Naruto One Man Team by Ackdam

Chapter 26: Misleading

Naruto awoke the next morning to find Hinata already gone. In her place was a note saying that she turned off his alarm so he could sleep in a little, not that his biological clock actually let him lay about for too long. Since he wasn't one to sit around and do nothing, he got out of bed and got ready for his day. One of his first tasks was to remake his traveling pack so he would be ready in case a new mission came up. Being as the last one only took a couple days, he didn't have too much to replenish. A set of clothes and some ration bars for his scroll and some kunai to go in his pouch.

Next on his list was his laundry. He already had his clothes from the mission soaking overnight, but they still needed washed, so he made a clone to take care of that little chore without a second thought while he made himself some breakfast. With the basics out of the way, his next step was the organization of everything he managed to get from the bandits they conquered. He didn't really want to call it a fight much less a battle. Usually those entailed them getting at least some scratches. Something that just wasn't the case in this instance. Unfortunately, before he could dive into those storage scrolls he heard the door to the house open and close.

"Naruto!" Hinata's voice rang out through the ground floor.

"Out back Hinata!" He quickly packed up what he had out and stowed it away for later as he got up and headed for the door. They almost collided as Hinata rushed out to meet him, and only a quick grab and twirl kept them from falling to the ground. "Careful Hinata-chan, wouldn't want to get us too hurt, though we could use it as an excuse to stay in bed all day."

She at least had the decency to blush before remembering why she came home. "I requested that you take the lead of our mission today. I hope you don't mind, you said it would be ok..." Her pleading eyes were too much for him to bare. Even if he'd wanted to stay home alone he wouldn't have been able to resist.

"Sure, let me just grab some things and we can go." He walked past her and bound up the stairs to his room.

"You don't want to know why?" Hinata yelled up after him.

The sound of objects moving around told her that Naruto was getting some things he would need for a mission. It seemed a little odd to her considering he didn't even know where they were headed or for how long. "You want me to go along, and you didn't want the person that was assigned to you to go. Do I need any other reason then that?" He walked out of his room and hopped down the steps, catching her in a hug as he stopped himself. "Besides, we get to spend more time together. Shall we go?"

"H-hai!" An excited Hinata and happy Naruto walked out the front gate to meet the waiting Harume. "Harume-chan, he's coming with, so we can get our mission now."

The girl turned towards them from her spot at the wall. "Cool, this'll be a lot better than that stuck up prick they tried to give us. For the betterment of the mission my ass." She huffed and started to lead the way towards the mission hall.

"You girls didn't get a mission yet?"

"They wouldn't let us pick one up without our sensei or an approved leader present. I guess you're the only one that got special permission to do that. Really, would it have been so bad to give us a couple of D-ranks and be done with it?" Harume grumbled her opinions back to them.

"Well, don't worry about it too much. Mine was a special case..."

"Yeah, you were the Hokage's favorite little ninja." She retorted.

Naruto cast a sideways look at Hinata, who just rolled her eyes in return and mouthed the word 'period'. He nodded in understanding. He recalled the explanation from when he was helping Hinata and Haku with there medical studies. Suffice it to say that he knew more about the female's inner workings than most males probably should. Of course he had learned a lot of it while Hinata was passed out since she couldn't get very far talking about anatomy when he was right next to her.