Hey everyone! I'm back! I'm going to mention this now, I'm sorry if there's any spelling mistakes towards the end since I just finished the chapter maybe five minutes ago and didn't exactly edit it. I had a bit of a set back as far as writing goes. Not a writers block, just a very bad distraction called the Adventure Zone. I wasn't able to write all week because of it. Which basically made me fail NaNoWriMo but hey, I did write more than I normally do so that's a plus. It also got me back into the groove as far as this fic goes, so hopefully there won't be as eratic of a posting schedule in the future.

Anyways, thanks for all the comments! You guys are awesome!

Hope you enjoy,

T1
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! ! ! !THE NEXT MORNING! ! ! !

It was way too early when my eyes popped open to an unearthly scream. I jolted up right rushing to turn on my Echoes, afraid of what might have happened. Were more of those kidnappers back? Were they after Fu this time? When I finally got an image back from the echoes I relaxed, finding it was only Jiraiya standing over a pile of papers.

"What the hell?" I muttered, flopping back onto my bed just as Fu came stumbling out of her room. She had her fists raised and was looking around the room for danger. She quickly came to the same conclusion as I did, dropping her fists to her side.

"My manuscript!" Jiraiya wailed, holding the papers up in lament. "What happened to it?"

"Looks fine to me," I muttered as Fu shuffled over to my bed, flopping down face first at the end of it. Jiraiya sent what I assumed was a powerful glair at me.

"The whole thing's ruined! The entire thing is covered in corrections that make it utterly useless. Now it just sounds like an academy student wrote a bunch of words down on a scroll and claimed it's a story!" He exclaimed. I tried to hide my smirk as he talked, but it was a little hard when the memory of our prank was filtering back to me. Apparently Jiraiya noticed. "You did this, didn't you?"

"Who me?" I asked, placing a hand on my chest dramatically. Fu snorted in amusement. "Why would I ever do that to you? Not to mention, I can't even read it so I don't see how I could possibly-"

"Don't even play that card with me, Naruto. I don't believe for a moment that you didn't convince Fu to help you," he said, sounding furious. "This is revenge for the field test, isn't it?"

"And not telling me earlier that you knew I was blind. And for mentioning my parents even though you knew you weren't going to tell me about them. And for being a general ass all around."

"While those are all fairly good reasons to prank someone, they are not good reasons to ruin someone's livelihood!" He exclaimed, his voice getting louder as he spoke. I yawned. "Do you know how long it's going to take me to fix it?!"

"It took Fu half the night with two water clones just to transcribe it so at least that long." I crossed my arms under my head as I could almost hear my sensei reaching his boiling point.

"You brat! I otta-" he cut off suddenly, a long silence filling the air as he processed my words. "Wait, transcribed?"

About then Fu reached under the bed, pulling out another stack of papers about the same thickness, waving them over her head tiredly.

"You…You…"

"Yes, we transcribed the whole thing and edited the other copy. Your precious porn book is safe. Though the edits we made do make for a more entertaining story," I explained as Jiraiya rushed over to grab the clean copy. "I particularly like the one where we replaced all the words "dick" with "katana." That makes things so much more interesting."

"And more bloody," Fu muttered into the sheets.

"Yup. It also makes Mai's line on page forty-five so much better in general."

Jiraiya stared at us for a moment before flipping through the pages that had been abandoned on the desk.

"'Now that's a katana.'" Jiraiya said flatly.

"No, you have to say it with more enthusiasm. This is a girl that likes her weapons after all."

"I hate you. I hate you both," Jiraiya stated, obviously not amused. "Get dressed, we're leaving in ten minutes."

"But what about breakfast?" I asked.

"I'm still sleepy," Fu murmured.

"Well you should have thought of that before you stayed up half the night to mess with my manuscript!" He gave us another glair before sealing the thing inside a new scroll and pocketing it.

"Do you even have a lead to where she is?"

"In fact I do, and if we don't leave now, we could very well miss her," he said as he left the room, slamming the door behind him.

"He's grumpy," Fu murmured yet again, this time having the decency to turn her head towards me so she wasn't as muffled.

"I expected him to be. What I didn't expect was for him to scream like a toddler when he found it."

"True," she said. I sighed, sitting up once again, reluctant to leave the comfortable mattress, but knowing I had to. I swung my feet around, placing them on the cold floor. I waited a moment before climbing to my feet and collecting the stuff I needed to get ready. Fu had yet to move from her spot on the bed.

"Am I going with you?" She asked out of the blue.

"I don't see why not. You don't really have anywhere else to go," I told her simply. "I mean, yeah, you could go back to Taki but it's not really safe to travel alone especially with those S ranked kidnappers on the loose. They were targeting me but there's no reason I can think of other than being a jinchuriki. So if that's why then you could be a target too."

"Why would anyone target jinchuriki?" he asked, kicking her feet lightly against the end of the mattress.

"I don't know. Maybe they want really powerful weapons for their army. Or they're avid collectors and want the whole set." I pulled a shirt out of my bag as she giggled. "Either way you shouldn't be traveling alone right now. I'm sure Jiraiya agrees."

"And you won't mind?"

"I've put up with your antics for about a month now, I think I can handle a few weeks more," I said, turning towards her with a grin. "Plus, you're not so bad when you're not stealing my clothes."

Before I could react, Fu somehow launched herself off the bed and tackled me to the floor in a tight hug.

"Thank you!" she exclaimed, apparently trying to crush my ribs with her arms.

"Can't…breath," I whispered, which brought her back to her senses enough to let me go. She apologized sheepishly, but I could still hear the smile in her voice.

"Great job kit, know we're stuck with them," the Kyuubi muttered, still moping about how Fu was able to find us so quickly.

"It's better than those S ranked guys getting her."

"Since when do you care about her safety?"

"She's my friend. It's in the description."

"You need to change that damn description then because you're going to regret this before the week's out."

"We'll see about that."

! ! ! !ONE WEEK LATER! ! ! !

"Well?" The kyuubi asked as we traveled. My eyebrow twitched in annoyance.

"Well what?" I asked back, knowing full well what he was getting at.

"Just admit that you regret your decision and things will be a lot easier."

"I don't know what you're talking about," I said. He sighed in response.

"How many times must we go over this. I'm in your head. I can hear your thoughts. There's nothing that you can think that I don't know about."

"Well when you put it like that it sounds creepy."

"You regret bringing her."

"No, I don't."

"Naruto! Look out!" Fu called loudly in my ear. I froze mid-step, looking towards her. "There's a stick in front of you."

"I know, Fu," I said for about the thousandth time that day. And probably the millionth time that week. Needless to say, it was getting old. Quick. Though, apparently Jiraiya was still getting a kick out of it. I could still here his giggling even as he tried to stifle it with his hand.

"I just wanted to make sure you didn't trip," She said. I sighed as I continued walking, making sure to step over said stick.

"I know, Fu."

"I wasn't sure if your Echoes picked it up or not."

"I know, Fu."

"Aright, that's all."

"Good," I muttered to myself. The three of us walked in silence once again, continuing down the path we were on we left the last town. It had felt like forever since then, and I had a feeling it was only going to get worse.

"Naruto! Look out!" Fu called again. We were only a few yards from the stick. "It's a rock."

"Alright, I may be starting to regret this."

"Knew it! Now let's ditch her."

"I'm not ditching her just because she's annoying."

"Why not?"

"Because that is no reason to send someone off into potential danger on their own. You know my reasons. How are we supposed to know if those two creeps aren't still following us? Or maybe two other creeps from the same group."

"And why would you think they're from a group?"

"Because their robes were the same style and Itachi said something about a 'leader being upset if he killed me.' So there's at least three of them, if not more."

"Adequate deduction," the kyuubi muttered briefly. "But I still want her gone."

"Stop complaining and deal with it like a grownup," I answered, rolling my eyes at him. "Honestly, it's like you're the twelve-year-old and I'm the adult here."

"Don't push your luck, kit."

"Naruto?" Fu called, snapping me back to the conversation at hand.

"What?"

"You didn't answer me," she said.

"Kyuubi being obnoxious," I told her. She nodded knowingly before turning back towards the road. From the way her face was aimed down towards the ground, it seemed like she was studying the ground in front of us. I sighed. "Please tell me you're not looking for sticks again."

"Or rocks. Or particularly large lumps of dirt. Anything you could trip on really."

"Fu, I'm fine. I don't need you warning me about every little potential hazard in the road. My Chakra Echoes are on. I can see them. If I can't then they're not much of a threat to begin with. So please stop shouting out like that."

"But-"

"I appreciate the thought, but honestly, all it's doing is scaring wildlife and probably attracting bandits or something," I explained. I paused for a moment, a thought striking me. "Speaking of bandits, didn't you say some of them hung around outside the town?"

"Yeah, but they're not much of a threat."

"Shouldn't we have run into them?"

"Well, I kicked their asses last time so if they saw us they probably ran away screaming."

"You said you asked them about your team."

"Can't I do both?"

"Of course you did both," I muttered to myself. I shook my head as I summoned a balloon out of the scroll Jiraiya gave me and started training with it again.

"Are you sure you should be doing that while we're walking?" She asked as I started swirling the water around the balloon with ease. Over the last week, my skill with the balloon has went up drastically. Now that I knew what I was supposed to do, I was able to focus more on doing it than figuring it out. I could do two consecutive streams now without much of a hassle. I could occasionally start the third and pop the balloon but Jiraiya said I needed to be able to do it at least ten times in a row before he'd teach me the next level.

"Fu, I've been doing this the entire time. Why do you have to ask me this every day?"

"You can't focus on the road if you're focusing on that," She pointed out.

"Yes I can, it's called multitasking," I answered flatly. I added the second, a little wobblier than the first but it straightened out after a moment. "It's like walking and chewing gum. Easy."

I was just getting ready to add the third stream when the balloon broke apart on its own accord.

"I guess you're right," Fu said, examining the shredded balloon in my hand. "That was actually pretty quick this time."

"That wasn't me," I said, studying my soaked hand in confusion. "I hadn't even added the third one yet."

"Think it might have something to do with that crossbow bolt in the tree over there?" Fu asked, pointing to the tree on my right. In deed there was a bolt now lodged in the tree. It took me a second to figure out what that meant, which was barely enough time to pull Fu down to the ground as another one flew over head.

"Bandits!" I exclaimed as I pulled out a kunai so I was armed. Fu did the same as we got up into a low crouch. Not so long after, a large group of said individuals came out of the woods, surrounding us, each brandishing some sort of dangerous looking weapon. It was about then that I remembered that Fu also mentioned something about a bandit camp a week out of the village. And by the looks of it, we walked right into the damn thing.