A Night To Remember
Ok, guess what? This is the last chappie! BUT! Before you send me reviews begging me to continue... I AM! I'm thinking about a sequel as I type! HA! But I won't put it up unless I get LOADS of reviews. So unless I get piled high in reviews for this chappie, I won't out it in. . Anyway, here's Kyu and Kan-kun's obstacles!
Chapter Seven: Kazekage
Kyu sighed heavily, bustling around her room. Her parents had given her permission to spend a two-week vacation with her new best friend, Temari, which was, of course, code for a two-week vacation with Kankurou. But of course, her overly protective parents wouldn't allow her to spend the night if she said she was going to spend the vacation with her boyfriend. Not that she and Temari weren't best friends, seeing as Kyu spent every waking moment of every waking day of her life for the past week over the Sand- Nin's house. The plan was set; now, all she had to do was pack.
Opening her closet, she shifted through her many outfits before picking out the ones she liked best. Moving her jacket out of the way to get her shoes, she saw a slip of paper fall out of it. Picking it up, she couldn't help but smile. It was a slip of photos from one of those picture booths at the mall, with her and her teammates, Aburame Yashi and Inuzuka Chuimaru. Chuimaru and Kyu made funny faces in all but the first picture, where all of them tried their best to look good, Kyu in the middle, with the guys on either side. Yashi, as was his nature, looked solemn and serious in all five of the pictures, except one, which showed Chuimaru pulled at the sides of Yashi's mouth, making him smile. The next picture showed Chuimaru covered in bugs. Kyu smiled and put it in her duffle bag as well.
Finally finished packing, she picked up her coat, slung her bag over her shoulder, and hopped out the window. A cheesy farewell from her parents must be avoided at all costs.
"Hey, slut!"
She turned and smiled. "Hey, Kan-kun."
Kankurou grinned, stepping out of the shadows of the trees behind her house. "What took you so long? I waited out here for an hour." He gave her a kiss on the cheek, taking her bag from her and putting it on his own shoulder (A/N: OH MY GOD, I'M FALLING IN LOVE! He waits forever for her, then carries her stuff! If anyone doesn't like, ADORE Kan-kun by now, something is WRONG WITH YOU!). "Holy crap!" He nearly fell over from the weight of it. "What the hell did you bring?"
Kyu shrugged innocently. "A girl's got needs."
He smirked, shifting the strap of the duffle bag to accustom himself to the weight. "So, your parents said yes to you staying with me for a while?"
"Actually," Kyu said, blushing guiltily. "They think I'm staying with Temari."
He snorted. "Why? Over-protective parents?"
"You have no idea." She shuddered at the memories. "They never let me go over Chuimaru's or Yashi's house unless their parents were there, and they had both of their numbers."
Kankurou grimaced. "That's crazy."
"What about your parents?" she asked, snaking her arm through his.
"Eh... I never really knew my mother. She died when I was about two. My dad was the Kazekage of our village, so I never really ever got to see him, and he wasn't the best of dads. We weren't allowed to call him father, and we weren't allowed to see him unless we had an appointment." (A/N: Awwwww!)
"Oh... Sorry."
"Don't be; I was ok. My attendants let me go wherever I wanted, so I had a lot of fun. It was just really boring, because no one wanted anything to do with me because of Gaara, so people usually ran away from me. After a while, I just got used to it."
"That's not right. You shouldn't have been treated like that."
"Yeah, well." He shrugged carelessly. "It doesn't bother me anymore, but I'm never going back to the Sand," he added firmly. "Not for anything."
"Anything?" said a quiet voice.
"Nope." He shook his head.
"That's too bad."
"Eh?" He turned around. Behind him stood at least ten ninjas (Sand nins, by their head protectors.). In the middle of the group, bound and gagged, was a struggling Kyu. "Let her go!" Kankurou shouted, his hand instinctively going to his shoulder, but, to his horror, he had left Karasu at home.
"We can't do that just yet," the leader said mockingly.
Kankurou's eyes widened. "Baki?!"
His old sensei smirked. "I'm flattered you recognize me. I didn't recognize you, until Temari told me you stopped putting on your war-paint."
"Shut up!" Kankurou shouted. "Let Kyu go!"
"We will," Baki said with a smirk. "If you fulfill our request."
"What request?" Kankurou spat.
"We want you to be the next Kazekage."
Kankurou's eyes widened, if possible, more. "Are you stupid?! No!"
Baki shrugged. "Then we will kill this woman."
At this point, Kyu had somehow worked of the gag off her mouth, and shouted, "Don't, Kankurou! I'll be ok!"
"Shut up!" one of the Nins holding her snapped, hitting her hard across the head. Kankurou saw her body go limp, which only infuriated him more.
"Let her go! I'll never be your Kazekage!" he shouted, (A/N: And he expects to get his way... how?) drawing a kunai.
"And what are you going to do with that?" Baki snorted. "You don't know how to use that; you're about as good as Gaara when it comes to hand-weapons."
Kankurou starred down at the kunai in his hand; he knew Baki was right; he had never even touched a kunai since he'd started working with puppets. Without Karasu, he had no way of defending himself, or Kyu.
"We'll give you a while to consider our offer," Baki said with a smirk. Snapping his fingers at the Nins around Kyu, they all poofed away.
Kankurou screamed in fury and slammed the kunai into the ground. "Damn! Damn! Damn!" he shouted, banging the ground with his fist. "DAMN!" Jumping up, he started punching a nearby tree. "Damn!"
He looked down at his knuckles. Blood seeped through the cuts the tree bark had made. His eyes burned as he leaned against the tree.
"Are you going to go?"
Kankurou looked up. Gaara stood before him, his arms crossed. "You decide to come out now?!"
"I heard Temari tell Baki where you were, and I followed," Gaara said plainly.
"You bastard!" Kankurou shouted, jumping up. "You let them get away!"
"It's none of my business."
"I'm your BROTHER! If Rynn was in trouble, I would have helped you!"
"Who said I wasn't going to help you?"
"I think you've helped enough!" Kankurou snapped, jumping into the trees.
Sand Nin's house
Temari opened the freezer and looked around. "She ate all the vanilla ice cream; write down we need to buy more."
Shikamaru sighed heavily. "Vanilla ice cream," he muttered, writing it down on the little pad in front of him. "Got it."
"Temari!" (A/N: I seem to make Kankurou call her a lot in my fics ... poor Temari. Her name is so over-used.) Kankurou burst into the room, panting heavily.
"What?" She turned around.
"Baki came and took Kyu!"
"What?!"
"What?" Rynn looked up from where she was watching TV.
"Why?" Shikamaru asked. Everyone looked at him. "Well, obviously 'WHAT?!' wasn't getting us anywhere."
"Come on, sit down," Temari said, pulling her brother over to sit down next to Shikamaru.
"He said if I didn't take the role of Kazekage, they would kill her!" Kankurou cried, jumping up again and pacing.
"Kankurou—" Temari began.
"DON'T TELL ME TO SIT DOWN!" he shouted, pacing even faster.
"I was just going to ask if you wanted us to come with you to get her," Temari said meekly; she'd never seen her brother like this; he was a lot like Shikamaru when it came to getting angry. Well, he used to, anyway.
"No! I'll get her on my own!" Kankurou snapped. He paused for a few minutes, then said, considerably quieter, "Yeah, ok."
"Ok, when are we leaving?" Rynn asked.
All three of the older ninjas looked at her.
"I'm going, too!" she said stubbornly.
Kankurou sighed. "Fine, whatever, we're leaving as soon as everyone's packed."
"Shouldn't we wait for Gaara?" Temari asked, heading upstairs with Kankurou and Shikamaru.
"No!" Kankurou said firmly. "And don't you tell him, either!" he added, turning on Rynn, who was putting her coat on.
"Why not?" she asked, frowning.
"Because I said so, and if he shows up, I'll break every bone in your body!"
"You don't fight girls," Temari reminded him, before going in her room with Shikamaru.
"Oh ... Well, I'll make Karasu break every bone in your body," he said, after a few moments of thought.
Rynn sighed. "Ok, fine, I won't tell him."
"Good." Kankurou went into his room. He didn't pack any clothes or anything; he simply strapped Karasu in his back and went to wait in the hall. "You guys better not be screwin' in there!" he shouted, rapping his knuckles on Temari's door.
"We're not," Temari said, opening the door, closely followed by Shikamaru.
"Ok, good." Kankurou ran down the steps two at a time. "Come on, we gotta go get Rynn."
In the desert
"Let me go!" Kyu shouted, beating Baki with her fists.
"No."
"Yes!"
"No!"
"Yes!"
"No!"
"YES!"
"NO!"
"YES!"
"How does he stand her?" Baki snapped at a nearby guard.
"She must be really good," the guard said with a shrug.
"Perverts," Kyu mumbled under her breath.
"Just sit," Baki ordered, pushing her to sit down on a cushioned seat.
"What if I don't want to?" she snapped, jumping up again.
"Then you can stand there until Kankurou-sama comes for you," Baki snapped, whipping the chair away. "If he comes for you, that is."
"He'll come for me," she said stubbornly, crossing her arms.
"Sure, he will," Baki said sarcastically. "Kankurou-sama doesn't care enough about anyone to travel halfway across the country to rescue them."
"He cares about me," she snapped. Turning on Baki, she poked him harshly. "And don't you do that whole villain thing where you try and make me loose faith in him! Because it won't work!"
Baki raised his visible eyebrow. "I'm not a villain."
"You kidnapped me!" she cried, her voice rising.
"It was a mission!"
"Really?" She calmed down. "Wow, I feel special ... I'm a mission!"
"The mission was to find Kankurou-sama," Baki corrected, quickly hiding the anime-style sweat drop. "You can blame Temari for your getting kidnapped; she was the one who told us about you."
Kyu raised an eyebrow. "You're really dumb-looking, you know that, right?"
If Baki had been one to fall over anime-style, he would have. Instead, he coughed.
"I'm hungry," she whined, sitting cross-legged on the floor.
Baki snapped his fingers and two servants appeared at his side. "Get some food for Kyu-sama."
"Since when was I 'Kyu-sama'?" she asked as the servants sailed out of the room at an unearthly speed.
"When Kankurou becomes the Kazekage, you will be his bride," Baki said, as if this were no big deal and happened all the time. (A/N: I just made this up...)
However, to Kyu, it was a big deal, and didn't happen at all.
"WHAT?!" she shrieked, jumping up. "I'm going to be WHAT, now?!"
"It's customary," Baki said with a shrug. "Even though you are not of the Sand, my sources say you're a very skilled ninja. You will be perfect."
"Ohh, lemme think." She scratched her head. "NO! I'm not leaving the Leaf! Besides, my parents would kill me..."
"You don't have a choice. If he becomes the Kazekage, you will become his bride," Baki said stubbornly.
"I'm only sixteen!" she cried.
"So? The last Kazekage got married when his bride was thirteen." (This didn't really happen, I don't think... But she looked REALLY young in Gaara's picture. No flamers please.)
"That's disgusting." Kyu crossed her arms and turned away. "Well, I'm not doing it."
Baki was about to yell at her when the servants came back with a tray of food and a pitcher of water and a glass. He sighed. "Here. Eat."
"No. I don't want your food," she said coldly.
Tiny little temper veins crawled over Baki's temples. "Look, kid, I've been pretty nice to you since you got here, even though you've been worse behaved then Gaara EVER was, and if you don't eat this, I'm going to show you a side of me that's not very nice!"
"Like the other side of your face?"
"Look, just because I have an acne problem doesn't mean you can insult me!" Baki shouted, his visible cheek turning a slight red.
"It's true, though. You don't sleep with your mask on."
I don't know how dense Baki is, but he only just realized five seconds ago that the person insulting his face wasn't Kyu, so he turns around and looks shocked.
"How did you get here so fast?" he cried.
Kankurou smirked, whipping Karasu off his back. "Lets just say I know my deserts."
"You came alone?" Baki asked, looking around.
"Kankurou!" Kyu called, standing up. "Do I seriously have to marry you if you become—"
"WILL YOU SHUT UP ABOUT THE MARRIAGE THING?!" Baki shouted, hitting Kyu in the nape of her neck, causing her to fall over. He hadn't meant for her to go unconscious, but she did, since she hit her head on the table her food was on. Baki really isn't having a well-oiled day today, is he?
"Don't touch her!" Kankurou shouted. He mentally shook himself, relaxing himself, and pressed his hands together in a praying motion, closing his eyes. "Kugustu No Jutsu!"
The bandages around Karasu unwound, revealing the (disgusting) puppet. Chakra strings slithered out of the ends of Kankurou's fingers to attach themselves to the puppet as it draped itself over it's commander. Kankurou smirked.
"You can't beat me with that old toy," Baki snorted. "I know all your techniques."
"I've improved over the last year," the younger said with confidence. "You haven't been monitoring me since you kicked us out."
Baki smirked. "You couldn't have improved."
"If I'm so much weaker then you, why did you choose me to be your Kazekage?" Kankurou said coldly, twitching his fingers and bringing Karasu to life.
Baki frowned in thought as several Sand Ninjas jumped in at his side.
Kankurou smirked. "Can't fight by yourself? Wimp."
Baki smirked. "You can only fight one person at a time; you have no room to talk." In one movement, all five sand ninjas jumped into the air, drawing kunai.
Kankurou smirked. "TEMARI, NOW!"
"HAI!" A blast of wind blew the Sand Nins away to different parts of the room. Smirking in all her multi-pony tailed glory, Temari jumped down next to her brother.
"You didn't think I'd let him go alone, did you?" Temari scoffed. "I take my eyes off him for one minute, he's off screwin' the girl he met last week."
"You ENCOURAGED me!" Kankurou cried.
"Temari," Baki mumbled, standing up shakily. "You defy your teacher?"
Temari snickered. "You're not my teacher."
"Temari," Kankurou said softly, "Baki is mine. Pick off the others as you please."
Temari shrugged, and turned on the other Ninjas, fan in hand, an evil smirk on her lips. Kankurou turned on Baki, Karasu twitching with every move of his fingers.
"You're going to pay," Kankurou said in a deadly voice, raising one hand, pulling up the upper portion of Karasu's body.
Baki smirked, drawing a few more kunai and throwing them at Kankurou. Kankurou ducked, pulling Karasu up to guard. Peeking over the puppet's shoulder, he mumbled, "Where'd he go? Above?" He looked up.
"Behind."
Kankurou whirled around, ducking just in time to dodge a shuriken. Baki jumped out of the way as Karasu flew towards him, arms extended. Kankurou smirked.
Baki raised an eyebrow. "What the hell are you smirking at?!"
Kankurou laughed as Baki suddenly fell into what he hoped was a hole in the wall. But, as I said before, Baki wasn't having the best day, so he had to fall into the stomach of Kuroari, Kankurou's other puppet. How did Kankurou get that puppet in there without my knowing? I don't know. Let's continue.
Baki's eyes widened as Kuroari's stomach closed in on him. "WHAT THE HELL IS THIS?!"
Kankurou crowed with victory. "Kuroari is my new puppet. Don't you remember? The two puppets work together to destroy the enemy!" Twitching his fingers, Karasu exploding into several different pieces, knives appearing at the end of each of the limbs, to slide into the slots in Kuroari's stomach, drawing screams of pain as the knives slid home.
BOOM!
"Performance ended," Kankurou said with a smirk. (Yeah, I know, he said it in the manga ... BUT IT SOUNDED SO COOL!)
"Kankurou! Look out!" Rynn screamed.
"Huh?" Kankurou turned around and saw ten kunai flying towards him. "ACK!" He tried to pull Karasu together in time to block, but couldn't; it always took him at least a minute to get the puppet in working order again, which was why he only used this attack when he needed to. Covering his face with his arms, he waited for the blow to come.
It didn't.
He looked up to see a wall of sand. "Wha..."
"I said I was sorry. You didn't have to run off without telling me," Gaara said coldly, standing before the wall.
Kankurou's eyes widened. "Gaara..." he said quietly. "Did you just save me?" he asked suspiciously, standing up and jerking Karasu together again.
"..."
"Ok, well, thanks." Kankurou looked around as the wall receded to kill the man who had thrown the kunai. All of the others had killed their opponents; the room was strewn with the bodies of dead Sand Nins. Temari smirked, snapping her fan closed.
"That was easy," she said carelessly, running a hand over her scalp to check her hair. "Wasn't it?"
They all ignored her, however, as they were all hovering over Kyu, who lay limp in Kankurou's arms, her head rolling dangerously. Gaara quickly remedied this by holding her head up with a block of sand. Kankurou shook her gently. "Kyu, wake up!"
Shikamaru frowned slightly and opened one of the compartments in his Chuunin vest, taking out a small vile. "Open her mouth."
Kankurou looked at the vile, which Shikamaru opened, suspiciously, but did as he was told. Shikamaru held the vile over her mouth and carefully let two or three drops fall in. "Ok, hold her up so she can swallow," he instructed, putting the vile back in it's compartment.
Kankurou obeyed, supporting her with his arm. "What's that stuff do?"
"It's a medicine to wake someone up if they've suffered brain damage," Shikamaru said plainly. "I've often thought of using it on Naruto, but I figured he was just born that way." He looked around at the dead silence. "Ok, no one has to laugh..."
"Hey!" Rynn leaned over Kyu. "I think her eye twitched!"
"Hnn..." One of Kyu's bright eyes opened, drawing exclamations of joy from everyone (except Gaara, who just smirked slightly).
"Kyu!" Kankurou hugged her tightly.
"Hey, Kan-kun," she mumbled, closing her eyes. "Are you gonna be the Kazekage...?"
He shook his head. "No."
"Oh..." She frowned slightly. "But I wanted you to be..."
Kankurou's eyes widened. "You did?"
"Well, yeah." She smiled weakly at him. "You could change how the Sand village operates; a lot of the servants and people are just plain afraid of you all. You could make them see you aren't what they think you are."
Kankurou paused, frowning thoughtfully. "I hadn't thought of it that way."
She smiled, closing her eyes again and going back to sleep against him, folded in his strong, protective arms.
Kankurou looked up at Temari, uncertain. "What do you think?"
She shrugged. "I think you'd be a good Kazekage. You could really change how we live."
He looked at Gaara, who said nothing, but simply gave him a small, yet very real smile, which was all the encouragement Kankurou needed.
"OK, I'll do it," he said with a grin, picking up Kyu gently.
"Where are you going?" Temari asked.
"Well," he said, grinning over his shoulder at her. "We've got packing to do."
Shikamaru groaned. "No way."
"Come on, Shika!" Temari snapped, pulling on his arm.
Shikamaru sighed while she dragged him away. "How troublesome."
Recap on what happens
Shikamaru, Rynn and Kyu move in with the Sand as a sort of "cultural exchange to further the peace treaties."
Kankurou became Kazekage.
Shikamaru and Temari got married.
Kankurou and Kyu are engaged to get married at sometime in the distant future, when Kyu's decided it's legally ok.
Gaara and Rynn ... are talking. (They're still goin' steady, o fans!)
Temari became a jounin, and replaced Baki, and now has three students who think she's psycho.
Kankurou and Gaara are currently working on finding a seal for the Shukaku, with a little success in that he can take two-hour naps. Which is a start.
Kyu's over-protective parents were really mad at her, as she warned Baki, but gave their consent, since she reminded them that her marrying Kankurou would help Konoha.
Kankurou made the Hidden Village of the Sand into a peaceful place, like Konoha, and made lots of treaties with the neighboring villages. A lot of new laws were put in place to prevent violence, which included a day in each week where cases could be heard and judged fairly, since Kankurou really is a fair sort of guy.
And, since Kankurou didn't fulfill his promise to Gaara in the first chapter (the one that he couldn't talk for a week if Gaara went to the party), he fulfilled it now. Which resulted in several note cards and a large black marker by means of communication.
And this writer can only sit back and finally work out that annoying cramp in her next she got from bending over the keyboard night and day.
(A/N: That's right, people, it's frickin' 2:23 am, and I've been working on the last chapter and this one since six pm. I JUST HOPE YOU ALL ARE HAPPY! Just kidding, I took a couple food breaks. SIGH. I'm actually really fond of this fic ... I'm glad other people are too. If I sound mushy, it's because my brain has turned to moosh over the past couple of hours. Oh well. REVIEW! Sigh ... that took all my energy. How troublesome.)