Connection Between Puppets and Plants

Disclaimer : I do not own Naruto nor any of the characters in it. They belong to Masashi Kishimoto.

Chapter 11

Introduction

~Third Person's POV~

An endless desert of creamy white sand spread vastly outside the gate of Sunagakure. The sky was dark since the dawn had yet to arrive. Citizens of Suna were still ensnared in each of their own slumbers, except for the 4 shinobis - one jounin and three genins - who were now gathering in the middle of the said desert. They sat still on their spot, not letting the dropping temperature detrude their currently burning zeal to start a brand new day and a brand new mission.

Apparently, stamina could not be increased only by one's burning passion. Despite the raging vigor that was flowing in their vein, the three genins had to fight hard to stay awake, - two of them, that is. The blonde one - Kimi Raikkichi- was already sprawled on the desert ground, drools hanging at the corner of his slightly opened mouth. His right cheek was slightly scraped, dried blood staining his originally tender face. But not even his wound managed to keep him from sleeping. Sasori, who had his nose all wrapped up with white bandage, was staring off into distance, his eyelids half opened, and he was muttering incoherent things under his breath.

"I truly appreciate your punctuality, kids, but..." the man in inverted clothing paused, staring at the somnolent faces in front of him, sweat dropping as he realized that one of the weary genins had peacefully dozed off into slumber. "don't you think you are being too... on time, now? I thought I told you to gather here at 5 am, not 4 in the morning. Not to mention, you boys look like you've just survived a great war," he paused, sniffing the air around him. "And is it just me or did you bring a stray dog with you here? I can smell the stinky odor coming from you three."

"That... would be me," The only girl in the team raised her hand after having a hard attempt on stifling her yawn, "We've been through a lot last night, sensei."

"Care to elaborate?"

"No, not really," Haruka paused, "it will take too much time if I tell you the whole story." Nodding to herself, she slowly closed her eyes as the last night's events crept back inside her restless mind.

******

"How about sleeping in Kimi Raikkichi's room instead, Haruka-chan?"

That was the last thing that she heard before she found herself being dragged off by her blond friend through the dim corridor. Everything went blurry as the wind hurled up harshly against her face while Kimi was running toward his destination in a speed of light, pulling her with him by the arm. The next thing she knew, she was already inside a certain room, after a quick halt and hearing the door slamming behind her.

"What... just happened?" Haruka thought outloud, massaging her temple. "Where are we?"

"Dum-dum-dum, welcome to Kimi Raikkichi's bedroom!"

Haruka's eyes wandered around her whereabouts, mouth slightly gaping at the sight of the room she was currently standing in. It was slightly bigger than the guest rooms, but looked far more elegant than the other rooms she had seen in the mansion. The walls were all bronze colored and the ceiling was painted to resemble the morning sky; soft blue colored with slight details of clouds around it.

The room was absolutely glamorous, but what Haruka loved the most about it were the curtains covering the windows. They were deep red, which was her favorite color. It reminded her of Sasori's flaming red hair. She quickly shook her thoughts away before they could travel even further in her head.

"Does Haruka-chan likes Kimi Raikkichi's bedroom?"

The brunette turned to look at her blond friend's happy face. She could only nod as a response, words could not express how excited she was from being in Kimi's magnificent bed room. She could not wait to plump herself on the giant bed and drift off to slumber.

"Kimi Raikkichi is glad that Haruka-chan likes the room!" the blond smiled, clapping his hands. "Haruka-chan can use the bed, Kimi Raikkichi will use the sofa instead."

"Really?" Haruka stared at her friend in disbelief. She had never thought that Kimi Raikkichi could be such a gentleman. 'Unlike Sasori', she thought.

"Of course!"

"Wow, thanks a lot Kimi-kun!" she wasted no time on accepting the offer and skipped her way to Kimi's giant bed. She opened the cover and was ready to bury herself inside it, when she spotted an unwanted creature laying inside the cover, eyes snapping open when it felt her sliding the blanket of its body.

"Why is Haruka-chan so surprised? Didn't Kimi Raikkichi already tell Haruka-chan that he sleeps with Woo-woo every night?"

Haruka took a step back in horror, staring at the giant three-headed dog in front of her. "No, Kimi-kun... I'm afraid you left that part- AAAAAAAAA!"

******

Sasori ran through the endless hallway, speeding up toward the direction of the annoying blonde's room. He could not let his childhood friend sleep in the same room with that harebrained imbecile. Even though the idiot was probably too stupid to even think of doing perverted things to his friend, he could not risk the chance of Haruka losing her innocence to someone like Kimi Raikkichi.

Sasori didn't care that he was taking his thoughts too far on this matter. All he cared about now was to get Haruka as far away as possible from Raikkichi's stupid wrath before anything bad happens. His grandmother would surely blame everything on him and he would never want that to happen.

He thought he was lost for a moment, when he suddenly heard a familiar screaming coming from the right side of the corridor. He quickly ran toward the source of the sound, his heart beating fast knowing that the voice belonged to Haruka. It went clearer as he neared the location. He could make out some of the words that she was yelling out.

"Aaaaaah! Get off me!" Sasori quickened his pace as he heard another scream coming from the direction of Kimi Raikkichi's room. "S-stop licking me!"

"Aww, Haruka-chan is kissed and loved! Kimi Raikkichi wants more of that!"

'Lick? Kiss?' Sasori could feel his ears flared in anger, thoughts flying back to his assumptions of the awful things Kimi Raikkichi could be doing to the defenceless Haruka inside his room. He finally arrived in front Kimi's door and kicked it open, eyes searching around the room frantically for his friend in distress, only to stop as he spotted Haruka laying on the ground with a three-headed dog hovering above her, licking her face senseless.

"I said, stop licking me! Get off!"

"Woo-woo is just kissing and sharing his love with Haruka-chan! Kimi Raikkichi thinks it's great that Woo-woo has finally made a new friend!" Kimi laughed happily, but he immediately stopped smiling when he saw Sasori standing in front of his door. "What is Aka-no-Baka doing here?"

Haruka's head tilted to the right. Her eyes gleamed in relief when she saw her childhood friend in view. "Sasori! Help me get this dog off me!"

The dog suddenly stopped its licking assault on Haruka and followed her gaze to the new comer in the room. Its tail began wagging rapidly as it changed its target from the saliva-covered girl to the shocked red-headed puppeteer. In reflex, Sasori shot his hands in front of him and attached the chakra strings onto the dog's body, stopping the creature before it licks him senseless. The three-headed dog barked loudly, struggling to release itself from Sasori's strings. The puppeteer had a hard time controling his strings for the creature in his hold was moving around too much.

"Aka-no-baka! Stop hurting Kimi Raikkichi's poor Woo-woo!" Kimi exclaimed and threw himself at Sasori, starting another fight with his teammate.

"Quit it, guys- AIIIEEEEEE!" Haruka was about to separate the two when the dog decided to once again pounce on her and continued its unfinished licking attack. "SOMEONE HELP ME!"

Much to the girl's dismay, her teammates were too occupied on ripping each other's flesh off their bones to notice her being drowned in a puddle of the dog's saliva. She could only hope that the scene before her would come to an end soon. Too bad her wish wasn't granted and she was left laying on the ground with the dog hovering above her until exactly 3 in the morning.

******

"... I'll never stay over at Kimi-kun's house ever again..." Haruka muttered. Her mind had just gotten back from her flash back of last night's event.

"Okay..." the jonin trailed off, unsure of what to respond to Haruka's incoherent mumbling after she had spent 5 minutes staring off into space without saying a single word. He shrugg all assumptions off and decided to wake the blond boy instead.

"Mmm, is it morning already?" Kimi Raikkichi yawned while rubbing his eyes.

"So, now that you're all awake," the jonin started. "Let's find out whether you pass my test or not. So have you all figured out my-"

"Hai, Hotoka-sensei," the three genins answered in unison, making their teacher did an anime fall.

"That was unexpected," the jonin laughed while rubbing his head. "I guess we're all ready for introduction now. You, red-headed boy. We'll start with you. Tell me your name, age, hobbies, well, basically anything that comes up to your mind."

"Akasuna no Sasori. Fourteen. " the puppeteer said nonchalantly.

"How...interesting. Anything else you'd care to share with us?"

"He's a puppeteer and he likes to make creepy puppets out of woods," Haruka answered enthusiastically for her friend.

"I see... a puppeteer, eh? And what about you, young lady?"

"I'm Shokubutsu no Haruka, also 14. My hobbies are daydreaming and spending time with my grandma and of course, my best friend, Sasori!" she put her arm around her red-headed friend as she said this.

"Get off me, I'm not your best friend. And you smell like a dog."

Haruka gasped at her friend's cruel response, "How could you say that? You jerk!"

"Okay... let's move on to the blondie now," the Jonin said, averting his gaze to the smiling Kimi.

"Kimi Raikkichi's name is Kimi Raikkichi! Kimi Raikkichi is 14 years old. Kimi Raikkichi likes playing with Woo-woo but Kimi Raikkichi likes Haruka-chan the most! Even if Haruka-chan does smell like a dog."

"Kimi-kun!"

"Okay, okay, settle down, kids," Hotoka sighed, trying to stop his new pupils from killing each other first thing in the morning. He wasn't sure that he understood what they had said about themselves, especially the blond one. Being their jonin would surely be one hell of a mission. "You can all quarrel later. Right now, you have to prepare yourself for your very first mission as my pupils."

The three of them stopped bickering and locked their gaze at their new tutor, curiosity filling their eyes.

"We'll meet up at the Kazekage's office at 8. You'll have enough time to go clean yourself and rest for a bit before we depart. Make sure you scrub yourself well while you bathe, we wouldn't want that awful stench to linger in the kazekage's office now, would we?" he said, eyes stopping to glance at Haruka's way, who scowled as she noticed that his sentence was directed to her. "Get there on time and no more fighting until we get this mission done. Do I make myself clear?"

"Yes, sir!" both Haruka and Kimi Raikkichi yelled in unison, while Sasori only nodded in response.

"Good, now off you go. And remember! No fighting!"

"Our fists are sealed, sir!" Haruka yelled as she ran off with her friends toward the direction of the Suna's gate.

******