"So let me get this straight," Kurenai said. "You've rented a new, larger apartment, near the Hyuuga estate."
"Right," Naruto agreed.
Kiba frowned. Team Eight kept throwing him curveballs. At least this one he could understand…kinda. "And you want to go buy furniture," he added.
"Right again."
"On that MidChilda place you were lost on," Kurenai continued.
"You're three for three, dattebayo."
"And you want us to come with you," Kiba finished.
Hinata nodded. "Yes."
Kurenai blinked. "I wonder if we can get this listed as a mission?"
The next day, it turned out that yes, scouting the territory of a newfound neutral party with infrequent interest in hiring ninjas did indeed qualify as a mission. In fact, it typically ran B rank due to all the unknowns involved in such scouting.
"What do you mean they reduced it to C-rank!?" Naruto raged. "MidChilda's about as foreign as you can get, dattebayo! It's not even on this world, dattebayo!"
Kurenai sighed. "Naruto, you and Hinata lived there for a year and a half. It's not exactly unfamiliar and potentially hostile territory. You're still getting a C-rahnk mission on your second week of being an official ninja – most of your classmates won't get anything like this for another month of team building."
Naruto crossed his arms and pouted, but his eyes were smiling. "We can't help it if we're more awesome than them."
Hinata giggled softly.
"We are to leave immediately," Kurenai said.
Naruto looked at her expectantly.
Naruko bopped him on the head. "Which means we need to set up a dimensional transport, dobe," she pointed out.
"Oh, right," Naruto blushed. "Set up!"
[On it, boss. Set up. Device mode.] Gungjnir unfolded into its staff form in Naruto's hand. [Dimensional transport, stand by. Dimensional circle.] Naruto spun Gungnir in a slow circle and planted its end in the ground. The familiar orange fuinjutsu mandala spurng frojm the staff tip and expanded to surround them. Naruko positioned Hinata, Kurenai, and Kiba precisely and took her own place. Gungnir was still talking. [Calculating. Stand by. Stand by. Ready, boss.]
"Dimensional transfer!" Naruto and Naruko yelled in harmony. The world went orange.
Kurenai rubbed her eyes out and looked around. "This is MidChilda?" Everything looked orange. Still.
"No," Naruto said calmly. "This is an empty world. MidChilda is five jumps away from Konoha for this many people."
"And if you were alone?" Kurenai asked.
"Three jumps," Naruto answered.
Kiba and Akamaru sniffed the air. "I don't smell much of anything," Kiba complained.
"There's nothing here to smell," Hinata said sadly. The orange blur of the landscape was a featureless desert made of rock and stone. "There's not enough water for anything to survive here for long."
"Couldn't you have chosen a more interesting stop?"
"More interesting means more dangerous," Naruto cautioned. "We don't have a TSAB ship to schlep on. My jutsu's ability to detect threats in target worlds is much more limited."
"Wait, you mean you're scouting new worlds as we go?" Kurenai asked.
"Yeah. Why?"
"You really should have mentioned that before," Kurenai grumbled. Now the mission was in unknown and potentially lethal territory. "Stick to boring worlds, Naruto."
"Okay…ah! Got one, dattebayo!"
[Dimensional transport.]
The jumps were largely uneventful. The third world turned out to be a lush jungle, which sent Kiba and Akamaru into fits with the alien scents, but fortunately they found a way out before whatever made the smells noticed them. And finally, Naruto announced that they were jumping to MidChilda and the world turned orange again.
"Why does it have to be such a bright color?" Kiba grumbled into the nothingness.
Had Naruto been able to hear him he would have answered, "Because I'm that awesome, dattebayo!"
The light faded and the ninja looked around.
They were in a fairly large room, made of unfamiliar materials but the underlying style was familiar enough. This was a private home, probably an apartment suited for about three people, and they were in the main living/dining room. The furnishings were largely natural colors, with just enough orange and lavender to make it abundantly obvious whose home it was. One wall was almost entirely a large picture window. Kurenai wandered in that direction.
Kiba looked around, stunned. "You can afford a place like this?" he wondered.
"Mage jobs pay really well," Naruto said. "Usually that goes to cover the expenses of keeping devices in top form, especially in the Belkan crowd that's starting up."
"What are the Belkan anyway?" Kurenai asked, stopping to run her hand over the sofa. Strange material. Didn't feel particularly high-quality though.
"A really old style of magic devices," Hinata explained. "There are just a handful now, but they're getting some admirers so the TSAB thinks they might grow to a competing standard with Midchildan style."
"Ah," Kurenai said softly. She finally made it to the window and bit back a scream. "What happened to the ground!?"
"Huh? Oh," Naruto said sheepishly. "This apartment is a few hundred feet up. Aerial mages get low rent on high altitude apartments. They like having us around."
"A few hundred?" Kiba asked speculatively, walking over to the window. A moment later he flung himself backwards and latched onto the wall as far from the window as possible. "Where's the ground!?"
"Okay, a lot of hundreds," Naruto said with a shrug. Really, what was the big deal?
Hinata frowned slightly. Maybe the reason their rent was cheap was because no one who couldn't fly is crazy enough to live that high up.
After a moment to catch their breath, Kiba and Kurenai resumed their polite inspection of the apartment. The ultramodern appliances got little comment – Kurenai had a touch of homemaker in her but really such conveniences are not in the ninja way of life. Things didn't get interesting until Kiba opened one door…
"Uh, what is that?"
Naruto looked in. "It's our bed," he said simply.
Kurenai looked up sharply. "Our" bed? Naruto and Hinata were further along than she could have imagined! And if Hiashi heard of this…oh my. She walked over and peeked inside. "…what is that?" she asked again.
"Yeah, it is a bit large," Naruto admitted.
A bit large nothing. Kurenai imagined she could have taken Asuma through half the kama sutra and not so much as jostled Anko taking a "nap" on the other side of the bed. For pint sized children, it was comically oversized. Kurenai's eyes narrowed and she carefully traced the lay of the sheets and estimated the wear on the mattress, the typical positions of the sleeping children. Unless she was very much mistaken, Hinata went to sleep a fair distance from Naruto, but woke up snuggled against him almost every morning. She smiled; young love was amusing when it was so young.
Hinata's wistful look as she contemplated the mattress helped support that theory. "Will a bed like this even fit in your new place?" Kurenai asked.
"We can make it fit," Naruto said brightly.
Kurenai didn't find this reassuring, but sometimes kids had to make their own mistakes. She'd watch this play out and stop it before they did something too dangerous. "So where are you going for shopping?" she asked.
"There are some good stores one district over," Naruto said vaguely.
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(Posted Fri, 28 Oct 2011 22:52)
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