Sakura lay on her back staring at Temari's ceiling. "it was weird… Him hugging me like that. It was so warm…"
"Get used to it, you're a girlfriend now. Congrats, not something I'd be interested it, you have to care for them and all this other shit." Temari said turning the magazine she was reading sideways. She had recovered quickly and was home with nothing more then strained muscles. "Hey," she turned to let Sakura see the picture, "where's the old woman in this, I can find the girl but not the old woman."
Take the edge of the girls shirt and that's the end of the woman's nose…" Sakura said quickly. "Tsunade-sama showed me that a while ago, helps pick things out."
Temari turned the magazine back, "soka…Ah! Arigatou! Mitskay." Temari said smiling. She turned a page and began reading.
"Temari…"
"I don't know anything on the matter! Stop quizzing me, alright? Everything's going to be fine." She said and tore into an article, literally. "I swear half the things they print in this are shit." Sakura laughed some and kept staring at the ceiling.
"YAT-TA! This is so awesome! Just thinking about I makes me dizzy!" Naruto screamed at the kidnapped audience of Tori who had just gotten out of the hospital.
"Keep thinking about it everyday as that, and you'll die a happy man." Tori said, he couldn't help but catch Naruto's happiness.
Adji walked out and stared at them too yelling in the streets. "It's nearly 1 AM! Will you two shut up. Tori, it's time for bed, Naruto, you should go to be too. You've got matches tomorrow!"
"hai hai." Tori said walking away, "See you tomorrow, Naruto."
"Bye!" Naruto said and began to walk back to his apartment under the starry sky of the desert. As he walked into the hotel he was surprised to see Shikamaru waiting by the doors. "What's up?"
"I have a message from Kakashi for you, he left it a few hours ago and you've made me wait for those hours…"
"Sorry, I was out."
"Anyway, he says to pick him up something for the monument, something he can bury there that would mean a lot." Shikamaru said. "Got any ideas?"
"Actually…" Naruto said looking at him, "I do. Well, I'm off to bed, later!" Naruto said and made his way to his room where he promptly collapsed.
Temari had woken up early and spent her morning cleaning house and organizing. She was sore from yesterday's fight but still managed to go around ignoring the pain. She stopped and sat down on the couch and looked at the clock. '6:15, it's still too early…The festival doesn't even open until eight.' Temari sighed.
She head a large thump and some mild complaining, a few seconds later Sakura emerged rubbing her side. "You're floor's really hard."
"Fall out of bed?" Sakura nodded and sat down on the couch next to her. "You should probably go back to sleep."
"Nawh, I'm fine. I have to get my clothes ready for today anyway, it the show today, remember?" Sakura asked. She was talking about the ninja show, where they put on a theater act using Jutsus and natural talents. "Plus, I want to wear the combs Naruto bought me. It'll take a half an hour just to do my hair."
"I guess… Never really did my hair, just keep it in these." Temari said grabbing a bunch of hair. "So, why are we dressing up? It's Naruto…"
"I…" Sakura shrugged and laughed as she walked into her room to grab her things.
"Naruto…" Sakura said sitting on the edge of the bed shaking him, "come on get up it's nearly nine!" She yelled and hit him square on the back. He lunged up grabbing his back and stared out looking at her. "About time, come on, let's go get breakfast."
"Oh, alright… But did you have to hit so hard?" She rubbed his hair and nodded. He sighed and laughed, "alright, I'll meet you outside in a minute."
"Okay." Sakura said and left the room closing the door. She slowly walked out, her hands behind her back, humming. She walked into the lobby and put her shoes on. Just as she walked out Shikamaru was walking in. "Ohiyo, Shikamaru."
"Ohiyo, I take it you woke Naruto up?" He said putting his hands in his pockets. She nodded. "Well someone seems happy this morning…"
"Hai, Naruto and I are dating…" Shikamaru stopped for a second and smiled.
"I'm not sure if you're going to be alright spreading that around Konoha."
"NANI!?" Tsunade belted into the phone, she nearly broke Temari's ear drum. "Why didn't you stop them!"
"Hey you asked how she was doing, I'm just updating you like you asked, alright?!" Temari yelled back and growled. "If you don't think you can handle something then don't ask about it!"
Tsunade grumbled over the phone and Temari hung it up. "God, is she pissy." Temari began to make her way out to the festival. She went out into the Kazekage's hallway and ran into Gaara and Matsuri. "Ohiyo gesaiimasu."
"Hey Temari-sama. What were you doing?" Matsuri asked quickly.
"Updating Tsunade on Sakura as she asked." She said and moved past them, "Gaara, I wouldn't call her for a couple hours even if it's an emergency." She walked out of sight.
"Wonder why?" Gaara said slowly.
"Sakura-chan must have said yes!" Matsuri said happily. She began to run away, "I have to go congratulate Naruto, see you later, Sempai!" She left view too.
Gaara sighed, "women…" He moved into his office and opened the closet pulling out his official robes and hat. He slowly put them on and walked over to the window, the town was quiet, peaceful, and perfect. Turning to go the phone rang and he picked it up. "Hello?"
He was deafened for a minute and regretted putting in a phone line at his office.
It was evening when Naruto finished his match against Tori, he had a completely open wound in his shoulder going the entire way through and several kunai stuck in various places. Tori was face down on the ground, not moving. Naruto moved over and lifted him up. Navi was there instantly by his side with Mistaki who was volunteering for the day, with the sole purpose of being close with the woman.
Sakura ran over to Naruto and began to heal the wound. "You're not going to pass out are you?" Naruto shook his head. "That's good. Good job on winning. You'll be going up against Gaara tomorrow." She said slowly. She finished healing the wound and began pulling out the kunai and healing the smaller wounds. "You're lucky Gaara's pretty injured too, I didn't know Matsuri could fight like that."
"He did say she would go well up against Lee, which means he trained her specifically to beat him, which is amazing in itself." Naruto said pulling out the last two kunai. "I'll be fine, fast healing remember? You wouldn't mind getting food would you, I'm starving."
"No, come on, I'll pay today but I expect you to win tomorrow." He laughed and threw his hands behind his head, "I take it you're planning on it."
"You bet, I didn't come here to lose, I came here… for the freebies. Oh, and to win." He joked. "I can't wait to see what the prize is, I hope it's money. I'm going a little broke."
"You shouldn't have bought that specialty Ramen cup. It told you it was too expensive." Sakura nagged. "Sometimes you really need to handle your money better. Oh well, I doubt everyone would let you go without stuff."
"Soka?" Naruto said, "right now, I'm worried though, I have a feeling something's going to hit me really, really hard."
"That's a weird feeling." She said.
"Aooo…. They're late." Matsuri said standing next to Gaara, "I told them about the show a few days ago. I hope they show up!" She whined sitting on the steps outside the theater. Gaara was holding his right arm, she had badly injured it, but Matsuri herself just was thrown out of the area when she stopped to check on Gaara.
"There's five minutes until it starts. Calm down." He said sternly. As they looked towards the horizon they didn't notice as the two ninja they were looking for landed quietly behind them. They began to stare too until Naruto said, "What are we looking for?"
"You two." Gaara said spinning around. "Let's go in."
"You two were almost late. You two are always almost late… Watches! I'm going to get you watches and set them five minutes ahead." Matsuri said.
"But you just told us they were five minutes ahead, that wouldn't work anymore." Sakura said heading in ahead of the boys with Matsuri. Gaara stuck an arm out and made Naruto wait with him until they were out of sight. He put his arms down and turned around.
"Naruto, I had a very unpleasant phone call from Tsunade." He said quickly, "Temari was ordered to give Tsunade updates on Sakura, she was told this morning that you two were dating and was troubled for several hours."
"Sorry, we kind of weren't planning for her too…"
"Find out? Yes, it would have been best but anyway," he said turning back to check that they weren't coming back. "I don't want anything happening that will ruin the relations between Konoha and Suna, but I'm not going to interfere either. Kankuro will be going everywhere with you all of tomorrow, after the match the festival ends, so there's nothing I can do beyond that, but just behave, Naruto."
"If anything happens? What do you mean?" Gaara began walking away leaving Naruto questioning himself on what Gaara meant, than it hit him and he blushed.
The boy on stage was six or maybe seven, he was small, weakly looking and had blazing blond hair. He was fast though, his hands moved together quickly and suddenly a firey dragon appeared and began soaring above the crowd. "Sugoi!" Matsuri said happily.
Naruto looked at Sakura, both of them had been missed by the child's Genjutsus, Gaara had too but he had already seen the show and knew what Matsuri was talking about. Sakura sighed and began to mess with a single strand of hair on her head that wouldn't stay up. She gave up finally.
Naruto reached a hand up and moved it, sticking it firmly behind her ear. She looked over and smiled, he smiled back. Gaara noticed and made a noise. Naruto put his hand down to his side, Sakura noticed Gaara and snuck her hand over the seat's arm and slipped her hand into Naruto's. He smiled again and squeezed her hand.
The audience 'ooh-ed' and 'awed' as a new Genjutsus was used by two small twin girls on the stage. This time everyone was caught in the Jutsus, and they saw two dolphins swimming threw the air, bouncing every where, dancing together.
"Now that's amazing…" Sakura whispered, Naruto nodded and moved foreword in his seat as the dolphins spread out and jumped horribly close to the crowd. They quickly melted together and formed a large whale; all the while the two girls on stage were singing a small little tune. The whale moved about the theater freely, happily. It even called out and blew from the blow hole.
Sakura snapped out and made a grunting noise; upset she couldn't finish watching the whale. Naruto turned to her and cut off the Jutsus as well. The girls bowed and everyone saw the end of the show. Two acrobats came out and spun and twirled then bowed and the curtain went down.
"They was awesome." Sakura pulled her hand back and stood up to clap with the rest of the audience, "I need to make my Jutsus do that!"
"We're ninja, not performers, you wouldn't want to weaken yourself." Matsuri said suddenly. She had a stern look on her face. "I had to try my hardest to stay in the Jutsus; it wasn't that strong and was too ridiculous to believe."
"Wow, you know a lot about Genjutsus." Naruto said standing and retaking Sakura's hand.
"Hai, I'm not to good so I have to be able to escape them easily." She stood up and finally Gaara got up. "Anything else to do Sempai?"
"No, go home and rest, tomorrow's going to be busy." Matsuri saluted disappeared. Gaara turned to them, "Remember what I said." Gaara made his way out.
"What did he say?" Sakura asked. Naruto shook his head and began to laugh, "about tomorrow huh?"
"Yeah." 'Technically, I'm not lying…' He tried to make it better for himself. "Come on, I'll walk you home." He said and they began to walk out of the theater in the crowd.
"Do you want to go see the fireworks again, it is the last night and they're supposed to be the biggest. Anyway, you don't have to wake up until noon, you're match is in the evening."
"Alright." Naruto said, he turned to the corner, pulling her along to the back part of the Kazekage building and they began up the wall. "So, you really like fireworks, huh?"
"Not really, but we don't get to see them that often, so we minds well see as many as we can." Sakura said; they reached the top and laid down staring up at the stars. "In a few minutes…"
"Hai, Sakura-chan."