Itonami: I will never be a lemon writer. I wouldn't make a very good one if I even wanted to be one. No worries about a lemon being in this story. The previous chapter did give some lemon-ish implications, but I won't go any further than that.

Sorry for the long wait. Father-daughter moments here. Hope you enjoy.

Disclaimer: I do not own any part of Naruto.

Chapter 17

The sun shyly peeked over the horizon, its golden rays brightening up the village of Sand. The golden sand sparkled like diamonds in the sun. The heat was already becoming hotter.

"Oto-san! A strange man gave this scroll to me!" Setsuai cried as she sprinted towards her father.

Gaara's pale, aquamarine eyes narrowed at the sight of his daughter. Nothing seemed wrong with her. She still had dusty red hair which she inherited from him and her mother's violet eyes. Everything about the Kazekage's daughter was fine, except for the fact that he had left her with his wife in the opposite direction.

Instantly, the sand around the imposter shot up and wound itself around the body. Gaara approached without fear. He was only angry. Very angry.

"You dare trespass here imposing as the Kazekage's daughter?" He asked, his voice deadly low. The sand tightened when the imposter did not speak. "Who are you and what do you want?"

The form of his daughter slowly deteriorated and a man took her place. He looked unwaveringly at Gaara. "My master wishes to give this scroll to you."

A thin sliver of his sand from his gourd snaked out and retrieved the scroll trapped in the shinobi's hand. The scroll was gently placed in the Kazekage's outstretched hand. With the other, Gaara stretched it out in front of him and watched as the sand molded firmly around his prey. "Sabaku Sousou. Desert Coffin" He clamped his fist and the incredible pressure squeezed the life out of the unfortunate messenger of the Akatsuki.

Pieces of the body and blood speckled the sand. "Oto-san!" Gaara quickly blew sand over the mess at the sound of his real daughter.

Her red hair blew out from behind her as she ran to Gaara. She was holding a little basket in her two tiny hands. He couldn't help but smile a little at the little girl. "Oto-san, guess what? Oka-san and I made lunch for you!" She held out the basket proudly, her thin arms looking frail in her father's eyes.

"Hn." That was his way of saying thank you. His daughter understood his reserved, limited language perfectly. In fact, she could be quite fluent in it if she got mad at him or at her Uncle Kankurou. He took the basket carefully so not to disturb the contents inside. Usually, he took things offered to him by his sand, but he never did that with his family. His family meant a lot.

Setsuai looked down at her sand-covered feet shyly, her hands girlishly behind her back. Her toes wiggled in her sandals as they played with the smooth sand. "What is it, Setsuai?"

She looked startled at his deep, smooth voice. Looking up, she blushed. "Oto-san, can I go with you?"

Gaara was surprised and replied, "Go play," only to regret it as soon as the words left his mouth. She looked down at her feet again, this time to hide the hurt and the tears in her eyes.

"Hai, Oto-san." She whispered sadly, almost inaudibly.

She turned to go like a rejected puppy. The Kazekage found himself rushing towards her and picking her up. "Iie, aijou. I'm sorry."

Easily putting her on his shoulders, Gaara set off to the office of the Kazekage. He felt the uneasy tension in his hand which held the scroll from the messenger. News had been sent to him about Konohakagure's trouble with the new Akatsuki. It made him wonder if the nin whom he had just slain had been with the organization.

His theory was correct.

Setting his daughter on the floor to play quietly, he went to his desk to read the message writing in the scroll. When he broke the wax seal that held it shut, a bloody human heart fell out of it. The Kazekage was not affected by it, but he covered it with his foot, away from Setsuai's sight.

The message on the blood stained scroll read:

Here and now, you find yourself,

Three, a half of the moon away,

From the third month of each year.

Leaves turn in panic from the wind,

Dust and sand will be scattered,

By three thousand flowers so red.

Two demons will gather here,

A forest so hot and burning,

It will be so.

Two shall fight for life or death,

Which ever they shall choose,

Woe, woe, to those who oppose,

For the Akatsuki rules over all.

Gaara immediately stood, almost knocking over the chair. He whipped out a scroll from a drawer and took a writing brush. Swiftly yet gracefully writing a note to the Leaf, he whistled for the fastest messenger hawk.

Setsuai watched her father carefully, knowing that something was troubling him. Being only two years old, she didn't understand the look on his face. His face was set into a grim frown, very different from the ones that she had seen before, and he was actually getting restless. Her father never got restless. To give him some comfort, she decided to pace with him.

Chubby hands grasped his cloak and followed his quick pace around the office. The Kazekage suddenly stopped at the extra weight added. He looked down to find his daughter with a huge smile on her face and she rubbed her face into his leg. Her short arms encircled his knee—Setsuai didn't even come up to his hip yet—and she hugged him. "Don't worry, Oto-san. Desert flowers will grow again in the spring."

Gaara crouched, expertly shifting his weight evenly on the balls of his feet. Pale jade eyes found the two small red tattoos on the left side of her neck which said, "deep love." He slowly but completely embraced her, his daughter's small frame easily fitting against him.

"Thank you." He said, knowing that he hardly uttered the words to anyone besides Naruto and his wife. His daughter was truly one to deserve him saying those two words.

"You're welcome, Oto-san." She giggled against his neck. "You smell funny."

Gaara raised an invisible eyebrow. "Oh?" No one had ever said he smelled funny. Even his own, precious wife had never said anything about him being smelly. Letting her go, Setsuai grinned at him cheekily.

"I think you are the best Kazekage in the world!" She declared pompously, her eyes closed in a matter-of-fact way.

Not to mention the only Kazekage in the world. But his eyes gave off his pleasure at her words.

He remembered the day his daughter was born into the world. Haruno Sakura of the Leaf had come to help with the delivery. It was she who announced that he had a brand new baby girl who weighed six pounds and five ounces, with a shock of flaming red hair and beautiful amethyst eyes. The shock of becoming a father was still lingering in his system.

Flashback…

"Kazekage-sama, you can go in and see your wife and daughter now." Sakura said brightly. "Everything is fine. The mother and child are both perfectly healthy."

When he first walked in, the first thing Gaara noticed were the sweat on his wife's face and then the red hair of a small bundle in her arms.

Walking in calmly, he had disguised his secret excitement and anxiety with his most neutral face.

"What will you name her?" She whispered so not to disturb the sleeping babe.

Gaara sat without a word on the edge of the bed and asked for permission to hold his daughter with his eyes. His wife held out the bundle and he took it so carefully, so gently that Naruto would have accused Gaara of being an imposter. He was startled when the baby let out a gurgling sound and opened her eyes.

Sakura had been right. Her eyes were a deep violet color, sparkling like jewels in the light. The sight of his daughter took his breath away. Gaara felt something swell inside of him. "She will be Setsuai. Sabaku no Setsuai. The Sand's deepest love…you are my child." He whispered.

His wife had tears in her eyes as she witnessed her husband's softest moment. She sat up and leaned in to kiss Gaara's temple. He gazed at her and his face crumbled a little into a light smile. Setsuai reached out and grasped her father's finger firmly.

Truly that had been the happiest day of his life.

End of flashback…

The scroll was obviously written in a strange word puzzle of some sort. It was a message of warning from the Akatsuki, but Konoha had declared the group extinct thanks to Naruto and his ANBU team. Were they mistaken?

"Gaara!" A very familiar voice boomed from outside his office door. It slammed open, one rebounding off the wall and partially blocking the Kazekage's older brother from view.

"Otooji-san!" Setsuai shrieked, temporarily disabling Gaara's ability to hear.

"Setsu-chan!" The uncle roared. She leapt into his arms and he threw her up in the air. In an inhuman speed, sand quickly and carefully caught Setsuai from the air and transported her back to her father's side, who quickly put his hand on her shoulder gently.

Gaara looked at his brother out of the corner of his eye while he had his body turned to the side. Kankurou knew that look. "Hai, hai, I know. You told me not to do that a million times before." He chuckled, only to deepen Gaara's displeasure. "You can't protect her from me forever, Gaara." He winked at his niece.

"Yes, but I can either die trying or kill you." Gaara replied, his voice almost smug. Of course, the younger brother did not mean such a threat so seriously. When Kankurou had been overly excited about his new niece and approached the crib without Gaara's permission, he had almost been killed… "Accidentally," Gaara had said without emotion. That had not been the most pleasant of experiences.

However, the two brothers were actually very close, though the Kazekage never would never admit to such a thing. Kankurou easily teased and joked with the impassive brother, only to receive a look which made him laugh.

But today, it was not a day to be joking. The puppeteer grew serious. "Our representatives in the Leaf have been alerted of a crisis. The Akatsuki has been established again. If they're after the Kyuubi, they'll come back for you, too."

"I know." Gaara said quietly. He commanded his sand to recover the scroll on his desk.

Kankurou read it quickly and his brows furrowed deeply and worriedly. "Did you send word to Konoha?"

Gaara nodded. "It should be there in a day or so."

The elder brother let out a breath. "Damn." He murmured softly and he gazed at nothing.

"I see that the both of you aren't bickering. Alert the presses." A feminine voice drawled sardonically from the doorway.

Temari sarcastic look was replaced by a sweet, sincere smile when she spotted Setsuai. She walked to her niece and patted her head. "Hey, kiddo."

"Read." Gaara pointed to the message in Kankurou's hand.

The sister of the sibling trio snatched the message and skimmed through it. Her head snapped up and her eyes flashed angrily. "How did you get this? By hawk?"

Gaara shook his head. "By messenger. He pretended to be Setsuai."

The two looked shaken. "There could be more of them."

"Iie." The Kazekage looked out the window from his office. Houses made from sand were in full view. "The Akatsuki don't plan to attack now."

"What do you suggest we do, then, Kazekage-sama?" Temari asked formally.

He turned to meet their gazes. "We wait," he said simply, "for Konoha's answer."

Hidden Village of Leaf

12 Hours later…

The piercing screech of a hawk interrupted the noise of the Konoha festival. Villagers and onlookers pointed to the sky and gasped. But the hawk was oblivious to the spectators below and soared directly to the Hokage Tower. It gave off another screech as it perched on the window of Tsunade's office, where jounins were gathered for a briefing.

Tsunade immediately went to the bird and untied the letter attached to its leg.

She started to read aloud:

"To the allied Hidden Village of the Leaf,

From the allied Hidden Village of the Sand,

We are in need to reinforcements. The Akatsuki have sent a message threatening the Sand. As allies, I, Sabaku no Gaara, the Kazekage, ask for your aid in defending our villages. Send word as soon as possible."

Tsunade finished and sighed heavily. "Now it has spread to the Sand."

Shikamaru, as the tactics director, spoke up. "The riddle is quite simple. The problem is to come up with the perfect defense and offense. My team and I have figured out this much from the puzzle:

"First, the second line and third lines, Three, a half a moon away, from the third month of each year, is referring to the date. Since the moon has a monthly orbit around earth, the second line is naming three and a half weeks. We put that together with the third line, which obviously tells of the month of March. So the official date that the Akatsuki is planning to attack is exactly three and a half weeks into March."

Everyone scribbled on their notepads. The Godaime nodded for him to continue. Shikamaru took a deep breath and started on the second piece of information. "The fourth and fifth lines mention leaves and sand. I presume that those would be us and the Sand. The sixth line says, by three thousand so red, which I assume to be the Akatsuki themselves. Now we know their number."

Again, the jounins gathered at the meeting quickly wrote on their notepads. "By Two demons will gather here…since the Akatsuki's main goal is to capture the Kyuubi, I believe they are after Gaara, the Kazekage, also. They plan to lure the two carriers" –Shikamaru shot an apologetic look towards Naruto at mentioning the word—"and then the next line, A forest so hot and burning… From what we can conclude this is the place where they want to fight. They want to fight at the Houka(1) Forest."

There were a few gasps of disbelief scattered throughout the room. "That forest hasn't even been remotely inhabited over the last hundred years. Why the hell would they want to fight in there?"

Shikamaru shrugged. "Legend of that place draws curious people to it. I guess that's where they want to make another legend." He whisked questions into silence with his hand and closed his eyes. "Anyway, this battle," he opened his eyes to look at all of them, "is a fight to the death. Obviously we choose to live. The other will have to die."

Sakura listened to the words of Shikamaru, sitting between Lee and Naruto. Much to her disappointment, Sasuke was standing in the back of the room with his arms crossed over his chest, listening intently. Every so often, his eyes would flicker to the pink haired jounin sandwiched between the "Beautiful Green Beast" and Naruto.

The meeting was adjourned after Shikarmaru completed explaining all the tactics and thoughts that he had about the Akatsuki. Nara Shikamaru was a very accomplished jounin in the strategy and tactics unit. He would have been too lazy to bother with a jounin exam, but Ino and Chouji eventually persuaded him to take it.

"Sakura-san, why don't we get a bowl of ramen at lunch?" Lee asked as everyone shuffled out of the room. He was busy picking up his pencil and paper to notice the hesitancy in Sakura's voice.

"I'll have to say no this time, Lee-san. I want to talk to Tsunade-sama." She smiled apologetically, which automatically got her forgiven. "See you later, Lee-san!"

She scurried off to where Tsunade was briefly talking with Sasuke. He looked solemn and nodded occasionally at her words. As soon as Sakura came up to them, the discussion came to an end and Sasuke took his leave. As the two of them passed each other, Sasuke gave her a slight smile and she returned it with a bigger one.

Sakura watched him gracefully exit and turned to Tsunade, who looked at her mischievously. The pupil placed her hands on her hips and scowled playfully. "What?"

The Godaime shrugged carelessly. "Oh, nothing, at all, dear pupil of mine." She winked. "He is devilishly handsome, isn't he?"

That earned her a playful smack on the arm. "You wish, Tsunade-sensei."

The two women shared a laugh. Sakura was still grinning when she started speaking, "Can I get a favor out of you?"

The elder woman made a mocking thinking face. "Depends on what it is."

"Hey! I'm serious!"

"Yeah, yeah, anything. I'm listening." The Hokage bent down to the petite jounin.

"Will you give me a leading part in the battle plans?"

"I'm already putting you in charge of the medic unit." Tsunade frowned.

But the rosy haired pupil shook her head. "Give me free reign to go anywhere I feel that I am needed. Please?"

Tan eyes probed deeply into soft, emerald ones. "Are you worried about Naruto and Sasuke?"

Sakura looked down at her feet and slowly nodded. "I won't lose either of them again. I promised myself a long time ago."

Tsunade looked sternly at her. "You have a responsibility, Sakura. You can't just abandon them when you are worried. Naruto and Sasuke are both very capable of handling themselves. You're responsibility is to look after as much of the wounded as possible. Lives depend on your skills."

The student looked up quickly. "Hai, I know."

"Then you understand that I can't grant permission. Sakura," the blonde haired woman's eyes softened a little, "I need you to be the head medic. There will be a lot of inexperienced ninjas there. There will constantly be news coming to and fro the battle grounds. Will you be there?"

Sakura closed her eyes painfully and nodded. "Yes, Tsunade-sama. My duty as a medic comes first."

"Now, get going. Someone seems to be waiting for you outside." Tsunade said in a sage voice.

The pink-haired apprentice walked out, feeling a bit dejected and depressed. She did not notice the other figure leaning against the wall coolly.

Sasuke frowned a little when she didn't seem to see him, being too distracted by her thoughts. "Yo."

Sakura actually jumped back a couple of meters away, frightened and surprised by his voice. "Sasuke! You scared me!"

"You were the one mindlessly not paying attention to where you were going." He drawled bluntly. He pointed to a pole she would have walked directly into if he hadn't called her.

Sakura flushed as the embarrassment sank in. She brightly rebounded and smiled at him prettily. "What are you doing here?"

A smile slipped itself onto Sasuke's lips. "I thought you'd be hungry."

Her eyes widened and her grin completely reached her eyes. "Is the great Uchiha Sasuke asking me out on a date?" She teased, savoring the moment.

His smile dropped off and he did his best to scowl darkly. He only half succeeded. The other half of his scowling effort was automatically put into creating an embarrassed blush on his cheek. He had to look away.

"Oh, Sasuke! Lighten up! I was only kidding!" She peered up at his handsome face. "Ne? I'm starving."

He couldn't help but smile again. "Naruto is at Ichiraku." He led the way, matching her patient pace. She liked the feeling of being close to Sasuke and the fact that he was comfortable with her. More than once, she caught him looking at her in a peculiar way.

"What did Tsunade-sama say to you?" He asked, breaking the silence between them.

She smiled sadly. "She said that I am going to be the head of the medical unit."

"That's what you wanted, wasn't it?" He was confused at her sad tone.

"Definitely. It's a dream come true."

"Don't be sarcastic." The Uchiha gazed at her unwaveringly.

She stuck out her tongue childishly. "I'm not. It's just that, if I'm in charge of the medics, then I need to stay behind for the wounded. I can't be there for you or Naruto."

"It's your duty to be a medic." Sasuke tipped his face to the sky. "Naruto and I will be fine."

It hurt to hear him say that. She felt exactly as she did when they were all genins, when she had been that useless girl with only brains to help. "I'm always left behind, aren't I? Maybe I should just accept fate like Hyuuga Neji and stop trying." Whenever she felt like that twelve-year old girl, she always had very un-Sakura-like moments. This happened to be one of them, but Sasuke had caught every word.

The young man grabbed her by the shoulders and she stared into his fathomless eyes. "Don't say that." His voice was low and an inch away from her ear. "If you do, I won't pay for your ramen."

Absolutely childish and immature.

Was that supposed to be some sort of threat? Sakura couldn't help but giggle. Uchiha Sasuke just threatened to not pay for her bowl of ramen.

"May I remind you, Uchiha-san, that you were the one who invited me to eat in the first place?" They were still in the same position with Sasuke leaning down and his face was hovering very close next to hers.

Sasuke's black eyes flashed. "I just asked if you were hungry. You assumed I was asking you to eat." Sakura could hear the smirk on his face.

"And what is a lady supposed to assume, then, Uchiha-san?"

He didn't know how to answer that. She chuckled in her throat. "I win."

"For now." He said while smirking, as they started walking again. "For now, Sakura."

Author's notes: Sorry for the lateness! Again! I can't type these ideas out of my head. As you requested, some more SasuSaku moments.I apologize for the MAD amount of grammer mistakes here. I just wanted to get this chapter out to you all before you forgot about me! T-T

Gaara and his daughter…cute? Not cute? The Akatsuki riddle was stupid……yeah….

I hope you liked it. I tried my best. If you didn't like it, you can flame and type the following:

YOU SUCK! I HATE YOU AND YOUR STUPID CATS! GO ROT IN HELL, YOU CRAPPY WRITER!

Ok? Ok. Haha, just kidding. Don't do that. That would hurt my self-esteem.