Sakura was hot.

Not in the figurative way, though she rated herself fairly highly on the good looks chart.

No, she was hot in the sweaty, gasping, we're-being-boiled-alive way.

The sun beamed down upon her, sweat trickled from every limb, and it was almost hard to breathe, as each shallow breath only brought in hot air that further scorched her throat.

The haircut helped, though.

She had cut all of her hair last night in a last ditch effort to get Ino back. Somehow it had worked, and she and Ino and Toph-sensei had spent the rest of that evening talking. (She had no idea what had happened to the other Yamanaka girls)

She stood barefoot in the dirt, watching Kakashi-sensei and Toph-sensei play shogi. The boys were-

Well, she had no idea what the boys were doing, only that it involved lots of grunting and yelling and movement.

Though how they could move in this heat was beyond her.

She met Sauske's eyes and turned back to her practice with a sniff and diva hair toss, the short strands brushing her cheek and neck.

Practice your control, Toph-sensei had said. Work on feeling the earth, not just tossing huge chunks of it around. Precision is necessary.

Which meant she had been assigned an odd task. Move a single leaf over to herself from three feet away, across the dirt, without destroying it.

Had she been anyone else she would have lost count, but she focused hard on her 74th leaf, trying to be gentle and precise.

The leaf rippled towards her, then split down the middle as it gave way to the rolling rocks.

Screw precision!

She let herself feel rage and hatred for all of ten seconds before she moved to place her 75th leaf down where the others had been.

Sakura burrowed her toes a little more into the ground, feeling the damp fabric of her blindfold resettle and restick around her neck as she moved. She reached out with her Earthbending and tried to bring the stupid leaf over to her using a repeating series of tiny pillars this time.

The leaf was shredded before it even got halfway to her.

Sakura groaned, shifted her stance, then tried again.

▪▪▪

Toph had taken to strolling around the village every evening, sometimes with Kakashi, other times, like now, without.

People pushed and shoved and talked noisily, but that was fine. Toph squeezed through them until she found herself in a relatively empty street. She headed down it.

"M-m-miss Toph!"

Stupid ninjas with their tree walkiness. Or, in this case, rooftops. It was impossible to sense them coming!

Luckily, though, she was able to match the name to the voice.

"Hey Sunshine. What are you doing here?" Toph tilted her head, a more subtle gesture that she had picked up by monitoring Suki.

(That had been a weird week.)

"I live here," the ninja landed heavily besides her.

"Here?" Toph made a sweeping gesture. "In the street?"

He was flustered. Toph felt his heart rate speeding up and grinned. "Well, no. In that building over there. Do you- maybe... want to come over?"

"Sure. Lead the way." Why in the world was he so panicky? It wasn't like he'd asked her to teach him Earthbending so that he could defeat the Fire Lord or anything.

Talking about you, Aang.

▪▪▪

His building was metal.

Toph liked it.

She settled herself down on one of his wooden chairs and set her feet firmly on the ground. She heard Naruto bustling around, quietly freaking out, and grinned sadistically.

"Would you like anything to drink, Miss Toph?" He asked suddenly.

"Sure," she tapped a toe on the ground (it was metal covered with wood so thin she could see right through it), and watched as he dug around in his 'icebox' to get her something.

The apartment smelled pretty bad, like trash and stale noodles. There was only his scent, though. No parents or guardians. If she applied a little more force, she would be able to-

No. This was Naruto's house, and he deserved his privacy.

She settled back into her chair as he set a glass in front of her. There was a trickling sound as he poured something, then the fruity tang of apple juice filled her nose.

"Cheers," she lifted up her glass.

"Uh, yeah. Cheers!"

They sat in silence for a while.

"What are you supposed to do when you have somebody over?" He suddenly asked her.

Toph snorted. "I'm literally the worst person you could ever ask. Sheltered upbringing, remember?"

She downed most of her glass in a single swallow.

"Doesn't that just mean you lived in a house?" Naruto asked, hesitantly.

This time she laughed, a big, hearty laugh tinged with bitterness. "Nah. It means that since I'm disabled and an Earthbender I wasn't really the ideal daughter and I had to be protected. You see, Earthbending is for big, strong men. Certainly not blind, helpless little girls."

"You're not helpless, though," Naruto remarked out of the blue.

"You know that and I know that," Toph finished off her drink. "But to them, I was. They gave me everything I could have ever wanted, but they never gave me the one thing I needed most; their love."

She could hear him crying. "That's so sad."

She waved him off, then held up her empty glass. "Yeah, but then I ran away with the Avatar to save the world and I haven't gone back since."

He poured her another glass. It spilled a little, down onto her fingers, but she didn't care.

"What about you?" She asked.

"What do you mean?" He seemed startled she would ask that.

"No one your age winds up in a place like this, alone, without some sort of story," Toph took a long, slow sip of apple juice. "I shared. Now it's your turn."

"Ah, well, it's really not that big a deal," he tried to brush her off before caving in and telling her about his life in five paragraphs or less.

"And that's why I want to be Hokage. So that everyone in the village will respect me and I'll..."

He trailed off.

"Belong," Toph finished for him.

He didn't confirm or deny. They sat in quiet for a little longer, than the loud crash of something breaking interrupted.

Oma and Shu! She hadn't been paying attention to anything other than this room.

They had been snuck up on.

That was such a rookie mistake!

Toph leaped to her feet and followed Naruto as he bolted from his seat and took off towards what she guessed was his bedroom.

She was faster.

Toph reached ahead and felt for that room, saw the bed and the bathroom and the trio of men who were rummaging through Naruto's things.

Metal surged up through the wood.

Someone screamed.

Naruto skidded to a halt.

Toph strode in. Her bending had forced her to stop momentarily, and she used it to her advantage. Her entrance became an actual, cool thing.

"Well, well, well," she drawled. "Look what the pygmy puma dragged in."

She stepped past the stunned Naruto and sauntered to the closest of the men.

Her feet crunched in broken glass.

Okay, she thought. Ow..

No matter. Thick calluses and toughened skin from walking barefoot for years protected her from the worst of it. She reached out and her fingers touched metal.

She had caught the three men like rats in traps. The floor had risen up and encased their whole bodies, leaving their heads and faces exposed to the air.

She gripped, then pulled. The metal did all the heavy lifting for her as the man, metal binding and all, rose into the air.

Aha. He was the screamer.

Toph rubbed an ear with her finger and gave him a little shake. "Now, I wonder who you could be."

"What do you think you're doing?!" He yelped. "Who do you think you are?!"

She promptly ignored him.

"M-miss Toph," Naruto stammered. "What are you doing-"

"One second, Sunshine, dear." Toph stepped closer to where the wall would overlook the street of there was a window. "There seem to be some annoying little pests. You don't mind if I take care of them, right?"

"It's alright," he whispered. "They'll just break some stuff and go. They do this every week."

The world came crashing to a halt.

"What." Her voice was deadly cold. She could hear their heartbeats suddenly sped up and the one she was holding started shaking.

Naruto began to repeat what he had said, but Toph waved her free hand. "I heard you the first time. My question was for them."

"M-miss Toph-"

"One second, Naruto." Toph hefted the complete and utter idiot over her head before punching through the wooden wall and dangling him out over the two story drop.

He practically gibbered as she leaned in. "He deserves it, that fox. Everything is his fault."

Toph felt a rush of energy and utter fury.

She chucked him right out the window.

He let out a loud shriek as he fell, an abrupt halt yanking him to a stop before he collided with the ground. Her metal had been reshaped into a long, twining rope that snaked around his leg.

Pedestrians, what few there were at this hour, shouted and scattered in a panic. She chose to ignore them as she carried on with her/Sunshine's buisness.

Toph gave it a yank before stomping and anchoring it to the floor. The other two finally broke their silence, screeching and begging and pleading.

"We didn't do anything wrong!"

"It wasn't our fault!"

She turned blind eyes on them, ignoring their pleas and choosing the next to be removed via wall.

"If any of you ever come back here again," Toph ground. "There won't be a rope to catch you."

The last one went out the opening. Toph snorted, then lifted her arms, releasing the three. Although they were grown men she thought she could hear them crying.

Naruto was silent as she attempted to fix the wall. Her patch job was bad at best, absolutely terrible at worst, and hung somewhere between totally absurd and ridiculously metal.

Figuratively and literally.

Last things last.

Toph turned towards Sunshine. "That was not okay for them to do. You have every right to expell intruders from your dwelling if you so choose. What happened here tonight was not your fault."

He was still quiet.

She sighed, then reached out, extending her arms in an invitation for a hug.

Naruto melted against her. He acted like he'd never been given a hug in his life-

Which he might not have. Toph rubbed his back like Katara would have and tried to offer him support like she would have wanted back when she was... less awesome.

Sunshine reminded her of Twinkle Toes. Both strong kids. Both with warped beliefs on how the world should function.

She squeezed him a little tighter. "If you tell anyone this ever happened i will deny it with every fiber of my being."

He laughed through his- oh, snap he was crying for real now. Toph decided to pretend she hadn't noticed.

"Why would you let them do that to you?" She whispered.

"They're civilians," he said into her shoulder. "I can't hurt them. I can't. I have to be the best ninja."

Toph felt the rage and fury rise in her again. She squished Naruto for a few more minutes, then moved away. "Go pack a bag. You're going to be staying with me."

He pulled back slowly, almost reluctantly. Then the rest of what she had said sank in.

"W-wait, what? Miss Toph! Miss Toph!"

▪▪▪

"So you decided to bring him here?" Kakashi asked, dumbfounded.

Toph straightened indignantly. "His house just got broken into! What was I supposed to do? Just leave him there?"

She was starting to turn into a headache. Kakashi pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed.

Naruto was standing in the kitchen by the door, holding a bag that smelled like stale noodles. He fidgeted as Toph and his sensei talked.

"Well don't bring him here!" Kakashi whispered furiously. "There are hotels and the like! I have a reputation to maintain!"

"Do you think I didn't try?" Toph hissed. "Four hotels and none of them would even think about letting him stay! I had to stop a drunk passerby from punching him in the face after we got thrown out of the last one!"

Kakashi shot his blond minion another glance. Naruto was eyeing the brightly colored spines of his Icha Icha collection.

Drat. If his student had had any doubts about who lived here, they were probably gone now.

"I can go and sleep outside if there's not enough room," Toph negotiated. "I practically lived outside for, like, a year or so. And the people outside don't want to kill me."

"No, no, it's not like that," Kakashi shot down her suggestion hurriedly.

"Then what is it like?" She hissed.

How could he tell her? All the painful memories the sight of that blond hair and blue eyes brought. The guilt and heartbreak and sadness of his past.

How much of a failure he had been.

"Fine. He can stay. And no sleeping outside for you, young lady."

"Oh, so patronizing. Do it again." Toph narrowed her eyes. "Tell me how I'm so irresponsible and how I need parental guidance despite the fact that I haven't had any for longer then I can remember!"

What.

How did we- when...

Kakashi threw up his hands. "I'll go and get more blankets, but you'll need to get him settled. And it's only for a little while, got it?"

There was a short pause, then her shoulders fell. "Okay. Yes sir. Thank you."

She bowed slightly to him, then headed out to about where Naruto stood. She had followed the wall in the carpeted hallway, then blundered until he grabbed her outstretched hand.

He heard her relay what he had said to her in a much nicer but still blunt way, then she squeezed his fingers.

If he didn't have such good hearing he wouldn't have heard the kind(ish) words she whispered.

"You're staying here with us, okay? And I won't let anything happen to you again, okay?"

"It was really no big deal, Miss Toph. Stuff like that happens all the time."

"And it's not okay."

He banged his head against the wall and sighed.

Since when was I the bad guy?

He headed out to go and buy more bedding.