Complications

“Tsunade-sama? We’ve received an urgent message from the Kazekage.”

Tsunade raised an eyebrow. Any communications out of Sunagakure came from Temari or Kankuro. Gaara seemed to think that he was solely responsible for the safety of his people and never sought help from his allies of his own free will. “The Sandbrat himself sent it?”

Shizune bowed even lower and nodded. “It has Gaara-sama’s personal seal on it. I was a delayed a few days in delivering it to you because I had to verify its authenticity.”

Tsunade grinned at her assistant. “That fact that you found someone who could verify it at all is amazing. There aren’t any Sand shinobi visiting at the moment.”

Shizune blushed and looked away. “Actually they found me.”

Tsunade sat back in her chair and studied her assistant. “They?”

“Shikamaru Nara and Naruto Uzumaki. They came in the communication room as we where scrambling to find someone who knew what his seal looked like. They recognized the seal right away. Naruto-kun apparently gets mail from Gaara-sama regularly. Shikamaru-kun claims that he has only ever received one letter from the Kazekage and that was more than enough for him. Naruto-kun began to tease Shikamaru-kun about Temari-san so I’m assuming the letter had something to do with her.”

Tsunade barely restrained her laughter. Poor Shikamaru, she could only imagine what the letter had said. “Well that’s good enough for me. Let’s see what our esteemed Sandbrat has to say.”

Shizune delivered the scroll and excused herself from the room. She wasn’t going to go far. Curiosity was eating away at her and she wanted to hear what was so important that Gaara had sent a letter to the Godaime.

Tsunade smiled to herself as realized her assistant was waiting right outside her office. She couldn’t blame Shizune. The Kazekage personally sending message was highly unusual. In fact, her own curiosity was peaked so she wasted no time breaking the seal and scanning the contents of the letter.

I’m going to get straight to the point I need to speak to you as soon as possible. This is not a diplomatic issue, at least not yet. There has been an unusual… complication from my revival. It would be best if Naruto was present when we speak because I suspect that he has something to do with the…complication. My siblings will be accompanying me but are unaware of my situation. I thought it best to get your professional opinion before I worried them unnecessarily. I will be arriving in a few days time.

Gaara

Tsunade sat there blinking at the letter in her hands. The Kazekage was coming to visit because of a personal matter involving Naruto and complications from a forbidden jutsu. She tried to turn over the information in her head but was left with far more questions than answers.

She was just about the call Sakura in to discuss the possible complications that could have arisen when two very important facts interrupted her thought process. Shizune had said there was a delay in delivering the message so the Kazekage’s party was probably going to show up on her door step at any second. If that wasn’t bad enough, Naruto was scheduled to leave on a mission with team Gai in a few hours. This meant there was a distinct possibility that they had left early in the Pursuit of Youth.

“Shizune!”

The startled kunoichi appeared quickly and dropped to one knee. “Yes Tsunade-sama?”

“Cut the formalities, we don’t have time for that crap. I want you to find Naruto and stop him from going on that mission with Gai. If they’ve already left I want you to get Kakashi to help you track them down and drag the brat back. I’m gonna go get someone to help me prepare the guest quarters for all three Sandbrats.”

Shizune wanted to ask what was going on but the look on Tsunade’s face made her hold her tongue. She nodded silently and jutsued out of the room.

Tsunade quickly tracked down Genma and Raidou. They must have sensed the urgency of her request because didn’t ask her any questions and insisted that they would be able to handle the assignment without her help. She was relieved that she didn’t have to try and explain what was going on when she had no clue herself.

Tsunade made her way back to her office to wait for either the arrival of her unexpected guests or the return of Naruto, which ever came first. It was times like this she wondered why had ever even considered accepting this crazy job.


Luck was not on Shizune’s side today. In fact, the last two days had been the most stressful days of her life.

It had all started with the arrival of that blasted scroll. The visiting shinobi from Sunagakure had left the day before and they weren’t due to have another party for at least a week. She had systematically been going through every shinobi on the duty roster that had ever been to the Sand village. She should have known that none of them would recognize the personal seal of the Kazekage.

She was about to send someone to get verification from Garaa himself when Naruto and Shikamaru had wandered in to get their mail. She hadn’t even noticed Shikamaru’s bizarre reaction to the scroll until Naruto had picked it up to study it. She had almost snatched it away from him but his laughter had distracted her.

“Don’t worry Shikamaru; it’s not for you this time. Gaara sent this one to Baa-chan.”

Shizune grabbed Naruto’s arm and turned him to face her. “You are absolutely 100% sure that this came from Gaara-sama?”

Naruto looked a little surprised at Shizune’s reaction. “I get letters from him all the time. Do you want me to go get them for you? You can double check the seal if you want.”

Shizune sagged in relief. “That won’t be necessary, as long as you are sure that this is Gaara-sama’s seal.”

Shikamaru seemed to recover from his shock at the seeing the scroll. “It’s his seal. I’ve also received a …letter from the Kazekage.”

Naruto grinned and elbowed his friend in the side. “You better be careful how you treat Temari-chan. Gaara has gotten rather protective of his sister since he realized how much she means to him.”

Shikamaru scratched the back of his head and frowned. “I knew that girl was troublesome the second I met her. We aren’t even dating and I’ve already been threatened by her family.”

Shizune hadn’t stuck around to hear the rest of the conversation. The scroll had waited long enough to be delivered and she didn’t want to risk angering either Kage with further delays. Judging by Tsunade’s reaction she had made the right decision.

Shizune had hurried to team Gai’s usual meeting place to find them long gone. Naruto must have gone directly from the communication room to meet the rest of his team. At the speed that they usually traveled it would be extremely difficult to catch up to them.

She almost left right then but she remember what Tsunade had said. “…get Kakashi to help you track them down…”

If Tsunade thought that Kakashi had better chance of catching Gai then who was she to argue? She headed back toward the village to hunt down her unknowing partner for this surprise mission.

Finding Kakashi had been the easy part. Getting him to help her was a different story.

“No.”

Shizune stared at him like he had spoken in a foreign language. “What do you mean no?”

Kakashi simply continued to read his book. “No. I just got Naruto and Gai out of my hair at the same time. I am not going to go track them down when I’ve finally got some peace and quiet.

Shizune barely resisted the slap him, mostly because she knew she wouldn’t be able to pull it off. “Do you really think Tsunade-sama would be calling back Naruto if she really didn’t need him? He bothers her more often than he does you.”

Kakashi glanced at her over his precious novel. “That important?”

“Garaa-sama personally sent the letter informing Tsunade-sama of his arrival. She did not have time to explain it to me and as we speak is arranging for their accommodations herself.”

Kakashi quickly abandoned his book and stood up. “I expect to be paid double for this and I want to know what happens at this little meeting as soon as Gai and I get back.”

“Get back? What do you mean?”

Kakashi patted her on the head like she was small child. “Why do you think Tsunade want you to find me instead of tracking them down by yourself? This is an important mission and we can’t delay it just because the Gaara decided to drop some kind of bombshell on our dear Hokage. I’m supposed to take the brat’s place. Now let’s go before they get too far ahead and we lose all hope of catching them today.”


It turned out that Gai’s team was much further ahead than they had originally suspected. I had taken nearly five hours to catch up to their targets. Apparently Gai was in full Springtime of Youth mode and had been pushing his team even harder than normal.

“My eternal rival, I trust that it is a matter of great importance that has caused you to track me down with such haste.”

Kakashi ignored his self proclaimed rival and turned to his former student. “You are needed back at the village brat. The Kazekage is coming to visit and apparently he misses you.”

Naruto looked shocked. “Gaara left Sunagakure? Who did he leave in charge?”

“I’m not sure; Kankuro and Temari are coming with him.”

Naruto threw a worried glance at his teammates. “Can you guys handle this without me? Gaara wouldn’t turn the protection of his village over someone other than his siblings unless he was desperate.”

That thought hadn’t crossed Shizune’s mind. She cursed herself for not getting that scroll to Tsunade sooner. “Do not worry Naruto-kun. Kakashi-san is going to take your place on this mission.”

Gai grinned broadly and slapped Kakashi on the back. “It has been a long time since I’ve had the pleasure of working with you, my friend. I look forward to a live demonstration of your formidable skills.”

Kakashi sighed deeply. “You better get going brat before I change my mind.”

Naruto didn’t need any more urging than that. He scrambled off in the direction he had come from and left Shizune struggling to chase after him.


A/N

~Sigh~

I finally return to writing fanfiction and this is the dead plot bunny I decided to try and resurrect? Oh well, I’m having fun and that’s all that matters. I hope you are enjoying the ride so far, because I’m not entirely sure where we’re going to end up.