Hidden away in a sand-dune covered shelter Gaara had built just for this, Katashi watched quietly as Shizune scowled and snarled her way through the results of her analysis. Getting her into Suna had been depressingly easy, and getting her into Kaoru's hospital room suspiciously so – only the fact that he had significantly changed his chakra-signature by carefully painted on seals kept him from worrying over a trap designed to paint him as derelict in duty.

The fact that Gaara had been able to keep an eye on things from afar also helped.

"Well," she finally growled, "This is a nasty piece of neglect."

He mutely passed her a cup of tea and a ration bar in exchange for the papers she'd scrawled her notations on during their visit as nondescript intern-and-nurse earlier this morning. He read while she chewed, and while he wasn't a half-bad combat medic, the majority of what he was reading hardly made sense to him. She apparently realized that and began to explain after swallowing the last of her bar, "She's not being actively sabotaged in her recovery, but there are at least three possible treatments – a little exotic, but not particularly expensive – that should have been tried by now. She's a valuable shinobi even down a leg – and treating that shouldn't have required amputation either, but I don't know what standards your medics hold to so I can't really comment on that."

"But it's possible this is standard practice for comatose shinobi not holding vital mission information?" Katashi asked carefully, reading the papers more thoroughly now that he had an idea of what he was supposed to be getting from it.

"Quite possible – I'd even say likely, given the state of some of the hospital equipment we saw in the storage rooms. Your hospital is… not the best, not for things that aren't poisons. Doesn't much match what Tsunade-sama says about the Second War but it's been years, things may have changed," Shizune couched her words diplomatically, but Katashi had worked with Tsunade's apprentice for years and knew what sort of disparaging comments were being held back.

The standards of the hospital were low; not so low as he was used to working with, but not as high as they should be in relative peacetime when speed wasn't a desperate priority.

"Life-support will be dropped in a week," Katashi said quietly, head bowed as he considered all the things his village needed so very desperately and how he, a nobody, was powerless to fix it. He couldn't wait for Gaara-san to ascend, he really couldn't.

"If we get back in tomorrow I can fix it," Shizune said promptly, "Changing the IV and altering the charts so the treatment is continued for the next two days and she'll start to come out of it on her own, the brain-scans were promising and I can accelerate it with a touch of chakra."

"Thank you," Katashi said finally, looking up at her and letting his exhaustion, his gratitude, seep through. "Thank you so very much, Shizune-san. I owe you a great debt."

"Your treatments are payment enough, Arashi-san," she demurred, "If they work, we will have each saved each other's teammate. If they do not – at least you have given me hope to try."

"Either way, I still consider myself in your debt," he bowed where he sat, "And hope that one day I can make good on it. Many thanks, Shizune-san."

"I can see I won't talk you out of it. Very well – then tomorrow, similar time so it seems to be a scheduled visit, and I can take care of it," Shizune said finally.

"Agreed. I shall take the watch," Katashi stepped out of the small shelter with another bow and turned his face to the breeze, papers a deadweight in his hands. His village had so very far to go, and there was so very little he could do to help in person.

People needed to know about this, needed to realize that their medics weren't trying their all, were being kept from trying their all by policy or lack of knowledge. He needed rumors to go out, to spread and make everyone wonder; make the medics curious about the reasons for a policy like this, make the trainees ask after more obscure methods and possible treatments – make the jounin and ANBU and senseis start taking a good hard look at the treatments their comrades and students and friends were getting.

Spreading his sensor net, he settled to his knees and started to plot.

This was going to be a long night.

***===***pagebreak***===***

Gaara ducked under a lash of wind, sand curling up over his foe's feet and aborting the man's attempt to leap skyward – but only for a moment as an uncontrolled burst of chakra interrupted his hold and a gale swept his target up and out of the reach of his more subtle efforts. Pillars of sand rocketed up, but that was a distraction, the real goal being to get Gaara – atop one of the pillars – in range to grab onto the grains of sand embedded in every crease of Katashi's clothes.

He hurled the other shinobi towards the earth only to tumble after as his pillar dissolved into a cyclone the moment his focus turned from it. Sand welcomed him into its hold and he basked in the familiarity of the dune fields for an overindulgent moment before plunging under the earth in pursuit of zephyr-lightened steps.

Their spar crashed into the plains stretching southeast from the windswept dunes that made up the heart of Suna with a cackle carried on a breeze and a crashing wave of gritty ash-fine sand. After Kaoru had woken up – a miracle, it was murmured, thanked for, even as some ANBU, some more rumor-savvy jounin, started to eye the hospital's medics with wariness – Katashi had gotten Shizune safely delivered to her previous abode, money and cure suggestions in hand, only to find he had a few more days before he could feasibly present himself with the mission completed.

His shadow clones had sent a few updates, so he knew they were on their way back and that the mission was, in fact, finished, but he couldn't exactly say that, now could he?

So instead, Gaara had found an excuse to wander the desert – apparently, now he didn't even warrant watchers when he headed straight for the heart of Suna, where there was supposedly nothing but sand – for the purpose of hunting his comrade down. It was far too long since they had been able to spar, after all.

Years-not-yet, if one wanted to be technical.

It wasn't even a serious spar at this point, those had been taken care of within the first day or so of their meeting. No, this was more of an excuse to stretch their chakra, push their muscles and excite their minds in a way that had nothing to do with politics, with intrigue, with the web of deceit and horrifying carelessness that had encased their home.

Finally, they stopped, their running spar having started in the sand-drenched dunes of the desert and ended on the sandy shores of one of the Hanguri Gulf's many coves, dodging other humans and especially shinobi along the way. It had been a very fun few days.

"These are the moments where I don't want to go back," Katashi murmured, slumped in the comfortable seat Gaara had automatically crafted for him when his feet touched the beach.

"Liar," Gaara retorted, amused, "You could not stay away."

"All right then," Katashi snorted, "These are the moments I wish the Kazekage could be killed now, with a guarantee that no one worse will take his place."

"There is no one available to take his place," Gaara shook his head, "There won't be for years."

Let Katashi think that Gaara was referring to himself, was referencing his own ascension as Kazekage when he was sixteen. It would just make the end result of this game they were playing all the more entertaining, because he was certain it would never occur to Katashi that by putting himself out there, by painting a target on himself and then daring to survive, daring to thrive, even while the shinobi began to mistrust and doubt the man currently leading them – he was presenting a very particular image.

One that would not be out of place on a Kazekage monument, if Suna was inclined to such grandiose and unnecessary displays.

Personally, Gaara hoped he was there when Katashi realized just who the natural successor to the current Kazekage was going to be. His reaction was going to be hilarious.

"I received a message from Naruto while you were gone," Gaara said, redirecting their topic to more productive matters, "The toads apparently recommend finding the 'place which speaks to your heart' and 'wandering towards self-realization'. Naruto interprets that as go wander in the desert and get thoroughly lost and something will happen."

"…How helpful," Katashi said flatly.

Gaara snorted and revealed the last paragraph of the letter, which gave them another option which some might call far more practical, "Or, go somewhere in the middle of nowhere and pump as much chakra into the summoning jutsu as you can. It'll send out an open-ended query and interested parties who think they'll find a match with you will answer."

"That sounds even worse," Katashi groaned, Gaara letting a laugh escape at that, because he was right. That sort of open-ended invitation would end in nothing but tears, in all likelihood. No limit on what summons could appear, no limit on how many could appear – no, that method was not a particularly good one.

"Hatake-san says the first option is how his family obtained their contract generations ago," he continued, shrugging, "I would honestly recommend it first, as we still have a week before you'll be considered late, and I can track you down if it takes longer than a few days and we can try again some other time. But we only have a couple of months before you need to be in Mizu, and we need a communication option aside from these letters Naruto's smuggling – interpreting his babbling into something sensible took far too long and it is risky. Toads are a known quantity, if it's found that toads are carrying messages to and from Suna…"

"Strain on an alliance already weak," Katashi grimaced, "We can't afford to exacerbate that situation, agreed, Gaara-san."

They sat in silence for a time, listening to the crash of the waves and the cries of gulls, before Katashi interrupted it with a groan and slumped further into his seat. Gaara raised an eyebrow and the older shinobi sighed. "Get lost in the desert? In Suna?" Katashi asked dryly, "Gaara-san, I'm going to have to be half out of my mind with dehydration and hunger to manage that one."

He felt his lips twitch, but managed to keep his voice bland when he said, "I'll save some water for you then."

***===***pagebreak***===***

Katashi had been grumbling about the ridiculousness of summons for at least an hour now. After their chat by the Gulf, Gaara and he had gone back to the dune fields before separating, Gaara off to try out some of Katashi's ideas for glass-based jutsus while he went wandering in the dunes trying to get himself thoroughly lost.

This was his home. He was never lost in Suna. How could he be? Track the sun's movement to orient east to west, fracture chakra across the crystalline sand until it reflected back something more substantial than a coyote, call upon the wind to hurtle himself into the sky for vantage – his options were limitless, and his chakra sensing was subconsciously managed at this point, which was a habit he certainly didn't want to break.

So here he was, two hours into his trek across the dunes in the heat of midday, having had nothing to drink in the past three hours and nothing to eat since this morning and he still. Wasn't. Lost.

Stopping for a moment at the crest of a dune, he pinched the bridge of his nose and sighed. He'd just have to go back to Gaara and tell him they'd try another day, and if they were really desperate the other method, because he just wasn't seeing this working. He'd give it the rest of the day, but if he hadn't managed to get lost by then it just wasn't going to happen.

"Well, haven't seen one of you in a while!" he heard, and Katashi looked askance at the limbed cactus to his left only to feel relieved when a small owl poked his head out of the hole in the primary limb.

"Not surprised," Katashi shrugged, relieved the owl had shown himself. If the cactus had been talking, he'd have been in real trouble. "Middle of the dunes are usually avoided. People find them disorienting."

"Silly," the owl hooted, sounding rather regretful, "But I don't think you're one of mine, no. Too fast, altogether. Too rushed. Continue on, shinobi. You'll find the right one eventually."

"My thanks," Katashi bowed, because courtesy was a virtue even in the middle of the dune fields, and proceeded on, unsurprised at the immediate transition from dunes to the juniper and scrub of the mountain flanks. He meandered on, wondering how much longer it would take for him to get thoroughly lost, because this still felt like home, when a pack of coyotes leapt from a bush and yipped and yowled as they raced around his feet before dispersing.

The biggest, head at his hip, stayed running alongside him for a while, eyes bright as it cackled, "Good to see one of you sorts. Been a while! But you've already got a trickster, I don't need the competition. Keep going till you cross the riverbed, then hang a right at the sunset and head straight on to moonrise. Dawn'll come to the left and you'll see the mesquite. Those jewel-heads should like you just fine."

"My thanks," Katashi repeated, inclining his head this time as he didn't want to stop running. The Coyote gave a final happy yip before darting into a shallow hollow and vanishing.

Katashi thought for a moment before shrugging. Following the directions couldn't hurt, as it wasn't like he'd made any more progress into getting lost. Maybe following directions would make him more confused.

He doubted it. But at least the coyote had been friendly.

The sun danced across the sky and he turned right, the moon twirling its way to the heavens, glowing a gentle white with no trace of the crimson and black nightmare that would haunt him all his life. It seemed hardly any time at all for dawn to paint the mesquite and juniper fields in golden orange and rose and he stopped at the base of a massive mesquite – it towered overhead, competing with Konoha's trees in height and he stared up at it admiringly.

"Visitor!" someone trilled, a jewel-bright dart shooting out from the bush and buzzing around his head before settling in front of him, resolving itself into a sapphire headed hummingbird girdled with green. "Visitor! Visitor! It's been so long!"

Before Katashi could say a word in reply there was an eruption of chittering humming buzzes and the sky exploded into flashes of jewel-bright color, some sized normally and some truly massive – the winds that buffeted him from the dog-sized bird's wings were incredible and required some effort to weave around him so he could stand. When the motion stilled, birds hovering around him and winds billowing at his feet, he found himself still facing that first hummingbird but with the largest of them – body the size of Pakkun at least – directly before him.

"A visitor," the large hummingbird's voice was a low tenor, all the hues of the rainbow in his chest feathers. "Indeed, it has been a long time since any were sent our way by the others, a long time. You are of Sunagakure, shinobi?"

"I am," Katashi replied with a deep bow, "Makiguchi Katashi, jounin of Suna."

"And you seek a summons contract in the traditional manner," the boss hummingbird – what else could he be? – nodded, shifting a little with some gale-force flaps of his wings to hover closer to Katashi's eye-level. "Proper, very proper – but more importantly, very polite. Why do you seek a summons, Makiguchi Katashi of Suna?"

"I seek a means to communicate with my allies in Suna and Konoha without being detected by anyone in power. The Kazekage is a disgrace to the loyalty he holds and unworthy of it, but as it stands I have no power to face him except in my own survival despite his schemes."

"Konoha?" the hummingbird cocked his head and one enormous eye searched him over, "I have not heard much, in these far reaches, but I do not recall warm feelings between those two villages, no I do not."

"It is – I do not know how I can explain properly, but I must try," Katashi spread his hands helplessly, but if he could not be honest here, in the realm of the summons, appealing to these birds, where could he be? "Years from now, a man claiming to be Uchiha Madara will attack the shinobi world with the goal of destroying the jinchuuriki and claiming their bijuu for his own so he can place the entire world in a genjutsu based upon the moon, removing the knowledge and desire for violence from the world in an attempt to stop all conflict by removing choice."

There were interested murmurs and mutters from the crowd of hummingbirds around him but he kept his focus on the bird in front of him and continued, "The entire shinobi world united to end him, but he was capable of calling back the dead and enslaving them to his will, he could step across the world with hardly a thought and no kunai to trace his path and we simply did not have sufficient time or resources to fight him – not with how long he had to gather his strength. In an effort to stop his transportation technique the Rokudaime Hokage and Godaime Kazekage along with myself and another bodyguard attempted a sealing technique. The space-time effect did not work as anticipated and threw us years into the past, waking in our old bodies."

"And you hope to cut off this monster at the root," the hummingbird concluded, bobbing his head thoughtfully, "Yes. I can see the wisdom of it – the desert has whispered of you, of her favored children returning to save us all – because a world without conflict is a world without life and that is no world I wish my children to be living in. Very well, Makiguchi Katashi – we will sign with you, so long as you swear by our tenets."

"And what might those be?"

"To run with the wind, to pass on our contract to no one for we must be sought, and to leave your enemies as dust in your wake," the hummingbird recited, a pair of gold and crimson patterned birds the size of hares coming down carrying a scroll with only three names on it, all blurred and smeared beyond recognition.

"To this I swear."