Thank you for your feedback in the last chapter! Everything was rather helpful, especially when one review (Another Witty Ninja) mentioned something about the way I write the story. So, for anyone who's a tad bit mystified by anything Kohaku says, don't hold back in asking me what she means when she says something! I'll try my best to make everything understandable…ish.

I'll consider doing a FAQ section if there's a lot of questions pertaining to the previous chapters of the story, and that's where I'll probably elaborate more on Kohaku's speech patterns. We'll just see how it goes, yes? So feel free to ask questions!

For GaarasMyBoyzz, (thanks for the cookie!) I've been trying to write the other side of Gaara, the way I imagine him to be when he's not in Kazekage Gaara-mode. 'Cause whenever we see him in the manga or the anime, Gaara's usually doing something awesome like protecting his village, saving a friend or something along the lines of that, right? So I guess maybe that's why you feel like he's kind of OOC but not really, 'cause none of us have actually seen Gaara just being… normal. (Although I can't say if Gaara can really be normal - he's too awesome for normal.)

Why not tell me what's your opinion on the normal, off-duty Gaara? I'd love to hear everyone's standpoints! I'm pretty open.

Oh, and CherrySmoothies, I'd totally hate to be on the wrong side of Kohaku's tongue, too! But then, I guess I'd somewhat enjoy it if I were. I'm that masochistic. Heh.

Special thanks to: MidnightCherryBlossoms
AveryKnight
immortal-lover14
CherrySmoothies
Another Witty Ninja
jestie kiryuu
Lady Amazon
Anonymous ()
GaarasMyBoyzz
Renrinrin

Only a small band of readers, but I really cherish each and every one of your support! You are the reason for why I strive to better my writing!

Disclaimer: I do not own the genius work that belongs to Masashi Kishimoto, only Kohaku and any characters that do not appear on Naru Wiki.

This story will not have any relation to Naruto's dream of achieving Sasuke Uchiha's return or deafeating Orochimaru. This happens a little bit after the Rescue Gaara arc. In other words, kind of AU. Thought you should know.

Considering what had happened in the morning, it wasn't much of a surprise when Naruto was less than eager to get back to the apartment after Day One. If Lady Luck truly decided to be an unforgiving bitch that day, Kakashi would most likely be waiting to lecture the blonde shinobi about teamwork and responsibility, neither of which Naruto had shown much of with his little display of rebellion that morning.

One could imagine Naruto's surprise and utter relief when he'd reached the apartment, stepping in without being ambushed by his captain, and instead found the man sitting in the living area, reading his latest Icha Icha Paradise novel. Kakashi had even looked up, seemingly unaware of the discord between the unfavorable Kohaku and Naruto himself, and had given Naruto a gaily wave of the hand, asking him how his day went and telling him that Sakura was going to prepare their dinner, so he - Naruto - could relax while Sakura worked her magic in the kitchen.

Speaking of Sakura, when Naruto had dropped by the kitchen, the medic, usually uptight about things like teamwork the way Kakashi was, seemed to be in the dark as well. When Naruto reached his room - thankfully far away from Kohaku's - only then did the suspicion start to grow into intolerable proportions.

Everything seemed normal.

Too normal.

Unable to cope with the doubts that were starting to transition into paranoia, Naruto made his decision to burst out of his room, run down the narrow hallway and hurtled into what formerly was, before revelation, in his mind, the Portal Gate to Hell. (In other words, Kohaku's room)

Cold sweat trickled down Naruto's temples. Panting heavily from the rush of adrenalin and the built-up stress, Naruto found himself in a normal, otherwise spartan, room with a colorful bundle of gold and red curled up in a corner of the stark-white single bed.

"Uzumaki-kun. Perhaps your teachers may have not seen the need to teach you this, but I distinctly remember being told that knocking before being given the permission to enter a room is part of civil behavior."

Kohaku's owlish eyes peered out from behind the pages of a ridiculously large hardback book, the kind that only the truly demented would attempt to read. Her legs were drawn up to chest-level for the book to be propped against her knees, and her hands were hidden behind the book's cover, presumably resting against the pages of the book. Definitely not a reading position that Naruto would've associated with the stiff and formal Kohaku.

"What did you tell Kakashi-sensei and Sakura-chan?"

"Pardon?" the querulous tone in her voice was evident, but Naruto was unconvinced.

"Kakashi-sensei didn't lecture me on sight. Sakura-chan hasn't gone all 'SHANNARO!' or 'NARUTO, YOU MORON!' and punched the snot out of me," Naruto's words were cautious; his movements skittish, "What did you tell them?"

Kohaku pulled the book shut, and Naruto's useless observation saw the title, Sunagakure Politics. A small part in the blonde's hyperactive mind wondered what a girl younger than he himself was doing reading about politics from another village. Talk about strange preferences.

"I did not say anything of particular significance to both Kakashi-nii and Haruno-san," Kohaku replied as she set the book on the bare night table beside the bed, "From what I surmise, I see that you have reached a mental state of disturbance which has clearly driven you to hysterical hallucinations of what I have or have not done."

If Kohaku's lengthy assumption had been correct, then Naruto had been pulled out of the disturbed mentality from the mere power of confusion brought about by the girl's words.

"Huh?"

Kohaku remained apathetic at Naruto's blank answer. "Uzumaki-kun, if you truly have nothing of significance for discussion, I will kindly ask of you to see yourself out of my quarters, as you have yet to be properly invited in by me and I do not plan on doing so at the moment,"

"No! I do have something that I want to talk about!" Naruto remained rooted to the spot without any signs of paying heed to Kohaku's words.

Kohaku's eyes bore into Naruto, showing no emotion as they did so. "And I advise you to start talking or I will have to forcibly eject you from this room and place wards to ban you from entering by force again,"

Naruto, back to his normal, pre-paranoia self again, had his bottom lip stuck out in irritation. It wasn't like he had come here by choice either!

…

Okay, fine. He had, but that was not the point.

"You didn't tell Kakashi-sensei or Sakura-chan about what happened this morning? When I…?" He trailed off, a sheepish grin of guilt forming as he thought about his actions. He didn't regret them, but when he'd thought about what Kakashi or Sakura would've done to him, Naruto had been ready to walk into the Forest of Death, unarmed, blindfolded and limbs chained together.

Kohaku, now sitting on the edge of the bed with her bare feet flat on the ground, kept her steady gaze. Conversation etiquette didn't seem to be lacking in the eye-contact department for her. It really was too bad she couldn't control that tongue of hers.

"I saw no need to do so, because it had merely been a petty trifle sparked off from both sides of the argument. I had intended to continue on, disregarding your opinion on the matter; by force if required,"

Naruto nearly set off into a fit of rage at the mention of force, but remained calm when he remembered Kohaku mentioning wards that could ban people. Those wards could inflict a great deal of pain when the persona non grata was in the area when activated. They electrocuted and magically booted you out of the place, twenty feet into the air and you landed on the roof of some building with a few bruises and a broken bone or two. If you were lucky enough, you could land by getting impaled with questionable roof decorations.

Definitely not Naruto's idea of fun.

"'Had'?" Naruto's ears at least caught the slight verbal error in Kohaku's sentence, "What do you mean by 'had'?"

"The Kazekage has heard about the discord, and wishes for the both of us to rectify the situation, with more effort on my part," the last few words seemed to be uttered with a bitter tone.

Naruto blanched when he heard Gaara's other name. "Who told Gaara?"

"I did."

"Why in Hell's name did you tell him?"

Expressionless eyes blinked. Kohaku let out a tiny sigh of impatience. The blonde was wearing her tolerance for him thin, and the brunt of the annoyance came from his sudden catapult into her room. As a person who cherished her privacy like a miser would his gold, Kohaku had been none too pleased when Naruto had intruded without permission and interrupted her reading with ridiculous accusations. (Yes, Gaara had been right. Kohaku did, in fact, like to read.)

"It was not by choice. He asked me the reason to why I was in the library and instead of the academy, and because I was still on active duty despite my inability to carry out my duties, I was obligated to respond with the truth."

"Screw that!" Naruto was panicked right now. What if Gaara didn't approve of his actions, and then he would be booted off the mission! And Gaara would hate him forever! Not to mention the fact that Tsunade would definitely demote him and forbid him from going on any more missions, even crummy D-ranked ones! "What did Gaara say?"

Naruto failed to note the slight shift of muscles on Kohaku's forehead molding into a hardly noticeable frown. "Anything that concerns you would be relayed to you by the Kazekage," she said stiffly, "The Kazekage himself said that he would be talking to you."

Screwed.

Naruto was royally screwed.

xxxx

Naruto marched himself up the winding stairs that led to the Kazekage's office. He'd bolted dinner down in record time, second fastest next to Kakashi, and had run out of the apartment, claiming to have left something important in the academy. A bold-faced lie, because he had left nothing behind and instead headed for the closest route to the Kazekage's building.

Naruto, remembering Kohaku's reprimand for some reason, knocked twice before hurtling into the office, on his knees with his hands clasped together in an attempt to beg for forgiveness. "Don't remove me! I'll promise to try to work with Shishimiya! I swear! On my honor!"

Gaara, hand poised in midair holding an ink brush, blinked in surprise at Naruto's sudden entrance. Gaara was more or less used to people bursting in with news that had great impact on his village, like a new technique for the shinobi masses or a medical breakthrough or something along the lines of those, but having a shinobi from another village - Naruto, no less - begging for forgiveness on the floor was kind of new.

Well, Gaara had to consider the fact that it was Naruto who was doing it. The blonde never failed to amaze the young Kazekage with his strange antics.

"Naruto. I was going to look for you after I was done with all this paperwork," Gaara set down his brush against the ink stone, "You can get up now. You're making me uncomfortable."

Naruto, who had his eyes squeezed shut to brace himself for the impact, hesitantly opened them. His whole face betrayed utter confusion as he stood up slowly. "Eh? You're not going to sack me or anything?"

Gaara allowed himself to chuckle softly, a small smile ghosting his lips. Both he and the other jinchuuriki always have had a bond closer than that of friends. "From what I heard, it was merely an argument. But, before I reprimand you, I want to hear your side of the story,"

Naruto heaved a sigh of relief, before rubbing his chin thoughtfully.

"Well…"

xxxx

"…and I basically lost it and stomped away," Naruto finished, "I did give the students a choice, but they all followed me,"

Gaara's expression was unreadable, something which made Naruto slightly nervous. What would Gaara do, now that he'd heard both sides of the story? Naruto could only pray that what Kohaku had said was not as bad as he expected.

"So the Chibi was right, after all," Gaara sounded rather thoughtful. He'd expected someone like Kohaku to spin the story in a way that twisted in her favor, but all she had told him were the facts of the truth. Gaara was, begrudgingly, impressed by the way Kohaku had not concealed the truth with a lie but instead did otherwise.

"Eh? Chibi? Who's that?"

Gaara then remembered Naruto was still in the room with him. "Nothing," he said dismissively. No one needed to know of the strange acquaintance he had with the girl, "So, what I gather is that you did not want to follow Shishimiya's plan, and she insisted that your plan was no good, so you lost your temper and fought?"

Naruto pondered upon Gaara's words. "Well, we didn't really fight. It was more like I got mad, then said I wouldn't work with her, then the students followed me after I asked them if anyone wanted to. Shishimiya didn't do much. She just stood there with that stone-faced expression of hers,"

xxxx

Truth be told, Gaara was rather stumped and puzzled by Naruto's description of Kohaku's behavior. The redhead wasn't too sure of what to make of Kohaku's decision to remain quiet about the matter, but when he reflected on the fact that he had found Kohaku in the library, Gaara supposed that Kohaku was either a pacifist - unlikely for a shinobi, but considering the Hyuuga heiress, it wasn't entirely impossible - or had decided things were too troublesome to handle at the moment.

Nah. The only shinobi Gaara knew who would do the latter was the Nara boy whom his sister seemed to have a questionably strange relationship with.

"Naruto, do you remember what you told me when we first fought?"

Naruto was slightly bewildered by Gaara's sudden question. "Y-Yeah. I guess so. Why?"

Another small smile appeared on Gaara's face. "What you told me helped me realize that I could become a better person if I tried. And I did. And I'm only here today because of you,"

Naruto chuckled, his face red from embarrassment. "Well, I didn't do that much. I just blabbed things I thought you ought to know,"

"Don't you think you should try and do the same with Shishimiya?"

Taken aback by Gaara's sudden suggestion, Naruto's expression was one of surprise. It wasn't only the sentry from the day before but Gaara too?

"W-What do you mean?"

"You made an effort with Sai, Naruto. It's only fair you try with Shishimiya," Gaara reasoned quietly, his frost-green eyes boring into Naruto's cerulean ones, "I believe you can do it,"

xxxx

"Hell-o there!"

The titian-haired head made no move to acknowledge the person who had spoken. Kohaku's brown eyes continued to move in a uniform motion of up and down, still reading the pages of the book from earlier. "Do you require something from me, Uzumaki-kun?"

Naruto stood at the doorway, the door to Kohaku's room wide open. After his conversation with Gaara, Naruto had thought about what the Kazekage had said on the way back to the apartment, and the blonde had decided to heed his friend's words. He'd try to break through Kohaku's frosty exterior. After all, someone who liked eating mochi wasn't so bad, right? And she acted completely different towards Kakashi, so there was a sliver of hope for the blonde shinobi.

Naruto purposefully strode across the room, and seated himself on the floor, in front of the bed where Kohaku was. Crossing his arms promptly across his chest, he announced, "I have come to make peace,"

Kohaku never stopped reading. "I was not aware there was a strife between the both of us,"

Naruto struggled to keep his short-fused temper in check. Clearly, despite whatever Gaara had told her, Kohaku wasn't even going to consider his words. "Well, actually, there is. We've been fighting since I, um, disturbed you when you were sleeping a few nights ago-,"

"You did not disturb me. You were attempting to rifle through my things, without any prior permission to do so,"

A corner of Naruto's eye twitched in annoyance as he cleared his throat loudly. "As I was saying, I want to clear the bad blood between us-,"

"I do not concern myself with things like that. There is no bad blood between us. It is merely what you have conceived as a conclusion for your abhorrence for me,"

A loud sigh erupted from Naruto's lips. This conversation, clearly, was going nowhere. "Anyways, because of that decision, I've decided that I want to get to know you better!"

"Name, Shishimiya Kohaku; Age, fifteen; Birthdate, nineteenth of January; Height, a hundred and forty-five centimeters; Weight, forty-six kilograms. Now kindly show yourself out of the room, Uzumaki-kun,"

Unable to stand it anymore, Naruto stood up in frustration with a loud growl. "You're impossible!" he cried, and turned and stomped out of the room, good intentions long-forgotten.

Clearly, there was a long way to go before both Naruto and Kohaku could call each other friends.

As always, constructive criticism is greatly appreciated! And feel free to ask any questions if you're a bit fuzzy on something!

Luv, Pchuzilla