The five teens stood in the clearing looking at each other for just a couple of seconds.
Gaara stood in the middle of the three, dressed in a buttoned up brown trench coat with a brown strap for attaching the large gourd he carried to his back. His hair was red and styled in spikes. On the left side of his forehead was a tattoo of the kanji for love.
On his right was his older sister Temari. She had blonde hair tied into four pigtails, she wore a blue kimono top covered by a piece of anbu style armour with a red clothe tied at the waist. She wore a short slitted black skirt along with some fish net on her upper left leg and right shin, her feet were covered by a pair of black ninja sandals.
On Gaara's right was his older brother Kankurō. He wore a black, full body jumpsuit with a hood that had two points that looked like cat ears. On his face there were many purple lines that formed a pattern that Naruto did not know the meaning of.
Before Naruto opened his mouth to say something, only to be beaten to the punch by the redhead attached to his back.
"YOU! YOU'RE THE BITCH THAT BROKE MY FUCKIN FLUTE!" of course this drew the attention of the blonde Suna genin who immediately grabbed a hold of the giant fan that was strapped to her back and brought it in front of herself.
"Naruto-san that girl your with was one of the ones who kidnapped the Uchiha, why are you helping her?" the Suna girl asked as she assumed an offensive stance.
"Eh, Temari, this is Naruto we're talking about, you know, the guy who became friends with Gaara," Kankurō deadpanned towards his slightly older sister.
"What's that supposed to mean?" the oldest of the Suna siblings hissed back.
"Let's see, Gaara tried to kill him, kill the girl he has a crush on, oh yeah, let's not forget that Gaara tried to destroy his home and crush everyone he cared about, so I don't see what's so surprising about him helping someone who just kidnapped his supposed friend," came the black clad boy's response causing his sister to stare at him blankly.
"(sigh) fine, I get your point, but you did realise who the person you're carrying is right?" the blonde girl questioned him while keeping her guard up.
"Yeah, I do know who this is, and I don't think she'll be returning to Hebi-teme," Naruto assured her as she finally decided to put her fan back in its place on her back.
"I still don't trust her," Temari stated.
"Neither do I," the former Konoha nin informed her.
"What the fuck is that supposed to mean shithead!" the redhead shouted in his ear.
"Nothing."
"By the way… why are you carrying her?" the blonde Suna nin asked cautiously.
"Because you went and fucking broke my fucking legs ya bitch!" Tayuya shouted out.
"Hey! Don't call my sister a bitch!" the black clad member of the group shouted out.
"Everyone shut up," came the monotone call of the male redhead who had remained unnaturally (or naturally for him) quiet throughout the entire conversation, "if she is injured then it would make sense for us to find a nearby town and get her fixed up."
There was silence as Temari brought out a map of the elemental countries, before marking their position on it and deciding on the quickest town to reach (well one with a hospital anyway).
With their destination agreed upon, the quintet left the clearing and started running through the treetops.
They had been running for several hours now, and the group had finally decided to stop for the night. Temari had already calculated that it would take the group another two days to reach the nearest town at their current pace.
Right now the group was currently seated around a small campfire as they ate some of their provisions.
"Hey Naruto, will you be coming with us to Suna?" the blonde Suna nin asked curiously as she ate her meal.
"I can't, Suna and Konoha are allies, if you took me in then, the alliance would end," Naruto responded as he ate a cup of instant ramen.
"Why do you care about the alliance? Konoha banished you," she was about to say more but was cut off by the other blond.
"No, Konoha didn't banish me, it was one man who tricked the daimyo into banishing me so he could get me away from any form of protection, he was also the one who sent those ANBU after me," the former Konoha nin informed the Suna siblings without looking up from his ramen.
"I see, so since it was just one man, you don't want to weaken the entire village by destroying it's only alliance," was the blonde girls statement concerning his motives for refusing to join Suna.
"Yeah."
There was silence for several minutes before Kankurō decided to voice his opinion.
"You know, just because Naruto can't join Suna doesn't mean we can't help him."
"Huh?" came the intelligent response of the orange clad former genin.
"Well I was just thinking that, we could teach Naruto a thing or two whenever we see him, you know, help him improve his skills, I know it would take a long time and all, but in the end it could really benefit him," the puppeteer explained.
"Wait, the only things you know are village secrets, you can't seriously want to share them!" Naruto shouted at the black clad boy.
"Naruto, you gave us our little brother back, sharing what we know is the least we can do, even if what we share are village secrets," was the claim made by Kankurō.
Looking to Temari, he noticed that she agreed with her brothers statement, Naruto would get training off them, even if they were sharing village techniques with him.
"Hold the fuck up! What the fuck is all this shit about anyway?" moment ruined courtesy of a foulmouthed redhead.
The person who decided to answer was in fact the other redhead in the group.
"Before Naruto beat sense into me, I lived only to kill and survive, I never thought of my siblings as anything more than annoyances, but Naruto managed to save me from my darkness and I now accept my siblings as just that, family."
"Pfft, I don't see what's so fuckin great about having a fuckin family anyway."
Naruto was about to respond, but was beaten to the punch by Gaara, again.
"You don't know what it's like unless you have one, but when you do have one, you don't want to lose it, I know, I was once like you, I didn't let myself have a family and I regret that now."
"Fuck this, I'm fuckin tired and wanna get some fuckin sleep… SO SOMEONE TAKE ME TO MY FUCKIN BED!" Tayuya shouted at them, resulting in Naruto taking her to the tent they had set up for her.
"Damn, she has an even bigger temper than Baa-chan," Naruto mumbled as he returned to the group eliciting a small chuckle from everyone present, including Gaara.
"If you are going to be travelling, you should stay with her, her techniques are dangerous and the only reason I could beat her was because of my skill with Fūton techniques," Temari stated with absolute seriousness in her voice.
"I guess so, and maybe having someone to talk to will stop me from going insane," the orange clad boy stated sombrely.
"Anyway, when we arrive at the next town and get her in the hospital, we'll start teaching you the basics of our techniques until she is capable of walking again," Kankurō told Naruto calmly.
"Wait, what about your mission report?" the former konoha nin asked them.
"Sent it by messenger bird before we left Konoha, we were even given a fortnight off of duty, so we can help you without too much difficulty," the blonde girl informed him.
"Thank you."
"Not a problem, anyway, we've got a long day ahead of us so it would be wise to get some rest, Gaara will act as lookout, since he still can't sleep without releasing Shukaku," after getting a nod from the chronic insomniac, the group made their way into their tents before getting a good nights sleep.
- (ROOT HQ)
Danzō was livid even if he refuse to show it, he had expected to receive the Kyūbi jinchūriki last night or earlier this morning at the latest, however it appeared as thought that wasn't the case.
The boy had apparently met up with the Ichibi jinchūriki and it had killed one of his men, of course Danzō couldn't bring this to light, after all, he was supposed to have disbanded his ROOT division years ago, and since the member was not registered as a citizen of Hi no Kuni, let alone a ninja, there was nothing he could do about it.
He just had to hope that the Kyūbi brat wouldn't join Suna or he would of weakened Konoha significantly, and that wasn't his plan. He wanted to get the Kyūbi itself under his control so that Konoha and Suna could defeat all the other countries before turning on Suna to unite the continent under Konoha, then they would start taking over the other continents piece by piece until the world was running under the flag of the leaf.
Of course this plan relied solely on keeping Konoha the strongest village and in order to do that they need allies until they were large enough to eliminate all opposition at the same time. And right now his plan was being threatened by the jinchūriki of the Ichibi.
All he could possibly do now, was wait and hope.
Something he hated to do.
- (back in Konoha)
Tsunade was not happy at all, she had tried to find any evidence against Danzō but no matter how hard she tried, she just couldn't find any.
Then there was Jiraiya, he was constantly pushing for her to dismiss a couple of ANBU who liked Naruto and unofficially send them after him. While she considered the idea seriously, there was no guarantee that they would find him, and even if they did, Konoha was already low on manpower and her decision could cause the daimyo to remove her from her position and place someone like Danzō as Hokage.
That was something she would NOT risk.
Then of course there was Sakura, she had burst into her office one day and practically begged to be her apprentice, stating that if she had only been stronger then she might have been able to help Naruto stop Sasuke and everything would have been alright. When the Godaime had questioned how everything would have been alright, the response she got surprised her, 'if we had stopped Sasuke-kun then the bastard who got Naruto banished wouldn't of had any ammunition against him and he would still be here,' with that statement in mind, the legendary medic decided to accept the pink haired konoichi as her second apprentice.
Kakashi had refused to teach another genin cell, claiming that he had already proven to be incapable of teaching because of the disaster that was team 7. He kept stating that if he had been a better sensei then Sasuke might not of run off to Orochimaru and Naruto wouldn't of been banished. Even if Sasuke had run off to Orochimaru, Naruto would of probably been strong enough to stop him if he had received proper training.
Team 8 wasn't functioning at all since Kiba was still in hospital and Hinata refused to leave her room, with members of the branch family often hearing her sobbing over losing 'her Naruto-kun'. Apparently she had decided to leave with him, only to find that she was too late, and with everyone stopping her, she simply couldn't leave the village without an escort.
The Shikamaru started to take his training more seriously, not wanting a repeat of last time. He was impressing Asuma with his determination, pushing himself past his limit, which he had promised himself he would keep doing so that if he ever had to lead a team again, he would be useful to them on the field instead of as just a strategist.
So all in all, Konoha had lost a potential Kage and gained more hard workers.