Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ The Way We Change ❯ Running the Gauntlet ( Chapter 4 )

Chapter Four

The sun had risen above the rocky range that surrounded the village and had turned it completely yellow by the time the seven Leaf ninja had returned to the guest rooms after breakfast at a local restaurant.

"Eh, what should we do today?" asked Naruto, stretching his arms. "I know! We should go training!"

"Yosh! I will train with you too Naruto-kun!" Lee cheered.

"Geez you guys," Sakura sighed. "You don't even know where the training grounds are." Naruto and Lee momentarily deflated.

A stiff knock resounded at the door that led to the rest of the Kazekage's tower and Kakashi opened it. Behind it stood Temari, Kankuro, and Baki. In front of them was Gaara, dressed in the blue and white robes of the Kazekage.

"Hey Gaara! What's up?" Naruto shouted and bounded towards the door. Gaara's usually stern face softened a bit at the sight of his friend. Naruto stood in front of the red head, taking in his appearance. "Hey, hey. Shouldn't you be wearing your hat? You know, the pointy one?" Naruto gestured his hands above his own head, creating an imaginary Kazekage hat and grinned at Gaara mockingly. Kankuro let out a laugh like a bark and slung one of his arms over his brother's shoulders with a grin on his face that matched Naruto's.

"Heh. He doesn't like the hat. I think he shoved it in a drawer somewhere." Both Naruto and Kankuro laughed at each other and Temari snickered.

"Ah-hem." Gaara cleared his throat to get their attention. He glared at Kankuro while shrugging the taller boy's arm off his shoulders. "I've come to tell you that I received a message from your Hokage. She will be arriving in Suna the day after tomorrow. You are of course welcome to stay until she deems you need to return to your own village."

"Thank you for your hospitality," said Gai formally as he bowed. Kankuro just chuckled to himself.

"He just wants you guys to stick around cuz he has no friends."

WHACK.

Temari hit him over the head with her fan. Gaara simply glared at his brother who was now hunched over in pain and turned back to the leaf nins.

"I have to leave now," he said and started to walk away but Naruto shouted after him.

"Hey Gaara! We were gonna go train. Wanna come along?" Gaara stopped and half turned to look at them with a considering look on his face.

"Sorry, but I have things to do. I have to make arrangements for the arrival of your Hokage... so, not today Naruto, but... tomorrow. I'll train with you tomorrow Naruto."

"Yes! All right!" he shouted. "We'll see you tomorrow then. Get ready to have your butt kicked!" Gaara scoffed and walked away with a grin on his face. Baki dismissed himself and followed Gaara down the hall and out of sight.

"So..." said Naruto, speaking to the older two of the Sand siblings. "What's it like having your younger brother as Kazekage?"

"Ah, it's pretty sweet most of the time." Kankuro sighed. "But he gives us hard missions all the time too, the midget!" Everyone was silent for about two seconds before Naruto broke out into hysterical laughter. "Eh! You're one to laugh Naruto! You're the shortest midget of them all!" Kankuro shouted dramatically, pointing at Naruto. "Damn, kids are so annoying!" Temari sighed and put her hands on her hips.

"You idiot. If you hadn't noticed, Naruto's a hell of a lot taller now and our little brother isn't so little anymore. Just because you've always been taller than him doesn't make him a midget!"

"Yeah, Temari. Now that I think of it... Gaara's almost as tall as you now! And you're what... eighteen? You always were short. Gaara was just short cuz he was a late bloomer. Now you're the midget of the family!" Kankuro broke out into peels of laughter until Temari decked him. "Oww..."

"So guys..." said Temari as she turned to the others with a deceptively cute smile on her face. "You said you were going to train, right? We'll show you were the three of us usually train."

"Thanks a lot Temari-san. Will you train with us too?" Sakura asked. Now that she thought of it, she hadn't trained with Naruto for two and a half years. Other than the repeat of the test with the bells and the brief encounter with the Itachi look-alike, she had not seen him fight at all. The extent of his progress was unknown.

"You know..." Temari mused to herself, "it's been a while since Kankuro and I have trained with anyone other than Gaara... I think we'll take you up on that offer."

"Yeah!" shouted Naruto. "I'll be able to pay you back for that midget crack Kankuro!"

And pay him back he did. At the end of the day Naruto had gotten several good powerful hits in on Kankuro. However, the fight had been rather one sided as Kankuro was still in the process of repairing his destroyed puppets. The sand-nin's taijutsu was pretty basic, but he held out against the hyperactive blonde fairly well. He wasn't a jounin for nothing. Then again, Naruto wasn't really going all out.

Temari faired far better in her rematch against Tenten. The weapons master still had a hard time getting around Temari's long range wind attacks. Oddly enough, Sakura found an excellent sparring partner in Neji. His chakra based attacks that could corrupt inner organs fascinated Sakura's analytical mind and eventually she found herself simply sitting and listening to him explain the more intricate workings of the Jyuuken style while she took mental notes.

The rest of the day wore on with everyone trading various sparring partners. Lee took it upon himself to help Kankuro improve his poor taijutsu and everyone was especially impressed when Naruto and Sakura took to fighting each other and proceeded to demolish several large boulders in the process.

The Konoha shinobi found the most different and difficult part of training in Suna to be the change in climate. The heat of a cloudless day in the desert could drive a man mad if he had no water. The desert did make for some amazing sunsets though. As they left the training grounds at the end of the day the dying sun was gilding the buildings of Sunagakure in spectacular fire reds and oranges.

Kakashi , they found, has stayed at the tower the whole day. Even though he said it was in case the Kazekage needed him for official business, they all suspected it was just to catch up on his reading. Naruto cursed Kakashi's lazy perverted ways before stalking off to go to sleep, saying that he would need to be rested and fully energized for training with Gaara the next day.

Later that night, Sakura settled her head on her pillow as she got into bed. Tenten was already softly snoring in the bed next to her. Geez, she went out like a light. Her thoughts drifted for a while until she came to Naruto and how he had gone to bed early. She knew exactly why. He would be training with Gaara, another demon vessel, the Kazekage no less; the strongest ninja Sunagakure had to offer. Sakura realized that if she wanted to last any decent amount of time training with people like Naruto and Gaara, she better get to sleep soon too.

--

Breakfast the next day was at another local restaurant. The others sighed in exasperation when Naruto ordered two bowls of ramen and practically inhaled them. When Lee pointed out that ramen was hardly nutritional and not breakfast food besides, Naruto immediately defended his favorite food and added that he would need the energy for training. Sakura silently agreed.

Almost as soon as they got back to the rooms, Gai left to continue his solitary training like he had done yesterday since he figured his students were going to train with each other again. Lee had a brief internal struggle complete with dramatic tears over whether he should train with his beloved mentor or Naruto and Gaara. In the end he decided he could train with Gai another time.

"Hey guys," said Tenten as she watched Gai leave. "I was thinking that today I would go sight seeing instead of training. I mean... we hardly saw anything that one time we were here."

"Aww, where is your youthful spirit Tenten? We must keep ourselves fit and healthy all the time!" Lee protested. "Besides... as a man I cannot allow you to walk around a strange town without someone to accompany you." Tenten pursed her lips indignantly and Neji sighed.

"I'll go with her Lee." They all spun around to look at Neji, with the exception of Kakashi, who had not looked up from his copy of Icha Icha Paradise since they had gotten back from breakfast. "You go train with Naruto, Lee. I wanted to see Suna as well so I'll go with her," he said tiredly. Lee looked like he was about to respond but before he said anything there was a sharp knock at the door. Naruto threw the door open, already knowing exactly who was on the other side.

"Gaara!" he shouted enthusiastically. And indeed it was. Dressed in the dark outfit he wore into battle, Gaara stood in the hallway with his gourd strapped to his back, arms crossed in a loose stance and a faint smirk on his face.

"You guys ready to go?" he asked Naruto.

"You bet! We're gonna kick your ass!" Sakura was about to whack Naruto for his insolence but Gaara just smirked and closed his eyes.

"Well... we will see."

"Hey..." said Sakura. "Where are Temari-san and Kankuro-san?"

"Temari went to meet your Hokage at the border and Kankuro has taken today and tomorrow off to completely repair Karasu and his other puppets."

"Oh, I see."

"Would you rather they were here as well?" His icy-green eyes seemed to be asking an unspoken question. It was the same unspoken question he had asked the night she had found him meditating. When he asked if it would bother her if she knew he was still in the sitting room while she slept, he was really asking, Do you trust me? It took her no time at all to decide that she did.

"Not at all. I just assumed they would be here," she said and shrugged. "So..." She glanced behind her. "I guess it's just me, you, Naruto, and Lee today."

"All right! Come on Sakura-chan, let's go!" And with that the four of them left, saying goodbye to Neji and Tenten, who said she would try to find some small souvenirs for them in the city.


Gaara led them to a different training ground than the one Temari and Kankuro had used the previous day. It wasn't even a training ground really, just the flat top of part of the mountain range that surrounded Sunagakure. The terrain was mostly rugged flat rock strewn with boulders and, amazingly, one or two hardy trees that somehow resisted the harsh climate.

"So..." began Naruto as he warmed up his arms and legs with stretches. "How are we gonna do this? We could pair off and spar or..." An evil grin contorted his face. "Or we could all gang up on Gaara at once. I bet if all three of us attacked at once we could take him in no time!" Naruto's devilish grin turned to a foolish one as he looked in Gaara's direction. The impassive red head simply stood there and shrugged. "Ah! Think you're so tough huh Gaara!?" Naruto mocked. "Come on Fuzzy Eyebrows, Sakura-chan, we can take him no problem!"

"Naruto-kun, your spirit of youth is as amazing as ever!" Lee cheered. Sakura laughed at them and tightened the straps on her shuriken holster.

"You guys can come at me how ever you like," Gaara stated calmly with his arms crossed over his chest, "but I want to see one thing first." They looked at him questioningly. "Sakura. Just by herself. I've fought the two of you before, but I've never fought Sakura" She stared at him, wide-eyed for a moment. He wants to fight me? "Show me what you can do Sakura."

Her slightly surprised face shifted to a confident smirk and she quickly grabbed her black gloves out of her supply pouch. Naruto and Lee stood off to the side by a boulder to watch as she pulled them on and flexed her fingers.

"Ok Gaara, you got it. But I probably wont be fast enough to get around your defense." They stood several meters apart, facing each other over an expanse of flat ground.

"I'll try to relax the automatic shield a little, slow it down to give you a chance."

"Eh? Can you really do that?" Lee asked from the sidelines.

"I've slowly been gaining more control over the involuntary response of the sand. Eventually I hope to be able to control it completely, switch it on and off at will."

"Well then," Sakura called. "Let's get started!"

Taking off like a shot, she ran straight for Gaara. She knew a sneak attack would be pointless at the moment and he had wanted to see what she could do. So that's what she'd show him.

Within three feet of him Sakura pulled her fist back to throw a punch and the sand rushed out of the gourd to defend. She had been right. She was too slow to get past it right off the bat, but she would do her best anyway. Her clenched fist connected with the sand wall.

Gaara had been waiting for her to avoid hitting the hard sand barrier, so he was mildly surprised when she didn't dodge or pull away. He watched in momentary awe as a ripple spread outward over the surface of the sand from the nexus of her strike. Her punch had let loose a shock wave of chakra that moved right through the sand to the edges of the barrier. She certainly couldn't do that when we were genin. But even back then it was obvious to anyone that she had excellent chakra control. Looks like she's finally put it to good use.

Gaara grinned maniacally at this new challenge as she jumped back to strike again. She watched the sand barrier slowly melt and shift again, revealing blood red hair, then black rimmed eyes, and then his smirk. Sakura was gone again in a flash. Gaara's eyes opened wide as pink hair flashed in his peripheral vision. Behind me!

He turned just in time to see her up in the air, level with his face, and her boot swung outward. The sand barely caught her foot. Normally it would have been faster, but he had slowed it down as much as he could manage to give her a chance. She was definitely taking advantage of that. A glint of metal and he dodged a kunai.... with an exploding tag attached to it. The blast went off behind him and even though the sand barrier came up again he could still feel the heat of the blaze. She knew I would dodge so she put the tag on an extremely short fuse so it would detonate behind me. If I hadn't blocked it, she would have used me as a shield.

"Hey Sakura-chan!" Naruto shouted. "Let us have a go too!" Sakura sighed and let down her guarded stance. She headed toward Lee and Naruto and Gaara began walking beside her.

"That hit with the chakra... that was impressive."

"Well... maybe. But it didn't do a whole lot against you, did it?" He said nothing and stopped walking.

"So... weren't you guys going to come at me all at once?" he asked mockingly. All he got in response was three confident smirks.


It was a good thing they were practically in the middle of nowhere because all of their attacks were meant to cause major damage and by about four o'clock the whole area was nothing but loose rubble.

After Lee had nearly beaten him in the preliminaries three years ago, Gaara had decided to learn taijutsu. If the time came when he would have to fight an enemy with the same speed as Lee, he wanted to be prepared.

Eventually they slowed down enough so that the sand didn't get in the way and Lee could show Gaara some more advanced taijutsu moves. Gaara was an extremely fast learner.


Hours later when the sky had turned orange with the approaching sunset, the four of them sat in the combined shade of a large boulder and one of the gnarled rugged trees. Naruto leaned with his back against the tree, breathing deeply with a smile on his face. Gaara sat in a similar position next to him with his arms crossed over his chest. Sakura and Lee sat with their backs to the boulder. Lee was hardly fazed by the rigorous sparring session but Sakura was panting. She gazed up into the hardy foliage of the tree that was leaning over her head.

"Gaara..?" He opened one eye to look at her. "Where does Suna get its water?"

"There is an enormous aquifer hundreds of meters underground. Suna was built here because of it as well as for the protection provided by the mountains. That's where we get our water."

"Does it ever rain here?"

"Yes, actually. We do get rain." Sakura sat up to look at him.

"Really?"

"About every four years there is a weather system that moves in from the west and it rains non stop for about a week."

"Weird..." she said while smiling up at a passing cloud. Naruto stretched his arms into the air.

"Ahh... that was a great work-out!" he said. Lee shot up from his seat beside Sakura.

"Indeed it was! You are such worthy opponents! Even you Sakura-san. You've gotten so strong and lovely!" He clutched his fist to his chest dramatically. She sweatdropped and scratched the back of her head sheepishly with a nervous smile on her face. She had been so glad when Lee had finally stopped pursuing her romantically. But despite that, he had remained a steadfast friend. She couldn't help admiring his nobility for it.

"Well guys..." she said. "It's getting late. I think we should be heading back now."

The sun was in fact quickly approaching the western horizon and the four shinobi all headed back to the Kazekage's tower, leaping from rock to rock, rooftop to rooftop.

Sakura never noticed that Gaara watched her the whole time, a thoughtful look on his face.

--

A fairly large group of people stood waiting in the main entrance of the building that served as the Kazekage's headquarters. To the side were the Leaf shinobi. Gaara, dressed once again in his official robes but still lacking the hat, stood at the front with his brother on his left, and Baki to his right. The elderly chief council members were standing in a group behind him. The reason for the gathering appeared within minutes.

Tsunade, the Godaime Hokage, strode into the building. She never seemed to wear the robes of the Hokage and now was no exception. Temari had met the Leaf Hokage at the border of Wind Country and escorted her to the hidden ninja village. Behind Tsunade was none other than Shikamaru, looking as lazy as ever. His annoyed expression spoke clearly of what he thought of the whole situation: troublesome. To Naruto's surprise, Jiraiya was also behind Tsunade. Naruto had thought he'd left to gather more information but apparently the situation warranted his presence.

"Ah... Kazekage-sama. It's good to see that you're back in action," Tsunade said calmly. He nodded in response.

"Yes. Suna owes you its thanks for the help you sent."

Temari migrated from where she had been standing next to the Hokage to be near her brothers. Shikamaru watched her lazily and drifted over to speak with Naruto.

"Hey Lazy-ass!" he greeted. Shikamaru just grinned and shook his head.

"Geez Naruto... do you have to be so noisy all the time? So troublesome."

"Heheh. Look who's talking. I thought you said all women were troublesome, and yet you're following Temari again." Shikamaru scowled.

"Che... that's not why I'm here fool. Hokage-sama asked me to come. This whole thing's about what to do about the Chuunin Exams. I'm a proctor remember? Plus I'm one of the envoys to Suna."

"Yeah yeah. Whatever."

"Shikamaru!" Tsunade barked. "Let's go now. This meeting's important. You too Kakashi, Gai." Shikamaru sighed and walked back over to the Hokage with his hands stuffed in his pockets. He, Jiraiya, Kakashi and Gai followed her as Gaara and the counsil members headed down a hallway and out of sight. Temari and Kankuro turned to talk to the five remaining teenagers.

"Well..." said Temari. "They'll be in that meeting for a while."

"What? Do we really have to wait?!" Naruto cried.

"Afraid so shorty. Nothing you can do about that," said Kankuro. Naruto fumed at the "shorty" comment, but he let it slide. Really, he'd gotten much taller lately. He was just short in comparison to Kankuro.

In the end the seven of them decided to go eat lunch to pass the time. Naruto was fidgety and nervous the whole time and at first Sakura couldn't figure out way.

Then it hit her. If the Chuunin Exams are canceled, Naruto will have to wait even longer to pass. He's still the only one of our group that's still a genin.

An hour later they returned to the tower and waited for the two Kages to finish their meeting. When they finally did, Gaara only briefly greeted the other leaf nins before speed -walking away in the direction of his office. Temari sighed and apologized for him.

"He's still got a hell of a lot to do right now. I think the stress is getting to him." With that said, she and Kankuro left.

"Well...?" Naruto questioned impatiently, looking at Shikamaru. Tsunade strode up to them before he could answer.

"The Chuunin Exams are not going to be canceled. They will be held in Konoha as planned two weeks from now," she said and looked at Naruto. "You better pass brat," she said sternly.

"You bet I will old hag!" he shouted. Her eye twitched a little at the name but she just smirked.

"Good. I'll hold you to your word," she said and walked away, led by a Suna shinobi to some unknown destination in the building. Shikamaru filled them in on the meeting when they got back to the guest rooms.

"Jiraiya-sama said that there seems to be no movement from the Akatsuki right now. They've sorta melted back into the woodwork, so to speak. He thinks they probably wont make any sort of move for a while since two of their members are dead now."

They were all in the sitting room now except for Tsunade, who had been given one of the guest rooms reserved for foreign nobles and dignitaries. Jiraiya had been offered one as well but he just decided to share the fourth empty room with Shikamaru. Said lazy ninja was draping one arm over the back of the sofa as he spoke.

"Besides, Konoha wasn't the one that was attacked, and Suna has decided they can't show any weakness. That's why the exams are gonna take place in Konoha as scheduled and the Kazekage will still come to watch the final matches. But I think both our villages are gonna be on higher guard from now on." The others nodded when he finished speaking.

Tsunade had decided that all the Leaf shinobi were going back to Konoha the next morning. Sakura and Naruto both felt that it was a rather abrupt departure, but there was nothing they could do.

--

The next morning found one Hokage, one Sannin, three jounin, four chuunin, and one genin of Leaf standing outside the rocky walls of Sunagakure. The Kazekage, his siblings, and surprisingly Chiyo, had all come to bid them farewell.

"Well Gaara," said Naruto. "We'll see you around I guess."

"I'll be in Konoha in a little over a month for the Chuunin Exam finals. I assume you will be entering?"

"Yeah. Ero-sennin here kept me away for so long that I have to catch up."

"Brat! Don't call me that!" the white-haired hermit shouted. Naruto simply stuck out his tongue and and pulled down his lower eye-lid. Jiraiya hit him over the head.

As Naruto recovered from the lump on his head the others all exchanged their farewells. When all that could be said had been said, the Leaf shinobi started their three day journey back to Konoha.

Sakura and Naruto took one last look back at Gaara and his brother and sister before the siblings ceased to be anything more than colored dots on the monochromatic background of sand.


-----------

Bam. And chap four is finally done! Yaay!

A few notes concerning the deviation of this fic from the canon:

First, as you can see, Chiyo did not die in my version.

Second, because this fic deviated from a specific chapter and for plot reasons, Sakura never got information from Sasori about one of his spies on Orochimaru. That is obviously going to be coming up in the actual manga so I'm not going to use it. Plus, I already have the outline of the plot written.

Third, Deidara actually is dead in this fic. He was killed by Naruto and Kakashi. But assume it was similar to what happened with Naruto and the Kyuubi's chakra when he thought Gaara was dead in the actual manga. Kakashi also has the same new Sharingan as he does in the manga. Anyway, my point is that there are now only seven members of the Akatsuki.

One more note:

A sennin, in the context of the Naruto series, refers to a hermit: one who lives alone or roams the country side and is considered to be wise and knowledgeable. Naruto calls Jiraiya "Ero-sennin" meaning "perverted hermit" because the prefix "ero" means perverted and Jiraiya actually is a hermit. He's also called the Toad Sennin, or toad hermit, for obvious reasons.

This differs from the term "sannin" or so I have come to understand. In this case, "sannin" is the words "san", which means three, and "nin", a shortened form of "ninja" commonly used in Naruto. The term "sannin" therefore refers to "three ninja" as in the Legendary Three, which is what Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Orochimaru are called.

Well, that's all for now folks! Please review! It makes me squee.

I think I may be comma happy. O.o'