Wow...it's been forever since i updated. i officially have to right to complain when it comes to other's not updating their fics. sorry, i got lost on the road of life. no really, i had huge writer's block...and school became a very big pain, very fast. Anyway, life has decided to be nice recently and so i decided it was about time i got my lazy ass in gear and wrote a new chapter. So, in this chapter you'll get a better look at Lina's personality, and more info on the recent happenings of Konoha.

Disclaimer: no, i don't own naruto, i'm much to lazy to write a new chapter every week.

Sakura had spent the past few hours of her day exploring her new surroundings with her former teammate. The snow was still falling gracefully, not at all hindering the every day occurrences of the street life. She smiled, a person could definitely get used to life in Fang.

Sakura and Naruto were currently walking down a secluded street near the edge of the city. The blonde had shown her nearly the entire village, talking about different shopkeepers, or their kids, as they went. The only thing he had left to show her was the park, the beginning of which was on their right. Sakura gazed wonderingly at the wall of trees as they walked past.

"So…"

She redirected her attention towards the blonde beside her, waiting expectantly.

"I've told you all about what I've been up too, but you've yet to tell me about your last three years." Naruto continued while looking off into space.

The kunoichi sighed, wondering how to begin. "Well…. Do you want the good side, or the bad side first?"

"Eh, give me the bad side first." The blonde replied, giving his full attention to the jounin at his side.

Sakura frowned with the memory of her past three years. "It's, complicated."

The genin laughed, "I'll try to keep up."

Sakura's lips twitched into a smile at his comment. "Ino was the one who told me about your 'betrayal'. The council spun it off like they had found you as you were leaving and had attempted to stop you when you attacked them. They wouldn't allow Tsunade-sama to send out a squad to look for you. They said it was too dangerous, and that we couldn't risk having a repeat of the Sasuke retrieval team. They used every loophole in the book to keep people from going after you.

"In a last ditch effort, Tsunade-sama informed Gaarra of the situation and he did manage to send out some search teams, although his council threw a fit as well. No one found anything. Jiraiya snuck out of the village to go look for you, but it was like you'd disappeared off the face of the earth.

"We kept arguing with the council for a long time, but they always managed to find ways to keep anyone from going on a mission that had anything to do with you. Eventually, we gave up trying to do things the legal way, and resorted to looking into everything we could while we were on normal missions.

"At first we had some trouble with Konohamaru and Hinata. They were really upset. It took Mogei and Udon two weeks to get Konohamaru to come out of his room, Hinata didn't stop crying for a month."

Naruto features twisted into a grimace as he was learned how his disappearance had affected his friends.

The kunoichi paused for a while, letting the blonde absorb the new information. Her thoughts continued in her head, retracing the memories she didn't plan to share. Most of which included how the notorious blonde's supposed defection had affected her own emotions and thoughts.

Sakura stopped as she realized the blonde had sat down on a snow-covered bench, apparently tired of walking for the moment. He leaned his head against the cold brick wall, closing his eyes. The kunoichi sat down silently beside him, enjoying his presence.

"What else?"

Her gazed wandered to the dense forest opposite the two as she continued. "The council is becoming a much more powerful force in Konoha."

Naruto opened his eyes, cocking an eyebrow in curiosity. "How so?"

"For the past three years, they've slowly been draining Tsunade-sama of her authority. She can't make a move anymore without running it by them first."

Naruto looked slightly alarmed. "How the hell did that happen?"

Sakura shrugged, "I'm not entirely sure. It started when Tsunade-sama was still on her excessive sake spree when you first went missing. They got her to agree to a few things, saying they were 'merely trying to lighten her work load in a time of personal distress'. By the time she came back to her senses, the council had already gotten to much power."

Naruto stared angrily off into the distance, ignoring the snowflakes that landed on his hair and clothes.

"We need you back Naruto. If it were to come out that the council made a backroom deal with Konoha's mortal enemies, we get everything back to normal. Besides, Konoha just isn't Konoha anymore. We miss you."

The genin sighed, shifting his gaze to the snow covered ground at his feet as he leaned forward, resting his elbows on his knees. "You know I can't go back Sakura."

The pink haired teen refused to accept it. "You have to, we need you!" She looked pleadingly at him, hoping to meet his gaze. "It's not just that the council is taking power from the Hokage, it's what they're doing with it. Things are getting bad Naruto, things need to change."

"I made a deal Sakura, I can't help you. You know that."

The kunoichi looked away angrily, tears forming in her sea green eyes. The blonde next to her heaved a sigh as the tears rolled down her cheeks. He stood up, turning to face her with a defeated look in his eyes. She looked up at him defiantly.

"Look, I'll try and talk to Gyro. He'll probably kill me for even suggesting it, but I'll try.

Just, please stop crying, you know I hate that."

Her emerald eyes widened in surprise at the easy victory before she quickly jumped up and threw her arms around the stunned shinobi. He stiffened slightly out of surprise before he smirked and relaxed, happily returning the hug.

"I missed you." She said; her voice muffed slightly by his shoulder.

"I missed you too."

Sakura opened her mouth to say more, but was cut off the by the sound of an explosion coming from nearly two blocks away. The former teammates jumped apart, looking in the direction of the blast, watching wide-eyed as dust from the debris rose into the sky.

Lina's voice carried quickly through the frosty air, "That's it! Die you little fucker!!!"

Naruto's face lost its surprise. His body relaxed as he sighed, obviously irritated. "Great, what did Kai do now? And what the heck did she destroy this time?"

Sakura raised an eyebrow in alarm as she realized that it must be a frequent occurrence between the siblings. The two listened attentively to the sounds of various things being smashed, and/or blown up as Lina chased Kai around the town, heading in their direction.

Both shinobi took a few steps back as a boy with choppy brown hair that stuck up at odd angles flew over the wall, quickly followed by the familiar white locks of Lina. She managed to grab hold of his ankle, dragging the poor boy to the ground as she muttered incoherent streams of profanities. The siblings wrestled furiously on the ground, Kai begging for mercy while Lina continued her foul-mouthed sentences of fury.

After a minute or so of letting them pound on each other, Naruto sauntered over towards the two, hauling Lina off of her brother, ignoring her squirming protests. Kai lay back on his elbows panting as Naruto attempted to quite a ragging kunoichi.

Sakura looked on stunned. It amazed her that Naruto was actually having to play referee.

Meanwhile, Naruto had both his arms wrapped tightly around the flaming kunoichi's waist, struggling to keep her from killing her terrified brother.

"Will you just calm down and tell me what happened?!" The blonde yelled at her over her curse filled gibberish.

"He dumped a freaking bucket of ice water on me!"

Naruto scowled in annoyance, sick of the juvenile pranks that no self-respecting eighteen year old should commit. "Honestly, if he's going to pull pranks he should at least come up with more inventive ones." He thought darkly as he "accidentally" loosened his grip on the not-so-calm female. Lina easily squirmed out of his arms and raced towards her brother once again, determined to pound the prank-pulling phase out of him forcefully.

The eagle boy screamed in terror and raced off, running for his life from his own sister. "Okay, maybe dumping ice water on her in the middle of winter wasn't such a bright idea." He thought as he fearfully looked behind him to see his fuming sister close behind. He whimpered in fear as he sped up, "Damn it! I'm to young to die!"

Okay, so we have the introduction of kai, who won't really play that big of a role...but anyway, yes, Lina has a few anger managment problems, and knows far to many curse words for her own good.

I'll try to update soon, though soon for me ould me in a month. hopefull it'll be more like a few days or a week.

review or not, i truly don't give a damn. (wow, how long has it been since an author has had that view point huh?)