Sunagakure stood hunched over, steeped in the choking sands. Streams of grained snaked throughout the village, crunching softly underfoot as ninja and civilians made their cautious way though the village. A particular rivulet hissed down a street, propelled by bitter winds.
It made its way past muffled residents, scouring domed buildings and eaved doorways. The acerbic air's breath died down, and the wandering grains again laid down to rest on a doorstep, lying in wait for the next gust.
This doorstep belonged to particular building in the center of the city; the center of all political decisions and personas. Within bland-smiling politicians and grim-scowling shinobi wreaked silent warfare; the halls reeked of corruption, masked by the sickly sweet scent of false promises and even falser optimism.
The cool stone interior was kept free of the ubiquitous sand by various shinobi grunts—but don't let them hear you call them shinobi, just grunts. However, despair pervaded the building more deeply than the burrowing grains ever could—it was the despair of a village oppressed and helpless; of a village that knew that it had no future, and with the knowledge that it never even really had much of a past.
The Fourth Kazekage sat at his desk, quietly sorting through paperwork with a slow, glowering gloom. Each movement was perfectly deliberate, each crinkle and rustle of scrolls deafening in the silence.
Paper was expensive. They lived in the desert; it was to be expected. Once the village had to suffer through recording documents with either tiny writing or even stone tablets. And so the Fourth built a recycling plant; now all paper was resold at a profit to the village. It was a problem, and he fixed it. This particular talent of his had helped enormously during his brief career as a shinobi. Outmaneuvering enemies was simple when one had the right mind frame. Elementary problem-solving.
But some problems he could not fix.
The daimyo, blustering and overbearing, had decided to outsource their village; his village, to Konoha. The already-small shinobi population was slashed, forcing many to move out of the village. Some took jobs as grunts, sweeping floors by day and practicing techniques by night, hoping tiredly for the end as they aged out of their prime shinobi years. Others were taken off the active roster but secretly continued on, not wanting to give up a lifetime of hard work for the fickle decisions of politicians. Countless numbers of them were dispersed as intelligence agents—technically not active duty ninja, but still beneficial to the village.
And he knew perfectly well how much they blamed him for their troubles. He felt the undercurrent of resentment raging against him.
And he hated it.
He hated the whole damned situation, caused by the idiotic greed of the daimyo, but most of all, he hated his own inability to solve this absurd problem. He tried. He made alternatives, he dodged the daimyo's words, tried to bolster their failing economy.
But no matter what, it seemed that he was failing.
To dig his village out of a hole that seemed to deepen every day. To revive this village to the way that it had been when the Third had ruled mighty, leading Suna to greatness.
To undo the damage of when the Third had been kidnapped, or killed, or Kami knows what, leaving him to pick up the shattered remains of the village. All alone, pushed into power, to try to repiece together broken dreams.
Like his own.
He had been a good shinobi with a sharp mind. Sure to rise to ANBU level and beyond, to lead missions and serve his village the way that he knew best.
Now he was an impotent politician who could barely even save his own family, let alone the village. The daimyo dictated how much he had to cripple his village, and he had to follow through. He knew that the villagers not only blamed the daimyo, but blamed him for seeming so unresisting. Life had been good before he was Kazekage. True, they had been at war. But morale was high back then, and they had been a proud people, united under a legendary Kazekage. The Fourth himself remembered those times fondly and despaired all the more at his ineffectiveness.
And even though he tried in the way that he knew best—by analyzing and solving problems— they still blamed him.
Him.
For obeying the daimyo's smug orders like a good little puppet, a powerless figurehead. That was what they saw him as, despite all of his efforts.
And nothing more.
The Kazekage's shoulders tensed, the steading twitching of his pen halting, leaving the silence to press upon him. He saw the documents before him in a blur, reports of the continued slashing of shinobi resources, of the ever-growing village deficit, intelligence reports of the prosperity other shinobi villages were currently enjoying.
No more.
He stared, unseeing, into the spiderwebs of ink, the spindles and crests of the words. He became aware of a vague pain in his palms, and realized that he was clenching his fists. This was no good, he chided himself quietly. Anger would get you nowhere.
The mantras of his teachers echoed over him: stay calm, think clearly, consider your options logically, find an ideal solution. It had become his philosophy over the years, the words that he relied on in every situation.
He exhaled loudly, chasing off the heavy silence, if only for an instant.
A return to that cool, clear mind he had treasured so back in the day...
His mind delighted inwardly at the task, cogitating, brushing away the cobwebs, whirring. He made the final decision to do anything within his power to solve this impossible equation.
Even if the daimyo disapproved. He didn't care anymore.
The moon rose, casting beams of ghostly light into the deafeningly quiet office. The Kazekage took no notice. He was busy.
And he pondered and wondered and hoped and dreamed…