“Thank you, Naruto,” Hinata said. “Being a ninja will never be safe for any of us, but your care makes my world a brighter place.”
“Personally I don’t plan to let a little thing like death stop me,” I declared. “A hundred years from now we’re going to be turning over the reins of power to our grandkids so we can go explore the multiverse or something.”
Naruto chuckled. “Well, glad to know being the world’s top medic-nin doesn’t stop you from being ambitious. Ok, girls, we’ve got a lot to think about and I don’t want us making any dumb mistakes, so we’re taking the loop off to figure out our next move.”
“Are you sure this isn’t just an excuse to get us alone, Naruto-sama?” Hinata giggled.
“Why would I need an excuse, Hinata? You know I’m perfectly capable of carrying you off to ravish you without one. In fact, you’re looking kind of tasty…”
He grabbed her wrist and pulled her into his lap, where he buried his face in her cleavage. She shrieked in delight, and giggled madly as he nosed about making silly noises.
“Tasty titties!” Naruto announced. “Gonna eat’em all up! Om nom nom!”
The stab of jealousy I expected didn’t come. I was too busy enjoying their smiles to feel neglected.
“Goof!” I mussed his hair with an indulgent smile. “Ooh! Tasty toes!”
Hinata proved adorably ticklish.
The three of us had never had a full-length vacation loop together, but combining our efforts made it trivial to arrange. I split myself and left an aspect behind to play myself in the exam, and Naruto made some kind of permanent clone to do the same. Then the two of us snuck out of town and made out way up to the Twin Falls resort on the edge of Fire Country. It was one of the nicer resorts I’d visited with Tsunade, located at the bottom of a huge gorge with a spectacular view of not one but two waterfalls. Naruto got us a honeymoon sweet, and I made Hinata a body as soon as we settled into our rooms.
“I am so glad to be able to spend time together as myself,” I announced as I finished. I’d reverted to my adult form before we’d checked in, and Naruto had done his own transformation at the same time.
“Me too,” Naruto said. “The scenery is much better this way. But you two are going to need new clothes pretty quick.”
“Oh, I don’t have to spend the loop henge streaking?” Hinata asked slyly. “I thought the plan was to see how long I can go without getting hit by a dispel in public.”
“Tempting,” I admitted. “But no, the only people I want seeing me naked are in this room. I assume the plan is to make some money gambling and then hit the shops?”
“Exactly,” Naruto said. “I want to buy you both a million presents, and my luck is always good.”
“Who needs luck?” I asked. “Tell you what, you try your luck and I’ll try my advanced cheating techniques. Whoever ends up with more winnings can pay for the shopping expedition.”
“Out! Out! And don’t come back!” The casino manager shouted angrily as he pushed us towards the door. I suppose the trio of bouncers with him were supposed to be intimidating, but none of them had enough chakra to matter.
“Ok, ok, just let me cash in my chips,” Naruto said amiably. He was holding a stack worth about fifty thousand ryo, which put my otherwise respectable winnings to shame.
“I said out!” The manager shouted angrily, and moved to shove the pile out of Naruto’s hands. Big mistake. Hinata appeared between them and grabbed his wrist, twisting it to pin his arm behind his back and then forcing him to the floor with her dainty foot between his shoulder blades in one elegant motion. She held his trapped arm lightly in one hand, keeping it painfully extended without quite breaking anything.
“You should be more polite to ninja, manager-san,” she chided. “Shall I kill them all, Sakura?”
Naruto gave her a startled look, and I chuckled. “Not asking the boss, Hinata?”
“Naruto-sama is much too nice for his own good,” she answered. “You’ll let me decorate the walls with their blood if they deserve it. Shall I?”
The bouncers went pale, and started edging away. They knew better than to tangle with ninja.
“No, I’m sure the manager was just overwrought,” I said. “He’ll be happy to let us cash in our chips before we leave. Won’t you?”
“Yes!” He gasped. “Please, whatever you want, just take the money and go!”
“There, see?” I patted her on the cheek, and she let the man up. I might have had more sympathy if I didn’t know he was a petty yakuza boss, and his gambling hall made a fortune cheating customers with everything from loaded dice to an artfully rigged roulette wheel.
Ok, so he’d whine to his boss, and he’d send someone to ‘teach us a lesson’, and when that didn’t work things would probably escalate. But there wasn’t a yakuza enforcer in the whole country who could make any of us break a sweat, so I’d just consider it part of the entertainment.
Naruto looked amused as he collected his winnings, and I figured he was thinking the same thing. Then he offered us each an arm, and the three of us made our exit.
“Alright, girls, we’re hitting the clothing stores first,” he announced. “I’ve got to see those legs in miniskirts.”
I chuckled. “You’re going to take two girls shopping for clothes on an unlimited budget? You’re braver than I thought, partner.”
“I know. This is a peril that has claimed the sanity of many a brave ninja,” he said theatrically. “But I shall win through with the aid of my ultimate technique!”
Between one step and the next his chakra reversed polarity, and I found myself on the arm of a gorgeous woman instead of a handsome man.
“Let’s see now,” she mused. “There’s a tailor and a couple of good clothing shops on that plaza that faces the southern waterfall, and a neat little shoe store a couple of blocks over from there. Oh, and Izumi’s salon, we have to stop there! Sakura, have you ever thought about changing your hair? Not the color, that’s just too striking to give up no matter how much it limits your wardrobe selection. But I’m thinking maybe something short, to frame your face and show off that neck…”
Hinata and I exchanged a mischievous look. Oh, this was going to be fun.
A few days later we decided to head up the valley a bit and get in a little sparring in the wilderness above the gorge. We were all looking forward to the chance to test ourselves against each other and show off a bit, but the results weren’t exactly what I expected.
Hinata could kick my ass in close combat nine times out of ten, which didn’t surprise me after her performance against Orochimaru. Her speed technique made her so insanely fast that even at full boost I had trouble keeping up, and her actual skill level wasn’t far behind mine. Add in her immunity to illusions, her mist techniques and a library of lethal close-range ninjutsu and I was sometimes amazed I could even land a hit.
Of course, it was a different story if she didn’t manage to close with me right off. My medium-range ninjutsu was miles better than hers, my chakra reserves were deeper, and her best defensive techniques required her to stop moving for a few seconds. She quickly learned that I could usually wear her out or crack her defenses, and started turning our long-range matches into a game of hide-and-seek in the surrounding woods instead of slugging it out. Which, of course, played back to her strengths.
Naruto, on the other hand, could beat Hinata easily. The first time they sparred he let her get right into close combat, then flared his aura up to full strength and shut down her speed technique by the simple expedient of opposing her chakra with his own. Normally that’s isn’t feasible against a real opponent, but he was so strong his chakra completely overpowered hers even inside her own body. She tried to press on, but about thirty seconds later he managed to trap her in a bear hug and started kissing the back of her neck. Her will to fight pretty much went up in smoke at that point.