บท 145: Chapter 145

"You fought splendidly," Guy notes as Tenten-chan starts to come around. She winces when she tries to talk and realizes she's been struck in the face nearly as hard as Lee-kun does. "Wha-" "Be calm, Tenten-chan," her sensei tells her. "We can talk about your strategy later, however, Naruto is the victor of this wager, but you shouldn't feel ashamed! Your amazing and beautiful sensei has also lost many battles in his youth, but I never gave up and neither should you."

"Yeah," Naruto adds. "You almost had me a bunch of times."

"No," Tenten bemoans through her sore jaw, turning to her father. "Tou-chan…"

He simply shakes his head in undeniable disappointment before turning away from her. The weapons dealer observes Haku sealing Kubikiribōchō in the orange and blue scroll before leaving his daughter behind. Tenten hides her face in her sensei's shoulder. Naruto stomps forward to yell at her asshole of a father for making her feel sad but Kurenai puts her hand on his shoulder and he refrains from chasing the man and punching him.

"If she needs a place to stay, please bring her to my home," Kurenai offers.

As her father wouldn't allow her to enter her home with the shame of her loss, Guy-sensei did bring Tenten to Kurenai's house that night. Though Naruto couldn't spend the night, he was happy Nai-chan cared enough to help Tenten.

Despite how much stronger Naruto felt, he was still nearly done in by her impressive accuracy, so rather than go to bed right away, Naruto and eleven clones practice the next step of creating the Rasen-shuriken. He wanted to know who his parents are and more than anything, he wanted to be strong enough to fight against the worst out there, because Naru-nii, said the ninja world is big and there's a lot of weird fighters out there.

KURENAI

"You're welcome to stay here for as long as you need," Kurenai tells a glum Tenten with a bandage over her cheek. Tenten enters the spare bedroom without a word. "If you need anything, I'll be down the hall."

Finally setting her duffel bag down, she asks, " why does he have Kubikiribōchō?"

"I'm sorry Tenten-chan," Kurenai starts. "I'm not at liberty to discuss that. It may be hard, but trust in your sensei-"

"Please," Tenten calls emphatically. "I lost to a genin fresh out of the Academy. What has this whole year and a half meant if I can lose so easily… I…" her voice fades when Tenten realizes Kurenai-sensei has no reason to answer her; to help her make sense of her loss.

But Tenten didn't know Kurenai's a strong inheritor of Konoha's Will of Fire and leans against the door frame as the beautiful Jōnin states, "this has less to do about Naruto and more to do with you. It seems to me you expect a lot of yourself and while that's not a bad driving force to have, it can lead to adverse effects if you rely too heavily on it. The only thing you are responsible for is training every single day to extend your limits."

"But I do," Tenten replies. "It's impossible not to with a Sensei like Guy."

"I can't fault you there," Kurenai muses before stating, "maybe ask Guy-sensei on ways to round out your abilities. I wouldn't be the Genjutsu Mistress if I only knew how to manipulate one of our five senses. I need all five perspectives to be masterful and you are more than one thing. Taijutsu, Genjutsu, Ninjutsu, Fūinjutsu, Iryō Ninjutsu, and on, and on. The shinobi world is large and as Guy ultimately means to say, never give up, because Naruto surely doesn't."

INO

Ino has a problem.

Sex, lovemaking, fucking; Naruto is a lot better than she ever expected him to be and he consistently makes her pass out from mind-bending pleasure. His kisses, the way he whispers in her ear, the way he holds her, his all-around impressive manhood and the way he uses it on her… 'either he's a natural at sex or my psychosomatic trigger is working overtime to suffocate me in raw pleasure. Maybe it's a bit of both?' her mind reasons.

Since they made their deal, she's had sex with Uzumaki Naruto at least twice a week, and every time, she's only able to make it to his first orgasm before passing out. They generally tend to have sex in that ever-widening cave behind the waterfall, but they've also had sex in her room when he visited her, his room in Iruka-sensei's home, and even in his old apartment. The only time she ever survived two of his orgasms was when he fucked her in the ass first.

'It's so humiliating,' Ino mentally groans, as she's always taken delight in her effect on men. Certainly, it can be annoying when some men don't understand when she's not interested, but at the end of the day, she'd rather have the attention than not. After all, it isn't the flower's fault for being so magnetic.

Naruto is not the most attractive man she's ever seen; especially standing next to Sasuke-kun or Hyūga Neji. Naruto's slightly above average in looks but nothing to write pages about. 'I should be dominating him,' her mind yells. 'Wrapping him around my little finger. Under normal circumstances, if I even gave him a chance to date me, he should be thanking me for spending time with him!' And yet, Ino's knees automatically wobble whenever she sees him. Her breath quickens, her nipples stiffen, her womanhood steadily grows drenched, and her memories stuff her deep into heavy arousal.

Certainly, Sakura hasn't helped the irregular acuity of her arousal in any way. Since the pinkette's been returning the attention every day, Ino always finds herself debating finding Naruto to relieve her heavy ache or not. There's so much that goes into that decision; many questions that all center around her fear of why Naruto makes her feel so good when she doesn't love him like she does Sasuke-kun. Yet, every time Ino leaves Naruto, she's thinking about him, about herself, about possibilities, and about what she thinks she knows about real love. Her mother had once confessed she preferred the phrase, 'life-partner.'