Chapter 9 - Kazekage Mishaps

Gaara probably had it coming to him. As he stared at the contents of the wicker basket, he felt his eye involuntarily twitch.

"Temari...come in here..."

Temari poked in a head. "What do you want, oh lovable brother of mine?"

Gaara faced her, and thrust the basket in her hands. "What is the meaning of this?"

Temari seemed confused for a moment, then she looked down and saw what exactly had her baby brother so peeved.

Each and every one of his Kazekage robes were pink.

"Well..." said Temari, trying to stifle a laugh, "it looks like you don't know how to separate your reds from your whites, little bro..."

"Don't toy with me, Temari..."

"Ask 'Kara-chan. She'd know, she's the one who does the laundry."

~~~~~~~~~~

"Akara-san, we need to talk."

Akara turned from the sink. "What about?"

"This." He thrust the offending pink robes into her hands. She looked at them for a nanosecond, and then burst out laughing.

"Looks like you need to learn how to wash your own clothes, Gaara-sama."

Gaara was not amused. "This is your doing, isn't it?"

"You bet your Kazekage hat it is," she said, still giggling.

"Well, then let's see how funny it is when I ruin your clothes," he said through gritted teeth. And in a swift motion, he tore off the sleeve of her red shirt.

Akara quit laughing, and looked at him in shock and anger.

"You ripped my shirt!"

"I just ripped your sleeve..."

"This was my favorite shirt!"

"...please don't kill me..."

"OH, I'M SURE AS HELL GONNA KILL YOU! GET BACK HERE!"

Gaara did what any sensible person in that situation would have done: he ran for it. Akara wasn't far behind, brandishing a wet frying pan. Temari watched on with a bowl of popcorn, highly amused.

"Oi, Kankuro! Get your fat @$$ down here! You're missing the show!"

Kankuro poked a sleepy head out his doorway, and narrowly missed getting decapitated by the aforementioned frying pan. He watched as the two raced up the stairs, slamming the door leading to the roof.

Kankuro walked over to his sister.

"So are we gonna...?"

"You bet your puppet we are!"

And with that, the eldest two of the Sand Siblings, went up to the roof.

~~~~~~~~~~~

"Now, Akara-san, let's not be rash..."

"Fork over the money to replace my shirt, or the hat gets it." And as if to prove she was serious, she held out the straw Kazekage hat over the edge that bordered the busiest street in all of Suna.

Gaara gulped. "You wouldn't dare..."

"I feel my hand slipping..." Akara let the hat slip out of her hand a little. Gaara choked back a sob.

"Alright, here's my wallet," he said, chucking it at her head. She took it, and smiled happily. She tossed the hat toward him, and he caught it deftly with his index finger and his thumb.

"Oh, and by the way...The dye is just a genjutsu."

~~~~~~~~~~

Gaara went to the office in a really foul mood. Once he'd released the genjutsu on his robes, eaten breakfast, and teleported to the tower, he found he was late for an early meeting with the council.

"Kazekage-sama, please. Akara-san should be promoted immediately."

Gaara stared at the offending man from the head of the table.

"No," he replied simply.

"But Kazekage-sama," said Baki, "her skills far exceed that of a Chuunin. She is better suited to Jonin level or higher."

"That may be so," he said curtly, "but the fact remains that she is still adapting, and that we mustn't lose sight of where her previous loyalties lie."

Baki massaged his aching head. At the rate things were going, Akara would never reach Jonin level, and he himself would never receive his lunch.

"Pardon me," said a voice. The entire table of politicians and high-level shinobi turned en masse to see Akara standing in the doorway. She carried a bento box in one hand and a sheaf of papers in the other.

"Forgive my intrusion, but Kazekage-sama left his lunch at home. Temari-hime told me to give it to him."

The council members stifled a laugh as Akara walked up to a disgruntled Gaara, gave him the bento, and bowed.

"Don't work too late. Temari-san said she'd personally come over here and drag you home kicking and screaming if she had to." And with that, she retreated to the hall. As soon as the door closed behind her with a snap, Gaara sighed.

"We will reconvene after lunch."

~~~~~~~~~~

Gaara returned home that day at five o'clock in a foul mood. He was three seconds away from going up to Akara and giving her a piece of his mind. He slammed the door closed, making his siblings jump about a foot in the air. Akara was nowhere to be found.

"Where is she," he growled at his siblings. Temari sighed, and sipped her tea.

"She's at the grocery store. She said she'd be home in a few minutes."

Gaara nodded, jaw set in anger, and stormed up to his room. Even though he couldn't even remember if he had a floor, the chaos inside soothed him. As he opened the door, he stopped, eyes wide with shock. His eyes made a sweep of the room, almost refusing to believe what he was seeing. Standing stock-still, his face contorted with fury.

"SHE CLEANED MY ROOM!"

Temari and Kankuro flinched when they heard the enraged voice floating down from the second story. Oh yeah...Akara was in for it.

~~~~~~~~~~

Akara, meanwhile, wandered the market. She loved the open air markets, whether they be in Suna, Konoha, or Kiri. She especially liked the fact that she didn't need to steal the food anymore, either, now that she had a steady paycheck and was away from Kiri.

She was just admiring a red silk kimono when she felt a faint chakra signature sneaking up behind her. She whirled around and nearly punched the offender in the face, before she saw who it was.

It was a group of girls, no older than herself. The leader of the pack had long, platinum blonde hair and hazel eyes. The girl on her left had black hair and blue eyes, while the one on her right had red-brown hair and brown eyes. All three wore way too much makeup and hardly anything else. The blonde was in a skimpy blue skirt and a barely-there tube top of green and pink spandex. The blue-eyed brunette wore a tiny pair of short-shorts and a skimpy little orange halter top, while the brown-eyed brunette wore a tiny little gray-green dress. All three had headbands, proclaiming them kunoichi of Suna.

Akara sighed. "What do you want?"

The blonde flipped her hair, and glared at Akara. Akara laughed.

"If you're trying to do a death glare, then you're failing miserably."

"I'm Haruka, and I'm the president of the Kazekage Admiration Society."

"Ah crap," said Akara, "fangirls."

"We are NOT fangirls," shouted the little brown-eyed brunette. Akara raised and eyebrow, obviously skeptical.

"And you are...?"

The girl ran a hang through her long, brown ponytail, flicking her wrist at the last moment and allowing the hair to catch the sun. "I'm Izanami. I'm the Vice President of the Kazekage Admiration Society. And my friend," she gestured to the blue-eyed brunette, who shook her head and made her long black hair shimmer in the light, "is Usagi, and she's the Secretary of the Kazekage Admiration Society."

Great, thought Akara, Haruka, Izanami, and Usagi: a girl with a far-off brain, an idiot who invites way too much, and a rabbit. Nice names, they actually fit.
Akara wasn't lying. Haruka stared at her. "You have a lot of nerve being around our Kazekage-sama. Gaara-kun is much too good for you."

If only you knew, brainless... Akara suddenly caught something. "What do you mean, YOUR Kazekage-sama? I'll have you know that he's his own person, thank you, and he doesn't belong to anyone."

Especially you sluts...

"Oh really? Then why are you around him," accused Haruka. Akara was getting really sick of this, really fast. The doges were making her mad, and the fact that Haruka was a brainless twit did nothing to alleviate that anger, either.

"Um, I don't know...maybe because IT'S MY JOB?!"

"You're lying," said Izanami, angry.

"You know what? I have stuff I have to do, so go and find a man to frack you, if they can get around the mind-numbing stupidity, that is."

Akara gave them ten seconds to digest what she'd said. Unfortunately, it took fifteen.

"HEY!" Akara smirked at them, turned, and left.

It was then that Haruka, Izanami, and Usagi made the biggest mistake of their lives. The three Stooges ran up, and grabbed her arm.

Akara immediately activated the Yashara, and whirled around. The three bimbos shrieked when they saw her fangs begin to grow and her feral, cat-like eyes.

"Don't you ever, EVER touch me, you sorry excuse for kunoichi. GOT IT?!"

The three shrieked again, and ran. Akara deactivated her bloodline, grabbed her groceries, and left.

She had a bone to pick with Gaara...

~~~~~~~~~~

Akara walked upstairs, a bundle of freshly laundered robes in her arms. She entered Gaara's room, only to see him sitting on the red chaise lounge. She could tell that the former jinchuuriki was pissed. His eyes glowered in the semi-darkness. Good; she was pissed too.

"Well, explain yourself."

Akara walked to the dresser, placing the robes on top of its now clean and dust-free surface. "What on earth are you talking about?"

"You cleaned my room."

"No duh. This place was so filthy, I couldn't even stand to come in here. By the way, I like the red rug. Nice and furry."

"Don't change the subject. You entered my personal space, and drastically altered it."

"Drastically altered it?! The only thing that needs to be 'drastically altered' is your attitude!"

"My attitude is just fine!"

Akara snorted. "Your attitude is crap."

"Oh really?"

"Yeah. Really."

"Well what if I said that your attitude sucks worse?"

"I'd tell you to piss off," she said, walking to the door. Gaara stared after her, infuriated.

He's kinda cute when he's mad... Akara thought. She shook her head. Great, now even her own mind was plotting against her.

"And next time, don't send your damnable harem after me. I get enough grief from Kaori and Maria-sensei as it is without your giggly fan club out to get me."

Akara left. She felt so much better now.
~~~~~~~~~~~

Gaara stood in his room, suddenly tired.

He knew that she was mad at him for more than just him snapping at her this morning. And when did his fan club find her?

Gaara sighed. Maybe he shouldn't have let Akara stay in the house for so long. It was hard enough for her to adjust without a crazy fan club baying for her blood. It almost made him wish that he was just another normal shinobi. He snorted at the thought: yeah, like "normal" and "shinobi" could fit into the same sentence...But he knew that he'd have to talk to the fangirls sometime, and he had a shrewd idea which fans he needed to talk to...

He dropped it. Temari was walking up the stairs, and he could smell Akara's curry, even with the door closed.

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