Betrothal

A Naruto fanfiction. By Lackey H

        Chapter 14 – Talks

The jounin exam had begun. Well, the first segment of it at least. In truth, Iruka was feeling more than a little overwhelmed about it all, after being assigned to a four-person team – led by an existing rookie jounin – they were to perform and complete a special A-rank mission by themselves.

Granted it wasn't a real A-rank mission, it was merely an exercise set up to be as difficult as a particularly difficult A-rank. With a real possibility of death no less.

Hopping from branch to branch, easily keeping pace with his team, Iruka vaguely pondered why he had suddenly decided to try and become a jounin again. Granted, he knew the reasons, but that didn't tell him why those reasons were the reasons he chose to take it. An overly confusing subject really.

As a jounin he'd have access to more of the villages communal scrolls, including some that had been 'acquired' from other villages. But techniques had never been really high on his priorities before, so that wasn't much of a reason.

There was the simple fact that jounin got paid more for the work they did, though this was mainly because they often performed much more difficult missions. Iruka, however, didn't exactly plan on doing all that many A-rank missions, so that wasn't a really good reason either.

Students... Now there was a particularly good reason. As a jounin, even a rookie, he would be allowed to apply for the position of Genin instructor, the same position that bastard Kakashi held over Naruto, Sakura and Sasuke. Gods how he'd been annoyed by the copy-ninja's actions in regards to Naruto and Sakura. Sasuke, eh, he wasn't as concerned about Sasuke since that boy was able to take care of himself without much trouble. Or at least so he had thought at the time anyway.

Sakura. He'd been worried about that pink-haired girl due to her, to be honest, distinct lack or any special ability. Granted, she was smart, but there were many ninja who were as smart as she was – or smarter as Shikamaru had proven – so that wasn't much of a benefit. Her genjutsu was above average, which again wasn't much to gloat about since her ninjutsu was far below average – almost as bad as Naruto's had been. Well, except for the basics anyway.

Iruka frowned as he hopped to one side and continued moving forwards. Sakura had always been a girl to do everything she had been told to do perfectly but, well, she never seemed to take much initiative herself. If she'd just go and learn something she wanted to learn for her own sake! That would be a grand step in the direction that would lead to her becoming a most admirable ninja! Unfortunately Kakashi, as good a teacher as he claimed to be, apparently missed that important observation about Sakura. Then again, given all the time he spent on Sasuke, to the exclusion of the other two, it was hardly surprising.

... Arrogant bastard.

Kakashi might be a damn good jounin but, frankly, he was a really crappy teacher. Not that he really taught much as he had kept getting out of having to actually teach anyone by failing every previous student.

So, not only arrogant, but he was a lazy bastard too.

Then, of course, there was Naruto. As Iruka had heard it, his one time student had gone off and found himself a different teacher. Since finding this teacher, he had been told, Naruto's growth had been incredible – a far cry to the slow going he had when learning under Kakashi.

As far as Iruka was concerned, this was yet more proof that Kakashi shouldn't be allowed to teach again.

Of course, he was a super genius, it was almost unthinkable that anyone would deny him if he asked for an instructor position again.

When he got right down to it, Iruka really wanted to be a Jounin so that he could at least hope to prevent Kakashi from teaching ever again. Probably he'd have to become the best damn jounin instructor around before he could manage that though.

Really, Kakashi was an Arrogant, Lazy and incredibly Irritating bastard.

And Iruka was so going to enjoy putting him in his place. Maybe not now, nor in the immediate future, but definitely some day. Oh yes... someday.

It had taken Temari the better part of the day to clean out the Uzumaki home. The dung and straw had been shoveled out into a pile in the plot of land just behind the house. She didn't know if it belonged to Naruto or not and, frankly, she couldn't care less if it didn't anyway. Currently, along with the dung, a selection of quite badly mangled corpses were also arrayed around the area. The pigs and boar, having been slaughtered and cleaned, were hanging up waiting to be butchered. The wildcat had been slung onto a trash heap and the Ox... well. Temari had needed something to take her anger out on that morning and the Ox had just been the first thing she had found upon which to take it out on.

Currently it was scattered, in several pieces, upon the same heap the dead wildcat was on.

All in all, a rather gruesome bit of cleaning up really. Luckily no-one would notice since she was planning on setting fire to the lot as, really, no-one in their right mind would want to transport such... stuff. Even to a proper trash-collection area – namely the Aburame breeding pit, in which countless hundreds of bugs would reduce pretty much any waste into bugfood. Or alternatively the organic stuff could have gone to the Yamanaka flower shop, where it would be composted out back into mulch for the plants to grow in.

At least no-one could say that the leaf village didn't recycle their waste...

Not that Temari cared, since she was pretty much dead set on setting fire to the trash-heap as a final act of vengeance on the animals that she had already mutilated. Besides, a nice bonfire would keep her warm whilst she exercised nearby.

Then again... If he was going to be coming along, he might take exception to the burning. That would be particularly bad as he was the only person who had, thus far, agreed to give her any help in training.

Even if the bastard did keep making her perform the same damn kick over and over and over...

Still, at least she'd have something to show off with the next time she got into a fight. Hah, Naruto would be surprised when he saw what she had learnt...

Now why did she think of that? She wasn't training to show off to Naruto. oh no.

No, no, no, no.

Definitely not.

Well. Maybe a little.

He was the strongest person she knew after all, it would be a rare chance to show off to him.

Then again... Strong enough to beat Gaara he may have been, but Naruto didn't exactly seem particularly up on things. He was somewhat slow, lovable, but slow.

Lovable?

Yes. Yes he was. And she had kissed him too.

She'd never kissed a guy before.

Never had the chance. Back in the Sand village, the guys - and girls - ran at the very sight of her.

No-one, after all, wanted anything to do with anyone related to Gaara. But Naruto, he didn't care about Gaara. He wasn't afraid.

He... wasn't afraid.

Temari blinked as someone tapped her on the shoulder.

"Sabakuno-san?" Came the voice of her 'instructor', "Are you alright? You've been standing there for almost half an hour now."

Half an hour? She'd been standing there, sunk in her thoughts, for half an hour!? Damn, she'd never done anything like that before.

"I guess," She whispered, "I guess I'm doing a lot of things I've never done before." Pivoting on one foot, she turned to face her Taijutsu instructor - who was looking somewhat nervously at the pile of trash and mutilated animals nearby.

"... Bad day?" He ventured after a while.

Temari just smirked in a superior way, "It's getting better." She stated, "Now lets get this over with."

Tsunade smirked as Naruto bounced along by her side. The boy, as annoying as he could be at times, had grown on her as they had journeyed towards the village of the Leaf. Currently he was describing the sights and sounds of the village - along with a variety of people he wanted her to meet.

"So, so, Sakura-chan is nice, but she's been really weird lately - I think she was training or something 'cause I caught her falling asleep whilst Kakashi-sensei was explaining a mission to us!" The boy babbled, before crossing his arms and pouting indignantly. "Not that it was a very good mission," he continued, "we had to baby-sit a house full of kids all day! I thought Temari-san was gonna kill someone when one of 'em managed to pour grape juice in her hair!"

"Temari," Tsunade murmured, "The sand girl... She may have had a hard time whilst you were away."

"Huh?" Naruto looked up at Tsunade, confusion clearly evident in his eyes. "Why?"

The legendary medic shrugged. "She's a Sand in the middle of the Leaf, she's an outsider. Not many people will be willing to trust her at all - not now, not ever." The woman frowned and glared in the direction of the village, which now was close enough to barely make out the guards atop the giant main gates. "That's one of the biggest problems with inter-village treaty marriages, no-one trusts the person that's sent into the village. So they usually end up being attacked, verbally and physically. Many of them end up leaving or being killed - both actions which dissolve the treaty the marriage is meant to seal."

"And then the war begins." Added Jiraiya, his deep voice cutting off whatever reply Naruto had. "Since the girl in question is related to, well, that boy..."

It was clear to Naruto that when Jiraiya said 'that boy' he had meant Gaara.

"... if she should die, I have no doubt that he, if not the entire village, will attack in revenge. Such an attack... Well, that's something the leaf just can't possibly survive right now." As he talked, the old pervert failed to notice that Naruto had stopped walking and was now lagging behind slightly.

The sound of something heavy slamming into the ground caused the three adults, Tsunade, Shizune and Jiraiya, to turn around and look at the motionless boy.

"Gaara wouldn't have to bother." Naruto growled. One hand was clenched into a claw-like position, the other rested upon the top of the package he had been carrying which, now, was rammed into the ground like a spear. "'cuz if anyone hurts her, I'll kill them myself!"

Both Tsunade and Shizune smiled slightly - they may have been highly trained kunoichi, able to kill without hesitation, but even they had a soft spot for a good bit of romance. And what was more romantic than a guy swearing to have vengeance on anyone who dared hurt his fiancee? ... Quite a few things actually, but then again, these particular romance-lovers were kunoichi and kunoichi in general tended to have weird ideas about this sort of thing.

Temari's foot lashed out to hit her tutor's neck with almost perfect precision. 'Almost' being the operative word as, unfortunately, she was the barest fraction of an inch off. To her tutor, however, this miniscule little mistake could have easily been considered the equivalent of Temari missing him entirely. Of course, with what he was teaching her, such a tiny flaw in her technique could be dangerous and, thusly, this mistake had to be punished.

Leaning backwards and to one side, Temari's tutor looked almost as if he had no spine - what with the fact that he had just bent backwards at the waist. Temari didn't have a chance to be impressed by this incredible feat of flexibility as her foot barely skimmed past in front of her tutor's throat. She knew that, unless she did something, she would be wide open for whatever attack her tutor threw in retaliation.

Well. Time to get creative then.

It was difficult, but she figured that she had enough momentum to maybe...

Before her tutor knew what was happening, Temari had launched herself into the air, lashing out to smash her tutors shoulder with the heel of her other foot. She wasn't, however, done there. Still spinning in mid-air, Temari was able to make not one, not two, but three more consecutive spinning kicks before she was forced to land.

Wait.

Had she just...?

Temari paused in stunned shock for a moment before a swift blow to the back of her head sent her sprawling forwards. Even as she picked herself up off of the floor, her tutor felt the need to make a comment on the situation.

"Naaa... Sabakuno-san, keep your mind on the fight. Someone could get hurt otherwise - like you for instance."

A comment that was, quite understandably, one that didn't particularly amuse Temari in the slightest. Growling to herself, the brown haired girl's hand fell to her waist, where she kept a pouch full of well-sharpened kunai. Her fingers located one of the cold metal object and, carefully, she slipped her middle finger through the ring at the end of the handle.

"KYAAA!" She screamed, whirling around to face her tutor even as her hand whipped out - pulling the kunai from the pouch and slashing it across the area of his ankle. She smiled slightly when she saw the green material of his clothing begin to turn dark as blood from the shallow cut seeped out into it.

Her smile soon left her face at about the same time as her tutor, ignoring the pain in his ankle, smashed his foot down onto the hand holding the kunai. Blood rushed from her face as she heard a dull cracking sound that was accompanied by an eye-opening explosion of pain coming from her hand.

"I seem to recall," began her tutor, his eyebrows meshing together in a dark, and rather intimidating, scowl, "... It was agreed that no weapons were to be used at all." Even as he spoke, he ground his heel into Temari's hand, causing her to squeal in agony. "Whilst I do not particularly like doing something like this, I think it's something that should be done."

"Y... you ba-bastard!" Growled the girl, "you c-complete a-and utter bastard!"

"Insults will get you nowhere Sabakuno-san. This is a lesson you've got to learn." Her tutor smiled brightly and took his foot off of her broken hand. "This village is full of people who want to find any possible excuse to kill you - as well as those who don't need an excuse at all. The sooner you learn to behave, the better."

"So..." Temari whispered, trying to focus through a haze of pain. "H-how does this make you a-any diff-diff-different from them?"

"I stopped at only breaking your hand, which is something I know the medical-nin are pretty good at dealing with. Just remember, if I had wanted, I could have crushed your skull just as easily." He smiled again, the sunlight glinting off teeth that were whiter than white. "Now, lets get you to a medic. Okay Sabakuno-san?"

"AAAAAAHHHH!" Naruto yelled happily as the he and the small group he was with reached the base of the main village gate - the famed entrance to Konoha. A few ninja guards peered over the ramparts atop the walls either side of the gate to see just what all the noise was. More than one of them, upon seeing Naruto, turned away in disgust. A few of them even spat at the boy then laughed amongst themselves as Naruto did his best to dodge them.

Jiraiya frowned, but he kept silent alongside Shizune. Tsunade, on the other hand, was shaking with barely repressed fury. Suddenly she stood as still as a rock and took a deep calming breath. Then she, quite calmly, walked up to the wall upon which the spitting guards stood.

"Naruto," She said, her voice level. "Remember that violence isn't always the answer." Suddenly, without warning she drew back and smashed one fist into the wall, the impact of which causing the ninja above to literally be flung off of it with some force.

"It is, however," She added, "Often a lot quicker, and easier than any other way."

The two guards at the base of the gate, quite wisely, said absolutely nothing as the group passed them by and strolled into the village.

"This is stupid." Grumbled Temari, now accompanied by Sakura. "Who do those bastards think they are, huh?"

"Aaaah..." Sakura sweated slightly. She had run into Temari in the nearby hospital. Whilst Temari had asked why she was there, Sakura was particularly unwilling to give any reason for her presence. In the end Temari just shrugged and gave up since, for all she knew, it could have just been that Sakura was having a rather bad, as men put it, time of the month.

"Bah. It's not like I give a damn. They're all bastards!" The tall girl turned to face the hospital and shook her good fist in the air as she and Sakura walked away. "Bastards! The lot of you!"

"... Geez." Sakura gave Temari a flat stare, "Couldn't you have just left without having the last word? Especially a last word like that."

The taller girl snorted in annoyance. "They deserved it! Charging rates like that just to fix a broken hand!" She glared at her hand, swathed as it was in plaster. "Though... at least they do good work," She mumbled after a while as she poked at the plaster cast with her other hand. "If I was back home I would be expecting to have to wait almost eight weeks for this to heal up. Whilst you people can get it fixed in just under a month."

"Well," drawled Sakura, "We did have a legendary medic here once, they say she bullied the third and fourth into putting an awful lot of resources into the research of medical practices and jutsu." The pink-haired genin paused and stared sadly at the ground. "If she were here, then maybe she could heal Sasuke."

The two walked along in silence through some of the more crowded Konoha streets. Whilst Sakura seemed ignorant, Temari was painfully aware of the way the throngs of people parted to let them through and how every so often it was possible to hear muted whispers and insults directed at herself.

"Sakura..." Temari's quiet whisper caused her companion to stare at her in confusion. The sand-nin girl almost never called her 'Sakura', instead preferring to refer to her by her surname 'Haruno'. "Why..." She continued, seemingly a little unsure of herself. "... Why don't you hate me?"

That was a rather good question actually. One that Sakura herself was more than a little bewildered by herself. When she had first seen the tall, blonde girl back in Naruto's home that first day, Sakura had hated her just as much as any other Leaf-nin would. When the two of them had been forced to work together by Asuma and Iruka, who Sakura swore she was going to have to kick for making her work as a teacher, they had been forced to at least tolerate each other for the duration of the working day.

Then, one day, Temari had followed her to a little tea-shop she knew about for lunch. The tea-shop was one of those semi-modern ones that served a variety of different types of foreign-style drinks along with the more traditional teas that were favored in the Fire country. Sakura had ordered her usual tea, and a small bun to eat. Moments late Temari had promptly sat down at the same table and ordered a Wind country style coffee that, to Sakura, seemed to have much more in common with tar than coffee. Heck, the stuff was so thick that you could have probably turned the cup upside-down and still not spill a drop of it.

The surprising things was, though, that Temari had paid - both for her own and Sakura's orders.

A few days later the two returned to the tea-shop and, not wanting to owe Temari for last time, Sakura had paid for the both of them.

The same thing happened a while later, with Temari paying.

Then Sakura paid the next time.

Now it was an almost daily routine for the two girls, a break from teaching at the tea shop in which the alternated who paid for what they ordered. And, so far, neither of them had abused this by ordering something ridiculously expensive.

"In truth," Sakura stated after a moment, "I don't really know." She smiled slightly, "But I guess it's because, well, I know there's nothing to hate you personally for. When you did what you did it was because you were told to, not because you chose to."

"Oh." Temari stared at the ground for a few moments before looking up and smirking at Sakura. "I guess you aren't as-"Temari's voice was drowned out by a deep bass rumble from the direction the main village gate. In an instant the streets were clear as everyone reacted to what could potentially be an attack. Those of Jounin level headed towards the source of the noise whilst those chuunin that were present darted too and fro, quickly escorting non-ninja merchants and visitors to safe hiding places.

The two genin, one sand and one leaf, glanced at each other and nodded before vanishing in a blur as they leapt away in the direction of the academy. Though they didn't yet know the situation, the two knew that in the event of a possible attack their first priority was to escort the villages children to a safe place. In truth, Sakura felt slightly proud of this responsibility as, in the normal course of things, genin were expected to seek shelter. Her responsibility as a teacher, even if only a temporary one, overrode this and left her with a much responsibility as a chuunin at least.

Temari, on the other hand, was used to far more responsibility than this and so gave it no real thought.

Well.

Okay.

Maybe she was a little worried about her broken hand, and how it would be a hinderance should combat occur. And yes, she was also worried about the fact that she lacked her fan, and thus was limited to smaller weapons – none of which fitted her combat style at all. She was also worried about the children, and how should she have to fight she would be in the vulnerable position of having to defend a large group of people who would panic and probably try to scatter.

All in all, Temari was just plain worried and more than a little scared.

But she wouldn't show it. She didn't dare to.

Jiraiya sighed to himself in exasperation. Around him stood a horde of jounin-level ninja, all of whom were trying to look threatening, though some of the older ones looked puzzled. A short distance away, Tsunade was arguing angrily with Ibiki, the number one interrogator, and judging by his expression she was winning.

Naruto, meanwhile, was laughing his proverbial ass off at the cause of this whole situation. Namely the section of wall that Tsunade had punched a few moments ago - which was now laying upon the crushed remains of a small guard hut.

"You'd have thought by now," Murmured the Toad Sennin, "That Tsunade would be more capable of controlling that freakish strength of hers. Or at least controlling that ridiculously short temper."

"Ah..." Shizune, who was somewhat scared by the sheer number of sharp objects being aimed at the group, twitched slightly. "She's trying her best... really. I think."

Jiraiya smirked, "That's true enough, the old Tsunade would have jumped up and smacked some sense into those guards personally."

"Oh yes," Agreed Tsunade's assistant, "This almost gave me a heart attack, I shudder to think what I would suffer if Tsunade had committed assault against a guard."

"Bah!" Naruto snorted from where he now sat on the dusty floor. "They got what was coming to them! That's all!" The boy folded his arms and glared pointedly at the group of guards, who even now were receiving a grilling from a Jounin. A familiar one at that. Naruto was sure he'd seen him, but just couldn't place the name, he was Shikamaru's tutor – Ass-something. That much the blonde boy could remember.

Whatever his name, he was sure laying into those guards. Odd that, a Jounin would usually leave such discipline to whoever was in charge of that guard unit at the time.

"Oi... Ero-sennin," Naruto asked after a few moments of looking around at the gathered shinobi. "Can we go now? I wanna go tell Sakura that everything is gonna be alright 'cuz she's probably really worried about Sasuke and Kakashi-sensei..."

"Ah?" Jiraiya looked puzzled for a moment, then smirked slightly. "The pink haired girl? Sure. We'll be here for a little while so you might as well go ahead. Shizune, you want to go with him?"

Shizune smiled and shook her head. "If it's all the same, I think I had better stay here and try to keep Tsunade out of getting herself into any more trouble." She grinned and reached out to ruffle Naruto's hair, "You go tell your friend, then go find your fiancée okay? I'm sure Tsunade will want to meet her."

"Sure!" Naruto grinned back then vanished in a puff of smoke, reappearing upon a rooftop just above the crowd. "I'll meet you in Sasuke's hospital room!" He yelled down, waiting for Jiraiya to nod in confirmation before speeding off to find Sakura and, after her, Temari.

"Well, Well, Well." Whispered a light female voice. "He's back already huh? Now isn't that just perfect."

Unseen, Yamanaka Ino left the hiding place she had ducked into when the wall had collapsed and sped along the ground towards her family's flower shop. With any luck she'd be able to contact Hinata and rustle up a suitable outfit for her to wear when, that evening, they would put 'operation – Get Naruto, part two' into practice.

"Now, won't Naruto be so surprised?" She asked herself, a tiny smile upon her face. Of course, this time she herself would have to take steps to ensure that Hinata didn't throw herself into her role in the plan with too much enthusiasm. Really. It was good that the Hyuuga girl was developing a confident streak, but she had yet to learn that there was a difference between confidence and stupid recklessness.

Silly girl.

Adorable, but still silly.

Authors notes

minimerc did a fanart based on my fic! - - but this DAMN formatting keeps wiping out the link to it.

As soon as i work out how to get it to show i'll put the link up. >.< goddamit. Until then, thanks anyway minimerc! -

 Go I procrastinated far, far too much. -.- Sorry, sorry. But like, here it is and stuff.

... no, I'm not too proud of it, but I felt that yes I can stop the chapter here quite happily and I really don't want to keep dragging this loooong procrastination spell out any longer. So I stopped here and, well. Here it is.

Sorry. grovel grovel forgive meeeee...

Lackey H, groveling for mercy!

PS: anyone else do any fanart for this fic? If you have please tell me XD