Chapter 35

Baki was beginning to get used to the motion of the giant toad. That was good. In the beginning, he was afraid he'd be sick. He didn't get motion sick easily, but the enormous surges up and down might make anyone lose their lunch.

"So how do you see the future between us?" Jiraiya asked. "You seem awfully serious."

"What do you think?" Baki retorted.

"I think you're expecting me to live with you in the Sand village somehow," Jiraiya said.

"Bingo."

"But I can't," Jiraiya protested.

"You can at least for the next three years," Baki said. "Yondaime is negotiating a deal."

Jiraiya sighed. "I know. But that's…What about after that? It's not like you to be so impulsive."

"Maybe I just don't want to let you go," Baki said. "Did you ever think of that?"

Jiraiya fell silent for a few moments. "Baki…"

"Don't say my name like that," Baki said softly. "It's not impossible. We can be happy together. It's not just about sex, Ototo. It never is with me. I want you. Permanently. In every way possible."

Jiraiya couldn't deny that sounded good. At the same time, he couldn't believe it. Not all the way. People always got tired of him. People always wanted him to leave in the end…or they left themselves. Like Tsunade. Tsunade was a prime example.

But he didn't want to burden Baki with that story.

xXx

Gaara popped Naruto's first volley of clones, forming spines on the outside of his sand ball. The original Naruto stayed back and fired off kunai. They bounced off of Gaara's shell.

Naruto tried clones again, this time making a swarm of twenty that all attacked at once, surrounding Gaara's spherical shield.

It didn't do any good. Attacking head on just made them easy targets. Gaara shot out spines in all directions, popping clones like balloons.

Kankuro watched with bated breath, clinging to the railing with both hands.

"Relax," Temari said. "It's Gaara."

Kankuro barely heard her. No matter how much confidence everyone had in Gaara's ability to defend himself, he'd been trained to believe that standing still in a fight made you a sitting duck. To him, Gaara's tactics were still way too defensive and passive. What would happen if Naruto found a way to crack Gaara's shell?

"Naruto's too stupid to get through Gaara's defenses anyway," Temari said. "Look at that technique. What a one-note fighter."

Kankuro shook his head absently. He wondered why she was forgetting that Naruto was a jinchuuriki. Naruto had the chakra to spare for opening with techniques like kage bunshin.

xXx

A man in an ANBU uniform approached with a box of rice balls. "Hungry, Hokage-sama? Kazekage-sama?"

"No, thank you," Yondaime said absently.

Sandaime shook his head. "Thank you for the kind offer. I will eat later."

The man bowed back into the background.

Down below, Gaara destroyed Naruto's clones, just like they had practiced at home.

"Naruto-kun's not doing so well," Yondaime commented.

"It's early," Sandaime said. "Naruto-kun is feeling out his opponent. He does this every time he fights. The shadow clones attacking head on lure his opponent into a false sense of safety, while Naruto-kun himself stands back and watches what his opponent does. He's mapping out Gaara's weaknesses right now."

Yondaime snorted. "Gaara doesn't have any weaknesses. Not like that."

"We'll see," Sandaime said.

Yondaime shook his head, smiling.

xXx

Baki let Jiraiya keep his silence. He knew that Jiraiya needed time to think about it. Jiraiya had hinted before that he'd been burned by a past relationship; someday, Baki hoped that Jiraiya got the courage to tell him. Nothing could make him love Jiraiya any less. Even if Jiraiya thought the breakup was his fault somehow. It didn't matter to Baki if it was. That was no business of his. And he was determined to make this work.

To him, Jiraiya was perfect, flaws and all.

After about ten minutes, Baki realized that Jiraiya had said he hated silences.

"How much further?" Baki asked.

"Those cliffs there." Jiraiya nodded at the pale, sheer cliffs in the distance ahead of them. "They're called the Kenro Heights."

At the next bound of the giant toad, Baki was startled by a flicker of chakra. "Someone's there."

"I felt it," Jiraiya agreed. "Sasuke." He muttered, "Maybe the damn brat forgot what day it is."

"Forgot what day it is?" Baki said in disbelief.

"Anything's possible with Kakashi," Jiraiya said.

"Look, this is beginning to sound like memory problems," Baki said. "He shouldn't be forgetting what day it is. Shinobi undergo training. We don't lose track of time, even in the middle of the wilderness. Maybe Kakashi's actually hurting. Maybe it's something like what Yondaime has."

"What Yondaime has?" Jiraiya asked.

"Yondaime has memory damage," Baki said. "I don't know how or why. I just know that when he was my sensei, he apologized for not remembering things. At the time, I thought he meant that he'd been hit with a genjutsu attack at some point that did permanent damage. By the time he was my sensei, he was already a war veteran. It was possible."

Jiraiya hesitated. "Kakashi uses a lot of genjutsu, and it's not exactly suited for him. He was trained in lightning release and kenjutsu, like his father. Then when Obito died, he was asked to switch over to being a fighter like Obito would have been. Except…Kakashi can't handle the extent of the sharingan's power. He wasn't born with it; it's too taxing for him."

"You think that might be causing the memory loss?" Baki asked.

"I don't know." Jiraiya didn't want to consider such a thing. He sighed and redirected. "Well. We're almost there, anyway. We'll find out why Kakashi is late, and then we'll take him and Sasuke back to the village."

xXx

Naruto made more clones, but instead of attacking, they all went to work digging in the ground.

Kankuro stared. "What is he doing?"

Naruto's clones pelted Gaara's sand ball with clods of dry earth, which exploded into clouds of dust and dirt on impact. In spite of the fact that this did no damage, he kept it up. A substantial cloud of dust was forming; the arena was protected from the wind, creating calm, still air.

Temari gasped. "He's figured out that Gaara can't see without his eye jutsu looking out for him!"

Kankuro glanced up sharply. Sure enough, Gaara's sand eye was coming lower, roving around and trying to get a better view of what was going on.

Naruto let out a yell, something like, "Alright!" He launched a kunai with an explosive tag whistling on the end of it. It stuck into the unprotected sand eye and exploded. Sand rained down.

"Now!" Naruto and his clones charged into the cloud of dust.

"Clever, but he's not going to get through," Kankuro said.

Cries of victory came from inside the cloud of dust. Then there was an odd rumbling sound.

All of a sudden, sand tentacles exploded out of the dust cloud, chasing Naruto's clones. Because of the nature of the kage bunshin, Kankuro couldn't tell which one was the real Naruto.

Naruto and his clones hacked at the tentacles, breaking them off, but they just reformed. In the center of the chaos, Gaara emerged, no longer able to sufficiently shield and fight at the same time.

Kankuro was concerned that Gaara was running out of sand. "Come on, Ototo…now would be a good time to make more sand…"

xXx

Sandaime took a drink of iced tea. "He's lured Gaara out."

Gaara stood at the epicenter of a sand storm of tentacles, lashing out and protecting himself against Naruto's clones. At the same time, he wove hand seals.

"So he has," Yondaime murmured. Then he sat forward and smiled. "See those hand seals? He's making more sand. Naruto's not going to win this way."

Sure enough, waves of sand crashed around Gaara, blowing away Naruto's clones and popping them. Naruto himself was blown back twenty feet, and shielded his face with both arms.

xXx

"He's getting serious." Kankuro glanced at Temari.

Temari merely watched.

Kankuro was relieved that Gaara hadn't lost his head in the tension of the battle. Sometimes Gaara was overwhelmed. He wasn't a strategist, despite his thoughtful nature. His two main strategies were always sit and hide, or lash out and hope for the best. At some point, Kankuro wanted to sit down with his brother and explain the basics of tactical planning.

Now it was Naruto who was on the defensive. Gaara summoned up ever higher, stronger waves of sand, intent on capturing his test opponent.

xXx

When Jiraiya and Baki arrived at the top of the cliffs and dismounted from the giant toad, Kakashi and Sasuke were taking apart a tent.

"What in the world do you think you're doing?" Jiraiya demanded.

Baki could tell Jiraiya was relieved, though.

"We were just packing up," Kakashi said.

"Well, you're already late." Jiraiya yanked Kakashi aside and loaded him onto the giant toad.

Baki bundled up Sasuke and Kakashi's supplies and sealed them into a scroll he had handy for such things.

Sasuke nodded and leapt on board behind his teacher.

Baki rejoined them last, taking his seat up front, and they set off.

Sasuke quickly clung to Kakashi's waist.

Kakashi chuckled. "Never ridden a toad before?"

Sasuke shook his head.

"It's bumpy, isn't it?" Kakashi sounded amused. "Hang on tight or you might be shaken off in the next leap."

Jiraiya glanced backward in time to see Sasuke glare at his teacher. The Sannin chuckled. "It's not as bad as all that. Ohikigaeru is going easy on us."

"This is easy?" Baki protested.

Jiraiya grinned. "You have no idea what he can do at full speed."

"I believe you," Baki said quickly. "Please stick to the pace we're at."

Jiraiya laughed.