Thanks to Claamchowder, Malix 2, Rena, Yumetaka Kourui, Midnight Angel Rain, Dragonlord2005 (I agree, sorry 'bout that), Lady Rini, ???, and 11OneDone2Many. With over twenty two thousand views, we humbly beg you to forgive us for this incredibly late chapter. School has been quite horrible to us, as it is to all of us. Whatcha gonna do though? Future is future. So read ahead…IF YOU DARE!
Haruna stirred idly. She felt incredibly warm and her heavy eyelids refused to open. Not to mention it seemed incredibly bright out. What had happened anyway? The last thing she could remember was…remember was…
Ah….
Uhm….
Something…involving sand….
Oh yeah! They had been on that mission with Kankuro-san to get the Saunte-
Suddenly everything flooded back to her and Haruna sat up panicked. She then proceeded to wince at the movement, as she realized she was completely sore all over. Her right hand was in some sort of cast, but other than that she couldn't find any obvious outward damage except for a couple of nasty bruises that could have come from anything ranging from being hit by that rogue ninja, just flat out falling over, or even that earlier fight with the Suna team.
Speaking of which, they were in the room with her. Room. Hospital Room. Haruna took in her surroundings. Next to her was Sarunte, drooling on his pillow. Across from her were two beds with Keitaro and Miyaki, both rather unresponsive as well.
…Wait….
Where was Nara?
She hadn't…you know…died…had she?
Maybe she got better?
Did whoever find them not see her?
Who found them anyway?
They were in Suna right? Right? The last thing they needed was to be in earth country. The amount of diplomatic hurt that would cause was too painful to think. At the best, it would cause a lot of unnecessary paperwork. At the worst…there could be another ninja war.
Haruna took a deep breath. She had to calm down. She was panicking. She was only ten after all. Who was she to predict what would happen?
Well…she WAS a genin. Much smarter than her classmates like Reniko and Sarunte. Maybe even smarter than Nara. Well, maybe not smarter than Nara, but she bet that Nara wasn't half as smart as she was when Nara was ten.
Pondering her perceived superiority reminded Haruna of the room's lack of Nara. She became worried again.
Suddenly, a nurse walked into the room. Noticing Haruna was awake, he immediately went to check on her health.
"Where's Nara? My friend? She was with us…I think…" Haruna asked worriedly as the nurse lightly applied pressure to several parts of Haruna's right hand, receiving varying pained reactions from the genin.
"Oh. Her?" The nurse retorted, indicating he wasn't very amused, "She barely made it into the hospital bed before she practically leaped out and declared herself ready to go, as if we didn't know how to do our jobs…does this hurt? No? OK…but don't worry, you'll see her eventually, she shows up…sorry, it seems your wrist is still a bit off, I'll see if I can bring a medic nin in, they are all a bit busy though…she shows up about every day every three hours or so, it's rather infuriating let me tell you…oh that's good at least it's set properly…"
Haruna smiled with relief. "Did we uhh…did the saunter grass work?"
The nurse nodded. "Quite. That's why I couldn't get you a medic nin to heal your hand…hmm, we might need to get that checked…they are all running around trying to bring all the inflicted back to full health, but it's an exhausting job. It requires a lot of precision. Saunter grass is just as poisonous in enough quantities, not to mention we only have a limited amount so we need to use it…does this hurt? A tingling sensation…hmmm…we need to use it wisely."
The nurse finished his assessment, and promised to return with some food.
"Wait, one last question. How long have I been asleep?" Haruna asked.
"About three and a half days. Partially exhaustion, but mostly because we felt it was best to use anesthesia, in order to keep the healing process as painless as possible, especially since our medic nins would be busy."
xXx
"Sakura-san, are you done with her? You are needed in the 6th quarters. Patient Ranma has gotten violent again."
Sakura groaned. The past three days had been a complete blur of hurried extractions and mass healing. The genin had brought back more than enough Saunter grass needed, and it had amazedly survived for the most part, even with the hot desert air.
However, there was still the issue that it was a very delicate procedure, and Sakura was simply not able to get to all of them. All of Suna's medic nins had combined their forces to help, but some of the less experienced ones had either messed up in one way or another. It did not help that the Saunter grass created rather nasty mental effects for some people, which while mostly harmless once it went through their system, had caused some of the meeker medics to back off cautiously.
Nara was not making her life easier either. She had been harassing the hospital about five times a day. However, Nara was easily eclipsed by that absolute brat Ryoga. Dear Kami. Ryoga. Ryoga. Ryoga. Kankuro looked like an absolute saint for not having murdered him by now.
He didn't even leave the hospital. He just sat in the waiting room. Ever fifteen minutes or so he would start hyperventilating and absolutely demanded to the first poor soul he could find that they lead him to his teammates room and take their pulse immediately.
Of course, that was much better than when he had originally been allowed to go into his teammate's hospital room himself. Now he was banned.
Luckily, that problem had been solved. Nara and Ryoga were currently training half way across the village.
Or, to be more accurate, they were playing a game of prisoner. Ryoga was the prisoner, Nara was the prison guard. No easy feat, since Ryoga was quite the speedster.
It would definitely be worth the five months of unlimited ramen to come. Definitely.
For now, she focused on seeing if she could get a rowdy patient to calm down by breaking a vase just by flexing her grip.
xXx
Nara felt absolutely horrible.
Well, that was a lie.
To be more precise, she was absolutely overflowing with glee.
While her teammates were slowly dying. Maybe.
Which made her feel guilty.
Which made her feel horrible.
But DAMN if this wasn't fun.
The adrenaline rush had been worth it.
Her heart pounded wildly as she eyed around the corner, keeping an eye out for the panicky genin.
Where are you Ryoga? Come on…I know you're out there…come out and play…
There it was. His chakra.
Promptly, a clone right next to her stabbed her, and Nara disappeared with a poof.
The clones all over were promptly informed of Ryoga's whereabouts.
And within the second, Ryoga was tackled again by an ecstatic Nara. This time, she proceeded to seal off his chakra points, at least temporarily. She might not be a master of Gentle Fist, but she could still pull it off.
Ryoga lay on the ground panting and wheezing. "No fair. No fair at all. What if they already died or something?"
Nara chuckled to herself. She was beginning to like Ryoga. He wasn't so bad once you got used to him.
"Here," She said, helping him up, "I'll be nice and let you treat me to some food, in exchange for releasing your chakra points."
Ryoga looked at her skeptically.
"If not you'll just end up dying from exhaustion." Nara added.
Soundly convinced, Ryoga awkwardly fumbled out his pouch and proceeded to limp to the nearest restaurant.
"There better be ramen where we're going." Nara put in.
xXx
There had been ramen, and Nara experienced for the first time, ramen with a desert style. Unable to get her favorite type, seafood (for obvious reasons), Nara instead tried the special. It was only afterwards that Ryoga informed her she had been eating lizard.
…not that bad…
Until Ryoga mentioned there were also scorpion tails.
Well…at least now she knew she could eat them next time they were in the desert.
They were walking out, when Kankuro showed up.
"Oi. Ryoga. Ryoga's keeper. Got news for you jaan."
"THEY'RE NOT DEAD ARE THEY KANKURO-SENSEI?"
"Yes Ryoga. They died. Gaara killed them jaan."
"…" Ryoga appeared as if he were not sure if that was a joke or a fact.
"Kankuro-sensei…uhh…did Kazekage-sama…uhh…"
"No you retard! What did I tell you about falling for sarcasm?"
"Th…that the next time I did it you drag me by the ears into the desert with my hands tied to my ankles with a gag in my mouth?"
"I'm pretty sure he was being sarcastic again." Nara comforted.
Kankuro snorted. "Then you clearly don't know me at all blondy jaan. Being able to escape is a very useful ninja technique."
"But using it as a punishment?" Nara questioned skeptically
"Then I get to have my cake and eat it too jaan."
Ryoga looked positively cowed.
"Kankuro-san, Ryoga and I have been training all day, can't you give him a break? Just for today, so he can see his teammates?"
"What are you talking about? They're dead. I told you. Gaara killed them jaan." Kankuro said with a deadly grim face.
Nara blinked several times completely in shock.
"Nah! Just joshing. The brats are all alive jaan." Kankuro said cheerfully. "Let's go. And Ryoga, I expect to see you tomorrow 4 AM sharp, got that? You'll have three days until the vultures eat your corpse." He said, smiling wickedly.
The three ninja headed for the hospital.
Nara was greeted to an absolutely ecstatic Haruna. She waved happily and immediately asked if Nara was o.k. as she ignored the snickering of Miyaki.
Sarunte gave Nara a crooked grin, but seemed to be more preoccupied with his hospital food than his guests.
Keitaro honorably took the task of comforting all of Ryoga's fears, and Miyaki just stretched back and enjoyed the show, as Kankuro questioned her for how badly they did against the missing nin.
"We would have done absolutely FINE, 'cept we got in a fight and all." Miyaki snerked. "Total foe yay. We didn't even sense him coming."
Kankuro gave a rather evil eye to his team. "You are all showing up tomorrow at 4. We have some exercises to run. Trust me when I say the last thing you want to do is fight on a mission. I should know, my teammate was Gaara, and he wasn't always so calm lemme tell you jaan."
" 'Ey Nara…" Sarunte said, as he chewed thoughtfully. "I waz wonderin'. How'd that guy know your name an' all? Wha'd he call you? Demon Spawn?"
Kankuro fought the urge to snap his head up. Instead he slightly narrowed his eyes and ended his questioning of Miyaki to listen to the conversation between the leaf genin.
"Are you sure you didn't just mishear him?" Nara asked innocently. "I mean, we were in the middle of a fight and everything."
Haruna shook her head. "No, I remember that too. I asked you about it. You said it was nothing remember?"
Nara shook her head. "Not…really…"
Sarunte sighed and as he shoveled some more food down, he winced a bit from moving the wrong muscle, and eyed Nara again. "Why'd you get so lucky an' heal so fast?"
Nara just shrugged. "Oh I don't know. I'm just a fast healer."
Keitaro rolled his eyes. "Well obviously" he said, rather annoyed at the redundancy.
"…you're not an alien are you?" Sarunte piped up suddenly.
"Shut up brat." Kankuro muttered. "You don't know what you're saying jaan."
Sarunte pouted. " I do SO know what 'm talkin' 'bout."
Kankuro mumbled incoherently to himself, and stormed out for absolutely no reason, as if he had some sort of axe to grind.
The rest of the genin were let out of the hospital the next day (Kankuro refused to accept this as an excuse. He bumped the time up to 2 am, and promised a much more harder task the next day that would put them all back in the hospital for months), and all of the victims of the sickness were well on their way to recovering as well.
The leaf genin spent their last day in Suna enjoying the sights, the food, and the training opportunity as Sakura and Temari wrapped up some last minute issues. Such as that visa problem, for instance. And stopping Kankuro and Sakura from destroying each other in a violent argument regarding tailed beasts.
As the afternoon dragged on, Sarunte began to stock up on water to be taking with him on their trek to the desert, as Haruna and Nara decided to shop. Just for the heck of it. If they were in a different village, they might as well get some souvenirs. After a while, Sarunte eagerly joined them, proving he enjoyed shopping for shoes ten times more than either of the girls.
As Sarunte was hesitantly trying fried scorpions covered in chocolate, as Haruna was pondering the usefulness of a beaded belt pack, as Nara wondered if a particular spice root would be useful for her chakra balls, a Suna ANBU confronted them.
"Uzumaki Nara?" She asked stiffly.
Nara turned around and cocked an eyebrow suspiciously. "Yeah….? That's me…"
The ANBU bowed. "The Kazekage-sama wishes to speak with you in private."
Nara frowned and furrowed her eyebrows. She was suspicious. Why would the Kazekage want to see her. Actually, the chance to see Gaara would be mind blowingly amazing but…why?
She hesitantly took a step back.
"The Kazekage wan's to see you?!?! NO FAIR!" Sarunte complained as he tried on a bandana. "What makes YOU so special huh?"
Haruna eyed Nara with jealousy. Sarunte was right. It WAS no fair. Why hadn't he asked to see all of them? They had ALL been on that mission! If anything, he should be wanting to see her. She was the one who had saved all their asses after all!
The ANBU was not amused by Nara's hesitance. She was a busy person and did not have time for the trivializations of a genin.
"It is best that we leave as soon as possible."
Nara took another step back.
Resisting the urge to make a scene, the ANBU folded her arms instead.
"It's alright Nara." Said a voice from behind the ANBU. "Go."
Nara craned her head to see a rather tired looking Sakura-sensei.
"Oh…ok!" Nara said a bit awkwardly. Her suspicions had been wrong, but not unjustified. The ANBU could have easily been a spy or something of that sort.
Nara followed the ANBU to the Kazekage's office.
The room was quite similar to Tsunade-baachans office. There was a huge window overlooking the village- but this room was maybe just a tad bit browner, and a tad bit cooler. Which made sense, seeing as how hot it was in the desert, a cool temperature would be something in great demand.
The Kazekage was facing the window, so all Nara could see were his robes and hat. The Kazekage raised a hand, and the ANBU promptly bowed and left.
"If you will, Miss Uzumaki, remove your hood, and I shall remove my hat." As he said this, he turned around, and did indeed remove his hat.
Nara removed her hood, and she stared at the legendary Gaara.
His hair was longer than her father had described it, but quite red. His eyes seemed almost dead, but at the same time bright and penetrating. He had quite an attractive solemn face, Nara admitted to herself. If this had been a more casual situation she probably would have gone all starry eyed and bombarded him with questions.
But she couldn't do that here. The situation seemed far too serious.
After a couple of minutes of complete silence, to her surprise, Gaara smiled slightly, and held out his hand.
"Hello Miss Uzumaki. I am Sabaku no Gaara. The Fifth Kazekage. I am most pleased to meet your acquaintance."
"Uhm…no…no!" Nara stuttered. "The pleasure is all mine! I…I've heard so much about you! My…my uh father…he liked talking about you…" She trailed off and smiled nervously.
"Haruno-san has told me Naruto-kun died four years ago."
Nara nodded. "Yeah…four years in a couple of days…."
Gaara barely gave any indication of recognition. "You don't look much like him." He said quietly. "Much more like your mother, but you have your father's drive. His will to protect his people and follow his own code…it is what I admired most about him."
Nara blinked confusedly. "How…how could you see something like that?"
Gaara laughed. It was a quiet laugh, and it sounded odd with his voice, but it was unmistakable for anything else. "When you get to my level of skills, you learn to do that sort of thing."
"Oh." Nara replied, not really knowing what else to say.
"I understand that is not all what you carry from your father." Gaara said stoically.
Nara took a step back in surprise.
"Kankuro-kun told me. He was quite quick in connecting the dots. Sometimes I underestimate his intellectual prowess."
Nara nodded, biting her lip.
"If you ever need help with anything involving situations out of your control, you only need to contact me." Gaara said after a couple moments of silence.
The conversation was over. There had been no vocal cues, but Nara knew it was over. She smiled, thanked Gaara for his kindness and left. It was only when she left the room did she realize how wildly her heart had been beating.
She could only imagine how terrifying he must have been when her father first met him. Nara highly doubted she could have taken him on with that level of intimidation. She still had a long way to go until she was anything like her father. Maybe Gaara-san had been mistaken…
To Be Continued