A/N: I'm back! I'm back in the Naruto-ing world!
And such a joy it is, too. I'm going to have fun with this. -cackles- This is sort of going to pick up where the last fic left off, but a few months have passed.
Naruto and the others are going to camp! I'm going to start out with Nari, I think.
Rating is T for language in some of the chapters, and to be safe. I'm fairly certain it's AU.
Usual pairings, of course. And . . . what am I missing?
Demyx: -huff, puff- What did I miss?
Crow: Ah, there you are. This isn't a Kingdom Hearts fic, but you still want to hang around?
Demyx: -shrugs- May as well.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, or any of the characters, or the manga, I'm just using them for my story. I also don't own Demyx. And thank God for that. I have enough trouble with my little brother.
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Chapter One - Trouble With Teamwork
Nari panted as she scrabbled her way up the tree. Camouflaging herself with a hasty illusion jutsu, she peered down to the tree's trunk to see if her persuer had caught up with her yet.
She had managed to avoid training with Gai for a month, but Tsunade had chewed her out when she had found her. Apparently it was one of the great Hyuuga traditions for the prodigies to not use facial expressions. Go figure.
Now she was on a mission, which should have been simple recon. Now she was being chased by a Grass ninja, which was proving to be very irritating.
A thought came to her, and she shapechanged into a small sparrow, gritting her teeth at the amount of chakra it took to change. She needed to get into better shape.
The sparrow Nari flew into the air, getting so high that even a ninja who specialized in jumping couldn't reach her, just in case. She beat her wings and lit out towards Konoha, eager to get back to her cat Twi and wondering what was going on with her friends.
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Sakura pressed herself against the solid tree, glancing over at Naruto. They and Sasuke were training together, a simple training "mission." Kakashi was with them as well, keeping an eye out to make sure they didn't kill each other. Because there'd been some trouble with their teamwork lately.
"Dobe," Sasuke hissed. "We need to go this way."
"No, this way," Naruto argued. Sakura rolled her eyes. Why did boys have to be so stubborn?
While they were arguing, she quietly slipped into the base they were sneaking into. She saw the scroll and carefully lifted it up, nodding to Kakashi. There weren't any traps on it, luckily enough, although some of these training "missions" had numerous traps. Sakura snuck out quickly, Kakashi disappearing behind her.
"Are you boys done yet?" she asked the boys, who were still arguing over how to get in. She hefted the scroll. "We've got what we came for, so let's go."
Sasuke and Naruto looked up, their eyes wide. "Oh," they both said faintly, turning slightly red. They wordlessly disappeared, which was odd for Naruto. Ever since he'd been forced to stop talking for a week, he hadn't been able to STOP talking.
Sakura shook her head and walked towards Konoha. Kakashi looked into the sky and saw a white bird drop a small scroll. He caught it and opened it up. He read the scroll, frowned, and disappeared in a puff of smoke.
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Ino scowled at Chouji, who was sitting at the table across from her, eating a seemingly endless amount of barbeque. "Shouldn't we be training?" she demanded.
"It would be too troublesome," Shikamaru said lazily; he was sitting next to Chouji. "Asuma gave us a week off, so why should we train?"
Ino let out a small scream of frustration. "You're both so lazy!" she exclaimed, getting up and leaving the store in a huff.
Shikamaru stared after her. "What's her problem?" he asked himself. Girls seemed to be like some other species sometimes.
Asuma was sitting next to Ino when she left. He looked out the window and saw a bird fluttering just beyond it. He excused himself and went outside, seeing the small scroll in its claws. Reading it, he cursed under his breath and vanished in a puff of smoke.
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Tenten hit the target with her kunai, smiling when she hit the bulls-eye. She glanced over at her companions, holding in her laughter as she did.
Lee was doing push-ups on one side of the clearing. His eyebrows had grown back some, but they were nowhere near as big as the caterpillars he'd had before. Gai was looking on, encouraging him by ranting on about youth. They had ignored Tenten and Neji for the better part of a week, trying to get Lee's eyebrows to grow back faster. They were still mostly ignoring Tenten and Neji, but not as much as before.
Tenten looked over at Neji and shook her head slightly, smiling. He seemed to be meditating, and to the untrained eye he seemed the same as before, but Tenten knew him too well. Neji was sulking, angry that he had smiled, frowned, moved his face's muscles. Tenten had learned about a week afterward that there was some sort of tradition, a tradition of stoicness. His whole family was moping, mourning the loss of his stoic face.
As she returned to her target practice, Tenten wondered what was going to happen now. It had been a while since something catostrophic had happened, and Konoha was overdue for an upturning.
Gai started slightly when the little white bird landed on his shoulder. He took the scroll from its beak and read it. Then he told Gai to keep at it and ran off.
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Shino glared at his teammates from behind his glasses, leaning against the tree where they met. Hinata was leaning against the bridge's handrail, her elbows resting on the smooth wood. Kiba was talking to Akamaru, his now gigantic dog. Why was Shino glaring, you ask? Because he was angry, of course.
It's not my fault, Cecile! he thought furiously to his bug friend. They didn't help me when I took my glasses off! I was chased for days! He shuddered, remembering the hordes of girls that had practically attacked him.
Hinata was looking at the sky, smiling faintly. She wasn't thinking about much of anything, except for how quiet it had been lately. She, like Tenten, thought that something HAD to be happening soon. Konoha was long overdue, indeed.
Kiba was talking excitedly to Akamaru about something that had happened the last night. Whatever it was doesn't matter, mostly because I have no idea what it is. A cat was sitting on the bridge's handrail, her long tail undulating in the air. Kiba had promised to take care of Twi, Nari's cat. He seemed to have taken Twi under his wing, treating her like Akamaru.
Kurenai was watching the three of them, her arms folded. They were resting after a day of training, deciding to stay together instead of going home. Hinata pointed to the sky, pointing at a small bird. Kurenai held up one hand, the palm flat, and let the bird land. She took the scroll the bird offered and unrolled it, reading it quickly. "I'll see all of you for training tomorrow," she said quietly, vanishing.
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"All right," Tsunade said as soon as all of the jounin had gathered. "I've called you all here for a reason."
"And it better be a good one," Kakashi warned. He looked miffed.
"I've noticed that some of your teams have had some . . . trouble cooperating lately," Tsunade said hesitantly.
"I've noticed it, too," Asuma agreed. "What should we do about it?"
Tsunade folded her hands together and put her elbows on her desk. "I'm going to send all of them to a camp," she said clearly, "so they can have time to bond."
"Sucks for them - I mean, good idea," Kakashi said.
"Perhaps I wasn't clear," Tsunade said sharply. "You four are going, too. I'm not going to leave a bunch of teenagers by themselves on the side of a mountain."
"Noooo!" Kakashi cried, looking at the ceiling.
Tsunade looked up at her ceiling. "Who's up there that people keep talking to?" she wondered mildly, making the jounin sweatdrop. "Have everyone meet at the gates at nine tomorrow morning. Dismissed." There was a flurry of wind, and the four jounin vanished.
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(A/N: This is a few nights before, so that they have time to get to Konoha)
It must have been midnight when Kankuro woke up. There was a noise in the kitchen where they lived.
He groaned and stood up, walking out of his room. Looking to the left, he saw Temari, similarly irritated and sleepy. The two of them walked down the stairs to the kitchen, where there was a glow coming from the refridgerator.
Standing there, a silhouette in the whiteish light, was Gaara. He was pulling eggs and butter out of the fridge, cackling maniacally.
"Not again," Kankuro sighed, shaking his head. "This is the third night Gaara's woken me up."
"Me, too," Temari added, flinching when Gaara slid past her on shuffling feet. There was a large bowl on the counter; Gaara dumped the eggs and butter into the bowl with practiced ease.
"Cookies," he whispered.
"I can't take it anymore," Kankuro burst out. "Ever since Nari told him about - you know who - he's been like this. We're going to Konoha in the morning. Maybe Tsunade can fix this."
Temari nodded, looking in concern at her little brother, who was now looking at the oven, where a second batch of cookies were cooking. Their cupboards were stuffed with muffins, cookies, and their ingredients. "We'd better hurry," she said. "I don't think I can take this much longer, either."
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Nari shrugged her bird shoulders, loosening her muscles. She was perched on a tree in Konoha, the place where Kurenai's team usually met. She'd just gotten there; Kiba, Shino, and Hinata were still there.
"I wonder what that was all about?" Hinata wondered out loud, referring to their sensei vanishing.
"Who knows?" Kiba asked, shrugging. "It doesn't concern us."
"It might," Shino said. He spoke more often around his teammates than anyone else.
There was a loud tweet from the tree; it was a tweet of shock. Twi turned her pale gray, dark gray-striped head toward the tree and yowled, jumping into its branches.
"Wait!" Kiba cried. "I promised Nari I'd take care of you! Stupid cat," he muttered under his breath, annoyed.
Nari shrank back when Twi reached her. Then she fluttered out of the tree, with Twi chasing her.
"Don't eat the bird, Twi!" Hinata cried, distressed. The cat ignored her and chased the small sparrow all the way to Nari's home, where Nari changed back and collapsed on her bed.
"What's this?" Nari asked, picking up a piece of paper from her pillow. It was a note from Kakashi. A grin spread on her face. "A camp, huh?" she said quietly to herself. She looked up and ruffled Twi's head, making her purr. "Sounds like fun."
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Crow: Well? Does it sound like it's going to work out okay? I'm really going to have fun with this, I think.
Demyx: Not bad. Better than your Kingdom Hearts fics.
Crow: You shut up!
Demyx: Umm . . . um. . . . Look, Saix!
Saix: -glares-
Crow: You're not supposed to be in this dimension! -runs off-
Demyx: Please review! -to Nari- Dodge left! Left! No, your other left!