Spoiler warning for the final chapter of Naruto.

January 19 - Gaara

"Sorry, Kazekage-sama! We'll come back soon, we promise!" The Seventh Hokage's assistants rushed out the gate, bowing hastily to the man seated in the garden. "Just for these few hours!"

Gaara blinked at the retreating backs of Moegi and Udon. They abandoned me…

"Uncle Gaara! What do you wanna do?" chirped Inojin. The brushes in her backpack rustled as she knelt in front of him.

"Uncle, you like dango, right? Let's go to the dango shop!" cheered Chouchou.

"Let's just stay here… I want to laze around and feel the breeze on my face," muttered Shikadai. "It's not worth the effort to walk over there just to wait for our food…"

"Be quiet, you bum! Food is always worth it. If we ask nicely, maybe Uncle will even pay for us!"

"I want to go to Inojin's mom's shop and look at the flowers," suggested Himawari. "Aunt Ino said the lilies would be coming in soon."

"The lilies aren't suited to Konoha's climate. Something else would be better. Besides, Uncle Gaara likes cacti, right?" said Sarada, nudging her glasses higher on her nose. She gave her "uncle" a piercing look.

They abandoned me with the pack of wolves… sighed the Kazekage to himself.

"Psh, he's an adult. He doesn't even know how to have fun. You know he's a Kage, right? He's worse than Aburame-sensei! He's at the highest level of boring!" insisted Boruto, leaping up to stand with an emphatic pose.

Was Naruto this much of a brat when he was seven? Gaara paused, remembering the Thousand Years of Pain jutsu. Never mind; I don't want to think about it.

Boruto was still shouting about how boring and silly adults were when he felt a tap on his shoulder. Whirling around, he prepared to protest and stabbed an indignant finger at . . . nothing.

Sarada felt a trail of sand sneaking her glasses off of her face. She slapped the barely visible thread and glared at her uncle. He smirked back.

Chouchou had one earring stolen. Inojin fumbled for her paintbrush but lost it to another filament of sand. Shikadai felt a sharp tug on his hair and grumbled quietly about sneaky uncles with too much time on their hands. Through it all, Gaara sat motionless at the center of the garden, though one side of his mouth quirked higher in a little smirk. Himawari watched cheerfully, and simply grinned at him when she felt the sand grasp at the hair tie at the top of her head.

Boruto caught sight of the trail of sand, with an earring, a paintbrush, and a two hair ties floating along on it. Finally recognizing his culprit, the boy scowled.

"That's it! I declare war on you, Uncle Gaara!" Boruto dove at the thread of sand, leaping at it when the sand crept higher.

"Yeah, give my earring back!" Chouchou leapt to her feat and ran after Boruto. Inojin followed suit, pouting slightly at her uncle for stealing her precious brush.

"Come on, Shika-nii!" giggled Himawari, grabbing the boy's hand. She ignored his irritated mumbling and pulled him towards the growing crowd of children under a single thread of sand.

Fortunately, I'm little crafty myself, thought Gaara. Not so boring now, am I?

Two hours later, Moegi and Udon returned. They paused in surprise at the scene that greeted them—the pack of energetic children they had left behind was nowhere to be seen.

Beneath the noonday sun, a pile of exhausted children lay spread out around the Kazekage, hair ties and paintbrushes and small piles of sand resting by their heads.

Gaara waved with a small smile.

-mm-

Notes: I have finally finished Naruto! Yahoo! I had around ten chapters to go, and I decided to have Gaara's scene be my celebration for finishing today :D

I was really amused to see that the final chapter was so similar to the kind of epilogue I would expect from, well, a fanfic. Haha. And all those really common ships became canon, too! I seriously was not expecting Chouji/Karui, though... XD

In case anyone doesn't know: Boruto (or Bolt) and Himawari are Naruto and Hinata's children. Sarada is the daughter of Sasuke and Sakura (and I absolutely refuse to call her "Salada"). For InoShikaChou: Inojin is the product of SaiIno, Shikadai is the product of ShikaTema, and Chouchou is Chouji and Karui's kid. I was thinking of including Lee's kid and Sarutobi Mirai, but I figured Gaara can just handle all the little people by himself.

Any time I write a story with small children, I think my frustrations as a teacher of elementary school kids comes out. My friend and I have been running a flute class for the little ones, and I daresay they take even more energy to deal with than the Konoha 11's children. And I don't even have control over all sand to help me... hahaha.

Thank you for reading! Next up is Aburame Shino.