Fear of Earth

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto or any similarities to any other media piece.

Master: writing/flashback/emphasis/Jutsus

Where'd: story/explanation/description

"You": Talking

'Go': Thoughts

As reading over my own work is sometimes difficult as I read what is suposed to be there, not always what it actually there, I woukd like to inlist the help of anyone who would like to beta this peice. If interested, just email me.

Outside Mansion: Someway from the Mansion

"Dammit Kankuro, gimme back my fan!" A tall blond woman wearing a light brown tunic and miniskirt yelled, chasing a slightly shorter man who appeared to be wearing a cat suit of sorts. They had been running round for the past ten minutes, the girl trying to catch up to the slightly faster Kankuro after he had borrowed her fan.

"Tell me where you hid Karasu Temari!" None of the other Jonin there even lifted a finger to stop them; it didn't even seem as though any of them even registered the two were currently fighting.

It was like custom for them. Before they would start any mission, Temari would steal one of Kankuro tools, making adjusting one of his many prized puppets rather difficult. To retaliate, Kankuro would steal Temari's hair bands, why she didn't just wear her hair down nobody knew or would dare to ask. Things would continue in small increments of childish behavior like taking a shoe or throwing things at each other until they brought out the big guns; which is how we come to a situation where Kankuro is rapidly blasting Temari with relative small gust of wind, not enough to blow her away but enough to halt her advances.

"I didn't take you stupid toys!" she yelled over the wind, leaning forward, taking slow agonizing step after step, trying to get closer to the Kugutsuuser. She almost felt sympathy for her opponents, fighting a wind user was hard. She couldn't even get close to him and any projectile would be sent right back at her; maybe it wasn't such a good idea to teach him to use her fan, although he was nowhere near her level he could hold his own against someone who didn't know how to fight a fan user.

"Stupid toys huh?" He suddenly stopped his windy barrage, causing Temari to face plant, pausing to point and laugh; he turned and ran through the trees.

"Dam him!" her head shot up from the tree branches and dirt, searching for the reason for her light red glow. Catching sight of the black suit he always wore, she gave chase, yelling a string of expletives.

When she finally caught up to him, he was perched on a cliff, looking over the side. He turned to follow her as she scaled the small mount, jumping from rock to rock.

"Alright…hand over the fan and I'll let you walk away from here." Putting emphasis on the walk, she held out her hand.

"Doesn't look like you have any trading collateral," he looked her over, not finding what he was looking for. "Guess I don't need this then." He held the fan over other side of the cliff, which she already knew was a very long way down.

"You wouldn't." she threatening, moving closer.

"Tsk, tsk," he shook his head. "I thought you would know me by now." He dropped it.

She screamed, grabbing her head in horror. She rushed to the edge, hoping to catch her most prized possession before it fell to far, merely to watch as it feel out of her sight. Laughter at her side reminded her that she still had an annoyance to beat; she shot up, grabbing him by the collar and lifting him off the ground, showing off her impressive strength. "Go get it!!" she spoke slowly and darkly. Kankuro would swear later her eyes turned red for a moment.

He wouldn't be threatened. "Go get it yourself." He said smugly. It was a half a day trip down the cliff and back up; last time he threw her fan off, that's how long it took for her to climb down and back up. Going around would take days and the cliff was to jagged to run straight down or up.

She yelled in anger, blasting huge amounts of charka in all directions. "I said," She turned, "go," took him over her shoulder, "get it!!" and threw him directly down the cliff. It only took her half a moment to realize what she had just done in her moment of anger. "Ah oh." He brothers always said he anger problem would get someone kill, she just never thought it would be one of them.

Her senses immediately kick in to the presence behind her, she spun, kunai already in hand and wishing she had her fan, she launched the projectile at the culprit, only to have it snatched from the air. The culprit spun the kunai around by their base, moving over to her position. Shorter than Kankuro, red hair, long brown trench coat, and the Kanji for death tattooed above his left eye.

"Gaara."

He hadn't even looked at her so she knew she was in trouble. He raised his left hand, seemingly trying to pull something up. A few moments later, a platform of sand rose, carrying a annoyed looking Kankuro and her fan. Coming from the left, two puppets recognized as Karasu and Kuroariwere brought in by a second platform; they were all dumped unceremoniously in a heap on the ground. The two gathered their appropriate belongings then stood at attention, waiting for their sure punishment.

"The operation starts in a few minutes," he gave them a piercing stare. "try not to kill each other till it's over."

He turned and walked away, that's all they received for almost ruining another mission, if it wasn't for their sense of pride they would have done a little jig right there.

"Wow," Kankuro waved an imaginary bead of sweat from his brow. "That was nearly as bad as the time I locked you in Kuroari." She froze. "Ouch!" she hit him, hard. The both joined their brother. "What? I eventually found you."

"Three entire days…I spent three days in that damn puppet!"

"Not like you starved to death; besides, you could stand to cut back a little now." She gave a battle cry.

And the chase was back on. Wind blast flying ever which way and needles exploding in all directions. He couldn't kill them, they were his family and that whole 'don't kill unless necessary' thing he had promised them, he wanted to be a man of his word. Unfortunately, he couldn't leave them alone back in Suna either, chances are it would be ash before he returned; Gaara could only hope they didn't ruin another mission with their childish behavior. "I need a vacation."

Inside Mansion

Another physician was sent flying across the room.

"Jericho-san, I can't help you if you keep knocking out all my medics."

Jericho growled at the man, the head medic, and the smartest medic, he was the only medic who hasn't been sent across the room by the fuming stone nin. The room already held seven men and women, all wearing white medical coats and all very much unconscious. Jericho was all to willing to add the man to the pile.

"Then make it hurt less!"

The man sighed. "Jericho-san, you have a dislocated shoulder and a number of thick splinters deeply pierced you skin. If we could make it hurt any less, we would."

"Just hurry up."

"I thought ninja were supposed to be able to bear most pain." He quickly realized his words and jumped back before he was sent to join his comrades.

"Hurry up!" he shouted, causing the medic to jump.

"Yes." He continued his work, slowly removing the long wood splinters from Jericho's shoulder. "Whats with the kid?"

Jericho looked over to the unmasked spiky haired speed demon, gritting his teeth as another splinter was removed. The kid had done a real number on him; during the fight, he hadn't even noticed he was bleeding; must have been from when he was sent through the roof.

"Don't worry about the kid, just give him some antitoxins and something to make him sleep for a while."

The doctor nodded, not wanting to cause himself more problems by asking unnecessary questions.

Outside Mansion

"Yes Kazekage-sama, the team from Konoha should have exited from the mansion yesterday. We're good to go." The Kazekage nodded, he wasn't too big on words, before moving over to the outer gates of the mansion, using a platform of sand to avoid the traps.

"Gaara seems happy." Temari said out of nowhere.

Kankuro looked from his sister to his brother, noting the small smirk across his lips. "Well, how ofter does he get to get out of that stuffy office."

"Yea," she added softly. "How do you deal with it, you work in that office almost as much as Gaara."

"Oh," he answered wickedly, grinning like a mad cat. "I have my dirty little secrets."

Temari stared at her brother like he had just gone crazy. "On second thought, maybe I don't want to know." The two refocused on their brother, who was beginning to stand on his floating platform.

Gaara looked back, receiving nods from all his subjects. Rising to his feet, he took a moment to calm himself; this was going to be big.

Kankuro and Temari looked to each other, getting each other huge grins before running to their respective positions, eager to start their demolition of the ignorant people who dared to think they could threaten Suna.

Seeing his force move into position, Gaara began, forming numerous endless hand seals, summoning more charka than he had in a long time; last time he used this jutsu he needed to eliminate a sharp bone in his side, it didn't work then but he had a confident feeling it would work now. For a while, nothing happened, then a sudden burst of wind surrounded the experienced sand nin; behind him, a large wave of sand, rocks, and miscellaneous debris rose, higher and higher until it towered over him and the mansion.

A few lucky souls saw the wave in time, or at the least the shadow of it, alerting other to it presence by running in the opposite direction towards the only other exit of the compound other then the one the wave was coming over, only to be blown back into the range of the wave of sand by a fierce blast of wind. Being knocked back repeatedly didn't do much to parry the guard's thoughts on their rather simple escape plan.

They all stopped in the tracks when one actually made it past the rapid blast of wind only to be skewered by a long spear. The man tried to pull himself from the spear, which was firmly planted through his left side and into the ground, but found the action fruitless as two more spears impaled through his body, ending his life.

"Where all gonna die!" One yelled.

"The mansion!" Another yelled, making a mad dash for the only hope of protection their simple minds could find.

"Do they really think that mansion is going to survive Gaara?" Temari asked, leaning on her battle fan. "And Kankuro, you need to work on you aim, three shots to kill him, what the hell."

Kankuro jumped from his hiding spot among the trees, landing next to her before kicking her fan from under her, making her face plant for the second time today. "Let them have their little hope, it'll do them no good in the end."

"Bastard!"

"No time," the fan was only millimeters from his head. "get ready." Just as he said it, dozens of guards came crashing through the windows of the top floor; landing gracefully, half sprinted towards their direction while the others stood their ground in way of the approaching wave.

"More guards?" Temari asked, reluctantly halting her attack, payback would come later, to get a better look at the second wave of guards.

"Yeah, but these won't be as limited as the first group." He jumped back into the trees, getting ready to take down any enemy should they get past Temari widespread windblasts.

She opened her fan, hoisting it over her shoulders and bringing it around swiftly, sending a blast directly through the middle of the advancing troop, causing them to separate to avoid the attack. She sent a second attack at the right most group; this time more widespread, catching them off guard with the wider attack and blowing most of them back a great distance.

She spied the second group from the corner of her eyes, they were close, closer then she initially thought they would be by now. "Kankuro, any time you ready." She whispered to herself nervously, taking a few timid steps backwards while simultaneously sending another wind blast in their direction, trying to halt their advance.

The fastest reached her first, jumping straight at her, drawing a long dagger and swinging it in a wide arc. She used her closed fan to block the initial attack, sliding a small ways back from the force. "Kankuro!" the man dropped, kunai protruding from the back of his neck. A rain of kunai followed, flowing out from the trees like a swarm of bees, forcing the unexpecting ninja to rapidly dodge, moving away from the beautiful Shinobi. "It's over!" she used their distraction to attack. "Kamaitachi!!" she swung her fan hard, blowing a sizeable tornado over to her opponent; the tornado ensnared the unfortunate nins, hauling them into the air and inflicting numerous slices all over their bodies. The tornado subsided, leaving all her opponents in a freefall; they hit the ground with a sickening thud.

Tamari turned to the trees, right to the position she knew Kankuro was hiding. "Couldn't cut it a little closer, I felt the wind from his swing."

He jumped out of his position, landing right in front of her, not at all surprised that she was so easily able to locate his hiding spot; they have been working together on countless missions, they knew each other to a fault, the perfect team. "I got him, didn't I?" He walked away, smiling like a cat that just cornered his prey, completely unaffected by the imaginary daggers Tamari was sending at him.

Mansion Dungeon

Something was off, something was wrong with this whole situation, something in the air just wouldn't let Jericho kill the kid. He never killed anything without first assessing it value and something told him the kid was valuable, something told him he had seen the kid before, but where.

Blond hair and blue eyes weren't a common ninja trait, in fact, they were downright improbable to come across. As far as he knew, there were only two instances where he heard of someone with blond hair and blue eyes; both from the same village miraculously. One being the former leader of said village, but he was dead, so that was ruled out, at least for now. The other being a family of mind benders, but the kid used no mind jutsu he knew off, hell the kid didn't use any jutsu at all that that he was aware of. Just a lot of speed, not much power but enough to make it hurt. The first instance was starting to sound a lot better.

From his position across from the kids cell, he could make out the kids face; soft, smooth, maybe a little too well taken care off in his opinion. His hands and feet were bound by chains, rendering him immobile if he were to wake up, and that was a big if. With the amount of poison the kid inhaled combined with the kids weird charka system, the medics weren't sure if the antitoxins would actually work; his body seemed to reject the antitoxins as soon as they entered his body.

"Jericho-san," a young lady entered the room, one of the ninja guards who protected the inside of the mansion. "I have what you called for." She handed him a small black book.

"Thank you." He took the book, flipping through a few pages, stopping on a page with the picture of a certain silver haired copy ninja. The Black Book, a holy relic for any and all missing-nin or bounty hunters. Shows ranks, known skills, and rewards for capture of the most wanted ninja in the world; not just other missing ninja, but any ninja worth his or her weight it to another country to be dead. Few ninja even know such a list exist or if they know, they have no clue who's on it.

A audible crash was heard from upstairs, drawing both their attention upwards. "What's going on up there?" the two waited until a large rumbling was heard, being large enough to shake the foundation of the dungeon meant it had to be big. "You," he pointed to the girl. "Check it out, report to me first." She quickly bowed before vanishing in a puff of smoke.

Flipping through a few more pages, he noticed what he was looking for. Flipping a page back, he found the matching picture of the kid in the cell. "Uzumaki Naruto huh," he tested. "I knew I've seen you face before." Same face build, hair was a bit longer but it was the same person. Under the picture were the words "Rank: B Class: Konoha Wandering-nin Preferences: Taijutsu Reward: 500 mill Wanted By: Cloud-Alive" printed in big bold letters.

It didn't make any sense, why would cloud want a Konoha nin, and one of such a low rank. He must not have been tested on his skill as of late, because he was a A class missing-nin, and to lose to a B class leaf-nin, could there be anything more embarrassing.

No need to think to much about it, if cloud wanted this Uzumaki Naruto, they would get him, and he would collect the bounty, all 500 million yen worth. With this one little prize that just happened to drop into his lap, he would be set for life, he could live a dislocated shoulder, it was easily fixed; his life was turning around.

The woman from before entered the room, breathing hard. "Jericho-san! There's an attack on the mansion going on upstairs!"

'Again?' he thought franticly, his injuries weren't hindering when it came to fighting, but he wouldn't be able to swing his ax around for a few days with his sore shoulder.

The woman stood at attention. "What are your orders sir?"

He nervously bit his right thumb, already regretting the action as pain shot through arm.

"How many are there?"

"Uncertain, but from the size of the attack and the amount of charka being outputted, there are at least a dozen Ira-nins out there."

"Ira?" he stepped back tentatively.

The woman looked at her commander, fear stricken all over his face. "Not many other villages would use Quicksand Avalanche as an initial attack."

'No, no, no, this can not be happening. How could they find me?' he looked around, a fruitless action. "You, grab the kid and follow me."

The girl heisted for only a moment before running over to the cell, grabbing the keys off the wall on the way. She unlocked the door and the chains attaching him to the ground but left the hand and ankle cuffs in place, hoisting him over her shoulder before following the big man.

Jericho had retrieved his ax, holding it with his left hand opposed to his right, a sign of his still injured condition. Seeing her ready to go, he moved over to the wall, pushing in a stone. a few blocks moved in response, opening up a small door in the wall, just big enough for the him to get through.

"Lets go." The two quickly entered the doorway as a stream of sand entered the basement dungeon.

Outside Mansion

Multiple earth spires sprouted from the ground, each either sprouting from another spire or angling itself to support another spire. The ninjas worked vigorously to build their shield of earth, their only defense from the ever-growing wave of sand.

"Foolish." Gaara pushed himself to his limit, doubling his exertion, almost making him pass out. His efforts paid off, breaking through the wall of earth and towering over the mansion for moments; his brought his hands together and the wave went slamming down on the large house. He swung his hands about, seemingly controlling the sand as if it were an extension of his body; the sand thrashed about, destroying anything that was left standing after the initial attack until all that was left was a great mound of sand. His hand rose, and closed violently, the sand following its controller, constricting in on itself. Those watching cringed, already knowing those who survived the first two attacks had little to no chance at surviving the third.

Gaara took a few ragged breaths before falling to his knees, having gone past his limits to break through the barrier of the experienced stone nins. Fire, lightning, water, wind, it didn't matter, his sand could trump any element easily without him having to exert himself to much or at all for most; but earth, earth played too much on defense. He couldn't just overpower, he had to break through, using up more energy. The reason for his dislike of Ira-nins.

Quicksand Avalanche, one of his most useful attacks. He could take out a small platoon with it with out problem, so long as they had no means to defend against it as most ninja had none. But unfortunately, with his supply of charka being less than it was when he was younger, it took up enough energy and charka to leave him unable to properly defend himself from multiple opponents for some time after unleashing the deathly attack.

He growled. "I hate stone ninjas." A few hands popped up from the sand, followed by the bodies of many pissed off stone nins, each with a deep scowl on their face. "Sand?" Trickles of sand fell from the nins body. 'They! They used my sand! To protect themselves!!' He really hated stone nins.

"Gaara-sama has fell, men! Protect the Kazekage till he regains his strength!" The men gave a battle cry before rushing to the aid of their fallen leader, confronting the enraged stone nins with gusto.

Somewhere Deep in the Forest

Jericho stopped in his tracks, sensing a large amount of charka far off. "The hell is that?" he turned back in the direction of the mansion, seeing a large; large something looming over what he assumed was the mansion he had been hired to protect.

"They're really going all out." first the kid, not this; just what had he gotten into accepting the job to guard those people. It should have been easy, ninja don't care about drug dealers unless the mess with business, or someone hires them to deal with them, so just who did those mob bosses piss off to have so many high level ninja come after them. Hunter-nins would never so openly attack and kill so freely just to capture one rouge ninja.

The girl had also followed the large charka presence, staring in disbelief at the attack so far off but so clear and visible. 'It was just supposed to be a few thieves and bandits.' She thought, rethinking ever joining the mob for a lousy paycheck; now way was paying back her family's debts worth dying for.

"Good riddance." He turned to leave, but remembered his goal as of today. Delivery of one Uzumaki to one cloud country. But with his arm the way it was, carrying the kid and his ax would be a tough job, maybe if he had gotten that ax holster, he could manage, but then, he figured it a worthless investment. Then again, he could just leave it with the flunkey to do the hard work. "You, what's you name?"

The girl turned to him, shifting the surprising lighter than expected weight on her shoulder. "Lyes." She answered.

"Well Lyes, if you carry that," he gestured towards the kid on her shoulder. "I'll cut you in on the reward."

"Really?" she beamed. "How much?"

"one hundred thousand yen."

"Of course," she said, never removing her bright smile. "I'll do it."

one hundred thousand yen went a long way for a ninja; she could pay off half her family's debts and still have enough to live on for some time. In that time, she could find another job, hopefully something a little less dangerous even if the pay will be less.

With everyone who knew his location dead, which, judging by the size of whatever that thing was, wouldn't take long, nobody could identify him, he was again a free man, taking orders from no one, at least, for now. He was once again free to prowl. The girl was nothing, the only thing standing in his way, half an ocean and one little blond kid.