Note: Not to brag but I really liked the falcon- it took me a while to decided how she looked and what her name would be but then I was watching Heldogo (I'm not sure if thats spelled right) then it all hit me. I have a really cute part planned for this story just a heads up, but its in chapters fifteen through twenty. And also if you already haven't read my other Naruto story, A Sapphire's Dream, then you should.

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto nor do I own the Naruto story line.

Chapter Thirteen:

Here in this Darkened Hell

How is it that as humans we realize our true feelings until it is too late to do anything about it?

Its not fair.

Even if we finally do realize how we feel towards someone- the fact of the matter is it doesn't seem to really matter, because once we have figured out our feelings they slowly fade because to us they are no longer a mystery anymore.

To us we know how we feel and it doesn't seem that big of a deal so we want newer, more mysterious things.

We, or more of I, feel guilty because of this and feel loyal to the thing we, or I, have lost interest in and therefore hide all other feelings so we can contuine our false existance.

I didn't realize what was going to happen when we would start to travel with him.

I didn't realize that slowly I would fall in love with someone who I thought to be an enemy of my self and my friends.

Irony.

Thats the thing about it.

The person I saw as my friend and possibly more, when I was a child, later turned out to be a traitor and an enemy, and to counter that the person, as a child, I thought to be my enemy would later turn out to be my friend and possibly more.

Irony is a complicated thing full of spider-like twist and turns, making us believe one thing then turning around to prove otherwise.

It doesn't make any sense.

But then I guess thats life.

As I was saying, I gasped because once again he was the last person I expected to see and once again he had saved me, well his bird saved me.

Gaara stood holding the falcon as it nuzzled his cheek with a tenderness that you usually don't see from birds; he looked from me to Naruto to Kakashi then back to me again as if summing up the situation we were in.

"Need help?" he inquired of me as I rose to my feet in shock.

He didn't wait for a reply but instead used his sand to sling the two ninjas who had cornered Naruto away from him; his crimson hair blew gently in the air and his eyes were focused on our enemy. Reaching out his hand, he made his sand fly forward finishing off the now blind ninja in one full swoop, crushing his bones with the sand.

"That was a mistake," one of our yellowed eye enemies hissed showing his equally yellow fangs, "Now you're gonna die!"

The beast flew at Gaara only to be sent backwards by the force of his sand shield, I turned around looking for Naruto to find that he had already taken out the other ninja he was fighting.

Kakashi- Sensei appeared in the space that was between Naruto and me with blood on his clothes and smeared into his ivory locks; he signaled for me and Naruto to come to him as Gaara and his falcon toyed mercilessly with the last ninja.

"What is it sensei?" I asked him wiping the sweat off my forehead with my arm.

"I need to go back to the village," he responded to question with a deep serious underlining his voice.

"But why?" Naruto wandered, his face had a long cut on it that I assumed was from where the ninja had injured him.

"The leader of this pack escaped from me, but before he did I managed to get this from him," he held up a scroll wrapped in blue silk.

"What is it?" I inquired taking the scroll from him.

"I tried to open it but it has some kind of Jutshu on it so that I can't see whats written- I need to get it to the hokage as soon as possible," he took the scroll from me and pointed to a seal on it with the image of two serpents entangled together in a futile battle, "See this?"

We nodded our heads to show that we did, "Its Orochimaru's symbol- whatever is in this scroll he didn't want anyone to read it but himself."

"So you're saying that it could have information about his plans for Konoha?" I asked trying to memorize the snakes as best I could for future refences.

"Possibly," he replied tucking it into his vest pocket.

"What about Sasuke?" Naruto demanded.

"Look Naruto I want to save Sasuke just as bad as you but the truth is the village comes first," then he added more gently, "You and Sakura go ahead and I'll catch up as soon as I can."

We nodded our heads again just as he vanished in a cloud of smoke which was his usual trade mark.

"Now what?" I asked as I turned around to see that Gaara had finally killed the ninja he had been toying with for so long.

"We move on," my blonde companion informed me.

We both stared at the rogue in front of us for a few more seconds, watching him as he turned around to leave; then an idea struck my partners head, I know this because he yelled after the dessert born boy, "Hey Gaara why don't you join our team?"

The sand controller stopped in his tracks, and turned to face us his face clearly filled with doubt.

He must have given up on our newly formed friendship the night his siblings had been murdered.

Naruto walked up to him and prodded, "What do you say?"