Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto or any of its affiliated characters or settings.

A Meeting in the Forest

Temari lowered the water-skin into the stream and waited for it to fill-up, beside her lay two more empty skins that she would need to fill. She had no idea how they had gone through the water so fast, they had only been in this forsaken forest a few hours and she had no idea why they were even bothering, with the rate Gaara was going through their they would only be here a couple more hours tops. All she knew is when the opportunity had arisen for her to spend a few moments alone she had taken that chance. As she had left for the stream she had seen the look in Kankuro's eyes begging her not to leave him only with Gaara, she had ignored him. It had been Gaara who had ordered the skins filled, which meant it had to be done and there was no way that she was going to be left alone with the murderous sociopath. She sighed, she knew it was not nice to call your little brother that but that's what he was.

A sudden noise in the undergrowth behind her alerted her to the presence of someone else. She kept to her task filling all three of them and then placing them back to the side. As she did this she kept sneaking glances behind her, whoever was out there was still in hiding. Good, hopefully they would stay that way until she had rejoined her brothers, she knew she could probably take on a some of the genin teams in this exam by herself but knowing her luck it was probably one of the older more experienced teams spying on her. Once all three skins were filled she tied them to her obi and rose to her feet.

She turned around in order to make her way back to where she had left her team, only to find her way blocked by three shinobi. A quick glance at their hitae-ate told her that they were from the village hidden in the rain but oddly the symbol had a line scratched through it. Using as much stealth as she could muster she reached for the fan behind her back, she felt her hand on it but did not draw it yet. She watched carefully as the one who appeared to be the leader stepped forward.

"Now what's a young lady like you doing all by yourself?" he asked, she did not answer. "Not feeling too talkative, huh? That's alright, you see all the boys and I want is your scroll, then we'll leave you in peace."

"I don't have it." She said. It was the truth; Gaara was the one carrying it.

"Well now, you've got a bit of a problem. See, we don't believe you, so unless you show us that scroll now we're going to kill you and take it off your corpse. If it turns out your telling the truth, well, we'll just hunt down your friends and take it off them." Temari allowed herself a grin imagining what would happen if these idiots challenged Gaara. Her grin faded as she thought that even if Gaara turned them inside out she would still be dead.

Swift as the wind itself she drew her fan, opened it and sent a massive blast of air towards her enemies. Trying to capitalize on getting in the first attack she charged forward, she did not notice until it was too late that she had only hit two of them.

The blow hit her across the side of the face and sent her crashing into a tree; she fell and landed flat on her face. Groggily she got back to her feet and shook her head, ignoring the pain it caused, in order to clear her vision. Okay, so these guys had the numbers advantage and they were pretty strong, she was probably going to find it difficult to defeat them by herself. She thought the best idea would be to try and escape and make it back to her team.

She swept her fan forwards once more, this time intentionally kicking up dirt. Using the resulting dust as cover she sped back in the direction of her team. She did not see the attack coming and was sent flying, crashing back to earth with a sickening thud. Once more she got back to her feet and had to concentrate to restore her balance.

"Sorry girly but you ain't going nowhere." Said one of the rain-nin as all three gathered in front of her, she got the feeling she might be in trouble. She was preparing herself to fight for her life when another voice called out, one she vaguely remembered hearing before.

"Oi, teme."

Temari looked up to see what seemed to be someone's idea of the worst ninja imaginable, he had brilliant blond hair and was wearing a bright-orange jumpsuit and was making no effort to conceal himself; in fact he looked like he wanted a fight. Temari suddenly remembered where she had seen him before; it was the same loud brat that had threatened Kankuro a couple of days ago and had he not also challenged a room full of genins before the first exam? He was obviously not the brightest of people.

She watched as the boy dropped down and landed in front of her facing the ninja she had just been fighting? What the… was he trying to protect her? Why? Not that it mattered; at the end of it all she was most likely going to have to kill him in order to complete her mission in this village, if he died here while she made her escape what was the difference? Except what kind of person would she be if some tried to help her and she let them die to save her own skin? She suppressed a growl; she hated having to make moral choices.

"You're a Konoha ninja? Why are you helping this girl?" asked the leader of the rain-nin having taken a look at the blond boy's headband.

"Three on one isn't fair." The orange-clad boy answered, not appearing the least bit concerned that his opponents were both twice his size and outnumbered him. The three older male genins let an uproarious laugh.

"It's gonna be hard trying to even things up with just the one of you isn't it?" To Temari's surprise, the blond boy just smiled before responding.

"You know what, you're right, with only one of me it'll be hard. Why don't we try a hundred of me" With that he put both his hands together in what Temari recognised as the ram seal and yelled:

"KAGE BUNSHIN NO JUTSU"

Almost instantly the surrounding area was crowded with carbon copies of the young blond ninja. Their sudden appearance seemed to have thrown the hidden rain shinobi off balance and before they could gather themselves all the clones and the original piled in and began pummelling them. Temari was frozen to the spot with shock; she had certainly not expected this.

About sixty seconds later there was multiple popping noises and a massive cloud of smoke. When it cleared Temari saw a single blond genin standing there, at his feet were the three rain ninja all completely still, their pitiful moaning was the only thing telling her they were still alive. She kept watching as he began to rummage in his fallen enemies packs, eventually he straightened up with an exclamation, like had found something important and clutched in his hand was a plain white scroll. A scroll of heaven!

"Kuso." He mumbled, "It's the wrong one." He turned towards Temari and chucked the scroll to her, it landed at her feet.

"Here you can have it." She was momentarily confused; he was just giving it to her? Then again he had said it was "the wrong one", which probably meant his team already had a heaven scroll. Quickly she picked it up and placed it in her own hip pouch, as she did so her hand brushed against the water skins, she had almost forgotten why she had come out here in the first place. Regaining her composure she asked:

"What's your name?" The boy looked at her for a moment before replying.

"Uzumaki Naruto."

"Why are you here by yourself?"

"I stopped for a bathroom break and Sasuke-teme decided to go on without me." She blinked; first he had mentioned using the toilet in front of a girl like no one had ever bothered teaching him basic manners. Second it did not seemed he got on very well with his team, they had after all left him behind.

"And why'd you help me?" He looked at her for a moment.

"Like I said it wasn't fair." He sounded like he was being genuine, he really had helped her out because the odds had not been fair, she almost laughed.

"Arigato." After she had said this his face split into a huge grin, it was almost as if no one had ever thanked him for anything before.

"Don't mention it. Well…um 'bye." He said, and with that he jumped back into the trees and continued his mission to find his team.

As she watched him leave a smile tugged at the edge of her lips, perhaps her original assessment of this boy, Naruto, had been wrong, she expected that there was more to him than met the eye. Her smile faded as she remembered that very soon the two of them would be enemies.

"'Bye." She muttered under her breath, and then she turned around and walked in the direction that would take her towards her brothers.

When she reached her team Gaara stared at her, which caused her body to tense straight away. Every instinct in her body told her to flee.

"You were a long time."

"I'm sorry Gaara, I ran into some trouble."

"And?"

"I took care of them." She said. If he found that she was saved by a Konoha shinobi and, worse, let that shinobi go afterward he would probably kill her.

"Oh," she said reaching into her hip pouch, "And I found this." She extracted the white "heaven" scroll.

"Very well." Said her youngest brother, "Then we will head for the tower." He began to walk slowly off into the forest, possibly hoping to run across more victims. She and Kankuro followed along in his wake.

A/N:Yes I know I have been gone awhile and I apologise, anyway here is my latest one-shot, please read and review.