Suna's Kekkei Genkai
Chapter 13: Christmas
I LIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIVE!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Hi guys! did ya miss me?!
Shukaku: Dude, their probably waiting with axes and pitch fork cause you took so long.
O.o WHAT?! I sorry!!!
Tsunade and Sakura looked up when Gaara and Neji entered Tsunade's office together. Both boys stopped short at their very serious expressions. Tsunade politely asked neji to leave since they had business as a team and Neji said good bye and left, leaving Gaara feeling very much alone. What the hell was wrong?
"I've asked you both to come here because we have a very important mission we have to accomplish," Tsunade said. "I've already informed Sakura of it and I now need to tell you."
Gaara crossed his arms and raised a non existent eye brow. "...?..."
"We need to--
Temari and Shikamaru came home a few hours later and stared at the front yard and house. Temari's mouth dropped open and Shikamaru raised an eyebrow. Temari then darted into the house and ran into the kitchen.
"Kankurou!!!" she screeched.
Kankurou who had been sitting at the kitchen table, chilling with Kiba, Akamaru, Hinata and Naruto jumped. "What?"
Temari glomped him. "Good job!! I'm impressed!"
"Eh?"
"The decorations. They look great!" she smiled widely and skipped over to the phone. "I was gonna cook tonight, but because you worked so hard, I'll order something ok?"
".....?....ok," Kankurou said. He could've sworn he had given up on the decorations. He glanced over at Hinata and Naruto who instantly looked away. 'Oh,' He mouthed 'thanks' to them and they smiled.
Temari placed the order and turned back to them. She looked around then frown. "Where's Gaara?"
"Tsunade-sama asked to see him," Hinata told her. "He and Neji-nii-san left a while ago."
"What kind of mission would someone go on a week and a half before Christmas?" Kankurou mused to himself.
"Hurry up Gaara! You're so slow!" Sakura called back to the sand nin, who trudged behind her and the Teacher-from-hell.
Gaara didn't reply. What kind of stupid mission was this? And why did they have to go to another village in the Fire country?
"Pst!" Gaara looked at Sakura who jumped to his side. "What are you getting for everyone?"
"I don't know."
"What do you mean?" she asked. "We're Christmas shopping, and you don't know what your getting?"
"I've never done this before," Gaara told her. "Besides," he added, putting on a rare pout-like expression, "how is shopping qualified as training?"
"Hm? Tsunade-sama was just kidding," Sakura said. Gaara did the anime crash in the form of tripping on nothing and falling face first on a pile of sand. Sakura laughed as Tsuande turned and called for them to hurry up.
Gaara groaned. This was worse then the last mission he went on with Tsunade.
Neji wandered around Konoha after he left the Hokage building. Having nothing to do and nothing that he had to do, he was feeling quite bored. He couldn't think of anything to do so he started home.
"HEY NEJI!!"
Neji clamped his mouth shut as hard as he could to keep from screeching aloud. What was with people and sneaking up on him lately? When he finally had composed himself, he turned to see Kankurou standing behind him.
"...hi Kankurou," Neji replied.
"Temari ordered dinner, you want to eat with us?" the puppet-user asked. With a sly grin he added, "I mean, I know how you love to eat at our house."
Neji glared at him. "Fine," he replied following his friend.
Kankurou suddenly looked around. "Where's Gaara?"
"Tsuande-sama had a mission for him and Sakura to go on," Neji explained.
"Oh, ok,"Kankurou replied.
The six shinobi sat around eating the many boxes of pizza's Temari ordered, talking about random things that had no meaning what so ever. Neji was quite grateful that Naruto, Hinata, and Kiba were there. He had bad experiences eating with the older sand nins.
Temari had zoned out long ago and was replaying random happenings in her life.
Flashback
"Gaara, what's that bandage around your head for?" she asked her brother on their way to Fudruckers the night Gaara came back. Gaara had taken his hat off to push his bangs off his face and she noticed them.
Gaara replaced the hat and grinned. "Nothing," was his reply.
End Flashback
'Come to think of it,' she mused to herself. 'Gaara's been wearing a hat ever since he came back...' She voiced her thought aloud. "Has anyone else noticed that Gaara's been wearing a hat ever since he got home?"
There was a pause as everyone stopped to think. Then there was a general nod.
Neji took a sip of his drink. "It's for a new jutsu of his," the Hyuga explained. "His hat covers bandages that are helping it settle for a few weeks before he can take them off. Fuse with his chakra so to speak."
"And you know this how..?" Kiba asked.
Temari, Kankurou, and Hinata exchanged knowing looks.
"Gaara told him, duh," Naruto said to Kiba. Even he wasn't that stupid.
Kiba glared at him.
"What kind of new jutsu?" Kankurou asked taking a bite of pizza.
"Its one that Tsunade-sama taught him, one of her special ones," Neji explained.
Naruto blinked his mouth full of pizza. He remembered Jiraiya telling him about how Tsunade had defeated Orochimaru long ago when they first fought and Tsunade excepted being Hokage. She had been out of chakra and had used some special jutsu that gave her an incredible boost of strength. "Oh..." he said slowly. How he remembered that he had no idea.
"You know what it is?" Temari asked him.
"I've never seen it, but Jiraiya told me about it," Naruto explained.
"Oh," came the general response.
"You know...I don't really mind going shopping," Gaara mumbled to Sakura. "Actually I like shopping. But I do. Not. Like. Carrying. Other. Peoples. BAGS!!!"
Sakura giggled and turned to him. "But don't you want to be the gentleman?" she asked, with that cutesy, girly smile that he had come to hate.
"No."
"Think of it as training, Gaara, like on our last mission," Tsuande said from where she was looking in a store window.
"That wasn't training!" Gaara practically screeched. "That was you being lazy!"
Sakura had learned to ignore the sand-nins random outbursts long ago. "So...?" she asked slyly. "What are you gettin' for Ne-ji?"
"..Why-ee...?" Gaara asked imitating her.
"Well, you guys are like, going out or something, aren't you?" Sakura asked, amazed at how much she sounded like Ino sometimes.
"...so?"
"Well, you got to get him something special!" she cried. "Something you think is special, so don't ask me what to get him!"
"Who?" Tsuande asked slowing down to their pace.
"Neji," Sakura replied before Gaara could say no one.
Tsunade gave him a knowing look that made Gaara feel uncomfortable. 'How the hell does she find these things out?!'
She's a devil incarnate, I swear!
Gaara blinked. That was a voice he hadn't heard in a while. 'She can be nice sometimes....not often but..'
Humph! Shukaku made a noise then went back into ponder mode which he did quite often since he really had nothing to do. Have you decided?
'....?...decided what?' Gaara asked as Tsunade and Sakura saw something pretty and ran over to look at it.
About the Kyokubunya.
'What about it?'
.......I told you a while ago that Sunaga's Kekkei Genkai is a special bloodline limit that specializes in a specific field depending on the person using it. You're sister's chosen to specialize in wind. You weren't paying attention, but Kankurou's chosen to stay in his field of work.
'Puppets?'
Chakra strings. He's learned to pull chakra off objects and turn them into strings that he can control. Shukaku paused as if waiting. What are you going to specialize in? Talking to ghosts will not get you far in a shinobi life. Kyokubunya is almost limitless with choices, but once you chose it's your specialty only.
'You can't have more then one?'
Sometimes the field you chose can aid in other fields and give you a slight perspective of another field. So you should chose carefully and–
"Gaara! Look at this!" Sakura called excitedly, interrupting the demon's explanation.
Gaara dropped his mental conversation and went over to the stand she was looking in. It was a glass blowing shop and the man inside was placing raw glass into the furnace to melt it down. Another man was forming by hand already molten glass into a glass cup.
"Isn't it cool?"
Gaara nodded to please her (aka make her shut up). His thought went back to the 'mission' they were on. He also didn't know what he was getting Temari and Kankurou. He glanced over at a shelf of already made items and saw that they made weapons of many different sorts.
(Ding Light bulb)
"Come on, let's get something to eat," Sakura said.
"I'll be there in a minute," Gaara told her as she ran off then he turned to talk to the man at the furnace.
Gaara came home a little while later just as Kiba was leaving. Kiba said hi and goodbye, then left. He received a piercingly loud hello from Naruto as he entered the kitchen.
"How was it Gaara?" Temari asked throwing away the empty pizza boxes.
"Stupid," Gaara replied taking a piece from one of the full boxes.
"What's that?" she asked, pointing to the bags he had in one hand.
Gaara looked down at them then back up at her. "Nothing," he replied.
"Oh! What is it?" Kankurou asked, curious, straining to look in the bags.
"None of your business," Gaara replied. He took another piece then went up to his room.
Temari and Kankurou exchanged glances. And they made an unconscious, sibling agreement: They would find out what was in those bags no matter what.
Neji looked at them and rolled his eyes. He followed Gaara's path up the stairs and knocked on his door. Gaara opened it, saw him and shut it again. Neji looked at the door with an expression that read: 'what the hell? Is this going to happen ever time I come over?'. He thought of using the Byakugan to look into the room and see what he was doing but decided against it. Gaara opened the door for him to come it.
Neji walked in and sat on Gaara's bed, scanning the room for any evidence of the sand nin's previous movements. No such luck. Gaara was good at hiding stuff. He thought again about using th Byakugan, but that was sneaky. And sneaky was beneath Hyuga Neji.
Gaara sat down next to him and took his hat off, revealing the bandages beneath. He touched them gingerly, then looked at the roll of fresh bandages in his hand.
"Neji?"
"Yeah?"
"You know how to put these on right, don't you?" Gaara asked holding up the roll.
"Yeah, turn around," Neji told him taking the roll. Gaara turned his back to him and Neji began removing the old one to put the new ones on.
"What do you think they're doing up there?" Kankurou pondered to no one in particular.
Hinata and Temari unconsciously glanced at each other and their faces exploded into blush. Kankurou gave them a disgusted look.
"Ew. Perverts."
"Shut up! It was a perverted question!" Temari retorted.
"Neji-nii-san wouldn't do something like....that," Hinata mumbled.
"We got to get them more together then this!!" Temari mumbled aloud to her evil thoughts. "Take the next step, dammit!!"
Kankurou and Hinata backed away,
Naruto stared. "What?!"
"Neji-nii-san and Gaara are sort of in love," Hinata said automatically.
Naruto's jaw hit the table. "WHAT?!?!"
Hinata's hand flew to her mouth. "Did I say that out loud? I'm sorry!"
Naruto however, recovered quickly and leaned back. "I suspected as much," he said knowingly, since he realized that everyone else in the room already knew and didn't want to be left out.
'Sure you did...' Temari and Kankurou thought to themselves.
Neji finished wrapping Gaara's bandages. Stretching he turned around and laid down on the bed behind Gaara. He got comfortable and relaxed.
"Wow....your bed is really comfortable," Neji commented. He closed his eyes, finding himself quite willing to take a nap. A light weight rested on his stomach. Gaara had leaned back, using his stomach as a pillow, with his feet hanging over the edge.
"I never noticed," Gaara said, closing his eyes like he would go to sleep.
Neji stared. He felt his heart going all a flutter. Gaara look so different when he look like he was sleeping! Smiling contently, Neji decided that he like the idea of a nap. He reached down and gently scratched the insomniac's head until he himself fell asleep.
Shukaku stared at Neji through Gaara's psychic or what ever. Good god..... he muttered to himself.
Temari and Kankurou sat at the kitchen table long after Naruto and Hinata left, waiting for Neji and Gaara to come down. By long time I mean like three hours. Kankurou's innocent question was now making them both jittery. What were they doing up there?!
Temari finally lost patience and crept up the stairs to her younger brother's room. She pressed her ear against the door and listened. No sound came from inside. As gently and quietly as she could she opened the door and peeked in.
Neji was still sleeping soundly on Gaara's bed with a light blanket. Gaara was still using his stomach as a pillow, however he had gotten up to get a book and Kankurou's headphone's. A smile tugged at her lips. Their family had never really celebrated Christmas before. But with it only two days away, she was really looking forward to it.
Skip two days cause I'm lazy.
No wait skip to Christmas eve, thats one day
Gaara opened the door to his room quietly so as not to wake his sleeping siblings. Bored of the puzzle he was trying to figure out, he went downstairs to get something to eat. His barefeet padded softly across the hardwood floors and stairs to the kitchen. He opened the fridge and examined it's contents. As he pulled out the things needed to make four or five sandwiches, he glanced up at the calander on the wall. Tomorrow was Christmas day. Temari had gone to great pains to circle, star, heart, smiley face, christmas tree, wreath and bell Christmas day. Gaara shook his head and made his sandwiches. 'My family is so weird...' he thought to herself.
His thoughts were interrupted by a little thunk that came from the roof. It was so light that Gaara wouldn't have noticed it (well, Shukaku did say "what was that?", but Gaara ignored him), except that he heard bells with it as well. Then he heard a small sound coming from the living room. He peeked into the living room, four sandwiches in one hand and the fifth dangling out of his mouth, the other hand had a can of soda. The noise was coming from the fireplace that they never used before.
Flashback
"Yes, Santa Clause," Neji said. "He comes in through the chimney."
Gaara sat back and thought. "I'll see him when he comes then," he decided.
"You can't!" Neji said. "If you stay up and see him he wont leave you presents. You have to be asleep."
End Flashback
Gaara's mouth dropped open, letting his snack fall from it. Holy shit, he was telling the truth! Gaara snatched up the sandwich before it his the ground and ran up the stairs.
He stopped half way and sat down to watch. Curiosity is a bad habit. Actually he wasn't even quite sure it was Santa Claus. It could be a random squirrel that got.....stuck. Or...a ...bird...or something....
There was a thump as whatever was coming down the chimney found ground again. Gaara's eyes widened as a large man dressed in red pulled himself and a large bag out of the chimney. The man sighed and opened the bag.
Flashback
"If you stay up and see him, he wont leave you presents. You have to be asleep."
End Flashback
Gaara jumped up and ran into his room and shut the door. He dove headfirst onto the bed and under the covers. He knew he was acting spastic, but didn't really care at the moment.
'I'm asleep!! I'm asleep!! I'm asleep!!' Gaara told himself over and over.
Shukaku started paying close attention then realized that he was only pretending to sleep. You are one sadistic little bastard, you know that don't you?!
Gaara ignored him, pretending to sleep was taking all his concentration.
'Santa Claus' chuckled when Gaara ran up to his room. He slipped the beard down, showing a kind smile. Akamichi-san placed the presents down in their piles then crept up the stairs.
Neji had come to him earlier and explained the situation. Akamichi-san readily agreed, not to play a prank on the little sand-nin, but because he agreed: Everyone should believe in Santa Claus at least once in their life.
He opened Gaara's door and looked in. Gaara froze with the covers pulled over his head. Akamichi-san smiled again and fixed his beard back on. He placed an envelope on the bed next to him with a little candy cane taped to it. He patted Gaara's back with a audible chuckle then went back down stairs. However, this time he went through the front door. He climbed up on to the roof and made it sound like he had gotten out of the chimney. He jingled his bells then climbed back off.
Gaara remained motionless under the covers, shaking as if he had just flirted with death.
'Oh, my god....'
Oh, my god! He exists!! Shukaku said shaking. His whole world of belief just crashed down in the form of a fat red man. (SNG: what? H-R: it was the first thing that came to mind).
Two hours later, when Gaara established that Santa was not coming back and it was safe to be awake, he peeked out of the covers, still munching on the fifth sandwich. He finished it then stuffed another into his mouth and looked at the envelope. He picked it up and looked at it. On the front it said his name gracefully written in traditional kanji. On the back it read: 'Someone asked my to deliver this to you (heart)'. He blinked and opened it. The letter read:
'Dear Gaara,
We really hope that maybe you can find your reason to exist here in our village. We want you to know that we love you very much and you are always welcome with us. We hope you and Temari and Kankurou have a very happy first Christmas together.
Love,
(underneath was lots of different signatures)
Naruto 'tebaiyo, Sakura (flower drawing), Kakashi, Ino, Shikamaru, Chouji, Asuma, Shino, Hinata (little smiley face), Kiba (underline underline), (a paw print), Kurenai, Lee (little face with ping teeth), Tenten, Gai ("Power of youth!!!"), Jiraiya (Ero-rennin was written with Naruto's handwriting), Neji (Naruto's handwriting again: 'I love you!!'), Tsunade-obaachan (We love you!!!)
Inside was a group picture of Naruto, Sakura, Tsunade, Jiraiya, Temari, Kankurou and himself taken a while ago when he had come back from the trip with Tsuande. Gaara stared at it for a very long time.
ok, NOW christmas day
Sand nins are very well known for their deadly ninja skills. Also for their inability to be taken by surprise by any known ninjas. However the shinobi of Konoha are not normal shinobi's.
Temari and Kankurou woke up Christmas morning excited, but not excited enough to get them out of bed faster. Gaara was the same, except he was awake obviously. They slumped out into the very quiet hallway and slowly and sleepily went down stairs.
"MERRY CHRISTMAS!!!!!"
All three sand nin visably jumped and leaned against the wall, clutching their pounding hearts. When they settled down they looked around their living room. Everyone was there, and I mean everyone, crowded on the sofa, chairs and floor. Even Chunnin 1 and Chunnin 2 were there.
"Whoa...." Kankurou mumbled.
"Come on! Come on! You guys take forever to get down here!" Naruto called from where he was sitting with Hinata and Kiba.
"Sor-ry!" Temari said sarcastically. "We didn't know our house was being invaded. Maybe we would have hurried a little more."
Kankurou thought on this for a bit. "Nah...I would've been asleep."
"Ok, ok, whatever," Tsunade said from her perch in (cough cough) Gaara's chair ("hey!"). "Come on, we want to open presents!"
Now since there are more then like twenty five people I'm going to skip most of the gift exchange. Sorry, but that's to much to write and I'm already on page ten.
Temari ran over to where Gaara and Neji were sitting in a love seat (pun not intended) and plopped down on Gaara's lap. She hugged him and showed him the white gold earings and necklace Shikamaru had given her.
"I got you something too. Sakura said I should, so I did." He reached down next to the chair and picked up a package about two and a half feet long and about two inches wide.
"Can I open it now?" she asked. Gaara nodded and she proceeded to open it. Pulling away part of the wrapping, the light caught on something inside making it shine. Curious she pulled it away fast and stared at the object in her hand. It was a fan, much smaller then her normal one (dimensions have already been given), but it was made out of clear and black glass. Carefully, she opened it to it's full length and stared at it. "Wow, Gaara....." she said in awe. "What are these?" she asked pointing to small veins running from the 'handle' to the wide tips of the fan.
"They're chakra strings," Gaara explained. "It's a special fan, you can send chakra into it and it becomes ten times more powerful then your normal one." He sounded quite proud of himself. Which he was. He thought of this present all on his own, kinda like he thought of Neji's all on his own.
Temari: (tremble tremble)
She looked up at Gaara, lower lip trembling, and Gaara thought he did something wrong until she burst into tears and glomped him. Repeatedly, squealing her thanks.
Skip a bit more I only thought of a few presents
Neji and Gaara continued to make themselves invisible as they watched everyone open their presents. Kiba and Shino's presents to each other were funny (yes Shino got Kiba a funny present). Kiba got Shino an ant farm kit and Shino got Akamaru a rawhide bone and Kiba a box of dog biscuits. While everyone was laughing as Kiba glared at Shino then turned around and ate a few, Gaara glanced sideways at Neji. Without looking at him he shoved a small package in his face.
Neji blinked and took it, glancing at Gaara in surprised. "What's this?" he asked. Dumb questions 'R' Us.
"It's a present," Gaara replied. Obvious answers 'R' him. "Sakura said to get something I thought was special for you so I did."
Neji smiled and began opening it. Gaara tried to pretend that he didn't care to see Neji's reaction, but Neji could see him staring at him from the corner of his eye. Inside was a small box.
"Wow! A box! Thank you!" Neji cried softly (their still trying to be invisible).
Gaara blushed. "It's inside the box!!" he cried.
"I know, I know," Neji assured him ginning. He opened the box and found a silver chain. He pulled it out to look at the object it held. It was the Sunaga symbol made of glass with thin metal wire inside. Intertwined with the symbol was the Konoha leaf also with a thin metal inside. "It's so pretty..." Neji said staring at it. He unclasped it and put on. "Thank you."
"Welcome," Gaara muttered quietly.
"OH MY GOD!! What is it?!" Sakura shouted from the other side of the room. "He wouldn't let me see it!"
This outburst drew all the attention that the two had been avoiding completely at them. Everyone stopped what they were doing and stared at them also curious to see what it was. Neji and Gaara went all shifty eyes looking around at everyone.
"Stop staring at me," Gaara said, breaking the silence.
When you've forgotten something really the only thing that would remind you of it is looking at the person that was associated with the something. Gaara saying something reminded every single person in the room that they got presents for him too, he just made himself so scarce that they forgot. Neji's present from Gaara was soon forgotten as everyone rushed over and piled their presents on top of the startled sand nin, with exclamations of "open mind first!".
"They're all for me?" Gaara asked in surprise. He'd never really gotten a present before.
"Duh!" Sakura said with a grin. "Who else would they be for?"
Gaara stared at her the glanced at Neji and Kankurou, who was kneeling next to the chair, and them both smiled at him. He gave them a small smile back then began opening his present.
OMG!! I've never wanted to get a chapter over with so much before! This was suppose to come out on christmas but you can see how that turned out.
The Next chapters are the beginning of the end, but don't worry, it's still a ways away. :P
LOVE YAS!!!