章 23: Chapter 23

Today, a new idea presented itself and had gained merit when he spoke to Baki earlier and asked him when the alliance between Konoha and Suna had been finalized.

Six years ago, roughly around the same time his fathers change had occurred.

His thoughts were interrupted as he heard the shuffling of feet behind him. He turned his head and saw Temari rubbing the sleep out of her eyes tiredly. "Gaara." She mumbled stifling a yawn. "You should come back inside, you might catch a cold or something." She mumbled.

His lips quirked upwards in a smile. 'Temari, you know I cant get sick."

"Oh yeah." She said, dazedly as she plopped down next to him and put a hand around his shoulder, he managed to hold back his automatic sand from stopping her. She leaned against his shoulder. "Wha's wrong?"

"Nothing." He replied.

"Don't give me nothing Gaara, I'm your sister. I can tell these things." She said as she pulled away, poking at his temple.

He snorted and crossed his arms. "Well, if you must know, I was thinking about Father."

"Yeah, he has been acting kinda weird lately." Temari noted absently, "Do you think its just tension getting to him. I mean…Konoha is supposedly the strongest ninja village and even with the element of surprise we could still lose."

Gaara nodded and narrowed his eyes, now that he thought about it, his father had been acting strange, far to strange for his taste, so much so that simple stress or tension couldn't cover it. His eyes seemed to hold some sick glee as he mentioned they would go to war against Konoha that first time.

Before he could contemplate his thoughts further something caught his senses.

"Go back inside Temari, I'm going for a walk."

"Alright Gaara." She said, yawning as she made her way back into the hotel.

Gaara waited for her to slip back through the window before he leapt to the adjacent rooftop and continued leaping until he finally reached his destination.

He stared across the street from the roof of one store, straight to the black form of the strange Konoha ninja that he had seen earlier.

Naruto and Gaara stared at each other, both completely apathetic, though Naruto seemed to hold Gaara's gaze easier, though none could tell beneath his hood.

The living weapon leapt with grace, Gaara raised his head to follow his form as he crossed the distance and landed directly infront of him. Gaara took a slight step back to gain some distance between himself and the imposing gennin that towered over him.

After a few more seconds Naruto spoke. "Your chakra…" He began, his hollow voice reverberating through the area. "It is similar to my own."

Gaara narrowed his eyes slightly. "Are you a vessel too?"

Naruto nodded, "Correct."

"Which one?" Gaara asked genuinely curious, he didn't think there were others out there like him.

"You possess your secrets and I possess my own." That said, Naruto turned to leave, but a firm hand on his shoulder by Gaara stopped him, he turned to face the Suna-nin fully.

"I would have your name." Gaara spoke, this one was definitely one to be wary of during the invasion, it would be good to warn Kankuro and Temari. "Sabaku no Gaara." He introduced himself extending his hand.

Naruto stared at the outstretched hand curiously for a moment. An offer of respect? Perhaps. People like themselves were few and far between. And…he supposed, that this Sabaku no Gaara merely wanted some form of…assurance? Even should they be enemies tomorrow, he supposed it was some form of…camaraderie or comfort that you were known by at least one other like yourself.

He would humor him.

He slowly extended his hand, his claws extending and griped Gaara's own. Strong, almost to the point of pain but the red head still delivered a firm handshake, the blond noted. "Uzumaki Naruto." He stated before turning and with a powerful leap the living weapon vanished into the darkness of the night.

The next morning, team seven walked up the stairs of the chuunin examination building.

As they walked up to the second floor, they saw two 'Gennin' bullying a group of others, a green clad boy get smacked across the face hard, sending him tumbling to the floor where his teammate caught him.

"You guys are too weak to be Chuunin, you should just go back home now" One of the ninja spoke.

Sasuke, trying to salvage some of his recently bruised ego walked up confidently. 'Yeah yeah, whatever you say, now drop the genjutsu, we're going to room 301." He stated smirking at the two slightly shocked ninja.

"Heh, so you saw through it, but now we gotta see if you can back that up." He said as he moved to kick the Uchiha. Sasuke also moved to attack when Naruto appeared between the two and caught their respective attacks. "This is pointless." He stated.

Sasuke snarled angrily as Naruto once again had the entire room looking at him. 'Showoff.' He mentally scoffed.

Lee, Tenten and Neji stared at the tall Gennin as team seven made their way through. There was a wariness in their eyes. None of them had even seen him move, he had just appeared. Lee was also quite startled, being a taijutsu expert his eyes had to adapt to his incredible speed, meaning he had faster than normal reflexes and even he hadn't caught anything.