Disclaimer: Nope don't own Naruto, and I never will. I'm only saying this because I'm at gunpoint. I do own Naruto…I mean I don't!
Story: Fem!Naru Minato tells Kushina to flee to Suna, if something were to go wrong in Konoha after his death. Because of this, somehow Naruto is raised in the Sand.
Set as an AU.
Spoilers: …Probably?
Warnings: The usual stuff? I mean, most people who read my stuff are repeated readers, so they should know…otherwise…eh…
Pairings: Yondy!Kazekage/Fem!Naru
Suna no Hoshi
Chapter Six: The Pitfalls of Teamwork
She was fascinating.
He had never met anyone like her. She was bright and lovely, and she was like a personified sun. They talked of nonsensical things, and it boggled his mind because he can't remember the last time he'd had a conversation for the sake of conversation. She spouted information about herself without care that as a shinobi, she shouldn't be so free with information about herself (especially with a person she'd just met, like she just had with Rasa).
He wriggled droplets of information that he could get about her, small little tidbits he wanted so he could continue to form a larger picture of her and who she was in his head. She was a ramen lover, with an addiction to miso. Orange "rocked" because everything about the color associated with her. It was her favorite color, however the truth was that dark shades of red were actually her favorite because she'd heard the Kazekage's hair was some shade of red that was dark (and that baffled him because he had no idea what he had to do with anything with that, especially given that she didn't even know he was the Kazekage).
She liked to snack on oranges and cooked with a lot of rosemary, hence why her smell was a mix of the two. She rapidly spoke about her favorites to him, any and all, without any caution, and interrogated him about his in return (and it really did feel like an interrogation).
He had been a bit shell shocked from the experience at first.
And then she'd changed suddenly, acting demure as she smiled softly and looked at him from under her eyelashes, one of her hands elegantly placed across her chest as she bowed slightly. She thanked him formally and then she was gone.
Then he realized she'd also left him to pay for her food.
He had been left flabbergasted, caught off guard, and yet also very amused and entertained about the whole thing. She was much more than he'd expected, or really she was absolutely nothing at all from what he'd expected. In fact, she'd been far beyond anything he'd been able to come up with in his mind, even with Baki's meager offerings.
The next day, he resolved to make a better impression and hold out, and wasn't about to let her get yet another upper hand on him. After all, he was absolutely fascinated with the person Naruto had become, and admitted he was looking forward to seeing how she'd grow, along with her team.
So, knowing her love for ramen, he took a chance on visiting the noodle bar she'd been eating before, when it was time for breakfast. He had managed to leave a note at his secretary's desk that he was going to be late getting to work, and had headed straight to here afterward. His patience paid off as he saw her almost pouting as she slunk towards the restaurant, and he wondered what had happened to make her feel upset, frowning as he pondered that.
"Hey there," he called out, and gave a slight wave of his fingers.
She saw him and perked up slightly, smiling a little as she took a seat next to him. She made her order and then turned to him, smile widening just a little more.
"Hey you, that wasn't nice last time," he scoffed, though he was still smiling and showing he wasn't too bothered.
"I'm quite sorry," she said quietly, reaching out and gently tilting his chin up with the tips of her fingers. "At least I'd managed to thank you prior, and it was meant also for your lovely company."
He blinked.
Cockily, he swiped her hand away from him and in a single move had turned it into a firm grip that he had no intention of letting go, as he pulled away from her and outstretched to their side. He smirked and lifted an eyebrow.
"No princely-ness, thank you very much," he drawled, and her eyes widened and she was awkward for a second before becoming sheepish.
"Eheh, alright. Sorry about that," even her grin was sheepish.
He allowed her to pull her hand away from his and reach for some chopsticks. He was sure she wasn't used to someone not reacting to that exact "prince aura" she'd cultivated. He was probably the first and only, and he was surprised to find a shot of smugness shoot through him, along with a strong urge to milk that advantage for all its worth.
"So what had you so down just a little while ago?" he finally got to question.
She went back to pouting and had dejectedly pried apart the chopsticks before answering. "Ah, well, you see –I missed seeing the Kazekage this morning."
Though Rasa had finally gotten himself collected when interacting with her, he had still become close to choking on the tea he'd been drinking at her admittance.
"How'd you know you missed him?" he asked, masking his discomfort, as well as his uneasiness about talking about himself separately.
She sighed. "I have a direct view to his office from where I live. Every morning, I usually catch a glimpse of him before I leave my apartment. He wasn't there this morning."
Rasa just barely stopped himself from choking from yet another sip of tea.
"Ah…he…he must've…woken up late," he finished lamely. "Why would…you bother trying to see him in the morning?"
She laughed in embarrassment, scratching the back of her head. "Er, well you see, when I got transferred into the apartment from the orphanage, it was really rough at first. But then I noticed that every morning, Kazekage-sama would always appear in his office in the morning at a certain time. And after a while…I guess I took comfort from seeing him and his routine in the morning, as well as how I could always count on him being there every morning and at that time."
Rasa felt rather faint and embarrassed, and he was sure that there must've been a slight tint of red on his cheeks. That said, he made a mental note to appear in his office first, before going to meet Naruto for breakfast next time…
Afterwards, they managed to hold a light conversation, and Rasa made full use of his newfound power to not only resist her charm, but also turn it back on her and make her as flustered as possible. It was payback for last time (and all those poor souls who regularly succumb to it).
"Don't worry, mikan-hime," he finger poked her forehead. "I'll pay for your meal."
She turned red in embarrassment, at the same time as she sputtered about her new nickname, and he couldn't help inwardly letting loose an out of character evil chuckle.
"Do you eat here every morning?" he asked suddenly and she nodded, curious. "I'll meet you here tomorrow as well then. I think I've really come to like noodles."
She beamed at him in excitement and cheer, and he felt a sense of accomplishment for some reason. He carelessly leaned back against the counter and lazily made a shooing motion towards her, smirking all the while.
"Go on now, mikan-hime. You'll be late to your team meeting."
Her sapphire blue eyes widened and she stuttered out a thanks and a bye as she raced out of there, and he allowed himself to chuckle aloud to himself. A loud thud startled him, and he turned slightly to see the owner of the noodle bar, and who had also made the noise by placing a new cup of tea beside him.
"Your second cup, Kazekage-sama," the owner said blithely, though his eyes was laughing.
Rasa coughed slightly and straightened up, knowing that his face was probably only just a little better than Naruto's had been before she'd left.
"T-thanks, Kazuhiro-san," he recognized the retired shinobi.
Kazuhiro waved him off, going back to making more noodles.
"…She comes at dinnertime every once and awhile too," he said sardonically.
Rasa's face heated up exponentially and he hid his face behind a hand.
"That's enough out of you, Kazuhiro-san…"
Meanwhile, back in his home, chaotic happenings were occurring as his kids were rushing to get ready for the day.
"I still can't believe you didn't tell me the Desert Prince was a girl!"
"Shut up, Kankuro! It's your fault you assumed!"
There were a lot of doors banging around and lots of shouting, but Gaara ignored his siblings and continued to firmly press down on the flower.
"Gaara! Breakfast!" he calmly caught the mandarin orange thrown his way, not bothering to look out his door at his sister who'd peeked in and had thrown it.
"I thought we're not allowed to eat them!"
"If you don't tell, I won't!"
Gaara pressed harder, and a particular loud and violent door slamming had an important picture frame on his wall tilting. He frowned as he glanced at it, now starting to feel a little irritable at his siblings. He reached out with his sand and fixed the framed preserved flower crown that had been given to him by an angel all that time ago.
An angel…
For so long, he'd always believed a real angel had given him the flower crown, even at times to this day. But…if he focused a bit…He'd always had trouble recalling her features, what with how young he was and plus it's been years after the fact. The most he could remember are the colors of golden hair that looked like a halo, blue eyes as clear as the sky, and flowers everywhere. It was a bit disappointing and frustrating he couldn't remember much more than that.
"Geez, Gaara. You done with the girly art yet? We gotta leave soon," Kankuro peeked into his room.
The red head's eye twitched.
His sand rushed forward and pushed Kankuro out of his room, and then slammed the door after his brother. Gaara took a deep breath and then went back to focusing on finishing on preserving his latest flower acquisition, also starting to eat his orange for a quick breakfast.
After that, he finally went to meet his grumbling and pouting older brother, and they walked out to the meeting point. Baki still wasn't there, but Naruto was. She waved cheerily at them and Kankuro tossed her a mandarin orange. Gaara blinked, surprised that his brother had, especially given what it was and "who" those really belonged to.
"I remembered you said you liked oranges yesterday," Kankuro grinned cheerfully. "Just don't say anything to our dad, if you ever meet him. He loves those things."
Gaara nodded in agreement, but he froze as his eyes alighted on Naruto more closely.
Blonde hair…blue eyes…the feeling of familiarity…
Could it be? Could Naruto really have been that little angel from long ago, that had given him his precious flower crown, who had helped him to learn and try to reach out to others and not be a monster?
He bit his lip, just barely holding back from saying something to her. It was a long time and he wasn't even sure if she remembered it, or if she really was the angel (though he was most certainly feeling very certain about it). For now, he'd just keep back and observe.
Not too long after and their sensei finally made it to the scene, and he scrutinized them all closely.
"I'll be evaluating your skills," he said shortly. "So we'll be going through the day, fine combing through you guys' arsenal, become more familiar with each other's skill set, and learn who's good at what, who can supplement someone's weakness, and at the same time what which area needs tweaking to overcome that weakness."
"So serious, Baki-sensei," Naruto said, ironically with a serious face and tone. "We got it."
"Yeah! What she said," Kankuro pumped a fist.
Baki sighed. "Alright, let's get started on your taijutsu."
Really. All he'd wanted was to find out what they can't or can do that day. And what he got was a disaster.
All three of them sucked at taijutsu. Suck. Really suck. Naruto was at least average, but Kankuro was more interested in staying back and manipulating his puppets, while Gaara preferred to be laid-back and stationary (and worse than the Kazekage in the stationary fighting form –at least Baki remembered that Rasa was more than sufficient at taijutsu).
He watched them fight his clones in numb terror. Kankuro was running away from his, and when it caught up, the puppet user would fling out his arm and pathetically hit the clone once and then he'd be back to running away in panic. Gaara was staring his down, stoic face unblinking and refusing to move an inch from his spot (or at all –what the hell was Rasa doing? Did he just focus on stationary the entire time, damn it?). Gaara's clone was looking in confusion between the boy and then him, unsure what to do since his opponent was refusing to fight back (or do much of anything, really).
Then there was Naruto. His female genin, who actually knew the Suna Academy brand of taijutsu…but everything was so sloppy and lazy and mistake-ridden! He could see what the reports from the Academy about her meant regarding her interests. He could definitely see how the scores and reports of the Academy came into play, as seen by how though she knew the stuff, it was far from mastered or even amounting to any level of good.
"Stop! Just stop!" he shut the taijutsu portion down quickly. He was hoping for a better run for genjutsu.
Their genjutsu skills were abysmal.
Naruto couldn't find her way out an illusion even if it was staring her right in the face, Kankuro had no skill noticing or breaking out of one, and Gaara and genjutsu shouldn't even be in a single sentence.
That is to say, after he'd cast a rather light one where they would be facing some kind of fantasy their heads randomly conjured up, Kankuro had immediately looked confused and was looking around in confusion and scratching the back of his head, heedless of his teammates or sensei. Naruto was strangely speaking to someone, having sat down on the ground with her legs crossed, and talking about "being late" and "blasted shrinking cookies."
There was also something about a fluffy adorable rabbit, that looked like whom she was talking to currently, and who she kept asking if she "could pet his ears."
He had nothing to say about Gaara, his rabid ranting, and the sand flying about everything…and something about birds attacking.
"Why are they doing this? Why are they doing this? They said when you got here the whole thing started. Who are you? What are you? Where did you come from? I think you're the cause of all of this. I think you're evil. EVIL!" Gaara roared and angrily attacked at nothing in the sky. "Hitchcock this, you bitches!"
Baki sweatdropped. Honestly, he'd initially thought that since birds are kind of natural enemies to raccoons, it was the reason why Gaara had gone off the deep end about birds of all things. That? Contradicts everything, and made him twitch and wonder if Rasa was off guiltily sneaking to watch Hitchcock movies at night and hiding from everyone…and also snickering and giggling about The Birds as he watched that infernal movie again and again (all the while wondering the point of the movie and why the birds were freaking attacking).
"I…I…" he didn't know how to stop this.
"Oh, off into the rabbit hole again?" he heard Naruto saying and then there was a huge hole in the ground and then she was preparing to jump into it and he was on the verge of a breakdown.
"I need Anbu," he bemoaned.
Thankfully, as two of his genin were the Kazekage's kids (with one as a jinchuuriki), there was a single squad keeping watch on them while they were in the village (though he'd actually forgotten about them). They silently appeared, and three separated to restrain Gaara and the other two went to stop Naruto from jumping into the hole. The last one stood on standby next to Kankuro, just in case the last member of 'Team Kickass' decided to do a riot act or something, all of a sudden.
When Baki looked, Gaara was still ranting about birds and trying to push the Anbu off of him, Kankuro was still standing still and confused (but not looking at any of them), and Naruto was pouting in the Anbu's arms.
"Usagi-chan! Come back! Let go! I want the bunny! LET ME PET YOUR EARS!"
The Anbu successfully managed to dispel the genjutsu and Baki sagged in relief. The three genin looked around in confusion, more so at the Anbu around them, before turning to their sensei and looking at him questioningly.
He just groaned.
After that, the Anbu visibly stood aside and kept watch, and Baki wearily went on to the next thing.
Their ninjutsu was scattered. Gaara was proficient with his sand techniques…but they didn't vary and he had nothing else. Kankuro was great with his puppets…but he only had his puppets. Naruto was a bit more promising on this front as well…if only because she was proficient and had other jutsu, such as Suna-brand Academy stuff (as well as the common E-ranks between all villages…that neither Gaara or Kankuro had bothered or cared to learn).
He watched tiredly as Naruto started to gleefully substitute with Kankuro's puppets repeatedly, shunshined all around Gaara's sand, and had been henged to look like him.
Baki never wanted to see how he looked like cackling madly ever again.
He depressingly watched Gaara perform his sand techniques…and then recycle back and perform them again. Sand burial…sand prison…sand shuriken…sand this, sand that…He should also probably be worried about Gaara's rather obvious glee he went through, exacting his sand jutsu on Baki's poor clone that he kept having to remake.
He had no idea how to respond to Kankuro, in boredom, making his puppets perform. And Baki meant performing. He wasn't even sure where Kankuro even learned ventriloquism, or why the hell would "Ant" want "Crow's 'child.'"
He wasn't even prepared to acknowledge that Kankuro was in the process of creating a soap opera with his puppets.
"Teamwork," he slurred. "How about…how about teamwork, guys?" After all, they had all managed to work together on their first mission together, right after just meeting. This had to work.
They try teamwork training next and fall apart. Gaara was annoyingly stoic and hard to read, Kankuro was loud and had a huge ego, and Naruto was enviously and disgustingly so charming and smooth with people (and had a horrible ability to be able to talk circles around a person, and that person wouldn't know or was unable to do anything about it).
"Hey, Gaara! Was that blink a signal to move right or left?"
"I got this, guys! Let me handle it –I've got this shit under control!"
"…"
Baki face palmed. When he looked up, he scrunched his eyebrows at seeing Naruto chatting with the Anbu for some reason, who looked hard to read anyway.
But then they were moving in sync with her the next moment, and firing off fitting and matching sequences.
"Baki-sensei! I got it! See? I'm doing teamwork!"
"Naruto!" he felt like tearing out his hair, even though he fully was aware he had none. "You're supposed to do teamwork with your team!"
"Oops! My bad."
He didn't even want to know how she had managed to convince the Anbu to work with her or even participate at all. Smooth talker, that girl. Complete with silver tongue, deadly face, lethal eyes, and fatal smile.
"That's it for today, Team," he inwardly groaned. "Just…I don't even know. I don't even know."
All three sheepishly looked at him as they huddled together, and he took a second to gather his thoughts. He told them exactly what he thought and had noted, and they winced.
"And I'm assigning homework," he said firmly, and he gave Kankuro a look, quieting any protests before he could hear any begin. "Find a jutsu or something, whatever, and you get bonus points for learning it, or can even do it."
After that, he slunk away in despair and found Rasa. He laid all the blame on the man, all the while drowning in his depression in front of his red-haired friend.
"This. It's all your fault. All of it."
Rasa just nodded along, staying awhile, before he glanced at the time and frowned to himself. Without alerting the other and allowing Baki to continue to rant and be miserable in his office, he successfully escaped his office after sneaking a note onto his secretary's desk, and then made his way to the noodle bar.
With a grin, he jogged over and took his now usual seat beside her, and after some greetings and orders, was subjected to Naruto launching into her day and her version of everything, and mostly about poor "Baki-sensei."
He snickered quietly at that.
Started 5/6/13 – Completed 5/6/13
A/n: Mwahaha! I think I'm enjoying torturing poor Baki-sensei too much. It's just too much fun and he makes it so easy. As for the team's current loserness…well, if they were gauging their regular talents, they'd been awesome, but you know…in regards to regular shinobi skills, those poor bastards XD Next chapter should have Naruto showing more of what she can actually do, like what she's actually been interested and training in all these years (What can she say? The Academy was boring). If you read Naruko Gaiden too, you'll recognize Nagi's nickname for her (I couldn't resist).Thanks for reading and hope you all enjoyed! Please drop a review!
To montypie: Thanks! And yes, I'm pretty sure the Chuunin Exam will be in here somehow. I will say while she'll be recognized and that they'll want her back, but I won't be too specific here :D Gaara will be a little tricky and maybe a little bit, but that's not the pairing. Sorry!
Omake! (Or The Genjutsu Tales)
"Fu…Fu!"
The girl in question was crouched to the ground, parallel to it as she scurried around the area.
"Chomei, Mantis-sensei says I must be like the mantis to fight like the mantis," Fu said patiently to someone, even though no one was around her closely. "Silly Chomei. Don't be jealous of Mantis-sensei and say he's not real. Or maybe not jealous~ Do you like Mantis-sensei? But can mantis and beetles mate?"
"I don't think the Seven-tails will appreciate that comment…"
Fu slowly got up and moved into a stance from the mantis and was swaying.
"No, Chomei! You're so silly –this isn't a genjutsu. Mantis-sensei is a better teacher than you, so you must be jealous! I won't let you stop me! I must master Mantis-sensei's teachings!"
"Should we stop this?"
"Yeah…I think this means she definitely failed genjutsu…"
"Yes, Mantis-sensei! Be like the mantis…HOP like the mantis!"
With wrong timing, they dispelled the genjutsu at the same time as Fu leaped into the air and she crashed to the ground with a yelp.
"…I wonder if the other villages have so much trouble teaching their jinchuuriki genjutsu…"
Started 5/12/13 – Completed 5/12/13
A/n: I think Utakata is next.
Citations:
1. Gaara's rant during genjutsu: "Why are you doing this [...]EVIL!" -as stated, from "The Birds" by Alfred Hitchcock. (Because raccoon and birds are natural enemies :D)
2. More of a reference/allusion: Naruto's genjutsu sequence to "Alice in Wonderland."