Alright, so ramping back up into the fun stuff. Ciara's trainees are already working on their next lesson, and it's pretty interesting, if I do say so myself. Also, timeskip, because I can't have her stick around in the Sand forever. So she'll be heading home next chapter.

And I'm bringing in part of one of the filler arcs, just because it works, and it'll give her something to come home to. And there's a reason for picking out and altering the passage from the filler are the way I did. So humor me and enjoy the integration of some of the better, and by "come home to" I mean chaos, chaos everywhere. Though that should be a given, really.

Ciara's P.O.V.

Lately, I feel like all I do is sleep in, go to the hospital to supervise and give tips to the trainees in the various disciplines, head out to train with the chakra group at noon, go back to the hospital for a couple of hours, before falling asleep in Gaara's room, with him watching over me like a mother hen.

Jeez, if this is how Gaara felt when I was taking his vitals four times a day, I can understand why he would get back at me for it like this. It's the most annoying thing I've ever had to deal with in my life. At least I'm not the one who died and came back from the dead, though. So I think that the case leans more towards me, to be fair.

On a more important note, it's noon, which means that I'm in for the…sixteenth session with the trainees? Seventeenth? Either way, we're getting close to the end of my month here, and I'm really proud of them, they've improved by leaps and bounds, and they won't need me around here much longer.

And they're not the only ones. Results from the different groups are coming in, and there are vast improvements across the board. Enough that if they pass down the regimens that we've developed these past few weeks, then the Sand Village should never be short talented medics. Tsunade was even kind enough to send along some advanced textbooks on poisons and antidotes. Hopefully, next time, they won't need us to deal with a difficult poison.

So, I step into Gaara's office just a few minutes before it's time for me to meet my trainees, a pile of paper in my hands. "I've got the latest reports from the group leaders. And I think that you'll like the results. The quality of treatment in the hospital has tripled, and there's some solid training practices being developed. Some of them are pretty creative too."

"I see, good." He takes the papers from me, his eyes skimming over them as he picks out the highlights of the first report. Then, he looks at me with a rare smile. "It's good to have you here. You re a great help."

I snort with amusement. "You mean after I got my best trainee to stop hating me?" It was a rough road, but after the incident, Masaru started being civil, and sometimes even friendly with me. And thankfully, it's only gotten better since then. I'm actually enjoying our training sessions now.

"Yes, that certainly would help." I could swear that his eyes are glittering with amusement. Then again, that might just be the light. "Speaking of your trainees…"

"Yeah, yeah, I'll see you later." I walk past him and to his office window, out of which I can see my trainees moving onto the training field. "Remember to eat, and don't work yourself too hard." And with that, I launch myself out the window, flipping through the air and landing perfectly in the middle of the training field.

My trainees don't even flinch. This isn't the first time I've done that. Masaru smirks at me. "So, are we starting with the heavy stuff right off the bat?"

"That's right!" I crack my knuckles and smirk right back. "So, are you up first today?"

"Of course." Masaru's chakra flares, telling me that he's ready to get started at any moment. "Today, I'm going to pass five minutes."

"You think so?" I taunt him just a little. Best to get him riled up before we start, it gets better results out of him. "You just barely got four minutes yesterday, five might be pushing it."

"Nah, I can do this." That determination of his is good, and it's going to serve him well. He holds up his hands challengingly. "Come on, the sooner we start, the sooner I prove to you that I can do this."

"Alright, if you think you can handle it." I hold up my hands in a similar fashion and slide my fingers through his, locking them together, just as I've done with all four of them for the past couple of weeks.

It's a technique that I kind of developed on the fly after they passed the second lesson so quickly. I figured that if they were going to improve their ability to heal wounds, then it should stand to reason that they should be able to fight the chakra in a more direct confrontation, if only for a little while. Which is why Suzaku's chakra pours out of me, racing down my arms and towards Masaru, who slams his own chakra against the incoming flood, fighting it as it travels up his own arms, pushing it back into my body.

For safety purposes, though, Suzaku lowered the concentration of chakra for these exercises. Not that we need it to be particularly destructive now, they already know how to deal with that. Now, it's just about concentration, endurance, and training to heal large amounts of damage by dealing with an equally large amount of chakra.

My efforts are fairy minimal as the seconds tick by, but Masaru is putting up one hell of a fight against me. His chakra is pretty potent. In fact, it's a little too potent. "Hm…tell me, do you have a kekkai genkai at all?"

The question distracts him a bit, but not enough for him to lose focus on the task at hand. "No, why do you ask?"

"Hm, strange. You've got pretty powerful chakra for a normal shinobi. I guess that just means that you've got a lot of untapped potential that's all your own." Now, I'm actually kind of curious to see just how much power is hidden behind the attitude.

The observation seems to please him, because he smirks and his chakra starts to flood out against mine, actually pushing its way into my fingertips. "Then let's find out how much."

Now that sounds like a good idea. "Alright." I push back against his flood of chakra, balancing us out, and increasing the amount and focus incrementally. And every step of the way, he matches the output.

Of course,the output isn't nearly a significant amount of Suzaku's strength. Still, if I were normal, this would be a pretty significant amount, the kind used in intense battle. Which, I suppose, would be a good metaphor for what we're doing. We may not be trading blows, but our chakra is definitely doing battle. And it's rather exhilarating.

It also makes me miss training with Naruto. He's by far one of the best partners for burning off energy with. Oh, and Neji too. Which reminds me that when I get back to the Leaf, I need to drag Neji out for some sparring. It's been way too long since the last time that we sparred, and I've learned more than a few tricks in the last couple of years. I'm pretty sure that I could pose a real challenge to him now, even without ninjutsu. And learning some of those Gentle Fist forms of his could prove very useful.

Masaru starts to falter at about the five minute mark, lasting much longer than any of our previous sessions. While strained, the smirk is still firmly in place. "See, I told you I'd last longer this time."

"So you have…" But I can see him faltering now, and frankly, he's probably never going to come up against this type of assault anyway, so there's no need to push him further. With this, he's already proven that he'll be able to tend to most moderate to severe injuries. There's nothing more to teach him. Now, he has to master this power on his own. "Alright, consider this to be your graduation exam for this part of your training. You pass." I pull back my chakra entirely and unlock our clasped hands, grinning. "Congratulations."

He pants slightly as his chakra starts to recede. But he has a wildly happy expression on his face. "Awesome…"

I turn to the other trainees and hold out my hands. "Who's next?"

Naruto's P.O.V.

"Sora will be rounding out Team Kakashi while Sai is in recovery. Because of that, I'd like to practice some new formations to get us all in sync." I had a feeling that I wouldn't like the words coming out of Captain Yamato's mouth. He's got that look whenever he's about to tell us something I don't like. Even if he thinks it's totally reasonable.

This is so annoying, I'm supposed to be training my wind style, not getting dragged out into the middle of nowhere by Captain Yamato. And definitely not with Sora in tow. "Man, come on, we can skip that. Let's just get back to my wind chakra training."

"Heh, well, what do you know about that? The reject has a point for once." Damn it, this guy gets on my nerves. Why can't Sora ever learn to keep his trap shut?

"You're a laugh a minute, you know that?" I glare at him for a second, before a detail from our last battle occurs to me. "Oh, that's right. Captain Yamato, I almost forgot something. I wanted to ask you a couple of questions about the manipulation of chakra nature."

Captain Yamato scratches his head, like he really doesn't want to answer me. But no way, I'm definitely getting answers out of him. "Well…alright, but then I want you focused on the rest of our training."

I feel like sighing, but that's not going to help right now. "Yeah, okay, you got it." Jeez…I should be doing actual training, not dumb formations.

"Well, shoot. What do you want to know?" Finally, now we're getting somewhere.

"You said before that you create the wood style by combining the earth and water styles together, right?" I mean, that's what he's been doing ever since he took over our team from Kakashi-Sensei, so that's pretty obvious, right?

"Yes, that's correct. Earth and water are the two properties of chakra nature that I have mastery of." He confirms it, but doesn't seem to know where I'm going with this. Great…

"Kakashi-Sensei's talked about this a lot in training. He said, when you're a jounin, you can learn more of them. Will I eventually pick up water style or something too?" It would be really handy to be able to do combination attacks like Ciara can. Huh…I wonder if she can make any extra chakra natures…like ice or wood.

"I see." Captain Yamato crosses his arms and frowns. "Hard to say, really. You're either born with it, or you're not. Each of us has an affinity for different chakra. Though I guess only time will tell if you have an affinity for water style chakra."

Well, that's disappointing. "So, I guess no matter how hard I try then, I can't learn something that isn't there to begin with.

"Anyway, Naruto, your fundamental attribute is wind. Even if you were to show signs of others, they would be much weaker. To cultivate a second or third property, jounin train themselves to use that weaker chakra." Damn it, that sounds really hard.

But…I guess that makes sense. "Then that means it's gotta be really rare for somebody to obtain all five, then, right?

"Not exactly. No shinobi has ever managed to master all five of them. It's never happened, at least not to my knowledge, anyway. The Third Hokage was as close as it was possible to be to a master of all five basic chakra natures, and even he said that he still had things to learn before he could really call himself a master." Yamato shakes his head. "Though he was certainly proficient enough in all of them that many would consider him to have mastered all five. He was called "The Professor" after all."

My thoughts travel back to that weird chick with the long red hair who totally freaked when I accidentally cut off a few pieces of it. Sheesh, women and their hair. But then…how could she do that. Wait… "But Captain Yamato. Ciara can use all five, easy! What's with that? She could use three before she made chunin, and could use all five before we got back to the village."

Captain Yamato frowns. "That shouldn't be possible…what did you say her name was?"

"Ciara Shiryugu. She's a friend of ours who goes on missions with us sometimes." Sakura frowns like she's confused, and I can't blame her, I'm confused too.

The captain looks just as confused. "Well, I can't speak to that, since there's a lot about her that I just don't know. But it sounds to me like there's something else at work there."

"You're right about that." There's laughter in the trees, and I look up to see Asuma-Sensei. "To be fair, you can't judge my niece by the standards of normal shinobi. She's…a special case. Thats a clan trait that would pop up in the main house from time to time. Kekkai genkai have a habit of breaking the rules that the rest of us play by."

"Ah, yes, that makes sense." Captain Yamato coughs. "Well, my earlier explanation is barring those with kekkai genkai that allow affinities for the five basic chakra natures. So you friend is a unique case. Though she's still young, I'm guessing, so I doubt she has total mastery over all five natures at her age. Give it a few decades, maybe. Master over one element is tough enough, mastery over all five is a pretty tall order. Now, is that all the questions you had? Because we have a lot of formations to get to."

Asuma-Sensei starts laughing again. "It's not like they're a permanent team. Why bother drillin' em? Seems kinda pointless. I mean, for starters, Naruto doesn't really think before he acts." Well ouch, that hurts. "And Sora's cut from the same cloth."

"Don't lump me in with him!" Sora points at me as though I'm some kind of freak on display.

"What is it with you!?" I grit my teeth, glare, and put up my fists, just in case he wants to get into another brawl like the one yesterday.

"Both of em are heavy hitters who like diving into the fray. Just put em out front and let em do their thing. You and Sakura just back em up as best you can." Well, he might have insulted us, but he's got a point about how we fight. I guess. Still, Sora pisses me off with his damn attitude. Here I am, trying to be nice to him whenever I get the chance, and he just throws it back in my face!

The captain sags a bit. "Well, I don't disagree with you, but…"

"Backing these two up should be a lot of fun…" Sakura rolls her eyes, and that hurts, seriously, it hurts.

Asuma-Sensei jumps down from the tree to join us. "Seriously, they're not gonna to pick up new formations overnight. Give em a little time to find a rhythm. They'll be comrades before you know it.

Our team leader sighs, like he's finally giving up. "Which means that for now…"

"Those formations will just have to wait." Asuma-Sensei grins, a cigarette hanging out of his mouth.

Captain Yamato sighs. "Asuma is right. So, for the time being,you can all keep training individually. Okay?"

"Alright! So I guess this means we can pick up right where we left off with my training, right!? Can we? How bout it, Captain?" This means that I can keep training my wind nature, and I'll get to train with Ciara when she gets back! Hey, maybe I can ask her for tips too! She's got awesome control of her wind chakra!

"Oh, uh, well, we'd need Kakashi here for that." That just sounds like an excuse to me. "But hey! Maybe Asuma here could help you! You're on standby right now, aren't you, Sensei? I'm sure he could teach you a thing or two. After all, he has the same wind style chakra that you two do."

"Alright!" Now I'll have something to show Ciara when she comes home in a week!

Ciara's P.O.V.

My nose twitches, and I sneeze loudly right in the middle of Gaara's office, here to give my evening report on the progress in the chakra-training of my trainees and the advances in the training of the other groups inside the hospital.

Gaara looks up at me, his brow furrowing. "Are you alright?"

I sniffle a bit, rubbing my nose gingerly. "Yeah, I'm fine. I guess someone's talking about me or something."

"I see." He looks back down at the report, before placing it down on his desk. "You leave in three days…"

"Yeah, I'll be heading home as fast as I can." I smirk slightly. "After all, who knows what kind of trouble they're all getting into without me. Someone's gotta protect them."

He nods slowly, his eyes now locked on me. "Ciara…if you ever wish to visit, there will be a room waiting for you here whenever you need it."

I blink, then smile at the gesture. "Then I guess that one of these days, I'll have to take you up on that. It's not good to stay cooped up in one place for too long, after all."

"Yes." He watches me, and I could swear that I see a hint of uncertainty in his eyes.

So, I make this a bit easier for him. "I'll miss you Gaara. But I promise, the next time you see me, I'll be a lot stronger."

A smile curls his lips just enough to be noticeable. "I'm sure you will be." It's a gentle vote of confidence, but one that I'm more than willing to take.

Still, just to make him feel better, I sit myself down on his desk. "Anyway, the trainees have learned everything I can teach them. Now, it's all about experience. And if any real issues crop up, then I can always look in my family library for something that might help and send the texts over for the medics to look at."

"That would be appreciated." He smiles softly, and my insides do a tango in delight. It was hard to get him to smile, but he does it more often when it's just us in his office. I guess he's sticking to his Kage face most of the time. A shame, he's got a nice smile. He should use it more often.

I raise my hand to ruffle the crimson hair, before pressing a kiss to his cheek. "I'll see you tomorrow."

"Sleep well." Gaara's hand brushes mine as I remove it from his head and slip off his desk.

As I walk out of his office, I sigh. It's so different here now. At least, compared to how it was when I first arrived here. There were a lot of suspicious looks, but those have died down for the most part.

On the other hand, now, I get either looks of awe, or looks of hostility. And frankly, I prefer the hostile looks to the suspicious ones. Because at least when the looks are hostile, I can just be defensive. Suspicious looks are much harder to deal with, because I have no clue exactly what they're expecting me to do. Whatever it is, it's probably not good.

Returning to my room, I change into a light silk nightgown, since the desert air is hot and dry, and I really can't stand sleeping in heavy pajamas. Luckily, Temari lent me enough of her stuff to tide me over until I head home. And the staff here are very helpful in having my clothes cleaned for me every time I take them off. They're prompt and efficient, to put it mildly.

The purple nightgown flutters around me as I walk over to the window to watch the setting sun. The view is nice, though I do prefer the view from on top of my mountain. There, the red, orange, and gold of the sun contrasts against the green of the trees and the sparkling blue of the lake. I can see why my ancestors would choose to settle there. It's a beautiful and almost…mystical place.

This place has its own charms, but I'm more interested in the sky as the light slowly dims and the stars begin to shine through the growing darkness. I love the stars. I love the moon. And I love the look of the sun at sunrise, sunset, and high noon. The play of light on the world is enchanting and beautiful. But the stars has a special quality to them, even amongst those more prominent displays of light. The stars are as bright and ethereal as the ancestors that I heard about as a child.

I wonder if we really do become stars when we die… Of course, I don't know if that's true or a myth, or if it would happen while I'm still mostly human. There's just so much I don't know, and so much that I don't think I'll ever know.

Still, it's nice to watch the stars until I'm ready to go to sleep. And as the moon rises into the sky, its color amongst the twinkling stars reminds me of a few more precious people in my life.

With a sigh, I hold my hand out the window and towards the lights hanging above me. "Kiyoshi…are you watching me now? Is Shisui with you?" It's a bit of a romantic notion, but I really hope that somewhere, the two of them can see me. And I can only hope that they're proud of me. "It's…Itachi and Sasuke. I'm not totally sure what's going on with them, but please…if you're watching over me, can you watch over them as well? I don't want anything to happen to them just because they insist on being dumb and doing things the hard way. Well…whatever they're actually doing, I mean."

Because dammit, those two seem to have entirely different agendas, and I haven't quite figured them out yet beyond Itachi helping, and yet not helping the Akatsuki, and Sasuke going off to Orochimaru for power to kill Itachi for something that I can't imagine my uncle doing in the first place.

I say another prayer for those two, to my ancestors, wherever their souls may be. Because honestly, I just want to see them again. Alive. And if that means praying to the dead and gone, and going along with whatever crazy schemes Naruto comes up with, then that's what I'll do.

After all, they're family. And a dragon hoards their family like a mountain of gold and jewels.