kurea and Besani and their teachers and teammate had discovered, protection made completely by God by using their faith. Sometimes it was strong, sometimes weak; sometimes it didn’t show up at all. This is not because God is unfaithful. He is very faithful, but sometimes He lets His children get injured or hurt so that they can be stronger next time, and so that they don’t become prideful and start thinking that it is by their own power. All they had to do was humble themselves and ask.)

Kurea opened her eyes. She looked to the sky.
“Thanks, God.” She whispered. Then looking at Besani she grinned. “Now it’s my turn on the offensive!”
“Oh yeah? Hit me with the best you’ve got!”
“I won’t use the best, I’m saving that for extreme situations! But I’ll give you my second best!”
Kurea ran up to Besani and started using advanced Taijutsu.
Besani dodged skillfully, and just as Kurea was about to kick down hard…
“Prayer Protection!”
Kurea’s foot stopped just inches from Besani’s shoulder.
And so the training continued for the rest of the week.

Chapter 5: Test of skill, Test of humor

Bright and early on Saturday morning, Kurea and Besani showed up at the Academy where the test was being held.
Some little kids were playing on the playground.
“Arf!” Uwagi said.
“Yeah, I don’t know where she is either! She said to meet her here, didn’t she?” Besani replied to her dog.
“Lady Hokage should be here by now!” Kurea said, impatiently.
“That’s what I was just saying.” Besani replied. Just then one of the kids screamed.
Besani and Kurea turned around to see a person dressed in all black, with a black mask covering their entire face except for the eyes.
“Who is that?” Kurea asked Besani.
“I don’t recognize him… or her, whatever they are.”
The stranger walked over and hushed the child, but she was still shaking.
“I’m not going to hurt you!” The person said. By the sound of the voice Kurea and Besani could tell the person was a male.
“I just want you to get in this sack and come with me so I can get money from your mommies and daddies.”
Kurea’s eyes widened. “That guy’s up to no good!” She said.
“I agree!”
“Arf!”
It was Uwagi’s bark that made the person turn around.
“Hey, I can’t have any witnesses, now can I?” He said, staring down Besani and Uwagi.
“You can and you do!” Kurea came up behind him. She had snuck around the back of the play ground and was now standing between the man and the children.
“You think you’re going to stop me?”
“Why not? I seem to have some time on my hands until Lady Tsunade gets here.”
The guy seemed nervous. “If she’s coming, I’m leaving!” He started running.
“Not so fast!” Besani moved in front of him holding her gong out like a shield. BAAAANG!! He crashed right into it and fell flat on his back.
Kurea nudged him with her foot.
“He’s out cold.” She said.
“That was easy.” Besani said.
“Yeah.” Kurea agreed.
-------------------------------
Behind the fence…
Temari winced. “That had to have hurt.”
“He should be waking up soon, though.” Gaara commented on how Kankuro’s feet had started twitching.
“I don’t think they realize this is part of the test, though.” Temari said.
Gaara smiled. “That’s the point.”
Temari stood up. “Hello, girls!”
“Who are you?” Kurea asked.
“Yeah, I haven’t seen you around.” Besani added.
“I’m Temari, a sand ninja. That guy there on the ground is my brother, Kankuro.” Temari said as she jumped the fence and landed near the girls.
“Do you realize that he was trying to kidnap some kids?” Besani asked.
“He wasn’t really.” Temari said. “That was the first part of the Ninja test and you passed with flying colors.”
Kurea and Besani looked confused.
“I thought Lady Tsunade was administering the test!” Kurea said.
“That’s what she said, but she actually hired us to do it. She wanted us to evaluate your skills from the point of view of a complete stranger.” Temari explained.
“o-kay…” Besani said.
Just then Kankuro sat up. “ouch!” he said, rubbing his head. He pulled off the mask to reveal a normal face with purple paint stripes. They were kind of smeared from his sweat and the mask.
“Hi Temari. I assume they passed?”
“Yes.”
“Where’s Gaara?”
“I’m over here.” Gaara stood up. “Tsunade said we should go easy on them, but I think this was too easy.”
“Yeah, that’s true.” Kankuro said. “I didn’t even use my puppets.”
--------------------------------
Later that day, Besani and Kurea stood in Lady Tsunade’s office.
“How come you told them to go EASY on us?” Kurea complained. “I was bored!”
Oh, no. Tsunade inwardly groaned. Not another complainer…
“I don’t mean to be rude, but I have to agree with Kurea here.” Besani stated.
“Alright already!” Tsunade said. “Remember that this is just a test to become Genin. I know you are more advanced than a student just coming out of the academy, but this is the test we have to give you because you are not to Chunin level yet, and besides, you have to already be a Genin to take the Chunin exam.”
Kurea sighed and stared out the window.
“Well, Lady Hokage, what comes next?” Besani inquired.
“The three sand ninja are working with a couple of our proctors to come up with a written exam for you to take.”
“Written?!? Why?!?” Kurea said.
“Don’t get all riled up, Kurea.” Besani said. “Remember it’s the same level as students coming out of the Academy.”
“Oh right, I forgot.” Kurea looked relieved. “This will be a breeze.”
-------------------
Meanwhile, the sand ninja and some leaf proctors were compiling the written test.
“I think this will be too easy for them.” Temari said. “I wish we could give them something more advanced.”
“Well, orders are orders.” One of the proctors said.
“I know, I know.” Temari replied. “But I want to put just one hard question on there.”
“Suit yourself, but it must be extra credit so that getting it wrong won’t affect their test scores.”
Temari smirked. “Alright. Kankuro, got any ideas?”
“My head still hurts.” Kankuro complained. “So I can’t help you.”
“Well then who should I have help me?”
“Go look around.” Kankuro said. “But don’t bother me- I need some ice.”
--------------------------------
Later that day, Kurea, Besani and Uwagi were sitting in an empty academy classroom. Kurea and Besani were talking since Iruka and the sand shinobi hadn’t arrived yet. Uwagi was only listening.
“Did you see that boy?”Besani asked Kurea.
“Which one, the one with the eyeliner, or the face paint?” Kurea asked.
“Face paint. Kankuro.” Besani said.
“Ok. Your point?” Kurea asked.
“Well… He was kinda cute!” Besani said. Absolutely dreamy… She was thinking.
Uwagi looked up questioningly.
“So you like him or something?” Kurea asked.
“I didn’t say that!” Besani said quickly.
Just then Iruka walked in with some papers. “You’re a little older than most taking these exams.” He said.
“We just never got a chance to before, is all. It’s not like we failed it tons of times.” Kurea checked her watch and blew at her hair.
“Hmm.” Iruka said. “Well, as your exam administrator, I guess I’ll give you your tests now.”
“That’d be nice.” Besani said. “We’ve been waiting for half an hour now.”
“Sorry about that.” Temari said while walking in with her brothers. “It took me a while to think of the extra credit question. Usually I would just have Kankuro do it, but…”
“My brain hurts.” Kankuro complained, shifting his ice pack.
“heh heh, sorry ‘bout that…” Besani apologized.
“I’ve been worse.” Kankuro replied. I still can’t believe I got knocked out by a girl! He thought. She’s skilled. Even though I WAS being careless… She’s pretty too. Aaah! Where did that come from? I swear I’m going crazy!
“You may start now!” Iruka said.
Besani and Kurea flipped over their papers and started writing.
Kurea laughed in her head. The first question is: ‘what is a shuriken?’ gosh, these are easy…
Uwagi was taking the test too. He is a very intelligent dog and he knows how to hold a pencil, read, and write. But he can’t talk. Yet.
Since Kurea and Besani both trained under a traveling Sensei (Besani trained under her mother, Kyarorain, who was good friends with Might Giru, so they traveled together a lot, and became best friends, but that’s beside the point), they knew about more than just Leaf village history. When asked to list all the Hokages in order, they both wrote down this information plus all the Kazekages as well. They figured this might score them extra credit with the examiners from Suna.
They passed through every question easily, until they got to the extra credit question.
“What is this?” Besani asked herself in a whisper.
Kurea wrinkled up her nose. “This is a hard question, Chunin level at least.”
“Nah. If it was Chunin level, it wouldn’t be so confusing. I’ve seen Chunin level problems before. It’s probably Jonin level.” Besani said.
Uwagi just whimpered.
“I can get this kind of question if I’m looking at the actual situation…” Kurea started. All of a sudden she sat up and raised her hand. “Iruka-Sensei?”
“Yes, Kurea, are you finished?”
“Not yet. I was just wondering, is it against the rules to put myself in a genjutsu so that I can see the problem as if I were in it?”
Iruka turned to Temari to ask her.
“Kurea, you can’t do that!” Besani told her.
“If it’s allowed I can, even though I’m not good at it.” Kurea persisted.
“No, Kurea, you know you can’t do Genjutsu. You just can’t!”
“I know what you say usually happens, but maybe it doesn’t happen anymore! I won’t know until I try!”
“Alright, that’s against the rules, sorry Kurea.” Iruka said.
“Darn.” Kurea sulked.
Besani sighed in relief. If only you could remember, Kurea, you’d know why genjutsu is so dangerous for you. Sometimes I just get scared that one day you’ll want to try it again, and nobody else will be around.
Just then Uwagi trotted across the room and handed his paper to Iruka.
“Besani, it looks like your dog is smarter than we are!” Kurea whispered to Besani.
Besani raised her hand.
“Yes, Besani?” Iruka said.
“Are we allowed to work together on the extra credit problem?” she asked.
“Yes you may.” Temari said, before Iruka had a chance to ask her.
“Whew!” Besani said.
“Alright, let’s read it over again.” Kurea said.
If you are in the forest surrounded by 4 enemy ninja, all stronger than you, and the only weapons you have are four shuriken, eight senbon, three paper bombs, five kunai, and six poison smoke bombs, and your chakra level has depleted to almost zero, how should you use these weapons to make your escape?
“Maybe we should just sit there and hope they go away.” Kurea said.
“If they have you surrounded, it would seem that they’re trying to attack you.” Besani said.
“Ah.” Kurea said. “You have a point there.”
“I think, first off, we should pray.” Besani said.
“That’s a given.” Kurea agreed. “That’s the first thing to do no matter what the situation is.”
“Well, let’s pray now, to ask God to help us figure this thing out.”
They joined hands and talked to God for a bit.
“Alright, I think we’re ready to tackle this now.” Besani said.
“Okay, so if we use the poison smoke bombs, the smoke would spread out and we might be able to get away, but since we don’t know exactly where the enemy is located, we’d have to throw them in all directions, therefore cutting off any getaway route.” Kurea said.
“Figure all that out by yourself did you?”
“Stop being sarcastic, Besani. I’m trying to figure this out.”
“Hey, you know, since this question is way out of our league, and it doesn’t really count towards our score since we already got 100% anyway, let’s make a goofy answer that will make them laugh like crazy.”
“We’ll work separately then.” Kurea said.
“Ok” Besani said with a sneaky little grin on her face.

Chapter 6: Puppy love and the results of wit

Later…
“How did they do on the main test?” Gaara asked.
“100%.” Iruka answered. “As expected.”
“And my extra credit question?” Temari asked.
“You mean OUR extra credit question, right?” they all turned to see Shikamaru laying on a couch, with a pillow over his face.
“Shikamaru!” Temari said, surprised.
“Who let you in here?” Iruka demanded.
“My dad.” Shikamaru replied. “It was troublesome, but I had to come with him to the Academy so Mom could have some relaxation time. It’s such a drag that you can’t see the clouds very well from inside. Anyway, Temari, don’t forget you couldn’t have come up with that Jonin level question without my help.”
“Uh, yeah… I was just planning to add that…” Temari chuckled nervously.
“Well, I’m interested too.”Shikamaru said, picking the pillow up off of his face and examining it. “Did any of them get it right?”
“I haven’t looked yet.” Iruka said. He pulled out the last sheet of paper from each test.
“Well?” Kankuro asked.
“Tell us!” Temari said.
Gaara just stood there.
“You don’t have to if it’s too much of a bother.” Shikamaru said.
“Shut up! Yes he does have to tell us!” Temari ran over and covered Shikamaru’s mouth with her hand so he couldn’t spout off any more ‘it’s so boring’ nonsense.
Shikamaru dropped the pillow back onto his face so nobody could see him turning red.
“Anyway” Iruka said. “Uwagi drew a diagram full of dog biscuits and then there are a few random doodles of Besani and Kankuro with hearts around them, and…”
“WHAT THE HECK!!??!!” Everyone shouted at once.
“Hold on everybody, a dog’s writing is hard to read.” Iruka said. “This is what he wrote: Besani and me would put the paper bombs on the Kunai knives and throw them up as flares to call for help. The Sand ninjas would come to help but Gaara would trip over a root on the way there and fall flat on his face, and Temari would forget her fan and have to go back for it, and Kankuro would come and save us and then Besani and Kankuro would fall in love or something because in my opinion (and I’m a very smart dog) they would be perfect for each other.”
Everyone burst out laughing, even Shikamaru, who had sat up and was leaning over the paper like everyone else.
“I don’t trip over roots.” Gaara said suddenly.
“I never leave my fan behind.” Temari said.
“Uwagi is a very smart dog.” Kankuro said. Everyone turned to look at him. “That wasn’t out loud, was it?”
“Yes, it was.” They chorused.
Kankuro looked down, and turned red. “Oh. Heh, heh, I meant, Uwagi’s smart for being able to write and draw like that, heh, heh?”
Temari and Gaara looked at each other and snickered.

“Alright, everybody.” Iruka said. “Now let’s see what Besani wrote.”
“From the human test-takers I hope that we can expect a more serious answer.” Shikamaru stated.
Iruka started reading. “It seems to me that since I am surrounded I’m going to die. If my chakra level is depleted to almost zero I wouldn’t be able to make it home anyway. Since it seems I’m going to die either way…. I will take out all of my ninja tools and lay them on the ground in the form of a stick person and then start talking to it. I would talk to it about birthdays and panda ears, and what it wants to do when aliens invade the earth. Hopefully I’d amuse them so that they wouldn’t kill me. Then I will use my last chakra to turn myself into a big bouncy orange elephant and roll around making a low buzzing sound like a fly. Then I’ll start eating dirt. I’m gonna die anyway, right? Then I’ll ask them to throw me a dying party. Hopefully by now they’ll be so weirded out that they will go away and leave me alone until I can recover and go back to the village. The End.”
“uhhhhhh” Temari said. “I’m a little weirded out myself!”
“But it might work.” Kankuro said.
“There’s a 1 in 100 chance, MAYBE.” Gaara said.
“This is so bothersome.” Shikamaru said.
“Well, what did you expect them to do? Figure it out?” Iruka asked. “Not everyone has your IQ.”
“You have a point there…” Shikamaru said.
------------------------------------
Meanwhile… outside
“What are they doing now?” Besani asked. Kurea had her face up to a little hole in the side of the academy.
“They’re reading your answer… Now they’re all acting a little weirded out… except Kankuro. He said it might work… but Gaara’s disagreeing.”
“I still can’t believe you wrote that Uwagi!” Besani was now reprimanding her dog.
“I thought it was cute.” Kurea said.
“I kinda thought it was cute too…” Besani agreed. She sighed. “But it would have been much better if they didn’t read it in front of Kankuro though…”
“Why not? Now you know he likes you.”
“Not for sure…”
“Oh, shhh…. They’re reading mine now.”
“Lemme see!” Besani shoved Kurea out of the way.
“It’s MY answer!” Kurea protested.
“Well YOU watched when they read MINE so it’s only fair.” Besani retorted.
“I guess you’re right…” Kurea said, giving up her spot on the wall.
----------------------------
Back in the teacher’s lounge:

“Now for Kurea’s answer.” Iruka started reading. “Hi, my name is Kurea. I think you knew that. I wrote it at the top of my paper. Well, apparently, I’m surrounded by four strong enemy ninja who I can’t defeat and all I have are these lousy weapons. I can’t fight, so I’m gonna get pummeled. Thanks a lot Shikamaru. Yes I know you wrote this. Temari couldn’t possibly have come up with it all on her own… at least not if it had an answer. But never mind that. Back to the ‘impossible’ problem.”
“How did she know?” Temari wondered. “I didn’t know anybody else had even known you were here!”
“Well I did say hi to her when she was going into the classroom…” Shikamaru commented.
“Ahem” Iruka said. “I’ll just continue reading now.”
“Now everyone’s going to think I’m stupid!!” Temari said.
“You’re not stupid!” Shikamaru said. “Everyone else is just… troublesome.”
Temari laughed. “Sometimes I think your entire vocabulary consists of the words ‘troublesome’ ‘boring’ and ‘what a drag’.”
“Ahem! Thank you.” Iruka said and everyone shut up. “I know that I have poison smoke bombs but with my low chakra level I’m just going to get poisoned with them anyway since I can’t run. So here’s the plan. Let’s just say that Naruto is tied to a tree. Obviously I go and untie him. Then since he’s unconscious he randomly says ‘hey diddle diddle.’ That’s all it takes. A cat rushes in with a stringed instrument and a cow magically appears. Me and Naruto get on the back of the cow and it jumps over the moon. I push Naruto off to live on the moon for good measure (don’t worry I left him with plenty of ramen), and then I land back in Konoha on the cow. A little dog… Hey, Akamaru, I need you or Uwagi, or maybe both of you, to laugh at Naruto stuck on the moon… and then I’ll just send the dish and the spoon to go up there and help Naruto eat his ramen. He can come back to earth by turning the dish into a flying saucer or something. I don’t know. But anyway….”
“uhhh, ok?” Gaara said.
“Is that the answer?” Kankuro asked.
“No way.” Shikamaru said.
Iruka was in tears. “I love it! She combined classical poetry with a problem and created a modern parallel! A stroke of genius!! But I’ll have to take points off for bad grammar.”
Everybody was staring at Iruka weirdly.
“You gotta remember that he’s an elementary school teacher…” Temari reminded them.
----------------------------------------
Outside- Again.
“That wasn’t really as funny as you said it was, Kurea.” Besani said.
“Yeah, well I was drawing a blank.” Kurea said, sitting down against the building with her feet outstretched.
Just then they heard a noise off in the distance.
“Go, go, go, go, go! Faster!!! If you can’t make it to the academy in ten more seconds, it’s one hundred laps around the world!”
“Sounds like Guy’s training Lee.” Besani said.
“One hundred laps around the world is a bit much… Whoa!”
Kurea said whoa partly in amazement because Lee was coming up almost at the speed of sound. The other reason was that Lee tripped over her feet and fell flat on his face.
“Lee, are you ok?” She asked.
He gave a thumbs up. “I am just fine…” He grinned, then he fell asleep from exhaustion.
“That’s funny, he’s usually just fine when it comes to dodging things. To think he tripped over an unmoving object… er, person.” Guy said as he came jogging along.
“In my opinion he was a little bit distracted.” Besani said pointing to Kurea, who was trying to wake Lee up.
“Huh?” Kurea said, looking up.
“Oh, nothing…” Besani said.

Chapter 7: Classrooms and Kurea’s courage

The next day, Kurea and Besani were back at the academy again. Only this time, they were sitting in a room full of noisy little kids.
“I can’t believe they’re actually making us do this!!” Kurea groaned.
“At least it’s only one month.” Besani said.
“Ugh.” Kurea brushed eraser dust off the desk into the kid’s hair who was sitting in front of her.
“You don’t want to do stuff like that, Kurea.” Besani warned her. “Or Iruka might call attention to you and that’s the last thing you want, right?”
“Sure, sure.” Kurea rolled her eyes.

FLASHBACK
This is the evening of the day before, when Kurea and Besani were getting their test results back.
“Well” Lady Tsunade said. “From your test scores and performance ability, I would say that you have passed the test.”
“YES!!” Kurea jumped around. “Finally I can do non-boring stuff!!!!!!!!!!!!!”
“SHUT UP!” Tsunade said.
“Why so harsh?” Besani asked. “She’s excited.”
“I don’t need two Narutos.” Tsunade said.
“Huh?” said Kurea.
“Never mind.” Lady Tsunade rolled her eyes. “Anyways, as I was saying, I WOULD say that you have passed, but I overlooked one thing…”
“What is that?” Besani asked.
“You mean we failed?!?” Kurea questioned.
“Yes, I’m sorry, you failed. But it’s not really your fault. I was reading this morning when I came across the rules for Genin graduation.”
“And…?” Besani said.
“You have to have spent at least half a month at the Academy in order to graduate.”
“But- that’s where little kids are.” Kurea said.
“Yes, I’m sorry.”
“So, what you’re saying is, we have to take all these classes about things that we already know, just so that we can graduate to a level we already excel in?” Besani said.
“I’m afraid so.” Tsunade answered.
“However.” Iruka said, “I will refer to you as my ‘Junior Teachers’ so that the kids hopefully will not make fun of you and your friends won’t think you’re lame or anything.”
“If our friends thought we were lame, they aren’t really our friends.” Kurea pointed out.
“I don’t know, you’re pretty lame sometimes, Kurea.” Besani kidded her.
“I know.” Kurea grinned.
“Anyway.” Iruka said. “As my ‘Junior Teachers’ you will be required to help me do examples, grade papers, etc. And teach when I’m sick or whatever.”
“OK… We can do that.” Besani said.
“I guess.” Kurea said, looking really bored.
END FLASHBACK

“Ok Class!” Iruka said as he walked in. “I want to introduce to you my new helpers- Kurea Akihoshi and Besani Morihana.”
Besani and Kurea stood up.
“Hi, kids!” Besani said. “I’m Besani!”
“Hi Besani!” all the kids said.
“And I’m Kurea.” Kurea said, and immediately sat back down.
“Hi Kurea!”
“Alright, to your seats, everybody.” Iruka said. “Today, we have some special guests- the fifth Hokage, Lady Tsunade, and her faithful assistant, Shizune. We need to be quiet and respectful while they are talking. Follow the classroom rules.” Iruka said, motioning to a poster next to the chalkboard.
SIX FIVE CLASSROOM RULES!!!
Raise your hand before asking a question
No pranks
Be quiet
Listen well
Obey the teacher
Naruto Uzumaki must be restrained at all times.

“So what’s with the last one?” Kurea asked.
“Rule number one, Kurea. Raise your hand. Oh, and I wrote that back when Naruto was in my class.” Iruka laughed. “I should probably replace his name with Konohamaru’s.”
“Hey!” a kid wearing goggles and a yellow t-shirt yelled. “You can’t cross out the Boss’s name, but I’d be honored if you’d put mine UNDERNEATH it!”
“yeah, put my name there too!” Moegi said.
“Mine too!” a drippy-nosed kid with glasses named Udon said.
Just then the two women walked into the room and began their lecture.
Kurea was very bored listening to Tsunade and Shizune talk about the importance of the Hokage Faces, so she started drawing. She lost track of time and after what seemed like just two minutes, Kurea looked up to see everyone leaving the classroom.
“Come on, Kurea, class is over!” Besani said. Uwagi barked.
Kurea picked up her paper and folded it up until it was as small as a gumdrop, then put it in her pocket.
“What were you drawing, anyway?” Besani asked as they walked to the training field.
“Nothing.” Kurea said. “Nothing at all.”
“Come on, you were drawing for four hours! You’re saying that it wasn’t any good?”
“Most of the time was spent with the eraser.” Kurea said, holding up an eraser that was new from that morning, and was now down to half its size.
“Can’t you show me?” Besani said.
“Later.” Kurea said. “You can sleep over at my place tonight, then we can talk, and I’ll show you.”
Besani nodded. “So you’re saying it’s a secret, and you don’t want to open it up here because someone might see?”
“Something like that.” Kurea said. They came to the training field. They both jumped the fence in one easy leap.
“Hi guys!” Naruto said, waving like crazy.
“Hey, what’s up?” Kakashi said with one hand raised in greeting.
Sasuke just nodded.
“We were just coming here to train.” Kurea said.
“Cool.” Kakashi said. “We were just waiting for some of the other teams to get here, so we could have one big chaotic training session.”
“So, did you pass the Ninja Test?” Naruto asked.
“Technically…” Kurea said.
“But to complete the test, we have to help out at the academy for half a month.” Besani explained.
“That stinks…” Sasuke said.
“Make sure Konohamaru doesn’t go out of control.” Naruto said. “He can get wild.”
“I noticed.” Besani said.
“I didn’t.” Kurea said.
“How could you not? Oh yeah, you were drawing-”
“You can draw? Are you good? Can you teach me how to draw? I stink at it!” Naruto said.
“I can draw OK” Kurea said. “And I don’t think I can teach you. Drawing isn’t really something you teach.”
“Darn.” Naruto said.
“Well, here comes Kurenai’s team.” Kakashi commented.
“And Asuma’s.” Besani said. She headed over and started talking to Ino. Soon after, Guy’s team arrived.
“Hey, glad you’re here to train with us, Kurea, Besani.” Guy said.
“How are we going to split up the kids?” Kurenai asked. “There are fourteen of them, and two teams of seven seem too large.”
“We could have more people on the weaker teams.” Somebody suggested.
“Or maybe we could have two groups of five and one of four.” Somebody else said.
“We should just do seven groups of two.” Kurea said quietly, but over the noise, she didn’t think anyone could hear her.
Why can’t I just speak my mind?
I would be so much better off if I put my opinion out there when I need to. Maybe that’s why I’m so invisible. Well, I’m not really invisible, people notice me sometimes. Yeah, well not everyone. But I don’t want to be popular... I just want to be accepted.
Kurea sighed. Talking to herself wasn’t getting her anywhere.
She looked around. The squad leaders had started drawing up a diagram and mostly everybody was still trying to come up with a way to divide everyone up.
Kurea started to gather up her courage to speak up, but then had a better idea.
She quickly looked around for a piece of paper.
If I find paper, I can just draw up a diagram and give it to the teachers.
But then wouldn’t that defeat the purpose of talking?
I don’t want everyone watching me though, while I’m explaining.
That settles it then. Where can I find some paper?
Maybe I can find a book and tear out one of the blank back pages…
Bad idea. Kakashi’s book is the only one around. Eww.
Notebook?
Notebook!!
But that would mean talking to someone who has one… and I might as well be telling them my plan instead of writing it.
Oh well. I’m gonna stop talking to myself now. I’m just gonna go over and ask Lee if I can borrow his notebook… what am I waiting for?
I can’t do it!
Yes I can!
It’s too hard.
SNAP OUT OF IT KUREA!!! She mentally yelled at herself.
She jerked back into reality, and looked up. People were still yelling their opinions except for Hinata, who seemed to be having the same problem of quietness.
Hinata wasn’t a bad person or anything, but Kurea didn’t want to be like her. She was too quiet and shy.
“Alright, I’m gonna do this. I’m going to just go over to where Lee is and ask him if I can…”
“Ask me if you can do what, Kurea?”
“AHH!!!” Kurea jumped.
“I am sorry if I startled you.” Lee said. “You seemed to be troubled about something- so I came over to see what the matter was.”
“Uh, thanks…” Kurea said, turning away. “Actually I was just wondering if I could borrow your notebook.”
“Of course!” Lee said, fumbling around in his pockets. “Uh, here it is.”
He handed it to her and she reached to take it, but he let go too soon and it fell on the ground.
“Oh, I am sorry, I thought you had it.”
“That’s ok.”
They both reached down to pick it up at the same time. Kurea reached it first, but Lee didn’t stop and accidentally grabbed her hand along with the notebook. They both froze, not sure what was happening, when Kurea looked up to see Lee staring at her. She quickly blushed and turned away. Lee let go, apologizing even though they both knew there was absolutely nothing to be sorry about.
Everyone was still arguing, but Lee and Kurea were too busy feeling awkward that they didn’t notice.
“So, uh, what did you need to borrow my notebook for?” Lee asked, as Kurea turned to an empty page.
“I figured out a way to solve the team problem, but I didn’t want to speak up… Nobody would hear me anyway.”
“You mean seven teams of two, right?”
“Right!” Kurea said. “How come you didn’t suggest that already?”
“I tried, but everyone else is being too loud.”
“I see.” Kurea said. She wrote on the paper, ‘seven teams of two’ and then folded it into a paper airplane.
“With everyone jumping around, it is going to be hard to get it to them.” Lee reminded her.
“All I have to do is jump higher than everyone else.” Kurea said.
“Naruto is already jumping very high. Are you sure you can get higher?” Lee asked.
“Oh yeah.” Kurea said. She bent her knees, gathered the chakra to her feet, and pushed off. When she was at the peak of her jump, she threw the airplane and it flew fast and straight, since there was no breeze. Then she landed nimbly back where she jumped from.
“That was cool!” Lee said.

The airplane had zoomed right by Kakashi’s face, and he grabbed it. “Who threw this?” he demanded. “Naruto, we are trying to work here!” he started to crumple it, but was interrupted. Kurea knew she couldn’t let anyone else get in trouble for what she did.
“Naruto did not throw it!” she said, in a sudden moment of boldness. Everyone quieted down. “I threw it. I’m sorry if I hit you. It’s hard to aim when you are eight feet in the air.”
“That’s the longest thing I’ve ever heard her say!” Ino commented.
“Trust me; she can go on much longer if she’s not with lots of people.” Besani said.
But Kurea wasn’t done.
“I threw the airplane because I wanted to avoid talking. But it seems like that’s pointless now. If you had opened the airplane you would have found my idea for organizing the teams. I’m surprised you guys didn’t figure it out by now. The only way you can have even teams of more than one, with fourteen people, is by using the numbers two and seven.”
“But two teams of seven won’t work, we already clarified that.”
“That is true.” Lee said, taking over for Kurea; he had noticed she did not enjoy talking to everyone at once. “But if we have seven teams with two members each, things will work out perfectly.”
“Darn, why didn’t we think of that?” Asuma said.
“Oh, sorry.” Ino said. “Release!”
“Ino and I were talking beforehand.” Besani said. “We planned this whole thing and threw everyone into confusion with Ino’s Mind Destruction Jutsu- but only temporarily.”
“We wanted to see if Kurea would break out of her shell and actually talk.” Ino commented.
Kurea shook her fist in their direction, but she was smiling.
“Then how come Lee didn’t get hit?” She asked suddenly.
“We must have missed him.” Ino said. “He was running around a lot, so he would have been hard to hit.”
“Well, all that’s over, so let’s train!” Kakashi said.
“Yeah, well if you haven’t noticed, it’s six in the evening by now.” Besani pointed out.
“You mean we’ve been arguing about this for two hours?” Kakashi asked. “My, time does fly.”
“Alright then.” Guy said. “We meet here at 5 AM tomorrow and train all day to make up for it!”
A lot of groans came from the group of kids, except for Lee, who was overjoyed.

Chapter 8: Unexpected run-ins and the revealing of feelings

A few minutes later, Kurea and Besani were running to Kurea’s store-top apartment, talking about their plans.
“Alright, so we have to be at the training field at 5 AM so we can’t stay up extra late.” Besani said
“5 AM on a SATURDAY….” Kurea complained, picking up her feet and dashing ahead. Besani speeded up as well. Both girls were running in perfect pace, with Uwagi struggling to keep up.
Suddenly Kurea turned down an alley, and by the time Besani skidded to a stop and retraced her steps, Kurea was nowhere to be found.
“She can take care of herself.” Besani said to Uwagi, who looked worried.
“Arf!” Uwagi said.
“What do you mean, trouble?” Besani said, picking up her dog. “Is Kurea in trouble, or causing the trouble?”
“Woof!”
“Causing it, huh?”
Uwagi nodded the affirmative.
Besani followed Kurea’s footprints in the spongy dirt, until they suddenly stopped with two heavily indented footprints.
“This means she jumped, and could be in any direction.” Besani said. She stopped and sniffed the air. She had a sharp sense of smell, like Kiba, but not as strong, because she was only half Inuzuka. As she ran she thought about her mother, who had loved her father so much that she left the Inuzuka clan to marry him, even though it meant rejection by her brother, Kiba’s dad, who was against it. Thankfully, that ill feeling wasn’t shared by the rest of the clan. Besani didn’t know what she would do if Kiba refused to speak to her.
“Woof!” Uwagi’s bark pulled Besani out of her thoughts and she turned quickly just before running into the cliff that held the images of the Hokages. She smelled Kurea faintly farther up, so she gathered chakra to her feet and started running upwards, towards the scent. Eventually she came to a crack in the rock, and she squeezed through to the hollowed out cavern behind.
“You finally found us, huh?” Kurea said, with a mischievous grin on her face.
“Us?” Besani inquired. Suddenly she caught a whiff of the scent of another person. “Jaki!” She exclaimed suddenly.
“That’s right!” A girl stepped out of the shadows, her long white and maroon half-kimono stirring up a cloud of dust. Her maroon headband sported the same cross symbol as Besani and Kurea.
Besani ran up to her and gave her a big hug. “I haven’t seen you in like, forever!”
“I invited Jaki to the sleepover too, since she was in town and all. I hope you don’t mind.” Kurea said.
“Of course not!” Besani said. “But how long have you known she was here? Why didn’t you tell me?”
“Well, I only found out just now.” Kurea said. “I decided to go the long way home, and took off down the alley, when I saw something on the Hokage faces and decided to check it out. And there she was! Why are you here, anyway, Jaki?”
“I’ve been here for a couple of days.” Jaki replied as she tightened her black ponytail. “As you know, I got tired of traveling and went to settle down in the Hidden Sand. I became a registered Ninja there.” She pulled out a maroon headband with the symbol of the Village hidden in the Sand. “I wear it sometimes, to official events and such. But I prefer the one that matches you two’s. Anyway, I followed Kankuro, Temari and Gaara here; when I heard they were going to be commissioning your ninja test.”
“Do they even know you followed them?” Besani asked.
“I think Gaara sensed me a couple of times; I noticed him looking around suspiciously. But I’ve stayed pretty well hidden.”
Kurea looked at the crack where they had entered the cavern. “It’s getting dark.” She commented. “We might as well have the sleepover here.” She checked her watch. “If we’re going to get in our 8 hours, we need to be asleep within forty-five minutes.”
“How do you figure that, Kurea?” Besani asked.
“Well we ought to get up at four-thirty so we’re there on time. From midnight to then is four and a half hours. That means we need three and a half more. Twelve minus three is nine, and another half hour would be eight thirty.”
“But you said forty-five minutes. That would only be true if it was seven forty-five.” Besani pointed out.
“Oh.” Kurea looked at her watch sheepishly. “it’s only six thirty…”
“You haven’t changed much at all, have you?” Jaki laughed.
“In terms of math, no.” Kurea agreed.
They talked for a while, about training and missions and regular goings-on, when Jaki suddenly said, “Kurea?”
“Uh-huh?” Kurea responded.
“You keep mentioning this Lee person a lot. Do you like him or something?”
Kurea blushed and looked down. “Yeah.” She said. “I like him a lot. He’s really cute and nice.” Then suddenly looking up, she laughed. “I know someone who likes Besani a lot!”
“Really?” Besani asked.
“Yup-yup!” Kurea said. “Kankuro!”
“KUREA!!!” Besani said. “Not again! I told you, we don’t know for sure!”
“Well, you like him right?”
“Yeah, kinda, but what does that have to do with proving that he likes me?”
“Just making sure.” Kurea said. “I found something on the ground. A piece of paper. From Kankuro’s journal.”
“What did it say!?” Jaki and Besani both exclaimed.
“It was only a little piece. I couldn’t read it well because someone erased it, but this is what I could make out of it.”
Kurea pulled out a piece of paper.
“I traced the parts I could read in pencil so that it’d be easier to understand.”
“Today… I met… esani… she’s pretty… her dog is smart… Temari and Gaara laughed at me.” Besani read. “That’s all I can read.”
“Wow Besani!” Jaki said. “I think he does like you!”
“Maybe Kurea forged this.”
“No, this is Kankuro’s journal paper.” Jaki confirmed. “Once he lent me a piece because I needed to write something down and he had it with him.”
Besani still wasn’t convinced though.
“I really do like him, but… I don’t want to get my hopes up.” She said. Then she changed the subject. “Well, J, do you have anything to eat here?” Besani asked. “And Kurea, you have to show us your picture that you drew.”
“I’ll make us some ramen.” Jaki said, as Kurea dug in her pocket for the paper.
She found and unfolded it. She turned away and handed it to Besani.
“Aww!!! That is SOOOOOOOOOO cute!!! And so perfect!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Besani exclaimed, and handed it to Jaki, who looked it over.
“It would help if I knew who these people were.” She said.
“That’s Iruka- He’s the teacher at the academy.” Besani said.
“And who’s this?” Jaki asked.
“That’s Shizune, Lady Tsunade’s assistant.”
“They do look cute together.” Jaki agreed. She handed the paper back to Kurea, and set four bowls of instant ramen on the floor. Three were chicken, and one was a special kibble flavor.
Uwagi knew which one was his immediately, and started eating.
“Uwagi, silly dog!” Kurea said, pulling his bowl away. “We haven’t prayed yet!”
After thanking God for the food, eating, and cleaning up, they settled down on the cavern floor, which was hard, but comfortable. Then they went to sleep.

Chapter 9: Train hard, Plan hard, Scrub hard!

Early on Saturday morning, the three girls awoke.
“Well, Jaki, we have to go- How long will you stay here?” Besani asked.
“Yeah, will we have time to visit you again?” Kurea questioned.
“I leave tomorrow afternoon when Gaara, Temari and Kankuro leave.” Jaki told them.
“Tomorrow’s Sunday…” Kurea said.
“Yeah!” Besani said. “We should do a Bible Study tomorrow morning like we always used to when we traveled together!”
“That’d be fun!” Jaki agreed.
“Alright, let’s meet at 9:30 tomorrow morning right here.” Kurea suggested.
“Ok.” Jaki said.
“Well, we’re off!” Besani waved.
“See ya around!” Kurea yelled.
Besani picked up Uwagi, and then she and Kurea climbed out through the crack and sprinted down the side of the rock face. Most people were still in bed, but the kids were all up and ready to go, except Shikamaru. He was going, but was still mostly asleep.
Hinata and Neji left their neighborhood together, walking at a steady pace, when they were knocked over by Naruto and Sasuke, who were racing to the training field.
“Sorry Hinata!” Naruto said.
“Sorry.” Sasuke said to Neji.
“T-that’s ok, Naruto.” Hinata said. She stood up, but she was a little shaky on her feet.
Neji just said “humph” and turned his nose in the air.
“Are you sure you’ll be ok?” Naruto said, noticing that Hinata was shaking. He didn’t realize that she was shaking because she didn’t know what to say to him.
“Oh, I get it, you’re cold!” He concluded, not noticing that Hinata was already wearing a coat. He took off his jacket and put it on her. Hinata turned bright red.
“You still don’t look very well.” Naruto said. He hadn’t even realized that Sasuke and Neji had already continued on their way.
“I’m ok, N-n-naruto.” Hinata said. “B-b-but Sasuke is winning your race.” She pointed ahead.
“Oh! I forgot!” Naruto said. “But Neji is already way ahead, and it’s too dark to walk alone! You come with me!” He said, taking her hand and running ahead, pulling her along, and grinning.
I’m wearing Naruto’s jacket, and holding his hand, and he’s smiling at me! Hinata’s mind was racing. This is the best day of my life!!
--------------------------------
Shikamaru sleepwalked to Choji’s house, where Ino was already waiting.
“It took you long enough!” Ino yelled, despite the fact it was way too early in the morning to be loud.
“zzzz” was Shikamaru’s response.
Choji came out of his house with a bag of chips. “I’m ready.” He said. “Hey, Shikamaru, wake up!”
“wha?” Shikamaru opened one eye. Then he opened the other and yawned. “Well it’s troublesome, but I’m already out of the house, so let’s go…”
------------------------------
Sakura jumped out of bed, not bothering to fix her hair, and excitedly got dressed.
“I hope I’m on a team with Sasuke!” she said out loud as she walked out her door.
“You won’t be, because I will!” Ino said.
“Why did YOU have to be passing by when I left?” Sakura said, as she fell in step with Ino and her comrades. But she meant it in a joking way. I’m glad we kind of get along now. Sakura thought. But Sasuke is still mine.
------------------------------
Kiba and Shino were walking, and talking, which was unusual for Shino.
“So what’s your problem, buddy?” Kiba said.
“Well,” Shino said, “I don’t usually ask for advice, but I’m pretty stumped.”
“What’s up?” Kiba asked.
“I… uh… well, like someone, and I don’t know what to do about it.” Shino said.
“Ouch.” Kiba said. “I don’t know how to help you there. Sorry.”
“That’s ok.” Shino said.
“I’d suggest asking a girl. Girls would know what girls like, I guess.” Kiba offered.
“Hmm, I’ll take that into consideration.” Shino said. Then he turned his face to the ground and didn’t talk for the rest of the trip there.
-----------------------------------------------
Tenten, who lived near the training field, came out of her house just as Sasuke, Neji, Naruto, and Hinata rushed by. Naruto was piggybacking Hinata now, because she had been getting tired. She had jumped at the chance, and quickly accepted. Now she was clinging to his neck, her face as red as a ripe tomato. As soon as they all gathered, the teachers, who had gotten there early to plan teams and exercises, took a head count.
“Where’s Lee?” Guy said suddenly, wondering how his favorite student could be late.
They waited for him for ten minutes, but he didn’t show.
“Can someone go to his house to see if they can find him?” Kakashi asked.
Besani turned. “Kurea how about you…” But she was already gone.
-----------------------------------------------
It was about 5:30 when Kurea got to Lee’s house, and the first light of day was just appearing on the horizon. She knocked on the front door, and stood on the front step with her hands behind her back. The door opened, and there was Lee, his hair all messed up, soap and dirt on his hands and knees, and a dishtowel draped over his shoulder.
“Oh! Kurea, it is you!” He said. “Please come in.”
“Ok.” Kurea said. “Do you remember that training was supposed to start half an hour ago?”
Lee looked around at the messy kitchen. “Yes.” He said, hanging his head. “But my parents want me to clean the kitchen first. I have been putting it off for weeks and they will not let me put it off anymore.”
“I’ll help.” Kurea said. “It’ll get done faster that way.”
“You will?” Lee said, looking up excitedly. “Thank you so much, Kurea! I will forever be in your debt!”
“It’s not THAT big of a thing.” Kurea said as she picked up a sponge, and started scrubbing pans.
----------------------------------------
Back at the training field…
“I wonder what’s taking so long.” Besani said.
“We’ll just have to start without them.” Kakashi said. “Alright, teams are as follows: Naruto and Hinata.”
Hinata blushed as Naruto grinned and walked over to stand by her.
“Tenten and Neji.”
Tenten smiled, and looked over at Neji who she had already been standing by anyway.
“Besani and Kiba.”
Kiba walked over and high-fived his cousin, who was excited to be able to work with a full-blooded Inuzuka.
“Sakura and Ino.”
“Darn, I’m not with Sasuke!” They both said at the same time, as they turned their backs to each other.
“Sasuke and Choji.”
“Don’t drag me down.” Sasuke said, but Choji was too busy with his chips to care.
“Shikamaru and Shino.”
“At least I’m not with one of the more troublesome kids.” Shikamaru mumbled.
Shino was silent.
“Well that’s everyone who is here at the moment, so, each team, choose a base, and plan your strategy.” Asuma said.
“You have five minutes!” Kurenai added.
-----------------------------------
“This huge tree looks like a good base.” Naruto said. Hinata agreed, and they picked a spot between two of the exposed roots, that was about the size of three people. They climbed inside and started planning.
“Ok, Hinata, I think we should just go out and pummel them.” Naruto suggested.
“Maybe first we should find their bases, and try to keep them away from their plans and supplies.” Hinata suggested.
“How are we going to do that?” Naruto asked.
“Byakugan!” Hinata said. The veins around her eyes stood out, and she quickly determined the lay of the land.
“Do you have paper, Naruto?” she asked quietly.
Naruto checked his pockets. “no.” He replied. “We can draw in the dirt with this though.” He held out a kunai and Hinata quickly sketched a diagram of the field, with the enemy bases marked with X’s.
“We’re most likely to be attacked by Sasuke’s team.” Naruto said.
“Or Neji’s team.” Hinata said. She circled those X’s.
----------------------------------
Sasuke and Choji were hiding behind a pile of logs.
“We should attack Naruto first.” Sasuke said. “He’s likely to run ahead of Hinata, and he’ll have no backup.”
Chomp. “Ok.” Choji said.
“Will you stop eating!?!” Sasuke yelled in frustration, taking the chip bag away.
-----------------------------
“Ok, Sasuke’s team is definitely over there.” Ino said, from their hideout in a large bush with a lot of space between the inner branches.
“We should be their allies, instead of attacking them.” Sakura suggested.
“Yeah, I would hate to be attacked by Sasuke.” Ino agreed.
---------------------------------
Besani and Kiba were in a small dirt tunnel, waiting.
“This will be too easy.” Kiba said, smirking.
------------------------------------
Shikamaru and Shino were sitting out in the open near the fence- Shikamaru staring at the sky, and Shino communicating with his bugs.
“This is too tiresome. I don’t think I’ll even participate.” Shikamaru said.
-------------------------------
Tenten and Neji had basically the same plans as Naruto and Hinata- Neji used his Byakugan, and they made a map of the area.
----------------------------
Back at Lee’s house-
“Finally done!!” Kurea exclaimed. Lee’s kitchen was sparkling like it had never seen dirt.
“Wow, Lee!” A tall dark-haired lady walked into the room, and stared in amazement.
“Hi mom.” Lee said. “I have to go now, but the kitchen is finally clean.”
“Who’s your friend?” Lee’s mom asked.
“This is Kurea Akihoshi.” Lee said. “Excuse me for a second, I must get ready.”
He rushed around a corner.
“Well it’s nice to meet you, Kurea.” Lee’s mom said. Just then a green blur came rushing past and stopped at the door.
“Come on, Kurea, we are late!” He said.
“Alright!” Kurea said, as she waved to his mom.
“Let us GO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!” Lee punched the air and took off running, Kurea close behind.
“Could you slow down just a little?” Kurea asked. “I can’t go that fast.”
“I am sure you can if you only try!” Lee said with his youthful vigor.
Kurea dug her toes into the dirt as she pushed off each stride, panting but slowly catching up. Suddenly she doubled over and fell down.
“Are you alright, Kurea?” Lee looked worried as he turned around to see her face scrunched up in pain.
“It’s… just a stitch… I’ll be ok… in a minute…” she said, holding her side and breathing heavily.
“I am sorry I pushed you so far.” Lee said as he sat down next to her. “I forgot that you do not train as much as me.”
“On top of that, I’m only a sprinter.” Kurea said, the pain in her side decreasing quickly. “I can only run that fast for short bursts, and if I try to maintain such high speeds, I get a stitch.”
“I’ll have to help you build up stamina. Are you alright now?” Lee asked.
“Yeah, I’m good.” Kurea said. “The training field is in sight. That’s a short enough distance… I can keep up with you.”

Chapter 10: Traps and the truth

Asuma had just said “go” when Lee and Kurea arrived. Guy quickly explained the rules.
“You two are a team. Get moving!” Kurenai rushed them.
“There is no time for planning or picking out a base.” Lee said. “We had better just get to it and get it done!”
“Yep.” Kurea nodded in agreement.
They stepped carefully over the wires of a trap that was set by Sasuke’s team. Just as they were about to cross the last one, a shuriken whizzed through the air, triggering the trap. Their ankles were caught up in ropes and they were hanging upside-down from a tree.
“You are our first prisoners.” Sasuke announced.
“Darn.” Kurea said, her arms crossed.
----------------------------
Meanwhile a vicious battle- (well, maybe not vicious)- was going on.
Neji and Hinata were attacking each other using the gentle fist technique, and Neji was obviously winning.
“Hold on, Hinata!” Naruto said, jumping into the air with four shadow clones. Neji pounded them all. But this had given Hinata time to recuperate and she attacked Neji, hitting five of his chakra points before falling to the ground.
With his chakra almost completely cut off, Neji’s Byakugan wasn’t working as well, and he became dizzy and fell to the ground, unable to get up.
“I guess this means Neji is our prisoner.” Naruto said. “We need to take him to our hideout.”
“You have to get through me first!” Tenten said, dashing in and standing in front of her comrade.
“This’ll be a breeze!” Naruto yelled, and rushed toward her.
Tenten grabbed a scroll and bit her thumb, activating it. She twirled it around until it became a long pole with which she promptly threw, and it collided with Naruto in the air. Knocked out from the impact, Naruto landed hard on the ground.
“N-Naruto!” Hinata said.
Tenten caught the pole and held it in a fighting stance, pointed at Hinata.
“If you can’t get close to me, your close-range gentle fist won’t work!” Tenten happily exclaimed.
Hinata suddenly grew bold, seeing Naruto on the ground. She felt it was her duty to defend him. “That may be true.” She said. “But that’s not my only way of fighting!” She threw 3 kunai, each of which were perfectly deflected by Tenten’s pole.
Tenten started spinning it in front of her, making a fan-like defense that deflected all things thrown from the front.
Hinata tried running around to another side, but Tenten turned, so that she was always facing Hinata.
Naruto woke up to see Tenten facing away from him, still watching Hinata.
Quiet on his feet, he ran to behind her.
“NA-RU-TO!” Each kick brought Tenten higher in the air. “Uzumaki barrage!” Tenten was thrown to the ground, but she wasn’t done fighting. Her pole had disappeared, but as Hinata hit her chakra points, with her last bit of strength she brought her arm around at Hinata’s ankles, knocking her over.
“Hinata!” Naruto rushed over and caught her, before she hit her head on a rock.
Then Tenten passed out.
---------------------------
Shino and Shikamaru were just sitting, as before. “Someone’s coming.” Shino said.
“Whatever.” Shikamaru said, watching the sky.
“GIRL POWER!!!!!!!!!!” Ino and Sakura yelled as they jumped down in front of the boys.
“This is very troublesome.” Shikamaru yawned, catching Ino in his Shadow Possession Jutsu. Then he controlled her movement and made her start attacking Sakura.
“Hey, Ino! That’s mutiny!” Sakura said.
“It’s not me!” Ino said.
Sakura saw the shadow stretched between Ino and Shikamaru.
“Darnit!” She said, as she leaped at Shikamaru to pry his hands out of the sign he had formed.
“I don’t think so.” Shino said. Bugs surrounded her wrists and pulled them away.
“This is too boring.” Shikamaru said, releasing the Jutsu.
“Mind Transfer Jutsu!” Ino said, aiming at Shino. “Cover me, Forehead girl!”
Cringing at the insult, but not letting down her guard, Sakura dashed in front of Ino’s body, which slumped to the ground, as Shino started unwillingly surrounding Shikamaru with insects. Shikamaru started gasping for air, and soon passed out, and Ino’s mind returned to her own self.
“I’ll take Shikamaru to our hideout, you try to get Shino!” Sakura suggested.
“Ok!” Ino said.
----------------------------------
The sun was up now. Lee and Kurea were still hanging upside down from the tree, since Sasuke and Choji’s hideout was too small to keep any prisoners. They were staying close by so that the two could not escape, on the lookout for enemies. Choji had opened another bag of chips.
“It *chomp* seems like *chomp* if we want to *chomp* find them, we *chomp* have to-”
Sasuke pulled the bag of chips away, dumped the contents out and angrily ground them into the forest floor.
“No more eating while I’m trying to plan!” Sasuke yelled at Choji.
“Oh, so we’re Mr. Moody today.” Kurea smirked from her inverted position.
“Shut up!” Sasuke turned and yelled.
“You might want to consider staying on the captor’s good side…” Lee whispered.
“Listen to your boyfriend.” Sasuke said, as he turned away, clenching the empty chip bag in his fist.
“Somehow I think you’re just mocking me.” Kurea smirked, keeping up her annoying banter even though she did wonder why he said something like that. Was it that obvious that she liked Lee? She glanced over at Lee. He was blushing, but seemed ticked at Sasuke too.
-----------------------------------
A couple of feet away… underground.
“I wonder why nobody’s come yet?” Kiba pondered.
“If you haven’t noticed, Sasuke’s team is really close to us. I wish they’d move and stop scaring off our competitors.” Besani said.
“Hear that?” Kiba said, turning his head upwards.
“Yeah, Kurea can be a real pain sometimes. It’s a good tactic though. Sasuke will probably get tired of listening to her and let her go.” Besani explained.
“Or knock her out.” Kiba laughed.
“That too.”
-----------------------------
“I can’t believe it!” Hinata said. “We already captured two people!”
“Yeah, the only team that’s done as well as us is Sasuke’s, and after we capture them AND their captives, we’ll be WAY ahead!!” Naruto excitedly said.
“Let’s rest and work out a new strategy.” Hinata suggested, once Neji and Tenten were securely tied up.
“You stay here to guard the prisoners, ok Hinata?” Naruto said. “I’m going to go out and give Sasuke a fight he’ll never forget!”
“O-ok” Hinata said.
--------------------------------------
Sasuke’s ‘fight’ with Kurea was still going on when Naruto snuck up, hid behind a tree and decided to jump out when Sasuke was completely off his guard.
“I am not mocking you- I’m- oh, who cares!!!!” By now the Uchiha boy was clenching his fist so tight his hand was sweating and his arm was shaking. Choji was looking pretty scared.
“I’ll just get us some more prisoners.” he said.
“You go do that.” It was obvious that Sasuke had to work hard to keep himself from yelling.
“You know what, never mind.”
He turned around to see Kurea standing on the ground, holding the cut rope in her hand. Lee was nowhere to be seen.
“I’m sorry I was being a brat and made you angry.” Kurea said. “I realize that not being on the same team as Sakura has you pretty ticked off.”
Huh?!? Sasuke’s head jerked up. How could she tell…
“Shake and friends again?” Kurea asked. Sasuke looked up to see the girl extending her hand.
“Nah.” He answered. Kurea looked disappointed.
Remember, Sasuke? An image of Kakashi popped into his head. He remembered now why…
~the day before Kurea arrived~
“Well, Sasuke, I’m glad feel like you can come to me about things like this.”Kakashi smiled down at him.
“Yeah, well not having a dad and all…” Sasuke stared at a rock. “What should I do? I don’t know when it happened; I used to hate her, now I don’t! In fact…”
“You think you love her.” Kakashi finished his sentence for him.
“Yeah” Sasuke sighed and hung his head, playing with a flower blown off of a cherry tree.
“You should probably just tell her.”
“I don’t want her to know!” Sasuke said. “I want her to mature a little before I pursue anything. If I told her now she’d never leave me alone, and Ino would always be hovering around hating on us.”
“Then pretend to like someone else.”
“What?” Sasuke looked up, suddenly. “But everyone knows I don’t like any of the girls here- I avoid them all. They’d get suspicious and…”

“Hello?” Kurea’s questioning words brought him back to the present time. “You zoned out for a second there.”
Get my act together- pretend to… Darn, this is hard. Sasuke looked up, smiling a forced smile, even though you wouldn’t be able to tell it was forced if you saw it.
“Nah.” He repeated. “I’d rather hug and be friends again!”
“uhhhhhhh………” Kurea said, caught up, well more like stuck, in his embrace.
“You jerk!!!!” Three voices came flying out of nowhere- Lee, who was getting very jealous, Sakura, who was sure Sasuke was ONLY hers, and Naruto, who just called Sasuke a jerk for the heck of it.
There was a huge tangle of flailing legs and arms, and a huge dust cloud as all of them yelled and screamed.
“Sasuke Uchiha, what were you thinking!?!”
“Don’t even try stealing Sasuke from me!”
“I wasn’t!!! honest!!!!”
“Sasukeeeeeeee!!!!- I’ll defeat you - dattebayo!!!!”
The cloud settled, with everyone piled up with bumps and bruises, and standing on top of the entire pile was… Hinata?
“I’m sorry I had to beat you up too, Naruto- I couldn’t tell who was who.” She apologized.
“That’s OK, Hinata, at least we have all these captives now!!” Naruto said, climbing out from underneath the pile of people.
“So the only people we haven’t gotten are Ino, Shikamaru, Shino, and Choji!!” Hinata was getting excited.
“Oh, and Besani and Kiba.” Naruto said. “Come to think of it, did they skip out? I haven’t seen them!!!”
------------------------------------
“Just a little to the left there….” Besani quietly said.
“Want me to give them a little push?” Kiba asked.
“Sure- why not?” Besani smirked. “I’ll prepare down here.”
------------------------------
“We didn’t skip out!!” Kiba said, seemingly appearing out of nowhere.
“Where’s Besani?” Hinata asked.
“Oh, her? She’s invisible.” Kiba said, patting the air beside him like if he was patting Besani’s shoulder.
“Get him!” Naruto charged.
Kiba caught his attack and shoved him backwards- just enough to send the entire pile of people falling into a large pit that had been covered with leaves.
“Hah-hah!” Kiba leaned over the pit. “Have fun down there!!!”
“hi guys!” Besani came out of an adjoining pit. “I just have to make sure you all don’t get out!!!”
Shino and Shikamaru came flying down.
“Glad you could join us!” Besani said.
Ino and Choji soon followed.
“Where’s Tenten and Neji?” Besani called from one of the holes. “They’re the only ones missing.”
Kiba looked around. “Where are they, Akamaru?”
“Woof!” Akamaru nodded toward the big tree.
“Ah, Hinata and Naruto must have captured them.”
Neji and Tenten were soon tossed into the hole too.
“Got them all.” Kiba smirked.
“Great job!” Besani climbed out and high-fived her cousin.
The two dogs high-fived as well.


Ok, i think 10 chapters is enough for now. i have nine more written so far though.

Wahhh... I'm reading it all right now! It's gonna take a while though! But I still love this story!

yay, i'm glad you like it! i made a lot of changes since the WI version.

Chapter 11: Mysteries of eyes, and feelings unraveled

Later, at about 11:00 AM, all the teams were having a big picnic.
“That was a lot of fun, even though I did not get to practice much.” Lee said, eating his tuna fish sandwich. He wiped some bread crumbs off his mouth. “These are really good. Who made them?”
“I bought them from the sandwich shop where Kurea works.” Kakashi said.
“Well I didn’t make them.” Kurea said, taking a big bite out of hers. “I’ve haven’t been working as much lately because of all the stuff that’s going on.”
“Then how are you paying for your rent?” Naruto asked.
“Naruto!! It’s rude to ask questions like that!” Sakura whispered.
“Actually…” Kurea said, “I might have to move into the apartment complex that gives free rent to ninjas- I can’t train, help out at the academy, and work all at once.”
“That’s where I live!!” Naruto jumped up and yelled. “We could be like, neighbors or something!!”
“You’re too loud, Naruto.” Ino commented, rubbing her ears. She turned to Shino who she was sitting by. “You’re unusually quiet!” she stated.
“Aren’t I like this most of the time?” Shino said, not even looking up.
“Well ….. I guess so.” Ino said. “You should be more social.”
“sure.”
“And Shino?”
“huh?”
“If you don’t mind me asking… Why do you wear those dark glasses?”
“Well…”
“You don’t have to tell me if you don’t want to.”
“Ok.”

Darnit, I’m really curious!!! Ino thought. I gotta see his eyes sometime!!! And can’t he take a hint? Saying ‘you don’t have to if you don’t want to’ doesn’t really mean what it sounds like!!! Why can’t guys decipher this kind of stuff? That’s what you say when you want to make them feel comfortable so that they WILL do what you want!!! Guys are so complicated.

Darnit, I want to show her but I just- can’t! Shino was thinking. She’s right. I’m so anti-social, and I need to open up more. This could be a good start, but, what if she laughs? Not that there’s anything to laugh about, but still… I really do want to show her…

“Ok.” Shino repeated. “I’ll show you but you have to promise not to laugh.”
“I won’t.” Ino said. “Promise.”
“Come with me.” Shino got up.
“Where are we going?”
“You’ll see.”
“Oi, Shino, where are you dragging Ino off to?” Naruto interrupted.
“He’s not dragging me!” Ino protested
“I just need to talk to her for a second.” Shino said.
“Awww…” Naruto said. “Shino and Ino sitting in a tree-”
BANG!
“It’s not like that, Naruto!” Ino yelled.
“Ok, ok, you don’t have to be so mean!” Naruto said, rubbing his head. “I’m gonna have a bruise for weeks.”

By now all the others had spread out across the field, and were talking in smaller groups of two or three.
“Sasuke, I need to talk to you.” Sakura came marching over to where Sasuke was standing, all alone.
Yes!!!! He thought. “Why?” He managed to ask in a bored sort of voice.
“Because earlier, you hugged a girl who wasn’t me! What was that all about, huh?”
“You don’t own me.” Sasuke said simply. Inside, he was about to burst. I want so bad to tell her!!!!!!
Sakura sighed and plopped down on the ground, Indian style. She rested her chin in her hands. “I know.”
Sasuke sat down next to her, trying with everything he had NOT to put his arm around her shoulders.
“I just, Sasuke, I love you so much, and… I guess, I just wish you felt the same way about me.” She pulled her knees up in front of her.
I do!! I do!! “Hn.”
“Sasuke, don’t lie to me! Do you like me or not!?!” Sakura swung her head around to face him, tears streaming down her face. “If you don’t, fine! I won’t stop liking you! But I’m so confused…” her head fell again, little drops of salty water falling on her shoes.
Sasuke couldn’t take it anymore. He couldn’t stand to see her like this.
“Sakura, I…” He reached over and pulled her into a hug, he didn’t care that her tears were falling down his neck and making it itch.
“Sasuke….” She pulled away from him, unsure of what was happening.
“You… You’re crying!” She said.
“So what if I am?” He quickly rubbed his eyes. “I- I- I just don’t know how…”
“How to what?” Sakura suddenly looked concerned.
“This is gonna sound really, really lame, but I was only pretending to like Kurea because I really, really, like you and I just didn’t know… I didn’t know how to tell you!!!” He looked away to hide the tears that were now streaming down his face.
“Sasuke, I… never knew…”
“I don’t know how many times…” Sasuke sniffed. “How many times I imagined telling you! We would always be alone on a grassy hill, looking at clouds, and then I would turn to you and tell you that… that I love you! I’m so sorry it had to happen like this!!!!”
“It’s ok, Sasuke.” Sakura hugged him from behind, resting her head on his shoulder.

“What’s with Sasuke and Sakura?” Naruto wondered out loud, watching from a distance.
“I think Sasuke just told her he likes her.” Hinata said timidly.
“Oh, Hinata, I didn’t realize you were here!”
“Oh” Hinata looked disappointed.
“If I had known that you had to get all weepy when you told someone you liked them I would have never liked Sakura, ever!” Naruto said.
“You- like Sakura?” Hinata tried hard not to cry.
“Not anymore.” Naruto turned with a big grin. “I think I stopped liking her last month.”
Hinata was mentally jumping for joy.
“Who- who do you like now?” Hinata asked, surprised at her own boldness. “If you don’t mind my asking, that is- I won’t tell anyone!”
“Huh?” Naruto looked confused. “Why are you asking?”
“N-no reason!!! Forget I said anything!! I don’t know what I was thinking!!”Hinata blurted.
“It’s ok.” Naruto gave her a quick hug. “I’m used to you acting strange.”
“Oh” Hinata looked at the ground
“I- I meant in a good way!!” Naruto said. “Sorry if that hurt your feelings- I just notice you act differently around me than anyone else!!”
He notices me?? Hinata smiled. “No offence taken.”
----------------------------------------------------------------
Shino wasn’t sure he could take his glasses off in front of anyone, but he knew he had to do it.
“Well?” Ino was getting a little impatient.
“Alrighty, teams, your food should have settled by now, so let’s get BACK TO TRAINING!” Guy-Sensei yelled.
“I’ll show you later.” Shino quickly said.
“OK” Ino said. “I guess I HAVE to wait…”
“For this next exercise we will be in teams of two again. Different teams though. We’re going to be doing pure physical exercise routines.” Kakashi explained
“Basic training, but it is essential!” Lee yelled.
“Teams are as follows. Hinata and Ino. Tenten and Sakura. Besani and Kurea. Shino and Choji. Sasuke and Naruto. Lee and Shikamaru. Kiba and Neji.” Kurenai read off of a list.
“First we’re doing stretching to warm up. Go!” Asuma said.
None of them noticed the dark clouds coming in overhead.

Naw... It still makes me sad to read this chapter, but it also makes me happy with the SasuSaku-ness. ^_^

grrr, it's so annoying! whenever i paste my story into here it takes out all the italics and i have to go back and fix them!

owell. on to the next chappie.

Chapter 12: A ketchup sandwich and a thunderstorm

“It looks like a large storm is headed in.” Kankuro noted, standing on the balcony adjoining the hotel room the Sand Siblings were occupying.
“Yeah. Our departure might be delayed a bit.” Temari stated.
“I’d say we should delay until Tuesday, at least.” Kankuro said.
“No, we should get back as soon as possible.” Gaara walked over to where his brother and sister were standing. “Monday is the latest that we’ll stay.”
“Tuesday.” Kankuro insisted.
“I’m not getting in the middle of this.” Temari walked away with her hands up.
“You just want to stay in Konoha longer because that’s where Besani is.” Gaara smirked.
“Well you just want to go sooner because Jaki’s back in Suna.” Kankuro protested.
Gaara was about to retort when he heard a thumping on the hotel roof.
“Who’s up there?” He asked.
No response.
Gaara rode up to the roof on his sand, and saw nobody.
“Maybe you were just imagining things.” Kankuro suggested from three floors below. “How could you possibly hear a noise on the roof from all the way down here?”
“Someone was up here, I’m sure.” Gaara insisted. “There’s muddy footprints leading across the roof and down the side of the building…”
“Who would leave such obvious tracks? It’s probably a trap.” Kankuro said, scaling the wall and reaching the top.
“I’ll send a clone ahead of me.” Gaara said. Sand poured out of his gourd and took the form of its wearer.
It jumped down from the roof and Gaara and Kankuro peeked over the edge, watching.
The clone looked around, no traps were sprung, and there was nobody to be seen.
“Well” Gaara said, as his clone turned back into sand, “False alarm then.”
He and Kankuro got up and walked over to the elevator that came out on the roof.
“Let’s just go back to our floor this way.” Gaara said, pointing at the elevator. “Kankuro, you have a weird look on your face.”
“I think we should take the broom closet instead of the elevator.” Kankuro said, pointing at a little door next to the elevator door.
“Kankuro, I think you finally snapped.” Gaara said, playfully poking his brother in the shoulder.
“No seriously. Just try it!”
“This is so stupid.” Gaara walked over and tried opening the wooden door. “It’s locked.”
---------------------------------
“Now we’re going to do pushups!” Guy announced.
“I can’t do those!” Kurea complained. “The one thing I can’t do!!!”
“You can’t sit out.” Guy said.
“But I can’t do them!!!”
“I’ll handle this.” Besani assured Guy-Sensei. “I know her weakness.”
She turned to Kurea. “Maybe you should try lady push-ups.” She suggested, pointing to where Hinata and Tenten were doing pushups from their knees.
“No!!! That’s it!!! I AM NOT A LADY!!!” Kurea dropped to the ground and started trying to do pushups, surprisingly finding she was capable of doing them.
“She hates being referred to as a woman or a lady.” Besani explained. “She doesn’t like the idea of being grown-up and mature, and since she’s an extreme tomboy, well, y’know .”
“I’ll keep that in mind for when she’s on my squad.” Guy said.
----------------------------
“So break the lock.” Kankuro said simply.
“This is so lame” Gaara said, crushing the lock with his sand.
“AAH!!” two voices rang out.
Gaara, who was startled when the door fell on top of him, and Jaki, who had been up against the door when it fell.
Kankuro laughed. “Hahah, it’s like a sandwich!!! Gaara and Jaki are the bread and that door is the ketchup!!”
“A ketchup sandwich?!?” Jaki rolled off of the door, and stood up. “That’s grosser than gross.”
“Jaki?!?” Gaara threw the door off to the side and sat up. “What on earth are you doing here?”
“He’s flustered.” Kankuro said. Gaara glared at him.
“What?” Kankuro asked. Gaara continued glaring. Suddenly Kankuro fell to the ground, rubbing his face. “Sand in my eyes I got sand in my eyes ow ow ow ow!!!!!”
“Sorry about that. Are you ok?” Jaki asked as she turned and extended a hand to help Gaara get up.
“Yeah” Gaara grabbed her hand and she helped him up. Gaara ventured a small smile, still touching her fingers. He considered hugging her, but before he could start to pull her closer, Jaki giggled nervously.
“Maybe you should put your brother out of his misery.”
“Oh, right.” Gaara let her go and made the sand return to the gourd.
“THANK YOU!!!” Kankuro yelled at Gaara. Jaki laughed. Then it started raining. All three of them ran for the elevator.
------------------------------------------------
The training group was just finishing sit ups when the downpour started.
“As long as there’s no thunder or lightning we should be fine.” Kakashi said when some of the kids started complaining. Just then a clap of thunder shook the whole area.
“Alright, let’s head for the nearest building.” Kurenai said.
“Tenten’s house!” Neji said, looking for close-by buildings with his Byakugan.
“Too small.” Tenten said. There’s only a tiny kitchen and one bedroom that my mom and I share. And the roof leaks!”
“Alright, well, the next building is the hotel.”
“Let’s go then!!” The entire group started running to the hotel except Tenten, who went into her house to get pots and pans to put under the leaks.
-------------------------------------
Temari was folding laundry in the Sand Siblings’ hotel room when someone banged on the door.
“Coming, coming!” Temari got up, and started toward the door.
“Hurry up! We’ve got a soaked and freezing friend here!”
“You make it sound like I’m a pitiful wreck.”
Temari opened the door. “Jaki! What are you doing here?”
“I uh- happened to be in the area…”
“You followed us, didn’t you?”
“Maybe…”
“Well come in and get some dry clothes on, all three of you!” Temari insisted. They stepped inside and Temari threw fresh clothes at her brothers.
“Go change somewhere else and don’t come back until I give the all clear!” Temari prompted them.
After they had left, she dug through her own belongings. “You can wear some of my stuff for now.” She said, handing Jaki a black kimono.
“Thank you.” Jaki said.
“You can change in the bathroom.” Temari pointed to a small door. “I’ll guard the room door and make sure the boys don’t come barging in.” She said, leaning up against it.
----------------------------------------
“We made it!” Sakura said, leaning up against a wall in the hotel lobby. An especially loud thunderclap sounded and the shaking it caused knocked a picture of a tree off of the wall.
“Aaah!!” Sasuke lunged for the picture, catching it just before it hit the floor.
“Thank you so much, young man!” a plump old lady came waddling out from a back room. “That picture was given to me by my husband on our 50th anniversary! I don’t know what I would have done had it broken!”
“You’re welcome-I guess.” Sasuke said.
Just then Kakashi walked up. “Oi, do you mind if we wait out the thunderstorm here?”
“Not at all!” The lady said. “Kerushi, come here and make these kind folks feel at home.”
“Alright, grandma.” A quiet voice called from the back room.
A small girl appeared in the doorway. Her ninja headband sat crooked in her brown hair that fell in front of her eyes. She peered out at the visitors through rectangular glasses, and they looked back at her with curious faces.
“I’ve never seen you before.” Naruto finally broke the silence.
“Well” Kerushi said with a shy smile, “I don’t get out much.”
“What team are you on? I don’t recognize you from the academy.” Kiba wondered aloud.
“I was privately tutored by my grandmother, and I am on a team with my best friend, Leiko, and a boy named Kairu.” She politely answered.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAH!!!” Suddenly a sopping wet black figure came flying downwards, knocked off the fourth floor landing.
“Oops…” Gaara said from up above, smirking. He was still ticked about Kankuro teasing him.
“Watch out!” Kiba grabbed Kerushi out of the way of the falling Kankuro.
“Oi, don’t be so clumsy!” Besani grabbed Kankuro’s wrist before he hit the ground, helping him stand up.
“Besani!! Uh, hi!” Kankuro awkwardly waved.
“You’re soaked!” Besani commented. “Did you get caught outside as well?”
“Uh, yeah, I was just coming down here to the swimming pool changing rooms to freshen up.” Kankuro mumbled. “Gaara just… shortened my trip I guess.”
“Humph. Come on.” Gaara was at the ground floor by now, and he dragged his brother away.
“I’ll see you later, Besani-Chan!!” Kankuro waved before his brother pulled him around a corner.

Besani-Chan… Hmm. The ending fits. I hope she doesn’t mind if I call her that… Kankuro was thinking as Gaara dragged him along to the pool area. Nobody was swimming. Their footsteps echoed in the large empty room.
“Kankuro, you do realize I’m mad at you, right?” Gaara turned around to face his brother.
“Look, man, I’m sorry, I just…”
The next thing Kankuro knew he was floating in the pool.
“Hey, Gaara! What was that for?”
“I think you know.” Gaara said.
“You already got me back for teasing you in front of Jaki!”
“Actually- I was going easy on you so she wouldn’t get worried.” Gaara explained.
“Well, now you’ve got your revenge, so, can you help me out here?”
“No.” Gaara walked into the changing rooms.
“Darn.” Kankuro climbed out of the pool. “It’s a good thing I wasn’t carrying a puppet with me- or its joints would have rusted.”
“Oooh, thanks for the idea, now I know what’ I’m going to do NEXT TIME you tease me!” He heard Gaara yell.
Kankuro sighed. He’s such an annoying little brother.
------------------------------------------
“This is one heck of a thunderstorm, Lady Tsunade!” Shizune squinted as the lightning illuminated the room for a split second. Tonton squealed and flew underneath Tsunade’s desk.
“It’s ok, girl.” Shizune reached out for the small pig who immediately ran into her keeper’s arms.
“We need a Jonin in every watch tower to make sure nobody tries sneaking into the village- this rain isn’t natural for this time of year.” Tsunade instructed.
“But Milady!” Shizune protested. “What if the towers get hit by lightning?”
“They have lightning rods on them to conduct the charge down to the ground safely.” Tsunade assured her. “We installed them last week.”
“Whew- I was worried!”Shizune sighed.

Nice chapter! More please!!

More please? I still love this story.

oh, i've been forgetting to post =3
sorry xD

Chapter 13: Armies, rice, and Bibles

“Thanks for saving me.” Kerushi thanked Kiba quietly.
“Hey, no problem!” Kiba said “Natural instincts, I guess.”
Conversations started and soon the lobby was filled with a bunch of noise. All of a sudden Kakashi looked up.
“Quiet, everyone!” He said. The noise drained away. All the Jonin were listening to their portable dispatch radios.
“We have to leave for a while.” Guy said.
“Stay here until the rain stops.” Kurenai added.
“We’ll be at our posts soon.” Asuma spoke into his radio.
All four Jonins then left.
“So, what do we do now?” Neji wondered aloud, just as Kankuro and Gaara came back into the lobby.
“We know a fun game.” Kankuro said. His face paint was washed off and he was wearing a blue-gray shirt and jeans. He also wasn’t wearing his hat.
“You aren’t so intimidating without your normal look.” Naruto commented.
“I think he looks cute!!” Besani whispered to Kurea.
“Really?” asked Ino, who had overheard. “I think he looks weird.”
“What?!? Besani said. “How does he look weird??”
“I don’t know… He just does.” Ino shrugged.
“Are you trying to make me mad?” Besani joked.
“What is the game you wanted to show us?” Lee stood up. “I do not feel like sitting around anymore.”
There was a chorus of agreement.
“It’s kind of like Sardines.” Gaara explained. “Except two people hide and everyone else is it. When you find someone, you have to hide with them, and whoever has more people hiding with them in the end wins. We call it Armies.”
“And you can’t pick an easy spot just because you want more people. This game is supposed to be hard.” Temari said. She had come downstairs by then.
“But doesn’t that end up punishing the person who hid better?” Shikamaru asked.
“I never understood that either.” Kankuro said.
“It’s just a game, the point is to have fun, so just play it!” Temari said.
“Where’s Jaki?” Gaara asked.
“Jaki’s here?” Kurea and Besani asked.
“I thought she was hiding out at the Hokage faces!” Besani said.
“Yeah and I thought you guys didn’t know she was here!” Kurea added.
“Who’s Jaki?” Lee asked.
“She’s our friend.” Kurea told him.
“And she’s Gaara’s girlfriend.” Kankuro teased.
“Shut up! Did the pool not teach you anything?!?” Gaara turned red and turned away, while Kankuro ran away from the sand that was threatening to envelop him.
“You should really be more considerate of your brother’s feelings.” Besani told him as he ran by.
“It’s just so funny to tease him!” Kankuro stopped and hid behind her.
“But it’s not funny to him.” Besani said. “Think about how you would feel in that situation.”
“I guess you’re right.” Kankuro said, sitting down next to her.
“I’m sorry, Gaara.” Kankuro said. “You can tease me for a whole week if I do it again.”
“Whatever.” Gaara said, dumping a mound of sand on Kankuro and Besani, since she was sitting near him. “Let’s just play the game.”
“I wanna play tooooooooooooooooooooooo!!” A white blur came rushing down the stairs, stopping near Besani and Kurea.
“What happened to the clothes I gave you?” Temari asked, seeing Jaki in her normal clothes.
“They were a little too big, so I used your hair dryer to dry out my stuff. I didn’t get very wet.” Jaki explained. “Your brothers made sure of that.
“Well let’s play.” Kankuro stood back up, brushing sand out of his hair. “Which two people want to hide first?”
“I do!” Lee was enthusiastic.
“Can I hide first? Shikamaru stood up. “That way I won’t have to go to the trouble of seeking.”
“Alright, everyone else go into the kitchen while Shikamaru and Lee find hiding places in the lobby.” Temari instructed.
-------------------------------------------------
“I wonder where they hid.” Kerushi said quietly.
“Shhh- you can’t make noise!” Temari said.
“Sorry.”
Shikamaru had hidden under the grand piano. Besani, Hinata and Tenten all found him at the same time. Kankuro, who had been watching Besani out of the corner of his eye, soon followed. Kurea had figured out where Shikamaru was, but didn’t hide there, because she wanted to find Lee. She searched lots of places, but he had hidden very well. Only one other person was still searching- Naruto.
“I can’t find ANYBODY!” He complained.
Kurea thought the giant pile of people under the piano was becoming painfully obvious, but didn’t point that out to Naruto, because then he would ask why SHE didn’t hide there. She looked up and sighed. Then she thought she caught a gleam of light reflecting off of metal. Using Chakra suction, she walked up the wall and across the ceiling, where she found Lee sitting on a crossbeam support of the ceiling.
“You did a good job hiding!” She whispered to Lee.
“You are the only person who could find me.” Lee replied.
Kurea lightly jumped from her upside down position onto the beam, perfectly balanced and without making a sound.
“Maybe we should give Naruto a hint.” Lee suggested. “Or we may be sitting here a while.”
“I want to watch him a while longer. It’s hilarious how he keeps passing right over the piano.” Kurea whispered.
“WHERE ARE YOU???” Naruto yelled.
“We’re right here!” Everyone under the piano yelled. Naruto started walking in the opposite direction.
“I can’t find you!” Naruto said.
Ino crept out from under the piano. “Naruto, tilt your head to the side and jump on one foot on the same side.”
“Why am I doing this?” he asked.
“I think you have water in your ears.”
“Oh yeah- I probably do!” Naruto laughed. “No wonder my hearing was messed up. Oh! It came out! Where did you learn that trick, Ino?”
“I don’t know.” Then Ino dashed back under the piano when Naruto was turned the other way.
“Darn! I still can’t find anybody!” He complained again.
Kurea threw a piece of paper from Lee’s notebook on Naruto’s head. He looked up and saw two pairs of feet dangling off of the crossbeam.
“Ahah!! I found you!” Naruto yelled. He jumped up and landed on the crossbeam.
“Finally!” Everyone dashed out from under the piano. “it was cramped there!”
“Alright” Temari said. “For the next round, since Naruto was last, he has to hide, and since Shikamaru won, he’s going to pick the other person to hide.”
“I pick- Temari.” Shikamaru said.
Once they were hidden and everyone was back in the room, people started disappearing right away.
“How come people are hiding in lots of different spots, when there’s only supposed to be two options?” Besani wondered.
“They’re probably finding Naruto’s shadow clones. He probably hid himself many places so that more people would hide with him, therefore he would win.” Shikamaru theorized.
“That makes sense.” Besani said. “Let’s find Temari then. And help her out.”
Kankuro, who had been standing nearby to stay close to Besani, nodded.
Sasuke knew Naruto well enough that he guessed the spot of the real Naruto quickly- the same place that he had found Lee in the last round.
“Re-using hiding places doesn’t work well.” He told his friend as he joined him on the beam.
The round was quickly over, with Naruto as the winner.
After playing that game for a few hours, they got bored and played another, and before they knew it, they had played through the whole afternoon and night- and the sun was coming up.
------------------------------------------
“Even with all the rain coming down, the sunrise is really pretty.” Kerushi said to Hinata. They had become friends very quickly.
“I’m surprised the downpour hasn’t stopped.” Hinata said.
“Here’s your breakfast!” Kerushi’s grandma came out and set a tray on the coffee table in the middle of the lobby. There were 18 steaming bowls of rice.
“I know it’s not a normal breakfast food, but we don’t have enough of anything else right now. The rain delayed our normal shipment.”
“That’s perfectly OK.” Kurea said.
“Yes, we will enjoy every bite of it.” Lee added.
“Yup!”
“Thanks!”
“It looks good!”
“I’m starving!”
“Hey, where’s Jaki?” Besani asked suddenly.
“I don’t know!”
“Where is she?”
“I’m ok guys, don’t panic!” Jaki came down the stairs with a lot of books.“Remember, Kurea, Besani, we were gonna have a bible study this morning? I figured you guys wouldn’t mind if we all had one together. And I didn’t think the hotel would mind if I borrowed these from the rooms.”
“Yeah, that’d be great!”
“Good idea!”
“Mmhmm!”
Everyone seemed exited.

(Note: Just so it’s clear, in my story all the good guys are Christians, and the bad guys aren’t)

“We should do one of the Psalms!” Kurea said. “They’re my favorite.”
“Does everyone think that’s a good idea?” Vanessa asked.
“Yeah, that’s good.” Everyone agreed.
“Ok, Kurea, since you’re so excited about the Psalms, you pick the passage.”
“Alright, let’s do Psalm 3:1-6.”

O Lord, I have so many enemies;
So many are against me.
So many are saying,
“God will never rescue him!”
But You, O Lord, are a shield around me;
You are my glory, the one who holds my head high.
I cried out to the Lord,
And He answered me from his holy mountain.
I lay down and slept,
Yet I woke up in safety,
For the Lord was watching over me.
I am not afraid of ten thousand enemies who surround me on every side.
“This is the passage that we figured out Prayer Protection from.” Besani realized.
“Yeah.” Kurea said. “That was awesome when we realized that God would protect us if we just asked humbly.”
The whole group discussed the passage and prayed, and sang a few songs.
Just then the teachers came back because it had stopped raining.
“Man, that was a long night.” Kakashi complained.
“You guys must have gotten plenty of rest, huh?” Kurenai asked. “I’m jealous of you; I didn’t sleep at all.”
“Actually…” the kids chorused.
“How about you all take 40 laps around the building since you’re so energized?” Guy suggested.
“Actually…” they said again.
“Yeah, then it would be quieter so we can rest.” Asuma agreed.
“ACTUALLY WE DIDN’T SLEEP AT ALL EITHER!!!” Everyone yelled.
“Oh.” All four Jonin said at once.

Ha, ha. That one is still funny. ^_^

Chapter 14: Naruto’s ultimate prank and the rush to find Besani

Everyone took a long nap that morning, and when Naruto woke up, everyone else was asleep. He decided to prank people since they were sleeping. He let Shikamaru’s hair down, and tied the band around his feet so that when he got up he would trip. He put toothpaste on Kakashi’s face and let it soak into his mask. He glued Lee’s shoes to the floor, and covered Kiba in silly string. He took Sasuke’s arm things and hung them from the ceiling, and put fake snakes next to Sakura. He did the same thing to Ino. He put a can of peanuts next to Choji, the kind that has a fake bug leap out when you open the lid. He got Kankuro’s cap out of his pile of wet clothes, which had dried by now, and used it to plug up Gaara’s gourd. He took Temari’s fan and taped paper arms to it, then sat it at the piano as if it was playing. He tied Jaki up with the cape part of her outfit. He put washable pink and purple hair dye in Neji’s long locks, and Kurea would wake up with her headband over her eyes. He sprayed Shino with bug repellent. He used face paint to make Kurenai’s face look like a peppermint. He took Asuma off of the couch he was laying on and put him on the floor. Then he flipped the couch over and put it on top of Asuma in an upside down V shape- like a tent. He filled Besani’s mouth with hot peppers. Now all that were left were Guy and Hinata. He replaced Guy’s ankle weights with helium balloons. Guy soon floated up to the ceiling, still snoring. Then he came up with the perfect prank for Hinata. He stuffed his own mouth with newspapers, and lay back down and pretended to be asleep. Since nothing was done to Hinata, everyone would figure she did it! So that was the ultimate prank.
Soon people began to wake up. Kankuro was first. He decided to go get into his normal outfit since Temari had insisted they leave that afternoon.
“That’s funny, my cap’s not here.” He said to himself. “Oi, Gaara, did you take my cap?” Kankuro asked. Gaara sat up. “No.”
“Then what’s that sticking out of your gourd?”
“I don’t know but I didn’t put it there.” Gaara insisted.
“Yuck, now it’s full of sand.” Kankuro commented.
“A-a-ah!!”
The brothers turned to see Besani sit straight up and start pulling peppers out of her mouth. The noise she made woke almost everyone else up and they all started realizing the pranks that had been set for them.
“Why won’t my shoes move?”
“I can’t see!”
“Yuck, what’s all over my mask?”
“Oof.”
“Naruto, wake up! You have paper in your mouth!”
“Oi, he’d sleep through anything.”
“Who did this to us?”
“Was it you guys?” Ino pointed to the sand brothers.
“No.” Kankuro held out his cap. “We got pranked, too! Someone shoved this into Gaara’s gourd!”
“Then who could it be…?” Ino wondered.
“Hey you guys!” Naruto said.
“What?”
“Hinata doesn’t have anything done to her! She’s the only one!”
“Aha!” Sakura said.
Soon Hinata woke up to a chorus of “That’s mean. How could you do this to us? We thought you were nice.” And other various phrases of the sort.
“What did I do?” She asked, half-asleep.
“I think you know!” Ino dangled one of the fake snakes in her face.
“Eeeeeeh!!!” Hinata squealed and hid her face.
“Y’know, I just thought of something.” Kiba said. “Hinata’s terrified of snakes. We ran into one on a mission once, and she made such a scene! She wouldn’t have handled even fake ones.”
“Yes, plus she would know better than to spray me with bug repellant.” Shino said. “I do hate the smell, but my bugs are immune to it.”
“But who else could it have been?”
“HAHAH YOU GUYS FELL FOR IT!!!” Naruto pointed and laughed.
“NARUTO….” Sakura was punching mad.
“My prank for Hinata was to prank myself so that everyone would think she was the prankster!”
“That actually was pretty clever.” Sasuke admitted.
“N-Naruto…” Hinata didn’t know whether to feel hurt or special because he gave her the biggest prank.
“Well, we have to go in a couple of hours.” Temari said.
“Noooooooo!!!!” Kankuro complained and clung to Besani, who turned red but didn’t say anything.
Gaara grabbed him by the arm. “Come ON!”
“Wait, if I get packed really quickly, can I have free time before we go?”
“sure.” Temari said.
“Ok!” Kankuro dashed up the stairs and stuffed all his stuff in his knapsack. “Done!” Then he sped out the door and back down to the lobby, but everyone had already left. He checked his watch. It was 1:30 now, they were leaving at 4, so that gave him two and a half hours.
I gotta find Besani-Chan and tell her goodbye! And spend as much time with her as possible before we leave!!
Kankuro ran up and down the streets, trying to find Besani. After ten minutes he came upon Konohamaru, Moegi, and Udon having a picnic-in the middle of the road?!?
“Hey! What do you think you’re doing, causing a disturbance in our lunch?” Konohamaru jumped up, on his guard, remembering what had happened the last time they met. Moegi hid behind Konohamaru, and Udon continued eating.
“I’m not gonna hurt you, kid, I’ve changed. I just wanna know if you’ve seen a certain Besani-Chan running around?”
“Aww…” Moegi said.
“Don’t believe him!” Konohamaru warned, still not trusting the guy who had bullied him a couple of months before.
“She works as a teacher’s assistant in our class.” Udon simply stated.
“Hey, don’t give out important information to strangers from other villages!” Konohamaru said.
“Is she there now?” Kankuro asked impatiently.
“I think she’s in a teachers meeting with Iruka and Kurea.” Moegi said.
“Thanks!” Kankuro took off running.
“You guys!” Konohamaru complained. “What if all that this is- is just a ploy to help him construct our imminent doom?”
“You worry too much.” Moegi said.
“Yeah, I wouldn’t trust my future to your imagination.” Udon said.
Konohamaru sighed and sat back down. “Pass the chips.”
---------------------------------------
Panting, Kankuro arrived at the Academy. Good, only fifteen minutes passed since he left. That left him- two hours and fifteen minutes.
--------------------------------
“And the grade point average of the entire class is a low A- we have an exceptionally bright class this semester.” Iruka was talking about the Academy class. Kurea was doodling and Besani was staring out the window.
“Sorry to spoil your rant about how well your students are doing…” Besani started.
“You mean OUR students- you guys are teachers right now too.” Iruka corrected.
“Yeah, sure. Anyway, we already know all this stuff- we graded papers, you know. If we’re not really going to accomplish anything in this meeting, is it really necessary?”
“Well, er, no.”
“Then how about we do something more interesting?” Kurea suggested. “Like… spending some time outside.”
Iruka looked out from the second story window. The grass was especially green after the rain, and the sky was a clear bright blue. He looked at the empty dim classroom. Its plain green and yellow walls seemed drab in comparison. It was true that they weren’t getting much done here. Besides, there was someone he wanted to talk to anyway…
“Alright, you’re dismissed.” Just then a black figure ran into the schoolyard, but none of them noticed.
-----------------------------
Should I go in, or what? Kankuro wondered. Just then the door slammed open, and Kurea and Besani gasped in the fresh air as if they hadn’t known it for a while.
“I’m glad you got us out of there!” Kurea said to Besani. “Otherwise I might have died or something!”
“Oi! Besani-Chan!”
The girls looked up. Kurea inwardly smiled. The –Chan ending seemed to be stuck for good. It was the most obvious thing in the world now that he liked Besani, and she just wondered when Besani was going to figure it out. Whenever Kurea mentioned it to her, she always said things like ‘I can’t be sure’ or ‘I need more information’.
“Oh, hi, Kankuro!” Besani said. “We were just going to go sit on that hill over there and enjoy the sunshine! Wanna join us?”
“Uh- yeah!” He quickly agreed. This is AWESOME! He thought. Except for the fact that Kurea’s here. It’s not like I hate her, but I wanna spend some time with Besani… alone. Those two are stuck together like… well, something sticky. I can’t think of something right now, because I’m so scatterbrained- I’m with Besani-Chan, what did I expect! My brain’s going to fall apart any moment now!!!AAAAHHH!!!
“Uh, Kankuro?” Besani waved her hand in his face. “Konoha to Kankuro, come in Kankuro!”
“Oh, huh, what?” Kankuro shook his head. “Sorry. I kind of- spaced out there I guess.”
They all sat down on the big hill. Suddenly Kurea decided that they should be left alone.
“I’m feeling a sudden urge to roll down this hill.” She said.
“Go ahead.” Besani said- she didn’t tend to do random crazy things quite as much. Besides, she wanted to stay with Kankuro…
As Kurea rolled down the large hill, Besani looked over at Kankuro. He turned away and smiled, not wanting her to know he had been watching her. Besani smiled and rested her chin in her hands. She looked down the hill. Kurea was near the bottom now. She seemed pretty happy entertaining herself, while Besani spent time with Kankuro. What Kurea needed though, was for someone fun-loving like her to come along and spend time with her.
As if he had responded to her mental request, a green and orange-clothed figure came jogging along the road at the bottom of the hill. Besani smiled. At this rate…

More please!(or whenever you get to it!)

lol, how about now?

Chapter 15: Kankuro’s date, Gaara’s new hope, Lee’s confusion

Kurea kept rolling even when she reached the bottom of the hill. Hee hee. This is so fun. Everyone should roll down a hill at least once in their life. When I stop, I’ll try rolling back UP the hill. That’d be interesting. Roll, roll, roll, fun, fun, fun. La, La, La, La, La, La…
Suddenly she wasn’t on grass anymore. She figured it was time to roll the other way. She stopped and changed directions, starting up the hill again. Then she ran into something. She opened her eyes and looked up. She had run into Lee’s foot.
“Hi!” He said, holding up one hand in greeting. “What are you up to?”
“I’m rolling down hills and up them again.” She said matter-of-factly.
Lee laughed. “That sounds like fun.” He said. “Can I join you in your random activity?”
“Sure!” Kurea grinned.
Lee walked a few feet away and plunked down on the ground. “Let us race to the top!” he suggested.
“You’re on!” Kurea said. “Ready, set…..”
“GO!” Lee yelled and began rolling upwards at a pretty fast speed.
“Hey!” Kurea rolled really fast to catch up.
----------------------------------------------
“Haha, they look like they’re having tons of fun.” Besani pointed out. She and Kankuro had just been sitting on the hillside for the last ten minutes, watching Lee and Kurea have races up and down the hill. They weren’t rolling anymore, they were actually running. Besani was amazed that they didn’t trip on such a steep slope. Lee had won on most of the races, but Kurea was getting better. She had gotten a stitch the first few times they ran up the hill, but before long, there weren’t as many and they were farther in between. She was definitely building up her running endurance.
“Yeah.” Kankuro said. He stood up. “Suddenly I don’t feel like sitting around babysitting those two- Wanna go actually DO something?”
“Sure!” Besani agreed.
Kankuro held out his hand to help Besani get up, she took it, but after she was up he didn’t let go. She didn’t seem to mind that much…
“So… what do you wanna do?” Kankuro asked.
“Did you have something in mind?” Besani replied.
“Not specifically…” Kankuro started to think about it. Just then he saw a sign-[Free bowling today only!] is what it read.
“Hey, how about there?” He pointed to the sign.
“Hey, that’s a great idea!” Besani said.
Of course, since it was free, there were lots of people, and they had to wait in line for a while, but they didn’t mind that much.
---------------------------------
Meanwhile, at the hotel…
“Well, we’ve got an hour, so, go do whatever you want.” Temari said when Gaara FINALLY finished packing. It took him a while because he insisted that every single item be folded neatly with no wrinkles whatsoever. Because the future Kazekage has to have good organizational skills- right?
“I think I’ll go spy on Kankuro.” Gaara said with a sneaky grin on his face. “He seemed to be in a hurry.”
“Be back here at four!” Temari said as Gaara left the room. “Now what do I do?” she asked herself. She walked out onto the balcony and looked at the clouds. Clouds were interesting… clouds reminded her of Shikamaru. She smiled. Shikamaru likes clouds. Maybe he’s watching them too- from the rooftop bench he likes to go to. Maybe I should pay him a visit. Yeah. She climbed off of the balcony and jumped across town on the rooftops.
-------------------------------
Gaara left the hotel lobby and wondered which way Kankuro had gone. It had been over an hour since he left so this wouldn’t be easy. He came upon Konohamaru and his friends playing checkers, the picnic baskets empty.
“Have you guys seen my brother?” He asked. He tried to smile sweetly, not creepily, so he wouldn’t scare the kids. Moegi still shivered though.
“He went that way.” Udon pointed.
“Yeah, looking for Besani-sensei.” Konohamaru added.
“AHA!”Gaara looked proud of himself. “So THAT’S what he’s up to. Thanks!” He took off running.
Most likely he wanted to spend a lot of time with her before we left… He thought. He ran down the streets of Konoha, dodging people, since he was headed the opposite direction of most of them. He bumped a little kid, accidentally causing her to trip. However, when he tried to help her up, she got scared and ran away. All around him, people moved to avoid him. People he didn’t even know.
Why do people avoid me so much? One look and they think of me as a creep. I’ve changed! I’m not mean, and I’m just like any normal person, other than the fact that I have a monster inside of me. But that’s not my fault! And that’s not who I am. Why can’t people see me for who I really am?
By now Gaara had completely forgotten about spying on his brother. He sat down on a bench near the edge of the town.
Some people accept me, but very few are even from my own village. I could pretty much count all my friends in one breath. None. That’s how many.
Now you know that’s a lie. What are Naruto, and Jaki, and all the others to you?
Gaara smiled slightly. Oh yeah, that’s right. I do have friends. Lots of friends. Thanks for reminding me, God.
No problem.
This is amazing. Ever since I became a Christian, I’m able to hear God talking to me sometimes… and I see the world in a whole new way.
Gaara pondered these things for a while. His life’s new purpose, all the friends he’d made… He just needed to change his mindset of focusing on the negative things. It would be hard to break that habit, but he knew God would help him. He knew he had friends to help him. And he wasn’t alone anymore.
-----------------------------------------
“Um, ok, well, if you want to participate, you might be waiting for a couple more hours.” A teen behind the counter at the bowling place told Kankuro and Besani. “We’ve got a big crowd here today…”
“I don’t have that much time.” Kankuro said. “I guess we’ll find something else to do, is that ok, Besani-Chan?”
“Sure” Besani said.
“Then what should we do?” Kankuro wondered as they left the bowling alley.
“You mentioned during the first part of the ninja test that you used puppets…” Besani said. “Mind showing them to me?”
“Oh, sure, I don’t mind at all!” Kankuro was happy she was interested, because he thought his puppets were pretty awesome.
They sat down on the lawn in front of the Hokage mansion, and Kankuro unwrapped Crow.
“Ohh!! That’s awesome!” Besani said, admiring the joints and secret weapon holders. Kankuro started to control the puppet, making it get up and dance around.
“I have another puppet, Black Ant, but I left him at the hotel.” Kankuro said. “It’s like a barrel and Crow’s head and legs can attach into holes in it so that the person trapped inside is instantly, er, well, killed. He really is a weapon, not a toy.”
“Koolness.” Besani said.
“Hey, do you want to try?” He suddenly asked her.
“Oh, awesome, yeah!” Besani seemed excited.
He gently attached the chakra strings to her fingers taking his time on the parts where he was touching her hands, and showed her how to move each individual part of the puppet.
Besani laughed. “This is really fun!”
“I’m glad you think so.” Kankuro smiled and watched her control his tools with amazing accuracy. She was pretty much a natural at it.
-------------------------------------------------
Shikamaru was, of course staring at the sky on his favorite bench, when a shadow fell over his face.
“Troublesome woman, you’re blocking my view.” He didn’t admit it, but he didn’t think that Temari’s smiling face was that bad of a view either. She continued standing there for a while, with a teasing smile.
Suddenly, she moved back out of the way, causing the sunlight to glare in Shikamaru’s eyes.
“Aaah!” Shikamaru sat up and shielded his face with his hand. Temari sat down next to him.
“So what have you been up to?” she casually asked.
------------------------------------
Back at the hillside, Lee and Kurea were still at it.
“Yes! I finally won two times in a row!” Kurea was very happy.
“I need a break.” Lee said, breathing heavily. He gently grabbed her wrist so that he could look at her watch to check the time. It was 4:00.
Suddenly she pulled away. “Wh- what are you doing!?!”
“Sorry- I didn’t think you’d get mad.” What’s with her all of a sudden? She didn’t mind that time with the notebook- he just wanted to check the time. It’s not like he was trying to hold her hand, right?
“Jerk!” She yelled at him. “What’s wrong with you? You know I like Sasuke!” She ran over to the nearest building, an old library, and went inside.
“Kurea, where are you going? What’s wrong with you? You don’t like Sasuke! You’ve turned him down several times!” Something is really wrong here. Lee got up and followed her. The library was kind of stuffy, and most of the books were gone. The bare, dusty shelves created an atmosphere that was, well, boring, pretty much.
“Kurea?” Lee called. “Where are you?”
No answer. He looked down. The only footprints he saw in the dust were his own- maybe she didn’t come in here after all.
He turned to leave, but the wind blew the door shut. He couldn’t budge it.
“If I cannot open it, I will have to kick it down!” Lee exclaimed. “Hyaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!”
-----------------------------------
Kankuro cringed when he heard a clock strike 4.
“Besani-Chan… I have to uh, go now…” He turned to where Besani was sitting, or, that is, had been sitting.
“Besani-Chan?” He looked around. “Where did she go?” He wondered aloud.
Am I really that boring? He wondered. He wrapped up Crow and hoisted it onto his back.
“Besani-Chan?” He called again. “I’m leaving now… I guess this is goodbye?”
Still no answer.
I guess she really doesn’t care. Kankuro didn’t want to even consider that option. No, no, this is all wrong! I have to find her! I don’t care if they leave me here in Konoha. Where did she…?
Suddenly she was in front of him. “I’ve got something to show you.” She said simply, and started walking back to the hill where Lee and Kurea had been.
“Besani-Chan! Where were you?”
“Preparing.”
“…Preparing what?” Kankuro asked as they stopped in front of an old library building.
“Your imminent doom.” She said simply.
Kankuro looked at her strangely. Then he caught the smile.
“You’re kidding, right?” He said, laughing.
“You first” Besani said, motioning to the door.
Kankuro went in. He heard someone yelling on the other side. Besani followed him, but disappeared as soon as she passed over the threshold.
“Besani-Chan…” Kankuro felt that something wasn’t right about this building. “Besani-Chan, please stop disappearing…” He tried opening the door again. It was stuck. He heard a scream that sounded like Besani. He broke a sweat. Something was very wrong.
-------------------------------------------
Gaara looked up at the clock on the closest shop. 4:00. Time to head back to the hotel. He was actually thinking about trying to whistle as he walked, but decided against it. Suddenly Jaki came running along and crashed right into him. He fell, but she didn’t, and sand poured out of his gourd to cushion his fall.
“I’m so sorry, Gaara-kun!” She said, helping him up.
Gaara-kun? Where did that come from? He wondered. He blushed a little, but turned away so his crush wouldn’t see.
“Anyway I was just coming to look for you” Jaki said. “It’s time to leave.”
“I was heading in that direction already.” Gaara said.
“Then let’s walk together.” She smiled, and they started walking.
After about five minutes of walking in silence, Gaara noticed they were going the wrong way.
“Jaki? Isn’t the hotel in the other direction?”
“Just trust me.” Jaki said, taking his hand and smiling.
Oh, ok, I can so totally deal with this. Gaara smiled, trying to keep himself from squeezing her hand too hard. It’s ok if we’re a little late- right?
Suddenly they reached an old library.
“What are we doing here?”
“You’ll see.” Jaki assured him.
They walked in. Jaki let go of his hand and walked a few steps ahead of him. Suddenly a hole opened up in the floor and she fell through.
“Gaara! Help!” He heard her call. He dived in after her, but ended up sprawled on the floor.
Where the heck did the hole go?!? He thought frantically.
-------------------------------
Outside the library, two figures smirked and sat down to see what would happen.
“This will be fun.” An ominous voice said. Ok, well, Shikamaru’s voice isn’t so ominous. Temari might do a better job.
“I wonder how long it will take them to figure it out?” Temari pondered.
“I thought you had to go soon.” Shikamaru said.
“What, you want me to leave?” Temari asked.
“No! that’s not… what I meant.” Shikamaru turned away. “Playing pranks on your brothers might be fun… but why’d we trap Lee in the Genjutsu too?”
“Just for kicks.” Temari explained. “Thinking about it is so funny. A viciously angry Kurea, A mean prankster Besani, and a Jaki who is bold about her feelings- this is getting really funny.”

Ooh, I love the suspense...

Chapter 16: Breaking the spell and the unconscious Kurea

Kurea, Jaki, and Besani were trapped in a different genjutsu. They had followed the “guys” who were really just illusions, to a large open field where a barrier was immediately set, trapping them in. Then the “guys” disappeared.
None of the girls knew much about Genjutsu, but they could tell something was fishy.
They started walking and ran into each other in the middle of the field.
“Hey, Besani!” Jaki said. “Have you seen Gaara?”
“No, have you seen Kankuro?”
“No. I thought Gaara brought me here, but then he disappeared!”
“Same here! Except with Kankuro!”
Kurea walked over looking really confused, she was the worst with Genjutsu of the three of them, and she actually got dizzy and suffered slight memory loss when inside one. That’s why she never remembers what happened inside genjutsus, which is why she never got better at them.
“Where… am I?”
“Let me guess, Lee brought you here.” Besani suggested.
“I dunno…” Kurea looked like she was about to fall over.
Jaki and Besani exchanged a knowing glance. “It’s a genjutsu.” They both announced.
“Who would do that?” Jaki asked in disgust. “Using the boys we like to lure us into a trap!”
“Uhhnn.” Kurea flopped face first in the grass.
“She’s not going to be of much help.” Besani sighed.
“Too bad we stink at Genjutsu- and this is a pretty strong one. It would be hard to break.” Jaki commented.
“Well, we have to try.” Besani said. She pulled out her gong.
“That might not be a good idea…” Jaki started to say.
BANGGG!!! Sound waves sliced the ground in all directions, but when they reached the barrier, they bounced back and ended up giving the three girls lots of little cuts.
“Let me try something.” Jaki said. She formed a few hand seals, and a fireball appeared on her hand.
“Haaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaah!” She yelled and ran at the barrier. A little hole about the size of the tip of a pencil appeared.
“Darn, that was my hardest fireball except for Extreme Dancing Fire Dragons, and I can’t use that… It’d take too much chakra.”
“Look on the bright side.” Besani pointed out. “Just four million more, and we might be able to squeeze our way out! And on top of that, Kurea will probably go into a coma soon!”
Jaki groaned.
-------------------------
Inside the ‘library’…
Kankuro looked around. He had to save Besani- but where was she? He heard Lee yelling and ran to the other side of the library.
“Dynamic Entry!” Lee kicked at the door. It fell through. “Heh, here you might call it ‘Dynamic Exit’.” He laughed to himself.
Then he looked out the door… all that was there was pitch blackness.
“That is weird!” He said.
“Yeah, tell me about it!” Kankuro said.
Lee turned around. “Kankuro! Have you seen Kurea?”
“No- I’m looking for Besani-Chan.”
“I have not seen her. But Kurea was asking really weird.”
“So I suppose you haven’t seen Jaki either?” Gaara appeared next to them.
“No.”
“Nope.”
Gaara looked out the door. “This looks like genjutsu.” He said.
“Now that you mention it, it does!” Kankuro said.
“How could I not notice that? Of course it is!” Lee sat down. “No wonder Kurea was not acting normal! But I have the feeling that she is not ok. I still have to save her!”
“Well first we have to break out of this Genjutsu.” Kankuro said. “To do that we have to disrupt our chakra flow. There are 3 ways to do that… Cause ourselves real, physical pain, stop our chakra flow altogether, which is really hard, or, get chakra from someone else. The third option seems to be the best.”
“I agree.” Gaara said. “Everyone hold hands.”
“This is weird.” Lee said.
“It’s just for a second. One, two, three…” All the boys sent chakra out to the people next to them and soon they woke up to find themselves back on the hill.
“Ha, so you finally broke out.” Shikamaru smirked. “But I bet you can’t find the girls.”
Suddenly Temari winced. “Shika-kun, we have a problem!”
“What?”
“Kurea seems to not be taking the Genjutsu too well. She’s fainted and is suffering some memory loss- I think this joke has gone a little too far.”
“Then release the Jutsu! Quickly!” Lee insisted.
“I can’t!” Temari said. “I made it a self standing Jutsu- they have to break it from inside! The only other way to break it is to kill me!”
“Then can you put us inside it too?” Gaara asked.
“I’ll try!” Temari said. She formed a few seals and shut her eyes. Suddenly the sky and the ground swirled together around the boys, and they found themselves in a field with a barrier shield around it.
“We have to find the girls!” Kankuro said urgently. They saw several bright flashes of fire and heard Besani and Jaki yelling.
“They’re over there.” Gaara stated, and then started running. Kankuro and Lee followed, but Lee pulled ahead quickly and left the two brothers far behind.
-------------------------------
Besani sat down, breathing heavily. “This will never work.”
“Hey, what’s that?” Vanessa pointed to a huge dust cloud building up in the distance. The next thing they knew, Lee was standing near them.
“Where is Kurea?” He asked, panicking.
“Careful, J, this might be part of the genjutsu. It could be a trap.” Besani told her friend.
“What?” Lee yelled. “No! I am here because Temari sent us to get you girls out of here!”
“Keep on your guard.” Besani whispered. Soon Kankuro and Gaara arrived, panting.
“Alright, we’ve got to break the Genjutsu.” Kankuro said, rolling up his sleeves.
Besani and Jaki, still not sure if this was part of the genjutsu, kept their hands on their shuriken holsters, just in case.
Lee grabbed Kankuro’s arm, who grabbed Gaara’s arm, who grabbed Lee’s arm. That way they each had a free hand, unlike last time. They walked over to the girls in this peculiar formation. Kankuro held his free hand out to Besani, who cautiously took it. Gaara extended his to Jaki, who was still on her guard as well.
“How are we going to get to Kurea?” Gaara wondered, since they were all tangled up, and she was lying face down on the ground.
“Do not worry, I have an idea!” Lee reached out with his foot and hooked it around her ankles, and swung her up in the air where she landed hanging over his shoulder.
“Alright, let’s go!” Kankuro said. Each boy gave chakra to the boy whose arm he had grabbed, and the girl whose hand they were holding.

(Note: Because the girls didn’t know what was going on, they couldn’t be expected to know they were supposed to give chakra to the next person, therefore the weird arm/hand arrangement thing.)

The wind whipped around and before they knew it, they were back on the hill. They all let go, and Lee took the unconscious Kurea off of his shoulder, gently laying her on the ground, and sitting down nearby.
“That was kind of fun!” Kankuro admitted.
“Uhhnn….. What happened?” Kurea blinked and sat up, seemingly half-asleep.
“You are awake!” Lee exclaimed. “I was so worried.” He hugged her tight.
Kurea still didn’t know what had happened, but she smiled and hugged him back.

Aww!! LeeOC-ness!!!!!!