Gaara looked at the letters on his desk along with Temari and Kankuro.
"Do you think we should bother opening them?" His sister asked, nervously running her hands over her large fan.
Gaara shrugged. "I thought about just disposing of them, but …but I really want to know what they say."
Kankuro ignored them both as his left hand, looking completely normal yet made of wood and metal, shot out a large flap containing several lethal projectiles. Then the flap pulled back inside the arm, where a small compartment opened up for it and the whole thing folded up to where his arm looked like an arm again.
"If you do that one more time, I'll cut off the other arm." Temari hissed, but not taking her eyes off. Kankuro had been driving them crazy all week with all the gadgets he kept adding onto his artificial limb. The hand looked and acted completely normal, but held a lot of gimmicks and surprises. Her brother was a shinobi puppeteer after all.
Gaara peered over at his brother, then blinked as a thought occurred to him. "You have any shields built into your arm yet?"
Kankuro grinned widely, and gushed on and on about all the new things his arm could accomplish.
Sand wrapped around Kankuro's mouth, effectively silencing him as his eyes got big. "No, don't expand. Nod yes or no. Do you have any shields in that thing?"
Temari smirked as Kankuro nodded eagerly. The sand receded, leaving the puppeteer to cough and spit out what grains had gotten into his mouth.
Gaara nodded toward the small pile of letters. "Go for it."
Kankuro's eyes widened as he gleefully held out his new left arm. Another slot opened along the radius side of his forearm, this one was long and thin. A piece of wood extended quickly, folding out and out and out some more. Then the long slender piece of wood separated into eight spikes joined at the center. Kankuro sent his chakra into the shield that now covered his entire height.
With no sound, his hand detached, and slid forward until it extended all the way to the desk.
"How's he supposed to open those one handed?" Temari whispered to Gaara.
Kankuro cackled as the 'hand' split into two parts and extra fingers appeared as if out of no where. Now he had two small hands where his one large one had been just a few seconds ago.
Gaara sniffed appreciatively. "I have to admit, I'm the tiniest bit impressed."
Temari nodded as Kankuro grinned from ear to ear.
The first letter opened with no traps or bombs or poisons. Kankuro looked at Gaara who motioned for him to hand it over. The hand holding the first letter extended all the way to the young red-head, who took it from him.
"It's a reply from Uzumaki Naruto." Gaara said as he scanned the letter.
o.o.o.o.o
Dear Gaara of the Desert,
I can't say I wasn't surprised to get your letter. I've never received a letter before, not from anyone I know. Bills of course, and people trying to get me to buy things. Even a letter from someplace called 'Nigeria' from someone looking for a person to open a bank account for them to send loads of money to them. Luckily Iruka-sensei stopped me from falling victim to that scam.
o.o.o.o.o
Gaara looked up from the letter to scowl at a blushing Kankuro. "See! I told you it was a scam and only you were stupid enough to fall for it. Lost a few paychecks there, didn't you?"
Kankuro whistled, turning away and ignoring him.
Gaara went back to reading his letter.
o.o.o.o.o
So, as you can imagine, it was a real treat to find a letter from someone I actually know!
Anyway, everything is good here. A lot of people scurrying around and there's some that are real upset with you, Gaara. Though no one really explains to me 'why'. I mean, you're trying to make amends here, even I can see that.
I really appreciate you taking the time to write me, even if your silly secretary did the actual writing.
o.o.o.o.o
Temari, reading over his shoulder, snorted in disgust. "Was it Naruto's letter that silly cluck was writing?"
Gaara nodded. "Is she still screaming about sand dragons?" He asked, though not really caring one way or the other.
Kankuro nodded. "Some of the guards pointed out that if you'd really attacked her, she'd be dead. But she won't seem to shut up about it."
o.o.o.o.o
Gaara, I have to tell you that I'm really psyched about this whole list thingy. Although it probably takes away some of your training time, which sucks huge. I love training!
I just wanted to say thank you for my letter and I accept all of your apologies. I offer you a few of mine. I'm sorry that we had to fight, although I really enjoyed our battle – after the fact though. I was also sorry to hear about Orochimaru killing your father. That sucks.
o.o.o.o.o
"No it didn't." Temari said, her two siblings nodding in agreement.
o.o.o.o.o
Anyway, I've got to run. Training this afternoon! Hope to hear from you again real soon! Take care and I know you'll find a solution to your anger issues.
Sincerely,
Uzumaki Naruto
o.o.o.o.o.
Gaara read the letter through three more times before rolling it back up with a small smile on his lips. He caught his siblings staring at his smile with a strange look, so he frowned at them and their expressions cleared.
"Next letter?" He asked pointedly.
Kankuro grinned, reaching for the next letter-scroll. Again, nothing went 'bang' or anything. He handed the letter to Gaara, who scanned it and groaned, grimacing.
"False alarm. It's a love letter to Teeemaaaari." The red-head handed her the letter with a sneer. "Thought he wasn't your boyfriend, even if you did make me promise to be nice to him."
Temari reached out and put her hand on Gaara's shoulder, the action making them both stop and stare. Before Gaara's efforts to change, she never touched him voluntarily.
She pulled her hand back, blushing slightly. "It's not from Shikamaru."
Gaara pointed to the signature. "That's who signed it."
Temari looked the letter over a moment, chewing on her bottom lip. "It looks like his handwriting, but it's not from him."
Kankuro looked over her shoulder cautiously. "How can you be sure?"
Temari blushed harder, not wanting to tell them this part, but not having much of a choice. "Gaara, don't be offended. This all started before you started to change. And you had killed several of my past boyfriends …."
"Yah, yah?" Gaara motioned for her to continue.
"Well, I set up a secret code and everything to make sure no one here found out about us." She said ruefully.
"You mean me, don't you." Gaara frowned, then sighed as she nodded a bit fearfully. "It's okay."
Temari took a deep breath, holding up the letter. "This isn't in code, number one. Second of all, this isn't Wednesday and he always sends me a note on Wednesday. Third, he overuses the word 'troublesome' in this letter. I threatened to make him pay if he kept using that word. The last few letters have been 'troublesome' free."
Gaara looked intrigued, taking the letter from her as Kankuro scowled. "Someone's trying to pull something, aren't they?"
The red-head's frown deepened as he perused the letter carefully. "He wants to meet you 'alone' at a romantic get-away. At a bath house in a small village in between Suna and the Leaf village."
Temari shook her head. "It's a trap, isn't it?"
Gaara and Kankuro nodded, their expressions turning hard as they thought about this attempt to get their sister somewhere 'alone'. "It's a trap." They both said with quiet anger.
"We're going to destroy them, aren't we?" Temari asked, fury starting to make her own eyes gleam hotly.
"Oh yes." Both brothers nodded.
The sand trio ignored the other letters for now, turning to making plans to trap whomever it was that was trying to set up Temari.
o.o.o.o.o.
Sorry about not updating sooner. Hope you enjoyed!
As always, this is the part where I throw myself down on the ground and look at you with puppy dog eyes and beg … "Review please!"