Bound
PART III
Chapter 55: Stolen
Two Years and Seven Months Later
"Ren-san, don't you think you should take a break?"
I sit back, wiping my brow and squinting against the sunlight at a gardener who towers over me, his silhouette giving me no insight to his identity. "Is it almost lunch time?" I ask, taking the bottle of water he offers me. "Because if that's the case, then yes."
The gardener laughs as I dab at my brow again, the sweat rolling off my face seemingly unyielding. "I'm here to relay a message about that, actually. Godaime wants me to tell you he can meet you for lunch today," he says with a slight bow at the mention of the Kazekage, and I recognize his voice, his polite way of speech. It's Haru, one of the gardeners I'd recruited personally to help me around the greenhouse. He smiles kindly at me as I stand. "He's almost finished speaking with the Village Council, so if you'd like to wait for him in his office, he'll walk you to lunch."
I thank him and give him a few last instructions on taking care of my plants before going on my way. Upon stepping out into the blazing sunlight, though, I resent having to leave the greenhouse. Even though the air in the greenhouse was thick with humidity, I preferred it to this pressing heat, where wind blew but gave no relief. I've been in the Sand for five months, and no closer to getting used to this weather.
Not for the first time, I think about home. I think about the trees that provide shade, the leaves of grass that provide a cool place to sleep, the sweet smell of dew in the air when I leave my house in the morning. Here, there's only hot, hot heat and dry air and the sound of sand crunching under my feet as I walk around the village. And while it was nice to have a change of scenery for the first few days, it became monotonous quickly, and I could only think about how much I would like to go home. I was only supposed to stay here for as long as it took me to cool down from Sasuke's departure, after all, but then Gaara offered me an apprenticeship under one of his village's leading medical officials, and that extended my visit. Still, my training can be considered complete and I've cooled down considerably and now I want to go home.
Nothing against Sunagakure. Gaara has gone well beyond his duties as host to make sure that I felt at home here and, along with Temari and Kankuro, has ensured that I will not go home without new techniques to show off. I'll miss him when I'm gone—but nothing compares to the comfort of home.
As I'm thinking this, a massive shadow passes over me, reaching across the whole of the village streets, darkening buildings and market blocks. I stop where I am and look up, anxious. It's a rarity that we see clouds in this desert country, and so it's even more of anomaly when a cloud manages to eclipse the whole of the sun and plunge what seems like half of the village into darkness. This can't be the work of some gargantuan fluff of white.
My suspicious are confirmed when, overhead, I see not clouds but a blanket of sand, rushing through the air like a tidal wave, hell bent on washing out the village and burying everyone underneath. My body tenses, and I prepare to sprint the rest of the way to the Administration and inform Gaara, when it hits me: The villagers. It's not safe for them to be roaming around. As a shinobi, I need to consider the safety of the people first.
Around me, the villagers are gasping and shouting, their feet melded into place in their shock. They point and press their hands over their mouths, and even when I shout, "Everybody get inside!" they only look away from the sand wave to blink at me, scared and confused, keeping their children close to their legs.
I take hold of the people closest to me, a shopkeeper and a customer of his who had come out to survey the situation, and hiss, "Get back inside! Close all the doors and windows. Don't come out until we send people to tell you it's safe! Go!" I urge, shoving them both into the shop and shutting the doors behind them.
I'm able to usher a handful of people more into random shops and hotels before shinobi finally show up and assist me in doing the same. Upon seeing their own officials sweeping people off the streets, the villagers become more inclined to listen to them, and I wonder if I should have stolen a headband earlier during my stay here. Only to more easily gain the trust of these people when I need it most, that is, like now, when they are so very obviously in danger of the oncoming sandstorm and so very reluctant to listen to me try to help them.
"Has someone alerted the Kazekage?" I ask, catching one of the shinobi I recognize. He nods, glancing over his shoulder where his teammates are securing the area.
"He's the one causing this," the shinobi answers, motioning to the wave of sand. "It appears we've—"
An explosion cuts him off. Instinctively, we flinch and duck our heads, closing our eyes when sand pellets fall on us. They're compact and considerably large, like hailstones, and I'm sure there are bumps forming on my head from where they've hit, but that's pushed out of my mind as soon as the shinobi finishes his sentence.
"It appears we've been infiltrated," he says, brushing dirt out of his hair. "We're under attack and the High Council has determined a state of emergency."
"Then reinforcements," I say, and the shinobi shakes his head.
"Impossible," he says, and points to the sand swirling overhead. "There's no way for us to get up there, and the Kazekage can't concern himself with us during a fight of this caliber. The best we can do is stay back and—hey!" the shinobi cries indignantly when I shove past him. While I'm confident that Gaara can take care of himself, I'm not going to sit idly by and let him get hurt. I have a duty to protect this village that has been my home for the past six months just as much as any Sand Nin.
There's another explosion from overhead and I hear sand pellets whistling through the air as they fall, but I don't mind it. I need to get to higher ground where I can maybe hoist myself onto Gaara's sand. The plan is, so far, poorly thought out, but I'll wing it. Something will come up and work to my advantage.
When I burst into the Administration building, I can feel the vibrations being jostled above. I don't know if it's because of the fight or because someone is planning frantically from within. Either way, I quicken my pace, taking the stairs four at a time and cutting turns so closely my arm bumps into the corner walls. More bruises to add to my list of injuries and I haven't even gotten into the battle yet.
I turn a corner and slam into someone who grabs my arms to steady me and shouts, "Ren!"
"Kankuro?" I say, slightly dazed by my collision. "What's going on? What's with the sand—"
"We're being attacked," Kankuro says in a rush. "We're going up to the upper level to check it out right now and see what we can do. Come on," he says, grabbing my shoulder and steering me in the right direction. I stumble ahead of them, guided by Kankuro's hold, and by the time we're out on the rooftop of the Administration building, my dizziness has cleared, but I still can't comprehend.
There is Gaara, standing on his floating sand, battling off explosives that are directed at him by someone soaring through the sky on the back of a giant bird. The explosions come in quick succession, but Gaara manages to manipulate the sand fast enough to counter them all. I consider how I could get up there, being that I can't manipulate the earth like Gaara can, although I do have some reign. Over the course of my time here, I've discovered that earth's susceptibility to my vibrations coupled with my natural ability to control the element allows me to use the abundant sand around me, but nowhere nearly as well as Gaara's sand.
Then again, I don't have a sand demon sealed inside of me.
Gaara summons the sand to chase after the man flying on the bird, the sand taking shape into claws reminiscent of the Shukaku's as they grab onto empty air, getting closer to the man with each reach. The man swerves to a sudden stop, turning to face Gaara and the sand claws, which proceed to clamor for him. But then something small shoots forward, swirling around the sand claws and directed right Gaara, who has to reel his sand in front of him quickly to block the explosions that go off.
Gaara ends up cocooning himself in his sand as the claws dip under the man on the bird and swoop in, circling him and closing the man in a huge sphere. We watch as the man realizes what's going on and attempts to fly out of the sand which fills quickly.
But not fast enough.
At the last possible moment, as the last holes are being paved over, the man breaks out from the thinning of sand that has only barely covered the opening and gets free. But the sand catches onto the man's clothes, consumes his left arm, and in a plume of red and faded brown, Gaara crushes the man's arm.
Some of the Nin start cheering. I, on the other hand, along with Kankuro and Baki, the former Jounin leader of the Sand Siblings, stay quiet, watching as the man drops something that bursts in a cloud of smoke and catches him—another bird that flies him to level with Gaara.
"Ren," Kankuro says carefully, and I turn to him. "Do you know who it is Gaara's fighting?"
"I . . . no," I say. "I've never seen these techniques before and—"
"Look closely," he says, and I return my gaze to the man hovering above the village. He's an inky black blob on top of a creamy brown bird hovering above the village. As he sways, the sun glints off his coat, and I wonder why he isn't suffering from heat stroke considering the—
I catch a glint of red and my eyes widen and I say, "No."
"So you recognize them?" Baki says and I press my hands to my face because I don't want to believe it. "It's Akatsuki attacking Kazekage-sama then, isn't it?"
"That's what I thought," Kankuro says. "To think we were talking about them earlier. Speak of the devil, indeed."
Baki whirls on the shinobi gathered behind us and orders them to prepare for battle. Then, to me, he says, "Ren, go with the medical team to set up barriers and lead the villagers in there."
"No," I say, planting my feet where I am. "I've had experience dealing with Akatsuki. I'll help back up the Kazekage with the rest of you. Go," I say with a wave of my hand to the medical corps who stay behind for me. They look to Baki who nods, reluctantly, and they leap away onto their own duties. Baki leans his head back to watch as another explosion goes off frighteningly close to Gaara.
"Kankuro," Baki says. "Consider the idea of Gaara going crazy in your head, and the scenario of the Shukaku coming out."
Kankuro grits his teeth as though he had already been thinking about the prospect of both happening. But then he smirks and says, "That won't happen. Gaara won't harm the people of this village."
"Never mind that," I say, pointing at the man who is pulling something out of his bag. It's large, about the size of his head, and he holds it out, like he's presenting it to Gaara as a peace offering. "Judging from that guy's technique, I'd say whatever he's holding is another explosive. If that hits Gaara—" I stop speaking with a yelp as whatever the man had been carrying in his hands expands to the size of a small building. He makes a series of wild gestures before he tips it over the edge of his bird and it begins its descent right over the center of the village.
The chakra that package has condensed in it makes the vibrations go haywire. If that thing goes off in the village, everyone could—no, will die. And I think the people below sense as much because there is screaming from the people who haven't been evacuated yet and shinobi are running back and forth like they can do something, but I feel the sand swooping in and building and then we're in shadow again and we're protected and the blast that goes off only serves to shake the village and send down a rain of debris from Gaara's shield as it takes the damage.
There is cheering. Baki lets out a moan of relief. Kankuro smiles. But the amount of chakra that it had taken Gaara to do that—
He's not going to last.
The sand shield dissipates without ado, showering the village as I scan the sky for Gaara. There's a small explosion that occurs where he's taken cover. When the smoke clears, I can see that he's managed to close his shell in time to keep himself safe, but then the shell begins to bulge and writhe in odd places, like there's a monster inside trying to claw its way out.
Baki mutters under his breath about the Shukaku getting loose, but I stop him and say, "It's not that. The energy is different. It's—"
"The sand!" Kankuro cries, and yes, the sand. The sand is dripping away from Gaara, cascading over his limp body as Gaara must be losing consciousness.
I explain in a hurry, "That chakra inside the shell hadn't been Gaara's or the Shukaku's, but that Akatsuki guy's! It was a bomb, somehow, that had gotten in and Gaara is hurt."
The sand continues to fall away from Gaara until it loses its grip on him completely. And then Gaara is falling and my stomach is dropping along with him and the man is swooping in on him.
But—why doesn't he continue to attack the village? Is he after Gaara specifically, and had only used the village as a decoy? These are question I don't have time to give my full attention because, if this man is after Gaara, then I have to do something before Gaara is captured.
I charge my fist with my chakra and punch the rooftop, thinking about how it really is lucky that all the buildings in the Sand Village are made of, well, sand and stone and other earthy elements. I release my chakra into the earth and meld it with the particles in an orderly fashion so that the ground rises in a staircase, reaching high above the buildings and maybe, maybe close enough to Gaara.
Kankuro shouts after me as I leap up the thick steps of the staircase, surging my chakra to my foot. I kick the corner of a step; it breaks and goes flying, directed right at the man aiming to catch Gaara before me. He has to swerve out of the way in order to avoid the boulder crashing toward him, which gives me enough time to ascend the final steps and, sending a burst of chakra to my feet, jump from the top of the staircase, and grab Gaara as he falls.
Which leaves me falling too.
I should have thought this part through, but I was more concerned about getting to Gaara to consider this. Luckily, Gaara is warm, still half-conscious, and has the sense to summon up his sand to catch us. Either that or his autonomous sand had its own sense to catch its vessel. Whichever it is, I'm grateful as I sit up on the sand island that keeps us afloat, I think I hear cheering from below, but there's no time for that because the bird is soaring right at us again, much faster this time, and I end up having to lay Gaara down in my lap as I flip through hand seals to manipulate the earth on which we sit.
I make the appropriate hand signs before slamming my palms into the island. It shakes and thrusts us backwards as chunks of the sand break off and bullet at the bird, predicting where he'll go to dodge and then hitting him spot on. He spins out of control and I use the moment to my advantage.
I press my hands into the dirt, my fingers sinking through the compact sand like water and my chakra flowing into the particles easily. I lean all my weight forward, careful not to crush Gaara, and the island sinks down, gaining momentum in our descent. Below, a number of Nin wave their hands back and forth, signaling for me to land there.
I hear Gaara groan, and I mumble, "Relax, Gaara. I've got you, you're safe, we're almost—"
The vibrations shudder around something small but charged with a massive chakra flies toward us. I peer over my shoulder to see if I can pinpoint exactly what it is that's rushing at me, but I'm only met with fire and a blast that sends the island reeling and spinning and singes the edges of my clothes where embers catch onto the fabric.
I curse under my breath, freeing one hand from the sand island in order to keep a better grip on Gaara. The blast throws me off and makes me lose my sense of direction, but I know one thing for sure—I need to get down.
I lean forward again as the sand crumbles beneath me. Gaara must losing consciousness completely. I surge my chakra into the sand island to keep it together, but it does nothing to help me control the sand as it falls, without a single power to brace it, plummeting out of the sky much faster than I would like.
And people wonder why I have a fear of heights. It's this kind of free-falling that leads to your death, painfully sends you splattering on the ground, and to top it all off, you have to endure the anxiety of the fall first. At least I could grab onto trees and shit in the area around the Leaf Village to stop myself. I add that to my mental list of Reasons Why I Want to Go Home.
An idea strikes me. I tug my hands out of the sand, flipping through hand seals quickly as my chakra gathers into the appropriate amounts, and when I slam my hands into the sand island beneath me, I can feel that it's enough earth to do as I intend.
The sand shoots out beneath us, stretching toward the ground like a giant pillar. It's not long enough to hit the ground, but I don't need for it to. Instead, I swerve the island left and, just in time, it skids across the top of a building, sinking in through the roof and jerking us to a stop.
I grab onto Gaara, who almost flies from the island as we come to a crashing halt, and begin to go through the motions of make sure he's okay. His face is crumbly from his sand shield, and I wipe the remnants of it away with an easy wave. There are slight burns where the blasts had broken through his sand, but other than that he is unhurt and unconscious because of the chakra it takes to maintain his shield and manipulate his sand to such a degree.
I hear someone tsk and look up quickly to find the man—no, boy. By the timbre of his voice, he's only a few years older than I am—on the bird hovering in front of me. He's grinning as he says, "Impressive, yeah. But how about you hand him over? I don't like fighting girls, and I commend your resilience. I have a timetable to keep t-oo!" he cries as I dig my hands into the sand and launch sand bullets at him. His bird jerks back and forth to avoid them.
"Earth element, yeah?" he asks and smirks, holding onto his bird with tight fists. "I thought it was a little odd how you managed to pull up that stairway earlier. That means—you were the one controlling the sand island, weren't you?" He laughs when I glare at him and says, "Good news for me then: I've successfully managed to knock out your Kazekage without killing him. Well? He's not dead, yeah?"
"Get lost!" I hiss, pulling Gaara closer to me as the boy eyes him. "And tell your friends—your Akatsuki gang—to leave us the hell alone. I recognize your coat," I say when his eyes widen with surprise. "I've run into your ilk before. I know you want the jinchuuriki, although god knows why."
The boy laughs again, shakes his head, and says, "You could say that, yeah. This was fated by Him to happen. So give him here, yeah, and we'll all go on our merry way."
"No deal," I say, and plant my hands into the earth again. The boy flinches, waits for my attack to come, but instead I'm falling along, grabbing Gaara around the waist and hugging him tightly to me as the sand dissolves and sends us nose-diving for the ground. I see Kankuro jump with surprise from the top of another building, the other shinobi scrambling around him to figure out how to catch us, but I trust in Gaara and his sand, or at least my vibrations to cushion us, and that we'll be able to land safely if only I can move us faster.
I pull the vibrations, smoothing them out to ease the friction in the air, preventing us from slowing, when I feel the boy plummeting toward us too. I send a blast of vibrations to knock him off kilter at a range he can't dodge, but he manages to break through them and come at us much more quickly than before. And instead of aiming to grab Gaara alone, he catches the both of us on his bird. I slam into it hard, landing so gruffly and painfully on my shoulder that it dislocates and I groan.
I keep my grip around Gaara, rolling over him in order to face the boy, but before I can steady myself properly, I'm shoved, and in my current state I lose my balance and tip over the edge of the bird. I tighten my grip on Gaara's sash and end up swinging back and forth in the air as the boy holds Gaara aboard.
"Determined girl, aren't you?" I hear him grumble under his breath before he tosses something over the side of the bird that hits me in the face and gets caught in the ends of my hair. My good arm is occupied holding onto Gaara and my other arm won't lift because of my shoulder. The vibrations shiver as whatever the boy has dropped on me begins to crawl up my hair and brush up against my face. I think to shake my head to get the thing off of me, but that thought is cut short when my fingers are crushed under a heavy boot and I'm forced to let go.
Free-falling once more, I reach up to catch the bug crawling through my hair and toss it aside as it explodes in a ball of heat and fire and smoke. Unfortunately, I'm not far enough away from the blast to make it out unscathed. Embers stick to my shirt and skin, melting where it touches. The blast does wonders on my head, causing dizziness to set in, and I wonder if it's possible I could have been concussed. Or severely whiplashed. I don't have long to consider this though, as I crash into a body that has prepared to catch me but still crumples under my weight.
I struggle to get off my savior, muttering, "Gaara, Gaara," as they help me to my feet.
"Kankuro is going after him now," someone says, holding me steady. "We've been instructed to take you to the hospital, Ren-san."
"No," I say, brushing them off. "Where—I'm going—"
"You're in no shape!" someone says, taking hold of my bad shoulder, and I wince.
"I am," I insist, pushing their hand off, and, taking my elbow, I push my arm up and, god, it stings and the shooting pain goes all the way through my torso until I feel my bones snap back into place. I press my hand over my shoulder to ease the swelling, but that last exertion of energy is enough to drain my chakra reserves and make me black out.
[+]
I'm shaken awake, which serves to make my head hurt even more, but when I wake up I manage to grumble, "I was concussed, and you let me fall asleep? What if I had fallen into a coma?"
"No time to worry about that right now," someone says quickly, pushing me off the bed and supporting me as I'm forcibly set on my feet. No time to worry about that now, I think incredulously as the person beside me tightens their hand around my waist. No, I suppose now isn't the time to worry about it, but thirty minutes ago, maybe, or when I had initially passed out. That would have been a good time to worry about it.
"Kankuro," the person says and I'm not sure if I should be offended when they grunt as I lean on them. There's no time for me to consider, though, because they say, "There was another Akatsuki member waiting outside the gates. He poisoned Kankuro, and none of the other medics can figure it out. We need your help."
"How long?" I ask, bracing my head as the person at my side leads me to—god, I don't even know where we are. The hospital? My eyes don't register any of our surroundings though. But that might be because of my head.
"What?" they say.
"How long has the poison been in his system?" I say, growing irritated and pushing away from this person. Despite the slight sway in my step, I walk much faster than they do. "Have you guys been keeping him sedentary? The faster his heart beats, the quicker it moves through his system."
"An hour and a half at most," the person says. "He's resting here in a separate room. Here." They jog ahead of me to hold the door for me to enter, but I stop before going in.
"And Gaara?" I ask, and the medic looks away quickly.
"I'm afraid we weren't," he's saying, but I walk past him into the room and am swiftly flocked by the medics who give me a report of Kankuro's condition. I wave them away, telling the closest one, "Bring me Haru from the greenhouse, please." and taking gloves from the next medic who offers them to me.
Pulling them on, I'm at Kankuro's bedside. Someone has taken the liberty of stripping him and bandaging him up. Unraveling some of the bandages, I place one hand over Kankuro's heart and press my chakra into it to slow it as much as possible without killing him.
"You're gonna be okay, Kankuro," I say softly, and begin muttering soft prayers to the spirits for his comfort as I infuse my free hand with chakra and use it to cut beneath his ribcage. I run my hand smoothly over his circulatory system, making the rounds once, twice, three times, collecting the infected blood and drawing it out through the cut I've made.
"Someone heal that cut, and get me a vial to hold this in, please?" I say, and someone swoops in to take over for me while there is a bit of rummaging, some glass clanking against more glass, before someone else holds out a vial and I deposit some of the blood into it. It sloshes back and forth with a distasteful purple tinge.
"What kind of analysis have you done on the poison?" I ask, holding the poison on display.
"It's nothing we've seen before," says one of the medics. "It's caused paralysis, obviously, and it seems it won't kill him immediately, but he doesn't have long. Two or three days, judging by the way it moves through the bloodstream."
"Well, I've drawn most of it out," I say. "The only thing we have to worry about now is it infecting the rest of the blood cells. We can keep drawing it out, but . . . I don't think that will delay things for very long."
"Ren-san?" It's Haru, coming in through the doors, his face smudged with dirt from the greenhouse as I carry the vial to him. He cringes as he sees the blob of blood still circling in my chakra that I hold in my hand, but then I give him his own vial of it and he pales even more.
"Take this," I say, and he does, holding it far from him. "See if you can break down the chemical composition of the poison and find herbs that will negate them. We only need a stall right now," I say as a medic hands me another vial without me asking. I deposit the rest of the poison into the container and finish, "Once we get a basis for the poison, we can start to find the actual antidote. And for god's sake, someone call on Chiyo. We'll need her."
At the mention of the elder, Kankuro tries to sit up. The medics nearby insist he stop, but he brushes them away and waves Baki forward, mumbling something into the Jounin's ear.
Baki's eyes widen and he stands straight. He gives me a knowing look and says, "Based on what Kankuro's told me, both of the elders will come. They won't be able to resist."
I don't know what he means by this, but I don't have time to dawdle. The clock is ticking and I need to find an antidote, so I leave the infirmary and go to the greenhouse, where I meet up with Haru.
Even with his help, the best I can do is create a kind of universal antidote that will suppress the poison. From the analysis Haru gives me when he finishes, none of the herbs we have, at least, none that I can think of, can completely flush poison's out of a system. They only suppress it to insignificant amounts which the body then builds a resistance against. If that's the best I can do right now, then I'll take it until I can study this poison more and find the perfect antidote.
[+]
When I bring my finished product to Kankuro, I find Chiyo and Ebizo, the two Sand Village elders, at his bedside, speaking with Baki as she examines Kankuro. They don't hear me enter as they speak, but are unsurprised by my appearance when I approach them.
"Poison is my specialty," Chiyo is saying, "but even I don't know of this. Sasori's grown a huge amount."
"Who's Sasori?" I ask, and Chiyo turns to squint at me. Or glare. I can't tell. Either way, she doesn't look happy to see me.
"My grandson," she says, her voice small, and I'm surprised by how she's let herself sound so fragile.
Baki makes a noise of impatience and prompts, "What should we do? About Kankuro?"
"I have something made up," I say, holding out my antidote. "It's not much, but—ah—hey!" I snap, grabbing for my antidote as Chiyo snatches it from my hands. Chiyo holds it out of my reach and inspects it. She tsks, swirling it around in its container and says, "I can tell by looking at it: This won't do. All you're doing now is slowing the process of the poison. After all this time, you've still have yet to produce a fully working antidote."
"Yeah?" I retort, finally able to retrieve the vial as she turns around. "I can still create potent antidotes against your poisons, granny, so maybe it's your skills that have sunken below par since your retirement."
Chiyo harrumphs and turns away from me as I step forward to administer the antidote. "The only one who has more knowledge about neutralizing poisons than me would be the Slug of Konoha, Tsunade-hime," she says, and I flinch as I attach a needle to the end of the container, nearly pricking myself. "During the Great War, she was able to figure out the poisons I created, and mix antidotes for them immediately, which embarrassed me. All you can do is call her here now and ask her to examine him. You're allied to Konoha now, aren't you?"
"Yes, but," Baki says, and I cut in.
"Tsunade is the Hokage," I say, injecting Kankuro with my antidote. He squirms, lets out a small grunt, but his breathing slows considerably, which I count as a small victory on my part. "She can't leave her village like that."
"Even if she does come," Baki says, shifting on his feet, "it takes three days to reach the Sand from Konoha, and if what the medics say about the poison is true, Kankuro doesn't have that long—and it's already been two and a half days. For now we've sent a request to Konoha for a specialist team and it's taking all of our strength waiting for them to arrive."
"At this point, they should be here any minute now. This antidote will buy him some time if they move slowly," I say, discarding the empty container. "And when the Leaf Nin arrive, we'll see if they know any better than we do."
Chiyo scoffs, narrowing her eyes at Baki. "Stop relying on other people," she says like she's irritated to remind us as much. "You're so dependent on your alliances with other countries you've become careless with your own training, and this is what becomes of it!"
"That is by no means what we intend by these alliances," Baki says, but the old man, Chiyo's brother Ebizo, standing at Kankuro's head, sighs.
"It couldn't be helped," he says, looking down at Kankuro as he winces in his sleep. "It's because Kankuro lost his composure and chased them too far that he's like this. Even for a shinobi, this was too reckless."
"Would you have rather abandoned Gaara?" I say, and Ebizo says softly, "They would have gotten away with him anyway."
"Why are you depending and relying on Konoha?" Chiyo says, at sends me a pointed scowl. I scowl right back at her, half-glad that I'm not wearing my Leaf headband, which would only serve to make her irritation with me worse. "Because you didn't put the advancement of your own village's power as your first priority! But you must remember: They are them, and we are us! Friendly alliances are a fabrication. During times like these, all they can do is formally send us useless underlings. My main point is," Chiyo says, frowning deeply. "I can't stand that slug woman!"
I sigh and grumble, "Chiyo-sensei, now is really not the time to be distracted by your old grudges."
She's about to argue with me I hear my name called. The voice is recognizable enough but—I haven't heard it in years. So when I turn around to face Naruto, Sakura, and Kakashi, I lose my train of thought.
