some friends

John turned to see two familiar people "Kiba! Shikamaru! Hey, how are you two doing!", he exclaimed as he turned to meet his friends again after that one, long month.

"I'm good as new again, as you can see!", Kiba laughed and patted his chest to show he had recovered completely. The gesture failed a bit as Kiba winced while doing so.

"I'm doing fine as well...", Shikamaru sighed. Then, uncharacteristically, Kiba sighed as well.

Kiba chose to answer that one for Shikamaru. "they posted the match-ups for the final round just the other day.

now that the matches had been decided John wanted to know who's fighting who."What about the other matches?"

"Hmm? Oh yeah, Sakura will be fighting your friend Temari . Naruto vs choji. gaara vs Shino and Ino is up against the chick that mopped the floor with me.", Kiba said, chuckling a bit in self-irony. It seemed that, even while it hurt his body and pride to be beaten by a girl, he took it well and with humour.

"Really... I hope they're up for it.", John muttered, getting a little worried. Temari had effortlessly disposed of Tenten and Tayuyas match was only overshadowed by Gaara in terms of pure brutality.

"Oh, I wouldn't worry about that. As far as I heard, your sensei had them train 24/7. I wouldn't be surprised if they're a lot stronger now.", Kiba said with a laugh. For a moment there,

"So how about you, John? Did you train or what did you do in that month while you were gone?", Shikamaru asked, an eyebrow raised. It had surprised everyone to learn that his new teacher had taken him out of Konoha. So now he was naturally curious to see the results for himself.

John pumped a fist in the air in confidence. "Oh, I trained a lot! I've gotten a lot stronger too, just you wait. So, who am I going to fight first?", he asked.

kiba and shikamaru looked at each other and Kiba said." you'll be fighting That Neji dude" a evil look came from John when he heard that he'll be facing Neji

"Yeah well... good luck with your fight, John.", Kiba said with a pat on his shoulders and turned to leave again.

"Huh? Wait, where are you going?", John asked

"I'm helping out my sister a bit. Akamaru is still not quite ready to come with me, so she's taking care of him. That's why I do my part to help her.", Kiba explained. Now that he mentioned it, John indeed saw that the little puppy was now with its owner here today.

"And I was just on an errand with my mom when I met Kiba. It's troublesome, but by talking to you guys, she's probably gonna yell at me again. So, I better get going too.", Shikamaru explained himself as well.

There was nothing to say against this, but Naruto still had a question left he needed to ask, lest he would be wandering the village for a while. "Alright... uh, any ideas where I can find the girls?"

kiba seemed to think about it for a moment before answering. "I think they should be at Ichiraku about now. They wanted to meet up there after training. You know, they're all really close lately... strange, but I guess that's how women are. Always conspiring against us guys.", Kiba lamented with a grand gesture.

"Yeah, but they don't seem to mind John all too much...", Shikamaru noticed.

Only now that his teammate mentioned it, it occurred to Kiba that this was really the case. "You're right... well, then you'll be our inside man in that evil organization called women, okay? I wanna hear everything about it later, John.", he demanded as if it were vital, top-secret information he expected from Naruto later on.

"Uh, sure...", John slowly said as Kiba and Shikamaru waved him off and went their own ways, leaving him to do the same. And his way brought him straight to Ichiraku Ramen. Not only did he have to go without it for nearly a month, but he also hoped to find his girls there, so it was win-win here for him...