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Three years had already passed since I sat on the wheelchair. Gaara was now 16 years old and I was 15. In that time, pretty much everything changed. Gaara became the kazekage and had managed that the villagers at least no longer detested him, which was a start, but I was also disappointed by them somewhere.
Since Gaara became kazekage at the age of 15 ─ not only the youngest kazekage, by the way, but the youngest kage in history, which I was more than just proud of ─ the village was doing much better. Gaara managed to make sunagakure better off both politically and in terms of prosperity. Relations between the other villages, especially with konoha, were even better than before.
And even though we lived in the desert, Gaara was well on his way to giving the desert kingdom so much prosperity that no one was poor anymore, at least, and everyone could afford an apartment with everything that went with it. Even though I supported him day in and day out in all these projects, I was amazed at how much he changed suna for the better in such a short time. Of course with the support of the entire council.
Even though the old farts often cause us enough problems that are just unnecessary...
Gaara became a gentle, good-natured person, as he had always been in principle. If only the circumstances had never been, which changed him to the bad. The redhead grew quite a bit in the last few years, while I stayed more or less in place, maybe growing just a tiny bit, but nothing that mattered. Also, the redhead looked much... better looking.
Not that he looked hideous before, for heaven's sake, however... To be able to follow his development live from close up was something else entirely. I fell in love with my childhood friend more and more every single day.
I really felt it when we were together on the roof and he smiled at me so warmly... From that moment on, nothing was the same anymore.
And even though I was no longer a ninja, I trained regularly with Gaara. Although he didn't quite agree with it in the beginning, I felt that you could never know when you would get into a combat situation. Besides, I didn't just want to help him with the paperwork, I wanted to be able to support him in battle when in doubt. Be a help to him instead of a burden.
I could daydream like this for all eternity but today we are getting a visit from someone very special...
Gaara and I hijacked Naruto, Kakashi, and Sakura. Tsunade sent the three of them to us to deepen our relationship even more. Naruto was the one I was looking forward to the most. "Hey Naruto!", I jumped joyfully into his arms while laughing, "well how are you? It's been a while..." We talked for a bit and after that we went through the gate.
Sakura an excellent medicine ninja, why she should teach our medicine ninja something and kakashi and naruto had to bring an important scroll to Tsunade and protect it with their lives. Everything seemed to go quite well so far.
However, that didn't last long.
"There's one of that infamous organization near the gates!" blurted Kankuro, "it's a member of Akatsuki. I'll stop him with everything." Gaara nodded at him and away went Kankuro. Akatsuki was gaining notoriety in recent years and those guys there were renegade ninjas not to be underestimated.
Hopefully everything will turn out well...
However, my hopes were dashed after some ninjas guarding the gate saw Kankuro being defeated and hurt pretty badly by the Akatsuki member. The opponent used a rather strong poison and applied that to Kankuro. However, the opponent then left. I doubt that was all there was to it. That was just the beginning. "KANKURO!!!", screamed Temari, sick with worry.
Sakura quickly conducted the operation for him and managed to extract the poison from his body. It wasn't exactly a small amount of poison. She then tended to the rest of his wounds and ordered him to be taken to the next best hospital. "Thank you so much," I thanked her through tears, "thank you for saving Kankuro's life." "Oh well... After all, that's my job."
As I said before... That was just the beginning. From here on, everything went down the drain.
