Kaji

For once everything in my life seemed at peace. Everything was falling in place. I had a big brother figure, that's younger than me, but who really cares about age, I have friends, as new as they are, still good ones, and I have a team mate, even though just a temporary one, that I get along with and seems to have around the same problem as me... maybe we could work through it together, but that was likely wishful thinking, seeing as not many people have gone through what I have and lived to tell the tale. After a while of just enjoying the moment I realize that Gaara is staring at me strangely. Confused I tilt my head to the side, giving him the same look that I gave him when I asked for his name all those years ago. He seems to remember because his eyes look off into the distance for a bit, but after go right back to staring at me strangely. I realize why a bit later when I realize I'm still in Sai's arms, it seems he didn't realize that small detail either because he was more focused on thin air. Well at first I thought it was thin air... until I let my senses out to take in my surroundings. Two Chunin level shinobi were heading our way... Fast and in the shadows. Suddenly out of no were two people join the group, they just appear. Both are standing on either side of Saiyo. To Saiyo's left is one of the shortest Chunin I've ever seen, she stands about 4' 6" with her long blond hair hanging loose to about her butt, the only thing in it being her Konoha head band which is placed between her bangs and the rest of her hair. Her reddish purple eyes are happy and she has a grin spread across her face. She seems almost child-like with that expression and the fact that her clothing looks like it should be a chunin's but has a childish feel to it. The Chunin to Saiyo's right is a lot taller than the other. She stands at about the same hight as Sai. Her light brown hair is pulled back into pony tails away from her face. Her expression is a lot like the other's except that her grin is more mature. She's wearing green clothing, that looked oddly familiar, but I couldn't put my finger on it just yet. As I think it over Sakura's pink hair flashes in the corner of my eye. That's right! Now I remember were I saw them before! They were just like Sakura's old uniform, except green and instead of black shorts she had tan capris and well her Konoha head band is around her neck rather than on her head. As the two appear beside her Saiyo gets an evil grin on her face and she looks at me. Oh no... I knew that girl wasn't innocent...I'm doomed... The grin then turns back into a smile as she announces

"It seems they got my letter! Konichi wa Chu-chan and Rylee-chan!"

Her attention directs itself back on me and Sai, who seem to be the only ones that don't know these people.

"guys these are my team mates! Chu"

She points to the shorter then points to the taller

"and Rylee! They'll be helping us today when we prepare for the festival!"

Suddenly it dawns on me, and there was no way out of it... I would have to dress up... and that means... Kimonos... I start to collapse again as I think about this and would have completely fallen over if it wasn't for Sai still holding on to me

"oh don't look like that kitty-chan! It's not the end of the world!"

She continues to grin at me as I stare at her in horror. Then out of no were she looks at Chu and Rylee then nods, as she does this the two jump me and Sai and start dragging us off. I was too shocked to react, this had never happened to me before and it had immobilized my muscles. As this is happening Saiyo looks over to the mildly shocked Gaara and says "now Gaara-chan if you don't mind we'll be taking these two to get ready, your welcome to come but seeing as the Hokage did say she wanted you to come back in a half hour and you have... oh... five minutes left before that time is up... I'm guessing you have more important things to do. So with that I'll say good bye and see you later" She smiles again and runs after us without another word.

For the next fifteen minutes everything is kicked into hyper drive as Saiyo, Chu, and Rylee pull us in an out of stores. When it's all done I'm standing on shaky feet with Sai who's in a similar state in the middle of the road as the others pull things out of bags holding them up in the air seeing what they look like compared to other things. After that we're pulled back into a store and forced into the closest changing rooms, with a bag each. After a bit I wobble out of mine changed into what they had put into the bag. I had on a black kimono with green accent stitching with a pair of those traditional sandals on my feet. Sai then stumbles out of his change room his clothing a mess. Saiyo frowns then gestures towards him. At her signal Rylee goes up to him and straightens his clothes up. Once he's all done I realize that we're dressed up in matching colors, though his has a little less green and the design is defiantly not the same. We continue to stand there as they look us over. Then without warning we're pulled out of the shop and into a new shop. This one does hair, luckily since my hair's short there is not much they can do with it so they pretty much just brush it out and put a clip in to keep my bangs out of my eyes. With Sai they just straighten it out. After that's all done we're pulled out of the shop, this time a bit more carefully then marched down the street toward the town center. This was way out of my norm and I was so overwhelmed that I didn't even realize that Saiyo, Chu, and Rylee had left me and Sai at a bar with a bottle of sake. When I finally take in my surroundings I look over to the still mildly dazed Sai. He has a spaced out look across his face that makes me almost start laughing. I decide not to laugh though and take in my surroundings. That's when I noticed the bottle of Sake, living most of my life away from these kinds of things the smell of it make me curious to what it tastes like. The guy behind the bar must have guessed I was confused because he walked over and said

" Your friends said they were going to go find some other friends and told me to tell you to relax and the Sake's on them."

I nod not really knowing what to do, but then my curiosity takes over. I pick up the bottle and take a small sip to taste it. It pleasantly burns my throat as it goes down, and tastes strange but good. I grin evilly as an idea hits me.

"you said my friend said the Sake was on her right?"

The man nods. My grin widens, then I chug down the bottle, bringing it down to the counter with an empty thud.

"then keep it coming"

The guy looks at me surprised and says as he brings another bottle up

" Wow you can really drink that stuff... don't you think you should drink that a bit slower though?"

I give him a blank stare for a second then reply dryly

" Tell me that when you've lived a large portion of your life in dessert, maybe then I'll take your advice. But anyway don't worry about it, I've got an iron stomach."

I pat my stomach as I finish my sentence then proceed to chug the bottle he brought. He gives me a bland look as he brings another bottle up and says under his breath

" I wasn't worrying about your stomach as much as what will happen if you get drunk with only that dazed guy to protect you."

I surprise him by replying to his comment

" Three things. One I'm an ANBU level shinobi from Suna and take care of myself no matter what condition I'm in. Two if you haven't noticed I'm part cat"

I point to my ears as I chug another bottle

" with that comes excellent hearing. And three I'm already finished my third bottle, do I sound or look drunk to you?"

He looks concerned

" No you don't."

He sighs

" Fine have it your way. I have other customers to attend to so I'll leave you with a couple of bottles "

he puts about five in front of me

" one question though. Are all Suna women this stubborn? I ran into this Temari girl a long while ago and tried to help her with something but she refused my help."

I smirk as I picture that happening then reply

" No, it just runs in the family and comes with being related to the Kazekage. Now go serve your customers."

He seems confused as he walks away, and I continue to smirk as I down another bottle. Sai still seemed a little spaced out so I put a bottle in front of him, so he'd have something to drink when he snapped out of it. I guess he got more of a shock out of that shopping spree thing... or he was just slower at recovering. Just as I was about to bring my attention back to my Sake a man, pathetically already drunk stumbles up to me. He reeks of alcohol and looks even worse. I openly cringe as he heavily sits in the seat beside me and manages to slur out

"Hey babe hick you set my pants aflame with desire."

he then grins at me and starts to continue his vocal assault, but I cut him short by adapting my emotionless expression and saying in a cold voice

"If you don't put that fire out soon it'll be your whole body that's aflame, and it won't be with desire"

I finish of with an ice cold glare. I may not be very experienced with this sort of thing but I knew when someone was trying to get in my pants... or rather up my kimono... damn I miss my pants... The guy makes a confused face, but then decides to continue anyways, trying to put his hand on my thigh. Not liking were this was going my eyes flash for a second and out of no were the guy is engulfed in fire, He screams and runs out into the street. Not concerned at all I mutter under my breath

"I warned you"

then continue to down Sake. Sai finally seemed to have snapped out of it , because the blank look left his eyes and he looked over at me as I finish off another one. I now had a small collection of about seven empty bottles in front of me, a half full one in my hand and about three more full bottles in front of me. I look over to him, then get another idea.

"Hey Sai... how well do you hold your alcohol?"

He looks at me strangely then replies

"Fairly well. Why?"

I grin again

" I challenge you to a drinking game!"

I wave over the guy

" First one to get drunk looses and has to tell the other their deepest darkest secret. Think of it as a way to get to know each other. oh and how about to make it completely fair I'll tell you a secret even if I win and two secrets if I loose. Deal?"

He seems a bit iffy about it at first but then agrees to my terms. I grin even wider as I look over the bar tender.

"I need you to supply us and be the judge of who wins, we'll talk about the prize later."

the man nods and provides us with more Sake. Several drinks later Sai's leaning on the bar drunk out of his mind and I'm smiling like an idiot. In front of me is over twenty empty bottles. The guy clears them away then yells over to a big guy over at the other end of the bar

"hey Wor! Seems you have some competition!"

He points to me

" she's drank twenty five and doesn't even seem buzzed!"

The big man named Wor gets up from his seat. Did I say this guy was big? that's an understatement, he was HUGE and easily 6' 7". The guy looks over at me then starts to head over. Once he's over he sits in the seat beside me and says in a gravel like voice

"We'll see about that"

He finishes the bottle in his hand

" Ok now we're even. If your up to it I'll take you on next, but I have my own rules. We'll be drinking an extremely strong drink called Fire Ale, usually puts a normal sized guy into a drunken stupor after one shot. You seem to be a bit smaller than an average man so it'll probably put you out after half of one. Oh and the looser has to pay the bill."

Finally a challenge! I smirk and simply say

"Deal"

I had some extra money, that was likely not going to be used any time soon so it wouldn't matter if I lost. The guy looks down at me and grins saying

"This girl's got guts. Hope your not doing anything important tomorrow cause you'll be in bed all day"

That's what he thinks. The bar tender pulls out two shot glasses and fills them up with a liquid the color of fire. He then places them in front of us. Before the guy can grab his though I stop him and say

"this isn't Fire Ale."

He looks confused until our drinks catch fire on the top

"THIS is Fire Ale"

I then down it still burning. The guy obviously not wanting to swallow fire puts his out and downs his in one gulp. He looks over at me and is surprised to see not only am I still conscious but I'm on my third. Taken aback Wor struggles to catch up to me but for every one that he drank I was one ahead of him. Finally once he hit four he slumps over and lets out a drunken belch. By this time I had finished five and had my sixth in my hand. I down it and stand up.

"I better go. I think that last one put me over the edge. Say bye to Wor for me when he wakes up."

I grab Sai's arm, pull him out of his chair and put his arm over my shoulder so I could half carry him, then stumble out of the bar. Out in the street I dodge sloppily around the burnt mound of the drunkard from earlier and walk right into Gaara. I don't give him a chance to say anything and explain what I'm doing

" Hey. Going back to the apartment. Had one too many Fire Ale shots, taking this drunkard with me."

I then stumble off. That's was the last thing I remember clearly, besides bits of things from the walk back. Like the time I could have sworn I stumbled past Niwa and Deamona, and when I stumbled in the door of the apartment after pretty much dropping Sai in the hall.

The next morning I wake up in a dark room, my head pounding. I try to sit up to see if I can find the time but the blood rushes from my head and makes me dizzy, so I lay back down. That's when I notice something laying across my waist. I lift up the covers to see an arm, then following the arm I roll on my side to come face to face with a shirtless Sai. A little confused I look down at what I'm wearing. Good I'm still wearing all my bandages and underwear. I relax a bit realizing how tired I am and how bad my head hurts. That eventually leads to me closing my eyes and finding some comfort in the darkness created by the crook of Sai's neck. That then leads to me passing out again.