A/N: Second chapter, let's see how it goes.

Chapter 2 - Day One in Suna

Naruto, the Hokage, and the squadron of leaf ninjas entered village. Naruto's face featured a show of both surprise and relief to see that the villagers weren't paying any attention to him, only the Hokage.

The foreign Leaf Nin ignored the curious glances and led the way to the Kage tower where the meeting was to be taking place. On the way, Naruto saw playing children stop what they were doing and look in awe at the Hokage and shinobi surrounding him, instantly guessing that he must be an important outsider to have so many escorts and bodyguards.

However, when they were but a short distance from the building, Naruto saw a red-headed boy about his age standing in the shadows, a good distance from any other person. Although nothing seemed to be wrong, the boys eyes though rimmed with dark circles making it a bit difficult to tell, were red, as if he had been crying. Now he just stared, as the others did, looking as if he were torn between glaring with a passion and breaking down into tears.

As he came closer into Naruto's view, he started to see the subtle expression that he himself received when walking the streets of Konoha. At first, he fearfully thought they were staring at him, but upon a closer inspection, he realized they were throwing their glares and fearful (there were more fearful glances than glares) at the boy with sea-green eyes. Naruto, at first, was just shocked to find that he wasn't the only one to gather such hatred from a village, and even though he had caught a glimpse of fear every now and then upon a Leaf Village citizen, this boy seemed to be collecting more than he ever had.

Having heard the Hokage speak, the blonde knocked himself from his thoughts, "Naruto, are you all right?"

"Huh? Oh, yeah! I'm fine," the young blonde answered enthusiastically, sticking the well-practiced smile upon his features. Giving the child before him a skeptical look, the Hokage simply sighed before turning his attention back to the matter at hand. With no interest on him, Naruto gave a small sigh before giving one last glance at the boy and speaking to himself in a rather tired voice, "Just peachy."

Entering the Meeting

Naruto had been quite surprised by how little time it had taken them to locate the tower and even more surprised by how alike it looked to the Sarutobi's own building back in Konoha.

"It doesn't look so different from your tower old man!" Naruto spoke his mind once again, being none too subtle as he looked at everything in the building.

The Hokage chuckled, "Yes, they do have the same design, but they differ very much. And remember, just stick alongside me and don't talk so loud, we don't wish to irritate or impose on anyone here."

Naruto nodded, determined to make the best impression and do as he was told, and followed the Hokage and Leaf Nin into the meeting room. Naruto's gaze immediately pounced on the Kazekage, who was sitting behind a dark, wooden desk.

"Greetings Sarutobi-san, I am pleased to see that you have arrived. I trust your journey was not too tiring?"

"Good evening, Aizen-san. And yes, the trip went well." (1)

The Kazekage nodded, and took this moment to make a quick glance at the Hokage's company. He quickly took note of the dip in the line where a young blonde boy stood, glancing around the room with a look of interest and awe. He did not fail to notice the three distinct lines on either side of the child's face. His eyes narrowed the slightest as he thought back to what his messenger had said upon returning from Konohagakure.

Then it is true. Konoha holds a beast in it's home, as we do. They, too, seem unsuccessful in its complete destruction, the Kazekage remembered to when he heard of the Kyuubi attacking, and what had been rumored to have happened. It was only now that he was sure of what actually occurred.

"Lord Hokage, may I ask why you brought this child with you?" ask the Kazekage.

A look of confusion came across the old man's face before he look to his left and saw the young blonde gazing. A smile came across his face as he answered, "Ah, yes, the boy wished to accompany me."

The Kazekage, Aizen(1), was indeed a bit irritated that he did not received a more informed answer, but understood the matter all too well, as he would not wish to speak much of his own failed experiment. "Yes, well, not to be rude, but you must know children of such a young age are not allowed to take part in such important meetings."

"Oh, yes I do. But what will we do about him? It would not be well for either me or the boy to simply let him out upon your village."

Aizen nodded, "Of course, I will assign some guides to show him around the village." And though no one appeared to be there, he turned and spoke to the space on his left, "Baki." None too surprisingly, a cloud of smoke erupted, before fading to reveal a ninja, a sand jounin with a mask disguising half his face.

"Yes Kazekage-sama?" asked the ninja asked, kneeling.

"Bring Kankurou and Temari to me," commanded the Kage. The ninja nodded and once again a cloud of smoke erupted, though this time when it vanished, the ninja had gone with it. In a moment filled with a slightly awkward silence, two children, a boy and girl, entered the room, the same ninja from before, Baki, following them.

"Yes fath—I mean—Kazekage-sama?" asked the girl.

"Temari, you and Kankuro are to show this boy around the village, understand?" asked the Kazekage.

"Hai" both the children said. "For how long, sir?" The boy asked while the girl, Temari, started to escort the blonde boy out of the room.

"Until I send someone for you," Aizen answered sternly. The boy Kankurou nodded and answered positively again, before following the two blonde children out the door.

Somewhere Within Suna

While touring the tour, Naruto took in how his guides looked. The boy, Kankurou, had spiked hair, wore a light, black jacket over a fishnet shirt, and black pants. The girl, Temari, had long dark-blonde hair tied in four pig tails, and she wore black pants, and a black shirt.

"And this is the academy," said Kankurou. They had been traveling through the village for a while already, but Naruto found that he was not the least bit bored. Although he did feel like some stupid tourist when he though about it, he could help but be in awe of this thriving village, he was also amazed that most of the important buildings weren't much different than the ones at home.

"All right then, come on, time to move on. You should also close your mouth, kid, before you choke on a fly, "the girl smirked.

The joyful look quickly vanished from Naruto's face only to be replaced by a scowl and vicious glare pointed toward the older girl. His teeth ground together as he attempted to keep his cool, he had promised to behave and try to make a good impression, both to himself and the Hokage.

"So, are you going to enter the academy at your village, Naruto?" Kankurou asked, trying to keep some civility between the three of them. Didn't his sister realize that they should at least attempt to get along with this boy, since their villages had just created a peace treaty?

Naruto smiled and was about to happily reply to Kankurou, who had been surprisingly kinder to him than his sister, Temari, when said sister spoke before he could. "Tch, why would a kid like him enter the academy? Besides, he must be years off from even starting it, he's so short, he's gotta be that young!"

Naruto was once again glaring at the dark-blonde girl as she had a good laugh. Before he even knew what he was doing, he found his mouth moving, speaking words a part of him wanted to say, but an even bigger part did not.

"I'm not a kid and even if I was, you're still one, too! After all, you can't be much older than me! How old are you, 7!? And my name is Naruto, so don't call me 'kid' or 'brat' or act as if I'm not here, because I can hear you!"

Temari blanked. Her mouth dropped the slightest as she stared at he Naruto who was pouting angrily. In less than a second, however, she shook her head and gathered her arrogance again. "Sorry kid, and I'm not 7, I'm 9, so HA!"

Kankurou rolled his eyes and quickly grabbed Naruto by the elbow before he could reply. The brunette led the blonde a ways ahead of their female companion before speaking to him in a lowered tone, "Listen Naruto, it'll be better not to get her bad side, trust me, it's not pretty. Besides, she's just acing this way because this boy at the academy doesn't like her," Kankurou told Naruto in whisper.

"What. Was. That?" Temari said in a voice that would make even a certain nine-tailed demon quiver.

Kankurou instantly perked up and flashed a million-yen smile at his seething sister, "Nothing Temari-onee-chan!"

Naruto couldn't help but laugh at the sibling's fight, however, his laughter faded as he spotted the red-headed boy he had seen earlier.

"Who's that?" he interrupted the 'conversing' siblings.

Temari put a speeding punch on hold as she glanced at the person Naruto was asking about. Her eyes softened and she dropped the unconscious Kankurou as she walked over toward the blonde boy.

"Mmm," she groaned, as if thinking up an answer. With a small sigh, she spoke, "That's my other brother, Gaara. He…well, he doesn't do too well with people."

Naruto stared at the emotions displayed over Temari's face. She seemed struck between fear, sorrow, and perhaps even anger. "Oh," Naruto replied and his gaze redirected back to the red-headed boy who now appeared to be trying to find anything to look at except the duo who were staring at him.

It seemed the aqua-eyed boy was intent on simply walking by the trio, when his sister called him over. "Gaara," she called in a soft sort of yell. "Hey, come on over here will you?"

It seemed as thought he were merely going to ignore his sister's request, but then he hesitated and a second later was rigidly walking toward his sister.

"What?" he asked; his voice low and sweet.

His sister sighed silently, "Um, well, I just wanted to know what it was this time?"

His eyes narrowed and he glared at the ground. Naruto also noticed that his gripped tightened on a stuffed bear he was holding, something the blonde hadn't noticed before.

"The other kids wouldn't play with me. Then some people took them and told me to go away. They said some mean things when they thought I couldn't hear."

Naruto couldn't believe what he heard—someone was really like him, hated by the village they lived in. He stared at the boy, shocked and awed.

Distantly, they head a groan, and recognized Kankurou coming up to the group. "Oh, uh, hey Gaara." He met Temari's gaze for a second, fear and confusion mixing between the two children.

An awkward silence ensued before Kankurou broke it, "So, um, have you met Naruto? He's here with some other Leaf shinobi. His Kage is here to create the official Peace Treaty papers with dad.

"I heard," Gaara answered shortly, not meeting anyone's gaze.

Naruto hesitated for a split-second before resuming his outgoing self, deciding to take the initiative for introductions, "Hi, Naruto Uzumaki. It's nice to meet you Gaara, I have a feeling we're going to be great friends!"

An extremely surprised and confused look passed between Temari and Kankurou as they listened to the two youngest children converse.

Gaara's glare faced Naruto full on before being replaced confusion as he responded. "H-hello, my name is Gaara.

Naruto smiled a grin that reached forced his eyes to close, "Hehe, so Temari and Kankurou are giving me a tour of your village. I've got to say, it's been really cool so far, but I was wondering if you'd like to join us? I'd really like it if you would!"

Gaara's brow furrowed as he stared at the blonde boy before him. Slowly, a nod from his head of red hair was seen and Naruto grinned wider as he felt maybe he'd have his first friend.

"Great! Kankurou, you lead the way, since you doing that before." At this point, Temari interrupted, since she wanted to lead the way. In the end, as the two blondes and one brunette clashed, the young red-head near them smiled attentively; hope filling him as he looked upon Naruto.

The blonde boy, feeling a gaze on him, looked at Gaara. Seeing his smile, he grinned back. And with that, he grabbed a hold of Gaara's shirt and together they sneaked away from the arguing older kids, choosing to continue the tour of the village on their own.

(1) Aizen - I couldn't find any clue as to what the Yondaime Kazekage's name was, so I just went ahead and made up my own. If you've got any clue as what his name is, though, I'd love to know.

A/N: Well there we have it. Both reviews and constructive criticism are welcomed. Flames are shunned. Until next time