Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any of the associated characters, locations, jutsu, etc. The only thing I own is the plot of the story. If there is any plagiarism of any form it was completely unintentional.

Somewhere in the Suna Desert, present day.

Naruto was slowly making his way through the dim halls of the hideout, his expression showed that he was lost in his thoughts. The rhythmic tapping of his step was the only sound that echoed through the halls, until a small metallic clank snapped him back to his senses. Naruto followed the sound to Gaara's room, where he was kneeling in front of a bunch of nails and bolts. He had a frustrated look and both of his hands were raised over the small bolts. Naruto entered the room as Gaara closed his eyes and his hands tensed up.

"What the hell are you doing?" He asked with an arched eyebrow.

"Trying to get a few more tricks in my arsenal." He said with a sigh. Naruto walked over to him and bent down to pick up one of the bolts. He thoroughly examined it and then dropped it back down.

"Bolts?" He asked with a puzzled expression.

"Remember the tales of the Sadaime Kazekage*?" Naruto brought one of his hands to his chin and closed his eyes as if he were in deep thought.

"He was the shinobi who could manipulate iron sand and wield it like a weapon." Gaara nodded and continued to speak.

"He developed the technique by copying Shukaku's ability to 'magnetize' stuff and then manipulate it with his chakra. However, his technique had the imperfection of being able to only utilize his own metal pellets. Similar to sand, but several times heavier, it was sill a magnificent weapon." He picked up the bolts and stood up to walk towards a small table, where he dropped the contents of his hand.

"Some time later, Toroi of Kumogakure* had developed his own magnet style. He injected his chakra into his shuriken to magnetize them, and if these came into contact with anything else, said object was also magnetized." Gaara picked up a single bolt and tossed it in the air. But instead of falling to the ground it floated lightly around him.

"I, on the other hand, have the aid of the Shukaku himself to help me. I want to take this technique to the next level." Suddenly the bolt shot forward, zooming by Naruto's face, and finally embedding itself on the wall. Naruto tensed up but immediately relaxed, only to have the rest of the bolts follow the first one's lead, and almost impale his face.

"How did you-" Naruto's expression was one of shock, but Gaara only had a cocky smile drawn in his face.

"I have been practicing sending magnetic waves of my own chakra to magnetize any object I want." He said with a proud expression.

"ANY OBJECT?" Naruto asked curiously, Gaara's expression dropped after hearing his question.

"Well... That's what I hope to one day be able to do. But for now this is all I can do." He raised his hand towards the bolts, and one of them floated up, and when it was high in the air it turned into fine dust, after that the res of the bolts did the same and a large dust mound was formed. As Gaara made different motions with his hand the dust formed different shapes, from spheres to cubes to even small senbon. (I liked the idea of this kind of power. Tell me what you think, but personally I found it quite interesting, and somewhat possible. If you guys like it I will do this for Sasuke and Naruto, and maybe other characters. Also if any of you wants you can send me an idea for a technique and I will see if I can include it somewhere in the story. If you think it is too far-fetched then normal Iron Sand will do.)

"That looks promising, but I can see that you still need practice with that, so while you play around I'm gonna go patrol the area. Don't want any bandits breaking in." When Naruto said that Gaara scoffed and smiled.

"I thin the bandits would be the ones who don't want to end up here." Naruto laughed at Gaara's comment before walking out of the room. He slowly made his way through the dimly lit maze that had become his home. Once again he found himself completely engulfed in his own thoughts. Unconsciously he walked towards the main entrance, and stood there looking up at the bright sun. But once again he was distracted by an intruding sound, though this time they were footsteps.

"I see that you are still hanging around this old dump. Usuratonkachi!" Naruto let out a frustrated sigh as he turned to look at the owner of the voice.

"How many times do I have to tell you. Don't call me that!" He raised his fist and started waving it at the person. "SASUKE TEME!" Sasuke's eyebrow twitched when he heard Naruto's nickname for him.

"Who are you calling Teme, BAKA?"

"Who are you calling Baka, TEME?" They stood glaring at each other for several minutes, until Naruto sighed loudly and smiled.

"It's been a long time, Sasuke. How's it going?" Said man also had a subtle smirk on his face. "I assume you already saw the others from Konoha?"

"Hnn.." At his silence Naruto chuckled.

"Still using that stupid one liner... What brings you by? Last time you said you would go back to Kirigakure* for good." Sasuke doesn't say a word, he only dug around his pocket and then he tossed something to Naruto.

"A Hitai-ate*?" He asked curiously. He brushed some dirt off the symbol and saw the four squiggly lines that represented Kirigakure. "What is this, you didn't kill anyone again did you?" At his comment Sasuke scoffed.

"It belonged to one of the council members."

"That still does not answer my question." Sasuke let out a quiet chuckle before responding.

"I didn't kill him. He was found dead in the middle of the forest. He had been stripped clean of all of his valuables. Looked like a common robbery according to the ANBU."

"That doesn't sound right. A person of his position would have several guards with them. Where were they?"

"They were found in a nearby cave. Chakra rope binding their feet and hands; a strong sedative had been injected that rendered their entire bodies useless. They were all too perfectly restricted, well, all but one of them. The last remaining guard was allegedly chasing the culprit, but was found in a pretty bad condition not a mile ahead. Yet he had not a single stab or cut wound, only blunt bruises." Sasuke said.

"Sounds like something far too well done for it to be a common robbery." Naruto stood quiet looking up at the clouds. After a minute or so he sighed loudly and turned to look at the brunette. "What does that have to do with me?"

"Looks like you're not as stupid as before." He said with a smirk. "It seems that this specific person was overlooking an investigation regarding those kidnappings in the nearby village."

"There are dozens of officials in the Land of Rivers who are also undertaking investigations. What made him special?" Naruto asked.

"I'm not so sure. But... It seems that on one of his investigations he had come across some documents from-"

"Konohagakure." Naruto cut him off. Sasuke looked at him with a shocked expression.

"How did you know?"

"The last few days there have been small groups of ninjas following me and Hinata's group." At this Sasuke let out a small scoff.

"Yeah, those amateurs think they are so stealthy. I ran into a couple of them on my way here. But they didn't have any hitai-ate or identification. How do you know they are from Konoha?" Naruto decided to overlook his friend's subtle dark humor of him murdering... Again.

"One of them was stupid enough to tell me. When Hinata picked up the scroll I left for them they stepped forward and spit out the truth." He sighed and ran a single hand through his hair, ruffling his golden locks. "What the fuck is going on? I know that someone in Konoha is dealing some rotten cards, but to go as far as to kill a Kirigakure dignitary. You know I think tha-" They both snapped back to look at the source of the barely audible steps that had interrupted their conversation. There, standing in the doorway was Hinata, looking curiously at the men in front of her.

"N-Naruto-kun, Sasuke-san? What are you d-doing here?" Sasuke quickly dismissed her question by turning away from her, leaving Naruto to explain.

"Hey, Hinata! We were just catching up, you know, I haven't seen this idiot in six months." The smile he gave her caused a subtle pink blush to appear on her face. "Don't worry, everything's fine. I'll go back in a few minutes." She softly nodded before retreating back into their hideout.

"What do you think about the murder?" Sasuke asked, still looking at the horizon. When he heard his question Naruto's smile died down and was replaced with a serious expression.

"For now, I'll just leave it be. It seems that the kidnappers are a much bigger issue than Kirigakure or Konohagakure." Having said that both Naruto and Sasuke slowly made their way back into their hideout, unaware of a single figure that was watching them from afar.

"It seems that the time is drawing close."

*Sadaime Kazekage: Third Kazekage

*Kumogakure: Village Hidden in the Clouds

*Usuratonkachi/Baka/Teme: Idiot, stupid, etc.

*Kirigakure: Village Hidden in the Mist

*Hitai-ate: Forehead Protector

Is it me or does this seem like a much easier way to arrange the term translations?