Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of the characters.
Edit: Revised. Sorry, I was feeling much in the mood for humor, so you might see some questionable content in here for a story that isn't marked in 'Humor'.
His eyes raked over the surroundings, mouth twisted in a permanent grin. There it was, his destination, the dry, desolate expanse that spread out beneath him. It ran for miles and miles, and from his position, he could see the village of Sunagakure. It was where he had been ordered to go. It was an annoying thing, he concluded, being instructed to do something. But then again, he had to do it, or it'd be another unpleasant session for him from his leader.
Besides, perhaps he would have the chance to create some art—art that would destroy the stupid serenity that lay over this place.
He quickly jumped off of the steep cliff, landing successfully on a large white bird that cut through the air, intercepting his fall. Holding out his hand, he stuffed it into a small pouch of dirt, allowing the mouth on the hand to consume and turn it into explosive clay. It was time to capture the One-Tail, Shukaku.
It was a typical, uninteresting day for Temari and Kankuro. Shopping, dealing with thieves…all such boring and mundane tasks. What they did enjoy was when Baki trained them, but they normally ended up in a tangled heap, glaring daggers at each other—they always seemed to tie in their fights. Always. It had gotten so bad once that they had flat-out ignored one another for days.
Now, as they headed back home, Temari suddenly halted, glancing around at all directions. Kankuro continued forward, unaware that anything had happened until Temari sprinted forward and held out one hand, stopping him as well. As a huge shadow came over them, she pointed up at the sky, body tensed and ready to fight if called upon.
"What is that?" she asked cautiously, dark eyes narrowed at the cloudless heavens. A large white bird (not native to Suna, Temari automatically noted) was circling their village, its strangely-shaped wings flapping periodically. Looking more closely, she could see a small speck of red and black upon the bird's shoulders. Following her gaze, Kankuro frowned, his own eyes quickly evaluating the bird and coming to the same conclusion.
Exchanging one rapid glance, they dashed off toward their father's abode, trying their best to keep out of the bird's sight. It seemed very malignant, somehow; it was definitely not harmless.
Together, they reached the house, panting in exhaustion and catching their breath. Knocking furiously on the door, Kankuro yelled into the door until the Kazekage appeared at the door, looking none too happy.
But nobody cared.
"Kazekage-sama! What is that?" Kankuro gestured wildly at the blue expanse hanging above them. His father looked up, his mouth forming into an even larger frown that he had before. The Kazekage's face creased in angry lines, the sound of teeth grinding echoing in the house.
"Akatsuki."
"Fire!" The gigantic crossbows blasted out flaming arrows at the figure in the sky.
The giant bird swooped low, narrowly missing the arrows that were continually shot at it. The Akatsuki member grinned like an idiot, when he wasn't. His name was Deidara. Focusing his gaze on a small boy with red hair glaring at some point that he didn't care about, he dived again and tried to grab him. Sand immediately surrounded the boy, effectively shutting out most kinds of attacks. But Deidara wasn't attacking. He easily scooped up the ball and made away on his bird. The Kazekage noticed his youngest son being carried away. "Don't let him get away!" he yelled, not wanting to lose his ultimate weapon. Really, he couldn't care less about his son. The only thing he wanted was to have Gaara become a tool for the village to use—and in the meanwhile, not giving any other village an edge.
In response to his shout, the arrows began to arrive rapidly. Deidara smirked and kept dodging. What he didn't plan on was that all the arrows had tags on them. They exploded right next to him, blasting the talons off. The boy dissolved his ball and struggled against his bonds, sand creeping up slowly onto the bird's tail feathers and breaking a few of them off. None of it worked, however; Deidara simply allowed the bird to regenerate, the rest of its body descending to the earth. It was clay, after all, and Deidara could still keep it "alive" with chakra.
"Watch this, jinchuriki! The centerpiece of artwork is the best with a…BOOM!" Deidara yelled. The falling pieces of the bird's limbs exploded on the village. The sound of screaming arose from the area, a mass of people struggling to get out of their houses with their lives intact.
Mass panic began disrupting the attacking force as their fear slowly took hold. Even when the Kazekage was using the Phoenix Flower flame to try and hit Deidara, it just wasn't accurate enough. The Kazekage had no choice. He held out his hands and began a complex series of hand signs.
"Teleportation." The blue energy zoomed out of his hands, and the Kazekage fell exhausted. His chakra was running very low, and he himself was exhausted from the workload that had been granted to him. Deidara, though he was no idiot, was still stupid enough to think that he had won, and wasn't counting on the blue ball whizzing over and transporting the boy somewhere else. When the weight noticeably lessened, Deidara glanced back and saw that the tail feathers were uncurled and Gaara was gone.
He lost it.
His resolve breaking apart in a torturously slow manner, Deidara gripped his head and yelled, unleashing his rage and inner turmoil onto the village. The bird broke apart, scattering itself into the air, the explosive dust spilling toward the village.
It would have been almost comical, except for one little fact.
"I'm dead...Pein's going to kill me! And how am I supposed to prove myself to Sasori now?"
While Gaara was falling through empty space, he immediately created another ball that encased him. As soon as the ball touched the forest floor, it disintegrated early, breaking his leg. Gaara tumbled out, pain engulfing him and burning him all over. He soon realized that he was alone, and that his siblings, his wonderful siblings, weren't there. So he did what any lonely, injured child of his age would do. He sat back on the leaves, tipped his head up, and yelled his pain to the world, the scream breaking the silence of the forest and awakening the slumbering predators. Anyone would hope that nothing threatening would find him.
A ninja with silver hair stopped abruptly as he heard a cry rise up from the forest. It sounded very much like a human child. But what child would put itself in the forest? Putting away his Icha Icha novel, he increased his pace toward the forest. Breaking into a run as another terrible scream rose up, he performed a jutsu that would hide him from the person in case it was an enemy. He highly doubted it, though, when he came upon a boy from his half-disguised position in the bushes. He had messy red hair, wore foreign clothing, and had a gourd much too large for a boy of his size strapped to his back. There were black circles underneath the boy's teal eyes, which were shadowed from lack of sleep. There was one symbol in red on his head that meant "love", and from the way he was sitting unnaturally still, the jonin thought he had a broken leg. The boy looked around, unaware that anyone was there, and sighed heavily, revealing a seal. The white haired jonin's left eyebrow raised. The boy was the host for one of the Tailed Beasts.
In a split second, the jonin had decided to report the boy to the Third Hokage. After all, who knew what he could do? So the ninja quickly and silently jumped away, assuming that his visit would take less than five minutes. Little did he know, the Third Hokage was away, going to Suna to extend a hand of friendship.
Too bad, so sad.
When the ninja reached the Hokage's place, he paused. There was a presence in there, a suspiciously familiar presence that he had taken upon himself to never approach voluntarily. Oh no, thought the jounin, if it's Jiraiya…! Sighing, the white haired ninja walked into the hallway, where a certain Sannin was hanging around a photo of a woman. He had red markings down the sides of his cheeks, amused eyes, a demented grin, a mane of white hair, and one large pimple beside the left side of his nose. Hoping to get past him without a long, meaningless conversation, he attempted to walk away, but again...
Too bad, so sad.
"Hey, Kakashi!" yelled Jiraiya, raising a hand in greeting though his eyes were still pasted to the painting.
"Hey," replied Kakashi, doing his best to inch away. "Look, I need to see the Hokage right now, so-"
"You mean, you haven't heard?" exclaimed Jiraiya, looking indeed very mischievous.
"Heard what?" asked Kakashi, curiosity overwhelming him.
"The Hokage's gone to Suna to establish a relationship. I heard it all from a beautiful woman I met downstream-"
"Fine, then," said Kakashi. "I'll take you and Gai with me instead."
"Whoa, whoa! Hold your puppies! Does this include beautiful women?" asked Jiraiya, smirking. He wasn't actually in the mood, but getting Kakashi annoyed was always a fun pastime.
"Nope. It doesn't." replied Kakashi, frowning deeply. "This is important!"
"Whatever you say."
The back of Kakashi's neck prickled, and he had a bad feeling that another presence that he would rather avoid was approaching. And fast.
They turned around to find a green blur flying into their faces.
"DYNAMIC ENTRY!"
"OW—"
Enthusiastic insulting ensued. I dare you to say that three times fast.
After Kakashi had gathered and calmed down his "friends", he set off toward the forest.
"Don't make too much noise. He might get scared." warned the silver-haired jonin.
"He?" asked Gai, his mushroom-bowl haircut glinting in the sun. Kakashi was having a hard time cringing from the sheer enthusiasm floating in the air with his overly-cheerful friends around.
"We're going to get a boy in there." Kakashi answered tiredly.
Aboyaboyaboyboyaboyaboyaboyaboyaboyaboy—!
"All right! Then, by the power of youth, let's quadruple the pace!" He zoomed off, leading a small trail of dust marking his way. Kakashi sighed. Somehow, Gai always found an excuse to speed up.
"You don't even know where he is, you insufferable idiot."
Gai came back.
"Don't question me. I simply forgot that you two were still here. And I'm not an idiot!"
"There he is," whispered Kakashi. They all saw the red-haired boy sitting down on the dirt, staring at the air as if all life was gone. "I guess we should approach, but I'll have you go first, Jiraiya."
"Why me?" Jiraiya whined quietly.
"Because," Kakashi said dryly, "you're the best with kids." Jiraiya glared at him for a second, and stood up from behind the bushes. The boy instantly noticed, and stood up shakily. The limp was obvious now, but the boy didn't sit back down. He instead locked eyes with Jiraiya threateningly, sand rising from his feet. Kakashi's eyebrows immediately shot up. Sand manipulation? He wondered, both of his eyebrows raising in curiosity.
Jiraiya tried again.
"I'm not going to hurt you." The boy just frowned. Clearly, he didn't believe it. Jiraiya sighed. He didn't like the idea, but he did it nonetheless. Jiraiya took off the bag storing a ninja's tools, and threw it on the ground far away from him. The boy now looked at him as if he were crazy, which to be honest wasn't that far off the mark. Jiraiya repeated, "I'm not going to hurt you. What's your name?"
"…Gaara." The boy replied in a monotonous voice that would be extremely inadequate for a school presentation. The broken leg soon proved to be a little bit too much for him, and he staggered, nearly toppling to the ground.
Jiraiya made a move forward, but the boy glared at him and he retreated, holding up his hands as he carefully bit out his next words.
"My friends and I will take you to the medical center. Is that ok?"
"…" Jiraiya took that as a yes, noticing that he didn't speak very much. He scooped up the boy, surprised that he weighed so little. It was unhealthy.
Kakashi heaved out a gargantuan sigh. He walked out to stride alongside Jiraiya.
"Let the youthful spirit of youth overcome us and speed us to our destinaaaaaaaattionnn..." Guy sprinted away, leaving a trail of dust, his voice fading until they could hear nothing.
"So, what did you think of him?" asked Kakashi quietly.
"He's weird." Gaara replied, his mouth upturned by just a little. Jiraiya hooted with laughter the rest of the way, until Gaara spoke up again.
"I meant you."
Jiraiya instantly shut up. Kakashi shook his head in obvious amusement, leaning over to Jiraiya and whispering, his voice quiet.
"Gaara is carrying one of the Tailed Beasts. We're going to have to tell the Hokage about this." Jiraiya's eyes grew as big as a puffer fish, but he in turn leaned over to Kakashi and said,
"I don't care. Gaara's a nice, quiet kid. He'd be a great role model for…"
"UZUMAKI NARUTO! STOP FOOLING AROUND!" Iruka roared, disguising an exasperated sigh. His class clown was a great bit too much for the village. He tired every soul, including the dead ones that were currently tearing their hair out, never mind how they could do that. The blond boy was wearing paint-soaked goggles on his head, an orange and blue jumpsuit with white ruffles on the collar, and a ridiculously disturbing grin on his face.
"I RULE, YOU DROOL!" yelled Naruto, his gloating grin aimed at his teacher as he lorded over every person from his position on Hokage Mountain. Their faces were splattered with white, red, and green paint.
"NARUTO! I'M GONNA TELL TEUCHI TO STOP GIVING YOU RAMEN IF YOU DON'T COME DOWN!"
"Awww…." Naruto climbed down and was awarded a "being tied up in front of the whole class" gift card that had to be used ASATC…in other words, as soon as tomorrow comes. "I hate you, Master Iruka…"
A/N Sorry for the crack.
I was high on tea.