"You aren't worried about what Suna will do if you try to keep their demon vessel?" Jiraya asked.
Sasuke snorted. Suna could kiss his ass.
And they would, too, if they knew what was good for them.
Suna's current political situation was untenable, any historian could have told you that. Whenever a hidden village was that weak, they were going to be helped along to death by their neighbors, who would then proceed to loot the corpse.
Of course, any historian would have said the same thing about the Uchiha clan's situation. The reputation for power and viciousness that made Konoha's resident bastards like Danzo want to keep them around was what would make every other clan and village (like, oh, the ones they'd looted repeatedly in the past) want to kill the survivors and bury them at crossroads with stakes through their hearts.
Suna was around solely because the current Kazekage was a genius.
An evil genius, of course, but he was a ninja. The evil was implied. The only genius shinobi that wasn't evil that Sasuke could think of was Naruto, and after Naruto had learned how to shop he'd made a list of every store in town that had cheated him. Years later, when they weren't expecting it, he'd used sexy no jutsu to make the owners spray blood over all their stock.
Naruto had this ability to simultaneously be a sweet angel of mercy (and accurately-filled out tax returns) and an evil, evil goddamn bastard that the Uchiha clan was proud to call its own.
Since Sasuke was a member of Konoha's council he had to act like one, and that involved keeping up with current events. He'd been impressed by what he heard about Suna's situation and how the Kazekage was working from a position of weakness.
He'd essentially turned Suna into a political and military land mine: touch it and die. They had the desert that surrounded them, a few legendary shinobi like Chiyo (who was probably still on the level of the sannin, or rather the two sannin that weren't that Tsunade woman Naruto was after), the treaty with Konoha… And, apparently, a demon vessel that was dangerous enough outside the land of sand but would probably go through any invading force like a Grand Fireball no Jutsu through very dry kindling. The more enemies spilled their blood upon the sand, the more powerful Gaara would become.
Even Gaara's dislike of the Kazekage, which at first glance seemed like a mistake, was something any true ninja should recognize as expert manipulation.
On the one hand, if Gaara had actually cared about Suna, he might have gone after threats to it. Like the daimyo. If he cared about the Kazekage and his orders, then other villages would have regarded the demon vessel as an offensive weapon, not just a defensive one.
On the other hand, if Gaara actually hated the Kazekage or Suna, he wouldn't be willing to go on missions that showed his strength. Not to mention that this was a demon vessel that normally destroyed anything that irritated him. No, the fact Suna was still standing showed that Gaara's view of the village was being expertly handled.
As was the demon vessel's PR. After his previous missions and being shown off in the Chunin exams, Gaara's reputation would have been cemented as a ruthless killer who crushed anyone who attacked him but didn't care enough to attack anyone unless it was a mission. A land mine. Like Suna.
The fact that Sasuke now controlled the demon half of their demon vessel meant that the Kazekage would have to come to him if he wanted to make sure the other villages kept believing that he didn't have any real control over Gaara. They could compare notes, work out an alliance, and both of them could just allow other people to get the impression that there was a possibly that the Uchiha might create a clan presence in Suna someday. Or even move the clan stronghold there. The impression would be advantageous, an extra bargaining chip, but not anything that would threaten the other villages and clans and tip them into attacking, since those with long memories (like the Hokage) would know that the Uchiha had always considered Suna a godforsaken hellhole that they wouldn't spend any longer in than necessary except over a lot of other people's dead bodies.
Suna was one of only two ninja villages – okay, three, counting this new Sound village that was sending genin to the exam now – that had never been burnt to the ground by the Uchiha clan. Konoha and Sound had that distinction because they'd been built after the Uchiha had stopped doing that, and Sand because they hadn't wanted to go there. That meant they were the only three villages where Uchiha could live in some semblance of safety.
It was a pity Sound's leader wasn't attending the exams: it would have been worth sounding him out.
Now, it wasn't against the rules for teams to help each other out in the forest of death, but it was very strongly discouraged. Otherwise, teams would join up among village lines and another Shinobi War would be fought at every Chunin exam. There were, however, ways around this.
Normally Sasuke let Naruto be the one to look up what they could get away with, but he'd hit the books himself in the week leading up to the next part of the exam. He was the fucking clan head: if he didn't pass, that would be an embarrassment and undermine his bargaining position.
Which was why when his team was called to go in, he went over to Hinata's team, picked her up, and slung her over his shoulder before going to join Naruto and Sakura at the entrance, casually ignoring the onlookers and Hinata's startled meep.
"This isn't a honeymoon, kid. Although…"
"No shinobi other than genin taking the exam are allowed to enter the forest. However, Genin may take any ninja tools in with them that they can carry." He pointed at Hinata with his free hand. "Hyuuga Hinata is a Hyuuga. Under Konoha law, all Hyuuga are recognized as the property of their clan head. She is also my fiancée, and by our marriage contract I am her clan head. As she is my property, and useful in completing missions, she qualifies as one of my ninja tools. So I'm carrying her in, and she can't be barred on the grounds that she is a person because she is a genin competing in the exam."
"Genin can only enter with their teams." Anko saw where he was going with this.
"So the rest of her team needs to be sent in with us."
Naruto waved for Kiba and Shino to hurry over.
Once they were a ways away from the gates, Naruto folded his arms. "I'm ok, but some of you guys are going to have trouble blending in." Sasuke had dressed formally (of course, that was ninja formal…) to increase his odds of getting away with his trick, and Sakura was trying to create a signature look that would intimidate and mislead her enemies and was wearing a flowing sliver… thing that Haku had designed. It was obvious that Haku had made it by the way Sakura clearly didn't realize how indecent it was.
Naruto, on the other hand, was wearing orange and black, which were fantastic colors for hunting (especially the most dangerous game) in jungles, as jaguars and man-eating tigers had been proving for millennia.
"Naruto, we're ninja." Sasuke threw Hinata at him. "Let's try and get this done by the day after tomorrow."
Naruto caught her handily and put the blushing Hinata by his side, where she was very happy to stay while she focused on remembering to breathe. "Exactly! Wouldn't this go a lot faster if we torched the place?" Orange and black were also excellent colors for sneaking around by infernolight.
"Naruto, I'm disappointed in you. Clan precept 37."
"Oh, right. Pillage, then burn."
"You can set fire to the forest after we get the scrolls, to cover our break for the tower, but before then the trees are an advantage." They blocked the enemy's line of sight and they were far more visible to Sasuke's chakra sight than dirt and ashes would be. "We need to find two scrolls: let me know when your clones find our first set of targets."
Hmm. "See if you can locate Sound genin. I want to see if their training is up to snuff."