AN: Definitely some manga-spoilers in the beginning of this one. Difficult to see if you don't know what it is already, though, so there's hope yet. Sorry guys, but plot demanded it. Secondly, I am not a medical specialist, so my knowledge of muscles, nerves, and other complex inner workings of the body are gleaned largely from independent research that I may or may not have grasped correctly. Please have patience, and point out any mistakes you see. Final note: I'm running out of memorable quotes from Naruto. Anybody got any suggestions?

"I have concluded this: I exist to kill everyone else."

- Gaara of the Desert

Chapter 8
Wind Shift

Someone screamed behind her, and then the scream was abruptly cut off by a loud snap!

An object, large and dark, flew by her from behind, crashing into the sword-bearing ninja and knocking him down again. It was a man-sized nightmare of wood, paint, and blades that grinned hideously at its victim. Sakura stared as the war puppet's six jointed legs clamped around the man's chest. The body cavity opened, and her enemy was shoved between the gaping wooden panels. With another snap, the panels slapped shut, locking the man inside. Sakura turned in time to see the third man flinging his kunai at the huge wooden lizard that reared up out of the sand before him.

He dodged backwards, but in his haste to avoid this new foe, he made the critical error of forgetting about the kunoichi at his back. Sakura lunged forward, throwing her shoulder into the small of his retreating back. Abruptly, he found himself reversing directions, flying towards the monstrous lizard. The ponderous head shot forward to meet him much faster than she would have thought possible, and the carved grin closed around the man's neck. The puppet twisted, and Sakura looked away as the decapitated body dropped to the sand.

"Nice push," her ally complimented her. He stood up, flexing his fingers in some complicated maneuver to manipulate the long thin chakra strings fixed around his knuckles. Obediently, the three wooden puppets attached to the strings moved towards him, settling in a line at his feet. The first, a frightening ram-headed demon, hunkered down to his left. The giant wooden lizard curled lazily on the right, and the grotesquely humanoid puppet that she had watched capture the sword-ninja crouched before him. From inside the humanoid puppet, Sakura could hear thumping and a few screeched curses. "Don't worry," the puppeteer told her. "He can struggle all they want, but he's not going anywhere."

Sakura recognized the painted face and affinity for war puppets immediately, but she had to struggle for a moment to recall the name attached to them. "Kan….Kankurou of the Sand?"

He smiled at her, bowing slightly. "The one and only. I take it you're the Leaf shinobi ambassador I've heard so much about. You wounded?"

"I can heal it." Sakura tried to sound calm and professional, as if she wasn't bleeding profusely from her back.

He lifted his arms, fingers dancing again, and two of the puppets promptly vanished. In their place, two slightly bloody scrolls lay neatly side by side at his feet. He scooped them up, glancing at her casually over his shoulder as he did. "Sorry I never sought you out and introduced myself formally. Been busy, you know."

The remaining puppet shook slightly as the prisoner inside threw his body against the panels. "Hey, knock it off, you'll crack Karasu's paneling and that's just annoying." Kankurou rapped the body cavity sharply with one knuckle. There was a faint metallic ring followed by a muffled screech, and then the wooden doll was silent again. "Don't worry, he's not dead yet," the puppet master told Sakura calmly as he wiped off the bloody scrolls. "I've been trying to get one of these insurgents alive for interrogation for weeks."

"And them?" She nodded quietly to the two motionless forms in the dunes, the 'yet' not lost on her either.

He shrugged. "I said I've been trying to get one," he repeated.

Sakura swallowed hard and forced chakra to form properly in her back, closing the wound. Right latissimus dorsi, rhomboid major, trapezius, she chanted to herself, concentrating on each muscle in turn as she molded the healing chakra into the tissue, weaving torn fibers back together. Thoracodorsal artery, thoracodorsal nerve – slowly she felt the neurons reconnecting, felt the itchy sensation of skin growing again over the knitting flesh. She could feel her store of chakra slowly draining, but refused to go into her reserve energy. What if there was another attack? No, she'd just have to let her regular chakra levels build themselves back up naturally.

It was difficult to concentrate – blood loss, heat, the shock of the attack, and the abrupt drop in adrenaline when she realized that the enemy was safely neutralized had all combined to give her a pounding headache, a sense of disorientation, and a sickening weakness in her legs and arms. She wanted to drop to the sand and throw up, maybe cry a little. She wanted to scream. I'm a kunoichi, she told herself as firmly as she could. This was just another battle.

"Well, better head back and report this," Kankurou brushed the sand from his knees. He gestured to the war puppet, which rose up to its spider-like legs and lurched after him. Sakura took a staggering step that was, if possible, even less graceful than the puppet's ungainly motion, and immediately dropped to her knees.

"Shit," Kankurou muttered, turning to look back at her. "You look worse than I thought."

"It was deeper than it felt," she gasped. "Lost a lot of blood."

"I see." He frowned, the painted lines on his cheeks and jaw accenting the expression. "Well, it isn't that bad a situation." He squatted down, elbows balancing on his knees. "I had a chunin with me for this last mission, and when we saw you fighting I sent him to scope the area for any insurgent reinforcements. If we're lucky, he'll come back in a few minutes and I'll send him ahead to Suna for help."

"Aren't we a little close to the village for rebels to be running around unnoticed?" Sakura put a hand on the arm he held out, and pushed herself heavily to her feet. "You'd think that if there were more than these three, a patrol would have picked up on it."

"You'd think that," was all he offered in reply.

Gaara looked up from his desk when they came in, the chunin messenger leaning heavily on Temari as he panted laboriously.

"What," the leader of the Sand village rose to his feet, "is this?"

"This is one of our message runners," Temari informed him shortly. "He's been on assignment along the borders of the Wind Country for the last few days."

"Kazekage-sama," the chunin gasped, lifting his head to meet his leader's gaze. "Trouble. A group of ninja tried to break through the blockades at the borders. They were caught by the border-guards, and in the fight two of our chunin were seriously wounded."

Gaara's face darkened.

The message-runner reached a hand to push his sweaty brown hair out of his face. "There were five of them, as far as the border-guards knew. They sustained wounds but they all got away. There's more." He swallowed nervously, obviously not expecting either of his superiors to like what he was about to say. "One of them lost his flak jacket in the fight, and the border-guards found the village symbol stitched into it as well as a scroll with a message to a spy they had on the inside of the country. Apparently the intruders were trying to get to her to give her new orders."

"Who were they?" Gaara asked, and the undercurrents of rage in his voice sending an involuntary shill down the chunin's spine.

"It was Konoha, sir."

There was a long silence in the room.

Gaara met Temari's eyes. "Where is she?"

"The desert," Temari murmured, and her face suddenly went rigid. "I knew there was something wrong with that mission!" She cursed softly.

"What the hell is she doing in the desert?" Gaara's voice was low and calm, at odds with the dangerous tension on his face.

"One of the men gave me a scroll that had just arrived from the capital. It was very specific about asking the Leaf ambassador to aid in the effort by taking a lower class mission. Said something diplomatic about maintaining strong bonds and showing that we still trusted our allies…" Temari trailed off. "I thought it was weird, but I've never been patient with that political garbage."

"Who was the client?"

Temari's blue eyes flicked from her brother's now unfathomable expression to the chunin messenger's startled face, and she sighed, pressing a fingertip to her temple. "The Wind Country feudal lord. The mission scroll bore his seal."

Gaara turned his back on her, moving to stand by the window. To the untrained eye, he looked merely still, but Temari had long grown used to watching for the signs. She saw the slight tremor in his hands on the window sill, and noted the hard, tense lines of his shoulders under the many layers of cloth draped over his body.

"Go," she said softly to the chunin. "Organize a search party. Have her brought into custody."

He nodded and slipped out of the door.

"Gaara?" She stepped closer, one hand reaching uncertainly towards the rigid back. "Maybe it's not Saku-"

"Get out."

"Gaara . . ."

He lifted his head slightly, and the air in the room suddenly felt lethal.

Temari bit her tongue and left, hating herself for her cowardice with every step.

Sakura braced her hands on her knees and took a deep breath. Her back ached and her head still spun, but she felt steady enough to stand up straight again. She turned her head to look up at Kankurou, opening her mouth to tell him she was ready to continue.

Bad move. The glare of sun on sand was just too bright, and she groaned as the lightheadedness returned in full force.

Kankurou waited patiently, one hand jammed into his pocket, the other still holding the chakra-strings of the war puppet. Sakura settled for straining her eyes to the side, peeking up at him through strands of sweaty pink hair. "Sorry," she grunted, feeling more weak and ridiculous and disgusting than she had in years.

He took his free hand from his pocket long enough to flick his fingers casually at her. "No rush. You're doing pretty good for being wounded and probably dehydrated." He tensed briefly, face alert, and then his features relaxed. "There's my chunin messenger," he commented, for her benefit, no doubt.

A man landed lightly on the dune ridge next to Kankurou, saluting his superior briefly before darting to Sakura's side. "Sakura! Are you alright?"

Sakura felt a rush of relief. "Kenji," she murmured, taking the offered hand and straightening. "I'm fine, I'm fine," she laughed tiredly, waving away the water bottle he shoved at her. "I've got water, and the wound is closed now. It's just dehydration and chakra depletion. Healing techniques take up a lot of chakra, that's all."

"If you say so," he stuck the bottle back in his waistband, looking less worried but not entirely convinced that she was as well off as she claimed.

"You made sure the area was clear?" Kankurou shifted his weight, pointedly drawing the chunin's attention.

"Yes, sir," Kenji replied. The muscles of his arm tensed under Sakura's hand briefly, but his face was now professionally calm. "Kankurou-san, I met up with another chunin on his way out of Suna to the border, and he told me that your presence has been requested immediately by the Kazekage. If you wish, I'll stay behind with Saku…the Leaf Ambassador while you return to the village."

Kankurou frowned, considering. "Alright," he said at last. "I'll take this," he flexed his fingers, and Karasu twitched in response, "and report back. You make sure she gets to a hospital."

"Yes, sir."

Sakura put a hand on his wrist briefly. "Thank you," she said quietly.

Kankurou winked at her. "No problem."

Sakura waited until he was out of earshot before turning to Kenji. "What was that all about?"

"What do you mean?" He asked, not quite meeting her eyes.

"You were using an urgency genjutsu," Sakura said quietly. "You wanted him to agree with you quickly, without thinking about it too much. Why?"

Kenji grinned sheepishly. "You're good with genjutsu, I take it."

"I have a few instincts," she said mildly, but her eyes stayed fixed on his face. "So tell me, why was it so important for Kankurou to - "

"I had to do it," he burst out, cutting her off. "I know it's dangerous, and it'll probably get me branded a traitor, but I…I mean, you're….well, it's just that…"

"Kenji?"

He hunched his shoulders, looking down at the sand with his fists balled up at his sides. Sakura was reminded strongly of Naruto's young friend, Konohamaru, when he was making some guilty confession. "You're my friend." The words burst out of him as if he had, at the last minute, tried to hold them back. "And I don't want to see the Kazekage rip you up."