Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Team ❯ Team Herbert ( Chapter 9 )

Title: Team Part Nine

Author: Persephone-sings

Date: 12/22/04

Author's note: Sorry it took so long. This chapter is a little bit of fluff before I jump back into serious relationship building stuff. I think this type of interaction is just as important. Enjoy!

Team Part Nine

Naruto knocked on Gaara's door, shifting from one foot to the other in an absentminded habit he had yet to find a way to break.

They had a mission.

They had a mission!

Naruto hadn't been this excited since receiving his forehead protector. After being with his new team for close to five months, they were finally allowed to go back into the field.

Sighing irritably, he tried to glare holes through the door.

Back into the field if his teammate would ever open the door!

Raising his fist to knock again, he wondered if maybe he should have picked Hinata up first. Knowing how long it used to take Sakura to pack, he wasn't sure if all girls took that long or not.

The door jerked open and Gaara's dark-rimmed eyes glared back at Naruto.

The blonde tried a smile, "Hey, Gaara. Stopped by to pick you up, you know-"

Gaara interrupted with a growl.

"Go away, Naruto. I'm not interested in training today."

And with that, Gaara slammed the door in Naruto's face.

Blinking, Naruto stared at the closed door.

He raised his fist.

And knocked again.

And again.

And then again.

Finally, with no answer in sight and the clock ticking away the time they had before they had to meet up with the Hokage, Naruto took a step back and eyed the door from every angle.

Deciding the side with the lock was the weakest, he cracked his knuckles and began calling his chakra into his palm.

Grinning from the joy that came with any excuse to try new techniques, Naruto decided he just might create a new one in the memory of breaking down Gaara's door.

Glancing down to admire the blue chakra tinging his palm, he spread it out to hover over his hand. Mirroring the shape of his fingers, the chakra rose to hang in the air about six inches above his palm.

"Hmmm . . . should I use my fist? Maybe I should use the palm of my hand like Neji does. Or maybe I should just push it from my palm and make it like an arrow or something!"

As Naruto ran through all the possibilities, Gaara stood on the other side of the door, waiting for the blonde ninja to leave.

Confused because he hadn't left yet and Gaara had long since decided that he was in no mood for company today, he wrenched open the door.

"Naruto, why haven't you lef- "

And was met with a face full of Naruto's blue chakra.

He flew back and hit the wall behind him, the attack coming too fast for his sand to react.

Naruto stood gaping at him, frantically glancing from his palm to the crumpled redhead on the floor.

He grinned and pumped his fist into the air, "Hot damn, I got a new technique! What should I call it?"

Gaara glared at him as he painfully got to his feet. "How about the 'Get the hell out of my doorway before I kick your ass' technique?"

Naruto dropped his hand from the air and stared at Gaara.

Gaara sighed and moved to shut the door. The blonde was still staring at him, though. "What, Naruto?"

". . . that's a horrible name, Gaara. Someone else must have come up with the names of your techniques."

Heaving a sigh, Gaara pushed Naruto off his threshold and slammed his door shut.

"Oi! Gaara! We have a mission! If you'd ever let me talk, I could have told you that already!"

The door opened again to show a very disgruntled man.

"A mission? Why wasn't I notified?"

Naruto grinned and pulled a scroll out of his pack. "Tsunade named me team leader! I'm the first to be notified!"

Gaara eyed him balefully, "Is she insane?"

Naruto frowned in defense of his favorite old lady, "I hardly think you're in the position to talk, sand boy."

Knowing he was right, Gaara sighed and turned around, "I'll go pack."

Grinning, Naruto swung his pack onto his back, "Great! Hey, you can call me 'leader'! Or maybe 'boss'? Oooh! Call me 'fearless soon-to-be-Hokage, okay?"

" . . . kiss my ass."

Naruto eyed the firmly shut door and shrugged in defeat, "I'd settle for Naruto, I guess."

oooooooooooooooo

Hinata met her teammates at the door to her small apartment looking harried and not a little frantic.

Naruto grinned and shifted his heavy pack to the floor, "Yo, Hinata! Came by to pick you up for a mission - ah, Hinata? Is that chicken alive?"

Hinata looked down at the squawking bundle of feathers in her arms, "Ah, yes, actually. I was helping out this elderly lady yesterday and she didn't have any money. Even though I told her not to worry about it, she, well, she gave me this chicken." She smiled sheepishly at the two men looking at her incredulously as the chicken flapped its wings and made to bite the hem of her shirt.

Squeaking as it ripped a large mouthful out of her shirt, Hinata let go of the chicken in reaction and watched in dismay as it flapped and wobbled around the stairwell.

Naruto made a grasping lunge for it, but the chicken ran away from him and headed for the stairs. Hinata gasped and ran after it, scaring it even more and it made a leap off the balcony.

She ran into the rail and held out her hands imploringly as the chicken flapped and squawked and heaved gasping breaths.

"Oh no! Herbert! You're a chicken! You can't fly!"

Naruto and Gaara looked at each other blankly.

"Herbert?" Gaara said.

"You named a chicken, Hinata?" Naruto asked incredulously.

Too focused on her pet, Hinata made a frantic noise as she watched her chicken began to fall through the air.

Gaara sighed and sent out a hand, his sand mimicking the pose and catching the chicken in mid-air.

Hinata clapped her hands together in relief and Naruto let out a whoop as the hand of sand rose back to the landing where the three ninjas stood.

Sand, however, cannot think and therefore had no way of knowing how hard it could squeeze the chicken.

As the sand dropped the chicken, drops of blood splattered onto the cement stairwell.

Naruto stopped cheering and stared at the crooked neck of Hinata's chicken as it lay on the floor.

Hinata stared, aghast.

"Gaara."

Hoping he wasn't flushing, Gaara cleared his throat and quickly sent his sand back into its gourd. "Um, yes?"

"You broke my chicken."

He shuffled his feet and glanced at the dead chicken and then at his female teammate. "So it would seem."

Hinata looked at him with tears in her eyes, "You killed Herbert."

"I'm sorry?" What was he supposed to do? Buy her a new chicken? Did he have time before they had to leave for that? How much did a chicken cost anyway? He'd never actually bought a live one.

Hinata sniffed and walked through her door. "A mission, did you say? I'll go pack." She shut the door gently behind her.

Gaara looked at Naruto for guidance but the blonde had to swallow a laugh before he could say anything.

"You broke her chicken, man. What can I say?" He burst into laughter, doubling over with mirth. "You broke Herbert!" he gasped, "She won't ever talk to you again!"

Gaara waited for Naruto to get his breath back before he moved over to the chicken.

Glaring, the redhead stared at the dead chicken for a few minutes, as though willing it back to life. "She was just going to have to eat it anyway!"

A gasp from the doorway and both men turned to find Hinata with her hand over her mouth. "Eat it? It had a name, Gaara! He was Herbert before you killed him and now you call him dinner? I never would have eaten him, ever! How can you say that? I can't believe you!"

She brushed past him and started down the stairs, pausing at the next landing down. "How would you feel if someone killed your squirrel and then tried to pass it off as dinner?"

Following her down the stairs, Gaara stared at her unbelievably, "For one, I'd be quite relieved actually, and for another, Shukaku is not a damn squirrel!"

Naruto snorted through his nose, close on Gaara's heels, "Eh, a rodent's a rodent, right Hinata?"

Gaara sent his elbow sharply into Naruto's stomach, satisfied to hear his breath whoosh out of his mouth. "Better a rodent than a flea-infested cat."

"Cat? Cat?! He's a fox! F-O-X, fox!"

"Isn't that more of a dog, Naruto?" Hinata's voice carried up through the stairwell.

"Ah-hah!" Gaara almost crowed, "Dogs certainly have more fleas than cats! That's even worse!"

"Why you bastard! Take it back, squirrel boy!"

Hinata forgot for a moment that Gaara had just snapped her new pet's neck in half as she listened to her two teammates joke back and forth. It was nice, for a change, for the two of them both to be happy and content. She only hoped the mission went as smoothly.

As she heard Gaara throw out another joking insult, she could almost forgive that Herbert lay upstairs, dead.

And then she realized that Herbert was laying upstairs . . . dead.

He'd have to work a little harder to get her complete forgiveness.

And then she heard her two teammates laugh at a really stupid comeback and her heart warmed inside her chest.

Well, okay.

He was forgiven.

It was easy, really, to forgive those two anything when they laughed.

When they smiled.

"For the last time, Naruto! I refuse to call you the 'soon-to-be-Hokage' during this mission! Hinata, back me up, here."

Hinata laughed as they walked out into the early morning sun, "He's right, Naruto, it is a bit of a mouthful."

"But guys! We all need code-names! Oh, Gaara, let's call you Herbert, in loving memory of the chicken!" Gaara twitched the fingers of his left hand and a wisp of sand slid under Naruto's feet and knocked them out from under him. He landed with a thud on his bottom in the middle of the street.

"Owwww . . . Gaara, careful! I bruise easy!"

Gaara held out a hand to help his fallen teammate up.

Before Naruto grasped his hand, he caught Gaara's eye, "Friends?"

Seeing him hesitate, Hinata dropped her hand next to Gaara's, "Friends."

Gaara nodded and took Naruto's hand in his. "Friends."

Naruto hooked his hand in Hinata's and they heaved him up.

He raced ahead of them, looking back and grinning, "Let's go kick some mission ass, you guys!"

The other two looked at each other and Hinata winked at Gaara.

Together, they turned back to Naruto and yelled, "Okay, soon-to-be-Hokage!"

A stunned but happy Naruto never noticed the bench before he fell over it and landed with an 'oof' in the street beneath it. But he didn't care. Because his friends were sure to help him pack on his feet.

His friends.

His.

Next: Their very first mission!

Sorry it took me so long to eek this out . . . and I know it was a little out of character, but I wanted them to have a little light-hearted moment and a little "getting to know each other" time.

KagiOni1-it actually has been planned to be a threesome because I can never decide which couple I like better :)

Sariachan-Marina-here's the mission part for you coming up. I hope it isn't moving too unrealistically for you here in this chapter.

neoastralpath-thanks for the reviews you leave, I'm hoping to get alone-time for one on one after chapter ten with the mission. I might split them up during the mission or something like that.

Cyberwing and LBK-glad you like it!