A/N And now for the second oneshot of "the Table Meets the Akatsuki". Larbi is the founder of our group, so fondly refered to as "the Table" and is the "sun" in our "Solar System".

Disclaimer: I own my head space. Yeah, that's about it. I don't own Naruto, I don't own Larbi, and I don't own an ff account. Kinda sad but that's me! 

~ Larbi's Rose ~

Larbi was just like every other 8 year old girl. She ate cookies, she teased her little brother, she cut her Barbie doll's hair, she loved hugs and flowers, and she was 6 ft tall.

OK, so not average in every respect.

Larbi was built in a similar fashion to that of a bear. A bear with a passion for roses. Pink roses, red roses, yellow roses, white roses, orange roses. She even grew blue and purples ones.

Unfortunately, Larbi had some habits that most others found strange and frightning. Habits like glomping people so fiercely they were in danger of suffocation, broken bones or just generally getting crushed. Or heading-butting people as a sign of affection. Or giving them odd nicknames that they absolutely hated.

Despite all of this, Larbi had some loyal friends, all of whom, were just as weird and crazy as Larbi in their own unique ways (this, however is the story of Larbi, you can read more about some of her friends in the other chapters of this fic).

One aspect of Larbi's craziness, could be found in the 'special roses' she breed herself.

One such rose was entered into a contest at the 'Fantastical Floral Festival', the local plant festival held once a month, so that all different seasonal plants can be show cased as well.

The contest was one of several novelty contests, designed for people who, like Larbi, cultivated their own species of plant.

Larbi entered her special potted rose (because all the plants for these competitons had to be potted) into the devision she thought it was most suited for, then wandered away to watch the judges decide which plant 'had the biggest nose', but not before giving her rose strict instructions to 'behave yourself'.

After about 10 minutes, the judges got to the table where Larbi had left her rose, along with the other candidates for that contest.

"We will now judge the 'most vicious plant'. We have here five compet- oh dear."

Oh dear indeed.

Well, there HAD been five competitors.

Now there were only three.

Well, okay, two and a half.

Larbi's rose was there, fighting with a venus flytap, that had been entered by someone named 'Zetsu', over a half eaten cactus that had been unfortunate enough to have been placed between them. It had been entered under the name 'Wile E. Coyote'. (Yes, as in the Warner Brothers one that chases after road runner. Meep meep.)

On either end (aka on the other sides of the rose and venus flytrap) were bits of broken pots and a handful of soil. The label in front of what used to be the contestant next to Larbi's rose, read, 'Ichi Rash's Poison Ivy'; and the one next to Zetsu's venus flytrap was labelled, 'Suf, O. Kate's Strangular Vine'.

Upon seeing this, Larbi immediately rushed forward to rescue the poor cactus, which was silently weeping anime style tears and holding up a sign saying 'HELP!'.

Larbi quickly pulled her rose off the half eaten thing and slapped the head of the venus flytrap, scolding them both for treating fellow competitors in the same contest so poorly, because Larbi was a very fair person for an 8 year old.

She was also very compassionate, so after scolding the two (who at least had the decency to look alittle ashamed of themselves), she hugged Wile E. Coyote's cactus, which promptly stuck thorns in her left check, neck and shoulder.

"Now is that any way to thank someone who just saved your life?"

A man who looked half venus flytrap and was even taller than Larbi (even if you didn't count the extra foot his plant jaws gave him), had come up behind her and now took the cactus from her to give it a good telling off while she pulled all the prickles out. She was particularly good at this concidering her hobby of breeding violently aggressive roses.

She listened as the venus flytrap man talked to the cactus.

"I thank you my prickly little friend. I was wondering what to have for lunch, but now I know. I'll have a rude, ungrateful, stunted, half-eaten, potted prick of a desert-dwelling, parasitic fungus."

Everyone in the room gasped (being plant lovers, incorrectly classifying a plant, especially on purpose, was a horrifying thought in itself. But to call a cactus a parasite, well, that was just cruel and malicious), and Larbi told him, "I appreciate the gesture, but that was a bit far," and Wile E. Coyote came forward to give venus flytrap man a piece of his mind (no, not literally, unfortunately).

"I resent you calling my cactus a stunted fungus, and the girl should know better than to go around hugging cacti."

"Well, you, my friend, should have taught your cactus some manners. Yeah even if our venus flytrap DID eat the other plants entered and make your cactus cry, at least they stopped when the kid jumped in."

"KID?!!"

"She'd have to be six feet tall for crying out loud!"

"True. We weren't six feet tall 'til we were, what, 15? 13. Oh that's right, with Aunt Milred's grape vines. Andthe mangroves by the lake. But it's amazing that those two listened to you, miss. You must be very talented."

"Thank you. Actually, I'm Larbi and this is my rose, so of course I'd be able to stop it. It was your venus flytrap I was more worried about, but it's been well trained."

"Ah, that's your rose? Well done. How old are you by the way Larbi?"

"I'm 8 years old. And your name's Zetsu right? It was on the card."

From there Larbi and Zetsu began to meet regularly and visit each other's gardens. Each sharing hints and secrets and funny little stories with the other, resulting in several plant species that ended up being banned by most of the world's gorverning powers.

A/N ok so how was it? Please review and tell me what you thought. Oh yeah, and about the names used on the placards, I know they're lame ok? But I couldn't resist putting them in anyway and I had fun coming up with them to .. heh heh.