The Marriage-Go-Round
Happy birthday Naruto! Happy two year anniversary to me! That's right, my second year on FFNet! WEEEE!
Eight O'clock in the morning, and already ninety-five degrees F; and it would only get hotter as the day grew longer. That was one of the downsides of living in Sunagakure, especially for someone who decided that she needed to train more in case her village went to war with their old allies. It was too hot to go outside and train, so, to improvise, Subaku no Temari moved to her villa's basement. While her family's villa wasn't as large as some of the buildings she had seen while she was in Konohagakure during the Chunin Exams, her house had enough space for a small pool in the basement along with a kunai/shuriken target range and its own personal cell block, for housing nuke-nin so when Gaara had his mood swings, he could kill someone who wasn't part of the village. Though that rarely stopped him from killing fellow Suna shinobi; now a days, well at least since they had fled from Konohagakure, the cell only housed dust and household extras that didn't have a place in the rest of the house.
Currently, Temari was looking at the inside of her eyelids, trying to meditate, all the while expanding her chakra reserves by sitting on the small pool of water. All though she was trying to meditate, her mind was restless.
Three weeks. That's how long it had been since she and the rest of the invasion force had returned home, and she had yet to smell or hear her youngest brother's latest victims. She was beginning to go mad. Even though he was her brother and she was supposed to trust him, he had been a murdering psycho not even a month ago. It was hard to believe that he had stopped killing for the sake of his 'mother'.
'Kaasan.' The sand colored blonde thought as she sat on top of the cool pool of water. 'Tousan.' Her face contorted into a scowl. While she thought about her mother a lot, mainly remembering the beautiful woman she once looked up to with small but happy smiles; she thought of her father as only as her now late Kazekage. Her mother had been a diamond in the rough, a jewel amongst the sands, the needle in a haystack; her father had been a monster, the cobra that wrapped itself around the jewel in the sand and lashed out at anyone who dared to take it. Or, that was what she used to think about the man. Now that he was dead…she just felt two things about the man who had sired her and her siblings into this world. Pity and hatred.
She pitied him, his whole life had been a hardship, coming in from a small village near the Suna/Iwa border and moving here during the Second Great Shinobi War. Because he came from such a village, he was picked on and in time, bullied. Even as a shinobi he wasn't very well liked by his peers. Because of his upbringing, he had no real love for his village. So, when he was offered the position as Kazekage, he only agreed because he want power; the power to order and seek revenge the people who used to pick on him when he was a child. How he met her mother, Temari didn't know, he mother didn't say and her father wouldn't; but she presumed that it had happened during one of his 'weeding' assignments he had given certain groups of Suna-nin and well paid Nuke-nins. He had gone on a few of his 'weeding' assignments for the sick enjoyment of revenge, and then one day, he came back with a prize. Their mother.
She felt the bottom of her war outfit begin to soak, as her control slipped, letting her rear slip underneath the top of the water pool. With a frown, she corrected herself and readjusted her chakra and stopped where she had been before, just above the waves.
'It's been a while since the village heard anything about the situation with Konohagakure. I wonder what's going on?' she wondered to herself, trying to move away from thoughts about her father and his 'legacy'. Thinking about her father and his achievements always made her frustrated; and even though the thought of war didn't really sit well with her, almost anything would be better than thinking of her father. 'And Baki-Sensei hasn't been around for a while…I wonder what he's been up to.' She and her siblings hadn't had a mission since they returned from Konohagakure, and frankly, she was bored. Nothing said dangerous like a bored shinobi.
With a sigh, the sand blonde teen shook her head and tried to get back to her meditation. However, before she was able to do so, there was a loud clanging sound that rang through out the basement and made her eyes shoot open like someone had touched her rear end in a packed street. Her concentration broken, she lost her nerve and fell through the thin layer of chakra she had been using to cushion herself, keeping her out of water and became a very wet, and pissed off young woman.
Whoever had made that noise was going to feel the wrath of a woman scorned. And even though she was young, she considered herself as an adult.
As she shook the water off her face and head, Temari opened her eyes and looked around the basement, looking for the cause of the loud, concentration, breaking noise. At first, she had expected to see her younger brother, Kankuro standing somewhere near the target range with a kunai in his hand and a smirk on his face; but soon found herself surrounded by three Anbu operatives.
"Subaku no Temari," the team leader began, holding out a hand for the fallen, soaked kunoichi, "we have been ordered to escort you to the Elders Chambers."
"B-But!" Temari stuttered, her anger quickly resolving at the sight of the three obviously stronger shinobi in front of her. "I'm soaked! Can't I get a new battle dress and dry off first?"
"No, our orders were to bring you as soon as possible. Waiting for you to dry and change will not be 'as soon as possible'. Besides, the heat will dry your clothes as we walk." The leader answered. With a frustrated sigh, the blonde took the Anbu's hand and allowed herself to be pulled up and out of the water followed the three man team towards the stairs. As the group left the basement of the villa, Kankuro stepped out from behind a large, human-sized target and wiped off his brow.
If those Anbu hadn't showed up when they did, he was sure he would have been turned into paste.
--
Temari idly wonder why the Elders sent a team of Anbu to bring her to their chambers. Was there worry that someone from Konohagakure or Otogakure would attack her? 'Or,' she thought to herself as she followed the team of Anbu over the roofs tops towards the Kazekage Tower; ' Did they find out about the kid who beat Gaara?' she then started to worry about what the Elders would do to her if that was the reason she was being escorted to the tower.
'But, how would they have found out? I didn't tell, Gaara sure as heck wouldn't tell anybody. Baki wouldn't tell unless he was ordered to do so, and that would require a hunch of some sort; and I'm pretty sure that Kankuro wouldn't have let that slip.' He was, after all, the one who had caught her mumbling about their younger brother's defeat on their way back from…Konoha. 'Oh no!' the blonde cursed herself as she remembered the incident. 'Did someone passing by us hear me!?'
Temari was so wrapped up in her thoughts that she failed to realize that she had followed the team of Anbu into the Kazekage Tower, and was no standing in front of the door to the Elders Chambers.
'I need to think of something fast!' Temari told herself, not realizing that the door in front of her had been opened by one of the members on the Anbu team. 'Come on Temari, think! Think of something!'
"-emari."
'Come on! You're one of the smartest people in Suna, think of something!'
"-mari-San."
'This is a matter of life and death! Think of something damn it!'
"TEMARI-SAN!"
The distressed blonde was snapped from her thoughts and snapped her head up and found herself looking directly at the village's oldest and best shinobi, including the Grand Elders Ebizo and Chiyo. Some of the Elders looked slightly ticked, presumably because she had left out such an important piece of information when the Invasion Force debriefed. She did what any teen in her position would do. She gulped. Audibly.
Hearing the gulp escape from the sand blonde teen, some of the Elders looked at each other briefly before turning back towards the girl in front of them.
Chiyo watched the other Elders before looking at the frightened girl in front of them. She narrowed her already narrowed eyes, something was wrong. Temari had been of the Elders many times before and didn't show her fear, if she had feared them at all. 'Why,' the old woman asked herself as she studied the girl; 'is she so afraid?' Had Baki let something slip about her village saving future by accident?
For nearly five minutes, no one spoke, just stood/sat there in complete silence. Then, finally, Ebizo, broke the deafening silence.
"Subaku no Temari…how are you Dear?" the Grand Elder asked the girl in front of him. Seeing how shaky she was, he thought that it would be best if he 'broke' the 'ice' first, to calm her a bit.
"F-Fine." Temari replied. 'Damn! I stuttered!' she mentally reprimanded herself for her screw up.
"Still sad about your father's passing perhaps?" Ebizo asked, knowing that the girl disliked her father.
"No, not really." Temari answered truthfully.
"Then why, my Dear, are you shaking like a leaf?" Temari couldn't think of anything to say in response. It wasn't that she couldn't lie, it was because, at the moment, she couldn't come up with anything that may have her shaking like she was other than fearing for her brother's life.
"Well," Ebizo stated, not caring that the teen hadn't answered his question. "Let's get down to business then." His tone changed from one that someone could easily mistake for a grandfatherly tone, to one that meant business. "Do you know why we called for you?"
'Because you found out about the blonde kid Konoha-nin who stopped Shukaku-possessed-Gaara.' Is what Temari was thinking, but because she wanted to make it seem like she didn't know about it, she shook her head. "No, Elder Ebizo, I don't know why you called for me."
"We called you here because we need your help." The Elderly man started, gaining the still shivering genin's full attention. "We need you to help us settle our current situation with our former ally, Konohagakure."
Chiyo watched the younger female blink in confusion before realizing what her brother had just told her. Somehow, the old woman could tell that what her brother had told her was not what the blonde had been expecting him to say.
Just like before, when the girl had entered the room, the Chamber had gone silent. Elder Jin, a man who used to have a lot of patience when he was younger, broke the silence with a question.
"Did you understand what that implies, Temari-San?" As expected, the girl shook her head. "What Grand Elder Ebizo means is, that-"
"That you have been chosen to mend our alliance with Konohagakure." Chiyo interrupted Elder Jin, who shot her an annoyed look, one that the old woman ignored.
"H-How?" the teen asked, just as Chiyo had expected her to do. "H-How can I help you settle things with Konoha?" why would a village, an enemy village at that, listen to her, a mere genin?
"You will help us settle our current predicament with Konohagakure, by joining in a personal alliance with one of their own." Chiyo explained, not missing the shocked look on the girls face. "You understand what that means right?" the girl slowly shook her head. "We, the Elders of Sunagakure have sent a plea to Konohagakure's Council, explaining what happened to our Kage, your father. Normally, such an act would be over looked by a village, however, because Orochimaru is Konohagakure's main enemy at the moment for killing their Sandaime Hokage; they accepted our plea for a…Political Marriage."
"W-What?"
End
Well, there you have it, chapter 4.
I don't have much to say other than hope you had fun reading and review if you want. Oh! And I will be gone for the next nine days on vacation…so…please don't ask for any updates between now and the 19th because I won't be working on anything other than relaxing.