A/N: Alright this will be the last chapter posted for two whole weeks! Both polls will be closed come midnight on August 5th so you've got two damn weeks to get those votes in. Now there's a small time skip between the last chapter and this one, so the group is going to be all together again with one more addition. Now for the current standings for the polls!

Haku's Gender-

Female: 9 (I think it's clear what you guys want)

Male: 4 (No comment)

Character Survivor-

Tayuya: 9(It's a tie again! Seems like people really want both to live)

Nii Yugito: 9(Read above)

Tsuchi Kin: 8(Damn this is close, let me know if you want 'em all to live.)

Character Ages:

Hinata-4; Gaara-5; Jiraiya-43

Ok let's get this eighth chapter rolling!(I own nothing!)

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Chapter 8: Improvements and Convergence

Nearly three months have passed since Anko, Naruto, and Hinata arrived in Sunagakure and were joined by Gaara and his elder sister Temari. The snake mistress has put all four of the kids through a 'training from hell' like experience, which was only harsher due to the desert sands, though they didn't seem to affect the redheaded boy to any degree. The young Hyuuga girl's stutter, the sand boy's shyness, and the golden blonde boy's optimistic view of easy training exercises, have been almost literally beaten out of them. Anko had been forced to review the few jutsu that Naruto and Hinata knew because of Gaara's lack of knowledge of them. The Kage Bunshin no Jutsu, a technique that each of the kids present had seen at one point or another, was the first jutsu she taught the four which all of them mastered in two days. The teenage kunoichi also introduced a few other new techniques which none of the kids knew, the two most difficult being Katon: Hōsenka no Jutsu and Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu, which took all four of them two weeks to full master.

Due to the snake mistress's lack of finesse when it came to genjutsu, she solely focused on teaching the four runts, as she called them while they were training, taijutsu and ninjutsu. Anko gave each of them a set of weights for their wrists and ankles that could hold up to two hundred pounds. The purple haired teenager started the four kids off with five pounds per limb and increased the weight by five pounds every week. They were already up to seventy pounds a limb and during the few times when they were allowed to remove them, such as while eating at home, bathing, and sleeping so to avoid overbearing the beds, they felt as if they were almost as light as feathers. Since as the weight of their weights increased, the snake mistress taught them the technique for walking on water, or in this case, walking on sand. Anko also taught them all a meditating technique she had learned from Uchiha Itachi that was used for expanding their chakra capacities.

Thanks to Shukaku, who none of the group had thankfully heard from since his sealing, Gaara was able to teach his sister, friends, and teacher three Fuuton jutsu: Fuuton: Rekudan, Fuuton: Daitoppa, and Fuuton: Mugen Sajin Daitoppa, all of which Temari mastered in a week, while Naruto, Anko, and Hinata took three to get down. Though the kids were able to get the hang of these jutsu, they either didn't have a good enough affinity towards the necessary element, which Anko had no idea how to test for without leaves, or they simply couldn't put enough power behind them to make them effective. The only jutsu that all four of the kids managed to both master and put the needed power behind was the Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu.

Anko figured Gaara was able to perform these jutsu that Shukaku knew because even though the tanuki's mind and voice were cut off from the redhead, his powers most likely weren't; which easily explained the sand boy's Suna no Tate working automatically when all the kids were practicing taijutsu.

Out of all of them though, the snake mistress saw the greatest improvement in the young Hyuuga girl. Though clearly a genjutsu type and a person capable of learning healing techniques with ease, Hinata proved to be extremely skilled in taijutsu, though it did take some time for her to lose the Jyuuken stance and start developing one for herself.

The teenage kunoichi was quickly able to pick out what kind of shinobi Gaara, Naruto, and Temari were as well over the three months. The golden blonde boy was easily a taijutsu and ninjutsu type and Anko guessed due to Kyuubi's presence, what the fox-boy lacked in controlling the correct amount of chakra necessary for a jutsu, he made up for it in the sheer volume he could put into it. In the case of the Fuuton: Daitoppa, which Temari proved to be the best at with or without the use of her battle fan, Naruto could use it with more than twice the power but only about half as accurately as the sandy blonde girl.

The sand boy was a long range ninjutsu type who with the aid of his sand, which he began to slowly learn to control and even stared to keep a large amount stored in the shape of a gourd which he infused with his own chakra at Anko and Kyuubi's suggestion, could attack opponents with the use of less chakra. The sand gourd which was hollow but filled with more sand, easily added another fifty pounds to the weight the redhead was already lugging around on his limbs, proved to eventually make Gaara the fastest out of the four kids unless Naruto tapped into his tenant's chakra which though increased his capabilities dramatically, forced the boy to drop the near permanent henge he wore to hide his whisker marks and scars.

This led to Temari and her brother discovering the fox-boy's secret when the golden blonde had one of his training shirts shredded by the sand boy's sand during a sparring match. To say the least, there was much soothing from the two children of Suna for the blue eyed boy, and much explaining from both Kyuubi and their teenage sensei.

The wind mistress proved to have the greatest strength in tactics, but also was completely well-rounded in taijutsu, ninjutsu, and genjutsu, the most latter Anko figured because of her chakra control which was almost as good as Hinata's. The purple haired kunoichi could tell the sandy blonde's tactical skill because it reminded her very much of Itachi, who while his opponent was trying to think two steps ahead of him, the Uchiha prodigy was thinking ten steps ahead of his opponent. Anko was only able to tell Temari's chakra affinity while she was left clueless on the other three kids' because of the teal eyed girl's seemingly natural ability to use her fan.

These training sessions, which had given all four kids at least mid-Genin level strength and abilities, amazing mid to upper-Chuunin speed, and with the exception of Naruto, low-Chuunin level chakra reserves, had not gone unnoticed. About two weeks after they started, the Yondaime Kazekage, Gaara and Temari's father, began to send out Jounin to search for his 'missing' daughter and the Shukaku container. When he learned that travelers who had only recently arrived in the village were training both of them, he was intrigued that they were showing far more growth then they had under their normal tutelage. The leader of Suna decided to have them observed and that no interventions be made unless they attempted to leave the village, in which case, deadly force was to be taken against the teenage girl and that all four of the children be taken into custody.

Every day after they were first discovered, Anko was aware that she and the four runts were being watched and took note that there were always at least four Jounin watching them, but no more than six were ever present. The snake mistress took note that once it came time to leave the village, this could prove, for lack of a better word, troublesome, though she knew that together, the four kids could at least handle one or two Jounin especially if they took off their weights. With the added fact that one of the Sannin, Jiraiya, would be present at the time, overthrowing four to six Jounin couldn't be that bad, unless the Kazekage's personal guard was added to that. Anko knew though, that leaving the village would be far more eventful than it had been to enter.

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Sarutobi has spent the past three months as every Kage does, seated at his desk behind a mountain of never ending paperwork. Mission requests, mission reports, fatalities among active ninja, applications for those soon to enroll in the ninja academy, you name it, the only Hokage to have taken office twice, had to sign and seal it. The only interesting event he had to comment was that in the beginning of February, the Sandaime Hokage received a scroll from Tsunade saying she finally managed to track down Jiraiya, after two months of searching. She came across the toad Sannin in a hot spring resort near the southern end of the coast in the Land of Water. She commented that by the time she was done beating, healing, re-beating, and re-healing the hermit, they would get back to Sunagakure to pick up Anko, Hinata, and Naruto by the first week of March ended. The slug mistress also briefly mentioned coming across a homeless boy with a very unique bloodline trait, but mentioned nothing more on the subject. The holder of the monkey summoning contract could only hope that in the end, whatever madness Anko and Tsunade had planned, it wouldn't harm Konoha.

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The discrete organization Akatsuki has also been busy the past three months, Sasori was successful in bringing Hoshigaki Kisame to the hideout to meet the leader, Pein, who was quick to convince the wielder of Samehada to join the organization. The auburn haired man was also quick in giving the puppet master another mission, this one, involved intercepting a squad of Konoha shinobi and give a member of the squad, one Uchiha Itachi, a scroll with details for what the organization could do for him once he was eleven.

To say the creator of human puppets was annoyed, would be an understatement, Sasori's anger was raging so intensely, one could swear if they were close enough, they smelled burning wood. As reluctant as he was, the murderer of the Sandaime Kazekage took the mission and completed it without a hitch, apart from almost getting caught in flurry of doujutsu originated genjutsu sent his way from the Uchiha prodigy who was quick to sport his complete three tomoe Sharingan in each eye. Never the less, Itachi agreed that he would look over the scroll give to him and come his eleventh birthday, he would attempt to seek out the organization.

Pein was quite pleased to hear this from Sasori, though he'd already been informed by Zetsu who was once again arguing with himself upon the puppet master's return to the base. He also found Kisame and Kakuzu arguing over the exact worth of money to a nukenin run mercenary organization. Most to his displeasure he found one of his newly completed puppets, a fourteen year old, male Chuunin from Kumogakure missing from his room. Let's just say what happened next would be the opposite if a scorpion encountered a highly venomous snake.

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Anko and four very worn out kids were walking towards their apartment building, none of them really wanting to have to focus on building up chakra to Shunshin to the room after Anko made them fight her while under a genjutsu that made their weights seem three times as heavy. The goal was that each of them had to get two consecutive hits on her, but someone else who hadn't done so yet had to get their two hits in before two minutes passed. It ended up taking the team of Naruto, Gaara, Temari, and Hinata three hours to finally accomplish their task. The snake mistress had been kind enough to let them take their weights off for an hour while they ate lunch and then meditated.

As they neared the building, the five shinobi saw an elderly white haired man, in a traditional dark green yukata with a red vest over it and a large scroll strapped to his back; that and his matching dark green pants and the all wooden clogs, made him stand out as he rested against the wall of the building.

He looked up and when the group of five stopped in front of him, then saying, "You sure do take your sweet time training those kids, but I think we should continue the conversation inside so they can rest," as he looked at Gaara and Hinata who were both half passed out on a platform of sand which Temari had also placed her fan on. Said sandy blonde and Naruto, were in slightly better shape, though they were ankle deep in sand slowly sinking further.

Anko sweat dropped at the sight and said, "Yea, that sounds like a plan," then thinking to herself, "I didn't make that last training exercise that difficult, did I?"

Ten minutes later after removing all the kids' weights, sealing said training gear in a scroll, and dragging the two blondes, the redhead, and the dark blue haired girl up to the apartment and placing each one on a sofa or reclining chair, the snake mistress and toad master sit at the table near the kitchen and discuss about what's happened over the past three months.

What surprises Jiraiya the most is that Gaara is the container of a Biju like Naruto and to learn that the Kyuubi within the fox-boy willingly sealed a fellow demon to protect a container that wasn't his own. The eventually went on to talk about how the four had grown in strength and what she observed, along with what they should learn to suit their abilities. They talked till well past ten, going over whom between the teenage kunoichi, the white haired Sannin, and the blonde slug mistress, would be best to train who.

Anko ended up asleep on the same sofa as Naruto, a blush on her cheeks from just a little too much sake, and Jiraiya was on the table, drooling with the sake bottle still clutched in his hand.

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It was around one in the afternoon when the group had everything they needed packed and were heading for the gate to leave the village. They weren't more than twenty meters from the gate when three Suna Jounin jumped in front of them and another three behind them. All of them wore the same armored uniforms and bandaged headgear along with masks to cover their faces, leaving only their eyes visible. The apparent leader, a man from the center of the trio standing between the group and the gate said, "By orders of the Yondaime Kazekage-" He was interrupted when Temari swung her fan at him like a mallet imbedding it slightly into the walkway.

"Anko-chan," the sandy blonde started, "Can we take the weights off and kick some ass?"

Her reply was a thumps up and Anko turning around and carrying out, "Sen'eijashu!" and launching three snakes, one at each of the Jounin that stood behind the group, who were all bit quickly in the neck. The three had frozen at the immediate sight of the snake leaving the snake mistress to wonder if they all shared a fear of snakes. She shrugged and turned looking back towards the other Jounin, seeing Naruto and Temari paired against one while Hinata and Gaara were up against another.

Jiraiya ran up quickly to the third Jounin who drew a kunai quickly and rushed towards the Sannin only to be sent flying back into a nearby wall after the toad master cried out, "Rasengan!"

Temari and Naruto had their enemy dancing around like crazy, they were surprised to see they were almost if not as fast as him. They kept on doing the same routine over and over, with the golden blonde going in for a punch or kick, while the sandy blonde would follow up with a hard swing from her fan. After about two minutes of this, the fox-boy caught the enemy Jounin with a leg sweep, barely knocking him over, which the wind mistress followed up with a heavy swing to the man's chest. Jounin or not, the blow from the steel fan right over his lungs would take even the most efficient shinobi.

Gaara and Hinata had a much easier time with their opponent; the lavender eyed girl simply ran in, and with only a high jump kick towards her opponent's head, which the Suna Jounin guarded against, the redhead sent a dresser sized fist of sand from right in front of the man and hit him dead on just after the young Hyuuga jumped out of the way.

When the four kids stepped in front of the snake mistress a moment later, they shouted only one word in unison, "Pathetic!"

Anko had to bite her lower lip hard to hold her laughter, then struggling, she replied, "You guys go that right; Kazekage-sama must've thought we'd be some weak shit if he sent newbie Jounin after us."

That's when Jiraiya walked up and placing a hand on the teenager's left shoulder, "You got your fun, Anko, now let's get going; the sooner we're back in the land of Fire the less like Tsunade-hime will beat the crap out of me." All for kids starting laughing, at the white haired Sannin's comment, as they walked out of the gate and into the vast desert of the Land of Wind.

Even with their weights, the four kids were able to keep pace with the snake mistress and toad master who were going far from top speed through the sandy dunes. Yet, even at the pace they were going they would probably reach the border before sunset the next day. So for the next day and a half the group of Jiraiya, Anko, Naruto, Hinata, Gaara, and Temari, ran through the Land of Wind's scorching desert only stopping at night to rest and to eat when the growling from the golden blonde boy's stomach became loud enough to be heard a kilometer away.

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Tsunade and Shizune sat on a log in the forest a few kilometers from the border between Fire and Wind. On the log across from them sat a boy with silver white hair that ended just below his long neck. He had dark jade eyes and a small oval shaped dot placed strategically above each of his silvery eyebrows. His outfit, an extremely pale purple obi held close by a brown rope and dark brown pants that was fairly baggy on his lanky frame, suited his pale, almost albino, skin. During her search for Jiraiya, the chronic gambler had come across this boy about two weeks before finally finding her perverted white haired teammate, who said his name was Kimimaro. She had found him just sitting in the back of an alley with a small frown on his face as he watched the many ants that were scurrying to and fro. Apart from revealing his name, Kimimaro hadn't said a single word since Tsunade found him, not including the small hello he said when he first met the toad master.

It'd been almost four days since that perverted oaf Jiraiya left to get Anko and the kids and if he wasn't back by sunrise tomorrow, the slug mistress was going to send him on another kilometer ride he'd never forget. The three sat there in silence, the medic nin apprentice falling asleep at some point with her head resting on the blonde gambler's left shoulder, as the sun slowly crept across the afternoon sky. Before any of them even realized it, the sun was setting on the unseen horizon in mixing hues of gold, yellow, red, and orange, making it seem like the landscape many kilometers away was ablaze in an enormous raging inferno.

As the last shades of sunlight faded, Tsunade heard a small crack from a twig behind her and quickly turned around causing Shizune to fall over and Kimimaro to wake up who had apparently fallen asleep. Out of the brush came the scampering of feet soon followed by Naruto and Hinata who both dove at the blonde Sannin. She opened her arms to catch them, but when they hit her, the slug mistress was bowled over and rolled back into the log where the silver haired boy sat.

Looking up while still slightly dazed at the fox-boy and Hyuuga girl before her, Tsunade only said, "What the hell just happened?"

Anko stepped out of the brush next with a cheshire cat grin plastered on her face while she said, "That would be two hundred eighty pounds of weights on each runt; seventy on each limb, though I think I can explain that later, since it seems each of our groups have some introductions to make." The snake mistress motioned for Temari and Gaara to step up which they did, looking straight at the bewildered slug mistress.

Gaara bowed very low, almost losing his balance because of his weights and gourd, and after regaining his balance, the sand boy said quickly, "I'm Gaara, the container of the Ichibi, Suna no Shukaku; I'm very honored to meet you Tsunade-sama."

The sandy blonde imitated the redhead's movements though she didn't lose her balance, so she also hurriedly said, "I'm his older sister Temari; I'm also honored to meet you, Tsunade-sama!"

Much to their surprise, Tsunade started laughing hysterically soon followed by Anko, Jiraiya and everyone else except for Kimimaro who only smirked lightly. Between laughs, the blonde gambler asked, "Which of them told you to do that, Anko-chan or the pervert?" pointing at each person as she said their name.

Eventually, once everyone settled down, Tsunade asked, "Gaara-kun, you said you're the container for Shukaku, correct?" She was answered with a swift nod. "I'm curious as to why you're not showing signs of insomnia," she wondered aloud.

There was a small poof as Naruto used the Kage Bunshin no Jutsu to make a miniature clone of Kyuubi, who, once the smoke around him cleared, said, "That would be my doing, Tsunade. I sealed Shukaku's voice and disconnected his mind from Gaara's. The boy is still able to use the tanuki-teme's powers, but he will no longer suffer from insomnia. The seal will however, need to be replaced after ten years."

"If you cloud seal my voice, why couldn't you seal my fucking ears you kitsune-teme!" Shukaku roared inside his isolated mind.

It was hard to tell if the slug mistress was more shocked by the appearance of a miniature Kyuubi, or by the explanation the chibified creature just gave, either way her reply was, "I see…" the blonde Sannin then looked at Kimimaro and waved her hand for him to come over, which he did wordlessly. He stood there for a moment before saying in a very lonely and shy voice, "My name is Kimimaro, and it's a pleasure to meet all of you." With that the smallest smile crossed his face and the group began to chatting about everything that had happened over the period in which they had been separated. The adults, Kyuubi, and Anko talked amongst themselves about 'harsh' training methods, while the five kids walked over and sat on the few logs that had been placed around a brightly burning campfire and slowly, Naruto, Hinata, Temari, and Gaara got to know Kimimaro more and vice versa.

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A/N: Alright people chapter 8 is in the books! Hope you liked the small fight and the entrance of Kimimaro. Those of you who HAVE NOT voted have two weeks to vote for the two polls so go and vote! So R&R people and I'll catch all your reviews when I get back, laters!

New Character Ages: Kimimaro-7

Translations:

Katon: Hōsenka no Jutsu – Fire Release: Phoenix Immortal Fire Technique

Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu – Fire Release: Grand Fireball Technique

Fuuton: Rekudan – Wind Release: Drilling Air Bullet

Fuuton: Daitoppa – Wind Release: Great Breakthrough

Fuuton: Mugen Sajin Daitoppa – Wind Release: Infinite Sand Cloud Great Breakthrough

Samehada – Shark Skin

Sen'eijashu – Hidden Shadow Snake Hand

Rasengan – Spiraling Sphere