Hallo everyone! :D I'm Creshto, and I've decided that if I don't post something now, then I never will. So, I'm going to write a collection of one-shots. Original, right? I know.

~Chapter One: The Sand Siblings~

*By (Wussup, ya'll?) Creshto*

"Huh."

Temari continued whirling the kunai around her finger like the bad-ass Sand ninja that she was. "What is it, little brother?"

Kankuro blinked. "I don't remember this street being here. It must be new."

Temari and Gaara came to a complete stop, looking down the shallow street to which he referred . It was, in fact, new. New and strange. For one thing, Suna didn't have paved streets, and this one was most certainly paved. Secondly...well, it was just not right, okay? Does there have to be another reason?

It was running off somewhere into the desert.

"Memory Lane?" Gaara read the street sign with an arched eyebrow that he conjured via eyebrow-jutsu. "How unusual."

"Unusual indeed, Gaara-san...So, should we find out where it leads then?" Temari suggested.

"Shouldn't we be a little more concerned that it's a trap or something? You know, maybe a genjutsu from the Akatsuki trying to lure us into-"

Gaara whipped out his Kazekage hat and shoved it in Kankuro's face. "I'm Kazekage and that means you have to do as I say. So I demand that we disregard any logical precautions and walk down this random street."

"But we might get killed-!"

"Good idea, Gaara. Let's go!" Temari happily agreed. She and Gaara started strolling down Memory Lane. Kankuro was left behind to gape.

"But...but...Wait for me!"

And thus, the three sand siblings, Gaara, Kankuro, and Temari, sealed their fate with a badly tied bow. Oblivious to the scary theme music suddenly playing overhead, they continued careening further and further into another dimension. It was a dimension of sound, a dimension of sight, a dimension of mind. They were moving into a land of both shadow and substance, of things and ideas. They have just crossed into...well, not the Twilight Zone, but something sort of, in an oblique, not-at-all-the-same kind of way, similar.

"Hey, look at that." Temari pointed in some random direction. They others looked, but they saw nothing.

"What?"

"Nothing."

"Then why'd you point?"

"I don't know. Why'd you spew out of mom's uterus?"

Gaara smirked. "Burn."

Kankuro just got burned. Which made him angry.

"Well, why'd you...! Um..." He wasn't all that good at comebacks. Temari pat him on the head.

"It's okay, little brother. Gaara can't come up with good insults either."

Gaara was sad now, too. "I can insult people..."

"Hey, look at that!" Temari pointed in another random direction. Neither Gaara nor Kankuro looked. They crossed their arms and huffed.

"We're not falling for that again." Kankuro said, even though he was the only one to fall for it the first time.

"No, seriously! Look!"

Well, she did sound sincere that time. Compelled by her convincing "seriously", her brothers looked. And what do you know? There was actually something there.

"That's surprising!" Kankuro said.

"Yes. Yes, it is," Gaara agreed. "I like the colors. And the shape."

"As do I." Temari nodded, and they continued on their way.

...You wanna know what it was they were looking at, don't you? Well, too bad.

Anyway, they kept walkin'. Then, unexpectedly, something appeared before them in the form of a trampoline! In fact, it WAS a trampoline! Yes! The Sand Siblings discovered a trampoline. In the middle of the desert. On a strange road that did not previously exist.

"Wow! A trampoline!" Temari exclaimed. "I've always wanted one. Kankuro, do you remember when we asked father for one and he said we would have to choose between the trampoline and a demonic little sibling that would ultimately scar us psychologically and emotionally for the rest of our lives?"

"Yeah. That was one hell of a choice," Kankuro agreed. He turned to Gaara and said, "Took us weeks to finally decided. In the end, we went with the trampoline."

"But dad impregnated mother anyway." Temari sighed wistfully. "What can you do, right?"

Gaara was more than a little distressed by this news. He was the reason his siblings never had a trampoline? Obviously, Gaara was much more of a burden than he thought. He would have to go on another murderous rampage to reestablish the purpose of his existence. Later. Right now, something was compelling him to bounce merrily like a spoiled child.

"As Kazekage, I must go first."

"That seems fair. I guess." Temari mumbled sadly, but she was feeling strangely... jealous.

"Fair. And yet I am offended." Kankuro watched helplessly as his younger (and much more powerful) brother climbed on first. Gaara started jumping. Then he started jumping higher. Kankuro got antsy. "I wanna go, I wanna go!" He whined, bouncing on the balls of his feet. Why he was suddenly unable to control his emotions, he was unsure. All he knew was that he wanted a turn. "Gaara, you're taking too long! I'm gonna tell!"

"No!" Gaara said. "My trampoline!"

"That's not fair!" Temari stomped her foot and started climbing on the trampoline anyway. Gaara growled and protested but she was already up there. Kankuro climbed up, too. Hell if he'd be left out. "It's not just yours, Gaara. Don't be such a brat!"

Gaara was offended. "I am not a brat." In protest of his sisters cruel name-calling, he sat firmly on the trampoline in hopes that it would stop the others from jumping as well. They didn't stop. They kept jumping and it was making Gaara bounce up and down annoyingly. He got mad. "I order you both to stop jumping. I'm the Kazekage and you have to do what I say."

"No, we don't! No, we don't!" Kankuro chanted as he continued to jump around his younger brother. "'Cos we're bigger than you!"

"The village put me in charge!" Gaara seethed through his teeth.

"We're bigger." Temari repeated Kankuro's earlier argument and they started teasingly jumping around him in a circle."

"We a-are big-er! We a-are big-er!" They laughed together. "You're too short to be Kazekage!"

"I am not!" Gaara pouted, crossing his arms and standing up (with just a bit of difficulty because his siblings were still bouncing.) With as much dignity as he could muster, Gaara climbed down from the trampoline, only to develop a sudden and extreme wave of nausea. He dropped onto his knees and held his head.

"Gaara!" Temari and Kankuro stopped what they were doing and jumped down. But upon touching the floor, they, too, felt sick. "Ohhh..."

Gaara groaned under his breath and shut his eyes tight. "What the hell just happened?"

"Ugh." Temari didn't sound too good. "I've no idea."

Kankuro, Temari, and Gaara curiously, nervously turned their eyes on the trampoline. It remained still and omnipotent. Unnaturally, it crowded the pavement of Memory Lane, stranded out in the desert like some dark and magical force. The second they got on that thing, or even near it, it was like some invisible hand was dragging them in, sucking out their maturity until they were nothing but bratty, snot-nosed shells of their former selves. It was horrifying. It was evil! It was-!

"I'm gettin' back on!" Kankuro leapt back onto that devil trampoline like it was nobody's business. Gaara and Temari scrambled behind.

"I'm jumping first!"

"No way."

"I'm already up here! Hahaha!"

And those crazy siblings jumped until the sand-cows came home.

The moral of the story: never underestimate the power of a trampoline.