The sealed kunai

Chapter 36: Road Trip With Ero-Sennin

The sun was rapidly fading as Naruto ambled back through the gates of Konoha with the team he had been placed with to lead on his latest mission, Kurenai's squad, Team 8. Kiba grumbled as Naruto signed them back in at the check in station and caught up with Izumo and Kotetsu for a moment, "Man, how come nothing cool happened on this mission? We had Naruto leading it, he's like the magnet for irksome situations or something so we should have had some trouble."

Shino spoke as Naruto continued with the pleasantries with the gate guards, "Kiba it is illogical to actively desire a desperate confrontation the way you do. Though from what I've heard it is something of an anomaly to go on missions with Naruto-san and avoid trouble."

"Yeah, right? Exactly!" Kiba exclaimed, "From what we hear you could go on a C-rank with Naruto to deliver a wagon full of plush toys and chances are he'd end up fighting a A-ranked missing-nin with a plan to control the economy of an entire country with the plush toys! And don't give me that crap like you're not disappointed Shino, you know that you wished something happened too."

"Perhaps." Shino alluded to him being right, "But unlike you I can keep the complaints to myself and can keep the amount of noise pollution in the air to a minimum." Kibe fumed at his usually stoic and silent teammate.

"Kiba-kun, Shino-kun, stop fighting." Hinata chided softly, "The mission was successful and we're all okay, that's what matters right?"

Naruto watched the team interact from afar. This was his third mission led as a jounin and it went off without a hitch. He actually couldn't wait to get to Tsunade's office and see if his probation would end with him as a jounin or if he would get demoted. He'd better not get demoted, every single mission ended with him bringing the team back in perfect condition and then some. As he looked at the team of his former classmates he had to admit, they were way stronger than he thought they would get when he fought them after bringing Tsunade back, especially Hinata. His incident with her was either going to make her or break her, and apparently she had enough fight in her at the time to have that episode end up building on her character. Getting promoted was proof of that.

She was still sweet as could be, and he could tell she still had a little something for him, but damned if it wasn't manageable now. He could easily work with her, and from the looks of things she could be the voice of reason between the two extremes of emotion and logic that resided on her squad. It was clear she was skilled enough in a fight or else she wouldn't have been promoted in the first place and of course it never hurt that she was absolutely gorgeous.

Kiba and Shino were stronger, that much was clear just from looking at them... and Akamaru... who was fucking huge. Kami how did he miss that during the Chunin Exam in Suna he was there to watch? Anyway, after his last mission with Team 10 as well it was evident that everyone was stepping their game up for the future and he was proud of them. Why he was proud of them he didn't know. They were friends of his. He would hang out with Kiba when they ran into each other sometimes, good times. Shino was actually ballsy enough to head into the Forest of Death every now and then, not so good times actually. And then Hinata, when Neji asked him for spars every now and then she would sometimes watch and talk to them afterwards. She never wanted to fight him herself though. Still she was good company.

"Alright everybody." Naruto said, directing their attention back to him, "Good work. That was quick and clean, my kind of mission actually." He smirked when he heard Kiba snort his displeasure at the lack of action, "I'm going to go and give an oral report on the mission to Tsunade-baachan right now. You guys can turn in your written ones whenever you get to them."

Shino nodded and walked off on his own. Kiba nodded as well, "See you later Naruto. Don't be a stranger okay?"

Hinata smiled at him with her arms behind her back, "Goodbye Naruto-kun. You should come back to the clan compound sometime, it's nice speaking with you."