Chapter 22
One month later a certain blonde haired, blue eyed shinobi could be found standing beside her dark haired teammate at the gates of Sunagakure no Sato awaiting entry.
“I’m sorry miss, you don’t have permission to enter, nor does your teammate.” Spoke one of the gate guards. He was sitting as he looked at a scroll of names.
“And I’m telling you, I’m a foreign dignitary. Technically. My name is Naruto Uzumaki- Namikaze, I’m the daughter of the yondaime hokage who is engaged to Gaara no Subaku. My teammate is Sasuke Uchiha, the last Uchiha. Your council is already aware we would be coming here and if you don’t believe me, go and call one of them. But don’t take long, this heat is gonna give us heat stroke.”
She fanned her face as the two of them waited for the stupid gate guards to ask someone about allowing them entry.
It was stupid, Suna was already aware the two of them were coming so the gate guards should have been made aware so they wouldn’t have to go through this crap upon entry. The worst part was she couldn’t blame the people on duty, it was their job to make sure nobody suspicious came into the village.
“Are these walls taller than the ones in Konoha?” asked Sasuke beside her and she took a look, unable to tell unless she ran up them, however she knew the guards would never allow it.
“Not sure… we can always ask someone when we get in.” she shrugged and continued to fan herself. Naruto was used to the heat, her body temperature ran hotter than the average human after-all however the land of Wind was unbearably hot for her, despite the outfit she had bought just for hot weather.
It was another seven minutes and forty-three minutes before one of the guards came back and confirmed they could go through, apologizing for the inconvenience.
They were escorted to the kazekage tower which looked more like a giant jar- it even had a lid.
She elbowed Sasuke in the stomach when she heard him snicker, it wouldn’t do any good to make fun of their allied nation’s kage tower. Even if it did look funny it looked very creative.
They found their way into the kazekage office and she wasn’t surprised when she didn’t see an official kazekage behind the desk, however Sasuke was given by the way his eyes widened by a fraction.
The old lady behind the desk had grey hair and was wearing a white shawl over a green garb. Now that she thought about it, a lot of the citizen here were either wearing red or green and not a single person was wearing blue. The colour of the land of Wind.
“Welcome to Sunagakure no Sato, hime-sama, Uchiha-san. We apologise for the inconvenience at the gate. The list of whoever is allowed into our village is changed daily however the first person on today’s shift took the wrong scroll. He took the previous months scroll and not this month’s scroll.” She gave a bow which wasn’t too deep but it was not done so out of arrogance, but because she was old.
“Are you by any chance Lady Chiyo? The grandmother to Sasori of the Red Sand?” asked Naruto, barely supressing her glee.
The lady furrowed her brow and nodded her head, a small smile on her face. Naruto withheld a grimace, given the lady’s reaction she didn’t know what Sasori was up to these days.
“I mean you no offence, Lady Chiyo, but would you by any chance know where Sasori is?”
“Hmm… I would have to say no. I haven’t seen my darling Sasori in years.”
“Um… I don’t know how to say this but… your grandson is a member of Akatsuki who are hunting down the nine jinchuriki for the bijuu’s they hold, extracting them over a three day course of pure agony leaving them dead. Akatsuki is also a group of S-rank rogue ninja who have killed hundreds. I don’t think I’ve missed anything…” she placed her thumb under her lower lip as she bit the tip.
“WHAT?!” Lady Chiyo exclaimed as she took a hold of Naruto’s forearms, nails digging into her skin. Kurama elicited a growl in her mindscape, claws digging into the grass of her mindscape.
Not even a moment later Lady Chiyo was slung across the room by a sand tail, said tail wrapping around Naruto as Gaara came and stood beside her, teal eyes glaring at the elder woman.
“Naruto are you alright?” asked a frantic, wide-eyed Temari, taking the other side of her that Gaara wasn’t at.
“Lady Chiyo, can you explain why you were man-handling Naruto-hime?” asked Baki who was standing behind her.
‘Where the hell did these guys comes from?! And how’d they get so close?!’
‘I wish to tare the woman apart! Release me and I’ll do so!’ he roared and she figured he wasn’t going to answer her question.
She looked at Temari with a confused smile, “I’m fine?” she asked more than stated and looked at Gaara. The seal she used on Shukaku left a result similar to the result that her seal did, allowing him to channel Shukaku’s chakra whenever he got angry.
His eyes had changed into Shukaku’s eyes so she placed a hand on his arm, leaning up to give him a kiss on his cheek before going in front of him, “I’m fine Gaara. She was just shocked by what I said, that’s all.” She murmured to him.
She watched as his eyes fluctuated between his teal eye colour to Shukaku’s golden and black eyes, and after a minute Gaara won the battle of control. His shoulders sagged and his right arm wrapped around her, drawing her to his side.
She looked behind her and saw Sasuke watching with sharingan eyes, amusement clear on his face. Everyone from Suna besides Gaara bowed to her and simultaneously apologised to her, causing her to scratch the back of her neck.
“It’s alright guys, really. No harm no foul.” She really, really didn’t know how to react when lots of people bowed to her and the same time for a long duration of time. Having someone bow for like two seconds or so was alright, it was a greeting, but long durations is something Kurama wished she would do.
Gaara didn’t even wait for whatever they were going to say, instead using a sand shunshin to teleport them to… somewhere.
Not even a moment after the sand stopped swirling around them, his arms wrapped around her, crushing her to his chest. She chuckled at his antics and returned the hug, tiptoeing slightly to be the same height as him.
He released her and took a hold of her arms and examined them, “Kyuubi’s already healed me, and besides she only dug her nails in slightly and I hardly felt it. I’ve had much worse.” She stated, looking amusedly at him.
She took in his appearance, he looked dishevelled most likely from training. His clothes seemed rumpled, gourd slightly out of place and his hair was messy. She refrained from messing it up even more just so she could weave her fingers through it and fix it.
‘I wonder if I can convince him to keep his hair long and not short…’
‘You want his hair long when you got yours short?’
‘It’s not short just shorter than before. Besides, if I kept it long whilst in Suna... Rikudo sennin have mercy.’
‘Hmm… if only there was a way for you to cool down… looks like you will have to suffer.’
‘Bastard.’
“Come. I’ll show you around the village.” he took her hand in his and they made their way around the village.
There was lot of sand, lots of homes, many shops and restaurants, lots of people but it wasn’t like home. This was probably how Gaara and Temari felt when they stayed in Konoha and she had a newfound respect for them.
“You’ve been awfully quiet, do you not like the village?” he asked when they stopped at the top of the wall surrounding the village. From up here she could see eight straight paths leading to the kazekage tower which she had been informed is also the kazekage clan’s home.
Oh and the wall was a longer than the one surrounding Konoha.
She shook her head and gave him a smile, “It’s not that. The village looks lovely and I’m sure it’s made a lovely home for her citizens… but it’s so- so different from Konoha.”
He nodded and placed her between his legs so her back was to his chest. “I can see the differences but why don’t you tell me what differences make you miss home?”
She shivered as she felt his hands brush up and down her bare arms, “There are no lakes nor trees anywhere, most likely due to this being a desert and all…”
He nodded, breathing in her scent from her hair and neck, “I’m sure we can do something about that.”
She giggled at his ministrations, she was very ticklish after all. “If I get permission from your council, I’ll do some minor things to the village.”
He leaned back slightly and looked down to her, smile on his face as his eyes looked lighter than before, “Oh? Can I know what changes you want to make and how you would go about them?”
“Suna’s main problem is the lack of water in this desert land so I could get my shadow-clones to use an earth jutsu to make an underground tunnel and a large crater with another jutsu and fil it with water from a water jutsu. Get it flowing under the whole village and start up some agriculture. Don’t get me wrong, you’re village looks beautiful, but damn the whole thing is in the same colour. It needs some green.” she nodded to herself and she felt Gaara laughing behind her rather than hearing and she ignored it, a smile on her face. “We’ll definitely need an irrigation system as well, similar to the one in Konoha.”
She continued mumbling to herself and Gaara sat quietly behind her as she did so, content to simply listen to her ramblings.