Marriage-Go-Round

Kankuro walked behind his jonin sensei with his head held low. "I can't believe we failed." He mumbled aloud to himself.

"I can't believe that that stupid blonde kid beat Gaara." Kankuro overheard his older sister and teammate, said. She walked behind their sensei and beside Kankuro, as they made their way back towards their home village.

"Shh!" Kankuro hissed at her, earning a slightly startled look from the older girl. Her expression told Kankuro that she wasn't aware that she had been speaking aloud. For his sister not to be paying attention, she must have been in a state of shock. Of course, how could she not be? He was still in a state of shock. The youngest member of their team, and by blood, family, someone who had never been bested in combat, had been defeated while in his most powerful form. "He's right behind us!"

Throwing a quick look over hear shoulders, sure enough, Temari found her and Kankuro's youngest sibling walking a few yards behind them, his black, sleep deprived, eyes looking in front of him, past his two older siblings, trained on the horizon. His face had an unreadable expression on it. There was no way to tell if he had heard her comment. The last thing she wanted to do was irritate her youngest brother. He had a tendency of killing anything that made him irate. Temari, and Kankuro, were sure that if he had been irritated with her, he would have most likely killed her with a smile on his face.

Temari was beginning to worry about her youngest brother. He was only a few yards away, and even though she had whispered the comment about him losing to someone supposedly weaker than him, he should have heard her. Her comment should have made him look at her in the least. It hadn't. In fact, she hadn't even seen him slaughter a single innocent animal since their departure from Konohagakure's lands. The boy loved killing. Killing anyone or anything, and he needed no real reason to do so…as long as it pleased his mother. It seemed that he had stopped his long time habit…er, pastime, cold turkey. Being a shinobi…as well as a human, she knew very well that if someone did something out of habit, almost second nature, that if they stopped that habit cold turkey, they usually snapped within a few days and continued their habit. She was worried that they would return to Sunagakure and a few days later, her little brother would snap and go on a murderous rampage.

"Silence you two." The gruff and slightly cold voice reached the two young genins' ears. "We don't want to accidentally let the rest of the village know about Gaara's defeat by a genin with half his ability. Especially when he was under the possession of the Shukaku."

It wasn't exactly a secret about Gaara having the Shukaku sealed within his being, and it definitely wasn't a secret that Gaara was supposed to be Suna's human weapon. However, because of the curse Temari and Kankuro's mother placed on Gaara while he was being brought into this world; Gaara was a nut case, even more so than the last Jinchuriki that Suna made. Because he was a nut case, their father, the Yondaime Kazekage, leader of Suna, and the Village Elders, had arranged for assassins to dispose of their failure. If the Village Elders, or worse, their father, found out that such a weak looking and stupid genin from Konohagakure was able to defeat Gaara, they would stop at nothing to abduct the kid and 

bring him back to Suna and force him to kill Gaara. Despite their blatant and obvious fear of their little brother, neither Temari nor Kankuro wanted to see their little brother beheaded or impaled.

-

For a while, nearly twenty minutes, the group made up of primarily family members walked silently. Other groups of Suna-nin walked and passed them by as the defeated invasion force made their way back home. As the teams passed the quiet team, Baki, the three genins' jonin sensei, overheard something interesting.

"Did you hear?" one member asked another on his team. "The word from our Anbu operatives is that the Sandaime Hokage fell in battle! He lost fighting his old student Orochimaru!"

"Isn't he the Otokage?" the other man asked.

"Yeah." The first said. "I heard that he's real freak! Likes to rip people's skin off and wear it and shit!"

"That reminds me," the third member of the ream started, finally entering the conversation. "What happened to the Kazekage during the battle? He was sitting right next to the Hokage when the plan started. Next thing you know it's the Otokage fighting the old man alone. Where's our Kage?"

That was something Baki had been wondering about as well. He was told specifically by the Yondaime Kazekage to report to him after the invasion, regardless if they won or lost the fight. They had set up a meeting point just for the meeting between them. Baki had been there, but the Kazekage never showed.

'Was he struck down in battle?' Baki asked himself. 'NO!' he shook his head quickly after the blasphemes thought that had dared to enter his mind. 'No one in Konohagakure is strong enough to take our Lord down! Even the Sandaime wouldn't have been able to take our lord on in battle!'

Gaara walked behind his team members. Since his eye opening defeat dealt unto him by the blonde haired, blue eyed Uzumaki Naruto; he had been rethinking his position in life. And so far, it wasn't easy to do. At least not for him.

For his whole entire life, he had never had been loved. His 'real' mother had been sacrificed when he was born, sealing the mind eating Shukaku inside of him. Since before he could even remember, he had been destroying and claiming the lives of others. When he turned six, his uncle; someone who had raised him since his 'Father' wouldn't; tried to kill him in the name of his 'mother', his uncle's sister. He had asked his uncle why he had done what he had done it…and he had learned that his flesh and blood mother had asked him to do so.

From that day on, up until three days ago, he had killed anyone or thing he wanted in the name of his new 'mother'…the Shukaku.

For years, no one had been able to harm him, physically or emotionally. But three days ago, he felt pain again. Uchiha Sasuke, the pride of the Leaf, a brooding, and now clan-less boy, had been able to stab 

through his ultimate defense and as a consequence, was able to injure him. The boy had been the first person in almost six years, to make him gaze upon his own blood.

The older boy was no match against him later on, when the duel in the ring turned into a life or death fight. The pink haired kunoichi who accompanied him wasn't of any help either, in fact, she distracted the raven haired boy. He had played around with the raven haired boy and was about to kill him and the pink haired girl, when yet another person came and stopped him from doing so.

Uzumaki Naruto.

He didn't know why, but during the weak, idiot's match with the male Hyuuga, something made his 'Mother' feel both glee and fear, both at the same time.

He blacked out during part of the fight with the blonde in the forest, but he did wake in time to hear the blonde say that he would kill him if he hurt his 'precious people' again. For the first time since his uncle tried to murder him, Gaara felt fear.

That day was also the first day in years that he acknowledged Kankuro and Temari as his brother and sister. His new relationship with them was odd, but good and he owed it all to the blonde. He would be sure to remember to thank him if he ever met him again.

'Maybe,' Gaara thought, 'having something one wanted to protect was what made a person stronger, rather than revenge or self purpose.' Maybe he could even confront his father and ask for his forgiveness…or the opposite…if needed.

The ground covered in rocks, grass and trees slowly started to turn dry, dead and tan. A tell-tale sign that the returning invasion forge was entering , or in the very least, nearing the border's of the Wind Country….and closer to Sunagakure. Home. Even though Suna wasn't as covered in plant life as the Fire Country was, it would still take two to three days worth of travel time before they reached the gates of Suna.

- Time Skip-

Even though the invasion ultimately failed in destroying Konohagakure, spirits were high as the invasion force made its way through the large sandy colored gates of its village. They might have failed to destroy Konohagakure, but they still completed at least two of their objectives, and those were showing the rest of the continent that they helped in taking down the Sandaime Hokage; and showing the rest of the Shinobi Nations that they were still a powerful nation, and that they were not to be underestimated, despite their small size.

However, despite the content feelings amongst the invaders, the Elder's were not so happy.

-

Baki sat in front of the Village Elders with an emotionless face. His mind however, was not as void of emotions as he would have hoped.

The Elders were angry, but not at him, thankfully. As he had feared from the day of the invasion up to now, the village had learned of the Yondaime Kazekage's demise. However, he did not meet his death at the hands of an enemy shinobi but at the hands of their current ally, Orochimaru. It turned out that the person Suna's armies followed into battle was none other than the Hebi-Nuke-nin himself, wearing the pealed skin of their Kage. And if that wasn't enough, reports from old, but still loyal spies had informed them that Konohagakure was readying a massive counter attack force to repay Suna for their deceit and betrayal.

"So," Baki asked after almost ten minutes of silence between the Elders and himself. "What are we going to do about all this?"

"We have sent an envoy to Konohagakure's Council explaining that we were merely following the orders from a man we thought was our Kage. We've also explained that it was Orochimaru who slew and skinned our Kazekage. That should buy us sometime to figure something out." An Elderly man explained to the jonin.

"It may not be the bravest or most honorable thing to have done, but it was the best thing to do at the this time." An Elderly woman said in agreement.

"However," Baki started, "Won't Konoha think that this is a ploy? We just attacked them, breaking our old alliance with them. Wouldn't this just make them extremely wary?"

"Yes it would." Another older woman spoke from her location in the very back of the room. "Which is why we aren't signing it with something as easily broken, ruined or ripped as ink and paper."

"We're going to be using something much stronger than ink." An equally old man spoke next. Baki, along with everyone else in the room knew who those two were. They were the Grand Elders, Chiyo and her brother, Ebizo.

"And if you don't mind me asking Elder's, what is stronger than ink in this kind of alliance?" Baki asked.

"Blood." The two Grand Elders answered in sync.

"That's right." Chiyo said, this time by herself. "We will send one of our own to bind our two villages by marriage."

"Who?" Baki asked, though he had a hunch of whom they were talking about.

End

There you go, chapter one of my first political marriage story. No, I did not get the idea from Agent-G. I actually had the idea written on my profile for a month or two and about three months on a pad of paper.

P.S. Does anyone know what Chiyo's brother's name is? I've spent a fair amount of time re-reading the manga and haven't found it yet. So if you know, please tell me, I don't want to call Chiyo 'Chiyo' and her brother 'and her brother' all the time.

Now, this story will not be updated regularly, I write when I have the free time and urge to write, so please, please don't ask me to hurry up and update. I hate getting reviews and PMs like that. I don't mind that you like the story and that you would like to see it updated so you could continue reading; I just don't want you guys to try and badger me into writing something that may be subpar compared to other chapters/stories that I have written before.

Now, I know some of you will ask about Bleached Kyuubi and Uzumaki Naruto and the Eye of Truth and when I will update them.

Bleached Kyuubi fans, I am sorry, but I was re-reading it and realized that it is sloppy. I can't even think about how to start chapter three in a way that it meshes in with the rest of the story. So, as most of you who have glanced over this small portion of my AN might have figured out, I am re-re-rewriting it. This time I won't post it until I have gotten at least five chapters down on paper and have read it over and over again, until I get it the way I want it to be.

Uzumaki Naruto and the Eye of Truth fans, I will not be continuing this story. If you want to know why, you can go read the last few Naruto manga releases and look at Sasuke's new Sharringan. Yeah, his little conflict with the Kumo-nin who wouldn't tell anyone where the Eight-Tailed Jinchuriki was…Sasuke's little information gathering skill…yeah, that was what I was planning on giving Naruto as a Dojutsu. It would be based around Naruto's bloodline giving him the ability to peer into the mind of criminals…well, anyone when they fear for their lives, enabling Naruto to see the truth amongst other things inside their mind. Kishimoto basically gave Sasuke my idea for Naruto's bloodline as a new 'power-up' for his gay looking Sharringan. That whole chapter killed my muse for this story. So, now you know why…blame Kishimoto, not me.

Anyways, thanks for reading and remember, review if you want to.

Ja!