Kankuro and Gaara ran together toward the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Kankuro kept stealing glances at his younger brother, still reeling from the sudden change in circumstances. Kazekage. It had been a heady moment when he'd watched the robe being settled on his brother's shoulders.

How things had changed! Kankuro could still remember the trek to the Leaf Village the first time they'd come this way. Gaara had been just as quiet as he was now, but things were so different from before. Stealing another look, Kankuro judged that his brother had grown a few more inches, filling out in the shoulders and chest as well. Gaara was still more slender than he was, but he didn't look like a child anymore.

"What?" Gaara caught him looking and Kankuro shrugged.

"You've changed."

Gaara didn't reply. He wasn't one for idle chat and what Kankuro had said was true after all.

"If you'd caught me looking at you on that first trip out here, you would have killed me on the spot." Kankuro pointed out with his usual bravado.

"Maybe not." Was Gaara's dry response.

"Er? Really?" Kankuro couldn't help but respond.

"It might have been a different spot." Gaara said quietly, then nodding toward a clearing. "I might have killed you over there, instead."

Kankuro's eyes widened and he felt his shoulders twitch as he fought back the laughter, and lost.

Gaara smiled at him and Kankuro sighed happily as his laughter faded. Yep, his brother had changed. And he liked it. The old Gaara had had no humor and his smiles had been something to avoid at all costs, for they usually meant he was killing someone.

Kankuro settled into the easy rhythm of the journey. The pace was set for ninja traveling leisurely, still fast, but not the lightening-steps they usually took. It meant a five day journey rather than a three day trip.

There were several reasons for the slowness of their movements. Gaara's new position requiring more body guards being one such reason. Guards that Kankuro knew his brother had no need for, but oh well. And the pack loads of presents for their sister's upcoming wedding.

Wedding. Kankuro frowned. And there was the source of his only discontent.

"I still don't understand why Temari is being forced into this debacle of a marriage."

Gaara sighed and momentarily envisioned trapping Kankuro in a Desert Sand Coffin jutsu. They'd been over and over and over this topic before and he had been tired of the conversation the first time it had come up!

"She wants to marry." He simply replied.

"She can marry someone from the Sand Village. We have many eligible shinobi." Kankuro whined.

"Temari knew that. She knows them. She chose Nara Shikamaru. Now let it be." Gaara intoned wearily. Being Kazekage meant being responsible for those of the Sand Village. That included his own brother, so he couldn't just go and beat him into a pulp to shut him up. Damn it.

"Why him?" Kankuro whined.

"I miss the days when you were afraid to speak back to me." Gaara whined back in an imitation of Kankuro's voice.

"Ha!" His brother choked a moment and then smiled. "We can still stop this wedding."

"Why?"

"Temari would never be happy so far from the Sand." Kankuro said, reaching at straws really.

"Sure she will. You'll be there after all."

"But what if she …wait! What did you say?" The hooded shinobi stopped in the middle of a step and then leapt down to the ground below.

Gaara, without any expression at all, stopped as well and landed lightly beside his older brother.

"What do you mean that I'll be there?" Kankuro asked, his voice rising. "Don't you dare make me an ambassador!"

"Alright." Gaara agreed. "You're not an ambassador." He didn't add that Kankuro had none of the patience, political savvy, ambition, or cold-heartedness to become a politician.

"Fine. Right. Let's go on." He waved off the body guards as they waited for the two brothers to finish talking. Some had settled on tree branches and some had landed a short distance away.

"You'll still be there."

"Huh?" Kankuro was getting pissed off now. "Just tell me what you mean, Gaara!"

One of the body guards coughed and looked pointedly at Kankuro.

Before Kankuro could respond, Gaara was staring down the guard in question. "Never interrupt a family discussion." The voice was cold and merciless, much like the old Gaara. The guard gulped and stood his ground, barely. Finally, the man gave a small nod and looked away.

Family. Kankuro felt funny inside as he watched the byplay. Gaara had once told him that he felt no familial bonds with him or anyone else. Now Gaara called them 'family', and meant it. He bit his tongue before he could say anything to ruin the moment.

"You know what it is the council wants of me, what they want me to find in the Leaf Village?" Gaara continued as if they'd never been interrupted.

"Yah." Kankuro frowned. The Sand Village elders wanted Gaara to marry. He could only assume they wanted to make sure the changes in Gaara were permanent ones. How they thought a wife and family would do that, Kankuro wasn't really sure.

"They say that they merely want a political bond between the Leaf Village and the Sand Village." Kankuro broke the small silence that had overtaken them. "But doesn't Temari's marrying the Nara-brat take care of that?"

Gaara shook his head. "Apparently not. They see that as a woman marrying into a man's clan. The Sand kunoichi becoming the Leaf wife, erasing all parts that belonged to the Sand."

Kankuro whistled. "I bet they didn't say that to Temari. She'd have torn the conference room down around their ears."

Gaara nodded. "They want a bride for Sand, one of the Leaf maidens leaving her home to become one of ours. That's what they want."

"But not you." It wasn't a question. Kankuro nodded, ready to stand by his brother against the Sand elders.

"No. Not me." Gaara turned his somber eyes on his brother. "You."

"WHAT?" Kankuro's voice rose three octaves during that one word. Gaara's eyebrow arched in reaction.

"Since the council wants a connection to the Kazekage through a wedding, and since I am the Kazekage in question and don't want to marry, then I'm throwing you to the wolves. So to speak."

Kankuro's mouth opened and closed, but nothing came out. Not even air. Gaara reached out and turned his brother around and whacked him hard on the back.

Once Kankuro picked himself up off the ground and stopped coughing, he looked over at Gaara and glared. "Not a chance!" He intoned each word very clearly and concisely.

Gaara grinned, very un-Gaara like. "It's an order from your Kazekage. As my brother, any wife of yours has a 'connection' to the Kazekage. It's the perfect solution."

"You're evil!" Kankuro pointed at his brother, his hands trembling slightly.

"Yes." Gaara's grin widened. "Nice of you to notice. I have to deal with politicians on a daily basis, it helps to be evil."

"Stop joking!" Kankuro yelled, making the body guards twitch slightly.

"Who's joking?" Gaara was looking quite serious.

"You would do this to me?" Kankuro whimpered, still hoping it was a joke. But he knew that the new Gaara might smile occasionally, but he'd never told a joke in his whole life. "Wait. You said that I was to stay there, in the Leaf Village with Temari. But wouldn't my …" he choked and sputtered the next word, "bride …come live with me in the Sand Village?"

"Normally yes." Gaara allowed. "But I'm going to give you to them."

"Why?" Kankuro asked suspiciously.

"To shut you up."

Kankuro's eyes bugged out and he had trouble breathing again. He managed to fend off Gaara as he tried to 'help' him again.

"My first joke, did you like it?" Gaara smiled into his brother's eyes.

Kankuro trembled to keep from attacking his Kazekage in front of so many body guards, but it was difficult. "You ….you …evil …" His eyes were twitching now. "You had me thinking you meant it. I was worried you were going to marry me off."

"Oh, I am." Gaara told him. "But I wouldn't really leave you there. You'll bring your new bride back with you. I'd just gag you in order to shut you up."

With that, the new Kazekage of the Sand Village gestured for his body guards and they all set off again. It took nearly an hour for Kankuro to compose himself and follow.

It was because of this, that Kankuro was able to spy what no one else had. They had unexpected company. The Sand puppeteer prepared for battle with a gleam in his eye. Gaara had riled him up, and now he even had a target. Poor targets. They never stood a chance.

o.O.o.O.o.O

Baki wasn't a shinobi for nothing. It took little time to find out the information he wanted. Inuzuka Tsume's heir was not Kiba, but an elder daughter. He relaxed a bit and admitted to himself that he'd been worried there for a moment.

He supposed he could wait for her to contact him again, but that wasn't his way. So he sent a message instead. Tsume met him at the diner right on time. He'd thought she'd be the punctual type.

She sat down and without preamble, asked. "Your decision?"

"No." Baki told her, curious to see her response.

"Good." She told him, and stood to leave.

Baki stood as well. "And that's it?"

"That's it." Tsume nodded. "I promised I'd give you a chance, and I did. You turned it down." She shrugged as if to say it was all out of her hands.

"To whom did you promise?" Baki asked, surprised to find himself genuinely intrigued. The woman obviously did not like him at all. So why offer him her daughter?

She simply shook her head, and turned to leave.

"Wait!" He said. "Why me? I'm of the Sand, and you clearly don't think much of me. So why offer me your daughter?"

Tsume's chin hardened as she narrowed her eyes at him. "I respect you, a little. And I only offered to let you court Hana, not give her to you like some simpering village girl."

Baki scoffed. "Respect? Your expressions put 'lie' to your words."

Tsume shook her head, "No. I respect your abilities as a shinobi, for the most part. You fought well and tenaciously. But you are right in one respect. I hate you. If you hadn't been deemed a 'possibility', then this meeting would never have taken place."

"Because of the attack." He stated it simply.

She considered his words carefully, more carefully than he felt they warranted. When she spoke, her voice was cool and even, but he could feel the currents of energy just beneath the surface. "The betrayal and attack were by the orders of your leader. An imposter, I've been told. Still, I can forgive the following of orders, we are both ninja after all."

He waited, knowing she wasn't done yet.

"What I don't respect is that your Kazekage had been murdered and replaced, and you never even noticed."

Baki didn't even try to defend himself. How to explain that their previous Kazekage had been a cold man whose own children had not noticed the impersonation? He'd been a capable leader, but not a loved one. No one had known him well, especially not since the death of his wife. And she'd died cursing him, and them all.

"And the hate?" He asked simply, ignoring the rest.

"The new Kazekage, he was your student, yeh?"

Baki nodded, confused.

"Gekko Hayate was once mine."

With that, she took her leave. Baki stared after her, a sick feeling in his stomach. Before the attack on the Leaf Village, Hayate had discovered some of their plans. Baki had fought and killed him to preserve the suprise.

Saddened, Baki too took his leave. There was not one thing he could do to change the past. And while he didn't regret the fight, he did regret the necessity. It was the shinobi path after all.

Distracted, he missed the flashing steps above him of a certain blue-haired, masked, ANBU.

o.O.o.O.o.O

Alone in his study, Hyuuga Hiashi pored over the letter from the Hokage. He sat back with a loud sigh and rubbed his aching temples.

Tsunade asked after presenting Hinata before the new Kazekage as a potential spouse. She further explained that since Hiashi had recently petitioned the clan elders to make Hanabi his heir instead of her elder sister, then Hinata was a logical choice to wed Gaara.

Hiashi frowned as he considered the matter. Tsunade was right that placing the younger sibling over Hinata, he was placing his eldest in an untenable position. By marrying her to the Sand Kazekage, she would be saving face, as well as bringing honor to her clan and her village.

But deep in his heart, Hiashi was torn. Could he send his child so far away? And was this Gaara, Kazekage or no, worthy of marrying his Hinata?