A/N: I've had a very persistent person writing reviews. Cassie 4 Ever, I salute you. You got me to update and resume writing the story.

For those that may care, here is what I've been doing: I got into nursing school. The program is about eight and a half hours every day of class/clinical time, and a few hours of homework after that. With all that school and needing to take some time for myself there has been very little time for me to write. So I gave it up altogether.

So, I will resume writing for all those of you who care. This what I am posting is part of the next chapter that I had written and still had saved from when I stopped writing the story. It's only sort of a teaser, I know, but I felt I should post it and update anyway. In the following few days, I will begin writing. Though no promises, I'm going to aim to post a chappy every couple of weeks or so. I really like this story and already knew how I wanted the story to go and end over a year ago. All that is left is to actually put it on paper. So at least I wont have to make up the story as I go along, just figure out the best way to write what I already know is going to happen in the story.

I hope you all enjoy this, and if you want me to keep writing this story please review, msg me, etc. Fanfiction writing is just for fun, and its the most fun when people read and love your stories. So if you like/love it, let me know and it will help me keep writing.

Take care all. Enjoy!

Three Jewels

0000

The week of traveling had been uneventful. Fire Nation was the most heavily populated of the five great nations, but it still had huge swaths of raw untamed wilderness.

The team had traveled ninja mode from dawn until noon, racing along the treetops of the impressive trees that covered most of Fire Country. At noon they took a break for lunch, and then walked civilian speed until nightfall. This was a standard way of travel for making good time and keeping the shinobi as rested as they could.

Hinata for her part had spent those walking hours practicing her new Jutsu every few minutes. At first her teammates tried to persuade her to save her strength, but there was no other time for training and she was used to long hours of it. After a couple of days they stopped trying to persuade her to slow it down and the boys actually started doing some training of their own while they walked. Though she was concerned that they would be too tired to respond to an emergency like this, Kurenai let it slide because the probabilities of encountering trouble were so low. And it seemed to build their teamwork and comradery. Plus, she inwardly suspected the boy's esteem for the girl went up a notch when they got to see her work ethic first hand.

When they struck camp at nightfall they cooked a quick meal and a few of the nights Kiba or Shino managed to catch a hare to add to the small field cooking pot they carried. After eating Hinata would go off and train until she was so tired she stumbled back into camp and positively collapsed on her sleeping bag. By silent agreement her three teammates let her have the last watch, which was the easiest one to take. She needed it most, the girl pushed herself hard. Kurenai was a little worried about it, but the red-eyed woman was very proud of the shy girl.

By the end of the sixth night Hinata had mastered Katon: Wakai Kasai to the point she could create the flamethrower-effect rather well. She had even managed to improve her Body Movement a bit as well, though she had not yet managed to master stopping. In the morning of the seventh day they arrived at the walled town of Goro, where their client awaited them.

000

As the team entered the town, one of the first things they noticed was that the place was too small to have the impressive walls that it did. This town looked to Kurenai to have maybe about 10,000 inhabitants. Not a little farming village by any means, but certainly not a town you would expect to be surrounded by strong sturdy walls. As they walked in and across town they noticed a surprisingly large amount of armed soldiers with the crest of a local garrison.

Kiba looked around and tried to see what information he could gather about this place. As he looked and smelled he could pick up an undercurrent of fear in the people walking the streets. Nothing overt, but like an underlying uneasiness. It made him wonder if something was up with this town, and if it had anything to do with all the soldiers. Also, annoyingly predictably, most of the men they walked by would either do a double take on sensei or stop and openly stare. He never thought being popular with the opposite sex could be a bad thing but being a totally hot chick totally had its drawbacks. Hell seeing all the men acting like idiots was annoying him, and he wasn't even the target of their shameless ogling. Kiba had always thought that Naruto and Sasuke were crazy for complaining about so much female attention, but after experiencing some of that with sensei he now felt a bit sorry for the two fan girl magnets.

"So, where are we going Kurenai-sensei?" Kiba asked.

"On the other side of town is the headquarters of Traders Guild. Our client is there. Keep your eyes open and don't get lost" she said.

Kiba rolled his eyes. Yea, like anyone in this town could be a threat to shinobi. Why didn't she just whip out the kiddie leashes to make sure they didn't get lost? Kurenai-sensei was always like this, she was usually cool but on missions she sometimes treated them like children. It was kind of annoying.

They finally arrived at a two story building, not very fancy but well maintained and practical. "Land of Fire Trading Guild chapter 117" was posted over the door.

Inside the receptionist directed them to them to the office of the Guild Master for their chapter. Kiba caught the dirty look the female receptionist gave Kurenai-sensei after they turned to walk away. Geez, she gets crap from both the men AND the women. Maybe being super good looking and popular isn't all it's cracked up to be. These people all have these really strong reactions and they don't even know a damn thing about Kurenai-sensei. What kind of stupid crap is that?

Thankfully, the Guild Master didn't make an idiot out of himself like so many people did. He just saw a widening in the man's eyes as he saw Kurenai in surprise, but then he regained his composure and acted completely normal and professional. He had a kindly face, and smelled of cinnamon and vanilla and saffron. That was unusual. Spice traders maybe?

"Well," began the Guild Master, "thank you all for coming." Points for him for not saying anything about them being 'kids', thought Kiba. "I suppose I'll give you a little background as to our little problem here and why you have been called. As you may know, these towns here on the border are far from the shinobi village, Konoha, so if we ever need aid it takes at the earliest two weeks for it to arrive. Many sought to take advantage of this by attacking us and fleeing long before any help arrived, so the bigger towns along the border developed their own system of soldiers and defensible walls… all approved and sanctioned by the Fire Lord of course… to deal with sporadic raids of bandits and occasionally rouge militias from the nearby Land of Hot Water,"

"As a result moving valuable cargo has always been tricky, but manageable," he continued, "a large armed escort was often enough to protect the valuables. That was, until recently… when someone seems to have organized most of the bandits and miscreants of the region into one super sized band cutthroat bandits. The problem has become considerable. It went from bands consisting of 20 or 30 brigands to now a group that we estimate has around three hundred members."

Kiba could see the scale of their problem now. He doubted they could hire more than a few dozen guards from a town this size. Such a size force would not be enough to deal with three hundred armed bandits. It made Kiba sweat a little hearing those numbers. Sure, he could handle ten, maybe twenty non shinobi without a problem. But what if he had a hundred falling on him? That might be a different story. This mission might prove just a tad more tricky than they had originally anticipated.

"There are five major towns out here in far west fire country, all of them roughly the size of this one," the man continued, "and we do our yearly trading run from here to all the four other towns. It is essential economically for the Guild, and for the towns as well. We also trade a great deal of medical supplies that are imported, so from a humanitarian point of view it is also imperative that this trip succeeds. Our caravan will carry medicine, gold and jewels, spices, and a great deal of cash currency for the trading. It is the largest such prize all year long, and there is no doubt the bandits will be tempted to attack it. So please, protect our trade caravan from these men."

000

The caravan left the following morning at dawn. It was quite impressive for something that happened every year amongst what was essentialy a backwater of Fire Nation. Twelve oversized wagons requiring a pulling team of six oxen each were completely ladden with spices, currency in the form of Fire Nation capital as well as precious metals and stones, clothes, huge hundred gallon barrels of fine wines, chewing tabacco, a great deal of weapons, and most importantly a very generous ammout of medicines. Every wagon was as big as a small house. Hinata inspected every cart discretely with her Byakugan as she had been instructed to. Everything seemed in order and nothing out of the ordinary. That is until her gaze fell in one of the wagons near the rear where a man and a young woman were... Hinata's face turned beet red as she realized what she was seeing. She quickly deactivated her Byakugan and turned her gaze away, face burning hot and mortified.

She felt a hand land on he shoulder and a soft voice say, "Hinata". The girl gave a startled yelp and jumped a little, surprised and horrified that someone maybe thought she had been peeping. The genin looked up to see Kurenai looking down at her curiously and with a slightly worried frown.

"Hinata, you ok?" the Jounin queried.

Hinata nodded a bit awkwardly, turning her face away to try and hide her still increasing blush. "Hai Kurenai-sensei. Just got done peeking... err observing all of the wagons. Nothing... suspicious to report." The girl gulped and tried to look casual.

Kurenai smiled and had to keep herself from snickering. She had seen the man in his 30's and his young wife getting into the back of the waggon, clearly having other things than the day-long trip in mind. It was so fun to be in love.

"Well Hinata... just make sure to keep looking at them from time to time. You should watch if anything changes" said the Red-eyed Jounin.

The girl blushed and even more impossible shade of tomato red and nodded her agreement that she would comply. The girl had seen what she had suspected, Kurenai thought somewhat amused. Kurenai swiftly walked away, a grin spreading across her lips. The girl had to learn about this sort of thing sooner or later. Kurenai shook her head, feeling just a little bit guilty at her amusement. Was she going to start enjoying making her students uncomfortable like Anko did? Surely not.

I mean she did have a legitimate reason to order the Genin to peek once in a while. Hinata did need to keep an eye on things in case of anything suspicious. Right?

Right.

Though Kurenai doubted very the girl would observe that particular wagon too closely.

000

A/N: That's it! Will get writing soon and will update when the rest of the chapter is ready. From ThreeJewels, peace.