"Right pip-squeaks, now you get to choose your sensei for the rest of your school life!" Kankuro (A Jonin level ninja) yelled at us, I looked at the three of them contemplating my choices, there was the rude, loud-mouth, Kankuro, who played with dolls, there was the girl, Temari, who seems alright but uses a fan as a weapon, and then there's the quiet red-headed one, Gaara, people call him a monster but he looks alright to me.
"Alright you've had enough time to think, now stand next to your choice!"
I watched as people swarmed towards Kankuro and Temari, only a few even vaguely glancing at Gaara. In side I felt a sense of despair that so many people could hate one man for what seemed like no reason. I stood there wondering what I could lose by standing next to Gaara, I would lose a lot of friends, that was for sure, I'd heard what my friends said about him and it wasn't anywhere near reasonable, let alone nice. After about a minute standing there, I looked around and saw that only a few people were still thinking and Gaara was still standing there alone, I made up my mind and though I knew there were many people who would say I was stupid or idiotic I went straight up to Gaara and bowed. I watched as his eyes widened and he returned the gesture smiling. I stood resolutely at his side, ignoring the mix of looks coming from the others, mostly disgust, amazement, and sadness (the latter from my 'friends' who thought I was going to die).
5 years later, I was still alive and had progressed more than any of my school mates, I had passed the Chuunin exams and was working towards becoming a Jonin level ninja, my weapon of choice was a giant sword that was made of a special metal that allowed me to easily infuse it with my chakra.
"Joe! The Kazekage's asking to see you right away." One of my old class mates, I think his name was Ryuu, yelled from the shade of the woods that was stretched before me and the rock I was lounging on. I nodded and rose quickly, knowing that if Gaara didn't come to get me himself it was really important. Gaara, in the years that had passed, had become Kazekage and all the people who had hated him before had grown, if not to like him, to respect him. By the time I got to Gaara's office there was already another Chuunin there, his name was Kiyoshi and he was the one who I always did my missions with seen as no one had stood next to Gaara with on that day. I bowed to Gaara and Kiyoshi and they both returned the gesture respectfully.
"I have called you two here because the Village hidden in the Leaves has need of our help and I believe you two would be the most useful to them." I smiled at the praise. "There has been an attack on the Hokage and they are sending a team out to find the attackers, they need our help because they believe that the attacker's base is in the Wind Country." We both nodded. Understanding why we would be the best for this, on our days off we used to go out and explore the Wind Country, so we knew almost every hole and bush out there. "You will obviously be working with leaf ninja so please be on your best behaviour." He looked intently at Kiyoshi, who was known for his pranks. "I don't want you discrediting the Sand Village. You will leave tomorrow. It will take you two days to get there so please take plenty of provisions with you." He said, waving us away.
The next day we left early in the morning and arrived at the Konoha gates two days later, there were three ninja there waiting for us already.
"Finally! We've been waiting here for three hours." One of the girls, the shortest one there shouted, glaring at us.
"Shut up Becca, you only got here 5 minutes ago." The other girl said, visibly trying not to laugh.
Becca whirled round, her long red pig-tails flying out, to face her friend. "Amy! You shut up are you trying to make them think we're lazy?"
"But you did!"
"Girls please. We have guests to the village stop being so childish." The guy said smiling. He turned to face us. "Hi, I'm Daniel." he bowed, glaring at the girls until they introduced themselves properly and bowed.
"I'm Joe." I stated, after Kiyoshi had introduced himself, and bowed.
"Now you get to meet the Hokage." Becca said, looking vaguely scared. "If you could sort of not mention me yelling at you I would be really, really grateful." She smiled and looked up at us with big blue eyes, kind of like a puppy.
"Uh… umm… sure." I stuttered surprised.
"Oh guys, don't let those eyes fool you, she's evil, I swear." Amy said looking at us with amusement.
"I am not! I'm just a bad ass." Becca retorted, grinning like a psychopath, all cuteness washed away.
Daniel sighed, "Well, better get this over with." He said motioning towards a large red and orange structure at the back of the village.
We walked down a long straight road that lead straight to the Ninja Academy which also served as the Hokage's office. After walking up to almost the top of the building Daniel suddenly turned into a door way that lead to a corridor, half way down this corridor we stopped and Amy knocked on the door.
"Yes?" A woman's voice came from behind the door.
"Hokage-sama, the Sand Ninja are here." Amy said respectfully.
"You may come in." Becca opened the door and ushered us in. We all bowed as one, me and Kiyoshi introducing ourselves. The Hokage, gave us a once over and nodded, seeming to approve.
"You have been briefed of the situation and why we need you, yes?" We nodded. "I am pleased to welcome you to our village, but as you are leaving on the mission tomorrow, you don't have much time to look around. I'm sure Daniel, Amy and Rebecca would be happy to give you a quick tour before you leave tomorrow." She stated knowing they couldn't refuse now anyway. She dismissed us but as we were leaving called to Becca telling her to wait behind, Amy seemed reluctant to leave but Becca said she'd catch up to us later.
When we got out of the Academy Amy asked where we'd like to go, but as we'd never had to come to this area before we didn't know what there was to see.
"How about we introduce them to our Sensei's?" Daniel asked.
"Yeah, sure." Amy said leading the way down a street towards a ramen shop called 'Ichiraku Ramen'. Walking up to it we could see a guy in orange sitting there. Daniel smiled and jogged up to the guy.
"Naruto-sempai we came to introduce the sand ninja that have come to help us with our mission."
Naruto turned in his chair and looked at us eyes slightly widened. "You're Gaara's student!" he exclaimed making us jump.
"Umm… yes." I answered him, even though it wasn't a question.
"How is he? Is he still Kazekage? I haven't seen him for years!" He said jumping up, his eyes now as wide as they could go.
"Umm… he's fine and of course he's still Kazekage why wouldn't he be?" I asked worried for my Sensei's position.
"Oh, there were some people who didn't approve of him being Kazekage but if he's lasted this long there's nothing to worry about." He said grinning. "Have you introduced them to Hinata yet?"
"Not yet, you were the first. By the way their names are Joe and Kiyoshi, if you wanted to know." Daniel told him, like this happened a lot.
On the way to one of the training areas we saw Becca running up to us with a worried expression and a mark on her cheek.
"Hey guys!" She said trying to smile and wincing in pain.
"What the hell happened to you? That wasn't the Hokage was it?" Amy yelled, touching the mark lightly.
"Of course not I…walked into a wall." She said matter-of-factly, everyone believed her but I thought there was something strange going on. As we carried on walking I watched her walk slightly away from everyone else and look around suspiciously, she didn't seem to find anything out of the ordinary and smiled moving back into the group, where everyone was talking about ramen.
When we got to the training area, there were already three people and a giant dog there.
"Hinata-sama! Could you stop a minute?" Amy yelled at the only girl in the group, she spun round her hair flying out like a model.
"Huh? Oh, Amy-chan yeah sure." She said smiling, walking up to us and hugging Amy warmly. I noticed that Becca shot Hinata a dirty look before going over to talk to the boys.
"Hinata-sama, this is Joe-san and Kiyoshi-san." She introduced us smiling.
"Nice to meet you, over there are, Shino-kun, Kiba-kun and Akamaru-kun." She indicated the two boys and the dog who had Becca on his back (he's a big dog) and was running round like a headless chicken. I smiled at the view and turned to nod at Shino and Kiba. We chatted for a while about the differences between Konoha and Sunoha, before we left to meet Becca's Sensei.
We found Becca's sensei wandering around with her team, two other guys, one who looked calm and the other who looked like an imbecile with, big circle eyes and two large bushy eyebrows.
"Tenten-Sama!" Becca yelled at the top of her voice even though they were only a few feet in front of us. Tenten jumped and turned around slowly, seeing us she grinned and waved us over.
"Becca-chan what happened to your face?" She asked worriedly.
"I walked into a wall." Becca said much quicker this time. Tenten seemed to believe her about as much as I did but let it slide.
"Becca-chan! How are you I haven't seen you in a while!" The imbecile yelled pulling Becca into a brotherly hug.
"Lee-san! I'm fine. It's only been a week." She smiled even though her face was kind of squashed. I noticed Amy and Daniel had backed away so as not to be pulled into the hug too. Becca introduced us to Tenten and her team mates, Neji and Rock-lee. Half way through a conversation about Chakra types I noticed Tenten pull Becca out of the group and lead her away a bit, they had a quiet argument, and then Becca stormed back into the group leaving Tenten looking worried.
The next day, before we had to leave for the mission Tenten pulled me to one side.
"I saw that you were watching mine and Becca's argument yesterday, and I wondered if you could keep an eye on her, I would ask Amy but she would get worried and let slip that I had asked her to watch Becca. That wouldn't be good, so I was wondering if you could do this one little thing for me." She begged. I was intrigued by Becca's behaviour anyway so decided to take Tenten up on her offer and secretly watch Becca's actions, as creepy as that sounded.
It turned out that the group going on the mission were just the five of us from yesterday. So we didn't need to be introduced to anyone else. We were told what they knew of the attacker, basically that he was a tall man with long hair, and that he left behind a leaf of a bush known to grown in the south-eastern most area of the Wind Country.