A/N: Okay, so I have no excuse for this taking as long as it did... But I do fully apologize for it!

Chapter 4: Konoha

Gaara's P.O.V.

I woke up early the next morning and saw that Kurai was still sleeping soundly beside me. I was beginning to take advantage of the fact that she was such a quiet child, because I got the feeling that when Kankuro and Temari's children were born it was going to be a whole other story... Even if it was, they were dealing with me and my want to adopt Kurai out of the blue, so I was in their debt. I got up to change my clothes and Kurai's so that we could go and talk to the Hokage.

After Kurai and I were in our new change of clothes, I left the room with Kurai in my arms. I walked around the streets of Konoha for about an hour since it was still too early to go to the Hokage's office. Once I finished my walk, I headed back to the house that we stayed in to get Shikamaru and Kankuro so all of us could head to the Hokage's office.

I got to the house and went to Kankuro's room first since I knew Shikamaru would take forever to wake up. When I got to his room, much to my surprise, he was already awake and getting ready.

I left his room and headed to Shikamaru's room ready for a fight. I got to his room and just as I expected, he was fast asleep, buried under the covers and snoring loudly.

I laid Kurai down on the ground and walked over to Shikamaru's bed. I quickly and sharply shook him saying 'good morning'. He looked at me, mumbled something unintelligent under his breath and flipped over to go back to sleep. I tried again doing the same thing, but that time all he did was continue sleeping.

I was seriously annoyed now. I used the sand in my gourd to silently creep into his bed and wrap around him. He was always such a deep sleeper that he never noticed when I did this. - How Temari ever woke him up I will never know... - Once I felt that my sand was tightly wrapped around Shika, I raised my hand to lift him out of the bed.

It wasn't until he was actually floating in the air that he started to move and wake up. I moved him so he was floating above the ground and held him there. I picked Kurai back up, and then dropped him from about 6 feet in the air.

That always woke him up with a string of curses. I covered Kurai's ears so she couldn't hear Shikamaru's string of fucks, shits and any other curses that came out of mouth.

"Good morning Shikamaru," I said to him.

He looked at me with quite the pissed off look but he manage to say morning back in a mumbled voice. I saw his eyes wander down towards my chest where I held Kurai and you could see the realization hit them that there was a baby in the room and he had just finished cursing his head dry.

"Sorry about the cursing Gaara, I should have known you would have Kurai with you..." he said as clear as he could since he had just woken up.

"It's alright. I knew it was coming so I should have never even had her in here when I came to wake you up," I replied. He smiled that lazy smile he was so famous for in response and got up from his sitting position on the ground.

Once he was standing up he said that he would be ready in about 10 minutes. I left the room so that he could get ready and I headed to mine and Kurai's room. I gave her half a bottle of milk, and burped her.

I left the room with Kurai who was finally alert for once to meet Kankuro and Shikamaru who were waiting out in the hall. "Since we're all here and ready, shall we head to Lady Tsunade's office?" I asked. The two of them nodded their heads tiredly and dragged their feet along behind me.

We all walked together to Lady Tsunade's office without saying a word, most likely all too wrapped up in our own heads to have a conversation outside of it like usual. We stopped at her door and knocked asking for permission to enter. After receiving it, we entered with me in the lead, Shikamaru behind me and Kankuro up the rear.

Once we were all inside the room, Kankuro shut the door behind him and we bowed to the Hokage and nodded to Inoichi who was standing to the side to show our respect. Once we finished bowing to Lady Tsunade and addressing Inoichi, Lady Tsunade addressed us and nodded her head to each of us and saying, "Hello Lord Gaara, Kankuro, and glad to have you back Shikamaru." We each said our hellos to her and Inoichi then got down to business.

Lady Tsunade took hold of the situation first by saying, "So Gaara, first of all, let's drop all the formalities. They are a serious pain. Secondly, I want you to please explain everything to me. In your letter, you said you had beliefs that your daughter Kurai was possibly a scorpion demon jinjuriki with an unknown number of tails, correct?"

I replied, "Dropping formalities sounds good to me. And you are correct. The one night she had begun crying for a longer period of time than usual, she developed the demon cloak around her body and she summoned a large number of scorpions to her side that formed a sort of protective barrier around her. Due to the number of scorpions she managed to summon, I believe the demon must have quite a few tails. So I would like to ask Inoichi to use his mind reading techniques to enter her mind and find out more about the demon."

Lady Tsunade looked like she was thinking about what I had said until she replied, "Okay, I think I have a better understanding of the situation, and I approve of Inoichi using his abilities as long as he is okay with it since this will be quite dangerous."

After she finished speaking she looked at Inoichi for his approval or disapproval of whether his would use his technique. He had a look on his face that said his was questioning it but he gave his approval anyways.

I graciously bow thanking him for accepting to help my daughter. I looked at the Hokage who was looking at me funny so I asked her, "um, is there something wrong?"

She continued looking at me the same way but replied, "no, but I've been thinking for a while, if this is Kurai and she's only 3 months old, why is she so quiet…"

"It is her, and believe me, I've been wondering the same thing. Best theory I could come up with is that it takes all her energy to keep the demon in check," was all I could say in return.

Tsunade looked quite fascinated but still asked, "That is very possible, but before we do the anything with her mind, do you mind, if I do a quick check up just in case?"

I quickly replied, "No problem at all. Better to know there's nothing wrong than there be something and not know."

She immediately had green chakra running through her hands which roamed over Kurai's body checking all her vitals, and circulation to make sure that everything was okay.

Soon enough the green on her hands died off and Tsunade said everything was fine, meaning that I was probably right and Inoichi could begin his part.

Inoichi walked over to Kurai who I had put on Tsunade's desk and stopped in front of her then asked Kankuro to stand behind him to catch him. He made a few hand signs, said 'Mind Invasion Jutsu' and collapsed into Kankuro's arms.

A/N: So I left it as a little bit of a cliff-hanger! Sorry! I figured that I should give you guys something...

This is my first story so please be nice and constructive criticism is welcomed, no flames though please.

Oh! And I don't own Naruto or the Characters except my OCs and the plot so don't steal it or my characters !

Either way,

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