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Nekomi woke to find Gaara sitting in the corner, watching Naruto with a smile. She smiled too. He had curled up with the blanket and had his thumb in his mouth.
Gaara said "Kassan, you're awake. It's not light out yet."
Nekomi said "It almost is. The sun will rise in a half hour. We need to prepare a little before we head off."
"Prepare?"
"I've got to change the appearance a little to confuse anyone who could be following us. I've also got to get us something to eat."
"Oh.." Gaara paused, remembering the last time they had been out getting supplies. "Kassan, can't you just take it out of the big scroll you brought?"
Nekomi sweatdropped. She had forgotten about the scroll for a minute. She said "Oh, yes, some of it has to be refrigerated if it's not sealed, and I didn't seperate it, so I'll have to take all of it out if we're going to use it. I suppose it will be easier than going into town."
Gaara sweatdropped, but said nothing. Nekomi went over to the scroll and picked it up. She undid the seal for food. It was a good thing she had gotten some snacks. She was glad she had packed canteens in with the food. That kept her from having to open another section. She kept some of them and put them in her bag for later and seperated enough for them for that morning and sealed the rest back.
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A man dressed in black, wearing a hood was up, running a half hour before dawn. He thought 'I'm close, I know it.' He could just tell somehow that she had gone this way. After another half hour he began to approach the town. He hadn't slept all night. He had been running full speed and it was beggining to wear him down a little, but he couldn't stop now.
When he felt a burst of specific energy his eyes widened. There! He ran faster and up through an inn, to the keeper's protests. He burst in through a door and found a made up bed and a put up cot. There was no trash. There was no signs that any one had been here, save...He threw his head back and took a deep breath of the air in the room. The smell...it was her! But there were two strange smells with her. He studied the room more, but it yielded him nothing. That was enough, he knew it was her. She was alive! Nekomi...How had she gone so fast? As he sent his senses out to look for her, he found no trace. Unless...she had used Inabikari...but why? Who was she running from? And who was she running with? He frowned.
These were questions that he could answer when he met her. What he had to do now was to find her, but now he was beat. He fell forwards onto the bed with a grunt. "Damn it, you're one hard noble to track down, woman." Soon the inkeeper came in and began to yell at him. He threw a small bag of coins at her "There. Leave me alone, you old hag."
She looked at the money with wide eyes, then decided it was none of her business and closed the door on the way out. It was enough money for a month's rent.
He sighed and mused aloud "For all of the people to be left, it had to be the two of us. What a mismatch." He yawned "Oh well, hopefully she won't kill me when she sees me." He fell asleep as the sun made its way up into the sky.
NGNNGNNGNNGNNGNNGNNGNNGNNGNNGNNGNNGNNGNNGNN They made 3 jumps and Nekomi paused.
Naruto asked "Are you out of energy again, Kassan? I can give you some."
Nekomi shook her head. She said "No, but we'll stop for a snack and something to drink before we keep going. Inabikari drains your energy a little too and so do the necklaces."
They nodded. Nekomi sniffed the air and turned around in a circle. She smelled water. It was probably best to get some water before heading into fire country. "Follow me." They did.
Naruto asked "Where are we going?"
Nekomi said "To a stream."
"Where? I don't see one."
"It's up ahead."
"How do you know?"
Nekomi tapped her nose "I can smell it." Naruto looked confused.
"But water doesn't have a smell."
Nekomi said "Yes it does. It's just harder to detect then somethign with a strong smell, like ramen. It's only a quarter mile. You should hear it soon." They did as they approached it. It turned out to be a good sized creek. They filled up their canteens and sat beside the creek. Nekomi took out the snacks and gave half of them to the boys to split up amongst themselves.
Naruto said "Hey, you got more!"
Nekomi laughed. "I need more, Naru-kun, but don't worry. When we get to Kiri, we'll go to the best restauraunt they have and eat till we're stuffed."
Naruto had shiny eyes "Really?"
"Hai." Nekomi smiled in response. She looked at Gaara. She said "I bet I know what you'd like?"
"What?"
"Dango."
"What's dango?"
Nekomi sweatdropped. She said "We'll all have some when we get to Kiri, all right? It's really good."
"Yatta!" Naruto yelled.
Nekomi put a hand over his mouth and said urgently, but gently "Naruto, not so loud. We do not want to draw attention to ourselves, understand?"
He nodded and looked down "Sorry, kassan."
Nekomi tried something that she thought might work better. She shook her head "I don't know how you'll ever become a ninja if you're that loud? They'll hear you coming a mile away. Ninjas are supposed to be stealthy."
Naruto looked at her with wide eyes. "I can be a ninja? Like you!?" He seemed really excited now. "Can I learn how to use a sword and shuriken? Can I call the cats too? What's it like to be a ninja? Will you teach me those cool jutsus? How many have you not done already? What..." Nekomi put a hand over his mouth again, with a laugh this time.
"Calm down, Naru-kun. All of that comes a bit later, but yes. I'm going to train the both of you to become strong. Whether you become ninja is your choice."
Naruto said "I'm gonna be a ninja, just like you!"
Nekomi smiled, but said "Naruto, your voice."
He whispered "Sorry, Kassan." He was still grinning ear to ear though and jumping up and down.
Gaara looked at the hyperactive blonde and smiled.
Nekomi asked "What about you, Gaara? You don't have to decide right now."
Gaara looked at her with a look that asked 'are you serious'. He said "Of course I'm going to be a ninja. What else would I do? Arrange flower baskets? Sell vegetables?"
Nekomi snorted, then was surprised "Gaara-kun, you made a joke!" She hugged him, which surprised Gaara again. He also surprised himself when he hugged her back. He was a little sad when she let go. She said "Now, hurry and eat. We've got two more jumps to go before we rest."
Naruto asked "Where will we be when we stop this time?"
Nekomi said "Fire country."
Naruto's eyes widened. "No! I don't want to go back there!"
Nekomi caught his wrist. "Look at me." He did. "We won't be anywhere near Konoha and we're all in disguise. They're not going to find us. We'll leave again at dawn."
Gaara asked "We should get there by noon. What are we going to do for all of that time?"
Nekomi sweatdropped again. She hadn't thought about that. She needed the time to sleep, but the boys wouldn't need that long, especially Gaara. They would get bored out of their minds just waiting around for that long and boredom trouble with boys that age, maybe not as much from Gaara, but Naruto...she worried about what he would do. She thought and came up with an idea. She said "You'll train, the both of you."
"Train? But I thought..."
Nekomi interrupted "You will train in a chakra control excersize in the room."
"Chakra control?"
"Yep. I'll show you when we get there." They finished up eating and refilled their canteens once more, cleaned up with an incineration jutsu from Nekomi and left.
Two jumps later...
Nekomi was beat as they walked to the town on the other side of the border with rain. It was at least a few days fast travel by foot from Konoha. They should be fine. She walked around until she found an inn. She noticed Naruto had tensed up and was looking around nervously. She put her hand on his head and said "Do not worry." They went in and Nekomi rented a room once again and they went up to it. She put her things down beside the bed, showed the boys the bathroom (it was a suite style) since they'd have to use it, not being in the outdoors anymore, and went back and locked the door.
Naruto saw her look at the bed and cried "Kassan, you're suppossed to train us!"
Nekomi blinked. Huh? Oh, the leaf excersize. She opened the window with a yawn and plucked two leaves off of the tree. She held them in front of the boys' faces. She said "Watch." She used chakra to make the leaf stick to her forehead and then to make it fly off her forehead and then she took it a step further and made it hover above her hand. "Were you watching?" They nodded. Nekomi gave them the leaves. "Practice." She crawled underneath the covers and was asleep again.
Naruto and Gaara looked at each other and then looked at the leaves. The wind blowing in was cold. Gaara shut the window with his sand. Naruto pulled out the mat and they sat across from each other on it.
An hour later...
Naruto cried "I can't get it to work!" The leaf just kept falling off. He looked at Gaara. "That's cheating. You can't use sand!"
"Why?" Gaara frowned.
Naruto said "Because, you gotta do it with your own chakra, like me."
Gaara frowned and tried again, but faced the same problems as Naruto.
Naruto giggled as the red head crossed his eyes to look at the leaf that had slid down at his nose, and then stopped as it stopped falling "How...did you do that?"
Gaara was surprised and the leaf fell. "I don't know."
"Do it again!"
"Ok."
Naruto whined "I still can't do it."
Gaara's face screwed up, thinking "I was looking at it hard, until I could almost see nothin' else. Then it stopped."
"Ok! Let me try!"
Naruto tried again.
Three hours later...both boys' stomachs were growling. They lay back, tired. They had both gotten the leaves to stick, but they couldn't figure out the rest of it.
Naruto said "I wonder if there's some food left..." He looked in the bag, but all he saw was the scroll and the canteens. They both gulped down the water in the canteens. When he was about to grab the scroll his wrist was grabbed. He jumped.
Nekomi opened sleepy eyes "Naruto-kun. Gaara-kun?"
"Here, Kassan" Gaara answered.
"What are you doing?"
"We're hungry."
Nekomi frowned. She should have thought of that. She sighed and got up. "Don't touch the scroll. If you had tried to open it, it would have hurt you. I put a trap in it to make it explode if it was taken from me."
Naruto looked frightened, but relieved that she had stopped him.
Nekomi took out the food and put the rest back. At this rate, they would be out of food when they reached Kiri. She said "This isn't instant food anymore." I'll have to cook it." She yawned again "I didn't get any plates at Ame...oh well, you can eat out of the pot." She mixed together some of the ingredients with another yawn with the water from her canteeen and used a low level fire jutsu coming from her hand to cook it. She sat it down on the floor and produced two spoons. "Eat."
Gaara asked "Aren't you going to eat, Kassan?" Gaara sweatrdropped as he saw Nekomi already back in bed asleep. So did Naruto, but they ate. After eating, they picked up their leaves again and looked at them.
Naruto said, with a grin, "I bet I can get it to fly off my head like Kassan did first!"
Gaara said "No I will. I had to teach you."
Naruto hmphed. "We'll see."
Four hours later...
Naruto had passed out, exhausted from the training and was now snoring on the mat.
Gaara sighed. He was lonely. He was so glad he had found these people, his new family, but he still had to be up all by himself while the others were sleeping. He wished he could sleep too, if he would have dreams like Kassan showed him. He jumped when a figure rose in front of him in the dark room. He backed up, but was shocked when the figure picked him up and the sand didn't protect him. "Let me go! Kassan will..."
Nekomi laughed softly "Gaara-kun. I know it's really dark in here, but it's just me. I'm really going to have to fine tune your sense of smell."
Gaara relaxed as he realized that it really was her. "I thought you were asleep."
Nekomi said "I still keep a lookout in my sleep. I don't want you to feel lonely again, Gaara-kun. It's a terrible feeling."
Gaara looked at her. "I want to dream, Kassan!" He cried. Nekomi held him, to comfort him. She frowned. She really would have to look into that when she got to Kiri.
She said "As soon as we get to Kiri, Gaara-kun, I'm going to take a look at that seal and see if I can fix it, so you'll be able to sleep like Naruto-kun."
Gaara's eyes widened. "Could you really do that?"
Nekomi said, solemnly, "I will try my hardest. That I promise. But for now," She paused and looked at Gaara. "Let's sit up together for a while."
Gaara said "But you need to sleep, kassan..."
She said "I got enough sleep to make another five jumps tomorrow, or today as it soon will be." They were talking in almost a whisper so as to not wake up Naruto. Nekomi said "Besides, I can regain energy if I stay still, I just do it faster when I'm asleep." She sat on the bed and patted the bed beside her. Gaara climbed up hesitatingly and sat beside her. Nekomi said "Now, how much progress did you make with that justu?" She asked him with a questioning eyebrow, then smiled.
Gaara grinned and said "I can make it stick!"
"Show me."
An hour before sunrise...
Naruto woke up to the smell of food cooking. "I smell food..." He drooled.
Nekomi said "It's breakfast. We're about to leave again."
Naruto asked "Will we be to Kiri then?"
Nekomi shook her head as she continued to cook the food. "But we will be half way through fire country." She saw Naruto's worried look and added "Don't worry. We're staying far away from Konoha." Naruto still looked a little nervous. Nekomi said "Well, I've seen what Gaara learned. Did you learn the technique I showed you?"
Naruto whined "Did he do it with the sand? That's not fair."
Gaara cried "I didn't! Look!" He put the leaf on this head and proudly focused and shook his head back and forth. "See!"
Naruto grinned sheepishly. "Sorry."
Nekomi asked "Why did you accuse Gaara of using the sand? You seemed upset about it."
Naruto said "It's cheating. He's got to use his own chakra like me! He did it earlier."
Nekomi said "But it looks like he's got it now on his own. How about you?"
Naruto grinned "You bet!" He also focused and got it to stick. "See!"
Nekomi smiled. Impressed with how fast they had learned the excersize. It would be more difficult for them than most children, with the immense amount of chakra they already had. She said "Very good. Now we eat, and we're on our way."
After they ate...Naruto asked "What are we going to do with the pots?"
Gaara said "Yeah, we can't burn them."He looked at her.
Nekomi said "I'm going to wash them out and put them back."
"How? Are you going to use another cool jutsu?"
Nekomi laughed. She said "Nope, just soap and water." She went to the bathroom and washed the dishes and resealed them. As she saw the dissapointed look on his face, she said "Jutsus require energy. Any time you can do a task without using jutsu, you should. You should save your energy for when you really need it."
"Hai..." Nekomi finished cleaning up and strapped her pack back on. Naruto and Gaara took her hands. They were on the go again.
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I'm planning on doing a timeskip, but not until they get settled down in Kiri. I think I'll go regular speed until then. Don't forget to read and review. Ja Ne.