(Shippuuden spoilers for those who haven't seen Shippuuden yet)

These are Kankurou's thoughts and feelings during the time when he was running to catch up with Sasori and Deidara whom had kidnapped Gaara. I'm not entirely happy with it, but still I like it. This is not KanGaa. Just like my Itachi and Sasuke oneshot, it's just brotherly love.

I don't own Naruto. Enjoy!

He was running…

Running.

The sand trying to hinder his fast moving feet was unstoppable, suffocating the sandaled feet, dragging them deeper and deeper into their black depths. But he wouldn't stop; not if the whole world was holding him back by torture. He had to keep going.

Sweat poured out of his pores, dripping out from under the black hat he wore over his head. The usually unyeilding face-paint coating his face was starting to fade because of the emmense head eminating from every part of his body. Breathing heavily, he ran.

This was his brother's life he was running for. He would not stop just because of some idiotic fantasy that he couldn't do it. He would succeed.

Nothing mattered right now. Not the safety of the village, nor the risks that he had taken just by following the kidnappers alone. He could die for all that he cared at the moment. It was Gaara that they needed. Suna needed him, Temari needed him…Kankurou needed him. Without him, they would be lost—the Kazekage!

He kept running, dismissing the fact that he could be walking right into a trap set up for him to walk into. As long as he saved his younger brother, everything would be fine. He could die in peace….

He couldn't bear to loose another family member. First mother, then Yashamaru, then father. He wouldn't let Gaara die too. Not when it was and had been totally preventable. If only they had had better shinobi at the gates…. This didn't have to have happened.

Kankurou stopped, for there he was, lying unconscious in the tail of a huge, strange, white bird. It was all he could see; his younger brother's face.

I will save you, he thought as he turned to face the two ninja hindering his one and only goal. He would fight till he died if it would help get his brother back.

And it almost was.