Rabbit Princess [Gaara] [2]

☾ 8 ☽

Months passed since the last Chunin Exams were held. Konohagakure and Sunagakure were still looking forward to having another Chunin Exams together but preparing it with more carefully. Tsukiko was fine with that but her mind was still on the last Chunin Exams. She had kept in touch with Gaara, of course, but there was no sign of Fuu.

Tsukiko had waited for days, weeks, months... but there was no letter from the mint green-haired female. Of course, Tsukiko considered that she may have become a Chunin and was just busy with missions but something inside of her kept pulling at her heart. She had sent letters to Takigakure but had not received anything in return.

Tsunade had refused Tsukiko's request to go to Takigakure, citing that the village was too close to Otogakure for her to go there – alone or not. Tsukiko had a feeling that Tsunade thought the younger girl was going to go looking for Sasuke instead of Takigakure. But Tsukiko was desperate to know about what happened to Fuu, and even wrote about it to Gaara.

Gaara had shared her concerns and told her that he will see into what happened to Fuu, too. However, all of their efforts to locate Fuu yielded no results. Tsukiko couldn't even ask someone to go and ask about Fuu as the Takigakure village Leader Shibuya wouldn't be happy that people were coming by to look for the Jinchuriki.

It was this reasoning of Tsukiko that caused Gaara to assure that it must definitely be what happened. After Tsukiko's warning, Shibuki must've decided to hide Fuu away more conclusively in case the Akatsuki came for her. Tsukiko was a little eased after that explanation and decided she will wait for Fuu.

Tsukiko played with the beetle keychain with one hand while the other hand had her face stuffed into a book. Currently, the white-haired girl was walking down the street with Sakura to pick up the morning pedestrian traffic report from the village guard station. Tsukiko didn't have to but she had just returned from a mission and wanted to spend time with Sakura.

"Is this book really that interesting?" Sakura asked Tsukiko, who had barely moved her eyes off of the book. "Are you going to become like Kakashi Sensei? I think he's got a bad influence on you, Tsukiko," Tsukiko looked up.

"I don't read questionable stuff like Kakashi Sensei, though," Tsukiko responded, causing the two to chuckle. "But yes, the book is very interesting... I really want to finish it but couldn't because of the missions... I'm not experienced enough like Kakashi Sensei to do those two simultaneously,"

"What is it about?" Sakura asked, genuinely interested. Tsukiko moved her finger to show the older female the cover of the book and Sakura sweat-dropped. "Are poisons that interesting? I thought you were reading some novel!"

"Poisons are so intricate and interesting," Tsukiko replied, looking back at the book. "I've found some new poisons that do not have any antidotes as of yet... I think I'm going to ask Granny Tsunade to order them for me so I can study them..."

Sakura nodded slowly in response since she didn't have anything to say really. Tsukiko's obsession with poisons was strange and Sakura had tried to sit and watch the girl the girl deal with it, but it was rather difficult to follow Tsukiko's thought process. Tsunade had mentioned that she used to feel the same about Tsukimi's poison genius.

"Tsukiko-Chan!" Konohamaru shouted. "Sakura-San!" Tsukiko and Sakura both turned around to see Konohamaru, Moegi and Udon running over to them. The three had graduated recently from the Academy. "Where are you two off to?"

"The main village gate," Sakura replied. "We have to pick up the morning pedestrian traffic ledger for Tsunade-Sama. Well, I had to but Tsukiko decided she would join me," She looked at the kids. "You want to come?"