So they gathered their gear, and anything else they felt they needed, (lots and lots of aspirin were a must for all of them), and met back in Tsunade's office just shy of the two hour deadline.
"Wow, I didn't actually expect you to be on time. I'm mildly impressed."
"Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just tell us what we need to know!"
Seething glare. "You've all been to Suna before so you know the drills. Behave, don't kill anyone, and try not to piss of Gaara. I reeeeeaaally don't want to get a letter from him apologizing for killing my best ninja because they did something stupid."
"Awwww, come on, do you really think he'd go unstable killing machine on us?"
"Knowing you... probably."
Naruto pouted, "I'm not that bad."
"Don't even get me started..."
"Anyway..." interrupted Shikamaru, knowing that if he didn't it would be midnight before they left, "Can we attempt to stay on tract here?"
"Yes, lets. You have your gear, you know the rules...Just out of curiosity, what do you plan on teaching them, or have you not thought it out?"
They all stared at each other.
"Ohhh..."
"Urrrm.."
"Ahhhhh..."
"I thought so. My advice to you: Keep it simple. They love taijutsu there, so try and run with it."
"Easy for you to say, some of us aren't the taijutsu type..." sighed Shikamaru.
"Ahhh lighten up Shikamaru, you'll think of something," replied Kiba.
"Yeah, just because you're the only one of us that hates taijutsu doesn't mean you can't teach them something else," added Tenten brightly.
"Whatever..." Such a drag...
"Hey, at least it gets you away from Ino for a week or two."
"Yeah...and that's the only thing that makes this worth the effort."
"Exactly."
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Three very long days later...
"Oh Gaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaarrrraaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaa!" called Naruto as he barged into the Kazekage's tower.
"Oh my God they sent us the blonde runt!!!" yelled Kankurou before slamming his head against the nearest flat surface.
"Not so much of a runt anymore..." commented Temari as she stared at the much taller than she remembered Naruto.
Gaara stared benignly at them. "I see you arrived safely," in his usual monotone.
"Yep, and boy am I glad to be here. You wouldn't believe how much sand's collected in my hair over the last few hours," he said as he shook his head and drenched the floor with the golden granules.
The sand sibling's stared.
"Moving on..."
"I am pleased that Tsunade-sama allowed such a talented group of ninja to participate." (In Gaara speak: Great, two whiners, somebody I don't know, that weird Hyuuga kid, and the crazy dog boy that Kankurou whined about for three weeks after he saved him from those sound idiots)
"Yeah well, she didn't have much choice about it. I threatened to quit if she didn't," which everyone knew was a flat out lie, but didn't say anything.
"Soooo..." said Kankurou before then intelligence level of the conversation began dropping even further, "Who's doing what and which group's are they going to be in?"
"Say wha...?" asked Kiba, confused.
"Yeah, didn't the Hokage tell you?"
"No...she pretty much told us nothing and shoved us out."
"Oh, well then..." he turned to Temari, "Please explain sis."
Glare that rival's one of Gaara's. "You each get grouped by talents and what you plan on teaching. Then you get assigned a group of newbies and wanna-bes and you get a week to teach them something new. That's about it."
"Okay..."
"Simple much?"
"You'll see..."
"Temari, Kankurou, get them separated and assign them to their Gennin. Stop staling."
"Yes, Gaara," they both replied.
"Come with us," motioned Temari as she moved toward the door.
"Naruto, I'd like a word with you," said Gaara before he had a chance to dissapear. Naruto paused at the threshold and turned around. He slipped back inside and leaned against the wall. The others filled out without a word.
"When Tsunade told me you were comming back," began Gaara, "I must admit I was surprised. I had thought that you would have taken much longer to return."
"Yeah well, Pervy-sage said he was only gunna train me for two and a half years, and he made sure of it."
"I can see that. You've changed quiet a bit."
"You really think so?"
"It's quiet obvious. Last time I saw you, you were not much taller than I. Now you tower over all but my brother and the Hyuuga, although that is most likely due to the age difference. I would not doubt that you will be taller than either of them one day." He paused, "There is more to your grow than just your physical appearance. I can sense the massive increase in your power, even though you try to disguise it."
Naruto flushed slightly, "How can you tell?"
"It is not very difficult. I too have been training these past few years, although not with the same determination as you apparently. My duties as Kazekage take up a large portion of my days."
"Well, if you'd like, we could train together while I'm here. I could show you some of the new stuff that Pervy-sage taught me. Not to mention some stuff I invented."
Gaara blinked and Naruto could have sworn he smiled for a millisecond. "I'm not sure that your invented Jutsu's would be to my liking, but I thank you for the offer."
"Hey, guys like us gotta stick together."
"True," he conceded. He glanced down at the stack of papers in front of him, "I am sorry, but I must return to my work. Temari will be waiting for you, as she needs all of you there to begin the grouping."
Naruto grinned and waved goodbye as he exited the room.
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"Okay then..." said Temari as Naruto entered the room, "We can finally get started. First off, who doing what?"
Uncomfortable stares.
"Great, a room full of Chunnin and Jounin and nobody has any idea about what's going on," she sighed. "Well then, since I know Tenten, Kiba, and Lee are taijutsu people, they can be in a group together. Kankurou, since you just love taijutsu, you get to be in charge of them," she smiled evily.
Kankurou glared at her from behind his war paint. "Why do I have to be the one stuck with dog-boy again?"
"Why do I always get stuck with purple-painted puppet boy!?"
"Back off dog breath!"
"Enough!" glared Temari as Lee grabbed Kiba's collar to keep him from rushing Kankurou.
"Geeze, issues much?"
"Ahhhhh shut up Naruto. No one asked you," snapped Kankurou.
"Okay, before I have to beat you both into the ground," continued Temari, "I guess I can take Kiba off that team, if only to save all our sanity. Kiba, you can be with Naruto and Neji."
"Why Neji?"
"Because you two combine your taijutsu with other abilities and I need someone with talent like Neji to off-set your idiocy. And no self-respecting Suna Gennin is going to listen to a whinny-assed kid like you."
"But I don't wanna work with..." and Naruto finally proceed what Temari had said "... Hey! Are you calling me stupid!!!"
"Took you long enough to figure it out."
"Why I outta...!"
"Children! Behave!" said Tenten as Lee jumped in front of the two of them.
"Yes, stop acting like you are five year-olds! We have work to do and you are not going to accomplish anything by killing each other."
Shikamaru watched the entire spectacle from the chair he had settled. "What a drag..." he sighed.
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Twenty minutes later...
"Alright, so what we have now is Tenten, Shikamaru, and Kiba on one team; Neji, Lee, and Naruto on the other. Can you all live with that?"
"Yeah..."
"Okay then," she sighed. "That's one hurdle passed. Now, on to the group leaders. Who actually wants the job?"
"What do we have to do?"
"Coordinate activities with myself and Kankurou while planning exactly what your group is going to be teaching and assembling necessary equipment and reserving appropriate training areas."
"Oh," said Tenten. "Then I think that Shikamaru is the best for the job. He already does all that as a test proctor."
"True..." she grinned evily at Shikamaru. "Well, looks like you've got the job."
"This is so depressing..."
"Better than a week with Ino..."
"True, very true..."
"What is it with you guys and Ino?"
"Temari, you don't have to see her very often, nor have you ever had to work with her. Take it from someone that sees her on a regular basis, she a bigger annoyance than Naruto on a sugar high."
Temari blinked, "You're joking, right?"
"Afraid not."
"Damn..." said Kankurou, amazed. "I didn't even think that was possible."
"That's Ino for ya," sighed Tenten.
"Okay, back to business..." said Temari. "I'm guessing you're going to nominate Neji to be team leader for your group?"
"Only if he wants to do it."
"I have no objections," came his calm reply.
"Okay then. You're all set. Get together tonight and start planning. Give us a tentative schedule and everything in the morning."
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Later that night...
They'd separated into their respective groups to plan the next day's event. Well, everyone but Naruto, who'd dissapeared with Gaara somewhere. Which made Kiba uncomfortable. That, and the weird stares that Kankurou had been giving him over dinner. "So anyway..." he said, discussing his plans with Shikamaru, "I was thinking about something along the lines of my Tsuuga."
"Piercing fang seems a little advanced for a group of Gennin that aren't from your clan."
"Well, i don't have much else I could teach them that doesn't involve Akamaru."
"True..." he paused to think. "...I guess you'll just have to go with it. Not that any of them have a chance in hell of learning it."
"Exactly."
"Whatever..." he turned to Tenten. "And you?"
"Raining Shuriken?"
"Didn't you learn that from Naruto?"
"More like copied and improved it. He has to use Shadow Clones before he can use his Everywhere Shuriken Jutsu. This version is for the non-clone users."
"Well then, that'll work just fine."
"So we're good?"
"Yeah."
"Great. I'm gunna go hunt down Naruto."
"Awwwww...missing your boyfriend? Or are you worried about Gaara stealing your man?"
"Shut up Shikamaru!"
"You know it's true. You were so torn up about him being gone for so long and now that's he back your being overprotective."
"Back off, I'm warning you."
"What're you gunna do? Attack me?"
"Don't tempt me..."
"I see the fur is about to start flying," said Lee as he entered the room, followed by Neji.
"Stop acting like children," said Neji flatly.
"Easy for you to say, you weren't just getting insulted."
"I wasn't insulting you Kiba. I was just commenting."
"Same difference..."
"Hmmmmmm someone needs a nap," joked Tenten.
"Geeze, if I had know ya'll were gunna gang up on me like this I would taken off earlier."
"Awww lighten up. We're just joking around."
"Whatever..." He jumped up and walked to the door. "I'm gunna find Naruto."
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"And then we had to climb over this ginormous mountain to get to the town. We caught by a freak snowstorm half way up and had to sit in this little dank cave for four days before it calmed down enough to keep going. I thought I was gunna die of bordum in there. It was so cramped that you couldn't even light a proper fire or else you'd light yourself on fire." He was half-way through recanting his adventures with Jiraiya to Gaara.
"Needless to say you made it out eventually."
"Yeah, four days later. And then we had to drag ourselves through waist deep snow for two more days because the baka wouldn't let me buy snowshoes at that last village."
"And you could not fabricate some from the local forest materials?"
"I tried a few times, but the wood was so frozen that it was shattering before I could finish them."
"How cold did it actually get?"
"At least thirty below, if not colder."
"But if you could not light a fire, then how did you survive?"
"We lit a fire alright. It was just that it had to be outside the entrance to the cave and kept getting doused by melting snow all the time. I probably wasted half my chakra relighting the damn thing every hour or so."
"Sound's like that was a very nasty week."
"Oh yeah, one of the worst we had."
"And why was it that you had to go to this remote village in the first place?"
"There's this old hermit friend of Ero-Sennin's that lived a few miles outside of it. The guy's a master of ice and water jutsu and agreed to teach me what he knew in exchange for an advanced copy of the new Icha Icha Paradise."
"I have never read those books. Are they any good?"
"I guess they are. They're kinda boring to tell you the truth."
"Oh."
"So anyway, enough about what I've been doing, tell me about yourself. How'd you manage to become Kazekage so fast?"
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It took Kiba about an hour to track them down. They were, not surprisingly, at a local Ramen stand. He didn't enter at first, instead he waited in the shadows and listened to the conversation.
"...And then Jiraiya told the guy..."
"So he's just telling him about Jiraiya.." Kiba sighed, relieved. "I shouldn't even have been worried. Gaara's no threat to me...at least not were Naruto's concerned..." Smiling, he ducked under the ceiling and sat down next to Naruto. "Hey guys, what's going on?"
Naruto grinned, "Oh, hey Kiba. You guys finished planing and everything?"
"Yeah, we finished a while ago."
"Great, that means we have the rest of the night to hang out!"
"As much as I'd like to 'hang out' all night, I must be going."
"Awwwwww, but Gaara, you're the Kazekage. You don't have to do anything if you don't want to!"
"Sorry Naruto, but I have papers to sign and people to yell at."
"Awwwww..."
"We can continue tomorrow, if you have time."
"Oh all right..." agreed Naruto, sadly.
Gaara nodded at Kiba and left.
"Okay... that was strange."
"What d'you mean?"
"Well, it looked to me like he had no intention of leaving before I showed up."
"What, you think he left because of you?"
"I wouldn't doubt it."
"Why would he do something like that?"
"I don't know. I don't think he likes me very much."
"What reason could he possible have to not like you?"
"I don't know. I think Kankurou whined a little too much about me after he had to save my ass from Sakon and Ukon."
"Oh..."
"Well, it doesn't really matter really. As long as he's not trying to kill me or anything."
"He wouldn't try and kill you. Gaara's a great guy really. He's just misunderstood."
"Only you can call a guy that spent twelve years of his life trying to kill every living thing on earth 'misunderstood.'"
"Hey, he and I aren't that different. I was pretty close to becoming him at one time."
"Yeah, but then I came along and made everything better."
"Exactly," he said. He grabbed Kiba's hand and grinned mischievously, "Let's go back. I fixed it with Gaara so that you and I'd have a room by ourselves far away from everyone else..."
Kiba grinned ear to ear and silently thanked Gaara.
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