Got a nifty cover image. Credit to Malleni-Stock on deviantART.

Chapter 6: What doth thee hath to say for thyself?

A pair of burly guards came to fetch me much sooner than I hoped they would. They hauled me to my feet immediately, shackling my hands behind my back before I was even given the chance to groggily rub my eyes.

Roughly, I was escorted out of the prison. The stars still twinkled brightly above our heads. What time was it? It was difficult for me to make out much more than very vague, dark shapes. Both guards noticed this and chuckled.

"Watch where you step, boy," One gruffly taunted.

The other pitched in, "You need not worry about him. His skin is so white it glows!"

"Heh, one would expect them to know their way in the dark anyway, eh? The trembling little philosophers spend their entire fragile lives in the shadows of their offices... never see the light of day!"

"The luck is on his side today. If he had been summoned any later, when the sun had arisen, he would have been burnt to a crisp before our very eyes!"

Both rattled with laughter.

I rolled my eyes, maintaining my usual look of utter boredom as they picked back up on mocking Konoha.

Instead of even bothering to listen to what they were saying, I took this brief moment to reflect and solidify my thoughts and decisions from the previous night.

I hadn't quite been myself the past few days, and I was absolutely sick of it. Sick of being clueless, sick of being surprised, sick of acting like a young girl swooning over the village heartthrob... I was ready to be my intelligent, stable, apathetic self again. Actually, I never should have left that state.

To ask what caused this would be more ignorant of me than what I had already subjected myself to.

Yes, I knew that it was my fault that I had reacted in such a manner, but that wouldn't stop me from blaming the object that triggered my reaction: that troublesome woman.

During the previous night I formed for myself one definite goal. I was not going to get more attached to Temari than I already was. I planned to completely, emotionally separate myself from her.

A sigh of relief escaped my lips. I wouldn't have to deal with this new internal struggle for much longer. I would be alone with my normal thoughts soon.

Thus, when we approached a long, intimidating building, one designed specifically to make the guilty want to confess, I felt completely at ease. I was confident these bull-headed Sunans had nothing up their sleeves that I couldn't deflect, twist, or dodge with the right choice of words.

The building was lit dimly with several interesting Sunan oil lamps. I might have observed one more closely, to figure out how it functioned, had I not been rushed out of the main room, down a narrow hallway, and into a room that had consumed any and all light into pitch-black darkness.

I couldn't help but smirk to myself. They had planned so far ahead into my arrival that they hadn't even needed to check in with the officers that would be dealing with me. They were all there waiting on me, the star of their show. I must have been categorized as an immediate threat to gain such treatment.

A normal man would probably have panicked when stepping into such darkness, not even knowing where the men handling him were taking him. He may have believed he was being led strait to his execution, or to a torture chamber. I, on the other hand, had out ruled these options as soon as the guards came for me this morning. It was obvious the hate between Konoha and Suna went both ways. If I was going to meet my end here, Suna would definitely do it publicly, to further convince its citizens that they were clearly on top of things. Heh.

A large pair of rough hands on my shoulders marched me across the room, and forced me to sit down on a wobbly clay stool. The object was probably the furthest thing in the room away from the door. They wouldn't let me have an easy escape route, now would they?

Abruptly, the door was slammed shut, depriving my eyes the aid of light, save for the thin strip which leaked from the bottom of the door. I was shrouded in dense silence and darkness. Though the room showed all signs that I was left alone, I sensed another's presence.

Well, then, I mused to myself, looks like I will get to satisfy my curiosity for the Sunan law system soon. I was probably going to be the first Konohian to experience it in over a century, assuming that previous Kohonians unfortunate enough to cross paths with Sunans had been 'executed' on the spot.

With a sudden, startling spark of fire, the room was lit almost immediately. A muscular man, wearing apparel that suggested he was just about to go spar in the dunes with an equally burly man, sat himself smugly across from me, setting one of those oil lamps on the table in between us.

Leaning one meaty arm on to the table between us, his dark eyes bored into my Konohian features. "Shikamaru! Derived from the swine of Konoha…"

"Present." I replied dully.

Looking away from me with a snort, the man muttered, "It has been a long time since I have had to deal with the likes of your kind… thought you boy-lovers had even died out once, until now…" He paused to turn and stare at me intently, "Now I see that you pansies have just been hiding yourselves from us. What have you been up to, behind the confines of your cowardly walls?"

"Oh, thou knoweth, just hiding from the plague."

Another snort. And he called my people pigs… "Clever, you think of yourself, boy?"

"I think of myself not often," I drawled, "I am familiar enough with the mechanics of my body, I have not much use of brooding over it."

He stalked behind me with slow, angry steps. I didn't bother to turn my head to look at him. After a brief moment of silence, he spoke, "Yes, I understand. Wasting any power of the mind on you at all would be useless…"

I spoke before I could stop myself, "Then wherefore art thou bothering with me?"

His nose scrunched with concentration and distaste as he deciphered what I was asking. Thick accents make for easy annoyances, I noted. "Because you had to go and sidle up to Lady Temari," He answered exasperatedly, "When you could have with ease let yourself be buried beneath the dunes."

"My apologies for clinging to life." Temari? That's the only reason they cared about why I was here? Perhaps it would be in my best interests to start plotting against this kingdom, as it no longer seemed too challenging a task… I required more information.

"Well you most certainly have clung to the wrong life this time," he man dragged his feet back to the opposite side of the table grunting, "And with certainty I know you have done more than just cling to her."

I raised a single eyebrow in defiance. Though I had never witnessed it firsthand, I knew that woman had to be a killer, or at least one in the making. There was no way a firebrand like that would have let me do something undesirable to her. The officer must have known this too. So why press the matter? Did they think he was… manipulating her, somehow? Influencing her opinions? Doubtful yes, but not as absurd as the first option.

The muscles in the man's arms flexed as he braced them on the table separating us. Lowering himself into the empty stool the stood there, he waved a broad hand and informed me smugly, "Why not just save your ass the trouble and tell me the truth? Let us hear it now, so we will not have to clean your innards out of the torture chambers later."

Right. Torture chambers. Those would be fairly high on my list of things to avoid. But, I couldn't give him what he wanted so quickly. He knew as well as I that as soon as he got what he was after that I would be sentenced to death. So, I questioned evasively, "What variety of truth art thou searching for?"

"Do not play dumb, boy," he huffed, "It will bring you less pain to rid your soul of deceit here and now." So you can die with a clean conscience when we execute you, I filled in the words on my own.

I opened my mouth to counter his words, but something caught my eye. A shadow had fallen over the strip of light that leaked from the bottom of the door. It was rocking back and forth, as if nervous and alert. Someone was listening in on us?

The man who sat across from me, oblivious to the shadow under the door behind him, asked smugly, "Finally out of excuses, kid? Now let us hear it. Go on."

I brushed off the shadow, for the time being, as another officer checking in on the interrogation. But there was still something… unsettling about it.

The Sunan's interrogation had progressed with little to no success. The man seemed equally as stubborn as I. We played our little game of cat and mouse for several hours, but neither of us managed to worm any useful information out of the other. I suppose, even if he was never going to break me, I had to give credit to him for knowing when to keep his own mouth shut. In the back of my mind, I wondered if other officers were as well-trained as this one.

The shadow that lurked behind the closed door had left after an indefinite amount of time.

The officer, however, still sat across from me, arms crossed and face pinched, barely masking his annoyance with how these questioning was going. I simply looked back at him with a practiced blank expression like he'd been asking what the weather was suppose to be like that day.

Just then, as if making a point that we'd been at this for too long, my stomach rumbled obnoxiously.

I offered a small frown to the official. I hadn't had anything decent to eat in a long time. It was only those wretched scorpions that the woman, the very same one they were questioning me about, shared with me that kept my hunger at bay, and they could hardly be called a meal.

In return he gave me a sneer, from which I deduced he was about to use this new information against me. "H—"

Before he could finish his sentence, or even start it really, the door slammed open with a loud bang.

"Where is he?" a familiar voice bellowed, "What have you—"

The owner of the voice stopped as his eyes met mine. Though he now wore a helmet and amour of sorts, I could still recognize him thanks to those purple tribal markings. Kankuro looked none too pleased with me.

Even so, he turned and spat at the man who I had just recently spent quite an impressive amount of time with, "He is still here? What is wrong with you? A simple task this was! Extract the confession by any means and sentence him! That was all you were assigned to do!"

My questioner looked rather peeved himself, "My apologies, Sir Kankuro, but I work in a way that Suna can be proud of. I understand you might be delighted to do otherwise—"

"Suna has enough to pride herself on! What she needs is streets clean of Konohian filth! I don't care how the goal is accomplished, as long as it has been in the end! Do you understand, soldier?"

The man gave the king's brother a dark expression.

"Then you are dismissed."

The king's brother might as well have said, 'Get the fuck out.' My interrogator glared at him as he made a slow exit, giving me the feeling Kankuro was going to get an earful from his brother when he got out of here. It probably wouldn't be the first time either.

"Now," his voice resumed, "Let us just make this fast so I can hurry up and get to destroying you. What have you done to Temari?"

I nearly rolled my eyes. Unlike the previous man to question me, Kankuro lacked any and all stealth skills. "As exciting as that sounds," I replied, "I regreteth to inform thou that I hath done not a thing to her."

A brawny hand snatched the front of my shirt and lifted me out of my seat to be face to face with this brute. I heard the faint ripping of fabric before Kankuro snarled, "Our other officer might not have had the guts to touch you, but I have no problem with dealing with you properly."

The man may have not been stealthy, but I had to hand it to him, he knew his intimidation tactics. Although, looking deeper into this subject, I found that he looked incredibly too flustered to just be doing this out of hate for Konohians. No, if that were the case, I'm sure he would have smiled. A smiling murderer was much more frightening than a frowning one. There was no humor in his eyes, only raw anger. I wondered… would this have to do with his relationship with Temari? I had previously assumed that she was his wife, but I supposed hearing it from him would be good for keeping my facts strait.

Still dangling in his grasp, I sighed, "Wherefore art thou so concerned about this woman anyway?"

If his eyes were lit with anger before, now they were drowning in flames of fury. "She is my sister! Why would I not care after her?! What kind of savages do you think Sunans are?! We are not like your kind, we do not treat women like cattle!"

I blinked. Oh. I was… not expecting that. I knew of the possibility, but the three of them looked much too different to be siblings. I had crossed that option out right away. Well, at least I knew now. Absentmindedly, I wondered if she was married at all.

Not that I cared.

Kankuro tightened his grip on my shirt, knuckles coming dangerously close to cutting off my air supply. He grit out between his teeth, "Now out with it, little boy. If your lips remain shut, there are a few contraptions I have just finished constructing and I am dying to try them out." His grip tightened even further, knuckles turning white, "Or should I say you will be dying to try them out?"

My brain was already formulating an array of plans to get out of this mess. One involved smacking the king's brother in the nose, then quickly wriggling out of my shirt and bolting. That wouldn't work, even if there were no guards outside the doors to stop him, he'd end up rotting in the desert. Another plan involved—

There was a rapid knock at the door.

"Be gone with you! I am in the middle of something here!" Kankuro growled, turning his head towards the door.

The knocker, ignoring his orders, cracked the door open to peer in at us. He seemed a bit startled to find the king's brother hanging a scrawny Konohian from his neck, but pressed his matter anyway, "Sir, it is a very important message."

Heaving, Kankuro lowered me back into my chair, keeping his hand wrapped in my shirt. "It better be to have disobeyed me," he spat, "What is it then?"

Frowning, the messenger timidly unwrapped the scroll he carried and read it aloud, "Starting tomorrow, the prisoner from Konoha shall be temporarily relieved of the accusations against him, and enlisted to aid solving the ambushed caravans' case. The prisoner will be under heavy surveillance at all times, and will not be with out the presence of a chaperone. If the prisoner violates this agreement, the prisoner will be immediately executed."

Obviously outraged, Kankuro snapped, "Who ordered this?"

Rolling up his scroll, the messenger answered, "King Gaara and Lady Temari themselves sir."

So, it's been a while, yeah? Rather than actually writing this chapter right away, I went back and read through my previous ones. I was banging my head on my desk I caught so many mistakes. Gah.

I guess this is only my first fic, though. Hopefully, all future chapters and fics will be better.

Anywho, R&R! I love you all for having patience with me.