FicWad

Well, my one warning is that there are three Sand sibs, and they had to be conceived somehow. So, mention of sex does occur. But compared with earlier drabbles there isn't much violence, or anything objectionable on that score.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.

... Break Down ...
... by IWCT ...
... Part Three: Wind ...

They organize hospital detail through the night. He works together with Baki to steal the air from the flames. The bird summons don’t leave, but they do perch on the Kazekage’s tall office spire. He shakes, sweating badly from chakra overuse, and his best friend, Adrenaline-san.

They recover the bodies of the dead. Both Leaf and Sand. There is a price to summoning the Sky Lord, and he knows the kuchiyosek hasn’t forgotten, even if he can’t hear the battle between the vulture and snake any more. It’s night time, and although the Sky Lord doesn’t have the limitations of normal vultures, he might have found a convenient perch to sleep on until the morning sun he loved came streaking over the sky.

They search through rubble methodically. Sometimes she’s next to him. Sometimes Baki. Sometimes Yashamaru. Sometimes it’s a person he’s never spoken to before. No matter who he’s working with, they search with a kind of quiet desperation. They never see anything that leads to hope. Just more bodies for burial detail.

The puppeteers are now the strongest squads, but that’s not saying much. He saw Sasori in a corner somewhere trying to repair shattered wood, his young, beautiful face twisted by a cold desperation. When he looks in the hospital, Chiyo-sama is covered in blood, and the stink of death, but not so much that she doesn’t somehow catch him looking, and order him to get some rest.

He doesn’t take the order until he sees his wife trying to clear rubble around someone’s limp hand. He helps, and once they call a burial squad over to take the shattered remains of someone (who once measured a young girl for her wedding clothes) he takes her hand, and leads her to a former alleyway which will probably become a courtyard.

They both sink into one another’s arms, grateful for the reprieve. He closes his useless eyes, and places his bloody, soot stained hands on her swollen abdomen, and rests a grimy cheek there. Her hands close over his, one moving to run through his hair. Underneath their pain, shock, and desperation, the child kicks willfully. He smiles softly, and hears a tired, content sigh from his brave wife.

Minutes of precious blackness later, he is shaken awake by Baki. The mask in Baki’s hand is half burned, but he puts it on anyway. He rises with his wife, and hugs her. They haven’t had a chance to speak about everything. He’s knows that he’s due a dressing down. He let her see the one side of his life that she never was supposed to. He failed to protect her from that.

They head for the bulbous spire, and the underground council chamber. Three broken comrades. Yashamaru appears as they walk down the avenue. The woman reaches out to her brother and pale hands link. He looks over slightly, and for a moment he’s eighteen again, seeing the strange, beautiful creatures, that must be cranes borrowing human forms for whatever reason.

Then his wife and student stop at the barrier of the door into the council chamber, while he and Baki continue down the steps. The council is grim. Those already there are drafting a notice of surrender. The treaty will be worked out on the open desert plain where the Leaf are waiting. He sits down, watching as his pride is broken, and crippled by a single scroll of paper.

Floors above his head the sun is rising. He’s missing seeing the glorious sight of a desert morning to sit in this cold stone chamber, under the glare of the First, and Second, and newly installed Third. The stone maker failed to capture the humor that twinkled in his eyes. The faint smile that hovered around the corners of his lips. Oh Shukaku, he wants the Sandaime there. He’s only the broken hilt of the living Iron Sword of Law, after all.

The scroll is shoved underneath his nose. He is told to sign this mockery. This plea of weakness, desperately asking that Suna be allowed to live.

“The treaty isn’t binding until the Kazekage signs it,” someone murmurs to him, as he reads the travesty.

“He isn’t here.”

“Well, that depends. We need to decide on a yondaime. You, as the ANBU captain, are currently the highest ranking military leader in the village. You will have to deliver this. Now, you may sign it as ANBU captain. Or you may sign it as the Yondaime Kazekage,” the councilor informs him, making the man start.

“I would never. Sign. This,” he glares at the parchment. “As. Kazekage. I will never give this so called peace legitimacy. We lost over half of Suna’s population tonight. Most of them were civilians who burned to death. Konoha may have ended the great war, but Suna will never truly capitulate.”

“Then you are still an ANBU captain. We will hold the trials for Kazekage once the foreigners are completely gone.”

He signs the parchment, anger focusing in his veins. He gets up from the table, and rolls up the scroll, before heading out into the fresh air of the outside world. There he leans against the building, and looks up at the great expanse of blue. He wishes he could just grow wings and fly there until his frustration is worked off.

Baki looks at him. He nods grimly, brushing some of the soot caked onto his mask. Time to parlay with the devil. Two ANBU survivors detach themselves from walls and follow. Rumor has been spreading. People stop their work to stare. He walks toward the West Gate. It’s where most of the Leaf nin are camped, now that the snake is gone.

He goes bearing a scroll of truce, and is stopped by other white masked ANBU. They want to know his business. “Surrender,” he replies bitterly. The Leaf shinobi nod, and two lead him to a tent that smells horribly of field hospital. Harsh soap, boiling pitch, and blood.

On a mesa to the right of the camp on this stretching desert plain a large black shadow beats its wings, and he can feel the thunder as the Sky Lord takes off, swooping in quickly on a down draft. The giant bird back-wings, and he can only feel proud that he isn’t knocked off his feet by the harsh gusts unleashed as the Sky Lord lands next to him.

A blond woman comes running out of the tent, bloody, and not looking happy.

“Who let this feathered turkey get so close to the hospital?! Orochimaru-kun, I thought you said you’d handle it last night!” she yells at the black haired snake rider, who comes up from the left, languid and boneless, a bandage wrapped around his head, stained with blood.

“Hey, hey, Tsunade-chan, don’t blame Orochimaru ‘cause his snakes needed a bit of help to keep that thing at bay. It’s not like snakes are great flyers,” another man protests, coming from the right at a run, a giant kuchiyosek frog hopping behind him.

“I take it I am in front of the Hokage’s three students, then,” he interrupts the diatribe that is waiting to spill from the woman. Take control of the conversation. It’s all he can do, after all. “You speak for the Hokage? Then I can be assured that you can take this offer of surrender to the Sandaime of Konohagakure.”

He holds out the scroll, forcing one of these shinobi giants to step forward, and take it. The white haired man who is built like a chunk of stone accepts the scroll, but passes it over to the snake man on the left. The elegant shinobi opens the scroll, and reads it. His wide mouth twitches, and he fixes the Sand nin with a golden gaze that is so reminiscent of the desert snakes.

“This isn’t binding until the Kagekaze has signed it,” his voice is earthy, the words sliding smoothly from his mouth like honey covered pieces of flint.

“You must have noticed that you were not repelled by the Iron Sword of Law,” the ANBU’s voice is dull, the pain of admitting to a foreigner what he can’t admit to himself, the weakness of the village, feels as though it is costing him something vital. “The Sandaime of Sunagakure is dead,” he bites the inside of his cheek, angry at the truth.

Orochimaru’s wide mouth smiles, an edge of triumph in the self-satisfaction he indulges in. Tsunade sighs, but does not look surprised. The final Sannin’s eyes widen, honestly shocked.

“Dead men can’t sign papers, and we don’t have a Yondaime, yet. You will have to be satisfied with the signatures that are there.”

“We are,” Tsunade cuts in before either of men with her can say anything.

“But on one condition,” Orochimaru grins, and the ground trembles, as the blunt nose of Manda appears, pushing through the shifting desert sand. “We get your dead and dying.”

“They were already claimed,” the Sky Lord thunders, and the air is filled with masses of black, wheeling and circling. “And Suna may have fallen, but Manda lost his claim to mine last night.”

“All summoning requires sacrifice,” the Sand nin adds blankly. “In my case, the Sky Lord’s children are allowed to feast for a day undisturbed.”

Tsunade shrieks angrily, and rushes into the hospital. A doctor forever, worried about her patients.

“Compromise of the defeated,” the Sand nin tells the remaining two. “Your kuchiyosek may have all the Leaf nin left in the desert by sundown.”

“And Sand nin,” Orochimaru hisses, somehow pleased by events.

“There won’t be any left outside Suna by sundown. And you’re not going back into our village just to feed your pet.”

The frog man just looks sick, as the birds blanket Suna and spread outwards.

…

In the end, the peace is binding. He organizes rebuilding Suna, but more than the buildings are shattered. No one wants to come to the broken Village of Sand. Their population is decimated. Their talented shinobi are stripped to the bone. The trials of the Kazekage only have three entrants. His wife makes only one request: Don’t use the Bloody Typhoon. He doesn’t. He still becomes Yondaime.

The stars wheel over head, so far away, and cold in the blackness of Shukaku’s night. He watches them one night from a roof, clad in his normal earth tones. That’s what Suna was truly hit by, he thinks. Shukaku’s breath, stripping her to the bone. Well? What do the stars have to ask this broken remnant that survived the western blast?!

The stars are silent. And cold.

…

When he gets news that she’s gone into labor he hands everything to his subordinates, and runs to the hospital in a swirl of blue and white. He promised her he’d be there. Ten minutes later he’s backing hastily out of the ward, his eyes wide as she curses him with inventive fury between screams of contraction pain. One thing she makes abundantly clear is that they are never having sex again.

He hides in the waiting room for the next twenty seven hours. He is never putting her through this again, he promises himself, counting the grains of sand that he can see on the floor. Then a nurse comes to tell him that it’s a girl. He’s allowed to see the tiny thing, struggling with her dun colored blanket in her sleep. For the first time since he was told his captain had defected he feels warm inside.

Maybe he’ll try to convince his wife to have sex at least once more.

…

His world revolves around paper, and missions. He misses his wife, and the tiny little girl (Temari is so sweet, so loud), but they don’t have the shinobi to spare, and he ends up taking missions to free up his shinobi for others. Many councilors put off their robes of statesmanship, and pick up kunai again. It’s how they can get by in Suna, on wind and sand.

He visits his Shinobi in the hospital when they come back half butchered. Just like the Third couldn’t do, because it hurt him too much, and there were too many visits to make. If it hurts the Yondaime he just buries the pain each time he relines his eyes with kohl in the morning. Funny that having more nin in the hospital is something he would think of as a good sign right now. It would mean that there were enough nin to get hurt in the first place.

…

One day when he walks into his apartment, and into the most deadly of traps. His wife standing up to her elbows in rice as she prepares onigiri, Temari looking blankly over her shoulder from a baby sling, and his brother in-law coming towards him with a calculating expression and a piece of rope. Yashamaru loops the rope quickly over his shoulders, and drags him down to the underground bath houses. While soaking on the men’s side of the pool (still with the rope binding him, because Yashamaru doesn’t trust him to stay there on his own), his brother-in-law tells him he is going to sit down, have a meal with the family he hasn’t seen for two months, and relax.

Sweat and blood is washed off, and he is dragged back to the apartment to a really good dinner. Yashamaru disappears with Temari as soon as she becomes fretful. He reappears, magically, when one of the Yondaime’s aides come to the apartment to ask for a signature. The Kazekage is surprised by his own laugh as Yashamaru glares with his blue-grey eyes, and says quite seriously that they have the Kagekaze now, and they aren’t giving him back until they know he won’t go berserk from the stress of running Suna.

Much later as his wife is massaging knotted muscles in his back, he asks if they’re going to do this a lot, because it’s really going to make the paper work pile up.

She tartly tells him that they’ll do this if they haven’t seen him for months. It’s not good for Suna to have a Kazekage working himself into the ground. She also is going to put a stop to him sleeping at the office.

He raises non-existent eyebrows, and says that sometimes he needs to work all hours.

She counters that she will knock him unconscious, and drag him to the bedroom if she has to.

It’s dark in their room, and he can’t see her. But that doesn’t stop him from writhing beneath her fingers, twisting around, and lunging at where he thinks she is, until she’s flat on her back, with his hands pressing her into the futon.

Does she promise? He growls in the familiar tone, before kissing her roughly. The way his blind hands fumble up her sides makes her giggle. She has to help him, blind in the dark, but enthusiastic (sometimes it’s her cheeks or nose he brushes with his mouth, once her chin, and each time he misses she laughs, and he can’t decide between listening to that wonderful sound, or touching her beautiful lips again).

Even later they drift off to sleep, embracing each other, both very, very thankful that Yashamaru loves his sister enough to take care of Temari tonight.

…

He reads the report again. He doesn’t bother to ask Tsusho (his replacement in the ANBU, and he knows a better captain than he ever was) if he is certain. Of course he’s certain. They’ve been suspicious since Hiruko went missing, and Tsusho doesn’t mess up this sort of thing. He just doesn’t want it to be true. He ignored that some of the leaf nin’s bodies went missing from the Feast of Birds. He can’t ignore it if it’s his own people, though. Sasori no Akasuna is useful (and creepy) but not that useful.

This will destroy Chiyo-sama. Worse than her son’s death. Worse than surrendering to Konoha. Sasori is the last thing she has in the village that she cares about. Luckily her brother’s here, so she won’t commit seppuku, and he can still use her if the situation is desperate. But Chiyo-sama won’t be presiding over the hospital, or researching how to make better puppets, or concocting poisons ever again. Damn Sasori! They could have over looked his human puppets if only he took his pick of victims from outside the village. He was an amazing assassin, and the loss of Chiyo-sama means two less genius-level shinobi in Suna. Damn Sasori!

He reaches out for the brush, and signs off the report in red ink. Sasori of the Red Sands is a missing nin (not that Sasori knows this yet), and Suna’s ANBU knows what to do. He has to deliver the information to Chiyo-sama personally. After all, it’s what a Kazekage does.

…

On one of his sojourns through Suna he stops at the cavern mouth. Is it just fancy, or can he feel Shukaku’s burning star eyes on him? He remembers the promise he wrung out of Chiyo-sama, and grimaces, before moving on to check the reconstruction of the buildings in the South Side. One favor. That’s all he gets. All that Suna gets. One last favor, be it heal or kill, Chiyo-sama will grant it. Otherwise, he has to leave her alone.

He just prays to himself that he can leave her alone forever.

…

Deep in the wooden box of things that escaped the fire of their original house he finds what he’s looking for after a long time. He pulls out the item from the charred chest, and quickly stuffs it behind his back.

He pads the corridors of the Kazekage’s suite, past where his wife is trying to grab some sleep while she can. Temari is driving her ragged, and there might be a second bundle of screaming joy along the way in another eight months. Yashamaru has finally stopped playing babysitter of both the Kazekage and his niece. He’s on an A-Ranked mission in Grass, and the Kazekage doesn’t know when he can tell his wife that he doesn’t know if her brother will be coming back. Baki is on an S-Ranked mission, and the Kazekage can’t help him this time. At the moment there is nothing he can control in his life to make it better for those few he still cares about as a person, not as Kazekage.

He slips into Temari’s room, and looks down at the sleeping child. As if in response to his presence, she shifts, squirms, and opens large blue eyes which are already going teal. He smiles at her and brings out the teddy bear from behind his back.

It was his once, he tells her. And before that his mother’s. She had brown hair, and liked to sing. The teddy was her first audience. And before that, this toy belonged to an uncle who came to the country of the wind from a far away land. It’s crossed seas and oceans to get to her. This teddy has seen a lot.

She grasps the brown bear solemnly, and proceeds to attempt to eat one of its legs. The Yondaime watches, bemused. Either he’s going to have an unholy hell raiser for a daughter, or she hasn’t reached the age of abstract thought. He doesn’t know when that happens in children.

Temari yawns, and curls up with the bear, now trying to eat her own thumb. He stands over her, watching for the longest time, wanting to reach out and hold her, but not certain how to do that, or even if he should. It’s funny, but he realizes the only time he’s ever been this close to young children is just before he kills them. He continues to watch over his daughter, wishing he knew what to do.

…

He looks at Tsusho. The man was cut to pieces and burned alive. He still managed to crawl back to Suna, and make it as far as the hospital. His mission wasn’t completed, but it doesn’t matter right now. It might be the last time he can think that, the Kazekage knows. Suna needs a completion rate that makes the other villages pale by comparison. They don’t have the number of shinobi, or resources, but they will be the best hidden village in spite of that. Keen and as unbreakable as a wind blade (Well, one of Baki’s wind blades, he’s not quite as good as Baki in that branch of elemental jitsu).

Tsusho looks up at him through the mass of bandages. He asks how he can repay the village for failing. What can he do to atone?

Get better, the Kazekage replies. If his body fully heals he can go back to serving Suna as the head of the ANBU. If not, he knows a place where Tsusho’s ability to work with groups is needed, desperately.

Tsusho’s one visible eye betrays confusion, and the Kazekage continues to explain. Tsusho has always preferred poisons to more traditional weapons, and ninjitsu. The puppeteering troupes have fallen out of favor and into chaos, thanks to Sasori, and then Chiyo-sama withdrawing her leadership so suddenly. If Tsusho can get the bunch of temperamental artistic warriors to work together again, the Kazekage is willing to put Tsusho up as a kami to be hidden away in a shrine, and worshiped.

Tsusho chuckles. The Kazekage smiles behind the traditional half face mask. One more shinobi working for the good of Suna. And hopefully he’ll make the handful of puppet users that continue stubbornly cling to their weapons co-operate. Suna will rebuild its status.

…

Fury etches obscene words on the insides of his veins. He keeps his face expressionless, merely fixing the daiyamo of the Wind Country with his intense black hole-like eyes. The boy besides his father gulps, but the diayamo remains calm.

Sand brought the attack on itself. If they had patrolled the border the way he had asked Leaf wouldn’t have come so deep into Wind. And the shinobi of Konoha weren’t entirely kind to the few villages they passed. Children went missing, people who happened to see the wrong amount of strangers didn’t see anything else. If Suna had done its job --

The Yondaime sips the honeyed tea that has been brought for the visit, and comments tartly that he’s surprised that the Third withstood the arrogance this man displays. He has protected the diayamo’s family as both body guard and assassin in his time as a shinobi. He killed young children for the daimyo of Wind. He was a jounin by fourteen thanks to a war that the Wind Country helped instigate in order to get some of the better farming land in the River Country.

The diayamo is only a civilian. Suna has done its job far more times than he ever will realize. Now, if the noble will excuse him, he has a hidden village to run. He rises from the tea service, bows, and keeps his eyes from twitching as the diayamo clears his throat gently.

Will they see him in three months, as is customary for the Kagekaze and diayamo to meet?

Of course. The lord of the country has access to very good tea.

…

Temari is playing with blocks (that is, lifting them, and then setting them down when her arms become too tired), her wide blue-teal eyes never leaving the carved wood, yet her mouth opening to scream any time her gravid mother tries to sneak out to the bathroom. He watches his daughter, amused, questioning idly if his wife thinks that Temari has the ability to sense her mother’s chakra.

His wife throws a pillow at him as she flops back down on the couch. Not everything is about being a shinobi, she chides lightly. Next to Temari, the teddy bear falls down, and he reaches down to straighten the stuffed animal back into the guardian of the block tower that he’s supposed to be.

Temari swats at his scarred and calloused hand. He quickly backs away, to his wife’s amusement. He chucks the pillow back at her, and goes to the kitchen to prepare some tea. For now, nothing revolves around being a shinobi.

…

He vomits again into the trash can the nurse has provided. The nurse is shocked. The head doctor isn’t. What did he expect? He used a summoned beast as a source of chakra last year, and overused that source at that. He is lucky that he can still use his chakra channels at all. Trying to summon another beast bigger than a sparrow isn’t going to happen for him ever again.

He nods painfully, his head pounding. He gets up, and walks (shuffles) out under the noon sun. Nari appraises him with one eye from a wire stretching between two buildings.

Never again, huh, Eagle? She floats down to land on his shoulder with a heavy thud. He winces. Not to worry, she promises. If he ever really, really needs them he’ll find a way. The Sky Lord likes the feasts the Eagle brings him to.

He doesn’t say anything, taking a shallow flight of steps heading for the north rock face. This was where Suna truly began. In these cliffs, and the high mesa of the north has been left untouched for thousands of years. It brushes the sky, taller than the Kazekage’s spire.

They climb to the top, and stop to look at the world spreading out under the great bowl of the sky. Back on the ground, in the family shrine, the Yondaime will burn incense, and place a carnation on the altar. But here, under the scorching sun, there is no room for symbols. Just what is. He stares out into the desert, remembering.

When the sun sets he goes down again, to prepare for the Star Watching Festival. The festival of light and dark, music and remembrance.

…

She’s looking through a list of names when he comes in. Temari is asleep on her swollen lap, clutching at her mother’s breast. He comes over to look at what she has occupied herself with while he’s been busy. She asks him if he thinks it’s going to be a boy or a girl.

He tells her he hasn’t thought about it. As long as it is breathing, that’s enough for him. He definitely isn’t going to allow himself to be dragged into the gender debate. It’s worse than the “does this make me look fat?” question.

But apparently there is no right answer when it comes to the gender debate. She continues to harangue him, saying that he should care, for a few minutes, before saying she’d like a boy this time. A nice little boy to balance Temari. He just nods, wondering if there is any way he can escape the discussion.

There isn’t. She tells him that she likes the name Ichigo. But maybe she should look at names with more historical significance.

He replies that he won’t care what the brat is named. She can call it Kankurou for all of him. As long as it’s her child, that’s all he cares about.

She narrows her eyes and says, very well, that’s what they will call the child Kankurou, whether it’s a boy or a girl.

She gets up and heads for the kitchen. He remains contemplating the latest mission reports for a few moments (seven genin, three chunnin, and two jounin have died this year. Depressing, but that’s actually an all time safety record. If only he could afford to lose them) before her words catch up with him. His eyes widen and he shoots up from his slouch so quickly that he nearly trips over his long robes. He yells after her that he’s not going to risk branding his child as a nancy-boy writer, or a play acting lesbian through name choice.

Her tanuki-like laugh rings through the Kazekage’s suite.

…

He leans over the crib. It’s been four days since the boy was born, and this is the first time he’s seen him. Yes, the poor child was named Kankurou. He winces, and hopes that the children won’t make too much fun of the boy when he enters a genin team. And this boy will be part of a genin team, because he is the Kazekage’s son, and heir. He will become a shinobi. He will not die like so many other genin.

Tsusho comes up behind his Kazekage, arrayed in a stylish black set of formal, flowing robes that almost completely cover his burn scared body, and what isn’t covered is painted. He has already paid his respects to the mother, and now he looks in on the boy. He makes the innocent comment that the boy is exactly as sweet as his mother described, and sensibly quiet. Another shinobi for the Kazekage’s small army?

Another shinobi? The Yondaime looks mystified.

Well of course, in the kitchen the year old Temari is playing with kunai, Tsusho responds. He had thought the Yondaime was introducing her to the --

The Kazekage looks like a startled rabbit, and quickly leaves, causing the Head Puppeteer to raise painted eyebrows. Ah, evidently all parents aren’t like his father when it comes to pointy objects. He shrugs elegantly, and looks down at Kankurou. You’ll be like that, Tsusho tells the child laughingly. After all, the boy is named after men who wielded the sharpest weapons of all.

…

The Kazekage flops down on the futon after the fight. Temari stops sucking on the kunai’s grip, and looks up curiously at her father. He looks down at her, mystified as to how she finds the weapons. Sure, she does live in a hidden village, but she’s only one year old and a couple of months! He most certainly isn’t giving them to her, no matter what his wife says. He doesn’t even want Temari to become a shinobi. A kunai target kunochi.

He retrieves the kunai, and then looks hard at his daughter. Father and Kazekage war, while the little child grabs at her teddy, and begins to suck an ear. He didn’t even think that Temari would end up as a shinobi. He doesn’t want that path for his little girl. He wants her to live a safe life, like her mother. She is something to be protected, not something to go out and die.

On the other hand, if she is capable -- he can’t believe he’s considering this. The kunai is twirled from its ring, the blade flashing. Temari follows its movement with her large eyes, and doesn’t look in the least bit surprised when he releases the metal shard and it buries itself in a wall. He sighs. Suna needs each shinobi. The Kagekaze wins, and he knows that as soon as Temari can speak and walk he will be handing his little girl over to a tutor in the shinobi arts.

…

He lies very still, hoping that the blood will stop dripping down the sides of his vision. But nothing is ever that kind in real life. If only it could be that kind in illusion. He knows he’ll be picked up by whoever finds his body. He’ll be sent back to the hospital, and told that he is working too much, and allowing the venom that almost stole his sight to come back and finish the job.

He sighs, and tries to push himself off the carpet. Any moment now. The door bursts open right on cue, and Yashamaru runs in. He manages to get into a sitting position before his brother-in-law can touch him. He inquires about the reason why Yashamaru is so excited. This gets him one of Yashamaru’s few “honest” looks of exasperation.

Why, last time Yashamaru checked, it wasn’t normal to hear the thump of falling bodies from the Kazekage’s office. When did the Yondaime last sleep?

The Kazekage just stands, weaving back and forth like the stubborn idiot he is. He can never be wrong. Never go back on his duty and the promises he makes to the village. Yashamaru can pick up the casualty reports, bingo books, and list of missions to be completed from where he dropped them, if Yashamaru is desperate to be useful.

Yashamaru does, plunking them down angrily on the desk. The Kazekage raises an eyebrow. It’s not like his brother to be anything other than cheerful.

Yashamaru looks at him (at least the Yondaime thinks he does, the sunflower petals raining around them are rather distracting). The Yondaime called him brother.

Well, yes, he is by marriage, the Kazekage is nonplused.

Yashamaru just smiles one of his simple, deceiving smiles. He did it. He broke through to the layer in his Kazekage that is reserved for the Kazekage’s wife. He’s glad.

Why? The Yondaime doesn’t understand.

Yashamaru looks away, and then sighs. If it weren’t for his sister, protecting him, helping him up, he would have died long ago, back in Rice. He’s never been what he’d call a normal person. His sister’s opinions, thoughts and feelings matter to him more than his own. Indeed, he often doesn’t feel anything for the things that give her such liveliness and spontaneity. So, he adopts his sister’s feelings for his own. She means the world to him, and so does anyone she cares about. But the man she loves so much has a barrier around him that Yashamaru couldn’t climb.

The Kazekage looks at Yashamaru, suddenly comprehending an underneath that Yashamaru doesn’t know is there. They are the same person in an odd way. Certainly, there are differences. He’s a direct, powerful fighter, Yashamaru is sneaky and clever. He focuses in on life like a laser beam, Yashamaru is general, vague, and uncommitted to everything. He is his own master, self possessed, and emotionally stable, Yashamaru is like a blank doll, living only for the whims of others.

But they are both isolated inside. They both do not care for themselves, and so must attach their emotions to others, like strings. They love the liveliness and vivacity, the sheer life that she brings to them as if it was nothing.

“You will always be my brother,” he really means this promise.

Yashamaru breaks into one of his calm smiles. He looks down at the sheets of paper he picked up, embarrassed, but the pleased expression drains away as his eyes scan over the page. He picks it up, and reads one underneath it. He looks up at the Kazekage, who just nods. At the current death rate among genin, Suna isn’t going to have a new generation. Better still, the daimyo, shrewd, cowardly man, is still giving missions to the Leaf Village. They need something to give them the edge again.

“Shall I help?”

“Not going to drag me off to the hospital?”

“This is more important. It’s not as though Suna has a surfeit of people who can take up trades to keep the village from collapsing.”

…

It’s called skating destruction. It’s a balancing act between Kazekage and man. He wonders, as he listens to his wife breathing peacefully (and it’s still gorgeous), how he will know when he has failed. He doesn’t get to see his wife until they are both too tired to do anything but argue half-heartedly. Is that a sign that the Kazekage has taken over? He didn’t see Temari’s first steps. He doesn’t know Kankurou’s face. Are these the signs?

Or is it the cold feeling in the pit of his stomach? It’s been with him all his life. As far back as he can remember. But now he finds himself retreating to it. It’s easier to watch Suna crumble from the cold vantage point.

In the dark he hugs her blindly to him, a sudden desperate urge. Don’t let him forget happiness, he pleads, a bare whisper. Don’t let him forget that Suna will be prosperous again. Don’t let him forget that he can put down the burden when the village doesn’t need ruthlessness any more.

In the morning he forgets the fear. Weapons are not afraid.

…

Doors are slammed, and suddenly the suite echoes with silence. The Kazekage stands in the living room, looking blankly out the dark window. She just stalked off with the toddling Temari, and Kankurou strapped to her back. He doesn’t know where she’s going, but suspects this was part of the argument. In the kitchen the small tray with snacks is empty, a sign that they were going to a friend’s house tonight.

Only he has been too busy organizing a mission into the Earth country with one of his Jounin. And at two in the morning he had come back to his apartment to be yelled at. Funny. He should be feeling guilty, shouldn’t he?

He removes the robes of the Kazekage, sets his alarm for six, and flops down on the futon to sleep the sleep of the weary.

…

Yashamaru studies the unreadable face of the Kazekage. The Yondaime has promised to watch the children for the day so that his wife can go see some friends. Yashamaru suspects it is an apology for something, yet the Yondaime doesn’t seem to be repentant or sorry for anything. His brother has always had the complete lack of expression that is normally associated with still water, in any case, but Yashamaru, the great dissimulator, can’t pierce the veil to see anything beyond normal fears and worries.

Baki stands against a wall, a tightly coiled trap, drinking sake, and oblivious to the blond girl playing by his feet. Over by the window, Tsusho animates a small doll for Kankurou to play with. Of the four men in the apartment, he is the only one bothering to make baby noises and interact with the children. Yashamaru watches, storing away the information on how to act for later.

Finally, the Kazekage sighs, coming back from whatever internal journey he has been on. “The numbers are getting worse and worse, you know.”

They do. But not one in the three of the Kazekage’s most trusted councilors knows what to do. Yashamaru, however, senses that under the blank mask of expression his Yondaime has a plan, shaky and uncertain.

…

They’ve been fighting over the stupidest of things, recently. Fighting, and making up, only to fight again. He doesn’t understand why his overtures have been met by angry retorts on her part.

She only looks back with pain on the jounin who lay in the hospital bed, and asked if she was impressed with his scars. Or clumsily folded origami paper with bandaged hands. Or told her stories about disappearing islands in the sand. Or just talked to her. She misses him, and will forgive him the instant he apologizes.

He never does.

…

When she’s finally had enough, she simply walks into his office. She dismisses his aides. She tells him to get out from behind that chair, and follow her. He obeys, more out of surprise than anything. They go outside, and he follows her steps North to the mesa.

The streets are yellow, and sun warmed. He looks around as he always does, checking his Suna. It is so small. There is no bustle on the streets. Unusual for a late summer afternoon, and a sign of the sickness eating away at Sand.

She takes the switchback path to the highest tier of the village. He hears her labored breathing on the wind as they toil higher. When she stumbles he reaches out for her hand. Their fingers lock in the familiar embrace, and suddenly the silence is transformed from empty waste to the old silence blooming with possibilities.

They reach the plateau, and she goes to sit on the edge farthest from Suna, twisting to face the west and the setting sun. He places the hat of the Kazekage on the flat rock, and sits next to her. Together they watch the sun sink below the horizon.

They talk, slowly. About the last time they were alone like this. About the Third. About the Battle in Suna. About Temari. About Kankurou. About the future. About the past. About what is important. About what is mundane. They talk. There are no secrets.

At last, she asks why he is avoiding her. He watches the brilliant, fiery red-lit sky. He doesn’t know how to talk to her any more. For now he is the Kazekage. He can’t put that aside just for her, or Suna might fall. Can she name one person who would do better in his place?

No, she replies reluctantly. But she wants to be more than someone who lives in his home, and takes care of his children. Not that they really are his children.

He objects, startled.

Her teal eyes turn on him coldly. What color are Kankurou’s eyes? She retorts. All right, he knows Temari exists, but what of his son?!

Blue? He suggests uncertainly, seeing the point to her accusation.

She chuckles, and shakes her head sadly. They aren’t the same people anymore, are they?

His hand seeks her blond hair as the sky turns yellow green in the twilight before the sun’s light is finally extinguished. He runs his fingers through the soft straw, and says that he still loves her. She accepts this, and doesn’t ask how much. It would ruin it for both of them.

She leans against him, her head turned to look up at the stars. Will he tell her a story about them, like old times?

Which one, his fingers slip from her hair to brush her cheek.

She points like the girl she was, and declares that she wants a story about the star over there. Behind her back she feels a tremor go through him. His arms wrap around her and his head drops to her shoulder. The star light isn’t needed for her to know that he’s shaking like he’s suppressing fear.

He can’t see them, he whispers to her. A breeze blows from the west, tugging at her hair and his robes. His eyes -- she puts her fingers up to stroke his cheek. It stops the shaking for a moment.

He tells the story of a young boy who walked through the sand and visited other worlds while everyone was sleeping. She smiles, and tells him that she likes that story. Can he tell it to Temari and Kankurou when they’re older? He promises he will, sealing it with a kiss. The wind picks up, and he says they have to leave. A storm is blowing in.

She leads him back down to the spire. Once they get to the apartment, he orders the shinobi standing sentinel to make certain that no one comes to take him away during the night. She feeds Kankurou, and tucks Temari in. He watches her from the doorway of their room, and then asks for a kiss goodnight.

Tell her a story, she challenges, walking past him, smiling her flirtatious smile. He follows, and tells her (while helping her out of her clothes, and brushing her hair) of a boy trying to change the world, despite the blood and violence that permeated the air and ruined his friendships.

He will get his friend backs in the end, won’t he? She asks hopefully, gasping as his hands slide down her sides. He kisses her throat, and tells her: Of course. It was a story for her, after all. She doesn’t want to hear the reality: Of course not. Once someone leaves, they don’t come back.

When they make love he feels like he’s drowning. He’s missed holding her so much. Missed listening to her throaty moans, and screams. It feels like she’s bringing him back to life as they bring their bodies together. Like the coldness lifts when she is so close.

That night he dreams of kunochi ripped apart, and dangling on barbed wire. Suffocating like him, with blood leaking from their mouths.

…

Morning sickness has hit her harder than usual, and she simply drops Kankurou and Temari off in the office before locking the apartment door, and spending the next three hours in the bathroom.

He sighs, and gets on with the business of reassigning teammates, while on the floor Temari plays with the blunted shuriken he absentmindedly gave her to keep quiet. Kankurou sleeps in a basket by the large bookshelf containing summoning contracts. Just a normal kage’s family. Babies playing with the normal tools of death.

…

“What?”

“You heard me, Yondaime,” the Wind Country Daimyo replies evenly. “I’m afraid that for any future military engagements I shall be calling on the village of Konoha.”

He nearly jumps up, and is already forming the rat seal before his better sense can control and focus his fury. “May I ask why? Every mission we have received from the Wind Country in the last year has been carried out successfully for you.”

“Konoha’s shinobi are better, and there are more of them,” the daimyo shrugs. “Hyuuga, Uchiha, The Copy Ninja, Namikaze Minato, Konoha’s Green Beast, Genjutsu Specialist Yuhi Kurenai, Sarutobi; these names make men tremble, and they are all contained within Konoha’s walls. The names in Suna have narrowed down to a very short list. Chiyo the Poisoner is no longer active. Sasori of the Red Sands has descended to the depth of missing nin. The Third Kazekage is no more. You, Suna’s Wind Rider, are the last of the great names the war created. Your students are good, and Suna’s few shinobi are honed like knives. But I need many well tempered blades. Not a handful. Until you can make one shinobi that does the work of forty we cannot do business.”

“I see.”

“Don’t take this personally, Yondaime Kazekage. I have a great deal of respect for you. You are the kind of man who knows how to use his subordinates to the best advantage. You are holding Suna from the brink of ruin that your Sandaime, in his arrogance of his own skill, created.

“Do not give me that murderous gaze,” the daimyo continues with the cool effiency of one ordering a /servant/. “The Third Kazekage of Sand let many opportunities to destroy the other Hidden Villages slip through his fingers because he did not understand that one must kill the pups before they grow into wolves.”

For a moment the face of a snarling child flashes through the Kazekage’s mind, and he wonders where Fang Girl (and Pillow Boy, who thinks like a real ninja, and Shusui-kun who thinks about his teammates before thinking like a ninja) is now. Would he have changed the world if he stopped to slaughter all the genin he had run into over the years? Well, he certainly would have changed it for the genin.

What had that medic said? Shinobi can only be understood by other shinobi?

“Thank you. I assume, then, that you have already sent the new military contract to Konoha. I shall be leaving now. You may be assured that Suna’s long term contract with the Wind Country shall be considered voided on our end,” he bows, barely an inclination of his head to the /civilian/, and leaves in a swirl of blue and white.