A New Yet Similar Path

Inner Turmoil part 11

Gaara stood in front of two squads of Kiri Genin, staring past them uninterested.

"Hey red head! You deaf? Give us your scroll!" yelled one of the opposing teams. They all seemed to be dressed in the exact same attire with their hairstyles being the only way to tell them apart.

Gaara said nothing as he continued to stare past what he would call 'improper blood'. It wasn't good enough for 'mother'.

One of the Kiri Shinobi stepped forward when a voice rang through the clearing.

"Kamaitachi no Jutsu!" One of the two Kiri teams was blasted away riddled with deep cuts from Temari's wind jutsu.

The remaining team was about to move when they heard a rattling noise. Not two seconds after, they were surrounded by a purple cloud of poisonous gas coming from Kankuro's puppet.

With one team dead and the other not far behind, the two Suna Genin appeared in front of Gaara.

They looked behind him to see the tower that they had been waiting outside of for the past few hours.

"Come on Gaara, we have our scrolls, let's go inside already… I'm getting tired of other teams attacking us every few hours" complained Kankuro.

"No, I must find him…"

'Again with that Naruto kid… Sure he's cute, and he surprised us all with that killing intent, but that doesn't mean we have to wait out here just so Gaara can kill him…' thought Temari.

Kankuro decided not to push the subject or he would probably incur Gaara's wrath.

'Well, I guess I should start setting the traps around the perimeter…' thought the face painted Genin.

Naruto had his eyes shut at the moment, enjoying the feeling of Sakura pressing against him in her sleep.

'This definitely didn't happen the first time I took these exams…' thought Naruto.

He frowned inwardly as he recalled how his first Genin exam had gone… Orochimaru had appeared as the Kusa Nin, he had separated them, and when they had regrouped, Naruto had been knocked out by a five pronged seal, only after slightly losing control to the fox, then Sasuke had been given the cursed seal… All in all, a crappy first time…

This time, was only so much better… While Naruto hadn't been knocked out, Sasuke had still received the curse seal, and for some reason, it seemed different.

All night, Naruto had been glancing at the visible seal on Sasuke's neck, and it seemed, to be pulsing… That had never happened before… and if it had, not as noticeably as this time.

Naruto sighed as he reopened his eyes. Sunlight was streaming through the entrance of the small cave, signifying that it was time to wake up.

Sakura seemed to have gotten the message as she had begun to stir.

"Morning sleeping beauty" Naruto said as he grinned at Sakura's expression…

It was obvious that Sakura wasn't much of a morning person, especially after sleeping in a cave all night.

Sakura glared at her blonde teammate.

"Don't patronize me Naruto…" Sakura was having a slight freak out internally at the moment… She could feel her hair's condition and knew that it was all over the place… She was certainly glad she had cut it when Naruto had suggested it; otherwise, her hair would probably look even worse at this moment.

"How bad is my hair?" she asked flatly.

Naruto stared at it for a moment before giving her a small smile.