Dream Team (NaruHina)

#13 Onoki

The gates of the village hidden in stone were closed when Hinata and Naruto finally arrived at them. Stopping in front of the grey wall the two waited as they felt two guards approach them.

"State your business." One of the guards demanded as the two stood between the young shinobis and the gate.

"We only want to talk with your Kage. Tell him that Fox and Lion would like a word."

"What is that supposed to mean?" The guards were suspicious of the two strangers. Nevertheless Kaito, the older of the pair, nodded at his partner and watched as he quickly vanished towards their Kage's office.

"What happened?" Onoki asked as he saw Ayumi enter his office trying to catch her breath.

"We have a situation at the gates. There are two teens requesting a word with you. They said that we should tell you 'Fox and Lion would like a word.' Do you know them?" The young chuunin quickly explained. Onoki smiled at that. "Bring them here immediately." He ordered. An Anbu stepped out of the shadows, vanishing with a nod. Ayumi also nodded and disappeared towards the gates again.

"Alright, the Tsuchikage wants to see them right now." Ayumi told Kaito as she opened the gates to let the two enter the village. Kaito gave her a confused look before he stepped out of the way, to let Naruto and Hinata pass. "Ah Fox, Lion, good to see you again. I'll take you to Onoki-sama." The Anbu said.

"Who are these two?" Ayumi asked as they watched the Anbu take the kids to the Tsuchikage's office. "I don't know. But they have to be pretty important, if he sends an Anbu to greet them. I wonder where they have met Akira." Kaito replied, before the two went back to their posts. However their thoughts kept coming back to the two strangers for the rest of their shift.

"How have you been doing?" Akira asked as they walked through the streets of the stone village. "We've been alright." Hinata said smiling at the people that were walking around on the streets with them. "Did anything interesting happen after our mission?" The Anbu asked further. "No nothing interesting, a few bounties but nothing hard." Naruto told their friend.

"Well that's good to hear. Anyways, here we are. Just head up the stairs and take the door to your left on the second floor." Akira said coming to a stop in front of the large building that housed the tsuchikage's office. The two kids smiled and waved as they went into the building.

"Come in." Onoki answered as he heard the knock on his closed door. He smiled as he saw Naruto and Hinata enter. "Hi, you two. How are you doing?" he asked after the two had sat down in front of his desk. "We are good. Thanks for asking." Hinata said.

"Okay, now why did you come here?" The Tsuchikage continued his questions.

"I'm sure you remember our talk after the last mission we have done. Well here we are, we promised you that we would talk about joining you. What can you offer us?" Naruto asked, causing Onoki to turn serious.

"Well after I got the reports from my Anbu for the mission you helped them on, I was impressed. I heard that you have no village to call your own so I wanted to get you to join us. Obviously we would have to test you before we can give you a rank higher than genin. But if you pass the test, then we would most likely give you the rank of Jonin immediately, based on what I already know from the missions you did for me." Onoki offered.

"Why the test, I mean you already know about our missions and how good we are. Why can't you give us the rank of Jonin immediately." Hinata asked, not understanding the point of the test.

"Well, I could give you the rank of Jonin, but since you are completely unknown in this village, it would 'cause distrust in the ranks." Onoki tried to explain further.

"But what about the missions? Don't they know about who has helped them?" Hinata asked in disbelief.

"Not quite. You see, most of the missions you did for us were top secret. No one knows about them except for me. And the last mission with the Anbu also was top secret. The squad you had helped has been sworn to secrecy. So yeah, the most anyone knows about the missions is that two rogues, called Fox and Lion, helped with them." Onoki explained, hoping that they wouldn't press any further. He knew that the reasoning had holes, but he didn't want to tell the pair that they wanted them to perform in the chunin exams to show Konoha that they had stolen their shinobi. Fortunately for the old man Naruto and Hinata moved on to the next topic, apparently content with the explanation they had been given: "What about an apartment?"

"Well I would be able to give you a small flat until you have taken the test, after that you would have to look for a place on your own." Onoki said, looking through his desk, pulling out a set of keys. "So do you want to join Iwa?" Onoki asked the one question that mattered at the moment. Hinata and Naruto already had decided earlier this day that they would accept as long as they didn't have to start completely over. "Yes we do." Naruto answered with a small smile. Onoki smiled as well and quickly took out two headbands, handing them to his two new shinobi along with the keys to their new flat. Showing them where their place was located he dismissed them, telling them that he would summon them in a few days to tell them about their test.

Naruto and Hinata smiled at each other, as they walked out of the building, their new headbands secured on their foreheads and the keys to their new home in hand. After a quick struggle finding the right building, they arrived at their flat.

Closing the doors behind them the pair was greeted with a small hallway that lead to a small kitchen on the right, along with a small bathroom next to it, a living room on the left and a decent sized bedroom on the far side.

"Let's just get something to eat and worry about our stuff tomorrow, okay?" Naruto proposed, earning a nod from his girlfriend and they quickly left their new place in search for a restaurant.