...
04.
ten years old, exultant
...
When Kankurou leaves Suna for a couple months - the first extended trip of his life - Temari is ecstatic. Finally, her training sessions will continue without interruption. The first week is filled with rapid progress: leaps, bounds, and spins, to the point where even her father congratulates her. Well, not in person of course (it seems the only child he's ever had time for is Gaara), but in the form of a congratulatory fruit basket.
It's filled to the brim with delicacies from the Hidden Village of Leaf: oranges and bananas and strawberries and the like, and her heart thuds with joy at the sight.
Love is love is love but she is a kunoichi through and though; she still asks for the maid to take the first bite and then waits a whole day before confirming the lack of poison.
The real problem, of course, was that there was nothing she could do, if the (thankfully benevolent) basket had been poisoned. Yes, she would live to see another day - which seemed to be more than enough some days - but she would have no one to blame. Or rather, everyone to blame. It could have been the perpetually-suspicious Leaf-nin, looking to strike first. It could have been a political enemy of her father's, looking to poison him. It could have been her father, looking to poison her little brother by proxy.
It is a regrettable fact, but she knows she herself could very well have been the target.
In that sense, Kankurou understands her. He understands her and she misses him. They are the Kazekage's two disposable children.
Baki snaps his wrist and sends her flying, breaking her train of thought. His lips curl at her childish pride; she isn't given a chance to defend much less dodge. The combination of gust and dist is unforgiving but Temari manages to find some semblance of footing regardless, using her new fan - twice as large and three times as heavy! - as a windbreaker and returning the current twicefold.
"Pay attention," Baki says, direct as ever.
"I am!" she shouts back, hiding embarrassment with indignation.
In the corner of her eye - but then, he is perpetually at the edge of her vision - she sees it for the first time. The Third Eye, another one of Shuukaku's techniques. It stares at the training scene without blinking and she ends up gargling sand in the inevitable diversion.
"Stand up," Baki commands.
She rises without complaint, swiping her lips with the back of her hand and tightly gripping her fan.
"There's something to be said for temerity," her teacher murmurs, leaping into the misleadingly dead air. She rolls to the side in the nick of time, desperately diving upwards with the fan.
The weapon seems to take a life of its own, flitting through the air and she shrieks in surprise. Nothing coherent comes through though as - as there is no one to call.
And for one, she doesn't care.
"Didja see that? Did you, did you?!" she screams the second the fan touches ground.
"Yes, I did," Baki replies, clapping softly: once, twice, thrice. Temari beams, closing her fan and throwing it in the air. It wasn't a legitimate flight, but for a few brief seconds, she had been suspended in the air, above the sand, above the buildings - above the city, even.
"Your technique needs work."
"I know," she says, still unable to keep the smile from her face.
Temari is ten years old, verging on eleven, and she finally sees potential in herself. Between the fan and the puppets, she and Kankurou can - no, she and Kankurou will be able to -
"Very well," Baki mutters, clapping his hands and motioning towards the village. "That's enough for today. We'll start again at dawn."
"Yes!"
She follows her teacher with a skip in her step.
Forgotten for the moment, Gaara's Third Eye floats for a few minutes more before scattering to the winds.
Sitting in his room in the Kazekage's palace, the youngest son smiles and for once, Shuukaku agrees.
...