Naruto: Reunion - Discontinued

28) ...Temari and Kankuro

It would seem that even in the hot climate of the Sand Village, ramen had still become a staple food which the residents of the village enjoyed greatly. This had brought Naruto a great feeling of joy once he saw his friend eating it in one of the restaurants in the village.

When they had entered the inside of the restaurant, the team felt a burst of wind erupt around them, as fans had started blazing in all directions. It would seem to compensate for the massive amounts of heat in the vicinity, fans were installed in most areas of the building. Ignoring this burst of heat, Naruto ran to his friend.

"Gaara, it's been a while!" He tapped him on the shoulder whilst smiling.

Gaara turned from the seat he had been sitting in, prompting his siblings, Temari and Kankuro, to also tilt their heads in curiosity. Once Naruto's team had caught up to him, everybody had smiled in tandem.

"Hello, Naruto Uzumaki. I've been hoping to see you for a while now." Gaara smiled with relief. "I'm pleased to see our combined efforts to get Sasuke back also were successful."

"Yeah, you bet! But hey, I didn't know you were a ramen person. What's up with that?"

"It pains me to say, but I wanted to try out what you loved to much."

"Is that so?" Naruto sat beside him and screamed at the chief for his order. "How's about I join this little ramen party?"

Sakura sighed as she saw this sight. "You'll look for any excuse to eat ramen, huh?" Noticing that Sasuke and Hinata were also sitting beside him, Sakura submitted to the temptation. "I suppose I can spare some cash for a meal as well."

Upon ordering their meals, the team finally breathed a sigh of relief as they could finally relax. They had spent most of their day looking for their dear friend, and to find him was somewhat of a large relief. Now that they had fulfilled their goal, they would have the rest of the days passing to recount their Chúnin exams, before Yamato reported the situation to them. After a few handfuls of minutes had passed, Temari had finally spoken to the group.

"Trust you little shrimps to pop up and ruin our present from Gaara. You four gotten any stronger since the exams?" She leaned on Sasuke when asking this question, knowing he was a fine candidate for battle.

"Well, placing bets on who would win in a fight between us would be pointless. I fear that you would lose moral, in seeing nobody place their bets on you."

"Seems we have a tough guy here," Now Temari had been aggravated and the two were giving evil glares towards eachother. "Insults are the crudest of fighting strategies, you know?"

"And yet it still works on the likes of you."

As the two were having a verbal battle, the group simply watched in embarrassment. Kankuro, who had kept a keen eye on Naruto, also finally spoke.

"Hey shrimp, have you been getting any more powerful since we last spoke?"

"More powerful then you could ever hope to achieve!" He shot a big grin, and rather then being aggravated like his sister, Kankuro smiled.

"We'll see a few years from now, once the Chúnin exams hit again."

"You bet!"

The two decided to finally start sipping their noodles, along with Gaara. However, once one of them had reached a considerably faster speed then the other, this only prompted the others to follow ahead by slurping at a quicker rate. Soon enough, an unspoken race had begun between the boys, and Sasuke was soon encouraged to join ahead.

The girls who were witnessing this, simply laughed along the event that was taking place. It was not too long ago that they could not find time to relax like this, so it was a great time of refreshment for them. Temari, nothing that Sakura and Hinata were free to talk to, quickly picked up her bowl of ramen and sit beside them.

"Even in the seriousness of all that's happened recently, I guess they're still boys after all."

"It seems you're right." Sakura agreed to her comment. "Definitely not as refined as us girls!"

The three girls smiled and decided to casually sip onto their food. Once they had reached a decent amount onto their food, Hinata spoke up shyly.

"So um... where do you suppose we should stay after all of this?"

"Gaara wouldn't mind if we shared a spot in out house for you four." Temari said, still facing her bowl. "You've done us a great favour, so it's only right that we pay you back."

"Favour?" This caused confusion on Hinata's face. "But you helped up bring back Sasuke."

"You've all done something that is far better then what we could ever hope to achieve. You brought Gaara back to us." now she smiled at the two girls. "Back when the sand was invading the leaf in the Chúnin exams, Gaara had a large-scale fight with the shrimp eating ramen, over there. After that battle, Gaara wasn't the same again... for the better."

The girls had trouble piecing togethor what Temari had said. "I didn't know Naruto did such a thing."

"We owe a massive debt to you all. Without your help, Gaara would've succumbed to the beast within him, losing his sanity in the process, and destroying the already torn village you lived in."

Now it had finally sunk in as to how much of a great action that Naruto had done for the siblings. In technicalities, Naruto had essentially saved both the Leaf and the Sand. Nobody had known about it, and yet Naruto had never thought if mentioning it to them.

"That idiot," Sakura laughed. "He never seemed like the selfless type to me."

"I'm glad to hear about this as well." Hinata added.

With that, the group decided to continue eating their ramen. Soon, it would be time for Yamato to report the situation of the village.