A/N: And now, things get interesting at last. Don't worry, the reasons behind the madness will be uncovered, eventually. In the meantime, I suggest google-ing any weapons that you see in this and following chapters. Also, for those who have asked, I did indeed drop most of the suffixes on the characters' names. I'm not familiar enough with who calls who by which suffix to risk messing it all up. So with the exception of very formal moments, Sakura doesn't bother with -san and -kun and all that other stuff.

"Dynamic Entry!"
Crack!
-Maito Gai, Jiraya's nose

Chapter 4
Sandstorm

The traditional ceremony was held that evening, and it was scheduled to last about an hour and a half. Sakura stood to the right, scroll in one hand, a red ribbon in the other. Temari, who apparently had volunteered to stand for her people in this one, stood on the left, a scroll on her left hand, a blue ribbon in her right. The actual exchange of scrolls, the formal announcement of their contents (Sand gave them a technique that slowed the dehydration of body tissue), took a few minutes. The two kunoichi tied the ceremonial ribbons in a simple knot in a matter of seconds, and held it up for the assembled crowd, who cheered.

The rest of the time was absorbed by a pompous, tubby man who mounted the dais beside them and launched into the longest, most politically phrased speech she had ever witnessed. Apparently the Wind Feudal lord had decided this was important enough to warrant his attendance, and he spoke with great false enthusiasm, waving his hands emphatically at both the people below him and the Sand ninjas who stood quietly all around him, protecting him.

He seemed to like phrases like "our fellow peoples" and "togetherness" and, her favorite, "despite the troubles of the world." Troubles of the world? Konoha hadn't had troubles with the world until the Sound and the Sand had decided to make trouble for them. I hope he isn't referring to his own troubles, Sakura snickered rudely. Despite his rather large girth, he hardly counted as the whole world. I guess it only makes sense that the Feudal lord of the wind country should be full of hot air, she thought wryly, and struggled to keep the snort of laughter in. She was standing right behind him, after all.

After the fat politician came a slew of other pompous, self-important men who all more or less took about fifteen minutes to praise the feudal lord, the Sand village, and themselves. A few mentioned how great the Wind Country was. One even gestured to her and said something vague about their "illustrious allies."

Sakura wasn't really paying attention to them at that point. The kunoichi was letting her eyes wander over the crowd as they had been trained to do, noting the brown, rough faces above brown, rough clothes. Blond and brunette seemed to be the common hair colors, but at least half of them had their heads covered with cowls or drapes that hid their faces, too. Her own bright pink hair stood out almost painfully in this setting. And of course, Gaara's blood red mop. But she didn't look at that.

At long, long last, the final speaker came to the dais. He was as different in build from the feudal lord as Konoha was from this desolate place. He was small, wiry, and he wore no elaborate head dress like the Wind Country leader. I wonder how he keeps it from burning, she mused as she eyed his bald pate, noting a few pale looking scars on the back of it. Old scars, childhood injuries no doubt. He wore the long loose white robes that the political powers seemed to favor, and around his waist looped the blue belt of office that marked him as a province governor.

"My people," he stood on the dais and held up his arms as if he were trying to embrace the crowd. By then, the sun was well below the horizon, and the orange glow of the torches encircling the open assembly area danced on his bald head and across the white of his robes. "Today is truly a great day. But the full beauty and importance of this evening, this very moment, has yet to be revealed."

The crowd was shifting uneasily, muttering among themselves at this strange announcement. No, Sakura realized suddenly, and felt her muscles slowly tensing. Only some of them are moving; the ones with the head coverings. They were moving, slowly, carefully, through the crowd, towards the platform where the governor stood.

Sakura flicked her eyes to the left. Temari's frown was no different than her standard scowl, but her fingers were slowly unwinding themselves from the friendship knot that bound their hands together. Sakura swallowed hard, slapped herself inwardly, and began to do the same.

What's going on?

"Today is the day," the governor was gesturing widely now, and though she couldn't see his face she could hear the rapture in his voice. "The day when we take back what has been lost to us, what in cruelty and petty greed was snatched from our children, our families, ourselves. Today, we are free!"

He bellowed the last word, and the world plunged directly into hell.

Several of the covered men she had noted threw themselves at the dais, the light of the torches overwhelmed by the glow of chakra and various weaponry. Screams erupted in the crowd as several more of them turned on the citizens. They were going to kill the civilians -? Sakura's mind cried out against it, but in the next instant she understood their actions as she saw several Sand shinobi exploding from among the crowd as well. The ground shuddered as the two forces clashed into each other. Temari vanished from her side, and to the left three of the strangers went flying in a sudden concentrated stream of howling wind.

Something huge reared up in front of Sakura, blocking her view. In an instant, she dropped below his incoming fist and delivered a hearty roundhouse kick to the muscular man's knee. It connected, but he managed to move before she could inflict critical damage. His weapon, some sort of staff with heavy carved rock-weights fixed on the ends, whirled at her head. If it contacted, it would splatter her brains in a radius several feet wide. Duck, jump, slide – she danced around him. The weapon made it near impossible to get close enough for another solid hit, and he seemed to be using chakra to magnify the ripples in the surrounding air that it made. That was either a wind or a sound technique, part of her mind noted, and stored that away for further reference.

The rest of her brain was busy assessing the unexpected and precarious situation in which she now found herself. With that staff, moving in close to use taijutsu would be too risky. The few shuriken she chucked at him were brushed aside by the staff's chakra ripples. Okay, she thought. Mind games it is. She ducked another blow, threw a kunai at his face and another at his gut a split second later to buy her a few seconds of time, and then made three hasty hand seals.

Her attacker gaped at her as suddenly the ground under her feet seemed to open up and swallow the pink foreigner whole. Before his brain could fully comprehend the situation, a kunai appeared in the air behind it, held by a detached, ghostly hand. The hilt had slammed into the base of his skull an instant before the rest of the arm appeared, and he had slumped in an unconscious heap by the time her body had returned to full visibility.

But there was no time to enjoy her triumph (or feel queasy about the red and grey semi-liquid oozing around the hilt of her kunai). This place had rapidly turned from festival to rabid battle ground. Somewhere near her, a child screamed, high and terrified. She reacted instantly, slamming a fist into the backbone of the shinobi who was preoccupied with slicing open the guts of some Sand nin. The child, a boy maybe three or four, stood frozen as the body of the assailant flew over his head and smacked dully into a wall.

Sakura didn't bother to follow her victim's flight, didn't let herself look at the slaughtered Sand ninja's mutilated body, didn't stop running as she swooped the kid up her arms and made for the edges of the assembly area. Around her, people fell and screamed and leaped over each other, stone and metal and waves of murderous chakra screeched as they scraped and clanged against each other, and blood soaked the packed earth.

Be calm. Think rationally. Move like a shinobi.

Move - she wrenched her body to the side just in time to avoid the jagged tanto knife that flew threw the space where her heart had been a second before. She didn't have time to look up, to assess the situation, because three more were flying for her face, her heart, her guts, and clutching the child she gathered her legs to leap again –

three dull thunks, and the knives stopped in mid air. The wall of sand that had suddenly risen from the ground obscured her sight, but she heard a scream and a series of tearing cracks, and when the wall dropped, she saw several shredded lumps of flesh that might once have been human. What stood over them, however, may not have ever been so.

Jade eyes bored into her, wide and wild and framed in darkness. Thin lips were stretched back to reveal teeth tainted pink with blood, a maniac's grin. The desire to kill, to destroy, was so thick around him that it choked her. The child in her lap had gone still as death, and she clutched reflexively at the small body, trying pitifully to shield him from the monster that loomed before her. A bark tore itself from his throat, and she realized after a beat that he was laughing. "Are you," Gaara snarled, one hand lifting to smear the blood on his face with a finger, "scared of me?"

She stared at him, heart pounding, chest heaving, fighting the bile that rose in her throat. Yes! She screamed mentally. But if she said it . . . "Are you," she paused before her voice could waver. It could not waver, could not break, or he would know the truth. "Are you going to kill us?" He blinked, and the monstrous grin shrank at the edges. Sakura pushed herself to her feet, holding the little boy tightly to her chest to muffle her racing heart, as if he might somehow hear it. He did not move, and she decided to interpret that the way she wanted. "In that case," she replied, and summoned up every ounce of defiance she had, "No."

Who knows how long they might have stood there staring at each other, locked in a strange fragile moment neither of them seemed willing to break, had the chaos around them not come crashing in. The wall behind him exploded, sending shards of burning brick and plumes of fire at his back, but he was gone instantly. In a whirl of sand and red hair, he had plunged back into the raging battle of the assembly area.

Sakura ran too, turning her back to the melee and sprinting madly for the edge of town. At one point, she noticed a man standing by what looked like a hole in the ground, holding open a steel trapdoor and gesturing wildly to her. Several townsfolk were running towards him, vanishing into the hole as they reached him. "Come on!" He was screaming above the roar of explosions and the crash of falling buildings. Sakura threw an extra burst of speed into her legs, thankful suddenly for the strength she had gained in the weight training Lee had given her.

Lee, she thought almost wistfully as she plunged into the hole, as the man dove in after her, as the steel door slammed shut behind them, sealing them into darkness. Hands reached out to steady her, to take the child, and then to pull her down to huddle amongst the shivering bodies in the gloom of the shelter. Lee, Naruto, Konoha . . .

It all seemed very, very far away.