Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ All for One ❯ Romance, Relationships, and Rock Lee ( Chapter 12 )

All for One

 

Yamanaka Ino was pissed.

 

Actually, Yamanaka Ino was beyond pissed. She was livid. She was furious. She was going-to-kill-someone-who-breathes-wrong angry. And all of her rage and anger stemmed from a simple conversation she had had with Shinkotama Ten-Ten. Ino had asked a simple question of the girl. “So, how long is your and Naruto's fake relationship going to last?” It had been an honest question. After all, she had helped establish the fake relationship, and had seen the girl hanging all over Naruto from the moment he walked into the room.

 

Ten-Ten's answer surprised, confused, and enraged her. With a small giggle, she said “Oh, the fake relationship ended about ten minutes after it started. We're really going out now!” With that, she walked off, giggling at her good fortune.

 

Any other girl would have nodded and smiled along with Ten-Ten. Maybe she would have gone off to gossip with her friends about it later, but for the moment, she would have been happy for the lucky girl. Unfortunately, this was not just any girl. This was Yamanaka Ino, proclaimed (by no less then seven guys and two girls) the hottest kunoichi of the year, apprentice in her family techniques, and president of the Naruto fan club's middle branch. And now, she was pissed, and stalking around Konoha, bruising anyone who got in her way.

 

Soon, her angry rampage took her to a training ground. Scanning the area, Ino found the punching logs set up, as if someone had seen her coming and had figured she would need some stress release. Well, she did. Ino charged directly at the nearest log, and proceeded to attack it with everything she had. Jabs, kicks, a couple of Kunai she didn't remember drawing, and even a low-grade suiton jutsu. Afterwards, she stood there, out of energy, but not out of rage.

 

A voice sounded out from behind her. “You know, Ino-chan, you're cute when you're angry.” Ino spun around, ready to pummel the guy who had hit on her when she was pissed. But her rage was dissipated when she saw who it was.

 

“Naruto-kun!” she squealed, and hugged him tightly.

 

“Ino-chan… can't… breathe!” Naruto gasped out, and Ino immediately released him. Gasping, Naruto muttered under his breath “Breathing is overrated.” Then he looked at Ino, very closely, and gasped once again. “Ino, you do know you're bleeding, right?” She looked down at her hands, and saw that they were indeed bleeding, with several splinters stuck in them.

 

“Oh.” She said, her surprise evident in her voice. “I really didn't notice that. I have my hands wrapped, so only really strong punches could do this…” She turned around slowly, and looked at her log. Sure enough, several holes were gouged in it, and there was a little blood on it. “Well, that explains that.”

 

Gently, Naruto took her hands. “Well, Ino-chan, you'd better let me take care of these.” He slowly unwrapped the bandages, leaving only Ino's splinter-filled hand. With a blink, Naruto activated his Byakugan. “You've got quite a few splinters here.” He focused his chakra onto his hands, as if he was going to use them to climb trees. But instead, he held them over her hands, and the chakra pulled the wood out like a magnet. Then with a basic medical jutsu, Naruto healed the wounds.

 

“Where did you learn medical jutsu?” Ino asked in confusion.

 

“I just got my family scrolls, and in them are the personal scrolls of a couple of my clan. One of them was a renowned medic a couple generations back, and I studied her scroll a lot.” Naruto answered. As he said that, he finished healing her hand, leaving it scar-free.

 

“You're really good at that!” Ino said. Naruto grinned widely, turning slightly red at the praise. As he moved to rub the back of his head, they both realized that he was still holding her hands. A second later, both of them were flaming red and about two feet apart.

 

“So,” Ino stammered out. “W-What're you doing here anyway?”

 

Naruto shook his head, clearing it of all embarrassment and replied “Oh, Ten-chan sent me here. Said something about cheering you up. Have I done that?” Mutely, Ino nodded. “Well then, I gotta get back to training! I'll see you later, Ino-chan!” With that, he ran off towards another training ground.

 

Ino shook her own head to clear it. `Wait a sec!' she thought. `He ran off before I could thank him! A Yamanaka always thanks people who help them!' Hurriedly, she sprinted off in the direction Naruto had gone. It took her a couple of minutes, but she did eventually catch up with him. Naruto had stopped in the middle of Training Area 27, which was wide open field with a mid-sized river passing through the middle of it.

 

When Ino got there, Naruto had walked out into the middle of the running water, and had gathered more water in his hands with his chakra. As the blonde kunoichi watched, the air around Naruto shimmered as his chakra ran through it. The water balls in his hands dissolved, and the water started flowing through the air. It did streams, loops, dives, leaving a liquid trail in the air. Ino watched in awe as the water gathered in one hand, then formed an arc through the air that went to the other hand. The sun caught the arc of water, leaving rainbow trails of light throughout the field.

 

From next to Ino, another voice spoke up. “Beautiful, isn't it?” Ino spun around, and saw Ten-Ten staring at Naruto's training, much like Ino herself had been a moment before. “He says it improves his control and helps with his handling of suiton jutsus, but I think it just relaxes him.” She said. When Ino gave her a questioning look, Ten-Ten gestured at Naruto. “Just look at him.”

 

Ino did as she was told, but this time focused more on Naruto then on the water dancing in the air. There was nothing different about his body, but his face… On his face was the most contented look Ino had ever seen. Pure peace emanated from him as he watched the flowing liquid, and the previously unnoticed stress lines on his face relaxed and disappeared.

“He comes here almost everyday.” Ten-Ten whispered, as if afraid to break the peaceful atmosphere that Naruto was exuding. “So much goes on in his life, and most of the time he just accepts it as if it were his due. Only here does he unwind. No where else, ever.”

 

Ino looked at her questioningly. The only times she'd ever seen Naruto, he'd seemed relatively carefree, and nothing but relaxed. Ten-Ten sensed her confusion. “It's a lot of pressure being the son of thirteen clans, and the master of one. He puts himself under so much stress to master everything quickly, to make all of his family, whether it be Hiashi-san, tou-san, or anyone else, proud that he's their adopted son. Naruto puts on a confident front, just so everyone will look at him and think that he's the perfect scion of the clan. On top of that, he has to deal with the scorn and hatred of most of the non-shinobi population, and a lot of the shinobis as well. It's a miracle he doesn't crack under the strain.”

 

The two settled back to watch Naruto's water manipulation in silence for a while, until the peace was broken once again by Ino. “How do you know all this stuff about him? You've only been dating for what, a day?”

 

Ten-Ten shot a pitying look over at Ino. “We've both known Naruto for a long time, and until the academy, we both knew the same amount about him. But that's when stuff started to change. Once we got to the academy, you became more concerned with your looks, your hair, your makeup, then you were with knowing your friends. Me, I worked on my skills, and kept in touch with my friend. We sparred together, trained together, did our homework together. Over that, we got to know each other. Did you know his favorite animal is the tiger?”

 

Ino shook here head. Ten-Ten continued. “That's why he wore that hideous orange jumpsuit a few years back. If you remember, it was orange with black stripes. He thought that if he wore the colors of the tiger, he would become more like them.” Ino nodded absently. That made sense.

 

Abruptly, Ino made up her mind. “I want to know him. I really do. I like him a lot! You remember what our dads said to us?” Ten-Ten thought back to that afternoon, when she had told her father she was going out with Naruto.

 

Flashback

 

“Ten-chan,” Tenoshi said. “Remember one thing. Naruto practices polygamy. You do know what that is, correct?”

 

Ten-Ten was fuming. “So are you saying that I'm not good enough alone to take care of him?!”

 

Tenoshi shook his head quickly. “That's not what I'm saying at all, Ten-Ten. I did some background research into the Uzumaki clan this morning, after I learned that Naruto practices polygamy. What I learned is that almost all Uzumaki clan members had multiple spouses. They loved each and every one of them beyond reason. They had very strong feelings for every single one of their spouses. The reason the polygamy practice was developed was because the Uzumaki, once they love someone, it is always there. Nothing will make that love go away, and if they're stopped by someone else from pursuing that love, they will always have an empty spot in their heart. Do you want to confine Naruto to that?”

 

Ten-Ten instinctively covered her own heart with her hands. “I understand, tou-san.”

 

End Flashback

 

“Yeah, I remember.” Ten-Ten said. “And I can tell that he does like you a lot. I'm assuming you want to try and share him?” Ino nodded quickly. “But there are two conditions. First, you must spend more time training then you do now!” She raised a hand to cut off Ino's objections. “The fact is, if Naruto lost someone he loved, it would kill him. If you being able to protect yourself will save him that, I'm willing to force you to do it.”

 

Ino thought about it, then nodded. “I agree. You won't have to force me to do anything. But what's the second condition?”

 

“We need to get to know each other. I refuse to share the same man with someone who is almost a complete stranger.” Ino hesitated briefly, then nodded.

Over the next few weeks, Ten-Ten and Ino trained together. They quickly discovered that the two had different standards of `hard training'. What was a light workout for Ten-Ten was a tough thing for Ino. So they started off light, just doing Ten-Ten's light workouts. As they progressed, they got to know each other better.

 

“Well, my dad is the head of the Yamanaka as you know, but my kaa-san's a civilian.” Ino said, one day while they were taking a break from kunai practice. “She never wanted me to be a shinobi. Kaa-san had a dream about me marrying a prince, and never having to lift my finger for anything. But I was always my tou-san's girl, and now instead of marrying a prince, I'll eventually be assassinating them.”

 

That simple statement shocked Ten-Ten. Not that she didn't already know that. But she hadn't thought that Ino knew that. Somehow, Ten-Ten had been sure that Ino was one of those with a romantic ideal of ninja, rescuing princesses and stopping evil. But she knew the facts of the job, and was willing to see them through.

 

Continuing her story, Ino said “She wasn't too happy that I got into the academy. But Tou-san told me I could if I wanted to, and I did. At first, she went along with it, thinking I'd quit. But sometime she realized I wasn't going to, and sat me down and had a long talk about how being a ninja is a man's job, and is no place for a proper woman.” Ten-Ten gasped at that.

 

“Yeah, that's what I thought to. But I guess tou-san was listening to that, because for the next week we had a steady stream of guests, all kunoichi, that just happened to have some important business with tou-san. Eventually, Kaa-san gave up, and decided that I was just going to be a ninja.”

 

Eventually, Ten-Ten shared her story as well. “I always knew I was going to be a ninja. I never wanted to be anything else. Tou-san's fond of telling a story about me throwing a wooden kunai at the age of two, and having it connect dead-center with someone's skull. He never told me who I hit though…” She said thoughtfully, wondering why her tou-san rubbed the back of his head every time he told that story.

 

“But I didn't want to be a kunoichi. I wanted to be the best kunoichi. So I read all these books about famous female ninja as soon as I learned how to read. Eventually, I found one on the legendary sannin, Tsunade! She's so strong, and powerful, and takes no crap from anyone! So I decided: I would do my best to be just like her.”

 

Occasionally, Naruto joined their training sessions. It was in those sessions that Ten-Ten and Ino improved the most. Having the object of their desire around (even if they had already decided what they were going to do with him) sparked competition, and a need to prove themselves to him. Naruto himself was oblivious to that. But he did point out flaws in their fighting styles, and helped them when needed.

 

“Ten-chan, you need to work on close range fighting. You're a master of long-range attacks, but if someone can deflect your weapons, you're done for. Also, you need to expand your jutsu repertoire. Ino-chan, you're the direct opposite of Ten-Ten. You're decent in close combat, but need to work on your aim with thrown weapons. You need to work on your jutsus as well.” But Naruto didn't just point out the flaws, he helped them with them. “Because you both need new jutsus, I'm going to be teaching you my original technique. No one else knows it, except Kakashi-tou-san, and you'll need a trump card.” After that, Naruto walked them through the basics of the Kazanashi (Volcano Foot). Ten-Ten picked it up easily enough, but Ino still needed work with it.

 

It was during these training sessions that the girls learned that Naruto was using them as test dummies for new moves, or seals that he had created. He scared the crud out of Ten-Ten when they were sparing close range. She had just charged in to engage him when Naruto flicked his wrist. Ten-Ten skidded to a stop with a squeak when Naruto's metal spear flew out of his sleeve and into his hand. “H-How did you do that?” Ten-Ten stammered out.

 

“Oh, this?” Naruto said. “I stitched a special type of seal on the inside of my sleeve, and put my spear in it. Now all I have to do is channel a tiny amount of chakra into it, and it shoots the spear down where I can catch it. It gives me the element of surprise, plus it looks damn cool”

 

Ten-Ten looked at him enviously, while Ino just gaped that he had invented something so different. “I've got to get me one of those.” Ten-Ten murmured. Naruto winked at her.

 

“Now I know what I'm getting you for your birthday!”

 

Early one morning, Ten-Ten stopped by Ino's house. “Sorry Ino!” Ten-Ten said. “We can't train today. We've got a C-class mission out in grass country, stopping cattle raiders.” Ino nodded at that. She was actually surprised this hadn't happened sooner. “Wanna come and see us off?” Ino nodded and followed Ten-Ten to the gates.

 

Neji and Naruto were standing there, shaking their heads in unison as Lee and Gai were hugging each other once again. “What'd they do this time?” Ten-Ten asked.

 

“LEE!”

 

“GAI-SENSEI!”

 

The Hyuuga prodigy looked at the girl. “I really don't know. They've been doing this since before we got here!”

 

“How long have you been here?” Ino inquired.

 

“About twenty minutes.”

 

As Ten-Ten shook her head in weary acknowledgement, Ino blanched at the fact that a sixteen-year-old teen, and a grown man, had been hugging each other for over twenty minutes (with streaming tears and a sunset background, of course). Looking around, Ino saw that Naruto was still watching the scene with a mixture of amusement, disgust, and a trace of nausea on his face. She ran over to him, blocking his sight of the horrific event. “Well, Naruto-kun, I came to see you off! Have a good mission!” She grabbed him in a tight hug, and before he could react, planted a firm kiss on his lips. Then she waved good-bye to Ten-Ten and ran back to her house to prepare for the day.

 

Naruto stared after her, in a small daze. But he quickly snapped out of it, and shot a look over at Ten-Ten, who, he reminded himself, was his girlfriend. But instead of the livid, threatening Ten-Ten he expected, he saw a peaceful Ten-Ten, who was nodding and smiling. In his confused daze, loud voices penetrated his mind.

 

“AND IF I DON'T FINISH THE JUMPING JACKS, I SHALL DO TWO HUNDRED PUSHUPS!” Lee shouted. It seemed that they had finished the hugging, and had moved on to the traditional double promises.

 

“AND IF YOU DON'T FINISH THEM, I SHALL RUN AROUND FIRE COUNTRY WITH ONE LEG TIED BEHIND MY BACK!” Gai responded.

 

“AND IF YOU STOP BEFORE YOU'RE DONE, I SHALL CARVE YOUR FACE ON THE HOKAGE MONUMENT!”

 

“AND IF YOU'RE ARRESTED BY ANBU BEFORE YOU CAN FINISH, I SHALL BREAK YOU OUT OF JAIL WITH A DOZEN BOULDERS ON MY BACK!”

 

“AND IF-”

 

“SHUT UP!” The other three shouted in unison.

 

Gai cleared his throat. “I apologize, my youthful pupils! Today, we have a mission to stop unyouthfulness from flowering outside of Konoha! Some people have been stealing the youthful livestock of the hard-working youthful farmers of Grass Country! They are closer to our village then they are to Kusagakure, so we have been called up to help save them from unyouthfulness!”

 

Naruto translated for the benefit of Ten-Ten and Neji. “Some asses are stealing cows from farmers in grass. We gotta catch the bastards, cause we're getting paid to.” Neji and Ten-Ten nodded at his summary.

 

“AWAY, MY YOUTHFUL STUDENTS!” Gai yelled, and ran out of the gates, Lee following. As usual, the other three walked along sedately, knowing that sooner or later, Gai would realize that he had just left the three of them behind. It actually gave Naruto and Ten-Ten time to talk.

 

“So, what exactly just happened with Ino?” Naruto asked.

 

“You're dating her now.” Ten-Ten said matter-of-factly.

 

“What about you?” he asked, more confused then he was before.

 

“You're dating me too.”

 

“Is that ok?”

 

“Yes.”

 

After a moment's pause, Naruto asked one more question: “When were you guys going to tell me about this?”

 

Ten-Ten stopped him, and looked deep into his eyes. “Is that a problem?”

 

“No, but I thought you would be getting mad about this.”

 

“I'm not.” She said, and planted a very deep kiss on him. Instinctively, his arms encircled her, making her feel safe, as they did every time that happened. She pulled back from the kiss briefly. “So stop making a big deal of it.”

 

“Yes ma'am!” Naruto said, and was cut off by another kiss. Behind him, Neji began making gagging sounds, and pretended to vomit. Then he straightened out.

 

“You two should stop soon, before the `green beasts' realize that they forgot us. If they catch you two doing that, we'll all have to listen to another talk about `youthful behavior and the power of it's springtime' again.” He said. Quickly, realizing he was exactly right, the two broke apart and resumed their walk down the road.

 

It took a couple of days of travel to reach their location. As it was, they arrived in the morning, leaving them a good sixteen hours until midnight, when the cattle thieves were due to attack. That meant it was time for one thing: training.

 

“Listen, my youthful students!” Gai yelled out. “We have seven hours for training, leaving eight for sleep and another hour to become prepared. The earliest these youthful locals ever said that they were attacked was midnight. So here is our schedule!” The four gennin looked at him expectantly. In the weeks they'd been with Gai, they'd learned that though he was a little crazy, his training was good, and they grew strong under his tutelage.

 

“Naruto, add twenty pounds to your weight seals!” Gai shouted, and Naruto kneeled down to do just that. At first, Gai had tried to give him a pair of those hideous orange ankle bracers that he and Lee wore. While orange might be his favorite color, after the jumpsuit incident, he had decided that orange looked good, just not on him. Once he had explained he was a seal master, Gai had taught him weight seals, which acted just like the ankle bracers, only less hideous and easier to add weight to and remove.

 

“Lee, add twenty more pounds to your weights! Neji, add fifteen pounds to your wrist-weight-seals. Ten-Ten, you do the same as Neji!” Once Naruto had learned the weight seals, he had taught the extremely easy method to Neji and Ten-Ten to use on their arms, to speed up the rate of their attack. They took to it like a fish to water, especially since it meant that they were also spared the orange bracers.

 

“Naruto, you spar with Lee! Ten-Ten, practice your aim with… let's see, sickles! Neji, turn around, activate your byakugan, and find out how many targets Ten-Ten hits!” Gai had quickly learned that Lee and Naruto were the kind that learned from combat, while Neji needed for figure out his own weaknesses and Ten-Ten needed to improver her strengths.

 

As Naruto and Lee squared off, Lee shouted, “I shall defeat you this time, my eternal rival!” Naruto sighed. Within two days of him joining the squad, Lee had declared him `his eternal rival', and now challenged Naruto to everything from sparring to rock-paper-scissors, to even how many kisses they could get from girls in an hour (Naruto won that one hands down).

 

Soon enough, it was time to get to sleep for the rest of the afternoon. “Youthful students! Lee, Neji, Naruto, and Myself shall sleep in this tent! Ten-Ten, you have the other one to yourself!” Ten-Ten and Naruto exchanged looks, and Naruto gave a small wink, then turned to Gai. Ten-Ten turned to the green-clad man herself, preparing to watch the show.

 

“It is unyouthful to leave a comrade alone in a strange place, Gai-sensei!” Naruto shouted. “It would dampen the flames of Ten-Ten's youth if she was left alone!”

 

Gai looked at him consideringly. “You are most correct, Naruto-kun! As sleeping in the same tent as Ten-Ten would shame our youth, myself and Lee shall remain in our tent! You and Neji decide who shall join Ten-Ten to help her preserve her youth!” Naruto and Neji exchange glances, and Neji made an `after you' gesture.

 

As they crawled into their sleeping bags, Naruto stifled a chuckle as he heard another cry of “GAI-SENSEI!” coming from the other tent. He heard Ten-Ten give out a giggle of her own, and grinned as he laid down. “G'Night, Ten-chan!” he said.

 

She crawled over to him, and to his great surprise, crawled into the bag with him. “Good Night, Naruto-kun!” she responded.

 

“Um… Ten-chan? Why are you in my sleeping roll?”

 

“Do you have a problem with me joining you in your sleeping roll?”

 

“No…”

 

“I'm just sleeping, nothing else. And if you have no problems with it, shut up and hold me!”

 

That night, they woke up and silently prepared themselves. They each drew straws for which disguise they'd be wearing. Gai got the shortest straw, meaning he'd be a cow. Lee hid in a bush, Neji and Ten-Ten got up in a high tree together, and Naruto played the part of the cow guard that had fallen asleep. Which actually wasn't that hard, considering he hadn't gotten much sleep. He had discovered that Ten-Ten stretched a lot while she was sleeping, and was extremely grabby.

 

A kunai being held to his throat brought him back to full awareness. “Never sleep on the job.” A somewhat menacing voice said. “Do you have any last words?”

 

“Yeah.” Naruto said. “Moo.”

 

With that, all hell broke loose. Gai attacked a couple of bandits that were around the enclosure, but had forgotten to shed his disguise. So Neji, the only one who could see clearly in the dark, was treated to the sight of a cow, udders and all, fighting off bandits while mooing about flames of youth.

 

Ten-Ten, using Neji's eyesight to guide her, took out the one threatening Naruto with a well-placed senbon to the throat. This freed Naruto up to demolish most of the enemy around him.

 

One bandit was terrified. His comrades were being attacked by a cow and a no-longer-asleep cow guard! Needles were flying from the sky, impaling all of his friends! He was so scared, he never noticed a bush sneaking up behind him.

 

“Oh, fear me! I am a master of disguise, even without chakra! I am so good, he shall never notice me as I sneak up behind him!” Lee said to himself. Then he realized why it wasn't a good idea to talk to oneself while sneaking. The bandit spun, saw the bush sneaking up behind him, screamed, and ran off. Lee stared after him, then pulled out his notebook. “Do… not… talk… while… sneaking.” He wrote down.

 

Soon, all of the bandits had been subdued. None of them were dead, but most were unconscious and the few that weren't were scared shitless. Literally, as two had lost control of their bladders. Gai tied them up with one of his spare spandex suits. “How many of those do you have?!” Naruto asked incredulously.

 

“One can never have enough fashion!” Gai shouted. On that note, leaving the fourteen bandits tied up in bad clothing, hanging from a tree branch, Team Gai headed home, proud that they had finished their first C-rank mission.