Bozenjishitsu

Ah... I didn't feel like waiting a long time to post this...I've had this chapter ready for some time now, I was just waiting for reviews.

BTW, to any of you who CAN speak japanese, forgive me if the titles to my chapters aren't exactly correct puncuation or whatever... I just use my dictionary and ask Kage for help, and this is the result.

Kyuubi: Actually, it's H-R's dictionary...

I read the saddest fic ever last night! It made me cry... I like fan fics that make me cry... it was called 'All The Kings Horses' and I think it was by Incarus'Song (sorry if I mis-spelled your name..) and I cried so hard! It's a fic about Sasuke and Sakura, and it's really, really, REALLY, heart-breaking...

BTW, H-R wrote a brand-new fan fic that I happen to like alot so far. It's called Suna's Genkai or sumthin.. I forget the whole title. Anyway, her plot is really good, and (grin) SHE'S GOT NEJI IN IT!!! So, if you want to read a really good fic about the Sand's Three, read that. her name is hurricane-rider, so just go on a search for that and look for Suna's...yeah. Lots of nice, Kan-kun-goodness with a bit of funny Gaara, as well.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, but if I did, it prolly wouldn't be as long as it is now, since I'm lazy and would probably get discontinued.

Chapter Thirteen: Jiyu No Tori

"How're you feeling?" Temari asked, putting down her remaining cards.

Gaara shrugged, pushing himself up with his elbows. "Oddly refreshed, actually."

Kankurou grinned, putting his cards down and crossing the room to his brother's bed. "That's what sleep does to you."

"I was asleep?" The familiar panic flashed over Gaara's pale green eyes.

"It's ok," Kyu assured him.

"Yeah, I mean, if you can wake up and it's you, then--" Gaara cut Temari off.

"Shukaku is sealed?" he asked breathlessly, as if not daring to believe it himself.

Kankurou nodded, grinning hugely. "I guess you forgot when I woke you up a few days ago?"

Gaara sat back on his pillows, his eyes wide. "Really? I was ok, then?"

All four nodded, in one movement. Gaara's eyes widened even more, then, quite suddenly, he chuckled, causing them all to jump.

"Do you know how angry he would be right about now?" he asked.

Konoha

Shikamaru sighed heavily, starring at the ceiling in his bedroom. Life in Konoha was pleasantly eventless compared to life in the Sand village. Sure, he missed Temari, and sort of missed Kankurou and Gaara, but he never really had had any time to just sit on his butt and do nothing. He was always getting hauled away to do something horrible, like open a jar of pickles, or something.

God, why did Gaara have to be so obsessed with pickles?

He sighed and rolled over, starring at his desk. His parents had kept all his furniture in his room, since he had gotten new pieces for his and Temari's room in the Sand village, but all the scrolls, games, and jigsaw puzzles he'd had cluttered on the desktop and in the draws were gone. The top was unnaturally empty. Getting up to open the drawers would consume too much energy, so, using the puppeteer technique Kankurou had taught him, he formed a chakra string and attached it to the doors, and, making another string, felt for any foreign objects. And, all the while, he sat on his lazy butt.

Shikamaru frowned when he felt something square. Attaching the second chakra string to it, he lifted it out and pulled it towards himself.

"Oh... it's one of those cube things..." he muttered to himself, detaching the chakra strings and frowning at the colorful cube puzzle in his hands. "I haven't seen one of these in a while..." Sticking the tip of his tongue between his teeth in a thoughtful manner, he began twisting and turning the sides of the cube, trying to align the rows of colors. "Ouch..." He frowned, looking at his left hand. "Oh, man, not again..." The index finger on that hand had started throbbing gently; he'd gotten it pinched between the tiny colored cubes. Tsunade had healed the finger when Shikamaru and his team had returned with Sasuke, but it started up every so often, if he hit it on something. Shikamaru grimaced, remembered how he'd gotten the original injury.

Shikamaru, Chouji, Kiba, Neji and Naruto had been given an impossible mission, a little over two years ago, to retrieve Sasuke from Orochimaru's clutches. In the end, Naruto had found and defeated Sasuke, but there were several obstacles along the way. Chouji had been the first to fight, telling the other four to go on ahead; using a self-destructive food pill, he had defeated Orochimaru's weakest minion and burned off all his fat, then collapsed in the woods. Then, Neji had fought a spider-like minion, whom he defeated after a long and deadly battle, in which the spider-man died, and Neji had been pierced through the chest. The loss of blood had caused him to collapse. Then, Kiba had fought a two-headed freak, and had done well, with Akamaru's help, but in the end, had lost, and would have died, if he had not been rescued by Kankurou, who was at the time a hooded freak of nature. Shikamaru had claimed the next fight, with a red-haired girl. That had been when he had gotten the injury to his finger. The girl had used music to send him into an alternate reality, and he had used pain to release himself (a.k.a.: using the shadow technique to pull the tip of his finger back until it broke. A/N: All the bone breaking phobics like me will now go ewww!), and probably would have died, like Kiba (A/N: No, Kiba-kun didn't die... I mean Shika was in an impossible situation like Kiba), if he had not been saved by Temari and her monster fan. Shikamaru grinned in remembrance. After that day, he'd had a slight obsession with the spiky-haired blonde, and was about to ask her on a date when she asked him herself. (S.N.G.: Ok, yeah, enough with the sap, can we get on with it?) On the way back, the two of them met up with Kankurou and Kiba, and Gaara and Lee. Then, with Gaara's supply of sand stretchers, had gathered Neji and Chouji and, on the edge of the forest, met up with Sasuke himself, with Naruto in his arms, looking guilty. Tsunade had healed them all, and even managed to close the curse seal on Sasuke's neck, but Shikamaru's injury still came, since she had been slightly careless with it. He'd have to see her about it before he left... (A/N: That's the longest paragraph I've ever written)

And now, back to more important things: how the hell was he going to get those green pieces aligned?

(A/N: Groan.)

Sand

Gaara frowned down at the chessboard before him. Kankurou had set one up for him on the small lap table one of the nurses supplied, and Gaara had thereafter played several games with Kyu, who was the only one besides Shikamaru who knew how to play well enough to beat him a few times.

Moving one of the pieces, he smirked and said, "Checkmate."

"What?" Kyu looked down at the board. Sure enough, Gaara had her king trapped with a Rook ready to attack. "Dammit..." Picking up the piece of paper, she made another mark and said, "Ok, so that's five for me and... one for Gaara."

"I'm tired of this game," Gaara said angrily, knocked a few of the pieces off the board and onto the tray.

"Don't be such a sour loser," Naruto said mockingly.

Gaara glared at him, but when nothing happened to Naruto (i.e.: turning into a pile of dust) he just rolled his eyes and rearranged the pieces.

"We don't have to keep playing if you don't want to," Kyu said, helping him gather the pieces.

Gaara shook his head. "That's alright, I want to play." (Talk about your mood swings.)

Kyu shrugged and reset the board for another game. Kankurou and Temari weren't there; Kankurou had to go and hear petitions and complaints at the temple, and Temari had a D-rank mission with her cell. The two of them would be back by nightfall, at the least; Gaara had decided he wanted to play a game of Feudal Wars then, since he had seen them play. Naruto, who had nothing to do until tomorrow, when he was supposed to go back home, had started making a tower out of the empty ramen cups left over from his lunch yesterday.

"So, what're you going to do when you get back, Naruto?" Kyu asked, moving one of her pawns forward.

"Train!" Naruto said at once, punching the air with his fist, which caused his tower to fall over. "Aww..."

"Really, that's it?" Kyu raised an eyebrow. "No girlfriend or anything?"

"Sakura-chan is set on Sasuke," Naruto answered, crossing his arms.

"I see." Kyu frowned at Gaara's move, thinking. "So, there're no other girls you're interested in?"

Naruto shook his head.

"Not even that Hinata girl?" Kyu watched Naruto out of the corner of her eye.

Naruto shook his head again, frowning. "Hinata's my friend."

Kyu raised an eyebrow. "Oh, really?"

Gaara grinned. "You're getting analyzed, Naruto."

"I'm getting what?" Naruto raised an eyebrow.

"Analyzed. She did it to me too, last year," Gaara said knowingly. "She asks you lots of questions so she can tell you what you should do for your girl troubles."

"I don't have any girl troubles!" Naruto cried, looking offended.

"Do you have a girlfriend?" Gaara asked, smirking.

"No..."

"Then you have girl troubles," he concluded, examining the chessboard.

"Shut up," Naruto mumbled, causing Gaara and Kyu to grin.

"But seriously, you've never even noticed Hinata?" Kyu asked, moving her Bishop to claim one of Gaara's Castles. "Not once?"

"She's pretty nice to me," Naruto mused, scratching his chin.

"Gee, I wonder why," Kyu said sarcastically.

"What are you talking about?" Naruto asked.

"Oh, come on, Naruto, you look like an intelligent, sophisticated, discerning young dude, didn't you notice?"

"I don't even know what those words mean..." (A/N: Neither do I, Naruto-kun...)

Kyu rolled her eyes as Gaara claimed her Rook. "Hinata's had a crush on you since you guys started at the academy. Sakura told me. You've just never noticed her."

Naruto's eyes widened. "She has?!"

Gaara groaned. "Even I noticed."

"Why did she ever say anything?" Naruto asked, his eyes still unnaturally wide.

"Because she's a shy, stuttering idiot?" Gaara suggested, but was hushed by Kyu.

"Because she knows you like Sakura," Kyu answered. "Honestly, how dumb are you? Don't answer that question," she added quickly when he opened his mouth to respond.

Gaara rolled his eyes slightly as his cell phone rang. "Hello?"

"Hi, Gaara-kun!"

"Hey, Rynn." Even if the Shukaku was sealed, Gaara was not one to be hyperactive on the phone. "How're you?"

"I'm ok, how 'bout you? You haven't been answering your phone."

"Oh..." Gaara looked at Kyu for help; she nodded and picked up a white board which magically appeared, curtesy of almighty authoress, and wrote down a few words then held it up for him to read. "I lost it." He put his hand over the phone and hissed, "Like she's gonna believe that!"

"Oh, ok," Rynn said carelessly.

Cue sweat-drop on Gaara.

Gaara and Rynn talked for a while (Gaara carefully skirting the sealing of the Shukaku, since he didn't want her to know) while Naruto and Kyu continued their discussion of Hinata.

"How do you except me to face her, now?!" Naruto whined.

"Well, you know, you could ask her out."

"How am I supposed to do that?!" he wailed.

"Well, gee, you did it enough with Sakura, I thought you'd know how by now," Kyu said sarcastically.

Naruto glared at her as a knock sounded at the door and a nurse came in with a tray of food.

"I gotta go, the food's here," Gaara said into his phone.

"Ok, bye, Gaara-kun."

Putting his phone on the tray, Gaara pushed the chessboard off the tray and took his plate, which was piled high with fried rice and scrambled eggs.

Kyu took her plate, as well, setting it next to Gaara's. Her plate consisted of a pile of fried rice and a few sausages that weren't really meat, just fake. "You want one?" she asked, spearing one of the fake sausages with one of her chopsticks and offering it to Gaara.

Gaara raised a nonexistent eyebrow. "I respect that you don't eat meat. Please respect that I don't eat fake meat."

Ok! REVIEW!!!!

Btw... someone reviewed for 'Gaara's Clues' and told me I was a Goddess.... wow...

Also, I'd just like to point out something...This is my longest fan fic yet!!! The longest one used to be Catharsis, but I'm still working on chapter Ten (sorry, guys, I'm havin' a brain fart on that one...) of that, and this is chappie 13!! Holy crap!

I have created a monster.