Naruto's Kit

Chapter 11

The next day Iruka had to go to the academy to handle the end of the term, meaning he needed someone to watch over Akane. Since she got along with Anko he asked if she could do it for a few hours. The problem was finding her, since Anko usually was a fairly private person. Why wouldn't she be, considering that most saw her and thought of Orochimaru the most? Anko was a lot like Naruto in that both wanted to be recognized as themselves but if they didn't want to be found they couldn't be. Odd considering it shouldn't be that hard to find a boy wearing all orange and a woman with purple hair.

In the end, Iruka couldn't find her and had to leave Akane at the hokage tower to be watched over for the day then he went to the academy. Now, if Akane was responsible, she would have gone right to Tsunade and Shizune, told them the situation, and awaited the results.

Too bad Uzumaki's aren't known to be responsible. Neither are fox demons for that matter.

Akane waited until Iruka was out of sight and just walked off before anyone noticed she was there. She figured there shouldn't be any problems if she tried spending some time alone for once. After all, her father had done that for many years and survived. And he was a human. She was a powerful bijuu with most of Naruto's imprinted memories. Surely she could handle any trouble that might come along. Besides, she had a strong desire to have some Naruto-esque fun and that was always better when there were no supervisors around.

Now the hard part was thinking of what to do. If she got lucky she might find some stray paint cans lying around. Naruto had left her some ryo to use if she needed to, and she wondered what to do with it after some Ichiraku ramen. Not hungry at the moment, she just walked thru Konoha, looking around and hoping to find some kids to hang out with. Most weren't out at the moment, as they were at school, so she eventually ended up at one of the parks. This one had no playground, it was more of a nature center. The scent and sounds of the forested area made her feel really comfortable and at home. To pass the time, she decided to see if she could find a way to bring some of these scents to Naruto's apartment.

While she walked down the stone pathway she ended up running into Ino who was looking over some flowerbeds. Ino saw her out of the corner of her eyes and turned to greet the young girl. "Good morning Akane-chan. What brings you here?"

"Good morning... umm... sorry, I can't remember your name. 'Pig-san' is all that comes to mind. And I'm looking for things that smell good."

"The name's Ino. And if you want flowers or something you came to the right person. Anything in particular you want?"

Akane didn't respond right away. "How about...? I don't know. Just whatever smells good I guess." Then to toy with the ponytailed girl she added another question. "Know any flowers that smell like ramen?"

Ino didn't know whether she should facefault or groan. "That's it. You need some feminine guidance. Stick close to me and learn a little."

For the next hour Ino tried to educate Akane on flowers and scented herbs. Akane found she preferred the scents of jasmine, roses, and cinnamon, while she greatly disliked mint. She said some rather vulgar things regarding the aroma and Ino scolded her on her use of such language. She also scolded the young girl for trying to drink right out of a small pond that had fish, frogs, and ducks swimming in it. While she was there, but before Ino noticed, Akane made an interesting discovery.

She found a white fox vixen with grey-tipped ears, feet, and tail. It had been trying to get a drink too and kept a curious eye on her from a distance. Akane smiled at seeing a fox nearby and reached out to pet it. It backed away, quietly growling 'Stranger' in canine-speak at her.