Shifting Winds

Hello all, I am writing a Naruto fic. I have written many a story before, but I have never submitted fanfiction for others' perusal. I hope you enjoy it.

This is from Temari's point of view and takes place right after the sand trio heads home (just recently in the manga). If you don't follow the manga, there might be a few spoilers in here, though the anime is quickly catching up to it. So again, there might be spoilers if you don't follow the manga. There will be mild Shikamaru x Temari in here: just some flirting and stuff.

Naruto and all its characters are © Masashi Kishimoto. I don't own them.

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Chapter One: The Command

I'd consider myself a confident person. At least, most of the time. I have to be. Show the slightest bit of uncertainty in this business and you're dead. There is one thing that makes my confidence falter, however. My youngest brother. He's…special. I never got to, being his older sister, pick on him. I still had Kankuro to pick on, but Gaara made me nervous. This is because he could have easily killed me, whether I was being nice to him or not. Not that I blame or hate him for it. No one understands what he went through. When he would start to lose control even just a little bit, I lost it completely. I wish I could have stayed confident for him. I think he needed that. But I got scared. I knew what he was capable of, and I knew that I couldn't stop him. I wish I could have been his older sister.

It's different now. Gaara's different. I'm not nearly as nervous around him as I used to be. The tension between the three of us has all but evaporated. I only know part of what happened between him and the Konoha kid, because unfortunately, that was not one of my shining moments. My confidence? Out the window. I abandoned Gaara in fear for my own life. But whatever happened there made Gaara change. I think we've all changed.

Father is gone. We weren't really…close with Father, so that's why his passing doesn't really faze me. I think the only thing we need to adjust to is the fact that we're no longer the Kazekage's children. I had a feeling things were going to shift a little, and I was right.

"What's this?" I asked one of the new Kazekage's assistants as he handed me a scroll. We had just gotten back from a little rescue mission requested by the Hokage, and I was looking forward to a little downtime. Not that the flute chick was any problem for me, it's just been a stressful couple of months. Gaara had already gone home. I checked the symbols printed on the outside of the scroll. That's odd. "It doesn't look like a mission…"

"It's not." He replied bluntly. I waited for him to elaborate, but he didn't. I shot Kankuro a look and he shrugged. I looked down at the scroll and then back up at the man standing in front of me. He wasn't in office when Father was Kazekage. I'm not sure whether I like him or not. He had a curious scar above his lip and a rather random tattoo under one of his eyes. I looked back down at the scroll in my hand. What the heck was it? I unfurled it to read it, but before I could start, mr. new guy coughed and motioned towards the door. I guess I wasn't supposed to read this here. I rolled up the scroll and nodded to Kankuro. As we turned to leave, the assistant called after us, "It's best if you leave the youngest out of this."

We didn't stop to question him. But why did we have to keep this a secret from Gaara? Man, I hated keeping anything from him lest he find out and kill me. The minute we were out in the hallway I whipped open the scroll.

"What the hell is going on here?" Kankuro growled as he leaned over my shoulder to read with me. I intended to find out. I quickly skimmed over the writing, and then again to make sure I hadn't just caught some kind of illiteracy disease, which made me unable to correctly read what was in front of me.

"…What?" I finally managed. I glanced back at Kankuro. He had just finished reading it and was staring at the parchment with a mixture of anger and confusion on his face.

"We're being…relocated? Why?" He asked me. What was I supposed to say? This was ludicrous! For absolutely no reason the new Kazekage simply decided to up and move me and only one of my brothers to…reference check for sanity's sake…Konoha? Ok, so, as nice and leafy and non-sandy as Konoha is, it's not home. And why did we have to leave Gaara? There was something fishy going on here. Something didn't fit. I snapped the scroll shut angrily and looked up at my younger brother.

"Because, Kankuro..." I started. "Concerning Father's successor, they made a very poor selection."