Generic Disclaimer: Naruto not mine. Woe.

Everything else: Meant to take place in the time between chapters 238 and 245. Probably AU as hell, but since Kishimoto hasn't really told us what happened in that time, I have a lot to play around with. :3 I'll probably sneak in canon as it shows up.

There's more to this than the Sand's ultimate replacement of the Kazekage; it's about relationships, and life, and growing up. It's about pain and sacrifice, learning how to be selfless and when to be selfish. It's about finding yourself in adversity. It's the story of a ninja.

I hope you like it.

They had left Konohagure five days ago, and Gaara had yet to fall asleep again.

She was going to miss all of this - the cool, dark shadows, the air that did not scorch the lungs to breathe, the endless supply of water. Temari was no fool, she knew that Sunagakure would always be her home, but she was also well aware that someday it would also be her death. People did not grow old in the deserts of the Wind Country; they withered up and dried out and blew away with the next harsh wind. It was, after all, why some of the best ninja in the world had come from Sunagakure - because the climate did not produce weak fools, like the ones in more water-abundant regions.

Or at least that's how it had been in the past. Or maybe she had been the fool, to believe the doctrines of her father and the other ninja of the Hidden Sand. Those boys from Konohagure might not be great yet, but they had the potential for immense greatness. And being raised in a country where water was taken for granted had nothing to do with it.

Temari stifled a sigh. Almost a year in the Fire Country had made her weak. She was going to miss all this water...

Across the fire slept Kankurou, his form a flickering bundle of black in the darkness of night. His dolls were humped shapes resting against the trees further away. Also across the fire from her, but several feet away from his brother, sat Gaara, arms crossed over his chest and leaning back against his gourd. The light from the tiny fire lent his pale eyes an almost demonic glow as he gazed vacantly at nothing. Of the three of them, only Kankurou was asleep, but Temari had a feeling Gaara wasn't exactly awake, either.

She wished Baki was with them, although she understood why he had needed to return to Sunagakure. He was more than their guardian, more than their trainer, more than a ninja - he had weight on the Council, however small, and he felt his presence was needed desperately now that the Kazekage was dead. He was needed more in the Wind Country to keep their home from falling apart than he was needed with his students.

But Baki also had a way with Gaara, knew how to... not control him, exactly, but convince him to behave in a way that did not involve resorting to begging (as she and Kankurou usually had to). Baki knew what to say to Gaara and how to say it without getting killed - the only reason why he had lasted as their mentor for so long - and Temari desperately wished she had some of that skill now that Baki was gone.

Her little brother had been... strangely docile over the past three months. Quiet. And that docility made her wonder how long it would be before he snapped again. She knew that he hadn't really been recovered from his transformation into Shukaku when the Godaime sent them after the Sound-nin. She knew that recovering from physical stress was harder for him than normal people, even with his semi-demonic nature, considering how he couldn't exactly sleep like normal people.

But it had been three months since he had killed Kimimaro (or Kimimaro had killed himself, depending on who you spoke with), three long months where he had spent most of his time laid out on a bed in an isolated wing of the hospital, while she and Kankurou watched him sleep and woke him if his chakra spiked. Three months and Gaara should have recovered.

Their going was not slow. Leisurely, but not slow - because a slow pace would have looked suspicious, and the siblings were still wary of attracting their brother's attention. It was an easy pace to keep up with. But Gaara had said next to nothing since they had left, not even his usual "Shut up or I'll kill you" when Kankurou started singing the raunchy songs he had learned while with the puppet troupe. He walked with his head down and his eyes half-closed, looking like nothing more than a sleepwalker. Which wasn't so far from the truth; Gaara was the only one she knew who could walk all day and even carry on a coherant conversation while half-asleep.

Three months of virtual bed-rest should have restored her youngest brother's stamina, but instead she was seeing all the signs of exhaustion. His eyes looked more bruised and puffy than they had been before the chuunin exam, and there was a glassy look to them that only disappeared when something commanded his full attention. He hadn't deliberately manipulated his sand in weeks. Kankurou had even commented briefly on how it seemed their brother was using more chakra than usual to supplement his stamina.

All of this disturbed her, because this was not the Gaara she knew. A Gaara that was not quietly brooding or wildly homicidal was outside of her comfort zone. But a small part of her was also silently relieved, because if her brother did drop from exhaustion, she knew that Shukaku could not take advantage of a body so completely drained of stamina. Chakra could only do so much, no matter how unlimited.

Temari couldn't help but feel bad for being relieved at Gaara's fatigue. She wondered what kind of person that made her.

The eyes of the boy seated across from her drooped a little more.

The blonde Sand-nin shifted her position, drawing her knees up to her chin and wrapping her arms around her legs. She didn't care if the posture flashed anyone; Kankurou was asleep, after all, and Gaara didn't have the body shyness or the interest to care. And with their fire dwindling like it was, the night air was beginning to get cold; at least curled up like this she could conserve heat. She let her gaze be drawn to the flames, watching the embers creep slowly along a branch that stuck out from the circle of fire.

What were they going to be walking into when they finally got home? The Hidden Leaf had been able to unanimously decide on a new Hokage only weeks after the previous one's death; it had been finding her and getting her to accept the position that took the most time. But half a year had passed and the Hidden Sand still had yet to agree upon a new Kazekage. They could very well be walking into a civil war.

It was said that the Kage of a Hidden Village had to be strong, but Temari knew her father had not been strong. He had been petty and ambitious and power-hungry. He had, as she'd learned on the sly, not gained the Kazekage title by strength of arms and wise political decisions, but by threats and a few well-placed daggers in the dark. Ninja clans who were likewise power-hungry and scheming were drawn to him, and went through the dance of being lackeys, equal allies, enemies, neutral advisors, and back to lackeys again in the space of a week. Or went from allies to enemies to dead in the space of a day if they mis-stepped. Her father had not made decisions for the good of Sunagakure, but for the good of his own political power and position. The moral of the city had dropped from more than just the lack of well-paying missions after that retard of a Minister made that ridiculous peace-treaty. Temari had no doubt that there were people dancing in the street when they heard the news of his death.

She also had no doubts that her father's death had left a void that was dangerously unfilled. Those clans who once had their fingers on the pulse of Sunagakure were now nothing without the Kazekage's backing. There would be jockeying for position, political posturing and maneuvering. Threats laced in among the honeyed words.

Like a nest of scorpions, she thought in disgust. No matter where we step, we'll run the risk of being stung.

She did not know where she and her brothers would stand once they reentered the city. As the children of the Kazekage, they had been revered, feared, and perhaps even a little spoiled. All right, more than a little spoiled - she, for instance, could never have become a ninja if she had not been the Kazekage's daughter. There were no female ninja in Sunagakure.

Where once they had been respected ninja of the Hidden Sand, their status as genin not withstanding, Temari knew that she and her brothers would soon be turned into political pawns. There would be many marriage proposals, she suspected - for her and Kankurou at least - in the effort to tie clans in more tightly in with the previous Kazekage's bloodline. (No one in their right mind would offer their daughter in marriage to Gaara, and besides, Temari privately suspected her younger brother would never develop a sex drive.) There would be efforts to get on their good side. There might even be attempts to get Baki replaced in order to get control over the three siblings. And that, of course, was just plain suicidal; Gaara was incredibly resistant to change, and giving the pale-eyed boy a new mentor was just as good as signing that mentor's death certificate.

There would, she knew with awful certainty, be assassination attempts.

Temari moved her gaze back to her brother, watched his eyelids steadily drop lower until there was only the faintest gleam of white against the bruised black of his eyes. She worried about him - she had never seen him freak out like he had during the chuunin exam. Even the first time she had seen his awful transformation into Shukaku, Gaara had been far more calm and in control. He had never been exactly sane in the conventional sense of the word, but he was rational (most of the time) and not all that difficult to work with, so long as she watched her mouth and stayed within the bounds of what did not upset him.

But he had been so irrational during the exam, so blood-thirsty and out-of-control. And in the space of roughly five months he had performed a complete one-eighty, and was now almost... acquiescent. Docile was the word that kept coming to mind. On the rare occasions when she or Kankurou asked him to do something, he had done the task without resistance or even so much as a dirty look.

Kankurou, before they had left Konohagure, had mentioned his worry for Gaara. How much more withdrawn he had become. Not absent-minded, but not paying much attention to his surroundings, either. Even though the sand in his gourd would protect him automatically, she feared that inattention might cost him his life once they reentered the Hidden Sand.

Temari wasn't sure where this worry came from. Before the exam she had never seen the red-haired genin take a hit, much less get a scratch on him. In a childish way she had thought it impossible. But experience had shown her that in truth her brother was extremely vulnerable - without the protection of his sand, and without the strength of his chakra, he had no defenses whatsoever. She had already understood Kankurou and her duty in protecting others from Gaara - but never before had she realized that they also needed to protect Gaara from himself. From the urges of the demon Shukaku and from his own incredibly fluctuating instabilities.

She had been wildly excited when she learned she had siblings - immensely pleased when she met Kankurou and horribly disappointed when she met Gaara. She had been hoping for two younger brothers that she could tease and protect; Kankurou, even though he was a year younger, had ended up more like an older brother. He did, after all, currently out-weigh her by nearly forty pounds. But Gaara... had most definitely not fit the role she had imagined for him. She had hoped for a seven year old little brother and had instead gotten a pale-eyed monster.

Maybe all this worry came from the hope she had felt when Gaara had said, "I'm sorry." Hope that maybe somewhere in that apparently soul-less body hid the little brother she had longed for.

She watched in silence as Gaara's eyes finally slid shut.

Temari settled her chin on her knees and studied his face. He looked so much like their father, compared to Kankurou or herself. She had gotten the blonde hair and elf-like features of their mother, and the kugutsu-nin had received the stockier build and darker coloring of their father's father. But Gaara had the same lean build as the late Kazekage, the same dark red hair and aquiline features. Only his eyes were his own.

Their father had hated him. Maybe it was because he harbored a demon that the Kazekage had been unable to control as he wished. But maybe it was because he saw himself in Gaara, saw the demon he had become and the demon he had made his son into, and could not stand the ugliness he saw. Maybe it was because Gaara had taken away his chance to produce more heirs from his wife's bloodline. (Although, really, that was his own fault; Baki had revealed to her that all three pregnancies had been hard on their mother, and three children in roughly three years was too much for many women to take. Birthing a demon-possessed child had only added to the stress that might have killed her anyway.)

But whatever it was that had caused the Kazekage to hate his son so much was a hatred that was shared by everyone else in Sunagakure. The only place Gaara could walk mostly unnoticed was outside of his mother country. And that, Temari thought, was horribly unfair.

She feared her brother sometimes, and with good cause, but she had never hated him. It had always seemed as though no one but she and Kankurou - and Baki, perhaps - could see past the demon inside the boy or the sand that protected him. No one seemed to connect the discoloration around his eyes to the fact that Gaara had never been able to rest more than three hours straight in his entire life. That he, an eleven year old child - no, twelve, she reminded herself, his birthday was during the exam - could go longer without rest than any grown man, not because he wanted to but because he had to. Because if Gaara fell into a truly deep sleep, Shukaku the demon could suppress the entity that was Gaara the boy and gain control of his body. It had happened more than once, and each time it had scared the shit out of her. She would rather face Gaara and his murderous tendencies than Shukaku. At least Gaara could be reasoned with... most of the time.

And that was why she and Kankurou stood guard at night. Not to watch for enemies, but to watch Gaara and wake him if his control slipped. It wasn't exactly selfless, but it certainly wasn't selfish, either. No one else in Sunagakure would watch over him like they did. She wondered if he knew that.

Maybe someday, if he ever grew to trust them enough, Gaara could even get a full night of uninterrupted sleep. That really would make her day.

The ashes at the outside edge of the fire pit began to stir.

Temari dropped her gaze from the sleeping face of her youngest brother to watch. The particles of fine soot shifted in tiny whirlpools near Gaara's feet, but she knew that the distance was too far for the dust to be disturbed by the rising heat of the flames. The loose layer of soil on the hard-packed surface of the old campsite was also too heavy to be moved by anything less than a stiff breeze, but it was moving all the same. And she, growing master of the currents, knew there was no breeze.

No wonder Gaara appear more tired than usual. He had only just fallen asleep, and already Shukaku was attempting to claim control. The demon was more being more persistent than usual.

The blonde Sand-nin uncurled from her position by the dwindling fire, tucking her legs underneath her and reaching for the small pile of brush she had gathered before the sun went down. She had been forced to pick mostly green branches - it was green branches or rotted logs, and those simply could not be convinced to catch fire - and so when she tossed the handful of twigs into the flames, the wood immediately began to spit and hiss as the sap exploded outward from the pressure.

Gaara's eyes snapped back open, the ashes and soil stopped their sinister dancing, and a tendril of sand whipped in front of him in a defensive gesture. Across the fire, Kankurou's dark form paused in the rhythm of breathing before resuming again.

Temari added a few more handfuls to build the fire up before sitting back again. She met her brother's gaze and tried to smile.

Gaara stared at her briefly, before looking pointedly away. His sand withdrew from sight.

She curled up again, ignoring the heavy lead that seemed to have dropped into her stomach. Two more days, she told herself. Two more days and we'll reach the desert. Then we'll be back with Baki, and he'll know what to do with Gaara. Because I sure as hell don't.

Temari woke Kankurou for his half of the night-watch two hours later. She didn't manage to fall asleep until almost an hour before dawn. It seemed Gaara's insomnia was catching.

.oO0Oo.

The landscape had slowly but surely changed shape around them; the lush, verdant greenery of the Fire Country had given way to the lowland scrub and oaks that marked the territory of the Hidden Grass. True to its name, the small area that the Grass Country claimed as its own was starkly open in comparison to the forest they had left behind. The only things that grew taller than the traveling genin were the stunted scrub oaks and twisted date palms, whose trunks often bent and grew parallel to the ground from the fierce seasonal winds.

Although the Grass Country was small compared to its neighbors, the native ninja were ferocious. Kankurou was then suitably surprised that their travel went unmolested. The Hidden Sound and Hidden Sand had forged an alliance for war after all, and several genin Grass-nin had been among the casualties. He had quite honestly expected at least a display of intimidation while traveling through their territory.

Then again, Gaara's gourd was un-corked and his sand was slithering around him in a decidedly wrathful manner. And he was looking far more alert than he had two days previous. Kankurou knew the sand was not for show, nor to warn off the rattlesnakes they kept encountering in the waist-high palmettos. No, he would lay stake that the Grass-nin were watching, and too smart to make a move after the stories they had heard about the chuunin exam.

The Sand-nin, unfortunately, could not sense if they were being tailed. Compared to his siblings, the kugutsu-nin's extended senses were pathetic. But he could tell from his brother's sand and the way his sister held her head high to scent the wind that they, at least, were aware of the threat.

Well, so long as he was with these two, it didn't matter that his senses sucked. He was an actor, after all, and he knew how to read body language to discern the hidden truths. All he had to do was keep an eye on his siblings, and he'd have more than ample time to respond to an attack.

Already the saw grass and palm fronds were beginning to thin out, and in the far distance Kankurou could see the undulating, blinding sands of their home country. Eventually the hard-packed, grainy soil would give way to the desert, the brush to cactus to nothing at all. The palms would grow stunted and crooked far past the cactus, but eventually even that would vanish when the ground grew too soft and shifting to support a root system. They had finally reached the eastern edge of the Wind Country.

Kankurou came to a stop and resisted the urge to wipe sweat from his upper lip and possibly smear his face paint. Wearing all black under the rays of a midday sun had been nothing back in Konohagure, but out here he felt like he was getting well-baked.

"About where do you think we left it?" he asked aloud.

His sister took a few steps past him, hands on her hips. From this position he could see that the wooden edges of her fan were looking a little chipped. It could probably use a sanding and oiling, too. "Not far from here," she replied. Her eyes were narrowed against the harsh noon sun as she calculated their distance from the landmarks she had memorized.

The kugutsu-nin dragged his eyes away from Temari and glanced over to his younger brother. Gaara had stopped several feet away from them, and was staring out toward the distant desert with a blank look to his face. Now that a good quarter of his sand was curling around his feet, the youngest Sand-nin was standing straighter under the weight of his gourd. The damn thing did, after all, weigh well over fifty pounds when full.

Not that such a paltry weight would bother him. The combined weight of Karasu and Kuroari was almost two hundred pounds - more, if he hadn't specifically designed his dolls to be hollow. He was sacrificing armory for speed and lightness, but Kankurou didn't have the strength or skill to command one of the true juggernauts of the puppeteering world. Just one of those dolls weighed three hundred pounds, and he would be lucky if he had the chakra strength to even twitch a finger. Those things were damn near made of lead.

Still, if he knew he wouldn't be killed in the effort, he would offer to shoulder that gourd for Gaara. Karasu was light enough for him to manipulate over the sands at least part of the way to Sunagakure, and god knew Gaara could use the rest.

"Here we go," he heard Temari mutter, and Kankurou turned in time to watch her stalk toward where they had buried their equipment on their first trip through. Scarves to protect the face from blowing sand, smut for the eyes to cut back on the glare of the sun, extra water canteens. Survival gear necessary for the desert, but just a detriment to travel in the forest. They had buried all of it deep to protect it from notice - he could only hope it was still there. And in good condition.

The Sand-nin jogged a few steps to catch up with his sister as she waded through the saw grass. His puppets bounced in the motion, threatening to upset his balance, but he compensated automatically. "They still watching?" he asked her, sotto voce.

"One is," she replied in just as low a tone. "The others left about ten minutes ago. He probably stayed behind to make sure we get where it looks like we're going."

He couldn't help but chuckle darkly. "He'll have a while to wait. I don't think we're up to traveling during the day."

Temari grinned. "All this water made us weak."

"Made you weak, maybe." He reached out with a gloved hand to tug lightly on one of her short, frazzled ponytails. "I wasn't the one who squealed in delight when I saw how the showers worked. And god knows Gaara doesn't have the pitch to squeal."

Gaara squealing in delight. Now there was a mental image to give him nightmares.

She batted his hand away and came to a stop. The way she shrugged off the travel gear she carried (she ended up carrying more than her brothers, if only to make up for the relative lightness of her fan) and dropped it to the ground indicated at least a small amount of indignant annoyance at his remark. "I did not squeal. Now shut up and help me make sure this is the spot."

Obligingly, he knelt next to the blonde genin and helped her clear away the scraggly weeds that had grown up over the past six months. Together they scooped out handfuls of the sandy dirt until Temari, covered with grit up to her elbows, found the trowel she had buried about two feet below the surface.

"Looks like shit," he observed as she held up the badly rusted tool. "Hope the rest of our stuff doesn't look this bad."

His sister stuck the handle of the spade in an outside pocket of her traveling pack, securing it in place before rising to her feet. "We wrapped everything tightly," she reminded him, dusting off her hands. "And since we'll be traveling at night, all we'll really need is the canteens. And those are indestructible."

"We can hope, at least." He levered himself to his feet with a grunt. He had taken his gloves off to help dig, but the pale sand was still smeared liberally all over the legs of his pants and sleeves of his shirt. Nothing short of a soaking would get this mess off. Pity.

The kugutsu-nin glanced at his sister, then glanced in unison with her in the direction of their brother. "Hey... Gaara?" Kankurou said hesitantly.

About two yards distant, having never moved from his previous position, their brother's pale eyes shifted in their direction. He didn't even bother to turn his head.

"Could you...?" Temari paused as she picked up the request, then made a rotating gesture with one hand. She looked just as uncertain about asking for Gaara's help as he felt, but it would save them hours of work if he obliged.

The youngest Sand-nin's eyes closed, and his chest expanded and contracted in what was probably an annoyed sigh. He made a sweeping motion with one hand, palm down, and his siblings were forced to scramble backwards as the earth shifted beneath their feet. Temari's quick reflexes were all that kept her portion of the traveling gear from sliding down into the rapidly expanding hole.

The rest of the afternoon was spent digging out and cleaning off the equipment, and lazily preparing for their trip across the desert. The walls of the six-foot trench Gaara had created refused to stay stable, and more than once Kankurou had found himself buried to the hips as he passed the wrapped bundles up to his sister. Surprisingly enough, everything was in good shape, and since Baki was not with them the genin had the added security of his canteens. The watchful presence of the Grass-nin did not disappear, their hidden guard following as they retreated from the sand-line to the last water source they had crossed.

After the scarves had been soaked (along with Kankurou's sadly sand-encrusted outfit) and the canteens cleaned and refilled, it was just a matter of wasting time until the sun went down.

.oO0Oo.

"Are you going to miss it?" Temari asked.

Kankurou scrubbed harder at the stubborn face paint that refused to leave the creases around his eyes. "Miss what?"

"This," she replied, and he blinked past the water to see her gesture broadly at the campsite. He understood that the gesture was all encompassing - that she meant the trees, the wildlife, the dappled shadows, the small creek. And more than that, probably; he was sure she also meant Konohagure, and its people, and its food, and its freedom. No one had given her strangely disappointed stares when they realized she was a ninja. There had been a peace in that anonymity for all of them.

The kugutsu-nin dipped his hood in the creek, twisting and squeezing the stiff fabric. "I guess. I mean, home has its own perks as well."

The blonde genin scowled at him. She was leaning back against the trunk of a tree, legs folded underneath her. The grey fabric of her dress had ridden up so that he could see where the wire-mesh stocking ended on her upper thigh. He briefly considered playing the big-brother (even if he wasn't older than her) and telling her to pull down her skirt, but decided he liked his head more where it was.

"Like what?" she demanded. "Drought and disease?"

Kankurou sat back on his heels and ran a hand through his short-cropped hair. Trying to find the right thing to say when she was in a bitter mood was oftentimes hard. "Well... the sunsets. I've never seen a sunset out here that could compare to a sunset - or a sunrise - in Sunagakure."

She seemed to deflate slightly, which gave him the hope that he had (for a change) said the right thing. "Yeah..."

"And there's more than that." The Sand-nin wrung the excess water from his hood and slapped it over his shoulder before standing to approach his sister. The water that seeped through his wire-mesh undershirt was cool and not at all unpleasant. "There's... well. There's also the sand paintings. And the blown-glass sculptures."

Temari tilted her head to look up at him, then away as he sat down. "The music," she added, getting into the swing of it. "The abbey of the Sand Priests."

"Wasabi."

The siblings looked up sharply at the unexpected addition. Gaara blinked owlishly at them from across the campsite.

Kankurou didn't bother containing the wide grin that spread across his features. It was about damn time his brother had tried contributing to the conversation, and he couldn't help but love it when Gaara actually talked about something that didn't involve blood, death, or other such depressing topics. "They sold wasabi in Konohagure," he replied. "Besides, I saw you eating it. You damn near hogged the whole bowl."

This earned a narrowed look from the other boy before he directed his gaze to some distant point off in the scrub forest. "Inferior quality," was his disinterested rejoinder.

Temari huffed faintly to Kankurou's right. "Well, at least one of us is happy to be going home," she muttered.

Gaara obviously didn't care enough to make a response to that, and Kankurou... well, he felt it was better to say nothing at all. He would be lying if he said he wasn't looking forward to returning to Sunagakure. Because, as much as all the traveling and seeing new sights appealed to him, it meant nothing if he didn't have a home to come back to.

He missed his workshop, nestled in the back of the house he had been forced to share with Baki and his siblings since he was nine. He missed working on the generators and water collectors/purifiers that were vital for survival in the desert. He missed the dry air and lack of humidity and the static electricity that raced across his skin when a sandstorm was blowing in his direction He missed Tomiji, the head of the puppet troupe, and all the other players as well. He missed Baki.

But he also understood the reasons why Temari didn't want to go back. Of course, Kankurou couldn't empathize with her, as he was most certainly not female, but he still knew the reasons were logical. Sunagakure could be incredibly suppressive, and his sister just didn't fit the submissive role that was demanded of women in his hometown. He just wished that she would trust him, that she would have faith that he would never allow the Council to withdraw her status as a ninja just because the Kazekage was dead. Gaara might not give a damn either way, but Kankurou did, and he would fight any effort to that affect with tooth and nail.

Kankurou didn't want to look too deeply into what might happen in the future. It was easier to deal with things as they came, and too much crystal-gazing got depressing. All he really wanted was to protect his siblings and make sure they survived the things that would inevitably come. Everything else was irrelevant.

Although both of them would kill him if he ever implied they needed protecting.

The kugutsu-nin stifled a sigh and forced himself to think instead about how nice it would be to have his own bed again. And to see Tomiji's daughter again. Six months was a long time for someone his age; there was a good chance she had finally managed to fill out that kimono he had last seen her in.

Oh yeah. There were plenty of good reasons to go home.

He reached for his travel pack, planning on drying off his face and reapplying his paint. Temari chose that moment to sigh loudly and stretch her legs out in front of her. The fabric of her dress finally slid down to what he considered an acceptable level.

"I'm going to miss the shadows," she said absently, eyes unfocused as she gazed back the way they had come.

Kankurou had a strong feeling she was talking about something else entirely.

"There are no shadows in the desert," Gaara said. "Not at full noon." There was a harshness to his voice, a deliberate cruelty, that made the kugutsu-nin want to hiss at him to shut up. That tone was usually a precursor to further scathing nastiness, and he just didn't want to deal with it tonight.

The blonde genin closed her eyes in a pained-angered-hurt-like-she'd-been-slapped expression and turned her head away in silence.

Kankurou glared across the camp at his younger brother. Gaara just ignored him, as he was so fond of doing. The Sand-nin had a strong feeling that his sister was talking about something else, and he had an even stronger feeling that Gaara knew this, too.

He always got off on making people miserable. The goddamn prick.

The sudden silence was no longer comfortable, as it had been earlier in the day. Instead it had become the cold, deafening silence that usually appeared in the aftermath of Gaara opening his mouth. And it was probably going to last all the way to Sunagakure.

Kankurou pressed his lips together in a tight line and began removing the paint from his travel pack.

.oO0Oo.