Kurenai was standing off to the side with a smile on her face, happy to see her student like this. "Excuse me, Ino, but would you mind explaining something to me? Why did you not include Sakura in the girls day out?"
Ino's face immediately fell into a scowl. "I want nothing more to do with that bitch."
"Ino, is this about your fight from the preliminaries?" Kurenai asked.
"No, this has nothing to do with that." Ino said before letting out a breath and told them what Naruto told her. With shocked expressions on their faces, Hinata's heart monitor starts to pick up in pitch, a nurse rushed in to see if everything was okay.
"Yes." Ino and Kurenai answered before Ino continued. "She just learned something that made her mad."
"Very well, but please refrain from doing it again, she can't afford too much strain on her heart." The nurse advised, receiving nods from all three women before she left, closing the door.
"Sorry Hinata, I didn't mean to upset you." Ino apologized.
"It's okay, you have nothing to apologize for Ino." Hinata responded kindly, having settled down.
"Okay, enough of this; let's get back to planning our day out!" Cheered the platinum blonde.
===10:41 AM, Business District===
A couple blocks away Naruto felt a cold shiver run down his spine. "I have a feeling something big is going to happen soon." He muttered to himself. "The first thing I need to do is get new equipment to train with, and there's only one store in the whole village that'll have it." He made his way across the village and walked up to one of the stores that always treat him well, and looked up at the familiar sign, The Silver Star.
Opening the door and walking in, he saw Akari, the wife of the owner, asleep with her head on the counter. Putting on the famous Uzumaki grin that sent ninjas running ever since he was a kid, he thought to himself that it had been a while since he pulled a prank while tiptoeing to the counter before he took in a giant breath.
"Naruto, if you even think about shouting, I'm going to use you as a training dummy." She said.
"Aw man, how do you always know when I'm going to do something?" Naruto whined.
"I'm a Mother, which means I have a sixth sense for children who misbehave." Akari answered as she stood up and stretched her back, chuckling at Naruto's pout and crossed arms. "Okay Naruto, now that we got that out of the way, how can I help you today?"
"I'm in the Finals so I'm going to need enough equipment to train for the month, including some new clothes. I love orange, but I think it's time for a change." Naruto said.
"Yes, yes, yes, yes, finally! It's about time you got rid of that jumpsuit! I've been telling you for years that if you wear that much orange, it's like a giant bullseye!" In response to her comment, Naruto blew a raspberry, but before he could even blink, Akari's hand flew out and grabbed his tongue, causing him to flail his arms about and plead to Akari to let go. "If I let go, will you behave?" Naruto nodded his head and she let go while laughing a bit. "Let's see about getting you some new equipment and clothes to make sure you look good, I'm picking all your new clothes and I'm not taking no for an answer."
Okay, I trust you." Naruto answered with a nod.
"Good, now take off your jacket so I can get a look at you." Akari said before Naruto did what was asked. She began to walk around him and looked him up and down for about three minutes before finally nodding. "I got an idea. Okay, go sit down in the chair while I get the clothes."
Walking over to the chair and sitting down, Naruto began to think about what he is going to do for training, that is until he remembered when he was back in the Land of Waves and those small structures he found in the woods on the way to the bridge, which he never got a chance to go back to. 'I guess I can always go back and see what's in it. Who knows, it might have something that I can use to win the fight with Neji. If I win, there will still be the other competitors.' He thought then he remembered everything Kakashi said about him earlier, about how he's always acting like an idiot, running into battle without thinking. 'I think it's about time I start changing the way I do things. If I'm going to change the way I look, I should change the way I act.' He was so deep in thought, he didn't notice Akari yelling his name until she reached out and knocked on his head, snapping him out of his deep thoughts. He looked at the clock and saw it had been over half an hour before looking back to Akari and saw a massive pile of clothes, causing him to sweat and look between the door and the clothes.
"Don't even think about trying to run Naruto. I'm going to get you out of that orange jumpsuit one way or another." Akari reminded him. Accepting defeat, Naruto nodded his head, Akari walked over to the front door, flipped the sign to 'Closed' and locked it. "I want you to take those clothes into the changing room and try them on, and I want you to come out and show me so I can help decide." Naruto picked up the clothing, and to the amusement of Akari, he had to 'model' the various outfits. She sometimes went to get even more clothes. before Naruto finally stepped out of the changing room, wearing black ninja-style pants, gray combat boots and an armored mesh shirt like Anko's under a black leather trench coat with fingerless shinobi gloves, meaning they had metal plates on the backs, his headband now acting as a belt buckle.