Naruto had been in a great many difficult situations in his life, but his current one was easily near the top of the list. Gaara had him quite firmly by the throat and appeared completely casual about it.

"Hello there Naruto, It's been a while. I take it your doing well?"

Still hanging in the air, Naruto attempted an air of indifference, "Not bad, though I'm feeling rather tired right now"

The sand boy nodded, "That was quite a jutsu you did back there. Shukaku tells me it was to weaken the dimensional barriers, no small feat"

"I was quite impressed myself, as even I really didn't know exactly what the jutsu was going to do"

It was at this moment that the door to the store opened and Kabuto peeked out. He was about to say something, but then noticed the fox boy's situation "Is everything ok, Naruto-kun?"

Naruto grinned back, "Yeah, Gaara and I were just having a little chat"

Kabuto looked skeptical, "It looks to me like he's trying to kill you"

Gaara rolled his eyes, "If I was trying to kill him, he would be smothered in sand. I just want to make sure he doesn't run away"

The medic-nin shook his head, "Okayyyy then. Naruto, I wanted to know if you had any preference with regards to food?"

Still two feet off the ground, Naruto stroked his chin thoughtfully, "Hmm…not really, but thanks for asking"

"Carry on then," Kabuto said and ducked back into the store.

Gaara was silent for a few seconds, and Naruto started to get tired of hanging, "Uh…you've made your point, so could you let me down now?"

"No. The white haired boy had a good idea there, so I'm currently considering strangling you and throwing your body down a very deep well. I think the idea merits a few more minutes of thought"

"Do I have any input into this decision?"

"Your 'input' was kidnapping my sister and then disappearing"

Naruto pondered this for a moment. Gaara did have a point, and the fox boy wanted to tread lightly, as he was only mostly sure Gaara was joking about the strangling thing. Silence reigned for a few more seconds, then Naruto fell, hit the dirt and took a few deep breaths of air.

He stood up and brushed himself off, leaning against the wall, "So then seriously, what can I do for you? I would figure that you would ignore me and go see Temari"

"I will see my sister in good time. Right now, youare going to tell me everything that has happened since you left Konoha. Leave anything out and we may go back to the strangling idea."

Now, inside Naruto's head, little gears were turning. The only way for Gaara to confirm or disprove anything was to talk to Temari and compare what they said, so the fox boy could only get away with not telling Gaara something if he was pretty sure Temari wasn't going to tell her brother either.

The list of things covered by that definition was quite large.

Naruto then told his (slightly edited) story. Throughout his explanation, he discovered that he could judge how Gaara was reacting based on his scowl.

At the beginning, talking about when Temari had technically been his prisoner, Gaara had a fierce glare on his face, but when he got to the part about getting her a new weapon and helping her learn new jutsus, the sand boy's face became neutral and he even smiled a teeny tiny bit.

When Naruto finally finished, the two were silent again, each lost in their own contemplation.

The door to the store popped open and Kabuto again looked out, "Uhh…we have a bit of a situation in here"

Naruto sighed in exasperation, "I'm kind of busy right now…but tell me what the problem is"

The white haired nin rubbed his head nervously, "Sasuke and Itachi look like their about to attack each other"

This received an eye roll from Naruto, "I would be worried if those to didn't look like they were about to kill each other. Have Kisame and Temari calm them down."

Kabuto got more nervous, "Kisame and Temari are already making wagers with regards to the winner, so I don't think they'll be much help in defusing the situation"

Naruto looked up at the sky for a moment, then a proverbial light bulb appeared above his head, "Try making the offhand comment that you heard somewhere that the Byakugan was superior to the Sharingan"

Kabuto ducked back inside, immediately catching on to Naruto's idea, leaving said fox boy to again face Gaara alone, "So…what do you think?"

"It appears that under the circumstances you had no choice but to act as you did, so I can't blame you. I will also say that you appear to have done as well as you could to keep Temari safe and help her become stronger"

Naruto took a little bow, "I try my best"

"So then…when are they going to be done in there?"

"I'm not really sure, but it shouldn't be too much longer."

"What do we do until then?"

Naruto suddenly got a light in his eyes, "It's been a while since we've fought…the last time was, if I recall, in the forest when you went all crazy"

The sand boy smirked slightly and released his hold on the sand, allowing all of it to just fall to the ground. His gourd dissolved and the sand armor that always covered his body fell away, revealing his skin.

Naruto looked blankly on and Gaara's smirk grew wider, "Your exhausted right now, so using chakra wouldn't be fair. Besides, I haven't really had a chance to try this taijutsu I've been learning," Gaara took a look at Seirei Kirite, "but no weapons"

Naruto grabbed his sword and threw it haphazardly into the air, "Fine then, if you want it that way. I could use an old fashioned physical fight right about now"

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Within the store, Kabuto found himself on the receiving end of a two-pronged attack.

Itachi and Sasuke were giving him the comprehensive list of all the reasons why the Sharingan was far more powerful than the byakugan. The two brothers had unconsciously fallen into a system where whenever one of them needed to breathe, the other would take over and continue the list.

Temari was just putting the last few foodstuffs into her bag when there was an explosion and all movement inside the store ceased. Sasuke stopped mid sentence and bolted for the door, Temari following only moments later.

Itachi, Kisame and Kabuto leisurely gathered up their things and meandered in the general direction of outside, confident in the younger generations ability to handle any problems.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

The street looked like a miniature desert, with sand covering the ground everywhere, but Sasuke's attention was immediately focused on the grapple that was going on.

Naruto and Gaara were in the middle of the mini-desert, caught in a deadlock. They were exchanging quick light blows with neither showing an apparent advantage.

It was obvious to Sasuke that Naruto had far superior taijutsu technique, but his fatigue evened the odds. Gaara used only the most basic taijutsu, but was far more energetic and nimble.

The young Uchiha shook his head. 'Nimble' was never a word he would have normally used to describe Gaara, but the sand boy had evidently been practicing and training.

The two combatants noticed Sasuke's appearance, but paid it no mind, both thoroughly enjoying the fight. They did, however, pay attention to who followed Sasuke out of the store.

Temari emerged into the light and was greeted by the image of Naruto and Gaara freezing in mid combat, with Gaara's fist an inch from Naruto's face and the fox boy just bringing his leg up for a roundhouse kick.

She took a deep breath, "What in the nine hells are you two doing?"

Still frozen in their odd tableau, the two suddenly felt the need to go hide somewhere.

Naruto went back to standing normally and cleared his throat, "Um…we were fighting…"

Temari felt a headache coming on, "Why, exactly?"

Gaara spoke this time; "For fun…"

Sasuke felt the need to bring up a point, "What was it that exploded?"

Naruto and Gaara looked at each other and shrugged, then looked around. After a few seconds, Gaara saw something and pointed, leading all gazes in that direction.

A few hundred feet away, Seirei Kirite was sticking out of an electrical transformer, sparking contentedly. Attention refocused on Gaara and Naruto.

Temari sighed, "Why am I not surprised…

Her adrenalin rush wore off slowly and she jogged forward to catch her younger brother in an unexpected hug, lifting him off the ground, "Despite the mess, its good to see you here, little brother. I would have thought you would be back in sand long before now"

Gaara blushed slightly, "Well…I was partly looking for you. You disappeared rather suddenly"

She laughed nervously, "Yes, I suppose I did… sorry about that"

Itachi emerged holding his bag and looked at the sky, "I'm afraid we must leave soon. We'll need all the time we can get"

Releasing her brother, Temari nodded, "Ok then. I'm really sorry, Gaara, I'd like more than anything to talk more, but the time…"

"I don't suppose you'd consider returning to the sand?"

Naruto was running to retrieve his weapon, but was listening in as she responded, a part of him apprehensive, "Part of me wants to… but we both know there's no place for me there. Not only that, it would ruin relations with Konoha. In fact, you probably shouldn't tell anyone you've even met me"

Gaara looked at the ground, "I guess"

She gave him another quick hug, "Tell you what, we'll come visit sometime, since I'd like to see Kankuro too. You just head back to the sand and don't worry, I can take care of myself"

Itachi almost growled, "We need to go NOW"

Naruto returned, almost stumbling, with his sword in tow, "Itachi's right. All of Konoha will be coming after us"

Gaara nodded, but suddenly grabbed his sister's wrist, "You promised to visit, don't forget"

Naruto laughed, "Oh, we'll be sure too, just you wait. Next time, we'll do some real sparring"

/-/-/-/-/18 Hours Later/-/-/-/-/

Camp had been hastily set up, and its occupants were in various states of mind.

Sasuke and Temari were sleeping like logs after the ridiculously long run, Naruto was feeling refreshed as he had been carried by Kisame for a few hours and was out setting up a perimeter, and Kabuto, Itachi and the afore mentioned shark man were sorting through the supplies.

Kabuto was currently looking through the duffle Itachi had filled with a sweatdrop, "Um…there appears to be nothing in here but Pocky and Tang…was something wrong, Itachi-san?"

Itachi tried to look innocent, which he failed miserably at, "No, I chose what I thought to be most important"

Kisame dug through another one of the bags, and suddenly grinned in his unique sharky way, "You know what I'm thinking right now?"

Itachi's eyes narrowed sharply, "Yes, and this is NOT the time"

Kabuto looked confused, "What? It's not the time for what?"

The shark man held up a ripe tomato, "Time for a SCMS"

The poor medic nin looked more confused, "SCMS?"

Itachi rolled his eyes, "A special culinary munitions spar"

Kabuto tried to decipher this.

splat!

Pieces of tomato fell from Kabuto's face and he suddenly got it.

Itachi cursed, "Kisame! This isn't the…"

splat!

Cool as ice, Itachi removed the tomato from his face, took a deep breath, pulled a dozen eggs out of his bag, opened them, grabbed two in each hand, and whipped them at his parter.

Kisame ducked and laughed, grabbing a bag of carrots and tearing it open.

Soon, Kabuto was ignored completely as the two Akatsuki clashed with various food groups.

The shark man hit upon a winning strategy of using carrots as kunai until Itachi broke out his spinning sausage links.

Kisame's eyes narrowed, "Yes indeed……your sausage nunchaku are quite fearsome, but they are no match for The Pickle of DOOM"

Itachi snorted, "The pickle of doom? What are you going to do with a pickle?"

Kisame glanced sneakily over to where Temari sat against the tree asleep and reached into his duffle, pulling out a jar of what looked to Itachi to be perfectly normal pickles.

He slowly unscrewed the lid and drew one of the wet green vegetables out, and with a flick of his wrist, the pickle flew gracefully through the air, as if in slow motion, and smacked wetly into the side of Temari's face.

Her eyes snapped open and she suddenly became very awake.

Kisame quickly slid his jar back into his bag and yelled, "Itachi! How could you do that? Throw a pickle at a poor unsuspecting sleeping girl!"

The still groggy Temari made a threatening guttural noise and glared sleepily at the Sharingan user. Then she started to get up, and Itachi took a step back.

Naruto walked into camp ten minutes later, to be greeted by the scene of Itachi lying face down on the ground. "You ok?"

Itachi mumbled in a way that sounded vaguely like acknowledgement.

Naruto looked at the prone Itachi curiously, and then turned to Kisame, who was cleaning Samehada. "What happened to him?"

The shark man smirked, "He mocked the pickle of doom"

"Wha?"

"We had a special culinary munitions spar"

Naruto looked at the various food products that lay everywhere, "what exactly inspired you to do this?"

"It's a tactic to relieve stress and promote non-work relationships between Akatsuki pairs. Its also really fun"

Itachi pushed himself up, "That's a matter of opinion, but I won't deny I've been known to participate once in while"

"Well, on a more serious note, the perimeter is secure, but we need to decide where we're going now, and what you two are going to do. You do still remember that you ignored your orders and are now AWOL from the Akatsuki?"

Kisame nodded, "Yeah, but I've recently been having an idea that might solve that as well as some other problems. Trick is, we'd have to keep it quiet, cause it won't work if certain people are aware of it"

Naruto and Itachi looked at him questioningly, and he glanced over to make sure Kabuto was still out of earshot, "I think my idea will be best for Sasuke, but he probably won't agree with me on that, and if this is going to work, it has to be done tonight"

Itachi nodded, "we're listening"

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

The next morning, Sasuke woke up feeling better than he had in weeks.

The sun was bright, his life was no longer in immediate danger, and things were looking good.

But he noticed something wrong.

Where there should have been people, there were none. Where there should have been a set up camp, there were just two sleeping bags. Everything else except two of the four food duffels and a plastic bag containing something he couldn't identify were gone.

This disturbed him.

He pulled himself out of bed, walked over to Kabuto's sleeping bag, and kicked it.

"Who? What? Are we under attack!"

"No, but we're alone. We appear to have been abandoned"

Kabuto rubbed sleep out of his eyes and surveyed the area, making the same observations Sasuke had only moments before, "What's in the plastic bag?"

"Dono, haven't really examined anything yet"

Saying this, Sasuke went over and opened the bag, revealing an envelope on top of lots of black cloth. He pulled out the envelope and tossed the bag to Kabuto, who began rummaging around.

The Uchiha examined the outside, which seemed normal, and tore it open, unfolding the two sheets of paper inside. The first one had only a couple of lines in what Sasuke recognized as his brother's slightly scratchy writing, it said Congradulations, you've been promoted

Shaking his head, Sasuke turned to the second page, which was significantly longer: Within the country of lightning, there is a lord named Mamoru Shinobu. He has an estate 113 miles east of the capitol. He is to be eliminated. It shall be made to appear as if his wife killed him. Payment shall be 1200000 yen.

It was obviously a mission assignment, but there was nothing to suggest where it had come from. Looking down at the first sheet, Sasuke noticed there was something drawn on the back of it. It looked like a map.

"Hey, Kabuto, come tell me what you make of this"

There was no response, so Sasuke turned around and his eyes widened, "sonofabitch"

Kabuto was holding up two blacks cloaks, embroidered with red clouds.

/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/-/

Authors Notes:

New chapters will be MUCH faster then this last one, as there were some major complications, some creative (I wrote it, it sucked, I got discouraged, deleted it, and re-wrote it) and others technical (my computer has been dysfunctional)

On that note, If anyone knows why a computer might suddenly start running 20 degrees hotter than it used to, send me and e-mail. I've checked out all my fans and the machine is running at 170 degrees Fahrenheit (75 degrees Celsius), which is way over the max temperature it should be operating at. I've had to just run it for a few minutes at a time and it's driving me insane.