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~ I'm planning to increase the number of advanced chapters to +18 this weekend!
~ I've edited some of the previous chapters to remove anything you might consider "cringe" or "unnecessary." I'll continue reviewing them from time to time!
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"Good. My comrades will deal with these…criminals." The purple-haired woman stated disdainfully, "You should return to your home; Hokage-sama will no doubt want to debrief you in person."
"Hai, Neko-san." Naruto nodded obediently. ANBU technically weren't a part of the usual Shinobi chain of command, but they were still ninja and any civilian (as he was at the moment) had to obey an order given by a ninja if it had to do with village security and Naruto knew that this definitely counted.
Leaving the training ground, he sighed in aggravation. This was the second time in very recent times that his training had been interrupted by a bunch of morons, and this time he didn't even have any quest rewards or EXP to go along with it, which was actually odd.
"Hey Naruto. What's up?" a familiar voice called out to him. The blond boy looked around to see Tenten waving at him as she jogged over to walk next to him.
"Ah, nothing much." he sighed, "Just some idiots who put the chakra saturation of TG 13 back up to maximum, so everything'll be stronger again."
"That sucks." The weapons expert winced, "Well at least you'll be able to challenge yourself again."
"True." Naruto allowed, "You out on an errand?"
"Yup. Doing a delivery." Tenten nodded, "To you actually. The last part of the Storm Suit you bought, the shoulder armour? Dad decided to replace it with something a little better. I'll show you when we get to your place."
When they entered Naruto's apartment, Tenten unrolled a scroll and unsealed a shoulder plate similar to the one he had bought, but it had several lines of Fūinjutsu written into the underside that had various effects, such as increasing the density of the armour when it was struck by physical attacks, as well as reducing the weight of the clothes to almost nothing.
"Wow…any reason why your Dad suddenly wanted to give me this?" Naruto asked, touched by the gesture.
"He said something about you likely being a magnet for trouble, so you need better armour than average or something like that." The brunette grinned, seeing the boy pout.
"It isn't like I asked for those damn 'Nuke-nin' to attack us." Naruto groused with his pout on full blast.
"I know Naruto." Tenten laughed, "By the way, where's Asuma-sensei? He usually drops in on us by this point."
"He left on a mission this morning." Naruto informed her, "He said he should be gone for about a week."
"Shame. I was looking forward to more lessons." The kunoichi commented with a sigh, "I can't believe it took Gai-sensei this long to get me a ninjutsu tutor! A whole year!"
"Didn't him teaching that Rock Lee guy take up a lot of his time?" Naruto pointed out, "From what Iruka-sensei and you have said, the only thing he has going for him is taijutsu, so getting it up to a point that he doesn't need ninjutsu or genjutsu must have really eaten into his time."
The Weapons Mistress sighed. "I know, I know, and I don't really begrudge Lee that. I mean, he tries so damn hard that you can't complain about it even if he does take up most of Gai-sensei's time. It's just…if he knew he would be spending most of his time with Lee, you'd have thought he'd have arranged tutors for me and Neji."
"Maybe he didn't know initially, but got caught up in teaching Lee." Naruto suggested, "I've heard that he's…overenthusiastic…about things."
Tenten snorted at that gross understatement of one Maito Gai. And Lee as well, now she came to think about it.
"true enough." She said with a chuckle, "I'd better head home. Otou-san is getting me to help him forging your sword. It'll be a great weapon, I promise."
"I'm looking forward to seeing it, Ten-chan." He said before clapping a hand over his mouth when he realised he had called her by a nickname without her permission. While not as rude as referring to her without honorifics without permission, it was still pretty rude and he knew very well how strong one Higurashi Tenten was, perhaps better than she did herself.
Much to his surprise, she blushed a bit and cleared her throat. "Ahem. W-Well you'd better. See ya next time you have to come to the shop."
Naruto stared after Tenten in puzzlement as she walked quickly left his apartment, still blushing slightly. What the heck had that been about?
Shrugging at what he labelled as another addition to the 'Weird Girl Habits' folder that he had mentally allocated all such incidences since he started paying attention to females. Needless to say, as Naruto wasn't the sharpest tool in the drawer when it came to noticing subtle hints and reading body language and facial expressions, this folder was fairly large.
A knock on the door came about five minutes later and Naruto welcomed the Hokage into his home. The old man looked tired and drawn, with echoes of residual fury and worry in his eyes.
"Ah, Naruto-kun." Sarutobi said with a sigh, "So, once again, we have people ambushing you inside of TG13. This is becoming something of a habit, my boy."
"Not due to any fault of my own." The Academy Student crossed his arms stubbornly.
"Quite so, but it has happened twice. And that is twice too often." The elderly Hokage said firmly, "I will have a barrier placed around the training ground so you will be able to detect the presence of anyone with active chakra within it. It will be keyed to you, so no one else will be able to use it. Should this occur again, however, I will be forced to prohibit you from entering TG13. Am I understood, Naruto-kun?"
"Hai, Jiji." Naruto replied, not happy about it, but understanding his grandfather figure's position.
"Very good. Now…" the Hokage sat on an armchair, "…please tell me your side of the story. The fourteen…morons…have cut a story from white cloth, I am sure, so hearing your side will be enlightening."
Naruto launched into a tale of his time in the Training Ground today (what little of it there was) and what the spandex clad weirdos had done, as well as a modest account of his own actions to take care of them.
"What I don't get was why they were wearing spandex of all things." Naruto added once he finished.
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