The elders stared at her like she'd grown a couple more heads. Fumiko didn't back down, smiling back at them and pushing the papers forward across the huge wooden desk. Filling them out had been a long and tedious process, but she'd helped the best she could.
An elder cleared his throat. "I see," he said in his raspy voice, eyebrows raised. The other four muttered among themselves.
"Gaara would make a great Kazekage," she said. "You have to admit that Gaara has been vital to the recovery of Sunagakure in our time of need. Without him, we could very well still be knee-deep in missions and debt."
Fumiko was using her 'One hundred and sixty two IQ' voice. She didn't particularly like talking like the elders, but they wouldn't take her seriously if she offered them sugar and tried to laugh, and besides, If she wasn't at least slightly professional, Mai would never trust her in a political situation ever again, and when Gaara became Kazekage she wanted to be there too.
Another, a woman this time, steepled her fingers and looked at her like an incompetent child. "That might be true, but that doesn't negate the fact that Gaara is not trusted in the village."
"That's just it, though, a lot of people in this village do trust him. I ran a general survey, and came up with over two hundred shinobi and one hundred villagers that would vouch for him. I also conducted an outside survey."
Fumiko tapped a buldging tan folder filled with various sheets of paper, each one peppered with signatures, with her fingernail. "Tsunade of the Leaf as well as many others believe Gaara would do well as a leader."
Taking a general survey of the village had been painstaking and long. Gaara still wasn't much of a people person, so Fumiko usually did most of the talking, dragging him around from person to person and place to place, smiling and offering treats and explaining the situation a hundred thousand times. She also got to meet a lot of different people, which was pretty cool.
Most of the villagers who signed only did so because they knew her from the hospital- and the hospital itself had generated more than half of the overall signatures. But there had been quite a few ninja that trusted Gaara outside of that. Sending the request for Tsunade to sign had probably been a boneheaded idea- in the words of Kankuro- but for whatever reason Tsunade seemed to like her and Gaara well enough. Fumiko had figured having another Kage's signature would go a long way.
In the process, Shizune, most of the Genin she had met, and quite a few staff in the hospital at Konoha had added their signatures as well, which had been a pleasant surprise.
"That's still less than half of the entire population."
"I see," Fumiko said, still smiling. "I'm curious. Who were you planning to appoint in the Fourth Kazekage's place, then? The spot has been open for a while. We need to be able to defend ourselves against a possible attack."
Silence. A few glared at her, but Fumiko only smiled, leaning forward in her seat. Usually, only the elders sat when taking reports or requests, but they had made an exception this time, because, well, she couldn't stand in one place very long. Although, it kind of looked like they were starting to regret it.
"I assure you there are better candidates. Shinobi that the people of this village will cherish and respect."
Fumiko's smile tightened just slightly.
"That may be so... However, the Kage of each hidden village are directly known as the strongest shinobi in that land. Am I correct in saying that many of the Kages' acts are extremely controversial, however, they remain in power due to that status?"
"Young lady-"
"Name one Genin in this village," Fumiko interrupted. "No- name one Jonin that can defeat Gaara in combat, and I'll resign my submission." When nobody said anything, she continued. "Now name anybody who took more one man to three-cell missions on his own during the Leaf Invasion Crisis."
She put her palms flat on the table. It was a rhetorical question, obviously; and nobody said a word against her or to answer the question. They couldn't. In fact, most at of the Elders looked intrigued, like they couldn't believe she knew this much.
"Gaara is the strongest shinobi in the village hidden in the Sand," she said with total confidence. "The strongest in Wind country. I don't doubt that at all. And he loves this village, Elders. I don't think there's anybody more suited."
The only Elder left that was still looking down his nose at her scowled. "If Gaara cares so much about achieving this position, why isn't he here?"
"For the very same reason as I told you before," she said. "Gaara is acting as a Jonin squad leader on a mission in the Land of Stones. In fact, I believe it was you, Elder, that requested the sensei of the Academy to do so until otherwise occupied."
The tops of his ears turned a peculiar shade of red.
"Let us discuss the matter privately for a few moments," an old woman said in her papery thin voice, but now she was smiling as well.
"Sweet!" she exclaimed, because they weren't totally opposed to the idea. They stared at her, and Fumiko suddenly realized she was grinning like an idiot. Quickly she stood and bowed. "I mean, uh, yes, of course. Thank you, Elder."
Fumiko exited the room, gently sliding the door shut behind her. The Jonin guards posted on either side of the entrance- one of them Baki- nodded at her. Both had signed her semi-petition.
Mai was there as well, having just finished class, leaning up against the far wall. When she saw her come out, Mai pushed off and stepped over.
"So? Were they complete jerks, or did they actually listen to you?"
"They listened." Fumiko grinned. "Actually, they're 'discussing it' right now."
Mai smirked. "Good. 'Cause Gaara would make a damn good Kazekage, and I'm not just saying that because he doesn't assign homework at the Academy."
"Yeah."
"Sandwich?" Mai asked lazily, lifting the plastic bag that dangled on her forefinger. "Mom packed turkey, PB and J, and tuna fish. By the by, the tuna fish has that freaking sweet mayonnaise stuff that you make, and I'm not gonna eat that."
"Tuna fish," Fumiko laughed.
...
"So what's the verdict?" The other Jonin, Haki, asked curiously when she stepped back out a half hour later.
"If I can get sixty five percent of the population to sign on and Gaara comes with me next time, they'll hold shinobi, villager, and head conferences."
When the time came for a new Kazekage to be chosen, there would be a series of votes to elect councils. There were three- the first was a group of thirteen ninja including seven Jonin, four Chuunin, and two Genin with the proper requirements, all voted for by the shinobi population.
The second was compiled of twenty six villagers, the majority of them adults, but there was a percentage of them that included teenagers and children. They were voted by the civilians of Suna.
The third council included the Elders, the current Kazekage- if there was one- and any other high-standing advisors, known as Heads. Each group was weighted differently- for instance, the shinobis' votes counted for more than the villagers', and the villagers' actually held more influence than the vote of the Heads.
It took a while to appoint a Kazekage. There was a month long period during which applications were submitted and councils voted into power. When that was completed, there was another three week long wait for anybody else who decided to apply for the part of Kazekage. Then, there was a week during which the shinobi and villager councils independently discussed and voted- after which there was a two week time for the Heads to count, discuss, and ultimately announce the results.
The ballot pretty much consisted of 'yes' and 'no'.
Mai whistled. "Dang. You must've thrown a pretty good pitch."
"Let's hope I can do it again," Fumiko said, laughing. "We still need a lot more signatures."
...
When Gaara finally came home, he looked absolutely exhausted. He dragged himself into his bedroom, where Fumiko happened to be digging through his blankets. Somehow, she'd left the sheath of papers she'd gotten signed in his bed.
"What are you doing?" He asked, and for a moment Fumiko had no idea who he was.
She didn't look up. "Ne, I came to the tower to get some of Gaara's stuff signed, but I left it here by accident when I took a nap."
"How often do you talk to total strangers that walk into my room?"
"Hm?" She glanced up, then dropped her papers in a flurry to the ground. "Gaara! You're back!"
She shrieked with laughter and staggered to him. Gaara caught her easily, chuckling slightly also, but still drooping like a wilted cactus flower. "Hey."
"Did you just get back? How'd the mission go? Have you seen Mai or Baki yet?" Fumiko locked her arms around his neck so she could pull herself to his eye level. Gaara had, in a very short time period, grown at least three inches. "You look tired. What happened? Did-"
"Yeah, I missed you too," he said with a tired smile. "Just... Kids are exhausting. And why would I have seen Mai or Baki? I literally just got back..." He glanced over the top of her head at the papers littering the ground. "And what have you been up to, exactly?"
Fumiko pulled out of his arms, grinning. "Well..." she started, voice full of suppressed excitement. "Do you remember how I mentioned before you left that I was gonna talk to the Elders?"
Gaara blanched. "I thought you were kidding."
"When do I ever kid you?" She laughed, dancing backward and kneeling to scoop up her papers. "I seriously set up a meeting."
Another set of pale hands appeared to help her. "And?"
"And they told me that if I could get twenty two percent more of the villagers to agree, they would hold a conference," she informed him, reaching for the papers he was holding out, but he wouldn't let go. His fingers clenched tight.
"Are you..."
He trailed off, and Fumiko glanced up. His eyes were wide, face slack.
"Yup. I dunno if they liked me or my smart or what, but they agreed. But..." Her lips curved into a warm smile."They don't really have room to say no. Everything I said was true."
"And what did you tell them?"
Fumiko blinked. Gaara's voice was low, ringing with something she hardly ever heard, something like admiration and disbelief and something she couldn't discern. She smiled at him instead of thinking about it.
"That they needed a new Kazekage," she answered. "And that you were the strongest shinobi they'd find in the Land of Wind."
"The strongest, huh?" Gaara smiled with his eyes. "Isn't that the reason they're scared of me in the first place?"
"I might also have mentioned that you loved the village and are a great person," she said, and raised her hands in a theatrical shrug. "Ne, nothing they didn't know already. Anyway, Mai and Baki have been helping me get more signatures."
"Even Baki?" Gaara said disbelievingly.
Fumiko tugged again and Gaara relinquished the now slightly crumpled pages. "He thinks you would make a great Kazekage too. Sugar, you know, I never really knew how many people there were in this village. A lot of them run away or get rude, but actually some of them remember you from missions. The villagers, a couple of them, just take my word for it. There's a lot of people," she stressed, laughing.
Gaara stood, helping Fumiko to her foot gently by the elbows. "You didn't have to do that," he said. "You could have waited for me to get back."
"Of course I did. You're my best friend." She pressed the papers to her chest, wrapping her arms around herself tightly. "Love you."
He stared at her wordlessly for a moment. Then he sighed, smiling just slightly. "You too."
"I'm glad you're back."
He put a hand on her head, which he could do now without stretching. "Me too."
...
"Ow!"
"Swing harder, Fumiko! You have to move fast if you ever want to win a fight with that thing!"
"Ow!"
"You have the movement down. You just need to apply it. Don't be afraid of hurting me!"
"Ow-wagh!"
Fumiko slipped trying to duck and spin the staff over her head, prosthetic twisting out from under her. She hit the ground face-first, Bo staff clattering away across the Academy floor. She just laid there for a second, panting and rolling onto her back.
Kankuro poked his head into her line of vision, leaning over her. "You alive?"
"Yeah. I just... need... a second..."
"You're bruising like a fresh peach," he observed. "Fumiko, you're good at blocking, but even you have a stamina limit. You need to be able to hit people."
"I am hitting you."
He scoffed, then took her outstretched hand and hauled her to her foot. "If you tried to hit an attacker like that in a real fight, you'd get killed. Hit me harder."
"I can't."
"You can." He said, shaking his head. "I've seen you hit those dummies. You're stronger than you look. You could take me out if you tried."
"Ugh." She gasped, then burst out coughing and leaned over slightly, hands on her knees. Something sticky and bitter slipped out of her throat, dotting the sandy ground by her foot with dark wetness. Fumiko wiped at her mouth. "I guess you're right. I just do't really want to hit people unless they're, you know, trying to kill me."
"Shit," Kankuro said with alarm. "I wasn't trying to hit you that hard! Gaara's gonna kill me! Hey, Fumiko, you feeling okay? Maybe we should stop for today. I mean, you've been at it since this morning."
She spat, trying to get the taste out of her mouth, then reached into her pouch for a handful of sugar. "Fure. My heaf hurts."
"Don't talk with your mouth full," someone sighed from nearby. "I swear, you're just as bad as Kankuro."
Fumiko lifted her head, brushing her long hair behind her ear, and straightened, smiling. She swallowed. "Ne, hello, Temari."
"Mai sent me to tell you something," Temari said dryly but with a small smirk. "Something about practicing your next pitch, because she hit the mark." Temari paused. "Probably she threatened more than convinced them but-"
"No way! Yes!" Fumiko cheered, raising her hands in the air above her head and then wincing. She lowered them gingerly, favoring her ribcage and stomach. "... Ow."
...
The Elders looked extremely uncomfortable as they shuffled through her papers, passing the neatly calligraphed petitions signed by a wide scatter of various names, ranks, and ages, all meeting- and in fact surpassing by 13 Genin votes- the requirements.
Fumiko looked out at them expectantly.
"Well, Fumiko-chan, Gaara-kun, this is certainly very impressive," one sighed. "You managed to get the proper amount of signatures in less time than it took to get Rasa's."
Fumiko's smile twitched and stretched slightly. Rasa had been voted in faster than any of Sunagakure's previous Kazekage, probably mostly due to his expensive, supportive Gold Dust, but also because of just his pure strength and dedication.
She glanced over at Gaara, who had assumed his stereotypical cool, cross-armed stance, seemingly unperturbed that the fate of his newest dream was at stake.
"And we can also assume from Baki's reports that they were all given freely with consent." said another, then raised her eyebrows. "I suppose this has something to do with your reign of influence in both the hospitals and Academy students."
"These are still credited citizens and shinobi of Suna," Gaara said calmly. "Influence or not, they would not have helped us if they were afraid."
The Elder who had spoken nodded her head thoughtfully, like Gaara had said something intelligent. "Continue."
Fumiko opened her mouth to wrap up the pitch- because weren't they supposed to start up voting after they had acquired the requested amount of signatures? They must have still been doubtful- but Gaara beat her to the punch.
"I do love this village," he said quietly, and when Fumiko looked at him again she saw his clear, controlled eyes staring into each of theirs. "And I would like to help protect it and the people inside it's walls."
Fumiko's mouth clamped shut, lips curving into a smile.
"I wish to prove that I too can be important to this village," he continued, and now the Elders' eyes were wide with surprise. "Not just as a weapon, but as Kazekage."
There was a beat of silence. Baku, the main Head and the one that had eyeballed her so much during their first meeting, scooped up the papers and tapped them into a neat pile on the table. Then he placed it on the wood. "We agree to initiate Council."
...
For some reason- despite the fact that the actual voting process took several months- the Elders decided to hold setting up council until a month long time period had passed.
Which was perfectly fine, because that gave them enough time to plan out a trip to Konoha. Fumiko was excited- the last time she'd seen her friends in Konoha, it was because Matsuri had been kidnapped, so nothing more than a friendly visit seemed like a very good idea. She'd already mailed Lee, who had fervently promised in many letters to meet her at the main gates.
"Come on, guys, c'mon, let's go!" she cheered, latching onto Gaara's arm as the other two bedraggled Sand Siblings grumbled behind them, droopy and totally shot.
"Why are we leaving so early?" Kankuro complained. "It's not a mission."
"Because if we wait very long, the sun will rise, and we'll be trudging through the worst parts of Suna's desert in full sunlight." Gaara answered for her. "It's better to hear you whine about being tired now and sleep longer tomorrow than to have to deal with everybody whining about sunburn and dehydration all at once."
Temari humphed. "Yeah, Kankuro. Think for a second."
"Who saved your butts from dying in the desert?" Kankuro grumbled, shooting both Gaara and Fumiko baleful looks. "I didn't have to cut myself apart opening those cactai for you, you know."
Fumiko smiled. "I know. I still say thank you."
"You know you could've just used your Puppetry to handle the blade and the cactus, you know," Mai added just because she'd thought of it and he hadn't. Basically for the sake of starting a fight, because if Fumiko knew her sister well at all, she was bored already, and they hadn't even started off yet.
Gaara and Fumiko were the only two completely unaffected by waking up at four to clear most of the major parts of the desert before noon. The perks with traveling without shunshin on a non-important mission were that you actually had time to slow down and avoid the sun, which meant heading out early, setting up camp when the sun got too high, sleeping all day, and traveling at night.
Desert travel was way more tedious than forest travel, though Fumiko knew the sand dunes better, having gone on frequent walks outside of the village wall before and preferred it to the root-filled anti-prosthetic soil and cobbled stone streets of Konoha. Besides, if you fell here, there was soft if not hot sand to catch you.
The sun hadn't even risen yet. Neither Gaara nor Fumiko had been sleeping at all last night, plotting and planning both their trip and what they would do after, since it would last right up until the councils voted, so things would get busy fast after their vacation. Mai was skipping out on the Academy- which had new ninja sensei now, apparently by the order of the same elder she had called out before- and non of her former teachers particularly cared.
Gaara, Temari, and Kankuro had taken a leave of absence from missions. Nobody in the village really complained, but the three of them had taken on more missions successfully than should have really been possible for ninja of their rank, so Fumiko would've been confused if they had.
Fumiko licked sugar off her thumb. The cool, not quite cold anymore breeze of a Suna morning ruffled her hair and cloak as they set out, the sound of Mai and Kankuro's bickering like a soundtrack to a long and possibly fun trip.
...
Team Gai was waiting for them when they arrived. Gaara suspected it was Lee that had dragged Ten Ten and Neji to the gates- he was jumping up and down, shading his eyes, peering into the forest for them.
When he saw them, he whooped.
"Neji! Ten Ten! They are coming!"
Fumiko and Lee had become close friends not much time after the Chuunin exams. She was hyper enough to keep up with him, and he was legitimately kind enough to understand her. It was a bit of a headache to every other human in the village, shinobi or not, especially when Lee helped her to zip around, the both of them laughing and yelling and nosy without meaning to be.
Usually they both jumped on the chance to train together- even if Fumiko couldn't even come close to keeping up with his insane taijutsu regime. Really, Gaara had been surprised that Fumiko could stand on her hands at all, let alone get a few shaky feet forward on them before collapsing.
Beside him, Fumiko grinned broadly and cupped her hands around her mouth: "Heeey, Lee!" she called, then waved. "Neji! Ten Ten!"
Gaara personally didn't know the team of Genin very well, only that to stand near Lee too long was to get a migraine and ringing ears, Ten Ten had more scars on her thumbs from Fuuinjutsu than any other kunoichi he had ever met- and so he made sure to watch carefully where her hands were- and that, well, he still wasn't particularly fond of the haughty white-eyed Hyuga boy, Neji.
But Fumiko seemed to like him too, so Gaara figured there must have been something other than stoicism in him, otherwise, she would get bored and not have gotten to know him. Fumiko wasn't actually a very good judge of character- she saw too much good in too many people- but if Neji acted like he did all the time, Fumiko would have just bonded with Lee.
Gaara didn't see their Jonin sensei Gai with them anywhere, which was a relief in itself. Behind him, he could almost feel his siblings sighing in resignation.
As they got closer, Gaara peered forward into the gates, bypassing Lee's energetic yelling about something or other, blinking to see if the village had changed at all. It hadn't.
Fumiko and Lee greeted each other excitedly, talking at rapid speeds only they and Gaara understood- because she spoke like that often- and as they did so he nodded politely to the other two.
Ten Ten nodded back. "It's good to see you again, Gaara-kun, Temari-chan, Kankuro-kun."
"At least we aren't trying to kill people this time," Temari mock-sighed, stepping up beside him where Fumiko had previously stood. "What, is this our first peaceful visit?"
"Hopefully." Neji said blandly, then flinched a full foot in the air as Fumiko jumped him.
"Hi, Neji! It's been forever since I saw you last! Did you know Gaara's gonna be Kazekage?"
"Aa, Fumiko," Gaara cut in. "That's not certain yet."
"Of course it is," she said cheerfully as she released the frozen Byakugan user. Then she reached into her pouch and held out her hand to Neji. "Sugar?"
"... No, thank you." he said after a moment.
Ten Ten smiled. "I'll have some, Fumiko-chan."
"No wonder she likes you," Kankuro drawled. "Everyone else refuses."
...
"Your skill certainly has improved, Fumiko."
Lee had dropped the -chan a long time ago, once he realized she didn't particularly care for it.
They were jumping, now, through the forests of Konoha- which were beautiful if not slightly wrecked here and there from the various battles that always seemed to occur when they were all together.
Fumiko was ecstatic. The only practice she'd had tree-walking in Suna was pretty much sandpaper-walking up the walls of random buildings. She hadn't been sure if she would be able to do it any better than the previous one, two, three, splatter on your face.
"Thanks!" she giggled back, pushing chakra through both her foot and through the metal part of the prosthetic. She was still way more clumsy and amateur at it than Lee, but she wasn't falling on her face, and Fumiko considered that a solid win.
"Have you managed to close your second gate yet?" Lee jumped straight up to avoid the jagged broken branch where Shukaku had obliterated part of a tree, grabbing a thinner branch above his head and slinging himself down to another. Fumiko followed suite, laughing as she soared through the air.
"Almost! But I keep passing out."
"Perhaps you could try building up your chakra stores, so you would have more to support yourself?" Lee suggested. It was funny how his voice didn't even hitch while hers was breathless and halted from running through treetops.
"I thought that too, but I did some research into it and when I tried it didn't work all that well. All I ended up doing was- uh!" Fumiko exclaimed as she almost fell but caught the branch and spun back onto it like a gymnast. She crouched there, pausing for breath. "-was giving myself chakra exhaustion."
Lee skidded to an abrupt halt, then backtracked beside her. "How unyouthful! Why not?"
"I have a theory, but I need Neji to confirm it."
What is it?"
Fumiko paused, humming in thought. "Well, I'm not sure yet, but I think it works kinda like Uzumaki Naruto's when he gets angry, or like you when you're using Frontal Lotus."
"What do you mean?" Lee asked, leaning forward with his elbows on his knees in interest.
"I don't necessarily have an excess of chakra. Actually," she laughed, "it's considered just above adequate by most shinobi standards. But you know how when you release your gates, there's such an extra amount that it escapes straight out of your skin?"
Fumiko emphasized this visual by raising her hands and flickering her fingers like she was imitating smoke.
"Yes."
"That's because the chakra network is disrupted. Instead of going in straight pathways, it escapes into your entire body uncontrolled, and without any walls to keep it in place it vanishes into the air like... Steam. Mine disappears at a steady rate of exactly how much chakra my body creates, so I retain an almost constant level of chakra."
"I do not understand... If you raise your overall chakra amounts, it shouldn't matter if it stays the same."
Fumiko shook her head, biting her lip thoughtfully. "That isn't how chakra buildup works. When you exhaust all of your chakra and it replenishes over and over, usually, it stretches your coils a little at a time so that it holds more at any given time. But, your body's natural exertion of chakra only increases slightly as you grow."
"So what you mean is that no matter what, any extra chakra your coils may hold will escape from your skin as excess?"
"I think so." Fumiko smiled. "But it's still just a theory."
"You think a lot, Fumiko."
"Not really." Fumiko shrugged. "I'm curious."
...
"May I ask how you keep coming up with these theories, Fumiko?" Neji said absently as he scanned her chakra again. He'd been cornered alone in the training fields.
"I think of things. I try them. They don't work. I do research and guess why."
"Guess?" Neji almost snorted as he blinked his eyes, Byakugan fading. "Well, then, Fumiko, you're a very good guesser, because this theory just like your others is correct."
"Sweet. So that means I think, that my chakra level will go up at least a little bit!"
...
"I like this room," Fumiko said brightly as she taped up her sketches of the day to the walls of one of the Naras' many guest rooms. There was a small clattering of wooden pieces behind her.
"It's your turn." Shikamaru drawled.
"Oh?" Fumiko turned, blinking down at the game board. Go this time, not Shogi. Shikamaru was teaching her how to play, and it had taken about ten minutes for him to make a move halfway into the game. "I think I'm getting better at this."
"More so than you are at Shogi, which is odd. Go is more complicated. But you're good at both. It's a real drag." Shikamaru sighed. "At least you play better than your sister."
Fumiko hopped down from the step stool and crouched down in front of the game. "Hmm," she hummed. "I think I'll do this thing."
She moved her pieces around the board.
Shikamaru stared at it.
For a while.
"Ne, Shikamaru, can I go back to decorating?"
He scowled, expression thoughtful and almost irritated, putting his fingers together in his customary way when he was thinking. "Yes."
...
"I can't believe you beat Shikamaru at Go," Choji mumbled around a mouthful of red bean bun. "Or that you can cook this good. You're pretty smart."
Fumiko blinked, putting the bowl with the miso soup down in front of him. "Wait, because I beat Shikamaru at Go or because I can cook good?"
"Agh, shut it, Choji," Shikamaru muttered, slinking deeper into his slouch and poking mournfully at his bean buns. Fumiko smiled sheepishly, tilting her head to the left slightly and closing her eyes.
"Ahaha, Shikamaru, I'm sorry."
Mai just barked out a laugh, nearly choking on her bean bun. "Idiot. She works in a damn hospital and half the ideas she has I can't follow. Of course she's smart."
"Or maybe you just aren't," Kankuro snickered behind his hand, although he knew full well she wasn't.
Mai swallowed and smacked her hands down on the table, startling Mrs. Nara, and growled. "Back off, Baka Kankuro, before I shove that bean roll down your throat!"
"I'd like to see you try!"
Fumiko skittered to them as Mai took that bet, forcefully smashing her half eaten bean roll into his face, knocking over both their bowls of soup and her plate of buns, nearly kneeling on the table for better leverage.
Gaara seemed to find the whole thing amusing, his lips twitching slightly even as he kept his eyes trained carefully down at his bowl of Miso soup. He ignored the sounds of struggling as Fumiko tried to pull her sister off a hacking Kankuro. "You had many hints that Fumiko was smart. Don't challenge her to mind games, Nara."
"I've always been able to beat her at Shogi before," Shikamaru argued, also unaffected by the fight breaking out right beside him.
"Barely," Shikaku, who Fumiko found to be very intelligent and kind, letting them stay at his house every time they visited, interjected, looking over his spoonful of soup. "And of course she's been improving, Shikamaru."
"Troublesome geniuses," his son sighed loudly.
Choji, Gaara, Temari, Kankuro, Mai, herself, and the Nara head family all sat around one huge oak dinner table. Fumiko had taken it upon herself to cook while they stayed here- because really, it was the least she could do- and nobody had complained once.
Choji was visiting over simply because he was Shikamaru's friend and apparently he ate dinner here often. He and Shikamaru sat beside each other, with Temari on the Nara heir's left. On the other side of the table were Gaara, Fumiko, Mai, and Kankuro's seats, also in that order, and on either end were Shikamaru's parents'.
"I'm not a genius," Fumiko laughed out. "I'm probably just picking up on some of your strategies, Shikamaru."
She sat down finally with her own bowl, munching on a bun, having successfully calmed her sister down with a fresh bowl of soup. Both Mai and Kankuro's shirts were stained with Miso, and they threw the occasional glare at each other. Temari elbowed her neighbor in the side with a smirk, spoon in one hand pointing at him tauntingly.
"So now you're getting beat by civilians, are you, Shikamaru?" Her tone had no real bite in it, but was amused and teasing. "Hum, to think you've fallen so far."
"Women," he groaned. "Fine then. I'll just come up with more strategies. Rematch after dinner."
"Dessert," Choji amended.
...
"Huh," little Konohamaru slurred, mouth full of noodles. "So you've been here before?"
Her and Konohamaru were sitting together at the counter for Ichiraku ramen, Fumiko waiting on her bowl and Uzumaki Naruto on his third. Not that he'd finished his second, but she supposed that would happen soon enough.
Gaara was out doing something with the other Academy kids again, who had remembered their temporary sensei and tailed him until he agreed to catch up with them. Konohamaru really was a cute kid, agreeing to watch over her while Gaara was gone.
"Yeah, once," she said. "Oh! Thank you."
"No problem," the chef said as he plunked her bowl down in front of her. "Enjoy."
"Once?"
"When we came here for the Chuunin exams, me and Gaara ate here. But there were more tables and more servers."
"Ah, the old man puts extra stuff out for village events, 'cause so many customers come in they just can't fit 'em all at the counter." Konohamaru answered after sucking down the rest of his bowl, clinking it down contentedly, almost an exact replica of the ninja he considered a rival. But Uzumaki Naruto was gone training with Jiraiya.
"Huh." Fumiko said. "That's a good idea."
"Yeah. Hey old man, one more, will ya please?"
While they spoke, Fumiko rummaged into her pouch for a handful of sugar. She zipped it back out and dumped the sweetener into her ramen before licking her hand off and reaching for her chopsticks with the other.
Dead silence.
Fumiko felt stares on the back of her head and looked over. Konohamaru and the chef had gone deadly quiet, staring at her with disbelief.
"Ne..." she lowered her hand from her mouth. "What?"
"You- you-" Konohamaru spluttered. "You ruined it!"
...
"Alright!"
Fumiko pressed both hands to her face, squinting in thought and biting her lip as she concentrated. Neji, Ten Ten, and Lee watched with fascination, Neji with his byakugan and Lee and Ten Ten with wide eyes.
She breathed out, in her mind piecing together the jagged parts and pieces of her pathways together with a mental kind of glue fixed together by a combination of Yin chakra and the stray fabrications of a weak, easily maintainable genjutsu. Slowly and with much focus and painstaking pasting, her paths reformed- on one gate anyway- and closed.
Fumiko didn't even stumble this time, just blinked rapidly and lowered her hands. This was common practice now, during her shifts at the hospital when urgent wounds simply required something more than ordinary stitching and swabbing. She still carried her medical satchel with her everywhere, though. Then she grinned.
"That is amazing," Neji murmured, blinking as well out of his byakugan. "Your mastery of the Yin part of your chakra is amazing. No holes, no cracks..." he frowned. "If not for your unfortunate defect, you would have had master control over your chakra. Are any in our family shinobi?"
"My mother is. She graduated straight into medic. corps and became an iryou-nin."
"Wow. That's pretty cool for a civilian, Fumiko-chan," Ten Ten said. "I didn't even see what happened. But why are you shivering? It's pretty hot."
"My chakra loose all over the place is actually really warm," Fumiko explained with a lopsided smile. "So whenever I close my first gate and the whole system regulates a little bit, I get kinda chilly."
"I know what you mean," Lee said sympatheticly. "When I was training to use it, the temperature of my body raised to almost four degrees past the ordinary limit of the human body."
Fumiko laughed. "Yeah, I've had some issues with that. With doctors who think I'm dying of heat stroke or fevers."
...
Several demonstrations later, all four of them sat together by the huge wooden training posts. Lee was talking animatedly both about youth and the curry Fumiko had made him, Neji was sorta just sitting there stiffly, and Ten Ten was working on seals, taking long, sweeping brushes.
Lee and Fumiko were well on their way to working themselves all the way back up when Ten Ten groaned, covering her face with one hand and smearing ink across her face. Fumiko glanced at her curiously.
"What's the matter?" she said, breaking off from what was starting to be an interesting conversation about squirrels and their habits. Ten Ten looked frustrated at the scroll lying open on the ground where she knelt, ink drying in the sun. She lowered her brush like she was going to write, hesitated, and then groaned again.
"No matter what I do, I can't find a way to make compartments!"
"Compartments?"
"Instead of all my weapons coming out at once, which is just annoying and unnecessary and impossible to clean up afterward, not to mention how vulnerable I'm left open whe I use one up," Ten Ten tried to explain, "I'm trying to find a way to make separate compartments to hold varying types and amounts of weapons that I could open a different times."
"I know some about Fuuinjutsu," Fumiko said, scooting closer to look at her work. Already there were three large, open circles where the 'compartments' would be. "Which is what and how much?"
"The first one would be just taijutsu, things I could grab at easily," Ten Ten said, still frowning and pointing at the circle with her brush. "Bo staffs, short blades, stuff like that. The second would be full of spam weapons- like what I do already for my spinning rage attacks. The third would be medium-long distance handhelds; Hashirigamas, long swords, shuriken. But I can't find a way to make them open at different times."
Fumiko blinked at it for a second, reaching out one thumb to blur a line slightly. "Well...have you considered switching your Great Raging Dragon bi-seals on the ends for chakra storage elements? If you did that, then here-" she swept her hand to the spam circle- "you could put an Ultimate Flying Storm bi-seal, which would connect the three of them and keep them stable, and still let you have separate chakra activation."
She chewed her lip thoughtfully, picking up a brush and starting on one of her more empty seals, putting in her suggestions. "... And if you accounted for amount at a time instead of just separate spaces, you could keep one general store trisected by amount needed... are you earth or water base chakra type?"
Ten Ten blinked. "Uh, earth."
"Perfect! Then a stabilization seal here for 'reaction' like you were trying for goes against your nature, sorta, that's better for a fire-based user. So if you went with a 'mud' kanji like this..." Fumiko calligraphed quickly with Ten Ten's chakra imbued ink, then swirled a general chakra stream to another Mud kanji above it, repeating the process on the opposite end of the scroll and stretching over Ten Ten's knees. "... then instead of a huge pop of smoke, it's be more like it's sliding out for you to grab."
"Wait," Ten Ten said, following her fingers with her eyes and jabbing at a symbol with her fingernail. "But if you put it up beside a Shinigami like that the scroll could implode and I'd lose my store in one go."
"Saa, but look, see, the way I curved the energy director?" Fumiko pointed out. "Like with my medical Seals, it'll push excess violent energy to the outside of the seal, which might actually go with mud in the center to get that 'reaction' flurry you want, but only in the center."
"Oh, I get it," Ten Ten said, blinking. "And what if I put a general storage marking here for my chakra specifically?"
"Then you could activate one or two at the same time... ooh, Ten Ten, that's a great idea!"
"I am lost," Lee admitted.
...
Fumiko and Lee had gone through curry, different kinds of spices, kitchen supplies, different kinds of poisons used for ninja, antidotes, rehabilitation, Lee's jutsu exercises, Fumiko's Yin: Release, Genjutsu, her paintings she had sold, the forest, and finally gravitated back to squirrels. They hadn't turned off for nearly an hour and it didn't look like they were going to anytime soon.
"Why do you two like squirrels so much?" Neji broke in finally. Although listening to them was in some right like watching a doomed jutsu- he just couldn't look away- Neji was about tired of the random, seemingly irrelevant topics.
Both of their heads swiveled around to look at him. Neji found it almost... creepy, the way they both simultaneously blinked at him.
"Because they're cute," Fumiko said at the same time Lee announced, "They let me feed them by hand."
"When do you do that?" Ten Ten asked curiously.
"In between my training... mostly when I am in the hospital," Lee admitted sheepishly.
"But-"
Ten Ten cut herself off, startled, when Fumiko suddenly closed her eyes and tipped over, not quite landing on Lee's shoulder and sliding off, landing instead on her side in the grass, all at once and completely unconscious.
Neji and Ten Ten both scrambled to their feet instantly. Lee just turned, having spotted the shadow of her fall and felt her glance on his shoulder, and jumped up himself when he realized what had happened. "Fumiko!"
...
When no amount of shaking, prodding, or pretending-nothing-was-wrong-with-her woke Fumiko up, Neji at last was the one to point out what they had to do.
"But, uh, Neji," Ten Ten said nervously, "That actually sounds like a really bad idea..."
"I do not particularly want to do it either," Lee admitted. "But Gaara does know her best."
"Fumiko passed out, Ten Ten," Neji said frankly. "We need to at the very least tell Gaara about it. Sooner rather than later. Perhaps he knows what's wrong. She might be sick."
Ten Ten sighed. "Fine, but I'm not telling him and I'm not carrying her."
"I will get her," Lee said. "I usually have to carry her to run anyway."
Lee knelt and awkwardly pulled Fumiko's prone body onto his back, carefully shifting as he stood to get his hands under her legs. He couldn't really put his hand in the crook of her left knee- since there wasn't really anything to hold the weight- so that rested instead about halfway up her thigh. Her head rested against the back of Lee's neck, arms hanging limp at her sides.
"Then I suppose I'll have to tell him."
...
Gaara wasn't at any of the ordinary training grounds with his siblings when they finally found him. Instead, they were all sort of sparring and sort of lying under the shade of trees some distance out into the actual forests of Konoha, except for Gaara, who stood and leaned against a trunk. When he saw them, he quickly detatched himself to confront them.
"Gaara," Neji said, almost uncertainly because a Hyuuga couldn't be unsure or nervous of anyone. "Fumiko seems to have feinted."
"Feinted?" Gaara glanced at her, lying on Lee's back.
"We were just talking," Ten Ten said, raising two hands in front of her. "Fumiko stopped for a few seconds to take a breath, and then she just passed out on the ground. We couldn't wake her up at all for the life of us."
"How long ago was this?" Gaara asked, voice monotone.
"About an hour an a half ago," Lee answered truthfully, hefting his load.
There was a moment of tense silence during which the Sand Siblings came to check out what was going on and snickered at their anxious faces, like there was nothing wrong at all. Finally, Gaara's face smoothed, almost like he'd been pretending.
"It's alright," he said in his low, gravelly voice, tone tinged with amusement. A hissing sound filled the air as sand rose and swirled behind Lee, gently lifting Fumiko from his grasp. She didn't even stir. "She didn't feint. She fell asleep. She does this sometimes."
"But- she didn't even seem tired before," Ten Ten protested. "She was going a hundred miles and hour and then she just falls asleep? No matter what we did, we couldn't wake her up. It's like she's in a coma for crying out loud!"
"She doesn't sleep much," Kankuro added dryly at their confused expressions. "It wasn't even her that was tired, just her body was physically exhausted. She sleeps a little more than Gaara does, and that's not a lot."
The sand drifted a short distance away. Fumiko slept on, one arm dangling from the yellow cloud, the other tucked underneath her head. Her legs were curled into her chest. She was completely unaware that she was being moved, but to Gaara's credit, the sand was being more gentle than Neji could ever have imagined Gaara's sand being. It dropped her gently in a patch of shade shifting under the cover of a clump of smaller trees, where Neji realized Shikamaru was already napping.
The sand slithered out from beneath her. Fumiko shifted once, twice, sort of stretched, and then was still.
Sand slowly drained back into Gaara's gourd as he looked over his shoulder at where he had put her. After a second, he turned back to them. "It's nearly impossible to wake her up when she's asleep," he explained. "Very few things can. But, thank you for bringing her to me."
...
When Fumiko woke up, she was being prodded in the cheek.
"Hey, so you're alive." a familiar, easy voice drawled.
The air was warm, sunlight seeping in through the sun-spotted, dark green foliage far above her head. She moved her hand, pleasantly startled when she realized the ground was soft with grass. A ladybug buzzed in front of her eye for a minute, climbing up a blade of grass like some mountaineer, before flying off.
"Leave her be, Shikamaru," Fumiko heard Temari snark. "Like you're any better."
"Ngh... Shikamaru?" Fumiko mumbled sleepily when she blinked his face into vision. He was lying on his side in the grass in a position that nearly mirrored hers, except that his arm was stretched out and he was still poking her in the face. "I was talking to Lee and Neji and Ten Ten in the training fields and..." she blinked again. "Forest?"
"You fell asleep again," said another familiar voice, low and rumbling. Fumiko smiled a little and sat up, yawning and rubbing her eyes. Shikamaru pretty much rolled away to give her space. "They brought you here."
Kankuro attacked with his puppets, and Gaara didn't even seem to notice. His sand jumped up to block. Kankuro cursed.
"No fair, Gaara!" he complained. "How is this training if we can't catch you off guard- ahh!"
Kankuro wiped out from where he had been hiding, sprawling out of the bushes as sand clocked him in the back of the head and tripped him up. He hit the grass with a thud, and right away his puppet crumbled into lots of separate pieces.
Temari burst out laughing. "I guess we can still catch you off guard!"
"Ne, again?" Fumiko asked this of Gaara, rubbing at one eye still. "That's been happening more often lately."
"And you've been sleeping less and less." Gaara said not quite sternly, but more exasperated and slightly amused. "There's a pattern, Fumiko. You need to sleep more."
...
"You know, I've never actually seen his scar before," Mai remarked as she watched Fumiko wipe at the faded kanji with solution she had made herself. They sat in Fumiko's guest room at the Nara's, Fumiko and Gaara on the bed, and Mai lounging on the floor with her legs up against the wall. "It's always super red."
Fumiko brushed the hair out of her eyes, rubbing at the now exposed dark slivers of lines that made up Gaara's scar with her forefinger. "I'm surprised this doesn't heal," she murmured. "You've had worse damage than this before and had no scars."
"I'm not sure," Gaara admitted from her lap. He was stretched out on the bed, the whole tall form of him. "I've wondered the same thing."
"Oh well." Fumiko pulled the reusable tube of paint she always used for Gaara's bright red paint. She dabbed paint onto her brush and carefully leaned over his face, not letting her hair sweep across her work as she swept perfect, thicker mirrors of his old wounds. "I guess it doesn't matter."
"Hey, Gaara, when we get back, they're voting council, right?" Mai asked, kicking at the wall absently.
Gaara opened his mouth to answer but withered at Fumiko's pointed look. "No moving. Once this is on it's on." Then she grinned, technically at him, she supposed. "Yep. Things are gonna get pretty crazy when we get back. Especially when Gaara becomes-"
Mai's bored banging finally stirred a response. "Stop kicking the wall, Mai!"
"Shut up, Shikamaru! I can kick the wall if I want to!" As if to prove her point, she kicked it again, harder.
"That's not even your room!"
"So what!"
Fumiko just shook her head, smiling, and Gaara smiled back.
...
...
And WELCOME, good people, to the FIRST chapter of Between Love and Everything else! Yay! And boyo, was it longer tha I meant it to be... over 8,000 words even without the AN!
I wrote most of this on my tablet at the airport and on the airplane to and from Pennsylvania, so I apologize for any typos autocorrect saw fit to push on me. Let me explain something that happened with the dropping-the-ball-thing. When I headed out to Pennsylvania, I was unsure if I would have WiFi or not, so I asked Lily to, if I didn't have any means of doing it myself, post the chapter as the ball dropped. She misunderstood me a little, and posted it a few hours earlier.
Then, I hoarded my stepmom's phone because it had data and tried to delete it, 'cause I realized what had happened and hoped I could do it again at twelve. I got a PM asking me what was wrong with my chapter- because it wouldn't show. I deleted it and the chapter labeled NOTICE that explained when I was grounded, so when I reposted at twelve it showed as chapter 35.
Now that that's out of the way, I'm going to put this little tidbit I wrote during a conversation with GaaraTheFifthKazekage- who by the way is writing a story that you should check out- because it explains a bit about Fumiko's meeting with the Elders the first time:
Before the council can take place, it has to be initiated by the Elders. You would get as many signatures from varying amounts of shinobi and civilians and present your case to them. Depending on how much they think the person will make a good Kazekage, they'll give you a percentage of the amount of people in the village that you need to get signatures from, as well as a loose shinobi type/civilian age requirement. If you can meet their terms, they'll begin the whole process.
I was explaining my big long-winded explanation of the voting process because Kishimoto doesn't.
So. I'm pretty sure that's all I was going to say.
There will be nine more chapters, and then the story covering shippuden. Review, please!
EDIT TWO: OH MY GOD I SCREWED UP. I wrote the ramen scene with Naruto, and just now realized Naruto was out training with jiraiya! My bad. I fixed it T.T