Disclaimer: Naruto…not mine

Chapter 4: Tests and A Deal

Temai, Kankuro, and Baki sat along the wall of the dojo with their jaws hanging open in shock.

"You don't know any?" Temari asked the girl in front of them.

Kina laughed nervously and fiddled with the silver and black fan in her hands. "Nope," she admitted. "I mean, I've heard and seen shinobi perform them." ...on the TV screen… "But I don't know how to mold chakra or perform any jutsus." The three remained silent. Kina couldn't handle their stares any longer so she did what she always did when people stared at her.

Ever since she was little, she had problems keeping her hands still when she was nervous. It had gotten better with time and training, but after that intense match, the old habit returned. She pulled out the second fan, the gold and red one, and snapped them both open. Kina refused to meet their eyes as she expertly twirled and flipped the fans in front of her.

"How could you learn so much taijutsu and not learn any ninjutsu?" Baki demanded.

"I dunno," she answered. "It just turned out that way." No way am I telling them that molding chakra and performing the "impossible" is just make-believe where I'm from. Instead, she focused on the black and red patterns of the fans she kept spinning.

"Kankuro, do you see that?" Baki whispered to his ex-student.

"Hai," the purple face paint wearing teen said. "She says that she doesn't know how to mold chakra. But I can trace some gathering near her eyes as she's spins the fans."

They watched as Kina kept spinning and twirling the fans faster and faster. Eventually, she added arm movements that moved the fans even faster. The movements were so fast; it looked as if she were holding a red and black flag in front of her.

"Either she's lying or she doesn't realized it. Either way," Temari added. "Kina-chan has some kind of chakra. It just isn't refined."

Kina had mixed feelings about the fact that her three "examiners" were now talking amongst themselves. On the one hand—she threw the red fan into the air while spinning the black one, spun around twice, and caught it—it was good because they weren't staring at her anymore, well not so intently anyway. On the other—Kina fluidly fell onto her knees (the fans still spinning) and slid onto her back—it was bad because they were obviously talking about her. She shook her head and steadily began to rise to her knees and then to her toes and finally stood straight up again, the fans never stopping or slowing down in their movements.

Yes! I finally did the "Resurrection" without falling on my butt! (1) Kina didn't notice the other's staring at her again. She was just happy that she could finally perform the move her cousin had tried to teach her.

Baki gaped. He had never seen anyone move like that without using a large amount of chakra. It was so fluid and steady at the same time. As far as he could tell, the only sign of chakra was near her eyes. The girl had amazing muscle control. He looked her over again to see if he could find any other traces of chakra.

"Look there, you two," he pointed to Kina's left shoulder—which was visible from where they were sitting. "A fair amount of chakra is gathering at her tattoo."

"It's strange. Her chakra is light purple."

The two men turned to Temari and then to the girl. "You're right, it is."

"I wonder…" Kankuro muttered as he stood up.

Kina was in the zone. She forgot who sat in front of her and where she was. Right now, her world consisted of the red and black fans and how fast and how complicated she could make them "dance." It was only her strict training that alerted her to a presence on her right. Quickly, too quickly for most people to see, she snapped the fans closed, pushed the buttons that released their blades and stepped toward the presence.

Kankuro was about to pat Kina on the shoulder when he felt a sharp blade against his throat and another on his stomach. Damn, I knew they weren't normal fans, he thought. Not if Temari gave them to her.

"Relax, Kina," he said soothingly, backing away from the blades. "We just decided to skip the ninjutsu part of the exam and go straight to the genjutsu."

She lowered her arms and looked confused. "But if I can't do ninjutsus, how can you expect me to do genjutsus?" she asked.

He smirked and folded his hands over his chest. "I'm not expecting you to do them. I'm expecting you to see through them."

Good one, Kankuro, Temari thought. Since the only chakra they could see accumulated in her eyes, it was a good bet that she could unconsciously use that to see through illusion techniques.

"Put those fans down and take this." Kina followed Kankuro's directions and took the bag of small water balloons from him. "I'm going to do a few genjutsus and I want you to throw the water balloon at where you think the real me is. Some of them will be binding genjutsus, so all you have to do is break through them to be able to move your arms. Baki-sensei will check the amount of time you stay in each genjutsu and Temari will be taking notes." He waited for the girl to nod her head before he yelled out, "Bushin no jutsu!"

Kina was immediately surrounded by seven Kankuros. She looked around her, but they all looked the same. She grabbed a water balloon and blinked. A white light flashed behind her eyelids and when she opened them again, only one Kankuro remained. When she threw the water balloon, bright pink paint splattered onto the Sand nin's black clad shoulder.

Kankuro looked down at his pink stained clothes. Ah, well. That's why I wore old clothes today. "Let's see if you can see this. Meimei no Kaze!" (2)

Kina stared in surprise as Kankuro disappeared. As if a giant eraser just, well, erased him. She felt a breeze brush her hair and blinked. Flash! She barely saw the kunai in his hand before she dropped and rolled. Before she got to her knees, the pink stain on his clothes was joined by a neon green one.

Ugh, who chose those colors? Kina thought.

"Good!" he called out. That was fast. "Next one. Kamaitachi no Jutsu!"

Temari looked up from her notes. That's an ANBU jutsu! When did Kankuro learn that? she thought jealously.

Kina tried to get another water/paint balloon, but found that she couldn't move. She blinked again and again, the white flash appeared behind her eyelids. Once she could move her arms she grabbed a balloon and threw it at Kankuro.

Hmph…not many people can escape an ANBU level body freezing technique, Baki thought, writing down the time it took for her to release the jutsu. And she does it without hurting herself.

This went on for at least twenty minutes. Kankuro would perform a genjutsu on Kina. Kina would blink. Kankuro would be covered in yet another eye wateringly bright color of paint.

"Okay!" Temari called out. "That's enough for today. Kina, one of the servants will take you back to my house. You need to pack your stuff."

"Why?"

"You start work here at the mansion tonight," was the answer. "So you have to move in."

"Can't you help me?"

Kankuro and Baki were surprised when Temari flushed and started herding the men out of the dojo. "No, we have to write up our reports on your test and give them to Kazekage-sama along with our verbal accounts," she said hurriedly. "And you need to be settled in by 5 this afternoon."

"That's in three hours! And what do you mean work?"

Temari paused just outside the dojo doors. She fisted her hands in Baki's and Kankuro's collars and whispered, "Run."

They didn't understand what she meant until she told Kina one last thing.

"Oh…and Kina-chan…Kazekage-sama commands you to wear your uniform while you perform your cleaning duties tonight."

Later—much, much, much later, both Baki and Kankuro swore themselves blind that this was true—the men would mention how a bright light flashed inside the dojo and all three claimed they saw a black mushroom shaped cloud appear over Kina's head.

Kina, of course, denied any such thing ever happened.

But no one ever really believed her.

0000000000000000

Gaara sat behind his desk and stared at three of the most tolerable people he knew. His blue and white Kazekage hat lay on the desk before him and his elbows stayed on the armrests of his chair. "Well?" he asked, folding his fingers under his jaw.

Baki stepped forward and placed a thick dark green folder on the desk. "Our written reports on Kinabuhi-san's taijutsu are in here."

Gaara barely looked at the folder. "Tell me what you think, Baki."

"Kinabuhi-san's taijutsu skills are extremely well honed. She won two of the three matches we fought today. Although she is small, she's strong and her sense of balance is almost perfect."

Gaara looked at his siblings and waited.

"She's mostly a defensive fighter, Kazekage-sama," Kankuro added. "From what she told us about her training, her father's people focused on self-defense rather than attack."

"As most true taijutsus are of the same vein, I don't find that surprising," he stated calmly. His eyes turned toward his sister.

"She has the cunning and the grace to be a great kunoichi," she informed. "Her choice of weapon for the third match showed as much. She did defeat Baki-sensei with a fan."

Gaara looked at his ex-sensei and let a small smirk form on his face. "Really? That's interesting. What about her ninjutsu?"

Temari stepped forward and placed an extremely thin blue folder next to the green one. "Nonexistent," she said.

"Explain."

"She doesn't know hand seals or any sort of basic ninjutsu," Temari answered. "She can't control chakra and she doesn't even know the theories of how to mold chakra."

"So she has no chakra?" Gaara asked, reminded of a certain fuzzy eye-browed shinobi.

"That's not what we're saying, Kazekage-sama," Baki said. "She can't consciously mold chakra. But she does contain some." Before Gaara could demand more explanation, he continued. "While we were talking among ourselves, Kinabuhi-san began a complicated maneuver using two fans. It came to our notice that as the maneuvers became more complicated, chakra started to gather near her eyes and around the tattoo on her left bicep."

"What does that tattoo mean, Kazekage-sama?" Kankuro asked. He knew that their father had pushed Gaara to learn more, know more, than his older siblings and that he might be able to read the strange characters on Kina's arm.

"Blood," Gaara answered easily. (3)

"And the other?"

"None of your concern. Now move on with your report."

Kankuro cleared his throat at this and stepped forward to place a dark red folder on the desk beside the other two. "Where Kina's ninjutsu abilities are nonexistent, her genjutsu abilities are jounin level," he said.

"How can she perform genjutsu when she can't perform ninjutsu?"

"It's not that she can perform genjutsu," Kankuro corrected himself. "She can dispel genjutsu faster than anyone ever recorded."

"It's her eyes," Temari said. "The chakra accumulation in her eyes allows her to see through genjutsu in seconds."

"I believe that she may possess a kekkei genkai," Baki stated.

"A bloodline limit?" Gaara asked.

"Yes. Similar to that of the Uchiha and Hyuuga clans, since her power lies in her eyes as well as the fact that she is able to see through genjutsu so easily."

Gaara thought of the tattoo on her right bicep. Demon. "That may or may not be. How fast can she dispel genjutsu?"

"No longer than it takes for her to blink once," Temari said. "Baki-sensei timed it while I watched her."

"And how complex a genjutsu can she dispel?"

Kankuro answered this one. "She saw through Subaku no Yawatashirazu easily, Kazekage-sama."

Kinabuhi, you saw through the 'Desert Maze'? I am definitely going to keep you, Gaara silently laughed.

"That is all," he dismissed the three shinobi with a wave of his hand and stood up. "I feel the need to see how my new housekeeper is doing."

"Why don't I go with you?" Kankuro asked, ignoring Temari's frantically shaking head. "I'm dying to see the uniform you got her to wear."

"You haven't seen it?"

"No, but from the way Kina reacted when Temari told her she had to wear it, it's gotta be something good," the puppet master replied.

"Alright," Gaara said. "But just remember that you don't have my sand shield to block you."

"Why would I need a shield?"

"You'll see…"

00000000000000000

Gonna kill him, Kina thought to herself as she swept the sand from behind a large potted plant. Gonna rip out his intestines and turn him into a yo-yo. Gonna scalp him and turn the pelt into a purse. She felt a breeze slide under her short skirt before she tugged it down so that it at least tried to cover her ass.

When she had finally settled into the room she had chosen, one of the shinobi who helped her move informed her that her first duty was to sweep the sand from the Kazekage's suite of rooms. Kina didn't think it would be that bad. After all, Gaara used sand as a weapon, so therefore, he would logically bring it all with him in his gourd.

But no…he didn't.

The small-ish pile that she had started after a full sweep of the floor was starting to look like a dune from a child's sandbox. For the most part the suite of rooms was clean, but after a quick look, Kina discovered that sand had piled up in the strangest of places. Behind tables, under benches, between the books on the bookshelf—she couldn't even begin to guess why there was sand there.

So here she was…on her knees with a tiny brush/broom in her hand, trying to get all of the sand wedged between the plant and the wall. She had tried moving the thing, but it was way too heavy for her to lift on her own. She was about to back up when she felt the presence of more than one person behind her.

"Well, I never expected you to be on your knees so soon, Kina," Kankuro laughed.

Kina backed up and sat on her heels. She turned her head and there were two of the people she really didn't want to see. Well, she didn't really want to see anyone right now, but she really didn't want to see these two.

"Shaddup," she snarled. She stood up and the skirt of her uniform decided to move up her thighs. She quickly pushed it back down and scowled at Kankuro and Gaara.

"You're looking well, Kina-san," Gaara said, folding his arms across her chest. Actually, she looked completely foolish. But then again, that was his intention.

Kina pushed back the headband she had been forced to wear and her fingers brushed against the bunny ears glued to it. Whoever gave the "o.k." to create this bunny outfit was going to die a slow painful death…Kina was going to make sure of that.

"Kazekage-sama," she began sweetly. Too sweetly. Both brothers had grown up with Temari after all and knew the sound of a female bent on retribution. "I can't begin to thank you for the chance to live and work with you. But don't you think that this 'uniform' attracts too much attention to me?"

Gaara moved past her and sat down on a couch. "No."

A vein throbbed in her forehead and Kankuro backed up a step. "I'm just gonna go down to the kitchens and get some tea. Gaara?" At the redhead's nod, Kankuro walked to the door. "And you Kina? How about a few carrots? I'm sure that there's some—argh!"

Gaara looked at his brother and sighed. The idiot was now lying on his floor, staining blood on his carpet. A sturdy wooden brush/broom lay next to his head. Using his sand, Gaara grabbed Kina's wrist and dragged her to stand in front of him.

"Now you will have to add cleaning the carpet of blood stains to your list of duties for tonight."

"Like hell I will!" Kina said. Holy shit! I'm doing it again…I'm angering Gaara! But Kina couldn't help herself. She comforted herself by remembering that he was the one who started it by giving her this ridiculous costume. "I do not do housework!"

"You have no choice," the green eyed Kazekage replied. "You're staying here basically for free. You have to do something to earn your upkeep and, unless you have anything else that is of use to me, being my housekeeper is the best I can come up with. So, is there something else you can provide that Suna needs?"

Kina racked her brain. She wasn't really good at anything except Escrima and watching kids. Her face brightened as Iruka's face flashed into her mind. "I'm good with kids and patient when it comes to teaching them!" she said.

Gaara's eyes narrowed and he let go of her wrist. Her admission actually was something of use. Summoning his sand, he retrieved a book from the bookshelf.

So that's how sand got there, Kina realized.

"Suna lost many jounin due to the failed attack on Konoha," Gaara started as he opened the book. He read a few lines and promptly shut it again. "We need as many skilled fighters as the leaf nin do, perhaps more, and no one is truly left to teach our academy students. Baki tells me that your shuriken and kunai skills are exceptional. You also know a taijutsu that is foreign to our lands."

Kina waited as Gaara seemed to think things out. "How do you feel about taking over the taijutsu department of Suna's Ninja Academy?"

"Um…honored," she responded. "But I'm only 13 and I'm not even a ninja. How do you know that they'll accept me?"

Gaara stood and walked over to his unconscious brother. "They will accept you because I will tell them to accept you," was the arrogant reply. He prodded his brother with his toe and woke him up. "Kankuro, tomorrow you will take Kinabuhi to the Suna Academy and introduce her to the teachers as the new taijutsu department head."

Kankuro nodded sleepily and got up. "Okay," he slurred. "Academy, taijutsu, Kinabuhi. Got it."

Gaara then walked over to a cupboard and removed a black piece of cloth with piece of metal on it. He gave the forehead protector to Kina and said, "As for you not being a ninja…you are now a chuunin of the Hidden Village of Sand."

"Chuunin?" she gaped.

"Yes. The only reason why I'm not promoting you to jounin is because you have no ninjutsu skills. I will personally work with you on that every morning between 5 am and 7 am."

"Why so early?" she asked, holding the forehead protector close to her chest.

"It's not like I sleep."

A thought suddenly occurred to Kina. "I don't have to wear those ugly vests, you guys are so proud of, do I?"

Gaara was surprised when a startled sound escaped his mouth. Was that a laugh? he wondered. "No," he answered. "Kunoichis do not have to wear those 'ugly vests' as you call them. As long as whatever weapons you use are readily available along with the required number of kunais and shurikens, and you have your forehead protector on you, it doesn't matter what you wear. You still have to oversee the state of my household, though."

"Okay, I can handle managing that," Kina conceded. "Can I go change now?"

"Yes. But Kinabuhi," he added. "Disobey me again and you will have to wear those 'uniforms' to the Academy."

Kina shivered and smiled at the Kazekage. "Don't worry Kazekage-sama! I'll be on my best behavior from now on!"

Somehow, I doubt that, Gaara thought before he sat down once more.

A/N:

Done! Ack…I had a little trouble with this chapter, but I got through it. You like? You don't? Please tell me…

(1) "Resurrection" is a raver move where you fall slowly onto your back sitting on your heels then get back up into standing position in the space of maybe 40-60 seconds…if you didn't notice, Kina's "spinning" the fans and moving her arms is my version of her doing liquids (another raver move) but instead of glowsticks, she uses fans. It works too, if you practice…a lot.

(2) "Meimei" means invisible…"Kaze" means wind…so "Meimei no Kaze" means invisible wind

(3) Kina has two tattoos (that they know of). One on each bicep. The tattoos are written in alibata, an old alphabet from the Philippines.