Love of a Puppet Master (Kankuro Love Story)

Sand vs. Puppet

~~~~~Day After Preliminaries~~~~~

"Work is important,and it shouldn't be taken lightly,even if it is only guarding the gates!" Izumo proclaimed.

"Oooohh...come on,Izumo! No one has come through the gates in the past four hours,"Kotetsu whined.

"Yeah! I mean what's a bowl of ramen gonna hurt. We'll only be gone five minutes!" I said batting my eyes innocently.

We had been sitting in the guard booth all day with nothing more interesting to do than argue,play "rock,paper,scissors",and come up with ridiculous back stories for the people walking through the gates. Izumo gave us both stern looks before softening into a look of defeat.

"Fine, but if some one important or dangerous comes through I'm blaming the screw up on you guys."

"Fine with us," Kotetsu and I said in unison before busting into snickers.

"Slack offs," I heard Izumo mummer.

"Asshole," I chirped back merrily, earning a chuckle from Kotetsu and a small smile from Izumo.

"Watch it kid," he said ruffling my hair.

"I am not a kid," I huffed back as we finally reached Ichiraku's,and we sat down to order our usuals.

"Ok so I have three questions for you," Kotetsu said turning towards me.

"Shoot," I replied curiously.

"One: How do you manage to fit all your puppets in one scroll?"

"A lot of chakra and a really big scroll."

I patted the scroll tied to my back. Yeah it was big,and yeah my back was killing me the first week I wore it. I have two theories about why it doesn't bother me anymore:1.My back got used to the weight. 2.My back committed suicide. It had belonged to my great grandmother, whom before she died sparked my intrigue in puppets.

"Ok, well two: When did you get your puppet tattoo? I've never seen you without it," he said poking my shoulder where the tattoo was.

"Well hhhmm.. I believe I was four when I got this," I said lightly running my fingers over it.

"Why so young?"

"My great grandmother had a passion for puppets, to her they were a treasure.A work of true art," I paused to take a bite of my cooling ramen,"So when she passed away I decided to tattoo the passion she had passed on to me on myself, and my father consented."

"Interesting..so number three. Do you like the sand gennin,Kankuro?"

If I hadn't of finished my ramen a second earlier, I would have choked in surprise.

"W-what?"

"A pretty, blonde sand girl by the name of...Temari...I think, wanted us to ask you," Izumo said.

They leaned toward me, both obviously picking up on my discomfort. Oh Kami! What am I going to say?! They know me too well, so they will know if I'm lying. What if I just ran off and told Naruto that they called him weak? Yeah that would keep them busy for at least three hours! But before I could set my plan in motion the girl I recognized immediately as Kankuro's sister Temari ran toward us.

"Hey!"

"Um hi."

"I didn't get a chance to introduce myself earlier. I'm Temari," she smiled holding her hand out to me.

"I'm Neo Yūhi," I said shaking her hand and returning the smile.

"I know!" she giggled,"I was wondering if I could talk to you alone."