They didn't go to Mist next. Zabuza refused to give in to Kiba's wishes so quickly after having just stolen a kid from Suna simply because the boy wanted to have a friend around.

He would never admit to it, but Kiba was sure of it. The man had too much pride to ever admit to blatantly ignoring Kiba's pleas simply because he'd already given in once.

But, really, Kiba didn't mind.

Having Gaara around was fun. Especially with how many different things they could do with his sand powers.

"Are you ready, Gaara?"

"Ready, Kiba! Are you ready Akamaru?"

The dog barked from his spot inside of Kiba's jacket, which made the youngest human smile among them smile broadly and nod. "Okay, you can go down now!"

"Kiba, Gaara! What in the holy hell are you two doing?!"

"Having fun, old man!" Kiba answered with a broad smile, then prepared himself once more.

They had gone to the Land of Fire after crossing the desert. Kiba knew this because he recognized this part of the forest. They had slept here for a while before they had managed to trek over to Suna. And because Zabuza had decided to go through with yet another disappearing act like the ones Kiba had grown accustomed to, both boys had decided to have some fun.

So Gaara had somehow managed to make sand out of the dirt beneath them. Then, per Kiba's insistence, had created a really tall and long slide so he and Akamaru could slide down. And by tall, Kiba had meant tall. They were able to see over the trees canopies from the height they were in. And he loved it. Gaara and Zabuza down on the forest floor looked tiny from up there.

Because sand was somewhat chaffy, they had taken one of the few metal plates they had, one that Zabuza tended to use when they made a fire on cold nights to 'cook' their food. It wasn't really cooking. He just laid them down on the plate, allowed the fire to make them less raw, then handed the food over to Kiba and Akamaru to eat.

"Okay! Here I go, Gaara!" Kiba had zero fear when it came to awesome things.

This was one awesome thing, though, that he maybe should have thought a bit more on before actually going through with it.

But, the ex-Inuzuka knew that throwing himself down this home-made, much too big slide would piss Zabuza off. So, being the ever intelligent little kid he was, he decided to go through with jumping and seeing how awesome it would be to fly.

"Don't you dare jump, Kiba! I'll kill you!"

But Kiba didn't listen to the man. Instead he position the metal plate on his butt, smiled broadly at Gaara, and jumped down the sand slide with whoops and giggles of pure glee.

At first, everything was amazing. The wind whipped at his face amazingly, Akamaru and him both cheering and whooping in pure delight. But a bit of their glee ended when they heard Zabuza shouting at Gaara to stop this madness.

"Don't let the old man get to you!" Kiba shouted through the whipping winds, even though it was somewhat difficult. "He's trying to suck the fun out of everything!"

It was fun to slide down from the height! The world had been extremely far away. But now it came up to him extremely fast, giving Kiba a sensation of full on flying. And he knew that it would not end until after they had reached the end of the slide. For everything went his way, we would indeed end up flying.

"Dammit, Gaara, don't listen to that idiot! I'm gonna stop this."

"Don't let him, Gaara!"

Zabuza made to jump on Kiba as he slid down. But Gaara moved fast and encased the man's legs with sand, effectively stopping him from stopping Kiba's fun.

"You little- He's in danger, Gaara!" Zabuza tried, but Gaara shook his head.

"Kiba knows what he's doing, Mr. Old Man."

"He's a kid!"

"But he knows."

The Mist nin growled dangerously, but Kiba whooped in delight as he came closer to the curved end of the slide.

"How do you know he knows?"

"Because he's smart."

"Far from it! Gaara, let me go!"

"No."

"Good job, Gaara!" Kiba congratulated as he and Akamaru neared the end, then he braced himself for what was to come.

He had always wanted to know what it was like to fly. And he'd never really had the chance to try and do so. Not back in Konoha and not with Zabuza. But with Gaara's sand slide, they had been able to create enough speed and enough height for him to actually try and fly. And Akamaru was along for the ride.

"Here we go!"

Suddenly, he felt weightless. There was nothing but up and up and up. And it was amazing. He and Akamaru were sent soaring over the trees. He lost his grip on the metal plate upon leaving the slide, but he couldn't think on that. The only thing the ex-Inuzuka could truly think of was how beautiful the world looked from up here. How peaceful it was.

It was amazing.

Too bad he had to be reminded of the harsh rules of gravity after only a few seconds of appreciating the view. What came up, must go down. And he had gone up... All that was left to do was plummet.

Even though he had been feeling inner peace and calm as he had gone up, when the world started to get closer, a sense of pure panic replaced.

"What am I going to die?" He questioned to himself, eyes wide and arms flailing. "I'm not a bird!"

In retrospect... He should have remembered that what went up plummeted down.

"Gaara! Let go of me! He's going to die!"

"No. Kiba has this under control. I believe in him."

"He's going to die, you idiot!"

Zabuza... He sounded legitimately worried.

Maybe the old man did care...

It was a shame Kiba thought of this seconds away from dying.

But, what was there left to do? He was much too far from Zabuza or Gaara to be saved. And he couldn't stop his own descent, he didn't have enough knowledge of anything ninja related to stop a crash landing that was going so fast.

"Well, Akamaru..." He sighed, hugging the pup tightly to his chest. "It was a good ride. I'm glad it's you I'll be dying with."

With a whimper of fear, the dog nuzzled his head against Kiba's neck. But they didn't struggle. They accepted their deaths.

Closing his eyes, Kiba prepared himself for impact and darkness.

But it never came.

Instead of a harsh landing that left him dead, the boy suddenly found himself crashing against something that was definitely not the forest floor. Then he heard a sigh of relief, followed by a soft laugh.

"Damn, kid! It's not every day I see flying boys!"

The person wasn't anyone Kiba had ever met. And when he looked up to see who it was that had saved him, Kiba found that he was most definitely still flying. The wind was still passing through his hair and bit softly at his face. But it wasn't as fast before. It was going by much slower.

The man wore standard shinobi clothes, dark khaki pants and a green kimono jacket with white trimmings and a belt. He had long blonde hair that fell to his shoulders in a slick ponytail. And his face was smiling broadly, light blue eyes shining with what seemed like amusement.

"Am I... Am I dead?"

The man shook his head, then crouched down in front of Kiba, poking him in the head.

"Not really. I don't think so. You're breathing and speaking. But, with an idea as stupid as whichever you came up with that wound up with you flying, I'm surprised you aren't. You're really lucky I happened to be around to save you."

"Thank you." Kiba gulped as a cold sweat ran through him, then he looked down at just what it was that had saved him.

A giant bird. One that looked a lot like those dolls his sister used to have before she had been killed.

"So, where should I drop you off?" The man asked nicely enough, turning to scan the forest below.

Apparently, to him it wasn't too odd to be flying a giant bird. But to Kiba, it was amazing.

"So beautiful..." The boy breathed out, some of the fear ebbing away from his body as they flew peacefully through the air.

The man hummed and nodded in agreement. "Then you're not a complete idiot."

As they flew, Kiba spotted Gaara's giant ladder. So he pointed at it, telling the man that he could drop him off over there. The blonde nodded and took them there, then the bird began to descend.

When they reached the ground below, Zabuza was still struggling to free himself from Gaara's sand. But Gaara insisted that Kiba knew what he had been doing and so he would wait until the other boy told him to release Zabuza. But, until then, he would hold him there.

"So this is what sent you flying..." The man noted with amazement in his voice. "Pretty interesting..."

Gaara's face light up when he saw Kiba, although Zabuza continued to struggle with his eyes closed.

"I told you he knew what he was doing, Mr. Old Man!"

"Kiba's dead, you fucking reta..." Zabuza's insult, though, teetered off when he opened his eyes to glare at Gaara, only to see Kiba walking towards him with the man right beside him. "Gaara, free me right now."

"Why, Mr. Old Man?"

"Because there's a prime bounty target right there and I'm going to need new supplies to keep you and Kiba out of your stupidity."

The man's answer surprised Kiba. And he glared at him, shaking his head.

"He saved me! How could you try and kill him after he was so nice?"

"Business is business. No hard feelings." The man shrugged, then looked over at the man. "No hard feelings right?"

"None at all. But if you fight me, I'll let you know that you won't be cashing in on anything. But I may be cashing in on your life."

Kiba couldn't believe what he was hearing.

"You two are stupid." He remarked bluntly, shaking his head. "Come on Gaara. Let's go do something else that will get us in trouble with the old man."

"Okay!"

"Kiba!"

"You're raising me to be a danger to myself!" The boy defended himself. "If you taught me to be smart, I wouldn't be such a danger to myself!"

"Kid has a point..." The blonde muttered, then patted Kiba's head. "Would you like to make some art?"

Kiba thought about this for a second... Then he decided that one near death experience should have been enough for one day. "Okay."

So the man sat himself down, motioned for Gaara to join them, and began to teach them how to mold clay.

After stopping them from doing anything stupid, Zabuza couldn't kill him. It just wasn't right to kill the man that had stopped both of his wards from killing themselves.

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