Neko: Okay, I know you all were waiting for me to update all my other stories, but I just can't right now, I have had the worst case of writer's block on all of them! Every time I try I just can't seem to get anywhere with it… Do you know how frustrating that is? –growls-
Anywho, here is yet another story that's a little out there… (my brain is so totally screwy right now…) I hope you enjoy. I'm not sure exactly where this is going or even if there is going to be a pairing, but there it is… Enjoy!
Disclaimer: I own nothing except my GameCube, games, some clothes and a journal….
NOTE: In this story genin teams can be a squad of two or three!
Cherry Blossom in the Desert
By: Neko-Girl Lara
Chapter One: A Little Gift
It was the dead of night; with the village before them sound asleep, except for a few guards. A woman and man stood in the shadows of the opening, holding a sleeping baby. The woman cried softly as her husband took their child from her arms. "She'll have a better life, dear, you know that…" The man laid the child at the gates of Suna and, ringing the bell, the two disappeared with shinobi speed guiding their feet. The baby began to cry as guards went to check who had wanted admission. Two guards looked down from their perch on the high wall surrounding their home.
"It's a baby!" One man said before going down the stairs and picking up the child. Jade eyes and pink hair was the first things he saw when he lifted the blanket from her face. Looking her over for anything suspicious he looked at his partner and shrugged.
"We might as well take her to the Kazekage, he'll know what to do," the second man said as they closed the gate and began their march to the Kazekage's tower. When they arrived they sent a maid to awaken their leader. A few short minutes passed before they heard the stomping of a man's feet coming their way.
"What is the meaning of this?" an irate man with reddish brown hair yelled. A door beside the men opened.
"Daddy?" a blonde four year old asked from her bedroom door, rubbing sleep from her eyes.
"Go back to bed, Temari-chan, and make sure Kankuro-kun is still asleep," the man said to his daughter. She nodded and ran back into her room, shutting the door like a good girl should. The man turned back to his guards.
"Well? And this had better be good…" He growled at them. It was three o'clock in the morning and he had just gotten to sleep, thoughts of his wife's passing a year ago still troubled him. But the boy that had taken her life, his son, was his greatest fear. For within him lay the cause of so much devastation in Suna. He'd already killed three maids and he'd only just turned one. They'd already tried to kill him yet that sand of his protected him.
"Sir!" They bowed; a wrapped bundle in one man's arms. "We found this baby in front of the gate. It seems to have been abandoned…" They presented the child. The baby girl stared up at the man and cooed, reaching arms up to him. The Kazekage stared down at the child, liking her instantly, but showing no emotion on the outside.
"A baby? Now that's a new one… Fine, put her in the nursery with the monster that is my son… I'll deal with this later; now return to your posts!" The men handed the baby to an awaiting nursemaid, bowed to the Kazekage, and then ran back to their posts. The maid looked at her master.
"What if Gaara-sama does not accept the child? He would kill her…" The Kazekage glared at her.
"Like I care, that monster will be given over to Yashamaru tomorrow anyway, so I won't have to look at it," he said turning his back to her and the baby. But the maid called out one more question, making the man halt for a moment.
"What shall we call her?"
"Her hair is pink, like cherry blossoms, so we'll call her Sakura," he replied, walking away. The maid looked at the sweet baby and smiled, turning to walk to the nursery and the monster of a baby that lay within. The child that she had sworn to take care of scared the daylights out of her. The child never slept and he learned faster than any other baby she had ever cared for before. He could already stand on his own…
When she arrived she nodded to the guards outside the door. They opened the door and she took a deep breath before entering. Inside, standing by the edge of his crib looking up at the stars, was Gaara of the Desert. He looked up at his nurse and smiled sweetly. She looked terrified, which made baby Gaara frown, sand swirling around him in anger. "Gaara-sama, I've brought you a friend!" She laid baby Sakura next to him. The two little ones looked at each other. Sakura cooed happily before hitting the boy on the leg, completely touching him without his sand blocking her. Gaara blinked at her then smiled back. The nursemaid sweat dropped at the sight of the two together. It seemed Gaara had found a friend at last…
Five years later, at Yashamaru's house, after almost killing some other children and hurting Yashamaru, Gaara tied to stab his hand with a knife. "Yashamaru-kun…. Why does the sand do that?" With that innocent question horrible events unfolded, leading to Yashamaru's death, Gaara's insanity, and tears in the night. The next day after Gaara had killed Yashamaru he was brought before his father, the Kazekage.
"Do you know what you have done!" His father yelled at him. Gaara glared at him, all sense of feeling seemingly gone. The Kazekage stared at his son. "Fine, you will begin your training tomorrow to learn how to control yourself!" Jade eyes and pink hair popped up behind his chair.
"Daddy!" With that she launched herself at the Kazekage, who caught her easily. "Hi, Gaara-chan!" With an innocent smile she looked at the six year old coldhearted killer.
"Sakura-chan, Temari-chan, and Kankuro-kun will be training with you. You will be the strongest shinobi ever!" He sat his adopted daughter down next to Gaara.
"Eh! You're going to let me be a ninja, daddy?" The little girl asked. He nodded and she cheered, hugging the stoic boy next to her. "Did you hear that Gaara-chan?" The boy used his sand to pry the girl off of him. With that on the next day they began their shinobi training in two squads of two. Temari and Kankuro were together, and Sakura and Gaara were together.
The next day they met with their senseis for the first time. Sakura grabbed Gaara's hand, smiled at him, and pulled him towards their teacher. She touched the symbol on his forehead and giggled before letting go of his hand so they could begin their lessons.
The next day when he arrived at their training grounds Sakura looked pleased with herself. Next to her was a large gourd taller than she was. "Gaara-kun! I got you a present!" She pulled out a leather strap. "It's for when we go on missions outside of the village! So you can carry your sand!" The little boy looked at his pink haired sister and his lips quirked at little.
"Thank you, Sakura-chan…" With that she helped him attach it to his back.
"Wow, Gaara-kun, it looks like it was made for you!" She said happily as the boy tried to gain his balance with the large object on his back. She handed him a cork. "Once you put the sand in, this will keep it in!" After she said this, their sensei showed and they began their lessons, Gaara getting used to the object on his back.
"Listen up you four," their jounin leader said to them. A girl of 15 with four blonde ponytails grinned, a large fan attached to her back. A boy with purple face paint, a kitty-eared hat on his head, and what looked like a wrapped mummy on his back smirked. A boy with a giant gourd on his back, blood red hair, and black-encircled eyes made no movement. And a girl with pink hair, jade green eyes, and a large pole on her back, scowled. "We have gone into a secret alliance with the village of Sound. As we take part in the chunin exams we will be ordered to take a genin named Uchiha Sasuke… When we arrive we'll be given further instruction. Any questions?"
"Yah, who's this Uchiha character and why does Sound want him?" Sakura asked rudely. Her leader looked at her and smirked.
"Good question, we don't really know the answer to that question, but we will soon. We leave tomorrow at dawn. Now go get ready," he dismissed them. Kankuro snorted.
"All I need is this," he patted the wrapped up puppet next to him. Temari grinned.
"And all I need it my fan," she said, mocking him. Kankuro growled at her.
"Are you trying to make fun of me?"
"Who said I was trying? I am making fun of you!" She crowed before she ran out of the room, Kankuro following, ready for a fight. Sakura shook her head in shame.
"Those two act like they're five…" She sighed before following Gaara out of the room. "Say, Gaara-kun, do you wanna spar with me? I just made a new jutsu that I wanna work on." She looked at the boy in a challenging manner. Ever since their first day in training she'd changed from an innocent little girl to a hardened female shinobi. She was every bit as powerful as her sister and brothers, well Gaara was the strongest of them all, but the other three came close. She pulled out a scroll of manga and waved it at him. "My characters are getting better all the time!" Gaara stared at her with a death glare. "Fine… I'll practice on my own…!" With that she walked off.
Outside Kankuro was bound up by his own strings and Temari was grinning like a wildcat. "Ha! You think you can beat me?" Sakura laughed at her brother.
"Temari – 100, Kankuro – 2!" She yelled the score. Temari laughed, sitting atop her brother's back. Kankuro growled into the dirt by his lips.
"Fine, Sakura-chan! I'll take you on instead!" Temari laughed more as her brother tried to get her off of him and loosen the strings around him.
"Kankuro, I can't even beat baby sister's characters!" Sakura grinned, knowing it was true. Temari's wind based attacks did nothing to phase her creations.
"Take me on if you think you can! But first you have to fix your silly little puppet and rewire him!" Sakura laughed before gasping as sand began to surround her. "Gaara-kun…" she said softly before front-flipping out of the sand trap. She looked back to see an evil smirk on her brother's face. She grinned. "Ready to play?" Sand came up from beneath her, but she did a series of flips to escape. Her outfit rustled at the actions. She wore a white sleeveless shirt that stopped just below her butt, white wrappings covering her more personal areas on and between her legs, the wrappings continued half-way down her right leg where her kunai holder was. Attached on her right shoulder was leather strap that held a long wooden pole to her back. She laughed, getting into the fight.
Gaara growled playfully at his baby sister, and the two continued their little dodging game until Sakura reached behind her and withdrew her favorite scroll. Biting her thumb while dodging yet another attack she rolled out the scroll and ran her bleeding thumb down it. She pressed it to the ground and yelled "Special Summoning! Manga no Jutsu!" With that her favorite, strong characters jumped off the page. Samurai, ancient shinobi of legend, and magical girls all came forth, prepared for battle. What made them special though was that they were completely see through, so wind and physical attacks couldn't hurt them, but they could hurt you. She giggled and sent in the first troops. While they tried to get through the sand, others came up from behind and distracted him. While trying to keep his eye on the characters he lost sight of Sakura. She blinked in above him, kunai at the ready. She almost had him before he sensed her and he used his sand to throw her back. Loosing her chakra concentration, her characters disappeared in puffs of smoke.
"Admit defeat…" Gaara said as she was sprawled under his heavy sand.
"Fine! You win, Gaara-kun!" She grunted. The sand let up, seeping back into his gourd while she found her feet. "I almost had you that time…" He nodded then in a swirl of sand he was gone. She sighed and looked at her two older siblings. "Well?"
"You really did almost get him!" Temari chirped. Kankuro nodded sullenly, angry that he was the weakest of the four. Sakura grinned more. Looking to where Gaara was standing on a rooftop nearby. She smiled softly up at him, glad he had kept the gourd for so long.
In Konoha Kankuro had started trouble by grabbing a little runt by the front of his shirt, laughing. A loud blonde boy was yelling at him to put the little boy down. Temari was also trying to get him to put the little wiseass down. Suddenly a boy with black hair appeared on a branch above them all. He tried to threaten Kankuro to put the little boy down, but Kankuro just laughed at him. A soft chuckle came from beneath the boy in the tree, and he looked to see a girl with pink hair laughing at their antics.
"Kankuro-kun, put the little guy down, before Gaara-kun gets here…" She said softly. The blonde male's jaw dropped at the pretty girl. 'She's gorgeous!' He thought.
'Now who is this?' The boy with black hair thought looking at the strong female beneath him. Suddenly a boy was standing, upside down, beside him on an adjacent tree limb.
"Kankuro, put the child down…" he said coldly. Kankuro laughed nervously.
"Sure, Gaara-kun, whatever you say…" The boy in black put the boy down by tossing him at the blonde boy, making them both fall backwards.
"Time to go…" the girl with pink hair said, and in a blink she was gone, followed by the boy in black and the girl with the fan. Gaara took a moment to look at the boy with black hair before, in a whirl of sand, he too was gone.
On their way back to their lodgings Sakura was lecturing Kankuro. "Just what were you trying to do back there, brother? Now you've brought unwanted attention to us!" They were jumping rooftops, in order to avoid people. Kankuro sighed and looked at his baby sister.
"I was just having some fun, and it even brought out our target… so hush!" Sakura's eye twitched before letting her fists fly on her big brother. In a few short minutes Temari threw Kankuro over her shoulder and they went on their way.
"Jeez, Kankuro it's time for you to go on a diet…" Temari said to her unconscious brother.
After getting out of the "Forest of Death", as they called it, without a scratch Sakura yawned as they explained the third part of the exam.
"You'll be pitted against each other for the preliminaries," A woman said into a microphone by her mouth. With great difficulty two other people explained to the slow Konoha genin of what to do. (A/N: really, that was ridiculous at how long it took for them to grasp the situation, I wanted to strangle them all…) And with that the first two were picked.
'Uchiha, huh? This should be interesting…' she thought watching the boy get his ass kicked before finally doing some kicks to win. 'That pathetic excuse for a ninja is what Sound wants? Even I could have beaten his ass…' Shaking her head she watched the next couple of matches before Kankuro was up. Her brother played with his victim before winning the match. Sakura sighed and noticed a pair of eyes on her. She turned to see the blonde loudmouth from before, and his sensei, looking at her hard. She stuck her tongue out at them and turned back to the screen. She was up against some girl named Yamanaka Ino…
Sakura sighed as she made her way down to the arena. She looked at her opponent and couldn't help but laugh. The blonde girl was shaking in fear.
"Alright I'll make this painless and quick, because you don't deserve my time…" she said coldly, flipping her long, pink hair back over her shoulder. Ino gulped then got in a fighting stance. The proctor looked at both girls, nodded and said for them to start. Ino rushed the pink haired girl, trying to land a punch.
Sakura dodged the slow, pathetic punches. She yawned and punched the girl in the stomach, knocking her into the wall twenty feet away. "Man, what a bad defense…" Yawning again she waited to see if the blonde would even get up. She didn't.
"I declare this match over, the winner is Sakura," the proctor said. With one last yawn Sakura made her way back to her siblings. All the Konoha genin she passed took a step back from her, except two. A boy with white eyes, and his teammate in green spandex. She stopped and looked at the boy with white eyes, and then with a nod she walked away. But she heard what his teammate had to say.
"Neji-kun, what was that all about?" The boy in green spandex (she mentally shivered at the thought), who looked exactly like his sensei, asked.
"Nothing," replied the boy. But the boy in green jumped before her and knelt before her.
"I swear upon my honor as a ninja to always protect you," he said before smiling, a little flash appearing on his tooth. Sakura recoiled in horror then growled, but before she could kill the insolent boy Temari grabbed her arms from behind, and drug her back to their group. Next were the loudmouth boy, Uzumaki Naruto, and another Konoha shinobi, Inuzuka Kiba. Their match was a little entertaining, but still dull with the blonde tricking the dog-boy and winning. Then was Temari against some girl named Tenten. Temari won in a matter of minutes. Next were Gaara and the boy in green spandex, Rock Lee. 'Now this should be interesting…'
Before the match began the boy blew a kiss in her direction. Sakura screamed in horror and dodged it. 'That little insect, Gaara-kun will teach him how to behave!' she thought as Gaara scowled at the weird boy. The match began with Gaara blocking the taijutsu master. But it quickly got interesting, but still Gaara won by using his sand skin shield. Next was the boy with white eyes, Hyuuga Neji, and another girl with white eyes, Hyuuga Hinata. 'Are they brother and sister?' She asked herself. 'No, too close in age, cousins I'm sure…'
Naruto cheered on the pathetic little girl, but she still lost. "This is getting boring…" she said to her siblings. Temari agreed and Kankuro nodded. Gaara was still licking his wounds quietly, even though he won.
But soon it came to an end, and the winners all stood in a row, except the Uchiha who was in the hospital recovering. Sakura snorted when she found out who she had to fight, that pathetic Sound ninja who beat the rolling fat-ass (A/N: Sorry, I really do love Choji, but this is in an outsider's opinion of him, she doesn't know the sweet boy he really is). Once they were dismissed Sakura sighed.
"I'm going to go take a nap and then go exploring," she said to her siblings. "Come get me if anything exciting happens around here, but I highly doubt it…"
"Sakura-sama," her sensei said before she got too far. "I want you back in the room no later than ten, understood?" She scowled at him, but nodded and walked away. The blonde boy caught up with her.
"That was a great fight! Really! Ino's no pushover and you beat her with one punch!" He said happily. She raised an eyebrow at him.
"Can I help you?" He just laughed, shook his head, and then turned to run off.
"Nah! I just wanted to congratulate you, Sakura-san!" He said before running off. She raised her eyebrow again at his back for being so informal with her. Of course the boy didn't know her last name… she did have one, like Gaara…
END CHAPTER 1
Neko: Well, there's chapter one! And I still have no idea where it's going…
Sakura:I fight with manga characters and can punch Ino out with on hit? CHA! –cheers-
Neko: Yes, yes… -grabs Neji-kun as he tries to duck out- Where do you think you're going? –he glares at the author-
Neji: I have no part in this whatsoever! And I don't want to!
Neko: We'll too bad; I think I just made you the main squeeze! –Grabs Naruto with her tail and Kakashi with her other arm- Or you two might make good matches too…
Sakura: I want…. Hmm, they are all cute, but I want….. Neji-kun! –she grabs him then hugs the stoic boy as he tries to get away from her iron grip-
Neko: -releases Kakashi and Naruto- Well that's all the time we have, folks, see you when I decide to update! Byes! -huggles her Gaara close before she runs for her life from the sand trying to kill her- Gaara-kun!
UPDATE: I just realized that I misspelled Naruto-kun's last name, so if you spot anywhere that I missed, please tell me… Along with any other names I might have gotten wrong… As I don't have a beta reader yet to look over my documents before I post them… BTW if anyone wants to be my beta-reader please volunteer…