Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Upside Down ❯ Long Time No See ( Chapter 6 )

Chapter Six: Long Time No See

The morning sun started to blaze upon Suna and Temari felt like she needed a good steam in the Kazekage's personal sauna room. Gaara stood over his desk shuffling thru some papers when Temari came in the office in her bathing yukata. She walked over to the sauna room door and noticed that the room was already turned on.

“When did you turn on the sauna?” she asked him but not really expecting an answer as she opened the door. Gaara moved to speak but became reluctant do to so and watched her enter the room and shut the door.

“…”

“YEEEEEEEEIIIIIIAAAAHHHH!!!!” Temari threw the door back open and walked briskly out of the office with the reddest shade Gaara has ever seen her in. The Kazekage's lips drew to a faint smile when Shikamaru stepped out of the steam room as he finished tying a towel around his waist. He seemed rather calm as he approached the pile of clothes on a chair and fished out a cigarette from the green jounin vest. He placed the cig in between his lips and used the flame of an oil lamp that sat on Gaara's desk to light it.

After a quick puff of the tobacco, he sighed out the smoke in relief and turned to the kazekage. “I think she likes me,” he thought out loud with a dainty smile and grabbed his clothes before leaving the office.

A few moments later, Kankuro came in.

“What is the report?”

“It travels so fast in the sand that I couldn't track it, but I set up some traps in the Sand Cave. The damn thing is annoying.”

“Hnn…” Gaara ponders over his paperwork for a moment. “Well, if Naruto is on his way I'm sure he'll run into it eventually. And if he doesn't then I'll send a team out tomorrow to capture it.”

“Naruto is alive?” the puppet master asked.

“It's not a proven fact but more of a feeling I had. So did the Leaf shinobi, Nara Shikamaru. Temari found him in our dessert half dead yesterday,” Gaara responded.

“I see. Well let's hope for the best. I'll be going off duty now, if you don't mind.”

“Hn..” Gaara nodded to his older brother while searching for a certain document. “I'll have another mission set up for you tomorrow. Give this to Temari when you see her. It's the chunnin exam arrangements.” The Kazekage handed him the document before excusing him and sat back in his chair staring into nothing when Kankuro left him alone.

 

 

Naruto couldn't stop looking at her while they started to cut thru the dessert. He'd make sure he knew where he was stepping but he just couldn't take his eyes off of the woman that ran by his side. She would look back at him from the corner of her eye but would quickly face away from him shyly. It wasn't too long before she started to get annoyed.

“Naruto, quit it!” she commanded. “Don't look at me like that!”

“Sorry,” he said as he forced his head forward with a light blush on his face. He wanted to talk about the kiss Sakura gave him the night before but his gut told him not to… at least not until they had a chance to sit down and talk about such things. For now, the important thing to be handled is to get to the Sand Village as quickly as possible. But even so, how could she just act like nothing happened? All he could think about was those soft pink lips against his. He groaned inwardly, wanting more of her. He had to have her… he's held off for so long to make a move for his safety but now she expressed similar feelings to him, he could barely wait to explore more of this. He noticed that she slowed down and stopped completely. He stopped and looked back at her.

“Naruto…” she barely spoke. “Do….do you feel that? …Under your feet?” Naruto paused in silence and looked down to the sand below him. The whole dune under them seemed to be shifting slowly.

“Yeah… what is it?” he asked. The dune then rolled violently upward causing the two ninja to fight for their balance on the shifting sand beneath their feet. Sakura jumped back off of the dune and watched her companion clumsily fall back. Naruto's eyes widened as some kind of creature emerged from the sand. A set of claws helped it tear from under the surface in a terrible wake. Naruto shuffled back when a large…. a HUGE feline hissed and bellowed in his direction.

“A…. CAT?!”

“Naruto! Be careful!” Sakura called out to him. The cat was at least ten feet tall with tan fur and black spotty markings. It stalked a bit closure to Naruto with a growl ringing from its throat and piercing his soul with blue eyes.

“No you don't!” Sakura grabbed a hold of its tail and pulled it back with her amazing strength, giving Naruto a chance to get on his feet again. The cat yowled and dug his claws into to the sand as Sakura dragged it backwards.

“Kage Bunshin no Justu!” Naruto called and formed the appropriate hand sign to duplicate himself into five shadow clones, using them to pile onto the cat. Not a moment after, though, the large cat easily threw off most of the clones with a furious growl. The cat then turned back to lunge at the girl but was quickly evaded. As it moved, a ringing sound filled Sakura's ears and she then noticed that the cat had a collar with a bell on it. The real Naruto clutched onto the back of the red collar and noticed a golden plate attached to the leather with an inscription.

“If found, please return to Kazekage Gaara of the Sand?” he read out loud. “Fluffy?”

“This is Gaara's cat?” Sakura said. “I wonder what it's doing out here.” Fluffy then started to buck violently in circles to throw Naruto off while yowling in annoyance.

“I wonder how Gaara has a pet cat named, Fluffy!” Naruto yelled as he held on the collar with all his might. “Yeeeeeeehhhhaaaaaa!”

Sakura groaned and smacked her forehead. “Baka…”

 

 

Gaara stood just outside the Suna gate staring out on the horizon. His eyes narrowed as a cloud of dust formed in the distance and approached faster with every second. He folded his arms and didn't flinch when the unusually large cat skidded to a halt in front of him. Sakura was on top of its head with a hold on each fuzzy ear and Naruto was hanging on the tail. Fluffy growled a little but Sakura corrected the unwanted behavior with a tug on an ear before sliding off the large animal.

“Whew! That was a rush.” She said while flipping her hair back. Naruto plopped down on the ground with a thud. “Hope you didn't mind that we burrowed your pet to get here faster.”

“I was counting on it,” Gaara said and raised his hand up to pick the large feline up with a blanket of sand and carry it to an appropriate location. Naruto picked himself off the ground and approached the Kazekage.

“Gaara!” He called and hugged him. Gaara's eyes became as wide as dish plates at the physical contact. No one…. No one hugs Gaara of the Sand. Sakura twitched. Gaara made no move to kill him though after he was released.

“Hey, Gaara… what's with the big fur ball?” Naruto asked.

“She was a gift…. Temari got her for me as a joke one day. She's a rare breed of desert cats and she was just a cub at the time so I had her cared for. She's been acting rather strange lately, which is why you found her out there in the desert by herself.” He explained coolly as he led the two Leaf shinobi down the main street of Suna.

“Temari has been working extra hard ever since the destruction of your village… she found one of your shinobi alive. Nara Shikamaru.”

Both Naruto and Sakura's eyes lit up. “Shikamaru!”

“Where is he? Is he here?!” Naruto asked.

“He's in this village somewhere… probably in the company of my sister.”

“I'm going to find him!” Naruto shouted.

“N-Naruto! Wait!” Sakura called after him but he was already gone. She sighed. Gaara turned to her and looked at her with his usual blank expression.

“You must be hungry,” he said. “Follow me.” He turned and headed down a small street as the medical ninja hesitantly followed him to a restaurant.

“You don't have to take me here,” she modestly assured him.

“It's the least I can do for you saving Kankuro's life,” he explained mundanely. “Plus I need to eat as well.” Sakura blushed a little. She never knew Gaara was such a gentleman, sure he was the Kazekage…. But he also was responsible for many unnecessary murders as a child.

 

“Damn its hot here,” the shadow bender mumbled as he tore his sweaty shirt off. Temari's eyes roamed over his torso for a moment before she forced them back down on the shogi board. It was her turn.

“You seem a bit distracted,” Shikamaru said through a vent of smoke from his smirked lips, but Temari only growled angrily in her throat. She wasn't going to lose to this pineapple-headed cry baby. After a few more moments of her staring at the pieces, Shikamaru let out a menacing groan. “Would you make a move already, I'm getting old here.”

“You can't rush perfection,” she sang.

“How troublesome, woman…” he muttered.

“What was that?”

“Nothing, now make the move,” he whined. She glared at him.

“Cry baby…”

“Demanding wench…”

“Lazy prick…”

“Crazy bitch…”

“…”

Temari grabbed his face and pulled him across the shogi board to attack his mouth with hers. His eyes widened in surprise when her tongue invaded his mouth but soon caught on and fought for dominance in the kiss. She moaned in his mouth deliciously that sent him over the edge. He stood up and leaned in at a better angle to ravish her mouth back with equal passionate frustration. Shogi pieces were spilled everywhere on the floor but they no longer cared about the game.

Shikamaru grabbed the woman in front of him and pulled her across the table to his side because it would have been too much work to break the kiss and walk around the table for him. She crawled over and straddled his lap as she continued to explore his mouth with her tongue. She kneaded the muscles of his shoulders and let her hands glide over his sweat coaxed skin. She finally pulled her mouth away from his to breathe and let her head fall back as he kissed her neck.

Naruto glowered at them from the window… `Damn it, even Shikamaru is getting action… and he's the laziest guy I know… why me?' Naruto suddenly lost his footing and fell backwards crashing into some trashcans below the two story apartment.

The sound interrupted the passionate moment between the fan wielder and shadow bender. They both looked out towards the window. Shikamaru groaned in annoyance as he reluctantly made Temari slide off his lap. He stood up and walked over to the open window.

“Hey, Naruto,” he called to the trash heap below. “Just what do you think you are doing?” Naruto chuckled and raised a hand up.

“Hey, long time so see, Shika!”

Shikamaru sighed and held his head. “How troublesome…”

 

 

AN: trying to write longer chapters please review.