Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto. Beta'd by Petrames, drowsyivy and UmbreonGurl.

It is summer again, cicadas singing in the trees, when Shishou tells me that this year, he intends to bring me with him when he travels for what he calls business.

I try very hard to not think about exactly what sort of business the man known as the Darkness of Shinobi could have in other countries that calls for an official visit. Shishou's business in other countries...of course, I knew little detail regarding most of them, but Shimura Danzo is a man with fingers in many pots.

Most of them, though, do not involve official sanctioned visits.

"Diplomacy doesn't always give you two weeks' notice." He tells me, while resting his folded hands on his cane. We're out at training ground 87, the one next close to the Tower, and I'd been lighting up my hands, brighter and dimmer, brighter and dimmer, finding the difference between a light pop and an ear splitting boom.

"But it did this time?" It's become easier to tell how much chakra produced what amount of force, become familiar with the way it felt, how slow it could build when I was paying attention and not immediately worried for my life.

He'd seemed quite pleased with my progress, how far I'd come in a short amount of time, but even more pleased that my hands no longer bear the little wounds I'd gotten used to having, feathery wounds like lightning strikes, broken nails, and bruises of all shapes and sizes.

The gloves had helped with that narrowing my focus, until I could focus on more than just the mechanics. It's become more calculated than desperate.

But I'd never known that he'd cared, had never considered that possible.

Though, now upon thinking back, if he didn't care, he'd hardly have sat around in my hospital room after the drug bust gone wrong with Chichi.

Even if he'd simply moved his paperwork to Konoha General, it'd taken time and effort, and the bothersome need to put up with someone he wasn't fond of just for the sake of hearing what'd happened from me.

"This trip to Suna was planned for some time," he tells me. "And it's time you observe more than just the goings on of the Tower."

So our destination is Suna then, a relatively safe location for a first outing — an allied village in a relatively close country where the leadership are known entities to the Tower, a planned visit already seemingly routine.

I'm not entirely sure what I expected of my apprenticeship at the Tower, or what to have thought of Shimura Danzo as a shishou, but despite how he'd challenged my thought processes, how I know that he dealt in things unspeakable, how he takes such amusement in my irritation and frustration, he has not been...unkind.

Demanding at times, with morals from another era, and a certain pragmatic, ruthless streak that leads him to manipulate situations to his favor, but not unkind.

For all that he referred to each ROOT Agent generally by registration number and not by name, they held an unshakeable faith in him that people who were purely treated as tools didn't normally display.

Shimura Danzo-sama's people are exceptional.

I'd heard the sentiment echoed by more than just Fu. They called themselves his people, not his tools or his soldiers, and the word choice alone spoke volumes. They did not call themselves shinobi of Konoha although each one expressed at least a vague attachment to Konoha.

No, their first loyalty is like mine, to a person not a place. And that person in their lives was Shimura Danzo.

Even Tokito, ever reserved and quiet, seemed to revere the man who held his chain.

Whatever I had expected from the Tower, it wasn't this.

"How long should I pack for?" Travel time alone to Suna took three days at a ninja's pace. This time, we wouldn't be waiting on any stragglers, but I doubt that even Elder Shimura could teleport. No, that title belonged to the late Yondaime, and perhaps, now to Shisui.

This wouldn't be a short trip.

Shishou glances at the glow in my hand that is still increasing in size. "We'll be there for 2 weeks," he rumbles.

After another moment, he adds, "And pack something nice. Rasa likes…" and here he snorts, in part with amusement but more in irritation, "to put on plays, as it were."

The Suna and Kazekage I'd be visiting this time around wouldn't be much like the last trip. There's a world of difference between visiting for the sake of the Chunin exams and visiting as part of a diplomat's entourage, even if I was only eleven years old, only a diplomat's apprentice and not the diplomat himself.

"I'll remember to do that." I have plenty of formal clothing now, even some that would allow more freedom of movement than my first furisode and hide a few weapons, not that kunai and shuriken were as important as they used to be for me.

Tokito had forced me to become more adept at dodging and using Doton techniques to both block and hide. I'd grown fond of him, despite having to apply a name to him instead of a number.

The gloves had lessened the physical toll of using the Explosion Release, as well as streamlined the chakra input necessary, so long as I had time to think about it.

So long as I had time to focus, it would be enough.

I'd not forgotten necessarily how much I hated sand, but for sure, I'd forgotten how virulently I hated sand, in the way that one does when one is removed from it for long periods of time. I'm again struck by the reminder as I watch a small amount of it skitter across the floor in the Kazekage's office. How anyone managed to live in Suna for any length of time without even a shred of hope that they might one day be able to leave the sand is something I would never be able to understand.

If I had to live here with no hope for a permanent reprieve, of belonging to someplace that wasn't sand, it would've taken less than two days to go insane. I'm certain.

There's something to be said for being reborn in Fire Country's temperate forests.

Despite the other incoming tragedies, there's no sand to be had. Small blessings.

We have to take what we can get in this world.

Sabaku Rasa smiles at Shishou, his hands clasped on the desk before him. It's a smile that doesn't touch his eyes. I wish, for the sake of Suna's own wellbeing, that it were less obvious. Unfortunately, the unpracticed nature of the Third Kazekage doesn't bode well for Suna's future.

Shishou does not suffer fools lightly.

"Welcome to Sunagakure no Sato, Shimura-san. I trust your travel here went well?" The Kazekage glances at me, once briefly, as though wondering what a tiny baby chunin is doing here standing slightly behind the Darkness of Shinobi amidst his masked retinue of ANBU guards. Still, he puts that aside for the moment. Perhaps he's already forgotten me.

The last time I visited was nearly three years before. I wasn't anything remarkable then, and three years has not taught me how to be any more remarkable than the last time I was here.

That trip hadn't been a pleasant one, either. But then, few of my trips outside of Konoha, and even further afield outside of Fire Country ever were.

Shishou had been offered a chair to sit in, though he'd declined it in favor of leaning on his cane. And slowly the struggle for power in the room tips.

Three days of extremely fast travel through first the treetops of Fire Country, and then the sand dunes and canyons of Wind Country hadn't affected him much at all.

If there was any doubt that his cane was just a front to make him seem more friendly and approachable — grandfatherly — then it would've been blown out of the water by the ease with which he'd abandoned it to keep pace with the ROOT Agents and me.

By declining the chair, he forces the Kazekage to look up at him. And the Kazekage is going to develop a more painful crick in his neck the longer this conversation goes on.

It's a subtle fuck you, but it works just the same. Sometimes, the best insults we can deliver are the petty ones.

"Travel is as it always will be," Shishou says, his voice as dry as the desert wind. "An activity whose only purpose is to take one from one place to another."

And if that doesn't say it all. Most everything in Shishou's mind is just another stone on the Go board, just another straight route from one place to another. Connections, he'd often rumbled at me from across the laminated board. Position. All of these things are what matters.

You could be a pawn or a king, but without position and connection you are mud beneath someone else's feet.

Allies. Enemies. Pawns.

There are people to protect, people to use, people to cut through to get where one is going.

Which category a person fell in shifted like a weathervane in the storm.

We are all pieces on a board called life.

At least, that is how Shishou sees the world.

The Kazekage rallies himself, as much as one can rally oneself when faced with the full force of Shimura Danzo's driest wit. "Rooms have been prepared for you, some of the finest Suna has to offer. I'm sure Shimura-san would prefer to rest before we commence negotiations and discussions tomorrow. I'll have a tentative schedule of events sent over to you tonight."

The babbled to-do list seemed rather nervous to me, which meant that Shishou smelled blood in the water faster than any shark could react.

"Your surety of my preferences and opinions exceeds my own, Kazekage-sama." Truly, it astounds.

If I ever needed any confirmation that Shishou took it easy on me, and likely on everyone else who sat on the clan council in Konoha, this would be that confirmation. When faced with someone he wished to shred rather than to teach, he's reverting to using every word as a double blade, each word weighed to err just enough on this side of politeness.

I haven't seen him like this before, not even when Hyuga Hiashi held up the tax discussion for a week while he attempted to renegotiate his own personal finances.

And that particular episode had been…

Enlightening.

To say the least.

Shishou kept his barbs sheathed when in Konoha then, perhaps more than anyone truly realized.

"Shimura-san," the Kazekage says, almost as if a little nettled. "I considered that perhaps, as an elder, you would prefer to rest before the negotiations."

That was really, the wrong thing to say.

Shishou smiles, polite enough, but like a cat who's sighted a mouse, dangerous in the fading light of the afternoon. "Then I look forward to tomorrow's discussion, Kazekage-sama."

Later that evening, after dinner, we are invited to…

A play. Plays are a popular form of entertainment in Suna and a highly acclaimed troupe would be performing tonight, some historical segment about the second war. Historical reenactment was popular here as it never was in Konoha.

Strangely enough, despite the multitude of historic figures in Konoha's history, the legends, the geniuses, the battles, the clans, there was no appetite for historical movies or plays.

Perhaps we lived too close to the flames that had burned out still. It would be rather poor taste to watch reenactment of one's own friends, and their "heroics" when the wounds of loss were still fresh, as they always were in Konoha.

All of a sudden, Shishou's thing about how the Kazekage liked to put on plays takes on a sort of satirical element that almost makes me laugh aloud.

Shishou listens to the messenger with a straight face and allows himself a smile when the messenger leaves. "At least this trip won't lack entertainment."

The words are quiet, but I see more than one ROOT Agent smile, and just as quickly hide that smile. Maybe it wasn't proper, but it was funny.

The Triplets make no attempt to hide their amusement, instead they laugh the way dogs do, their tongues hanging out, ears flicked forwards. It doesn't sound like a human laugh, but I recognize their humor and amusement all the same.

Shishou turns to me. "We could dress for the occasion."

I'd read that plays were one of the primary forms of entertainment in Suna still. We had movies and teahouses and musicians and here in Suna there were old style puppetry plays.

Theatre was something that shinobi as well as civilians enjoyed here, while in Fire Country, Kabuki confined itself to the nobility and entertainment in Yoshiwara or the Willow District in the capital.

It's not a typical form of entertainment

I'd never actually been to see a play before.

"We could!" I agree.

I hadn't packed any of the kimono Yasino-nii had picked for me, but I did have a few other outfits that showed off the Inuzuka wolf motifs while still being sturdy enough to conceal a few weapons. As I've grown, so has my wardrobe.

The gloves went on last, completing the look for the evening.

In formal wear, somehow, I've left behind tan, veering deeper into red and black.

It was only natural, given the Inuzuka affinity for red, and the ease it paired with black.

Quietly, I trail after Shishou as we make our way out into the city. The play is held in the main square, where a stage — basically a large raised platform had been set up.

It might be called a puppet play, and it might not be terribly dangerous, but we are on foreign soil, in enemy lands.

Better keep the gravity of the situation in mind.

I'd intended to keep my seriousness — after all we'd been invited to see a historical play — but it melts away midway through as I restrain my urge to giggle hysterically in my seat.

Does trying to butter up to anyone go any further than this?

On stage, there is a battle, a last stand, and of course, a hero.

Of course, this particular second war reenactment had a different hero than the Sandaime, and for rather obvious reasons.

"The only thing to fear is fear itself!" Puppet-Shishou says on stage, while heroically positioning himself in front of a squad of miscellaneous shinobi. "And to that end, we must be strong and take stand against the darkness."

Actual Shishou from beside me delicately picks up a skewer of scorpions with a contemplative look, and I try not to burst from the attempted cackle clawing its way back up my throat.

Taking a stand against darkness?

The Darkness of Shinobi taking a heroic stand against darkness?

Did the playwright want to write satire or propaganda?

Because this wasn't competent enough to truly satirize for dramatic effect the hilarity of the situation.

"Did this battle even happen?" I ask Shishou this quietly during a scene change. Satirical or bootlicking as the performance might be, it was still a performance, and I ought to afford it the politeness of not talking during the show.

My understanding of the second war — where the Sandaime and his council had earned their names and cemented their titles — was less complete than my knowledge of the third war, which was present in my living memory.

"A battle happened north of the Badlands, yes." Shishou quirks an eyebrow at me. "But if it happened like this, I'd eat a live scorpion."

He pops the first one off of the skewer, chews it slowly, appreciating the part of the evening that has been done well.

The food, however interesting and out of the ordinary, has been cooked to perfection, and that at least, has been unique enough to keep Shishou's attention.

"At least it's not all tragic." There's been plenty of tragedy in Konoha in the recent years, all storms we've had to weather. Weirdly tonight even with sand trying its level best to work its way into my sandal, three days travel from home, there seems to be a peaceful quality to it.

Despite everything, not all of life was terrible.

"I don't know." Shishou remarks with deceptive dryness, as the play begins again. "The last time I was here, there was an undercooked centipede appetizer."

And that's the thing that sends me into hysterics, even as Puppet-Shishou — edited to be youthful and handsome — launches into a different heroic rote speech.

Early the next morning, I find myself awake again, seated to Shishou's right hand side at the large table in the council chamber. It'd been a late night last night, with the play stretching on to just under two hours — any further and I get the feeling they'd run out of publicly available material with which to bootlick and therefore drag on to tedium, even for themselves — but more interestingly, after the play members of Suna's elite had come by to talk and posture, angling to either align themselves with the Kazekage or butter up Shishou.

The desert tribes knew well the need for trade and commerce as well as keeping whatever business they already had, having little opportunity for agriculture unlike the fertile landscape of Fire Country.

And with the trade deals and alliances redrawn and restructured every two years or so, ever since the official end of the Third War, it was in their best interest to make friends with the diplomat.

I'd never seen so many layers of conversations beneath conversations on shinobi terms as I had last night. It's one thing to look underneath the underneath, among civilians, who abided by different rules and customs enough that they might as well come from an alien country, but it's quite another to look underneath the underneath in conversation with people of my own profession, if not an entirely similar lifestyle.

Shishou had handled the attention — if not gracefully, then certainly with dignity and aplomb — cruising from one portion of the square to another, never saying too little, never promising too much, with me trailing in his shadow, trying to remember as many different veiled requests and conversational threads as I could.

Presumably, while Shishou's mind kept meticulous track of the goings on, I would be quizzed on the situations that I'd picked up on as well, at least to see the big picture, common threads and coincidental idle curiosities.

When it's only one person you converse with, it's harder to tell which is the most important angle on their agenda, but by converging upon Shishou — and to a much lesser degree, myself — one after another, common threads begin to emerge, and the shape of Suna, herself, and her fears, worries, cares and future trajectory takes shape.

Water. The desert tribes worried about water. They worried about commerce, and Iwa to the south. They worried about eroding alliances as well, and the coming of wars that have yet to take full shape, Kumo's rapid militarization and desire for bloodlines, Kiri's descent into chaos, and a hundred other little details.

All of this, I'd learned and reported to Shishou this morning as we waited for the morning session of trade negotiations to begin. He'd pointed out a few more common threads that he had gleaned — war debts, sandstorms, business slowing, salt mines running dry — but overall, he had seemed pleased with the way things have gone.

"Remember," he'd told me. "They are people, just like us."

My confusion must've shown on my face, because he adds, "in the end, that doesn't mean we ought to sympathize. Only one side can win."

Which is what it comes down to in the end, for Shishou. Only one side can win, and he intends to always stand on the side that wins.

It's a certain type of inhumanity, perhaps scarier than the kind that dehumanizes every opponent until only some people are real.

For Shishou, all people are real, with thoughts and feelings and hopes and dreams, and he is always aware that his choices have consequences and actions, just that some people were less important than others. Some people didn't matter to him, and therefore, he didn't care to pay attention to their wants and needs.

The Kazekage hadn't said very much when I arrived along with a few other members of Shishou's entourage. Perhaps he'd been briefed about the reason I was here, perhaps he just didn't want to fight with Shishou on that score, but either way, he'd not made a comment about it.

But other people evidently, did not get whatever memo that was.

"Isn't this discussion too serious for a child's ears?" The one who speaks up is an old woman, her hair grayed by the years she's seen. I had heard another council member call her Chiyo-baasama, which meant she was likely the Chiyo of legend, rival of Tsunade, and grandmother to Sasori of the Red Sand.

A poisoner, a puppeteer, and also absent from the buzz around Shishou last night. Interesting.

At my feet, Ichi's ears flick back as he grumbles quietly to himself.

"Children grow," Shishou rumbles, seemingly disinterested. "Unless, of course, you've found some new breed of child who never grows up."

And that puts an end to that.

"The cheap clothing from Fire Country has been flooding our markets for nearly two years now, Diplomat," an elderly man says, folding his hands together on the table. "Some of our oldest families have felt the financial strain of trying to keep up with the market being flooded with cheaper, subpar materials."

It's been some two hours of back and forth now, as the various issues come to light, and complaints are aired.

Strangely, I think Shishou enjoys this activity, enjoys the methods by which he wins arguments and knows what to say to turn the tables back to the one who had complained about the terms.

"Perhaps the question ought to be why the good citizens of Suna prefer to buy the cheaper materials." Shishou meets the man's gaze evenly. "Instead of why Fire Country textiles are more popular than the traditional methods of Suna."

The elder opens his mouth to complain, but the entire gathering is interrupted by the door opening, and what must've been a member of Suna's ANBU rushes over to whisper in the Kazekage's ear.

Whatever is said certainly isn't any good because the Kazekage pales and looks as though he suddenly wishes to be elsewhere.

Then, it could just be something else rather unimportant, like how much he wants to be elsewhere whenever Shishou opens his mouth.

But then, I don't think black clad figures with masks rush about for the sake of making up excuses so that the Yondaime Kazekage could look like he desperately wishes to be elsewhere in the middle of a very important diplomatic trade meeting which could determine the status of a whole city if not country's worth of income for the next two years.

However terrible Sabaku Rasa is at politics, I don't think he's quite that foolish.

One does not brush off or offend Shimura Danzo without first digging a shallow grave for oneself and one's family members.

I wait for the Kazekage to attempt to excuse himself, and wonder if perhaps he's going to give a time frame for how long he will be gone.

He's the leader of uncertain positions — I'd learned that if nothing else about Suna while I've been here. Despite peace between nations being what it is, a frail construct, there seems to be fewer worries about food and business in Konoha.

Unexpectedly, all he does is shift in his seat. "My apologies for the interruption, Shimura-san, an incident in the village, surely you understand."

The pallor that the ANBU member has brought with them does not dissipate.

"Many are the incidents that men who lead have to deal with," Shishou half smiles at the trade document before him. "I am ever thankful that someone else wears the Hokage's hat and that such incidents are not my concern."

Some in the chamber force a polite laugh.

I know that Shishou cares much more about the position of Hokage than he gives away in this exchange, but I also wonder how long he's practiced that statement to say it so convincingly. If I didn't know his backstory, whatever little I could know of his backstory, would I believe him when he says this?

I do not know the answers, so I resolve to think about it later.

Instead, for the rest of the afternoon, I watch Sabaku Rasa from the corner of my eye, and wonder if by this point, his youngest son has already gone mad.

Only a boy. I think to myself. A boy the same age as my brother.

But that doesn't make me his keeper. There is too much in this world I have no way to help.

Sabaku Gaara might be five years old, a child who deserves someone to love and protect him, but that someone is not me.

I watch the Kazekage's uneasiness from the corner of my eye, as the hourglass in the center of the table counts down the hours, and I offer nothing.

During a break between negotiation sessions, I end up wandering the main marketplace in Suna, Tokito tagging along behind me. Of course, seeing as I was no longer a new genin in Suna for the chunin exams and instead part of the Diplomat's entourage, I am assigned two different tails — one I can sense easily, the other evades my notice until Tokito signs their location to me as we make our way through the marketplace.

Outside of Konoha, Tokito doesn't talk. I know he isn't mute, because he does talk, every now and again, while training me to dodge and teaching me new doton jutsu. I hadn't thought about it before, but his skillset is the closest to my own before my eleventh birthday, when the gloves had been brought into my life.

In the intervening months, Tokito had been tasked with making bigger things for me to explode, but even with that, he'd always been a good teacher, calm and patient even in the tensest times.

He responds in hand signs and gestures, will make a facial expression, every now and again, but actual words are hard to pry from him as I imagine they would be from a corpse.

Tokito doesn't make sounds. He follows, diligent as a shadow, silent like the slight ripple across a still body of water.

It would be more disconcerting if I didn't know that he only did this when we were abroad.

For one thing, Tokito laughs.

For another, he dislikes hot sauce if the befuddled expressions he'd made when confronted with it are any indication.

And that is more than enough to remind me of how human he is, especially since he started bringing dog treats to feed to the Triplets.

We wander across the marketplace slowly as I admire the crafts that have thrived in Suna for generations that couldn't be found quite the same elsewhere.

Blown glass spun delicately into thousands of shapes, colors determined by the starting composition of sand.

I pause by an especially brilliant blue glass urn mounted onto a metal stand, a thousand pinpricks letting light fall through them in what could only be described as —

"Stars." A young voice says from beside me.

Sabaku Temari looks well, of course, older than she'd been the last time we'd met, but otherwise looking less unsure of herself than last time. "This piece is called Mother Suna."

"Oh?" The blue combined with golden sunlight didn't look much like the Suna I knew. Then again, I'd never had much appreciation for this city of sand and tan buildings, without the color I'd gotten used to during life in Konoha.

"The desert is a land of ten thousand stars," she tells me, looking fondly at the light falling through the dark blue glass. "I was really disappointed when you didn't win."

"During the chunin exams?" I hadn't had a good experience with either of the chunin exams I'd been to, but to be honest, I'd probably had a worse showing here in Suna than in Iwa. "It wasn't the best, I agree."

Had it only been three years ago when I turned into a meat shield here, and Mu-kun made chunin?

"And now you're back." She pins me with a hard look as if attempting to discover some sort of secret. "How did someone like you come here with the Diplomat?"

Tokito hadn't reacted when Temari joined us, but I know he'd likely report back to Shishou later. I wonder what Shishou would make of the Kazekage's only daughter being so interested in me.

I don't know what to make of it myself.

I shrug. "It's been a few years, Sabaku-san." If I think about it for too long, all that had happened since I last came to Suna doesn't seem real.

Three years, more or less, since the last time I spent a month in Suna, and sand had worn its way into everything I brought, gritting between my foot and my sandal all the way home, and yet it seems like an age ago.

"It hasn't been that long." She examines me harder. "Were you hiding what you could do?"

Considering that I didn't know I had a kekkei genkai the last time I was here…

But at the same time, that is not all that has changed.

"People change and grow." I settle for this, because I really don't know what else to say. "Sometimes we add parts of our identity we didn't realize were there in the first place." Inheritance works in tricky ways.

"Well," Temari says, as if testing out the idea for the first time. "If you didn't graduate the first time, I'll just have to be first."

And in the face of her optimism — I don't doubt Temari isn't one for optimism — I can only wish her the best.

"I think you will." I lean forward to brush my fingers against the urn. "Can you tell me more about this one?"

With a rather exasperated sigh, Temari begins, "Well, I don't suppose a Konoha shinobi would know anything about Mother Suna, but…"

A. N. A visit to Suna, a little insight into the history and culture that Hana didn't get the last time around, as well as more political discussions and some of what Hana's been up to, and slightly older Temari making a resurgence.

In other news, I hope that everyone is doing well and staying safe and healthy. While I'm disappointed over likely spending my summer indoors and at home when I had planned for much more, it's more important that we protect those people we need to in our communities and reduce the risks for all the frontline healthcare, grocery store, and other workers who have to be out in these troubled times.

Thank you so much everyone. While I am a stranger on the internet, I send you my best wishes in these truly, most bizarre of times.

~Tavina