New Wind Nation: Alliance

by Kyogre

AU. Hidden Sand genin Naruto has gained a good friend in Gaara, but now he and the entire village are facing a new crisis. It's a race to convince their leader to abandon his plans of an invasion, or they just might find themselves on the brink of a new war. (Sequel to New Wind Nation.)

7. Interlude

/~/~

Title: New Wind Nation: Alliance

Chapter 7: Interlude ~ The Closer You Are

Notes: Meanwhile, in the Sand Village.

/~/~

"Did you know about this?" Kankuro demanded. Baki sighed.

Kankuro had rushed off to find his team leader as soon as he managed to pull himself out of his stupor, following Naruto's - and "Kaze's" - departure. He still couldn't quite believe that had happened. Why, why would the Kazekage go off like that, right before such an important operation? And with Naruto of all people!

"If you mean your father's decision… then yes," Baki said, his dry tone making it clear how little he agreed with said decision. "He informed the council that he would be unreachable for a period of time, but that he would return in time to commence the operation. He didn't provide any explanation about his whereabouts during that time, but I could guess."

"Is, is this really okay?" Kankuro wondered.

"The council led the village before, after the Third Kazekage vanished," Baki said. "We have enough power to do so, if necessary." It would, however, be better if it wasn't necessary.

Sighing heavily, Kankuro ran his hands over his face, as if trying to wipe away his weariness. "Are we seriously supposed to just wait until they come back?" he muttered. "This is… Naruto's crazy, but I agree, you know? I don't want to go to war."

'But what can I do? If Naruto can't change Father's mind, no one can...' Kankuro thought.

"The council has quite a bit of power," Baki repeated. Glancing at his student, he smiled rather slyly. "Not more than the Kazekage, of course, but… enough to make things very difficult for him. Too difficult to be worth it. I have no intention of just standing by and waiting. I don't know what sort of insanity Naruto managed to instil in the Kazekage, but we have an opening, while he's gone. We can move freely - this is our chance."

Kankuro stared at him in surprise. "Can that work? I mean, Father must have convinced the council, to be able to go forward with something like invading one of the five great villages," he said. "They're not going to just change their minds…"

"They're not convinced, for the most part. They simply didn't want to cause instability within the village with internal disputes," Baki said, shaking his head. "If the councilors and the Kazekage are at odds, the village will weaken even further. A few agree with the Kazekage's decision, that this is the best and only option left, a few disagree, but the rest can still be swayed."

"Not by you or me though," Kankuro pointed out, crossing his arms. If Naruto had been there, he would have already accused his teammate of being a bad-tempered downer without a single slice of joy in his life.

Baki didn't disagree, but he didn't look ready to give in either. "Where is Gaara?" he asked instead.

'Are you planning to have him threaten them into cooperation?' Kankuro wondered. '...Well, I suppose it could work.'

/~/~

"There's no need," Gaara declared, after they explained their plan to him. "Naruto said he'd take care of it. There's no need to do anything else."

Kankuro facepalmed, while Baki sighed again. "It's good that you have faith in your friend," the jonin said, and wasn't it a weird thought, that Gaara had a friend, "but we need to do our part too. It's important to provide all the support we can."

'That kid… his passion and determination are impressive, but his thinking and planning skills are abysmal,' Baki thought. 'If we leave it all up to him, the village is doomed.'

Gaara frowned. "Later," he said. "I'm busy now."

"Doing what? We're on standby," Kankuro pointed out. And it wasn't like Gaara talked to anyone that wasn't Naruto.

"I'm going to mentor a trainee," Gaara replied seriously. "I submitted my application at the administrative office, and there was a reply."

"They assigned you someone?" Kankuro asked. 'I guess they were too afraid to send him away. I wonder which poor brat they decided to throw under the horse.'

"No, a girl volunteered," Gaara said, shooting Kankuro a rather dirty look, for him. He could guess what his brother was thinking. "I'm meeting her for training this afternoon."

"Uh, I know Naruto suggested it, but is that really a good idea?" Kankuro said. "I mean…" 'The kid's more likely to have a heart attack than learn anything from you.'

Surprisingly, Baki offered Gaara a faint smile. "Teaching someone is a good way of refining one's own skills," he said. "It gives an outside perspective and lets you see things you would otherwise be blind to. Temari advanced quite a bit by mentoring Naruto. It's after that she was able to make the advancement to chunin. I'm sure you'll be able to learn much as well."

'How to better interact with other people, for example,' Baki added mentally. 'Gaara will need to begin integrating into the normal forces at some point, after all.'

Gaara nodded and flickered out of sight in a swirl of sand.

"I'm going to make some inquiries, send out some feelers," Baki said, also departing quickly.

"Great," Kankuro muttered. "And what am I supposed to do?"

He sighed, looking around at the half-full streets. Normally, being on essentially leave for a month would have sounded like a nice vacation, a chance to relax, maybe work on his puppets. But how could he relax with the threat of war hanging over his head? So should he train?

But what good would it do? Kankuro wasn't the type who could make a leap between tiers just like that. His level wouldn't change so easily. If he ended up outclassed once hostilities broke out, training a bit now wouldn't do any good.

Still, Kankuro wasn't like Gaara. He couldn't just trust that Naruto would sort it out somehow. He had to at least try something, instead of just sitting around!

'What a Naruto-like thought,' Kankuro realized, making a face. He sighed again. 'But maybe that's all anyone can do at this point. So what would Naruto try?'

Well, Naruto had Gaara to brute force whatever he wanted…

A powerful ally… Powerful enough to sway the council…

'There's someone like that,' Kankuro thought. His face went blank. 'But is she really going to listen to me?'

...Did he have any choice but to try?

/~/~

Gaara waited, outwardly expressionless, at one of the empty training fields scattered across the village. Inwardly, he couldn't help but feel nervous and somewhat suspicious. There were so many ways this could go badly. What if no one came? What if the girl came and just laughed at him for thinking he could be a mentor? What if she got scared and ran away? What if they tried to train together and he hurt her by accident?

"U-um…" A soft voice pulled him out of his thoughts.

A girl about Gaara's age, with short brown hair and mismatched colorful clothing, was peering around an archway leading into the training ground. As Gaara's gaze fell on her, she straightened abruptly, hands clutched to her chest.

"Are you Matsuri?" Gaara asked, studying her closely. She looked too timid to be an assassin or to be playing a joke on him. But he supposed it wasn't a good idea to judge by appearance.

"Y-yes! Thank you for taking the time to meet me, Gaara-sempai!" she exclaimed in a rush, bowing deeply. "Even though I'm inexperienced and unskilled, I promise I'll work hard!"

Sempai was what Naruto had called Temari. Gaara thought he could get used to the way it sounded.

"I will do my best to instruct you as well," Gaara replied. Putting on what he thought was his best approximation of an instructor face - not that anyone except Naruto would be able to tell the difference - he said, "First, tell me about your specialization."

"I… don't really have one," Matsuri mumbled, scuffing one foot against the ground.

Gaara's brow furrowed a little. "Then what weapon do you usually use?"

"I… don't really use any," she said, twiddling her fingers. In the heavy silence that followed, she scrambled to explain, "It's just… weapons are scary! I don't like them. And I don't want to kill or hurt anyone! S-so…"

Kankuro would have probably asked what she thought she was doing, training to become a shinobi, with an attitude like that, but Gaara only frowned a little. "Weapons are…" he began, pausing to gather his thoughts, "...not just for hurting others. Weapons can protect too." He nodded to himself. "I am a weapon, but I will protect my… friend and this village."

He glanced uncertainly at Matsuri, who was staring at him with wide eyes. "O-oh!" she stammered. "Yes! That's… what I'd like too." They shared a smile, though Gaara's was only a faint twitch of the lips. "That's why I wanted to train with Gaara-sama," Matsuri confided. "All the instructors said that, if you want to defeat an opponent without killing them, you need to be much stronger than they are. And Gaara-sama is the strongest, so…"

There was something not quite right about her logic, but Gaara didn't comment on that either. "...To start with, we'll go over your basics," he decided. "And then we can work on some traps with ninja wire, for binding."

"Yes, Gaara-sempai!" Matsuri saluted enthusiastically.

'That'll give me time to ask someone what else I should do,' Gaara thought, his expression showing none of his uncertainty. 'What does teaching someone even entail…?'

He probably should have thought of that beforehand, but being friends with Naruto and learning from him had to have some downsides too.

/~/~

Clinging to the wall, Kankuro glanced around warily. There was probably no reason to act so suspicious - he wasn't technically doing anything wrong. The inner complex wasn't off-limits, as such. Every shinobi of Hidden Sand was free to go there. It was just that none ever did.

...Except for the two retired shinobi who spent all their time there. They had claimed the place as theirs, and no one dared to bother the "honored siblings" - possibly out of fear for their lives.

Narrowing his eyes, Kankuro studied the two hunched elderly figures sitting beside the meditation pool. One of them had what looked like a fishing pole and line extended into the water, which was both disrespectful of the rare commodity that was water in a desert and completely pointless since there were definitely no fish in the decorative pool.

"Sister," the old man called in a low voice, "you haven't moved in a while. Are you still alive?"

There was no reply from the old woman across from him.

"Sister, did you die…?" the old man wondered.

The old woman burst out laughing, making both her brother and Kankuro jump in surprise. "I fooled ya!" she cackled. "I'm just playing dead. And it seems I got one extra in my joke this time. What did you think of my prank, boy?"

She turned to look straight at Kankuro, who reluctantly abandoned his hiding place and approached the two elders.

"It was very well timed, Chiyo-obaasama," Kankuro said, trying to keep the dry sarcasm out of his tone. "Even Ebizo-ojiisama was surprised."

"Peh, that old idiot is always surprised, no matter how many times I do it," Chiyo said dismissively. "So what did you come here for, boy? You're a puppeteer, aren't you? Were you hoping for some special advice from the master? Well, too bad! I ain't training some wet behind the ears brat!"

Chiyo began to cackle again, quickly wearing down Kankuro's nerves. "That's not what I came for!" he snapped, quickly adding, "...though I and everyone in the village have the greatest respect for your prodigious skills, Chiyo-obaasama." His obvious struggle to control himself made Chiyo snicker. "What I came to speak with you about," Kankuro stubbornly forged on, "was the upcoming operation - the joint invasion of Hidden Leaf, together with Hidden Sound."

"I ain't participating either," Chiyo waved him away. "These bones are too old to go running around in the field."

Ebizo nodded. "We've withdrawn from the affairs of the village," he agreed. "Our time has passed. It's up to the new generation now."

"I don't want you to participate. I want you to help stop it," Kankuro said, frowning. "We'll be starting a war! You know better than anyone how terrible the wars have been, how much damage they caused the village. If you spoke out against the invasion, the council and even the Kazekage would reconsider. Please!"

He bowed deeply, keeping his head down even as the silence stretched on.

Even before Chiyo spoke, he knew his request had failed.

"We told you, boy, we've retired. If that fool of a Kage wants to take the village to war, that's his choice," Chiyo said, losing her earlier humor. "And what do I care? If anything I'm glad those Leaf bastards will get what's coming to them."

"So you're just going to abandon the village?! Don't you care at all anymore?!" Kankuro burst out.

"That's right. I don't care about anything," Chiyo snapped, pointedly turning back to her fishing pole. "If there's anything left that I want… it's just to see my grandson's face one more time."

"If that's all you want, then go find your missing-nin of a grandson," Kankuro shot back. "Didn't you hear? He abandoned this village! Just like you!"

He knew immediately that he had gone too far. Chiyo's hand twitched, and Kankuro suddenly found his own arm moving. His hand snapped up, holding one of his kunai to his jugular.

"Watch your mouth!" Chiyo commanded. "Do you know how many impudent brats I've killed for less?"

Every self-preservation instinct he had was screaming at Kankuro to just shut up, to apologize and get away as quickly as possible. He should have never come there in the first place…

But he came for a reason.

"Yeah, and just think how many you'll be killing by doing nothing at all," Kankuro said.

"Chiyo!" Ebizo called out, just as his sister's fingers twitched. Fortunately for Kankuro, it was enough.

She clicked her tongue, but the chakra strings that had been manipulating Kankuro released, and he was able to quickly move the kunai away from his neck. "Get out of here," Chiyo ordered, "before I stop caring whether you're that impudent Kazekage's son."

Kankuro was all too happy to obey, quickly turning on his heel and hurrying away. But for some reason, he only made it a few steps before hesitating.

"Your grandson… Sasori of the Red Sand. He was a great puppeteer," Kankuro said quietly. "I really admire his work. But he's gone now. No one knows where he is or if he's even alive. Our village is still here. We're all still here. Doesn't that count for something?"

Chiyo was silent.

"I heard your son was killed in the Second War, and Sasori disappeared during the Third," Kankuro pressed on. "I'm sorry, but there's nothing anyone can do about that. All we can do is stop it from happening to anyone else. I just… I just want to protect my family - my sister, my brother. Can't you understand that?"

He waited for a reply, but receiving none, Kankuro sighed and began to walk away once more.

Once his footsteps faded away, Ebizo turned to look at his sister. "Are you sure, Chiyo? Maybe we could humor the boy."

"Hmph. If we do that, the next generation will never learn to solve their own problems," Chiyo said. "And like I told him, there's nothing left for me in this village anymore."

'I just want to protect my family...'

Clicking her tongue irritably, she ignored the words echoing in her mind.

/~/~

"Baki-sensei," Gaara said - politely, or so he thought - appearing in a swirl of sand.

Baki and the councilor he had been speaking to both jumped, badly startled, and turned to stare at him. Recovering quickly, Baki just sighed, but the other councilor remained tense, edging away and reaching for his hidden weapons. It was one thing to hear that Gaara was no longer a walking explosive tag, but it was much harder to believe.

"What do you need, Gaara?" Baki asked. He knew that, with the boy's straight forward personality, he wouldn't have come without a reason.

"The trainee I'm mentoring, Matsuri, and I want to find a way to use weapons to protect, without killing or hurting," Gaara said, completely serious.

Baki closed his eyes. Kankuro would have surely said something about naivety, and even Naruto hadn't managed to come up with something so preposterous yet, but Baki knew better than to laugh or berate Gaara. "...I see," he said instead, thinking carefully. "In that case, you'll want to study methods of binding. You can start training her with something like a rope or sash. Practice the movements with your sand. It should have the same principle."

Gaara listened attentively, his expression intent and thoughtful. "I see. Thank you, Baki-sensei," he said.

"I-In our village, Cloth Binding is the most common and effective, but it might be too difficult for a trainee," the other councilor added nervously. "You can drop by their school and ask for some… tips." In another situation, a shinobi would have been berated for such ridiculous goals - a weapon that doesn't kill or harm? - but with Gaara, controlled and not murderous could only be a step up.

"Thank you," Gaara repeated. "...Sorry for intruding."

'He learned a new one,' Baki thought, as Gaara departed as quickly as he had come.

"That's a new one," the other councilor said, shaking his head. "He really is acting quite differently. To turn Shukaku's jinchuriki around is an impressive feat, Baki."

Being able to boast such an accomplishment might have given Baki's words more weight, but he corrected the other man, "It wasn't my doing. The other genin on my team, who tagged along on our missions… He changed Gaara's outlook and mindset. In the end, I couldn't do anything. None of us could."

He looked out across the panorama of the village at sunset. The pale domes were dyed red, almost as if bloodstained, and the shadows were a deep black. It was fitting. A shinobi village was always build on blood and darkness. That was the way they had always done things, the only way they knew.

"None of us were able to do anything," Baki repeated. "All we did was create burdens that we're forcing on the next generation. I don't want to add to that burden further. If war breaks out… those kids are the ones who are going to suffer the most. And aren't we trying to save the village for their sake in the first place?"

The other councilor was silent for several moments, before finally sighing. "You got me," he said, smiling wryly. "For the future generation…"

/~/~

The next day, Matsuri found herself suddenly, unexpectedly popular. The other trainees crowded around her, many with expressions of concern.

"Are you okay?" Sari asked, grabbing Matsuri's hands in her own.

"What happened? With… you know," Yukata added, pushing the other girl aside.

Both were popular - pretty and strong - and had never spoken to Matsuri before except to make fun of her. "You mean Gaara-sempai?" Matsuri asked, feeling rather lost. "Well, he had me go through everything, to see what my level was, and then we practiced making wire traps…"

Given the unsatisfied expressions on the faces of the two girls and the other trainees, that wasn't what they wanted to hear about.

"I mean, did he… do anything to you?" Sari's voice dropped to a conspiratorial whisper.

"Did he turn into a demon? Did he use his sand?" Yukata insisted, more loudly.

Matsuri frowned, a look that immediately made the crowd around her stare in surprise. "Gaara-sempai isn't like that!" she said sharply. "He's very nice and thoughtful! He's a great mentor!"

Huffing angrily, she pushed past them and stalked onto the training field.

"Wow," Sari muttered, "I didn't know she had it in her."

"Yeah. That wallflower?" Yukata added, shaking her head. "She must really like him."

They exchanged a look, then giggled, blushing a little. 'Really, really like him!'

/~/~

"This is stupid. Why do I have to do this?" Kankuro muttered to himself, trudging after Gaara with a sullen look.

He had meant it as a rhetorical question - more of what Naruto called his whining - but Gaara heard him and said over his shoulder, "Because Matsuri needs a sparring partner, and my sand shield moves automatically. It's unhelpful. You can just use your puppet, so you don't have to put in much effort."

Kankuro narrowed his eyes in an annoyed glare. He was pretty sure Gaara understood perfectly well that he didn't want an explanation and was making fun of him.

"Gaara-sempai! And you must be Kankuro-san. Thank you very much for helping with my training," Matsuri greeted them, bowing deeply.

"He doesn't mind," Gaara declared before Kankuro could say anything. He expertly ignored Kankuro's dirty look.

"At least she's cute," Kankuro muttered under his breath. "Figures you'd get a cute one. No justice in this world…"

Gaara looked at him blankly, and it suddenly occurred to Kankuro to wonder who would have given him 'that' talk, if anyone ever did.

Kankuro was not a brave man, as evidenced by the fact that he immediately mentally dumped that particular problem on Baki. He would be sure to bring it up next time he saw the man. It was either that, or leave it to Naruto.

/~/~

Gaara had approached mentoring Matsuri in nonlethal binding with a methodical determination. As suggested, he had tracked down a specialist in the Cloth Binding jutsu - a young chunin named Maki, who had startled to be approached, but managed to not show the same sort of blind fear that most shinobi had toward Gaara - who confirmed that manipulating cloth with chakra was a high-level technique, well beyond Matsuri's current skill.

However, Maki agreed to show him some of the movements involved, which Gaara dutifully replicated with his sand. She also suggested having Matsuri start practicing.

"Something like a rope or a chain," she said thoughtfully. "They're heavier, so you don't need to constantly run chakra through them to use them as weapons, but you can still do that to get a feel for it."

Given Matsuri's rather lacking upper body strength, Gaara decided - after dutifully thanking Maki - that a rope would be best. He went through the common armory, drawing bewildered stares from the staff there as well, and chose a johyo - a rope dart.

It was a good choice, as Matsuri quickly proved by tangling up all of Karasu's limbs, tipping the puppet over and leaving it to roll around helplessly. Kankuro muttered something about that being useless against a puppeteer, but since he was supposed to be pretending that Karasu was just a normal shinobi for Matsuri to practice on, he couldn't exactly detach its parts and send them flying autonomously either.

When Matsuri turned to him excitedly, Gaara seemed to remember to praise her. His tone was rather stiff, but the girl didn't notice.

Starting from the second day of their training, what seemed like half the village had dropped by to check on Matsuri and Gaara. First, it was Matsuri's fellow trainees. Then, some of the chunin from the armory and others they had gossiped with. Then, a couple of instructors, after Matsuri started showing off what she was learning. Then, a couple of council members, who heard from Baki. Then, about two-fifth of the village population, who heard about it through the grapevine.

Then, Chiyo.

If anyone had noticed, Chiyo would have denied all interest in any snot-nosed brat, kicked the unfortunate witness in the shin and run off cackling. However, Chiyo was still far too good to get spotted when she didn't want to be seen, and she was able to observe the trio in peace.

Peace - what a thought. They were really were, all three of them, brats born to peace. Even Gaara, who was created as a weapon, who had become the last remnant of another era, had not been put through the rigors of war, and when he patiently, somewhat perplexedly tried to figure out how bind instead of break, his expression was too soft for anything but a child of peacetime.

It was all foolishness. They were all fools.

But sometimes, Chiyo would get lost in her thoughts, and her gaze would grow unfocused. Then, that shock of red hair looked nostalgically familiar, combined with that dancing puppet. Karasu had been one of Sasori's - Sasori who had inherited his father's and grandfather's red hair.

Sasori, who had lost his parents in the Second War to the Leaf's White Fang. That wound had never healed. In that, Chiyo had been unable to do anything for her grandson, and despite being their most promising young shinobi, he had abandoned the village early in the Third War.

She had never been able to do anything for Sasori. That was why she hadn't even tried to chase after him - not even out of loyalty to their village, but the belief that it would change nothing. Kankuro had been right, in a way. Chiyo didn't care about the village anymore, not the way she used to. There was nothing left for her in Sand, except her brother, who had become just as old and shriveled as she.

'I just want to protect my family. Can't you understand that?'

"I couldn't even protect my own family," Chiyo said quietly to herself. "How am I supposed to help you protect yours?"

Down on the training field, Matsuri had tangled Karasu again, but she misjudged her follow up pull and swing, sending the puppet flying toward Gaara by accident. Gaara didn't even bat an eyelash, as his sand automatically reacted to protect him. Kankuro was the one who screeched angrily, complaining about his puppet getting banged up and sand in its joints. Matsuri apologized profusely, backed up by Gaara's flat, unimpressed stare.

The only thing she had ever been able to do for even Sasori was teach him her art…

'I just want to protect my family.'

Chiyo's mouth twisted into an annoyed scowl. "Fine!" she hissed to no one in particular. "Fine then! But just this once!"

'Let's see if you can succeed where I failed, boy,' she thought, with one last glance at the children running around the training ground.

/~/~

When the council reconvened, following an urgent, sealed message from the Kazekage, the atmosphere had shifted. There was tension, but also grim determination in the air - as if before a hard, slogging but unavoidable, vital war campaign. Except that the war, Baki was sure, would be against their own leader, a guerrilla one at that.

"Your students are doing well for themselves," one of the other councilors commented as they took their seats. "You're quite a talented teacher. First Temari catching the daimyo's attention, now Kankuro apprenticing under Chiyo-sama… The other two seem to be well also."

"Apprenticing" was not a word Kankuro would have agreed with - Chiyo had used her chakra strings to drag him, shrieking, out of bed one morning, dumped him a manure pile and then declared that he was late for their lesson. Kankuro insisted that he had never been told of any lesson and that the old woman was the devil incarnate.

But "apprenticing" was what the village grapevine had gotten out of the situation, and it had raised Kankuro's - and subsequently Baki's - standing quite a bit. The council had been trying to convince Chiyo to pass on her skills for years, decades even, so they were quite eager to see the training continue.

Last Baki had heard, Kankuro was alternating between moaning in pain from Chiyo's sadistic methods and threatening to poison himself just to get away from her.

It was an especially stark contrast to Gaara's calm and patient demeanor as a trainee mentor - which had drawn almost as much attention, if in a more understated way.

"Yes, they have all been successful in their own ways," Baki said vaguely. He just hoped Naruto had been successful in his own mission.

"Then, let's begin. I will now unseal the missive," an elder councilor announced, holding up the message scroll. He flipped through a long series of hand seals, which were required to unlock the scroll, before finally carefully unrolling it.

The message inside was penned in sharp, curt strokes. The Kazekage had not wasted words either. "Returning shortly. Chunin Exams to be held in Hidden Sand."

/~/~

Q&A:

Actually, I don't have any questions to answer.

/~/~