Strings Attached

Disclaimer: I do NOT own Naruto or the characters herein as they are copyrighted to Masashi Kishimoto. He created this universe and the wonderful characters therein that I have chosen to write about. I make no money off of this work nor do I profit from any of my other works, as they are clearly fan fictions.

Pairing(s): Er.... Lee/Saku (one-sided), Gai/omc and those are the only ones I have actually thought of putting in this story besides Kank/Ten.
Feedback: Tell me what I have done to offend you! *sobs*
Characters: Everyone but the kitchen sink (Sasuke) >:(

--

Kankurou grumpily stalked out of his temporary quarters to meet his little brother and older sister that were standing outside the apartment complex. He gave a small grunt for acknowledgement of is siblings and proceeded to head over to the school with them. Kankurou stopped after three steps toward his destination. “Is something wrong?”

The blonde-haired girl with four frayed ponytails laughed heartily. “For starters, you’re heading the wrong way. The academy is this way Kankurou.”

Kankurou growled and turned around. “Fuck. I know that.”

“And you put your top on backwards— again for the last two days.” The boy with short messy dark red hair said in monotone.

“Huh? Again?” Kankurou groaned, but it came off as more of a growl. He put down his wrapped up puppets that he usually kept slung over either shoulder and took off his black head cover. Then he started to get out of his black top as he cursed.

Team Gai passed the scene without a second glance, answering the call of a mission was more important than gawking at Kankurou’s misery after all. However, one of team Gai’s members just had to look. Tenten glanced over and blushed at seeing Kankurou struggle to get out of that piece of clothing, but she hurried along after meeting the blonde girl’s analytical stare.

“There!” Kankurou loudly proclaimed when he finally got his clothes fixed.

“But now you smudged your face paint,” the little brother said pointing the to the messy violet markings on Kankurou’s face.

“Shut it Gaara! Temari do you have a mirror?” Kankurou asked.

The blonde sighed and pulled a mirror from her pouch to give her brother. As she watched her brother gently rub away the smudges and reapply violet face paint around his eyes and lips— even the side of his face, her thoughts drifted back to the girl that was staring at Kankurou.

Temari recognized the girl all right. She was Tenten, the arms master from the chuunin exams who Temari recalled defeating easily even though Tenten had put forth a great deal of effort. It was commendable effort now that Temari thought about it more.

“Hey Kankurou,” Temari said as she watched the girl pass through the open gates of Konoha. “That girl was blushing for you.”

“Huh? What girl was it? Do I know her?”

“I don’t know her name really.” Temari lied. She smiled inwardly at watching her brother’s strange excitement. ‘Boy something here sure is fishy... maybe I should draw it out and see if my suspicions are right.’ “I can describe her for you if you like.”

Kankurou saw the trying glint in her eyes and his features contorted into a scowl. “Idiot. I don’t care much. We’re going to be late anyway.” Kankurou started to leave for the academy.

“Dark brown hair— neatly done up into double buns, hazel eyes, a petite frame...”

Kankurou stopped in mid stride. ‘Damn her, toying with me like this... stupid Temari.’

Temari giggled while Gaara was left trying to figure out why she got so much amusement from what she was doing to poor Kankurou. The best he could figure was that it was some sort of teasing.

“A pink sleeveless mandarin collar shirt, baggy black kung fu pants... you know that sounds almost like— what was her name? Damn I forgot!” Temari said.

“Tenten...”

“Kankurou,” Gaara said as he came around to face his older brother. He poked at the puppet master’s cheeks. Kankurou moved past him and started walking again. “Is there something wrong? Your face is turning red.”

“Leave him alone Gaara. He’s just so enamored with that girl he can’t control himself.” She too resumed the trek to the ninja school of Konoha towing her angry puppeteer brother along. “No doubt Tenten’s been a major distraction to you, so what happened?”

“Shit.” Kankurou doubted that she was going to let this go so he shoved his hands into his pockets and went along with it. “Well I was sparring with her a couple of days ago and things got out of hand when she suddenly ran out on me...”

--

Kankurou growled as he pulled back his puppet Karasu from the shower of deadly weapons unleashed by Tenten from high in the air. The girl was something else— something other than the girl that lost to his sister at the chuunin exams. She just wouldn’t let up— not with that shameful loss hanging her head and he suspected that since he was brother to her opponent, he was perfect to vent her frustrations on for the moment.

He toughened up at his last thought. If Tenten wanted good practice, he wasn’t going to disappoint her since she was the one who challenged him seemingly out of nowhere. Karasu was thrust forward into battle, spitting out more blades and slinging its long arms out to try and capture the young weapons master. Its head twisted around when appeared behind it to get to the puppeteer.

“Henge no jutsu?” Tenten roared after her kunai knives were buried into a gnarled old log. “You can’t hide from me forever!”

Then she saw it. Kankurou knew that she noticed that the chakra strings attached to Karasu were leading up into the canopy. He fell back over the branch he was standing on just as she jumped to him, letting his weight pull Karasu up where she was as he gracefully landed on his feet.

“Who’s hiding?” Kankurou said dumbly. Then condescendingly he added, “I’m just having fun girly-girl. It’s not everyday that a little flower decides to fuck with me.”

Tenten bit back a nasty comment about his love life, thinking that he probably didn’t have one to begin with as terrible as his manners were. She turned and jumped back, landing on another branch, far from Karasu’s reach— or so she thought. The disgusting looking puppet twisted its head around to face her and jumped forward— its mouth opening wide to reveal a sharp barb dripping with poison— launching the missile at her. With a kunai in hand, Tenten launched herself at the wooden monstrosity and deflected the projectile, sending it flying into the bushes.

Karasu snapped its arms around her body and squeezed her until she erupted into a puff of smoke. Kankurou swore under his breath because he only managed to nab a shadow clone of Tenten. The real girl was most definitely nearby and as Kankurou decided this, he moved to higher ground, extending his chakra strings so that Karasu wouldn’t move with him and thus reveal his hiding place to her.

“Damn. I’m near my limit.” Tenten scanned her surroundings with two more of her shadow clones. That foul-mouthed sand ninja had to be somewhere close— somewhere near where that hideous marionette was. One of her clones pat her shoulder pointed to the south. At first she didn’t see what the copy was pointing to, but when she looked closely and concentrated she could see fine blue lines of chakra trailing upward. She didn’t need to see through the bushes to know that Karasu was behind them looking for her. “I’ll make this quick.”

Kankurou only smirked when he felt Tenten put a sword against his throat. She found him fair and square. He raised his hands slowly, letting his other puppet that was wrapped up tightly in white ribbons drop to the forest floor. “Well done Tenten, but I’m not giving up just yet.”

“Don’t be a cocky fool. I won now, so the least you can do is acknowledge me properly.” Tenten growled.

“Like this?” Inhumanly, Kankurou’s head twisted around with a sickening grin as his face began to crack and chip away, revealing the other repulsive looking puppet. Tenten gasped and pushed herself back just as the wooden brute nearly cut her with a spinning blade protruding from the center of its chest.

“The fallen puppet was really him? Damn it!” Tenten landed on her side hard, leaving her groaning in pain for a few seconds before she realized that Karasu and Black Ant were towering over her. She stood and quickly distanced herself from the dangerous weapons. The girl was feeling a strange draft against her body and looked down, finding that her mandarin collar shirt was split down the middle along with her white lace bra. She crossed her arms over her chest protectively and turned tail. Her house wasn’t too far away so she could easily get new clothes and return to kicking Kankurou’s butt.

Kankurou frowned, when he did hear any sounds of battle. He popped up from the bushes just to see Tenten’s small form retreating toward Konoha. “Running away are we?”

It left him perplexed for a moment, but then against his better judgement he decided to see why she ran away without forfeiting or making any kind of announcement. He wrapped up his puppets and slung them over his shoulder before following Tenten, getting the feeling that something was wrong. Kankurou didn’t particularly care for Tenten or the ninjas of Konoha in general, but his little brother had made it clear that if anything happened to disturb the truce between sand and leaf, the puppet master would be arranging his own funeral.

Kankurou shivered at the very thought. “The exact reason why I fucking hate little kids.”

Tenten got into her house through her bedroom window and started looking for some new clothes to wear. She didn’t notice that Kankurou had also come into the room through the window and was worried that one of his puppets had indeed poisoned her.

Kankurou studied her a bit, wondering what she was doing since he saw that she was okay and not poisoned. “Hey girl! Why did you run away from our sparring session? I was just about to kick your sorry ass all over Konoha!” Kankurou boasted as he peeked over Tenten’s shoulder. “What are you doing?”

“Nothing. Get out of my room Kankurou!” Tenten replied quickly as she struggled with her ripped shirt.

Kankurou snorted. “It doesn’t look like nothing to me.” He appeared in front of the petite girl with a smirk, intending to frighten her from her task for a good laugh being the rude ruffian he was at times. Kankurou stared at Tenten blankly, but it was soon replaced with discomfort and redness spreading all over his face.

“Kankurou!” Tenten squealed as she discontinued her attempts to fix her ripped shirt and just held it together tightly with one hand. Her cheeks and the tips of her ears were aflame with embarrassment, which was also marked by a bright reddish pink color.

“Whoa nice rack—”

Her free hand swiftly slammed against the side of Kankurou’s face, collecting purple smudges and sending the poor ninja of sand into the nearest wall. “Perverted idiot! I told you to go away!”

Kankurou wished he could say that his nose was bleeding from the force of her hand, but she didn’t even hit him on the nose. He didn’t have to reflect on the matter anymore because now he was about to get a shower of weapons from an angry girl. Kankurou jumped out of the window, desperate to not be minced.

--

“And that’s about it.” Kankurou said as he and his siblings stopped in front of the academy.

“So what did they look like?” Gaara asked. Kankurou stared at Gaara as if there was a language barrier between them. “Her breasts. I want to know what they looked like.”

“What the hell? Why would you want to know something like that for?” Kankurou yelled.

“I’ve never seen breasts before— and people usually make a big deal about them.” Gaara said thoughtfully.

“Yeah well I didn’t see Tenten’s because she covered up quickly enough.” He lied and yet again he managed another lie, “’Sides, she’s flat as a board anyway.”

“Oh.”

Temari just bit down on her lip gently. Boys younger than Gaara—ten or eleven— would have had their first views of a woman’s bare chest whether intentionally or not— maybe even played doctor with friends their age. Gaara was not normal and hadn’t been since birth. He was pretty much deprived of every normal discovery boys made— including self-play. “Gaara that’s not something you should... um... worry about yet.”

“Yeah. You’ll see some eventually. If you wait five years, I’ll take you to a hot little club—”

“—shut up Kankurou. Don’t take him to such vulgar places.”

“Can I at least see yours?” Gaara asked Temari. His question was met with strangled laughter from Kankurou and viscous rage from Temari. He didn’t understand what was so funny to Kankurou or why Temari was so angry. “Hm.”

“No you cannot see mine! Honestly you’re my little brother!”

Gaara raised an eyebrow, not that he had any, just the muscles where eyebrows normally sat. “It’s just a body part right?”

Temari sighed. He was never going to understand. “Drop the subject Gaara.”

“I want an apology!” Kankurou suddenly said. “I was unfairly branded a pervert when I was only seeing what the hell she was doing!”

“We only have four days left here, so try tomorrow.” Temari said as the bell rang. It was time for them to go in and see Iruka-sensei’s litter of students— and possibly teach them a few things.