Fireworks

Chapter 16

It was just after lunch that Naruto managed to escape the clutches of Kiba, Lee and Ino, demanding to know what happened during the meeting. He hadn't seen Sasuke since waking up in the morning and he hadn't seen Itachi since the day before. He had caught a glimpse of Sai talking in serious undertones with Asuma before he had been dragged into a sushi restaurant with Kiba. The entire town was getting ready for the war and here Naruto was trying to run away from over excited friends. He hadn't been called in to do anything and he had only seen Kakashi when he had submitted his report in the morning. It frustrated him. Wasn't he one of the Hokage's students? Wasn't he one of the higher ranked jounins in Konoha? How had he not been called and given orders or summoned to some sort of strategic meeting? Everyone else around him seemed plenty busy. It bothered him that he somehow seemed left out of the loop even though he was all better now and had been in the thick of everything from the start.

He knocked into Sakura with a clipboard and shopping bags the size of which he never knew existed. She glanced up at him and he could tell she had been chewing on her lip, a habit she developed whenever she was stressed out. She seemed to brighten once she saw him though.

"Oh, Naruto! What's this, you don't have training with someone or something?" Sakura shifted some of the bags and Naruto saw an insane amount of medicinal plants in them.

"No, I do have to meet Sasuke in a couple of hours, but otherwise I have nothing else to do." Naruto explained with a shrug.

"Meet Sasuke, huh?" Sakura asked with what Naruto could almost call a knowing smile. "That's nice, I suppose the two of you need to have some alone time. Well then, I'm off to the hospital." Sakura shifted the bags all over again.

"Let me help you carry those," Naruto offered. Sakura chuckled.

"I'm sure you know pretty well that I can handle these by myself." She grinned widely. "But thank you for the offer. Maybe you can go and train a little bit with Neji, Lee and Tenten. I saw them heading off to the training grounds for a brief training session." Naruto frowned at her unhappily, but watched her walk off cheerfully.

As much as he enjoyed training with the training obsessed group, he wasn't in the mood train. He felt like doing something a lot more serious. He wanted to be given a mission. Shoving his hands into his pockets, he decided. He was on his way to the Hokage's office the next moment, with a stick of dangos in his mouth, wondering if Itachi would be jealous enough to blow fire at him.

"Kakashi sensei," Naruto called, opening the door and not caring for the fact that Kakashi, Obito, Rin, Tsunade, Yamato and the elders were animatedly discussing something. All of them turned to look at him and then Tsunade shot a look at Kakashi that spelled 'I told you so'. "Give me something to do before I go crazy." Naruto demanded. Kakashi sighed.

"I should've known the nosiest member of the group would notice he was being left out." Kakashi leaned back on his chair. "Alright then, let's give you something to do. How friendly would you consider yourself with Nii Yugito, Naruto?"

"Yugito? She's alright, I enjoyed talking to her at the meeting." Naruto nodded and answered honestly.

"Right, Nii Yugito's party was ordered to turn around and come to Konoha instead. There has been an unforeseen obstacle. Several villages on her party's path have been attacked by an unknown force. See to it that when she arrives everything she might need will be there. You can arrange a suitable group to help you out." Kakashi nodded. "Gaara sent in a message saying that there seems to be some disturbances at the Kaze no Kuni border otherwise they would have accommodated her."

"Understood." Naruto nodded. He walked back out, wondering who he should ask to help him. Well first of all, since it was Nii Yugito, he should probably ask Kiba or he'd never hear the end of it. Since Karui was coming then maybe he could ask Chouji? If Neji, Tenten and Lee were just training then he could ask them to help. Naruto tossed the stick that was still in his mouth into a trashcan and first headed for the training group.