So guys...Dragon-chan's back! =] So I've got a lot of catching up to do. I'm really sorry it took so long for me to update, but I've been working hard in the meantime to catch up! Well...here's the next chapter. Enjoy!

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At nine in the evening, Azami's head snapped up as she jerked awake. 'I fell asleep?' She couldn't wrap her mind around the idea that she'd be able to sleep after everything she'd been through and all that had happened to her village.

She rose and headed towards the door of the greenhouse, figuring she'd wait outside for Gaara. As she opened the door and stepped forwards, Gaara entered, and they collided. Azami blushed as she looked up at Gaara, seeing as how their bodies were pressed together, and Gaara put his hand on the back of his neck in embarrassment. They both backed up at the same time.

"S-sorry, Gaara." Azami mumbled.

"I apologize as well." He replied, feeling embarrassed as well. Then, he looked around. "Where's Kameko? I asked Kankurou for antidotes an hour ago, and he never came back. Did she leave?"

"Well, Kankurou got here...but I fell asleep shortly afterwards. I don't know what happened to them."

They looked around the greenhouse, but no one was in sight. Azami's keen ears picked up sounds coming from the shed in the back of the greenhouse, and she walked towards it. She put her ear against the door and listened, and her jaw dropped, her eyebrows knitted together, and her eyes widened. One eye twitched a bit, and Gaara had to turn away to hide his laughter at her expression. When she came back, he had himself under control. "Are they in there?"

"Um...uh..." She coughed. "I, uh...don't think they want to be disturbed. Um...those are the antidotes on the counter, I think."

She walked over to the counter and grabbed the antidotes, and when she turned back to Gaara, she almost smiled at his expression. Apparently, he had just realized why she had made that expression earlier. Azami handed him the antidotes. "We should probably leave."

"Yeah. NOW." He agreed hurriedly, walking over to the door. She assumed that he would be going through first and expecting her to follow, but, contrary to her expectations, he held the door open for her.

"Well...thank you." She said in surprise.

"It's no problem." He answered as she moved past him, shutting the door behind them. "Are you ready to leave?"

"Yeah." She answered. "So, you have everything we need, then?"

"Of course." He replied. "We won't be sleeping, so I haven't brought a tent. Everything else is in this backpack." He motioned to a pack tied to his gourd.

She nodded. "Good. So we'll make it there by Saturday, right?"

"We'll get there on Friday morning." He answered as he led her towards the gates. "That way, we've got one day for me to learn the land and to set up an ambush."

She fell silent as they left the village. 'This is it, then. Saturday's the day. I'll have my revenge, and if everything goes well, I'll be able to die. Gaara won't do it, so...maybe I can get a Sound ninja to do it. I'll trick them into it if they don't do it for me. Well...it all goes down on Saturday.'

Gaara's voice interrupted her thoughts about two miles from Suna. "What can you tell me about your village?"

"Well...the right and back are blocked from attack by cliffs. There's a river to the left, about a hundred yards from the village, but since we can walk on water, it doesn't really matter. There's nothing in the front to stop or impede them. It's just forest."

Gaara nodded. "Which way did they come in?"

"I don't know." She swallowed. "One second we were all laughing, and the next we were screaming, crying, or dead. It was like they had just appeared everywhere in one second."

He looked at her sadly. "Was it genjutsu?"

"No." She shook her head. "We were just unprepared for an attack by a shinobi nation." She laughed, but he heard the sadness in it and knew that it bordered on hysteria. "But then again, why would we be? We were a non-shinobi country, except for my family. How did we know to prepare for an attack by that kind of slime?!"

He put his hand on her shoulderblades. "You didn't." She looked up in surprise, and he moved his hand off her shoulders self-consciously, but he continued. "I don't know the whole story, but there were only three full-fledged ninja in your village, right? You and your parents were the only ones that would've been capable of defending anyone. Against the Sound ninja, it's a miracle that even one of you survived."

She looked down, and tears formed in her eyes. "Two of us survived the attack."

"What?" He asked in surprise.

"Yeah...me and Kuwabara Masayoshi. He...Masa survived it, but...I don't know how. His stomach...he was cut up so badly, it looked like raw meat. It was...it was terrible." The tears began to fall down her face. "I don't know how he lived in the first place, but...I couldn't save him. If I had only known a medical jutsu...I might've kept him alive."

Gaara, meanwhile, had no idea what to say to that. He was the Kazekage of his village, yes, and he had made great strides in his personality, but he had never seen anyone cry before. Instinctively, though, he knew what to do.

He stopped in front of her and put his hands on her shoulders. She looked up at him in surprise, directly into his usually troubled aquamarine eyes. He looked back down into her tear-filled emerald eyes, and his eyes widened as he felt the stirrings of attachment deep within his cracked heart. Then, he smiled at her and pulled her into a hug. "You did everything you could."

"How do you know?!" She sobbed hysterically, breaking down into sobs thanks to the strong arms she felt around her, despite all of her unwillingness to show emotion in front of such an influential ninja. His strength brought out her weaknesses as she sobbed bitterly into his shoulder. "You weren't even there! I could have saved them, but I went after Yoshihiro instead! I went after one person instead of saving the people that I could! I should've known better! I'm a ninja! No, actually, I'm not! I don't deserve to call myself that!" She wailed. "I'm a failure!"

"Azami." Gaara said solemnly, pulling away to look directly and sternly into her eyes. "You are a better ninja than over half the shinobi in Suna, and I don't know any kunoichi that are tougher than you. Even Temari, my sister, would most likely lose to you in a fight. None of them know the pain of loss like you do, not even myself. When you are able to cope with this tragedy, you will become a greater ninja than anyone else in Suna. Including myself."

She looked up into his eyes with tears flowing down her face incessantly. "Gaara...thank you. But I don't want to be a great ninja. I don't even want to be alive. How could I defend a village...when I couldn't even defend my little brother?"

Leaving him standing in the path, she resumed their pace towards Konoha.

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Poor Sachi...but poor Gaara, too! Never knowing exactly what to say to her, somehow not being able to stop her crying...poor guy =[

But I bet he gets better with time =]

BD333, out!