Naruto 1. Chapter 1

Perhaps that was why reality was falling apart, Sakura explained matter-of-factly to her wide-eyed audience, because when she said she lost her mind, she really _had _lost her mind - okay, _half _her mind - kinda like how Naruto lost that village he was supposed to protect and boy oh boy, was it ever just as embarrassing! (_Saving Grace_, pg. 37)

oOoOo

"I'm curious as to how anyone could possibly lose an entire village he was hired to protect, lock, stock, barrel and fuzz. The details are so highly classified that only other catastrophic blunders possibly warrant similar lip-zipping." (Sasuke; _Saving Grace_, pg. 46)

oOoOo

"I know how Naruto lost the village!" (Kiba; _Saving Grace,_ pg. 52)

oOoOo

"What's worse is that Ino's married to _Neji_. Don't ask me how it happened – apparently I was too busy losing a village while the courtship was taking place." (Naruto; _Saving Grace,_ pg. 70)

oOoOo

"And whenever anyone wants to talk about it Naruto can lump it in with the village he somehow lost." (Kakashi; Saving Grace, pg. 90)

oOoOo

"You pull something out of your ass like you always do or this village is going to be lost, and not in the same way as your other!" (Tsunade; _Saving Grace_, pg. 118)

oOoOo

But the battle between ninja-dogs and ninja-cats is best left unmentioned – like Naruto's missing village. (_Saving Grace_, pg. 119)

oOoOo

Sasuke glanced sideways at Naruto. "The only thing _you_ have to hide is that village."  
"_grrrk_"  
"Oh, wait." Sasuke smiled smugly. "You didn't hide it – you lost it!"  
"Idon'twannatalkaboutit." (_Saving Grace_, pg. 121)

oOoOo

"I _didn't_ lose the village – I know precisely where it's at!" (Naruto;_ Saving Grace,_ pg. 123)

* * *

Naruto didn't bother hiding the yawn that nearly popped his jaw out of joint. He stood with his legs apart and his arms crossed before his chest, blond hair sticking up in every direction because he hadn't had time to brush it. 

He also hoped that his morning breath would knock out Obaa-san, the dumb old hag, since _she_ was responsible for dragging him from bed, stuffing him in a jump suit that he outgrew at least two months ago because "You can't show up in your shorts, Naruto, _sheesh_…", and hauling him into her office at the ungodly hour of Before Breakfast. She hadn't even given him the decency of snatching up his toothbrush _or_ his shoes before yanking him through his bedroom window.

He was fairly sure it wasn't because of something that _he_ did – but if it was, then Naruto was going to claim he had been framed.

He always did know that Tsunade had a vindictive nature.

"This is important," Tsunade told him between gritted teeth; she rummaged through her drawers, files, and folders before finally withdrawing a large map from her umbrella stand in the corner of the room. "Ah! Here we go!"

"Lose another bet, Obaa-san?" Naruto asked snidely, because – dammit! – he had _earned_ that sleep!

"Shut up, brat." Tsunade swiped her arm across the top of her desk, mowing down objects and sending them flying off the edge. She ignored where they fell onto the floor – including the inkwell, which shattered and spread a dark, ugly stain across the floorboards. Naruto watched it in mute fascination before turning his gaze back on Tsunade, who was tacking down the map's corners with a few empty booze bottles.

"Here," she said, drawing his attention to a nondescript little mark in the far northeastern corner of Fire Country.

_Futegiwa_, it read.

It suddenly occurred to Naruto that any village named Loser was probably not one he wanted to protect. He still had nightmares of the village he and Lee had been assigned to help after it was invaded by bandits, and _its_ name had been Impotent. _Honestly, who names these places_?

He shook his head to clear it of the feeling of impending doom. It was simply too early in the morning to feel like the Universe was hinging its continued existence on your decision to have toast or rice for breakfast.

"I got a messenger from them late last night-" Tsunade paused in thought, "-or early this morning. They're having problems with someone, but the messenger refused to give me exact details. It's just one person, but they fear for the safety and survival of the entire village. It's _not_ Akatsuki," she added quickly when Naruto opened his mouth. He shut it with a sigh. "But whatever or whoever is causing the problem has them worried for the sanity – uh, I mean, _safety_ of their village."

The feeling of worry was increasing, itching, bothering him like a boil on his butt.

"The village," Tsunade continued, "can only afford a single, low-level shinobi, but I'd rather send someone who can take care of himself, _and_ the village, _and_ bring down whoever is threatening them."

She sat down in her chair with a heavy sigh, knitting her fingers against her brow and propping her elbows on the map. "They require this ninja to be subtle, quiet, and wily and cunning. Someone who can blend into the background and not attract attention." She shrugged. "Given their budget of six hundred ryou, four nails and two screws, and some pocket lint, there aren't too many Genin who fit the bill. But the village is desperate – and they promised free room and board for the duration of your stay."

Naruto laughed nervously and put a hand behind his head, all too aware of his shortcomings when it came to silence and all its variants. "I don't think I've very well qualified. Well, besides having power and skill. Are you sure that Sakura-chan or Sai couldn't do this? Budget aside, I mean."

Tsunade closed her eyes and pinched the bridge of her nose. Naruto suddenly realized that Tsunade, who kept a late night schedule, probably hadn't been able to sleep. He pursed his lips together and vowed to cause as little trouble as possible.

Tsunade had a habit of docking people's pay when she was tired and cranky.

"It's very hard for a ninja to be subtle, quiet, and blend into the background when he's glowing neon-pink, and until we find out the extent of Sai's new… abnormalities from the radioactive exposure, he's being kept in isolation under Shizune's constant watch."

"He's _still_ glowing?" Naruto tried to contemplate his companion all in pink, but the best he could imagine was Sai dressed in Sakura's clothes. He shuddered in horror. "But wasn't he green yesterday?"

"He morphed into different colors – and not everyone has your recovery skills. As I think it safest for, uh, _everyone_ that Sakura and Sai are kept far apart while he's glowing _pink_," Tsunade coughed into a fist, "Sakura is going undercover with Kiba on a mission that requires her expertise."

_Wait- what expertise?_ Naruto turned those words around in his head to make some sort of sense, because he knew Sakura-chan's knowledge of sex was about the same as his – woefully inadequate. (Actually, she probably had a greater depth and scope than he did simply because of her medical background, but for all practical purposes and experience, he suspected she wasn't all that_experienced_. At least, he hoped she wasn't experienced, because that meant she had better luck than he did when it came to getting laid.)

Then he bristled angrily because Kiba's undercover specialty wasn't one that he wanted Sakura anywhere near, even if it was the traditional field of work for most kunoichi. "Relax, she's going as the janitor," Tsunade put in quickly. "But even if she wasn't, I still wouldn't give her this mission." Tsunade pinned Naruto with a worried frown. "Sasuke has been sighted near Futegiwa very recently."

Naruto stared, his smile frozen on his face. Seconds ticked past them. Finally, when he noticed Tsunade's irritated twitch, he forced himself to laugh. "Oh, gee, you almost had me there! Sasuke in the area, ho ho! You were just testing to see how awake I am, right?" The smile lurched sideways and fell upside down. "Oh shit. You _aren't_ kidding."

Tsunade shook her head. "I have very good reason to doubt that Sasuke is the one threatening the village, but it would cause a lot of damage to get between him and whatever he's after."

Of course. Because most anyone else would try to kill a person classified as an S-class traitor. It didn't matter if there were people in Konoha still determined to catch and drag Sasuke back and force him to understand how much he was loved and missed; treason of _his_ magnitude was punishable by death. Anyone short of Naruto (and Sakura-chan and Kakashi-senspai) would probably get themselves killed or very injured in the process because Sasuke tended to be a little heavy-handed when it came to fending off ropes and handcuffs, no matter how Naruto promised they wouldn't pinch or rub and see, see? He made sure he specifically got _padded_ handcuffs 'cause they're supposed to be more comfortable but he needed to return them before Ino realized they were missing, so hold still you bastard!

"Of course," Naruto said. He rubbed his own eyes and wished he could crawl back under his covers. All the astounding recovery and magnificent healing abilities in the world could never make up for lost sleep.

Tsunade was silent for a long time after that, studying Naruto and chewing on her bottom lip. Naruto felt a nervous sweat break out on his forehead because it seemed so uncharacteristic of her. This meant that he was going to be buried neck-deep in some really stinky shi-

"Kiba will be your liaison," Tsunade put in suddenly. "He's supposed to get a free day each week for his job and it's best if he's seen going in the opposite direction of Konoha. He'll meet up with you at your village's inn and then pass the information on to Sakura. She'll pass it on to another liaison to pass on to me. If there is an emergency, you will be on your own, but I'm sure you can handle it. Under no circumstances whatsoever, Naruto, are you to go after Sasuke during your mission."

He sulked. "…Not even just a little bit?"

"Absolutely not."

Naruto thought a moment. "And what if he comes after _me_? It could happen!"

She banged her fist lightly against her desk. The wood creaked ominously under her blow. "And that will happen when pigs fly – and I'm not talking about that _nightmare_ of a swine ranch that you and Sai cleaned up!"

Naruto rubbed the back of his neck self-consciously. "_Did_ we ever figure out how all those pigs got bitten by radioactive insects?"

"No. And stop trying to change the subject, Naruto. If you see Sasuke, do not make contact, do not approach, do not ambush, do not spike a drink and have someone deliver it–"

"That didn't work the last time anyway."

Tsunade ignored him. "-do not antagonize him, do not send cryptic messages via chakra-propelled origami frogs-"

"But that _did_ work the last time."

"-because you _will_ leave him be!"

Naruto drew back unhappily, crossing and uncrossing his arms before himself. Finally: "But, _why_?"

Tsunade leaned back in her chair, hands splayed wide on the map. She regarded him carefully, knowing that this was a subject best treated with gloved hands and a surgeon's precise touch. "Because it will interfere very badly with your mission, Naruto, and we cannot have that sort of jeopardy hanging over our reputations. Too many innocent people would come between you two, and they don't deserve that. I don't want them getting caught between you and Sasuke. We can't afford the construction costs." She rubbed her temples in irritation, and then reached under the desk for a flask that Shizune hadn't managed to discover yet. "That, and Ino is still mad about her broken handcuffs."

Naruto winced at the mention of Ino's name – his ears were still ringing from her verbal rage, even though the bruises had long faded and the construction had repaired the evidence of Ino's wrath on their surroundings.

Tsunade took a quick swig from her flask before hiding it back under her desk. She began to deal out papers to Naruto. "Here's your supply chits, information on your mission, maps, and some information on Kiba's mission so you don't make a mistake during contact." She stood up and ushered Naruto from her office. "From what I gather, this person causing the village problems isn't so much malicious as he is incompetent, so have some fun and relax. There's a hot springs resort there, so think of it as a paid vacation for having to slay those glow-in-the-dark, swine-bat hybrids last week. Take a week off after you're done with the village and just relax, enjoy yourself…"

_In other words,_ Naruto thought wryly, _don't hurry back._ _Or, alternatively: you can try dragging Sasuke's not-very-sorry ass back when you no longer have other obligations._

"The messenger is going to lead you to the village – Kuro Nala – and you're supposed to meet with her at the ramen stand. Have a nice vacation, Naruto."

"Vacation? Are you serious?"

Tsunade paused, her hand fluttering to the door handle and the other sliding around Naruto's shoulders. "Of course. You don't think I'd drag you out of bed before breakfast because I'm _vindictive_, do you?"

Naruto was saved from having to say anything incriminating by Tsunade's bone-crunching, mammary-engulfing hug and the coins she dropped into his pocket "for breakfast". 


	2. Chapter 2

There wasn't anyone else at the Ichiraku Ramen stand this early in the morning, but Ichiraku took Naruto's presence in stride just as he always did, and began making Naruto's usual order without preamble just as he always did. Naruto was half-convinced that the only reason the man opened the stand so early in the morning was in the hopes that Naruto would come by for breakfast. (Naruto had long ago decided that Ichiraku made an excellent uncle of sorts – not that he knew what uncles did, but he imagined that no uncle in the world could possibly be as great as Ichiraku.)

Naruto exchanged a few early-morning pleasantries with the owner as he reached over and grabbed up some napkins and chopsticks. He settled them in place before rifling through the papers Tsunade had given him. The first thing he grabbed was Kiba's mission information – he wasn't sure if he ought to be upset with Sakura infiltrating a brothel, or, uh, _curious_. Yeah. That was a good word.

_Okay, maybe disappointed_, he figured after reading the highlight of the information. Sakura was supposed to pose as someone with epilepsy applying for a custodial position. That was far safer than Kiba's job, which mostly required Kiba to have sex. Unlike most other people who scorned few shinobi and kunoichi who were regulars when it came to sleeping with the enemy (as opposed to those who did it few-and-far-between as missions required), Naruto had a great deal of admiration for anyone who could get it up under pressure. Especially when they had to get it up six, seven, eight times a day.

Then Naruto reached the last page where his part was detailed, and the papers were nearly shredded when his hands bunched into fists.

"L-lovers!" he sputtered. He was supposed to pose as Kiba's lover while Kiba was meeting him?

Ichiraku was long used to Naruto's outbursts and continued cooking without glancing back, though his daughter did glance sideways at Naruto with a look of shocked curiosity.

Naruto buried Kiba's mission info under his own info as his cheeks stained red. He had long given up on getting any dates from anyone in Konoha, unless it was with Sakura-chan and even then he made sure she was under the effects of prolonged exposure to medicinal fumes because she was too fuzzy and complacent to refuse. Naruto liked to think of himself as the perfect gentleman though, always treating her with respect and keeping his arms (and lips) to himself – he knew of too many people who would take advantage of Sakura-chan in her cross-eyed daze. Why, just look at the way Sai had managed to talk Sakura-chan into posing nude for him last month! You simply couldn't trust _anyone_ these days! (He even made sure he got Sakura-chan out of that situation _before_ she dropped her skirt, even though the lure of owning a nude print had been oh so tempting… Proving, once again, that he was indeed the better man!)

Subsequently, Naruto has all the sexual skills of, uh, a rock. Kiba, on the other hand, was _very_ skilled. And Kiba liked to throw himself whole-heartedly into his undercover missions and roles, so Naruto had a sneaking suspicion that he would be very lucky to get out of the mission with his trousers in place and as inexperienced as ever. While Naruto didn't mind in the least making sacrifices for missions, he's much rather make a sacrifice for someone who was soft and cuddly and squished in all the right places, and Kiba just didn't _squish_ like Sakura-chan or Hinata did when he hugged them (not that Sakura-chan squished like Hinata did, either, because she was admittedly a little lacking in the same squish-factor as Hinata). To be perfectly fair, he had never _hugged_ Kiba, but he was damn sure that the man didn't _squish_.

No, no, better turn his thought from that pathway and squishies. You never know when Neji was lurking behind your shoulder…

Just as Naruto began looking over his current mission information, he felt someone approach and seat herself beside him.

"Hello." Naruto studied the woman, who was old and all shriveled up like a raisin.

She had some odd tufts of gray hair clinging desperately to her liver-spotted head, and she squinted at Naruto in disappointment. "You must be the kid that the Hokage said would help me. Mmmhmm."

Naruto twitched as Ayame poured both of them a cup of tea. _Kid?_ But he plastered a smile on his face anyway and even managed to nod his head. "That would be me, old woman!" Turnabout was fair play, and all was fair between sarcasm and rudeness. Or was that love and war? Oh well. He lifted his tea to his lips and took a sip.

The old woman squinted at the menu Ayame handed to her. Then she smacked her lips in disappointment. "I was hoping for someone who was cute," she said mournfully. "Like, so." She made a waving motion with her hands that instantly made Jiraiya prance cackling through Naruto's head. "But you'll do."

Naruto choked on his tea, visions of the old woman leering at Tsunade's substantial bosom flashing through his head. That would most certainly explain Tsunade's crankiness…

"But nothing that a padded bra couldn't help."

The tea cup shattered in Naruto's grip. "I'm a guy!" he yelled. Ayame fumbled her teapot and her father glanced over his shoulder at Naruto with a worried expression. "Uh, I'll pay for that," he told them as he hurriedly began mopping up the broken clay and spilt tea.

The old woman pouted. "Don't remind me." She was silent for a moment, and then grinned in a manner than made the hair on the back of Naruto's neck stand on end. This was swiftly followed by her suggestively wagging bushy eyebrows at him. "It's quite hot where we're going. You might not want to pack any shirts along."

It suddenly occurred to Naruto that there might have been another reason why Tsunade didn't want to send Sakura-chan on this mission. Perverted old men seemed to be the norm, but there was something rather _seedy_ about a perverted old woman.

His conscious, which had taken on the look of a miniature Sakura-chan over the years, popped up on his shoulder. She was dressed like he thought a goddess should, all curvy and wrapped in elaborate white silks, a gold necklace dangling around her broad forehead. "Oh," she said pointedly, her hands on her hips and a gleam in her eyes, "so it's fine for an old man to be a pervert, but the same can't be said for an old woman? That's sexist, you pig!"

Naruto cringed. _I didn't mean it that way!_ he told his conscious. _It's just that – it's an old woman! And **please** don't mention pigs._

"Oh, right, flying swine disaster. Sorry. But you're sexist. Get over it."

"Mmmhhmmm." The old woman regarded Naruto for a long moment. "Although tight leather pants might not be a bad idea, either," she added. "You look like you've got a tight ass and I _do_ have to stare at it the entire trip back."

Sakura-conscious fell silent for a moment as Naruto gritted his teeth in irritation. "That is kinda creepy," she finally acknowledged. "No wonder Tsunade-shisho was cranky."

_Yeah, yeah! _

Even Ichikraku was giving the old woman a strange look as he presented them their breakfast orders.

"When do you want to leave?" Naruto asked her after swallowing his first bite. There was no way he was going to let himself get cheated out of his ramen. No one gets between him and his ramen – no one.

"After my breakfast nap," the old woman replied. "Need my beauty sleep, sonny. I ain't as young as I used to be, and I need to make sure I have plenty of energy for what we're going to…" Her voice trailed off. She eyed Naruto, and then cackled wickedly. "…do."

Naruto nearly bit his tongue. "I'll meet you at the gate's entrance," he said as he began to hurriedly wolf down his ramen. He thrust the money across the table to Ayame with an apologetic look (ruined, no doubt, by his bulging cheeks and the juice dribbling down his chin), and then hurried away with all his papers before he had even finished chewing.

* * *

Packing wasn't a chore; it rarely ever was for Naruto because he didn't have much by way of valuable possessions and his wardrobe was straightforward _and_ wrinkle-proof, which made it easy to ball up his extra clothes and cram them into the bottom of his bag to make more room for important things – like the stuffed hippo that Hinata gave him, and the stuffed frog that Sakura had given him when she won the strong man's contest at last year's carnival (actually, she had tossed it into a garbage can because she was strangely embarrassed about people refusing to compete against her after she somehow managed to beat Lee at arm wrestling, which sent him scurrying backwards around the village for three hundred laps on his knuckles; Naruto had fished it out when she wasn't looking), and a small triple-folding wallet that he stuffed full of pictures.

He carefully exited his flat and quietly snuck down the stairs. Seven creatures from the bowels of hell were lined up on the banister, each staring at him with their unblinking narrowed eyes. He refused to show even the slightest hint of fear or intimidation, even when one fat orange evil creature leapt from the banister and landed on a stair just below him. He stepped over the creature, hissed when it reached a languid paw up to claw his ankle, and then lost his balance.

The old woman who was mistress of her seven evil minions from the depraved depths of the universe had poked her head out of her door and glared disapprovingly when Naruto crashed to a halt ass-side up at the bottom of the stairs. His bag knocked from his hands came tumbling down beside him and spilling its contents at every rolling turn. One by one the malicious minions jumped off the banister and landed on him, each proudly holding their tail aloft as they scurried forward and wrapped themselves around their owner's legs.

"What did you do?" the old woman cried as the orange demon that had deliberately sabotaged Naruto, faked a very pronounced limp as it approached her, meowed pitifully and flopped over on its side. It even managed a pathetic little twitch.

"N-nothing!" Naruto rolled upright and pointed an accusing finger. "_He_ started it!"

"My precious widdle kitty-witties wouldn't dream of such a thing!" The woman stooped and gathered up her orange evil minion. It hung bonelessly in her arms, and cast a very smug and self-righteous look towards Naruto. With a swagger of her ample hips, the woman ushered her evil creatures back into her flat and slammed the door shut.

Grumbling under his breath, Naruto gathered up his scattered goods and crammed them back into his bag. He was careful not to be overheard with his complaints, because the first time Sai saw the old woman and her cats lined up, he had declared the woman unfit for human companionship and that it was very fortunate for her that Naruto was moving in.

That was when they had discovered the hard way that the old woman had trained her seven cats to attack in formation and on command. Naruto had always known that evil existed somewhere in Konoha – he just never thought it would be living in the apartment below his own. Subsequently, Naruto was never able to talk any of his teammates into coming over for social calls – although Sai, ever persistent in following orders, had delivered a mission for Naruto by sneaking through his open window and thereby nearly earned _another_ trip to the hospital before Naruto realized that the creepy kid wiggling butt-first into his living room wasn't a stalker or a peeping tom.

But if it wasn't _one_ old hag causing problems in his life, it was _another_.

_Old ladies are evil,_ he thought viciously, but his Sakura-conscious stayed silent. Probably because there was no way to safely dispute that one without it degenerating into an argument.

* * *

"I'm here," he said, resigned, when he finally met up with Kuro Nala at the wide gate. With a snort, the old woman jumped off the barrel she had been seated upon and hobbled onward.

"Come along, sonny. Daylight's burning and we've gotta make over the pass by nightfall."

"Just how long a trip is this?" Naruto asked as he tightened his straps and fell into pace beside her. He watched as a snail passed them.

"By my reckoning, not long enough."

"But-"

"Spending the time on the road with you can't be any worse than that _clown_."

"But-"

"We'll keep going until we enter the pass, then I'll make some mushroom stew tonight." She cackled and cast Naruto an evil look over her shoulder. "Shinobi, tonight, we dine in hell!"

Honor be damned, Naruto wondered if there was still time to escape.

* * *

author's notes: Future chapters will be longer, I promise. There will also be a a minor plot with Neji/Ino involved, mostly because they get kidnapped by aliens. And that is totally Naruto's fault. 


	3. Chapter 3

Naruto eyed his bubbling mushroom stew.

The mushroom stew eyed him back.

Across from the fire, Kuro Nala gnawed upon a wild leek that she had baked on the hot stones of their meager little campfire.

"Are you sure this is safe?" Naruto asked cautiously.

"Of course it is," she replied caustically. "I eat that stew all the time. The mushrooms are native around here and provide a good, hardy meal. It'll put some meat on your ribs, kid."

Naruto eyed his stew once more. He could have sworn it gave him a saucy wink. But it was important to build a relationship of trust (well, something closely resembling it since he was a ninja) with one's client – although he was going to be sleeping with one eye open, because he had a feeling that she was going to try wiggling her way into his bedroll. _That_ was something no young man should be subjected to, unless he had a really, really bad case of Oedipus Complex, and Naruto most certainly _did not_ even though he readily admitted to lacking a mother figure in his life.

He cringed inwardly at the thought of pouring the voracious sludge down his throat, but he did manage to survive that one particularly deadly bout of Hinata's "cooking" – as much as he cared for that girl, it was a wonder that the Hyuugas allowed their family heir to lack such an important life skill_. It's almost like they're out to get her,_ he thought dimly.

But stalling wasn't going to make his stew disappear. He snuck a glance at the old woman, who was slurping away at her own stew, her beady eyes glinting in the firelight.

Naruto's grip upon his bowl tightened.

He kicked the asses of power-hungry madmen and hadn't even bothered to take names – why should a little bowl of mushroom stew intimidate him? _Except it ain't everyday when the cook declares that tonight we dine in hell, and shinobi really must look underneath the underneath. _

Naruto spooned a mouthful of stew into his mouth and swallowed without chewing. Kuro studied him for a long moment, and then resumed her own dinner.

When he realized he hadn't fallen over, foaming at the mouth and stark raving mad with rabies or something, Naruto ventured to take another mouthful.

Eh. _Not too bad,_ he figured as he chewed. Could do with a little more salt, but it definitely wasn't anything remotely resembling that disaster he couldn't respectfully call Hinata's cooking.

Naruto even managed to have seconds. And thirds. He also finished the rest of Kuro's when she claimed she was no longer hungry because he didn't believe in letting good food go to waste.

* * *

In retrospect, eating seemed like a safe idea at the time.

As he rolled gleefully around in the mud down by the river, the moonlight illuminating the pair of boxers he wore on his head and his pants tied around his shoulders like a cape, Naruto dimly realized that he really ought to have asked Kuro Nala what sort of mushrooms she had used before she uncurled her bedroll and fell asleep beside the fire.

"Weeeee! I'm like, drunk!" Naruto giggled as he sat upright, then slapped a hand over his mouth. He put a finger to his lips and shooshed his shadow. "We can't let them know I'm here. I'm vilnuh, no, vuniber, bah, open to enemy attack!" He pointed at the boxers on his head. "This is a clever disguise, meant to confuzzle people." He bobbed his head as he spoke, and was pleased to see his shadow nodding in agreement. He clambered to his feet and began to make the long, hard journey through the forest, back to camp.

"Better get back to – hey!" Naruto bellyflopped over a tree root that had somehow managed to jump in front of him, and floundered a moment before realizing that being vertical was much easier than being horizontal, and look at all those pretty, shiny lights whirling around! "Fireflies!" he declared in delight, waving at them with hands splayed wide. "Bobbing to and fro// like little paper lanterns // fireflies are starlight."

He crossed his eyes and squinted upon at the shiny lights, at the large one hovering over his head, the moon hiding coyly somewhere in the trees like some sort of ancient tease… "Just how drugged am I be to sprouting haiku?" he asked aloud in irritation. "Next thing ya know, I'm going to be philosophizing on fate and all that crap, like Neji. And I'll get depressed, and need some sort of motivation other than being the Hokage. I'll wind up just like Sasuke!"

He crossed his arms over his bare chest and stared up at the lights, mesmerized, his thoughts doing merry-go-round in his head as his mind tried to compose haiku verses about the tragedy of destiny. And long hair. Long, flowing locks of brown – no, no, it's gotta be fruity – _chestnut_ hair, over skin of, uh, albacore white – or was it marble?

"Like that!" Naruto declared, sitting upright so fast that his vision took a nose dive into an empty swimming pool. He saw the fuzzy cloud of brown – no, not quite – chestnut hair float towards him, little lights filtering through it as if it was like a netting that trapped fireflies within. "Hair like that, just like Neji's, and sorta like Ino's, all long and silky-like." He reached out to grab a handful of hair.

The fuzzy cloud of brown meeped in dismay and eluded his clumsy grasp. "Bah. That's what Neji did that one time. I wasn't really trying to pet him. It was just, shiny, you know? And I was kinda buzzed at the time, anyway." Naruto flopped over backwards and stared into the starry sky. "I wonder what the bastard is doing right now?"

The fuzzy cloud of brown squeaked. "Help? Help?"

"Yeah, he might help you. He's got shiny hair like you, like Ino does. All shiny and long."

"Neji, Ino," it said a voice that was strangely stiff and formal. "Meep." It twirled around in with its hair falling like a graceful curtain, and then arose in the air before disappearing.

"I bet it was a fairy," Naruto muttered. "Or an alien." He yawned, rolled over onto his side, pulled his pants tight around his shoulders, and fell asleep.

* * *

Ino and Neji were arguing again.

To the ordinary passerby, it was only apparent that Ino was doing most of the talking, jabbering on about some sort of book of mythology she had read and brought along to show him because it made her think of Neji, and she thought it was a really good idea that he might read it as well, and don't you roll your eyes at me like that! I can see it – there you went and did it again!

But to Gai, long experienced in Nejian, could read the body language of his long-time student like a book. True, the book was as clear as one that had been scribbled all over by in crayon by a student whose energy and hyperactivity was a prime example of youth's beautiful, vibrant energy, and the pages were glued together by a lollipop some enterprising toddler had left as a bookmark, but Gai was never one to be defeated by such trivial obstacles.

It was more like a game these days, with Ino taking more interest in Neji as Hinata and Shino grew closer, and their families and teammates watched in morbid curiosity (or horrified silence, if Gai read Hyuuga Hiashi's pain stricken expression correctly). Whether the watchful eyes were upon Hinata and Shino or Ino and Neji was still debatable. Anyone with a sense of survival kept their mouths shut though and would not get between Ino and Neji in their arguments (except for his lovely Lee, for the candle of youth burns brightest when the flame is highest and burning at both ends). But sooner or later, something was going to happen, and a very profitable betting pool was quietly making its rounds through Konoha in the great battle of Neji versus Ino.

Gai was a strong man with even stronger convictions, but even he had to admit that every rock has a weak point. But lesser men than he had fallen to far worse travesties. Besides that, he knew that Ino would eventually wear away at Neji and then it would be the easiest ten thousand ryou he ever made when he won the betting pool. Not that he was readily admitting to such a weakness of character in his own student, but… Ino was female. And blonde. That gave her an immediate advantage over the stoic Hyuuga.

Well, that and the fact that his academy years had been spent partners with Ino's mother might color his perceptions, but Gai had realized very shortly in his first week at the academy that any woman whose entire weaponry were projectile _roses and tulips_, who would tie up her enemies with summoned poison ivy, who would leave gigantic Venus fly traps on watch around the parameter of their camp, was a woman not to be trifled with.

By now, the argument had escalated (Ino's voice rising and her hands becoming more and more extravagant with their gestures; Neji hunching in his seat and looking like he was going to start killing the witnesses that watched in morbid fascination), and Gai checked to see if his short straw had suddenly morphed into something a lot longer than what he had originally drawn.

Since the straw remained unchanged, he weighed the consequences of going forth to intervene and mediate, thereby scarring his pupil and changing the focus of Ino's ire to himself, or doing nothing.

Since doing nothing was what had them barred en masse from the Mongolian barbeque pit, which sent Chouji on an unholy rampage, Gai silently slid his chair back, nodded once to Tenten as her attention shifted from the arguing couple, and began walking to where they were seated on the outside patio.

He stopped upright when he detected a flash of light overhead, and squinted up at the starry night.

A beam of light arched down and engulfed Ino and Neji. Civilians seated beside them, long-used to the hazard of living in a village occupied with ninja, silently dodged out of the light's reach and hid themselves behind sturdy furniture. Gai stumbled back from the light beam, shielding his eyes with one arm and grabbing the back of Lee's vest as Lee valiantly leapt forward to the rescue.

Ino, clutching her book to her chest, gripped Neji's arm as they were drawn up in the beam of light. The chairs they had been seated in slipped free and hung in the air. Gai saw Neji activate his Byakugan before they were sucked into a round metal vehicle that hovered far above the ground, beyond anyone's reach. Colored lights flashed from the vehicle's many windows as it ascended into the sky, and was soon out of sight.

Lee gulped. "Sensei? What just happened?"

Gai clenched his jaw. "The mothership wasn't due for another three weeks…"

"What, sensei?'

"Uh, nothing. Quick!" He whipped around and threw his words out to as an order to the other ninja present and waiting in the room, unsure of their next move. "We must report this to the Hokage!"

* * *

Naruto awoke the next morning with the distinct feeling that something small and fuzzy had crawled into his mouth and died. Kuro Nala gurgled in dismay when he yawned on her, so he skipped brushing his teeth so he could breathe on her more often.

"What sort of mushrooms were those?" Naruto asked with his eyes narrowed in irritation, his mud-smeared hair sticking up in every direction. At least he managed to get dressed before Kuro awoke, otherwise she would have gotten an anticipated look of his "scrumptious" ass.

Kuro frowned thoughtfully. "I apologize, shinobi. I meant to use the hollow mushrooms only, but I made a mistake and used the heavy mushrooms. Nothing to worry about, though. The mild hallucinogenic effect wears off at the same rate alcohol does – no permanent damage." She sighed. "But I must have slept through some excitement." She wagged her bushy eyebrows at him as Naruto sputtered and shook his head.

"Absolutely not!" Naruto quickly turned and began to hurriedly throw their camp together.

"You sure?"

"Completely."

"Oh." Nala silently watched Naruto jam things together in his pack for a moment, her index finger tapping her chin. Then, "So do all shinobi wear their pants on in the inside out, or are you just special?"

"What?" Naruto looked down, realized he ought to have paid more attention when getting dressed in the dark, and then stumbled off into the bushes to change in privacy. Nala hurriedly jumped to her feet and followed after as her face lit up in delight.

"Do you mind?" Naruto demanded as she eagerly peeked through the leaves at him.

"Are you sure you couldn't use my help – especially since you didn't do it right the first time?"

"If _you_ can't _see_ the difference between a hollow and a non-hollow mushroom, I don't want you anywhere near my wardrobe."

Nala harrumphed and sat down on a stump with her back to him. "I don't think I'm getting my money's worth, shinobi. You people are supposed to do anything, and you haven't yet given me an exotic dance."

Naruto blinked. "I – that is _not_ in my job description!" Not when he's being paid in _pocket lint_. "I was hired to protect the village. I was not hired for adult entertainment!"

"Well, it ought to be." Naruto, keeping his eye on Nala, quickly shimmied out of his pants, turned them right side out, and yanked them up in place. "I bet you're just awkward because you're still a virgin." As if that comment didn't adequately convey her bitter disappointment, she added, "It's probably a small penis anyway. Nothing much to look at."

Naruto gritted his teeth as he stomped past her. _Think of Sasuke think of Sasuke think of Sasuke…_

Sasuke had better be damn grateful when Naruto finally brought him back to Konoha, or Naruto was going to do something really mean and really underhanded – like force-feeding the bastard some of Nala's mushroom stew. 


	4. Chapter 4

"I thought aliens were _supposed_ to anally probe their abductees."

Neji ground his teeth in irritation as Ino's voice grated his ears. He kept his inactivated eyes carefully trained upon the wall, his legs crossed beneath him and his hands balled tight in white-knuckled fists pressed against his thighs.

"Although I am surprised those floating sentient wigs even left us a few scraps of clothing."

Neji knew that if he killed Ino now and was later able to return to Konoha, he could always justifiably claim she was a casualty of war.

"But I never would have taken you as a boxers kind of guy. You always struck me as being more of a tidy-whities guy. Must be because you have such a _stick up your ass!_"

Neji caught the book Ino threw before it collided against his head. Didn't even wince when his palm stung in pain. He deliberately and slowly turned around to glare at Ino. For some reason, she was as immune to his glares as Gai-sensei. She stood before him, legs spread wide with one foot tapping impatiently, her hands bunched in fists and pressed against her hips. Neji had noticed that the orange of her bra didn't really match her skin very well, and it clashed with the yellow of her underwear. It didn't help that both were rather sheer.

But Neji was completely and utterly immune to feminine and masculine wiles alike. _I am an amoeba,_ he chanted repeatedly in his mind, refusing to be held sway to the curve of Ino's… knees. _I am an amoeba._

"I say we bust the hell out of here."

"And then what?"

She shook a fist at him. "We destroy any and all who get in our way!"

"Excellent," Neji said dryly. "We will simply run willy-nilly half-naked through enemy territory of alien material and composition that was suspended high above ground when we were captured, against creatures of whom we have no knowledge with powers we do not recognize. A brilliant plan." His eyes narrowed dangerously. "Even _Naruto_ could come up with something better than _that_."

Ino's cheeks flushed red. "That's not true!"

Neji mentally pulled up his What Would Naruto Do (WWND) mathematic formula and plugged the known details into the required blanks. The answer was surprisingly simple. "You're right, actually," he amended with a regretful shake of his head, "because that plan is _precisely_ what Naruto would come up with."

Ino huffed in anger and crossed her arms, which did interesting things to her… knees. "I'm eager to hear all the suggestions you haven't once postulated yourself, genius."

"I have been studying our surroundings and our enemies. Their chakra is foreign and…" Neji's eyes narrowed in thought. "It looks oily," he said finally. "It feels oily. It doesn't move in the way that a human's does, but flows sluggishly."

"So, what are we going to do?"

"We were abducted for a reason. I don't sense any malice or danger from them-"

"Like that's helpful."

"-so perhaps we can compromise or lull them into false security," he finished with an annoyed glare for her interruption.

Ino began tapping her foot against the alien metal floor. She pointedly looked at their surroundings, then pinned him with a glare that would have made a lesser man – someone like Lee, for instance – cringe and cower. The room they had been stuffed into after their impromptu stripping by a strange beam of electrifying light that incinerated their clothes without causing harm to their skin lacked corners. Everything was smooth and round; all angles were gradual and there didn't seem to be a single straight line in existence. "And just what are we supposed to do in the mean time?" Ino demanded.

Neji threw her book back. "Entertain yourself. I'm going to meditate." He settled down on the floor, knees folded beneath him and hands resting lightly against his thighs, closed his eyes and centered his attention on his breathing. Think nothing, think nothing, think nothing…

It was difficult to meditate in a room filled with rounded angles. His mind kept going back to Ino's…. knees.

After a few tense minutes of silence, Ino sat against one of the walls and opened her book. She had an interesting habit of crossing her toes and rubbing her ankles together. It would have made Neji twitch in irritation, but that would have meant he was paying attention to Ino's body language. Of course, it _is_ important that one monitors his comrades in unknown territory to continuously confirm the team status. Neji would have would told Ino that it was poor form to be reading, but then again, there wasn't a whole lot that they could do until their enemies made their first move, and a high-strung ninja burning adrenaline was an accident waiting to happen.

He closed his eyes and meditated to the sound of turning pages and soft breathing.

oOoOoOoOoOo

"Are you sure it's this way?"

"Um." Kura looked uncertain, and Naruto suppressed the urge to sigh in irritation and drop her on her head in the swamp grounds. She was currently seated upon one of his shoulders, one arm settled uneasily on his other shoulder as Naruto stood knee-deep in an incredibly smelly swamp. Since she hadn't made any inappropriate comments about her placement or how he had one arm firmly wrapped around her thighs to maintain her balance, Naruto was feeling considerably charitable.

Still, it didn't help that Kura Nala was deeply troubled, and it couldn't just have been the unsightliness of their surroundings. The stagnant water was covered with an ugly green film that Naruto secretly suspect would melt his shoes if he accidentally waded through it. There was something in the air that was making the hair on the back of Naruto's neck stand on end. The trees seemed watchful and wary – and some of them even looked downright evil.

"But I know that I came through here!" Kura glared at the swamp, as if it had somehow formed over night in her path just to be an inconvenience. "Here, I'll show you." She dug the map from her pocket, carefully spread it wide, and then lowered it into Naruto's view. Naruto studied it for a long moment.

"Ah," he said finally. Kura folded the map back up and stuck it into her pocket. "It would seem that this used to be a forest."

"It was when I came through three days ago." She sounded miffed, as if she expected the swamp to pick up and relocate itself immediately and it was stubbornly refusing to do just that.

"What do you supposed could have caused this?" Naruto concentrated his senses to search for a chakra signal leftover from a water jutsu that might have summoned the swamp. He felt a strange little tingle in the back of his mind, but nothing else.

The silence that followed his question stretched long past the point of comfort.

"Look, is there something I ought to know?" Naruto demanded. " 'Cause I have been hired to protect you and the village, but you haven't told me from _what_, yet." When she still hadn't answered after Naruto patiently waited four seconds, he removed her from his shoulder and firmly set her down on a close-by tree branch. This brought Kura eyelevel to Naruto.

Kura's expression was one of shame, her shoulders hunched and her eyes downcast while her lower lip trembled. Naruto felt embarrassed to see such a brazen woman so… vulnerable. "It's my grandson," she said finally. She wrung her hands in distress and moaned. "His parents died years ago, and I tried my best to raise him good, keep him out of trouble, make sure that he was prepared to life, teach him the ways of our clan. He was an odd boy, always talking about this and that, none of it even real. He had such a… vivid imagination. People avoided him when they could. But I love him!" she cried in determination. "I love him even though he was such an odd child, because he was still a good boy and he tried his best to make me proud of him!"

Naruto studied Kura as her shame became grim determination. He often wondered (when he was alone in bed, deep at night, when his thoughts were the utmost private), what he would have become if he had had family of some sort that stood beside him come what may, no matter what he hosted or what he did. As he saw her visibly gather together her dignity, pride that hadn't been there from the moment he met Kura Nala poked its head out of hiding, looked around in wonder, and began to swell in response.

"And then he took a turn for the worse." A stormy look was upon her face. "He became one of _them_." She spat the word with such venom that Naruto nearly flinched. "Oh, it started small, and I wasn't really worried. You know how teenagers are – they're always trying to be different, trying to rile up their elders. I thought it was just a phase that he'd get over. But he got _worse_. Next thing I realized, he was talking, walking, acting, _looking_ like one of them, behaving in the most absurd and scandalous of manners! When I couldn't reason with him and he treated my punishments like they were jokes, I had to toss him out of the house.

"But I still love him, truly I do. I have refused to disown him from my clan or anything of the sort! I thought that in time he would grow out of this phase and realize what a mess he had made of himself. But it only got worse, especially when the rest of the clan began to shun him, saying he had made us a _mockery_." The angry bitterness of her voice gave way to sadness. "And now, it's almost like he's possessed. My sweet, fun-loving grandson became the terror of our little village. He's driven away tourists from the hot springs, sabotaged important equipment that's vital to my clan's trade, and has frightened the villagers. A few of the men gathered together to stop him, but he cast some curse on them, and now no one has the courage to try and stop him. We can't go on like this. My clan's trade is only viable during certain times of the year, and he blocked us. The village itself is almost broke from the loss of tourist revenue, but it's too scared to stop him."

She straightened her shoulders with a creaking pop, and set her jaw in grim determination. "So I decided to do something about it. I'm not the clan elder or leader, I have no rank or importance whatsoever, but he's _my_ grandson and this whole mess is therefore my responsibility. I'm not as young or as spry as I used to be," she added wryly. "I don't have the same vim or vigor. So I asked the innkeeper for a favor of free room and board, and tried to talk the clan into pooling money together to hire someone. But they didn't want to give up their money – didn't think that a shinobi would do us any good – so I went to your village with the few funds I had available and your village leader was kind and thoughtful enough to give me a Senior Citizen discount if I could beat her at Blackjack."

Naruto rolled his eyes. _Figures_, he thought wryly. _I just knew Tsunade had lost a bet somewhere!_

Kura Nala looked around at their swampy surroundings. "I don't understand this."

Naruto mentally chalked up another bone to pick with Tsunade when he returned. "You said these guys were cursed. What kind of powers does he have?"

"This!" The old woman spread her hands wide. "He does bizarre things to the weather! He made it snow and filled the passes with ice so my clan couldn't set out with its caravan during the festival season, and then he made the hot springs cold – although that didn't last long – and now he put a swamp where I passed through! He knows I'm terrified of snakes and amphibians!"

Naruto blinked at that. The sudden urge to summon a toad was overwhelmingly strong, but he squashed it because the woman was being serious with him and therefore he owed her like respect. "Seriously? He changes the weather?"

"I don't know where he got this ability, but when his personality had changed so drastically when he got the powers. That's why I'm convinced that he's possessed. Listen, shinobi." Kura Nala fiercely gripped Naruto's sleeve. "I don't want him hurt or dead. I still love him and I want him back. You'll make sure that will happen? That you'll bring my grandson back? I know that shinobi kill people, but I don't want anyone dead. I just want this stopped."

Naruto looked into the old woman's eyes and saw the depth of her love and desperation. Something stirred within stirred, a slumbering beast that was responding to her desperation. "Yosh! I'll do it!" he cried enthusiastically, a triumphant fist beating the air. He grinned and flashed her the victory sign.

Kura laughed and threw her hands in the air. "Yay! I knew I could trust you, shinobi!"

Then a snake, disturbed by their merrymaking, fell out of the branches above and landed on Kura's face.

The resounding shriek of terror could be heard all across the countryside.

oOoOoOoOoOo

Ino looked up from her book. "Did you say something?" she asked.

Neji, who had been meditating on, uh… knees… shook his head no. 

oOoOoOoOoOo

**  
**

**author's notes:** Oh, this chapter was a lot of fun writing! Naruto shall have a confrontation with the story's villain in the next chapter, and will also meet face-to-face with our wayward Sasuke. Neji and Ino probably won't get another appearence for a while, but I promise that they play an important, behind-the-scenes, role.


	5. Chapter 5

Naruto kept rolling Kuro's words around in his mind as he forged through the foliage, absently noting that the vegetation really didn't look native, but as long as none of it morphed into a dual-personality Akatsuki villain with a fetish for raw flesh and the color orange, he wasn't too worried about leading the way. Okay, so there was the appreciative whistle every hour or so, but so far she'd been a good girl at keeping her grubby paws to herself. For the most part.

He didn't _really_ believe that she had tripped and was only trying to catch her balance and save her old bones when she planted both hands against his ass, but that only happened once.

There were still some missing pieces to her story, and it bugged him that he had agreed to readily to saving her grandson without being told what her actual grandson was. For all he knew, Naruto could have just agreed to rescuing a murderer! Okay, from the average ninja's point of view, a murderer wasn't such a big deal, although Naruto had different standards from the average ninja. But what if it was worse than a murderer?

What if he had been set up to rescue… _a tax auditor_? So his mind went whirly-swirly around Kuro's words until it finally managed to settle upon a seemingly safe question.

"So," he began casually, "what's your clan's trade? 'Cause you keep talking about it, and…" His voice trailed off to nothing when he realized that all he heard from behind was a, "Hup! Hup! Hup!"

He turned around, and then flinched backwards and slapped both hands over his eyes with a cry of, "Gah!"

"Amazing, isn't it, shinobi?"

"Were you raised in a _barn_?"

"A barn? What an odd response! I would have at least expected you to say something about a zoo and how monkey-like I am in consideration of my fine age…"

Naruto cautiously peeked through his fingers; Kuro was no longer posing spryly on her fingertips with her skirt falling downward from gravity in a stunning display to the whole world that she apparently did not believe in underwear. There were some things that no one in general should ever have to be subjected to, and Naruto was positive such a display constituted as sexual harassment.

He also didn't know if he wanted to tell Tsunade every last detail, or omit any hint of such embarrassment from his report.

"I," Kuro continued proudly with several jumps and skips and a few heel-clicks, "am an acrobat! We're tumbling performers!"

"Oh." It suddenly made so much sense to Naruto. "Like clowns."

Kuro spat. Violently. And then swore at a very surprised Naruto. "Not clowns! Never a clown! Acrobats, we are acrobats!" This was clearly a very sensitive subject. "_He_ became a clown! He knew it would upset us, and we told him not to do it, but _he_ did it anyway!"

"Wait a minute…" Several puzzle pieces fell into place. "So I've been hired to rescue you people from a _clown_?"

Somewhere in the midst of her anger was a spark of guilt and shame. "Um. Yeah."

"A _clown_."

"Yes."

"White face paint and a great big red nose, clown?"

Kuro glared and crossed her arms. "Yes." She kicked at a stray lump of grass.

"Makes rubber balloons _clown_?"

"Shameful, isn't it?"

Naruto's mind belly-flopped over the idea of being hired to kick the scrawny ass of a clown. A _clown_. That was nearly as bad as kicking a puppy, or mugging a mime! There were just some lines he hadn't crossed yet, and he was pretty sure that this was one line he wanted to stay free and clear from. "What's wrong with being a _clown_?" He knew that some people had a really serious phobia with clowns (he was almost positive Neji was one of them), but an entire village of phobia-stricken people?

"It's atrocious!" Kuro flung her arms wide and then fell backwards. Naruto watched open-mouthed as she flipped twice in the air before landing perfectly balanced upon a low-lying branch, her arms gracefully posed. "We're acrobats, tumblers of the air – not _clowns_. I don't know where he strayed – didn't get it from _my_ side of the family!"

Naruto slapped a hand over his face in exasperation. Some kind of feud between trades, like the odango stand versus the ramen stand, where pepper was laced, chopsticks were sabotaged, and insults were written between the folds of napkins. Honestly, the odango were just a fling – it could never replace his first and only true love of ramen! "And you want me to do something about this?"

Kuro hunched down. "He changed. I could have lived with him being a clown, as long as he kept the rubber balloon animals outside, and he promised not to wear his makeup. I might even have come to like his big red nose. But a few months ago, he changed. He became…" She hesitated for a long moment, one spindly finger pressed uncertainly against her thin lips. "It's almost like he's possessed," she said finally. "I think that's where his abilities to control the weather first started, or at least when I noticed. What if it's some kind of magical brainwashings you ninjas do?"

It took Naruto a moment to figure out that Kuro Nala meant genjutsu, which was a good thing because he nearly tripped over his tongue to ask her if she had seen a sour-faced bastard whose arms were less than cooperative, shadowed by a silver-haired spectacled slimeball around the same time that her grandson was brainwashed. Then again, he mused, probably not. This wasn't Sasuke's type of up-to-no-good – Sasuke had issues enough without wanting to be associated with a clown. "Well, I'll make sure that it isn't that," Naruto said hurriedly when he realized that Kuro was expecting an answer.

She sighed and crouched low on the brnach, elbows on knees and faces cradled between her gnarly hands. "Sometimes," she said softly, her gaze distant, "loving and worrying about someone can be such a burden, especially when they fail to give you any regard for it. I don't like to think that I'm too old for such a burden, but I'm really the only one who's been able to carry it. But, you know," she smiled at Naruto, "for all that people say you shinobi are death-dealers and are stained with blood, your help is a life-saving relief."

Naruto's returning smile was brittle and hesitant as he mentally felt shackles snapped to his wrists and ankles, her every word chaining him to limitations that he, as an experienced shinobi, knew was a deadly thing. "I'm not going to get any trouble if he returns to you with a bunch of bruises or a couple of broken bones?"

Kuro snorted and waved away his concern. "The life of an acrobat is rough, shinobi, and broken bones are just par of the course. Don't worry about it. In fact, breaking both his kneecaps would make it mighty hard for him to run away from home and find new ways of getting into trouble after you leave, at least for a few months." She jumped spryly to the ground and marched forward. "You know what? I don't think I spanked that kid enough. I probably spoiled him too much."

"Well, that's not necessarily a bad thing. " Naruto dogged her bobbing steps. "I mean, not every kid required spankings. Sometimes, all they need is love and affection."

"True. Oh, I don't know. Raising children is always easier when it's hindsight. Coulda woulda shoulda and all that, I guess." They steadily made their way up the sharp incline of the hill, and stumbled unexpectedly into a clearing. "Uh oh." Kuro pinwheeled backwards, and then hurried to hide behind Naruto. He blinked in wonder.

In the middle of the clearing was a large, purple balloon horse.

"Uh."

The horse stood as high as Kuro. It didn't move, as rubber balloon animals really couldn't do such a thing by their own powers, being inanimate objects.

Naruto looked at Kuro. "What's the matter?"

"I knew this was too easy!" She was looking around, eyes narrowed in wary anger. She clutched one of his trouser legs and pressed her body close, as if expecting an enemy to swoop down in attack. "He's onto us. I don't know if he's watching right now or if this is an ambush. Probably an ambush. Well, you're the shinobi – go and shinobi something!"

Naruto studied the horse. He sensed nothing strange about it or his surroundings; he and Kuro were the only people around for miles. Whoever set up the horse was long gone. He carefully set his pack down beside Kuro, detached her hand from his wardrobe, and approached it.

"Be careful, shinobi." Kuro crouched behind the pack.

Naruto studied his footing, but didn't see any signs a trap, traditional or otherwise. He studied the horse for any suspicious markings or embellishments. It was purple. It had been made from balloons and filled with air. It was standard affair for clowns who made balloon animals, for crying out loud! He pinched the bridge of his nose in disgust over his silly behavior and such a stupid situation. "Look, it's probably just something he set up to scare you. Nothing wrong with it." And to prove his point, he jabbed the purple horse with the razor-sharp tip of his kunai.

oOoOoOo

Ino's snickering was disrupting Neji's careful meditation. Grimacing, he opened his eyes and tried to glower her into silence. "What?"

"Oh, get a load of this!" Seemingly oblivious to Neji's irritation, Ino unfolded herself from where she sat crosslegged, laid her book flat against the floor, and bent over it, unaware of how her position emphasized her…. knees. "So, long story short, these two nations go to war over the world's most beautiful woman. The Greeks laid siege to the Trojan city the woman was being held in, and they were at a standstill for a long time. Anyway, the Greeks decide to sneak in by building a giant wooden horse and leaving it outside the gates. They made it look like a parting gift because that night, when they parked the horse outside the city gates, the Greeks packed up their camp and the army left. And those dumb Trojans fell for it! They brought the wooden horse into their city without realizing that it was filled with enemy soldiers." Ino shook her head in amused wonder. "No decent ninja would _ever_ fall for such a trick."

Neji felt the strangest sensation at that moment, like cold water washing over his shadow, and he went still. Ino must have sensed it, because she looked at him in concern. "What's the matter?" she asked.

Neji's stomach growled loudly. "Nothing," he said with as much dignity as he could muster.

Ino shook her head and was about to resume her reading when one of the smooth paneled walls slid open. Both ninjas leapt to their feet into battle stances, prepared to take on the… well, it was a large, floating ball of hair that fluttered into the room, chirping like a bird. It hovered over the floor and spun about in full circles. "Apologies," it finally said. "We do not mean to be rude hosts. We need help. The blond one said Neji and Ino, and you are Neji and Ino, and so we brought you here for help."

"Oh for-!" Ino shook a fist at the ball of hair. "Abducting us without warning, taking our clothes, and leaving us alone for hours in this room in just our underwear is a fine way of asking for our help!"

The ball of hair bobbed. "It is? Frankly, I thought it was rather rude myself."

Ino fell silent as she studied the ball of hair.

"What do you need our help for?" Neji asked warily.

"Please, come with me to the King, and we shall discuss our needs." The ball of hair turned half-around and then floated out of the door. Ino and Neji exchanged silent glances, and then moved together as one.

* * *


	6. Chapter 6

**NOTES: **Hahah. Um. This story is no way meant to be serious. If you couldn't pick up on that by the second chapter... I'm sorry. :( You're beyond my help.

* * *

"And so, that is how it is." Gai finished his dramatic speech with a flaring sweep and crossing of his arms.

Tsunade blinked owl-eyed at him, standing across from her desk. Shizune immediately reached out and poured her a cup of warmed sake. _Good girl_, Tsunade thought improvingly. _I knew I could count on you when the going got tough._ "So," Tsunade began as she took a bracing sip of alcohol (although, in all honesty, she probably needed to be completely and utterly _plastered_ to make any sense of what she had just been told), "let's see if I've got this correctly, but did two of my best younger shinobi go and get themselves abducted by aliens? Is that what you've been trying to explain all night long?"

Gai frowned unhappily. "Abducted is such a _strong_ word, Hokage-sama. As I've said, my past dealings with them lead me to believe that Neji and Ino will remain unharmed during their absence, and shall be returned with very little damage. Physically," he added as an afterthought.

"Well, that narrows down possible injuries," Tsunade announced dryly. Neji's mental state was hardly questionable – at least, in comparison to the average shinobi, he was downright normal in many aspects – and neither was Ino's, but she didn't look forward to strong-arming them into a psychiatric ward. Nor was she was all that familiar with aliens, other than how they really weren't supposed to exist. And then, "Why have you never mentioned any such past dealings before?"

"It wasn't an issue concerning security or safety of the village and fellow ninjas. The aliens are quite polite and would only take Neji and Ino if they thought there was no other way."

"No other way for what?"

"I don't know. We'll just have to ask Ino and Neji when they return."

"And I suppose it wouldn't be a good idea to send a search and rescue mission."

"Not unless Konoha has recently developed techniques to transport us to the moon. As I haven't heard anything, I will assume we haven't."

Tsunade made a mental note to ask the Research Department. They'd been working (rather unsuccessfully) on time-travel, but she wouldn't put it past them to try meddling around with traveling to the moon. Although she didn't know why anyone would want to travel to the moon when everyone knew there was only just a rabbit up there. (Someone had recently postulated though that the moon was made of cheese. "Just think!" he had cried with great enthusiasm, "An entire planet made entirely of cheese! We could be rich!" Tsunade, quite frankly, wanted nothing to do with cheese that had been left out _that long_. It was unsanitary, it was.) "So, we wait."

Gai nodded his head and crossed his arms. "We will do that."

xXx

Zetsu poked his head up out of the ground and sighed in disgust. The weather just wasn't behaving the way it was supposed to be. First it was too hot and too sunny a couple weeks ago, and then some asshole went and parked a mucky swamp right where he liked to gather the hollow mushrooms when it was his turn to cook, and now there was a raging blizzard overhead.

In July. Which meant that the usual rains in Lightning country had probably turned to snow. Deidara would no doubt be building an army of snowmen to ambush and explode into slush all over the hideout, leaving poor Kisame and Itachi to literally mop up the mess.

Zetsu _really_ hated it when Deidara did everything he could to spur on Kisame's obsessive-compulsive cleaning sprees and Itachi's general anal-retentive habits.

Sometimes, the Akatsuki member thought as he ducked back into the ground and slid away, it just doesn't pay to get out of bed. (And because Zetsu wasn't in the best of moods when the weather wasn't behaving the way it was supposed to, he grabbed some heavy mushrooms with which to lace Deidara's meal. He was sure that Kisame and Itachi would be quite thankful for his consideration upon their receipt of blackmail material, as any good ninja ought to take advantage of. And while, technically, Akatsuki weren't good ninja in the whole moral sense, they were good in the whole skill sense.

_I really ought to stop getting to philosophical with myself_, the other side of Zetsu told himself.

xXx

Sometimes, Naruto thought resentfully, it just doesn't pay to get out of bed. Even if bed happened to have been down by the riverside with his pants inside-out and wrapped around his shoulders like a cape. But still. Even then, it didn't pay to get out of bed.

"This is soooooo nice, shinobi!" Kura Nala declared with unholy glee. "You're so warm! And soooooo hard!"

Naruto gritted his teeth. He tried to ignore Kura Nala, but that was a little difficult as she wriggled around in his arms. "I thought I said you were being loud and obnoxious," he grumbled. And that was just _rich_, coming from the guy in orange with a reputation of having some of the healthiest set of lungs and vocal cords in Konoha.

Kuro settled with a huff. And then she started wiggling around again. "I must say," she announced brightly, "releasing this blizzard from that rubber balloon horse was the best idea you had this entire trip!"

Naruto wished he could go back into time and kick his own ass for that super-dumb move.

"I haven't shared a bed with a man in years!" She paused a moment. "Well, I guess you'll do."

He also considered kicking Kuro. And then reconsidered, because she was only a civilian – even if she was a spry acrobat – and probably as old as dirt. It would probably be better to bind and gag her.

Except she might actually find that kinky, and the thought of that made Naruto's mind come up with something absolutely ridiculous to save itself.

He imagined Sasuke with bunny ears, and then grinned from ear to ear. That wouldn't be such a bad prank to play on the bastard. And then Sasuke would no doubt chase Naruto for half a day, intent on revenge, and they could be almost to Konoha before he managed to wise up to Naruto's intentions! Oh, it was a brilliant scheme!!

"Do you have to cackle like an evil maniac?" Kuro asked with some uncertainty in her voice.

Naruto clamped his lips together, and vowed to resolutely wait out the blizzard. "By the way," he muttered, "what happens in this tent stays in this tent."

"Excellent!" Kuro cried.

Naruto blocked a sly, wandering hand that was gnarled with age. "Do you mind!" he snapped.

"Not at all, shinobi. Not at all. I firmly believe in walking on the wild side, and-"

Oh, that was it. Naruto had had enough. He reached around her shoulders to slap his hand firmly on the ground to summon a toad, and was promptly deafened by Kuro's resulting scream of horror.

xXx

Sasuke looked up from the small fire that Kabuto had built, and looked around. "Did you hear something?" he asked his companion.

Kabuto arched one inquiring silver eyebrow at him. "Besides the wind and the snow? No."

"Ah." Sasuke rested his chin against his stiffly folded hands and brooded as Kabuto hunched further in his cloak and tried to stay dry.

No assurance in the world couldn't prevent the shiver of apprehension race up and down Sasuke's spine. He had a bad feeling. A Naruto-is-creeping-up-on-you bad feeling, and those kinds of feelings were _always_ the worst, because Naruto had an unhealthy obsession with creeping up on Sasuke. Usually in cahoots with some sort of half-baked, cockamamie scheme of dragging Sasuke unwillingly back to Konoha. Gads. Sasuke _still_ couldn't get over the whole scheme two years back that involved chakra-propelled origami toads. Although that, in and of itself, wasn't such a bad idea. He made a mental note to send chakra-propelled origami cats after his brother the next time they crossed paths. It was definitely something that Itachi wouldn't expect.

Even better, if he made the origami snakes out of exploding tags…

"Odd how this blizzard came right upon us," Kabuto said, distracting Sasuke from plotting Vengeance Attempt #398.

Sasuke shrugged. "It's only unusual because it's the Fire Country." And July, but _that_ was rather obvious. Kabuto was smart enough not to need the obvious pointed out to him – not like Juugo or even Suigetsu on occasion. Thank goodness they had left the rest of Hebi behind to suffer alone, and made sure that Hebi would _stay_ behind. (Sasuke made a mental note never to ask Karin where she found those strangely-familiar padded handcuffs.)

"Hmm. Well, thankfully the blizzard won't make any difference to the hot springs we're going to."

Sasuke said nothing. He didn't need to. Brooding is best done in silence, after all.

xXx

Silence, thought Naruto, is for the birds. But at least he couldn't hear much with the ringing in his ears. Kuro's struggles to remove herself as far from poor Noodles the toad had resulted in collapsing the small tent on them and getting the three of them hopelessly tangled. Right now, Noodles was caught between Naruto and Kuro, the latter two knotted so tightly together from the blanket that Naruto suspected he was going to have to cut them loose.

"Wazza big idea, boss?" Noodles demanded resentfully.

Kuro shrieked again and kicked and struggled before giving up, breaking into weepy little sobs. Naruto almost felt sorry for her.

"Just trying something new," Naruto mumbled around a mouthful of tent that he hadn't quite been able to clear completely from his own mouth, unable to free his own hands to do anything useful.

"Next time, use Shaker or Baker."

"-don'tkillmeIhaven'tdoneanything-"

"Chill, Granny," Noodles said.

"-Idon'twantwarts-"

Noodles stiffened in offense. "Warts! I shall have you know that I am secretly a prince in disguise! A mere kiss from me will remove the curse I am currently under!"

Kuro wasn't paying any attention. Naruto nudged Noodles with his knee. "You serious?" Naruto asked. There was a long, considering silence.

"Nope."

Naruto didn't know if he should believe his toad or not. But since he had no intention of kissing Noodles to see for himself what the truth was, he figured he might as well wait out the blizzard.

And Kuro's constant whining and whimpering.

Naruto rolled his eyes and wished he could be anywhere else. He doubted that any of his friends was as miserable as he was.

xXx

"What's this?" Ino asked, holding up the offending garment.

"To preserve what little modesty you may have. You certainly can't be seeing the King like _that_," the floating hairball replied before flitting away with a final announcement that it would feed them when they were considered suitable for company. Ino glared at Neji, who was holding one similar to her own. He merely looked at her, absolutely unwilling to risk her temper. It wasn't _his_ fault that she was standing in front of him in nothing but mismatched underwear. (Neji was disgusted that she had absolutely no qualms with displaying her rather shapely assets in front of him. Had she no shame? No pride? Must she flaunt her hips and her – erk. Neji hastily pulled his garment over his head to prevent him from further study of her…knees.)

"I can't believe this!" Ino seethed as she pulled and tugged on the hem of the garment, which turned out to be a long, white T-shirt. "Was that blob insinuating that I have no modesty? Does it honestly think I enjoyed prancing around in nothing?" Then she turned an evil-looking glare on Neji. "Don't you dare say anything, Hyuga!"

Neji, who had a very healthy sense of self-preservation, had absolutely no intention of saying anything. Or thinking anything. It was all just a blank white-out in his mind, senses and intentions directed towards their hostile environment and strange abductors. Just hair and round angles. Right.

Hair… (long, shining like spun gold)

…round (and perky)…angles (just the right size)…

Neji inexplicably cursed his three-hundred and sixty-degree vision.

So, he decided to do something _useful_, especially when Ino began fussing with the hem of her T-shirt and declared, with a slightly panicked voice, "Oh god! I completely forgot about shaving my legs!" And here, she gave him such a withering look that he was astonished the metal paneling around him hadn't melted.

Neji tried to study the panel that the hairball had exited through. It slid open and shut so smoothly, so mechanically, and so swiftly that he didn't know what to think. Although he really couldn't say that it slid open and shut. It was more like… it dematerialized, seem to become transparent with a ripple of blue that allowed the hairball to pass through undeterred, and then returned to being solid. He didn't know if it was a talent or ability exclusive to the hairball, or if the panels were meant to dematerialize at the right moments to allow passage.

Earlier, exploring, kicking, poking, and finally smacking that wall open-palmed in frustration and with enough chakra to make his skin burn hadn't done anything but make the palm of his hand hurt.

"You idiot," Ino said with some exasperation. She then wordlessly snatched up his hand to inspect the damage, sarcastically tutted about his impatience with clearly not enough sympathy. She even had the _audacity_ to press her lips against his burnt skin in some sort of mock-kiss that ought to make him feel better! "There, all better?"

Neji snatched his hand back and twisted to keep it out of her reach.

"You're welcome," Ino added snidely.

Neji gritted his teeth at that. What had he done to deserve to be stuck in half-naked captivity with Ino?! He would have been better off with just about anyone he could think of – including Naruto!

And as he looked at Ino with that thought (she was tugging again at the hem of her garment, perhaps bemoaning how unshapely it was, and even Neji had to admit that it was certainly quite unflattering on her, because it hardly did justice for her nicely-curved… knees…), again he felt the oddest sensation. It took a moment for Neji to finally realize what it was.

He closed his eyes and silently cursed.

Now, captured by creatures they had no information of and in enemy territory (no matter how his usually-reliable shinobi senses seemed to scream that they weren't in any real danger) was a very bad time for Hyuga Neji to realize he had _hormones_.


End file.

Naruto, Adventure, Humor