Konoha : Naruto's playground

Naruto stared at the surroundings with a deadpan expression.

Sand, sand and more sand.

Seriously, how monotonous was Suna?! Wasn't it meant to be THE place for kick-ass wind Jutsu? He had thought that by coming here he could compare himself to some of the real wind-users, but instead, all he could see was an endless abyss of yellow.

And that was boring.

Naruto flicked his foot downwards, propelling his Airboard into the air before jumping smoothly onto the central seal. If he couldn't spot anything on the ground, he'd just have to go airborne. The only problem was, much of his Chakra had been used in getting to Suna and so his reserves were a bit low. He didn't know when he'd run dry, but it couldn't be good to have your Chakra pool empty.

Soaring quickly upwards, the Konoha Jinchuuriki took his time to survey the environment. Golden sand-dunes stretched as far as the eye could see in every direction, the late morning glow of the sun glittering off the sand and creating a vast and dreamy experience. It was like being in a Jewellery shop, except the gold was everywhere.

Naruto spied a canyon with two parallel walls that ran either side. The canyon was built out of red rock, a strong and highly compacted stone that was extremely hard to penetrate. There wasn't any sign of life to be found, only the stretching mass of sand to the horizon.

If he had known it was going to be this boring, he probably would have stayed with Kakashi and the others and gone back to Konoha. That thought made him chuckle.

'Poor Kakashi. I wonder if he noticed that I covered his sleeping-bag's headrest in pink paint?'

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Hatake Kakashi, ex-elite ANBU captain strode through his apartment, checking and double checking every piece of equipment he had taken with him on his last mission. It had taken 4 shampoo washes just to get the dratted pink paint out of his hair and it had totally ruined his style! When he next saw that blond brat, he was definitely going to get some payback!

Finding nothing amiss, the Jounin turned to his sleeping bag which incidentally, he had forgotten to examine. His room was dark and he was tired and so he wanted to get some shut-eye just in case he was called in for another mission on the morrow. He just hoped Anko wasn't anywhere near him for the next week or so! He had practically been driven crazy by a certain green spandex-clad Jounin who couldn't stop going on about 'un-youthful books' and 'artists in the springtime of their youth'. It was becoming infuriating, not to mention that Gai's words were hinting that the Uzumaki was the 'youthful' one and he was the 'un-youthful' one.

Poor Kakashi lay down on his sleeping bag and rolled over over, dismissing the dampness that met his cheek.

'Must be from sleeping outdoors'.

How very wrong he was.

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Naruto dodged swiftly to the side. A Suna patrol had come out of the canyon he had spied earlier and made a beeline towards his position. It seems that whoever lived beyond that canyon had some kind of surveillance network and had detected him in the air.

A wind Jutsu tore through the air towards him, and he was so surprised that he had finally gotten a glimpse of an elemental Jutsu that he almost forgot to dodge. At the last moment, he cut all backward momentum whilst increasing the front and underboard seals incrementally. What occurred could only be described as a 'backward flip', and the slicing wind passed over his feet as he spun upside down.

After his 360 degree stunt was complete, he stared wide-eyed at his attackers. Just what kind of Jutsu was that?! Jiraiya certainly hadn't done anything on that level!

Fortunately for the Konoha pariah, his attackers were regarding him with the same awe-struck expression that their opponent had. This guy was FLYING on what looked like...a branch from a tree. Not only that, but he had just dodged a B-Rank Kamaitachi from none other than Baki himself! The manner in which he did was dubbed as 'cool' by the youngest of the three man squad, yet the oldest was incensed.

He was so angry that every time he exhaled, the white face-wrap hiding the right side of his face, fluttered in the air. His two teammates began to edge away from the fuming Jounin, scared that his ire would soon be directed at them for some reason or another.

Naruto, however, had a very different problem. The Jutsu being thrown his way weren't difficult to dodge from his vantage point. He was in the air and they were trying to fight him with the air?! The idea was laughable at best! A scribed seal was far more effective and controllable than a hand-seal after all, and he had more than ten!

No, his main problem was that he could FEEL the last of his Chakra siphoning off his Chakra pool. He had maybe ten seconds tops before his seal-array stopped working as he would have insufficient Chakra to power them. Thankfully he had built a fail-safe into the array to cause it to stop working before his Chakra ran out completely, so at least he wouldn't collapse as well.

But as always with the blond prank-master, plans never go as he wants them to.

And so as he found himself descending to the deluge of yellow granules, a certain livid Suna Jounin jumped forward at this sudden opportunity, a blade of pure wind springing up from his clenched fist. Naruto belatedly thought that he had to learn that Jutsu before sighing and pushing the last of his Chakra fully into his Airboard. At least he wouldn't be decapitated, that was NOT the way he wanted to leave this miserable world.

The Airboard shuddered slightly at the intense force it was being subjected to; Gravity pulling mercilessly downwards and a small amount of wind Chakra attempting to overcome it. The board sprang upwards about 10 feet before coming to a rest for a moment.

In that brief moment of respite, Naruto realised that there was no way he could keep it up any longer and so with a resigning sigh, attempted to push every last drop of power in his body into his board.

It was an incredibly foolish thing to do, although, in the 8 year old's defense, he knew next to nothing about Chakra exhaustion. No-one had ever told him that at best you would be incapacitated for days on end and at worst, you'd die.

Fortunately, there was one being that didn't want to die.

And it decided to make its presence known in the Shinobi World once again.

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A single, blood-red iris was revealed as a lethargic eye-lid was opened. A small growl of contempt was heard.

The eye itself began to glow.

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Naruto was dumb-founded and by the looks on the faces of his three attackers, they were floored too.

Somehow, incredibly, he was still floating in the air! It seemed he had a bit more Chakra than he thought he did.

And then he felt it.

The molten lava, the fire that ripped through his insides, filling him with pain and euphoria alike. He suddenly felt energised, more so than he had ever felt before. In his light-headedness, he failed to notice his vision become much sharper. He failed to notice the fangs that pierced his lower lip on both sides of his jaw and he failed to notice his Chakra turn a deep red colour.

To the Jounin below him, the sight was jaw-droppingly beautiful. Baki's wind-blade died in his hand as he witnessed a sight very similar to one an Iwa or Kumo-nin would relate from back in the last Shinobi War.

Alighting on the clouds, a stream of shifting and glimmering ruby extending from the rear of the wooden contraption, stood a boy unlike any they had seen before. His unruly, mid-length golden hair swayed in the wind, a halo of pearlescent sunlight mixing with the crimson aura of power billowing out around his form.

But it was the eyes that really held their attention. Blood-red eyes, slit down the middle, a mix of incredible blood-lust and depth, a ratio of which any ANBU could tell you was impossible. Soft eyes and murderous eyes simply couldn't mix.

And yet, as the blond raised his hands and made some handseals, his form disappearing from view, the Jounin couldn't rid their minds of the majestic image. There was no other way to describe it. The stream of Ruby-red Chakra that trailed from the end of the board reflected of the sand sending a fusion of yellows, reds and purples racing along the surface of the desert, illuminating the ground underneath it with an ethereal glow, a sight of which had no equal anywhere in the world.

The team of Jounin would later be found staring up at the sky, one with his hand still raised, with a vacant look etched on their faces and their eyes completely out of focus as if reliving a memory of bygone days.

Meanwhile, a rejuvenated blond juvenile, was making good time over a certain red-canyon...

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Sabaku no Gaara was a very disturbed child. At birth, he had a demon sealed within him. By the time he could walk, he was being trained non-stop in how to kill people in the most brutally efficient manner available to man. Not only that, but he also had an alien control over sand that nobody around him seemed to share.

Many people thought Gaara was an unfeeling, monster of a child. But they really didn't know him. He was a human like anyone else, he could feel the same pains and joy that any other person or ninja could feel and he was in no way emotionless; he just hid himself far better than others did.

Wasn't it their idea that Shinobi shouldn't have emotions?

That's what he had been taught at a young age at any rate.

And then the assassination attempts had began.

It wasn't too bad at first. Gaara's unnatural control over the abundant yellow granules far outperformed anything the local ninja populace could attack with. Every time someone tried to kill him, the desert rose up in fury and squished them.

Literally.

But Gaara hadn't been prepared for his uncle to try to kill him. His uncle Yashamaru, under orders of Gaara's father, the Yondaime Kazekage, attempted to kill Gaara because he was a 'failed experiment'.

"I never really loved you..."

Gaara gripped the sides of his head, as the words of his uncle stabbed like hot irons throughout his psyche.

"...What are more serious are emotional scars. They are the hardest to heal..."

His right hand reached down and gripped the fabric of his brown shirt over where his heart should be.

"...Physical and emotional scars are a bit different. Unlike physical ones, there are no ointments for emotional ones, and the pain may never go away..."

He was scarred for life. Nothing would heal him. His brow furrowed as a small amount of sand began to whip around his figure.

"...There's only one thing that could stop such heartache, however as inconvenient as it may seem, this cure can only be given by people other than yourself..."

The sand revolving around his feet began to move faster, the yellow granules moving faster and faster until his form began to become obscured from anything around him.

"...It is love. Love is care and devotion that you feel for the precious ones around you..."

"Hey, HEY! What'cha doin'?"

Gaara snapped out of his thoughts, the sand freezing in mid-air before falling to the ground. His eyes were wide in an expression of shock, taking in the only person who had spoken to him for so long.

It was a boy, around his age, a mess of the brightest blond hair he had ever seen. It was so bright that it rivalled the sun for lighting up the world around it. The next feature that caught his eye was the boy's Delphinium irises. The deep, ocean blue orbs spoke of many experiences but there was a small sparkle of vitality that Gaara couldn't identify. The blond also had three pairs of 'whisker' marks stretching on either side of his face, causing his grin to look rather mischievous.

The smile reminded him of a picture of a fox he had once seen in a nursery book when he was rather young.

To Naruto, the pitiful form of the red-haired boy in front of him was almost scary; the look in his eyes reminded him of the pain he used to feel in his younger days.

"So he sent you to kill me today."

The scratchy monotone of the boy's voice sent a shiver down Naruto's spine. This guy was off his rocker! And his eyes were dead! But there wasn't anyone else around so he was the only one to approach.

"EEH?! I'm not gonna kill ya!"

The redhead stared silently at the stranger. He wasn't here to...kill him? Then what was he here for?

"Name's Naruto, what's yours?" Gaara's dull eyes followed the outstretched arm. What was that for?

It was silent for a moment. A small thimble rolled across the street as a slight breeze blew.

"Umm, you're meant to shake it, see? Handshake ya know?"

Gaara tentatively raised his right hand and grasped the other's pale appendage lightly. The next moment he felt his teeth rattle as his entire arm was enthusiastically whipped up and down.

"So what's your name?" The Uzumaki almost regretted asking the question as the redhead turned his soulless gaze on him once again.

"Sabaku no Gaara."

"Sabaku, as in desert Sabaku, right?" Gaara simply stared.

"Hey you need to lighten up! You're not gonna make many friends like that Gaara! Smile a bit; maybe play some pranks on some people. Learn to laugh and all that ya know?"

Gaara's head tilted to the side slightly as if he was pondering a great question.

"Play a...prank? How does one...prank?"

Naruto was stumped. What was wrong with this guy? First he looks like he's in the middle of a hurricane, then he has eyes that seem to have been taken from a dead body and now he doesn't know what a prank is?!

He would just have to teach him.

A few kilometres away in the Kazekage's office, a certain powerful leader began trembling for no reason.

"Oh, OH! That's easy, see! All ya gotta do is something funny to someone! Ya know? Just like, paint their faces (Kakashi and the Raikage sneezed), let off a massive paint-bomb (The whole of Iwa sneezed so hard a mountain fell down.), that sorta thing!"

"Something...funny?"

Now he was repeating everything Naruto was saying. Seriously, this guy was REALLY boring.

"Yeah, yeah! See that guy there? Do something funny to him! OH! Oh, I know! You can do that cool thing with the sand right? Put some sand down his pants or something!"

Gaara slowly raised his arm and pointed it at the Chuunin that was hurrying past. The rest of the street was deserted and as soon as the ninja saw Gaara with his hand pointed towards him and an intense look of concentration covering his face, he bolted down the road, his facade a mask of terror.

Naruto narrowed his eyes at how the Chuunin had acted towards seeing Gaara. If Gaara wasn't there he would've thought that the guy was scared of him, but then he shook himself. He wasn't from here so there was no way anyone could know about the Kyuubi being within him. No, they were scared of Gaara for some reason.

Sand burst forth from the ground, racing towards the fleeing Chuunin, before wrapping around the hapless Shinobi.

"Yeah! You got him! Nice one Gaara! Now just put some sand in his pants!"

Squish.

Naruto's eyes bugged out of his head as Gaara squashed the unlucky ninja. He was no doubt dead, if the blood and guts colouring the sand were any indication.

"Hey, what the hell did you do that for?!"

Gaara's dull green eyes turned back to his companion once again.

"I put some sand in him." The statement was said so casually, devoid of any emotion, that Naruto would have found it hilarious if the man hadn't just lost his life.

"You can't just KILL people like that! People are like you! We're all people; you can't just kill people for the fun of it!"

Gaara continued to stare, nary a peep from his mouth.

Naruto didn't know why he cared so much. He had seen the way that Chuunin had treated the redhead and it reminded him of his own experiences. Would he have killed at the time if he had had the power to do so? Would he have taken a life for no reason, simply because they had made him angry? These were questions he couldn't answer, but there was one thing he knew for sure.

He couldn't let this guy...his friend, turn into some maniac.

"Look, forget it. I'll show you how to prank ok? Then we can do something together."

Gaara nodded slowly. It was...nice to be able to talk to someone like this. He didn't know how long it would last, but hopefully, this Naruto wouldn't turn out to be someone hired by his father after all.

The pain in his chest began to ease slightly as the two kids walked off together.

The Kazekage would be highly annoyed at the fact that Gaara had murdered another one of his ninja when he woke up the following morning.

He also wouldn't know why his pants were itching so badly.

It was almost as if someone had put sand in them...

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