Title- Dancing Diplomats

Author- LightMyWay

Rating- T

Disclaimer- I don't own Naruto because if I did Ino wouldn't give Shika a chance to watch the clouds...

A/N- Sorry this took so long! My dad got really sick and had to go to the hospital and my life has just been crazy! So I'm really sorry this took so damn long! It also didn't help that I kept re-writing a part over…heh heh…either way thanks to everyone who reviewed and here's the chapter. Once again sorry about the delay!

Chapter 5: Once Upon A Time...

If you're not confused, you're not paying attention.- Tom Peters

Gaara crashed through the forest around him pushing pass anything that was in his way. His goal was to reach Suzuki as quickly as he possibly could. He didn't completely understand why, but he kinda liked this girl. Not to say that he didn't like his friends, but the type of like he had for Suzuki felt...different. And that was really the only way to put it. He shook his head ridding it of thought. It was no time to be thinking of feelings. He had to stay focused on his goal to get her back safely. He had to make sure a war wasn't started and she was the key part in all that. So it was of particular concern that she was taken by Sound, who couldn't just give it a rest. Did they really want to lose...again? Stupid persistent bastards.

"Faster," he encouraged himself, so as to catch up with the Sound ninja. The fact that they had caught her brought to mind a number of questions. Such as how did he not sense them or what the hell is wrong with them? Still there were others like what are they going to do to her or why they hell are they so stupid? The question plagued him till he really couldn't think properly, which was very unlike Gaara, and he fell out of the tree he was in...also very unlike Gaara. Then he came to the almighty conclusion that he had no idea why he was acting like this. He stood for a minute cleared his mind, which to his surprise was filled with worry for Suzuki and her well being, and then set off again.

With The Other Only Slightly Tired People Roaming The Woods

Well a fine night had turned into a find morning. The Sound ninja and Gaara were way ahead of the group that was trailing them, at least that's what it seemed like. They were only way ahead because they had a head start. Why else would they be so far ahead of the trailing group? Oh, yeah because they're dead tired.

"Couldn't they have waited until morning!" Tenten shouted displaying her already obvious annoyance.

"Shut up! Even if we're kind of close they'll hear you!" Neji hissed in warning, "And then you'll really have something to yell about!" Tenten smiled quite evilly quite literally scaring Neji.

"Bring 'em on," he muttered with her scary grin, his Neji dubbed it, still in place. Neji's final conclusion on the subject...girls are scary in the morning.

"Shut up both of you," Sasuke ordered from up front for he was currently dealing with a falling asleep pink haired kunoichi, so that he had to catch her every five seconds. He finally got annoyed enough and just carried, so that she could sleep and he didn't have to worry about her falling out of a tree and killing herself. She was still as annoying as ever, but he had to admit she'd changed while he was away. And that a big reason for him leaving was to protect her and the rest of his friends, but man he really didn't need her to add stress to his already stressful life by falling out of a tree and dieing...or something along those lines. In other words the Uchiha cared...not that he would say so. The ice cube did have his limits.

For the rest of the group sleeping was a luxury they could not afford. Although Gaara was strong there were probably going to be a lot of Sound nin and no matter how good the Kazekage was it would still be difficult to defeat them all on his own. This fact and the fact that they could hurt the shinobi who woke them up spurred the group to travel faster.

With The Captured, And Annoying The Hell Out Of The Shinobi Who Took Her, Suzuki

Well she had most certainly gotten herself into a nice little predicament. Why she had figured it was Gaara entering her tent she'd never know. It was probably because she wanted it to be him. Still she could ponder these things later when it wasn't so much fun to annoy the people who had taken her. Half way through this little journey of theirs she had taken to annoying them because there was nothing else to do. She'd even gone as far as to talk about that female time of the month making the all male shinobi group blush and trying to ignore her. And when that happened she only talked louder, she'd have to remember to thank Naruto for that technique later.

"So anyway…" she said thinking of where to go from there, "Oh my God! Want to hear a story! Of course you do! I mean traveling this much gets kind of boring, so you need something to pass the time! Look at me I'm rambling again! Let's get back to the story! Once upon a time there was a girl captured by big bad ninja. But then the red haired prince came to her rescue. He killed ass the big bad ninja so that they would never harm her again. Then he whisked the girl away and they lived happily ever after! Wasn't that a good story? Kind of reminds me of something…" she paused a second and tapped her chin, as if thinking, "Ah, well I don't know what it reminds me of! But…" She continued off on a tangent smirking inwardly as she continued to thoroughly irate them.

Then there was a sickening crack and a blood curdling scream.

Here's Gaara! (A/N: Like The Shining! (At least I think it's The Shining…I could be wrong…) Only he says here's Johnny…)

Why did the guy have to scream? It gave away his position. Being as fast as he was he changed his position just as the ninja below stopped to look back for their fallen comrade. While they were looking the red haired nin took out the front guard once again diverting the Sound shinobi's attention. He slowly lowered his sand to where Suzuki was and slipped it around her gently. He slowly lifted her from view into the trees. He was surprised to see that she didn't scream or fight the sand, but rather embraced it. When she reached the top she jumped up and onto the tree branch by Gaara. She did the scariest thing anyone in Gaara's life had ever done...she hugged him. Gaara stared down at her wide eyed and confused. He slowly, but surely wrapped his arms around her too.

"This is not time for a love fest," someone hissed from a tree to the right. Out of nowhere a black haired ninja popped up onto a branch that was level with theirs. In his arms was a pink paired kunoichi, who turned and cuddled into the Sasuke's chest. Sasuke glared down at her.

"What are you carrying her for?" Neji asked, "Just wake her up." Sasuke glared at Neji and then at Sakura, who just cuddled him so more. Sasuke rolled his eyes it was obvious that she was comfortable.

"Already tried too," Sasuke muttered. Naruto struggled to hold back a laugh that was threatening to erupt due to Sasuke's current predicament.

"I suggest we get moving," Ino muttered looking at the Sound nin below who'd finally noticed Suzuki's absence. Tenten was the first to notice that one of them was climbing the tree Sasuke and her groups were now. She took out a kunai and with her precise aim she pinned him to a tree opposite from where they were.

"Now," Tenten said jumping off the tree the rest of the squad was on. Temari followed her. Kiba went to follow except he halted when he smelled something. He quickly jumped to where Temari and Tenten were. He pushed Temari out of the way just as a Sound shinobi appeared.

"Guess that nose does some good for you," the man said with a shrug. Kiba snarled before attacking the man with a series of blows. Now, everyone else was on alert as they watched Kiba and the ninja he was fighting. It was long before Neji soon began fighting someone although he defeated the guy quickly using his Gentle Fist. Soon there were fights breaking in any direction one turned in. Sasuke was having some trouble due to a still sleeping Sakura. He was only able to use his legs and when he got a spare moment he could use his hands underneath the small of Sakura's back.

"What's going on?" Sakura murmured as opened her sleepy eyes, "Who woke me up?" She looked up at Sasuke whose blood red eyes looked down at her. Realizing where she was Sakura blushed and jumped from his arms. Sasuke was pointing at someone, which confused Sakura...she was always easy to confuse when she just woke up.

"He woke you up," Sasuke said backing away as an angry aura surrounded the pink haired nin. She smiled wickedly before slamming a punch on the ninja's head sending him through the trees toward the ground. Unfortunately for the Sound ninja Sakura wasn't done with him yet and she slammed a kick into his chest just before he hit the ground, so as to make a large crater in the middle of the forest. She stuck her tongue out at the nin and walked away laughing. She then jumped up to help everyone with the rest of the fighting.

Sasuke found it much easier to fight without Sakura in his arms. He could move more and dodge much better than before. He admitted to himself that he did like the challenge of keeping her safe; while fighting off ninja...or maybe it was just that he liked Sakura in his arms. Nah, that wasn't true. Not this iceberg.

"Katon: Gokakyu no Jutsu!" he called out catching the other ninja off guard and frying him. Sasuke smirked; if this was the best Orochimaru could do then bring it on. Sasuke turned around to find Sakura standing there. A ninja reared up behind her.

"Sakura beh-" She hit the ninja square in the face without turning around or even batting an eyelash, "Never mind," Sasuke said with a faint trance of a smile on his face. Sakura smiled smugly before walking up to him.

"I'm not stupid," she said before jumping into another tree. Sasuke couldn't, but let a tiny smile appear on his proud Uchiha face.

Tenten was having a harder time due to the fact that she was fighting two ninja at once and they had both figured out that it was harder for her to block if the attacked at the same time...that conclusion took them twenty minutes to figure out. As skilled as she was she was still getting a few scratches. Tired of fending off the two of them she decided on using her favorite technique.

"Rising Twin Dragons!" she called out leaping into the air and sending weapons flying everywhere into he air. They rained down and pelted the Sound ninja who'd been attacking her. Satisfied she came back down to the ground. She went to join the Sasuke, Sakura, Neji, and Gaara who'd formed a small ring around Suzuki, who looked extremely bored and not at all frightened.

Akarmaru bit the stupid Sound shinobi making the Sound shinobi run in circles trying to make Akarmaru let go. When Akarmaru did let go it was to stand by Kiba's side.

"Beast Human Clone!" Kiba cried, so that Akarmaru changed into Kiba, confusing the ninja before them even more, "Gatsuga!" The two crashed into the nin sending him flaying out of sight as he crashed through trees. Akarmaru turned back into himself and Kiba brushed off his hands. He shoved his hands into his jacket pockets and went to join the others clustered around Suzuki, who'd taken to sitting on the ground.

Shika had decided to use the same trick on this ninja as he had on Kin in the Chunnin Exam. As soon as his enemy was in position he called out what he was going to use,

"Kagemane no Justu!" he threw the disks before his opponent even got a chance to think about it. Caught off guard the ninja fell for it. Shika muttered his normal sayings before going off to see how everyone was doing, to find a limp Ino on the ground, while she controlled the ninja's mind. She was making him do silly girly things. Shika rolled his eyes. It was totally like Ino to do things like that.

"Stop screwing with the guy it's so troublesome," Shika muttered walking by. Ino scowled meaning that the ninja she was in scowled making it all rather weird. Ino quickly made the ninja due her bidding before returning to her body and joining Shikamaru as he walked towards everyone else...talking the while time.

After, fighting off three ninja Naruto went to see if anyone needed help. He walked upon Hinata fighting two ninja off of herself. He smiled slightly and hid behind a tree where he could slip his head out to watch her duck, weave, blob, and place blows on the ninja. She'd indeed gotten much better in the last few years. All that and she was less shy than she had been, which pleased Naruto because it was nice to see her somewhat outspoken.

"Protection of the Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms (1)!" she yelled creating that swirling light around herself reminding Naruto of something although he couldn't quite place his finger on what it was. He ignored the wave of memories that were trying to make him...well remember. The two ninja seemed to get scared of the young Hyuga heiress as the blue lines shone around her. She finished them off when she'd caught them talking to each other about what to do, however she didn't kill them. She just did enough damage to send them both into a coma.

"That was good Hinata...chan," Naruto said stepping out from behind the tree smiling softly at the shy girl, no woman, before him. She blushed deeply before smiling a soft smile of her own. Naruto walked towards her and then bowed towards the way everyone else, making Hinata giggle. Naruto and Hinata walked side by side by smiling rather shyly, until they reached the rest of the group and then Naruto donned his infamous foxy grin.

"HINATA-CHAN BEAT THEM UP GOOD!" Naruto yelled and jumped like it was his own victory over the Sound ninja. Hinata just smiled and blushed as she joined the circle around Suzuki. Naruto, who was still smiling, joined as well standing right next to Hinata.

"Well," Sasuke muttered, "Hinata beat them up well." Naruto completely ignored him as he gave Hinata a constant stream of compliments that only made her blush darker. At this point Temari showed up brushing off her skirt looking peeved that she'd gotten dirty. Kiba reached out and pulled her into the circle not letting her hand go even after she was in the circle.

"I think we're good, but we'll have to get as far away as possible," Sasuke said turning to where the sitting Suzuki was pealing off the leaf part of a leaf, "And you can't jump like us, can you?"

"Unless you want me to die," Suzuki said looking up at him. Before she could say anything else something or someone had picked her up.

"I got her," a monotone voice spoke and when she looked up Gaara looked down at her. She shrugged and got comfortable in his arms, as the shinobis took off yet again into the forest.

In Case Of Confusion:

(1) When looking for Bikochu Hinata fought with this technique

A/N:

Hi guys! I'm kinds thinking of rewriting the whole chapter due to the fact that I don't like it, but that's gonna put on another delay, so I'm probably not gonna do it. Anyway I started chapter 6 already and I'm hoping to finish it soon. So keep an eye out for it...

Oh, if there aren't any bars between the random group tellings (if that made any sense at all) that's because the stupid line button won't work...I pressed it like 50 different times...It doesn't like me