Cinnamon Twist

Warm Apple Pie

"I love the idea of helping, Ino, but you know what will happen if the villagers find out I was involved with the baking, right?" Naruto said bluntly as he rolled out some chocolate sugar cookie dough on the counter of the Yamanaka's large kitchen.

Ino looked up from the chocolate she was melting, "It's a charity event. Would they really toss perfectly good treats just because they don't like you?" She asked almost hopefully, but sighed after getting a look from Naruto. "Yeah, I guess they are that bitchy ... who's going to find out? We're doing all the baking here and I'm taking them there-" Ino paused thoughtfully.

"What are you thinking about? A naked Hinata again?" Naruto teased before smiling softly when Ino blushed. "We should make something for her." He stopped rolling to peruse the spices. "If I remember she loves cinnamon ... we're out of that."

"That's ok!" Ino smiled excitedly. "The sugar cookies will go quickly so we can whip them out. I will go get some cinnamon after if you wouldn't mind finishing these chocolates." She muttered while glaring at the chocolate that refused to melt evenly.

"Sure. Put that aside and pick some cutters." Naruto grinned as he poured out the box of cookie cutters that were all jumbled together.

After two batches of heart shaped cookies were pulled out of the oven to cool the last of the dough was sprinkled with cocoa powder and prepared to be rolled out again. It was right when Ino selected a star shaped cutter that the two ninjas tensed. Sharp kunais slipped out of their sleeves and were thrown out of the very window that the cookies were cooling by. A startled yelp was heard and Ino and Naruto wasted no time diving out the window to grab the person.

Ino's eyebrow twitched violently when they saw Jiraiya on the ground with a heart cookie in his mouth. "Get him!"

The toad sage ran for his life trying to get away from the Ino and an army of Narutos. For a moment it looked like the cookie thief was captured when several Narutos tackled him, but it wasn't enough. Jiraiya managed to swap out with a smoke bomb that actually dispelled a few clones with the power in the blast.

"Asshole." Ino choked out between coughs. When the smoke cleared away, both from their lungs and the air, she huffed. "Damn. He won't get another." She growled, already a mental run through of what traps would work to protect the cookies.

Naruto dispelled his clones, "Oh, don't worry. He'll pay for it." He grinned mischievously as he held up a bag, Ino burst out laughing as Naruto opened the bag and fished out Jiraiya's wallet and gave it to Ino. "Old perv never changes ... huh, what's this?" He pondered as he pulled out a tube filled with a deep broom and red powder.

Ino grabbed the bottle, "I don't trust anything that perv has." She whipped the cap off and smelled it. "Huh ..." she muttered and looked confused.

"What is it? Do we need to castrate Jiraiya?" Naruto asked almost eagerly.

"Of course, but not for this. Just smells and looks like cinnamon." Ino said with a casual shrug. "Money for shopping and cinnamon. This was a productive 5 minutes. Ok, back to those cookies."

Naruto grinned and created a few clones to stand guard as well as set traps, "Right. No thieves this time."

A couple hours and several more clones to speed things up, they got everything baked. Even an apple pie for the charity and snickerdoodles for Hinata were completed thanks to Jiraiya's cinnamon. It took no time at all to pack everything into separate packages, the charity sweets went into a scroll and Hinata's treats went into a pink gift box.

"I'm off! Give me a 20 minute heads start and you can try and sneak a peek at the charity." Ino said before running off.

First, she stopped at the place in the park where the charity . It wasn't easy, but she smiled as she told them that she made everything. She would've said who helped, but it'd be a big waste of food. Of course, it's that attitude that made her want to leave right after helping to unseal all her sweets from the scroll and place them on the tables.