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If you see any name or grammar errors, please tell me. I'm sure I got some of the spelling wrong.

Please review. I would love to hear your views.



An Interwoven Web Of Deceit



Ino - My View On Naruto Is......









The sun was shining brightly, as it should have been in that part of the country. Shopkeepers were just opening up shop, placing items on their special boards. Children were running through the streets, playing their silly games and the shoppers were only just walking the streets, beginning their daily routine.

Ino was bored.

She was annoyed with herself for feeling that way, especially at the start of the day, but that was how it was. She had already called on Shikamaru and Choji but both of them were still asleep, not surprisingly. Anyway, it was their day off. Sakura was helping around the house and Sasuke hadn't appeared yet. As bored as she was, there was no way she was going to help out in her mothers shop today. She'd had enough of it and had escaped the house early that morning. This being the reason she was strolling through the streets early that morning.

Walking past the public baths, she was just thinking how quiet it was when screaming came from the ladies section. And a few seconds later, a man in red and white, with white hair came running past her, followed by bath products and hair utensils.

"PERVERT!" came the screams. Ino sighed and began gathering everything up and then took it back into the baths. She then began walking again, heading towards the training ground.

"I might as well get in a bit of practice," she thought. "If I don't, I'll fall behind and the last thing I want is to be weaker than Sakura."

These thoughts stopped when she heard sounds coming from ahead of her. Curiously, she moved forward, keeping herself downwind until she spotted the person near the practice poles.

"Naruto?"

Ino didn't think that Naruto got up this early. She imagined him to be the kind of person who slept in late, ate a quick brunch and then spent the day roaming the streets, pulling pranks on people.

Staring at him now, this shot her theory of him out of the window. Considering the mass array of weapons and the state the pole was in, he had obviously been here a while. Did this happen often? Ino didn't know much about the blonde boy, other than what she heard muttered. In school, he acted as interested in schoolwork as Shikamaru and as sensible as Kiba. The last in the class and laughed at by everyone. When she mentioned him to her parents once, they had looked uncomfortable, even guilty about something, and then had changed the subject. Other people she had met, usually by coming into her parents shop, had bad mouthed him quite often, but when she had asked what he had done, they had clamed up and refused to say anything else. At the time, being young, she had dismissed it, not really caring.

Recently, Naruto had been showing parts of himself that no one had seen before. During the Chunnin exams, in his fight with Kiba, he had shown skills that no one thought he had, and when he had fought Neji, she had been shocked at how powerful he had become. At the time though, she had been more interested in Sasuke's fight.

Sasuke.

Ino had finally grown out of her Sasuke obsession and moved on. Sure, he was still the most gorgeous boy in Konoha, but she couldn't stand his attitude, and when he had run off to join the snake, Orochimaru, what he was really like had hit her. Poor Sakura was still hung up on him.

A loud crack interrupted her musings and she looked up to see the practice pole that Naruto had been using, broken in two. Naruto stood before the two splintered pieces, his breathing slightly harder, with blood dripping from his knuckles.

"Damnit," Ino heard him curse then watched him sit down, leaning against the part of pole that was buried in the ground. He began to rub his fingers over his scrapes and Ino saw him wince slightly.

Shikamaru had told Ino that it was Naruto that had brought Sasuke back. He had not given up on his friend and had made sure everyone had come back alive, although injured. She stared at the still seated Naruto, and made up her mind.

Naruto looked up at her when she pushed through the foliage that she had been hiding behind and gave her a confused smile. The smile had been pasted on, Ino noticed. It was a quick twist of facial featured done in a blink or you'll miss it way. Ino surmised that Naruto was so used to doing it that he didn't realise he did it anymore.

"Ino, what are you doing here?"

Ino winced slightly. She never hung out with Naruto, so of course he wouldn't chat to her familiarly and would be surprised to see her. She had noticed that he was a very friendly person and he cared deeply about his friends. She could have used the excuse that she never had the time to get to know him, but she would have been lying. She had decided to change that. Despite Naruto's idiotic nature, he had a heart of gold and Ino decided it was about time she got to know him.

"I'm not disturbing you am I?" she asked, stopping in front of the seated boy. "If I am, I could leave."

"No," Naruto waved a hand in front of him. "Stay, I don't mind."

Ino sat down in front of him and then pulled out a clean tissue and her water bottle. After wetting the tissue, she grabbed one of Naruto's hands and began dabbing at the cuts.

"What are you doing?"

"Cleaning your wounds," Ino replied, still dabbing. "I don't know why boys feel the need to train to the point of injury. It just takes longer to recover." She dropped his hand and reached for the other. "They also get infected." She stared down at Naruto's other hand in slight surprise. The knuckles had already begun healing. She washed away the now dried blood to only find small, half healed cuts. Naruto snatched his hand away.

"Well I don't," Naruto leaned back and stared at the sky. "I suppose you could say that I'm lucky like that." Ino noted that his eyes darkened as he said this. "Anyway, you didn't answer my question. Why are you here?"

Ino dropped her eyes and stared at her lap. "I was bored."

"Figures," was the reply. "No one would hang out with me willingly."

Ino's eyes hardened and she stared at the blond boy. "Look, I could have easily found something to do and not bothered to come here, but I decided to come and see you, willingly. I said I was bored, not I am bored."

Naruto looked back at her, his mask dropping slightly. "Seriously?"

"Seriously." Ino twisted her fingers in her lap slightly. "Actually, would you train with me? I could use some pointers, if you're willing?"

"Of course I will," Naruto jumped up and held out a hand, pulling Ino to her feet as well. "This will be fun."

xxxxxxxx

Ino lay on her back, panting with exhaustion but happy. Naruto had put her through quite a workout. When she had trained with Shikamaru and Choji, both were too lazy to push through their restrictions so she never felt that she had done enough. At this point though, she could barely move but at the same time, felt better for it.

"That was great," Naruto stretched, a large grin on his face. "Thanks Ino."

"Anytime." Ino pulled herself up wearily and stared at him. She had barely touched him when she had attacked. He was too fast and she suspected that he hadn't even tapped into his strength when attacking her. "Could we do this again tomorrow?"

Naruto looked at her in questioning surprise. "Do you actually want to hang out with me again?" He sounded shocked and Ino had to laugh.

"Of course. This was fun and I think you really helped me." She stood up and walked over to where she had left her small bag, wincing slightly as she moved. "I know, let me treat you to lunch."

"Ramen?" came Naruto's questioning suggestion.

"Yes, Ramen."

Ino smiled as Naruto whooped with joy and they both left the training ground together, Ino completely forgetting that she looked like she had fallen out of a thorn bush backwards.

"Is this your favourite food?" she asked the smiling boy beside her curiously. "I see you eat it a lot."

"Oh yeah, you can't get better than Ramen," was the reply. "What is your favourite Ino?"

"Well, when it comes to food, I actually like anything but I adore Okonomiyaki. My favourite sweets are most definitely chocolate covered toffee balls."

"Oh, me too. I love those."

They reached Ichiharu's and walked in, sitting themselves at the counter.

"Miso?"

"Yep."

Ino ordered two miso Ramen bowls, then leaned back and stretched, clicking her shoulder muscles. She knew she was going to ache later and decided to make a trip to the baths before she went home that evening. She stared around the Ramen shop, noting that no one was there that she knew, apart from Huuga Hinata, the shy girl who had been on the same team as Shino and Kiba. She was sitting alone at a table, her face buried in a book. Ino would have dismissed her presence, if she hadn't noticed the red blush on her face and the way her eyes moved from her book, to Naruto, then back to her book again.

"Well, well, well," Ino grinned and nudged the boy next to her. "Hey, Naruto, do you know Hinata?"

"Hinata?" The boy replied, staring at her, "Of course, why?"

Was Sakura the only one he spoke to familiarly, Ino wondered, then shrugged. "Well, she's sitting on the table behind us and she keeps staring at you and blushing."

"Again?" Naruto turned back to the front and stared at the man cooking in front of them. "She's a little strange, but nice."

"Strange?" Ino asked questioningly, "How so?"

"She's always stammering and blushing when I'm near. Also, she's too quiet."

"Don't you thing maybe that's because she likes you?"

"What are you getting at?" Naruto looked confused. "I like her too but I don't act strange in front of her."

Okay, Naruto was a little on the dense side. She should have realised that. "I mean, she likes you, as in likes you as boyfriend material. She has feelings for you," Ino explained patiently.

"No she doesn't," was the reply.

"She obviously does. Are you telling me you've never noticed?"

"There's nothing to notice."

Ino growled, then turned to the bowl of Ramen that was placed in front of her and picked up her chopsticks. "Believe what you want Naruto, that's up to you."

"I will," Naruto replied around a mouthful of noodles. "That's how I live."

Ino smiled at that, eating what was in front of her quickly.

"Well I suppose that is a good way to see things, but also, you miss what is right in front of you if you don't look around first."

"Are you trying to get theoretic on me Ino? If you are, then cut it out. I get enough of that from Kakashi sensei."

"Do you even know what theoretic means?" Ino stared at the boy next to her suspiciously. It didn't sound like anything she would have expected the boy to know, let alone use in a sentence.

"Of course I know what it means. I can read you know." Naruto put his chopsticks down next to his empty bowl. "I decided to learn a new word each day to expand my mind."

"So, that is today's word?" Ino smiled impishly.

"No, its yesterdays," Naruto smiled back. "Today's is camaraderie, which I think is quite ironic."

Ino began to laugh, leaning back slightly on her stool. "Yeah, you're right. I think it is." Her laugh faded to slight giggling and she also put her chopsticks down and then held out her hand in front of Naruto. "I'd say we are friends and I'd be happy to be regarded as yours."

Naruto took it and shook it heartily. "Most definitely."

Ino slid off her stool after Naruto released her hand and took some money out of her bag. "What time do you want to meet tomorrow?"

"It will be after missions, so I would say at about three?"

"That's fine." Ino placed the money on the counter and smiled. "I've got to go now. I'll see you tomorrow Naruto-kun."

"Okay Ino...chan," was the hesitant answer.

Ino smiled even wider, then left the shop, waving behind her and then walked towards the bathhouse. Today she had learnt something new, got in good training and made a new friend and training partner. All in all, a very good day!



**









Now please don't be too critical with this story. This is my first Naruto attempt and I don't want to muck up the story too much. I have only seen up to Sasuke leaving the village so I'm not sure what exactly happened.

I do have plans for this story but if wanted, I'll leave it as a one shot. At first glance it looks like an Ino/Naruto paring, but if a chaptered story, would become a Sasuke/Naruto, 'cause they are most definitely right!

Well, tell me what you think and thanks for reading

Rie

xx