By The Strings

7~ trail

We walked for miles without a single break, not a single building was in view. I took a sip of my water for the first time.

"You'll run out if you drink it too fast, and im not sharing," Kankuro called from behind me making me roll my eyes, I gave Yosuke some as he panted sounding ready to drop.

"Jeez, your too hard-headed you know that?" He shot rolling his eyes at my actions.

"Says the pretty Princess wearing a pound of makeup." I rolled my eyes not in the mood for his antics.

"At least I don't look like an ugly toad like someone." His tone changed as he sped up to my pace.

"I'd much rather be a toad than look like you goth Princess," I smirked knowing I picked a string. He shoved me back making me fall and drop my water, "oh well." My blood was boiling at this point. I grabbed the gourd from his thigh and held it away from my body, "you wouldn't dare." He glared at me.

I held it upside down emptying it into the sand.

There was a stiff silence as we both realized what had just happened, we now had absolutely no water, and neither of us could use water-style jutsu of any kind.

"Congratulations, you just killed us both." He continued walking quickly in an attempt to find water.

We marched on in silence for hours on end thirsty for anything to drink at this point. Even after many hours of walking, there wasn't any sign of civilization. Not even an animal came across us.

"You really get under my skin," he groaned walking in front of me. He was pissing me off. if he hadn't have knocked the gourd out of my hand we would have been perfectly fine until we found a village even without food, and he was making this whole thing out to be my fault alone.

In an instant, the weather began to change, and sand began to be picked up by the strong winds. I looked towards Kankuro who confirmed he was also seeing it.

"Sand storm." We said in unison not sure what to do, there was nowhere to take cover. His face lit up as he came up with an idea, he quickly summoned one of his puppets. We both climbed into the one I think was named salamander. I helped Yosuke into the puppet before getting situated.

"This 'doll' just saved your life." He took his victory and would probably never let me forget it. "It's pretty sturdy, for a doll that is," I smirked in the pitch-black coffin-sized area.

I couldn't see his face but I knew he was glaring at me. "Seems like we might be in here for quite a while." I listened to the howling wind outside, it was surprisingly calming to hear.

"It appears that way." He didn't sound too happy about it. I thought for a second trying to come up with something to say, I didn't want to sit here in silence for however long.

"What sparked your interest in puppets?" I asked him curiously.

"Since when do you care about me?" He gawked, "fine, conversation or not, it makes no difference to me." I sighed adjusting my body to get more comfortable, Yosuke had his head on my thigh not allowing me to move too much.

Hours went by in the small dummy, I didn't say a word not wanting to prove my previous statement wrong.

"Toy snakes." He said with a sigh.

"Toy snakes sparked my interest in puppets." He admitted.

I shook my head as I smiled to myself, "like the ones kids use to scare people?" I wanted to be sure he was talking about those childish things.

"Yep..."

I giggled earning a slight kick from him, "that's cute, I haven't seen one of those in ages..." I pictured what it looked like, it brought me back to when I was just a young kid.

"How about you?" I wasn't sure what he was asking, "what made you pick up medical ninjutsu?" He finished.

"I lost my old man at a young age, made me decide I wanted to help everyone I could whenever I could." I shrugged uncomfortably.

"Jee, you sure like showing me up in everything don't you..." He joked making me laugh with him.

"I sure do," I continued.

"You know, if you weren't so rude all the time, you might not be so bad." His tone was sarcastic, he probably wasn't being serious.

"And you wouldn't be so bad if you could control that temper of yours" I mentioned remembering how mad he got whenever I joked around with him.

"Do you hear that?" He questioned making me press my ear to the inside of the puppet, "no?" I responded hearing nothing at all.

"Exactly" we got out of the puppet, my everything ached.

"Well, we have a long way to go, we should get a move on." He mumbled stretching his back.