Naruto Fanfiction

chapter 23

chapter 23-Lost

(3rd p.o.v)

Naruto crouched, staring out through the bushes and looked sideways at the others.

Hinata, Shino, and Kiba were all crouching beside him and each had an interesting reaction to the situation, which was them searching for a type of beetle that could be used to track anything so long as they had something with the person's scent still on it.

After Naruto had woken up after his fight with Gaara, he had been informed that Ryuu had defeated the ninja that had been planning to take him but had been kidnapped by someone he had thought a friend who had defeated the ANBU that had been assigned to train Ryuu.

He hadn't taken losing a friend very well, neither had Sasuke. On top of that, he had found out that the Third Hokage, who had been a grandfather figure to him, had been killed by Orochimaru.

All in all, the next few days had been bad. Very bad. Naruto doubted he had smiled more than twice the first three days.

Sasuke had been more moody than usual, and the jonin had all pretty much ignored him, with Kakashi training with Sasuke again and the others not really knowing Naruto very well.

Pretty much the only reason Naruto had cheered up, even as much as he had, was that Hinata had skipped her own training to spend time with him, trying to cheer him up.

Thinking back on it, it was the most he had ever heard her talk and he had learned a few things about her, like her father was considering making her younger sister the heir to the clan instead because her sister was the stronger of the two.

In addition to that, he had realized that he he liked spending time with Hinata. She was kind and was the first person, except Ryuu, who didn't see him as an annoyance.

And he found that the more time he had spent with her, the more he found himself enjoying her company.

He also found himself noticing little things about her, like that she seemed to like cinnamon rolls more than almost anything else and the fact that she was actually quite attractive, something he wasn't sure how he had not noticed before.

At the moment, he was having to restrain himself from complaining about not having left the village yet, Shino was being as silent and impassive as usual, Hinata was watching the trees silently, and Kiba was staring at Hinata.

He noticed Naruto had caught him and winked at Naruto before subtly pointing his finger back and forth between himself and Hinata. Naruto suddenly found himself gripping a rock at his side so hard he felt the rock digging into his skin. He rolled his eyes at Kiba then looked forward again as Shino stood.

"We should get going," Shino stated. "We've waited long enough."

"Why were we waiting anyway?" Naruto asked.

"I was testing your patience," Shino stated.

Naruto growled in frustration and they headed out, leaving the village and traveling quickly.

The location where the bug was supposed to be was a day's journey away from the village and they only had two days to get there with one of Ryuu's dirty shirts and find the beetle.

After that, its eggs would hatch and the larvae would be useless as they would only track something if it was the first thing they smelled.

Finally they stopped just outside of the small forest for the night. The next day, they would head down into it and hopefully find the beetle.

Naruto groaned and left his tent to go to the bathroom, sometime around midnight, if he was correct. He made his way into the trees nearby, heading toward the stream he heard ahead.