"Hello Naruto." The fan freed itself from Naruto's head, allowing the boy to turn around to catch sight of her. Temari now wore a black Suna hitae-ate on her head, a black battle dress, black gloves, and a red sash around her waist. Her ever-present iron fan was strapped to her back as always, "You don't know how to keep in contact with people?"
Naruto sighed, "I could have told you where I had been for a lot of the last two years, but I would have had to kill you after sending the letter."
Temari placed her hands on her hips, "Anything to say in your defense?" "Yes actually." Naruto said with full confidence, "Bla her." He said pointing at Tsunade, "You should know being a rookie chunin sucks. Well try that being cranked up to twelve with the rate she had working at. In the last two years, 14 months of it have been spent working long missions. Add that on to the banes of my existence; gate guarding duty and routine border patrol, and my ass has been run ragged." He looked at Tsunade, "Why the hell did you make work so much anyway Tsunade-baachan? I know for a fact that Shikamaru didn't work one third of the schedule I kept."
Tsunade shrugged, "When I had a joint eting with the upper ranked ninja a few months after my inauguration to go over our mission influx I talked about how I needed soone to fall on the explosive note of picking up a lot of the slack. Gai, Kakashi, Anko, Genma, and you raised your hands to volunteer."
"Oh..." He said as he thought back to it, "I honestly was not paying attention to a single word you said in that eting, it was so boring. I just raised my hand at the end because I saw other people doing it. You never elaborated on what it was I had raised hand for, and nobody said anything about it after that so I thought it was totally inconsequential, especially when nothing happened after that."
Tsunade and Shizune sweatdropped, "And that's why we haven't promoted you yet." They said in unison.
Naruto stood up abruptly, "Oh co on! It was staff eting! Not a war eting, not a mission briefing, but a staff eting! Nothing important is ever said at staff etings, especially to the chunin in attendance! We're too high ranked to avoid them, and too low ranked to get anything out of them."
Temari gave Naruto a look that had an air of indifference, but listening to her tone one could tell that she was sowhat perturbed, "Well the last ti I was in Konoha I found sothing quite interesting. How long have you had a girl living in your house with you?"
This one was an easy bullet to dodge for Naruto, "It depends on when you were there. She's been there for almost six months, but I haven't been there in six months, so technically she only lived with for about a week, then I left, then I lived with her another week."
"She called you master and Naruto-sama." Temari said.
Naruto responded, "If anything I would call her an old family friend, not a servant. She seems to really be into calling that, so I let her, and I let her live with for personal reasons. However she is just an old family friend. An old family friend." He emphasized.
XxX
(anwhile in Konoha)
Hamako had taken to visiting Iruka Umino and being sothing of a teacher's aide for the academy when Naruto was out on missions, due to not having a lot to do when he was gone. Kids had taken a shine to her due to her pleasant deanor being a welco contrast whenever Iruka got into lecture mode, and the little she knew on the subject of ninja arts, while incredibly specialized, helped Iruka out when he had gone over the basics of sealing with older students. Instead of just showing them a sealing scroll and having them co to their own conclusions on what to think he had Hamako lecture for the day instead, actually teaching him sothing in addition to the students.
Currently however, Hamako was assisting Iruka in grading papers while the class were outside for lunch when she looked up with a sowhat blank look on her face, getting Iruka's attention, "Hamako is anything the matter?"
Hamako frowned, "I'm not sure Iruka-san. But I have an overwhelming urge to find Naruto-sama and cause him physical harm of so kind." XxX
(Back in Suna)
"Be that as it may." Temari stated firmly, "I haven't seen you in forever, and it's mostly your fault, and I'm fairly certain you've been doing stupid things while you've been busy. What are you going to do to make that up to hmm?"
Naruto pulled out his wallet in a placating fashion, "I am going to make a ton of money once I get around to grabbing my bounty check from your brother. So if I take you out to do whatever you want like the last ti I pissed you off would that work out?"
Temari's eyes shone as she grabbed Naruto's forearm firmly and pulled him out of the café, "Let's go then!"
Naruto tried holding on to the doorfra in vain, "Wait! I have a job to do! I'm guarding baa-chan! Temari-chan let go!"
XxX
(Two Days Later - The Day of the Chunin Exam Finals)
Gaara and Tsunade, in full kage garb, were seated in a box overlooking the entire stadium which was an open air coliseum at the outskirts of Suna, dug halfway into the cliff surrounding the village. The battlefield was earthy, mostly rocky earth with boulders lining parts of the field. Naruto and Shizune were flanking Tsunade while Gaara had Kankuro and Temari doing the sa for him.
While the genin up for promotion were down on the field, Naruto had taken to pointing them all out in his own way, "I could beat him, her, her, him, him, him- Oh that kid wouldn't last five seconds with ."
Sakura, Ino, Chouji, and Kiba were the Konoha ninja that had made it this far this ti around. All of the others had been promoted in the previous exam, leaving them as the ones that needed to pass this ti. Naruto frowned at seeing Sakura down there, "Man, I kind of screwed Sakura over when I advanced in rank didn't I? After Sasuke left she didn't have a team so trying to take this again must have been a major pain in the ass."
Tsunade tried to get him to take so bla off of himself, "She rotated between active teams while I trained her and was on Chouji and Ino's team the last ti she made an attempt. They were all simply matched against opponents that they couldn't handle in the first round fights and were forced out. Sakura fought Neji Hyuuga, Chouji fought Rock Lee, and Ino fought Hinata Hyuuga. Of course you weren't there to see it."
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