The flailing tentacle of water slapped the ground less than an inch from the genin's position as he used his charka to leap away. The spray drenched him completely, even though it did not actually hit him.

"I said 'left' dolt!" Screamed Hanabi just moments before ducking the same tentacle of water now swaying menacingly toward her position.

"Don't get distracted!" Yugao called out to them as she observed the training session.

"Right five degrees, no ten degrees, ten …AH!" Hanabi huffed petulantly as Rokuro's left arm got nailed by the water jutsu.

The tentacle of water collapsed and so did its user. Michi fell to one knee, puffing and out of breath.

Rokuro shook his left arm, disgusted. "Blue, can't you tell five degrees from ten? You're so far off the mark that…."

"ENOUGH!" Yugao raised her voice, something that happened so rarely that they all fell silent in shock. "Michi, go take a break. You alone have earned it. That water jutsu held for at least 30 seconds longer than your past record."

The young genin flashed a tired smile at his two teammates and trotted from the practice courtyard.

Hanabi fumed as she watched him leave. Michi sometimes had a calming influence on the rowdier Rokuro, she watched the genjutsu user as he tenderly rotated his recently healed right arm. "We have some medicinal teas that can help with that."

"Mind your own!" The genin snarled back at her, all affronted ego. "I don't need to be coddled like a baby. One attack on HER and we can't even practice on the fields anymore. We have to come to the Hyuuga mansion like serfs called in to the noble house."

The blue-haired kunoichi put her hand on Rokuro's shoulder and the young man settled down to a silent simmer of anger. His eyes still glared at Hanabi, but at least his mouth snapped shut. "I said enough. Hanabi, you got distracted and flustered and gave Rokuro the wrong information in the middle of a battle. In a real fight it would have been a very costly mistake."

The young Uzani grinned at her, at least until their sensei turned to look down on him with the same stern expression. "You disregarded her last three warnings, choosing your own path. This flustered and confused your teammate into giving you a slow warning. You can not berate her for a bad call when you refuse to listen to her at all."

Now it was Hanabi's turn to grin over at Uzani Rokuro, the bane of her existence. How, oh how did they end up on the same team? Michi she could understand, his water jutsu were limited, but effective.

Rokuro looked down at his feet, trying to keep his expression bland.

"Near the column, when Michi was going for your left knee, you leapt in the opposite direction than what Hanabi had given you and nearly got nailed by the attack. Why?" Yugao asked, her voice calm and steady.

Shamefaced, the young shinobi shrugged. "The water current in the tentacle switched motion, swirling to the left. That meant he was going left."

"Except she told you to go right, and that turned out to be a good call." Yugao kept her expression bland. "Seems that while you two were recovering from your own mishaps, Michi was practicing. He's now able to move counter to the swirl of the water. It's a great step forward for him."

"We didn't know he could do that though!" Rokuro whined, only to fall silent at the sensei's stern look.

"Our enemies never tell us when they've changed a tactic or gained in ability." She reminded him smoothly.

Hanabi caught her breath at this. She'd not paid attention to the current of the water, only watching the movement of the chakra in Michi's body. Deflated, she sighed. "I didn't notice the change in the water movement."

Rokuro sighed and flashed her a chagrined look. "I should have trusted your eyes." He admitted with great reluctance.

Yugao nodded. "Both of you need to trust each other and pay attention to more than one focus. An opponent knows the weaknesses of their own jutsu and will go to great lengths to mask those problem areas. Michi knew that you'd learned to read his water currents and used it against you. Effective strategy as it turned out."

"Yes sensei." Both Hanabi and Rokuro said ruefully.

"Now." Yugao reached out and traced Rokuro's arm. "Any problems with the arm?"

The young man blushed, but shook his head. "The break healed cleanly."

The blue-haired kunoichi next turned to Hanabi. "Any problems with your vision? The scratches on your cornea giving you any distortions within the Byakugan?"

"No sensei."

Yugao gave a light chuckle then smiled at both her young charges. "Get cleaned up and we'll go have an early lunch. Don't think I'm going soft though, we'll train more after lunch."

Hanabi tossed Rokuro a towel as she grimaced. They both waited until Yugao had left before relaxing. "There are some spare clothing, if you want to change." She offered as a peace offering.

Rokuro grimaced and wrung the excess water out of his shirt. "Nah. Ever since we were teamed up with Michi I started carrying spare clothes in my pack. Water jutsu, yah?"

"Hai." She grinned.

"Hey, how come your neck and chin are blue?" He asked suddenly, his mood switching back to haughty and abrasive in under a second.

Her smile disappeared as he brushed roughly by her, sniffing in disdain. "One of your childish pranks gone wrong?"

Hanabi gritted her teeth and restrained herself from attacking him, but only barely.

o.O.o.O.o.O

After a slow start to the morning, the group was making decent time throughout the day. It still wasn't the fast pace the ninja were accustomed to, but it was better than the first day of traveling.

"I can see through people now." Katashi was bragging to Kankuro as they walked just behind Temari and Hinata. "And Kiba swears he wasn't lying to me." The young boy said, distrust obvious in his voice.

The puppeteer looked down at his newest family member and sighed. "You're not going to shut up, are you?"

Katashi grinned and shook his head. "Kiba says you play with dolls."

"Puppets." Growled the puppeteer as Hinata giggled. "They're not dolls." He made a mental note to have a talk with Kiba.

"Dolls are for girls." Katashi announced, sending a sly look up at his brother-by-marriage. "They aren't cool like bugs. I'll bet your puppets look sissy."

No response seemed the best response to Kankuro as he looked over at his wife, silently asking for permission to pound the kid. She just shook her head at him, laughing silently.

"Does Shino really have bugs?" The boy asked. "Real, live bugs?"

Kankuro sighed and shot a glance to the Aburame who was just a few paces away from them. He knew Shino could hear them, but was deliberately leaving Kankuro to his fate. "Yes. He has bugs. Lots of them." The puppet master shook his head as he remembered meeting those destruction beetles up close and personal during that first fight in the forest. "Believe me."

Katashi fell silent a moment and then activated his Byakugan to stare morosely at Shino. "Are they hiding from me?"

"I doubt it." Kankuro grinned. The kid was getting annoying. Katashi reminded him a lot of Hanabi as a matter of fact. What would the little firecracker make of her newly discovered brother?

"But I can see THROUGH him to the trees on the other side. Why can't I see the bugs?" Katashi pouted, sure that someone was having fun at his expense and he didn't like it one little bit.

Hinata turned and smiled back at the seven year old walking beside her husband. Her look was tender as she took in the sight of them next to each other. "You know the difference between a rock and a blade, don't you?"

Suspecting a trick question, Katashi shot a glance up at Kankuro, but the puppeteer just shrugged down at him. "Yah, I guess so." He mumbled back to her.

"You're using the Byakugan like a rock. It works as a tool, but it is heavy and unrefined, without finesse. You have to keep practicing to focus your eyes on something so small as a bug, or on a nut from an individual tree." She gave him a reassuring smile. "You'll get better as you practice, I promise."

Temari stopped and dropped her pack. "This is as good a place as any to stop for a bit. But we lost enough time this morning. Cold rations only, then we get going again."

Katashi groaned to hear this, then stared up at Kankuro. "Why is she the leader? Women aren't supposed to order men around."

Juroken coughed to hear his own misogynist words echoed in his young charge, right in front of two kunoichi no less. Somehow, it sounded worse in this company than it did in his own lonely mountain home. He remembered Kiji would laugh at him and tease him out of his ill humors. It still saddened him that she'd passed, though he didn't bring her up much in order to spare the boy.

Kankuro laughed, and even Shino managed a small chuckle. "Kid. You know a lot about nature, haven't you noticed that the female of any species is almost always the more fierce? Size and brute strength don't always carry the day."

"Nicely said." Temari said, giving Katashi a quelling stare as she fingered her over-large fan strapped to her back.

The puppeteer laughed and rubbed his head. "I learned the hard way, trust me. She packs a mean punch and that fan is a killer."

As the group laughed, they pulled out just enough for a quick meal. While everyone was distracted, Shino took the opportunity to snag Temari by the arm and pull her away from the others. "You alright?" He whispered.

The blond kunoichi sighed, and let her body relax against his. "Am I so obvious?"

"Only to me. Perhaps to your brother." Shino kept his voice low. "Was it the mention of the contraceptive brew?" He guessed.

Temari bit her lip and nodded, her face reflecting none of the pain he sensed beneath the surface.

"I heard you offer some of yours to Hinata." He mentioned cautiously, his hand sliding down from her shoulder to her hip and back up again in a gentle caress.

Temari nearly choked, ruthlessly pushing back her softer emotions. She was no whiner, nor a crybaby. "I can still get pregnant." She said brokenly. "But I can't carry to full term. So I still use the brew. I ...it nearly killed me to miscarry once, I don't want to ever go through that again."

Shino hissed at her. "That's not what I meant. I saw your face when Hinata turned you down."

"Jealousy isn't pretty, is it?" Temari groaned and leaned back into his touch. "I hate myself for it."

"Your brother and Hinata are trying for a child, when you can't have one? Temari, if it didn't affect you then I'd be worried. You're allowed to have emotions." He teased her gently, hoping she remembered what she'd said so long ago.

Temari laughed a bit at that, turning shining eyes up to his face. She reached up and pulled his sunglasses down his nose just far enough to see his silvery-gray eyes. "Remember when I said that to you?"

He growled low at her, she did remember! "There you were telling me not to be a stick of wood and that it was okay to have emotions." He gave her a quick grin. "And the whole time I was fighting not to grab you and ravish you."

The blond leaned back at hearing his words. "No. Really? But that was on that first day when I arrived to help set up the chuunin exams. You're making that up, you always acted so irritated with me."

"Hey you two, get over here or they'll be none left." Kiba cackled as he called over to them.

"Are they kissing?" Katashi groaned. "Why does everyone kiss all the time in this group?"

"I'll kiss you." Hinata told him slyly, making the boy sit up with sudden alarm.

Shino tightened his hold on her briefly. "I really, really want to kiss you right now."

Temari grinned ruefully. "Me too." She admitted, then turned to look back toward the others and started to laugh. "C'mon we better save Katashi from girl cooties."

Katashi yelped and darted left, only to find Hinata had jumped just as he had. He barely dodged her as the purple-haired kunoichi made a mock grab for him. Kankuro laughed, nearly choking on his lunch as Katashi slipped and fell right in front of Akamaru. The boy yelped as the large nin-dog gave him a sloppy doggy kiss on the cheek.

o.O.o.O.o.O

Hanabi's lunch tasted like sawdust in her mouth. Rokuro was being ultra polite to everyone at the table, even managing to make a joke that made her father chuckle. Michi was his usual reserved self, but staring in awe at the Kazekage of Suna, so no help there. How could adults be taken in by Rokuro's act? He wasn't nice. He wasn't polite. He was, in fact, a total jerk.

Gaara ate in silence, responding to every one in five comments made in his direction. He kept looking at Hanabi, and it was making her distinctly uncomfortable.

"You're being quiet today." Anko looked over at Hanabi as the girl picked at her food, excellent as the meal was. "Not hungry?"

Hanabi shrugged, just grateful that the spiky-haired woman hadn't called her 'mushroom' or 'mosquito' in front of her teammates. Not yet anyway.

"Kazekage?" Rokuro cleared his throat uneasily, as if not quite believing his own bravery in addressing the famous Sand leader. "May I ask why you have blue streaks on your cheek?"

"No." Gaara said shortly, and did not elaborate.

The young Hyuuga felt like slinking away in abject misery, but sat up straighter instead. She was made of firmer stuff than that! Darn that Rokuro anyway!

"But you're blue." Michi said, entranced, missing the undercurrents as usual. "And so is Hanabi."

"I hear you're recovering from a broken arm?" The red-head asked Rokuro, pinning him with his pale-jade eyes.

The young genin squirmed, clearly uncomfortable at being the attention of that gimlet stare. "H…Hai." He managed to somehow say. "I'm better now."

"Was it broken in a training fight, or on a mission?" Gaara asked curiously, as the young genin squirmed even more. He didn't care for the looks Rokuro kept sending Hanabi's way.

"No." Rokuro admitted reluctantly. "It was an accident." His eyes shifted away from the table as a small blush played on his tan darkened cheeks.

Male pride pricked there, eh? Gaara nodded.

"He fell through the floor of his family's attic." Michi supplied helpfully, not realizing what he was saying, or giving away. He just wanted to continue the conversation with such a renowned shinobi as the Kazekage.

Anko turned the subject to beets of all things. Marching into a small soliloquy on the nature of the root vegetable that had everyone laughing and blushing at the risqué jokes inside of two minutes.

o.O.o.O.o.O

Kiba and Akamaru were on point when the shaggy white nin-dog gave a small yelp as he heard something odd. Kiba frowned. These days he almost smelled things before his dog could do so, his senses had grown so keen. But nothing smelled out of the ordinary, and he could hear nothing either.

He had a tingle of unease as he turned to look back at the group still some distance behind them. A large 'thump' had him whipping back around as Akamaru fell into a large heap. A wave of dizziness overcame him, his stomach protesting as he too fell, poison filling the air around him.

A moment passed before Kankuro realized he could no longer see the top of Kiba's shaggy head in front of them. The Inuzuka hadn't gotten so far ahead of them before, had he? He looked around and realized that with the high hills around them, this would be a great place for an ambush.

A glance behind him showed that Temari and Shino were guarding their backs, the two looking a bit uneasy, but not really alarmed. Whatever it was, it wasn't obvious.

"Hoshi?" The puppeteer called to his wife, but she was too busy chatting with Katashi to notice. "Baby?" Kankuro called deliberately to Hinata, using the name she hated so much.

Startled, the purple-haired Hyuuga looked over at him and caught her breath on the warning in his face. She quietly activated her Byakugan, not realizing that Katashi was mimicking her every move.

"Why are Kiba and Akamaru taking a nap now?" The boy wondered aloud, even as Shino swooped down on the boy and thrust him into Temari's arms just as she rocketed up and off the ground into the tops of the trees. Shino followed, pulling along a startled and protesting old hermit.

"Hinata, guard our prisoner." Kankuro ordered as he unslung his puppet scrolls, calling his main three immediately. "Temari? Use Sanshouo, I need you." As he spoke, he opened the great back of his large salamander puppet. He had other puppets, but didn't want to flood the field in case the others needed maneuverability.

Katashi gave a small yelp of fright as she unsheathed her fan and the two floated down on a gust of wind. Shino made a series of small jumps as he followed her. Both the old hermit and the young boy were safely stored inside the protective puppet just as Shino made a step toward their prisoner.

"No." Kankuro said. "Look at his face. He knows what's going on. I don't want him inside with the other two. They're defenseless against trickery."

"AM NOT!" Wailed an angry Katashi, obviously using his Byakugan to see through the defensive puppet. Obviously he wanted to watch what was going on.

Kankuro started forward, only to have Shino hiss at him. "Wait. Hinata?"

The purple-haired kunoichi was sweeping the area with her Byakugan. "There is only six of them." She pointed out the position of their enemies.

"Amateur strategy." Shino said quietly, looking over at their prisoner who was looking all too hopeful. "Any of them you don't want to see dead?"

Startled, Madoka just blinked at them.

"If you want to save any of their lives, care about any one of them, let us know now or they're all dead." Shino told him coldly.

Madoka groaned into his gag and slumped a bit, realizing that whatever his men had planned, it was not going to work against this group.

Three of the enemy attacked at once, from the left. But Hinata had seen them coming, dispatching the first with graceful, murderous ease. They'd already downed Kiba and Akamaru, she wasn't taking any chances.

Kankuro used Karasu to herd the remaining two into one general location and captured one with Kuroari.

"YEAH!" Came Katashi's voice from inside the salamander puppet. "GET HIM! I WANNA HAVE A PUPPET! THEY'RE COOL!" But his voice fell silent as Kuroari's arms turned in mid-air, and the blades glistening in the sunlight a bit before sliding home into the puppet. Blood seeped out of the puppet as the man inside was impaled, his screams of pain echoing through the hills.

Temari's Cutting Whirlwind Technique sliced up the third attacker as he tried to flee. The man tried to beg for mercy, then threw a poison bomb at them to cover his escape. He died as Shino's kunai pinned him to the ground and his own poison engulfed him.

"Hinata?" Shino asked as she searched the area.

"No. They fled east at the first sign of trouble. They ran into Kiba."

Temari started at that. "I thought Kiba was down?"

Shino shook his head. "He's harder to take down than that. Any survivors?"

Hinata watched with her bloodline limit, then nodded. "Kiba got two of them, but he's moving sluggishly. One got away."

o.O.o.O.o.O

Hanabi was heading back to the practice courtyard to meet up with her team when Gaara stepped in front of her. "I'm not in the mood." She warned him.

The red head slid to the side as she tried to go around him, blocking her exit. "So? Neither am I. What's between you and Rocks?"

Hanabi giggled in spite of herself. "Rokuro."

"Whatever." Gaara shrugged pretending he didn't care. "He likes you."

Startled, the kunoichi laughed outright. "In what universe are you living in? He hates my guts."

The Kazekage relaxed, reading the openness of her expression. She didn't know. No reason for the bubble of jealousy low in his stomach. "Michi is alright."

"It's impossible not to like Michi, although he can be obtuse at times." Hanabi said with a face so straight that Gaara couldn't believe it. Here she was calling one teammate dense when she had no idea that Rokuro had a crush on her. Amazing.

She brushed by him as he turned to watch her go.

"Cupcake." Anko slid up behind him. "I hear you've taken a proprietary interest in the evil little mushroom."

Gaara sighed, not even bothering to respond.

"What? No argument that I undermine your authority with a cutesy nickname?" She teased him.

The Suna Kazekage turned and stared at her. He was still shorter than she, and whipcord lean. His red hair and jade-pale eyes should have made him look like a child's doll. Anko grinned. A murderous child's doll. There was something in Gaara's force of personality that no one who met him could possible mistake the power emanating from him. "If anyone thinks so, they have been wise enough not to mention it to me."

Anko nodded. "An iron cupcake. Still looks tasty, but the first bite's a killer."

At that comment, Gaara's mouth actually twitched upwards a tiny bit.

"Rokuro broke his arm falling through the floor of the attic in his family home." The spiky-haired woman said, completely out of the blue.

Jade-pale eyes narrowed on her. "So?"

"What makes a floor board so weak?" Anko asked, waiting for the red-head to understand.

"Are you suggesting that Hanabi had something to do with him getting hurt?" Gaara asked, not liking the suggestion. Sure, she pulled pranks and some were dangerous. Still, she always seemed to manage to gauge how much was too much. Had she miscalculated?

"No." Anko sighed. "Look around you. Maybe you don't see it, being in a similar type of house. But this kind of style is not common."

Gaara looked around, trying to see what she saw. The Hyuuga mansion was better decorated and more richly so than the Kazekage residence in Suna. Still, the place had taste and wasn't overblown.

Anko sighed. "A floor board weakens with rot, Gaara. Don't go looking at the boy having a crush on Hanabi, you're reading your own emotions into him. Jealousy fits the situation a lot better."

Stunned, Gaara watched the woman walk away, leaving his mind whirling with thoughts. Had he misread Rokuro? Was the boy picking at Hanabi because he was jealous of her family money and status, rather than a crush? It would bear some thinking about.

He didn't address Anko's other little theory, even to himself. Projecting his own feelings on the boy? Nonsense. He admired Hanabi's creative mind and devious ways. It wasn't a crush. His decision to marry her was based on many factors, a crush wasn't one of them. A crush sounded so …juvenile. No. He was the Kazekage of Suna, he crushed enemies, not crushed on girls. Bah.

o.O.o.O.o.O

"Slowly." Hinata stood over Akamaru, petting the large nin-dog as he lapped up the water she and Shino had fetched for him.

Kiba groaned, wrapped up in a blanket as he sipped at his own water. "They knew what a nin-dog was, and what they can do. Used whistles especially designed for only dogs to hear. It interrupted Akamaru's balance system long enough for the drug to enter his system."

"How'd you escape it?" Temari asked as she carried another cup of broth over for both he and his dog. She poured some in Akamaru's bowl and passed the rest to a grateful Kiba.

"He didn't escape it." Katashi said, wondering what Temari was talking about. "He was down, I saw him."

Shino nodded. "Smartest thing to do, played dead and dropped below the poison so he could put on a facial filter where they couldn't see him. Kiba caught only the smallest dose and waited for his opportunity to strike."

Katashi nodded, in awe and amazement. His eyes skittered over to where Hinata was petting Akamaru. "Will your nin-dog be alright?" He asked, trying to sound like he wasn't worried, and failing.

Kiba grinned. "Yah. He's made of sterner stuff and they didn't use enough to really hurt him, just knocked him for a loop. Besides, turns out they carried the antidote on them. They really were stupid." He said the last loudly enough for Madoka to hear.

Their prisoner groaned, slumping into his ropes.

Kankuro sat down next to Katashi, who stiffened up. "Still think puppets are sissy dolls?"

The boy shook his head mutely, refusing to look at the puppeteer.

Kankuro sighed. "Still want a puppet of your own?" He asked, referring to what Katashi had yelled during the fight. At least until the man had been skewered inside the puppet.

Katashi thought about it a moment and then sighed and looked over at Akamaru. "They were bad men, right?"

Shino nodded, sitting on the other side of the boy. "We're ninja. We don't coddle our enemies, we kill them. Bad or not, we do our duty and complete our missions."

"Then, are WE the bad guys?" Katashi asked, his voice very small.

Juroken held his breath, waiting to see how these ninja handled the question.

Hinata looked over at her younger brother. "You weren't raised among us, so you don't know our life. Good and bad aren't all black and white. We trust in our elder council and our Hokage to accept only missions that don't dishonor us or our village. I've never been disappointed in them yet. But we are ninja."

Katashi thought this over long and hard, "Do I have to be a ninja?"

"No." Hinata told him firmly.

The boy looked over at Kankuro. "You put us in that big puppet to protect us, didn't you?"

The puppeteer nodded solemnly.

"I wanna be like you."

"A puppeteer?" Kankuro asked, surprised.

"No." Katashi grinned. "A ninja. I want to protect people and go on missions and fight too. I want to be like you."

Something hard in Kankuro completely shattered, melting away as he looked down into that trusting face. How did parents do this? How did they watch their children grow up and send them off into dangerous situations? When Katashi went on his first mission, it was going to hurt not to go with him.

With sudden clarity he realized that he wasn't his father. Everything slid into place as he looked up and caught Hinata smiling over at him. He wasn't his father. He wasn't an evil, uncaring man and he never had been. Even as a bully, even at his worst, he wasn't like the Fourth Kazekage. He was himself and he could do this.

Hinata watched him as he watched her and puzzled at the odd expression on his face.

Kankuro looked at his wife and then back down into the face of her brother. This. This is what he'd always needed. He looked over at Temari, who was holding her breath as she watched him. Brother and sister nodded at each other, no words needed. They both just knew. Hinata though. Hinata he would have to tell, out loud.

The puppeteer grinned at her, wondering how she'd react when he told her that he was in love with her? He savored the thought and looked around camp. This was neither the time nor the place. There was no privacy here.

Soon though, soon.

o.O.o.O.o.O

Yes, the end of the story is fast approaching. Gaara and Hanabi's story will continue and though it won't be as long as this one, it won't be a one-shot.

I'm leaving my poll up on my User Account until the end of this story. So far Yugao's grandmother Hisako is the leader, with Katashi running second. The most surprising to me is the Hyuuga 'Thunder Twins' getting three votes as they were only brought in at the very end of PLANS CHANGE. Still, I love 'em! Still, third place (with 6 votes) belongs to Aburame Koto.

Anyway, as always …here is where I ask …REVIEW please!