It took a little longer than I wanted to get this sent out, but here's 
chapters 2 and 3.

Also, I'm not sure what people on the FFML normally do when conveying 
character thoughts since bold and italics don't seem to work, so I hope 
there isn't any confusion with that.

Enjoy.



The Pride of Suna
By Legendary Legacy
A Naruto Fanfiction

Standard Disclaimer still applies.
----------

Chapter 1

"Did you hear? I heard my mom say that Uzumaki Naruto left the village last 
night."

"Yeah, me too. He must've been really upset about failing again."

"Nah, I heard he tried to make off with the Hokage's secret scroll."

"Heh, for all the good it would 'a done a loser like him."

"Yeah, it's not like he was that good a ninja or anything. Still, I don't 
know why my parents seemed so happy about it..."

"You three pay attention!"

The three whispering kids shuddered and sank into their chairs as everyone 
else in the room turned to look at their table. "Sorry, Iruka-sensei," they 
mumbled together.

Iruka shook his head and turned back to his clipboard. It was perfectly 
obvious what the children were talking about. It was the same thing that 
everyone in the entire village was talking about. The demon child was gone, 
and if the villagers hadn't feared and respected the Hokage as much as they 
did, the day would have been declared a village holiday.

Iruka sighed in frustration, feeling his hands tighten on the clipboard that 
he held. It had been nearly four hours since the Hokage had sent a squad out 
to search for the missing boy. So far nothing had turned up, and Iruka was 
becoming more distracted with each passing minute. He'd been finding himself 
checking the doorway almost every five minutes hoping to see someone 
dragging the rambunctious boy into the classroom like so many times before.

He should have been out there looking for him with the others, but 
unfortunately with Mizuki now gone as well, he was the only one left to run 
the academy. Naruto's leaving had been his fault, after all. No matter how 
much the Hokage tried to reassure him otherwise, that it was a compilation 
of all the rejection and hatred over the past twelve years that had finally 
caught up with the boy, Iruka still knew that last night it had been him 
that had driven that final nail into the coffin.

Naruto, you need to come back, he pleaded silently.

"Iruka-sensei!" Iruka snapped out of his thoughts. He looked up to see one 
of the gossiping boys from before with his hand in the air. "Is it really 
true that Naruto left the village and you were the one who stopped him from 
stealing the Hokage's scroll?"

The room grew quiet, as the majority of the students who had heard bits and 
pieces of the incident from their parents perked up, hoping to hear the 
story from its source.

Iruka gave everyone in the room a stern look. "Although I have been 
specifically instructed by the Hokage himself to not discuss anything about 
this incident, I am going to tell you that even though Naruto has left the 
village, what you've probably heard about the circumstances behind it is 
most likely false. And until this incident has been properly settled, I'll 
tolerate no further questions about it. Understood?"

Everyone nodded. "Good. Now, I will begin dividing you all into your 
three-person teams, so listen closely for your names."

As Iruka began reading off names, several of the students became lost in 
their own thoughts.
Hyuga Hinata hung her head sadly. Having watched Naruto for a long time now, 
she knew very well the sort of person he really was. It was true that he was 
a prankster and a trouble-maker, but she saw the hidden agenda behind his 
actions. If there was any reason why Naruto had left, it certainly hadn't 
been because he'd tried to steal something.

Inuzuka Kiba felt a bit disappointed. He never would have considered Naruto 
and himself real friends, but they'd had some pretty good times making 
trouble for Iruka together. He'd miss having another troublemaker around.

The only thing that went through Haruno Sakura's mind was that she wouldn't 
be bothered by that annoying boy who wouldn't get a clue that she wasn't 
interested in him. At least she had one less person trying to keep her away 
from Sasuke-kun.

To anyone else, Uchiha Sasuke remained as stoic and as broody as ever, but 
if one were to look extremely close, they might notice a slight furrowing of 
the prodigy's brow and a small darkening of his eyes.

"Guess if he's really gone that makes you the new 'dobe', doesn't it 
Shikamaru?" Akimichi Choji teased between shoveling chips into his mouth. 
Shikamaru just rolled his eyes and sighed in a bored manner.

"Team Seven," Iruka continued. "Uchiha Sasuke...Haruno Sakura-"

"YATTA!" Sakura cried victoriously while several other girls groaned in 
despair.

Iruka frowned at the sudden outbursts and continued. "And Nara Shikamaru."

Shikamaru and Choji both looked downcast at finding out they wouldn't be on 
the same team. When they turned to each other, both forced grins onto their 
faces.

"Lucky you," Choji said. "Being paired up with the prodigy should make 
things a lot easier for you."

Shikamaru sighed, noticing how Sakura was still giggling and staring 
starry-eyed at Sasuke, who kept his face turned toward the window. "I 
guarantee it ends up more trouble than it's worth."

"Hey bum," Yamanaka Ino muttered from the row in front of him. "You better 
keep that billboard-brow away from my Sasuke-kun. If I find out anything's 
going on with them, I'm holding you responsible, understand?"

Shikamaru just brushed her off before turning back to Choji. "Well, at least 
I wasn't on a team with her."

Choji laughed. "Yeah, I'll bet that wouldn't be much fun."

"And finally," Iruka's voice rang out again. "Team Ten will be Akimichi 
Choji...Yamanaka Ino-"

Choji's head fell to his desk. Shikamaru gave him a sympathetic pat on the 
shoulder.

"-And Ishizu Taro."

Choji and Ino looked to the other side of the room, finding their new 
teammate sitting at the very edge of the room, idly picking his nose. 
Feeling their eyes on him, he turned and greeted them with a small wave. 
Neither of them looked very thrilled.

"You will all be assigned to your new jounin leaders tomorrow morning," 
Iruka informed them. "For now, you have the rest of the day to yourselves. I 
advise you to use this time to get better aquanted with your new teammates.  
Good luck to all of you."
----------

A few hours later, Sarutobi sat in his office, busying himself with his 
stack of paperwork when a knock at his door snapped him out of his actions.

"Enter," he called. The door opened, revealing Shiranui Genma and Namiashi 
Raido. "What do you have to report?" he asked them.

The two men saluted and Genma spoke first. "Well Hokage-sama, I'm afraid to 
say that we've all run into a...slight complication in regards to the Kyubi 
boy."

The Hokage kept his face neutral and cleared his throat to make sure his 
voice remained level before speaking. "What sort of...complications are we 
talking about? Did you find Naruto?"

The two jounin rubbed the back of their heads in discomfort. "Well here's 
the thing," Raido said cautiously. "The two of us and the others followed 
the boy's trail for a few miles, when the trail that he was leaving suddenly 
split off in different directions."

Sarutobi frowned. "Split off?" They nodded. "What does that mean, exactly?"

"Well, most likely the boy figured out that the village would be sending 
people after him, and to throw us off, he created a few Kage Bunshins to 
create additional trails for us to follow, hoping it would give him 
additional time to get away," Raido explained.

"Impossible!"

Genma shrugged. "I admit it seems strange that a kid like him would be able 
to think up something as smart as that, but I don't see any-"

"That's not what I mean!" Sarutobi said a little louder than intended. "Just 
yesterday Naruto failed his genin exams because he wasn't able to create 
even one successful bunshin. I watched it myself. Now you're telling me that 
he's capable of creating Kage Bunshins?"

"At least ten at once, actually," Genma informed him, shrugging again. "We 
tracked down a few of them but they all vanished the moment we approached 
them."

"The Kage Bunshin no Jutsu is one of the techniques from the scroll that he 
took last night," Raido commented while rubbing his chin. "To learn a jounin 
level technique like that in the span of about an hour is unheard of. The 
fact that it was a boy who's not even a genin and was able to make so many 
of them at once should be, by all accounts, absolutely impossible."

"What exactly are you thinking here, Raido?" Sarutobi asked.

The jounin was silent for a few moments, trying to decide how best to 
approach the subject. "Well Hokage-sama, it's just...well, you remember what 
Iruka told us last night? How the boy seemed to change when he beat Mizuki? 
He said he had a red aura and was acting like an animal. Combine that with 
the fact that he's mastered a technique that should normally take the 
average ninja a minimum of three days to learn in just hours, and I have to 
wonder..."

"You're thinking that perhaps the Kyubi has somehow taken control of 
Naruto?" Sarutobi finished for him. Both jounin nodded, causing the old man 
to sigh. "I'm not ready to start jumping to such conclusions yet. Not until 
I've had a chance to see it for myself, at least." He let out another sigh 
and sat back down in his chair. He'd never felt so old before in his life. 
"Do you have any idea where Naruto might be headed?"

Genma distractedly played with the senbon needle in his mouth, pushing it 
from side to side with his tongue. "We checked six of the ten paths that the 
boy left, all of them coming up blank. The remaining four led east, 
north-west, south-east, and south-west. We have no borders to other 
countries to the east and south-east, so unless he took one of the western 
trails, he'll probably remain in the Fire Country."

"But if he did go west, he could be halfway to Suna or Iwa or anywhere in 
between by now," Raido pointed out.

Sarutobi sat unmoving and not speaking for a while, letting this new 
information sink in.  He never would have guessed that tracking down Naruto 
would be this difficult.

"I'd like you and the others to use the rest of the day to continue 
searching for him. Search as fast as you can, because if he leaves the 
boundaries of our country, there won't be much we can do. If nothing is 
found by midnight, you'll have to return, as the other jounins will have to 
be here in the morning to meet their new genin students."

The two men saluted again and disappeared, leaving the Hokage alone again 
with nothing but his thoughts and a stack of business papers.

"Naruto..."

It wasn't until five days later that the search was officially called off. 
Uzumaki Naruto was nowhere to be found within the country of Fire.
----------

The sun beat down mercilessly over the wide and desolate sands of the Wind 
Country, a part of the world that was so hot and dry that even cacti had 
trouble growing. The strong winds blew almost constantly, whipping up 
frequent and blistering sandstorms all across the horizon.

And out in the middle of the barren wasteland, a single boy trudged onward.

"So...damn...hot..." Naruto croaked through cracked lips and a very dry 
throat. "So...damn...tired..."

The young blonde was currently moving at twice the speed of a large 
tortoise, sweating profusely and constantly having to tell himself that the 
ramen stand he kept seeing on the horizon was nothing but a mirage. He had 
unzipped his orange coat and pulled it over his head, offering himself the 
slightest bit of shade, but not doing anything in the way of escaping the 
heat. His green goggles were pulled over his eyes to protect them from the 
sand, but with the amount of sand being kicked around, he still couldn't see 
very far ahead of him.

He felt like such an idiot. It had been four and a half days since he'd fled 
from Konoha. Since then, he'd traveled aimlessly, not sleeping, not eating, 
not even paying attention to where he was going.
He never stopped to think about it, but now that he was stranded deep in the 
heart of this desert, he couldn't understand just how he had managed to 
travel so far and so fast without much of a problem. There was a couple 
times where he'd felt himself blacking out, but when he came back around to 
consciousness he'd notice that he was still running, like he'd been on 
auto-pilot.

And while he ran, the Kyubi had watched in silence.

Since that night, the Kyubi hadn't spoken to him again, though it was sure 
that Naruto still had it on his mind. Several times the Kyubi could feel the 
boy reaching his limits, and would pump a little more of its own chakra into 
his body and allow him to keep going. It felt odd to be constantly helping 
the boy like that, but if it got him further away from Konoha and the 
Hokage, he could spare it.

However, the Kyubi now had more important matters on its mind. They had 
first come across the massive ocean of sand during the night, long before 
the sun had risen. It had been freezing then, but it was now mid afternoon, 
and the boy was beginning to show signs of heatstroke, which was very 
worrisome for the fox. There weren't many things that it couldn't protect 
its host from. Poison it could neutralize, viruses and diseases were a 
little more difficult, but it was still no problem getting rid of them 
either.

Unfortunately, there was nothing the demon fox could do in regards to 
regulating its host's body temperature, and that meant that if Naruto didn't 
find some shelter from the heat really quick, there would be sever problems.

"Boy," it said, hoping to get his attention. There was no answer. "Hey, 
mortal!" it shouted a little louder.

"Shut...up...fox," Naruto panted. "I'm not...speaking to you."

"Don't be so stubborn, human. You need to get us out of this desert, or at 
least find some shade or something."

Naruto growled. "And just...where would you like...me to...go, baka fox?" He 
weakly swept his arms around to gesture towards the surroundings. 
"There's...nothing but...sand...as far as...I can see."
"Well that's your fault for not paying attention to where you were running 
then, isn't it?" the fox snarled. "If you don't get out of this sun real 
fast we're both going to die!"

"Yeah? ...S...so what?" Naruto demanded. "It's not like...anybody is...gonna 
miss either of us."

"That may be well and good for you, brat, but I'm not going to die here 
because of you!"

"Just...shut up...I'm...tired of..." Naruto's vision began to blur.

"Hey? HEY! Don't you dare pass out!"

"Not...gonna...pass...out," Naruto whispered half a second before falling 
face first into the scorching hot sand.

And the Kyubi was left uttering several loud obscenities.

End Chapter 1



Chapter 2


Huuh, another boring mission. I stand off to the side and watch with the 
others while my little brother kills eighteen armed A-Rank ninja without 
even trying. And to think, three years ago I thought being a ninja would be 
a little more...fun.

These thoughts belonged to a young teenage girl who was currently walking 
through the desert along with three males.  Two were young, about her age, 
and another  was several years older. The girl wore a tight-fitting purple 
outfit with a skirt that ended slightly above her knees. Her blond hair was 
pulled back into four short ponytails, and she was currently shielding 
herself from the rays of the sun with a giant fan held over her head.

Off to her left was a boy dressed completely in black, looking completely 
unfazed by the blazing sun that was beating down on him. His face was 
covered in purple markings and he carried a large, bulging object wrapped in 
bandages on his back.

In between them was a shorter boy with red hair and thick dark marks around 
his aquamarine colored eyes. He was also carrying a large object on his 
back. In his case, it was a large sand colored gourd. Although none of the 
travelers were looking particularly happy at the moment, this one seemed to 
give off an aura of hatred that made his companions want to not walk too 
close to him.
Behind them walked the older man, who had two red lines along his right 
cheek and a white cloth pulled down over the left side of his face.

"Once we report to Kazekage-sama, I'd like the three of you to proceed to 
the training grounds. I'll meet with you there later," the man told them.

The girl and boy in black both nodded, while the redhead walked on like he 
hadn't heard a word the man had said.

The girl silently went back to musing. These days they were lucky if they 
recieved one decent mission a week, and it was also getting more and more 
difficult to get excited about them when they came. She glanced over at her 
little brother. Ever since Gaara had become the official third member to 
their team, it had felt like she'd barely been needed at all. She could have 
gathered information from enemies, but quite frankly, both Gaara, with his 
Third Eye ability, and Kankuro, with his hidden and disguised puppets, were 
better at that than she.

And planning? Oh sure, she was best qualified and would love to do it, but 
with Gaara on the team, who needed plans? All the boy had to do was find the 
target and they would all be dead, or tortured for information and then 
dead, without the slightest of efforts.

She knew that Kankuro felt the same way about the lackluster parts that they 
played on missions. If it wasn't for the fact that they both needed to come 
along to calm Gaara from one of his...'mood swings', their younger brother 
could have done every single one of their missions to date by himself.
It was infuriating and depressing, not to mention quite damaging to the 
kunoichi's ego, to witness her youngest brother showing her up again and 
again.

The redhead, Gaara, seemed to feel his sister's eyes on him and turned to 
her. "What do you want?" he growled.

Temari felt that all-to-familiar chill run down her spine at the way her 
brother glared at her. "N-nothing, just spacing out, I guess." She smiled 
reassuringly, hoping that he would buy it. At this stage in her life, she 
was pretty certain that her brother *couldn't* read minds, but one could 
never be too certain around him.

Gaara just snorted and turned away, making Temari breathe a little easier. 
She really did love her brother; unfortunately he also scared the ever 
living shit out of her, which made for a lot of possible counseling issues 
that she might have to look into one day.

They all walked in silence for a few more minutes before Kankuro stopped 
abruptly.
"Hey, Baki-sensei?" he said, catching the other's attention.

Baki had already stopped as soon as Kankuro had, having almost walked right 
into him. "What is it?"
Kankuro pointed off into the distance. "That orange thing over there, it's 
not a mirage or something is it?"

The others followed the direction that he was pointed, and through the 
swirling sand, all could make out the figure of what appeared to be a person 
lying face down in the sand.

"Should we go check, Baki-sensei?" Temari asked.

"Why bother?" Gaara questioned, sounding annoyed. "It's probably just a 
corpse."

Baki grimaced. "It wouldn't do to just leave someone there if they're still 
alive. Temari, Kankuro, investigate," he commanded. The siblings nodded and 
took off. Gaara stared after them before continuing on his way.

"I'm not waiting for you," he announced. Baki just watched his youngest 
student walk away before moving to catch up with the others.

Upon reaching the fallen person, Temari knelt down and pulled off the orange 
jacket from over its head, revealing a young boy with untamed blonde hair, 
wearing a pair of green goggles over his eyes. She gently reached down and 
turned him to his back, being wary as his skin was already bright red, 
telling her that he had been there for some time.

"What's the verdict?" she heard her brother ask.

The kunoichi placed two fingers to the boy's neck, feeling a faint but 
steady pulse.

"He's still alive," she confirmed. "But he'd most likely suffering from 
sunstroke. We need to get him to a hospital if he's going to live."

Lifting his head up and cradling it with her arm, Temari slowly pulled off 
the goggles from his eyes. The areas around his eyes were incredibly pale 
compared to the rest of his face, and there appeared to be several strange 
markings along the boy's cheeks.

Then the boy's eyes opened, and Temari got a good look at just how deep and 
blue they were. The boy had nice eyes, she decided.

"I see...an angel," he whispered faintly, a small goofy grin appearing on 
his face.

Temari felt herself blush, then growled when Kankuro started laughing.

"Yeah, it's sunstroke alright. He's already delusional." Temari elbowed him 
in the stomach, making him crumple over in pain.

"Enough fooling around, you two," Baki commanded. "If the boy is still 
alive, then we need to get him back to the village. Any idea where he's 
from?"

Temari shrugged. "He's not wearing a hitai-ite." She shook the boy slightly, 
trying to get him to focus on her again. "Hey kid, can you tell me where 
you're from?"

The boy seemed confused by the question, but then his eyes widened in fear 
and the next thing Temari knew he was out of her arms and crouching down in 
an animalistic manner several feet away from her and the others. The three 
Suna shinobi tensed in surprise.

"C-can't go back," he slurred, baring his teeth at them. "W-won't...let..." 
And then he collapsed again. The group didn't move for a few seconds, 
waiting to see if anything else would happen before Baki relaxed. He calmly 
walked over and scooped the boy up into his arms.

"Let's go," he said. The others nodded and followed shortly behind, the 
village of Sunagakure already coming into view over the sand dunes on the 
horizon.
----------

The next several hours went by in a blur for Uzumaki Naruto. He only managed 
to catch snippets of what was going on in that time as his body continued to 
lose battles against unconsciousness. For a while he could feel himself 
being carried by someone, though he couldn't bring his eyes to focus enough 
to make out who it was. Later, he found himself in a small room with several 
people in white standing around him. A couple of times he'd try to ask what 
was happening and where he was, but no one seemed to know what he was 
saying. Still lost in confusion, he'd tried once to get up and run. He would 
have succeeded, but the moment he sat up a burst of pain flew through his 
entire body, causing him to black out again.

At times when he was awake his body felt like it was on fire, but then there 
would be a cooling sensation, and the feeling that he had been submerged in 
water. After several processes of pain and soothing, the people in white 
began wrapping him in some kind of cloth. They placed him on something 
cushy, most likely a bed, and after one last sudden jab of pain in his arm, 
he was out again.
----------

"Heatstroke, second-degree burns over half of his body, first-degree over 
the rest, disorientation and multiple bouts of unconsciousness brought on by 
lack of sleep, food and water...quite frankly, Baki-san, I can't see how the 
boy is even alive, much less in such stable condition."

Baki nodded, stroking his chin in thought. "Any clues as to where he might 
be from?"

The young nurse shook her head. "Nothing, sir. Although..."

"Although?" he prodded.

The woman glanced around the room as though she were afraid to continue, 
then spoke in a lowered voice. "While cooling the boy's body, we discovered 
unusual markings on his stomach. It's not like anything that any one of us 
had ever seen, so there's no telling what it really is."

The jounin frowned. "I see. By any chance, is he alert enough to answer a 
few questions?"

"We gave him a light pain killer a few hours ago and he's been sleeping 
since," she informed him. "I can take you to his room, if you want?"

As they were leaving the front desk of the hospital, the front doors swung 
open and Temari and Kankuro walked in.

"I still don't see what the big deal is," Kankuro muttered grumpily.

Temari turned to him with a scowl. "Are you saying you're not even the least 
bit curious? We found a half-dead person out alone in the desert and you're 
not interested one bit about him?"

"Should I be?" he asked honestly. "It's not like I know him or anything."

"Then go home," Temari said flatly.

"And be alone with Gaara when he's in one of his 'moods'? Are you insane?"

"Then quit bitching and come on!"

The two siblings followed their instructor and the nurse up to the third 
floor and entered one of the rooms. They found out very quickly that the boy 
was indeed very much alert.

"Hey you bastards! What the hell's going on here, huh?!" the boy shouted. He 
would have most likely been thrashing his bandaged arms and legs about in 
anger if they weren't strapped down to the sides of his bed. "If you're 
trying to get me to talk you're wasting your time! I won't say a thing no 
matter how much more you torture me. So there!" He ended his tirade by 
blowing them a raspberry.

There was a long silence among the group.

"I hate him already," Kankuro stated.

The nurse calmly walked over to the bedside and opened the top drawer of a 
cabinet sitting next to it. When she pulled out a small scalpel, the boy 
literally freaked.

"I was just kidding! Don't torture me! I don't know anything, really!"

Temari was beginning to share her brother's opinion of the boy. He might 
have been amusing to her if he wasn't being so damn loud.

"Please relax boy," the nurse told him. "I'm only here to change your 
bandages. And please keep your voice down, there are other patients in this 
hospital, you know?"

The blonde looked ready to start shouting again when her words seemed to 
catch up with him. "...Hospital?"
"That's right."

"...Then...you're not here to torture me?"

"No, sir," she assured him.

"Can I do it?" Kankuro asked before receiving a small kick to the shin from 
Temari.

Baki ignored the trade-off between the two siblings and moved to sit on a 
chair on the opposite side of the bed.

"Now then, boy," he started, drawing the boy's attention from the nurse as 
she started cutting through the cloth wraps on his arm. "If you don't mind, 
there are a few questions that we need answered."

The boy scrunched his face up in suspicion. "Why should I have to tell you 
anything? I don't even know you, and I don't know where I am or anything. 
Why should I trust you?"

Baki took a deep breath, reminding himself that the boy did have a fairly 
good reason for being a little uptight. "Very well, I suppose I can answer a 
few of your questions first, then."

Temari and Kankuro moved forward, now a little more eager for some answers 
than before, while the boy looked on intently as the nurse continued 
stripping his bandages.

"You may call me Baki. These two," he gestured to the siblings. "-Are a part 
of my genin team, Kankuro and Temari. You are currently in a hospital in 
Sunagakure. My team and I found you unconscious in the desert several hours 
ago. You were suffering from a sever heatstroke, so we brought you here for 
treatment. I'm afraid that's all I can tell you until you give me a few 
answers yourself."

The boy turned his eyes to the floor, remaining silent before letting out a 
tired sigh. "I'm Uzumaki Naruto. I'm from...was from Konoha."

"Are you a shinobi?" Baki asked.

"Well...not really. I mean, I want to be one, but I kept having bad luck 
with passing the genin exams."

Baki thought about that. He wasn't a ninja, but if he had basic training 
experience already...

"I've got a question," Kankuro spoke up. "What kind of idiot wanders around 
in a desert in the middle of the day? Especially while wearing those thick 
and very ugly clothes?"

Naruto pointed and glared menacingly with his free hand. "Shut up! At least 
I don't wear makeup!"

Temari stifled a chuckle as she grabbed the back of her brother's shirt, 
keeping him from throttling the boy.

"This is ritual face-paint, you midget!"

"Who are you calling a midget?!" Naruto shouted, trying his best to stand up 
despite his restraints. "And I still say it looks like makeup!"

"I'll have you know that there are very important meanings behind this 
paint!"

"AHEM!"

The two boys turned back to Baki, who was looking more than a little 
annoyed.

"Sorry, sensei," Kankuro mumbled while Naruto settled for grinning and 
scratching the back of his head in embarrassment.

"Now Uzumaki Naruto," the jounin continued. "I believe that once you're 
sufficiently healed, you'll be able to return to Konoha-"

"NO!"

Everyone cringed at the force of Naruto's outburst. He lowered his head, 
staring down at the white sheets of his bed.

"Sorry," he said quietly. "It's just that...I can't go back. Ever."

Temari and the rest of her team, as well as the nurse could sense the pain 
and sadness resonating from the blonde.

"You were exiled?" she asked cautiously.

His expression darkened even more. "I...I'd rather not talk about it, if you 
don't mind."

Temari nodded in understanding, though inside she was growing even more 
curious about the boy before her. Something about him just seemed to...draw 
her interest, in a way. It was almost like there was something familiar 
about him, but she couldn't figure what it might have been.

Baki cleared his throat again. "In that case Naruto, you can take up refuge 
here in Suna for the time being. However, Suna and Konoha are joined through 
a mutual treaty, and if anyone were to come looking for you from Konoha, 
just know that there wouldn't be anything we could do for you, as it could 
violate the treaty."

Naruto looked up at the man with a small grin of relief, happy to hear that 
he wasn't going to be thrown back into the desert or anything.

"And since you're still a ninja-in-training, perhaps we can work things out 
with the Kazekage to let you take our genin tests once you recover. We've 
been running a little low-"

Before he could finish, Naruto had flung himself out of the bed, completely 
ruining the straps that held him and terrifying the nurse who was trying to 
reapply his bandages, and clamped his arms tightly around the waist of the 
jounin.

"DO YOU MEAN IT?" he asked, tears threatening to spout from his eyes. "I CAN 
STILL BECOME A NINJA?"

"Yes," Baki said as calmly as he possibly could. "But only if you let go of 
me right this second."
Naruto instantly began running all around the room, swinging his arms, 
kicking his feet, knocking random things over without a care, and chanting 
'Gonna be a ninja! Gonna be a ninja!' at the top of his lungs.

"Uzumaki-san, stop that immediately!" the nurse commanded, which Naruto 
didn't even hear. She frantically turned to Temari and Kankuro. "Please stop 
him, he's not in any condition to be up! And the other patients, and..."

"Oh, let me, let me!" Kankuro begged, waving his hand in the air like a 
student wanting to be called on by the teacher.

Temari sighed and reached for her fan. "Don't waste your energy. I'll do 
it."

'But-!" the puppet master tried to protest.

"Who's the big sister around here?" she asked.

Kankuro crossed his arms and pouted. "You are," he mumbled.

Naruto was too preoccupied with celebrating that he never felt the 
approaching danger until it hit him right on top of the head, sending him 
crashing to the floor. Before he could regain his equilibrium, he felt 
himself pulled back to his feet by his hair and looking into the teal eyes 
of Temari.

"What'd you do that for?" he whined, rubbing the small bump forming on his 
head.

"Because, you idiot," the kunoichi answered forcefully. "You nearly died of 
sunstroke not even six hours ago. If you keep acting up like this you could 
still die, understand?"

"But I'm excited..."

"And I'm glad for you, but wait and be excited after you're healed, and get 
back into bed and rest now."

"But-"

"BED!" she ordered, jabbing a finger in the direction of the object in 
question.

Much like a puppy who had just been scolded by its master, Naruto sulked 
back to the bed and pulled the covers up past his nose.

Man, she's scarier than Sakura-chan was.
----------

"Man, what a pain!" Kankuro growled. The three had left the hospital once 
everything had settled down again. Baki had gone his own way once they were 
out of the building, which left Temari alone to listen to her brother 
complain. "We should have just listened to Gaara in the first place."

"Oh, be nice," she reprimanded him. "Sure, he's loud, but I think you're 
overreacting a little."

Kankuro glanced at her from the corner of his eye and sneered. "Well of 
course you would think that, 'Angel'."

Temari couldn't keep herself from blushing. "Shut up! He said that while he 
was half-dead and he probably doesn't even know he said it. It's not like it 
matters."

"Then how do you explain the blush?"

"I'M NOT BLUSHING!" she shouted, unconsciously growing even redder.

"Whatever," the puppet master chuckled, leaving Temari silently fuming.

They walked on for a few more blocks, both praying to themselves that Gaara 
wouldn't be in a bad mood when they got there.

"By the way, Kankuro?"

"What?"

"What exactly is the 'special meaning' behind that paint of yours?"

"...Shut up, Temari."

End chapter 2

Hope you liked it.

LL

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