Well, here it is, the last chapter and epilogue of Ruler of the Sands. It's been fun, guys, and thanks so much to everyone who's reviewed and given feedback. I probably won't start my next Suna character-centric multi-chapter fic (as you can gather, I like to write lots and lots of slice-of-life fics) until after summer break starts.

Changing of the Guard

As soon as he shuts his eyes for what he's sure will be the last time, they're open again, looking on an unfamiliar landscape. This is sandy soil beneath his feet, and there is hard-packed flatland and rock formations all around him, but the Kazekage knows that this isn't Kaze no Kuni. The air is too cold, empty of the blistering heat of the desert in midsummer.

At first, he wonders where he is and how he got here. More importantly, the Kazekage realizes, I seem to recall having a gaping wound in my chest and out through my back. Where did that go? That's not exactly something that just goes away, even with the help of the most gifted of medics.

Then, he gets a good look at the men around him, and understands. Nidaime Tsuchikage, Nidaime Mizukage, Sandaime Raikage. These men are all long-dead; the Kazekage knows of their faces only from history books, and of their deeds, only from the tales of the village elders. Only the Raikage was alive during his lifetime.

It's Edo Tensei, then. The Kazekage feels a sharp shoot of anger in his chest, at being used in such a way. This was originally the technique of the Nidaime Hokage (the accursed technique, as the Tsuchikage snarls), but was co-opted by Orochimaru. Orochimaru had related to the Kazekage his intent to use the jutsu during the planned assault on Konohagakure; he'd said that he had made improvements on it. The Kazekage had scoffed and dismissed Edo Tensei as a trash technique; it was documented that the dead could be brought back to life, but when the Nidaime Hokage used it his revenants never fought at even half their original strength. How can a shinobi fight at full strength without their will intact?

However, perhaps there is some value to this trash technique after all.

What the Tsuchikage says is what first tips off the Kazekage. There is a large massing of shinobi nearby, likely an army. The army shows signs of being a mixture of all the nations, and one of them "has a similar signature to the new guy." By that, the Tsuchikage would have to be referring to a blood relative, and the Kazekage has only his children as blood relatives close enough to have a similar chakra signature to his own. In theory, any one of his children could be the person the Tsuchikage refers to, but in practice it can only be Gaara. When he sees the Third Eye, which the other three are too busy arguing with each other to notice, that only cements it in the Kazekage's mind.

Gaara.

Gaara is coming.

Will he have changed?

The Kazekage doesn't know how long it's been since he died, and wishes he did. Has it been a day, a month, a year, a decade? Has it been long enough for Suna to notice that he's dead? If so, then the Kazekage is survived that Gaara was allowed to live—the council was still very much in favor of having the Shukaku extracted from him.

It could be that Gaara finally crushed Suna beneath the Shukaku's heel. This is the possible path that the Kazekage has always shuddered away from, and it is no more attracted to him now when he is dead and ought to not to care. That is the image that flashes in his mind—Suna crushed, burning, dead. Her people dead and scattered. The nation screaming, and a ravening beast roaming the desert, crushing all in its path and greedily gulping up their blood.

Maybe he's changed. There comes that hope, rising in his mind. Maybe Gaara has changed. After all, the Kazekage has no idea just how long he's been dead. It may well have been long enough for Gaara to change. He may well have found the peace and stability that had always eluded him. But this seems unlikely, to say the least, and the Kazekage is anything but optimistic.

Either way, whether Gaara has changed or not, the Kazekage does not want to see him. His son, his weapon, his monster, his responsibility, his fault. The dead can not learn, the dead can not change, and the dead can not take away anything from the living and find a reason to hope. That is why the dead are supposed to rest undisturbed.

-0-0-0-

Well, maybe he was wrong again.

The first thing that was obvious to the Kazekage upon seeing Gaara was that he had actually managed to change—he could barely see the change in years, for apart from a growth of several inches, there really wasn't much change in Gaara's physical form, but the change in his psyche was profound. He seemed… calm. Gaara had had a stillness to him when his father was alive to see it, but never was he calm, not really; he was just quiet and watchful, but never calm, because calmness would have suggested that he had some level of peace.

Maybe that was because the Shukaku was apparently gone. The Kazekage has a hard time believing that Chiyo would stick her neck out for anyone, let alone Gaara, but it was undeniable that the Shukaku was gone out of him (one could hardly miss the lack of demonic chakra), it was undeniable that extraction would have killed Gaara, and it was also undeniable that Chiyo knew of a way to bring the dead back. What must have been going through her mind?

Whatever level of peace Gaara had found, while the Kazekage might have been happy about that, he couldn't say that he was happy about what Gaara revealed next. Gaara, Kazekage? The Yondaime was amazed that Suna was still standing in that case; to look at Gaara it was obvious that it had been years since he died, but there was no way the boy could be out of his teens. It seemed that the advisory council had made Gaara Kazekage in an effort to keep Suna's jinchuuriki host where they could see him. The Yondaime could understand that. But it didn't mean that he was happy…

No. No, that's not the point.

That doesn't matter.

Of all the things the Kazekage never expected—or wanted—to see, the face of his long-dead wife emerging from the sand so often wielded by his youngest son ranks high among them. No spirit, no soul, but just an imprint of a dying mother's will on the nature of a demon, and a fragment of her consciousness there, making itself visible at last. Oh God. Well there's Karura, making her opinion known in a way that can't be ignored, just like always.

This is my son. No one can hurt him, and especially not you.

What have I done to Gaara? I've asked myself that question so many times, and over the years, my answer changed. But now the question is different as well. What did I do to them both?

Trapped as he is in a pillar of Gaara and Karura's unyielding sand, the Kazekage sees nothing to do except tell Gaara everything. To tell him the truth about himself, his mother and his uncle, to put the lie to rest. If anything is to be called atonement, this is it, and he doesn't expect Gaara to forgive him. Even from a person without Gaara's disadvantages, without his problems, the Kazekage knows that there are few who would forgive him for robbing them of the love of their mother and the man who was more father to them than their father himself. Who could forgive that? It's a monstrous act; who could forgive such a thing?

And yet…

"Thank you, Father."

And yet, maybe Gaara still has it in him to surprise his father after all.

His skin is flaking off, going back to the dust it once was, like the act of creation in reverse. But the Kazekage doesn't care about that; if he is to go back down into death, at least he can do so without regret. "More than I imagined, more than you can know, you surpassed me. I'm so glad—"

It's good to be forgiven, and put his fears to rest. The Kazekage knows who he can leave the future to.