Ultimate Defense
They really had to be idiots.
Of course, anyone who thought to attack a shinobi on a moonlit road with rusty swords while breathing as loud as a swarm of hornets was automatically an idiot. That the particular shinobi was Gaara of the Sand brought the idiot factor from 'having an off day' to 'completely unintentionally suicidal.'
The bandits were practically begging for it.
The Kazekage was coming back from a four day meeting with the Rokudaime Hokage, a routine they repeated about every six months. Talks about the agreements between their two villages were only thinly veiled diplomacy that was ruined every time the Hokage clapped him on the back, grinned so wide the whisker marks on his cheeks distorted, and informed the deadliest Sand Ninja since the First Kazekage they were going out for ramen.
The bandits rushed forward as one unit, each watching his comrades to be sure he wasn't alone.
That was their mistake.
They didn't hear the twang of tightened steel until the wire was wrapped neatly around their heads. The cuts were orderly and caused a spray of arterial blood that would have made any mist-nin proud.
A spray which the Kazekage was protected from, the long sleeves of a black kimono wrapping about him like a crow's wings. The blood was soaked up, gone as though it had never been.
"Man, you'd think they would start passing out bingo books for free, jaa. It might save some time."
He stepped away from Gaara and to his left side, white-painted face bearing a small sneer. "What a mess." He muttered. The razor wire neatly detangled itself from the fresh corpses, recoiling up and into his long sleeves, where it obediently sewed itself back into the hems where it was stored.
"Indeed." The Kazekage agreed quietly, looking his elder brother up and down.
Kankuro was not made of sand. He had flesh and blood (though many had made arguments to the contrary) and was, in fact, in possession of a soul, which he had yet to sell to anybody. He couldn't phase through windows and doors, turn to mist, or create an impenetrable wall of darkness, though those rumors made their sister laugh. He wasn't immortal, wasn't the walking dead, and certainly had not made a deal with a demon.
Kankuro poked one of the corpses with a senbon needle. "Think we should tell Naruto?"
"I doubt the Rokudaime would want bandits meandering the path to his hidden village."
"Point. I'm on it. Try not to get attacked again, jaa. Temari will kill me if you lose another set of formal robes."
The puppeteer faded away into the shadows, making no sound, though Gaara thought he could almost hear the softest rasp of sand.
Kankuro was not Shukaku, but in its absence, he was the perfect Ultimate Defense.