"Are you sure?" Sakura asked hesitently, this wasn't just another mudane mission, and she would be going alone at even.
"Yes, the Kazekage's sister, Temari specificly asked for you." Tsunade-sama replyed curtly. She hadnt looked up while breefing Sakura through the missions contents, and now was no exception, waist deep in papers and Shizune still bringing them in.
Sakura wasn't really suprpised when her medical skills had been asked for, it was a common thing once word had goten out that the Hokage had taken an apprentice. What had been the suprise, was the Kazekage of the sand asking for her!
Sakura sighed. There was no helping it. By the look on Tsunade's face as she continuosly signed paper after paper, the agrivated face that said she was just waiting for someone to be defiant so she would snap at them.
"When am I to leave?" Sakura caved in. What else was she going to say? 'why me?' 'i don't want to.' 'no.' she wasnt a child anymore. Sakura had grown into the woman of 19 that she was now, and she particulary didnt feel like regressing to her genin days at the moment. A grunt sounded from swamped woman.
"This afternoon. The Sand was quite persistant that you get there soon." Sakura looked at the clock on the wall, it read 10:42 am. She bowed respectfully to her teacher and backed out of the room. Passing Shizune on her way out who was bringing yet another stack of green and manilla folders into the room.
"Oh, and Sakura?" Tsunade called.
"Hm?" Sakura turned, one foot out of the exit and not even struggling with the heavy weight of the large oaken double door.
"This is also a way to forge our bonds with the sand, so try not to piss anyone off okay?" Sakura grinned a very Naruto-like-girn.
"Sure thing." Again, she was stoped,
"And Sakura, be careful." Hahaha.. the woman was to motherly for her own good the pink haired jounin decided.
"Will do." and she was gone, leaving the Hokage of the leaf, and her assistant who was now peting a pink pig by the name on Tonton to their own devices.
Sakura finished stuffing the last of her suplys for the long treck across the desert into her bag. Along with everything she would be needing to treat her patient that wasnt avalible in the Sand. She found herself looking at the clock again, it read 11:56. She better get a move on before people start thinking Kakashi-sensei was rubbing off on her... not that she was going to be three hours late or anything but still, even one minute tardy for her departure time would be rude.
The pink haired, green eyed woman slung the lage bag over her shoulder with ease, and headed out her front door. she locked it, and made sure she had left a small bowl of cat food out for the strey that came around every now and then.
Sakura jumped off onto a nearby roof and continued like the faithful ninja she was untill she made it to the gates of her home. Looking at her watch again, she smiled to herself. 12:00.
"Sakura!" a voice cried from behind, she tured to see Lee racing in her direction.
"Hey" he panted. "i'm glad a cought you" He panted some more. "Here!" he said shoving a dark green envilope into her face.
"Please, give this to Gaara-san for me." Sakura took the confered item and folded it into one of the many pocets of her green vest.
"Sure thing Lee, but you owe me and Naruto some Ramen when I get back!" She smiled at the boy when he gave her the 'nice-guy-pose'
"It's a promise, and if somehow fate decides i canot fuful this promise then i will help Iruka with the children for a month stright!" Sakura flinched at that, remembering the time she hed helped Iruka for only three days and she wanted to die from all the tourture. She couldnt, for the life of her remember if she had been that obnoxious when she was 6!
"Lets hope it dosent come to that." Lee noded solomely. The both broke into laughted at that point.
"Come home soon Sakura!" Lee said posing again.
"Sure sure." she waved him off, and left on her way.
If there was one word that could sum up everything Sakura felt at that moment, ariving at the massive gate to the sand, It would probably have to be filthy.
After the first week the only thing realy worth noting would have to be seeing Kiba and Akamaru coming through one of the many leaf cheak points after a mission that had lasted the two almost a year. They had spoken a few words before parting, one egar to be home the other to get good time traviling in the daylight while it lasted.
The second week of her travels mainly consisted of desert. and heat, lots and lots of heat. Not normaly used to the extensive sun exposuer Sakura felt like she was being filayed alive. The only things she was thankful for, was the wind that cooled her neck, and the water in her half-full canteen.
Finaly, on the third week she had made it, and she swore to herself nothing looked better right now then the welcoming village.
People stared at her curiously as she passed, but didnt do much aside from look. It was a friendly place, but Sakura knew better. Knew these people would turn heal and run, sneer and spit if the word 'demon' was thrown into a conversation. Yet they had accepted Gaara as their Kazekage, that gave her hope that maybe Konoha would do the same with Naruto when the time came.
Sakura made her way into a large bulding with the simbol of the sand-nin embroidered over the entrance. Instantly she felt goosebumps rise on her skin when she felt the air conditioning inside. As she passed other nin, who just stared at her like she had two heads, Sakura become even more self concious of her sand-cacked state.
The receptionist saw her coming and stood from her place behind a lacquered desk, the woman who seemed in her middle ages, mabe 40-something ushered her inside the double doors much like the Hokage's from her home vilage.
The doors shut behind her with a sharp snap. Seemingly sealing her fate. When she saw no creepy looking red head grinning at her sadisticly like she had imaginind, instantly she felt ashamed. She rushed to the cot that was set off to the side, that was currently occupied by a heaving Gaara.
She droped her bag from her shoulder and kneeled beside his prone form. The Konochi swept his red locks from his neck. He growled at her, a feral sound obviously, he wasn't pleased with her proximity, but she didnt move untill he stoped dry heaving into the bowl set on the floor beside his make-shift bed.
Medic-mode fully on now Sakura began to run through all of her information she had on Gaara.
One sister; Temari.. one brother; Kankuro. He didnt sleep.. that was going to be a problem.. the list continued untill Sakura though she had done a satisfactory job runing through the Kazekage's information.
Sakura went to her bag and dug out a few bottles and the letter from Lee, which he could read later on. She set them by Gaara's cot who was stareing at her. Next she went to the doors and called into the hall.
"I need someone to bring me a wash cloth and a bowl of ice water!"
A moment later she was by Gaara's side again, The bottles she had retrived a moment ago with her. First she applyed a thin paste across his forehead.
"This cream is to bring down your tempriture. It seeps in through the poors and kills bacteria." She said to fill the empty silence that had encased them.
"Can you sit up?" she asked as a man came in with her requested items. He nodded, and did so slowly, SAkura could tell the slowness of his actions was not due to pain, but a carefulness to keep himself from heaving again.
She took the items from the Nin and he left, Sakura handed Gaara a small, white pill, and a glass of water from his desk. He looked at the items skepticly.
"You expect me to take this?" he voice was ragged, proof that he was very unwell.
"Yes." she said simply.
"Will it make me fall asleep." he stated rather than asked he seemed to hold the pill a little bit farther away from himself at the thought.
"Gaara." She said to get his attention. he looked at her with the eyes of a child, unsure and afraid. She remebered from the breffing that it had included this was the very first time the Kazekage had become ill. Sakura though it Odd, that the 20-something man had never been sick before, after all, Naruto gets sick all the time.. mainly from rotin milk but thats still sick non-the-less. Sakura hadn't questioned it. Odd, but not unheard of.
"This pill is something i made myself a few years back. It's infused with my chakra. When you swallow it, yes, it will put you to sleep, but i need you to understand, once you are asleep nothing is going to hapen. I promise you Shukaku wont take over." Gaara snorted at that.
"You're a stupid woman if you think i trust you."
"You can take it willingly or i can make you take it."
At that moment a potted tree in the far corner expoloded and sand rushed towards Sakura at an alarming rate.
"I promise Gaara-kun." what? it was a pathetic attempt but it was the best she could come up with in the four second time limit she had!
And yet the sand slowed, and fell lazly to floor around her.
"If when i wake up, and i find anything hapened to anyone because of me, I will kill all of your loved ones and your entire village." With that last remak he swallowed the pill dry and fell to the cot in a heap.
Sakura situated him into a more comfortable position, placing the wet cloth that had been brought on his forehead.The she fell lightly into a meditative state.
It was a strange place.. everything was in black and white. A grey mist that curled around her so much like the sand Gaara controlled swept through the seemingly empty valley.
"What are you doing here." a voice hissed. She turned to see the one and only, The giant racoon demon Shukaku. Sakura sat on the black grass like stuff beneath her and stared up at the demon. Good, Her little experiment pill was working. Gaara was asleep, dreaming for the first time, and Shukaku was too disorented to notice anthing but her, and the charkra that invaded his host's chakra highways. So as long as her chakra lasted, Gaara would sleep. And oh, could she make it last. She was, after all, the master of controll.
"I'm here for a littel visit Shukaku-sama." she said respectfully.
"Wont you please, sit with me?" she add as an after thought. The great demon practicly fell onto the ground with a lage earth quake folowing. He said nothing just started at her.
And thats how it went in the place of black and white, where the only grey that existed was the fog, where Shukaku the demon racoon resided within. For hours, time passed, so much time she had lost track, and had to start her count over again, only to lose track again and start the process over again.
When Sakura's reserve finaly ran out, she opened her eyes to met that of gaara's, which alomst mirrored her own green. And the color, there was so much color, she had alomost forgoten what it looked like.
She put her hand to his head, to find his feaver gone. he looked well, the pigment had retured to his skin and no longer looked pastey white.
His eyes glowed with something Sakura had never seen in the man before.
"I dreamed." he said like a child who had just goten their first toy. Sakura smiled at him, feeling tired, she had little chakra left after all.
"I'm glad you enjoyed yourself." She murrmured into his blankets from her seat on the floor.
Gaara knew when she was asleep, which wasnt long after she had put her head down, he got up from the cot and draggen her prone form to the sopt he has just left vacant, not really minding the hardend dirt and sweat that coated her body like a fine sheet.
Gaara strode from his office, and to the secritarty just outside. She looked up and her eyes widened.
"Wow thats some medic! Fixed you up in only two days!" she said in awe.
"Yes, some medic indeed. I would like you to send an avalible Nin to the leaf, tell them i'm borrowing Haruno Sakura for a while."
"Yes sir." she said mouth still slightly hanging.
With that he went back to his office, and back to the little konochi who had just given him something he would never forget.
"I'm dreamed..." he repeated to himself again almost as if it wern't real.. but it was.. and he was going to keep the Konochi around long enough so he could taste that bliss again.
I'm not really to sure of myself with this story, but pease Reveiw and tell me what you think.
Kanna Kyomu