A Nugget Of Advice, Chapter 22

Hours Before…

Naruto made it to the hotel he and his team could stay at. The hotel's ceiling fan was heavenly to Naruto, who had spent a lot of time today fighting in the Sun, surprised he didn't pass out from the heat. Oh boy, the sooner they left Suna, the better.

"Hey, Shikamaru."

"Naruto," Shikamaru acknowledged the blonde, as he himself sat on his bed.

"Where's Ino?"

"Out shopping or doing whatever Ino usually does."

"Asuma-sensei isn't here, right?"

"Nope. Probably still at the meeting or doing something else in Sunagakure." Shikamaru scratched his head. "Where were you all day? When Ino and I came to see if you were still at the ramen spot by chance, you weren't there."

"I met someone and got to spar with them."

Groaning, Shikamaru held his head. "Figures you of all people in the world would take a relatively relaxed trip and turn it into more training and fighting."

"To be fair, Temari challenged me, not the other way around." Naruto slipped off his sandals and sighed deeply. "Oh, man! It's great to take those things off! All-day I've been on my feet in this heat." He jumped onto his bed. "And you? You've been here since after lunch? Didn't even go out like Ino?"

"I took a nap."

"Figures you would take a trip and turn it into napping and lazing around," Naruto commented, countering from before.

"We both know each other so well." The Nara teen smirked. "Wait though. Did you say you sparred with Temari? That Suna kunoichi who tried killing us in the invasion?"

"The one and the same." Naruto shrugged.

"Why would you even accept? I wouldn't even bother."

"Of course you wouldn't, but not because you're actually wary of her but because of the fact that it's sparring." Naruto sighed. "Ino's right, you're a lazy bum."

"Have I ever made that fact unclear before or something?" Shikamaru didn't look a bit abashed.

Naruto hummed noncommittally, folding his arms to muse a bit. An idea came into his head. "Say, you know, remember what I told you before about getting stronger?"

The Nara teen gave him a blank look before realization dawned on his face. Shikamaru sat up groaning. "Oh man, come on. Don't. We're on a mission."

"And?" Naruto grinned. "Mission doesn't matter. You can gain strength in any place."

"We can do that any time then. Besides, didn't you just complain about being on your feet all day?"

"I'm willing to help a friend out." Naruto shrugged. "After all, don't you want to get stronger?"

Shikamaru sighed. "I mean… Can't we do that in our village?"

"We can try it now. Why not? You're not doing much here-"

"I'm resting," Shikamaru grumped, laying down on his bed now instead of sitting up.

Naruto nodded. "Yeah, right, nothing then."

"Resting is a verb, last time I checked, and verbs are actions." The Nara retorted. "Don't make me get up, please?"

"How about this? We rest up here for a bit. Then, we go and train."

"No."

"Come on. Just for a little bit."

"No, Naruto."

"How about I teach you something quick though? It won't hurt. What do you say?"

"Rgh… You're going to keep pestering about this, aren't you?"

"Probably, yeah."

"Ugh," Shikamaru groaned out. "Fine…"

"Heh, it'll be fun. First, we'll get some chow, and then I'll show you a few things I know."

"Wonderful," Shikamaru remarked sarcastically before turning his head, trying to sleep on his side. "Wake me up in two hours then, I guess…"

"Why did I agree to this? It's so hot. Even in the evening." Shikamaru complained. Naruto wasn't sure if the boy would ever stop whining about things. They were already at the training grounds, so it was better to get things over with.

"Just a bit of light training, dattebayo!" Naruto grinned energetically. "Anyway, let me ask you something. Do you know your elemental affinity?"

"Yeah," Shikamaru grunted. "It's the same as yours: Earth."

Naruto cheered. "Great! I was just taking a shot in the dark there."

"You had no other plan if my affinity wasn'tEarth, right?" Shikamaru deadpanned. Naruto whistled innocently. "So, what are you going to teach me, oh wise master?"

"Well, have you worked much with it? You know, your Earth Release?"

"Not really. Asuma-sensei just had us do the chakra paper test." The black-haired teen shrugged. "He promised to get back to it but then the Chūnin Exams happened, and then the invasion happened, then becoming a chūnin happened..."

"Hmm, okay…" Naruto tried remembering the first time he used the earth element with his temporary teacher, Ebisu. "Do something for me. Place your hand onto the ground."

Shikamaru followed through with the request. "Okay, what next?"

"You're supposed to pick it up!"

"Using chakra?" Shikamaru lifted an eyebrow. "Or are we out here in the desert trying to make sandcastles?

"Yeah, use chakra!"

Shikamaru sighed. "Okay, when you're explaining things, how about you go completely into detail next time, Naruto?"

"Er, okay… I got it." He was confused but agreed. Naruto watched the Nara glue his hand to the ground and send chakra to it in order to pick up the sand. However, Shikamaru's hand came to swing back up to hit him in the face. Naruto guffawed. "Damn, smacked yourself silly!"

"This is why I asked you to explain the exercise clearly." Shikamaru glared at the blond, his face becoming red. "I'm this close to leaving."

"No, no. I see what you mean. Sorry," Naruto said wholeheartedly with a sorry frown. The Nara grunted but didn't challenge his apology. "Okay, yeah, lemme explain what we're doing. I want you to get a feel of your Earth Release affinity. Grab the sand without letting it spill out of your hands. You need to be able to control the ground in order to use it since most earth users use preexisting sources of Earth to use ninjutsu."

"Much better," Shikamaru approved with a nod. "So, too little chakra, and I risk injuring my arm. Too much chakra and what?"

"Your hand sticks to the ground and you have to stop channeling chakra. I ended up doing both during my training," Naruto admitted with a sheepish rub of his head.

"Heh," Shikamaru smirked before going back to his task. He put his hand, this time putting more, but starting to understand what Naruto meant by his hand beginning to stick in the ground. He stopped channeling and retried again. Finding the right amount was tricky indeed. "This is only the first step, right?"

"Yep. Learning elemental affinities take a while."

"And you learned it in a month? Sheesh. You're dedicated."

Naruto smiled. "Well, as I said before, I want to protect those precious to me."

"Psh. You mean show up Sasuke in the Chūnin Exams," Shikamaru remarked with a grin. As he stood up to get a breather for a few seconds and try rechanneling his chakra, he took a gander at Naruto. His grin disappeared when he saw Naruto had a frown on his face. "Something wrong?"

"No, no, just… what you said was true, I suppose."

"Hmm? What's up? Something happened between you and Sasuke?"

"Oh. He's been… acting weird lately."

"How so?"

"Hey, are you trying to talk your way out of training?" Naruto narrowed his eyes at his peer suspiciously.

"Eh, a little bit. I won't lie. However, I do see something's bothering you, so just spill it already. What's going on with you and the Uchiha jerk?"

Naruto, despite his sobering state, snickered a bit. Shikamaru only cracked a brief smile before Naruto sighed. "Well, let's just say that Sasuke didn't quite take to me becoming a chūnin too well and I didn't gracefully tell him either. Damn near bragged about it. I mean, usually, he wouldn't care about that stuff but… it seemed like it really bugged him."

"Mm."

"And then, a few days ago, we got into a fight."

"Like an argument?" Naruto shook his head. "Oh. You two fought physically..."

"Yeah. We started beating the crap out of each other. Probably would kill each other too if it wasn't for Jiraiya-sen- er, Jiraiya-sama stepping in and stopping us."

Shikamaru rose an eyebrow. "Hey, let me ask you something."

"Go for it."

"So, you're getting trained by the Hokage?" Naruto flinched. "Come on now. Learn how to lie better. Your sip-up there was obvious."

Sighing, Naruto nodded woodenly. "Yeah, I am training with him."

"Well, that's cool and all. Congrats. Did you tell Sasuke?"

"Er, no… But I remember saying Jiraiya-sensei's name when he-" Naruto paused before smacking his forehead. "I'm a moron. I blurted it out! Called him 'Jiraiya-sensei' and all, just like I did here. Goddammit."

"And Sasuke is the jealous type, isn't he?"

"He was super pissed," Naruto agreed with a nod. "Okay, so I think you need the full context. Basically: Sasuke challenged me to a spar before I went on this mission. I agreed, at first, but then Jiraiya-sensei said I had to go on a mission the next day. So instead of fighting, I decided to just cancel it and tell Sasuke what happened. He got pissed, then we argued. He said I was 'rubbing' my training in his face. I got mad at that and said some stuff that I probably shouldn't have said-"

"That being?"

"That he's jealous of me. Of everything. I've gotten so much stronger over the course of these two months." Naruto raised his right hand and looked at them, tracing the callouses and deep grooves of his skin with his left index. "I'm leaps ahead from where I was. The Naruto from that mission in Nami no Kuni wouldn't have even dreamed of being as strong as the Naruto now. Back then, I already thought I was on top of the world. Probably that's what happened again." Naruto looked up at the darkening skies of Kaze no Kuni. "I guess… maybe I let it go to my head."

"Not too much far off from the Academy, to be honest," Shikamaru said unapologetically with a shrug. "Every time you found something you accomplished, you thought you were the shit."

Naruto smiled sadly, not arguing against that. "I got so much to learn."

"And you will, right? Like you said to me before: stop moping and get moving. You can't obtain strength if you stand in one place, right?" Shikamaru reasoned with a soothing smile. "Stop getting mad at yourself and just move forward. Maybe even apologizing would be nice."

"Maybe. Is it wrong to say I don't want to right away?" Naruto asked, smiling pleadingly.

Shikamaru snorted. "You and Sasuke are the weirdest friends I ever heard of though. Your relationship is so volatile."

"I don't want it to be. I just… Sasuke pisses me off. Always has," Naruto grunted out. "And I'm used to using that pissed-off energy as motivation to get better. I've been doing that for a while."

"And he probably feels the same about you. You're not perfect. Far from it."

"I know," sighed Naruto. "Okay, I think I will apologize."

"It might help out squashing whatever beef you guys got going on between each other. Maybe stop being so braggadocious and maybe he'll stop being an asshole."

Naruto gave the Nara a dry look. "I have a feeling that he's going to be an asshole until the day he dies."

"Well, I did say 'maybe.' You can't fix everything." Shikamaru shrugged.

"Alright, enough talk. You had your break." Naruto grinned. "Still, thanks, Shika."

"You think you're that much thankful to have me skip this training?" The lazy Nara suggested hopefully.

The blond blinked. "I really don't get you, Shikamaru. We both want to get stronger, so why in the hell are you so resistant to training?"

"Just my character, I suppose."

Shikamaru lasted another half-hour before deciding to call it quits. Naruto protested, naturally, but only halfheartedly. After all, the Nara chūnin allowed Naruto to drag him from the hotel before to train, so at the very least Shikamaru did do that. Naruto however was not finished with his training and would keep training until the night completely fell.

Of course, this diligence earned him another chance encounter with the blonde kunoichi once again from earlier in his day.

"Like I said: you'll have an easier time figuring it Gaara."

"And why would I want to?"

"I don't think you have him all figured out like you think. As someone who deals with him on a daily basis, you sure had a lot of questions about him before. After all, do you have an answer to why he didn't just listen to his tailed beast?"

She was silent.

"-Why he didn't just listen to his tailed beast?"

She had no answer for that.

"-Why he didn't just listen-"

Shut up already, brain.

"-Why-"

"Ugh! That's it." Temari growled, opening her eyes again. It was no way she was going to sleep like this.

She got up, fed up with all the thoughts in her head. Conversation said hours ago that would have been forgotten by most kept coming up so clearly. Temari was a person who was rarely weighed down by doubts. She knew what she knew, and it was true to her. She was a Sunagakure kunoichi with admirable skill in using Wind Release; she was the daughter of the late Kazekage. Her mother had died long ago so much so that she barely remembers her face. She had only one reliable brother and the other wanted to kill everything in sight.

And yet, the other brother that she had wasn't the sure variable in her life.

Gaara had the power to transform into a monster, a demon, and yet he hadn't done so today. He could at the very least kill her and Naruto nine different unique ways, possibly even more, and yet he hadn't done so today. She thought she knew him, figured it out. She thought a long time ago, possible forever, his mind, body, and soul belonged to Ichibi no Shukaku. She had thought he was Shukaku incarnate, and so as long as she kept her and Kankurō's head down, Gaara wouldn't look in the same direction as them because they weren't worthy enough to kill.

Yet, Gaara had shown independent thought today. Gaara did not want to kill, despite Shukaku telling him to do so. He resisted. That didn't mean he wasn't inherently dangerous. Not at all. She stood by it. But… did he want to be dangerous?

Argh! Why was this all coming up now? Because of what Naruto said? What did he even know about them, huh? He was just some random kid from Konoha. Besides their fights, he had nothing to do with them. He knew nothing about Gaara. How could he when Gaara's own siblings didn't know him?

Dammit, besides Naruto, she did blame it on her own overthinking, analytic nature. She hated puzzles because they would stay on her mind until it was solved. She could remember plenty of nights she hardly got a wink because she was thinking of things way too much. She knew, without a shadow of a doubt, she was not sleeping at all. She didn't need to worry about taking missions tomorrow, besides maybe a low-level, D-rank that involved running around the village.

Right now, however, she needed to seriously blow off some steam. The best way to stop thinking so damn much was swinging her fan in the wind with some training.

She went to the training grounds nearby her place, the one where she frequented a lot – and the one she went to today to spar with Naruto. It didn't take long at all to get to it.

She was expecting it to be there alone: no one really came in the evening to train there. However, she wasn't alone and the person whose voice annoyed her before and prevented her from sleeping correctly that night was there. She didn't announce her presence quite yet to the boy, watching him work.

In his hands, one ball of chakra swirled bright blue in the night sky with the air seeming to be sucked into it. He held out his free left hand and another blue sphere started to form. Such a technique she recognized in her history books. Besides being infamous for his usage of that space-time ninjutsu called the Hiraishin no Jutsu in the Third Shinobi World War, the Yondaime Hokage had wielded the very same technique Naruto displayed control over.

"How in the hell did you learn the Rasengan, runt?" Let alone two, she finished in her head.

Naruto turned and shut off the two chakra spheres, frowning a bit. "You again, huh?"

"It's a public training grounds, you know? I am the one who showed you where it was at."

"Yeah, you're right." The blond chuckled. "You know this technique, huh?"

"Of course. It's not like your Yondaime Hokage was exactly secretive in using that technique."

Naruto merely hummed. Temari figured she was not going to get some sort of explanation or hint on how Naruto acquired such a powerful technique that 1) looked like it took massive amounts of chakra and 2) a technique he apparently knew how to dual-wield. Then again, if she thought about it some more, Naruto didn't seem to have a problem using lots of chakra with how he threw out shadow clones at her during their battles. He had chakra apparently in droves, which was strange for a kid like him.

"You're out here late training, aren't you?"

"I can say the same to you, Fan-chan," Naruto retorted. "It's a quarter past 10."

"I blame you."

"Huh?"

Temari sighed as she walked over to a wooden seat that was conveniently placed in front of Naruto. She took her war fan from her back, placed it in front of her, and leaned it on her shoulder. "I couldn't sleep, quite honestly. Couldn't stop thinking about what you said earlier."

Naruto blinked for a second. "Ah," he uttered so eloquently, realizing what she meant.

Temari rolled her eyes, sighing in annoyance at him but mostly herself. She was sure that at least a minute passed by before she said something else when Naruto's attention on her waned and he was starting to return to training "…I don't know the reason."

"Okay… Confused again."

"I don't know why Gaara didn't just listen to the Ichibi, okay? It's been on my mind ever since you said it. Gaara confuses me and I don't like it. Just like you." She folded her arms while cradling her war fan. Sand billowed past them as the night wind picked up slightly. "Gaara could have just killed us both today just on the Ichibi's whims. Yet he didn't. He even said he doesn't wish to live the way it wants him to live. But Gaara has been living the way the Ichibi has for years.

"Gaara was ruthless, killing anything that moved in our missions together. He would slaughter low-level missing-nins, bandits plaguing the deserts, and even went toe-to-toe with a jōnin-rank missing-nin and killed him without even blinking an eye nor struggling. He threatened to kill me and my other brother, Kankurō, more than once. Even decided he didn't care about Baki-sensei either. He was unhinged.

"Now? I don't know. It's crazy, how one thing he decided not to do today has changed my perception of him a bit. I was sure but now, I'm not. And I don't like it."

"What's not to like?" Naruto questioned with a frown. "Gaara's changing, probably for the better, and you don't like it?"

"No, that's not it, I just," she started to say but then paused, a tight grimace on her face. "It's just hard changing my idea of him so quickly. He's been a monster in my life ever since I knew him. It also doesn't help that you, a person we didn't know of until that damn invasion of your village, could even fantom all of that so quickly."

The other blond shinobi was quiet, merely looking at her and she stared back. He finally said, with a shrug, "I don't know. I think I just feel bad for him."

"Bad for Gaara?" Asked a surprised Temari. "For what reason?"

"He's a jinchūriki, for one. I don't think you understand what that means."

"And how do you know? That's what also bugging me. How do you know?"

The blond looked conflicted. For a few seconds, he opened and closed his mouth, wanting to say something big. Finally, he just sighed in finality. "…It's not as simple as merely having a demon in you and it controls everything you do or because you have one, you're suddenly more of a monster than others around you. The demon inside you torments you, makes your life like garbage, and people don't help. People look at you with contempt and anger, or fear and aversion. They don't try to be near you; they want to act like you don't exist, and yet, they talk about you behind your back when they think you can't hear them."

The gears in her head worked quickly in her head and she gaped at him in astonishment. "…Are you implying…?"

Naruto glared at her intensely, to which she flinched. "Don't look at me like I'm any different than what I was before. We fought and trained together today, didn't we?"

"I-I didn't…"

"If I can act civilized around you and not so much want to kill you, maybe you don't know jack shit about the jinchūriki. We're not 'inherently dangerous' to be around. Or, at the very least, Gaara wasn't born dangerous and evil. He only became that through some sort of suffering. You may not know but maybe you should ask. Get to know him. Change him. Do you wonder why a person like me could know about it? Well, you know why."

Temari couldn't say anything. What could she say that wouldn't upset him or make it worse on her? Her understanding of jinchūriki was limited to what her father, the Fourth Kazekage, told her, and that was somehow flawed, especially how she was speaking to another jinchūriki right now who apparently lived through something similar to Gaara did.

And what about Naruto? She didn't feel any sort of ill will from him. She hadn't been killed or grievously injured by him in the Chūnin Exams, nor the invasion of his village. He wasn't as intense or intimidating as Gaara. In fact, he felt approachable, talked like murdering people and killing wasn't his life's passion.

She would be probably wrong to assume he was some sort of monster so maybe her perception of Gaara was warped too.

Temari nodded, looking at him evenly. "You're right. I probably don't know jack shit about jinchūriki, and maybe I'm wrong about Gaara." She didn't say anything else and neither did he.

The air of awkwardness stood there until she broke it up again. "So… um, do you want to spar again?"

Naruto blinked. "Ah, sure, why not?"

Before either could do anything else, a loud boom went off close to where they were, near the outer fringes of the village. A small, but a noticeable plume of dust and sand arose not far off from where they were at. "What the hell was that? Is someone training out there?"

"I don't know," answered Temari. "It's not really often you see stuff like that happening. Plus, the desert isn't really a place most shinobi from our village trains at. Unsavory people or animals roam the desert at night. I'm somewhat tempted to check it out but if we heard that explosion, then the guards nearby should have also. Hmm…"

Naruto could see the kunoichi's face scrunch up in some sort of hesitance. "Or I could do it." He raised his hands to do his favorite ninjutsu, the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu. Two clones were created. "Go out there and see what happened. Dispel when you see what happened."

The Konoha ninja's doppelgangers nodded before setting out quickly to the source of the cloud of dust and sand. Just around a minute later, Naruto's eyes widened as soon as he got the memories of one of his clones. "Gaara's in trouble!"

"Wait, what?" Temari watched Naruto started moving towards the desert. She took her battle fan with her and put it on her back. "How is he in trouble?"

"There are three people after him. I know who these people too. They're trying to capture all jinchūriki."

"Who would have the gall to try to do that?" The kunoichi said, mystified. She could not imagine any sort of person would try to kidnap Gaara, let alone jinchūriki who were these powerful figures across the Elemental Countries.

Of course, Naruto – who was a jinchūriki himself – looked extremely worried with a grimace that said differently. "The Akatsuki, that's who."

End.

A/N: Real action to come soon. Probably by the end of next week. I got almost everything prepared.