Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ The Flower in Adversity ❯ To Suna ( Chapter 2 )

Author's Note: As stated in the prologue and previous chapter, this is set way out from the start of the series. Therefore, it's probably somewhat AU. Refer to the Author's Note in the previous chapter for more details; these identical Author Notes are kind of redundant at this point.

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of "Naruto" or its characters. It all belongs to the incomparable Masashi Kishimoto-sensei. I'm just playing in the sandbox of this amazing world.

Warning: Coarse language. Yumiya has a very foul mouth at all times. Expect F-bombs and other profanity or expletives.

Naruto was the first member of his team to arrive at the front gates. Not a surprise, he figured, since Neji had a fiancée to say goodbye to, and Sakura had family to inform. However, he noticed that the back-up team -- Team Yamato -- was there as well. Yumiya was teasing Kakashi about something, Gai looked like he was preoccupied, and Yamato looked amused.

"You crack me up, Kakashi-sempai," Yumiya grinned. "I never know what the fuck you're gonna do next! I really thought you were going to be annoyed or argue the point. I mean, he's your kohai and all!"

"Hey, are you trying to undermine my authority, Yumiya-kohai?" Yamato said benignly.

"Naw," the kunoichi drawled, leaning against the gate post and munching hungrily on a large rice ball, "I just find it all a riot. I'm not used to Kakashi-sempai having to answer to anyone but the Hokage. He's been a ninja longer than any of us. That just blows my mind the fuck and back, that he has to answer to you, Tenzou-sempai."

"Yamato," the former ANBU captain corrected. "Please use the correct name. You know how these codenames work, after all."

"Bah, shit, whatever. Sorry, sempai."

"You know, Yumi, you sure don't talk like a lady," Gai retorted good-naturedly. "You could try to tone it down in public."

Yumiya made a rude comment under her breath and punched her roommate in the shoulder. "You know I'm not a 'lady' at all. I may look like one, but I ain't. Why should I give a fuck what others think of the way I talk when I'm not on a mission?"

Gai shook his head; this was an argument no one could win with her. She wasn't very polished, for all that she looked like a very pretty, refined kunoichi. She was a battle-hardened jounin with a penchant toward cheap thrills.

"The only thing funnier than Yamato-sempai commanding Kakashi-sempai would be me commanding him."

"Humph," Kakashi snorted. "You wonder why I didn't argue the point? Maybe because I know it's useless to argue with Hokage-sama. Plus, she put a lot of thought into organizing us. Besides, I haven't been much of a jounin leader in a long time, you know. Lately I've been under the command of runts almost half my age; I'll remind you that I spent the past six months in the company of that crazy redhead in the Sand village. Don't get me wrong, I have great respect for him -- I watched him single-handedly fend off an attack by Kirigakure with that giant sand shield of his -- and I know that Naruto and Lee both think very, very highly of him, but he frankly weirds me out. There's just something not quite human about him, even though you could argue he's now more human than Naruto since that bijuu was yanked out of him."

"Speaking of your student," Gai said with a grin, "he's eavesdropping, and apparently honestly thinks we haven't noticed."

"I did not think you hadn't noticed!" Naruto retorted, even as Yamato raised a hand to him in a greeting gesture. "I just didn't want to interrupt. I don't like to be on the receiving end of Yumiya-oneechan's punches, you know."

Yumiya laughed outright. "Damn, Gai, why aren't your students as smart as Kakashi's? That Hyuuga kid is stubborn as a donkey, Tenten is a little dull around the edges in tactics, and your little clone is... kind of like his namesake. Dumb as a rock at times."

"Lee can't be that dumb, if you've never been able to land a hit on him," Neji said from behind her. "Even I can't boast that. Even if I am as stubborn as a donkey."

Yumiya shrugged. "In order to 'land a hit' on him, I'd need to actually fight him. I never spar with him. I'm under serious threat from Shizune if I spar with him and he gets hurt."

Gai moved over to Neji, motioning him aside. Amusingly, he pulled Neji closer to where Naruto stood waiting for the rest of his team. This put them essentially within earshot for Naruto, though he wondered if this was an accident or intentional. Gai didn't usually make dumb mistakes. He was a clown who was outrageously self-confident, but he didn't make stupid mistakes; he was a hell of a lot cleverer than most people gave him credit for, a fact Naruto himself had been slow to realize until he'd worked with the older jounin on several S-ranks.

Gai handed Neji something. "Here. I'm giving this to you because you know Lee better than any of your teammates, and this might be necessary."

"What the hell?" Neji stared at the object -- Naruto couldn't see whatever it was because of how Gai was standing, but whatever it was, it wasn't very large. "Gai-sensei, are you serious? You and I both know what happens when -- "

"Just shut up and let me finish," Gai interrupted. "The last time he fought against Mist-nin, he nearly died, because he mistimed those Gates. He still doesn't have full control over them, and unfortunately, he hasn't mastered Asa Kujaku, but that won't stop him from trying to use it if he thinks the situation warrants it."

"And this will help how? By making him a berserker?"

"He won't be able to control the chakra flow enough to open any Gates, so the risk is lesser."

"The internal risk, maybe, but then he'll get reckless and unpredictable, not to mention uncontrollable, until it wears off."

"This is only to be used as a last resort. If you see him trying to open any Gates -- basically, once he starts with the Third one, you'll know -- knock him out of it with your jyuukan. Tsunade-sama is very concerned that there's still some residual damage to one of the higher Gates; if he tries to open it, who knows what will happen?"

Neji shook his head slowly in disbelief. "I can't believe you're doing this. And why are you giving this to me?"

"Because you know him a lot better than Naruto, and I can guarantee you that Sakura won't accept this alternative. And I don't want him doing this unless there's no other choice. I said this is a last resort, and I mean that. I don't trust him to know the difference yet. Talented as he is, he's narrow-minded and he loses sight of the scope of battle in a fight. You've got the soundest judgment in a fight; I trust you to be able to make the right call to use it if there's no other choice and only then."

Neji sighed in resignation; "I hope it doesn't come to this. The last time I saw him like that, it scared the hell out of me. I really thought he was going to get us all killed."

"I don't think it will, but if things get to that point, I'd rather you do that than let him try something disastrous with the Gates. If he's drunk, he can't control the chakra flow and won't be able to open any of them."

Naruto had developed his own suspicions as to what the object under discussion was, and that last comment from Gai confirmed it. I've heard about Geji-mayu's fighting style when he has any alcohol. They say he becomes completely unpredictable and ridiculously aggressive. Things must really be dangerous if Gai-sensei thinks it's safer to unleash that on the enemy than whatever that attack is that he's been trying to teach Geji-mayu for the past six months.

"If we have to resort to this, you do realize that Sakura will skin me alive for it, right?" Neji crossed his arms stubbornly. "Not very nice of you to throw me to that she-wolf. She's scary when she's angry."

"If it comes to that, blame me; tell her I made you do it. Let her vent on me if she wants. She seems to forget that she's not the only one who loves him. I don't have any family, you know; he's become like a son to me, and if she wants to yell at me for taking unusual steps to protect him, let her. It's my fault he thinks he knows Asa Kujaku. I didn't expect it would be that hard for him to master, and I can't convince him that he hasn't gotten far enough to try actually using it. And if I'm not there, I'm afraid he'll get too bold and try something stupid and end up either dying or permanently crippled."

Neji shrugged; "Right, okay. This is a bad idea, just so you know. I'd much rather just knock him out and be done with it if things get that crazy."

"What, and leave him vulnerable to attack? You have no idea what ninja warfare is like, Neji. Trust me, this is preferable."

"Whatever. You've already forced my hand by making sure Naruto overhears this. Now I can't pretend you didn't give this to me."

I was right! He did do it on purpose! crowed part of Naruto, while the rest of him tried to ignore it. Right about then, Shikamaru's team passed through the gate, with Shikamaru giving brief orders to Hanabi about what to look for. Briefly, Naruto envied that team for how well it had always worked together.

"Suckers!" Yamanaka Ino chimed happily, waving to Naruto and Neji as they passed by. "See you in Suna, Billboard-brow! Don't dawdle too long!"

"Right back at you, Ino-pig-chan!" Sakura hollered from behind Naruto, making the blond jounin jump.

"Yikes," Lee said, unplugging his ears after her yell. "You do have quite a set of lungs on you, Sakura."

"I imagine your neighbors already know that," Yumiya said suggestively, earning a blush from Sakura, an owlish stare from Lee, a laugh from Kakashi, and a punch from Gai and Yamato simultaneously. "Ow, fuck, man, that hurt! You guys should go easy on a girl!"

"You just said you're not a lady," Yamato reminded her with a laugh. "What, now you want to be treated like one? You talk like a man, we'll treat you like one!"

"Good god, you've been hanging around Kakashi too much," Gai said with a derisive snort as he got his roommate in a headlock and noogied her. She tried to elbow him where it'd hurt, but Gai was far too agile and was able to dodge it.

"What the hell, Gai? He was in Suna for six fucking months! How the fuck do you expect me to hang around with someone who's three-days' travel away? Hello, who was I around the most, asshole? YOU! You wanna blame someone, you blame yourself!" Yumiya grabbed with both hands onto the arm that locked around her neck and forcibly flipped Gai over her back, sending him sprawling into the dirt. "You're not as innocent as you'd like everyone to think, you perv."

"Not a very good way to flirt, you know, Yumiya," Shizune said with a grin as she and her team approached. "I know he's a tough one and he likes to play rough, but geez! If that were anyone but Gai, you'd probably have broken his neck!"

"Okay, that's just ridiculous," Yumiya straightened her jacket. "Why the hell would I flirt with Gai? Not only is he like a brother to me, he's totally not my type. You are a hell of a lot more my type than he is, Shizune!"

Yumiya was a professed lesbian, though her actions with Gai made a lot of people doubt that. There were a lot of people who believed that Yumiya and Gai were lovers, even though Yumiya adamantly denied it and Gai usually was mum on the subject.

Shizune just grinned at her; "That sure looked like flirting to me. Very strange flirting, yes, but flirting still."

"Gah! You want me to start calling him Nii-chan or something? Will that shut all you fuckers up about that?" Yumiya crossed her arms. "Even if I'm not related to him, he's more like a brother to me than my real brothers ever have been."

Shizune laughed heartily; "You're so easy to rile up!"

"Cuz I'm gullible as hell, yes, I know, I get told that all the time."

"Good grief, Yumiya-chan!" Yuuhi Kurenai teased as she and her young son Sarutobi Hikaru passed by on their daily morning walks. Hikaru was a studious boy determined to graduate from the academy very soon and join his mother as a full ninja. He'd never gotten to meet his father, Sarutobi Asuma, who had died long before Hikaru was born. However, the boy had had no shortage of male figures in his life. He was very close to his much-older cousin Konohamaru; it was likely that Kurenai and Hikaru were both every bit as worried about Konohamaru as Naruto was. Kurenai was the usual jounin in charge of the team that Shizune was captaining right now; her lack of useable healing and her obligation to her young son meant she couldn't leave Konoha, so therefore Shizune took over. "I thought you were so tired you couldn't hardly stand; yet here you are throwing Gai around like a ragdoll. I'd hate to see you at full power."

"Stop calling me -chan!" Yumiya huffed. "And you know that I need to be tough on my own, just to put up with this bozo. God knows I can't count on my genjutsu to get me out of a stitch, especially if I'm trying to fight him; he stops everything I throw at him!" The tomboyish kunoichi shook her arms. "Without good taijutsu, I end up relying where I shouldn't. I'm nothing without the bloodline, you know. I fucking hate kekkei genkai. Getting called a genius for something you can't control whether or not you have is ridiculous."

Kurenai shook her head in amusement and she turned to her students; "Make me proud, Hinata," she said, giving the young Hyuuga successor a hug. "And if you do well in this, I think I'm going to pressure Tsunade-sama to oversee your promotion."

"Hey, what am I, chopped cucumber?" Shizune said in mock offense. "Which of us is closer to Tsunade-sama?"

Kurenai pointedly ignored the other kunoichi, though her son giggled. "Kiba, Shino... oh forget it, I'm already so proud of you two I could burst. Just be good and do what you're told, KIBA."

The young jounin grinned as his canine partner panted with silent laughter; "Anything to repay my debt to Kankurou, to be honest. I'll even put up with listening to what that crazy Kazekage says to do."

"Does he even remember that debt you proclaim to owe him?" Shino asked pointedly, shifting his arms noticeably and releasing a few bugs.

"I dunno, but Akamaru and I remember it, and that's enough." Akamaru yapped sharply in agreement.

"C'mon, let's go," Shizune said as she hitched her pack to settle it in the middle of her back. "We're burning daylight here."

Neji swatted Naruto; "Hey, taichou, what about us?"

"Are we all ready to go?"

"Yeah," Sakura said. "I had to give my mom the key to our apartment so that someone could get in and feed the fish regularly, and then listen to her go off about how unfair it is that my honeymoon's been interrupted, blah blah."

"Fish? Fish?" Neji stared at Lee. "You have pets? Are you out of your mind?"

"I'll remind you that I have fish too," Gai said.

"You have an outdoor pond, Gai-sensei; and besides, I already know that you're out of your mind."

"Your fiancée has a dog and a cat," Naruto pointed out.

"She's also not a shinobi," Neji retorted. "She's always home to take care of them."

"My parents aren't shinobi anymore either," Sakura said matter-of-factly, "and they're more than happy to maintain our apartment in our absence."

"OW! Gai-sensei, that--- OW, let go!" Lee yelped. "My lungs!" Gai was hugging him enthusiastically, and Lee looked like he was going to collapse under the crushing hug.

"You fucking idiot, Gai," Yumiya said. Kurenai glared at her as she covered Hikaru's ears in a futile gesture to shield the boy from Yumiya's foul mouth.

"Let's go," Naruto said, noticing that Lee wanted to put some distance between himself and Gai. Neji and Sakura both nodded, and Lee shot Naruto a grateful look as he pulled away from Gai, shaking his limbs out.

"Idiot," Kakashi said, swatting Gai's head. "You're stronger than a bear, and he's fragile. You could crush his bones without thinking, and Tsunade-sama would have to go crazy on you. You think Sakura's a challenge when she's mad? Hokage-sama's temper is ten times worse, and her power is about ten times greater."

"I'd never hurt Lee and you know it!"

"We need to get out of here!" Lee said, hiding behind Sakura with a comical grin. "If we stay any longer, Gai-sensei will never let us leave!" Then he peered out at Kakashi. "And I am not fragile!"

"Could've fooled me," Kakashi drawled. "I mean, come on. Hiding behind a woman?"

Lee grinned and gave Sakura a gentle push toward the Copy-Nin; "Then you fight her."

"Uh, no," Kakashi's visible eye wrinkled in an obvious grin, "I've been on the receiving end. I'll pass."

"Can we quit dinking around?" Neji snapped. "We'll never get to Suna if you keep reminiscing!"

"Naruto-niichan!" A voice called desperately as a pair of young chuunin came racing up. They were Udon and Moegi, the teammates of the current ambassador in Suna. They, like Konohamaru, had grown up looking up to Naruto.

"What is it, Moegi?"

"Please," the kunoichi gasped between breaths, "please send word as soon as you find out about Konohamaru-kun! Ebisu-sensei just told us about what Hokage-sama fears, and we're afraid too! Please send word as soon as you find out!"

"I'll be sending word to Obaachan," the jounin said gently, patting the two chuunin on their heads. "It's up to her to decide if she informs you; it's not my decision. When dealing with the embassy, everything goes through the Hokage. You guys know that."

"Yeah but -- " Udon shifted his thick glasses. "Can't you just -- "

"I have to follow protocol," Naruto insisted. "Believe me, I understand how you feel. But I imagine Ebisu will keep you informed. He's a jounin, after all. But don't you all worry; Konohamaru's tough. He won't let a plague or a poison drop him before he can become Hokage, and if he's still alive when we get there, we'll definitely save him. Sakura-chan's the best poison-expert next to Obaachan, and Shizune-oneechan is best all-around healer next to Obaachan. So we'll make sure he comes home safely."

Lee came up behind him and gave the two chuunin his favorite "Nice Guy" pose as well; "Just as Naruto-kun said; if Konohamaru-kun can just hang on until we get there, he will be just fine. I know from personal experience that Sakura is every bit as good as Hokage-sama."

"Getting these morons to actually leave the village is like pulling teeth," Neji muttered. Yumiya punched him good-naturedly.

"Naruto," Kakashi spoke up before they could actually leave. "Don't be afraid to send for us. Gai and I can fight pretty damned well, and if this is a poison outbreak, or a plague that requires actual medication, you're going to need Yumiya's kekkei genkai in order to create enough antidotes to treat the whole village."

"Understood."

After way too much time spent dawdling, the team got going. Because of Naruto and Lee's high cruising speed abilities, Neji and Sakura fell in directly behind them and used them as windbreakers to ease their own passage, and they caught up to both Team Shizune and Team Shikamaru in short order.

"What is Yumiya's kekkei genkai again? I forget," Neji said as they moved.

"She can make plants grow at an accelerated rate, or increase their medicinal yield by several hundreds of percent," Sakura reported. "Especially useful for rare plants. It's got a nasty side-effect though. It costs her huge amounts of chakra and she has to use blood as if she's summoning, except a lot more blood. If she's not careful, she ends up anemic."

"She also can cast very elaborate genjutsu without as much cost in chakra, because of the bloodline limit," Lee added. "That is why she is considered a genius with genjutsu. It appears that the same ability that enables her to manipulate plants also enables her to manipulate chakra currents in humans, and means that she can not only cast genjutsu, but can control the victim's movements, something like a puppeteer does. Gai-sensei explained it to me once, how it works, but I am afraid I did not understand."

"She doesn't have a doujutsu kekkei genkai," Neji said, "so she can't actually see the chakra networks, right?"

"Right," Sakura said, "but she can sense them; you could almost say she can hear or smell them. It's not as good as seeing them, but she can sense where they are and how they're flowing, and she can change the flow to some degree. She's not as good as you are, since you have your Byakugan and your jyuuken. But she's a lot better than she gives herself credit for. The one time I sparred against her, she kicked my butt in three minutes flat, and berated me for being so weak."

"Ouch!" Lee's foot slipped on a branch, breaking his stride. "Damn!"

"Come on, Geji-mayu, get serious about this, will you? We've wasted enough time, I'm getting worried about Konohamaru."

Sakura frowned and bounced a punch off Naruto's head. "He is being serious, Naruto. He just stepped wrong. It's not like you've never done anything silly like that before."

"And you were wasting time too, Naruto," Neji added.

"I know, I know, I'm just worried. Let's pick up the speed a bit."

Sakura sighed; this was going to be a long journey.

"Kazekage-sama, please," the aging jounin begged his leader, "I really must insist that you rest a bit. You are about to collapse! Not even you can use up that much chakra in so short an amount of time and expect to not be affected negatively by it."

"I'm fine, Baki," the red-haired kage snapped angrily, silently cursing his crippling fatigue. The sand was barely behaving itself. The wall he was trying to keep up around Sunagakure was crumbling even as he stood there, with one hand on it. His little familiar, Suna-chan, was trembling with effort as she clung to his shoulder, hiding beneath his cowl. "I am the Kazekage, and I will protect this village, even at the cost of my life, if it comes to that. That was the vow I made years ago when I first took the position, you remember."

Baki frowned but didn't respond. He returned his attention to the deathly-ill kunoichi beneath his hands. He wasn't very skilled in healing, but he had more skill than anyone still alive except Gaara, and Gaara was far too busy trying to shield Sunagakure, to both maintain a quarantine and to keep it safe from the impending invasions.

"Easy there, Sanami," he said gently, pressing his hands against the swell of her abdomen. There was clearly no life left in where there should have been. How long the baby had been dead was anyone's guess, though he hoped it was only very recently. Unlike those around her who had also fallen to the epidemic, Sanami's illness was agonizing and slow, leaving her bleeding and weak, but not delirious. Frankly, she was the oddball in the plague. Whatever this poison or plague was, it usually affected the sufferer's senses, making them hallucinate. Sanami was just in excruciating pain and bleeding constantly. Except for the timing, it would be easy to say she wasn't affected by whatever plagued the entire village, since no one else seemed to be suffering quite like her; but she had been fine five days ago when Gaara had first started making preparations to travel to Konoha. When the plague had first hit had been when the first signs of her miscarrying had appeared; now she was just steps away from death.

Kankurou is going to be devastated when he gets home and sees this. I just hope she can at least hold on until he gets home, even if she doesn't make it. They deserve to at least be together at her end, since he didn't want to leave the village in the first place. He's been nothing if not devoted to her this past year since they married.

Gaara had arrived roughly three and a half days after departing the village, an impossible rate of travel. He had arrived home on the brink of collapse, having used some bizarre soldier pills to bolster his chakra and enable him to travel at three times the normal speed. He had also arrived alone, insisting he had left Temari and Kankurou behind in his concern for Sunagakure. He had nearly collapsed into Baki's arms upon arrival, and had demanded copious amounts of water. Even now he was drinking water like he was part kappa. This was highly unusual, especially when he was trying to keep his sand barrier up. Water weakened the consistency of the sand if it touched the sand, and yet Gaara was thirstily guzzling down liter after liter of water, hour after hour.

For the past thirty six hours the Kazekage had been holding up a gargantuan shield around Sunagakure. Every minute longer made the rings of black skin around the kage's eyes stand out in sharper relief as his normally-pale complexion became paler and waxier. He was running out of chakra at an alarming rate.

Gaara's hand moved, and a small translucent bead disappeared down the kage's throat. The redhead took a generous swig from the bottle of water belted at his hip. For a moment it seemed like nothing was going to happen, but then there was a flair of energy as the Kazekage's power increased rapidly.

Baki's hands trembled slightly.

What on earth was Gaara doing? Using soldier pills over and over like that was disastrous. It caused, among other things, paralyzing exhaustion, crippling anxiety, and sometimes even psychosis.

"Relax, Baki," Gaara said without looking at him. "I sent to Konoha for help when I first learned the extent of this disaster. By now the bird should be there and any help Hokage-sama can send us should be on its way. If I can hold out for three days, we will be okay."

If? Baki's blood went to ice. Gaara had never shown such vulnerability. It wasn't like Gaara to say "If" -- he was more likely to say "I just need to hold this up for three days, and then everything will be fine."

Please, Hokage-sama, send your fastest help, he prayed silently. Kazekage-sama is getting reckless. This is even more dire than when he was kidnapped by Akatsuki, because he's the only thing between us and the enemies, and he's clearly not holding up very well.

"Oi, Geji-mayu," Naruto said as he paused briefly on the desert. It was just past sunrise on the third day after the message from Suna had come in. The three teams had agreed to take a longer route to ensure that they weren't waylaid by Mist-nin, so they'd lost about half a day in traveling because of that, but now Naruto's team was within a couple of hours of reaching Suna, if he was remembering correctly.

"Yes?"

"I've only made this journey once, and that time we got caught in a sandstorm, and we had Temari to guide us. So, er, what's the best way to approach Suna?"

"Straight ahead. We are headed directly for it. If Neji looks closely enough, he should see the outcroppings surrounding the city. I believe they are within range of his Byakugan."

"Nope," Neji said. "All I see is sand for acres ahead of us. No rock outcroppings at all."

"Oh, well, it is best to come at it from the front. Though I do wonder if Gaara-sama has some form of disguise up. I know he has some very elaborate shields available to raise around Suna if he needs them."

"Well, I can see through most genjutsu," Neji said stiffly. "The bigger it is, the easier to see through. And I'm not seeing anything but vast expanses of sand."

"Then you're not looking hard enough, Neji-oniisan," Hanabi said from behind them as Team Shikamaru finally caught up to them, "because I can see the rock outcroppings, and if I focus hard enough, I can just make out the Kazekage's administrative building from here, just barely. It's hard to see it, because it's so far away, but there's nothing to obstruct my view, so I can see further here than I would normally, and I can see it. You're headed straight for it."

"Is there a sand wall around it?" Lee asked. "Can you see a sand wall?"

"Not from here, but like I said, I can only just make out the top of the building. It's pretty far away yet."

Hanabi's ability to see considerably further than anyone else with the Byakugan was one of Shikamaru's trump cards as a team leader. Hanabi could see trouble coming a literal mile away, giving Shikamaru, considered to be among the most brilliant tacticians in Konoha's history, plenty of time to formulate a plan; by that same token, she was almost invaluable as a long-distance scout, since, given a clear landscape with few obstacles for her to have to see through, she could see several miles away.

Lee frowned a bit. "The sand wall will be very obvious. The fact that you cannot see it means it is probably not up, which means Gaara-sama does not have enough chakra or concentration for it. So he is either too low on chakra for it, or he is engaged in combat, if it is not up around Sunagakure in a crisis."

"Or," Shikamaru replied, "it's all a ruse. It's not like no one else knows about that sand shield, Lee. He may have it rigged to a trigger, to go up if anyone gets close, but otherwise it stays down to make the village look vulnerable so he can trap them easier. Gaara's not one to go out looking for trouble; he lures trouble into range and crushes it instead. I remember Temari and Kankurou both boasting about the village's defenses."

"That, and it conserves on chakra to have the shield go up only when a threat is nearby," Sakura reasoned. "That makes sense."

"Still, we should hurry," Lee insisted. He had grown quieter as they neared the Sand village; his concern for Gaara was starting to show.

"No arguments here," Naruto said as he crouched down and launched off again.

"Chouji," Shikamaru said as the rest of the two teams started to follow the anxious blond jounin, "you keep watch once we get within sight of the village. If Gaara's using those soldier pills your clan created, it should affect the color of his chakra, which could indicate to us just how dire the situation is for us."

"Got it. I hope he hasn't been going too heavily on them. Those new ones are still in the developmental stages, and besides, using soldier pills too much in succession is a recipe for disaster. They're not as dangerous as these other ones, but they're dangerous enough." Chouji gestured meaningfully to his pouch, indicating to those who knew him well enough the package of three highly concentrated soldier pills very specifically formulated for members of the Akimichi clan. If used in succession, the risk of dying became extremely high, and treating the after-effects required exact doses of a complex antidote that so far only Tsunade was capable of making in a timely manner. Chouji himself had nearly died after resorting to them in a fight more than ten years ago.

"Well, he's got to have a reason, if he's using them," Hanabi reasoned. "Next to Naruto-san, Gaara-sama has the highest concentration of natural chakra I've ever seen."

"And we know why that is," Shikamaru said blandly.

"Even without Shukaku, he still has more chakra than anyone else except Naruto," Sakura responded.

"My point exactly: if Gaara-sama needs to use the soldier pills, he's got to have a reason, since he's got so much chakra naturally."

They lapsed into silence as they traveled across the hard-packed desert sand. Shizune and her team caught up in the meantime, though they ranged out at the back of the pack to keep an eye out for unfriendly company behind them.

Little more than an hour had passed before an immobile, familiar figure became visible on the horizon.

"Gaara!" Naruto hollered into the wind. "Boy am I glad to see you okay!"

The figure didn't respond, though as they got closer it was quite obviously the Kazekage.

"Gaara! Dammit, say something, don't just stand there and glare at us! We came to help!"

"Naruto," Neji put an arm in front of Naruto, "that's not Gaara."

"It is so!" Lee said indignantly.

"It's not even alive, whatever it is," Neji snapped angrily. "It's a bunshin of some sort, I think. It's hollow. There's no living chakra in it. And notice that it's not moving, not even in the wind?"

Gaara nearly always wore a long white sash across his torso that generally draped from his waist to hover just a few inches off the ground. It was just something that was a part of his usual garb. This Gaara was no different, but now that Neji pointed it out, the sash he wore wasn't moving at all, not even in the brisk wind kicking up from across the desert.

It was like this was a statue, except it certainly looked like a human being, not a sculpture.

"One way to test this," Lee said finally, reaching into his shuriken holster and pulling out a pair of shuriken. With a flick of his wrist, he sent them flying at the motionless form of the Kazekage.

The response was something of a surprise.

Instead of dodging or retaliating, the figure simply disintegrated upon impact, into a pile of sand.

"Nice work, puppetmaster," Gaara drolled as he emerged from a cloud generated by the sand-clone's collapse. "You really fooled them."

"Fuck you, Gaara, I can't move that!" Kankurou's angry voice retorted from somewhere behind him. "You want me to move that thing like a puppet, you gotta give it joints! Ever noticed how many joints are in my puppets? I can't move a single solid block of sandstone and make it look like anything but a moving block of sandstone!"

Abruptly the pile of loose sand launched skyward and spiraled down into the gourd situated, as usual, on the Kazekage's back. Gaara twisted the cork into place just as his raccoon familiar crawled out from underneath the cowl he wore. He sized up the contingent from Konoha, and for a moment everyone expected him to criticize their numbers.

Instead, he did something no one had ever seen him do.

He bowed.

Coming soon: "Part Three: Black Plague, White Death" wherein the healers take on the bane of Sunagakure, and Sakura and Shizune discover what sinister ailment plagues Sanami.

END NOTES: Terminology, for those who are a bit rusty:
"Geji-mayu" is what Naruto calls Rock Lee. It translates as "fuzzy eyebrows" or as the English dub anime calls it, "Bushy Brow" and is Naruto's nickname for Lee. He doesn't mean anything rude by it, and Lee doesn't seem to mind.
Hitai-ate are the "forehead protectors" (headbands) worn by all shinobi with symbols of their home village. Because they can be worn anywhere, or not worn at all, I have chosen to use the untranslated word rather than the term "forehead protector" or "headband"
Doujutsu is performing a jutsu with the eyes, such as with the Sharingan or Byakugan, though there appears to be other forms of doujutsu that aren't kekkei genkai.
A kunoichi is a female ninja. It is often used in the series as a synonym for ninja or shinobi, when talking about a female. Thus it's used here sporadically much as it is in the series.
A kekkei genkai is, basically, a "bloodline limit" -- referring to a talent or trait that is passed down genetically. The Sharingan and the Byakugan are the two most well-known kekkei genkai in this series.
The Hyuuga clan use the jyuuken (Gentle Fist) style of taijutsu, which requires the Byakugan to execute properly. The jyuuken style targets the chakra network and internal organs.
A bijuu is one of the nine different tailed demons. A human container of a bijuu is called a Jinchuuriki. Gaara was the Jinchuuriki for Shukaku, the Ichibi (One-Tailed) before the Akatsuki drew it out of him, and Naruto is the Jinchuuriki for the Kyuubi (Nine-Tailed)
Taichou means captain, in a manner of speaking.
A kappa is a mythological Japanese water creature.