Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. The only characters I own in this story are Kounouri Oyasume, Natsume Shinzue and Narumi Katiyou. If any of these characters resemble a living person or character not created by me, please notify me and I will fix the problem. Please don't sue me.

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Gaara held his neck, waiting for the wound to heal, waiting for the bleeding, the pain, to stop. It took a long time; the boy had hit him hard. But this only made Gaara more angry. When his wound had healed, he was near death. No one had ever caused him to get hurt this badly. Gaara couldn't help but wonder; was it his own self doing? Was he the reason that his guard was let down? Gaara stood, fully regenerated, and closed his eyes, sighing. he had no time to wonder.



Without opening his eyes, he grinned.

"Temari. Kankuro." He greeted his siblings, as far as greetings went between them. Sighing, they both cam into view. Kankuro eyed his sister and they nodded. Temari closed her fan, which has been blocking Gaara's view of anything below her head. When the view returned, a boy was in her arms. A puppy, of all things, was yipping at Temari's feet, apperently trying to get to the boy. Speaking of which, all conciousness was gone from the boy's face, half covered with a bloodsoaked jacket. His chest rose, shallow breaths, barely alive. Gaara stared at him for a moment, before Kankuro muttered

"Inuzuka Kiba."



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Kurenai jumped from branch to branch, the scenery swinging around her in a blur.She could barely sort out her surroundings enough to know that Kiba wasn't there. She constantly kept one hand free, so she could reach for her Kunai if it was needed. Her heart pounded-- this was more serious than it appeared. When it began, it was a simple mission in which her team was to locate a felon for capture.

Easy.

Then they'd captured Sakura, and she'd needed to fight with all she had.

Not so easy.

Then, of all things, Gaara played himself in.

Difficult.

And then a whole conspiracy unravelled.

Kurenai sighed and slowed down, turning her head from side to side, briefing the area. She felt a presence, not strong. The sky was, if possible, darkening.

'It must almost be dawn' Kurenai thought, remembering the famous saying, 'The sky is darkest before dawn'.

Kurenai stopped suddenly. Something was wrong. She took a look around her, the presence was stronger now. She quickly covered herself up, pretending to be exhausted. The red-eyed jounin took this chance to sweep her view across the clearing over which she stood.

A few bushes stood on the edge of the clearing, mixing in with the scenery. She swept her view on. The trees, all seemed perfectly normal. As her gaze moved on, a glimmer of something caught her eye. She moved her head back towards the bushes, noticing a red fluid leaking out from underneath them. She kept on the 'exhausted' act and reached into her pack, 'searching' for something. When she first opened the pack, she grabbed her Kunai and kept swishing through her stuff to make herself look less suspicious to anyone spying. She found a sandwich and covered the Kunai with it, pulling it out and tearing off the wrapper. She gripped the weapon in her hand and swung her arm instinctively, the target for the bushes.

With a 'thud', Kurenai heard the weapon hit the tree behind the bushes. The clearing filled with smoke, and three ninja stood, one bleeding heavily from the leg. A shuriken was sticking to his body, and the ninja seemed unaware. Kurenai assumed these were the ninja that'd inflicted the damage on Kakashi's arm. She worked it out in their head that they must be Jounin to injure Kakashi, and set her position and plan out in her head. She looked afraid, at least to the attackers, and stepped back.

Kurenai took this moment to flip off the branch, launching a few shuriken at the ninja. None of them hit, as she expected, but Kurenai had other things up her sleeve.

*****************************************************************************

Kakashi sighed and walked around the camp, whistling. He stopped dead in his tracks.

"I don't whistle." He told himself, and raised his eyebrow.

"I don't talk to myself either....." He shrugged and starting walking again, the area silent. He sighed and looked around, his view sweeping over the bulletin board in the middle of camp. A lightbulb popped on in his head and he snuck over to Gai's belongings, searching for the black-haired Jounin's nin-identification license. He searched through the folder, reading over the information as he grazed through, looking for the picture.

A Shuriken spun by and hit Gai directly in the forehead.

Well, it hit the picture of Gai that was posted on the bulletin board.

Kakashi had overcome his bored-ness of being left behind to watch camp by stealing a picture of Gai and using it for target practice. He was really getting into it, too. There was an immense amount of puncture holes on the picture now, and as Kakashi went to grab his Shuriken, he grinned. He had made a design on the photo, the medium being puncture holes. There was a broad smiley-face plastered over the image, and Gai had grown devil-like spikes on his head.

As the ninja stood chuckling, the bushes rustled behind him. And eye peeped through the leaves, and followed Kakashi's movements. Blood was trickling down beside the eye, and there were bruises surrounding it. Kakashi apperently noticed, because he took a standstill position and held his shuriken by one of the spikes, ready to fling backward. A breathing sound was heard and the eye raised, you could tell whoever it was was grinning. A person, evidently not a registered ninja by the lack of forehead protector, lept out of the bushes and lunged at Kakashi. In a flurry of grey hair, Kakashi spun around and flung out the Shuriken, calling

"SHURIKEN BUNSHIN NO JITSU!" The projectile weapon multilied and a shower of shurikens rained down on the other person, who, despite the lack of confirmation, obviously knew some nin-jitsu techniques. In a puff of smoke, a log stood where the body had once been and a kunai was on Kakashi's neck. The copy-ninja held up his wrist protector just in time to catch the threatening move with a spark and fended it off. He swirled around and ducked, a lock of hair being cut by a set of razors. Kakashi store on in amazement.

In front of him, a woman stood, her arms bandaged and covered with a spiked strap, which she'd used to graze his hair. She had dark, deep blue eyes and her black hair hung loosely over her face, resting on her shoulders. Around her eyes were black rings, making her gazes more menacing as she penetrated Kakashi with a visual inspection. Her lips formed a small grin, and she rested her hands on her hips.

Kakashi's view swept over the woman, Her dark blue clothing matching her eyes. Her stomach was bandaged like her arms, and she wore netting underneath her skirt, stopping at the wraps of her Weapon holders. She had a one-strapped shirt on, and around her arm, in between two tattos with the kanji for "Evil" and "Ambition", she wore a padded scroll pocket. The wind blew stronger and Kakashi noticed that even the animals were not making sounds. All but the rustling of the leaves on the trees was silent. It was then that Kakashi noticed she did have a forehead protector, wrapped around her neck, stating that she was from Wind country. Kakashi instantly thought of the local ninja which had been accused of murder and realized that here, in front of him, was-

"Natsume Shinzue." The wind-nin introduced herself in a young voice, which reminded Kakashi of the sound-nin, Kin.

*****************************************************************************

Kurenai ran, her body scratched up. The Jounin had been harder than expected, she had to admit, but she'd beaten them. She stopped for a moment, her Chakra wasted, and rubbed her pounding headache.

~*~*~ FLASHBACK ~*~*~

Kurenai leaped of the tree, slamming a foot-full of chakra into the trunk near her failed projectile attack to repel her enough, landing behind the attack-nin. Or so she thought. She took a blow to the head, a metal arm-guard throwing off her balance. She was disoriented enough to fall, but quickly used her hand to flip back up and face the ninja. As she stood, the blood rushed past her wound and she winced.

~*~*~ FLASHBACK END ~*~*~

She looked at her arm, cut and bruised, and applied a bandage to it. Inwardly, she thanked Hinata for making her bring many ointments with her. Even one that countered simple Gen-jitsu curses.

~*~*~ FLASHBACK ~*~*~

The ninja with the shuriken wound leaped at Kurenai, tearing into her arm with a Kunai, attempting to write in an unrecognizable symbol before she swung him off. In the air, he called out something that sounded like

"Kage Ningyou no Jitsu!" Kurenai's eyes widened.

'Shadow Doll technique? That's forbidden genjitsu!' She was instantly rattled out of her thoughts by the ninja, who was playing his fingers through seals. He was controlling her, that was it.

~*~*~ FLASHBACK END ~*~*~

Kurenai winced as she rubbed the ointment over the almost glowing-red wound. She cleared out most of the blood, and when the flow stopped, she inspected the wound. Obviously, the ninja had attempted to write something in her arm, which Kurenai knew was part of the Shadow Doll technique.

'Blood of Katiyou, Ki-' That was all he'd managed to carve in. Kurenai's red eyes widened. "Katiyou??" She ceased restricting her discoveries to her thoughts and said this out loud.

The 'Shadow Doll technique', she remembered from training, was designed to control a person's movements and actions. Whoever cast the gen-jitsu spell had control of the victim, and the jitsu lasted for a long time. Unfortunately, most victims died before they were released. Kurenai sweated in relief. The inscription on her arm was not complete, meaning the jitsu had released early, and even as it was happening was not fully effective. Kurenai had been able to do some things under her own will, and fought inwardly against the curse.

She sighed quietly, knowing that Katiyou had come very close to casting the full jitsu over her. She knew the words of the jitsu familiarly, and spoke them under her breath.

"Blood of ninja, kill thou soul."

She wondered why a ninja- no, he wasn't a registered ninja- person like Katiyou had so much power. He'd obiously been hurt badly by Kakashi, so he couldn't be much higher than the level of Jounin. Kurenai realized that the whole time she'd fought, she'd classified him as a ninja, and her didn't even have a forehead protector to show it. Because he wasn't a ninja.



Kurenai smirked, thinking 'I need to be more observant'.



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Kiba awoke, wincing in pain as he opened his eyes. The sun blinded him and he realized that he was still in the forest. He lept up, and the blood rushed to his head, dizzying him. A calm voice rattled through the air towards him, seemingly deriving from nowhere.

"Sit........."

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A/N - No reviews. But I expected that. Okie, for you people who actually read my story, spread the news:

I have found a person to place with Naruto! THIS STORY IS OFICIALLY.....

GAARA/NARU!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! *cheers from her nonexistent audience*

Sorry for the late update, guys. It took a while because my writer's block just wouldnt let up! X.x

Okie, I was hoping to include some of that this chapter but I am in such a rush to update, because my story is two pages back X.x

Thank you thank you thank you for the TWO PEOPLE who reviewed chap 3! Im sorry, though, but this story's gonna have atleast a little bit of yaoi.... At least it's not SasuNaru, Im sick of that pairing, but Gaara/Naru is growing on me. Most of the story is going to be focused on the fights and the problem, and most of the bits including couplings will be focused on other characters. at least as far as I've planned.

Thanks to:

Naruto episode 33 - for being so damn awesome

Kishimoto Masashi - for Naruto

Naruto Soundtrack- for background music! XD