Chapter 48: Another Ambush?

Disclaimer: Naruto and all of its characters belong to Shueisha and Masashi Kishimoto. I own nothing but the original characters I create.

"Dialogue"

'Thoughts'

-Author notes-

Chapter 48: Another Ambush?

Sakura was about to ask 'where', but the moment she took a passing glance at the wall, it became too obvious.

The fabric used to 'camouflage' into the wall didn't quite match, and whoever was behind it hadn't even pressed it completely against the surface, making the whole effort to hide… totally futile. In fact, you could say that it only made them stand out even more.

If that was not enough, they began to move and giggle.

"S-stop, that tickles!"

"Ah!, who touched my bottom?!"

"T-there is no r-room here."

"What is this supposed to be?" Naruto didn't understand anything. If this was supposed to be an attempt to spy on him, it was even worse than Hinata's.

"It looks like academy students…" Sakura pointed out. Or at least that's what it looked like to her.

"Aha!" The one behind the 'camouflage' cast it aside and jumped out before pointing his finger at Naruto. "I knew my rival would be able to detect my presence and see through my hiding skills." The boy who shouted was short, with a skinny body and spiky brown hair.

"Wait, don't you mean 'our' hiding skills?" A boy with glasses and a bowl cut complained to the other one while cleaning the dust of his clothes. "We all worked on this!."

The third member was a girl with a very bizarre hairstyle, even for the village standard, and some red circles painted on her cheeks. She was not paying attention to the others and appeared to be busy examining the piece of fabric they had just used to hide. "Wait a minute… I don't think this matches the wall."

"It really doesn't…" Sakura made a complicated expression. She felt a bit bad for them.

"Who are you, and what are you talking about?" Naruto asked. He was sure he had never seen this boy before, but then again… he could have forgotten about it so he had to ask.

The boy didn't seem to mind his question and was, in fact, excited to answer. "My name is Konohamaru, and I want you to teach me!"

"I thought he was your rival." Sakura chimed in.

"Teach you?..." Naruto raised an eyebrow at this sudden request. He was not keen to teach things to others unless they were important to him. His knowledge was not something to be used carelessly. Otherwise, he may end up in the same situation as his previous life.

"That's right! Grampa is always telling me how much I could learn from Naruto, and even my Sensei has begun to speak about 'Mister Uzumaki's' great potential and calm demeanor, and how I should be more like him. So here I am, I came to learn!"

"I have no idea who your Sensei or your grandpa are, but I am n-"

"Whoa!" Konohamaru was now staring at Sakura. "You even have a cute girlfriend, can you teach me about girls too?"

"Girlfriend?!, no way, I like… wait, did you say cute?" Sakura muttered.

The boy's eyes went a bit lower and focused on a different area of her body. "She is a bit lacking in the chest department though." He said without missing a bit.

"Konohamaru!" His female companion appeared to be outraged.

"Sensei always says that you should keep the dirty thoughts inside your head, or you will get in trouble," his other friend reminded him.

Naruto didn't even need to look at Sakura's enraged face to know the boy was in serious trouble. Also, the air seems to have gotten a few degrees colder.

"How dare a brat like you talk about my chest?!" Sakura's fists were shaking with anger. She had not hit anyone in a long time, and she was very eager now.

Konohamaru must have sensed the danger and immediately took off running in the opposite direction.

"Come back here!" Sakura went after him.

"I'm very sorry about this!" The girl bowed to Naruto. "He learns these things from our Sensei…."

"This is bad… we should follow them, that girl looked very dangerous," the other one said.

"You are not wrong about that…" Naruto agreed to go with them. It would reflect badly on him if he allowed his teammate to beat up a child, and he knew well about Sakura's violent outbursts.

"Ahhh!"

They all heard Konohamaru's screams from around the corner and assumed that Sakura had caught up to him, but then they heard her too.

"Hey stop, let him go!"

When they arrived at the scene, they found Konohamaru being lifted in the air by a young man wearing foreign-looking clothes.

Next to him was a young blonde girl.

Sakura seemed to have shifted her anger towards those two. "Let him go, you brute! He is just a child."

"He bumped into me and didn't even bother to apologize…" The man increased the strength of his grip, making the boy yelp in pain. "From where I come from, that type of attitude will earn you a few beatings."

"Kankuro…." The girl spoke in a warning tone.

"Come on Sis, I'm just having a bit of fun. Besides…" He glanced at Naruto. "Don't you want to see if these Konoha genins are worth something, before the exam starts?"

Naruto examined them a bit closer. By their clothes, it was easy to tell that those two were not from around here. The symbol on their protectors told him exactly where they came from.

"Let me handle this." Naruto said as he passed by Sakura.

Sakura saw the confident manner in which Naruto confronted those two and could not help but feel a bit safer. 'Stop that!' The voice in her head screamed at her. 'That's not Sasuke!'

Kankuro watched as Naruto got closer and smiled with confidence. He could not see anything special about this genin. "You want me to let go of this boy? Why don't you make me?"

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