The forest always seemed to be full of life and has a certain feeling of peace to it in the daytime. The birds sing their songs and the wind blows a gentle breeze, making the leaves dance. However, this 'peace' doesn't affect a certain red-head as he hopped from tree to tree back to the village after his confrontation with the Uchiha.

'I am going to enjoy crushing his strength with my sand.' Thought Gaara with a smirk, the Uchiha was the strongest one out of all the participants in the Chunin Exams. As he kept going he didn't bother to dodge the kunai and shuriken thrown at him from somewhere in the trees on his right. The sand shot out from his gourd to block the attack before shooting out towards the attacker.

'He's fast.' Gaara noted as he came to a stop, the person had dodged his sand. "Who are you? Show yourself." It didn't sound much like a demand, since he said it in a monotone way, but has the air of a demand nonetheless. A deep chuckle resounded from one of the trees above before a person in gray and black jumped down.

"So, you are here for the chunin exams. I guess my hunch was correct."

"What do you want?" Demanded Gaara, crossing his arms while the sand swirled around his feet.

"You are quite well known in the wind country, to put it simply I would like to see if I am able to kill you." He couldn't see what this ninja looked like due to the fact that his face was wrapped in cloth except for his brown eyes, but can tell he had a sinister smirk on his face.

"Then you shall prove my existence." A slow, insane smile crept on the red head's face as he sent waves of sand at the missing nin. It was obvious this ninja was a wind user due to the fact that he was only using wind techniques to attack, each ranging in force.

"Pathetic." Commented Gaara, was this person even worth killing? Well, as long as his mother gets blood, right?

His comment caused the man to chuckle in amusement. "One thing you learn when battling a powerful opponent is that you sometimes have to cheat. So, I am not going to be the one that technically kills you."

Though he didn't let it show, the man's words confused Gaara. He didn't sense anyone else nearby, so what could this man mean. Before it can be pondered further, a wind technique that was more powerful than even Temari's jutsus went through his sand barrier and hit him like a giant fist.

Gaara's mind was in shock, the only thing he could register was the trees zooming by as he flew backwards, but then the trees came to an end which meant, he vaguely noted, that he was now in some kind of clearing.

A sudden rush of coldness came around his body and he started to sink. 'Water?' Gaara realized with a feeling of panic that he hasn't felt in a long time. Being a sand shinobi he never learned how to swim and he couldn't stand on the water seeing as he was under it. He couldn't help but thrash around as his sand floated in clumps around him uselessly. As he tried to claw to the surface he could hear the muffled laughter of the shinobi above, before he left seeing as his job was done. His lungs were burning and his vision started fading to black, he hasn't felt this helpless in a long time.

Being in water meant that even the Shukaku won't be able to come out and save him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~NxG~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Man, I could have sworn I felt that chakra around here." Muttered Naruto as he edged towards the clearing. He had been out here to train by himself, since Pervy-Sage was off spying on the ladies in the hot springs. He had been training his butt of when he sensed a huge amount of chakra being released in an attack. Of course, he being Naruto had to check it out and see who it was.

He could have sworn he heard someone laughing as he approached the clearing, not the nice laugh either, before they left with a "so you Suna nin can really not swim, my work is done."

'What does he mean by that?' thought Naruto as he shot in to the clearing. With a pout he looked around to see no one, but he could have sworn he felt a fight going on. But wait, what was with that sand in the middle of the lake? Didn't a guy mention something about a suna nin not being able to swim? The realization was like a slap to the face.

"Holy crap, someone is drowning!" yelled Naruto, he hurriedly took off his shoes, jacket, shirt, and pants and scrambled into the water as fast as he could. As he approached the middle of the lake he couldn't help but wonder what was up with all this sand floating around. When he dived under, he didn't expect it to be who it was.

'Gaara?!' That creepy sand guy that crushed Bushy brow's arm and leg during the preliminaries. Who would have thought it would be him down here? He hesitated for a bit before he grabbed the red head's arm and pulled him to the surface. No matter how bad the red head was, Naruto couldn't let him die.

'This guy's gourd is a pain in the ass.' Thought Naruto bitterly, trying to get a good grip and stay afloat with that stupid thing on the sand nin's back. He was almost to the shore, it's a good thing he had a lot of stamina and strong muscles. Gaara better be thankful for this!

He let out a big gust of air as they collapsed on the ground, even if Gaara wouldn't like it Naruto had to remove the gourd so he can lay him flat on his back.

'Okay, uh how do you do CPR? First mouth to mouth, I guess.' Naruto slowly reached out to open the red head's mouth before leaning in and connecting their lips. He puffed air into Gaara's lungs, then pressed the red head's chest five times and repeated.

'Come on, I got to be doing this right!' He connected their lips again before he felt the body move under him, he pulled away and his eyes connected to sea foam green.

Yay! New story! Let me know what you think!

This takes place before the hospital episode, so Naruto doesn't know about the Shukaku, yet.