Authors Notes:
The next chapter is here, i hope you guys enjoy. I'm still waiting for a bad review, not too sure why i haven't gotten one yet but I'm not going to complain.
I haven't received any suggestions for this story, nor have i gotten any idea's for a possible other Naruto fanfic. I do hope that i will receive some eventually and i want to note that credit will be given where credit is due for those who do send me idea's.
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto, nor am i connected to the person who does.
Gaara stared at Shukaku with what could have been interpreted as a raised eyebrow; funny thing was that Gaara didn't have eyebrows. His gaze moved slowly from the Bijuu to his sister, who was slung over Shukaku's shoulder unconscious. Most people would be somewhat concerned about having their sister brought home from a three-day training trip with a demon unconscious, but Gaara was a unique case when it came to emotional reactions to such things.
Shukaku chuckled nervously and scratched his shoulder, an action that caused him to accidently grab Temari's ass. At this, both of Gaara's non-existent eyebrows rose causing Shukaku to chuckle a little more; it didn't help that Temari decided to moan in her sleep, he wasn't responsible for whatever she was dreaming about and no one could prove otherwise.
"Should I be concerned about what may of happened while you were away?" asked Gaara before he slurped a mouthful of ramen from the bowl.
Shukaku made a note to kill that Naruto brat whenever he got a chance to do so, he wouldn't let his jinchuuriki eat that stuff while he was sealed and he would be long dead before he let the boy eat it now. Unfortunately, he had to clear his name and make sure that no one made any wild assumptions about him and Temari, it was already bad enough that people had seen him carry her through the village.
"Nothing happened, I opened her gates, put the seal on her, and showed her how to get better, just like I promised you" he said quickly.
Gaara's eyes looked down at the blood red, three bladed scythe that Shukaku had leant against a wall. Looking back at the demon tanuki with a questioning gaze, he gestured to the unique weapon.
"And where did you acquire the scythe?" he asked calmly.
"We ran into some crazy guy that tried to kill us, oddly enough the man couldn't die, so I buried him in the desert, we shouldn't be seeing him for quite a few years" explained Shukaku with a frown; he had really wanted to fight Hidan, but Temari had kicked him in the unmentionables.
"Is there any reason why you have not put my sister down on a chair yet, perhaps you are enjoying holding her a little too much" said Gaara with a childish smirk.
"What the hell do you think you're insinuating boy?" asked Shukaku; he was really starting to hate how Gaara was getting his emotions back.
"I'm not insinuating anything, I'm merely asking whether or not you are involved with my sister; if you are I have no problems, so long as she understands your situation and the situation it will put her in" answered Gaara, his smirk growing slightly as he slurped yet another mouthful of ramen.
"You know that if she was awake right now you'd be getting your ass kicked by an angry teenage girl, must I inform you of what such a situation entails?" asked Shukaku.
Gaara cringed at the memories of Kankuro going through such an experience; he knew that it was something to be avoided at all costs. He had also noticed the slight limp that Shukaku had been walking with when he entered his office; the demon tanuki had his sympathy.
"No, I understand completely, I see you do as well" Gaara replied while gesturing to Shukaku's limp. "You can take Temari home now, I hope nothing else unexpected happens when you get there" he added with his smirk returning full blast.
"I really shouldn't have let you people know that I wasn't a psychotic murderer, its almost impossible to get any respect now" whined Shukaku.
"True, but keep in mind that you may wish to keep your interaction with my sister a secret from Kankuro, he might not be as accepting as I am" said Gaara as he tried to contain his amusement on Shukaku's behalf.
Shukaku didn't even say anything back, instead offering an unintelligible groan of annoyance as a response. He repositioned Temari on his shoulder, accidentally grabbing her ass again, which earned a childish smile from Gaara; he grabbed his new scythe and walked to the door, stopping at the doorway and giving one more confused look towards Gaara.
"Gaara, can I ask you something?"
"You may"
"Why are you wearing the racoon onesie in your office, more importantly, why have you drawn whisker marks on your face?" Shukaku asked worriedly.
"That is none of your concern, now be gone," Gaara commanded calmly.
Shukaku just nodded slowly and closed the door quietly.
Temari woke up to the slow and steady rise and fall of her pillow, a pillow that had not only become much larger than she remembered but had also gotten much more solid and warm. She wrapped her arms tightly around it and cuddled up as close as she could, not even realising that she had never owned a body length pillow.
It wasn't until her pillow groaned and moved by itself that she realised it wasn't a pillow. Sitting up suddenly, she almost fell off of her bed, reaching out she managed to grab the 'pillow' and keep herself upright.
"Matatabi, I told you I would build you a sand castle later" mumbled what Temari now realised was Shukaku.
A few moments passed and Temari managed to process a few things through her mind, not all of which were good. For one, she was home safely and in her own bed, the only problem being that Shukaku was also in her bed with her. She also noticed with no small amount of embarrassment that both her and Shukaku were only in their underwear, something that once again ranked her at number one on the blush scoreboard.
She sat quietly on her bed for a few minutes praying to Kami that nothing had happened between her and Shukaku; she knew that nothing had gone too far since they weren't completely naked, but anything leading up to this could easily be a bad thing. Temari looked over at Shukaku, who was still fast asleep. She hated to admit it, but he was somewhat cute when he was asleep; Temari could only hope that his nose would start twitching again, she really needed a good laugh to distract her.
Eventually she realised nothing was going to happen and tried to figure out what to do. She could sneak out of the room and leave Shukaku to figure out how he got here on his own, but knowing him he would use this to tease her endlessly. She couldn't wake him up since it would just put her in an awkward situation, and she would be damned if she was going to just lie back down and pretend like she was never awake.
"Temari…why am I in your bed half naked?" asked Shukaku.
Looking back up at him, Temari saw that he was now awake and had his eyes wide in both confusion and slight fear. From what she could see, he looked just about ready to dive off of the bed and run for his life.
"I was going to ask you the same question" she replied calmly.
"I don't know, I brought you home and put you up here before I fell asleep on the couch" he said just as calmly.
"And you expect me to believe that you weren't the one to bring me home and strip me before climbing into bed with me" she said accusingly.
"I swear I had nothing to do with this, Gaara was the one making assumptions about us" he replied quickly.
Temari and Shukaku stopped and gave each other knowing look.
"It was Gaara wasn't it?" Shukaku asked lazily.
"Yep" Temari answered simply.
"Are we going to kill him?"
"Most likely"
"Lets go"
Kankuro took a deep relaxing breath as he walked back through the gates of Sunagakure. He had only been gone a couple of days, but it had felt like an eternity to him. He knew Gaara would be happy that the negotiations with Konohagakure were going well, and he was more than a little curious about how Shukaku was coping under Temari's control.
"Kankuro?" asked a voice.
He turned to see who asked the question, but as soon as he had turned the wind was knocked out of him as something slammed into his stomach. Looking down, he was greeted by a young girl with brown hair who was smiling like a mad person.
"Matsuri?" he asked with a pained cough.
"You betcha!" exclaimed the young girl.
"What are you doing here?" Kankuro asked.
"I just got back from a mission with my team, we've been gone for nearly three weeks," she said cheerfully. "Hey, do you know if anything interesting has happened while I've been gone, I hope Gaara's ok, I hate seeing him held up in that little office doing paperwork"
"Well actually, now that you mention it, something interesting did happen. You see, about a week ago, Gaara's se…" he began to say before he stopped and got a panicked look on his face.
He turned nervously to Matsuri who was waiting patiently with an expectant smile. "You really don't have a clue what happened over the past two weeks?" he asked hesitantly.
"No, why, did something bad happen? Is Gaara ok?" she asked frantically.
"Settle down, Gaara is perfectly ok, I think; although I have been concerned ever since the whole racoon king incident," Kankuro said calmly.
"Well what are you waiting for, take me to see Gaara, I need to make sure he's alright!" exclaimed Matsuri as she dragged him by the arm down the street.
They didn't get far when a large explosion rocked the ground, followed by a high pitched scream with yet another explosion. Matsuri stopped dragging Kankuro just in time to miss being hit by a person who had been thrown through a building and into the one across the street from them.
Shortly after the person had disappeared into the now partially destroyed building they had been thrown into, the building exploded into a huge construct of sand; standing at the top was a boy with black and grey hair, wearing a long sand coloured coat.
"Get your ass back here Gaara, I'm gunna make you wish I had killed you earlier. That missing arm will be the least of your worries!" yelled Shukaku in fury before the sand construct burst forward with him on top.
Another large explosion rocked the street, three more buildings were destroyed, only this time they exploded into little nicely cut pieces. From the rubble, walked a clearly furious Temari who was holding her battle fan in one hand and her mother's fan in the other. With a violent swing of her fans, she was able to create a rather large tornado that began tearing through the village, with her riding on top of it.
"You'll never catch me alive!" screamed a voice.
From the roof of one of the few remaining buildings, jumped Gaara, whom was still clad in his racoon onesie, with whisker marks drawn on his face; it also didn't help that he currently wasn't maintaining his replacement arm of sand, and was holding a bowl of ramen his hand.
Kankuro watched on in silent horror; he knew things may have gotten out of control, but this was beyond expectations. Matsuri also watched on in a silent daze, before she slowly turned to Kankuro and stared at him emotionlessly.
"Kankuro?" she asked calmly.
"Yes?" he replied worriedly.
"Did you see Gaara with whiskers? And that little racoon onesie was so cute!" she squealed with a fangirl gleam in her eyes.
"Really? Out of everything that just happened, you only took that out of it. Perhaps you need to go to the hospital," said Kankuro with a blank expression.
"Hey, who was that other guy that could control sand, I thought only Gaara could do that," asked Matsuri.
Kankuro paled slightly and sighed in defeat. "I think you should sit down for this," he said tiredly.
Matsuri sat silently with wide eyes; her jaw had dropped to the ground shortly after Kankuro had started explaining what he knew. She had to admit, from what she had been told the past few weeks had been extremely eventful.
"So that guy was…"
"Yep"
"And Gaara really lost his…"
"Yep"
"And Temari has to…"
"Yep"
Matsuri took a deep breath and gave an amazed whistle. "Things really got out of control," she said.
"Yeah, they really did, but I have no idea what is going on now," replied Kankuro.
"Should we go and check on them?" she asked.
"Definitely not, they can handle themselves, I hope. I'll take you to my house and we can wait for them to get back," he said as he stood up and began walking.
Matsuri shrugged her shoulders and followed quickly after him. She was going to need a drink at some point to help deal with everything.
Temari and Shukaku glared at Gaara, said individual was sitting on the other side of the table slurping away at yet another bowl of ramen; Kankuro and Matsuri were sitting nervously off to the side. No one moved, the last 20 minutes had been nothing but a silent battle, with Shukaku and Temari trying to ignite Gaara with naught but their glares.
"Would anyone care to explain why there was some kind of grudge match that destroyed two streets?" asked Kankuro.
"The brat crossed a line," Shukaku answered vaguely.
"He stripped me and Shukaku and put us together in my bed," explained Temari, never once easing up on her glare.
"I don't know what they're talking about Kankuro, they've been acting strangely ever since Shukaku took Temari out into the desert for three days," Gaara said quickly with a smug smile.
A black blur jumped leapt over the table and tackled Shukaku to the ground.
"You touched my sister inappropriately didn't you, you bastard!" screamed Kankuro.
"I didn't touch anything, I accidently grabbed her ass and that was it," yelled Shukaku.
"You grabbed my ass?" yelled Temari as she jumped into the scuffle and helped her brother hurt Shukaku.
"Gaara I am going to kill you for this!" screamed Shukaku.
"Everybody shut up!" screamed Matsuri.
In a truly odd turn of events, everyone did in fact shut up. The scuffle was ended almost immediately and everyone was seated quietly back at the table; the only sign that anything had happened was the small trickle of blood flowing from Shukaku's nose.
"Good. Now can you guys please just act somewhat normal for a minute?" she asked.
"No" said Gaara.
"Doubtful" replied Kankuro.
"No can do," answered Shukaku.
"I'd rather not," stated Temari bluntly.
Matsuri slammed her fist down on the table and glared at all of them. "If you guys want to leave this room without broken bones then you damn well better start behaving," she said through gritted teeth.
"I take offense to this, I am one of the nine Bijuu, I demand I be treated with respect!" exclaimed Shukaku.
"Sit down and shut up!" snapped Temari.
"Yes ma'am" he said submissively as he sat back down.
"Already bowing down to her will, eh Shukaku. Next thing you know we will be planning a wedding" said Gaara with an amused smile.
"Wait, you guys are actually together?" asked Matsuri with love hearts in her eyes.
"NO!" yelled Temari.
"Absolutely fucking not!" exclaimed Shukaku.
The room fell into a tense silence and Shukaku began to feel as if he had said something wrong. He glanced around and saw that everyone was looking worriedly at Temari, turning to look at her he was met with a glare the likes he had never seen before.
"What do you mean 'absolutely fucking not'?" she asked dangerously. "Are you suddenly too good for me or something"
Shukaku gave her a blank stare. "Are you really going to do this, even after everything we've already been through" he asked bluntly.
Temari went to reply but stopped suddenly and blushed slightly. She quietly sat back down and returned to looking at everyone else. "Shall we change the subject now?" she asked quietly.
"Aww, you guys are so cute!" squealed Matsuri.
"Temari, I know I don't her, but can I kill her anyway?" asked Shukaku.
"Way ahead of you" she answered as she snapped open her mother's fan.
The two lunged over the table and began frantically chasing after Matsuri, who was now giggling like a mad schoolgirl. Barely 10 minutes passed and everyone found themselves sitting back at the table; Shukaku was supported up against Temari, who was in turn leaning herself against him, Matsuri was standing next to an amused Gaara with a smug smirk adorning her lips.
"Such a feisty couple you two are" said Gaara.
Shukaku groaned in pain and rested his head on Temari's shoulder; she didn't even have the energy to hit him for it. "Temari, whatever that girl is, it's not normal, we have to kill it," he groaned.
"Agreed," she muttered.
"Is everyone in this house, besides me, a complete lunatic?" asked Kankuro.
Everyone but Shukaku, who was still using Temari's shoulder as a pillow, turned to look at him with a blank stare.
"Yes" they all said in unison.
A short silence filled the room before Gaara cleared his throat. "Perhaps it would be best if we discuss a more pressing matter," he said calmly.
"In four days' time, Sunagakure will be hosting the chunin exams. Kankuro's recent mission was to not only update the trade agreements with Konohagakure, but also to record the number of genin teams that will be coming here for the exams. As it stands, we will have three teams from Konohagakure, two from Kumogakure, and one team from Iwagakure," he explained.
"Wait, we're allowing Iwa into the exams. Gaara, what if they try something against Konoha, or worse yet, what if they try to capture Shukaku; I wouldn't put it past the Tsuchikage to try and grab more power, and Shukaku is an unsealed Bijuu. Every other major village will see him as free game, even some of the minor villages may join into the fray," said Temari.
"While it's sweet and all that you care so much about me, now that I am in fact unsealed, it would be a cold day in hell before any of those villages could capture me," said Shukaku.
"Oh really, then how were captured in the first place" she retorted.
Shukaku glared at Temari and released a suffocating amount of KI into the room. "There were very unfortunate circumstances involved that day, you would do well not to mention it again," he said darkly.
It took a few minutes for the KI to completely disappear, but no one dared to mention Shukaku's capture around him again.
"I have to agree with Shukaku" began Gaara. "While he is unsealed, his power is exponentially greater than what we know. So long as he remains within the desert of wind country he should be perfectly fine, but this does not mean we are not to keep an eye on the other villages," he said seriously.
"Once the other villages learn of us having a freed and cooperative Bijuu, chaos will more than likely ensue. I do not believe that anyone would be stupid enough to attack Shukaku head on, but I do fear that they may use something, or someone, as a way to get to him indirectly," he explained while looking at Temari.
"Why is everyone looking at me?" she asked nervously before looking at Shukaku.
"Hey don't look at me, I've got nothing to do with this," he said with hands up defensively.
"We believe that should anyone ask around the village for information, some of the not so kind villagers may hint at the closeness between you two due to the nature of the mission I gave Temari. Should they come to such a conclusion, it would be in their interests to capture Temari and use her against Shukaku; they would be under the assumption that you wouldn't be as likely to attack if it puts her in danger" explained Gaara.
"And why does it sound like this is just part of some big plan of yours?" Temari asked.
Gaara smiled mischievously. "Because it is part of a plan, one where you are the bait" he said happily.
"Don't you even think about putting our sister in danger, Gaara!" yelled Kankuro.
"What kind of game do you think you're playing here?" asked Shukaku.
"Don't worry, Temari won't really be the bait, that honour goes to Shukaku" replied Gaara with a truly evil gleam in his eyes, a wicked smile twitched ever so slightly at his lips.
"Why do I get the distinct feeling that I will want to kill you even more after this?" asked Shukaku with a glare.
"Gaara, what are you thinking?" asked Matsuri nervously.
Gaara chuckled darkly and smiled like an idiot. "Temari, Shukaku, would either of you mind pretending to be in a relationship?" he asked with no lack of amusement.