Aye, it seems to be a crazy time in our lives right now. Hopefully everyone is safe! Gives us a bit of time to read and write, I hope? Although some how my work isn't closed - I'm working even more. Hoping what I do helps others, and trying to stay good. :) Anyway - I really hope you all are well and thank you for continuing to read and review!

Ash - I am looking for new things to read and I'd be happy to read your story if you would send me the name or link! I am working quite a bit so I'd be a bit slow right now, but hopefully the world will all go to normal one day soon. Also I'm not sure Kankuro and Salt will cross paths on their Journey. But Kuro is in a better place - hopefully tracking down the Oni and not causing Taiki too much of a headache ^-^

Yukifuru - Yuki, Oh my goodness, I'm so HAPPY. Well, not that you cried... but maybe a little that you were moved to cry? Yumi I think will be more careful in the future, but maybe not. :) And I am so glad you are continuing to read! I hope this book is one you like as much as the other. I am really hoping we see more of Taiki and Number 39 in this book, but sadly not to a point where that can happen much yet. We'll see. Hiiro is a bit different from Yumi (a lot harder to write too). I am really happy for your review and hopefully you smiled more than cried over book 1!

The Unseen SunBurst - You have an inspiring name! Love it! I'm not a fan of amnesia plots to be honest, and yet here Salt Hiiro is. Hopefully she remembers soon. I feel like there's hints there that she could start - so I have my fingers crossed. (Some author huh? crossing my fingers on my own story lol! I swear though, the characters have a mind of their own. See Number 39.) I really am hoping Gaara and Yumi reunite soon and I'm also sad over it cause right now Hiiro isn't the Yumi Gaara knows...

All - Hope you enjoy this chapter. I have a couple outlines written but really love the reviews cause they help inspire more depth into the story. Plus, let's be honest - poor Hiiro and Gaara need all the help they can get. I wonder what they are up to now and how Hiiro is doing without Kuro and how Gaara is doing with the information his father gave! :)

Also I really do not do a good job picking chapter titles... _ Anyway, I hope you enjoy nonetheless!

...


...

Gaara hadn't slept. He leaned against the hospital wall, holding it up. The sky lightened, forming shadows within the shadows. Dawn slowly broke. Senior Medical Ninja Fujimoto Kimiko would arrive in an hour.

He would wait for her, unable to do anything else, focus on anything else.

All night he read- the files from the last war. The reports from the night Yumi died. He read through every interview. He studied her photo and the sketch of the cat-like creature Asami claimed had also been there. Over and over he read the document that quantified how much of her blood had been shed. Over and over he read the word deceased.

After reading through the file for the tenth time, Gaara opened up what he had from the funeral, her funeral.

Cards of sympathy, some of hope, most of sorrow, and a few of regret. He read through the list of attendee names, wishing one would stand out as something. He read through the packet from the Jieti society. Documents that claimed he could take possession of her earnings and favors - blood money. There were stories in there too, accounts of her past jobs. The 15 official near-death, reported-dead notifications from different jobs, including the one he had sent them when she hadn't awoken from the plague induced coma... He too had been one of the many that had traded her life for their own. Back then, he hadn't known her. Just some annoying stranger that had jumped his wall, bothered him at night, gave up her health as an experiment, and then volunteered her life for others.

Why. After she had chosen to stay behind, why had she still been attacked? Why had she died.

"Yumi lives. The Shinigami saved her. She must have had significant injuries and it seems she lost her memories… She's- not the same. I'm sorry." The gold clone of his father continued to repeat in his mind.

He had found nothing anywhere. Not a word, not the space between the words, hinted that she had lived. He found no proof. And yet-

Gaara stood against the wall, the smell of hospital hallway further cloaked dread about his soul. She hadn't died here. She hadn't died in a place like this, and yet being here only reminded him of death.

Still, he couldn't shake the feeling that the gold man had truly been his father. He couldn't shake the feeling that those words had been true. He couldn't shake the feeling that he'd hear her wheelchair rolling down this hall like back to a time that felt so long ago.

Yumi somehow lived? Again defeated the odds? How would that even be possible!? A bad feeling settled into the Kazekage's gut as the shadows lightened even further.

"The shinigami saved her. He says you owe a debt to him and will wipe out our lines in all directions if it is not paid. He wants you to take care of her for as long as she remains on this side." The tension that had coiled itself across his back at that sentence had not released.

That shinigami, that death god- what had he done!? Gaara's mind churned, thinking. Could a death god, only known for death, actually bring back life?

Yumi. His sand wanted.

Part of him, expected her to show up. For her wheel chair to sound and his eyes and raise to see her. Or for her near silent footsteps and then his sand would feel her. That any moment, every moment, she'd turn the corner or open the door.

When he had sat at his desk, he waited for her. When he had searched the files, he listened for her. While he had read, he looked for her shadow. He longed for the smile in her voice as she said his name. Her random shyness. How her hand would run through her bangs, or brush along his skin.

It felt like every part of him was looking for her. And yet- nothing. Never was it her, never again would it be.

Foot steps sounded down the hall. Soft with a slight drag. Quiet their volume increased as they walked unknowingly closer.

"Senior Medical nin Fujimoto Kimiko." Gaara's haunted teal eyes met the source. He studied her as her wrinkles increased. With a seriousness in her gaze she narrowed her eyes at him. Almost as if he had a reason to seek her out. Almost as if she wondered when he would be here…

"Your brother told you?" Her voice cracked.

A micro-frown twitched upon Gaara's lips. Told him what? Silent, he neither confirmed nor denied. His mind sorted through what his brother would have or should have told him that had to do with the Senior medical ninja.

Kankuro was on a mission to inspect a potential terrorist group on the outer edge of the border…

Medical ninja Kimiko Fujimoto frowned. With a long glance at her own door, she finally shuffled forward inviting him in."Come"

Another sign passed through her own bones. Her head turned towards a wall of photos, drawings, and origami. Sighing, she then drew in a slow breath.

"I thought he wasn't going to say anything until it was confirmed one way or another." She faced him, looking even more old than previously.

"Say something about what." Having not slept, the Kazekage was in no mood for riddles and his patience worn out.

The elder medical ninja frowned, clearly torn.

Gaara increased his icy glare, his silence demanding her compliance.

"We don't know exactly, that's what he was going to find out. We agreed not to tell anyone until we knew more."

Again Gaara let his stare command her to go on.

Her frown deepened, her eyes sliding away unable to meet his gaze. They found her desk. Shuffling over she opened a drawer. "Here." Her wrinkled hand held out a single piece of paper. "Read this."

Gaara's sand took it with ease. The letter was short. A sense of foreboding pressed down upon him with each word he read. It weighed his every breath. Again without a word he looked to the Medical ninja to explain.

"The samples matched Yumi…"

Breathe. He couldn't breathe.

"As you read, they say she has amnesia. Kankuro took the photo with him. It showed her with her scars and a cat-thing. Though it is like no cat I've ever seen…"

"What?" Gaara couldn't hold back the harshness in his voice. Cat-thing. The Cat thing. Asami had repeated it over and over as if it had been important, but what they had drawn off her description had been no cat. "What," he forced his tone to normal, stoic, "did this cat thing look like?"

She described what Asami had. It matched the sketch in the file to the T. His sand frozen upon his skin, the Kazekage showed nothing of the storm within him. And Fujimoto concluded, "Your brother went to check it out; no one wanted to say anything until we knew more."

"Okay." With one curt word, he turned about and left. His footsteps echoed heavily down the hall, the letter still in hand.

Breathe, Gaara commanded himself.

Breathe, he repeated.

Yumi some how was potentially alive...

No, in his soul, somewhere, Gaara knew - Yumi lived. The pieces fell all together around it. The Suna haunting about the debts, the sudden stillness of it at the same time of him needing to review Yumi's death, his father's gold and message, and now this- all confirmed for him that of which he didn't have proof for.

Yumi. Lived.

How?

Just what did that Shinigami do!?

Annoyed, Gaara's foot steps quickened. His mind racked over what abominable act the death god had done. Couldn't he have left her in peace? Didn't he want her on that side anyway?

A chill went through him. His father's words... The death god might retrieve her one day. Kill her after already going against nature.

Annoyance bubbled quietly into anger. Maybe he should visit the nomad tribal elder. As Kazekage he should keep good relationships up with them for Suna... maybe bring them something.

Plus, supposedly they had ways to talk to the dead. While he didn't believe in such, the Kazekage was willing to try it if it meant he could have words with one very specific death-god spirit.

Would it be possible for him to scar that monster, like he scarred him? The long healed wound across his heart and shoulder throbbed, yes. Kurokawa's water arrow had diverted from its mark, but he would make sure his sand did not.

Yumi

Breathe


The rocking hammock in the back of the cart called to her. Her entire body rocked as wheels creaked as they were pulled onward. Sand in all directions with a heat that burned. Hiiro hid even further under her hood, scarf, and shawl; not a single patch of skin exposed. Jun had said the sun would stall her scars' healing and with this sun, Hiiro believed it.

"Do you want to sleep again?" Kiji eyed the muted woman that sat gingerly beside him.

Sleeping without Kuro still hurt her heart. Sorrow folded itself into every crease of her fabric, skin, and soul. Daring to not breathe, she shook her head no.

"You seem to only be able to sleep during the day now." His tone only held understanding, "Is that because Kuro's gone?"

The rocking hammock answered his question for him but Hiiro again shook her head no.

Her body awkwardly curled as she tucked her chin further into her raised knees. The long dress pulled tight across her thighs and calves as she tried to remain perched. She felt like a sausage, a very sad, alone, sausage.

"Something on your mind?" The uplift of his voice brought her single unpatch eye from the sandy horizon over to his brilliantly tan and burnt face.

Hiiro studied him. She searched his every inch for a sign or hope. In his kind smile she felt almost like she could find it...

"I'm well traveled and well versed." His eyes sparkled in the harsh sun as he leaned over with the gentlest of shoulder bumps.

Hiiro let her gaze drift back to the desert, absorbing the feeling unable to relate it with the nothingness within. Empty thoughts and vacant memories fogged her head. Things she wanted to ask, didn't know, were on the tip of her tongue, unable to start. As if she had a mouth stuffed with cotton, Hiiro sat there as the wagon continued on.

Silence carried on. The sun crawled it's baking self across the sky frying all below.

The wind picked up the dusty hot sand and blew it across their route. The smell of heat rose.

Her tongue skirted past her dry and slowly cracking lips, "I'm from Suna."

He perked up, his back straightening. "You remember something?"

"I-" She paused, "I don't know."

"Well, still…" Keiji assessed her before adjusting his body language to try to uplift her spirit, "that's something."

Dumbly Hiiro nodded before she glanced back at him.

Again her eye wanted something. A question in her mind she couldn't get herself to say was clearly reflecting before him even with her covered in all her dark and mournful layers.

"Any questions you have? About Suna? Or else where? Like I said, I'm well traveled. It might put your mind at ease." Again he gave her a comforting grin, hoping to coax whatever it was that she had racked her brain over these past few days out from the tip of her tongue.

"Um." Hiiro's head went to the side. "I don't know."

"Can be anything." He tried.

"Uh- have you heard of…. Of…" her voice grew quiet, "of someone not dying?"

His eyebrows furrowed together.

"Like," Hiiro hesitated, "like… uh, where… someone…" her eye lowered to look at only the sand in front of them. If only she could... If only she knew why she... "can't be killed or die."

Heat dry roasted her skin under the layer of clothing she wore. The sun without a cloud in the sky radiated brightly above them. Sand coated the inside of her nose and lightly dusted the small amount of shown skin around her unblemished eye.

Everything here was dry, and hot, and thirsty, and just-absent of life

Hiiro licked her lips under the scarf, awaiting Keiji's laughter, judgement, questions, or scoff. Impossible it was, right? To not be killed, to not die…

The merchant's head cocked and then went up. "Well that's a curious question. Let me think-"

His head wobbled back and forth, debating. "The woman that could steal abilities… The man that was a puppet-"

Hiiro's gaze pivoted. A man that was a puppet!? Puppets could be living?

"The thousand masked beast… Zetsus… Paper woman… Kaguya Otsutsuki… Hokage Tsunade… Hmmm, Bomb man… Orochimaru… Hidan!" Keiji perked up at that name. "Oh I remember. I heard this once, when traveling."

Hiiro turned further to face the excited man. Was someone else in the world like her!?

"So there was once this S-ranked missing ninja. I think his name is Hidan." Keiji smiled as if that was the answer.

"Annd… uh… he-" Hiiro hesitated, unable say couldn't be killed.

"-Was immortal, supposedly." Keiji's head bobbed

"Immortal." Hiiro felt her heart pause. She didn't want to be immortal. Deep down in her soul, she knew- absolutely knew, she didn't want that at all. But Keiji had said was, so maybe- "Did he- uh-"

"Well since he couldn't be killed supposedly a group of Ninjas from Konoha worked together to bury him alive."

"What!?"

"Yep. So none of us never have to worry about someone that can't be killed because the Konoha ninjas will always find a way." Keiji grinned proudly. And then a new thought crossed his mind. "Have you heard about the Konoha ninja Naruto and the Moon?"

Still in shock, Hiiro's head tightly shook no. She listened as Keiji told the story he knew of this Naruto and the Moon

A pit within Hiiro tightened. Her tongue felt fat and useless. Buried him alive… all because he couldn't be killed. And now… the moon can attack even more viciously! But, Suna would be nothing like Konoha, right? There would be no Narutos, no ninjas trying to bury her. And, hopefully, there she could hide from the moon's meteorites.

Hopefully there, there would be her home. Maybe she'd even remember...

"Can… can you tell me about Suna instead?" Hiiro needed to change the topic. Naruto had went to the moon. Would he tell it about her, help the full moon torture her even more? Could those Konoha ninajs know that she couldn't die if they ever saw her? What if someone ended up telling them? They would bury her too.

She could never tell anyone. Being buried alive would be worse than the once a month torture of the moon; and even then the moon probably could still get to her... Heart beating rapidly, she swallowed dryly. "I, uh, I… I want to, I want to, um re-remember."

Was the moon after her because she was immortal? Would it one day throw meteorites at her too? Was this a never ending war that she would never escape? No. She had to escape. Without Kuro, Hiiro knew she wasn't going to survive if she didn't escape. She needed to remember...

"Alright. Care where we start?" Keiji did not know of her internal struggle.

Hiiro's head shook no. Suna would be safe. That sand woman had said so. She had even collected all of that fallen sand and took it with her! With it maybe she'd find where it was she needed to go. Maybe she'd remember before Konoha found out about her or the Moon tortured her even worse.

"Fine, let's start with their best goods. Suna is well known for it's-" words turned to sentences, and sentences into an endless commentary.

Hiiro listened, learning of Suna-made products, exports, and imports. No memories, no feelings, no little remembrances passed through her brain. She did everything she could to think of Suna, and push out the thought that there was more than just the moon out to get her.


The makeshift fire pit glowed faint orange. The scent of burnt wood and coals had replaced the smell of dust and sand. The dwindling smoke vanished into the dark night horizon. Only one other person was up, a nameless guard that Hiiro didn't remember Keiji introducing; not that she paid attention to every introduction Keiji gave. He was first watch. In 3 hours there would be a second watch, and then again a third.

Hiiro wrapped her arms about herself tighter. It was cool in the desert once the sun went down. Every night it was cool and then cold. Every night the fire died down like this. The orange and blue flames danced and reached before they would lower themselves back into the coals. Hot orange illuminated the edges, shadows, and contours of the coals. Hiiro rocked herself side to side watching the ember heat.

"You afraid of the dark?" The question interrupted the silence.

Both of Hiiro's eyes rose. In the night, she often removed her eye patch, scarf, and shawl.

"That why you only sleep during the day?" His beard and shadowed face hid his features.

Longing for rest, Hiiro placed her arms on her knees, and her chin on top of that. The fabric of her dress stretching tightly about her like a cocoon. Her eyes drifted out to the black horizon. She stared into the unknown, that emptiness within her a constant quake.

"No." She finally answered the man with a single sound.

"You some sort of Nocturnal? Or night shift employee from back at Tea Country?"

Hiiro flashed her gaze back to him. Had she ever worked a night shift? Is that something she could do in Suna? But, the only reason she could sleep during the day was because the movement of the wagons rocked the hammock… how would she sleep once they no longer traveled? Exhaustion absorbed through her flesh and into her bones.

How long would she last in Suna without sleep? "no…"

"Well I don't mind it, nice to have another person up. Plus it's humorous the way it ruffles Raya's feathers."

Slightly Hiiro brows wrinkled in confusion. What was ruffling whose feathers?

"Ah, time for another round." He stretched before running off. Hiiro's head turned, no longer able to see him.

["A Jieti does rounds all the time. Always, you must be on guard. You must know every inch of an area, every movement. Unlike others who get to rotate, who get to rest - a jieti must never. DO YOU UNDERSTAND!?"

"Yes!" She shoot up straighter, as straight as a kid could be. "Yes." Her head bobbed up and down rapidly.

"Ugh," The giant man put a hand on his face and then up into his hair in frustration. "Look," that hand shot down, and naturally picked up the ax which was always on him. "You-" he pointed it like a finger out, "run a 100 laps. Ain't no way you are ready to stay up day after day, night after night."

"I too!"

"I AM too, and NO you are not. If you want to be a Jieti, run! NOW! 200!"]

A chill brushed Hiiro's shoulders as the orange faded towards black. Stars sprinkled across the sky. The moon, she didn't like looking at, was a couple weeks from returning to full.

"I'm," Hiiro rose stiffly. "I'm walking around." She announced to the man who was somewhere out there, maybe.

As normal, she walked away from the circled carts. The animals huffed as she passed. One of the men snored, another coughed.

Her feet traced lines in the sand as she walked out away from them. Cold inched further into her. Soon she would have to get her heavier layers. Then later, she'd practically sit on the rocks around the fire and just watch the unmoving stars.

Sand resisted the toe of her boot as she softly kicked at it. The sand was not flat. Unmoving waves were laid out about her. Silently Hiiro once again began to sway. Empty she longed, not even sure what she was missing.

Kuro.

Tears blurred her vision again as suddenly he popped into he head.

Kuro.

She missed him. That weight of his that once sat on her shoulder felt heart-breakingly gone. Those clicks and hisses that she could hear in her head no longer jerked the heads of others. Even his blood thirsty moods, she longed for.

"I'm s-s-sorry." Her mumble fell into silent sobs. Tears yet again spilled down her cheeks. Feeble, her curled fingers went up to her face wiping the salty water away with the backs of her cold fingers. Her chest hurt. Her heart hurt. No longer numb to everything, Hiiro felt pain.

"I'm sorry." Hiiro whispered to the world. Everything was her fault; him leaving was because of her. If he hadn't needed to change forms, he wouldn't have shrunk. If he wouldn't have shrunk, he wouldn't have vanished.

It was her. It was her.

The Konoha ninjas hated a person like her.

The full moon hated a person like her.

And if anyone ever found out she couldn't die, didn't die, then she too would be buried alive.

"Hidan" Keiji's voice in her head said the name of the only other soul who might understand. "An S-rank missing nin."

There was no way she was a ninja. But maybe S-rank meant Slow, Sad, Sheep, or worthlesS. Had her and Hidan known each other? Been apart of the same group.

Was he too from Suna? Hiiro's eyes cleared as she wondered. Maybe in Suna she could find who she was. Maybe find who that gold-man and sand-woman were. And Hidan.

A fear hesitated that thought. Would she have to be careful about finding more around Hidan? If she asked it out right, would people realize that she too didn't die?

Had she left Suna because they wanted to bury her!

No. Hiiro shook her head. No, that was Konoha. Not Suna. She would have to stay far, far away from them.

A light scuffle of sand grains caught Hiiro's attention. At her feet, the moving barely audible sound continued. Crouching Hiiro looked for the source. Unfearing, her eyes slowly adjusted.

Six small pointy legs walked towards her. A tail held up with a curl and a barb bobbed as it marched. Small pincers were paraded out in front of the body. A second similar outline caught up to the first.

Scorpions, a pair. Focusing, Hiiro narrowed her eyes trying to see their armored exoskeleton color.

Unafraid and lonely, Hiiro laid her hand out. The cold sand pressed against her skin.

Their tails jerked in reflex, but did not strike. They crawled towards her fingers. One brushed it's pincer along the tip of her pointer, the other placed a front foot on her thumb.

If they struck her?

By their coloring and fat pale tails, they were ones Keiji had said were extremely poisonous and 100% fatal within 7 hours without the anti-venom…

Hiiro did not withdraw her hand. Drowning should have been fatal. The stabbing should have been fatal. The spear that had soaked her dress in her own blood, most definitely should have been fatal.

She waited. They inspected her hand, their tails still.

Would they strike? Would it hurt?

They didn't. Instead the pair walked onto her hand. Curiously, they stayed there side by side in her palm

Slowly Hiiro stood back up. Her palm up and even to hold them.

The light above showed a yellow like tint to their pale shapes. Potentially red or black legs held their small bodies up.

Hiiro breathed slowly. Other than Kuro and the horses, she hadn't been around too many other creatures… Kuro had probably been responsible for that. And as dangerous as he had been to others, he had never once harmed her. Would these be like that? Or at any moment would they sting her hand, strike her face, or launch their venom into her eyes?

They remained standing before her.

"Hello." They gave no response. Their claws did not even pinch.

And then slowly they leaned the same way. It was almost as if their heads and their little bodies cocked to the side.

Hiiro stared at them. The wind picked up, brushing her short locks. I was time to return to camp and gather her heavier clothing.

"You probably should go back home… huh." Sadly she lowered them back down and returned them to the sand. They, unlike her, had a home to return to. A place they knew.

The pair looked up at her. Hiiro didn't move, not wishing to accidentally step on them.

In silence, they scurried to her boots, walking around once. Then from the tip of her shoe, they crawled on.. Hiiro stood still. They marched up her boot's ankle to the hem of her dress. As if their feet could grasp the cloth, they crawled up further.

"I don't have food on me." They continued their line up, gently prickling her shin and then thigh from their climb.

"Where are you going?" She pulled on the fabric to help them about the creases.

They crawled further towards her hip before slipping into her dress pocket.

"Do you want to come with me?" She lightly pinched the pocket edge, pulling it back to look in. The darkness revealed nothing.

Carefully, Hiiro dared to put her hand into that same pocket. They were curled at the bottom.

Strange. She slowly retracted her hand out, less lonely. "Jinkun and Hisa. I'll call you that for now. Come, let's go back. It's cold."

Hiiro slowly walked back to the back camp. And then she thought of something…

"You know, Jinkun and Hisa, you can't attack anyone at the camp… Okay?"

Silence blew itself across the stale desert.

...


...

Dun, dun dun! A scorpion pair is now traveling with Hiiro - hopefully no one dies from this. And Gaara now knows that Yumi potentially, probably, is alive (and Kankuro didn't tell him!?)!

By Keiji's calculations and travel rate, our heroine will be in Suna by the next chapter!

Think Gaara's ready? But Suna is a big place, right? What will Hiiro think of Suna, how will she sleep? And maybe, they won't even meet! Speaking of not-meeting, where in the world is Kankuro! Did he get lost or somehow travel right by Hiiro not knowing she was already on her way to them?

Looking forward to your comments.
And thank you for reading!

- Rain