[FFML] [Naruto] Memories Lie 5-8

[Nugar]

Mmm.  Been a while again.  Probably should have posted it in two
chapter segments rather than dumping four on you at once, but if you
haven't been keeping up with it on fanfiction.net or the TFF and
you're looking for something to read, here's nearly 40k words for you.




Memories Lie chapters 5 through 8.

This is the third story arc of People Lie, earlier chapters of
which may be found at
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/3745099/1/People_Lie

Naruto belongs to Kishimoto Masashi.  Fanfic writers get paid with
reviews, so if you like this story, how about some comments and
criticism?



	"What a strange day," Naruto commented idly as they walked
through the soft glow cast by the dozens of paper lanterns
decorating storefronts and street lamps.  The bustle of activity
had started to ebb again, most people having done their shopping
for the day or evening and gone home to families or supper.

	"Yes," Hinata agreed from his left side.  "Our chakras have
pulsed wildly all day.  But thank you for bringing us together.
Despite our flaring emotions, we have preserved team harmony and
strength when we could have easily been torn apart from within."

	"Speaking of being torn apart…  The pigeon is dead," Sasuke
said with satisfaction, stretching his arms up and unconsciously
smoothing down the hair on the back of his head with both hands.
He strolled along on Naruto's right.

	"That was one dead bird," Naruto agreed, grinning.  "I almost
fell over laughing when you agreed to a date."

	"She hadn't even asked yet," Hinata noted.  "So do you have a
thing for pink hair that's stronger than your love of a girl's-"

	"She did me a favor.  It's the least I could do," Sasuke
growled, cutting her off.  "And I remind you that I didn't say
when it'd happen."

	"Well, technically, the least you could do would be nothing,
but I'm glad to see you're finally getting my point.  When someone
kills for you, they deserve everything you can give them in
return," Naruto said, wrapping his left arm around Hinata's
shoulders and his right around Sasuke.  "Pink's a good color for
you, man."

	Sasuke closed his eyes for a moment, then shook his head.

	"Sorry, Sasuke," Naruto said hastily, realizing he'd
accidentally brought up Miko again.  He let go of the dark haired
boy and quickly changed the subject.  "But I'm with Hinata.  We
needed this as a team.  Tomorrow, we'll meet up with Anko and we
start some serious training before they remember us and stick us
on missions again.  You'll learn more jutsu than we will, because
we'll make sure you're in the right position to copy them, and
you'll share them with us.  We'll all grow in power and get new
teachers, rivals, and enemies, and between your ability to copy
and Hinata's eye of insight, their secrets will be an open book to
us.  And with my power fueling us, every one of our goals will be
in reach."

	He paused, showing fanglike teeth as his lips twisted into a
feral smile.

	"My goals first," Hinata said without preamble.

	The others suddenly stopped, turning their heads to stare at
her, shocked at her sudden demand.

	"Hinata?" Naruto asked.  "I mean, yeah, you need your
position as heir confirmed soon-"

	"I am afraid it is becoming a pressing matter," she replied,
her lips pressed into a hard, thin line.  "My father…  He did not
immediately send for our seal master when I arrived home, but
there was a certain...  attitude."

	"Well… shit," Naruto said after a moment.

	"What are your plans?" Sasuke asked interestedly.  He'd
thought about her speech on the barn roof several times, wondering
exactly how she envisioned her revenge on her clan for dismissing
her.  His own plan for Itachi boiled down to little more than
killing him, but Hinata had seemed more inclined to dominate than
just kill.  It was kinda creepy, coming from the girl who was so
subservient to Naruto.

	"I need to find out how my skills have suffered since the
mission and work to correct my flaws.  I had just gotten
proficient at the sixty-four hands technique and was trying to
incorporate kicks into the juken, but all of my family style
relies on our vision save one technique, the kaiten, we use as an
emergency defense.  Unfortunately, I have not yet learned the
technique, and it is very chakra intensive, which is a problem for
me right now.  If I cannot keep my eyes uncovered during an
intense fight, I might as well carve the manji into my forehead
now," she explained in a detached manner.

	"You seem rather calm about it..." Sasuke hazarded.  "You
didn't even mention it until now."

	"We had tasks for today.  Whining about it will not help me."

	Sasuke turned to Naruto, who was frowning, deep in thought.
With the clarity of the sharingan, now, in this unguarded moment,
Naruto looked worried.

	Very worried.

	"Naruto?" he asked.  "Do you have a plan?"

	"Hm?"  He blinked and looked up.  "Plan?  Ah… yeah.  Well,
the original plan basically involved Hinata hiding her skill until
she was good enough to crush them in a surprise demonstration of
her power.  Now, though…  Hinata says we no longer have the luxury
of time.  While I know she's easily good enough to deserve the
position as clan heir, with her eye problems, she might have
trouble destroying her reputation as unworthy, and that seriously
weakens her future position as heir or clan matriarch."

	"Weakens?" Sasuke asked.

	"It is not enough that I overcome my past," Hinata said in a
flat voice.  "I must erase it, rewrite it as if it never was.  The
elders must look back on every mistake I've ever made and doubt
their perception of it, looking for signs of the strength I've
hidden from them all along.  It will make them wary and cautious
of me, giving me the room I need to establish myself as a power
not beholden or reliant on them."

	"You're gonna rock their world, Hinata," Naruto said
approvingly.

	"If they only 'allow' me to become the next clan head, there
will always be the perception that my power comes from them.  They
will attempt to decide the alliances I make, the deals I broker,
the society I move in, even the man I marry."

	That is not acceptable.  The words hung unspoken, yet filling
the air with a subtle menace.

	"Indeed," Naruto agreed.  "The obvious solution is for you to
summon some of my chakra, but I'm a little worried about that.
The Hokage did forbid me from risking anything, so I guess the
only thing we can do is hope he comes up with a jutsu that will do
it safely before you have to make your move.  So, for now, the
best thing to do is wait."

	"Sasuke's technique worked, though," Hinata said with the
tiniest bit of reproach.

	Naruto winced.  "Yeah, but I'd really rather not risk
destroying your coils."  He paused, then added quietly, "I don't
know what I'd do without you."

	Sasuke watched with resignation while he put and arm around
her waist and she melted into him.  Love and sex, bah.  Wastes of
time.  Strength is what's important.

	Unbidden, a faint image of Naruko's naked form bouncing up
and down came to mind.

	-tits-	

	"So we'll do our best to delay any preemptive sealing so we
can hopefully get the right jutsu.  Tomorrow, Anko will teach us
some jutsu, so that'll give you an edge your family won't see
coming.  Beyond that, we need to help you practice your kicks,
hand speed, and the kaiten, right?" Naruto said confidently,
turning his head so he was all but talking into her hair.

	"What about that thing you did with your chakra against that
old priest's arm?" Sasuke asked.  "I'd thought you had to touch
someone to project your chakra into them, but you couldn't touch
that thing without getting burned, remember?"

	Naruto blinked.  "I don't remember that."

	"You weren't there," Sasuke countered, leaving the fact that
he'd been fighting that thing unspoken.  	

	"You mean this?" Hinata asked, leaning forward slightly and
waving her flattened hand over the top of her head.

	Several hairs that had been sticking up, mussed by her
regular sliding of her hitai-ate, were cleaved in two, the ends
floating gently to the ground.

	"Yeah, that's the one," he agreed.

	Naruto looked on with interest.  "I knew you were working on
projecting your attacks more, but that's really nice, kinda like a
chakra scalpel."

	"It requires too much concentration.  For a single attack I
could use it, but without the attack and defense of the sixty-four
hands, one attack is not likely to be effective against my family,
and they will see it coming."

	Naruto quirked one eyebrow at her, then looked back at
Sasuke.  "It's a start, right?"


	xxxxxxxxx
	xxxxxxxxx


	Naruto lay perfectly still, curled onto his side, his knees
nearly touching his chest.  He wore only a pair of boxer shorts,
and his head rested on his arm, his fingers clenching and
unclenching unconsciously.

	He lay there for a time, his body twitching with inner
turmoil, as the chanting went on around him.

	"Ph'nglui mglw'nafh…" the chant went, growing softer.

	Naruto slept, shifting slightly to make himself more
comfortable on the cold stone floor.  Despite having eaten a good
supper, his stomach clenched and growled at the smell of fresh
blood and terror in the air.

	"…wgah'nagl fhtaghn," continued the chant, growing louder.
"Kryaas u'lsaja tyrrq!"

	Naruto's ears twitched, like a fox bothered by a fly.

	"Ia…  Ia…"

	He rolled over.

	"T'quai si ju ret i'n kryass…"

	Someone screamed, high, piercing, feminine.

	He pawed at his cheek.

	"Ia!  Ia!  Kyubi fhtaghn!"

	Naruto's eyes snapped open, slit pupiled and red.

	"IA!"
	
	Power, red and huge and hungry, pounded in his coils, and he
felt himself rise slowly to his feet as if he levitated there,
supported only by the immense, physical weight of the bloody red
chakra twisting and lashing out around his body.

	"IA!  NARUTO FHTAGHN!" Sasuke screamed, his voice full of
wonder and terror.

	Naruto turned slowly, chakra wreathing his head, giving him
the suggestion of foxlike features, including two long, slender
ears.

	"Naruto fhtaghn!" Hinata called, offering herself, body,
mind, and soul to him.

	His hand reached out to her, grabbing her shirt, pulling the
unresisting female closer.

	"Naruto!"

	He paused.

	"Naruto…"  Hinata reached out and touched his face gently,
her hand glowing with her electric blue-white life energy.

	The dark, underground grotto brightened and faded, like an
image exposed to too much light, changing, speeding up.  The sun
was high in the sky, the leaves rustled in the breeze, and Sasuke
and Hinata stood over him, because he wasn't standing, he was
laying beneath a tree, flat on his back.

	Ohhhh yeah….  They'd been waiting for Anko, and he'd been up
in the branches of the tree while his shadow clone waited
patiently down below with Sasuke and Hinata.

	Hinata knelt by his side and gently cradled his head, her
fingers working over his body, looking for injuries by touch.

	"I'm alright," he grunted weakly.  "Just…  flashbacks.  To
the mission."

	"Hn," Sasuke said in understanding, turning away.

	He had started the day off by finding a note from Anko on his
chest, along with a senbon.  The note, apparently, had been
written in blood using the senbon.  And, apparently, if the tiny
crust of dried blood on the side of his neck that he found when he
looked in the mirror that morning was any indication, she'd used
him as her inkwell.

	He'd been tremendously impressed.

	Following the instructions on the note, he'd gathered Sasuke
and Hinata and made their way to training ground fifty-three with
a dozen boxes of dango skewers.  That had been at nine o'clock.
It was now sometime around noon.

	Naruto stood up slowly, stretching carefully and popping his
joints one by one.  The dream…  flashback, nightmare, whatever it
was, had really left him tense.

	"You know, we're really going to need to sit down and do some
training after all this, especially if Anko does teach us some new
techniques.  How are you coming with the sharingan, Sasuke?" he
asked.

	"My tomoe reverted to black last night," he noted.  "At this
stage, I need to train myself in genjutsu and speed.  I learned
your ninjutsu just by looking at it, so my abilities are working
properly."

	Naruto raised one eyebrow.  "You learned it, but the whole
thing about the hensou is making yourself look right, and that
takes as much visualization as a genjutsu.  Did you practice it to
see if you could do it?"

	"…Hn," Sasuke sort of agreed.

	Naruto looked at him speculatively, then grinned abruptly.
"Hah!  You did have smaller tits, didn't you!?"

	"What about you, Hinata?  Are you going to learn blind
fighting techniques or try to work around the drain on your
chakra?" Sasuke asked.

	Naruto rolled his eyes.  "Truly, you are the master of
conversational genjutsu," he muttered under his breath.

	"I will attempt to do both, but my focus for now must be on
minimizing chakra use and increasing my capacity," she replied,
turning her head slightly to face the direction his voice was
coming from.  "Although I like the idea of pretending to be an
effective blind fighter, then catching my enemies when they
attempt to use that weakness against me, it will take me some time
to learn those techniques.  If Naruto can solve the problem of the
summoning jutsu, I will be able to draw upon his chakra when
necessary."

	"Aaa," Sasuke replied thoughtfully.  Truthfully, he was a
little worried about the chakra his own bloodline was using every
moment.  It wasn't crippling to him the way it was to Hinata, but
it was a nagging, steady drain that made him feel as if he was
constantly just a little bit tired.	

	"Yeah, I'd love to be working on the jutsu, but we got lucky
so far, and I don't want to push our luck," Naruto added quietly.

	"Hi, kids!  Guess who's here?" a new voice cut in from above
them.

	"Hi, Anko-san," Naruto replied, looking up to see Anko
standing on the branch he had so ignobly fell off.

	Sasuke winced as he turned.  He'd been on lookout for the
past hour, warned by Naruto that Anko was likely to try something
surprisingly.  And she'd snuck up on them anyway.  He looked up,
then blinked.

	Anko was wearing clothes nearly identical to the ones she'd
worn the day before, a long brown duster over a fishnet body
stocking and a mid thigh skirt.  And, since she was standing on a
fairly thin branch directly overhead, he was able to see her from
an angle he'd been denied the day before.

	"Like the view, boys?" she asked archly, not moving.

	"My goodness, Anko-san.  You seem to have forgotten to put on
panties this morning," Naruto said in a tone of mock innocence.

	Hinata suddenly blurred into motion beside them, crouching
and rising back to her feet in one lightning fast, smooth motion,
two long, thin, wriggling snakes in her hands.  They were pale
grass gree with whip thin bodies, and she pushed her thumb and
forefinger at the hinge of their jaws, forcing their mouths open
to display long fangs dripping poison.

	"Ah, I see our Hinata-chan understands her role in the team
dynamics," Anko said in amusement as she stepped off the branch
and fell noiselessly to the earth.   "Leave it to the girl to keep
the boys from getting killed while they lust over a deadly woman."

	"Yes," Hinata replied quietly holding out the snakes.

	Anko dismissed them with a wave.  "And I didn't forget to put
on panties, I never wear panties.  They can give you crotch rot on
long missions, and if you wear underwear over a mesh body stocking
like mine, the wire chafes, and if you wear it underneath, you
have to take the mesh off before you can get the panties off to
pee."

	Sasuke frowned at this logic.  It seemed off somehow.  "Don't
you have to take the body stocking off to pee anyway?"

	Anko gave him a slightly incredulous look.  "It's mesh."

	"Oookay…" Naruto interrupted.  "So did you have trouble?  Or
did you just sleep late?"

	Anko shrugged.  "Trouble, kid, of sorts.  I got called into
the Hokage's office this morning."

	Naruto winced while the other two hid their apprehension.

	"Yeah, you didn't tell me you managed to get on the old man's
shit list yesterday," she noted with grim amusement and a little
accusation.  "That's got to be a first for you, ain't it?"

	"Yeah… so far as I know, it's a first.  So no training today,
huh?" he said, not allowing even a trace of disappointment to
enter his voice.

	"I was told not to," Anko admitted.  "Look, have a seat.  I
think we're gonna be here a while."  She sat into the grass with
her back against the tree, her legs crossed comfortably in front
of her.  No point distracting the boys any more, this was serious
stuff.  She waited until they all sat in an arc around her, Naruto
in the middle, the girl on his left, and the Uchiha on the right,
noting with some approval that they sat just far enough apart that
she had to turn her head slightly to look from Sasuke to Hinata,
then continued.  "Actually, I was told a number of things.
Including some of the details about your last mission.  Were you
going to tell me about the shoggoth?"

	Naruto blinked.  "Of course not.  That was classified."

	Anko smiled softly and shook her head.  "Of course not."  She
chuckled slightly, then swept her gaze from one genin to the next.
"It kind of makes me regret that I'm forbidden from being a
sensei.  With genin like you three, I'd look like a total bad ass
of a teacher."

	"Ano, why aren't you allowed to teach anyone?" Hinata asked
hesitantly.

	"Let's just say…"  She trailed off for a moment, then
shrugged.  "Aw, fuck it.  I trained under Orochimaru of the Sanin.
He ignored every rule there was about how to train students,
putting us through life or death situations, exotic techniques to
force our bodies to gain strength quickly, and teaching us
techniques at an age considered insanely young by everyone who
later found out.  He also developed elaborate kinjutsu, which he
then used to give us abilities far outside your standard ninja."

	"I'm sensing some drawbacks here," Naruto said wryly.

	"I was the only one out of six official Konoha genin and god
knows how many orphans to survive his training."

	"Civilian orphans?  Or…?"

	Anko shook her head.  "He never started with anything but the
best.  He would have loved you three."

	"Would have?" Naruto pressed, intrigued despite himself.
This Orochimaru guy sounded like an awesome teacher in his book,
especially considering that he'd almost certainly be able to
survive the training.  He definitely sounded cooler than Kakashi,
and Naruto liked Kakashi.

	Anko took in the sudden interest, nay, eagerness in Naruto's
demeanor and realized that every bad thing she'd just meantioned
was the kind of training Naruto would thrive under.  "Yeah, don't
be running off and pestering the Hokage for his address.  He's
been dead over ten years now.  How…  that's classified.  But I
will say that he didn't get his name chiseled on the Monument for
a very good reason.  So don't be thinking he was a good guy."

	Naruto made a little moue of disappointment.  "So you can't
teach because your sensei was a little unconventional in his
methods, huh."  He looked at her appraisingly.  He'd known Anko
practically all his life, but this was the first time she'd ever
mentioned her past.

	Anko paused, closing her eyes for a moment as a visible
shudder ran through her body.  "Yeah, something like that," she
whispered a moment later.  She shook her head.  "Look, kids, you
just don't understand.  We are shinobi.  We go where others can't,
and we learn things others shouldn't.  By the time you're a
chunin, you'll know secrets that could start wars in the wrong
hands.  By the time you're a jounin, you'll know things that could
change the course of history.  Konoha promotes based on strength
and skill, true.  But you'll never get beyond special jounin
unless you're absolutely perfect at keeping secrets, and you won't
even make it that far if you don't at least learn how to keep your
mouth shut.  Most of the people ANBU catches and executes as enemy
spies or traitors to the village are just regular ninja who are
too loose lipped.  Most of them are even perfectly loyal, but what
does it matter your intentions if a careless comment gets people
killed?"

	The team nodded seriously, Anko was glad to see.  It was one
of the hardest things for some ninja to accept, which is why only
certain people were ever invited into ANBU.  She'd bet a year's
pay in A rank missions that all three of them would be ANBU within
a month of making chunin.  But then, Naruto had never lacked in
ruthlessness.

	"But what exactly does that have to do with us?  We're not
running around spreading classified information like fools,"
Naruto replied.

	Anko sighed and leaned her head back against the tree.  It
was a really pretty day today, with the sun shining and the breeze
blowing and the birds calling to each other among the leaves.  The
heat gave her energy and drive, but what the Hokage, and Ibiki, as
Naruto's primary handler, had told her that morning took a lot of
the spring out of her step.

	"It's not about you," she said finally.  "It's about me, and
something I know, and a certain bit of training I never got, and
now it's too late.  It's secret training, done without your
knowledge, or it doesn't really work.  I shouldn't even tell you
about it."  She plucked a blade of grass and toyed with it idly,
carefully splitting it down the middle with her thumbnail.

	"If it has to do with keeping secrets from people, I think
we're as ahead of the grade there as we are everywhere else."
Naruto saw little need for false humility, and he really wanted to
know what she was talking about.

	Anko shook her head.  "Yeah…  and there you go.  But, as I
said earlier, fuck it, right?" she said vehemently, throwing the
split blade of grass away from her like a dart and leaning
forward.  "The old man can declare stuff classified all he wants,
and he knows I sometimes don't agree.  He found out I was going to
meet you three today, and he told me what happened in your last
mission.  And since you lived, well, you're going to be first on
their list of genin they can send out for the hard missions, so
you're going to see some more shit you've never heard of, and they
never prepare you enough for some of it.  Especially since he also
told me a few things we should all be concerned with.  So I'm
going to violate every rule I know and tell you some things I
think you ought to know.

	"To begin with, at some point after you make chunin, you're
going to go through special training that you won't even be aware
of.  It's subtle, I mean maddeningly subtle.  Most of the people
involved don't even know about it.  If you're doing well, life
just seems to be going good for you.  Little things, like bonuses,
or the occasional vacation.  You get praise from your jounin
commander, you get commendations in your file.  But if you're
making the wrong moves, you'll start getting the shit jobs, your
commander will be pissy, promotions will take forever,
beaurocratic mistakes will cost you some pay, things like that."
Anko shook her head.  "It's like this oppressive weight that just
settles on you, where you think everyone is disapproving of
everything you do."

	"Yeah.  Sounds like Ibiki-san's work," Naruto commented.

	"He's probably involved somewhere, it does seem right up his
alley," she replied with a shrug.  "Some people do what they're
supposed to, which is withdraw from the world and stop talking to
people.  A minority go the other way, and end up really outgoing,
trying to get people to like them again.  I don't know what they
do to fix those people, to be honest.  Never ran into any myself."

	She shrugged again, and Sasuke was careful to focus on her
expression, not the way her coat moved up and outwards with her
shoulders.

	"Eventually, you'll make it high enough that you'll find out
what they've really been doing to you.  They've been conditioning
you to never tell anyone anything of meaning.  That ranges from
village secrets to jutsu and even all the way down to funny
stories about how some guy you know took a shuriken in the ass on
his last mission.  Anything and everything that might be of use to
an enemy you are taught to keep to yourself."  She tapped her
thigh lightly.  "Look, you're smart enough genin to think about
the world around you.  Why do you think we don't have teachers
lined up to teach you creative, incredibly destructive ninjutsu?
Or devastatingly subtle genjutsu?  Or all kinds of clever things
you can do with fuinjutsu?"

	Naruto frowned and looked down at his own hands.  Hinata
remained impassive.

	Sasuke spoke up.

	"I assumed it was because most ninjutsu take too much chakra
to use for a genin," Sasuke replied reasonably.  "And it takes a
certain amount of talent and intelligence to learn jutsu of all
types, especially since a mistake can kill you or a teammate."

	Anko nodded.  "That's right.  Most genin, hell, most chunin
only have enough chakra for maybe one C or B rank technique per
fight, so there's not a whole lot of use in knowing a bunch of
different ones when you'll only get to use one anyway.  That's
what you're supposed to think.  It's even true, which makes it the
cleverest sort of lie.  Once you figure that out, you stop asking
the question."

	Sasuke frowned.

	"Look, you're an Uchiha, right?  Have you ever thought about
why your clan was one of the most favored in Konoha?  There were
never any Uchiha Hokages, or even advisors to the Hokage."  She
ignored his deepening scowl.  "By and large, your family rarely
made it any higher than special jounin or jounin.  But still, you
ask around, you've still got a lot of old glory and honor clinging
to that name, kid.  It's in many ways the same with the Hyuga.
It's your eyes, kid.  That copy wheel eye.  How many jutsus have
you copied?"

	Sasuke grunted and looked away with a jerk.  "Two."

	Anko looked surprised.  "Two?"

	"He just awakened his bloodline on our mission," Naruto
hastened to explain.  Sasuke would not like been seen as below
average.  "And we haven't gotten a chance to train or really do
much at all until just now."

	Anko nodded.  "Fair enough.  Well, Sasuke will be, like the
rest of his family before him, notorious jutsu thieves for good
reason.  Use a jutsu in front of an Uchiha, and unless it's a
bloodline or something special, you just gave that technique to
Konoha.  Sasuke's clan was the single biggest contributor of
techniques to the village libraries in all of Konoha's history.
The bounties on dead Uchiha were huge among enemy villages, but in
Konoha, they were all but venerated.  Hell, that's why most of
them got pulled back to Konoha as guards and police, there was a
standing kill or capture rule in effect for Uchiha even with our
allies.  Techniques do not necessarily equal power, but they
definitely contribute to it, and by writing down their stolen
jutsu and donating it to the village at large, the Uchiha made
Konoha the biggest single repository of techniques in all the
elemental countries.  We may not have them all, but we damned sure
have most of them.

	"Techniques are just like any other village secret.  You do
not let them fall into enemy hands.  Genin love to show off their
techniques, it's like a brain stem function, right up there with
bar crawling and brothel hopping and other stupid, predictable
ways of getting yourself killed.  And genin, even in Konoha,
account for the vast majority of missing nin.  So genin are mostly
only taught the basics.  Useful basics, but stuff any village, and
hell, even the vast majority of samurai have access to, not that
samurai would ever stoop to using dirty ninja tricks.  You know
how they are about their precious 'honor'."  She turned her head
and spat into the grass.

	The trio of young shinobi smiled or chuckled softly,
expressing appropriate disdain of people who foolishly ignored the
perfect technique of stabbing people in the back when they weren't
looking.

	"But, once you start getting skilled, if you're the generous
type, or just naively think that spending your off time training
students and genin in new techniques is a good way to improve
Konoha, you'll start having the itch to pass some of your
techniques on.  Probably be something small at first, just help
with some taijutsu, or with one of the basic techniques.  But I've
seen fresh minted chunin decide that they needed to teach their
younger sister an A rank ninjutsu to help them through the
academy!  Needless to say, that was stopped pretty damned quick.
And the guy's sister grew up and made chunin on her own, and is
actually still doing pretty good.  She even eventually stole that
technique from someone else, and is quite deadly with it.  In that
case, it probably would have been alright for him to teach it to
her.  Families do share techniques fairly frequently, despite
everything done to stop it, I think it's basic human nature.

       "Still, what if she'd gone missing nin?  Or ran into enemy
ninja far stronger than her on some mission?  If she'd been
foolish, or desperate, enough to use that technique against a real
enemy, and failed to kill them, you can guarantee her little ass
would be destined for Ibiki's professional counterpart in whatever
village, and she'd be tortured until she gave up all her secrets,
including that jutsu.  Then, not only did we lose the technique to
another village, we also lost a genin who would otherwise probably
have been ransomed back to us.  By and large, we don't want you
learning a whole bunch of techniques until you're skilled enough
that the only way to defeat you is to kill you."

	They nodded warily.

	"There's also the other subtle aspect of it.  We're trained
to gather secrets from other people while we protect our own.  If
you just run around handing techniques to others, they have no
incentive to work for it, and they never learn how to steal them.
People always value something they worked for more than they do
something given to them, again, it's just human nature.  So
another reason for the training to keep secrets close is to keep
you from messing up the system.  Perceived strength is often based
on how many techniques someone knows.  It's not always the most
accurate judge of a shinobi's strength, but it's the one everyone
uses the most, especially for genin and chunin.  The reason is,
obviously, that we don't give you but a few freebies in the
academy.  If you managed to get more, that's a sign of skill more
accurate than just the ability to learn the jutsu.  You either
stole it, bribed it, seduced it, or conned it out of someone else.
Either way, you've demonstrated the skills we shinobi really need
to survive."

	She paused and scratched her calf in a spot where the grass
had tickled.

	"And, basically, that training is the problem.  I never got
it, at least not the way the Hokage and the jounin commanders
think I should.  Orochimaru had his own ideas, after all, and,
now, I'll never get a genin team.  Not that I've ever really
wanted one, but it's a pain in the ass right now, 'cause there's
some things I'd like to teach you."

	Sasuke concealed his disappointment.  He'd really thought
Naruto was going to come through for them and put him in a
situation to try out his sharingan.

	"Hell, I'll even tell you why I want to teach you," she said
seriously.  "And it's not just because you'd probably learn what I
show you.  It's a lot more serious than that."

	Sasuke focused on her again.

	Anko pinned them all with a look.

	"War is coming."

	Sasuke blinked.  Hinata sat up straighter.  Naruto's eyes
widened slightly.

	She nodded.  "This isn't an official announcement.  This is
just a feeling I have based on some things the Hokage said, and,
just so you understand, this is NOT something you spread around as
a rumor.  Keep it to yourselves.  Yeah, think about it.  You three
got Copy Nin Kakashi, the scarecrow himself as a sensei.  Kakashi
has his faults, but he takes his teammate's safety seriously.
Kakashi would never, EVER just abandon his students naked and
injured in the middle of a mission unless there was one serious
reason to do so.  Something that was more likely to kill you three
than being left alone to run back to Konoha."

	"In our sensei's defense, I was the only one unconscious,"
Naruto replied quickly, feeling the need to defend his sensei.
"At the time, though we were still rather short on equipment and
in considerable pain from small wounds, Hinata and Sasuke appeared
to be in good health, and it wasn't like I was dying, just…
tired."

	"It was perfectly logical to assume we'd be able to make it
back to Konoha alive, and we'd have made it easily if Hinata
hadn't been hemorraging blood and chakra, which no one had any
clue about," Sasuke added.  "Our first clue was when she collapsed
halfway back."

	"Ah, but that's just it, she did collapse," Anko countered.
"You never know what's gonna happen, and Kakashi knows that.  I'd
like to think if he'd known he would have abandoned whatever to
escort you back anyway, because if he wouldn't, that means we're
neck deep and sinking fast.  As it is, it just looks like we're
ass deep, because Kakashi's got this thing about people who
abandon teammates.  The only thing I can imagine would make him
even consider it is a direct threat to Konoha itself, and that
means war.  Plus, the Hokage is stepping up the rate of missions.
That either means we need to stockpile money and supplies, or
we've got a lot of intelligence and counterintelligence missions,
or, more than likely, both.  And if the missions get stepped up,
that means more high ranked missions for the jounin, since they
pay more.  And that means everyone is likely to start doing higher
ranked missions, because the chunin will have to do what the
jounin have been doing, and the genin will take over for the
chunin."

	She paused while they mulled on that.

	"And, everyone gets missions based on their abilities.  You
three took out a medium sized cult and a greater servitor
creature.  For a four man cell, that's good.  For a jounin and
three genin students, that's incredible."  She raised one eyebrow
at them.  "For three genin to do together while their sensei is
off doing something else, that's fucking incredible."

	"Kakashi-sensei took on the entire temple looking for us, all
we had were some priests and the…  thing," Hinata interrupted
quietly.

	"Whatever.  The point was, you succeeded, and you didn't even
die.  You may be two clan heirs and…  Naruto-"

	"A jinchuriki," Naruto supplied helpfully.  "They already
know."

	"-but just because you're all special, and valuable to
Konoha, doesn't mean you're gonna be kept safe here and coddled.
It means they're gonna use you like the shinobi you are.  They're
gonna expect great things from you three.  You'll be the first
pick for leaders, fighters, or any other mission where results
matter.  And you could use my help, especially now with Kakashi
away on his mission.  Extra techniques and training won't hurt
you."  She sighed.  "They might even save your life."

	They stared back at her impassively.  God, they were so young
and naive.  They had the eyes of killers, of shinobi who'd seen
battle and the horrors it brought, but they couldn't understand
what war was like.  Hell, she barely remembered how bad war was,
it'd been so long since she'd seen one, and it hadn't even
involved Konoha directly.

	"Look, I don't know when.  I don't even know if, I don't know
anything for sure.  Like I said, it's just a feeling, and if even
I can sense it, I know the Hokage already knows and is doing
everything he can to protect Konoha.  Just keep it in mind, okay?"
She put her hands beside her and looked at them seriously.

	All three nodded.  Yes, they would keep it in mind.

	Anko ran her hand over her hair, then glanced sideways at the
subtle sign of someone approaching.

	It was one of Naruto's clones, and he carried the agreed upon
dango boxes, which he offered to Anko.

	She brightened noticeably.  "Hey, thanks!"  She lost no time
opening one box and sliding one of the sweet dumplings off the
stick into her mouth with unintentionally suggestive movements of
her hand and tongue.  "Mmm…" she moaned in contentment.  "Still
good."

	"Well, you're not exactly training us, but we're still
learning, so payment is in order, right?" Naruto replied.

	Anko snickered.  "Bribing today, is it?  Information for
dango, not a bad trade for me."

	Hinata and Naruto smiled grimly.

	They all stewed over their private thoughts for about ten
minutes, the silence broken only by the occasional bird and the
enthusiastic sounds of eating as Anko ravenously chewed through
the dango.

	Finally done, Anko launched the last wooden skewer through
the air to impale a passing grasshopper flying through the air and
burped contentedly, working her tongue around her teeth to garner
the last traces of dough.

	She laughed suddenly, bringing all eyes to her in an instant,
the closest to startlement they would show.

	"Here's a lesson for you," she began with a thoughtful tone.
"Never be uncontrollable.  Being uncontrollable makes people who
obsess about security worry about you, since if they can't control
you, they see you as a threat."  She shook her head.  "No, you
give them a handle on you.  Say, women.  Or money.  Or praise, or
some other vice you can indulge on a regular basis."  She
indicated the pile of empty dango boxes.

	"A clever person will see that as a handle on you.  A way
that they can control you if need be.  Say, you give everyone shit
every time they ask you to do something.  But, if, say, they bribe
you with a shitload of dango, you'll change your tune.  People can
see that.  They want to believe in it, and when you want to
believe something, you stop picking at it.

	"Obviously, you should never let any one thing control you to
the point it can actually be a handle.  But the trick is, you have
to let it work when someone tries to use it against you.  They
think they have a handle on you, and they do, but what they don't
know is that you're holding the handle when they think it's
screwed into the back of your head.  They can lead you around with
it until they try to use it to throw you off a cliff, then
suddenly you let go and they're left holding this handle with a
stupid expression on their face, while you are uncontrollable."
She gave them all a mad, devious, slightly deranged grin and
jumped to her feet.

	They hastily did the same, looking at her warily.  Hinata
pushed her hitai-ate onto her forehead.

	"Some handles are more subtle than others, you know.  Like,
the Hokage told me he'd give me boring ass C class missions for a
month if I taught you any of my jutsu.  I hate boring missions,"
she said seriously.  "But I like disturbing the system more.  So I
think I'll show you a few jutsu and show my ass to the Hokage.
It's not like he said he'd have me executed."

	It was so cute, the way their eyes lit up at the thought of
learning new ways to kill people.  Sasuke in particular looked
incredibly pleased at the thought, and Naruto had a grin on his
face every bit as devious as the time he warned her not to use the
bathroom at the Konoha housing admin building, a day before a
mysterious set of painful rashes plagued the clerks and managers,
and a few innocent bystanders.  It prompted an investigation that
revealed someone had dusted all the rolls of toilet paper with
powdered poison ivy vines.

	"Well, if he ever does decide to have you killed, I'm sure
you'll put the cute in execute, Anko-san," Naruto said solemnly.

	She chuckled once.  "Alright, what do you want to know?  I'm
sure you've put some thought into the kind of jutsu that would fit
your fighting style."

	"Well, I'm a wind type, but Hinata doesn't have an elemental
affinity.  She's really good with pure chakra and shape
manipulation, though," Naruto said promptly.

	"Fire and lightning," Sasuke offered.  "Though I already know
three fire jutsu, and I have family scrolls on some others I
haven't perfected yet."

	"Hmmm," she said thoughtfully, tapping her lip with a finger.
"Interesting.  Why don't you just tell me what you know right
now?"

	Sasuke and Hinata glanced at Naruto.  He shrugged, but his
left eye fluttered almost imperceptibly.

	"Alright," he said, putting his attention back on the older
woman.  "My taijutsu is pretty good, but I'm best with bladed
weapons.  I know kawarimi, henge, bunshin, and hensou, but my real
strength is kage bunshin.  My weakness is area affect and
distance.  I also know some basic storage seals, and one genjutsu
of limited use."

	"Genjutsu?" she repeated questioningly.  Even Sasuke glanced
at him with that one.

	He shrugged self depreciatingly.  "Hey, even an idiot could
learn a technique if he watched someone use it over and over right
in front of him.  Ibiki-san never told me not to watch."

	Anko paled slightly.  "You know one of his torture genjutsu?
Damn, Naruto."

	Naruto blinked.  "He has more than one?  I never saw him use
anything but variants on the Sly Mind Affect."

	"What do you mean, more than one?!" Anko exclaimed in
irritation.  "Ibiki knows…" she stopped abruptly and closed her
mouth with a click of teeth.  She stood there for a moment, then
shook her head and gave him a rueful smile.  "Yeah, alright.  Nice
one, kid, nice."  Her eyes narrowed.  "Limited usefulness…  have
you ever used one of his techniques on anyone?"

	"Yes."

	She frowned dangerously.  "Who?"

	"Hinata."

	"What the hell were you thinking?" she growled.  "You do not
use torture genjutsu on friends."

	"I needed it," Hinata said quietly.  "Pain was a problem for
me, so Naruto showed me how to ignore it.  He never went beyond
what I could stand."

	"Why do you say 'limited usefulness'?" Sasuke asked,
interrupting.

	Naruto glanced at him.  "Because it takes a lot of time to
use, you can't do anything else while you're maintaining the
genjutsu, and your target has to be carefully restrained or they
can break it with real physical pain."

	"Ah, that one," Anko said thoughtfully.  "You know, the first
time I saw Ibiki's velvet lined shackles, I just thought he was a
pervert."

	Hinata raised one eyebrow at Naruto, who,
uncharacteristically, looked a little confused.

	"Whatever.  What about you, Hinata?"

	"Kawarimi.  Henge.  Bunshin.  Hensou, but only for a short
amount of time.  Kage bunshin, but the clone doesn't last long and
it depletes most of my chakra.  My strength is close taijutsu work
with my family style.  I know two family techniques that are a mix
of taijutsu and chakra manipulation.  My weakness is area affect
and distance."  Her report was delivered crisply and concisely.

	"Uchiha?"

	"Kawarimi, henge, bunshin.  Three family fire techniques, as
I said, and I copied Naruto's hensou and kage bunshin, though I
haven't practiced them.  My strengths are taijutsu, wire work,
area affect, and range.  I have no specific…"  He stopped.  "My
weakness is speed."

	Anko nodded, then began pacing back and forth, thinking
quietly.  She scratched her left tit in a thoughtful sort of way,
ignoring all pretensions of propriety, then appeared to come to a
decision.

	"Alright, I think I have what you need.  A wind technique for
Naruto, a sort of wind/chakra technique for Hinata-chan, and a
lightning technique for Uchiha-kun.  But since you've all admitted
sharing techniques, and it'd be hard to keep one from an Uchiha's
eyes anyway, I'll show you what I have.  I've never heard of a
team sharing techniques back and forth like you three do, 'cause
that's stupid as hell, but if you three make it work, then I guess
it's not stupid.  Get ready."

	Hinata and Sasuke stepped back, Sasuke's tomoe already
starting to spin in anticipation.  Naruto made the tora seal and
created two dozen clones, which all watched the older kunoichi
carefully.

	"First technique, Fuuton: Daitoppa!" she announced, making
seals at about half speed, then launching a blade of wind across
the training ground which neatly bisected three training logs,
then sent them flying on the gale force wind behind the cutting
chakra.

	"Nice," Naruto said appreciatively, and his clones stared
unblinkingly.  A few made half hearted hand seals, as if by
reflex, then, as one, they all disappeared.  Naruto smiled.

	Sasuke's eyes practically glowed in pleasure, reliving the
moment she'd used the jutsu over and over, delighted to find that,
once again, he'd copied the technique on the first try.

	Hinata stared, unblinking, mentally reviewing the series of
hand seals.  She might not have the perfect memory Sasuke's
bloodline gave him, but she could still see, and remember how the
chakra had formed into two separate masses that had rolled against
each other like two colliding storm fronts, then blew away from
her, slicing through anything caught between the chakra winds.

	"Liked that one, huh?  Put enough chakra into it and put it
at about waist height and you can slice through trees, other
techniques, and especially crowds of enemies.  The wind behind it
can deflect stuff, too," she explained proudly, carefully not
remembering that it was one of her sensei's most used techniques.

	"I think that one will suit my style quite well," Naruto
replied, making more clones.

	"Here's one for Hinata," she announced, briefly making the
seal of the monkey and dropping her hands back to her sides.  "You
like to get up close and personal, right?"  She crossed her arms,
making the sign of the boar for a second as she did so.  "Well,
here's a nasty little surprise for someone out of arms reach, but
the seals for this one are a little weird."  Uncrossing her arms,
she grinned slightly at the smaller girl.  "Just finish it with a
quick serpent seal and-" she stopped talking, dropping the final
seal as she did so, then turned and spit, exhaling sharply at the
tree she'd been leaned against.  Bark and wood splinters flew,
leaving a horizontal gash three inches deep and five wide in the
bark, right at head height.  "Spit of the Cobra.  It's a wind
technique, but it's really all just chakra in your mouth, and your
breath provides the wind.  Go for the throat," Anko advised
seriously.  "Do it right and you can get the carotid and the
jugular.  Now did you notice the seals, or do I have to do it
again?"

	Hinata's hands flashed through the three seals, stopping and
holding on serpent as she frowned in concentration.  Then she spit
hard, even more explosively at the tree, Anko darting out of the
way at the last minute.   More bark flew, leaving a gash a little
wider but only a half inch deep seven inches higher than Anko's.

	Anko raised one eyebrow.

	"Cobras spit at the eyes," Hinata said quietly.

	"Vicious," she said approvingly.  "The great thing about that
jutsu is that you can use it in the middle of a taijutsu fight,
since you don't have to make the seals back to back.  Just make
sure you hold your breath on the final one, or you'll fuck it up.
Try not to get punched in the gut while you're holding the chakra
in your mouth, too, or you'll blow your lips off," she warned with
a laugh.  "And, now one for Sasuke," she said with a slightly
demented grin, holding out her hand and pointing at the dark
haired boy.

	Sasuke raised one eyebrow.

	"Pull my finger," Anko said with a giggle, her other hand
held at her side.

	Sasuke rolled his eyes, reached out, and tugged on the
finger.

	Anko appeared to glow from the inside, and Sasuke stiffened
as if he'd touched an electrical wire, then popped with a burst of
chakra.

	One of Naruto's clones stepped forward, dropping its henge as
it did so.  "I hope you didn't expect me to fall for that," Sasuke
said reproachfully.

	"Actually, yeah, I kinda did, just as I would have let those
snakes bite you and Naruto in the ass.  If you fall for it, I have
no sympathy."

	"Anko is the person who set up ANBU rules pranking," Naruto
added.

	The other two looked at him questioningly.

	"It's simple, really.  When he was still in the academy, he
was pulling practical jokes on people upwards of once a week.  But
in light of his…"

	"She means that I was from Circumstances," Naruto muttered
with a roll of his eyes.

	"Yeah.  Since he was a poor little orphan no one liked, and
some of his pranks were pretty funny, I got ANBU to agree that, if
he made it back to his apartment and declared 'base', they'd stop
chasing him for that offense."  Anko grinned and patted him on the
shoulder twice, letting her hand stay there for a moment.

	Naruto shrugged and started to do his 'aw, shucks' routine,
then his eyes started to widen, his hands forming the seals to
kawarimi with all the speed he could muster.

	"Too late," Anko said cheerfully, her other hand making the
same half seal she'd used before against Sasuke.  Again, she
glowed from within for a split second before Naruto stiffened,
throwing his head back as electricity arced through his body-

	And he, too, disappeared in a burst of chakra smoke.

	"Or not too late," Naruto replied, walking out of the crowd
of clones.  He liked to keep a clone or two watching himself at
all times, ready to kawarimi with him if his real body got in
danger, which neatly bypassed the necessity of him making the
seals.

	"Very nearly too late," she amended, snickering at his
reappearance.  "That was the Great Spark raiton jutsu.  The
drawback is that you have to be touching whoever you want to
shock, but the great thing about it that it only takes a single
half seal, so you can do something else with the other hand, like
stick something pointy and metallic in your enemy."

	Hinata immediately walked over to him, licking her fingers as
she did so, and Naruto blinked as she reached up and stroked his
hair for a moment.  He glanced at a clone.

	"You got frizzed," he informed himself.

	Naruto blinked.  "Ah."

	"So did you get it?" Anko asked archly, looking back at the
unruffled Sasuke.

	"Pull my finger," Sasuke replied, his face impassive, holding
pointing back at Anko.

	Anko snorted, reached out, and gave a hard jerk on the
offered appendage.

	Sasuke pooted.

	Anko broke his finger-

	And once again, Sasuke disappeared in a puff of chakra smoke,
only to walk out of the crowd of Narutos a second time.

	"Damn it, what the hell is it with you two and clones?!" Anko
exploded, stamping her foot in irritation.  "Hinata better be
real," she growled, reaching out and poking the young kunoichi in
the chest with one hard finger.

	Hinata disappeared with a puff of chakra smoke.

	"Damn you kids," Anko half snarled, half laughed.

	"Do you have any more techniques to show us, Anko-san?"
Hinata asked politely, walking out of the crowd of Narutos.

	She laughed.  "No, no, I'm not giving you little bastards any
more of my techniques.  The way you're picking them up, you'll
bleed me dry inside of a day."

	"Then we thank you, Anko-san," everyone, including the crowd
of Narutos, said in eerie harmony, bowing deeply in polite thanks,
"for allowing us a look at your greatness."  They all
straightened, then one Naruto in the crowd continued speaking.
"And, for the record, all the clones were mine.  Sasuke is
attempting to get a loop of wire around your ankle-"

	Anko leapt into the air as a line of sparks and smoke rose
across the ground near her position, hurling dozens of kunai at
Sasuke, Hinata, and all of the Narutos, hitting most of them even
as they dodged and scattered.  All of them turned out to be
clones, and Anko hit the ground laughing, looking back and forth
warily.

	"So this is how you thank your teacher, huh?" she called with
a grin, watching as the clones milled in and out of the trees and
bushes in a confusing mass of bright orange and pale orange.  "By
attacking her?"

	"For you, Anko-san, no simple words could ever be enough,"
one of the Naruto's stopped and replied.

	Anko laughed again, then plopped down into a seated position
on the ground, her legs crossed with her feet under her thighs.
"Well, since I'm still here, I might as well see if there's
anything else you need to learn.  So…  I want to see which one of
you is strongest.  Stop messing around with me, get out here in
the damned clearing, and fight each other.  I wanna watch."

	"Fight each other?" another Naruto clone asked.

	"Each other," she confirmed.  "And none of these damned
clones, I want to see you pounding the shit out of each like you
mean it.  I, uh, I need to see you fight so I can make sure your
taijutsu doesn't suck, or something.  Whatever.  Just get out here
and beat each other up for my entertainment, alright?"

	Hinata's head popped out of a bush across the clearing and
looked at her dubiously.

	"Come on, damnit," Anko cajoled.  "Teams are supposed to spar
against each other.  I wanna see broken noses and blood and guts.
And…  oh yeah, I suppose you shouldn't kill each other, or
something.  Last person to spill a cup of blood wins.  Now listen
to your fucking sensei, get out here, and fight!"


	xxxxxxxxx
	xxxxxxxxx


	Hinata was the first to fall out.  It was the first real
fight she'd been in since their mission, she was still almost
constantly low on chakra, and she'd already used some
demonstrating that she'd easily figured out Anko's Spit of the
Cobra jutsu, plus the chakra she couldn't help but use just
looking around.

	She panted and almost retched when she collapsed, and found
herself helped to one side by one of Naruto's clones.

	Anko had derided her aborted performance nearly as much as
she'd cheered at the beginning, when a series of whip-quick hand
strikes, and a single successful kick, had left Sasuke's arm
bloody and three deep puncture wounds in Naruto's chest and thigh.
It should have been enough to put Naruto out, but once again, his
demonic healing had closed the wounds fast enough he lost little
real blood.

	Fortunately, the older kunoichi had offered the somewhat
encouraging advice that, if she exhausted all her chakra every
day, she'd build up her potential really fast.  It wasn't anything
Hinata didn't already somewhat know, as she'd more than tripled
her academy reserves through Naruto's harsh training.  Though
she'd never admit it, she was glad to hear a responsible adult
near-jounin confirm that Naruto was having her do the right thing.
When she'd first started training with him, she'd thought his
methods were crazy, though she'd been too shy to say so.

	Sasuke was even more accomplished with his taijutsu than
before, using the prediction abilities of his sharingan to read
Naruto's attacks and develop appropriate counters for them.
However, he also seemed particularly enamored of the Great Spark
raiton jutsu Anko had used, and had lost little time trying the
technique against Naruto's resilience despite the fact it didn't
draw blood.  He'd even hit Hinata with it once through a length of
his infernal wire, a painful, almost debilitating experience.  She
repaid him a moment later, using a juken strike to break the
expensive wire, which may not have been as painful, but would make
a more lasting effect, if only on his pocketbook.

	Naruto was perhaps the most wild in his efforts to win,
pulling his single wakizashi in his right hand and using careful,
tight blade work to score thin but stinging hits on his teammates.

	All their efforts were rendered completely moot when Anko
suddenly appeared among them, brushing aside their attacks like
they were nothing and pounding the blunt ring end of a kunai into
each boy's forehead to leave a bloody welt.

	Then she declared herself winner, and insisted they carry her
like a queen back to Konoha for more dango.

	Hinata, who'd resealed her eyes, was shocked to find herself
picked up by two of Naruto's shadow clones and carried along just
like Anko, although with far more decorum.

	Sasuke had needed to be stabbed lightly in the face before he
would consent to helping Naruto carry her, and Anko had been so
delighted by the turn of events she'd set up nearly nonstop
whooping and laughing.

	None of that even came close to the weirdness that came next.

	A self styled 'green beast' appeared in front of them.

	"Greetings to the cute students of my rival!" Gai boomed
enthusiastically.  "I regret we have not met before, I am Konoha's
beautiful green beast, Maito Gai!"

	"Hey, Gai," Anko said with a wave.

	Sasuke and Naruto started to lower her to the ground.

	"Hey!  I didn't tell you to put me down!" she growled.

	Reluctantly, they hoisted her back onto their shared
shoulders.

	"It is good to see the students of my cool rival acting with
such chivalry towards the blossoming flowers of Konoha's maidens!"
Gai continued.  "Though I suppose I should have known that the hip
Kakashi would instill proper manners into his students.  Still, it
is good to meet you all!  Please introduce yourselves!"

	Hinata slowly slid her hitai-ate up her forehead until she
could see the grinning green maniac as the Naruto's carrying her
stopped beside Anko and the others.
	
	"Eeeah…  I'm Naruto Uzumaki," Naruto replied with a small
wave, crinkling his brow at the older jounin.  He knew of Gai, but
hearing about and seeing are two different things.
	
	"I am Sasuke Uchiha."

	"And I'm Naruto Uzumaki," one of the clones said politely.

	"Hinata Hyuga," Hinata said tersely.

	"And I'm Naruto Uzumaki," the other clone finished.  "Nice ta
meetcha, I hope.  There, we're all introduced!"

	"Indeed, it is good to meet you all," Gai agreed brightly.
"I must apologize for not having found you before.  For you see,
your sensei, Kakashi Hatake, is my friend and greatest rival!
Though I must confess that in our great struggle to prove
ourselves, he currently holds the lead at no less than forty six
wins to my own forty five, I still see the man as a brother, which
would make you my nieces and nephews!  And what kind of uncle
sensei would I be if I left you three to languish without training
or guidance while Kakashi is away?"

	"I don't-" Naruto began.

	"A poor one!" he boomed, giving them an exaggerated frown at
his theoretical failure.

	"I don't want a bad uncle," Naruto agreed with nearly the
same bright energy Gai displayed.  It wasn't what he was going to
say, but the man's vibrant energy made his thoughts difficult to
formulate.

	"I see you have been training with the ever so youthful Anko-
san.  I am so proud of you on behalf of your sensei I could burst
into tears of manly joy!"  he exclaimed, bouncing on the balls of
his feet and hugging himself with his arms as he attempted to
contain his emotion.  In fact, moisture did glisten at the corners
of his eyes.

	Hinata very carefully, very deliberately, covered her eyes
again.

	"Yeah, these kids are great," Anko admitted, mock grudgingly.
"Copycat got himself a fun set.  I know I'm not supposed to train
them and all, but forbidden fruits taste best, and are thirty-
three percent lower in calories!  But it was a onetime thing, so I
suppose you're going to take over?"

	"Indeed!" he replied, throwing his arms wide in an expansive
gesture.  "How could I not, now that I know of their need?
Sparring!"  He shadowboxed.  "Strength!"  He dropped and did four
quick pushups faster than a heartbeat.  "Running!"  He sprang to
his feet and ran in place for a moment, stopping with a flourish.

	Sasuke very carefully, very deliberately, covered his eyes
with his hitai-ate.

	"As I said, I regret that I and my team have been away on a
mission, and I only today got back and heard the news!  I am not
the man who will ignore your plight, I am the man who will help
you fan the flames of your youthful power to greater heights!"

	"Arson?  Cool!" Naruto said enthusiastically.

	"I like fire," Sasuke admitted.

	"Konoha shall burn," Hinata added quietly.

	Gai paused, unsure exactly how to respond to that.  "Ehhh…
that's not exactly what-"

	He stopped when Anko shook her head frantically at him,
amusement lighting her eyes.  "Don't break the dreams of children,
Gai," she mouthed back to him so only he could understand.

	He seemed to gather himself up, taking a deep breath that
strained the tight material of his green jumpsuit.  "Kakashi has
certainly taught you the method of his hip coolness!  Your
youthful responses are a credit to your sensei's wit!"  He paused
and muttered quietly to himself for a moment.  "And it kinda
pisses me off.  But no matter!" he cried, speaking loudly again.
"I shall take over your training starting tomorrow!"

	"Eh?  But-"

	"Never fear!  I have already sought and gained the approval
from the Hokage, wisest of men!  Tonight, we rest!  Tomorrow, we
train!  We meet at seven in the morning sharp at training ground
twenty-six, though my cute student Lee and I will be up at five,
running laps around Konoha, and you are welcome to join us!"  He
posed and gave them a thumbs up, his white teeth gleaming in a
smile.

	One of Naruto's clones very carefully, very deliberately,
pulled his forehead protector down over his eyes.


	xxxxxxxxx
	xxxxxxxxx  Begin chapter six.
	

	"He is Neji's sensei."

	"I know, Hinata," Naruto replied, distractedly, his palm on
his forehead as he thought.

	"Neji?" Sasuke asked.

	"My cousin, Neji Hyuga.  My second biggest obstacle after my
own father.  I believe I mentioned my family once."  She paused.
"Him."  There was a subtle, but sharp, edge to her voice.

	"Obstacle?" Anko asked, chewing on yet another dango.  She'd
forced them to finish carrying her back to Konoha to her favorite
dango stand, since three dozen was just never enough, and they
were now each sitting around the same outdoor patio that they'd
met her at the day before.  She was getting a little miffed that
they were ignoring her in favor of their discussion, which seemed
to rely heavily on events and conversations she hadn't been
present for.

	"Ah."  Sasuke paused, remembering the conversation.  "So,
clearly, you will be forced to destroy him now that we're going to
be spending time together."

	"I know, Sasuke," Naruto replied, his eyes still unfocused.

	"Destroy?" Anko asked, at this point not really expecting an
answer.

	"He's good," Hinata replied bitterly.  "Very good.  Top
rookie of last year, just like you this one.  Very vicious
fighter, very, very good with his eyes, incredibly fast with his
hands, somewhat slow on his feet."

	"Ah," he replied.  He remembered the training Naruto and
Hinata had been concentrating on when they were first put on a
team together, with Hinata concentrating on kicks and mobility.
"Ah!"

	"Yes.  He won't expect that from me, it's not a focus of our
family style," Hinata agreed.  "But he's good.  Kicks are too slow
to be especially useful against juken, he'll just attack my leg
instead."

	Sasuke smirked.  He'd figured that out pretty quickly in his
spars with Hinata, and had successfully baited her into attacking
his leg when the real attack was something else on a number of
occasions.

	"You're also not comfortable with attacking with kicks," he
noted.  "You almost never used them against me."

	"I'm better than I let show."

	Sasuke snorted.  "Yeah."  Sometimes his teammates were
irritating as hell.  Sure, he'd never shown them all his
abilities, either, but that was because they'd never pushed him.
"So you just want to beat him in a fight?"

	Hinata straightened slightly, and the dying light flashed off
the metal of her hitai-ate.  "No.  Defeating him isn't enough.  I
intend to crush him.  I will humiliate him as he did me.  I will
hurt him as he hurt me.  I will destroy every perception he's ever
had of me."

	Sasuke frowned.  "Shouldn't you be trying to ally with him?
If he's so good."

	"I know," Naruto replied in frustration.  "I'd much rather
make allies than enemies at this point.  I didn't think we'd have
to move so soon, and certainly not in a situation like this.  I
know very little about his teammates and this Gai."  His head
snapped up and he looked at Anko.  "Anko-san!  Most wonderful,
awesome ninja.  What can you tell me about Maito Gai?"

	Anko ignored him, carefully licking mitarashi sauce off one
of her fingers in a slightly sensual way.

	"Ahhh," Naruto groaned slightly and put his hand over his
face for a moment.  "I'm sorry, that we've been preoccupied, but I
haven't been ignoring you.  Obstacle: Gai's student Neji, despite
being a branch Hyuga, has caused problems for Hinata by beating
the shit out of her in every fight they've ever had.  For a branch
to beat someone from the main family, especially someone who
should be the future heir, well, really casts doubt on Hinata's
skills.  Destroy:  Hinata is going to remove those doubts by
kicking the hell out of him."

	"Time: I have to do this soon.  Problem: I can't see without
wasting massive amounts of chakra," Hinata added.  "I also can't
kill him.  I'll need him later.  Failure means future leadership
of my clan goes to my sister, who is favored over me for being
everything traditionally Hyuga condensed into one little girl,
then magnified."

	Anko winced theatrically, inwardly pleased they were paying
attention to her again.  "You mean if you fail, your family will
become even more stuck up?"

	"Chilling, isn't it," she replied.  Hinata opened her own box
of dango and reached inside.  She was completely unsurprised to
find that Anko had somehow stolen two of her three sticks and one
dango off the remaining, and proceeded to eat the remainder
without protest.

	"All right, all right," Anko said, defeated.  She then
delivered a fast summary.  "Gai is pretty weird, but he's an elite
jounin every bit Kakashi's equal in a fight, he just has his own
way of doing things.  He sticks mostly to taijutsu, since he's the
best in any sort of physical fight in the entire village.  But
don't let that fool you, he's quite good at ninjutsu, genjutsu,
whatever else he thought he might find useful.  He just sticks
with taijutsu, since he can stomp the average jounin into the
ground in short order.  You saw him earlier, so that give you an
idea of what his personality is like.  I'll be honest, I can't
tell if he's really like that, or he's playing some sort of
elaborate prank on us all that lesser minds can't possibly
understand.  Your sensei is the only one who has a chance in hell
of actually knowing, and he won't say.  My best guess is that he
really likes to be underestimated."

	The three genin sat there impassively, not blinking as they
listened to her report.

	Finally, Naruto spoke up again.

	"So how does he feel about his students?"

	"He likes them."  She would say no more.

	"Bah, and they probably stick together against an outside
threat just like we do, damnit," Naruto complained.

	"I find it hard to believe anyone could honestly like someone
that is as much an asshole as my cousin," Hinata said quietly.

	Naruto couldn't help himself, and he felt bad about that.
One corner of his mouth quirked up and his eyes flicked sideways
to Sasuke for just a second.  Of course, given who he sat at the
table with, only Hinata didn't see, and that was because she was
blind.

	"Hn," Sasuke grunted, putting an incredible amount of disdain
into his voice.

	"Know anything about his other students?  Tenten and Rock
Lee?" Naruto asked hastily.

	Anko shrugged.  "I saw them once.  Lee looked just like Gai.
I mean exactly like Gai, like they were father and son or
something, though of course they're not.  They were running laps
around Konoha on their hands faster than most genin manage on
their feet."

	Naruto actually knew that, and a little more besides.  He and
Hinata had trailed her cousin for a while, being careful of his
byakugan.  But while he felt he knew Neji pretty well, he'd never
concentrated on his teammates beyond the superficial.  He'd
assumed any confrontation would be in the context of the Hyuga
estates, not team versus team.
	
	"Anything else?" he hazarded.

	Anko shrugged.

	"Well, thanks.  It's definitely been an educational
experience.  We've got to go make plans now.  Come on, we've got
like no time until tomorrow."

	Anko watched in some amusement as Naruto left saying 'crap
crap crap' over and over, his teammates trailing along behind him.
It was kind of cute the way he saw the other team as enemies to be
conquered.  Idly, she wished him luck.
	

	xxxxxxxxx
	xxxxxxxxx


	"Oh, come on.  I passed the poison exam when I was seven!
And that stuff isn't even lethal, it's a knockout drug!"  Naruto
resisted the urge to flail and huff at the prune faced woman
behind the counter in a tiny little shop five blocks from ANBU
headquarters.  Superficially, it was an apothecary shop that
carried a variety of traditional curatives.  For those in the
know, it was the official Konoha poison shop.

	"No poisons without jounin-sensei approval," she repeated
tonelessly, grinding unidentifiable grey shreds in a tiny bowl
with a mortar and pestle.

	"He's not here," Naruto repeated.  "And I need a knockout
drug and antidote for a mission.  I've passed the poison exam.  I
have money.  Why must this be a problem?"

	"Because your jounin-sensei is not here to sign for it.  No
poisons for genin without jounin-sensei approval."  She shifted
her grip of the pestle, holding it the way one might hold a kunai
underhanded.  Naruto was quick to placate her.

	"Whoa!  No trouble!" Naruto said hastily, holding his hands
up and taking a step back.  She was a retired jounin and he'd been
doing his best to wear her resistance down through sheer
irritation, but he didn't feel like getting a big chunk of ceramic
upside the head.

	He bumped into someone standing behind him and quickly
stepped forward and to the side, keeping both the old woman and
the newcomer in his sight.  How long had he been there?  Had the
old woman reacted?

	"The pemoline in the antidote is a powerful stimulant some
foolish genin and chunin have been known to take to counteract the
effects of long ops or hard training," Ibiki explained calmly.
"So while suminai is an effective way to put an enemy to sleep in
a hurry, we don't let just anyone use it without supervision
because of the risks of the antidote.  However, since I know you
will not be using it as a combat drug, I will sign for it for
you." To the woman he said, "Put it on my tab."

	Naruto wasn't caught flat footed often.  He found he
intensely disliked the sensation.  Nevertheless, his mentor's
arrival had left him gaping like a fish.

	Ibiki politely signed a slip of paper while the apothecary
went into the back and produced three small sealed jars, giving
Naruto time to recover.

	  "Thank you, Ibiki-san."  Naruto accepted the three ceramic
jars and carefully stowed them in his pouch.

	"Walk with me, Naruto-kun," Ibiki said without preamble.

	Hiding his nervousness, Naruto followed him out of the shop.

	"Are you planning on poisoning young Neji Hyuga?" he asked
bluntly.

	Naruto's hand trembled.  This wasn't like Ibiki.  He was
usually subtle and mysterious.

	"I'd like to have the option if things go wrong," he
admitted, guessing that Ibiki knew everything.

	"Do you believe he would kill his cousin if you press the
issue?"

	"I…  don't know.  I'd like to think not, but Neji has a lot
of hate for the main family."  They walked along slowly,
surreptitiously avoiding most groups of people.  Naruto didn't pay
much attention, though, being completely focused on the large
older man.

	"Do you believe allowing them to fight is the best solution?"

	Naruto closed his eyes, feeling his heart thud in his chest.
"I don't know that, either."

	"So why do you plan this course of action?"

	Not for the first time, Naruto hated Ibiki's mastery of his
facial expressions and tone of voice.  When he asked a question,
it was a question.  He didn't give anything in return.  No
reproach, no approval, no context clues that would allow Naruto to
figure out if he was supposed to be defending his actions or
hastily admitting his mistake and thinking of a new plan of action
that would meet approval.  Ibiki just walked along beside him with
the same easy grace all experienced ninja had.  He didn't emote
worth a damn when he didn't want to, and right now, he apparently
didn't want to.

	"It is not my decision to make," Naruto replied finally,
admitting honestly that he didn't have control of the situation.

	"Are you not the team leader?" Ibiki asked after the perfect
amount of delay to disguise his intentions.  Too fast and he'd
have been pouncing on a weakness.  Too slow and he'd be hesitant,
as if Naruto had surprised him.

	Naruto started to rally, his nervousness easing.  The only
thing he could really do was be honest with the most gifted
interrogator in Konoha, which was probably what the man wanted,
anyway.  "I am.  I make the plans.  They follow my lead.  It was
difficult to convince Sasuke that I am the best suited for it, but
he agrees with me."

	"So why is the decision to attack Neji Hyuga not your
decision?"  Ibiki raised one eyebrow at the boy, which could mean
anything from an extra level of inquisitiveness to a subtle
approval of Naruto's renewed calm or decision to not prevaricate.

	"It is Hinata's decision," he explained.  "Her cousin, her
problem.  I lead the team, but she has her own goals, one of which
involves defeating the cousin who has belittled and intimidated
her all her life.  In this case, she is like a client.  I can
advise and guide, but the final decision is hers.  It doesn't
matter if I like it or not, my job is simply to make sure she gets
what she wants in the most effective manner possible, and minimize
the drawbacks."

	"And if his teammates defend him?"  They turned a corner.

	"They become obstacles," Naruto replied.

	"And if Maito Gai becomes angry that you've attacked his
students?"

	"He won't kill us," he answered.  "Hopefully, afterwards, I
can make him understand that this is an unfortunate family issue
that spilled over into the teams."

	"And if the Hokage becomes angry that you've attacked another
team without provocation?" Ibiki pressed.

	"Provocation is arguable," he replied quickly.  "Neji is a
jerk and a bully.  But what can I do but do my best?  I intend to
give Hinata time to recover her chakra and analyze her cousin's
weaknesses.  Ideally, Hinata would save it for her home, or at
least the privacy of a personal calling out.  But she won't.  Next
best thing would be Gai-sensei allowing them to fight it out.
Realistically, it's gonna be team versus team with Sasuke and I
giving her and Neji the space they need.  We certainly won't make
any friends out of this.  We may get in quite a lot of trouble."
He put conviction in his voice.  "But it doesn't matter.  Hinata
is my friend and my teammate.  She needs this.  And I will take
full responsibility as leader of my team."

	 "I heard your conversation with Hokage-sama," Ibiki
announced, blindsiding Naruto.

	He didn't quite stumble, but he did stop, with Ibiki right
beside him, and was silent for nearly a full minute as they stood
outside shops lit by paper lanterns and hand blown light bulbs.

	"…not one of my better moments," Naruto finally said, looking
down.

	"It seems to me that there is a resemblance between your
statements then and your actions now."  Again, there was no clear
emotion in Ibiki's voice, leaving Naruto at a loss of how to
respond.  Because he was right.  Naruto had claimed willingness to
risk his teammates' lives in order to offer them the power they
wanted.  And now, he was risking his teammates once again for
Hinata's goals.

	There was raw anguish in his eyes when Naruto was finally
able to meet Morino Ibiki's gaze once more.

	"I understand that I'm wrong.  I think I kind of get why I
was wrong.  Because they are my friends and teammates, and I
wouldn't trade them for anything," he explained quickly, trying to
make his mentor understand.  "But what can I do?" he pleaded.  "I
don't want Hinata to do this.  And maybe that's my fault, too.
But she wanted to change, so I helped her.  And I promised her, I
swore a promise that I would help her become the next Hyuga clan
leader, and this, as crazy as it is, is a part of that promise.
And I can't break that promise to Hinata, I can't!"

	Ibiki's response was a single word, deceptively soft.

	"Why?"

	Naruto looked at him in confusion, tears brimming at the
corners of his eyes.  "Why?"

	"Is it because she won't trust you anymore?  Or because you
staked your honor on a promise?  Maybe you don't want to
disappoint her?  Love?  A bargain?"  He paused.  "So I ask you
again.  Why?"

	Naruto nearly went mad from stress.  "Why?!  Trust…
promises…!  She's Hinata!"

	Ibiki reached out and grabbed Naruto's shoulder, despite the
boy's reflexive flinch.

	"Naruto," he said.  "You've been a pain in the ass to your
team and your superiors."

	Sniffing, and hating himself for it, he nodded.

	"Still, you have good instincts, even if you don't always
know why," he explained.  "Too many new leaders are stifling to
their team.  You are right to give her the leeway to make her own
mistake.  You are even correct in sticking by her, because you
understand her value to you as a person.  That does not mean
you're going to find all this easy, or even to find a clearly
correct choice.  All too often, there is no right decision to
make.  In cases like that, you lose.  It's as simple as that.
Sometimes your intentions are all you have.  Unlike your childish
display with the Hokage the other day, you seem to have your heart
in the right place this time."

	A tiny spark of hope filled Naruto's eyes as he rubbed at
tears and looked up at the towering ANBU division commander.

	Ibiki let go of his shoulder.  "Don't kill anyone.  And don't
ever disrespect your commander the way you did Hokage-sama."  He
made a quick gesture with his hand, and Naruto looked down the
street.  There, at a food stall, his teammates were talking and
nursing drinks.

	"Good luck."  With those final words, his mentor left him,
heading back the way they'd come.

	Naruto stood there several long moments, just breathing, his
eyes closed, feeling his pulse slow and his headache recede.

	His resolve strengthened by the closest thing to permission
he was likely to get, he straightened up  and finished his walk to
the rendezvous with his team, taking a seat beside Hinata.  Sasuke
met his eyes across her, and they exchanged hard, sharp nods.

	"Let's do this thing," he said firmly to his team.

	They nodded back.

	Glancing at the man working behind the counter, Naruto held
up one finger.  "One miso udon, please."


	xxxxxxxxx
	xxxxxxxxx


	Naruto blinked his eyes, hard, squeezing them shut almost to
the point of pain as he suddenly found himself looking at the
ceiling of his apartment.
	
	The rapid tapping on the glass of his window sped up, getting
a rhythmic, almost musical quality.

	"Nnng," he groaned, rolling over and levering himself to his
feet.  Momentarily, he debated on making a kage bunshin to deal
with the person at the window, but that seemed like too much
effort.  Ten stumbling steps heavy with resignation got him to the
window, where Sasuke looked in with a raised eyebrow, his finger
still tapping out an aimless beat on the glass.  Squinting at the
early morning light, Naruto slid the window up and staggered to
the kitchen without a backwards glance.

	"Damn, Naruto, you look like hell," Sasuke noted with a faint
hint of amusement as Naruto pulled a carton of milk out of the
refrigerator and proceeded to chug it straight.

	Naruto lowered the carton, not bothering to wipe off his milk
mustache, squinted at Sasuke, and shook his head.

	"It's too early to ninja," he said with a grunt.

	Sasuke's eyebrow couldn't physically climb any higher.

	"What happ-"

	"I hate the Hyuga."

	Sasuke blinked.

	Naruto took another long drink of milk, burped, and casually
scratched his ass.  The empty carton was chunked at the trash,
where it teetered on the rim for several seconds before falling in
with a swish of cardboard on plastic bag.  Finally, Naruto wiped
his mouth with a dishrag laying by his sink.

	Feeling somewhat more human, he fixed Sasuke with what could
only be described as a baleful eye.  "You know, Sasuke, I wasn't
all that keen on this idea.  I mean, yeah, I knew Hinata's family
treated her like shit, but to deliberately start trouble like
this?  Especially with people only loosely associated with Neji?"
He paused and shook his head.  "I mean, yeah, I was gonna do it
anyway, because she insists, just like I'll help you kill the
Mizukage or Princess Tsunami or that guy who sells fish down the
street or whoever the hell, cause it's your goal, right?  We help
each other because we're a team."

	Sasuke watched in growing bewilderment as Naruto's hand
clenched into a fist and his eyes, momentarily, seemed to blaze.

	"But, you know, now I'm not feeling all that sympathetic
towards Hinata's family.  I say we unleash Hinata full force, and
damn the rest of those bastards."  He banged his fist down lightly
on the countertop.

	"Sooo…?" Sasuke began questioningly.

	Naruto grimaced.  "I had a thought last night after we left,
so I tried to pass it on to Hinata.  Apparently, Hiashi isn't
quite as uncaring as he appears.  No visits after ten at night.
So I snuck in.  Wasn't hard, right?  Hinata tells me their patrol
schedules, and they can't use their bloodline ALL the time.  I
henged into a rock and threw myself through her window."

	"Clever," Sasuke noted.

	"I thought so," Naruto replied grimly.  "We talked, then
Hinata opened her window and threw me back over the wall."

	"I'm sensing an 'and' here."  Sasuke kept his face carefully
neutral.

	Naruto winced.  "Yeah.  Guess who's father caught me mid
flight?"

	Sasuke winced theatrically for his friend.  "Hn."

	"I suppose I should consider myself fortunate that he didn't
just juken me right there.  Instead, we had a brief chat, then he
called the guards on me and told me to run."  Naruto shrugged
wryly.  "Guess what I found out?  The Hyuga don't play by ANBU
prank rules."

	Sasuke's chest hitched once with a suppressed laugh.  "Base
didn't work, huh?"

	"No."  Naruto looked around at his apartment.  "They were
nice enough to carry me back outside before they beat the shit out
of me, though.  Considerate, that."

	"Very."

	"And they finally stopped kicking me somewhere around…
three, I think.  So…  yeah.  Let's make damned sure Hinata gets a
little more leeway with her family."

	"Sounds like a plan."

	Nodding, Naruto staggered back out of the kitchen and began
getting dressed again.


	xxxxxxxxx
	xxxxxxxxx


	Neji took another bite of his little poppyseed cake and
chewed happily as he walked into the training ground, giving
Tenten's wave a brief nod of acknowledgement.  He loved poppyseed
cakes, crumbly, seedy goodness in a little round mound, especially
the ones from this little bakery not too far outside the Hyuga
compound.  They made great breakfast foods, even if they did cause
a bit of a mess.  He'd learned to deal with the mess by grabbing a
sack of them and eating them on the way to his team meetings, so
the crumbs would feed the birds and not dirty up the floors.

	Once he'd even shared one with Tenten, quite the noble
sacrifice in his eye.

	Well, maybe he was being a bit greedy.  But they were really
good, so it balanced out.

	"Where were you yesterday?" Tenten asked, flicking a kunai at
one of the poles in the middle of the clearing.  It suck into the
wood with a thunk, perfectly filling a narrow diamond shaped hole
left behind by eight other kunai.  "Gai-sensei was looking for
you.  Apparently, we're going to be training with some other
genin, students of his rival, or something like that."

	Neji frowned and swallowed.  He was on his last one, and he
was trying to make it last, so he took a drink from his canteen.
"Great.  We're going to be stuck doing D rank missions again while
he tries to get some stupid genin up to par."

	She shook her head and threw another kunai, which hit at
roughly groin level on the pole.  "I don't know, Neji, he said
they were the students of Kakashi Hatake, the Copy Nin.  One of
them is Sasuke Uchiha, this year's top student.  Another is that
weird kid who always wears I-am-an-idiot-please-kill-me orange,
and the last…"  She hesitated.

	Neji sneered.  "My cousin, the wilting violet.  I'd wondered
why she kept staring at me this morning at breakfast."  He looked
at the leftover poppyseed cake in his hand and frowned at it.
Suddenly, it wasn't so appetizing.

	Tenten sighed.  Neji almost never gave any details about his
family, but she'd heard enough that she knew he felt particularly
hard done by the main family.  Ironically, he seemed to hold
Hinata, by all accounts the nicest of the bunch, in the most
contempt.

	Neji, although irritated that his happy place was being
invaded by the main family, and as much as his sensei, and Lee,
irritated him sometimes, training or missions were still his
favorite options for spending time, actually wasn't too upset.
Given Hinata's overall level of sheer pathetic weakness, Gai would
probably have her running through the woods carrying two hundred
pound logs for MONTHS before he felt her youthful flames were
strong enough and she was ready for actual training.

	Come to think of it, the notion of Hinata, running through
the woods on fire did sort of amuse him.  The same with the rest
of his family.  But it wasn't a new thought, to be honest.  Ever
since he'd first met Gai he'd been possessed of a faint urge to
set the man ablaze.

	Not Lee, though.

	He had, over the past year, developed an almost unhealthy
urge to drown Lee's flames in cold reality, or the nearest pond,
whichever was closest.

	Uninspired elemental puns were as essential to the daily life
of Team Gai as green spandex.

	He looked up when he sensed people approaching.  Not just
people, shinobi.

	Three genin, obviously the rookies because SHE was with them,
entered the clearing.  They moved well, silently and without
broadcasting their presence, but apparently without effort, giving
the impression that they knew what they were doing but were not
trying to be sneaky.

	Well, he supposed, they moved well, for rookies.

	The dark haired one, the Uchiha, turned his head sideways
slightly, clearly cocking an ear.  Less than a minute later, Lee
and Gai-sensei ran up at a brisk jog.  Which, admittedly, was a
full run for anyone else.

	"Greetings my youthful students!  And a good morning to my
even more youthful temporary students!" Gai boomed cheerily.

	"Good morning, Gai-sensei!" his team of students, even Neji,
said dutifully in a ritual long since beaten into them.
Sometimes, even being the tragic genius of an understated and
refined clan like the Hyuga didn't save you from mandatory
explosions of youth and politeness.

	"Yo," Naruto said with a casual wave.

	"'Mornin'," Hinata said softly.

	"Hn," Sasuke said with a nod.

	"Hey, sorry I didn't make the run this morning," Naruto said,
yawning slightly.  "I had a late night meeting with Hinata's
father and a few Hyuga guards about how my explosions of youth
will not be happening in her bedroom late at night.  All things
considered, you could say I was feeling sort of beat this
morning."

	Gai, and his students, gaped at him.  Especially Neji.  To
just brazenly trot out information like that was unheard of!  And
Hinata, consorting with this…  this no one!  He glared menacingly
at the orange clad idiot, this Naruto.

	Tenten giggled a few moments later, glancing at the bold
girl.  With a start, she realized that Hinata's hitai-ate wasn't
just riding low on her forehead, it was actually down over her
eyes.  She stared at her more closely, her trained eye quickly
picking out subtle folds in her slightly baggy dark grey jacket
that indicated hidden weapons pouches.  Hidden weapons?  On a
Hyuga?
	
	Gai smiled at his eternal rival's students, honestly somewhat
amused by young Naruto's bold statement.

	"Yes, your words are a valuable reminder to us all that
sometimes youth can get us into trouble as well as give us
strength," he said thoughtfully, then shrugged.  "But no matter.
My students!  As we will be working together for the time being,
please introduce yourselves to the students of my eternal rival,
Kakashi Hatake, may his hip coolness burn forever!"  He suddenly
coughed slightly into his hand, and somehow shielding his students
but allowed the words 'in hell' to reach Team Seven's ears.

	Naruto's eyebrow rose slightly, and he allowed a slight
twinkle of amusement to light his eyes.  Sasuke looked away,
fighting a grin.  Hinata remained impassive.

	"Well, it's good to meet you all," Naruto interrupted before
the others could say anything, letting his amusement color his
tone.  "A bit of introduction?  I'm Naruto Uzumaki, also known as
damned kid, brat, stupid, demon, and other less savory titles.  To
my left you have someone I'm sure you've heard of, the eldest
daughter of Hiashi Hyuga and another in a long line of Hyuga
geniuses, Hinata!"  Out of the corner of his mouth, he stage
whispered, "Take a bow, Hinata-chan."

	Hinata bowed deeply, about fifteen degrees off from facing
their counterparts but pretty close to directly at Gai himself.

	"Ah, please excuse her, she was injured on our last mission
and currently has her eyes sealed so she doesn't hemorrhage chakra
and die, though we all hope it's just a temporary setback.  I
mean, she just got out of the hospital a couple days ago.  She
doesn't let it slow her down, though, she's still just as skilled
as ever," he assured them.

	"Yosh," Lee said quietly, staring at the disabled girl.  He
felt a strange kinship with her, another ninja with a serious
handicap.  He wondered if they'd told her she couldn't be a ninja
again now that she was blind.

	Tenten glanced at Neji.  He'd never mentioned that his cousin
had been in the hospital, much less blind.

	Sasuke made a soft sound, and it was a mark of his irritation
that it carried as far as the others.

	Naruto didn't flinch.  "And this is Sasuke," he said less
than a heartbeat after the grunt.

	Another grunt.

	"And he's an Uchiha," Naruto added, then turned to the dark
haired boy.  "Seriously, I was about to say something like 'and
this one needs no introduction, genius, heir, top rookie,
whatever' and then I figured you really didn't need an
introduction so I didn't give you one.  Grouchy bastard."  He
winked at the others.

	Sasuke looked vaguely sour.

	"Anyway, we thank you very much for having us here, Gai-
sensei, most mysterious of Kakashi-sensei's friends.  And we thank
your students for putting up with us."  All three of them bowed
once again to the others.

	"Yosh!" Lee cried, pushing aside his concern for his rival's
cousin in his eagerness at meeting his new training friends.  "I
look forward to training with you all!  I am Lee, and I am pleased
to meet you!"  He bowed low, but abruptly jerked straight and
stepped forward, thrusting a fist into the air as his eyes blazed
with emotion.  "I burn with the power of youth!  We must pit
ourselves against our very limitations and overcome them!"

	Team seven took their clues from Anko's handling of Gai the
day before and didn't react to his antics other than to exchange
glances and a little wordless communication.  Naruto was the only
one to offer a friendly smile.

	Tenten rolled her eyes at his over the top antics.  "And I
burn with the power of topical vaginal ointment," she muttered to
herself, glancing away from Lee, then looking back to the
newcomers and realized that at least Naruto had really sharp
hearing because he was biting his lip in an effort to not burst
into laughter.

	She flushed and glared at him, daring him to make something
of it.  He didn't say anything.  Reluctantly, she decided that
that meant she should go next.

	"…I'm Tenten.  Nice to meet you all.  I'm glad you're going
to be training with us."  She paused.  Feeling the need to make up
for her terribly unfeminine quip, she added,  "If nothing else
just to finally spend some time with someone else who isn't a
sweaty boy."

	Neji looked at them all evenly for a moment, then bowed
slightly, not nearly enough to be polite, his body language
clearly saying he really didn't mean it.  "Good morning," he said
stiffly.  "I am Neji."  He paused just long enough for it to be
awkward, then added, "Hyuga."

	"Please, my youthful students, your names are not all there
is to who you are!  Tell each other something about yourselves!
Shall I start?  Very well!" he continued before anyone could get a
word in edgewise.  "I am Maito Gai, jounin of Konoha!  I enjoy
training myself and my youthful students, and my ambition is to
see you all succeed as ninja of Konoha!"

	Lee, once again, started to go first, but he was quickly cut
off by Naruto, once again speaking in his role as leader of his
team.

	"Ah, ah, excuse me, Lee.  How about we do this at the same
time?  I'll tell you all something about yourselves, and in return
that will tell you something about us?"

	"Huh?  What do you mean, Naruto-kun?" he asked.

	Neji's eyes narrowed.  "He means they already know something
about us, idiot.  They've been following us."

	"A stealth focused team?" Tenten asked incredulously.  "And
one of you wearing kill-me-orange?"

	"Not just kill-me," Neji reminded her, clearly intending the
others to hear.  "I-am-an-idiot-please-kill-me-orange.  But such a
foolish choice would fit right in with the profile of the dead
last in the academy.  Didn't they call you dobe, dobe?"

	"Only my friends can call me dobe, Neji," Naruto replied,
casually using the most familiar form of Neji's name as if they
were friends, and clearly stating that they were not.  "And I was
only dead last through the early years, I graduated in the
middle."  He smiled.   "Everyone can improve themselves."

	Neji frowned at the counter.

	 "Actually, we're more of an infiltration and assassination
type team, not pure stealth," Naruto corrected, his grin, and his
confidence, growing as idea after idea occurred to him.  "We've
been taught how to gather information from the nuances, looking
beneath the underneath, as Kakashi-sensei says.  And I bet I can
tell you all things about you that you might not even know
yourself."	

	"Yosh, that would be a useful skill, Naruto-kun," Lee said at
a more normal volume level than his earlier outbursts.  He
definitely felt kinship with this boy in orange, a dead last like
himself, but one who had pulled himself out of the gutter through
hard work!

	"Oh, it's great," Naruto assured him.  "How about I start
with you, Gai-sensei?"

	"Me, Naruto-kun?" Gai asked, and there was a glimmer of
something, Naruto rather suspected penetrating intelligence, in
those eyes.

	Admittedly, it could have been gas.  Gai was proving to be
fascinating that way.

	"Sure.  Hmm."  Naruto tapped his finger against his lips
theatrically, then gave the man in green a squinty eyed look that
made Naruto seem as if he had all the intelligence of an eggplant.
"You have no children, correct?"

	"I like to think of all of my students as my children!" Gai
replied, his voice thick with emotion and his eyes glittering with
unshed tears as he appeared behind them and scooped them all, even
a furiously wiggling Neji, into an immense hug.

	"How touching," Naruto said, wiping a tear from his own eye.
"The bond between a student and his sensei is truly a beautiful
thing, indeed, I don't know where I would be without it.  Ah,
Sensei, if you could see me now…" he added, his hand over his
heart as he looked into the sky, perhaps looking for a reminder of
Ibiki's heavily scarred face among the clouds.

	They held that tableau for a moment, Gai slowly releasing his
students from his arms.

	Naruto looked back at them.  "But no biological children,
right?"

	Gai looked wistful.  "Ah, no.  There was a girl once…  no.
You are correct, Naruto-kun.  I have no biological children."

	"I surmised as much, by your extraordinarily close
relationship with your students," Naruto replied, satisfied with
the answer.  "One must never underestimate the urge to procreate,
indeed, the urge to have children is the strongest, most important
thing we can do as humans.  Additionally, I believe you've worn
that spandex suit for quite a few years?"

	"Ah, quite a few years, yes," Gai admitted.

	Tenten glanced at him, then back at Naruto.  "The prevailing
story is that he was given his first one when he graduated from
the academy.  Me, I disagree.  I say he was born in it."

	Naruto's eyes widened as he imagined how such a thing could
happen, and all his thoughts led to one thing.

	Horrible condom accident.

	It was so inappropriate for the moment he closed his eyes,
shivered, then continued.

	"Well, I believe I know why," he said, rallying with a smirk.
"And it's because of your spandex body suit and your underwear.
Thong, correct?"

	"Eh?" Gai replied, honestly somewhat surprised.

	Naruto took it the wrong way.  "You know, underwear that goes
up the crack of your ass?"  He raised one eyebrow.  Gai must know
what thong underwear was, Hinata said he wore it yesterday.  He
and Sasuke had been rather horrified to learn what other hazards
came with being unable to turn off her byakugan.

	Sasuke's comment of, "When you look that deeply into horror,
you will see horrible things for the rest of your life," had been
oddly funny, given he was the guy who'd been swallowed by the
shoggoth.

	"Yes, I wear ninja underwear," Gai confirmed.  At their
raised eyebrows, he explained.  "No lines?  Hides from sight
behind you?  Ninja underwear."

	"Wow, okay," he admitted.  "I'll go for that.  But it's that
very ninja underwear that's kept you from the children you so
richly deserve.  You see," he said, and his tone turned more
lecturing than it had already been, "the human male can only
produce sperm when the testes are at a slightly lower temperature
than the body.  This is why we, as males, share a common weakness
of external genitalia.  We risk moves like 'monkey steals the
peach' for the chance to reproduce.  Except when, as you have
done, you keep your balls squished right up against your body
through a combination of tight underwear and tighter, hotter
spandex.  Wear something loose and airy, and in about a month or
two, you'll have a pretty decent shot at making more little Gais."

	Gai and his students simply stood there and stared at the
blond haired boy in orange with the most shocked, most horrified
expressions they'd seen in…  well, honestly, since their last
mission.

	"You also might want to consider the long term effects it
might have on Lee there.  I'm willing to bet that that green
spandex jumpsuit is the most effective contraceptive known to man.
Sometimes that's a good thing, but sometimes…"  He shrugged
elaborately.  "Lee is going to want to get a date and perhaps get
really youthful with a girl at some point.  But it's just a
suggestion."

	"…how do you know this?  Are you studying to be a med nin?"
Gai asked after another minute of silence.

	Naruto shook his head.  "No, not a med nin, as such.  I read
it in a book on-"

	Short and Long Term Effects of Common Torture Methods by
Hiroe Nagasawa, he didn't say.  Specifically the section on the
effects of lightly boiling the subject.

	"…a book my first teacher had me read," he finished lamely.
"Which was sort of a medical text.  You never know when medical
knowledge might come in handy."

	He abruptly brightened.  "In fact, I think they should cover
it more than they do.  Tenten!  You wear thongs!"

	"Eep!" she squeaked, jumping slightly as he turned his
attention on her, and she didn't want him talking about her.

	"And you have a yeast infection," he continued at a lower
volume.

	She got indignant.  She'd made comments before, but Lee and
Neji never said anything about it.  "Well of course I do, I
basically told you earlier.  That's not all that impressive."

	"Ah, but you also get them a lot, enough to come up with
particularly witty comments about it.  Did you know that you get
them because you wear thongs?  On long missions?  And it's not
just the boys who get sweaty.  Girls sweat too, and multiple days
running through the woods, exerting yourself, sweating, and not
having time for a shower, you've brought this on yourself.  Wear
some granny panties for a change.  Or a skirt.  More air flow,
less…  humidity."

	Tenten was horrified.  She didn't even want to know how he
knew this stuff.

	"Ano…  what is he talking about, Tenten?" Lee asked, all
innocent curiosity.

	"Nothing, Lee," she hissed.  "Girl stuff that a boy shouldn't
know!"

	"It's simple, Lee," Naruto explained.  "She didn't wash her
blossoming flower often enough and now she's got the burning
flames."

	Lee blinked.

	Scratch that.  Tenten was mortified.

	Naruto, satisfied that he'd made an impression, switched
targets again.  This one he'd been waiting for.

	"Neji!" he cried gleefully.

	"Since Hinata-sama is your teammate, your knowledge of my
habits will hardly be surprising," Neji noted grimly.

	Naruto got a mad sparkle in his eye.  "I thought you might
say that.  But my deduction has nothing to do with having Hinata
as a teammate, and I'll tell you why.  But first…."  His hand rose
as if on its own accord, his index finger emerging from his fist
to point directly, accusingly, at the pale eyed boy.

	Neji resisted the urge to step back.

	"You," Naruto intoned, "Neji Hyuga, are…  addicted… to…
opium!"

	Lee gasped and took a step back.  Tenten covered her mouth.

	"My student?  On drugs?" Gai whispered in disbelief, looking
at his student.

	"I've never smoked opium," Neji retorted, crossing his arms
with an air of supreme confidence.  Honestly, this was the best
that blond freak could come up with?

	"Ah, but I did not say 'smoked'," Naruto countered once more,
wagging his finger back and forth.  "You have been ingesting it.
And you were probably unaware you were eating it all this time.
As for how I know…"  Again, he pointed at Neji.  "You're a messy
eater, Neji-kun."

	Neji glanced down at the leftover crumbs from his breakfast
still clinging to the front of his shirt.  Hastily, he brushed at
the mess.

	"See how he tries to hide the evidence?" Naruto said
gleefully.

	Neji flushed as his teammates and sensei stared at him
accusingly.   "It was just a breakfast cake!"

	"Poppyseed, actually.  I smelled it when I walked up."  He
paused a moment to let them digest that.  "Look at his hands."

	Everyone turned from Naruto back to study Neji, who was
staring at the ever so faint tremor in his hand with a quiet
horror.

	"You eat poppyseed cakes three or four times a week," Tenten
noted.

	"You are addicted," Lee said with a tone as if he'd been
betrayed.

	"A mild addiction, at least," Naruto confirmed before
continuing.  "Now, it's actually not the poppyseeds themselves
that contain the opium, despite the fact that opium is derived
from unripe seed pods.  It's actually more of a regional
coincidence."

	Once again, his voice fell into a lecturing tone.

	"You see, the Land of Crocheted Throw Blankets on the other
side of Wind Country is the main source of poppy flowers, which is
their main export.  They produce nearly all of the seed that gets
exported to other countries for consumption.  But, they're also
the major exporter of opium, which some countries import with
abandon, and others, such as Stone, outlaw.  These illiterate
peasant farmers pack both the seeds and the opium in roughly woven
sacks for export.  Most of the time, they leak, just a little.
Sometimes it's a few handfuls of seeds and not a big deal.  But
sometimes, it's opium gum, which can dry and powder and it falls
out of one sack as dust onto another sack.  And if you've got a
bag of opium on top of a bag of poppy seeds…"  He shrugged.
"Well, there's a reason poppyseed cakes are so magically
delicious.  But don't blame Neji.  He probably didn't know all
that, I mean, it's mostly the kind of thing you'd learn if, like
me, you've spent a lot of time in the Konoha library reading about
the exports and imports of every country we're likely to get
missions in or from."

	Gai clapped Neji on the shoulder with the same air a stern
patriarch might cop as he lectured his wayward son.  "Neji, no
more poppyseed cakes."
	
	"Y-yes," he agreed, still staring at his faintly trembling
hand.  After a moment, the words caught up with him, and he
realized he'd just agreed to give up those delightful little
cakes.  He snarled at Naruto with all the ferocity of a twelve
hundred pound chakra bear.  Even Gai stepped back.

	"Whoa, whoa, don't get your panties in a twist, Neji-kun!"
Naruto said hastily, holding up his hands defensively and stepping
back.

	Neji continued to glower, though some of the tension left his
body, leaving him in the loose, fluid state perfect for juken.

	Naruto got another wicked gleam in his eye.  "Oh, sorry,
Neji, you wear fundoshi, right?  All traditionally Hyuga?  I guess
I'd be kinda pissy, too, if I had a big wad of twisted cloth right
in the crack of my-"

	"If you are quite through, Naruto," Gai interrupted, shooting
the boy a warning look.

	"Right," he agreed, closing his mouth with a click of teeth.

	"In fact, I believe we should curtail any further
introductions and get down to business," Gai continued brightly.
"I've secured a mission for us all today that I believe will be a
great way of fostering inter team cooperation."

	"A mission, Gai-sensei?  Yosh, I look forward to it!" Lee
cried, quite glad of the interruption before Naruto started
talking about his underwear and whatever problems it might be
causing.

	"Yes, a mission!  Fear not my students, it will be an easy
one for two teams of such exceptionally gifted students.  And to
warm us up after our day of rest yesterday, a brisk three hour run
to get there!  And if we cannot make it in three hours, we will
complete the mission using only our left hands!" he said
enthusiastically, giving them the thumbs up with his left and
holding his right behind his back.

	"Yosh!" Naruto cried, mimicking Lee.


	xxxxxxxxx
	xxxxxxxxx


	I felt pretty uneasy as I ran alongside Sasuke and Hinata.
Normally, I keep a kage bunshin or three spread out around me, and
sometimes I let one take my place while I hide in the bushes.
But, since we're around people I'm absolutely certain we're going
to have to fight, I'd rather not give away my habits before I need
to use them.

	Especially around Gai.

	Gai has me worried.  Freaking elite jounin and their mind
games.  I've never really minded the games before now.  Growing up
around Ibiki kinda got me used to them.  The man could turn 'pass
the salt' into an exercise in psychological horror that would make
a chunin weep.  Don't even get me started on one time I forgot my
homework.

	I still have nightmares.

	He was okay with my decision to not turn in my homework, and
accepted my reasoning.  But not doing it, and not doing it
perfectly, was not okay.  Somewhere in his office is a stack of
papers, the real copies, he graded personally.  Evidence against
some future accusation of stupidity and incompetence.  Hopefully
I'll never need it.

	But Gai's mind games…  When you ask around and people say
things like 'the only man besides the Hokage who has Kakashi's
number' you need to perk up and pay attention.  So I gave him the
old 'wit' challenge.  At first I was worried he was going to get
really pissed off, since I completely interrupted his one man
show, but he was cool with it.  And then we show up this morning,
and one of the first things he does is make a quip about Kakashi
burning in hell.

	Yes, Gai-sensei.  Message received.  You heard my challenge
and answered it in kind.  It was pretty straightforward, so he
probably dumbed it down so that my poor genin mind could handle
it.  It's sort of a relief, really.  I like Kakashi, he's always
got some sort of hidden lesson for us to learn, but I've lost
count of how many nights I've lain awake trying to figure out what
in the hell he meant by some innocuous comment that day.  Gai was
giving it to us easy.

	Mentally, that is.  Damn, that man, and his whole freaking
team, can run.  Girls are usually the quicker, not the faster of
the sexes.  It was that way with Hinata, who was like lightning
with her hands but was the slowest at covering ground, and I had
little doubt it was that way with Tenten compared to her
teammates.  Still, with us running flat out, even she pulled
ahead, and we eventually had to hang back and stick with Hinata
while they added distance.

	Taijutsu master, but pretty straightforward in his speech,
huh?  Gai clearly works his team's bodies harder than he does
their minds.
	
	This was going to suck, because everything I was doing with
my mind was to provoke Neji, and almost certainly by extension,
the rest of his team, into attacking physically so we could
respond in kind.  If Hinata attacks and beats the hell out of
Neji, she still gets her wish, but it's going to permanently
damage any future relationship between them.

	Fortunately, I convinced her to wait until he launched an
unprovoked attack on her.  'Unprovoked', in this case, being
somewhat arguable.  While there might be some resentment of Hinata
if she beats the hell out of Neji just for being an asshole, there
will be considerably more censure of Neji if he attacks
physically, first.  Branch members are not allowed to attack the
main family just because they were called a pootyhead.  That's a
Hyuga clan law.

	Neji is a genius prettyboy who's used to getting his way,
even as he bitches about the unfairness of the world around him.
He was ready to kill me over a poppyseed cake.  Yeah, I think I
can get him to attack.

	The problem, naturally, is his teammates.  Everything I said
about Neji could be applied to Sasuke, and if someone were to
attack Sasuke, Hinata and I would be on their ass.  Don't mess
with the team.  If there's one thing Kakashi taught us, it's that.
I'm far less certain of my ability to goad Neji into attacking
without dragging Lee and Tenten into it as well.  I probably
shouldn't, no, scratch that, I definitely shouldn't have made fun
of her personal problem, cause now she's pissed at me and that's
not a good way to have a first impression.  Clever ideas got the
better of me, I'm sorry to say.  At least I resisted the urge to
pick on Gai's pet student, Lee.  The guy is obviously bashful,
it'd be like kicking a puppy.

	In other words, fun as hell, but I don't want to deal with
the surge of protectiveness it'll cause in the others.

	Also, the little Gai is supposedly some sort of taijutsu
genius.  I want to get a better idea of what he can do before I
risk a fight.

	This would all be so much easier if I was allowed to kill
them.


	xxxxxxxxx
	xxxxxxxxx


	"Ah, just over two hours and 50 minutes!  Good job, my
students!" Gai praised enthusiastically.  "I will inform the
client that we are here."

	"Easy run," Tenten said with a sniff, hardly winded at all.
"I mean, we even took a break in the middle."

	The last was directed, not without some rancor, at Team
Seven, who, while no more noticeably winded than she was, were
very obviously the last to arrive at the cluster of farm buildings
in the middle of large fields of wheat stubble.

	"We didn't need you to wait for us," Hinata noted, locating
Tenten by the sound of her voice.  She was actually pretty tired,
and it seemed like she was never going to get a chance to fully
recover her chakra.  "We are capable of following directions."

	"What about all those times your father told you to stop
being so pathetic?" Neji asked snidely.

	Naruto and Sasuke glared back as Hinata kept quiet.

	"That was most unyouthful, Neji-kun," Lee said reproachfully.

	Even Tenten, no Team Seven fan, frowned at her teammate's
vicious words.

	"I return!" Gai cried, appearing between the two opposed
teams, carrying a bundle of rakes and heavy chopping hoes, which
he tossed unceremoniously to each of the genin.

	"Yosh!  We shall show these farmers the hard work of a
ninja!"  Lee twirled his hoe about in his hands in a complicated
series of spins, looping around his neck once, then bringing the
tool out straight as if he was brandishing a bokken.  "Let us
begin!"

	"Settle down, Lee," Tenten said, grabbing him by the collar
of his jumpsuit the moment it was safe to do so.  "Gai-sensei,
what exactly is our mission?"

	He beamed at her.  "We're going to burn these fields.  But
first, we have to make a firebreak around them so that the fire
can't spread to the forest."

	"Oh," she replied.  "Okay.  Fan the flames, gotcha, Sensei."

	"!" was the response from Team Seven.
	
	As Gai explained that the stubble left over from the early
wheat harvest needed to be burned, so that the farmers could till
the ashes into the soil and plant a new crop, Team Seven huddled
together and held a quiet, intense discussion with a lot of
whispering and curt gestures.
	
	"So you see, while a fire is unlikely to cause significant
damage were it to spread to the underbrush in the surrounding
forests, it would still be remiss of us to recklessly release our
country's namesake.  Yes, my newest students?" he asked,
interrupting himself and turning to them.  "You have something to
say?"

	Team Seven had lined up in a row as if addressing a superior
officer, which they actually were.  Naruto took a single step
forward.

	"Gai-sensei, in light of the nature of our mission, my
teammates and I have discussed the situation and come to a
unanimous conclusion," Naruto intoned solemnly.  "Your
longstanding rivalry with Kakashi-sensei…  We would like to put
one more mark under the 'win' column on your side."

	Gai stared at them for a moment, then broke out into a
blinding smile, teeth flashing in the sun, both thumbs up.
Possibly the sun sat behind him, despite it being mid-morning.

	"Thank you for your vote!  I shall be sure and inform Kakashi
of your support!"  He lowered his hands, and the smile dimmed
somewhat.  "But I am sorry to hear that you do not consider
yourselves members of this team.  Now, I would not attempt to
sunder the youthful bonds you three have forged through blood and
tears, but I would ask you to at least try to be a part of this
larger team group as we are all brought together!"

	"Yes, Sen-"  Naruto was cut off.

	"I know!  I shall make you feel a part of the larger group by
breaking you down to smaller groups for this mission!" Gai
announced.  "Lee!  You and Hinata-chan shall work together!"

	"Yosh!" Lee cried.

	"Yes, Gai-sensei," she replied.

	"Tenten!  You and…  Naruto-kun shall work together!  You will
get along!"

	"Yes, Sensei," Naruto replied brightly.

	Tenten looked a little deflated.  "Yes."

	"And lastly, we shall see geniuses from two genius clans work
together!  Neji!  Sasuke-kun!  Surely Konoha itself must tremble
before you if you combine your efforts!"

	"Hn," Sasuke replied, though there was an ever so faint smirk
on his lips.

	"It will be a pleasure to work with a professional," Neji
said neutrally, not indicating whether he thought Sasuke was a
professional or not.

	"Yes, my students!" Gai said happily.  "I shall be working
right alongside you!  We will go forth and create the barrier in
record time!  It's only seven and a half continuous miles of
firebreak three feet wide!  If we cannot do it in less than four
hours, we shall each do five hundred squats!"

	"Yes, Gai-sensei!  And if I cannot do five hundred squats, I
shall do two hundred one armed pushups!" Lee said
enthusiastically.

	"Ah, Lee, my cute student!  Such fire, such youthfulness!
And if we cannot do two hundred one armed pushups, we shall do
seven hundred straight punches!" Gai said, crying tears of manly
love.  "Now, let us begin!"

	Taking their directions from Gai, each of them set off to
their corner to begin.


	xxxxxxxxx
	xxxxxxxxx  Begin chapter seven


	"What is with the extra conditions Gai-sensei sets for each
task?" Hinata asked curiously, working in step beside Lee.

	The two of them had decided that, in the spirit of things,
they would each take about a foot and a half of space and work
side by side in step.  Though Hinata had originally gotten a
short, thick, heavy tined rake, she'd traded it for Lee's heavier
halfpick hoe to show that she did not care to be coddled, and the
end of the hoe nearly blurred as she carefully scraped all the
dried stubble and greener grass off with rapid, long strokes of
the sharp blade.  It was tricky work, but she had an excellent
spacial sense and, after a few mistakes pointed out by a helpful
Lee, learned how much pressure it would take to get everything on
the first stroke.  It also helped that they'd both decided to work
walking forward, which meant that she could use her feet to feel
any places she might have missed.

	"Ah, that is Gai-sensei's secret to effective training!" Lee
replied enthusiastically.

	Hinata's brow furrowed under her hitai-ate.  "If you fail, he
punishes you?  Sounds like my father."

	"No, that's not it," Lee protested, unobtrusively snagging a
bundle of grass she'd missed with the tines of his rake.  "You
have to understand that the weakness of training is that training
does not carry the same risk of failure that true combat does.
Gai-sensei's technique is to replicate the drive you feel in
combat by deliberately putting yourself in a pinch.  Make
everything hard to do, but failure makes it even harder!"  He
delivered his explanation with the fire and passion of a true
believer, his rake blurring as he tore at the ground.

	Hinata continued her hoeing as she thought about his words,
placing that with what she knew of Lee.  Finally, she nodded.
"That makes sense.  You're using the promise of pain to focus you
into putting all your effort into everything you do."

	"Yes!  You understand it very well, Hyuga-san!" Lee crowed,
delighted that she hadn't dismissed it out of hand the way Neji
had when he'd first heard it.  He was loyal to his teammate, but
Hinata did seem like a kinder, gentler person than Neji.

	"We do something similar to that," Hinata admitted, thinking
about all the times Naruto's clones had spent the day throwing
senbon at her.  "Though it's not pain we're risking."

	"Not pain?" he asked.

	"No.  We all get hurt.  Naruto showed me that.  Pain is just
a feeling.  Once you stop being scared of it, you can learn to
ignore it, even to focus it."  She smirked.  "When you're in a
real pinch, being able to ignore pain is pretty handy."

	"Did it hurt?" Lee asked, pausing his raking to look at her,
watching as she worked blindly.

	Hinata knew right away what he meant.

	"Agony for one eternal moment, then it wasn't so bad," she
replied.  "There were…  other things…  that happened on our
mission that hurt more."

	"I see," he replied, chewing on his lip as he resumed his
work.  He was faster than her, so he had little trouble keeping
pace.  Neither were going flat out, however, since it wouldn't be
good to run out of energy with the job still unfinished.

	"Yes?" she asked.

	"Hm?"

	"You clearly want to ask me something else.  Ask."

	He hesitated.  "Did…  did they tell you you wouldn't be able
to fight again?"

	"If anyone thought anything like that, they had the sense to
not say it to my face," Hinata replied, her hand hovering close
enough to the side of his head to brush the hairs.

	Lee blinked.  He hadn't even seen her hand move.  She was
fast.  As fast as Neji in a fight.

	"No, the inability to turn off my byakugan is the price I
paid for something far greater.  It is not too great a price."
She slid her hitai-ate up her forehead and looked at him.  "I can
still see, if I have the chakra.  I am not permanently blind,
just…  inconvenienced."  She covered up her eyes and resumed
chopping at the dirt.

	"Ah."

	"I take it you have been similarly inconvenienced?" she
asked.

	"You do not know?" Lee asked.

	Hinata shook her head.  "Apparently not."

	Lee was surprised.  "I thought everyone knew about my
inability to use chakra.  Certainly I was reminded of it often
enough."

	Hinata frowned.  "But you use chakra.  If you couldn't use
chakra, you'd be dead."

	He shook his head.  "I cannot focus it outside my body.  I
can't use ninjutsu or genjutsu, not even a simple bunshin."  His
eyes lit with an inner glow, and his knuckled tightened around the
handle of his rake.  "I was allowed to graduate from the academy
only on the strength of my taijutsu, because I didn't give up.
Gai-sensei taught me that through hard work, even a dead last
loser like me can be a great ninja!"

	They worked in silence for a while.  Finally, Hinata spoke
up.

	"I must admit, I had no idea that you could not use ninjutsu
or genjutsu.  And I even asked around about you," she explained.
"The only thing I heard people say about you is that you were a
taijutsu genius."

	Lee frowned.  "No, I must say that that is not true.  I am no
genius.  I got where I am through hard work!"

	"Ah, Lee!" Gai said suddenly from beside them.  "You are a
genius!  A genius of hard work!"

	"Gai-sensei!" Lee cried, tears in his eyes.

	"Lee-kun!  Hinata-chan!  I am most encouraged by your shining
example of teamwork!  You two are pillars of support for us all!"
	
	Hinata smiled softly.


	xxxxxxxxx
	xxxxxxxxx


	"I would like to fight you, Uchiha," Neji announced as they
walked through the fields.  He carried a rake, and Sasuke carried
a hoe.  "I wonder who is stronger, this year's top graduate, or
last year's?"

	"Oh, you'll need to talk to Hinata-chan if you want to fight
this year's top graduate," Sasuke replied easily.

	Neji didn't quite do a double take.  "What?  You were the top
student, I've heard.  There's no way a loser like Hinata could
have reached that level unless you were even more of a loser."

	"And you've heard nothing but praise for me, huh?" Sasuke
replied with a glint in his eye.  "I'm good, but she beat me out
for top spot."

	Neji spluttered a moment, losing all composure, before he
reassembled his mask of calm disdain.  "How?"

	Sasuke shrugged.  "She killed one of our teachers, Mizuki, a
chunin.  There's a little used academy rule that if you kill a
teacher, you automatically get top graduate spot."

	Neji just stared at him for several long moments as they
walked, all the way up until they reached their designated corner,
the one farthest away from his pathetic cousin, he noted, it being
well over a mile away.

	"And how was it that she was not arrested for this crime?" he
asked finally, tearing at the grass with his rake with exceptional
viciousness.

	Sasuke gave him an incredulous look, not pausing as he
scraped away grass with the sharp blade of the hoe.  "Well, he was
a traitor, obviously," he replied as if it was the most obvious
thing in the world.  "A foreign agent.  You didn't know about
this?"

	Neji gritted his teeth slightly