Through Pain And Strife {A Naruto Fanfic}

Training

Third Person's POV

The wind blew through the trees on this sunny day as the four man squad faced off against one another. "Wind princess, Puppet master... Gaara.. are you ready?" They all nodded "Before we start remember, this is kind of like a tag teamed match, you can switch out opponents at anytime. The moment you're caught you step to the side because at that moment, you would most likely be dead. Alright so I'm on Temari's side and Kankuro, you're on Gaara's. If there was no tagging in the previous round for the next your opponent is automatically switched. I've got Gaara first so as long as we're all clear on that, let training... Begin!" Akane instructed and everything unfolded.

Gaara against Akane was playing out as so:

Gaara continuously used his sand as an offence to which Akane used the air as a defense. She charged for Gaara and he blocked all of her attacks with the sand. She stopped using her wind as a defense and thought for a moment. "This is a long shot but what's the harm?" she muttered before doing a few hand signs and vanishing. Gaara looked around for her but she was nowhere to be seen or heard and he couldn't even feel her chakra anymore.

The next thing he knew she was standing behind him with her hand on his head, ruffling his hair. "Sorry buddy, you're out." She told her wide eyed teammate.

Meanwhile Kankuro with and Temari:

I don't really know, I was too busy watching Gaara's fight. Sorry. All I saw was that Temari used her giant fan and blew her brother away. They all continuously trained with a break here and there in preparation.

Eventually they gave it a rest, had dinner and started again in the morning. This became their new routine and they seemed to have fun. Every chance she got Akane had tried to speak with Gaara. She seemed to genuinely want to be his friend but he always looked as if he despised her.

She would try time and time and time again but he'd either ignore her, threaten her or be full on cruel to her. When the rest of them returned to the hotel Akane stayed back and laid on the grass. She ended up getting lost in thought watching the stars

Akane's POV

I've reflected on all the events since the day I graduated. I finally got the chance to be friends with Gaara again but it seems as though he hates my guts. Being perfectly honest, I think... if not for my ability to manipulate the air, I would be extremely useless to everyone. Gaara might've killed me by now if that were the case.

I don't know what to do anymore and I honestly can't say that I'm proud of what I can do. I feel like I'm only burdening everyone and the only things I can decently do are cooking and not dying. If I don't want to burden them... I know what I have to do now.