A/N: This is it for the next few weeks, possibly a month, since I won't be able to update from Korea. But I'll post the next chapter as soon as I get near an internet connection, I promise. In the meantime, we are (at last) all set up for the final showdown, and if you're worried that these last few chapters have been a little slow, then fear not, for the final few will be quick, down, and dirty. Also, I realize that this chapter is a little choppy, because I jump from scene to scene. I'm pondering how to fix that.

"You have no talent. Just die."
- Jiraiya, to Naruto

Chapter 9
Second Chances

The quiet desert night stole slowly over the yellow and brown clay buildings, leeching away the few pale colors of Sunagakure. There was no moon tonight, and the stars seemed distant and weak. The village turned the color of a livid bruise: all purple, black, and blue. Shadows coiled themselves around the walls and streets, settling over the world like a muffling blanket.

In the darkness, high above the streets on the roof of the tallest building, he shifted his weight and growled low in his throat, once.

"Kazekage-sama?" A quiet voice all but whispered from his left. "We've found a trail in the desert. It's not much, and it will be gone by morning, but if we go now we will likely find her by noon."

"No."

The ninja kneeling to the left shifted. "Sir, Kankurou-san reports that she was wounded, likely very weak, and with only a small canteen of water. If we leave her, she will die within a few days. If we catch her, we might be able to at least get information -"

"I said no."

"Yes, Kazekage-sama."

The shinobi left, and once more there was only the whisper of the desert wind in the moonless night. Nothing but the shadows and the sky that to her had been frighteningly vast.

She had laughed, and shivered, and mused aloud, and all the time it had been a calculated ruse. And he had, like the great fool he had tried so hard not to be, fallen right into it.

"You." He hissed into the night, baring his teeth as if he planned to rip out her throat with them. Maybe he did. "You lied!"

The night did not reply.

"She sent you a message," he said then, softly, under his breath. "Asking if you were alright and if you'd completed your mission. Your mission," he snarled, "to gather information on the Sand Village Kazekage. You were spying on me. All of this," he held up a hand, palm facing the empty streets, and there was a strange expression of pain on his face, "was to get at me, so you could report it all back to her." He laughed suddenly, wildly.

In his mind's eye, he saw her running through the desert, running towards the border and her freedom. He watched, body so taut that the muscles jerked from strain. The sand shifting around his feet shivered with the anticipation of the kill, surging up and around him, towards her. Blood, the familiar darkness whispered in his mind. Blood for pain. Blood is better than pain. Pain is mine. Blood is pain that is not mine. Not ours.

The pale pink of her hair vanished into the red haze that blocked his mental vision now. Blood is pain that is not mine. Blood is better.He could send the sand. Even now he knew she could not be too far away, could still be within his range should he chose to hunt her tonight. He could hunt her, find her alone and weak in the desert and he could strangle her with his own hands, break her bones, rip out her throat or her heart. He could glory in the blood, because the blood was her pain, not ours, sang the demon, and he smiled in agreement.He could enjoy it,because her pain was good. His was….

He crouched, ready to jump.

"Yashamaru," he whispered.

The murderous sand turned at the sound, and swirled around him. In a moment, the roof was empty, and silent.

She didn't know how long she ran across the never-ending dunes before her feet betrayed her and she stumbled. Betrayed…I didn't betray you! She wanted to scream it back at him, scream it so loud that the whole world could hear it.

Some small, rational part of Sakura was cautioning her not to cry, not to waste the moisture her body would need when the brutal sun came up, as it would soon if the faint reddish tinge in the sky was any indication.

But she couldn't stop, even if it was stupid. She was stupid. (You think you have some measure of control, Kenji said softly, his voice chasing her down the side of one sand dune and up the other. Well, he's been betrayed before…)

"I didn't…" she sobbed again, and threw a hand up to shield her eyes as the sun burst over the horizon.

"They are getting close." The girl kneels at his feet, keeping her eyes carefully averted. Her master does not bother to look at her, consumed in his own mysterious thoughts.

"The Sand shinobi? To me?" He asks at last, deigning to glance down at her bent head.

"No, master. Your hand is yet unrevealed, and the Sand ninjas have no indication of your position among the insurgents. I refer to your supporters. They are gathering nearer for the final attack." She swallows nervously, and her fear is duly noted. He would smile at her fear, but he is still irritated with her recent failure. It is not often that he does his own dirty work, and he does not like the necessity of cleaning up his servant's near-disastrous mess.

"I see. In that case, I'm going to give you a second chance to prove your worth to me. Try not to fuck this up, will you?" She does not move, but the smooth annoyance in his tone burrows into her stomach where it hardens into fear and perhaps something else that she cannot name. "First, I want them delayed."

"How long should they be delayed, sir?"

"Oh, a week or two at least. Have them blow up a few more political buildings or something." He waves a hand dismissively.

"Yes, master…" her voice trails off, leaving the question hanging unspoken. After all, it is one thing to have a network of rebels and missing-nin all over the large kingdom of Wind, quite another thing to concentrate all those rebels in a smaller area for several days and hope the nearby shinobi village didn't notice them.

"I have my reasons for this decision," he tells her sternly, before she dares to question him and forces him to kill her for the sake of precedent. "Second, I want your captured subordinate neutralized before they get anything useful out of him."

She bows her head again, flinching at the reminder of her abysmal failure. Gently, he puts a hand on her head. "Dear little sister," he says softly, and there is all the forgiveness and compassion in the world in those three little words, enough to tighten her chest and almost, almost bring a tear to her blue eyes. "You have learned an important lesson today. Never choose subordinates because you like them. Chose them because they are strong enough to do your bidding, but weak enough to never overthrow you. Liking your men is a weakness that efficient men cannot afford."

He thinks of weaknesses, of wide green eyes and a sweet, sad smile, and two low voices floating down through cool night air. It makes his eyes narrow, and he moves away from her, running his hand through his own hair in a moment of agitation. "Are you prepared for the sacrifice?" He demands suddenly, and because he is distracted, he misses the emotion that flickers briefly on her face before she answers.

"Yes, sir."

He is calm again instantly, and with a casual wave of his hand orders her to go.

She goes, and a moment later he is gone as well, and only the desert remains.

The first day went by in a strange dreamlike-haze. Sometimes she moved. Sometimes she lay on her back with the torn cloth from her shirt over her face to shield it from the sun. At first she thought of nothing but what had happened: the ambush, the fight, the abrupt news that she was a branded spy and traitor.

It hurt, to think about that, so after a little while she made herself stop. She thought about Konoha for awhile, because heat and thirst drove her to recall shady trees, cool streams, ice cream, and leaves swirling in the wind as Lee grinned at her, flashing the thumbs up, as Naruto came flying at her with a high kick that she blocked just as Lee had shown her how to do. She thought about cold nights and snow and the fierce blush on Ino's face on New Year's Eve when Shikamaru had kissed her in front of everyone. (Well, I had to shut her up somehow, and it seemed like a good idea at the time.)

She thought about Sasuke, and the empty feeling of rejection.

(You're really annoying.)

She thought about Tsunade, and all the second chances that had come with the woman. A second chance for Sasuke, for Lee, for the legendary sannin herself. A second chance for Sakura, to become something more than a nuisance, an annoyance.

(I'm a hard teacher, and it won't be easy for you.)

Sakura closed her eyes, felt the sand baking beneath her bruised back, felt her breath push against aching stomach muscles, and thought about second chances. How many had Gaara been given? How many had he ever given himself?

(Well, he's been betrayed before.)

As the sun set on the first day, and the heat slackened and became bearable again, she realized that she couldn't give it up yet. Not as easily as that. She could give him the second chance he'd never had, and she would force him to give her the second chance she deserved.

Sakura sat up and sipped some of the water from her canteen, grateful that she had refilled it before leaving yesterday (only yesterday?). If I go back like this, she thought grimly, running a mental check through her body to assess her physical status, he'll kill me. I won't even have the chance to tell him, to make him see.

Chances. How could she make sure she got that second chance?

Sakura touched her forehead wearily, felt the throbbing of a sun-induced headache. She ran her finger over the point between her eyes, concentrating chakra to sooth away the ache.

And then it hit her.

Now all she needed was a little time.

It kept her going through the night as she plodded through the sand, ignoring the pain of her ribs and back, ignoring the grit as it got into her mouth and her shoes and her shirt, rubbing her raw under her clothes. She could have used more chakra to deal with these things, to ease the pain of bruises and raw skin, but she needed it elsewhere now. Concentrate, concentrate, hold out against the pain, Sakura urged herself, chanting it over and over until she could hear nothing else.

It kept her going through the second day, as she staggered along the ridges of unforgiving scalding sand. The pain in her head was intense, like something large and powerful was trying to claw its way out of her brain through a little hole in her forehead. Through the haze, she saw the vague outlines of a village forming among the rippling heat of the desert sand. An old woman stood in front of her baked-clay home, watching the apparition that was a woman stagger out of the desert.

The sun beat down on her mercilessly, burning into her body, into her brain and her guts. If she stayed in this sun any longer, it would burn her all the way through, leaving nothing but the charred remains of what had once been a human woman. There would be nothing but bleached bones and a few bits of metal until the desert sand shifted and claimed those, too.

The old woman was shouting something now, and people were appearing, coming towards her with jugs of water and concerned frowns.

She couldn't die yet, couldn't let the fire of the sun consume her. She had to reach him first, had to tell him, prove to him that it hadn't all been a lie.

The cool splash of water over her burned face pushed back the haze long enough for her to meet the old woman's eyes. The compassion in that plain peasant face soothed her more than the sudden shade thrust over her head. As she allowed herself at last to sink into the cool darkness of her own mind, let hands worn from the desert pick her tired body up and carry her out of the fierce sun, one final thought wrapped itself fiercely around her heart. She couldn't let it end this way.

"Sir?"

Kankurou tilted his head slightly to study his approaching subordinate with narrow eyes.

"Feeling better?"

"Yes, sir," the chunin blinked, raising a self-conscious hand to tap the swollen flesh of his face gingerly. "The damage wasn't really all that bad – it just stunned me, that's all."

"You're not the only one," the puppet-master muttered, recalling the expression on his brother's face when he'd learned that the Konoha ambassador had attacked a Sand shinobi and fled into the desert.

"Sir, I'd like to request that I be put on the search party to find Saku- I mean, to find the ambassador," Kenji stepped forward earnestly, biting his lip.

Kankurou shook his head, looking back out across the desert. Heat rose off the glaring sand in lethal waves, angry winds blew hot and unforgiving across the treacherously gentle-looking dunes. "There isn't going to be a search," Kankurou said quietly.

"What?" Kenji's eyes snapped open. "Sir, it's been days already. She's probably near-death – if we go now we can get her in a weakened state." He paused, waiting for Kankurou to answer. When his superior simply stood there, silent, he took an urgent step forward, hands coming up in near supplication. "Sir, we can't question her if she's dead! And besides, it isn't ethical, it isn't right to leave someone out in - "

"These are orders from your Kazekage." Kankurou barked, straightening to his full height. The chunin faltered, and after a moment looked away.

"Yes, sir," he said, voice only showing a hint of sullen anger under the carefully schooled tone of respect.

"I know she was your friend," Kankurou sighed after a moment of silence. "But you should know better than to get emotionally involved with anyone, especially shinobi from rival villages. In our line of work, it only sets you up for pain."

He strolled off casually, only slowing long enough to glance up at the window in the Kazekage's office above him. "It only gives you more pain," he told the window and the man he knew stood just behind it.

He is angry; his servant can see it in the way he stands with his hands in his pockets, staring at her expressionlessly. She bows her head as she has been taught, not looking at him.

"It is nearly time," he says at last. "Have them brought to the village from the north. I will alert the Kazekage." He all but spits the name, and his servant has a sudden flash of insight as to what has invoked his ire. But she does not dwell on it - he is speaking to her again, and she listens intently.

"Tell them to arrive at sunset in one week. I will see to it that he is waiting for them."

"Yes, master," she whispers, rising.

His voice halts her before she can leave, and there is something ugly in the words. "Is she dead?"

His servant answers. "She made it five days before she fell. She did not rise again."

"Very well. In the end, this can probably be used to my advantage just as much as if he had killed her himself." The ugliness is gone from his voice. He sounds almost pleasant. "The desert will tend to her remains. It's fitting."

He does not notice that his servant leaves a little too quickly. He does not ever look at her, anyway, so again he does not see the short-lived spark of emotion across her otherwise expressionless face. If he had seen it, he might have been hard pressed to name it. Fear, hate, and just a tiny bit of triumph.