A/N: WARNING! This chapter gets a little bit gross. It's not too bad, but I figured it deserved a warning anyway. Just in case.

It had already been four days, and Sakura was getting tired of traveling.

The last time she'd gone to Suna it had only taken three days. It had been spring time, which made traveling through the harsh desert much easier. Unfortunately for her, right now it was the middle of summer, which meant that it was nearly impossible to travel during the day.

Instead of trekking straight through until they arrived, they'd decided to periodically escape the searing daylight and rest in the small caves that were scattered throughout the desert. Traveling between dusk and early morning saved them from potentially having to deal with heat stroke. It made their trip much longer than she'd originally anticipated, but luckily Kankuro had assured her that they only had one more day of sleeping in caves left before they finally reached Suna. They'd passed a few landmarks that he apparently recognized, but how he managed to distinguish one cactus from another was a complete mystery to her.

"There's a cave up ahead that we can rest in for the day," Kankuro called over his shoulder as he continued to walk. Sakura glanced at the sky, noticing that the sun had already risen halfway to the point of noon. If they didn't rest in the upcoming cave, they would be stuck traveling in the desert through the worst of the heat.

Sakura shifted her eyes to the cave Kankuro had mentioned. It was nestled in the side of a large rock formation and even from this distance, she could tell that the cave itself was man-made. Someone had likely made it to escape the daylight just like they were going to do, though there was no telling how long it had been there.

As they drew closer to the entrance however, she couldn't help but feel like something about it was just... off. She felt a shiver run down her spine and glanced over at Kankuro, only to see him watching her with the same suspicious look that she was likely wearing. There was a feeling settling beneath her skin that was telling her to turn away, to find somewhere else to rest for the day, but noon was fast approaching and there was nothing in sight that would allow for her to build them a cave to rest in for the day. There was just a seemingly endless expanse of sand.

Sakura began running toward the cave at an angle so that if anyone was watching from the entrance, it would look like she had simply disappeared. Subconsciously, she noticed Kankuro following her, but her attention remained focused on suppressing her chakra as much as possible and pulling a kunai out of the pouch on her hip. Sakura quickened her pace and reached the side of the rock formation in record time, shuddering as she felt her nerves begin tingling, though she couldn't tell if it was in anticipation or fear. Perhaps it was both.

Kankuro shifted so that he was closer to the entrance than she was and cautiously began moving toward the cave. Sakura quietly followed him while glancing around to make sure that no one was trying to sneak up on them. The desert around them remained blissfully empty and before she knew it, they had almost reached the entrance.

Kankuro stopped moving forward, holding a hand out to stop her body from passing his. He glanced in her direction and Sakura met his eyes, immediately feeling a frown tug at her lips. The look in his eyes wasn't the look she had been expecting. She'd expected him to look serious and ready for a fight-instead, he looked nervous, and a little bit scared. She tilted her head to the side slightly, wondering why he was reacting like that when they hadn't even reached the cave yet, and then she smelled it. It was a horrible, putrid odor that she hadn't been around in years, but it was also one that she would never be able to truly forget, no matter how hard she tried.

She felt her chakra suppression falter as she lost her focus, the smell startling her more than it probably should have. Sakura hissed in frustration at her mistake, knowing that if there were enemies in the cave, they could have very easily been alerted to her presence. She was about to fall back, until she noticed Kankuro digging out two scrolls from his hip pouch to summon his puppets. He wasn't suppressing his chakra any longer and was instead preparing for battle.

Sakura was beginning to grow nervous; she hadn't properly fought anyone outside of a spar in a very long time, and the nausea that had begun setting in when she recognized the smell wasn't helping her any. Still, they needed to escape the sun and the enemy would have no doubt noticed them already. This wasn't something they could just run away from.

Sakura lifted her over-shirt to cover her nose and block as much of the smell as she could before taking a deep breath, feeling her nerves relax as she exhaled. She repeated this three more times until she finally felt steady and then let her eyes open, noticing that Kankuro's eyes were on her questioningly. She quickly tied the shirt over her face and nodded her head slowly, letting him know that she was ready. It was now or never.

Kankuro nodded back and lifted his hands, his fingers twitching as he sent his puppets to the entrance. Sakura watched with bated breath, waiting to see if the puppets were attacked. Nothing happened.

Almost a full minute passed before Kankuro decided it was safe and jumped up to the cave entrance. Sakura immediately followed him, and the sight that met her vision made her stomach churn as the nausea threatened to overtake her and spill out through her mouth.

There was no one in the cave-no one alive, at least.

Sakura glanced around the cave carefully, determined to look anywhere except for the bodies strewn about the hard rock floor. She kept her eyes peeled for any movement indicating that someone else was in there with them, but after a while it was hard to ignore the fact that there was no one else in the cave except for her, Kankuro, and three dead Suna-nin. She would have to look at them sooner or later.

Kankuro moved further into the cave, catching Sakura's attention and dragging her eyes to the three people she'd been trying desperately not to see since she first reached the entrance. One of the men was laid down next to a wall, blood spattered onto the rock from the gash on his throat. The man next to him had a gaping hole in his chest where he'd obviously been stabbed through the heart. The third Suna-nin was further into the cave, and Sakura struggled to see the wound that had caused their death through Kankuro's body. He was crouched beside them, and the only thing that Sakura could see from her current location was that they were laying face down on the cave floor.

After a moment of standing around awkwardly, Sakura moved toward the two men that were closest to her, doing her best to ignore the smell that lingered in the cave as she got closer to them. Both of them had yellow marbling on their skin, which meant that they'd been here for a while, but their facial features were still pretty clear. She was grateful that the bloating process hadn't started yet, or the smell that was already bad would have been enough to make her vomit.

"Sakura, can you come here?" Kankuro called from across the cave, his voice more strained than she'd heard it in years. Immediately, Sakura felt her nerves stand on end-something was definitely wrong.

After taking one last look at the two men, Sakura made her way toward Kankuro. He stood and waved an arm out toward the third body before stepping around their feet so that he could watch Sakura examine them. She crouched down where he had been a moment ago, and the first thing she noticed was the lack of blood staining the rock around the body. Sakura immediately felt her eyebrows furrow in confusion as she looked over the body. There weren't any visible wounds, but their skin was just as yellowed and marbled as the others.

Her eyes scanned every piece of skin until she finally noticed the small puncture wound at the back of their neck, resting just above the mark on their shirt that showed they were a medic. It was certainly high enough up the neck that it could have caused death if it reached their spine, but she could tell even with just a glance that the wound wasn't nearly deep enough to cause irreparable damage.

"Look closer," Kankuro said, obviously noticing her confusion and where her eyes had fallen. Sakura glanced at him once before shifting her eyes back to the puncture wound, holding her breath as she leaned closer. There was definitely something off about the injury besides the depth, and it took her a few more seconds to realize that there was a slight shine at the edge of the perforation.

Without saying anything, Sakura lifted her hands and hovered them above the wound. She gently touched the shining area with her chakra, closing her eyes as she tried to feel the chemical composition of it. Carbon, hydrogen, nitrogen, oxygen... She felt a frown tug at her lips as she realized that this was a poison she had seen very recently. It was the same one Kankuro had brought with him to Konoha, the poison that was currently being used to murder Suna's medics.

Sakura lifted her eyes to Kankuro, opening her mouth to tell him what she'd discovered, but the look on his face stopped her before the words left her lips. He had known what it was when he asked her to look at it; he'd just wanted confirmation. She let her mouth close and looked away, wincing slightly as she heard his fist pound repeatedly against the wall.

The medic side of her wanted nothing more than to grab Kankuro's arm and stop him from injuring himself further. She wanted to heal his fist, which would no doubt be bruised and possibly bloody, and then have him sit and calm down until his breathing returned to normal. She did none of that.

Sakura could only imagine how much pain he must be in right now, but the physical pain in his hand would be nothing compared to the turmoil raging inside of him. The only reason she was traveling to Suna with him was because one of his friends had been murdered. On the way there, they'd discovered three more people who had died, people he had likely known at least in passing. Before this, enough people had died from this poison for him to travel to Konoha through the blazing desert heat to seek her help. He'd lost more people in the span of a few months than she had in her entire life.

Sakura sat quietly and listened as Kankuro's fists slowly began to hit the wall less aggressively until she heard the sound of material scraping against rock. She didn't have to look up to know that he had leaned against the wall and slid down when he no longer had the strength to stand. She knew that there was nothing she could do to ease his pain right now, but maybe there was something she could do to help make this a little bit easier on him.

After waiting a moment longer, Sakura stood up and walked over to her backpack, digging inside of the main compartment until she found one of her older shirts. It had been one of the first jounin shirts she'd received, but it had been worn down until there were enough holes to make it impossible to wear on missions anymore. She'd been using it as a pajama shirt for over a year and it was still one of her favorite articles of clothing, but there were some things that were more important than nostalgia.

She gazed at the shirt for a second longer and then grabbed her water canister, pouring just enough water onto the shirt to make it damp. She squared her shoulders and moved toward the man who'd been stabbed in the chest, tightening the shirt around her face as she tried to push the smell coming from the body toward the back of her mind.

Sakura knelt down beside the man and began wiping down his body with her damp jounin shirt so that his body no longer smelled of his own fecal matter and urine. Once the visible patches of skin were clean, or at least more presentable, she gathered some chakra into her hands and let them hover over the Suna-nin's half-closed eyes. She relaxed the muscles surrounding their eyelids and gently pushed them down until they were fully closed.

On the other side of the cave, Kankuro had gathered himself and torn his undershirt off so that he could clean the medic's body. Sakura let her eyes fall to the man who'd had his neck slashed open and moved to wipe down his body as well, letting her mind go blank as she and Kankuro worked in silence. She closed the eyes of the man she'd been cleaning off and then moved to do the same for the medic.

"How long do you think it'll take for them to..." Kankuro trailed off. Sakura could hear the hesitation in his voice, and knew that he was wondering how long these people would look like themselves. How long it would take until their bodies began to swell and they became almost unrecognizable even to their own families. She watched him for a moment longer before glancing at the body in front of her, frowning as she tried to gauge the approximate time of death. Putrefaction had yet to set in, which was always a good sign, but judging from the marbling on the skin she knew it would be sooner rather than later.

"Normally, I would say anywhere between eighteen and twenty four hours. In this heat though, it will probably take around twelve hours, maybe less. It's hard to tell exactly."

Sakura shifted her eyes to Kankuro and watched as he wandered to the entrance of the cave and looked out. She could only assume that he was looking for location markers, anything to indicate where they were, but from what she remembered there was approximately one cactus and then nothing but sand.

"From here, we have about ten hours of travel until we reach Suna," Kankuro said, his voice quiet as if he were talking to himself. Sakura could practically hear the thoughts running around his mind. She knew he would want to somehow get his people back home to their families, but if they waited out the day and left at dusk, their bodies would almost definitely have started bloating by the time they reached Suna, which would bring about a whole slew of new problems. They could contact Suna and send out a request for a retrieval team, but that would take even more time.

The only way to get these people back before the putrefaction process started would be for them to travel during the day. In these temperatures, heat exhaustion would be inevitable and they would definitely be risking heat stroke. If they both fainted from heat stroke before reaching Suna, and if no one found them in time, death was almost guaranteed.

Despite knowing this, there was a small voice in the back of her mind telling her that they could do this. Maybe it was the years of working alongside Naruto and seeing him accomplish so many things everyone else had thought impossible, but she wanted to try. She wanted to help Kankuro bring his people home, and she wanted to believe that they would survive doing it.

"Do you have an extra set of clothes?" Sakura asked, watching the confusion on Kankuro's face as he nodded his head slowly. "Can I have them?"

Kankuro watched her suspiciously for a moment longer before tossing his backpack toward her. She immediately began digging through the main compartment, searching for the signature black clothing she'd come to associate with Kankuro. Once she had the garments in hand, she dug a little deeper into the pack until she found the chakra transmission communication device they'd brought along just in case anything happened. If they were going to reach their destination sooner than expected, it'd be a good idea to let them know, especially if they were going to be returning with the bodies.

Sakura turned the device on and found the channel for Suna's headquarters, telling them that she and Kankuro would be returning to Suna in about ten hours with the bodies of three dead Suna-nin once she'd finally reached someone on the other line. After the brief conversation was over, she returned the device to the pack and quickly undressed down to her undergarments. She then threw on Kankuro's clothing, ignoring the bewildered looks he was throwing her way while she adjusted the hood onto her head.

"I should have enough water to get through the day, and I know that you have more than me. Your clothing is baggy on me and the fabric is breathable, so there will be enough air flow to help keep my body cool. We'll be able to make it through ten hours if we pace ourselves well," Sakura explained, forcing herself to not look at Kankuro. Her nerves were already standing on end, her medic side screaming at her not to risk herself like this, but she had already made her decision. She didn't need to see Kankuro's expression to know that what she was about to do was dangerous.

After a long moment, Kankuro seemed to give in, knowing first-hand how stubborn Sakura could be when she had set her mind on something. He took out a scroll and summoned a third puppet, using his chakra strings to gently move the bodies into the puppets. Sakura went through a quick checklist in her head as she prepared to leave. She placed her water canisters near the side of her backpack so that she could reach it more easily while walking, then made sure that every possible inch of her skin was covered. The spots that couldn't be covered with fabric were smeared with a thick coating of sunscreen.

Once that was taken care of, she glanced around the cave one more time and then realized one thing she'd forgotten to factor in. She stared at her dirty jounin shirt laying on the cave floor, trying to figure out what she should do with it. On one hand, she knew that there was no way that she would ever rid the fabric of the smell or the memory of today, but on the other hand it wouldn't be wise to leave anything behind that could potentially be used to identify her if the culprits decided to come back for the bodies. Kankuro seemed to notice her hesitation because after a moment he began kicking his own ruined shirt toward hers until they created a small pile. When she glanced at him curiously, he just held out a match and waved her over.

Sakura took a moment to try and calm her nerves before following him to stand by the entrance. She grabbed one of the puppets by its arms and lifted it onto her back, letting the wooden arms drape over her shoulders as she held them. She knew that Kankuro could handle controlling all three puppets while they traveled, but since they were going to be traveling during the day, they both needed to conserve as much chakra and energy as possible.

Sakura kept quiet as she looked out into the seemingly endless expanse of desert they would be traversing. The sun had already risen to the point of noon, and it was hot enough that the sand appeared to shimmer in front of her. The air was completely still, and she frowned when she realized that she couldn't rely on the wind to help alleviate some of the heat.

Beside her, Kankuro struck the match against the cave wall. She heard him send out chakra strings to attach to his puppets just before throwing the match onto the small pile of clothing. The smell of burning fluids and feces began to fill the cave, causing the nausea that had somewhat subsided to flare to life again. There was no way for her to tighten the shirt around her face or mitigate any of the smell, and between that and the heat, Sakura felt herself growing light-headed.

After the shirts had burned beyond recognition, Kankuro stomped the fire out and turned to face the open expanse of desert once again. Sakura listened to him gather his breath to prepare himself for the heat they were about to endure and did the same. She breathed in deeply and willed herself to remain calm, knowing that she would need to conserve as much energy as possible if she was going to make it through the day.

Sakura and Kankuro glanced at each other one last time before they headed out, leaving the remains of their shirts behind along with their hopes of escaping the heat for the day.

.

Sakura was almost at her limit.

She had run out of water over an hour ago and was beginning to teeter on the edge of heat exhaustion, heading toward heat stroke with every passing moment. Her thoughts were fuzzy at best, but even through the dizziness she could tell that she had almost completely stopped sweating and her breathing had sped up too much to be considered safe.

"Shit!" She cried out weakly as her leg muscles cramped suddenly, causing her to stumble forward until her knees hit the sand. She massaged the muscles gently with her chakra, soothing them enough for her to stand again, noticing in the back of her mind that Kankuro had taken the puppet she'd been carrying, but her thoughts weren't clear enough for her to really think about it. Kankuro reached a hand out toward her, which she grabbed gratefully as she pulled herself back to her feet, hissing at the pain that shot through her legs.

It took her a moment longer than it should have for her to realize that Kankuro's hand was still cool and clammy. She glanced up toward his face, noting with satisfaction that he was still sweating profusely; although he was exhibiting the symptoms of heat exhaustion, he didn't seem nearly as close to heat stroke as she felt. If things got worse and she passed out, he would likely be able to finish the journey to Suna and send someone out to get her. She just hoped it wouldn't have to come to that.

"Hang in there, we're not too far now," Kankuro said, his voice sounding strangely calm as he turned back around to face the direction they were supposed to be going. She could have easily been imagining his tone of voice though, since she currently felt like everything was existing through a filter, as if there was a soft barrier between her and the rest of the world.

Still, Sakura shoved the pain in her legs to the back of her mind as she started walking once again. It was hard to keep going forward in a straight line when her perception of everything was off, but she focused as much as she could on Kankuro's back and picked herself back up every time she stumbled or swayed. The nausea twisting and turning in her stomach threatened to spill up through her mouth, but she fought it back, knowing that she needed every ounce of fluid that her body could keep right now.

Sakura continued to push forward, forcing her way through the dizziness that threatened to overtake her until finally she saw something in the distance. At first she couldn't make anything out through her bleary vision, but after a few more minutes, she began to make out shapes. There was a tall rock formation in front of her that stretched as far as she could see with what seemed like large crack stretching from the bottom almost to the top. In front of it were smaller shapes that she knew were people, but she couldn't figure out what they looked like or what they were wearing no matter how hard she tried or how close she got.

She didn't notice when she stumbled and fell to the sand again. She just kept staring at the vague blurs of whites and reds, her hazy mind wondering why the shapes were suddenly moving. In the back of her mind she heard someone yelling her name, but it didn't fully register as she kept her eyes trained on the shapes moving toward her, trying to figure out what they were.

Sakura only realized that she was laying down when her vision became obscured by sand. She had a moment to wonder why she was there, and then suddenly she was floating in the air and all she could see was a bright shock of red that she somehow managed to recognize even through the fog that laid over her thoughts. It was the last thing she saw before she passed out.

Gaara...

A/N: Thank you as always to TipsyRaconteur, k waifu, and cospitente for helping beta this. Especially cosipotente this time around for helping me with all her random dead body knowledge lol.
Also thank you to everyone who left a review/comment on the last chapter. It really means a lot to me, and I appreciate the feedback. ^^