Boulders

Shale

Disclaimer: I do not own Avatar the Last Airbender or Naruto. Let a girl dream.

Toph kept one foot firmly planted on the ground as she sipped from the cup of whatever it was in her hands. It was cool, and she was hot. That was that.

"Your name is Toph Bei Fong, you're fourteen, your parents are traders, and you taught Earthbending to the Avatar. You were fighting some weird spirit, and ended up in the Nara forest." Inoichi ran through everything she had told them. She could almost hear the air quotes.

"Yep," Toph paused for a moment, considering. "I think it was called an 'Onyo' or something.

"An Onryo?" Shikaku asked. He had gotten a scroll out sometime during the conversation and had been rustling with it, though it sounded rather different than any scroll she'd ever heard before.

"That's the one," Toph finished off the glass. "I really should get back. Thanks for the hospitality and all that, but-"

"You can't just leave!" Choza sounded almost insulted. "The Hokage will want to see you!"

Hokage shmokage. Toph stood and stretched. "Too bad for him."

"Hey, Bei Fong," the kid who sounded like Shikaku said. Toph still hadn't gotten his name. "Do you have like, a king or an emperor or a chief back where you come from?"

"Call me Toph," she shot back. "And yeah. A king. Two of them, actually. Why?"

"Well, the Hokage is kind of like a ruler to us. We're kinda required to alert him of your presence here, and besides, you can't really leave Konoha without his permission."

Through the (thankfully) stone tiles of the floor, Toph could feel his heart rate spike. The other four in the room too, but nobody said anything to contradict the boy.

"Why are you lying?" She asked.

There was a sudden stillness throughout the house.

"You said you were blind, right?" Shikamaru asked.

"Yes. I am." Toph pointed at him. "Stop redirecting the conversation."

"If you're blind, though, how are you able to tell where we all are?" Shikamaru gestured to her. "I mean, you seem pretty... NOT blind."

"None of your business, Lazybones." She felt slightly shaken. Everywhere in the Earth Kingdom, almost everyone seemed to look the other way once they learned she was blind. She was essentially reduced to a helpless little girl in their eyes; and while she hadn't exactly enjoyed that, it made enemies underestimate her.

There was certainly none of this detective work.

"Name calling is rather rude, young lady," the only other woman in the room remarked. "And watch what you say about my son."

Shoot. Toph cleared her throat. "So, who says I can't leave, exactly?" She shifted her feet along the ground, feeling the vibrations as they moved.

"The Hokage should probably meet you," Yoshino told her gently. "Could you even find the gate without an escort?"

Toph growled but ceded her the point. If a super powerful, extremely awesome Earthbender showed up in the middle of the village where she was going to be teaching, she'd want to know about it.

As to the gate, though....

Toph stomped the ground. As hard as she could. The tiny ripples of movement showed her the house, the people, the woods and hills and-

No gate.

No wall!

"Just how huge is this place?" She wondered aloud.