Chapter 04

Our Empty Bond

- Now –

(A/N: So if you have not noticed; Naruto forces himself to be strict around Gaara, and then carefree if he is not around.)

Naruto sat on the rooftop of the academy during the afternoon while the sand siblings were out doing the entrance part of the Chuunin Exams, waiting patiently for Gaara to leave the double doors so that he could be at his side since the redhead was still annoyed that he had left during his free time. It was obvious that the black-ringed Jinchuuriki did not love anyone but himself, but he did not really notice how he would cling onto him as something to keep himself sane instead of letting the tailed beast to control him, which was why Naruto was allowed to continue on living in this world. A presence was felt behind him the moment that person appeared thanks to the nine-tailed fox inside of him who enhanced all of his senses, but the intruder made no intention of beginning a conversation with him, causing him to turn and face the man that he did not want to see yet. Sarutobi Hiruzen, the Third Hokage, stood behind him with a light smile in Naruto's direction, which did not really make him happy right now, so he slowly turned his entire body to fully face the man who had disowned him by sending him to the Wind Country when he was only a little child.

"So you're the one who threw me away to the Wind Country?" Naruto questioned stoically. "You don't need your weapon?"
The elder frowned at this, "I don't know what they've told you, but my advisers had threatened to kill you if we had kept you."

So the Kazekage told him the truth; Konoha discarded him because he was a Jinchuuriki.

His eyes glowed red and gave a loud roar that shook the academy.

Almost all of the students either had screamed like girls or cowardly ducked under the desks when hearing a ferocious beast outside the academy that was shaking it apart practically, there were only three that were taking the exams who knew what was causing this large disruption right now. Akamaru whimpered and whined a little when saying that the chakra he was sensing right now was that of the blond-haired boy that had saved him last week, causing Kiba to panic because he did not believe that anyone could have such a sinister chakra, or even such a monstrous roar. Gaara was annoyed at the fact that the written test was being stalled by the ninja at the front of the room since he was too busy panicking about what was happening outside as the chakra became dense at a quick rate, meaning that someone was beginning to transform into a monster.

He walked out of the line casually and went to the open window to find a four-tailed miniature demon fox throwing the Hokage on the ground with the attention to kill. "Leave him alone," Gaara demanded reluctantly. "That's an order." His pale green eyes watched as it turned to look before turning to look at the Hokage once more, briefly, before leaving the scene to have his body recover.

With Naruto obeying his demand, he turned to look at the ninja who was supervising the enrollment before walking back to his spot in line with his older siblings while everyone else gaped or stared in surprise about the control he had over that monster. Gaara would have to do something about him in case he was going to be ruining his fun; if there was going to be anyone to kill, it would be by the one-tailed beast and not the nine-tailed one. Everyone settled down inside the classroom with Hell outside, what with the Hokage being attacked by some beast that they had never seen before—yet of course they have not, since it was not a full-tailed beast at the moment. He knew that if he had allowed Naruto to continue, he would have most definitely decided to skip the plans and changed into the most feared creature in the world. The thought of what had happened all those years ago began to anger the Kazekage's youngest son, where was that hateful man anyway; Baki had yet to give Naruto the answer of where he was and what he was doing.

Something had to be wrong if he would not give up on something like this.

"You caused a great deal of trouble, Naruto." Temari called with a frown, sitting in front of the blond-haired male that did not care.
Kankurou was sitting in a distant corner to stay out of the mess on the other hand. "You gotta give the guy a break Temari…"
"How would you feel," Naruto spoke quietly while staring out of the open window. "To be in a village you were thrown out of?"
"I understand that you're upset, but you can't go killing the Hokage, not yet at least." She added hesitantly at the end of her speech.
The eldest male in the room allowed his head to dip forwardly with worry. 'You are going to get them angry, stop while you're ahead.'
"Our job is to wait for a signal to kill everyone." Gaara spoke from his own special corner. "Do not act so selfishly, if so, leave now."

Naruto looked at Gaara when hearing the speech, and almost wanted to return the words back at him—but he chose to obey him. "Very well, Gaara-sama, do not wait for me then. I will be acting selfish." He got up, turned away, and darted out of the window.

It was not that he was angry with anyone for trying to talk him down, but the demon inside him was still being very aggressive about wanting blood; a price that he had to pay when wanting to use the dangerous creature without losing his sanity, without losing sense of who he was. A pink-haired girl walked passed an alleyway that so happened to be the girl that he met on his first day in the big village, so he hopped the fences, jumped a roof, and landed casually in front of her with a stoic expression unfortunately. At first, it had seemed like she was thrilled to see the boy who was from another village, but she noticed that something was wrong with him because of the look on his face, even though he tried to smile warmly at her as she caught the drift of this.

"May we go eat some ramen together like before?" He asked quietly. "It will be my treat as it was the last time."

Sakura had blushed at this even though she gave a weak nod, but her entire face became red when he had taken her hand so that they could walk together as if they were some magical happy couple split between two families; though in this case it would be two countries. A red-haired male was not enjoying the sight that he was seeing from a rooftop; he was not happen of how willingly the other beast had left, so he had taken it upon himself to keep an eye on him to make sure that he would behave while he was out flirting with this… this girl. His own demon was stirring with fury to watch as someone was spending time with the other beast, it was obvious that something bad was going to be happening soon whether it was going to be his doing or not, but really it was for him to decide if this girl was going to be a threat to his world…

Even though Naruto was not in his world any longer.

"Thank you for joining me, I hope I'm not keeping you from something." Naruto frowned at the thought of it.
Her cheeks reddened again at this. "N-No, not at all, but," she just had to ask. "Is something wrong?"
"It is my rule that I do not lie." He grabbed his chopstick. "Therefore, I can't deny that there is."
"Does it have something to do with that boy in your team—er, your group or whatever?"

His attention went to his bowl of food. "Gaara-sama is not something that I talk about so freely with others, not even his siblings." He then realized saying 'siblings' was already too much. "The group I came with has not troubled me, it is another… an elder rather."
"So… that means that they would have to be from this country…" The pink-haired girl tried to think about it for a while. "Well…"
"I am the Jinchuuriki of Konoha; I contain the Kyuubi that attacked the village twelve years-old." He stated flatly as he finished his bowl of ramen, before asking for another plate. "The Hokage had disowned me and gave me to Kazekage-sama when I was little."
Sakura stared at him with disbelief at first, though started to realize something. "Wait… you're not lying… are you…"

Hearing this had caused him to sigh reluctantly. "I admit seeing the old man stirred me more than I imagined, and allowed myself to transform with four tails so that no one would know that it was me." He knew he was talking too much. He finished his bowl of ramen, paid for their meals, and smiled at her. "I have not been able to talk freely for such a long time. Thank you for having the meal with me, Sakura-sama." Leaning over a little, he gave her a kiss on the cheek. "Sorry for telling you this."

She watched in a dumbfounded manner as he stood up from his seat to leave the ramen stand, causing her to thank the old man for the meals before turning around to run after the blond-haired male that was casually walking away, already nearing the bridge that they were at before. Without thinking of what she was doing, she clasped her arms around one of his in order to have him wait for her so they could talk a little longer, but she noticed that the boy had become a little stiff for some reason—no, it did not matter, she still wanted to talk to him to understand something. He slowly looked at her, trying to have her reconsider what she was doing by leaving him to his business, but he knew that the girl was not going to be easy to shake off after being nice to her ever since him and the others arrived to the village, therefore, he would hear her out.

"I don't care what you are, you seem nice." Sakura slightly pleaded for him to rethink his ways. "I never heard of Jinchuuriki either."
"They are hosts to monster; tailed beasts that cause chaos to the world, but we are also pets." He stared at the ground, thinking.
Her head tilted a little confusedly at this, but shook it out of her mind. "I won't tell anyone what you are Naruto, I promise I won't."
"I know you won't, because then I would have to kill you and the ones that know." He looked to her. "I do not want to kill you."

"Then perhaps I should." Gaara stated as his form appeared through the flying sand on the bridge. "Are you interested, Naruto?"

Naruto knew that he was being watched by the one-tailed beast, it was why he was leaving on such a short notice in order to protect Sakura from this person. He removed his arm from her grasp before walking towards the redhead with black rings around his eyes, knowing that he would have to keep things in control. His instincts told him otherwise as his beast warned him of the lurking danger in the other that he was giving off right now; he had to be careful about the situation.

"I have no interest in a girl from the village that disowned me." Naruto replied sternly, looking the boy in the eyes. "There is no need to kill her as of yet. She will be participating in the Chuunin Exams, so do not kill until then if you will." He looked away now, but it was unfortunate that he looked at the girl's eyes. "Excuse us—"

It seemed to him that Gaara was not satisfied with the arrangements seeing how he released his wrath on Sakura, which was, until Naruto shoved her out of the way of the attack, causing him to be captured in the sands deadly snare for protecting her. Protecting. This forced Gaara's sand to waver at this and clung to his head at the painful memories he was having, allowing Naruto to come to his side once again, whispering something quietly in his ear to keep him calm, and this time it worked ever so slowly. Sakura tried to thank Naruto for keeping her safe from the mysterious attack that had came out of nowhere—but she was completely ignored.

"Naruto, Gaara left right after you and I can't—" It was Kankurou, trying to explain that the youngest sibling went missing, but saw that Naruto was standing next to the missing brother, and was punched in the facing immediately—slamming him into the ground.

"We are the ones doing the work, you can at least do your job." Naruto stated sternly.
The elder sibling groaned in annoyance. "I didn't know that he left until a few minutes ago."
"If you have time to daydream, scout the perimeters as I did." He glared at the excuse given.
"Easy for you to say, you are always right at his side, and now I suddenly have to babysit him!"
"Shut up," Gaara demanded as he stared at the sibling. "You're annoying." He began to walk away. "Come Naruto."
"The sooner this exam is over, the better," Naruto stated quietly as he turned to follow the boy. "I'm becoming nauseated."

Kankurou looked at the girl, "I don't know his reasons for being around a weak person like you, but stay away from him." His eyes decided to look her up and down. "You see, he lives for one reason, and one reason alone—something he decided years ago…"
Hearing him say this made her a little irritated as she began to retort. "What are you even talking about? What reason is that then?"
"You will find out sooner or later, depending on the choices you make." He smirked in a devilish manner until he heard the blond calling for him, so he spoke one last time toward her. "A bit of advice since Naruto seems rather interested in you, stay away."

When the three ninjas left her sight, a man appeared behind her, which thankfully was just Kakashi—yet he did not seem so happy.

"What he said to you," he started by mentioning Kankurou's words. "Please take it to consideration."
"That's why you knew Naruto! You were a part of it I bet!" Sakura pointed at him accusingly.
The man looked away in a sad manner. "Get some rest tonight, okay?"

She stared at him as he too, disappeared.

Now she knew the truth of her new friend.

Causing her to find Sasuke to help her.

It actually did not take her too long to find the black-haired teammate that wore a blue shirt, so she grasped on to his arm as she had done with Naruto, and began asking for his help in order to find out more about Naruto; a boy that was originally born in the village of Konoha. The summary of the boy was what made the other one very interested in this matter as he began changing his course towards the lodges where the visitors out of the country were staying for the Chuunin Exams, but he had no idea what was going to be laid in dormant for them for being so foolish. As they got closer, one of the two could tell how there was a dangerous feeling in the direction they were going—something was not right; something was wrong, and yet here they walked down the street towards the lodges at the feeling began to intense every few feet they went.

"Sakura," Sasuke spoke with in thought, "this might be dangerous; that boy is a lot stronger than us."
"His name is Uzumaki Naruto, Sasuke-kun, and I'm really worried about him." She frowned worriedly.
He looked around for some ideas. "Let's hide on the roof over there and watch them across the street."
"Nice plan, as expected from Sasuke-kun!" Sakura cheered as she followed him up on a rooftop to hide.

Even though the female teammate believed that this was a great plan, it truthfully was not.

They watched as the brown-haired male and blond-haired female walk down the street away from the lodge that they have been staying in for a while, meaning that the Team 7 was lucky that they hopped up on the rooftop when they did, so they decided to watch what was happening inside. Both saw Gaara against the wall while grasping his head tightly as if he were in pain while Naruto stood two feet in front of him, neither of their lips were moving unless you considered it as the red-haired male growled with anger—or frustration even, the kids were not sure yet. Together, they watched as the one sitting down had immediately got up and landed a harsh punch against the other's face when it was obvious that he could have easily dodge the attack, it led the redhead to summon his sand around Naruto's lower half; engulfing body agonizingly slow. Their eyes widened in surprise when the captured ninja had reached for a kunai on his right to penetrate his left arm so that blood would rapidly flow down when he lowered his hand, allowing the blood to seep into the sand as if it was a sacrifice for the other; his blood as a sacrifice to what?

Gaara hesitated in killing Naruto now, causing the sand to retreat his from to stand there in loss.

Finally, they started to talk, now Sakura and Sasuke could understand them.

"You're getting too attached to this village, I want to kill everyone right now." The redhead stated as he glared at the other.
Naruto placed a hand on his shoulder, replying in the same tone. "We made an agreement, Gaara-sama, please remember."
"How can I forget when you do not trust me to be on my own?" He looked away. "You can kill someone but I can't, it's unfair."
His blue eyes resisted the urge to roll lazily at this. "I was careless of emotions." It was true, but the other was not happy still.
"Emotions are what make you weaker than me, yet you are stronger." He glared. "Why have you not killed me to stay alive."

Naruto calmly shifted his hand to Gaara's neck, his emotions gone. "I can, I could, but I will not allow you to be alone. If I were to kill you, I would kill myself." His hand was brushed aside gently by the redhead. "About the girl, she is infatuated with your prey, and besides, there are interesting creatures here." He began walking to the door. "Your exams should be starting soon, Gaara-sama."

"You will stay here." Gaara stated as he grabbed his gourd while walking out the door. "Expect us in a few hours."
Naruto smirked at this, "try to play nicely, and only kill those that are in your way, killing everyone is no fun in the long run."
"Make up your mind, Naruto, can I or can I not kill others?" It was annoying to hear things change. "Also, what about yourself then?"
"Both, you can only kill those in your way during the Chuunin Exams, everyone else you can't kill." He smiled. "It sounds fair, right?"
"What are you going to be doing while I am absent? Will you be killing those that are in your way?" To Gaara, it sounded logical.
His head shook with disagree. "It seems I was requested to go to the academy for something." To prove it, he gave a smug smile.

The redhead nodded once before leaving the lodge. "Fine, come along then."

"So he's going to be waiting for you at the lodge?" Kankurou's loud tone was heard when Gaara met up with the two siblings.

Silence was his answer as usual when the question was either beneath his answering or if he was troubled by something that had to do with himself, meaning that no matter what it was about, it was going to be about Naruto in this case of the matter since he was not going to be answering questions. It was not long until that Uchiha Sasuke and two others came with him, one they knew to be Haruno Sakura because their friend asked her name, but they did not know who the other character was with them—suddenly even more rookies began showing up together as a big group. Kankurou's previous annoyed expression turned into a devilish grin when seeing the three small Genin that he met when fetching Naruto yesterday—boy did he want to go over there to beat the senseless crap out of them because he was so bored from waiting for the officials to show up. As a ninja with glasses began to talk with the Konoha rookies about the Chuunin Exams, the black-ringed male turned his attention to a different door when sensing the male with whisker markings, and sure enough, that it was Uzumaki Naruto that entered the room lastly and walked towards his allies.

"N-Naruto, what are you doing here?" Temari asked in complete surprise to his appearance.
He sighed at the while looking at his now bandaged arm to hide the tattoo. "I have to participate."
Kankurou chuckled at this. "Come on, you're going to fight too?" He knew he was being loud on purpose.
"Ah, maybe… everyone seems weak." The blond male looked around. "None of the others seems worthy."

"Naruto-kun!" Ino cheered happily as she hurried to his side. "What are you doing here with us? I thought you—"
"I was asked to take the written exams for some reason." Naruto tipped his head. "They said to keep quiet about it."
"So he was telling the truth… how troublesome." Shikamaru groaned as he came over. "I'm Nara Shikamaru by the way."
"I'm Akimichi Chouji!" The plumped one stated as he munched on some chips. "Sorry about attacking you yesterday buddy."
"Don't worry about it, you wouldn't have been able to win anyway if I wanted to take you seriously." Naruto smiled at him in return.

"N-Naruto-kun, thank you a-again for finding Akamaru," Hinata tried to join in the crowd.
His head nodded to her, "you're welcome, had you trained after I left like I suggested?"
"Of course we did, we're ready to kick butt!" Kiba cheered enthusiastically now.
"Or are you saying," Shino started, staring at the blond, "that we are still weak?"

Temari looked to Naruto with a raised eyebrow, "just how many weaklings did you run into?"
"A few of them, but I promised not to kill anyone until necessary." Naruto replied; ignoring Shino.
"Yeah, well it seems that you pissed off the entire room." Kankurou pointed. "Take a good look now."
His eyes searched the room, watching everyone stare at him angrily. "Why should I care about the fools?"

"Can I kill them now?" Gaara asked coldly, feeling more irritated with so many talking to Naruto. "They are in my way."

"Wait until the second part of the Chuunin Exams, you may kill them more freely I promise." The Jinchuuriki told the other.
This caused the blond-haired female of the team to panic. "Naruto, what are you saying all of a sudden? What about—!"
"Be thankful that he has restrained himself as much as he has recently, even I have the urge to do something dangerous."

Before anyone could continue with their conversations, some ninjas of the Sound Village began striking towards the Konoha ninja with glasses after showing them something with cards, and Kankurou almost stepped into the scene though was stopped by both of the Jinchuuriki. They watched the show of whose horse was bigger before the instructor popped in with a few assistants to help out with the written exams, and so they forced everyone to sit in their seats after being handed a piece of paper to do the exams on in order to either pass or fail. Naruto did not want to do this pathetic exam, so he hurried up by answering all of the questions so he could take a nap with his eyes closed so that the other students can hurry up and copy his answers; he could not believe that they asked him to pretend to be a Genin by coming as a participant. Suddenly, he felt someone entering him—someone was trying to manipulate his body in order to steal his answers, he could hear that Ino girl's voice in his head as she apologized for doing this to him since she needed the answers badly, but she was in for a rude awakening for this. The Kyuubi inside of him roared viciously at the intruder in his domain once catching sight of the female, Ino was now staring death in the face when seeing the nine-tailed fox demon while Naruto walked by the giant monsters side, petting his fur as if he was some giant pet dog.

"Get out," Naruto demanded, and the Kyuubi's massive roar threw the girl out of his body.

Ino left his mind and jumped in her seat as she grasped for her breath of that terrifying moment that she just encountered in the blond-haired boy's mind and body, her entire body was trembling in fear of what she saw in him—never had she encountered something so… monstrous. Naruto sat up straight before slowly turning to look at the girl several rows behind him, and smiled at her as he placed a finger to his smiling lips to motion her to be quiet about what she saw inside of him; this did not go unseen by Ino's teammates Chouji and Shikamaru as they watched them. Sakura looked at Naruto before turning over her shoulder to see that her childhood friend was shivering up a storm in her seat, what on Earth was going on around her, one minute Naruto seemed like he was taking a nap and then he growls lowly before sitting up to look at the girl behind them. After about forty-five minutes of waiting for the tenth question, some of the students were gone while the rest were now threatened if they would like to leave or continue on with the Chuunin Exams, and it irritated Naruto to no end as he watched one after another getting up to leave the room.

"Cowards, if you have a dream to become a great ninja, then stop cowering beneath yourselves and face it head on like a ninja."

His words affected all of the remaining ninja much to the instructor's dismay, and he declared that everyone passed.

It was a shame that things were going so fast for them; a quick meal before going into the damn forest for scrolls, but the problem was that they were stuck in there for five days or less judging by how long it would take them to grab what they needed so they could leave the forest. Still… now they were standing in front of three fools from the Village of Rain, listening to them being so cocky because they were bigger and older, it would seem that no one had ever told the group that size did not matter—it was something that they were going to learn firsthand at least. It was obvious to the Sand Siblings that there was another group that was watching them to see if there was something that they could understand about them, but they kept quiet about it so that they would know just what they were going to be getting themselves into in the future… if they survive.

"Hey kid, you should be more careful when choosing your opponents." The leader of the opposite team spoke. "You're gonna die."

"Stop talking, and let's fight, old man from the Hidden Village of Rain." Gaara replied without care as he intimidated them all.
Kankurou let him do this as he watched the other team. 'Who has which scroll?' He called out, "Hey Gaara, shouldn't we follow them to gather information before picking a fight? If they have the same scroll as us, there's no point for us to be fighting them. It'd be—"
"It doesn't matter," the younger sibling interrupted him, surprising the enemy. "He said I can kill everyone we encounter."
'That's why I don't like being around him,' he mentally reminded himself, but added. 'I should have switched spots with Naruto.'

The leader of the opposite team was obviously annoyed by what they said, and he grasped four umbrellas on his back. "Let's do it." He threw them all in the air before performing hand motions to prepare his attack towards Gaara. "Die kid, Ninpou Jouro Senbon!"

As the needles began to fall, the leader believed that he had his victory against the Sand Siblings , but realized that Gaara was protected by a large quantity of sand, so he continued to throw even more needles—only to realize that it would not work on him.

"A rain of needles, is it?" Gaara glared at the man and he called in a darker tone. "Then I'll make it rain blood."

The sand began to break off and began to drift into the air as Kankurou started to explain the wall of sand that protected the younger brother; telling them how it would protect him whether he wanted it to or not, and that they would not be able to defeat Gaara no matter what they did. It frustrated the leader as he began rushing forth towards the group that had the red-haired boy snag his foot with his sand before engulfing the man's entire body—coincidently having the umbrellas fall to the ground, so he took one and had it open before killing him in the air. This terrified the remaining two teammates whom placed their scroll on the ground as they begged for mercy that was not going to be given to them after he threw the umbrella away to grab them with sand, and killing the two of them a lot faster than when he killed their leader.

"How convenient," Kankurou spoke after picking up the scroll. "It's the Scroll of the Heaven." He turned to them. "Let's head back."
The young sibling was already looking away from the remains of the bloodshed that he caused, "shut up, I still haven't had enough."
It was obvious that he knew there were three little sneaky rats scurrying around, and he wanted to kill them to satisfy his craving.
This was going to get ugly really fast. "Let's stop Gaara, okay?" The middle sibling asked innocently, still holding the scroll.
Pale green hues turned to him in a threatening manner when hearing this suggestion. "Are you afraid, you coward?"

Now Kankurou was furious at the title he was given. "Gaara, you might be alright, but it's too dangerous for us!" He stated as he came close to the redhead. "We just need one set of scrolls, we don't need anymore." He reached his little brother and stopped in front of him as Gaara brought his arm up a bit, only to be called a slacker before being told to not order him around. So he grabbed onto him angrily. "Cut it out! Why don't you listen to what your older brother says once in a while? Doesn't Naruto give orders?"

"I never thought of you two as siblings, and Naruto has nothing to do with it." Gaara replied. "If you get in my way, I will kill you."

Temari watched as Gaara shoved Kankurou away, so she tried to stop this. "G-Gaara, please stop, and don't be so cold. This is your big sister asking you. B-Besides, I'm sure Naruto said to kill only necessary opponents, right?" She watched as he began to summon the sand into the palm of his hand. It was beginning to scare her if he killed another person right now, "Gaara!"

He only made a cork for his gourd. "I know." Gaara replied as he plugged the hole in his gourd.