Starting over

#78 Summoned

Naruto POV

I woke up with Temari in my arms. Squinting, I looked out of our window, to see the sun just rising over the treeline in the backyard.

I laid my head back on the pillow, and closed my eyes, listening to the silent breathing of my girlfriend. Smiling, I felt her stir and slowly raise her head of my arm. "What are you smiling at?", she asked with half closed eyes. "Nothing.", I said chuckling, raising my hand to push her hair out of her face. Once I had done that, I put my hand on her neck and pulled her to me, pressing my lips against hers. "I love you.", she whispered when we parted. I smiled and gave her another quick peck on the lips. "I love you too.", I replied, before closing the distance between us again.

After we ate breakfast, we changed and went to meet up with our teams, for today's training. We went to our training ground and saw that our team was already there, waiting for us.

We greeted them and Temari was about to tell the six Anbu what we would do for today training, when a bit of sand swirled up next to me. I looked expectantly at the sand and slowly it formed into the kanji for nine and ten, the numbers of mine and Temari's Anbu squad. I looked at Temari and saw that she had not seen the sand. Looking back, I saw that it was already subsiding back into the ground. I went up to her and caught her attention by placing my hand on her shoulder, interrupting her. "We have been summoned.", I said, while fixing the signature white cloth before my face. Usually we didn't wear them when we were training, but now we were on a mission. Temari nodded, reaching in one of her pouches, taking out her own cloth. "Alright, let's go.", I said and we blurred away, leaving behind only a small trail of kicked up sand.

Gaara sat in his office, with his guards standing invisibly on the wall behind him, when we appeared in his office. "You called, Kazekage-sama.", I said, while we all bowed down. "Rise, Daiku, Shiro. I have a very important mission for you. I have been in contact with the council of Ishigakure about a possible trading agreement with an added defensive alliance and we are almost done with the negotiations, but it appears that somehow our talks have been leaked to Iwa. They obviously wouldn't want us to get closer to their neighbors so I am sending you all to escort the council from Ishi to us. Here we will finish the rest of the negotiations and the contract signing, after that, they will have to be escorted back to their village as well. Daiku you are to remain in the shadows until you are needed, I don't want to expose you to any unnecessary attention by Iwa. But do not hesitate to step in if you think, that Shiro needs your help.", Gaara instructed, giving Temari the official mission scroll.

"Kazekage-sama, if I may speak. Why do you want us to stay in the shadows, you know, that we are very much able to bring them here in a flash. I don't see the problem, with showing the world, that we have the hiraishin in our disposal.", I suggested. "That is a valid point Nine, but I don't want the other villages to know, that you have mastered your father's jutsu. It is already bad enough that they know, that the son of Konoha's yellow flash is now in Suna, we don't need to draw more attention by revealing your mastery of these jutsu. If we did that, the other villages might form an alliance against us, seeing as we pose too much of a threat with two Jinchuriki and a second yellow flash at our disposal.", Gaara explained, making me nod. He was right about that, although I believed, that we would easily beat back any army trying to attack us, no matter the size, taking into account, that we were in a desert and that Gaara was almost undefeatable by himself, when surrounded by sand. Not to mention our Anbu and the fact that I had mastered my father's jutsu, which had allowed him to take out two thousand shinobi within an hour. But I kept quiet and decided, not to say anything.

"Ok, you are dismissed.", Gaara said, as he saw that I wouldn't object any further. "We head out in ten minutes.", Temari announced, while we went out of the Kazekage tower. We watched as our team jumped away to their respective homes, to get their supplies, before we took our masks off and smiled at each other. Temari put her arms around my neck and pressed her lips against mine. "Well, that was a nice surprise.", I whispered, as we disconnected. My girlfriend only smiled at me, putting one of her arms around my shoulder, I smiled back and put my arm around her waist, before we went towards the city's gates. We already had scrolls with our supplies on us, so we didn't need to get to our house and could take our sweet time, strolling through the streets. Noticing a small stand that had sweetened chestnuts, we stopped and bought a bag from the sweet old lady, that stood behind the counter, since it was Temari's favourite snack. While we were walking, Temari was happily munching on her sweets, occasionally being so kind as to pop one of the small nuts into my mouth. Talking and laughing we went through the streets and got a variety of confused looks from the people that didn't recognize us, since we were still clad in full Anbu gear minus the face cloth, but were behaving as if we were small children. The people, that recognized us and knew us a bit better, smiled and waved at us, before turning back and ignoring our loud bickering. As we got to the gate, we waited for our teams to turn up, sitting down in the shadows of the wall, with Temari sitting between my legs, leaning back into my chest, finishing the last few nuts that were left in the bag. As she finished them, our teams arrived, ready to begin the mission. Temari stood up, threw the bag in a random trash can and put her cloth back over her face. I smiled at my team, gave Temari one last kiss on the forehead, before I too put my cloth over my forehead. We both focused our minds on the mission and looked at our teams who were waiting for our orders.