A/N: I don't own Naruto and every time I write that it makes me sad. I haven't written anything on this story in a while and I'm sorry, but I'm not sure people actually like it, so if you do, could you please leave a review? Thanks for your time, and I hope you enjoy this chapter.

Ichigo

I've always has mixed feelings about summer. On one hand when summer comes I get to go back to Suna, which I know is a desert, I've heard all the crap, its hot, its dry, it's a barren wasteland devoid of life, a completely terrible place that nobody in their right mind would want to go, but hey, its my home. Some people, well I guess I could actually go as far as to say most people, hate the oppressive heat and desolate landscape of Sunagakure, but not me, I love it. Can't get enough of it. I was born here, I grew up here, and it's a part of me, a really big part. While its true that the desert is a dangerous place, in my opinion it's far safer then the woods of Konoha. When you're traveling in the desert there isn't really anywhere to hide, you could dig a hole, or possibly find a cactus or rock to hide behind, if you're really lucky maybe you know an earth jutsu that will make it so you can hide beneath the endless ocean of sand, but your choices are limited, and it's very difficult to hide your tracks in the sand. So when I think about traveling in Suna I always feel a little better. When the foliage of Konoha gives way to the sand of the desert I know I'm home, and it feels great. Its pretty hard to fall into an ambush in Suna, especially if you've grown up here, and I guess it doesn't hurt that I have the byakugan (and that I'm pretty freakin great at using it). In the forests of Konoha it's a completely different story, assassins can easily find hundreds of places to hide in the limitless foliage of the fire country. I don't want anyone to think I'm a coward, I would never run from a fight, but an ambush is different, and as the son of the Sand's Kazekage, not to mention a possessor of the coveted Hyuga bloodline limit, I'm constantly a target, so I tend to get a little more worried about that kinda stuff then maybe other shinobi would.

There are other reasons I love Suna, reasons far less tactical in nature, though they are the ones I rarely share. I try to keep it tough, you know, I don't want people thinking I'm a pansy. But in all honesty, the number one reason I miss Suna when I'm not here is that my parents are here. When I'm in Konoha I miss them, a lot, far more then I'd ever let anyone know. My father is the Kazekage of Suna, which means he's the strongest shinobi in the whole village, and like really important to the people of the wind country, so he almost never gets to come to Konoha to visit, and when he does it's usually because he's there for diplomatic reasons, so he doesn't get to spend much time with me and my sisters. My mother gets to come visit a bit more frequently, she is originally from Konoha, and even though she doesn't tell my father I know she'd like to spend more time here. The problem is that when she's here she is crazy uncomfortable. My sister's and I stay in the Hyuga compound with grandfather when we're here. He's totally chill now especially since my sister and I are his favorite grandchildren, but apparently before Neji and my aunt Hanabi became the joint Hyuga rulers he was some insane kind of asshole. I think I heard Neji call him a tyrant a few times when we're training together. But anyway he used to make a lot of demands on my mother and though he doesn't anymore he still makes my mother nervous. My grandfather always insists my mother stays with us in his home, but the whole time she ridiculously tense. My mom has to be the sweetest woman in the world, it's amazing to me that she's a shinobi, let alone one amazing enough to be a member of the Bojan, I can't imagine her hurting anyone, she's very soft spoken and often shy, but when she's around my grandfather Hiashi, it gets taken to a whole new level. The man can move my mother to tears with a look and she often stutters and appears incompetent in his presence. When I see them interact I really have no idea how she managed to stand up to him all those years ago. Maybe it was because she was all the way in Suna and had all that distance between them. My sister Minori and I have this theory that it was my dad that gave her the strength to do it. Who wouldn't be confident knowing Sabaku no Gaara has their back? My dad is like incredibly strong, there are only two people who have ever beaten my dad in battle, one of them is the old Hokage of Konoha and the other only won because he chose the people of Suna over his own well being, so I feel pretty confident when I say my dad is really pretty bad ass. So anyway, Minori and I totally think its my dad that made my mother so strong, not to say that she doesn't have an inner strength that's all her own, but when going against my grandfather she needs to borrow a little sometimes. I definitely think he was at least her inspiration, my mom draws courage from those around her, she always says we're stronger together than apart, and my dad has courage to spare, he fears no one. So there you have it, the thing I miss most about Suna is my family. My sisters are in Konoha with me but we all entered the academy during different years so we didn't get the luxury of being on the same genin team like my father, Uncle Kankuro, and Aunt Temari did. While I'll admit that sometimes I'm grateful not to be on the same team as Naoko, it would have been awesome to be on a team with Minori, we get along really well and I do wish I could spend more time with her. But anyway my point is that even though they live with me in Konoha I rarely get to spend much time with either of my sisters. So being is Suna means I get to be with my family.

Most of my aunts and uncles line in Suna too, and they're really important to me too. They helped raise me, and made me who I am, so that definitely adds to the appeal of Sunagakure. Not to mention people have a lot more respect for me in Suna. Probably because everyone in my home town knows who I am and who my father really is. In Konoha they know my dad, Gaara, is the Kazekage, but they also hear all these stories about him when he was younger. When he was young, my father was the human container for the demon Shukaku, which though it made him the village's ultimate weapon, it also made him really unstable and dangerous. He killed a lot of people and was scary to be around, my uncle Kankuro once admitted, while under the influence of two bottles of Sake, that one day when they were young my dad threw him against a wall using the sand and was going to kill him with a sand coffin, my aunt Temari managed to stop him, but my uncle admitted to being so scared he crapped his pants. I almost pissed myself when I heard that, my uncle Kankuro likes everyone to think he's the coolest guy ever. My uncle Kiba calls him pompous and arrogant but his wife, my aunt Tenten, says its just confidence. But anyway, the kids in Konoha, depending on who their parents are, still think of my father as a killing machine and they have all these wacky stories that they pass around as fact. I've learned to shrug them off and I don't let them bother me anymore, which is something since when I first got to Konoha I was in fights every day, but I still don't like everyone to think those things about my father. In Suna they don't say those things, they respect my dad and the things he has done and sacrificed for them. What can I say, the sand village is home.

But like I said before, I have mixed feelings about the summer. Sure I'm home in Suna, but there are some things I miss about Konoha while I'm away. My top reason being my best friend, and a member of my squad, Hatake Ren. She lives in Konoha, obviously, and when I'm not there I miss her a lot. She's my confidant, co-conspirator, ally, and rival, she pushes me to be a better ninja and I hope I do the same for her. The days I spend in fire country are almost all spent with her. Even the ones we don't train on we usually spend together. We just get along incredibly well, we do everything together. My last birthday I turned 15, it was right around the time Minori got betrothed and everyone was in a tizzy, which is a whole nother story, so my big day kinda got overlooked by everyone but Ren. She remembered, and she really tried to do something nice for me. She had spent weeks with Yuhi Kurenai learning a genjutsu that would turn the garden in the Hyuga compound into a desert. I really commend her for this; genjutsu is definitely not one of her strengths. The problem was that she hadn't told anyone about her plan, mostly because it was supposed to be a surprise, but with the craziness surrounding my sister's engagement, the Hyuga personal guard destroyed the jutsu and had her in custody before I even got to see it. She'd told me to meet her in the garden for my surprise, and to be honest I really was surprised when I saw her standing there, surrounded by the guards, wearing shackles, with her eyes wide in shock trying not to giggle, which she does when she's nervous. I quickly sorted it out and got her out of her chains, but she was devastated that her surprise hadn't even been seen by my eyes and she didn't have enough chakra left to do it again.

A lot of people think Ren's rude and abrasive, but I don't think so. I can see how they might think it, but they just don't know her. Ren likes to tell you how it is, she'll call you on your bullshit, and she doesn't let anything slide. With Ren you always know where you stand, there's no ulterior motives and shady business. That's one of the things I admire most about her. When you're the son of the Kazekage it's hard to know who your real friends are, a lot of kids will pretend to be but it's only because they think they'll get something out of it, and with Ren that's not the case. Most of our classmates think we're dating because we spend so much time together, but there is nothing sexual between us. Our friendship is completely platonic. Even though at one time I had hoped it wouldn't be, besides being really awesome, Ren is really hot, and I thought it would be great if we could actually date. Who wouldn't want to date their smokin hot best friend? So I laid one on her when I walked her home one night, slipped her the tongue, held her cheek softly with my hand, tried to lay the romance on as thick as possible, and hoped for the best.

It wasn't a bad kiss, but it certainly didn't move mountains, and it wasn't what either of us wanted. No sparks at all, it was like kissing my sister, well what I imagine kissing my sister would be like, there's no way in hell I'd actually kiss my sister with tongue, not ever. Friends are what we are, and what we'll always be. And that's fine by me, so long as she's always part of my life. I really miss her like crazy when I'm in Suna, it's like I'm missing my right hand.

Another problem with the summer is my training. In the summer it becomes somewhat lax. When I'm in Konoha I train with my uncle Neji, the most skilled user of the byakugan in centuries. He and my aunt Hanabi are the two heads of the Hyuga clan, which means they are the two strongest Hyuga's in the whole clan, and when I train with him I just learn so much. In the summer I miss our sessions. My mother is very skilled with the byakugan and jyuuken but her style of fighting is very different from Neji's and my own. So while she can kick my ass repeatedly, fighting using her style only hinders my own. My sister Minori doesn't have the byakugan, she does have my father's exceptional control of the sand, so when we spar its pretty even, but she can't help me with my blood line limit because we're so different. My sister Naoko did luck out and get the byakugan, but to put it bluntly she sucks. If she hadn't been born with the byakugan she wouldn't have even been allowed to become a shinobi. Her control of our kekkei genkai is terrible. To be honest I have no idea how she managed to pass the chunnin exam and I'm pretty positive she'll never make it to jonin. I know I sound like a horrible older brother, but I'm not. I've spent countless hours with her trying to help her gain some kind of mastery over her abilities but I just don't think she has it in her. I don't mean that as a bad thing though, some people just weren't meant to be combat shinobi and I don't think Naoko is. Recently I've convinced her to try her hand at medical jutsu's, I figure her chakra control is good, she just has no speed, maybe she'd be better suited as a medic. She seemed excited at the possibility so I just hope I'm not the cause of any medical jutsu's gone terribly wrong, but needless to say, she's not the ideal sparring partner.

All that being said, I've been trying to decide whether or not I want to actually stay in Suna again for the summer. Technically, since I passed the jonin exam I should be going back to Suna permanently. As a sand shinobi my place is in Sunagakure however, my mother and father know of my mixed feelings and sympathize. As a result my dad used his position as Kazekage to help me out. He called up his good friend Uzumaki Naruto, former Hokage of Konoha, and asked him to speak with the current Hokage, Saratobi Konohamaru. Consequently I was offered a position as the liaison between the Suna and Konoha ninja academies. Nepotism at its finest. Trouble is, I'm not sure if I want to take it or not. My dad said it's not a big deal and I don't even have to rush my answer because the position only exists because of me. If I take it, great, but if I don't? Poof! There is no liaison. So here I am, stuck muddling it over and over again, while I relax in Suna. Just visiting my aunts and uncles, and helping Minori plan her wedding.

I did find out some good news this morning though. I had gone over to my uncle Kankuro's house for breakfast (my aunt Tenten makes the best gravy and biscuits ever), and they told me the summer retreat's coming up next week. My aunt always knows earlier then everyone else around here since she's the one who has to make the prize, but to her credit she never spills the beans until she's supposed to. Now I already knew the when the retreat was, but I had so much shit on my mind that I had completely forgotten. I've been so obsessed with this liaison thing, rightly so, seeing as how it's the biggest life decision I've had to make on my own since I was born, staying in Suna to be a shinobi has been my dream since I was old enough to know what a shinobi is, but doing that also means I probably won't see Konoha or Ren again for years, so yeah, it's a big deal.

The summer retreat is perhaps the best thing that happens in the summer, and you know what, it may actually be my favorite retreat of them all. Summer retreats are always so much more fun. Seeing as how the competitions in the summer are always more reliant on our skills as ninja. In the winter we're usually inside and you can't really be using jutsu's indoors, they tend to frown on the breaking of furniture and destruction of walls and ceilings when you're staying in a resort, the summer is different, then we're outside, and we can totally let loose. I revel in it. This year the retreat is being held in Kirigakure, the village hidden in the mist, and apparently it's going to be altogether different then it's been in the past. We usually do these smaller mini games, kind of like mini missions, that are all part of a larger competition that lasts the whole two weeks we're away. Generally each of our parents is responsible for organizing a game and the overall winning team's members each get a set of shuriken carved with their name and team name, made by the greatest weapons master in the five lands, my aunt Tenten. However, this year it's going to be different. Apparently Kumo's Raikage and Kiri's Mizukage have set up the whole thing, so nobody has any clue what the challenges are, which means nobody can have an advantage going into a mission, and its gonna be sick man. I so can't wait.

Usually I'm excited for the retreat, but this time I'm freakin inspired man. I was quick as hell on the uptake this year and managed to get the best team I've ever had. Ordinarily I get a pretty good team, well not counting last year when I somehow managed to get stuck on a team with my pretty much useless sister Naoko, Choji's seven year old daughter, Momo, who could barely throw a shuriken, and my mother, Sabaku no Hinata. Don't get the wrong idea, I don't think its bad to have my mom on my team, she's an amazing konoichi but because of my other two teammates she became way too overprotective. There was no way we could have won last year because my mom didn't even let us compete in half the games. Our team name was the Cowardly Ghosts, because we disappeared for all the dangerous missions and several times my sister and Momo burst into tears to get out of participating in the missions my mother had actually let us get involved in. That team was the reason that this year I mobilized. Back when I found out about the retreat about a month ago, I got on it and managed to assemble my most kick ass team to date.

First off, there's me, not to sound conceited but I'm pretty fuckin good. I graduated number one in my class, and behind Neji, my aunt Hanabi, and my mother, nobody can match my skill with the byakugan. Then there's Ren of course, not only does she have crazy speed and incredible senses of smell and hearing, but her dad recently finished teaching her his chidori, which legend has it he once used to cut through a bold of lightning, tell me that that's not the most awesome thing ever. Even better than all that is the fact that her mother contracted her to summon snakes. Her parents had some crazy big fight about it too, her dad, Kakashi, wanted her to have his summons, which is dogs, but Anko wasn't having it. I give Kakashi props for even starting an argument with her, that woman is scary, but to stop the argument Anko asked Ren which contract she wanted to sign, and when she answered "snakes" her mom summoned the contract right then and there before Kakashi could get her to change her mind. So now that Ren mastered her chakra she summons these huge bad ass snakes. So the team is me and Ren, then we both asked our dads to be on our team, and of course they said yes, and now we're teamed up with the "Copy Ninja" of Konoha and the Kazekage of Suna. As far as I'm concerned we're unbeatable, but truth be told I have no idea who is on any of the other teams. Even so, I'm totally psyched.

I came up with the team name all by myself. I'm saying that now because nobody else on the team likes it, not even a little. As a matter of fact they all hate it. I figure since my dad used to be a demon container and Ren's summons is the most evil of all the summoning animals, and both Kakashi and I have kekkei genkai that manifest in the eyes, we should call ourselves "Evil has Eyes." Nobody else thought so, but nobody likes to argue, so I won and that's our name.

Now all I can do is wait for this week to pass, so in addition to training my ass off, I'm helping Minori plan for her wedding, which is in about two months. Minori is only 16 years old, so you might be wondering why she's getting married. Well I'll tell you, it's actually a pretty funny story, well I guess that's subjective depending on who you're talking to. Well about three months ago my dad chose to add a new wing on to the Sunagakure museum. Up until then the museum was lousy, filled with different textures of sand, various cacti, and stuffed versions of desert wildlife; it could seriously bore you to tears. When you undoubtedly got stuck attending a school trip to the shit hole, because though our museum is shitty the Konoha elders concluded that it was still better then Konoha's non-existing one, you would want to gouge out your eyes rather then look at another slightly less course selection of sandpaper. My dad, in his infinite wisdom, decided that since the non-shinobi villagers are all infatuated with ninja's he could get them to come to the museum by adding a wing dedicated to the greatest shinobi in the five lands. In the most prominent display in the new wing he put an exhibit of

Chiyo-baa-sama, the shinobi who gave her life to save him, reluctantly he also included his own father and even Sasori of the Red Sand, reasoning that people should be aware of what dangers powerful ninja can be. From Konoha he had exhibits crafted for the Yellow Flash, their third hokage, Saratobi Azuma, and the White Fang, among others.

As it happens, Konoha's White Fang is Hatake Kakashi's father, also Ren's grandfather, and they of course were invited to Suna for the opening ceremony. So Hatake Anko, Kakashi, Obito, and Ren all took the long trip to be here for the ribbon cutting ceremony. I thought it was great, finally the museum would be worth attending and I got to hang out with Ren for a whole week in my home town. I wasn't the only one who thought it was great though. Unbeknownst to everyone but their closest friends (apparently my being her brother kept me out of the circle), Minori had started dating Ren's brother Obito, and she was really excited to introduce him to our parents. She arranged for our family's to have dinner together and while making introductions at the beginning of the meal she said to my father, "Dad, this is my boyfriend Obito." Shocking everyone at the table, except herself and of course Obito. Things went amazingly well, which is a feat for our family; we are talking about a family plagued with calamity after all. For example, two years ago on the Day of Remembrance my father invited the entire Suna council and their families to have dinner with us. We all sit down, my whole family, including aunts, uncles, and cousins, and the eight council members who actually showed up, and my father takes a knife to carve the turkey. Well, the second the knife pierces the crispy skin the whole turkey blows the fuck up. Luckily my dad managed to protect everyone with his sand shield, but the council was pretty shaken up. Apparently, my weird mad scientist cousin, Seiji, had been feeding all the poultry in the family's hen house doses of C4 in their food, hoping they would lay eggs we could use as bombs. He hadn't thought it would have any effect on the turkeys themselves, which was obviously a huge oversight. So, considering the ridiculousness that seems to follow us, Obito's introduction to the family had gone exceptionally well.

Later in the evening we all went to the ribbon cutting ceremony for the Shinobi wing. The turnout was amazing, my dad was happy, even cracking a smile, and it had been a great day. Unfortunately it wasn't going to continue. We had just gotten to the last big exhibit of the night, Konoha's White Fang. Ren was really excited, she knew her dad was really happy about the exhibit; he'd had some mixed emotions about his father when he was younger, and his inclusion in the museum as a hero of Konoha had made him really proud of his dad. This was a big event for their family, but when the doors opened and the spot lighting went on, the White Fang wasn't the only Hatake on display. Though he was the only one wearing any pants. Flashbulbs popped and video cameras recorded for posterity, the scene of my sister Minori bent over getting railed from behind by the White Fang's youngest male descendant. My sister screamed, my mother feinted, and suddenly everyone who wasn't family was pushed from the building by a wave of sand. And I'll tell you, this is why my soon to be brother-in-law is fucking awesome, the dude didn't even break stride. He didn't miss a stroke, through the whole thing he kept his pace steady, his hands firmly planted on my sister's hips he continued thrusting and actually blew his load while we were all standing there watching. Later he told me that he figured everyone had already seen and he couldn't suddenly erase what we saw by stopping, and since he was already so close he might as well get off. In addition, he figured if my dad was going to kill him he wanted to go out feeling good. The man is a genius. In my opinion, my sister couldn't be marrying a cooler guy. So anyway, immediately after my sister put her panties back on, my parents and the Hatake's drafted the wedding contract and announced it to the press in an attempt to spin the news that was about to be in every paper and on every television in the five lands in as positive of a light as possible. I don't know how well it worked, but it made our parent's feel a little less embarrassed by it. So now I've got the retreat and a wedding to look forward to.

Not to be self centered, but back to the task at hand. I think I'm going to take the position in Konoha, well at least for a year or two. That way I'll be able to travel more frequently back and forth from Suna and Konoha, and I'll still be able to visit the Hidden Leaf village. There are just too many people there that I'm not willing to give up yet. And with my sister getting married she'll be moving there in two months on a permanent basis. I couldn't deal with not seeing her for years, it would break my heart. So for the time being this liaison thing is a pretty good deal.