Hello. Next Chapter. Um…ya…
Disclaimer: I do not own anything, except Tora, in this story. GOT THAT?
Chapter Three: Beach and Missions
Naruto dragged his two cranky-looking friends out of the apartment they had been given for this particular mission. All their clothes and other essentials were already loaded in, and after last night, they'd gone back to their apartment before dawn and had slept. Still, it was not enough sleep, and both Tora and Gaara were cranky. Though Gaara was used to no sleep at all, he didn't like his tired state one bit.
Tora and Gaara drilled glares into Naruto's head, both envying the other's hyper-activeness.
Naruto was dressed in blue shorts and an orange T-shirt, along with black sandals. On his shoulders, an orange duffel bag hung on its black strap.
Gaara was wearing a crimson shirt and white khakis, along with white sneakers, and he too, had a duffel bag on his shoulders, except it was red and black.
"Oh come on!" Naruto screamed in Tora's ear as they were waiting for the light to turn.
"Wake up, wake up, wake up!" he sang. He handed Tora some orange juice.
Tora painstakingly raised the bottle and drank.
Nothing happened, and Naruto sighed disappointedly and turned back to staring intently at the "Don't Walk" sign. Seconds later, the light changed, and Naruto turned back to his companions.
"LET'S G-''
Tora cut him off by bounding past him in a skip, her ponytail bouncing along with her.
"No! Tora! Do NOT bounce in the skirt I made you wear…"
Tora blinked, and then said, a bit confused, "Skirt?"
She looked down and screamed. She was wearing a black halter top and a dark blue skirt, along with silver flip-flops.
Tora looked at Naruto with accusing eyes, disregarding the strange looks they were getting.
"I-well…you were asleep…and I never saw you in a skirt so…" Naruto stuttered and tried to make up an excuse on the spot.
"You took…advantage…of my sleepy state….and gave me this…this…" Tora gestured toward her outfit and spluttered.
"It's called a skirt, Tora." Gaara said.
Tora stared at him as if he'd said a bad word.
"It wasn't my fault!" Naruto cried, "I mean, I just gave you the outfit, and you just went back into your room and dressed in it and…"
"NAAAAARRRUUUTTOOOOO!" Tora screamed in anger. She whipped off her black and blue duffel bag and chased a screaming Naruto across the street.
Gaara sighed and looked at a stricken-looking woman.
"I'm ashamed to know them." He said to her, and then rushed off after his idiot-friends.
---
A few hours later, the trio found themselves at the beach. A lot of people were there already. Children built sandcastles and rushed after each other, armed with water guns. Parents sat under the shade of their individual umbrellas on their blanket. Teenagers lay in the sun, working on a tan.
Overhead, the sun shone clear in the blue sky, the water twinkled happily, and the sand felt warm underneath their feet.
The place exerted the exuberance and warmth that their night life could never provide, and Tora and Gaara forgot their grumpiness for awhile, and mentally thanked Naruto. If not for him forcing them to see this, they'd never have came here, and would have missed the greatest day of their lives.
Tora looked at Naruto and laughed. He seemed to blend in with the beach itself, his hair as yellow as the sand and sun, his eyes the color of the ocean before them.
"Let's go guys…YOSH!" Naruto slid in between people and got a spot moderately close to the ocean before anyone else and settled down. He slid open his duffel bag, took out a blue blanket, spread it on the sand, and then stuck a white umbrella on the sand so that it loomed over the blanket.
"Okay…let's see…Tora, you have the food in your bag, and Gaara, you have the suntan lotion. Tora, Gaara, PUT ON THE LOTION RIGHT NOW. I DO NOT WANT TO SEE A RED, SKIN-PEELED YOU LATER THIS DAY, GOT IT!"
"Yes, mother…" The two chorused. Naruto just rolled his eyes.
Tora took her bag and looked inside. Inside was a whole cooler, as well as already-made bowls of ramen, chopsticks, chips, sushi, and…and…
Tora looked at Naruto with new respect. "How did you get all these in here?"
Naruto winked at her. "My secret."
"Alright. I get dibs on the onigri. You made me leave the apartment without breakfast after all…"
"I didn't eat either, so whatever."
Suddenly, Naruto started taking off his shirt. "Um, hello, we're in public?"
Naruto looked at Tora strangely.
"This is a beach." He said to Tora as if she were a baby, "People where trunks here all the time…" He tugged at his blue shorts.
"These are my swimming trunks…"
"Oh." Tora said, embarrassed.
"By the way, you can just take off your skirt. The halter top is actually part of your swimming suit."
"You know how weird it feels to know that your friend knows what you are wearing and you don't?" Tora said to Gaara.
"No, and I'm thankful." Gaara took off his shirt and pants to reveal that he had worn black trunks with red stripes on the sides underneath.
"I'll give you the lotion later." He said to Tora. "Okay." She replied.
Naruto took out his bowl of ramen and grinned, snapping open his pair of chopsticks. "Itadakimasu!"
---
After finishing their breakfast, Naruto had gone off to swim, and after Tora had put on sun lotion, she had gone too. Gaara finished putting on his sun lotion, and laid back under the umbrella, closing his eyes.
He was relaxing when suddenly, sand sprayed on his face. His eyes snapped open, and he shot up, looking to his side. A Frisbee lay there innocently. He looked up to see a girl that looked sort of familiar running toward him.
The girl looked at him with pearly eyes and held out her hands. "May I please have my Frisbee back, Mister?"
"Sure…" He handed her back the Frisbee.
"Sir, my cousin has gone for a minute…would you like to play with me until he returns?"
"….Sure…but, if you don't mind, can we play near here? No one else is watching over our spot."
"Sure, Mister!"
And so, Gaara stood up and played with the little girl with the Frisbee.
---
Tora had left her skirt and flip-flops in her bag. Now, she walked bare-foot around. She sighed, bored.
"Miss! Miss!" She looked up from the ground to see a boy running toward her. He had a cherubic face, brown hair, and huge, sparkling blue eyes.
"Yes?" she asked when the boy stopped before her.
"We need one more player in our gun fight! Can you please be our player, Miss?"
"Sure!" she exclaimed.
The boy beamed and took her hand, leading her quickly through the crowds of people. They came upon a spot with a purple umbrella and a flowered blanket, and the boy handed her a water-gun lying there. He took her hand again and led her toward a bunch of people.
They were noticeably split into two groups. One group was filled with teenagers and the other, kids looking like the boy's age.
The boy introduced himself as Keito, and then introduced the other people quickly after. Then, with a quick yell, the game was started.
---
Tora rolled behind a gigantic man and cocked her gun. She hadn't operated a gun-water or real, in a long time. She pulled the trigger and pointed it toward the sand to see if it would work. It did. She smirked. "Now, let's see if my skills are still top-knotch."
She spotted a team-mate sneaking behind a girl with blonde hair and brown eyes from the other team. She was looking anywhere but behind her. She smirked as the team-mate from her team shot the girl in the butt. The girl whipped around, eyes angry, and yelled at the retreating boy.
"You're gonna pay for that, Kanjii!"
The boy turned around briefly to stick his tongue out at the teen.
"I'd like to see you try, Kiko!"
The girl dashed off after the boy with a correctly held gun, and her long legs carried her across the sand quickly.
Tora couldn't quite stifle a giggle. They had no idea that that was how they hunted vampires. "Tsunade-sama was right…naturals at hunting can be found in the weirdest places of all."
She snuck off in the shadows of the umbrellas, sneaked up on a brown haired, green eyed girl, and shot.
The girl let off a yelp and turned to her, hair drenched and hanging in her eyes.
"THAT'S IT!"
With that, Tora took off with a girl running after her.
---
Naruto was swimming around when he decided to go a bit more farther from the shore. To be safe, he followed the coast.
He sighed, flopped onto his back, and closed his eyes, letting the ocean carry him for awhile. He opened his eyes and stared at the sky above, eyes reflecting the sun. Golden sparkles danced in blue eyes, the exact replica of the water in which he swam.
He sighed contentedly. He'd always wanted to come from the underground and see the sun for once….just once…and he'd gotten his wish. He couldn't help but feel light as air right now, so elated was he. Right now, he felt like he could accomplish anything-from flying to finally ridding the world of vampires.
Oh, he knew. He knew that without evil, the balance of the world would collapse, and they'd be dead in an instant. That's why he didn't wish for all evil to be gone-just the vampires. They were creating a strong imbalance, and the hunters just barely helped balance it. If only the vampires were gone…if only small evils remained…life would have been so much easier.
Suddenly, his head hit something. He shot up and discovered he'd come across something he hadn't noticed from the main land. Somehow, he'd drifted off to a hidden shore. Huge boulders surrounded either side of this small shore, and there was sand. Further on, a forest with dark trees loomed. Curiosity awakened, Naruto slipped out of the water and headed into the forest.
He was awed. The trees were huge, and their trunks thick, their leaves dark and healthy. It provided a cool shade from the relentless brightness of the sun, and…for some reason, this dark place provided comfort…which was unusual for him; after all, he found comfort in light most of the time. He sighed and breathed in the refreshing air.
A voice stopped him from his musings and his heart skipped a beat.
"What are you doing here?"
His eyes widened. Despite how relaxed he was being, no one could have sneaked up behind him without him noticing!
Naruto turned around only to find no one there. His eyes furrowed. Where was the voice coming from?
"I'm up here, dobe." A blur of black and suddenly, Naruto found himself facing a young man.
He couldn't have been much older than him, and he had dark blue hair, almost black and obsidian eyes. His skin was pale, TOO pale, and he wore a black T-shirt and black baggy jeans that hung low on his hips. He wore black sneakers, and Naruto found to his dismay that he only reached up to the stranger's chin.
Naruto couldn't help but feel as if he'd seen him somewhere…
The folder from the mission flashed before his eyes. He noticeably tensed.
"I ask again, what are you doing here?"
He remembered him now.
"It's none of your business." Naruto snapped. Geesh, what did he have to do to get some relaxation around here?
He was…
The man suddenly grabbed his neck and pinned him against the wall.
"Answer me." He said, leaning in close, so that their noses were touching.
Uchiha Sasuke.
---
Gaara sighed as he threw the Frisbee back to the hyper girl again.
"When is her DAMN COUSIN COMING BACK ALREADY?" he thought.
Suddenly, the girl peered at someone over his shoulder and cried, "Cousin! Cousin! You've come back!"
Gaara's eyes sparkled warily. He hadn't sensed anyone coming….and he was one of the best trackers…in the whole organization.
"Sorry, cousin, and who might this be?"
Warm breath ghosted over his ear, and Gaara refrained from shivering.
"Huh?" The girl said, and then understanding dawned. "Oh! This is a nice onii-chan that played with me while you were gone!"
"Oh is that so?"
Gaara was uneasy. After all, when someone was very, very close to your neck, it was instinct to be that way.
He felt the person step away from him and walk toward the girl. Some tension escaped his body, but he still remained wary. The person had his back to him, so he couldn't see his face, but he could see that the person was pale, and he had long, dark hair pulled into a low pony-tail. The person was wearing only black swimming trunks.
The mysterious guy turned, and Gaara's breath hitched.
….It was Hyuuga Neji.
He didn't know what to do…damn it, where was Tora when you needed her?
As if answering his question, a teenage boy ran past him, followed by his emerald-eyed friend, who was holding a water gun and laughing maniacally.
Tora paused to give him a quick greeting and a look of encouragement, before dashing off to resume her chase, shooting and hitting her mark every time.
Gaara cursed her for leaving him in this situation, but his head cleared, and he could think what to do again.
Neji had his eyebrows raised at him, so Gaara merely said, "I don't know her.", and continued from there.
---
Tora looked behind her in worry for Gaara. It wasn't like she didn't WANT to help her fellow friend and hunter-it was just that it would seem weird if she suddenly appeared and helped her friend like that. She knew from the folder they had seen that this particular vampire was no retard, and doing something like that would have jeopardized the mission.
She sighed and continued aiming the water at her opponent.
Five minutes later she'd run out of water, and rushed to the ocean to fill some more. When she was done, she rushed into the battlefield once again.
As she passed her team's base, aka the place where she got her gun in the first place, Keito stopped her and gave her a whole bag of water balloons, plus a bazooka-looking thing.
"This water-bazooka, as I like to call it, can act as a canon for the water balloons as well as shoot a whole ton of water out on someone. Alright, that's it…SHOO!"
Tora did so, with an "Aye, aye, cap'n!"
Laughing evilly, she loaded the water balloons into the bazooka and dropped her water gun on the base. She rushed pass Gaara again shooting balloons everywhere, and to her approval, found the two in deep conversation.
She ran out of balloons, and went to fill up her bazooka again.
By the time she was done with the other team, and her team declared victor, she'd drenched all of the other team's members.
The other team members all gave her a look of awe and respect as a teenager from the other team wrung out a ton of water from his T-shirt that had just been inflicted upon him by her.
Tora had just giggled, handed back the water-weaponry and said to the people that had participated in the water fight, "Thank you for a fun time, guys."
"No problem." They'd replied, and Tora went on her way.
When she got back to their spot, Neji was sitting on their blanket and the little girl was munching on some chips.
Tora suppressed a smirk. Looks like Gaara was doing well.
"HELLLLOOOO!" She suddenly said from behind Gaara, and Gaara jumped, putting on a fake mask of astonishment on his face, though Tora knew that he'd sensed her a long time ago.
Then, Tora pretended to just notice Neji.
"Aw, who's the hottie?" Tora said, nudging Gaara teasingly. Gaara stared at her as if she'd grown nine heads and just barely remembered to blush.
Tora smirked evilly. She'd always teased Naruto during under-cover missions, and had been a bit perverted as well in those teases. She felt bad for Gaara-I mean, he knew that she was a bit…crazy when sugar high, but what he DIDN'T know, was that she was crazy all the time, really. She didn't know where she got this perverted side from, but she felt like it was important.
Also, most of the time, especially during missions, Gaara saw her to be cold, serious, and quick. But the fact was, she only went on assassination missions with Gaara, not counting this time, and of course, she HAD to act different on assassinations.
On under-cover missions however, she was opposite of what she was on assassinations because part of the goal of such missions was to get the people to trust her. With her lazy, care-free attitude with a touch of perverted-ness and humor, people relaxed around her in a jiffy. Not that no one trusted her when she was serious as well-Tora didn't know why, but Tsunade had remarked once on how she just gave out this aura that showed she accepted everything and anything, and that, underneath everything, she was a wise person, and that, because of that, almost everyone confided in her.
And it was true. In tough fixes, people came to her for consolation, even the genius Shikamaru. How else did you think he got together with Ino?
Of course, this doesn't mean she acted in her respective personalities. You could say that she had….a split personality. She had no idea how she developed it, but she used to only have one personality-the cold, shy, serious one she took on during assassinations. Then, around her pre-teen years, she developed the more perverted, crazy one. This split personality came with consequences, for, because of this, she was constantly asked to be on espionage missions or assassinations.
But, anyway, TEASING TIME! Tora laughed evilly in her head.
"Aren't you gonna answer me?" Tora asked, and winked at Gaara.
"Um…" Gaara coughed. "This is Tora," he said, gesturing at me, "And this is Neji." He continued, pointing at Gaara.
"Hi, sweetie!" Tora cooed, and then held out a hand to shake.
Neji was eyeing the hand warily, and Gaara still stared at Tora as if she were crazy.
Tora tried to keep a straight face but ended up giggling anyway.
"Relax man, I'm kidding…" Tora said, retracting her hand and digging through her bag for something to eat.
She finally decided to steal a bowl of Naruto's ramen and opened the lid, took a pair of chopsticks from the bag, and started to eat the delicious noodles.
She leaned back and added, "Besides, you're already taken by panda-bear, aren't you?"
"Panda-bear?" Neji questioned, then glanced at Gaara and a slight, almost undetectable blush swept across his cheeks.
Gaara growled and slapped her upside the head.
"What did you to that for PB!" Tora exclaimed, dramatically clutching at her head.
"For embarrassing me, Kit-Kat."
Tora pouted, and then went back to her noodles. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw Neji smile a bit, before it flickered and disappeared, like the flame of a candle.
Tora smiled. She wasn't saying that breaking through their target's defenses would be easy…but maybe…just maybe…it wasn't hopeless.
Everyone was silent, eating right now, so she took this chance to speak to Gaara through their mind-link.
"He actually told you his real name?" she said through the mind-link.
"Yes, but only after we'd been talking for a few minutes; I think he was determining if telling me his real name would be a wise choice."
"Okay. Why did you tell him our real names?" she asked.
"In the organization, documents just show our codenames anyway. Besides, we don't use our real names often, not really. Most of the people in the organization know us only as The Three anyway."
"Sou ka."
"What's with calling me Panda-Bear?" Gaara queried, a bit irritated.
"You look like one."
Finished with her afternoon meal, she stood up and said, "Alright, I'll leave you two lover-birds alone. I'm going to go swimming!"
And with that, she charged toward the ocean, and jumped in.
---
Cool waters surrounded Tora when she jumped in, and when she surfaced, she smiled, loving the feeling. She started swimming, seeing how far she could go.
Above, the sun shone in all its glory. The water around her twinkled happily and she cut through it with inhuman grace. Soon, she came across the start of a river. On both sides of it, there were trees and soft land. She climbed onto land, and walked along the riverside. Grass bent under her feet, but as soon as her feet left it, it bounced back up, green and sparkling with dew as ever. But as the river thinned, the undergrowth died, and soon, all that was left was hard, rocky ground. The trees bared, and Tora slowly managed to recognize the place. The river stopped before huge boulders, and Tora placed her small, white hand against the gigantic grayness of the rocks. She laid her cheek upon the surprisingly smooth, cool surface.
It was Sandy Hollows.
Tora didn't usually cry. After killing for the majority of her life, crying was insignificant to her, as well as for the other hunters at her organization. But here, with blood-stained soil beneath her feet, she wanted to cry. So many lives were lost here…so many still to be lost.
Warm wind blew softly on her other cheek, and a few tendrils of her dark blue hair moved in the soft breeze. She stiffened. Everything died here at Sandy Hollows, there was no water, and if so, only a little, and there was definitely no wind! She whipped around, but no one was there, there was still a voice speaking though.
"Aw, looks like you came, little one."
Tora's eyes widened. Unintentionally, she'd gone to the meeting place anyway…and now, she'd pay for it.
"No worries, little one…" the soft voice said.
Tora winced a bit. This must be Itachi, since Orochimaru had a snake-like voice, and this didn't sound like him. Tora would have been less concerned had it been Orochimaru. Despite Orochimaru's famed strength, most of his power came from his vast number of followers. Akatsuki, though they had few members, all of them were strong, abnormally so. And since Itachi was in Akatsuki…
"…No one is here yet, except for me…"
Tora was in a bad situation. The team couldn't earn their target's trust if one of the targets already knew her identity! Not only that, since she'd made it so that Neji knew she knew Gaara, the whole team would be in danger.
And then she realized. Itachi hadn't exactly seen what she looked like, and even if he DID see her, she had had her mask on. Even if he recognized her chakra signature…when she was in hunter form, it was always tweaked a little, so, now, if she kept her regular chakra, and pretended to not know what he was talking about, she was safe!
Besides, he probably just assumed her to be the hunter because she was at the meeting place.
"What are you talking about?" she called out.
There was a chuckle.
"You know what."
Tora put on a confused face. "Huh?"
She didn't have time to carry on this conversation because a moment later a kunai headed straight at her.
Back on the beach, a shrill scream was heard, and then silence.
---
Well, that's it….I know its lame…but bare with me…hehe…
I wrote this while I was watching Dragon Tales on Channel Thirteen. You can't blame me if this got a bit…erm…BAD! You'd be surprised how much inspiration you get from watching a kid show…haha….Well, next chapter will come soon….hopefully…