A/N:I apologize that this took so long but I had trouble with some parts of this chapter since I came down with a bit of writer's block. I'm already done with a bit of the Chuunin exam but for the life of me, I couldn't finish this chapter in time. So, once again, I apologize.

I'd like to thank those who corrected my use of -dono. That will be rectified...soon.

Well, I've decided on the pairing. It will be Naruto/Temari/Tayuya?. The ? girl will be revealed in the much later chapters. If I change my mind, I might decide to throw in a few more girls in the mix. :D

I forgot to explain this in the last chapter but Naruto's skill level is still Genin, a good Genin but a Genin nonetheless. Also, assuming Anko was twelve when she left Konoha, she'd be 18 right now. Her skill level is Jounin right now, seeing as Orochimaru has been training her the past few years.

Disclaimer: Don't own Naruto and I'm not making any money off of this.

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Chapter TWO

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Anko stood outside the Kazekage's office, arms across her chest as she glared at the clock hanging on the wall across from her. A vein appeared on her forehead as the kunoichi gritted her teeth in annoyance. She'd never been a patient person and she certainly wasn't going to start being one now.

Trying to calm herself down before she destroyed something (or someone), Anko recalled why she was waiting in this godforsaken lounge to see some asshole on a massive powertrip, otherwise known as the Yondaime Kazekage.

She'd sent word to her father through a summoned snake three days ago about Shukaku's vessel and his reply had arrived just yesterday. His words: "Do what you can to acquire Shukaku but do not endanger the alliance."

So there she was now, waiting and quickly getting sick of it. While she idly wondered if the alliance would be endangered if she completely…redecorated the waiting lounge, the door to the Kazekage's office opened and his Chuunin assistance stepped out. Anko released a sigh. The place could have used some of her…creativity.

"Mitarashi-sama, the Kazekage will you see you now," the assistant informed her.

Anko set him a wicked smile to scare him and take revenge for having been made to wait for so long. She was rewarded when the Chuunin jumped and nearly ran to his desk in fright, muttering about blood. The kunoichi smirked as she entered the village leader's office. Apparently, her reputation preceded her.

"I would appreciate it, Mitarashi-san, if you refrained from terrorizing my assistants in the future," said the Kazekage as the purple-haired teenager closed the door behind her.

Anko bowed but chose not to reply, inwardly sneering. She didn't particularly like shinobis who wasted their time behind their desks. She viewed them as weak and spineless. Obviously, being a Kage wasn't in her near future.

"What brings you to me, Mitarashi-san?" asked the older shinobi, leaning back in his chair.

"Kazekage-sama, my father and I have a request and we beseech you to consider it," said Anko, refraining from making a face. Mitarashi Anko did not usually lower herself so much as to 'beseech' for anything. She would have to wash her tongue out later when she got back to the hotel.

The man gestured for her to continue, looking mildly suspicious.

"We would like you to consider letting us train Gaara-san,"

Silence fell on the occupants of the room as the Kazekage stared at the female. Anko met his stare with an unwavering one of her own.

Letting Gaara go with them would stop the deaths of the villagers and valuable shinobi, mused the man, a smile under his veil. He would become their responsibility and the Kazekage could finally wash his hands of his troublesome son.

Finally, after what seemed like an hour to Anko (read: three minutes) the Kazekage nodded his consent. "Very well, Mitarashi-san. I will grant this request. But on two conditions."

"Conditions, Kazekage-sama?" echoed the teenager.

"Yes. The condition that you do not treat him any better tha other children just because he is my son," Obviously, the fool did not know Mitarashi Anko. She hardly gave slack to anybody when it came to training, even her beloved little brother. "The second is that he returns to the village before his twelfth birthday. I would like for him to become a shinobi of the sand."

Maybe by then he'll have learnt proper discipline and obey my orders, thought the Kazekage while the kunoichi in front of him considered his words.

"We accept these conditions, Kazekage-sama," answered Anko with a confident nod. Her father wouldn't mind her agreeing without consulting him. After all, she'd be the one doing most of the training while Orochimaru planned and gathered new shinobi and allies for a new hidden village.

The leader nodded. "That's settled, then. When are you leaving?"

The barely veiled eagerness in his voice irritated Anko to no end and she had to restrain herself from hitting him. Not that she could even if he wasn't expecting it. He was a Kage after all and her skill level was only Jounin at best. The difference between the two was, for lack of a better word, big.

"As soon as possible, Kazekage-sama," she replied with a forced smile. "I'll take my leave now." With a stiff bow, Anko left the office, her mind filled with thoughts of her plunging a kunai into the man's chest.

Her thoughts cleared however when she left the building and saw two small figures waiting for her, both looking hopeful. She grinned and gave them a thumbs-up.

Gaara's reaction came in the form of a relieved sigh and eyes that were no longer dead. His companion's, however, was far more enthusiastic.

"YATTA!" yelled Naruto, pumping his fist into the air.

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Naruto's happy outlook did not last long, however.

"I don't see the point of this exercise," the six year old deadpanned as he hung upside down on a tree branch in the forest a few miles away from the hideout.

"It's to improve your chakra control and also increase your chakra reserves. You can't always rely on Kyuubi-san for help," said Anko, throwing a kunai at her brother, a dango skewer stuck between her teeth.

The blonde leaned to the side, the kunai missing him by several inches. "Then why are you throwing things at me?" he demanded, looking flustered as he crouched to avoid another kunai. "Those things aren't blunted, you know. I could get hurt!"

"Quit your complaining. And it's to improve your dodging and reaction time," replied the kunoichi as if it was the most obvious thing in the world. "It's something I like to call multi-tasking, otouto."

Another thrown projectile, another dodge.

"Multi-tasking sucks," muttered Naruto, using a kunai to deflect a shuriken. While Anko declared a break to munch on more of the dango she had gotten from Sunagakure and left with a threat that he stay sticking to the tree or else, his eyes wandered over to Gaara. The redhead was a few feet away sitting down, leaning against the tree and his sand pooling between his legs. The sand was rising to form shapes, though it wasn't really clear to Naruto what shapes they were.

"Ne, Gaara, what are you doing?"

The Tanuki container raised his head and looked over at Naruto. "An exercise Anko-sensei told me to do," he replied tonelessly, turning back to his sand. "I told her about my sand being intelligent."

"And she's training you to have better control over the sand instead of letting it do what it wants?" guessed Naruto, squinting his eyes as Gaara's sand took on the shape of a square…or was that a pentagon?

"Hai," was the only answer he got.

Naruto made a mental note to work on Gaara's social skills in the future before continuing on. "I'm not surprised. Anko-nee-chan usually knows what she's doing when it comes to teaching. When she's not drunk or stuffed with dango, that is," he added with a foxy grin.

A shuriken whizzed just past his head after that statement, nicking his ear. Almost immediately, Kyuubi's chakra healed it but not before a few drops of blood fell onto the forest floor.

The blonde looked in the direction where the shuriken came from and quickly grew nervous when he saw who it was standing there with fists clenched and a knot forming on her head.

"O-ohayo, nee-chan," said Naruto, dread settling in his stomache.

Silence reigned as Gaara watched the two siblings stare at each other. Then, something horrible happened. Anko's expression changed from murderous to saccharine. Naruto started sweating bullets when he saw the change. There was no way this could end well for him.

"Ohayo, Naruto-kun," said the teenager sweetly. "We'll now resume the training, shall we?" Her eyes glinted dangerously as she formed hand seals. With a poof of smoke, four kage bunshins appeared beside her. As one, the six kunoichi withdrew eight kunai each from their pouches, four on each hand. "Get ready, Naruto-kun,"

The blonde container gulped, praying to some higher power that he would come out of this ordeal alive.

"Ikuzo!"

A few miles away, Orochimaru looked up from his work desk and blinked. He could have sworn he'd heard his Naruto's scream and then Anko's cackles. He shook his head and turned back to his desk and the five pictures on it, making a mental note to sleep tonight. The sleep deprivation could not be good for what was left of his sanity.

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Kuno Toushiro wasn't exactly what one would call a very good shinobi. Sure, he'd graduated from the academy on his first try but he'd been the dead-last of the class. Of course, it didn't help that he had very little talent in any of the three basic Shinobi fields. The only thing he really had going for him was his speed. That was why he'd been appointed as one of the guards to the entrance of the Snake Sannin's hideout. His job was to run to Orochimaru-sama or Anko-sama and inform them of any incoming danger.

He took his job seriously but there were just times that his body rebelled against him. His eyes were drooping slightly since he hadn't had much sleep the night before. He'd been too busy gathering the children Orochimaru-sama had sent him to get.

But those children were far from his mind as sleep finally overtook him.

A few minutes later, Kuno was jarred awake when he felt the pain that could only come from somebody kicking him in the shins.

"You were slacking off, Kuno," was all his attacker had to say.

"I apologize, Naruto-sama," said Kuno, bowing deelp before the six year old. He didn't really respect Naruto and would have killed the annoying brat had he the skills but he needed to keep up appearances. Naruto was the Boss's son, after all. That, and the second-in-command would make him wish he was in hell if he ever thought of laying a violent hand on her otouto. Speaking of the second-in-command…

"Make sure it doesn't happen again," came the disdainful voice of Anko as she gave the guard a glare.

"It will not, Anko-sama," cowered the shinobi.

"It better not. Or else you'd have to be punished," the kunoichi's glare turned into a psychotic grin and Kuno couldn't decide which one was scarier.

He was saved from Anko going into full psychotic mode when Naruto piped up, tugging on his sister's hand impatiently. "C'mon, Anko-nee-chan. I want to introduce Gaara to tou-san."

The teenage girl sighed, the grin fading from her face. "Alright, brat. C'mon, Gaara-kun."

As the two siblings walked off towards the main compond, Kuno threw a glare at the blonde container's back, something that the passing redhead kid with the weird eyes who had arrived with Ako and Naruto did not fail to notice.

Seconds later, Kuno was engulfed in sand.

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In a room near the center of the compound, Orochimaru paused in his survey of his potential elite when he felt three incoming chakra signatures, two of which he was quite familiar with.

"Orochimaru-sama, does something concern you?" spoke a white-haired teenager, a bit concerned about how his master had abruptly halted in his observation of the four children before him. The children also seemed to be a bit curious as to what had gotten the Sannin's attention but stifled their questions since it felt rather uncomfortable having that scrutinizing gaze directed at them.

The door to the room slammed open and Kaguya Kimimaro got the answer to his question.

"We're back, tou-san!" the rambunctious blonde who had just entered exclaimed loudly and needlessly, running to the dark haired man in the center of the room. A foot away and the demon vessel paused for a moment, bowed respectfully then jumped on his father's back, making the eyes of the other occupants of the room, save Kimimaro's who'd witnessed this before, bulge in the face of such blatant familiarity with their usually unapproachable leader.

"Okaeri, Naruto-chan," said Orochimaru, patting the blonde on the head affectionately before setting him down on the floor as Anko and Gaara appeared at the doorway.

It was then that Naruto noticed the other children, all of them looking to be older than him, in the room.

"Huh? Who are they, tou-san?" he asked, one hand fisted in his father's robes.

"They're going to be some of the best in our village once they are properly trained, Naruto-chan. They will be the Elite," answered Orochimaru with a smile that creeped out most of the room's occupants. "And as of right now, they, along with Gaara-kun, will be under your supervision."

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A/N: I'm not particularly proud of this chapter. Something about it just seems…off to me. And if you haven't already guessed, the children in the room are Kidoumaro, Jiroubo, Tayuya and Sakun (and Ukon).

Next part (whenever I get around to writing it) will have a time-skip. It will probably be only two or three years but who knows? I certainly don't. XP Don't worry, though, there will be flashbacks to fill in the gaps.

As I've already said in the A/N up there, I'm already done with a small bit of the Chuunin Exams. Yeah, I know I'm thinking way too far into the future but that's just how my mind works. I'm stumped however on what will go on between now and then. So…any suggestions?