Indeed, apologies for the lack of updates, there have been many problems which I wont bore you with but updates will be slow until Christmas when spare time will pick up again, assuming my laptop doesn't break again…

If anyone wants to discuss my story I'm able to reply to reviews or you can post something in the forum I made.

WARNING: the following content was unplanned… I tend to just start typing and see what happens, with a vague idea of what direction the plot will take, it's more fun that way, none of that planning ahead crap, pshh. Anyway, I was actually going to make most of the following scenes short and get to the fun stuff, but I started adding fun things… so yeah anyway if you think it's too random then bleh I warned you.

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Naruto stood outside the window looking on as Shikamaru seemed to be pretending there was no way out of the window at all and Ino was starting towards the window before backing up again, seemingly reluctant to try out whatever ideas she had come up with. By now it would be impossible to follow their Sensei if it weren't for Naruto's tracking abilities but that didn't mean they should dally around. Stepping forward Naruto addressed the situation. "Come on, just jump through, I'll catch you." To emphasise his point Naruto held his arms out in a rather catch-like position.

Ino looked through the window incredulously. "Are you serious?! What if you drop me?!"

Naruto looked back at her, mimicking her incredulity. "Oh come on, you saw the weights, you can't weigh more than they did."

Ino stamped her foot on the desk, making it shudder slightly. "You take that back loser!"

Naruto just sighed and looked towards Shikamaru. Though he had been hoping he wouldn't have to, when he caught Naruto's gaze Shikamaru knew he would have to do something. "Troublesome." Shikamaru stalked towards the window as lazily as possible then crouched down next to Ino, who was completely oblivious as she was content to glare at Naruto. Shikamaru then jumped in a rather lithe manner through the window, however due to the low height of the window he was unable to turn in the air more than to make his body horizontal.

Shikamaru clenched his eyes shut, his brain already having come up with the most likely scenario's of what would break and how much it would hurt when Naruto dropped him. Luckily though Naruto was easily prepared. First Naruto put his arms underneath Shikamaru, putting more upward force around the shoulders so that the legs could be eased down gently, leaving Shikamaru standing straight up with his eyes screwed shut, barely having registered being touched.

Shikamaru opened his eyes when he felt the sensation of Naruto's arms disappear and found himself standing up, though he had noticed the shift of the air and the weight upon his feet, it was clouded by the adrenalin and the expectation of pain in his back so that his focus had been away from these details. Turning to Naruto he nodded before looking towards Ino, there was no way he was going to miss this.

Naruto smiled quite proud of himself and then looked towards Ino expectantly, Shikamaru also looking towards Ino, though he looked more bored than anything else, it was hard to tell with him. Ino was starting to sweat, everyone had long since left the classroom but she could still lose face in the eyes of her new team mates, not to mention their new Sensei might be spying from somewhere. It wasn't so much the jump or the glass, she was sure she could easily pass through those, it wasn't even the fear of Naruto dropping her, it was more anxiety at what she would do when he caught her. This was exactly the kind of opportunity she had daydreamed about to happen to her, to legitimately land in the strong arms of her team mate, however her team mate within those fantasies had been Sasuke, not Naruto.

She had to hand it to him, Naruto had definitely scrubbed up well since he had disappeared nine months ago but he still wasn't Sasuke. Sasuke had those amazingly deep eyes and the quiet strength about him which she just knew was hiding pain, he had lost his entire family after-all. It attracted Ino to him in the same way she had once been attracted to Sakura. Though Sakura had been the opposite, her confidence and beauty hidden behind her pain and insecurities. Naruto didn't have anything like that, sure he now had a rather respectable appearance but he didn't have deep black eyes nor did he have sparkling emerald eyes. He wasn't obscured by his pain nor was his pain obscured by his confidence, he was just Naruto and this was all wrong. Why was it him?! Why couldn't Sasuke be there, ready with his arms open to catch her as she fell into his gentle embrace.

Ino very nearly fell into a rant at them and the entire situation but eventually she swallowed her pride and her fractured dreams of Sasuke and jumped out the window.

Naruto was almost caught off guard when Ino seemed to instantly snap out of whatever daze she had been in and jumped out of the window with all the elegance and grace she possessed. Spinning mid-way so that her back could arch at the peak of her ascent and following her path through the window, she closed her eyes and dreamt that it would be Sasuke that caught her.

She felt her anxiety grew as she fell but held on to the image in her head. Almost too gentle to notice an arm wrapped around her shoulders, providing firm support and even more gently and subtly an arm caught her thighs and let them swing around until she was on her feet. She was so caught up in her daydream and the soft caress of the silk Sasuke was wearing that she didn't engage her legs when her weight was put upon them and immediately fell backwards.

At first Naruto had done the same thing he had done with Shikamaru and he had just guided Ino from her fall back onto her feet as gently as he could however as soon as he had let go of her shoulders she had fallen backwards. Reacting quickly he placed his arms back under her shoulders and her legs; he had to drop to his knees to be low enough to catch her before she completed her fall.

Ino had realised too late that she had fallen from her standing position due to being in a daze and had shut her eyes again and braced for impact with the floor, however once again, though less gently this time, Sasuke's arms caught her and she felt warm as he held her.

Naruto looked to Shikamaru from Ino, whose eyes were still shut in his arms. Shikamaru just shrugged, also confused as to why she would be so clumsy after a rather impressive feat of agility and grace. Before Naruto turned back he felt Ino's hands touch his chest gently and it felt nice, he looked towards her to see her blushing and smiling and her eyes still closed, then he heard her murmur to herself. "Mmm Sasuke…"

The bottom immediately fell out of Naruto's stomach, he felt so rejected, all of the warm feelings she had invoked immediately washed away. Ino had barely opened her eyes by the time Naruto had dropped her the remaining foot between where he had held her and the ground.

"Oww." Ino immediately sat up and rubbed her head which had bumped the ground, though it was grass so it didn't really hurt. "Hey what's the big idea?"

Naruto had already turned away by this point and began walking away, well more stalking away. "She went this way, let's go."

Shikamaru sighed and turned to follow, though going slowly enough that Ino easily caught up with him. When she did she was still dusting stray bits of soil from her clothes. "What's his problem?" She gestured from Shikamaru to Naruto, as if he wouldn't have figured out what she meant.

Shikamaru turned to her and waited until she looked at him to answer. "I would drop you too if you called me Sasuke." Shikamaru then walked off a little faster so that he could catch up with Naruto.

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Anko had actually been planning to make her loud entrance, dazzle the class with her beauty and saunter out of the room towards the Academy grounds where she could do the whole 'meet the team' thing, however when she had made her entrance she had immediately realized she had done it again. Though this time she was an hour early, she had thought she had the timing perfect, that teacher had stopped talking, but nooo he had to let the little brats out for break before meeting everyone, damn him! So Anko had done what any Ninja does in an ambush, she had retreated to the cover of the nearest trees to formulate a plan and told her team to meet her there.

Once she realized her team wasn't going to be arriving within the few seconds she had anticipated, she went to the edge of the trees of the Academy grounds and spied on her new team. She spotted Naruto, the only one she knew anything about, do some crazy impossible acrobatics out of the window and alter his trajectory mid-air so that he didn't smack into the floor, very snazzy. She then watched his reluctant team mates accept his help to get out, not bad team work; they definitely had potential in that area if she could take this as an indication. Of course when she saw Naruto drop the blond one and stalk off in her exact direction she figured she had better go back a bit and prepare some sort of introduction thing, hopefully make all this seem planned. It wouldn't be hard since she had planned the crazy entrance bit…

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By the time Naruto had tracked Anko down she was in a clearing a little ways into the forest proudly standing underneath a replica of her classroom banner. Feet shoulder width apart, hands on hips and a maniacal grin in place, Anko was well prepared for how shocked and surprised her new team would be by her sexual appeal mixed in with her ferocity and deadly demeanour, oh how she would enjoy their shock and surprise.

Though Shikamaru had set off to catch up with Naruto by the time they reached the forest, he had not managed to do so, probably due to the little effort he put into the entire thing, Ino trailed slightly behind Shikamaru, still apparently grouchy about the dropping thing.

Once Naruto had entered the clearing he looked straight to the banner, then below to Anko before looking for a suitable place to sit down and wait, coming to the conclusion that their first team meeting was to be held there. Shikamaru walked in second, he saw the sign first as it was so predominant in the situation and through his peripheral vision spied Anko had a rather large cleavage on show through the un-closed gap in her trench coat, as such he made sure to only look at her face before sitting down, no matter how curious he was he would much prefer not to give anyone as troublesome as her such material on him, no matter how slight. As such he lazily looked around from her face to the floor and found a seat next to Naruto, on the near side of course.

Ino however stopped dead, all grumpiness completely forgotten at the sight before her, not the banner, for no matter how predominant it may have been it was completely discarded as a blur in her periphery as she stared straight at Anko's breasts, completely dumbfounded. There was only a trench coat and some mesh-stuff and a skirt of some sort covering her body, the trench coat seemed to only barely cover her nipples, for unless there was some weird lump perfectly placed on the edges of her coat Ino could definitely see nipple poking through.

At first Anko had been rather disappointed, Naruto didn't seem to be in a mood receptive to her mind games and Shikamaru seemed completely unfazed, she held on though hoping to scandalise Ino, however she became a little unnerved when Ino fixed onto her breasts more like a desperate man than a twelve year old girl. Of course she ignored her unease at Ino's look and brought out her planned mockery, tough it had been planned for Naruto and Shikamaru, Ino would have to do. "So, like what you see?" Anko brought her legs together slightly to stand up a little straighter and swayed her hips expertly in doing so, causing Ino's attention to be momentarily drawn to Anko's rather small skirt, before going back to the cleavage.

Ino's reaction was slightly delayed by Anko's sultry movements but after her eyes locked back onto Anko's nipples she reacted verbally. "It's not fair!"

Of course, Anko had been hoping for something with which to mock Ino, a blush or stuttering or something. Of course it's easier to mock guys as there's definitive evidence of their reaction. Anko quickly glanced to Naruto and Shikamaru who were seemingly disinterested, Shikamaru looking at clouds and Naruto playing with his rather sharp looking nails.

Of course both Naruto and Shikamaru were listening intently, it's just that Naruto didn't want any attention to be brought to him as he was still feeling rather rejected and nothing makes rejection worse than being the centre of attention. Even if people aren't thinking it, it leads to one thinking that people are thinking how sad and pathetic they are and 'let's give him some attention to cheer him up.' Naruto also had a mild headache as he managed to get confused within his own thoughts.

Shikamaru had already figured out that Anko liked to act blatant and then scandalize or embarrass people as a method of taking control of a situation, giving her the perceived moral high-ground not by being more moral but making others seem less so, an effective tactic but one he could avoid easily, by not bothering with her. Yes he liked people who he could deal with by not dealing with them, they were his favourites, aside from his friends of course who he wouldn't mind too much to actually deal with. As such Shikamaru was gazing at the clouds, as he is often want to do, however obviously keeping an ear on the conversation.

After a mild pause where Anko decided it was apparent that Ino wasn't going to elaborate on her rather abrupt and irrelevant outburst, Anko decided to find out what that was all about. Dropping the sultry poise, for the most part anyway, Anko gestured for Ino to elaborate with a rolling waving hand motion, of sorts… "What's not fair?"

Ino abruptly pointed, still sporting a rather shell-shocked expression. Her finger targeting directly between Anko's breasts. Anko spared her cleavage a quick inquisitive look before looking at Ino for further explanation. "First billboard-brow get's on Sasuke's team then he drops me," Here Ino points to Naruto before pointing back to Anko's chest. "Now my Sensei not only has enormous breasts and is hot but wears no clothing! It's not fair!" Ino emphasized her last comment with a stamp of her foot and a huff.

Anko raised her eyebrow, well this was way too far away from her original plan for some kind of recovery, so why not just go with it? She folded her arms under her breasts as she put most of her weight on one leg, jutting her hip out, it was a comfortable stance but it would also likely incense Ino. "Okay so, what's so un-fair about my sense of dress and who's Sasuke?"

Ino gawked momentarily. "Sasuke's the last Uchiha he's the hottest guy in the village!"

Anko's eyebrow lowered. "Isn't he twelve? Little young to be hot, don't you think?"

Ino shook her head vehemently. "No no no, of course not!" When Anko's only reply was an incredulous stare Ino decided to move onto the issue of Anko's clothes, which were currently more annoying than the entire Sasuke situation. "And your clothes are just making it worse! Look at them, I can see your nipples through that!" Ino shook her finger for emphasis. "Guys love boobs and it's so unfair that yours are out on show and I don't even have any yet and what if Sasuke sees you and your boobs? How am I supposed to make him fall in love with me then?!"

Anko was a little shocked but more than a little pleased by that reaction, she was rather proud of her breasts and it was always a stroke to her ego when someone was jealous of them. "Well, I'm sure you'll have nice boobs one day, but I'm sorry I can't do anything about the Uchiha, it's just a fact of life that men will fall in love with me at first sight." Anko flicked her hair out to the side dramatically with her left arm whilst striking a pose, leaving her right arm under her breasts, inching it up slightly for effect. Before Ino could react to her statement she continued on. "Well what's this about him dropping you?" She gestured towards Naruto. Of course she knew as she had watched but that would be no fun, she was already getting to love her new team. Ino was obviously as open to teasing as Kurenai, with greater jealousy and potentially a sense of propriety, both of which Anko could prod at to her hearts content. She wasn't so sure about the boys, who were still ignoring the entire proceedings though, of course she – Mitarashi Anko – was not to be put off so easily, nay!

Ino paused momentarily, torn between outrage at Anko's statement and answering her question. She decided to answer Anko's question, that way she could remove attention from herself for a little while, because no matter how outraged she might be, she was still slowly realising how embarrassing some of the things she had said were. 'Oh my god I talked about my boobs…' "He said he would catch me." She pointed to Naruto. "But he dropped me and stalked off as if he's got some reason to be angry at me." She turned to Naruto. "Jerk!"

Anko raised her eyebrows. "Well then." she waited for Naruto to look at her, which didn't take long as it was obvious she was addressing him. She was happy to note his eyes strayed a little on their way from his nails to her face, yes she would have fun teasing her new team. "Why did you drop Ino after saying you'd catch her?"

Naruto raised his eyebrow, he knew she was watching, he had scented her heavily at the threshold to the forested area before the trail led off, he guessed she was messing with them and he was not impressed. Of course her question was valid since she would obviously not have been able to hear Ino's mutterings from such a distance. That didn't stop him feeling indignant at the question for he was obviously the one who had been wronged, not Ino. "Well apart from the fact that I did catch her, twice." Naruto looked at Ino for a moment before looking back to Anko. "I'm not going to put up with some Sasuke-induced fan-girl fantasy while I'm holding her, so I stopped holding her." Naruto paused, expecting a reaction but none was forthcoming so he added a little to shift attention from himself. "Well if she would've not fallen over when I put her down then I wouldn't have dropped her."

Anko looked over to Ino whose anger had lessened visibly, as she was no longer grimacing slightly. Anko idly thought of how for someone supposedly well-versed in psychology as a scion of the Yamanaka clan; she was very easy to read. "So, you called him Sasuke?"

Ino looked at Anko before looking away, not really wanting to answer that question now that it had been brought to light it seemed screamingly obvious how rude that had been of her.

Anko decided that was enough and she should get back on track. "Yes well, boobs or not I'm definitely sure calling out some other guy's name doesn't make you attractive." Ino looked at Anko a little confused, not really getting the sexual reference but Anko pressed on lest she figure it out and the entire situation would end up degenerating into another talk about her boobs, not that she would be totally averse to such a conversation per say, but there were things to be done. "Right well then, introductions! You!" Anko pointed to Shikamaru, since she had had the least response from him overall. "Introduce yourself, add details! Go!" She looked at him expectantly, as did Naruto and Ino.

Ino was slowly coming to the conclusion that she had just made a fool of herself. Hopefully Shikamaru would be too lazy to introduce himself and the process of getting an introduction from him might buy her enough time to regroup and be ready for when her team would once again have their attention drawn towards her, hopefully they would also forget how she had so blatantly stared at Anko's boobs. It's not like she personally liked them, it was more along the lines of her being overwhelmingly jealous and outraged to the point that she forgot how to not do stupid things, a skill which was high on her priorities for every-day life, such as breathing and looking beautiful, that sort of level.

Naruto had mostly forgotten about Ino's rejection when she had begun ranting about Anko's boobs, he had glanced at her to discern the direction of her gaze and found it to be firmly on their new Sensei's chest. Now he was imagining in random rotation: Anko's boobs, Ino with boobs and general attire like Anko and various reasons why Ino would be so drawn towards Anko's chest area in general. Luckily for his sanity he had missed Anko's sultry hip swaying, otherwise his fragile mind would have been shattered under the stress, good stress of course.

Shikamaru wasn't entirely sure what to say as an introduction. They were to be a team of Ninja who would need intimate knowledge of each other's abilities and styles so there was a great deal of potentially relevant material to cover just from that but also they were going to have to put their lives in each other's hands later on in their career. Shikamaru glanced to Anko from the sky as he continued to ponder. Well maybe sooner rather than later for that with the way she acted. That meant that personal details or secrets etc. would be appropriate material here also as a beginning to forming such trust. Noticing the withering glare coming from Anko and not bothering to look to the others lest he be doubly assaulted with expectant gazes Shikamaru decided to begin, slowly, and plan the rest as he went along. "My name is Nara Shikamaru, my clan, Nara, specialize in shadow based techniques of which I know the most basic, the Shadow Bind. I like to look at the clouds in the sky whenever possible, my best friend is Akimichi Chouji and I dislike troublesome things. My goals in life are to become an average ninja with an average wife and two point four children, the average." Shikamaru leant back and lifted his gaze to the sky again. The clouds currently above him were wispy, he liked the wispy ones, they changed shape much faster. Nobody mentioned the ridiculousness of how many children he wanted, figuring he would either have two or three.

Anko was a little surprised at the inclusion of some information relevant to his abilities as a Ninja as such were not normally included in people's definition of an introduction. This was also ideal as his team mates would likely take his introduction as standard and add similar information about themselves. She pointed to Naruto first, seeing that Ino was still avoiding eye contact with everyone. "Okay, whiskers, you're up."

Naruto bristled at the obvious nickname he had been given however he didn't react. He rationalized that he did indeed have marks on his cheeks which resembled whiskers and as such the moniker given him was not inappropriate, he would gauge whether or not she was truly being disrespectful in time and then act appropriately. Once he had made this decision he idly thought how he had never really cared about whether or not people were being disrespectful of him before, this certainly was not something he had picked up from anyone else, though his interactions of the past nine months had been with very formal people, or those who were just plain bizarre and as such he hadn't noticed this in himself, he hoped it was as drastic as any other changes he may not know of. Deciding to just copy Shikamaru's introduction Naruto began. "Okay my name's Uzumaki Naruto, to my knowledge I'm completely incapable of conventional uses for Chakra but I have other abilities which compensate." Naruto tried his best to not feel depressed as he glossed over the part where Shikamaru had talked briefly about his clan, for Naruto had nothing of the sort. "I'm in the middle of re-defining the things I like, I like fighting or perhaps just action and I like things which smell nice." Again Naruto glossed over the part where Shikamaru spoke of his best friend, something else Naruto didn't have. "My dream is…" Naruto paused for a bit, he had almost stated that he wanted to become Hokage, more reflexively than anything else but that was certainly no longer true. He didn't really have any dreams, but he did have a goal set to him by Sesshoumaru. "My goal is to become strong."

Everyone present had picked up on how Naruto had glossed over some topics which Shikamaru had covered in his introduction. Whilst Shikamaru and Anko knew it would be best if they left the subject alone Ino didn't. "Hey what about…"

Whatever Ino was about to say was cut off as Anko forcefully interrupted her. "Blondie!" Ino halted abruptly and turned to Anko, even though she could mean Naruto she was still sometimes referred to as such and reacted accordingly, obviously Anko was indeed talking to Ino. "Your turn, introduction. Hop to it!" Anko tapped her foot in an overly dramatic manner meant to indicate impatience, though she also managed to indicate immaturity by how dreadfully overacted the entire gesture was.

Ino glanced to Naruto, clearly still curious about what he had failed to mention before acquiescing and turning back to Anko, careful to keep eye contact, even though it made her feel slightly uncomfortable. "Um… My name's Yamanaka Ino, my clan specializes in mental and spiritual manipulation, I know the Spirit possession technique, which is the basis for most of our techniques." Ino paused and put her finger to her lips as she thought. Originally she had seen a model do this in one of her magazines and had adopted it, through persistence the action had actually become subconscious. She decided not to mention anything about Sasuke, her reasons being two-fold. Firstly she didn't want to mention anything which might remind everyone of earlier events and also she highly suspected Anko wouldn't exactly think highly upon her affections towards him. So she went with her other pastime. "I like flowers, Mom runs a flower shop and I get to help make arrangements for customers sometimes. My best friend is… well it used to be Sakura." Ino paused, debating whether or not to share with them what had happened. Well they would probably find out eventually and her dad had always said how close a team should be, though she thought her dad was probably a little too close with his own team mates. "A while ago she decided that instead of friends we should be rivals." She again skipped over the bit about how they were rivals for Sasuke's affections, feeling it was a bit petty and not wanting her new team to think of her as such. Brightening up as she moved on to the next topic Ino continued. "I want to become a really strong Ninja! Maybe a medic like Tsunade or a Mistress of Illusions!" Ino waved her hands about as she mock cast an illusion upon the nearby flora. Of course the flora made no reaction, not that they would even if an illusion were to actually be successfully cast upon them, for as standard; flora were not reactionary entities.

Once Ino was done all eyes turned to Anko. Anko was decently impressed by Ino, a girl with real ambition was something rare not just these days but back in her own time at the Academy, there had been few girls who had actual ambition. Of course as Anko was deciding what to do next, perhaps do some sort of test for the hell of it, even though they had all been given a free pass from any such tests, or test them to see their capabilities, perhaps just jump straight into training and see how much she could make them suffer? Anko cackled lightly to herself as she imagined doing so. Coming back to reality she noticed all eyes upon her as if they expected something from her, something so blatantly obvious that it should go without saying, which it currently was doing. "What?" She hoped they weren't going to comment on the cackle, she didn't do it too often…

Shikamaru had deigned to look at Anko after the moment of silence had begun to stretch on but he couldn't really be bothered to vocalize his expectations, similarly Naruto figured that Ino would be a much better candidate. Ino however gave no time to such thoughts but instead to frustration as Anko seemed to completely shirk her turn at introducing herself, the nerve! "Well…" Ino drawled so as to mock, she continued when Anko seemed to get angry. "Aren't you going to introduce yourself?"

Anko gave no outward reaction but inwardly she was berating herself on her forgetfulness, sure she never forgot anything when she was on missions, but that was when the blood was pumping, life or death situations… the rest of the time she could be a bit ditzy. Not in the blonde bimbo sort of way, but her attention tended to flit from subject to subject. Of course, years of having such a habit had taught her to mask her realization when someone or something highlighted her lapse, instead casually brushing away suspicion by just adding to her standard 'I don't really care' attitude and reputation by seeming as if she didn't care to such an extreme that she would just ignore current happenings unless anchored to them. It had been a long while since anybody had noticed how ditzy she really was.

Of course she had just spaced out again, but as she looked to her new team to gauge whether or not they realized how ditzy she was, she realized they were waiting for something, specifically from her. That was when she remembered she was supposed to do some introductory stuff. Quickly getting to it lest her mind wander off again, she began. "Okay then. I'm Mitarashi Anko your new Sensei. I'm proficient in Taijutsu, thrown weapons, Ninjutsu and I can summon snakes. I like Dango, fighting and violence, tea, my breasts and…" Anko paused for effect, having deliberately put something which would throw them off before her pause. "Blood. I have accomplished all but one of my goals, none of which are particularly your business…" Anko pouted and put her finger to her lips in much the same way Ino had, though Anko had one arm crossing her chest, propping her breasts up, which held up the arm upon which the finger was which was placed there. Also she moved most of her weight onto one leg, making her hips much more prominent. Ino seethed in jealousy again whilst Shikamaru didn't notice and Naruto did his best not to notice. "My best friend is Yuuhi Kurenai." Here she glanced to Ino. "Genjutsu Mistress. I normally perform Assassination or combat intensive missions, so if you want training for tracking or something, you'll need to ask someone else." Anko rounded on the three. "Any questions?"

Immediately Naruto's hand shot up and waved around. Anko looked at him, eyebrow cocked and waited for him to speak. Naruto figured since she was looking at him, that was as good of a go ahead as he would get. "I want to summon snakes too!"

Anko continued to look at him with her eyebrow cocked or a moment before looking off to the side and sighing. "Aside from the fact that to summon you need to have signed a contract and aside from the fact that such contracts are extremely valuable, Summoning is a Ninjutsu technique." Anko looked back to Naruto. "You did say that you can't perform those, didn't you?"

Naruto's eyes widened and his mouth gaped open ever so slightly. As soon as he had heard Anko say that she could summon snakes he had thought of how incredibly awesome that would be. He had read of the Sannin and their abilities to summon creatures of enormity in size and power to aid them in battle, he had envisaged himself upon an agile and tenacious snake with his whip flailing around them destroying powerful enemies as a farmer would scythe his crop. Surely there had to be a way, he had plenty of energy to spare, it didn't exactly take a lot to make a whip or jump off air, and he didn't have any other abilities, at least not yet. Senses didn't count as they came at no cost to his energy reserves at all. "But… But there's got to be some way!?" Naruto practically begged.

Anko sighed and put her index finger and her thumb to the bridge of her nose, already disliking the feeling of having to deny her new students, especially one who seemed to eager and hopeful. She remembered days when her own eyes were capable of widening to such a degree. "If… if you were to somehow find Jiraiya and get him to draw you a summoning tattoo, a seal on your arm which contains the necessary incantation to summon… and if you could still use it with whatever disability you have, then I suppose I'd let you summon snakes." Anko looked at Naruto sternly. "That's a lot of big 'ifs"

Naruto stared at Anko for a moment before grinning, it didn't take a genius to figure out that he would definitely try doing just that. Looking around her at Shikamaru and Ino, Anko iterated one more time. "Any other questions?"

After a moment Ino raised her hand, once again Anko merely looked at her with her eyebrow cocked. So Ino voiced her query. "When do we start missions? And do we have a training schedule or something?"

Anko smiled and Shikamaru got a small feeling of dread deep down, the kind of dread he gets when his mother wants him to do stuff. Immediately he snapped to attention, wanting to know what kind of missions and how many he would have to endure, not to mention training, eugh. Anko's grin gave Shikamaru no comfort and the lack of comfort grew as she began to speak. "Well, our team is special, we are completely exempt from D-rank missions, which means we won't be starting for a while, not until you're ready for C or B ranked missions, good huh? None of those chores." Anko sounded disgusted. Shikamaru wasn't entirely sure whether to be happy or sad, that meant none of the menial labour tasks he knew were assigned to the rookies before they were deemed ready for more active roles, but that also meant more training and no way of getting out of said active missions. Anko continued on after a slight pause. "As for training schedule, well we're going to be meeting in our training grounds – number twenty six – at nine every morning and leaving when I'm satisfied you've trained enough for the day. Once we're done here we'll do a nice assessment to see what kind of training we need to be doing. Okay?" Anko ended her sentence as chipper as a civilian schoolgirl but the way she had said the word 'assessment' had slightly frightened all those present.

Shikamaru decided to ask a question, partly in the quest for information but also partly to postpone, if only for a few fleeting moments, whatever Anko had in store for them. As such he raised his hand. Anko looked at him but instead of the eyebrow she asked him. "Yes?"

Shikamaru paused for a moment, merely so that he could take up some more time. "Why are we exempt from D-rank missions?"

Anko glanced over to Naruto briefly before looking back to Shikamaru, the message clear; if you want any more information than I give you, ask him. The vague response she gave only seemed to highlight the fact that there was a lot to this seemingly simple question. "I guess you could say… we have a sponsor." Anko grinned cheekily, happy with her vague response and bounced on the balls of her feet momentarily. "Any more questions?" She was met with silence. "Right then! You lot, let's get started!"

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The 'assessment' as Anko phrased it consisted of Anko making them run around until they dropped to see how well they could… run – which took three more hours for Naruto than for Shikamaru and Ino. Then throwing kunai and shuriken at stuff, literally. "Naruto throw a Kunai at that leaf on that branch – no not that leaf, dufus!" After which she had them show her their techniques, she was especially intrigued by Naruto's, both his description of 'the crazy energy transporty thing' and his whip, which almost made her salivate. Once done they gathered around in the same clearing in which they had begun their introduction, not far from the academy. They had been running around through the trees after all, none of this 'easy' running on flat ground business, oh no.

Ino and Shikamaru still looked pretty tired and scruffy while Naruto was somehow once again in top form, barely even a smudge of dirt upon his person and absolutely none upon his still pristine clothing, which seemed to infuriate Ino somewhat, though she didn't have the energy for full-blown anger. This was especially notable since both Ino and Shikamaru had had approximately three hours rest in which Naruto had still been running, yet still had not recovered, especially not to the extent Naruto had.

Anko had actually been glad that she decided not to bother shadowing her team as they ran laps, for she would've been pretty out of breath too running for that long. Normally travelling at even greater speeds for longer periods of time wasn't a problem in and around Konoha because of the dense, high and sturdy forestry which allowed Ninja to jump from branch to branch using Chakra. This gave them ample rest time mid-air and as their travel was aided by Chakra, lessened the strain upon the muscles. Running was a different matter, whilst it could theoretically be aided by Chakra, the strain on the muscles was only increased as the only method would be to stick one's feet to the ground to increase traction whilst the muscle had to do all the work of producing forward momentum. Obviously this was not a common practice, especially not one Naruto was capable of. Add to this the fact he had been going almost as fast as he could the entire time and you had something astounding.

So now they were sitting around in a random clearing which seemed to have been adopted as their area for the day, even though it was particularly random in location and was in fact part of the grounds of the academy the three had attended, Shikamaru hoped they wouldn't convene here again as it was much further from his house than their assigned training grounds, Ino and Naruto were currently dreading whatever was next.

Anko was standing before them and pouting, she took a few moments from the time everyone had successfully convened before she began addressing them, a few moments in which she pouted for what seemed to be no particular reason. "Well, I'm not sure really what other tests I can give you… Really I'd like to know your pain tolerance, ability to cope with life threatening situations and lots of other stuff that testing you for would be." Here Anko raised her hands to either side of her face with her index and middle fingers out curved and curling up each time she spoke a word. "Immoral practice for a responsible teacher." She put her hands down. "Like it's immoral to see how likely you are to freeze up and be stabbed." Ino blanched at the implications and suddenly felt severely out of her depth. Shikamaru had long ago accepted such scenarios were part of his future but was still disconcerted that the only thing keeping them safe from this woman was some flimsy moral reasoning which seemed to have been imposed upon her. Naruto was still anticipating what they were going to be doing rather than what they weren't doing. "Anyway the only thing I can think of to assess would be your Taijutsu technique, unless anyone can think of something I missed?"

Not really expecting an answer as her question was intended to be rhetorical, Anko was a little surprised when Naruto raised his hand immediately. Anko looked at him and raised her eyebrow, one of her gestures which they had associated with her early on and so Naruto knew that it was her way of telling him to go ahead and ask away. "You never tested or asked how good our senses are."

Anko left her eyebrow up as Naruto's question was definitely unexpected. "Yes well, aside from bloodlines which give enhanced senses or higher functions to standard senses, peoples senses are generally rather standard, you don't count Naruto." Anko shot Naruto down before he could complain. "Regardless of how good your senses are I'm no good at tracking anyone, I assassinate. To assassinate you take people unawares. People being tracked either expect to be followed or are stupid, neither of which falls into the assassination category, SO that doesn't really matter." Anko tapped her finger to her cheek, finally looking at Naruto directly rather than the surrounding foliage. "Besides, how good can your senses be anyway? It's not like you're going to be some uber tracker with a better nose than an Inuzuka or have super hearing or anything, and I know you don't have a Sharingan or something, so it doesn't really matter." Anko stood up, brimming with energy once again. "So! Let's get ready… what is it Naruto?" Anko stopped mid pep-talk as Naruto was waving his hand around.

"Hey that's not fair, my sense of smell is way better than Kiba's!" Anko made a correct guess that he was an Inuzuka, based on the name and the fact that she had mentioned Inuzuka's in relation to that particular sense only moments before hand. "And my hearing is really good. If I concentrate a lot I can hear someone's heart beat, well sort of… It's like it's always there but ignored… Anyway if someone like Kiba is a good tracker then obviously I'm awesome!"

Anko recovered quickly from the surprise, that was rather unexpected, she knew he had a better sense of smell and hearing but she figured he would be at a level somewhere around Kakashi's, not beyond anyone she had ever heard of… nonetheless she wasn't particularly interested unless he had any special abilities and she wanted to beat on them a little, hey she was bored. "Okay, that's impressive and all but we're not going to be doing much tracking so unless you have any special abilities mixed in there then we're moving on." Anko paused for a moment, just in case he actually had special abilities.

Naruto paused for a moment, unsure of whether or not he had anything that fit under that category but decided to give it a shot, always one to try at being special. "Umm… I'm not sure if it counts but I can smell emotions, sort of, I'm still learning what each smell means but I'm getting there. I can even smell lies, well Lord Sesshoumaru said I could smell 'Deception', but that's lies, right?" Naruto fidgeted with his pointy nails, or claws as he liked to call them, running the point of one along the underside of another one at a time, picking out specks of dirt, a way of keeping his concentration away from the possible embarrassment of if he were to not actually be special in any way.

Anko was definitely impressed by this, immediately scenarios based upon her work with the interrogation squad came to the forefront of her mind. "You say you can tell if someone's lying?" Naruto nodded at her. "You're tall for your age…" Naruto looked at her incredulously. "Okay, that was too easy, my favourite colour is red." Anko thought this one would definitely be possible, she did like the colour of blood after all. This time Naruto took an experimental sniff of the air.

"You're lying."

Anko nodded, okay easy enough to guess, what if she lied again, he'd probably expect her to tell the truth to try and catch him out. "Okay, my favourite colour is purple." Definitely possible, considering the colour of her hair.

Once again Naruto took a sniff of the air. "You're lying again."

Anko decided to tell the shocking truth this time. "Okay, my favourite colour is pink."

This time as Naruto took an experimental sniff Ino began snickering to herself, immediately everyone looked at her. "What? Sorry… You just don't seem to be the pink type…" Ino decided to stop talking, lest she anger Anko. Anko however was silently cheering, that was definitely convenient, it was true that her favourite colour was pink, she had always loved it. She was even secretly jealous of the family of pink haired people, though nobody would ever find that out.

Naruto turned to Anko, already knowing she had told the truth as he had already sniffed the air. "You were telling the truth." Anko smiled, the possibilities were endless, with a little training at conversation and interrogation Naruto would be able to trick people into discussing the topic he needed information on, even a simpleton can manipulate a conversation into yes or no responses and for Naruto those were the ticket to the truth, yes the possibilities were excellent.

Ino however looked at Naruto and gaped for a moment before pointing at him and shouting. "Your nose is broken! If that were true then she'd probably be jealous of forehead girl's hair, eugh!"

Anko decided to keep quiet, figuring the aforementioned girl was one of the pink haired people, whose family name she still hadn't bothered to learn.

Naruto rose to the challenge, righteous indignation flaring at the insult to his abilities. "My nose is not broken! And there's nothing wrong with Sakura's hair!"

Ino immediately assumed he was comparing her own hair to Sakura's, a thought process based off the countless times she herself had compared their hair and she was still insecure about it. Of course she wasn't about to react as if that were the case. "Pfft my hair's way better than Sakura's icky pink hair."

Naruto didn't bother responding and turned his attention back to Anko, who was rather happy with the argument as it turned the focus away from potentially embarrassing information about her and lead to new topics for teasing her new team. "Ah Naruto didn't respond, that means he likes Ino's hair best!" Anko pointed to Ino's hair whilst looking at Naruto, just to be absolutely sure everyone present understood what she was saying. She then turned to Ino. "Now Ino, next time Naruto saves you or something, whisper his name into his ear softly and rub your arms and legs together slowly, okay?" Anko smiled and Ino imagined her giving her a thumbs up, even though Anko was still standing there as if she weren't teasing her team, nope, not at all.

Naruto sat there going slightly red from embarrassment, truthfully he didn't have any preference between Sakura's and Ino's hair colour, both were bright and pleasing to look at, but he definitely preferred Ino's hair style. He thought it was a little messy the way Sakura's hair splayed out on her back, though it was long and luscious which he thought was nice, Ino's elegant ponytail was definitely better. He also liked the random bits of hair each had framing their face, or in Ino's case framing one half of her face as she only had hair down the right side of her face, he thought any hair style with bangs of some description was a definite bonus, this was one of the reasons why he had had his hair cut the way it was now, the bits down the side of his face and the extra length on the spikes on the top of his head allowed gravity to get a more firm hold of them, giving him some pseudo-bangs of his own, though they still stuck up so they didn't necessarily count.

Ino, completely oblivious to Naruto's reaction reacted to Anko's teasing immediately. "What? Why would I do that?"

Shikamaru had to try not to laugh at that point, deciding both of his team mates were slightly too dense if someone of Anko's intellect were able to manipulate them so effectively. Though he decided it wasn't so bad as he was quiet by nature and they were both pretty loud, this meant the majority of the teasing would be directed towards his team mates and not himself, as they would be drawing attention to themselves and away from him, though he still thought they were all a little troublesome, they were also definitely entertaining.

Anko bent forward towards Ino, caring little for what the action did to her bust, her face seemingly conspiratory even though she remained almost two metres away, making any form of whispering or other conspirational methods of communication impossible, the effect was still there though. "You wouldn't want to be dropped again would you? And didn't it feel nice lying in Naruto's arms there?" Anko actually did whisper, even though they had established Naruto's hearing to be above that of anyone else present, she obviously wasn't actually going for secrecy.

Ino paused before responding, it was true that she felt secure in his arms only moments after having been flying through the air precariously and on a trajectory which left no room for recovery, after all not everyone can use the air itself as leverage for their acrobatics. In fact for just a moment she felt just how she dreamed she would feel if Sasuke were ever to hold her in his arms in a caring and tender way, Naruto had been surprisingly gentle with her until he had dropped her that is. Ino was still formulating a response when Anko jumped in, having taken the pause to be more generic silence and was happily drawing conclusions. "Ah Ino can't respond, then it's settled, Naruto from now on you have to rescue Ino and she will whisper your name whilst fidgeting sensually due to the close contact with someone so manly." Anko clapped and stood up straight once again. "Yes, and since I'm obviously more likely to be doing the saving, I'll rescue Shikamaru and he will whisper my name in a lusty daze whilst fidgeting sensuously, right Shikamaru?" She looked to Shikamaru as if he would ever give confirmation to such a statement.

Shikamaru mentally groaned, afraid that anything like groaning aloud might be miss-construed as a response, something he wanted to avoid. It was too good to be true, apparently their Sensei had enough energy and teasing to go around and he was far from the type of person to trade verbal barbs with anyone, especially not with someone like Anko. It was also slightly unnerving how appealing the image of himself cradled in Anko's arms, pressed against her breasts was, of course his image didn't include any writhing or fidgeting or whispering or anything of the sort.

Anko pouted. "Oh you're no fun." She then realised that they had gone far off track, luckily none of them seemed to have noticed this was due to her lack of attention span and attributed it to her general personality, excellent. "Well then, Taijutsu assessment! Ino, Shikamaru you two fight each other, I'll have a Shadow Clone watch you. Naruto, you get to fight me. No inappropriate groping unless you ask nicely, okay?" All three of them groaned outwardly and sagged, only Shikamaru picking up on the fact that her clone would be a viable conduit for information, making the assumption that the clone would verbally share its opinions, meaning it would have to possess similar intellectual capacity to the original.

-)(-

The Taijutsu assessment had been a rather pathetic affair, Ino and Shikamaru both approached their spar with lacklustre and trepidation though they did put in the effort to keep their technique up and not make mistakes, lest Anko find an excuse – a reason to torture… no to train them more than she would anyway. They had then continued resting whilst they watched Naruto fight Anko.

Naruto and Anko's fight – because calling it a spar would imply that at least one of them was being civilized, but no that was not the case, it was a fight – was horrendously one-sided with Anko toying with Naruto and trying with great success to rile him up. He wasn't angry per-say but extremely frustrated and annoyed with how she seemed to easily predict his actions and how he found it impossible to do the same against her. Anko called their fight off only a minute or so after her Shadow clone dispelled itself, giving her its memories and the opinions it had formulated on Shikamaru and Ino. Ino paid no mind to the matter but Shikamaru noticed and assumed that she had dispelled it on purpose, for as a seasoned Ninja she was unlikely to screw up in a training environment, especially one which she is in control of. As such he postulated that perhaps the shadow clone's opinions maybe even its experiences themselves would be transferred to Anko when it was dispelled. If this were the case then he was suddenly very interested in the Shadow Clone technique for he could already think of hundreds of strategic advantages he could obtain with such a technique. Of course he also postulated that either the clone would be easily distinguishable from the original to the seasoned Ninja or it would require an excessive amount of Chakra to create a facsimile not only in mind and body but in having Chakra and he assumed Chakra pathways. Surprisingly it only took Shikamaru the minute or so between the clone dispelling and when Anko called an end to her spar with Naruto for him to make these conclusions.

"Okay people!" Anko was once again standing in front of her three students, legs shoulder width apart and hands on her hips, Naruto was sitting down grumbling noiselessly to himself. "I'll be brutally honest, Naruto is the only person out of you three currently displaying talent in Taijutsu. Conversely, Naruto is the only one of you three who displays absolutely zero formalized training in Taijutsu, as evidenced with the many flaws in his technique and how easy it was to rile him up, causing even more flaws to appear." Naruto glared but said nothing, accepting that she was telling the truth and consciously holding the fact she had singled him out as showing talent at the forefront of his mind. "Fear not, Taijutsu is simple. Hard work equals skill, talent helps but without the work to get your body in shape and the technique, talent is pretty useless." Anko turned and began pacing back and forth, her oscillations being only two metres long. After a few back and forth's she stopped and turned back to them. "Okay, what we're going to do to start: You two." She pointed to Shikamaru and Ino. "You're going to spend afternoons working on your family techniques, if there's going to be nobody home, get something to work on from them when they are home, preparation is the way to success as a ninja. You!" She pointed to Naruto. "Your afternoons are going to be spent in training area forty four or with me doing… well we'll get to that. Mornings start at 9 in training area twenty six and we will mostly be doing Taijutsu, specifically hand-to-hand and throwing weapons, with some chakra control every now and then for variety." She quickly pointed to Naruto. "For you that means jumpy or transporty or whatever needs work." Naruto glared at her blatant disregard for the cool names he had come up with – extra jumping and energy transporting. After a pause Anko decided that since it was their first day together as a team and she had just put them through everything she could think of, well, everything she was allowed to put them through which she could think of, they deserved a rest before getting into their training. "Right well I'm out of tests, you lot can have the weekend off and then training starts. Ground twenty six, nine in the morning!" Anko then waved dramatically, causing her breasts to visibly jiggle, all three of her students suspected she had practiced for that effect to come across as it had, then abruptly she disappeared, wisps of smoke floating away in the breeze were the only evidence she had been there at all. Well that and her foot prints and her three surprised students.

Whilst Ino and Naruto were having thoughts about how they must learn how to do that or at least a suitably flashy alternative in Naruto's case, Shikamaru had already gotten up and taken off towards home, fully intent on forcing the Shadow Clone technique out of his father, laziness be damned he just had to know how it worked and if it worked how he thought then he had to, he just had to be able to use it to skip training. He reasoned that his father being the foremost master of all known shadow techniques would know it, even though intuitively he knew that the term 'Shadow Clone' was metaphorical due to how the clone was metaphorically a shadow of the creator and was in all probability nothing to do with the shadow techniques his family was able to utilize. But he was still confident his father would know it. And so it was with his hands in his pockets and an uncharacteristically brisk pace that Shikamaru left the clearing that had become their impromptu testing grounds for the day without Naruto or Ino noticing at all.

Only moments later did Naruto snap from his daze, at approximately the same time that the last vestiges of the smoke from Anko's disappearance also disappeared. Immediately he noticed Shikamaru had left and assumed he had gone off home, he could smell something along the lines of a question lingering where Shikamaru had been sitting, Naruto decided it would be curiosity, or it would be until he was proven wrong, since it smelt so similar to the smell people gave off when they were asking a question.

Ino's mind however continued to drift, she noticed Shikamaru had gone just slightly before Naruto but that just sent her into more thoughts, she was feeling slightly guilty about her actions towards him earlier and also she wanted to spend some time with him, Shikamaru too though she guessed that would have to wait. She had been planning for a little while since she had found out about his sense of smell to take him on a tour of her families flower shop, because she thought some of them smelt gorgeous, now that was even more of a good idea as Naruto had introduced himself as someone who liked things which smelled nice. Of course she was nervous, was he still mad at her? Would he just say no?

Naruto continued to sit there, pondering why Ino smelled of fear, perhaps not quite fear though his vocabulary wasn't quite good enough to supply the word 'apprehension' for him, so he stuck with 'almost fear'. He figured that she was thinking about something so he would just leave her to it, he personally was wondering what he was going to be doing this weekend, he was tempted to investigate their training area, and the other one Anko had mentioned, forty four. He was also tempted to go bug Sasuke, it's not like it was hard to find him, just follow the sound of screaming girls and presto, Sasuke was not far away. Naruto had decided that he would indeed go bug Sasuke and then maybe drag him to get some food with him before either investigating the training grounds or just going home to bed but his plans were cut short as Ino turned to him and addressed him. "Naruto." Naruto jumped slightly as he had completely not expected Ino to talk to him, he figured she was brooding about Sasuke or something equally depressing for him to think about so he had planned to just leave her to it, whatever 'it' was. He turned to her quickly, trying to hide his embarrassment at having been startled so easily. "Do you want to come to my flower shop and see the flowers? Some of them smell really nice!" Ino seemed rather enthusiastic in her question.

Ino had been nervous and tried to cover it up with enthusiasm, which kind of scared Naruto because it just ended up making Ino seem weird, but he did like things which smelled nice and he had had fun at Ino's house last time he had been there and it was connected to the flower shop. Mind made easily, Naruto could go bug Sasuke some other time. "Sure, that sounds nice."

-)(-

All the way back Ino had basically talked at Naruto about flowers and what they meant and stuff, Naruto had no idea about any of it, Ino neglected to mention colour or smell to him in relation to any of the flowers so all he got were impossible to remember names of flowers and outrageous meanings, to him anyway. After all how could a flower mean love? Surely the willingness to give ones life to save another meant love? Or maybe when that person was never far from your thoughts or perhaps when they gave you warm feelings? Certainly not a flower though… Maybe Naruto needed to learn more about this kind of stuff.

As they arrived Ino took Naruto into the front of the flower store, it was fairly late in the afternoon now and business was generally slow so Ino's mom was in the back working or something according to Ino, who shouted out to her so that she didn't think they were customers due to the bell ringing as they entered. "Hi mom, it's just me. We're going to be looking at flowers." Ino forgot to specify exactly who 'we' was but it didn't really matter, surely her mom would come say 'Hi' if she were interested. Ino grabbed Naruto's hand as he had paused at the threshold to the store and quickly dragged him on. "Come on, let's look at the roses first! They're just here, they smell so sweet!" Of course Ino was being literal and not saying they smelled good and using the popular colloquialism 'sweet' to mean good, often preceded by something such as 'dude'.

Naruto had paused at the threshold of the store for a completely different reason to what Ino had assumed though, he could hear a conversation going on in the back of the store, nearing the area which was labelled as the Yamanaka's home rather than their store. Normally Naruto just ignored random conversation and didn't bother processing what was being said as there was generally a lot happening within his entire hearing range and instead focused on what was happening with relation to him, in this case what Ino was saying. But this time he picked up on the fact that the conversationalists immediately stopped talking when the door opened and begun whispering to each other harshly but quietly when it was discovered they didn't have a customer. That meant that they didn't want what they were talking about being listened in upon, even accidentally and as such his curiosity was piqued. He didn't want to but now that he was thinking about what they were saying, his attention was on them and he couldn't make it stop, couldn't shut his hearing off no matter how much he may have wished he could.

'Shh. Now calm down, it's not that big a deal, he hasn't changed'

Who hasn't changed?

Ino continued to drag Naruto around, oblivious to the fact his attention was elsewhere. "Mmm Red roses are for romance, only ever give one or twelve unless you want her to think you're not serious. Doesn't it smell nice?"

Naruto distractedly sniffed the air and even with his lack of attention he could pinpoint many decidedly pleasant smells, the most prominent being that of the red rose currently under his nose, which was indeed nice. "Mmm yeah, it smells nice."

'But you said he wasn't a demon-'

Naruto stilled, though Ino didn't notice as they hadn't been moving, still standing around the rose area.

'-now you're telling me he is a demon.'

Naruto realised they were talking about him, Inoichi must've been at the council meeting those months ago but only just now decided to tell his wife what he knew about Naruto, what Naruto was. It must be because Naruto was on the same team as their daughter now. But Inoichi had been nice to him, there was no deception or malice, why would he change his mind like that?

"This on is for friendship, I don't think it smells as nice, but then friendship isn't as sweet as love, right? Here smell."

'It's not like that, he was murdered but he's alive again.'

Naruto sniffed the white rose under his nose and nodded absently, luckily this was enough for Ino as she proceeded on.

'It's proof, he's a hero. He always has been, don't you see?'

Naruto could hear the desperation in Inoichi's voice as he whispered, as if he were praying for his wife to agree, he prayed she would.

"That's enough for roses, my favourite are lilies, aren't they so elegant?" Naruto paid little attention as he was drug along the shop floor.

'But he's a demon the things that come from Hell.'

"Isn't it pretty? Have a smell! It's not as sweet as red roses but nothing else is better." Ino practically shoved a lily into Naruto's nose and he once again absently sniffed the flower before nodding.

This time however it wasn't quite enough to satisfy Ino, who seemed to have caught on to the fact that he was distracted. "Hey are you paying attention?"

'He's just a little boy! A little boy who was murdered for keeping us safe! Don't call him that, it's not right.'

Ino grabbed Naruto's shoulders and turned him to her, causing his attention to shift and for his eyes to focus on hers. "Hey damnit, what are you doing spacing out like that? I thought you wanted to come smell the flowers?"

Naruto fumbled for something to say to placate Ino whilst his emotions were in turmoil. "Um… Uh yeah, I did – I mean I do!" Ino's father was defending him so vehemently, but her mother seemed to be unaffected by whatever he said. Would he have to deal with such blind discrimination his whole life? Would everyone immediately label him as evil and ignore how good he may have acted if they found out?

'But he's a Demon! Ugh I'm going to go talk to Ino, we'll talk about this later.'

Naruto heard a sigh and shifted his head to look towards the door to the back where he could hear footsteps getting closer. Ino looked to the door as well, confused by his actions.

'Remember what I said about treason, it'd be best to keep this to yourself.'

The footsteps paused for a moment.

'Fine.'

Then they started anew and quickly reached the door.

Ino's mother walked into her flower shop to see her daughter and Naruto staring at her as if they had known she would appear right then, Ino still had her hands braced on Naruto's shoulders, keeping him facing her even though they were both looking towards Ino's mother.

Ino would normally just say hi to her mom and ignore her in favour of what she had been previously doing, but in this instance it seemed that the reason Naruto was distracted was her mom, which made little sense to her, why would her mom of all people distract Naruto? She looked from her mom to Naruto to find that he seemed to have gone pale, as if some horribly truth had been revealed to him. She looked to her mom who was staring at Naruto and she seemed to almost be frightened of what she saw, she looked back to Naruto to find that he was sniffing the air. What the hell was going on?

Ino's mother had frozen once she had seen Naruto, she wasn't necessarily afraid of him, though there was some fear there but she wasn't sure what to do, afraid of the consequences of acting out of turn and afraid of the way he was looking at her, it seemed as if she had been found out before she had even thought to attempt to pretend she didn't know anything and it was wholly unnerving.

Naruto just stood there, he waited for the hate or the anger, he anticipated that she would shout at Ino to get away from him and that she would throw him out of their flower shop but Ino's mom just froze where she stood and it made Naruto even more afraid, he was scared to sniff the air to find out but he could tell from the look on her face. Finally he did sniff the air and it was immediately obvious that she was afraid, deathly afraid and she had only looked at him, he hadn't moved since she had entered the room and it hurt. It hurt so much more than any anger or hate that he was expecting, it hurt because last time he had seen her she had smiled at him and now she was afraid just because of his very presence. It hurt because he was afraid it would always be like this, he was afraid Ino would find out and she would act the same way.

Naruto looked to Ino, who noticed the movement in her peripheral vision and looked at him, she just seemed confused, she wanted to know what was going on and that frightened him too, because what if she did. Naruto quickly backed away out of Ino's grasp. Ino stepped forward as he back peddled from her. "Hey Naruto-" She got no further as Naruto quickly dashed to the door and left the store. Ino looked to her mom. "What the hell mom?" She then looked to where Naruto was escaping. "Ugh!" Ino quickly ran after him.

Once she had exited the door she stopped as she saw Naruto launch from the street onto a two storey building and from there onto a three story building before he was out of view, there was no way she could follow him, not yet anyway. She turned back into the store to find her mom still there, looking on with trepidation. "What the hell was that mom?!"

At that moment Ino's father walked out from the back to see what the commotion was about. "What's going on?" He looked from Ino to her mother and a deep sense of foreboding settled in his stomach as his wife looked at him with tears glistening in the rims of her eyes.

-)(-

On a completely unrelated note, the story "prove the pervert wrong" by Kyuubiman has been officially given up on… I find this to be extremely tragic, I cry on the inside. I urge everyone to read it and anyone brave enough to contact Kyuubiman and have a go at continuing his formidable legacy! Of course, I'm not brave enough as his story is of daunting quality and I would hate myself for crapping it up. On a side note, any professional level authors out there, have a crack at "Fox Hound" by Krakens Ghost… Even if you are professional level writers though it might be a bit hard… (Obviously you have to ask permission to continue someone elses story.)

I also have advice for writers, this is how I check whether or not I think I'm writing well enough. Take a story or two which you like and you think are well written and try to write so that you're at least vaguely that good, it's tricky since everyone's style is different but the main emphasis is putting effort into your writing and not just typing out the bare minimum. I personally tend to compare myself to Christopher Paolini, KyuubiMan, Daneel Rush -Koushi- and LD 1449, to name but a few… you can try this yourself at home kids