Notes: Thanks so much for your positive comments, guys. They got me through a really shitty week. And, as a bonus, since I haven't updated in a while, I finished the entire Fall segment, just for you guys. Hope you like it, because it feels a bit rushed to me. But at least it moves the story along! Damn filler.

5

Going without sleep for over twenty four hours didn't really phase him, as everything that had happened earlier would only keep him awake anyway. But by the time the sun had completed its rotation and sat high in the sky overhead glaring down at him, Uzumaki Naruto found himself wishing he'd at least taken a nap before he had left. If I didn't think of doing it before, he thought with some mild amusement, though it was lost on his tired brain, I'm definitely going to kill Sasuke when I see him again. Just what was it that the Uchiha-bastard found particularly funny about constantly doing mind-numbing one-eighties that confused potential onlookers? One would think that the dark-haired man enjoyed upsetting his teammates all the time.

He passed by the last straggle of trees marking the border of the Leaf Country and cast a curious glance in their direction as he meandered closer to the ocean. From the port village where he was supposed to meet the Kazekage and the other two escorts, it would take them three days by boat to reach the island country of Wave. Walking back down this path, making this same trip across the ocean, reminded Naruto of his very first high-ranking mission with Team Kakashi all those years back. He remembered Tazuna, Inari, Zabuza, and Haku. Those thoughts momentarily pulled him down into a dark train of thinking, leaving the earlier worries behind.

The ceaseless lap of the water against the shore, against the stone pillars. The steady thunk-kink of hammers and the hum of machinery and the voices of men raised over the din, calling orders and words of encouragement. The silence of the heavy, cold mist that settled over their battles; Zabuza's harsh laugh coming from everywhere, all around. The pain in his left hand, his forehead, all over his body: the night wind whistling past his ears as he and Sasuke raced for the top…

The wind got louder.

Naruto snapped himself out of his memories and turned around to see twin spirals of razor-sharp tornadoes barreling down on him. He yelped and threw himself out of the way, watching the small funnels dig shallow furrows in the rich earth. He shook his head to clear it and tried to get up but discovered with a sinking feeling that his hands and ankles were clamped by wooden-looking appendages sticking up from the ground. More than one opponent—! He managed to scream at himself as a large body shook itself out of the earth and towered over him, a gaping hole in its midsection threatening to swallow him whole. Naruto let out a gurgling scream before being stuffed into the dark opening. It snapped closed with a sharp shink! sound and instead of a scream, a puff of smoke emanated from the gut of the puppet.

"Hn," Kankuro chuckled, amused. "Substitiution."

"The Leaf's famous for that one," Temari hopped down from the nearby tree and glanced around. "Especially that brat and his whole entourage of Baby Leaves."

"So where'd he go?" the hooded man scanned the area with dark eyes.

"Hm," Temari turned her head slowly, first one way, then the other, searching for the blond ninja. "Not left… Not right…" She threw a careless glance upward. "Not above…"

A rumbling sound came from beneath their feet. Both Temari and Kankuro stared downward as two hands thrust up from the earth and snatched at them. The older woman leapt nimbly out of the way, flicking her large metal fan open and catching herself atop it, using the momentum from her jump to carry her safely out of harm's way. Her brother was not so lucky. The hand caught and held his ankle and yanked down savagely. With a surprised look, Kankuro disappeared into the dirt as Uzumaki Naruto sprung out, a wicked grin on his tanned face.

"That's a nice look for you," he told the head sticking up out of the ground, and Kankuro scowled at him for two seconds before a poof and a cloud of smoke revealed him not to be Kankuro at all, but the puppet that had initially attacked him. From further behind him he felt the slight movements of chakra strings vibrate through the air, signifying a puppeteer's command to his instrument. Naruto tucked and rolled forward, reaching into his hip pouch and digging out three kunai, glancing at the distance between him and the man in black from between his legs as his body completed the tumble. As soon as he righted himself he took aim and chucked them all, aiming for the string manipulator instead of the obvious wooden target. Kankuro noticed the black knives slicing across the distance toward him and moved his hands, commanding his puppet to block the attack, but Naruto already knew he wouldn't be fast enough—

A spiral of wind knocked the weapons away and Naruto glared at Temari, who was readying her fan for another assault. He prepared himself, getting into a crouching position. "That's enough," a calm voice broke through the tense air, making the three combatants automatically shift out of 'attack' mode.

"Gaara!" Naruto threw his arms open wide, pure and simple joy at seeing his old friend again. The red haired Kazekage stepped closer to the three and nodded, not a trace of a smile on his solemn face, but his bright green eyes—the dark circles around them substantially less-eminent—twinkled with happiness.

"Naruto," he nodded his head. "Good to see you're still as sharp as ever."

"At least when it comes to fighting," his older sister snorted, closing her fan and leaning against it casually, all the fight gone from her once her little brother had initially spoken.

"What's that supposed to mean!" the blond man growled.

"See?" Kankuro stepped closer to his siblings, shaking his head in mock exasperation. "That's exactly what we're saying: you're good in a fight, but there's nothing much up here," he tapped his temple with one finger.

"Luckily, I didn't hire him for his brains, hmm?" Gaara did smile this time; a soft, tiny grin that curved one corner of his thin mouth.

"Not you too," Naruto groaned, slapping a hand to his forehead.

Naruto awoke with a slight start. He didn't move but flicked his eyes about, trying to see where he was and what had caused him to wake up. Water lapped gently nearby, sounding slightly hollowed in his ears—he was in a boat. The sleep-haze lifted and his memories came into focus: He was on a mission, escorting the Sand Country's Fifth Kazekage to the smaller island country of Wave, where they would meet a representative from the distant Cloud Country. The meeting, he had been told, was to establish friendly ties between Sand, Water, and Cloud, the latter never really being close to any of the other shinobi countries, great or small. It had been an idea proposed by the young Sand kage, Gaara.

Gaara. Naruto sat up and turned to look behind him. The red-haired man was waiting patiently for himself to be noticed, his arms crossed over his chest as always. The large clay gourd that he usually wore upon his back however was not there this night. Night Naruto briefly glanced up to the dark sky before addressing the Kazekage. Night already? Geez, I've slept all day!

"You've been asleep all day long," Gaara echoed his thoughts, coming down the two wooden steps and sitting beside the other man. "You must have been tired."

"I didn't really get a chance to sleep last night," the blond chuckled, rubbing the back of his head.

"We would have waited for you, Naruto. You didn't have to rush."

Gaara's calm demeanor had a way of rubbing off on him, just like someone else he knew. Naruto leaned back and looked up at the sky, letting out a small sigh. "I know. I just…didn't want to sleep."

Sharp green eyes slid over his profile in the moonless dark: "You're upset about something."

"Am I that easy to read?" Naruto scoffed.

"Sometimes," the other man shrugged. "But you don't have to tell me if you don't want to."

"I haven't seen you in a really long time, Gaara," Naruto's tone was indiscernibly soft. "Tell me how you are first."

"I'm fine," the Kazekage nodded slowly. "It took me a few weeks to fully recover from the after-effects, but with Temari hounding the entire medical squad, I was treated well."

The blond laughed. "You guys seem to be getting along just fine," he commented.

"I guess so," he replied with another shrug.

"Definitely," Naruto confirmed with a firm nod.

"Now you," Gaara nudged him slightly with his elbow. "And we talked about the mission earlier, so don't ask me to explain it again."

Naruto groaned and rolled his eyes. There went his escape topic. "I'm fine," he tried to shrug it off. "Nothing's new."

"I heard you finally found Sasuke."

He winced. "Yeah, he's back home. Still an ass, as usual," he added with a face.

Gaara took it all in. "So, you two aren't getting along after all of that?"

"No, we're getting along fine," Naruto wrinkled his nose, trying to dance around what Gaara was undoubtedly aiming for. "He's just dumb and hard-headed as usual."

Another pause: "What did he do now?"

Naruto sighed; there it was. He debated lying to Gaara about it, but figured what was the point? It shouldn't bother him to talk about it this much, after all. He should be able to get over Sasuke's stupid antics fairly quickly by now, right? So then why, whenever he thought about it, did his blood start to boil? He made a frustrated sound in the back of his throat, reaching up and tugging his lengthening blond hair, trying to make the words come. He decided—as he had before, when addressing Sakura—that to be blunt would be best: Get to the point, and get it over with.

"Sasuke's getting married," he noticed off-handedly that the phrase sounded bitter and choked in his throat.

Gaara seemed surprised by this; he gave the blond a slow blink, as if the very notion of the Uchiha getting married defied reason. Finally, though, he spoke: "And you're not happy for him?"

"Of course not!" Naruto exploded. "It's not even as if he's marrying because he loves her or anything! That, at least, I could agree with. But this—" he gestured as if the act were something tangible, right there in front of them, "—I can't begin to understand what he's thinking!"

"Who is he—?"

"One of the two daughters of the Hyuuga clan. You remember the two kids from the Chuunin Exams with the white eyes?"

"That girl?"

"Her or her sister."

"…" Gaara contemplated for a minute. "Did he tell you why?"

"He says it's because he wants to restore his bloodline," Naruto snarled at the memory of the confrontation in Sasuke's home. "He was spouting some nonsense about the Hyuugas and the Uchihas once being the same clan or something."

"It's probably true," Gaara nodded. "Strong bloodline limits are very rare, and for two to appear in one village, both of them pertaining to eyesight…" he trailed off. Naruto observed the logic and noted it, but it still didn't excuse Sasuke from his stupidity (in his book, anyway).

"It just sucks," he finished lamely, not even touching on the range of emotions he had toward the engagement. The two friends looked at each other as the moon finally, slowly, came over the horizon, giving pale light to the otherwise sleeping world. Gaara's stare bored into Naruto's, attempting to read his close friend as best he could; it was hard, seeing as the blond had quite a bit of practice at hiding his feelings.

"I think…" the red-head stood, "you should ask yourself why you're so bothered by Sasuke's engagement to the Hyuuga girl."

"Because it's not fair!" Naruto snapped.

"Not fair to whom, exactly?"

The question stunned him. He groped clumsily for the answer he had been telling himself: "It's… For Hinata…or Hanabi, it's not fair…"

"Then you shouldn't be so upset about it," Gaara shrugged. "It's between them, and if they really didn't think it was fair, they'd do something to stop it, right?"

"But…" the blond sputtered.

"Who isn't it fair for, Naruto?" the Kazekage turned and walked back up the steps to the door leading back inside. "You should decide on that before anything else."