*Obligatory 'I don't own Naruto so please don't sue me' header*

Subjugation Arc:

Chapter 12 - Love

"G...Gaara?!"

"GAARA!"

The soft crunching sound of shinobi sandals on the quickly dampening forest floor was drowned out by the howling winds of the storm as it expanded across the border with the Wind. Tree branches were thrown aside, and fallen logs were vaulted with the ease and affluence that only a skilled shinobi could muster.

A few moments later, Temari and Kankurou reached their target – the disheveled figure of their younger brother, laying in a heap on the ground, in the middle of the woods.

They weren't expecting to run into him here at all – in fact, the last known contact point the Leaf shinobi had with the Akatsuki missing-nin was still miles away: their goal for the day.

But Temari had sensed something this way – and this way they had come.

A flash of lightning blitzed across the sky and caused the entire forest to tremble under the reverberations. The wind was getting even stronger somehow, and the rain had begun to come down by the bucketload, at a nearly horizontal angle.

Temari fell to her knees immediately, blinking repeatedly to wipe the water out of her eyes, and began to look Gaara over for any signs of life. Her now completely soaked-through cloak whipped around behind her as she did so, violently threatening to fling itself off of her figure and fly off into the dark sky.

"Oh… oh Kami…"

She gasped and jumped back a bit when her hand touched his flesh and, unexpectedly, felt a warm pulse ticking away underneath it.

He was alive.

"Kan-Kankurou… Kankurou! Get over here! Give me some water! And a soldier pill!" she screamed over the tumultuous thrashing of the tree leaves above them. The storm was completely upon them at this point, and Temari had to fight her instinct to flee from it in order to stay with her still-alive sibling in the pouring rain.

"Wait, what?! Do you mean he's alive?" Kankurou shouted back (despite being right next to her), already reaching through his pack to find the requested materials. He didn't care about the answer. He already knew it, from the spark of hope in her sister's voice.

He thrust the pill and water bottle into his sister's outstretched hands, as she began to try to nurse Gaara back to health again from the forest floor.

Another crackle of lightning echoed across the darkening landscape, lightly illuminating the body of the boy that, until just now, had been pronounced dead and forgotten.

Gaara was lying in a heap on the ground beside a large willow, slightly leaned against one of its massive only-partially-subterranean roots. The soft dirt around the base of the tree made for a great recipe for mud, and the small nook that Gaara's legs were tucked into haphazardly had already begun to fill with water and churn to a dark brown goo.

His hair was its normal light-red, burgundy color – but it was muddy and clotted with blood, a disheveled mess that made Temari's stomach churn.

His red shinobi gear, a similar color to his hair, was completely caked from the inside with dried blood – what was left of it anyway. Massive claw-marks dashed and sliced across his figure, exposing the deep wounds underneath. His gourd, synonymous with Gaara since before he was a shinobi for the Sand, was nowhere to be seen, although the leather strap he used to carry it was still feebly folded over his chest and over his right shoulder. But it, too, had seen better days.

Gaara's right forearm was bent in a slightly unnatural way on the forest floor, indicating a broken bone. It was lying in a position that indicated it had been held gingerly, up until the point where he had succumbed to unconsciousness.

Temari tried to carefully roll him onto his back in the muddy soup to give him a better examination, but cringed when his right shoulder rolled around in its joint in a gruesome fashion.

'So he's dislocated his shoulder,' she thought to herself, before wincing as she braced his arm and forcefully twisted it back into place.

"…nnnnNNAAAHH!" Gaara screamed, sitting up in a daze, before crying out again and clutching at his chest with his unbroken arm.

"Gaara?! Gaara, listen to me!" Temari shouted at him, tapping him lightly on the cheek with her palm to try and get his attention. Wind and rain battered their faces as Kankurou jumped forward as well, to help support his feeble brother.

His eyes were darting everywhere, wider than saucers, and his breathing was raspy and jarred. He was borderline hyperventilating, as he twitched and churned under the terrified eye of his sister.

Finally, his crazed green orbs caught a glimpse of blond to his left – and a blob of black and red even further still. He blinked, trying to control his breathing, before letting out a bit of a crazed, uncontrollable chuckle. His face contorted into one of pain, unimaginable pain, before he collapsed forward onto his sister's shoulder, still stifling the strange laughter.

"Shinigami," he croaked quietly, just barely audible in the heat of the storm, "please stop playing games with me. Just take me already – and take me for good this time."

Temari pulled him in for a tender hug, as her saturated hair whipped around in the wind. But she didn't care.

She was reunited with her brother. Nothing short of death itself could separate her from Gaara now.

That was, of course, until she realized she was squeezing a little harder than she had meant to, and he was grumbling in pain again.

"This isn't a dream, you idiot," she laughed into his shoulder, until finally releasing him. She felt a tinge of guilt for hurting Gaara more than he already was, but he was alive. Everything else could be fixed later.

He was alive.

She sat back a bit to watch her brother's face for some sort of sign as to his wellbeing, only to see his gaze fixed exhaustingly over her shoulder at something.

She instinctively turned, and finally figured out what it was her other brother was doing that whole time when her eyes met the sight of a reasonably-sized, beige field tent pitched haphazardly between a few felled trees, in an attempt to get away from the terrors of the storm. The wind pushed against the canvas like a bull trying to break through a gate, but the material held - as did the lashings that tied it to the ground and held it in place.

She smiled faintly before carefully scooping Gaara up in her arms and carrying him, bridal style. She winced when he let out a low moan and continued to clutch at his chest.

'He must have a few broken ribs,' she thought sourly, before carefully walking through the pouring rain towards the tent, carefully avoiding the plethora of large roots and foliage that stood to trip her up if she was too hasty.

After she pulled back the tent flap, the two were immediately bathed in the soft, yellow glow of a small lantern, two small cots, a few blankets, and a very flustered and concerned Kankurou. The first thing she noticed, however, was the fact that the roar of the storm had been decimated, and now she could think properly. Temari smiled slightly before gently setting Gaara down on her own cot and giving him a more thorough check-up without the distraction of water dripping off her face and in her eyes.

She blinked. Since the adrenaline wore off from finding Gaara, Temari was now acutely aware of how drenched to the bone she was, and began to shiver. It may have only been early autumn, and they may have been remarkably close to the Land of Wind, but it was evening, and this storm had dropped the temperature considerably where they were. She was freezing.

Kankurou immediately grabbed one of the field blankets he had prepared for them, and wrapped it snuggly around Temari, before taking the other one and wrapping it slowly around his brother.

Kankurou and Temari each took a seat on the other cot and watched as their brother calmed down slightly, as the warmth from the blanket began to sooth his aching body and ease his nerves.

"Temari," he started carefully, "Do you know what this means? It means that everything they're doing right now back at the village is useless. The Kazekage is still alive. Still alive! Gaara's still alive!" The realization struck him like a ton of bricks as he worked his way through his thought processes. His eyes widened to the size of golfballs and a big goofy grin grew across his face, before he started to chuckle. "I knew it! Nothing can keep Sabaku no Gaara down for long, that's a fact!"

Temari let out a giggle as well – the first real sign of happiness she'd had since coming home from her diplomatic mission.

Well, it wasn't really home – not without both of her brothers, at least.

She let out a long-held sigh, and flopped back a bit on the cot, causing it to rock slightly. Temari hadn't realized it because of the rain, but she had been crying the entire time – and was still crying, in fact. She reached up with her blanket and dabbed at her eyes, before sniffling a bit and replying to her brother. "Y…yeah. I can't want to see the look on Rei and that other fatass's faces when we come back in with Gaara around our arms."

"R-Rei? Tonma?" sputtered Gaara, as he attempted to sit up, finally a little more conscious and aware of what was going on. His eyes were no longer glazed over, but were rather sharpened and razor-focused, like always. Temari couldn't help but grow concerned by the size of the bags under his eyes, deepening the black ring that wrapped around them.

He winced as he sat up fully, resting his broken arm gently in his lap while leaning forward and over his blanketed legs. "What do those two troublesome councilmembers want this time?"

"Your title," Kankurou stated bluntly. "We left while they were still arguing over which one of them should get your hat."

Gaara's eyes widened at that, before slamming down again as he began to cough heavily, cradling his chest and contorting in pain with each wheeze.

"Here, let me get you something for that, so you can at least yell us what happened."

Temari reached into her pack, took out a small needle with a clear fluid swirling around inside of it, and walked over to her brother. She jabbed it into his neck, and held it still for a few moments until the painkiller drained from the syringe and into Gaara's body.

He moaned slightly to himself as the fluid began to numb his aching body, before taking a slightly deeper breath.

"I… I was attacked. By Naruto."

He looked at their faces, expecting shock or horror, but only got grim looks of agitation.

"We know," Kankurou said plainly. "He's apparently with the Akatsuki now. And he was spouting off some nonsense about being the Nine-Tails."

Gaara blinked. "That is indeed worrying. There is a significant chance that his seal's integrity failed and he was overcome by the Nine-Tails' emotion." He grimaced, before placing a hand where his seal used to be. "I am well aware of the damages to one's psyche that can occur when a seal is not strong enough."

"Well, judging from the way the Leaf ninja were reacting to their encounter with him, it must have been bad," Kankurou muttered, before looking down at the soggy floor of their tent, where muddy water from the rapid torrent of rain was flowing profusely below them.

"Leaf ninja?" Gaara repeated, gazing at his brother with an air of confusion.

"Yeah, I called them. After you went missing and half the village was blown to smithereens, I had no other choice, really," he shrugged, before leaning back on the cot as well, propping himself up with his hands behind him.

Gaara nodded sagely, before looking down at the feet of his siblings in thought. "That was most likely the best course of action." Then, the weight of what Kankurou said struck him hard, and he leapt up a bit.

"Hey, careful now! That morphine hasn't fixed your broken rib, just dulled its pain slightly," Temari motherly asserted, leaning back up again in preparation to subdue her sibling if necessary.

"Ribs," he hissed through his teeth, as he rode out the waves of slightly dampened pain. "Broken ribs. And a few cracked ones as well. I need to get back to the Sand." He looked back up at his sister. "Did… did the village really fall so far in my absence?"

Temari sighed heavily, before she, too, looked down at the ground. "I won't lie to you, Gaara. It's not pretty. There was significant damage to the main gate, as well as the aftermath of the brawl with… Naruto… you had above the Kazekage Tower." She looked up at him in seriousness. "There were also signs of sleeper agents among our top jounin, Gaara. The jounin commander himself was one of them. We found him near the front gates – well, what was left of him, that is. From the few witnesses we had that survived that day, most said he walked up to the front gate with his body covered in pre-armed explosive tags. He…" she stopped herself then, remembering the charred remains of the valiant shinobi that had tried to stop him before he ended it all.

"I see," Gaara replied simply, a tinge of regret in his eyes.

A few heartbeats passed between the trio, before Kankurou asked the question that had been egging at the back of his mind since they got here.

"Why… why are you alive?" he asked in an almost incredulous fashion. "The removal of a tailed beast… it means certain death, Gaara. Now," he held up his hands in a sign of peace at the glare his sister began giving him, "I'm just as happy as you are that Gaara's back, but you have to admit that it's a little odd we just stumbled upon him like this in the woods."

"I flared my chakra," the former jinchuuriki replied, "right before I fell unconscious. I used up as much as I could to get as wide a range as I could, so someone would come for me." The corners of his lips lifted ever so slightly, in a way that was nearly invisible, except to those that knew Gaara personally. "I am just relieved that it worked."

"What were you thinking?!" Temari suddenly shouted at him, and a clap of thunder echoed through the wilderness, shattering their illusion of comfort and warmth from within their small tent. "Bandits or missing-nin could have sensed your presence. You could have been killed!"

Gaara nodded. "Under the circumstances, I would have taken anything – a swift death, even. It was a gamble, but as you can see, it would appear to have paid off."

He was silent for a moment, before looking back at Kankurou. "You are correct, brother, in that all jinchuuriki die shortly after the removal of their tailed beast. We come to rely on it for simply too much, to the point where it is like an addiction. I was indeed killed after my capture."

Kankurou blinked, and leaned forward again. "Wait, wha-"

"What am I doing alive then?" Gaara guessed before hollowly chuckling once and shifting on his cot. "To be honest, I'm not all that sure myself. I have a vague recollection of what happened as I woke up, but everything else is just a dream to me. Even now," he said, staring at his siblings. "I will most likely not remember this in the near future."

"You have a concussion," Temari mumbled to herself, before sitting up completely and standing in front of her brother completely now. She looked him over more carefully now, and his eyes sluggishly followed her as she did so.

She took out a small light, and flashed it quickly in front of Gaara's eyes to observe how quickly his eyes reacted. As she suspected, they moved lethargically – as if they were situated in a pool of molasses, or were frozen in time.

"We need to get you back to a hospital," she said authoritatively, slipping the small pocket light back into her coat pocket and placing her bag back over her shoulder. "We cannot waste any more time-"

"Chiyo," Gaara mumbled suddenly, his forehead crinkled in deep concentration. "Lady Chiyo. She sacrificed herself… felt guilty…" he looked up into his Temari's eyes, "…believed in me. Believed in the Sand, and in the Leaf." He blinked. "She gave her place in this world to me, after mine had expired."

"That old bag? Really? Chiyo?" Kankurou muttered in apprehension. "I didn't even know that was possible. She just gave her life away like that?"

"She said her time had come," Gaara said tactly, before rising to his feet as well. "It was… strange. Our consciousnesses seemed to meld for a few moments, and I was able to speak with her, one last time, before she passed." He frowned slightly, turning to the cot to grab his blanket. "I had thought it was a dream at first, but it makes sense now that it wasn't."

Temari flinched as her brother began to make for the door of the tent. "Gaara, be careful please. Are you sure you can walk?"

"I am fine."

"But Gaara-"

"Temari. Please. We must return to the Sand immediately." He turned to look at her. "Without a third party to keep them in check, Rei and Tonma's respective clans will tear the Hidden Sand apart in order to lay claim to the title of Kazekage. I must arrive in time to stop them."

"You are in no condition to do that right now!" Temari finally snapped; the tension from the previous days' events had caught up with her, and she couldn't stand to see her brother's pain and suffering under her watchful eye. "I can see you – you are good at hiding your emotions. You always have been. But you are in agony right now. The only way you are walking right now is because of the morphine. You will cause more damage to yourself if you continue on like this!" She sighed and adjusted the large fan on her back, draped across the shoulder opposite her pack. "At least let me carry you."

Gaara opened his mouth slowly to speak, before a wince worked its way across his face and betrayed his stoic appearance. He closed his eyes and admitted defeat. His sister was one not to be trifled with, especially when it came to the safety of her precious people. "As you wish."

"I'll carry him," Kankurou stated, before passing his own pack off to his sister, who took it indignantly. He then stepped in front of Gaara, leaned over, and forced his brother onto his back with a slight sigh.

Another crackle of lightning lit up the sky like a fireworks display, ricocheting off the walls of the tent in a mad frenzy.

The trio braced themselves as they stepped back out into the tumultuous environment they had escaped from moments ago, with a new fire in their eyes – one that was not so easily broken.

"Alright – Sakura. Neji. Lee. Take these border tags and place them around the shrine. We need to be able to sense his presence before he senses ours. Shikaku, Tenzou, and I will remain here and set up camp around the clearing several hundred yards to the east of the shrine in the forest. It is in a secluded enough place, downwind of the shrine. He won't be able to smell us, but I should be able to smell him." Kakashi tapped his nose nonchalantly with an eye-smile.

He then turned to the jounin commander and stonefaced. "Shikaku. We're going to be severely outmatched powerwise, do you think you can take our mission reports and formulate some sort of plan around them for when we eventually make contact?"

The Nara simply nodded, and turned towards the clearing, mumbling to himself in contemplation, a furrow on his brow.

"Wait… Kakashi-sensei… when is Naruto supposed to get here, anyway?" Sakura asked inquisitively. She only saw as much as the copy-nin saw in the memories, and wasn't able to ascertain when, exactly, herself.

"Well, we don't know, to be honest." Kakashi eye-smiled again. "But the mask has been untouched – I went in there when we arrived to check myself, remember? The seals that the Second Hokage placed on them when the building was abandoned have not been touched. That means we're the first ones since him to come here. He's coming – you can be sure of it."

"How do we know?" Neji asked with a cold expression. "It could be months, years even."

"Yes, perhaps. But I have a strong hunch that the fact he's become much more active with the Akatsuki is a sign he'll try to move his plan to fruition." He blinked slowly, and turned around, a small yellow book seemingly appearing out of nowhere in his hand. "Mainly because we hadn't heard of or about him in nearly two years. There was a reason he spoke to us, underneath the underneath." He read a few lines and snapped the book shut again. "I have a gut feeling."

Sakura simply nodded, satisfied with the answer, while Neji turned around as well, heading for the forest. Lee blinked a few times, and jumped into action as well.

The jounin went off to help Tenzou with the campsite, while the other three shinobi began the less-than-pleasant task of arranging the border seals around the perimeter of the small clearing in the woods that the Uzumaki Mask Shrine resided within. It wasn't a particularly pleasant looking building – the wood was rotting and smelly, the front entrance was collapsed in on itself, and the many tarps and fabric that used to girdle the facility had long since been torn off in the torment of the rain from many years ago.

It had not been touched in decades – not since the Second placed several very powerful seals around the perimeter to protect the less-than-innocuous building from pilferers and thieves. Their eyes were the first to see it in generations – or so they thought. As it turned out, Minato Namikaze happened to visit several times under the observation of his then-fiance, but the gathered shinobi were either unaware of it, or simply didn't find it crucial for the mission. Regardless, he had only looked, not touched – and thus the relic of the past was preserved in almost all of its rather enigmatic glory.

Glory that, for the most part, was planned to remain enigmatic. If the Naruto Retrieval Squad had anything to say about it, that was.

Sakura went over the plan again in her head as she went along, flanked on either side by Neji and Lee.

They were going to take back Naruto at all costs – kicking and screaming, if necessary.

He was supposed to make an appearance in the near future in order to release the Reaper Death Seal jutsu that was still, to this day, imprisoning his father in the Shinigami's stomach, where it was forced to do battle with the Nine-Tails for the rest of eternity.

Sakura had been quite confused when she looked further into the Fourth Hokage's sneaky trick – splitting his own soul into Yin and Yang, just like he had the Nine-Tails. It was quite genius, really – and very quick thinking.

Well, the Fourth had always been quick on his feet – literally and figuratively.

She smiled to herself as she went along, completely lost in thought.

That was, of course, until Neji's crisp voice broke the silence and shattered her inner monologue.

"I think there's something that Kakashi-sensei is not telling us." He said coolly, handing another sealing tag to Sakura and placing one himself. "And where, exactly, did this intelligence come from? I do not recall reading any of it within the Journal Lord Jiraiya left behind after his death – the one the Naruto himself gave us at our last meeting. Something here smells suspicious to me."

"Relax, Neji," returned Sakura with a smile over her shoulder. "Don't worry about it. We found something else in the journal, that's all. If the Hokage wants to tell you more about it, then she will. But for now, everything you need to know has been told to you."

She'd never say it, but she liked that for once, she was the one with the information.

Neji bristled, but sighed in capitulation. "Alright. But I don't like it. More heads working together to solve a problem is almost always better than fewer."

Sakura nodded to that with a laugh. "Yeah, that's a fact. But I think if we unloaded everything we learned into your head, you'd be out of service for a few days, at the least."

Neji's eyes narrowed at that statement as he attempted to parse it for hidden meaning, before smiling slightly to himself. "I suppose." He took a step to the right, wielding a stack of border tags. "I'll continue on this way. It might be a good idea for you two to split up as well, so we cover more ground faster."

Sakura nodded silently, before handing one of her stacks to Lee, and continuing on alone in the direction she had been heading, while Lee took off in a blitz of speed to the left.

"So, Gaara, what exactly is the problem with those two clan head nutjobs?" Kankurou finally asked, as they trudged over yet another sand dune on their slow march back to their hidden village.

The previous day's storm had come and gone – along with any doubts in Temari's resolve. Their slow journey home had given them plenty of time to think about the last week or so's events, and the information Gaara had received, although choppy and hard to match, was swirling around in their heads like a maelstrom. The blazing sun had set hours ago, finally giving them the comfort and release to think with a clear head. Why was it so bad that Rei and Tonma were at arms with one another? Why had Chiyo sacrificed herself to give Gaara a second chance?

Why was Naruto with the Akatsuki?

"Hmm," Gaara grunted in thought from Kankurou's back. His voice was quiet, yet firm. "The Oukui and the Yoku clans have been bitter enemies since the foundation of the Village Hidden in the Sand." He paused, before gathering his thoughts in a more constructed manner. "You can think of them as our Uchiha and Senju clans. Always rivals, always fighting, always clamoring over one another for power."

"Yeah, I know that much," Kankurou muttered, slightly shifting Gaara's weight on his back to be more comfortable. He was sweaty and it was making his back itch. "Why didn't somebody do something with them back then?"

"Somebody did," Gaara replied in his usual emotionless drawl. "Sabaku no Purachina. The wife of the First Kazekage. She was able to reign them in, for lack of a better term, and get them to see that together, they were stronger. As a village." He sighed heavily, before continuing again. "Of course, it did not hurt that she was the wielder of the fearsome Platinum Dust derivation of the Magnet Release."

"The Platinum Dust Kekkei Genkai? I thought that was nothing more than legend," Temari muttered beside her fidgeting brother.

"No, it was very real," Gaara stated, locking eyes with his sister. "And very devastating. There were more clans in the beginning other than the Yoku and the Oukui. Purachina and the First either brought together the clans of this part of the world, or destroyed them. The Yoku and the Oukui seemed to be the only ones smart enough to join the Hidden Sand village." He looked at the ground and frowned. "Or the most imbecilic."

"Hn," Kankurou grunted in amusement. "But why are they a problem now?"

Gaara nodded slowly before closing his eyes for a moment in contemplation. "For years, it has been the duty of the Kazekage to keep the village together, as is with all Kage. This, in the case of the Hidden Sand, meant that Kazekage had to deal with the… petty squabbles of the Oukui and Yoku. My role as the Fifth Kazekage was no different." He winced, as if recalling some sort of bad memory. "But I do not know of any so meddling and… troublesome in our history as Rei Yoku and Tonma Oukui."

"Why? What's so annoying about them? Why now?" Temari asked, surprised. She was the Kazekage's closest advisor, but even she ducked away from the more meticulous domestic affairs. This was the first she was hearing of the issues her brother fronted on his own, and was beginning to feel slightly guilty for not helping him in the matter more when she could.

Gaara sighed slightly again, as if the memory of the duo alone made him ache. "The Yoku, as you know, are primarily working class shinobi and farmers, which provide the bulk of the food and shinobi for our village. They are a proud people, but not as… well off, I suppose, as others. Still, they value family and heritage above all else." He looked to the side, as if to signify the change in focus. "The Oukui, however, are a more affluent clan. They control many of the oil fields around the Hidden Sand, and provide us with a significant source of income from other villages, as they all buy from us, primarily. They are much smaller in number than the Yoku, but still hold a significant amount of power over the council and the rest of the village. Their shinobi, while few, are quite formidable." He looked back at his sister, complete seriousness etched across his face. "The Yoku have historically farmed and lived in the more fertile land to the north of the Hidden Sand. Unfortunately, this happens to be directly on top of a rather large oil deposit – one that the Oukui have been laying claim to for quite some time. They have been demanding access to the Yoku farmlands to build pumps and refineries for years."

Gaara sighed yet again, and ran a feeble hand through his red hair – now mostly clean due to the rain from the previous day. Even in the middle of the night, it seemed to glow a faint red glow. "Naturally, this has caused the tensions their clans have had for centuries to come full circle. I was working on a peaceful arrangement between the two clans ever since they started their quarrel, but each seemed to take each other's incompetence out on the village leadership, primarily me."

Temari nodded, and Gaara continued. "Although, it would appear that this is merrily tradition. Our father, and his father before us, all the way back to the First and Purachina herself - all had to deal with their generation's Rei and Tonma. Each had their own… specific issue with the way our village is ran and led, and so they have been vying for a chance to take over themselves to finally get ahead of the other for longer than I care to say."

"So… now that you're out of the picture, and we're the only Sabaku left…" Temari didn't need her brother to fill in the rest.

"Yes. Unfortunately, neither clan values the village over its own needs. And I fear that something disastrous will occur if we do not do something quickly."

"Uhhh, guys," Kankurou said, alarmed and wide-eyed, as he stared off into the horizon. A brilliant orange glow lit up the sky as they crested another massive dune, and could finally see their destination – the Hidden Sand.

Or, what was left of it, anyway.

Massive fires were billowing out of control in nearly every corner of the village, lapping hungrily at the tops of the massive city walls and dancing out in stark contrast against the harsh, dark desert around them. Several massive chunks were missing from the walls themselves, and what the Sand ninja could see from between the cracks, the walls were the least of their problems.

Buildings were collapsed in heaps, and small black flashes could be seen dashing across the shadows and clashing with one another before darting back and repeating the process.

The echo of kunai-against-kunai and the shouts of announced jutsu ricocheted off the plain desert landscape in a cacophony of violence and bloodshed.

Temari cringed as she watched the right side of the village – where their home was – erupt in a tall pillar of flame that leapt into the sky like a caged bird. A massive explosion rocked the desert as the shockwave blasted away from the village and gently pushed back the air surrounding the Sabaku siblings, causing the ground to shake violently in apprehension.

"Gaara… this is…" Temari trailed off.

He only nodded solemnly. "As I feared. A civil war has broken out."

The scene closer to the village was even more hectic and terrifying than it was from afar – civilians were running around screaming, carrying their valuables as quickly as they could, as they sought refuge from the slaughter. Those that were lucky enough to flee the city walls and into the desert would surely not make it further than a day or two in the harsh heat, but it was definitely an improvement over the fate of those who remained inside and tried to ride it out. Oukui and Yoku ninja alike, when they weren't fighting one another, were plundering and pillaging the town for all it was worth, ripping children out of family arms for target practice, before stealing the women to desecrate them. The husbands and fathers would try to fight them, but to no avail – and would most likely end up as a decapitated ornament for the victor's side once the scuffle was over.

Temari gagged at the scene, and was nearly about to empty her stomach of its contents at the sight of what she was seeing. It was despicable. People she once called comrades, friends, even, were running around crazily, happily soaking in the anarchy like a kitten lapping up milk.

Suddenly, she saw one of the Yoku miscreants take heed of her, and smile with an alarming gleam that was almost animalistic. She shuddered and attempted to suppress her growing rage as she whipped her hand around to her back and brandished her massive fan. The ninja began to stroll towards her, and Temari simply narrowed her eyes and bided her time.

"Ninja Art: Wind Scythe Jutsu!"

Temari flashed to life in a blur of speed and pure chakra, a massive orb of wind energy sweeping up from between the village buildings at the chuunin eying her like candy, before he ducked out of the way and was merrily tossed aside.

Much to Temari's chagrin, he only kept coming.

This only made her angrier.

"You RAT BASTARDS! WIND STYLE: ART OF THE GUST BLADE!"

A thin blade of wind materialized before her, sharpening with each passing second, before she whipped her fan around again and sent it catapaulting towards her ignorant foe.

The blade passed through the chest of the despicable rebel ninja, and for a moment nothing seemed to happen – the man just kept walking towards her.

Then, he suddenly coughed up a giant glob of blood, and fell forwards, tripped over his own two feet –and splitting into two along the jutsu's line of contact.

Blood began to seep into the dry earth, quenching its thirst, and dying it a deep shade of maroon. She scowled at the ninja, before turning back to make sure her brothers were following her.

They had ducked into the cover of one of the alleyways until Temari had cleared a path, in order to prevent the already battered Gaara from sustaining further injury.

Kankurou and Gaara, now walking on his own, gingerly stepped around the corner and approached their sister.

Kankurou was now brandishing a triple set of medium-sized seals on his back, each marked with a different color that seemingly only he understood the meaning of. His expression was grim and unforgiving, and he simply shook his head in disappointment at the body of the Sand citizen that stood before them and passing it by without a second thought.

Gaara followed behind him, a stifled gleam of anger darting around behind his eyes that only his siblings could see. His body was now nearly completely covered in bandages under his clothes, apart from his hands and his face. He had a loose cast on his right arm, and it was wrapped in a red bandage tied around his neck in a small sling.

He had replaced his red shirt with a new one from his wardrobe and the tan cloak he was wearing over it during the attack was substituted for a slate grey armor vest that wrapped over his left shoulder. On his right, he had a gourd – not his gourd, but it would do.

He looked menacing – as menacing as a Kage is supposed to look when defending their village.

Even if the defense was from its own kin.

He walked past his brother and sister and took the lead, a stoic ferocity in his movements as he went.

"Temari. Kankurou." His voice was steel. "Follow me. No doubt those two fools are destroying my tower."

His eyes narrowed as he walked, the blood-soaked sand beneath his feet crunching lightly amidst the sounds of terror and pain all around him.

"I will protect this village. They will pay for their insolence."

Lightning coursed across the sky as rain continued to fall from the heavens, like it always had and always would. As far as the eye could see, nothing but flat ground and a thin layer of water rippling continuously under the heavy downpour was distinguishable.

Grey.

That was the one word that could be used to describe this place – or desolate. Either way, it was certainly an unpleasant place to live, or even travel through.

But the small, shrouded figure in the rain did not mind. After all, he had almost arrived at his destination anyways. And the constant sound of rain-upon-water was soothing, almost; it made him forget all about the hatred and the turmoil of the world.

He chuckled a bit to himself, and two voices came out instead of one, breaking the relaxing white-noise with the sound of breaking glass and an animalistic roar.

He was the hatred and the turmoil of the world.

Well, for this world, anyway.

He shook his head with a disconcerting smile, continuing onwards to his final destination, walking only as fast as he felt like. Time was just another metric for him – one that was inconsequential in the long run. He liked to take things slowly; it seemed to him that the best way to exact revenge on a person was to wait out their pitiful life, and watch in glee as their existence was snuffed out like a candle in the wind.

He had seen it hundreds of times before – as the fear and the hatred and the loathing called out one last time in a sick vengeance, before being silenced by the quick blade of the Shinigami. It was efficient that way, but Kyuubi could still get a moment's pleasure out of the dying moments of the retched filth that populated this world.

He smirked to himself in realization. 'I suppose I understand why your loyalties lie with Jashin, Hidan. It certainly is intoxicating.'

A flash of lightning crashed across the sky again, reminding him of his outside surroundings. Sure, it was dark and bleak and dreary – and also unpopulated. All things that Kyuubi loved above all else. But his goal was nearly in sight – a goal that would finally put an end to his suffering. Everyone's suffering. The world's suffering.

It will be done.

It must be done.

He couldn't help but smile in anticipation at the thought of it. Soon.

Suddenly, his eyes widened, slitted pupils dilating from above the remnants of his clouded cloak. He paused for a moment, soaking in this new feeling, before shuddering with glee.

It was happening.

Finally, his plans were beginning to come to fruition.

"I'm honestly surprised it took those two fools so long. After his death, I was expecting a bit more clamor over the hat," he said to no one in particular.

He grinned with a look of mock respect, lowering his head as he began to walk again. "I suppose you were actually getting through to them after all, Gaara."

He walked again silently for several more minutes, before a small beacon of life pierced the horizon.

Another massive smile erupted across his face as he recognized it as the terminus of his travels.

"Let's get this show on the road, shall we?"