"How are you not jealous right now?" Sakura questioned as she watched with an annoyed air about her. She was referring to the sight of Naruto's and Yuki's reunion full of hugs and happiness. Yuki didn't even notice the rest of them. Sure, Naruto had been the one to end the fight, but they had contributed too! Talk about gratitude. Ino, who had been silently watching, finally blinked.

"Is that..."

"Princess Yuki? Yeah—"

"Yukie Fujikaze!" Ino squealed to herself. Sakura stared wide eyed as Ino clapped excitedly. Then, she rummaged through her things and got a scroll. After biting her thumb and smearing it with blood, a pile of books appeared, ones eerily familiar to her sensei's. After rummaging through the pile, she grabbed the one that was different than the rest. It was a crude stack of papers binded together by staples, not part of the collection. Putting the others back into the scroll, Ino skipped over to Naruto and Yukie's heartwarming reunion.

"Hi, I'm Ino Yamanaka," she introduced herself. "Love your work. Both as a princess and an actress. I heard you were in talks of a contract for Icha-Icha, but haven't come into an agreement?"

"Um, no. Considering the author passed away and I'm not aware of what direction the new books are going to go, I can't just go in blindly," Yukie admitted, a bit surprised.

"Then I would like you to read this later," Ino said, handing her the book. "Be careful, there are only three copies and not even the publisher has gotten it yet."

"You didn't have to give it to her now," Naruto said, amused.

"But I can't not have her as Misa!" Ino argued.

Sakura watched on, confused. Hinata at the very least seemed to follow the conversation and was blushing furiously. Even Sasuke was smirking, though he looked more amused by Hinata's embarrassment more than anything else. Still, Sakura was lost, but dared not go near Ino's craziness.

"I hope she reads it," Ino said with a sigh.

"I'm pretty sure she will," Naruto assured her in a whisper. They were watching the nobleman's wife as she went about shopping. Ino was positive that she would contact another assassin. Ino was going to observe the way she moved about and different mannerisms in the meantime. Whenever another meeting occurred, Ino would be able to impersonate her and call off the hit while Naruto would then capture whoever it was as proof for Kurama. He could deal with it himself from there.

"Did you notice that Hinata and Sasuke knew what we were talking about?" Ino mentioned idly.

"Well, I made Sasuke read them... but there's no way that Hinata knows anything about them," Naruto said, chuckling at the thought of the shy Hyuuga reading such risky books. She couldn't even stop blushing when she saw Kakashi reading them. He doubted that she could even touch the books without fainting.

"Right." Ino was still suspicious however. After all, it was always the quiet ones. The hours passed and the woman rivaled even Ino when it came to shopping.

Finally, Kurama's wife made a turn into what to the shadiest alley ever and Ino knew they had her.

Yeah, not dead. I very nearly lost everything I've ever written when my laptop up and died and the thought of never being able to finish anything I wrote is a pretty good motivator. Thanks to keeping this alive guys.