Scroll one: Life and Death.

...

~"Fumiko, what is your nindo?"~

...

Konoha was incredibly boring.

Kiba was out on a mission, Shikamaru refused- refused- to teach her Go or Shogi- something about how she'd broken all his other boards and pieces and he needed to get new ones and Seal them to keep her away- that jerk. Naruto was out training with Jiraiya, and nobody else here was even remotely interesting except for maybe Lee, but...

Lee was weird. Taijutsu expert? Yes. Good sparring partner? Hell yes. Somebody she wanted to have within eardrum-shattering distance without one of them trying to punch the other? Uh, no, thanks. She loved being able to hear things.

All there was around here to look at was trees and snails and random little animals like rabbits and admittedly very cute little deer around Shikamaru's house, not to mention dirt and leaves and miscellaneous people and leaves and trees and interesting hyuuga eyes and flowers and leaves and Temari because that's who they were supposed to look at and frogs and leaves and there were leaves in her hair and leaves in her bag and leaves in her shoes every time she took them off.

"Hey, Mai, aren't you hungry?" Eishi asked boredly from his spot beside her on a tree branch, poking a branch at a mushroom growing on the bark at his feet with a dulled curiosity. Mai couldn't really muster the energy needed to push him off to see how high his scream still was.

"Nope." she said instead.

"But, Mai-chan, you haven't eaten all day." Shiragiku said, digging through a bag he always kept slung over his shoulder that he randomly pulled various flowers and/or fruits from. Mai had already learned not to steal snacks from that bag. Instead of chewing on a regular apple, she'd ended up paralyzed for a day and a half, then threw the whole thing back up after her muscles finally detracted.

He held out what might have been a grapefruit. Mai liked grapefruit. She found it unnerving how her teammate- she didn't even remember his name sometimes- seemed to already know everything about her and Eishi. Mai held up a hand. "Not from your bag."

"It was your fault for digging through his bag without asking him what wasn't poisoned."

"Shut up."

"Suna is supposed to be full of people who know about poison."

"Do you really want me to push you into the raccoon poop? Because I will."

"You don't have to eat it if you don't want to," Shiragiku said in his quiet, irritatingly soothing voice that sounded like bell chimes and the steady hhhshhhh noise that came from training for three months under the water towers. "I just know that eventually you'll start to feel unwanted symptoms of starvation and dehydration."

"Is it a grapefruit?"

"Yes."

"Is it just a grapefruit?"

"No."

Mai considered this. "Will it kill me, paralyze me, make me puke, or give me diarrhea?"

"No."

She shrugged. "Okay, fine. Ooh, hey, look, Temari's blushing again." Mai said, snatching the proffered fruit from her teammate's hand and taking a chunk out of it, then pointing with it. Purple juice dribbled from her fingers. Three months of absolute death in Heaven forced her to instinctively catch the droplets on her foot to avoid detection.

They were hovering about Temari as she went about her daily business at Konoha. Technically Shikamaru was her guide, but technically Shikamaru didn't know they were there. Or, actually he probably had sensed at least Eishi by now and was just too lazy to really care.

Their sensei Otokaze was gone already. He had said something about taking in the scenes of Konoha. It wasn't like anything was going to happen. It wasn't like anything had happened at all in the past week and a half they had been here. Konoha was full of lazy sons of bitches, and it didn't seem like anybody here cared enough to stir up trouble.

Mai was regretting this particular C-rank. The only reason she was doing it was for credits to qualify for the very near-coming Chuunin exams. Just because she was ANBU didn't mean she wasn't going to make at least Tokubetsu Jonin rank. Actually, no, at least all around Jonin rank. Jonin level ANBU assassin, that was acceptable.

Maybe with a little trio of Gaki-students one day, too...

Eishi snickered and in a moment of unexpected companionship, nudged her arm with his elbow. "Did you see that? Shikamaru just tried to kiss her!"

"Liar! No way!" But still Mai peeked back down, taking another bite of grapefruit, snickering silently when she noticed Shikamaru's irritated expression, close enough to Temari to poke her in the back. Temari had bent over to look over-at what looked like exactly the wrong time- something weird looking- a venus flytrap. Mai hadn't seen one before. "Oh Kami!"

Eishi shifted his crouch for a better look, readjusting the fan on his back and hefting it up.

Mai wasn't really sure what to think of Eishi.

He was an ass, a jerk, a follower that said scathing words rehearsed with all his buddies, a bully that had used his physical strength to intimidate a little five year old girl half his size until they were both seven and Mai learned how to punch people in the face. Then he had seemed to realize, oh shit this girl is fucking scary and tried to leave her alone, but he'd been blacklisted.

And now, after almost five years of bitter, violent, overly excessive, colorful rivalry, they were...

... teammates.

Which sucked majorly. But there were moments like this, where Eishi seemed almost friendly, almost like he didn't remember that two days before the Genin initiation ceremony when she'd filled his body wash with plant fibers from Fumiko's supply store and turned him bright green until he'd gone meekly to Lady Chiyo to get his skin turned back to champagne tan.

It confused her but also she didn't really care, as long as he wasn't screwing with her or her family any more. Mai took another bite of grapefruit. Temari straightened and clocked Shikamaru in the face with the butt of her fan, then flushed when she realized she'd knocked him over and hurried to help him back up.

Oh, she was so getting a picture of his black eye later.

...

~ "My... nindo?"~

...

Fumiko had to say that the balcony was one of her favorite places.

It was wide and spacious, set so that the buildings blended with the crags and hulking stones of sanded rock and it was hard to tell one from the other. It was built near the outskirts of the village, where the rocks ringed the inner parts of the walls, a totally illogical place that was absolutely silent except for the hissing breaths of hot breezes.

Here, higher in the air, almost level with the tops of mini-thin mountains and craggy houses but still several feet below them, the sand was thick in the air so that she could feel it on her skin when she moved. Her eyes were no longer bothered by it. It made the sky seem warm, her lungs dry and hollowed out, like she had room still for more hearts, more feelings, more thoughts.

Gaara was with her too, and they were both lounging at the edge, Gaara ramrod-straight like he always was, but his eyes were relaxed and his hands loose at his side; Fumiko herself was leaning with her elbows on the metal railing, and they were both gazing off into the dancing air.

It wasn't often they came out here; usually there were patrollers about, or they just plain didn't have any time. But there was a meeting planned today, and for some reason, all of Gaara's other duties had been suspended for the day, despite the fact that the meeting was only supposed to last an hour or so.

But this was a great thing with great timing, because tomorrow was Saturday, Gaara's day off. And boy did they have things planned- a full day of fun and play, ice cream, movies, wandering around the village, walking through the desert, making sand castles, playing catch with a ball, and after all of that? Whatever else they could think of.

Fumiko was now the only one that could fit on their swings, and even then she was really getting too big. Fumiko was four foot ten, more or less, and about as thin as was healthy. Gaara was at least six inches taller than her, five four, maybe five-five, and he was more solid than he had used to be, with broader shoulders and a thicker torso. He was still skinny as well, but no longer twiggish like herself.

Usually Gaara just liked to watch her swing, anyway, and admitted it was like watching a bird trying to take flight, which Fumiko always thought was hilarious, and said she was like a bat.

Fumiko preened with the sun beating down on her shoulders and face and seeped into her hair, warming her back, and her hands were hot under her elbows which were also hot, and a little red too from exposure to the whipping sandy breezes. She tilted her head up slightly and leaned back with her feet on the rail so that her chin rested on her arms.

"The sun is like a big blanket," she said.

"Is it?"

"Yeah."

"How so?" Now Gaara squinted up at the sky, where lazy, dying wisps of clouds tried to travel before disintegrating halfway across.

"It makes everything warm," Fumiko said thoughtfully, staring directly at it until it turned less yellow and more black, the sun a sunspot in her vision, ironically enough. "And it makes everything a different color, like it's covering us." She paused, Gaara said nothing. "Like a big, big blanket that covers the whole entire world. So it's like... We're all having a stayover under a blanket fort!"

With this realization Fumiko grinned, lifted her head and looked back at her friend, who looked back at her almost quizzically but accepting, smiling slightly and shaking his head minutely.

Footsteps sounded nearby, harsh against the sand-filled floor. Fumiko looked a little farther than Gaara's black-ringed cerulean blue eyes and saw Baki, in his cloak that didn't ripple as much as hers because it was more like a cloak than hers, which was kinda like a cape and whipped away from her, while his just shifted like water; like Gaara's robes.

Baki knelt. "Kazekage-sama," he said. "The meeting is about to begin."

"Hi, Baki," Fumiko said, then pointed to the sky. "Did you ever think the sun is like a blanket?"

Baki spared her an almost confused glance, and then looked back to Gaara. He wasn't being rude, Fumiko knew, he just wasn't a very outside the box thinker; Baki preferred the rules over weird things. Plus, he was being professional.

Gaara's eyes slid back. Gaara of course didn't have three hundred and sixty degree vision, he couldn't actually see Baki standing there looking up at the sun like he was seriously considering Fumiko's blanket theory, it was just a habit he had. Gaara sensed Baki.

"Very well," he said. "I'll see you later, alright, Fumiko?"

Fumiko puffed out a breath of laughter. "Okay, Gaa-ra."

Gaara slinked off like a ninja with Baki, seeming to somehow dissolve into their surroundings despite their bright white clothes. Fumiko was left alone on the balcony, sand crunching between her teeth, hair and cloak swirling out to the side, head tilting curiously back up at the sun in the sudden silence.

"Just like a blanket..."

...

~"Your ninja way. Or, I suppose in your case, your way of life."~

...

After Gaara's appointment to Kazekage, Kankuro had thrown himself into the task of weeding out potential backstabbers, traitors, and idiots. Now there were not only more people included in every Head meeting, but those added were younger as well. Technically many of them had already previously been considered advisors, but hadn't made it into being included in any of the current Head meetings until now, give that they had been the Fourth's advisors.

This place, the Head room, was actually called the 'Kazekage's office'. This was due to the row of five stone statues that were just a little bit unsettling; the figures and faces and probing eyes of all of Sunagakure's Kages- even himself- stared at them accusingly. All five of them were carved in regal positions, features made sharper by the trails of sunlight that filtered in through the many small round windows dotting the single round, unbroken wall.

"Over the last few years, our village has enjoyed stability and prosperity, largely due to our dealings with the hidden villages of the Allied lands." Baki flipped a page over the top of his clipboard and glanced up and the round circle of them sitting at their table. "To give a few examples of this... our recruits are better trained, thanks to new training methods. Methods learned from the Leaf village."

Joseki frowned almost imperceptibly, mouth thinning into a straight line. "We'll see how much better they are," he said, raising a hand to hover by his face, as though he was planning to rest his chin on the back of his hand. "The Chuunin exams are almost upon us."

"Correct," Yura said, leaning forward on his elbows. "And that's why these nasty rumors are especially troubling right now."

"Rumors, Yura?"

"Yes, sir," Yura said calmly, looking Baki hard in the face impassively. It was easy for him to look impassive with his hair covering almost half of his face. Gaara looked at him, curious himself. Rumors? "Have you ever heard of a group called the Akatsuki?"

Akatsuki. The name sounded vaguely familiar, like the lyrics of an old song he hadn't heard in a year or two. Gaara blinked slowly, trying to recall the thought once more, but it was useless. Whoever the Akatsuki were, they couldn't be too dangerous... they hadn't stirred any noticeable trouble.

"The Akatsuki is a mysterious organization comprised of a dozen or so shinobi. Every one of it's members is listed in the bingo books as ruthless S-ranked criminals. Of those who have been identified, one is Uchiha Itachi of the village hidden in the leaves, a man who annihilated his own clan in a single night. Another is Hoshigaki Kisame, one of the seven ninja swordsmen, the phantom of the mist village. Then there's Orochimaru, the assassin of our late Kazekage, and who came so close to destroying the Leaf. It is said that even he, too, was once a member. "

Gaara's own father had been killed by Orochimaru, as well as Konoha's previous Hokage.

If they were all that powerful... Gaara frowned, an undetectable pressing of his lips. He remained silent, choosing to watch and to listen instead of speak.

"I see," Baki said at last, twining his fingers together. "Yes, I've heard something of this myself recently. So..." Baki said, almost to himself, hands tightening. "They're finally making their move."

"We have this information from one of the legendary Sannin," Yura continued. "Master Jiraiya himself."

Gaara glanced quickly in his direction.

Naruto?

"So, before this meeting was convened, I took the liberty of ordering the village to be secured." Yura nodded to himself. "And I've stationed ANBU Black Ops at key points on the perimeter. No matter how clever these shinobi may be, if they hope to take us by surprise, they're mistaken. We've heard that they often wear distinctive black cloaks emblazoned with red clouds. If our lookouts spot such a cloak, they've been ordered by me to attack at once."

There was murmuring throughout the room as this was taken in, turned around and analyzed. It was good initiative on his advisor's part to protect against any pending attacks on the village... but Gaara couldn't help but wonder why. Why had Jiraiya the Toad Sage, training with Naruto, taken the time to warn Suna of such a group?

What did they have to do with Suna? As Baki had mentioned, they had been through a very recent cloud of peace, but they weren't exactly a rich Hidden Village, nor- unfortunately but also unavoidably- were they a very powerful one. So what about this village hidden in the sand have that caught the attention of a group of criminals like Orochimaru?

Gaara was getting a very, very bad feeling about this. His former musings that Akatsuki wouldn't be much of a noticeable threat evaporated like water.

"Very well, then." Baki dipped his head. "This meeting is adjourned."

As the other Heads rose to make their exit, Gaara leaned back in his wide, curving, really hard and uncomfortable chair, arms crossed, thinking.

...

~"Oh! Hinata and Uzumaki Naruto have the same nindo! I remember that now. What's yours?"~

...

Satomi materialized into almost complete darkness.

The inside of the cave was partially submerged in the river outside, giving off a damp chill. Satomi sneezed, rubbing her nose with one hand and glancing around, wondering for a moment if Deidara had seriously meant to lead her here.

Always with the dank dark caves, she thought irritability.

Deidara had found her wandering not too far from this particular area watching fish swim down a river from the trees, claiming that the Akatsuki requested her assistance immediately. He'd brought her farther down the river, maybe a mile or so, to this cave.

Satomi started slightly, startled, when the staticky, multicolored image of Pein shimmered to life in front of her. Automatically she started to reach out to summon her sword, then paused at the familiar voice.

"We require your assistance," he said plainly.

"You are going to need to be a slight bit more specific, Leader-sama." Satomi drawled out, blinking slowly. She lowered her sword arm. "And that is new."

"You are aware that we have been collecting the nine tailed beasts," Pein said. "Now we are pursuing the One-tails-"

"You mean Shukaku."

"... Yes."

"All right. So what do you need assistance with?"

"A few things. First of all, as you might have noticed, none of us Akatsuki members are physically here, aside from Deidara and Sasori, who will be heading out shortly to obtain Shukaku."

"So, you are saying you need me to fortify the area, if I assume correctly?"

"Indeed. As well as sealing this cave against all but the members of Akatsuki's chakras, we would like your assistance in actually locating the jinchuuriki of the One-tails Shukaku, using your teleportation jutsu."

"Not a problem. But I would require some more information on the jinchuuriki and their location, as well as any allies that may try to stop us."

Pein's illusion jutsu nodded. "This particular jinchuuriki resides in Sunagakure. Sasori would know more of him from his sleeper agents."

Sasori melted seemingly from the darkened shadow of the cave. He was wearing one of his more offensive puppets now in preparation of the coming fight. "The jinchuuriki of Suna fights with sand."

"Well that would be a given, since he does host Shukaku. I was referring more to what he looks like," Satomi said in a slightly sharper tone.

"He is the only citizen of Suna, shinobi or no, with red hair." Sasori answered, unruffled. "He often wears a gourd of sand on his back for a jutsu known as the Ultimate Defense."

"Understood." Satomi thought for a moment. "Now, what about his allies? Is there anyone in particular that I should look out for?"

There was a splash behind her as Deidara finally caught up to them, stepping across the water to the solid part of the cave. He stepped up onto hard rock and sighed loudly. He must have heard her, because he picked up where Sasori left off. "The jinchuuriki supposedly has a couple of siblings and a lover, hmph. One is a puppet master of sorts. The other uses tessenjutsu. His girlfriend shouldn't be much trouble to you, though, hmph. She's supposed to be some kind of crippled artist, not that I've seem any of her work."

Cripple... Satomi thought. Artist...

Kami damn it.

"Would..." Satomi said, then hesitated. "Would the jinchuuriki... Happen to be the Kazekage as well?"

"I believe so, yes," Sasori said, shooting Deidara an irritated glare for interrupting. "Why?"

"Well... I... did go there once," Satomi said quickly. "And I did run into the Kazekage. Who has red hair. I thought his chakra felt off."

Satomi's mind was whirling. The crippled artist girl with brown hair and brown eyes and chocolate chip cookies, Fumiko, had spoken of her best friend- Gaara, the Fifth Kazekage. Satomi wanted to clench her fists and break something, but she managed to keep her facial expression carefully checked into a neutral position.

This is just my luck, Satomi thought angrily. I finally make a friend, and now I have to kill her boyfriend. She was such a sweet girl, too...

Satomi knew that innocence such as hers wouldn't last very long. She knew that Fumiko's friendliness and easy attachment to others would either get her killed or broken someday.

She just hadn't thought she would be the one to have to shatter it.

...

~"To be a splendid ninja, even without the use of Genjutsu or ninjutsu! That is my ninja way!"~

...

Fumiko leaned back on his empty desk with her elbows. "But you got retired for the day."

"I know," Gaara said, "And I apologize."

"Hum... it's fine. I have to finish my staff anyway."

Gaara flinched. "I'm sorry-"

"Ne, ne, really, Gaara, it's fine." Fumiko laughed, looking up and craning her neck so that the top of her head touched his desk and she was looking at her boyfriend upside-down. Her hair slid across the wood, shuffling papers. "I'm not mad. And we can always hang out tomorrow."

"You're upset," he muttered.

"No, I'm not."

"Yes you are."

"Nuh-uh. Am not. Maybe I'm a little disappointed, but I don't smile when I'm upset." Fumiko took her elbows off the desk, lying on it completely, and poked her cheeks at the corners. "Seeee?"

"... Are you sure?"

"Yup. I'll see you tonight, though, yeah?"

"Yes. I'll... be home."

Fumiko flipped back around so that she was upright, hands on his desk, then grinned and leaned closer, nuzzling his nose with hers before he could react or pull away. "Okay."

"Okay," he murmured back, flushing but smiling hesitantly. "I swear I'll be back home on time. Early, even."

"Promise?"

"I promise."

"Yay." Fumiko straightened. "Promise, promise. You sure you don't want help?"

"No... you can go work if you want to."

"Alright, Gaara." She smiled again. "I'll see you later!"

...

~Fumiko laughed. Lee smiled a little sheepishly.~

...

Her weapon was done. It was a majorly short Bo staff fragment, merely her arm's length, and even then the tip- no longer than her palm- was solid metal and unscrewed. The tip of iron was attached to a length of a small, terribly strong chain, with about a foot and a half of length past the unscrewed tip of the staff, and she could spin it and catch things with it and clock things with it, much like Matsuri's Dojo, except even screwed together it was a crushing weapon.

That bit of metal at the end could deal serious damage.

Fumiko was in the process now of carving her name in careful kanji toward the other end, which was bladed. It was only bladed because Temari, Mai, and every other kunoichi she'd brought it up with insisted she put in a handleless kunai blade into the other end like a spear, so if she flipped it, it was a stabby-weapon.

Fumiko dug one last deep flourish to the kanji and then sighed contentedly, putting it aside and brushing the wood shavings off of her lap. Then she stood to continue working on her 'rehabilitation.'

After the incident with the intruder at her studio, setting back up had been a long journey. Fixing the windows and cleaning up the bloodstains and spilled paint hadn't taken very long at all- even if there were fades patches of green and red and yellow and blue scattered around the floor- but the real problem had been her ruined art pieces.

Instead of throwing it away, Fumiko was rebuilding them, in a sense. She was going through the tedious process of cutting away the unruined strips of painted canvases and repasting them with watered-down glue onto new canvas in abstract collages of the original pictures.

Some of them were mixed up, different parts of two pictures that hadn't had enough salvageable material to recreate a new one. Now she had mixes of charcoal and watercolors, oils and colored pencils, wax crayon flowers and plain calligraphy dragons.

Fumiko gripped her exacto blade, which was kind of like a civilian's version of a senbon needle with a handle, sharp all around, and cut a circle of dirt out the painting of a river foam, which was raggedy and ground in and unusable.

...

~"So, what is yours?"~

...

Gaara leaned back in his chair, swiveling it around.

Probably for the first time since he had become Godaime Kazekage, Gaara had finished all of his assigned work. This might have been due to the fact that Fumiko had brought the problem of his teenaged assistants to Kankuro, and the two of them insisted on screening better candidates, but still...

It felt nice to look at an empty desk, holding only a few thick inventory and census records that he could go over tomorrow.

I'll definitely be able to go home on time, Gaara thought, gazing up at the blistering noonday sun through his window. Sunlight washed his skin with liquid gold, and tiny particles of sand danced in the air, just apparent to his vision. That will make Fumiko happy...

A flash of white caught the corner of his eye.

...

~She paused. "I dunno," Fumiko admitted with a shrug. "I've never thought about it before I guess."~

...

Satomi ran through the village under the cover of darkness, bent low to avoid detection by the various patrol guards she had seen dotting the rooftops. She could easily have jumped from place to place with her Black Ash Transfer technique, but she needed time to think.

Satomi was not invulnerable. She knew that much. Maybe, if she was lucky and depending on which one, she could take out one, perhaps two members of the Akatsuki, but if they all came after her at once, she would undoubtedly die.

If she died, her entire village would be at the mercy of the Akatsuki for three days, which would be more than enough time for them to destroy it. And the Akatsuki would certainly- perhaps a little sadly, but certainly- have tried to kill her if she had attempted to deny the mission and warn Sunagakure of the coming danger.

But she couldn't just assist Akatsuki in destroying the jinchuuriki. She didn't want to hurt her tentatively new friend like that. Even though she would easily be able to locate Gaara's unusual chakra and already had a fairly good idea about where the Kazekage would be, Satomi went through the motions of checking various areas away from the large looming tower in the center or the studio a fifteen minute's walk away from it.

Satomi's lips pursed slightly. The only option left after eliminating 'refuse to help' and 'help' was to help as minimally as possible, and somehow try to warn them of the attack before it happened and give Fumiko and Gaara a chance to escape rather than fight.

Gaara likely wouldn't listen to her and would go out to fight the moment she told him of a coming attack on his village, especially because he wouldn't trust her very much both as a stranger and as the one who had teleported into his lover's workplace.

But, if she could convince Fumiko to talk him into hiding, it would thwart the invasion. Likely Satomi would be able to report back to Pein that the jinchuuriki was gone.

Decision made, Satomi activated her teleportation technique.

...

~"Come on- you have to have a way of life! Knowing who you are is an important part of Youth!"~

...

Fumiko put down the blade and picked up the canvas she'd glued scraps of paintings all over and held it up to the moonlight shining through the many windows of her studio.

She smiled at it and stood, heaving to her feet and turning to the wall she'd been sitting against to hang it up. Now there were quite a few of these recycled paintings up on the walls- pretty soon, Fumiko was sure she would be done using as much of the ruined artwork as possible.

She'd barely straightened it out against the wall when she heard, "Fumiko-san! Are you in here?"

"Ne?" Fumiko said disbelievingly, smile growing on her face as she turned around. "Satomi?What are you doing here?"

Satomi hadn't changed at all. Well, neither had she, but Fumiko hadn't seen Satomi since before Mai was sent away for ANBU training.

She was standing in the center of Fumiko's studio floor, a few black particles of ashy darkness still coming together around her from her teleportation-style jutsu. Her face was strangely serious, set into a determined expression.

Her dark red hair was just as red, and nothing about the length of it had changed. Fumiko's own hair had grown an inch or two, but nothing about Satomi had changed at all, not her hair or her black eyes or her pale skin.

"Listen," she said, and strode across the room in a few quick strides to take her by the shoulders. "We don't have much time. So please don't interrupt me when I tell you this."

"Okay."

"Currently, two missing-nin from a group called the Akatsuki are going to show up in your village in an hour at the most, or perhaps much less. I do not know exactly how long it would take them on his clay bird. And..." Satomi paused. "They are after Gaara."

"The Akatsuki?" Fumiko yelped. "I know about the Akatsuki a little bit... But, why would they be after Gaara? Satomi, what's going on?"

"I know this is sudden, but you need to get Gaara out of the village. Does Sunagakure have any sort of evacuation area?"

"What?" Fumiko was confused now, holding Satomi's wrists and pulling them off her shoulders. "Gaara's the Kazekage, he can't-"

"There's no time! Both of you are in danger! If they find him before you do, all is lost for him. The Akatsuki do not fail. I myself am supposed to be helping them with this mission, but-"

"You? Satomi-"

"Listen to me! You need to find Gaara-san and-"

Suddenly, there were intense reverberations through the air. The sounds came from directly above them, outside, but close. The windowpanes rattled slightly. Fumiko looked up, startled.

"What was that?"

"Damn it," Satomi swore softly. "It is too late. Fumiko-san... I am truly sorry."

The air in front of her shimmered with blackness, the solid flesh held in her fingers dissolving like clouds of dark stardust into nothing. Satomi looked at her, once, just before the flakes of black reached her neck and head.

That look was apologetic and pained and angry all at the same time. Her eyes were shadowed and her lips pressed together so tightly they were white. Satomi's face, however, was drawn and accepting.

It scared her.

"Wait! Sato-"

Satomi vanished entirely.

Fumiko stood there for just another moment, eyes wide, fingers holding nothing just above her shoulder blades. Then she remembered the explosion from above- that was all it could have been- and turned quickly to her storage room.

The building, as she might have mentioned before, was built strangely, without second or third floors, only one floor and a lot of negative space and windows. But the walls were also made thickly and hollow- as though originally the builders had meant to add a corridor with stairs that led to those multiple floors.

The corridor and the staircase still existed, only now it was more like the entrance to an attic. If you pulled the flap of ceiling down above the little mattress she sometimes slept on, a small staircase would unfold, leading into complete darkness in the space between the wall.

Fumiko yanked on that trapdoor's thin leather string and stepped back when the ladder came down. As soon as it finished moving, she hefted herself onto the first step and began to climb.

It was a long climb. Not as long as it took to climb the stairs of the Tower, but now she was climbing the length of the her studio's building, and it took her a while to get to the top. When she finally did, she pushed open the trapdoor and heaved herself out.

She stood, brushing off her knees as she did, and glanced around until her eyes landed on the site of the explosion and froze, hands flying to her mouth.

Fumiko stared down at the blotch of red like the beginnings of an abstract seeping out across the roof. Only now it was coming from the neck of a man with bloodstained clothes and... and... and...

And he had no head.

There were bits of it here and there, with part of an eye still seeping clear fluid inches from her foot, and there was brain; a cerebral cortex chunk by the solar-panels, a piece of a medulla almost falling off the edge, swinging in the breeze, pinkish-gray and bloody, oh Kami it was everywhere.

There was nothing to heal here. Fumiko's blood pounded in her ears, her hands shook; raised in front of her mouth, and there were tears in her eyes and bile in her throat, rising, rising-... but she couldn't puke, she couldn't, Satomi's strange words were smashing through her ears like glass-tipped migraines-

"Currently, two missing-nin from a group called the Akatsuki are going to show up in your village in an hour at the most, or perhaps much less."

"If they find him before you do, all is lost for him. The Akatsuki do not fail. I myself am supposed to be helping them with this mission, but-"

Fumiko took no time to wonder who this man was or what he had been doing on her studio's roof with a pair of binoculars, just turned and fled back down the stairs, slamming the trapdoor above her with enough force to rattle the stairs attached, trembling fingers sliding the bolt.

As she clambered down the stairs, don'tthrowupdon'tyou'reamedic, there was a sudden sharp pain in her neck as the fishline pulled taught and the charm jerked sideways like it was possessed.

Fumiko froze, halfway down the wall, breathing hard and clutching the rungs, staring at the pulling walnut hovering in front of her eyes, straining to free itself, to respond to an unspoken command.

"They are after Gaara."

It tugged again, and Fumiko's muscles unfroze and she rushed down the stairs.

...

~"Hmm... My nindo... My way of life..." Fumiko chewed her lip thoughtfully, shifting her weight a little and bringing up a hand to tug on her necklace. Lee looked at her with wide eyes, expectant. "... I guess... to be happy. And to make other people happy. Yes."~

...

Fumiko tore through her studio, accidentally knocking over an easel, but the painting of starlight was dry, so she could assume it was okay when she heard it crash to the ground behind her.

She ripped the door open and almost, almost ran out the door, medical pouch's strap clutched in her fingers.

Fumiko almost was taken out by a flash of white and gold and then a rush of sand that blurred a few inches from her, ruffling her clothes violently with a gust of wind that pushed her back inside onto her back. Fumiko hit the floor hard, but scrambled back up and outside the door, staring with wide eyes after the trailing tail of sand.

Her charm tugged insistently in the direction of the Tower; Fumiko gripped it in one hand and closed the door behind her, dashing off down the now eerily empty streets, her footsteps echoing through the alleyways, pulsing with ancient sounding spring creaks of her prosthetic like squealing violin strings.

Fumiko passed nobody on her way, it was getting dark after all, and everyone was either eating dinner or just trying to beat the sun. Usually at this time, vendors would have been crowding the streets, but something was wrong, there was a tension in the air. Fumiko had missed something, and she had a feeling it had to do with that white and yellow-gold streak that smelled just like fresh, wet clay.

The shades were drawn on the street windows. Fumiko noted this dully as she thumped through the village, a few more minutes and she would be there, and would tell Gaara about the man on her roof, and he would explain the use of his ultimate defense, why her necklace was cutting ridges in her skin trying to escape from her.

The charm shot vertical into the air, and Fumiko had to grab like a madwoman to keep it from flying right off her neck. It fought her, straining against her fingers, but there wasn't enough of it to take her with it and she managed to yank it back down.

Fumiko looked up, eyes wide to the point of bulging, and saw sand in the air.

Her eyes traced the yellow lines to a single spot of gold-yellow. Gaara's suspension technique hovered high above the village, sand tracking after something white, the same white that had nearly taken her head off in the streets, the same sand thrashing through the air.

Gaara was fighting.

As she watched, the sand began to shift and tremble below her feet, and then everywhere, all around her and throughout the village huge pillars of sand began to rise, up into the sky, melting into an airborne tsunami, the biggest tsunami Gaara had ever produced before.

Fumiko had to duck, weave, jump, and drop to stay on the ground and not get pulled away. Finally Gaara had pulled enough, had what he needed, and it stopped, and the buildings were considerably taller now, the ground five or six feet lower than it had been seconds before.

Fumiko struggled to her feet, hand against a wall, and then steadied herself. She took a breath, held down her charm, and continued on to the Tower.

...

~Lee blinked. "That is it?"~

...

It was dark by the time she made it, heaving and staggering, to the Tower doors. It had been dark before, but now it was dark, and the temperature was dropping by the second.

Fumiko opened the huge doors and stepped inside, pants swirling through the silent, stagnant warm air inside, and made a beeline for the stairs.

The Tower was tall and it took a while to get to the top. Fumiko rushed past many of the servants and maids and ninja filtering about, along with one man from the Land of Birds that was staying for a mission request, who glared sourly at her when she accidentally knocked the glass from his hands. She picked it up for him with shaky hands before running again.

Fumiko could run now. At least, sort of. There was still a sixty to seventy percent chance that she would fall at any given time, and it was a limping, loping gait, but she could run, and she ran until her lungs burned, ran until she almost tripped backwards down the stairs, ran through the main floor and the mission floor and the servant's quarters floor and the floor for the guest rooms, and the main hall where she lived, and the smallest floor on the top, which was less like a round, wraparound hall and more like a single room, with a wall cutting it in half.

The left side of the topmost floor held the aviary, and the right side, empty save for a staircase to a catwalk across the ceiling, in front of the door to the roof.

Fumiko ran one more time to the stairs and clung to the rungs, clambering up, struggling to keep her prosthetic from slipping off the stairs, all the way to the top. The hollow metal clanged loudly and emptily through the room. Behind her, she could swear she heard the door to the aviary slam open.

Fumiko made it to the top, pulled herself onto the catwalk, and opened the door, rushing outside.

Kankuro was here, along with several others that she recognized, all of them here on the roof of the Tower, staring up at the sky. Mechanically, like a robot, she looked up.

There was an arm in the air now, Shukaku's clawed hand, chasing after what she saw now to be... a bird? A really strange looking white bird, with hollow eyes, and there was the gold, the hair on some rider with a black cloak.

Fumiko's thoughts were scattered by a ferocious bang, a hysterical explosion sound followed shortly and swiftly by yellow fire, swallowing Gaara's hasty circle of sand, angry red fire with an angry explosion that made her cover her ears and her legs shake, and made a lot of things shake.

"Gaara!" Fumiko's scream mingled with Kankuro's, and a few shinobi jerked around in surprise at her breathless cry, only to look back to the skies when they recognized her.

The explosion covered up the moon like a second sun, heat blazing, and then even the flower of fire was swallowed by a cloud of smoke, harsh gray smoke that Fumiko could smell even from her vantage point on the roof, and it made her eyes smart and water.

The smoke blotted out the moonlight and starlight for a second before it finally faded back into darkness, like the residue from fireworks, slowly; like a burning Suna cloud. It faded to reveal Gaara's ultimate defense, a big yellow-brown ball in the sky.

The rest of the sand, apparently forgotten by the intruder- because that's what he had to be, an intruder, an attacker, an infiltrator- moulding into claws and a palm and closing, closing, ready to crush him and his bird into dust.

Suddenly, as it closed, Fumiko connected the dots between the infiltrator and the explosion and the dead man on her roof.

Her mind worked on its own. Long-range explosive user. But what kind of explosives did he use? Chakra-based, or actual bombs? No, it would have to be chakra-based, there was no way someone would use or be able to accurately throw bombs at Gaara of the desert.

If she could see him clearer, then maybe she would be able to identify him, but in the air like that-

Enveloped by sand.

"It's all over," Kankuro said finally.

Now there were two spheres in the air, roughly the same size. Only now did the smoke and the impression of it completely fade, leaving behind a sour smell in the air. The shinobi around her sighed with relief, muttering among themselves with shaky voices.

"Leave it to the Kazekage!"

"Yeah. As long as we have Kazekage-sama, Sunagakure will be fine!"

Now, in the quiet of the seemingly finished battle, Fumiko stepped up behind Kankuro.

"Kankuro, what's going on?"

"I don't know," he answered tightly. "But that guy's Akatsuki."

"Akatsuki?" Fumiko gasped back.

"I was curious to know... if you knew anything about an organization of nuke-nin known as the Akatsuki. Gaara should know of it by now."

"Yeah."

"Are you sure?"

"Yeah. The cloak is a dead giveaway."

"... The Akatsuki?"

"Yes, the Akatsuki. I've been tracking them for a while. The trail got cold a while before the Land of Wind, but since we were close..."

"I'm sorry," Fumiko said apologetically. "But I don't know anything about them. Gaara doesn't really talk much about nuke-nin, and that kind of thing. Why?"

Jiraiya sighed. "I figured as much."

"As far as I know..." Fumiko thought back to every bingo book she'd flipped through in the library- the missing-nin of Sunagakure. "Uh, the only recent defection from Suna was someone named Sasori. He defected, maybe fifteen, twenty years ago?"

Jiraiya nodded. "Alright."

"Jiraiya, these Akatsuki, what's it about?"

"I'm not sure." Jiraiya thought for a moment. "Who's in charge of defenses here?"

"Suna here? Uh... Captain Yura, I think, but-"

"C'mon, Naruto," Jiraiya said, making to leave.

"Aww, but Pervy sage-"

"Wait, you're leaving? But you just got here!"

"Naruto!"

"Whatever. See you soon, Fumiko-chan! It was nice seeing you again!"

"Why were you after the Akatsuki, Uzumaki Naruto?" Fumiko murmured to herself. "Why are they after you... Gaara?"

"Hold on-!" Kankuro hissed.

At that exact moment, another bright explosion rocked the sky. The second sphere rumbled with smoke and tongues of flame, and that blew half of it apart; and a body was flung from it, the attacker, the rider, the intruder. The sand chased him through the air above their heads, rocketing towards the ground.

It grabbed something, his cloak, his foot maybe, and flung him back towards the busted, reforming sphere, and it tried to close around him. There was a puff of smoke, and something with the likeness of an owl pulled back, hard, just before it closed, wings flapping like crazy as it escaped.

A claw peeled away to give chase, quickly followed by more as the sphere unraveled itself after the flying target. Fumiko had to wonder who he was, why he was so intent on fighting Gaara... or was it Shukaku? Did he want to fight Shukaku, like Seimei had? Or want it's power?

The owl careened through the sky, barely staying ahead of the tendrils of clawed sand zipping after him. It was harder to see in the dark, but the owl was a stark white and the sand was bright.

"What an idiot," Kankuro said. The scowl on his face had morphed into a smirk. "There isn't a man alive that can escape Gaara's sand."

Fumiko had to agree. Yes, they got out of his killing attacks sometimes, but aside from Lee, nobody had ever lived that Gaara had tried to kill. Even then, Lee would have died had Guy not intervened. This Akatsuki member had picked a fight in Gaara's home, and not only was the sand a distinct advantage, but Gaara wouldn't let him anywhere near the villagers.

Streaking tails of sand rushed after the Akatsuki member like a jigsaw puzzle, in and out and back and forth and through each other, working seamlessly together to catch him. Fumiko had to admit, whatever he was flying on, whatever he made, it was fast.

"Kankuro!"

Kankuro turned at Baki's voice behind them. "Yeah? What is it?"

"Where is Gaara-sama? Is he still in battle?"

Fumiko pointed high into the air above her head with her left hand, gazing up as she did so. Her right hand still gripped her charm. "He's up there, Baki. He's fighting."

Baki and those with him looked up, at the sphere of sand that surrounded Gaara and the spears that chased his opponent. A few of them smiled.

"Come on, Gaara." Baki said quietly.

A hole dissolved into Gaara's sphere and the tendrils merged into one long, thin line of sand that chased and spiraled and curled only to close on nothing. The Akatsuki member dodged and spun and sped up at every last second, but eventually it nipped him, the sand on the top, the parts missing from the sphere, and curled in on his skin, up his arm.

Fumiko squinted at the seeping yellow growth climbing up his black sleeved arm. She only managed to see it because she could see the line of sand attached to it.

He moved; something curled around the sand, white, like some kind of snake or bug. It lit up from one end to another in multiple explosions, but when the smoke faded, the sand hadn't even scattered. It was his ultimate defense, after all.

The people around her started cheering.

"Did he get him?" Fumiko asked. "I can't see!"

The air filled with cheers. Fumiko realized, looking around and around, that there were shinobi on every rooftop and balcony, watching the fight, shouting cries of support and awed admiration. She stared at them, lips parting slightly, then smiled.

"Yeah, Fumiko," Kankuro said. "He got him!"

The blond Akatsuki member dove down into the buildings. Fumiko had a hard time tracking him through the hourglass homes, but he was weaving and twisting and turning, trying to... what? Rip his own arm off? That's exactly what he's trying to do, she thought. Gaara, get him, quick!

Too late. He soared overhead, sand trailing away and falling back underneath him. Fumiko couldn't tell against the velvet black of night sky, but he must have lost his arm to the sand... not that he would have been able to salvage it anyway had Gaara's sand somehow released him on it's own, but still...

"Darn it," Baki murmured in an adrenaline-shaken sigh. "He's gotten away."

"He just got lucky," Kankuro muttered. "It won't happen again."

The bird just hovered there for a moment, immobile, observing. It's wings flapped slowly, beating the air with precise strokes in a way that something of it's proportions shouldn't have been able to do.

Gaara's Ultimate Defense sand streaked upwards, and the bird jerked away and around it. The game of cat and mouse continued, Gaara lashing out unpredictably, the bird always fluttering just out of reach when he did so.

"A black cloak with a red cloud pattern..." a scout mused with his binoculars. "The enemy our lord is fighting against is most likely a member of the Akatsuki."

"Yeah, I figured." Kankuro said.

"Kankuro," Baki said urgently after a half second of silence.

Kankuro turned his head to look at the Jonin. "What is it?"

Fumiko kept her eyes on the fight above her. The sand writhed, then shot like an arrow towards the bird, which almost grazed it, coming within a quarter of an inch, but it dodged at the last second. It rushed again and again up at the blond Akatsuki member, who pulled his bird into a sharp left, spiraling, going left and right, up and down, barely avoiding Gaara's attacks.

All she could see was a white blob and yellow streaks, and Gaara's cracked sphere of protection, which was beyond dangerous if the attacker were to throw exposives at the hole, but there wasn't much else he could do in this kind of situation. Fumiko gripped the walnut in her hands, which jerked around, mimicking the fight above.

"Gaara's resorted to his Ultimate Defense up there," Baki said at last. Fumiko's ears twitched, but she kept her eyes on the battle above, tracking the sand's movements. Now the sphere was moving as well, circling across the moon in sync with his opponent. "I think it's safe to assume this enemy he's facing is a serious threat."

Whoosh, whoosh; and her pendant almost jerked her off her feet, but she stayed upright.

"... We can't rule out the possibility of Gaara losing control." Fumiko flinched, surprised, as did Kankuro. "The Shukaku could be unleashed. And our people will be in danger."

"Hmph. You won't have to worry about that. I know Gaara would never harm the people of this village. Not ever."

Fumiko sidestepped, turning just a beat to face Gaara's former pseudo-sensei, pulling her eyes away from the fight to stare at him. Baki of all people should have known- should have known that Gaara would never, never...

All around her there were cheers of support, people calling out to their Kazekage. They all believed in him. Fumiko believed in him. Kankuro believed in him. Just like Gaara had always wanted... to be cherished and respected and trusted.

To be needed.

Fumiko looked back up to the sky and yelled, "Gaara!"

...

~Fumiko beamed. "Yep! To be happy and to make the people around me happy- that's my nindo!"~

...

For just a fraction of a second, something flitted over the Jinchuriki's face. It was gone before Deidara could truly figure out what it had been, but it had been, just a flicker of emotion in his ruthlessly determined, emotionless eyes.

Deidara allowed himself a split second to glance down and see what the source of it was, that girlish cry that was so different from all the other blathers, a single word. No 'Kazekage-sama', no 'Lord', just one name with no honorifics. It must have been the One Tails' host's name. 'Gaara.'

He clicked his camera on, then dodged a wave of sand. The vision focused, then blurred again, then focused once more as it adjusted to his movement, zooming in on that voice, which called out again, "Gaara!"

Snap! Picture taken. Zoom in on the face, Snap! Brown hair, Snap! Brown eyes. Snap! Thin figure with no real curves to speak of. Snap! Hands clutching at something that seemed to try to fly away from her, at the base of her neck. Snap, snap! Interesting prosthetic in place of her left foot. Snap!

She was staring up at them, eyes weirdly hard, not in an intense way. It was more like she was ridiculously pleased, determined, confident in her Kazekage's victory. Stupid kid, Deidara thought, sticking a hand in his pouch.

Who was she, though? To summon emotion in an emotionless face just by calling out a name?

Oh.

Deidara smirked and avoided yet another vice claw of sand.

I see.

...

~"But how can you be certain you will be happy all the time?"~

...

"Summon the council. Immediately!" Baki barked to his squad of shinobi.

"Yes sir!" A fwish of wind as he jumped straight up to an adjoining building.

"You- take two squads and secure the reservoir. Now!"

"Sir!"

He left.

"Seal the roads in Sector A!"

"Yes sir!"

"There may be more than one enemy. Now I don't care what happens; I want all of you poised and ready! Medical corp! Start setting up a barrier, and get all non-combatants inside of it, on the double! I don't want to hear of a single casualty, is that clear?"

If the reservoir was destroyed, Suna would be in ruins. The reservoir had stood since Sunagakure's founding, and although it had needed repairs every now and again, it had always stood, and filtered the meager spring underground. Without it the water would simply seep into the sand and make mud, much like the sand around it that her and Gaara had made sand castles in; the little water that had escaped.

It made sense that he would order it defended. In the time it would take to build a new one, Suna would be in a state of panic. It also made sense to protect the civilians and Genin.

But why did Baki need the Elders?

Shinobi streamed about as his orders caught like wildfire, running through the streets. Fumiko realized her own mother would be helping with the barrier, and that if worse came to worse she herself would be called upon to press back into Medic Corps.

"We're here for you, Gaara," Baki said quietly, then looked up at the sky, face set with determination. "Yes; we're here for the Lord Kazekage!"

"Hang in there," Kankuro almost whispered.

...

~"I just know that I will be. I mean, how can I not?" Fumiko brushed a stray lock of hair behind her ear, still smiling. "My life is amazing."~

...

"I think your friends are about to butt in here," the man with the clay creation observed. "And besides... I'm tired of that expressionless face of yours."

He opened his hands, released whatever explosive creature he had formed with the mouths on his palms. Gaara tensed, preparing for attack, sand whirling about him and behind the Akatsuki member on the clay bird.

It flew out, hovered slightly in the space between them, and then expanded with a puff of smoke and a sound with searing light that Gaara almost mistook for the explosion itself. It unfurled what looked like giant wings, with empty holes for eyes and a wide, gaping mouth. It looked almost like a nun, or perhaps a monk.

Gaara's eyes widened at the sheer size of it. An explosive of that size, compared to the explosions of it's smaller counterparts, would have enough force to-

No.

The wings lifted slightly, like it was waving farewell, and then it dropped straight down like a weighted stone toward the village, course set for the tiny roof of the Tower far, far below them. Gaara's lips parted, nothing but a rush of air escaping.

The man with the clay bird snickered at his expression. "That was a doll molded from detonating clay chewed up by my palm, and loaded with chakra. It's a specialty of mine... full of C-3, the most powerful chakra I possess. It's destructive power is my masterpiece!"

The shinobi so far below them, those who had not even joined the fight yet, began to scatter away from the doll as it gained speed, rushing towards the ground.

Gaara's sight was so, so clear. In fact, it was almost better than perfect, enhanced in a way by the demon inside of him, just like his other senses. And so he could see with perfect clarity the expression on his friends' faces; Kankuro squinting up at it, Baki opening his mouth, Fumiko reaching for the binoculars limp in another's hand, one hand raised to shade her eyes so she could try to see better.

There was a single dull heartbeat.

Fumiko! Gaara thought suddenly, wildly, the village!

He jerked his fingers. The sand pulled and strained against his weaning power but obeyed him, barely; and the Shukaku was fighting him more and more as Gaara grew weaker, laughing; trying to kill them all, but that was the least of Gaara's worries- he didn't care about the demon.

Sweat broke out on his face and neck, his lungs froze mid-breath; Gaara could feel the chakra burning through and out of him faster than he could handle it, searing through his coils through the invisible connection he had with the sand, move, move, move.

There was a flash of white-gold light.

The bomb exploded.

...

~"But what about everything else? Hope, fear, anger, sadness, determination, the passion of Youth?"~

...

The sky lit up gold, and then the village, outlined in white so starkly that for a single precious, silent second, the world looked monochrome, white burning away the shadows, heat melting consciousness.

Then there was a bang, and the sound of the explosion set in, rumbling the roof of the building under her feet, her home; it rattled Fumiko's eardrums and she was forced to drop the binoculars, brought to her knees. She managed to look up, eyes squinted against the light, one arm raised, and then she realized it was fire; that white light was fire and that had been a bomb and tongues of heat were licking across her skin.

Smoke filled her eyes and her throat, and then her ears began to ring, and she couldn't hear her death any longer.

When the shaking finally subsided, Fumiko thought, Death is really cold.

And then she realized that the heat had faded and the temperature had gone back to Sunagakure-night-freezing.

Her ears were still ringing, but she could hear a little better now. Fumiko struggled to her feet, lowering her arm, swaying slightly. She looked up again, and then she realized suddenly why it was so much darker than moonlight: there was sand, the village's sand, curved above them like a catcher's mitt. A shield, a true Ultimate Defense despite the lack of chakra.

Gaara, she mouthed, and had no idea if she'd actually spoken or not.

The ringing in her ears began to fade. The sand shifted, barely with the wind, just enough that she could see over the fringe of it. Gaara had stopped it in it's tracks, before it had even gotten close enough to obstruct her view of the battle.

"I expect nothing less from the Kazekage," Baki said quietly, almost in awe.

"Gaara did it." Kankuro sighed, smile on his face.

Suddenly the charm no longer in her hands ripped itself free, tearing into the air. Fumiko cried out in surprise, but it yanked off her neck and through her hair and flew skyward like a bird, faster than Fumiko had ever seen Gaara's sand move. She reached for it, ignoring Kankuro and Baki's sounds of confusion, despite the fact that it was already far above her grasp.

All at once, there was another explosion, almost more violent than the last against the pitch night sky, flames leaping off the side of Gaara's partially open sphere, followed by a rushing plume of smoke.

Fumiko's scream was piercing even to her own ears. "Gaara!"

Kankuro screamed with her.

Fumiko dropped to her knees again, scrambling in the white-lanced-darkness to find the binoculars she had dropped, and then her scrabbling fingers caught the leather strap and she stood and raised it to her face.

All she could see was smoke. Everywhere around her there were murmured whispers, anxious mumbles to one another like disembodied spirits, tittering, rising from the earth. I can't see, they said, what happened, is the Kazekage okay, please tell me he's okay.

That last whisper was hers.

Finally the smoke began to clear. When it did, and when the image finally came into focus as she blinked hard, Fumiko sighed with relief.

"It's intact," she said numbly, voice trembling.

Sand crumbled off the bottom, and it was a little dented in places where chakra had literally been burnt away, but it was still intact, and Gaara was inside of it. His Ultimate Defense must have been close enough to cover the hole just in time. Her worn painted-gold pendant hovered almost uncertainly in the air far above her.

He tried to distract Gaara by threatening to kill the entire village, Fumiko realized with some measure of disbelief. Why would he go that far...?

"Hmph," Baki grunted, with a small smile playing across his lips. "Gaara's Ultimate Defense can withstand much more than that detonation."

"Baki-sama," a ninja said from behind them. "The attack preparations have been completed."

"Very well. You will launch the assault on my signal!"

Fumiko was starting to smile again, starting to move her lips, ready to scream something like yes or he did it or just Gaara!

But then the words froze in her throat when the sphere bulged, imploding from the inside out. The sand writhed like it was in pain, ripping at the seams, the sphere bursting in the sky; it was falling apart, draining itself off the bottom like the top of an hourglass. Slowly ice began to prickle through her chest.

"No..."

"That blast," Baki managed when his shock faded. "What happened in that sphere?"

"Is..." Kankuro stammered. "Is he..."

There was only silence. Now there was no hushed speculation, no quiet pleas and prayers. The air was charged with shock and fear, some still from the explosion that almost killed them and then this one...

There was a clatter as Fumiko's walnut charm necklace hit the ground a few feet away, rolling loudly and unevenly until finally it stopped against her right shoe.

No. I would know. Fumiko thought vehemently. I would know if he...

Kankuro took a few quick steps forward. In the silence the scuffs were like flashbangs. "Gaara!"

The sphere crumbled even more, chunks of sand falling off in rivers. Fumiko gripped the binoculars so hard that it snapped down the middle, and suddenly she was holding two separate scopes, one in either hand. She dropped the useless tool parts to the ground, and then left her hands there, just hanging.

"Kazekage-sama!" two shinobi cried nearby.

"No. It can't be." Baki's voice was indiscernible. "He broke Gaara's Ultimate Defense?"

"How on Earth did he do that?" Kankuro breathed, taking a wary step back like he would fall if he didn't.

The sphere finally began to break apart, great huge pieces cracking off and falling far below. Fumiko knew that it would be impossible to find it again, and that if Gaara survived this he would have to make a whole new batch, and then he would be exhausted for days, and they would argue lightly about going to the hospital until they compromised, Gaara staying in the bedroom, Fumiko manning his desk.

If. Why had she thought that?

"His sand," Fumiko whispered, voice barely more than a breath. Her heart seemed to escape with the air. "It was in his sand."

Fumiko squinted at the seeping yellow growth climbing up his black sleeved arm. She only managed to see it because she could see the line of sand attached to it.

He moved; something curled around the sand, white, like some kind of snake or bug. It lit up from one end to another in multiple explosions, but when the smoke faded, the sand hadn't even scattered. It was his ultimate defense, after all.

The people around her started cheering.

Finally, all of the sand had mushroomed away, gone into the air like wisps. It tortured her, but Fumiko could barely see him, his limp body hanging from what was left of his chakra, suspended in the sky like a single drop of water.

The bird tried to get closer but then all at once backed off, flapping high and far away.

"What's going on?" Fumiko's throat was tight with worry; speaking at all was almost painful. It was Kankuro who answered her, face pale like a ghost, pale like her face, both of them mirroring each other, except that Kankuro could see and she couldn't.

"He's... I don't know. Gaara..."

The sand shield above them vibrated, then began to move. Slowly, deadly slowly, but it began to move, and it moved away from them, toward the village walls. It dawned on Fumiko then, what was happening. Gaara was using the very last of his strength to move the sand, to get it out of the way before his power failed completely. If it fell, the result would be a catastrophe.

People would die. Buildings would collapse. Any barrier the Medic Corps. had put up would be crushed like an origami crane under a three-ton weight. The reservoir would be unsalvageable.

"What now...?"

"He's using every last bit of his power to transport the sand safely outside the village," Kankuro said in response to Baki's unfinished question. His voice was brittle and dry. "He's trying to save his people."

"Oh... Gaara..." Fumiko murmured.

Baki suddenly whipped around, flinging out an arm at the few shinobi left on the roof. "What do you men think you're doing? We must rescue our Kazekage! Commence the attack!"

"Yes sir!"

They took off to deliver Baki's order, obviously shaken.

Just minutes later, whistles started to hiss through the air as the manual crossbows on every other rooftop and on the ground began to fire. They missed by longshots- Fumiko began to realize that if Gaara's sand couldn't catch him off guard, how possibly could plain old arrows?

Her thoughts were answered after the first two volleys of arrow shafts whizzed past the giant white owl. On the third launch, something was different. Attached to the shaft ends, Fumiko realized as they rained upside-down all around her, were explosive tags.

They reached the Akatsuki member, who continued to dodge these in the same way he had those previous. When they started to explode, his movements hiccuped and for a second Fumiko dared to hope, but then he seemed to get over his surprise.

The bird whipped through the hailstorm of explosion and arrows. Suna shinobi where, if nothing else, resilient and relentless in everything they tried. Fumiko bit her lip, and she barely even had to wait a second before it started to bleed.

Not a single arrow or blast hit its mark.

The sand above their heads continued to move. People, civilian and ninja alike, cheered it on, shouting support even though they couldn't help. Fumiko wondered for a moment where her father was in all this fray.

Minutes passed like this, with explosions and the sand moving and everybody cheering. Fumiko herself found she couldn't, her throat was frozen.

"Come on, Gaara," Kankuro muttered. "Don't give up yet!"

Finally, finally, lifetimes later, the sand crossed the border of the village. The second it did, the part that had passed over began to crumble; Gaara was letting it go as soon as he could, and eventually it was all over the edge, unable to harm anyone.

As soon as that happened, the human-shaped oval of sand in the air began to fall.

"Gaara!"

"I'll get you!"

Kankuro began to dash forward like he would leap off the top of the Tower roof, but he hadn't taken two quick steps before the bird in the sky dove, maneuvering underneath Gaara's falling form trailing sand like a falling, shooting star, slipping through inky blackness.

Make a wish upon a star, Fumiko thought. Please let him be okay.

Sand scattered like a starburst, stopped abruptly in the air. The white tail of the bird wrapped fluidly around his body, curling and swallowing him until he was trapped, sand still sliding off Gaara's skin in waves and trickling into the sky. Two, three powerful swishes of it's wings, and the bird took off, flying away.

Away from the village.

"What's he doing?" Fumiko cried. "Why's he taking him?"

The Akatsuki man dodged a few more quick arrows shot from somewhere below. They exploded in turn, white and red collages of wood shafts and fire, leaving smudges of smoke behind.

Fumiko whirled. "Baki, if it hits that bird and blows up, Gaara'll get hurt too!"

Baki grimaced and turned to the Chuunin on his left. "You could hit Lord Kazekage. Tell them to cease fire- immediately!"

"Uh- sir!" He turned and raised a hand to nobody; although there were probably ninja nearby, hidden only by darkness and Fumiko's overwhelming seeds of panic. "Hold your fire!" he bellowed. "All units, cease your fire at once! Cease fire! Cease fire!"

"... Gaara..." Kankuro said agitatedly.

"What the devil is he doing now?" Baki hissed.

The bird took a sharper turn, ceasing it's rounded, lazy spirals, and setting a course straight for the village's carved sandstone wall.

"Don't tell me he's leaving the village!" Kankuro said suddenly.

"Is he going to try and take him alive?" Bai asked the air.

Kankuro let loose a feral growl and then sprinted forward, palms raised behind him. Strapped to his back were his puppet scrolls holding Ant and Crow. "I'm going after him!" he snarled.

"Kankuro, no!" Baki yelled. "Don't go by yourself! Wait for a backup squad!"

"By then he and Gaara'll be long gone!"

Fumiko's head was swimming. Her lips moved in soundless words, gasps for air. Gaara had been defeated. No- Gaara had allowed himself to be taken down, he had saved them at the expense of his own power. He could have easily won, Fumiko realized, had he not been fighting defensively.

"... No..."

"Yup. I'll see you tonight, though, yeah?"

"Yes. I'll... be home."

Fumiko flipped back around so that she was upright, hands on his desk, then grinned and leaned closer, nuzzling his nose with hers before he could react or pull away. "Okay."

"Okay," he murmured back, flushing but smiling hesitantly. "I swear I'll be back home on time. Early, even."

"Fumiko-sama," the Chuunin with the scarred face that had ordered the ceasefire said firmly. "We need to get you into safety now that the Kazekage's situation is compromised. You could be in danger."

"Don't engage until we catch up with you!"

Kankuro took a flying leap off the roof in the direction of the bird that held her best friend in tow, landing nimbly on the closest rooftop, kept moving, and didn't look back. "All right! Understood!"

Baki seemed to sag slightly as Kankuro's form grew smaller. "Damn..."

"Fumiko-san." Fumiko turned, pulled out of her daze by a persistent hand on her shoulder. "We need to get you into-"

I swear I'll be back home on time.

I swear I'll be back home.

I swear.

"Give me a kunai."

...

~"All of it," Fumiko agreed. "But there's always happiness."~

...

..

.

HELLO! OHMYGODS I MISSED YOU ALL SO MUCH!

So.. this chapter... urghh... T.T

Anyway, happy birthday to me! I'm grounded, and actually writing this on 5/19/15, so I guess this is a pre-recorded message! I can't post it personally, but I gave my login info to Lily, and she's posting it for me! However, I'll still receive and read all your lovely reviews, and respond as quickly as possible! ^.^

5/24/15: YESS! I can POST! PERSONALLY! I have breakfast with my mom and she's letting me ^.^ Ok so, if you made an entry to the contest, PLEASE LET ME KNOW. I will publish winner(s) on Wednesday, I suppose, because that's when I'm with my mom again.

RAFFLE! Entrants included:

Hipoisthabest (1)

534667lc (2)

Bleachfan2014 (3)

GaaraTheFifthKazekage (4)

a Wiccan (5)

MrClosedEyes (6)

Using a random number generator, I will pick TWO people to win OneShots. :)

1: FOUR! GaaraTheFithKazekage.

2: FIVE! a Wiccan.

Thankyou, random number generator.

REVIEW PLEASE I MISS YOU ALL SO MUCH!