Well, I finally got time to get this chapter up! Sorry it took so freackin' long!

I wanted to say that I'm going to be putting this story on hold for a long time. I have no time to write to it because of school and Drivers Ed and I'm more focused on my Yu-Gi-Oh! Story… :/ It's just been hard. But, I will say that I will still try and update when I find time, but so you won't freak out, I'm just going to say I'm putting it on hold. Does that make sense? If it doesn't just tell me and I'll be more than happy to explain better.

Before you get on to reading, I wanted to give a reminded about the pole on my profile. I really want to change the names, guys. I don't like the name right now… I don't even know why I had an option of keeping it the same. :/ I will be changing it… So please, please pick something!

Now on to the story!

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto nor any of its characters!

'Thinking'

'Kyuubi talking'

"Talking"

/Naruto talking to Kyuubi/

"Jutsu's"

Chapter Ten: On The Road Again

It has been a month since Sana turned fourteen and so much had happened. Naruto had first, decided to stay at home so that they could have a nice break and not have to kill anyone, but he wasn't thinking it would last a whole month. He was thinking more like two weeks. But, when Tristan had asked Sana out on a real date, Sana had begged him to stay and so they stayed. The two have been dating for the past month. And while they did that, Naruto would go out on missions to help his adopted village. He went from two day missions to being out at one week at a time; he never stayed still and just relax. Temari had scowled him many times, but the blond would just shrug and keep doing it.

Whenever Sana wasn't with Tristan, which was rare, she was with Temari. They would go shopping and hang out at home. For a birthday present, Temari took her shopping and they had a blast. Sana had bought a whole new outfit and shoes, which was the same thing as the one she was wearing now, except she had gotten a purple tank-top instead of a black one. As something extra, she had gotten a new bomb, one that Naruto had refused to buy her; the stink bomb. The reason was because he wanted her to get used to the other bombs and become experts with them so she would use the bomb on accident and make the place smell unpleasant. But, now, she finally got some!

As of now, Naruto was sitting at one of the tables in Kimball's Ramen with Gaara. They both had a cup of tea in their hands with a tea pot in the middle of them as they faced each other in a relaxed way.

"You sure you want to head out?" Gaara asked calmly.

Naruto took a small sip of his tea and nodded. "Yeah. There's still many villages I need to visit and I'm going to try to poke around for information regarding Orochimaru and his plans. It's been a month so I think I am going to get a good lead somewhere. You know all of the small villages; they somehow always have the better, newer news."

Gaara accepted the information with a slight nod and released his cup to fold his hands and prop his elbows up to rest his chin on them. "What about the Leaf?" he asked like he would if it was something like' how was your day?'.

"What about them?" He asked in a well guarded voice like the subject was hard for him to talk about. But, despite his voice, he looked like normal, like this wasn't a topic he didn't really want to talk about.

The Kazekage let out a small sigh, "I know you are going to tell them, just promise me that you will be careful. You know what'll happen if they catch you on their land."

"Yeah, yeah," he rolled his eyes and his voice returned back to normal. He slightly leaned back in his chair and looked out the window of the shop. "If anything, I'll probably just send them a letter about what's going on."

'Speaking of sending a letter,' Kyuubi's voice entered his mind, 'Weren't you going to already send one so that you could talk to them outside of the Leaf Village?'

Mentally, the blond shrugged and didn't reply.

"Are you going to bring Sana with you?"

"Yeah," Naruto answered and looked back. He took a sip of his tea and said, "She'd be mad if I didn't." His half brother didn't even have to say the name since they were both on the same page. He shrugged, "I think it'll be good for her; she's been spending everyday with him."

Gaara nodded, "True. Though, be prepared to have you ear chewed off when you two leave." Naruto raised an eyebrow because one, he was curious on why, and two, because Gaara just said something that you wouldn't expect him to say. "She knows what happened when you and Kankuro tormented Tristan with all of the questions."

Naruto gave a nervous grin. 'How'd she find out?' Instead, he asked, "So why haven't I heard her say anything about it yet?"

"You've been gone on missions."

"Right…" Thank god. "Well, at least if she tries anything, we can spar. And get some more training in."

"Speaking of that," Gaara looked curious, "how many times has she used that attack?"

Sana's ultimate attack is what he's talking about. Since she had an extraordinary attack, Naruto wanted her to have an awesome, kick-ass jutsu so he's been helping her create one. Well, they already created it, but there were a few problems with it. The attack was proven a little too far advance for her because every time she used it, it would zap mostly all of her chakra and would knock her out for a couple of days. But, every time they practiced it, -which wasn't a lot- they were able to knock either a few minutes or hours off of being unconscious. Out of all, they've only managed one full day. Naruto didn't exactly banned her from using the attack, only simply told her that she could use it when in dire need or it was her last resort.

"Just twice since last time though they were both for training." He stated with a smile. "She's getting better though. She managed to knock being unconscious down to one day. When we first started out, she was out for a couple, three at most? She's really been improving." He had a smudged smile displayed on his face like any proud parent, or sibling in this case, would be.

After a couple more minutes of talking about the game plan, both males got up.

"I told Sana to wait for me at the entrance at two," Naruto said as they both looked to the clock hung on the wall. The clock was now just hitting two-thirty. 'Hehehe, I guess I'm turning out to be like Kakashi.' He thought, remembering how the certain shinobi was always late.

"I'll walk you there," the Kazekage remarked.

So together, the two Jinjuriki walked together through town. They didn't necessary talk, but just walked in the comforting silence, respecting each other's presence. By the time they reached the entrance of the Sand, three people were already there, waiting.

"There you two are!" Temari frowned as her siblings walked up to the group. "You're thirty minutes late!"

Naruto couldn't help but grin, "Sorry, wasn't paying attention to the time. But, I'm here now." He glanced over at his traveling companion who was patiently waiting. She had one arm hanging down and the other holding on to her arm behind her. Her bag was sitting on the ground, next to her. Besides her clothes being new and her tank-top changing from black to purple, she looked the same. But, now, she had on the heart shaped locket he and Gaara had given to her. From what he had heard from Temari, she wouldn't take it off.

"So, you packed everything you needed, kiddo?" Kankuro asked.

Sana nodded her head and bent down to pick her bag up. "Yup. All I need is in here," she slung the bag over her shoulder and strapped the one-strap across her chest. The bag rested against her back part of her hip, kind of making it look like a long purse.

Naruto also nodded, knowing that the question was also pointed at him. Unlike Sana, he didn't have a noticeable bag. He had a small pack on his thigh. It was the size of a normal pouch that couldn't really hold that much. All it held was money, another first aid kit, a folded picture of his loved ones, and other stuff.

"Well, I guess we'll see you whenever," Kankuro said and grasped the blonde's arm in a farewell. Then he knelt down just a bit until Sana was taller and hugged her tight. "Don't let him out of your sight," he 'whispered' to her in a serious tone. "If you do, you will never imagine what kind of trouble he'll be in."

She giggled as Naruto rolled his eyes.

Next was Temari. "Come home sooner, guys. You're always gone for way to long."

"No promises," Naruto grinned. "Just depends where we are and what we're doing at the time. But, we'll try to be back, I just know how boring the village is without me." He sarcastically said, getting a hit from his adopted sister.

"Just promise you won't go on a month streak again."

Sana hugged her sister and said, "I'll make sure he won't." Temari could only wink at her, knowing that they'd be back real soon since she was wanting to see a certain fourteen year old boy.

Next up was Gaara in which Naruto grasped his forearm like he did Kankuro. "See you later, man."

The red head nodded. "Remember, we'll come if you need help." He always said this whenever they left and so far, it wasn't needed. Then he hugged Sana tightly and whispered to her, "Be careful."

"I will," she hugged him back before letting go.

"Well, see you guys later!" The blond said and waved to them as the two headed out of the shelter of their home and out into the sandy, hot desert.

XxxxX

"Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Another Sana appeared next to the original with her hands still held up in the sign. She was a complete clone.

"Good," Naruto praised with a nod of his head. They were walking along a road and to pass the time, the blond would say a jutsu and Sana would have to do it. "There's an animal at four o'clock," he said out of the blue, wondering what his apprentice would do.

The clone vanished in a ball of fire and the original Sana pulled a kunai from her pouch on her hip in a fast motion. She vanished from the spot, leaving the image of fire behind.

'She's getting even better at teleportation.' Kyuubi observed.

/You mean she's already good./ He corrected her. /But yeah, her chakra signature disappeared altogether this time. Even though she's a born teleporter, she didn't even know about her chakra so she didn't know to use it, she's mastering it pretty well./

The fox chuckled, 'Isn't her signature already supposed to disappear?'

Before he could reply to that, his apprentice in training appeared beside him, holding a furry, calm bunny in her arms. She was petting it in calm, smooth strokes.

"You know we aren't keeping it," Naruto said.

"Aww," she petted it once more before releasing the animal on the ground and watched it hop away. Returning her attention to her brother, she asked, "So, where are we going?"

"I was thinking about going to the village Hidden in the Rocks. I heard they were having problems with this group of bandits that keeps showing up and robbing them of their belongings. They also have killed a few villagers that wouldn't cooperate with them."

Sana nodded in understanding. She hated hearing about all of the bandits doing these horrible crimes and felt honored to help rid the village of those people. She didn't like to kill people, but when things like this happened, she reminded herself that it was either killing the innocent or just rid the ones who committed the crime.

"It's about two and a half day's walk from here," Naruto said. "So, what do you wanna talk about?"

"Hm…" the brunette thought for a while, trying to think of something interesting to talk about. Then, she raised an eyebrow and placed her hands on her hips, "Since you were always gone, I never got to talk to about something I found out!"

Naruto tilted his head, "And what would that be?"

"Why did you give Tristan such a hard time on my birthday?" He mentally groaned, wondering who told her. And as if she was reading his mind, she said, "I found out from Tristan the first time he wanted to kiss me. He was scared." She raised an eyebrow. "And why on earth were you cleaning and sharpening your weapons? That made him even more nervous!"

"Hey, it wasn't only me who-," Naruto tried to defend himself but was only cut off.

"Oh, I already chewed him out." Sana said. "I can't believe you did that!"

For the rest of the trip to the Village Hidden in the Rock, Naruto was getting his ear chewed out by his fourteen year old sister.

XxxxX

Till next time!

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