AN: Hey, Thanks to kunoichiqueen and princessSiyaka for adding my story to your faves!!
And to Amanda- Thank you so much! Just wait till I get to the mini plots, you'll probably die with laughter. ^.^
Also, sorry it's been a couple days. It's been crazy with moving into college and whatnot. I haven't really been able to get on the internet until recently, so yeah. ^.^o
Disclaimer: Yet again, I state that I do not own Naruto or its characters/ scenery. I do not profit from this at all except for the joy of seeing how well liked this story is!
Chapter Five: Chuunin Exam Finals
Today was the day everyone had to go to the arena for the Chuunin Exam Finals. Gaara went to sit with Tsunade up in the reserved seats for the Kages. The five girls sat in the stands near Sakura and Ino, who they had met around Konoha during this last month. Temari and Kankuro sat behind them. Shikamaru sat next to Temari, directly behind Roxanne. Naruto sat in front of the Subakus and next to Roxanne. The excitement was heavy in the air and cheers could be heard throughout the stadium as the final contestants made their entrance. Konohamaru was among them, as well as his two friends.
When they finished waving to the crowd, the group of eight teenagers left the scene to a room in the circular wall that surrounded the arena. Two teenagers stayed behind and stood in opposite centers of the arena. They were both waiting in fighter stances. Then the ninja who always seemed tired yelled, "Fight!"
And the match began. Magnificent punches were thrown and incredible kicks were landed by both parties. But throughout the fight, there were small tremors felt though the ground. Everyone else dismissed it as just sound waves of the fight. But the girls worried about their dragons fighting in the forest, and hoping that no one would catch on to their secret. Especially when they could hear the faint roars, which were growing steadily closer. The girls looked to each other, worried looks on their faces, Soon the fight was over and the next bout was to begin.
"Fight!" the tired ninja called as soon as the two genin got ready. They were about to launch at each other when a huge part of the wall collapsed. All that was seen was a huge ball of purple, silver, red, and black. Loud roars were heard. Quickly, the five girls flew out of the stands towards the dueling dragons, Roxanne and Cordi running the fastest. They slid down the ladder that led to the fighting stage and ran to the cloud of dust surrounding the thrashing dragons in the center of the arena. They did not notice that the entire crowd had grown quiet with surprise and fear.
"ALEERA!! STOP!!" Cordi yelled, as she ran across the dirt and grass of the fighting grounds, Roxanne close behind her yelling something similar to Gryffin.
The two dragons the size of houses looked up, realized where they were, and quickly jumped off each other. Gaara and Tsunade stood in the Kage box, absolutely speechless. Temari and Kankuro, along with Shikimaru, Naruto, and the rest of the gang, were beyond speechless. They all had a screwed up expressions in complete confusion and utter brain-blockage. Roxanne and Cordi did not notice this however, as they were too busy scolding their dragons.
"What the HELL is going on?!" Roxanne yelled at the dragons.
Aleera donned a pouting face and pointed an accusing claw at Gryffin and said, "He started it!"
"Oh, Yeah Ri-ight! I did not!" Gryffin yelled back.
"Did too!"
"Did not!"
"Did too!"
"Did NOT!"
"DID TOO!"
"SHUT IT BOTH OF YOU!!! Or so help me God, we will literally ground for a month! No flying, no running, zip!" Cordi yelled, her face crazed. Both dragons gulped and bowed their heads.
"Yes, ma'am," they each said in somber voices. This confused the crowds even more. Here were two humans treating two dragons, who could easily eat them, as if they were six-year olds misbehaving in the cereal aisle.
"Now, what happened," Cordi asked in a stern but calm voice. "One at a time!" She exclaimed as the two dragons opened their massive maws at precisely the same moment. They glared at each other until Gryffin shut his mouth and huffed angrily, blowing dust around.
"Well, I was taking my bath when Mr. Everything-is-My-way-or-the-Highway walked up and said he wanted to drink and I had to leave," Aleera stated. Gryffin rolled his eyes and clenched his jaw. "I told him I was there first, so finders keepers, losers weepers and that he'd either have to wait 'till I was done, or he could go over to the creek a hundred or so yards away like Saryu was doing and join him."
Suddenly Gryffin started laughing and said, "Hold on a minute. She had been in that pond all day." He turned to Aleera and yelled, "ALL DAY! And I'm sorry, but I wasn't just thinking for myself. What if Nessie had another asthma attack and needed to be in the water. She is the only one of us who has a reason for staying in water THAT LONG," he emphasized. "You? You were just preening! You could have done that ANYWHERE in the forest. But no-o, you have to preen in the water supply just so you can waste our time! And besides, I had been telling you to get out of the pond before you get pruny for at least two hours!"
"Well, I'm sorry that smelling good is a high priority to me, unlike you who smells like the rotting deer you had for breakfast," Aleera snapped. "Anyway, after our discussion, putting it nicely, he tried to DRAG me out. So then I obviously fought back. You know, you could have just asked nicely, Gryffin."
"I DID ASK NICELY," he growled, "FORTY-EIGHT TIMES BEFORE THE ARGUMENT! TRUST ME, I COUNTED!"
"You did not. Telling me that if I stay in the pond any longer I will come out uglier than I was before, is not a nice way of asking me to get out!" Aleera accused.
"I thought using the truth was always nice," Gryffin smirked.
Aleera howled in anger and launched at him. Cordi and Rox couldn't believe it. This was all over a bathroom dispute? Everyone has those arguments. Teen girl is in the shower for too long, and brother has to brush his teeth or pee. Brother begs for sister to get out, or at least unlock the door. Sister denies until explosion, and sister blames it on brother. [AN: I'm sure you readers have too. It is a common tradition passed down through the human race.]
"Stop!" Roxanne ordered. Both dragons stopped their fight. "So you two, in complete knowledge of what you were doing, saw fit to blow our cover, not just mine, Cordi's, Ronni's, Fred's, and Lynne's cover, but yours as well, over a BATHING DISPUTE?!?!?!" Roxanne was livid. As was Cordi, but she was past the point of words. Her facial expression had turned from pure nastiness to something beyond that. Her lips were pursed into a thin line, her jaw clenched and teeth grinding, her eyebrows so furrowed they met at the bridge of her nose, and her fist balled so tightly her knuckles were the whitest any kind of skin could get.
"Sorry," Aleera and Gryffin muttered, shuffled their clawed feet across the ground, creating massive scratches through it.
"You know what? Just for that, you both are grounded until further notice," Roxanne growled, eyes narrowed.
"Please, no!" they begged. "Anything, but grounding! We don't want to be tied to a tree and a weight! Cordelia, can't you do something?" They had thrown themselves to the ground and rolling around like a child having a tantrum, not wanting to be put in time out. Cordelia looked at the two with utter disdain.
"Well, you should have thought of that before," Cordi replied. "I agree completely with her punishment." The dragons frowned at this bit of news and stood up, heads hanging and sniffling. "Do you have any last words before we send you back?"
"I do," Aleera said, stepping forward, looking at Gryffin. "Just for the record, dragons don't get pruny, so there!" She stuck out her tongue at her victory.
Gryffin's eyes narrowed. "Stick your tongue out again, I dare you."
And she did, and he swiped, but she dodged by taking to flight and laughing victoriously. "It's still all your fault!"
"Why does she always have to have the last word?" he growled as he jumped up after her.
"WE'RE COMING BY LATER TO CHECK THAT YOU'RE STATIONARY!!!" Roxanne called after the retreating dragons, who roared back their understanding, then she put the heel of her palm on her forehead. Cordi closed her eyes, obviously trying to calm herself. They looked around the stadium to see everyone was staring at them confused, except for the other girls of the five who were all biting their tongues and pursing their lips. "Have they been staring the whole time?" Rox asked the others, who nodded.
Suddenly, everyone heard Tsunade yell to the audience, "I'm calling for a brief recess for the Chuunin Exams."
The tired ninja nodded and told the genin who stood flat against the wall in shock to go back to the fighter's lounge and to shake it off because their battle would start as soon as the recess was over. The two genin, who looked as if they were about to keel over due to heart failure, slid along the wall towards the stairs, watching the sky cautiously.
"You five come with me," Tsunade called down to them. She looked very agitated, which gave the five girls a foreboding feeling. She then looked to Gaara, and he nodded a reply. He would want to hear this.
Tsunade walked over to her chair and sat down roughly. She placed her elbows on her desk as she steepled her hands, trying to focus through her confusion. Gaara stood beside her, arms crossed, and a calculating look across his face. Both of them wanted answers, and they wanted them now.
"Please," Tsunade offered pointing to a sofa. The group of girls looked kind of scared, but they took her offer and crammed themselves on the two-seater. Cordi and Fred were stuck on the arm-rests. "Now, do you mind explaining what happened?"
"Well, didn't you hear them when they explained why they were fighting?" Ronni asked hopefully. Fred sighed at the air-headedness of her younger sister.
"Yes, but I don't believe that's what she meant," Gaara stated. Tsunade and Gaara both kept a stern face towards the girls.
"Yeah, well, I guess we were just hoping you didn't mean what you meant even though we knew you meant what you mean if that is what you mean at all and I … or we really hoped it wasn't," Lynne mumbled. Tsunade and Gaara gave her a slightly perturbed look, but shrugged it off. Then they turned their hard stares on the rest of the group.
"Well, this is what happened," Roxanne started, shifting in her seat, and completely ignoring what Lynne had just said so beautifully. "The day after we got here, we went to a local field and just hung out for a little while. During this time, what seemed to be stones came falling out of the sky hurtling towards us. So obviously we got out of the way. When we tried to pick them up, they started cracking and out popped five dragons. You saw two of them today. Mine was the purple one; his name is Gryffin. And the other's was…"
"Mine. Her name is Aleera," Cordi replied. Gaara and Tsunade nodded at this, and gestured for them to continue.
"Well, anyway," Roxanne continued, "None of us could believe our eyes, so obviously we had to touch to believe, and then we were knocked out for a couple hours. Apparently our dragons had to awaken our sleeping powers, which is another story completely. Anyway, after we woke up, we discussed what happened and what we were going to do about it, because the dragons obviously didn't leave. That's when we decided it was best to keep this a secret. And we had kept the secret hidden well for a month. Those dragons grow really quick, so you can imagine the difficulty," she nervously laughed.
"Why did you keep it a secret?" Tsunade asked.
"Well, I guess, we thought you would think we were crazy," Lynne suggested, and Tsunade had to fight a nod.
"Also, we figured you'd send them away. They need us," Ronni begged turning on her puppy dog eyes, even though they weren't necessarily needed in this situation.
"Why would they need you?" Gaara asked skeptically.
"Have you heard of Imprinting?" Fred asked. "It's very popular among birds. The first being they see becomes their mother. They will follow that being until they are finished growing and have the will to live on their own without their mothers telling them what to do and how to do it. Apparently, dragons are similar. They told us that they were searching for maternal beings, females, with the strength of at least a dragon since the end of the Dinosaur Age. They are the last of their race, so they had to find a new race for mothers. They chose us. But once they grow up, they become our partners and if needed our guardians."
Gaara couldn't really wrap his head around this. These four girls younger than him were chosen by a species dead since the end of the Jurassic Period, or whenever it was, to be their mothers?
"We need them, too," Cordi stated. The kages' brows shot up. "They are the only ones who are able to teach us about our new powers. We've been teaching them how to be civilized, and they've been training us so that we can use our powers the way they were meant to be used," Cordi explained.
"Well it sounds like a fair trade," Tsunade stated. "Now rewind, what about these 'sleeping powers'?"
"Well each of us has a power specific to each element. Like spirit, which is my power. It allows me to hear thoughts but Saryu – my dragon – has helped me to block other peoples' thoughts and it's really tough mind you, keeping my mental barriers up, kind of like keeping the water out of New Orleans when a hurricane comes and that's not easy considering that the dykes don't hold their own against the ferocious water……." Lynne kept going, talking down a path no one could follow and speaking too quickly for anyone to catch specific words or ideas.
"What she's trying to say is," Roxanne interrupted Lynne's rambling, much to the relief of the Kages, who had no chance of understanding the eccentric girl, "that the five of us are something akin to elementals. I possess the power of wind and Lynne already said she was Spirit."
"I control earth and Ronni controls water." Fred pointed to herself first then to Ronni, who looked like she was daydreaming out the window and not paying attention to the current debacle.
"I'm fire, as Gaara probably assumed after I accidently set the kitchen on fire." Cordi smiled sheepishly.
"Wait, that was the night after you all arrived here, wasn't it?" He asked, and the five girls nodded. "So when you heard Kankuro's thoughts, that was your power that your dragon awakened?" He inquired of Lynne
"Yes! Didn't I say that?" Lynne asked. Four of the girls giggled quietly, knowing their friend only became this incoherent when she was nervous.
"You're leaving for Sunagakure in the morning, correct?" Tsunade asked of Gaara, who nodded slightly. "Will they be fine with splitting up tomorrow?"
"Yeah, we already discussed it with them," Ronni stated, sadly.
"Well then it's settled," Tsunade clapped, "Tomorrow Gaara will take Cordi and Aleera on their journey to Sunagakure, and the other four will stay here."
"I'm not sure that's a fair trade. I think Suna should have at least two," Gaara stated for obvious political reasons.
"Be happy I'm giving you one pair. Everyone else is already considered Konoha citizens. I can't exactly force them to move," Tsunade explained.
Gaara, upset he didn't get what he wanted, frowned and nodded. "It's still unfair in the power balance," he mumbled. But he left without much ado. Tsunade dismissed the group of girls after getting guarantees that she would be able to meet the other dragons and test the girls on their powers.
The Chuunin exams resumed and then ended by their scheduled time after the recess. The local feudal lords had to find a place to stay that night, which was easy, because any hotel would allow them in. The next day, the Subakus stood at the gate with Cordi and Aleera. Temari wore her normal red and black kimono. Kankuro wore his normal black with purple face paint. Gaara wore his blue and white Kazekage robes and hat, with his gourd tied onto the carriage. Cordi wore her normal flared jeans, a gray tank top, and white sneakers.
Cordi had tied all of her bags onto Aleera's back, except for the more fragile stuff like her computer and iHome which was on the carriage, so she didn't have to carry them the entire way. Gaara gave a skeptical look towards Cordi and her dragon. He couldn't believe what had happened. He was about to climb into his carriage when she had landed next to him.
Temari and Kankuro were both gawking at Aleera and Cordi. "So, th-this is your dragon?" Temari spluttered.
Cordi and Aleera nodded their reply.
"Un-freaking-believable," Kankuro muttered. "A dragon chose someone from another world to raise it. Makes no sense."
They were about ready to start their walk, when Cordi asked, "This is a three day walk, right?"
They looked at her as if to say, "Duh."
"Right, well are we walking, or running a bit?" Cordi asked.
"Walking the entire way," Temari growled a little.
"Cordi, you may ride on my back," Aleera offered, leaning down a bit. Cordi didn't want to insult either party.
"You know, it may be easier if I ride Aleera. I am rather slow," Cordi grimaced. Temari and Kankuro rolled their eyes. Gaara didn't pay attention. Aleera nodded and leant down so Cordi could climb up. She offered her paw so Cordi could step onto it, and lifted it towards where her neck met her shoulders. Cordi straddled her legs over Aleera's neck in between two spikes, and grabbed hold of one of the spikes along her spine. Her scales were soft and small, like a dinosaur's scales. The seat was comfortable, which was surprising.
She quickly plugged up her iPod and set it on the playlist she wanted to listen to. "Are we ready?" Temari asked.
"WAIT!!!!" A voice from across the front square echoed and four figures separated from the buildings, and four dragons flew in from the Forest of the Dead. Cordi jumped off of her dragon as Roxanne stopped in front of her, panting slightly. "You can't just leave without saying goodbye!" She scolded, then pulled her sister into a tight hug. "Stay safe, ok?"
Cordi smiled and pulled away. "Of course, you don't have to worry about me."
Lynne and Ronni hugged Cordi bye while Fred laughed at the statement. "You still don't have total control of your element, and knowing you, you'd set the house on fire!" She joined the hug, even though Cordi huffed indignantly. Cherokee and Saryu laughed as well and nodded in agreement.
"And don't you have any of your 'preening' sessions and waste the Kazekage's time." Cherokee chimed in, her voice rumbling with her laughter. Gryffin snorted at the comment.
"Yeah, I'd say I'd miss you…" he started.
"But you'd probably be lying." Aleera finished and rolled her large eyes.
"You know, this goodbye isn't forever." Temari sighed in agitation, obviously anxious to get going with their journey. Cordi nodded and let go of her sister and friends.
"I'll see you guys soon." She said, and with that climbed on Aleera's neck and nodded to the Subakus that she was ready to go.
Gaara and his siblings started their walk. Aleera waited a little while, letting everyone else get a little ahead. "Aleera, what are you doing?" Cordi asked.
"She probably forgot how to fly." Saryu muttered in an annoyed tone, causing Gryffin, Cherokee, and Nessie to burst into riotous laughter. The Subakus turned around to see what was going on.
Suddenly Aleera spread her wings, and with a triumphant roar, jumped up into the sky at an incredible speed. Cordi was obviously screaming. Aleera just laughed.
"Jeez, Cordi, cool down, I know what I'm doing," Aleera laughed.
"I need to get a dragon," Kankuro whispered. Temari nodded in a disbelieving agreement.
Cordi took deep breaths to calm her heart rate. "Warn me next time, you could have given me a heart attack!" Cordi scolded.
"Sorry. You ready to go? There are some tricks I've been dying to show you!" Aleera stated.
"I have a feeling I'm going to regret this, but sure," Cordi replied. Aleera smiled.
"ALRIGHT!" She exclaimed. Then she corkscrewed forward, earning another scream from Cordi, which turned into a rich laughter.
"I really need to get a dragon," Kankuro whispered. Temari laughed. Gaara just grimaced in what seemed to be disgust.
AN: And with that, is the end of the chapter. Please review, and I will try and update sooner! And remember, check out GrimSpeck18 and princessSiyaka. They have awesome stories!