Chapter Three
Nara Shikamaru yawned loudly. After spending the morning debriefing a group of Chuunins, and then having Lady Hokage waste his afternoon by prepping him for tomorrow's mission, all he wanted was to find his favourite rooftop spot and watch the clouds. Unfortunately, Lady Hokage seemed to enjoy giving him troublesome tasks to do. He was supposed to be helping construct a map for one of the missions into the Wind Country, but his partner seemed to prefer completing the task on her own.
Temari shot him an annoyed look. "Am I boring you?"
Shikamara cringed inwardly. Temari could be scarier than Ino when she was angry. "No. I just don't understand why Lady Hokage would want me to help design a map when you know all the paths to the Sand Village better than anyone."
"I know the layout of the land, but based on your last mission to the village you'll be able to point out any strategic spots that could prove advantageous in case of a confrontation."
Shikamaru chose not to respond. It sounded like a compliment, but with Temari – and women in general – he could never be sure of anything. A shinobi is supposed to read underneath the underneath, but with Temari you had to go even further than that. She could be pissed off with him one minute and the next be smiling like everything was fine.
"Which team is going to the Sand Village?" He asked her.
"That bowl-headed Jounin's team," she responded, not looking up from the map. "Hyuuga Neji has been named team leader for the mission.
If it's strictly an escort mission it should be simple enough, Shikamaru thought to himself. Plus, with a four-man team the responsibilities could be more evenly distributed and the chance of a successful mission rose by over forty percent.
He had heard there were some hostilities near the Sand border, but based on the mission reports he had read of Kakashi and Gai's team, they functioned well together and could get out of troublesome situations with minimum casualties.
"Have you told your friends about us?" Temari spoke suddenly.
Shikamaru was thrown by the question. It was Temari who had wanted to keep their relationship a secret, though it proved to be quite a hassle for both of them. "No, there would be too many annoying questions," he answered after a moment. Ino would probably declare him a Konoha traitor, and demand to know why he was involved with the enemy even when the Sand were well on their way to becoming allies with them once again. Chouji probably wouldn't care one way or the other. He would just want details most likely.
He wasn't even sure how things had got started with them to begin with. The Sand siblings had been on loan to Konoha as a gesture of good will for almost two years now. They would help Leaf Village out when injuries kept teams short a man or when an extra team was needed. Tsunade had given Shikamaru the responsibility of being the official liaison between Konoha and the Sand siblings. It was his job to fill them in on missions, clients, enemy engagement procedures and just about anything else the Hokage could think up. She had even gone so far as to have Shikamaru accompany them on the occasional mission in the beginning. Tsunade had wanted him to find out if the Sand were indeed as trustworthy as they appeared to be. In all of his early reports he had wrote that this seemed to be the case and once Tsunade was satisfied with, had let her investigation of the Sand siblings end.
It didn't take long for the Hokage to become aware of Temari's knowledge for strategic planning and had wasted no time in pairing her up with Shikamaru. They would map out missions together, hold briefings and lead their own raids as well – but it rarely ever went smoothly.
Temari constantly complained that his approach was far too defensive and laid back. He countered by saying her approach was hasty, and that it was pointless to engage the enemy before their strength could be assessed. Man, what a pain she was – and still is – to work with, he thought to himself. But somewhere down the line all the bickering and disagreements had created an attraction between them. He was sure he wouldn't call what they were doing a relationship, but he remembered the venomous look on Temari's face when Ino had hugged him to thank him for the birthday gift he had gotten her. He didn't dare ask if she was jealous of Ino. He was sure she would kick his ass if he did that.
But with the Kazekage coming to sign the new treaty, the Sand siblings duty to Konoha would end and Temari would return to her village. Shikamaru wasn't sure how he felt about that just yet.
"So… I guess you'll be leaving once the treaty is signed?" He said casually.
She stopped writing on the map, but didn't look at him. "Yes, it looks that way."
He was silent after that. In fact he didn't say another word until she finished with the map and gave it to him to look over. Even though there was something between him and Temari, all this extra work was proving to be quite a hassle.
It took almost a day to reach the border of the Fire Country. From that point on, the wind and terrain would become much more harsh as they pushed towards the Wind Country.
Sakura's team paused briefly to throw on the cloaks Temari had given them, which would provide protection against the unyielding winds and frequent sandstorms.
Neji had them following the set up that had worked well for them most times in the past when they had gone on missions without Kakashi or Gai. As leader, he was in front, with her following behind him, followed by Tenten, who provided a strong force in the middle, and finally, Lee bringing up the rear to guard them from behind.
When the howling winds picked up, talking was avoided except when necessary. That was why Sakura was surprised when Neji slowed his pace and fell into step beside her.
"You're troubled about the mission," he said matter-of-factly. His voice wasn't quite loud enough to carry back to the others.
Sakura kept her gaze straight ahead, fearing she might give too much away with one look. She hated when he would use his Byakugan to read her. It was creepy how he could take one look at her and know exactly what was going on in her head, even when she took great care to keep it from showing up on her face.
"Aren't you? We're crossing into unknown territory."
"No, it's more than that," he stated confidently, letting his eyes close briefly.
She didn't try to deny his statement but she didn't offer up any explanation either. Neji didn't prod any more after that and she fell back into place behind him.
He had given her the opening she needed to tell the others about Sasuke, but her insecurities had taken over and she couldn't reveal Tsunade's separate instructions to her. After all, the reports that came in about Sasuke's whereabouts were few and far between and more times than not turned out to be dead ends. There was a good chance they would complete their mission and find no evidence that he was even there.
By now, most people who knew her avoided saying his name in her presence. After spending the first three months praying every night that he would return, she had given up any hope that he would come back and somewhere along the way she decided she didn't want him to. He had chosen revenge over her and that wasn't something she could easily forget.
"Sakura."
She heard the warning in Neji's voice and stopped immediately. Neji signaled to Lee and Tenten to stop as well.
"What is it?" Tenten asked him.
"That sand dune we're heading for – the formation isn't natural," he said to them. "The wind is blowing the sand up from everywhere, yet the sand there remains unaffected.
"A trap," Sakura stated in understanding. "Can we avoid it?"
"According to Temari's map, this is the quickest route to the village. If we go around it will take longer," Tenten told her. "She didn't go into too much detail with these other routes either. We'd basically be going in blind."
To walk into an obvious trap would be beyond stupid, and after witnessing some of the ambush techniques the Sand were capable of, the safest course of action would be to go around. If they didn't stray too far from the map they had, they would probably not lose too much time in the process, but it was the not knowing what lay waiting for them that Sakura didn't like. This close to sunset the desert predators would be coming out to hunt and once nightfall came, the temperature would drop drastically.
"I believe the trap is unavoidable," came Lee's voice.
The others turned to see him posed in a fighting stance, as the sand in front of him several meters away began to shake violently. Soon patches of sand all around them began doing the same thing, before eight or so dark figures shot up from them, forming a closed circle around the group.
Neji frowned at the obvious deception. The unmoving sand wasn't the trap – it was the bait. While a traveling group saw it and contemplated whether or not to go around it gave these attackers time to move into place and shoot up from beneath the ground, effectively surrounding the unsuspecting travelers.
The enemies' features remained hidden behind masks the same colour as the sand. The cloaks were tattered and worn, a sign of having seen too many violent sandstorms. No headbands were visible to indicate they were ninjas of one of the hidden villages in the Wind Country. But with the close proximity they were to their destination, they were likely to be Sand shinobi.
"Shinobi's from Konoha, turn back now," the cloaked person closest to Lee warned. "You will not be warned again."
Tsunade had warned there were groups who would do almost anything to stop the treaty between the Sound and Leaf from becoming a valid written agreement. Sakura remembered her mentor saying that there were those who believed that Konoha wanted the treaty so they could overpower the Sand and take control over the village and the remaining shinobi it had. Others still believed the treaty was being signed so that once Leaf Village had the complete trust of the Sand, they would use their relaxed state to plot a decisive strike and crush them – an act of revenge for Sand's betrayal almost three years earlier.
"We did not come all this way to turn back," she heard Lee say.
She, Tenten, and Neji had assumed their own fighting stances by that point. While Sakura had wanted to avoid conflict, she knew there would be no reasoning with this group.
She quickly counted nine visible enemies. Two against one odds weren't bad. Even if one of them had to take on a third person, the odds of success could still work in their favour.
"If you don't let us pass, you'll force us to attack – and we'll win," Neji said with confidence.
The man near Lee snickered. "Brats from Leaf are too soft. You haven't grown up with the harsh life of the desert. This will be too easy."
"Brats, eh?"
Sakura's eyes widened as seemingly out of nowhere a tenth person appeared behind the cloaked figure who had done all the talking. This person's cloak looked less worn than the others and the hood was pulled up, covering his entire face from sight.
The man turned around, clearly startled by this person breaking into their ambush undetected.
"Who are you?" He demanded.
"That's none of your business," was the deadpan response.
"Unless you want to suffer the same fate as them, I suggest you leave now," the man threatened, his confidence returning.
"My fate will never be the same as theirs."
"Well, if you want to play hero and try to save them, this should be fun."
In the blink of an eye, the cloaked figure had moved so that his hand was wrapped around the enemy's throat. He moved so fast, Neji had barely been able to keep with his movements with his Byakugan. Whoever this was, he was no normal shinobi.
The man's struggles were useless. The more he tried to break free, the tighter the hand holding his neck became.
The cloaked figure leaned in closer and said, "I don't want to save them. I want to kill you."
In an instant, he released his grip on the man's neck, only to replace it a second later with an index and middle finger. Sakura could hear the bones snapping before the man had a chance to slump to the ground.
The cloaked figure vanished, only to reappear in front of the next two Sand. He pulled out two kunai's hidden beneath his cloak and plunged them into their midsection's. By that time, the remaining six became more cautious. They waited to see the stranger's next move before attacking.
The hood covering the stranger's face had fallen back enough that Sakura could see two red glowing orbs where his eyes should have been. It made her heart stop and her breathing falter.
She didn't recognize the seal he performed with his hands – and it was done so quickly she wasn't sure if the others would know either. Then he became a blur of movement that it was impossible to tell what kind of Ninjutsu or Taijutsu he was performing. It seemed almost without effort that he was able to drop the ambushers uselessly to the sand, rendering them either unconscious or dead.
When none remained, he didn't stand around to admire the death and destruction he had caused. Without a word to the Leaf team, he turned and started walking away.
Sakura jumped forward. "Sasuke-kun!" She cried out.
No one on her team looked surprised by her outburst, for they had witnessed the Sharingan as well.
Sasuke paused briefly at hearing his name, before he began walking again, disappearing into the dunes that led in the direction of Hidden Sand Village.
Despite her resolve to stay focused on the mission and that she preferred him to stay gone – that Sasuke had never caused her anything but heartache – Sakura seemed to forget all that as she ran after him.