FINALLY! Regents are over and summer has finally shown its face, leaving us free to write up another chapter of Written in Code! Did you miss us? We missed you guys! Thanks to Lady Rini, Rena, ShinShu, Ratt1993 and Alternative Angel for reviewing. Lots of Gaara fans apparently. Don't worry, Gaara isn't dead…yet… Anywho, we got fourteen thousand views, so that was an accomplishment. And we'll stop delaying the process and get this whole shebang started.

Sakura was standing in front of Lady Hokage, with her adrenaline keeping her wide awake despite it being quite late (or should she say early?). The ninja lifestyle tended to have that effect on many shinobi, and Sakura remembered with brief amusement how she used to complain about Kakashi-sensei's schedule, and now she was easily waking up two to three hours earlier at least.

She was briefed on her mission. There had been an assassination attempt on the Kazekage. He had been quickly taken care of by said target and a group of highly talented sand ninja, but not before taking himself down and releasing a pouch of dust that exploded all over the place.

The Kazekage's office had been quarantined as one by one everyone who had been present at the time suffered from symptoms ranging from pale skin and blisters all over the body, and greenish pus oozing from said blisters. Not even the best of the medic nins could pinpoint what the problem was, and any attempt to study the dust in the pouch had only resulted in more sick victims. Facing a potential pandemic, the Sand decided to call for one of the greatest medical ninjas in the world- Haruno Sakura. Tsunade had been their first choice, but she was the Hokage and Tsunade herself had stated that she had felt Sakura had surpassed her long ago. Whether this was true or not was open to debate.

Sakura would be travelling with her genin team and Temari who insisted on going. Kiba's team of Shikari, Chori, and Inote also wished to go, but Tsunade put her foot down, and instead assigned them to a more diplomatic mission of heading to the Village hidden in the Mist where the assassin was thought to originate from.

Sakura accepted the mission without hesitation, but bringing her team was questionable. "Tsunade-sama, this is easily a B or A ranked mission, wouldn't it be better if my team stayed behind?"

Tsunade paused a moment at this. "No. They were all fairly well scoring students at the acadamy, and more importantly, if they don't get experience now, they'll go on some dangerous mission later. If I've heard correctly, you had already taken down Zabuza by this time."

Sakura tried to explain how the situations had been different. They hadn't known that there had been some mafia-esque man after Tazuna.

"Really Sakura, you're going to look for a cure, the tracking of the assassin's goals and whereabouts and allies are not up to you. Most likely your team will be bored out of their minds."

Sakura sighed in agreement. Besides, she could use them for grunt work, like finding specific tools and the like. Besides, they could use a taste of travelling through the desert. Plenty of heat, sandstorms, and scorpions to scare them straight for a while.

xXx

Waking up to Sakura-sensei was not what Sarunte was hoping for when he had fallen asleep last night. What time was it? It was like one or two or something!

Then he heard the news. They were going on an A ranked mission. Words could not describe the joy that Sarunte felt. He bounded out of bed and grabbed the nearest clean looking shirt he could fine and practically leapt at his shuriken holster as he rushed to get ready.

With Sakura-sensei, Sarunte walked out into the dimly lit street, and they headed for the Cataki compound. Haruna was just as excited at the news, and cited something about going on an important mission before Reniko. She was ready faster than Sarunte, and with a quick embarrassing encounter from her parents, the trio headed for Nara's apartment.

After brief wonderings of why Nara wasn't living in the Hyuuga compound, they knocked on the door, and were a bit surprised to find Nara wide awake and fully clothed. She grew just as excited at the idea of the mission and disappeared briefly to grab her hoodie and bag.

They met Temari at the gate who had previously waved her daughter off before waiting for Sakura. "You sure they should be coming?" She asked questionably, referring to the three genin.

Sakura nodded. "Hokage orders. Besides, they could use a slice of real life to combat their naïve optimism."

Temari snorted, and they took off without another word. It would take three days to get to Sunagakure. It didn't take long for the magnitude of this time to sink in. Soldier pills weren't as filling as one would hope, and as the temperature started to rise, the trio found themselves reacting to the heat quite differently.

Nara was quite used to different climates and even if the growing heat had bothered her, she made no statement that would indicate so.

Sarunte suddenly grew thankful for where his parents came from. His dark skin now seemed to have a reason to exist, as while he was not used to the temperatures, he was only minorly annoyed by it. He would have used this time to make fun of Haruna, but the determination in his sensei's and best friend's mother's eyes said that it was best not to fool around.

Haruna received the brunt of the temperature change. Relatively pale and living her entire life in the nice cool village and cooled Cataki compounds, the long sleeves of her jacket did not help matters. It was half way through the day when the forest became more and more sparse, and was soon replaced by sand and desert. By this point, Haruna's face had turned a light red, almost as if she had a permanent blush.

The day came to an end, and for the first time, Sarunte and Haruna learned what it was to be truly exhausted. Combined, they easily drained the canteen away of most of the water meant to last the entire trip. This was only slightly detrimental to the trip, but in no way would prove too problematic. Sakura had easily travelled to Suna with only a couple of soldier pills before, and Temari had grown up in the sand.

That night, Haruna and Sarunte learned the horrors of bugs. Scorpions to be more precise, and while none even came close to them; Sarunte woke up finding a new found respect for Koru Aburame. Haruna was not much better, and only appeared calm due to ingrained reactions hammered in since she had joined the acadamy to not show her immaturity.

Day two came and went, and finally Sarunte started to complain. Sakura didn't even bother to stop him, and chose to block his voice, as did Temari.

Finally, as day three came into mid day, the genin and jounin were overjoyed to spot the spirals of Sunagakure.

"Let's never do this again." Sarunte said hoarsely, his throat dry from the lack of water.

"Didn't Gai-sensei and Lee try to travel the distance in one day?" Nara asked curiously.

Sakura gave an involuntary chuckle. "Forgot about that. Yeah, they did. Think they succeeded too. Neji and Tenten were quite pissed off about that."

"Well, glad you guys are here jaan." Came a familiar voice. A man dressed completely in black, save for the purple make up covering his face appeared in front of them.

"Kankuro, Gaara, how is he?" Temari asked skipping the pleasantries altogether.

Kankuro gave his sister a painful look. "Not good at all. He got the worst out of all of them. He's alive, but not for long."

Kankuro had an intimidating aura to him, the genin noted, and seemed to be quite tough like his sister. The entire Wind country seemed to be like the sand- gritty and coarse.

As they hurried back into the village, it became clear that everyone had chosen refuge in their own homes.

"No one goes outside anymore jaan." Kankuro explained. "They're all scared shitless. The paranoia is incredibly stupid to watch in action. They seem to think it's contagious, but from what we can tell it's not. It's only the dust that gives it to you."

They were lead to the hospital. Sakura remembered the time she came here to heal Kankuro. That had been back when the Akatsuki was still a threat and Naruto and Kakashi were still alive. That puppet man…what had been his name…Sasori. He had poisoned Kankuro, and she and Chiyo had taken him down. It had seemed all so long ago. It was naturally, Sakura had only been fifteen at the time.

The hospital was in a panic, but they hid it well. It was only from watching the second long emotions their faces betrayed before reverting to stoicness that Sakura picked up on the terror they held. Kankuro took them to the Kazekages room. Three teenagers were already there. Two males and a female. One male had dark brown hair and odd metal clasps on his arms, he wore his headband diagonally across his chest. The other had brilliant green eyes and a turban on his head. He wore his headband on his waist like a belt. The female had black hair put back into two antennae pigtails, with her headband covering her eyes.

"Kankuro-sensei!" Said the male with metal clasps.

Sakura wasted no time to examine the Kazekage. Temari took this moment to breathe a sigh of relief as she studied the three young teens. "This is your genin team Kankuro?"

"Got that right jaan. This yours?"

"No. Sakura's team."

"Damn. I was hoping we could have a competition before the chuunin exams and everything."

"This is serious Kankuro!"

"You think I don't know that Temari? I know. I've been living with this for over a week by now. Sakura-san is here, and I'm just trying to lighten the mood here!"

"Sorry Kankuro. He…he just looks so sick. He might actually die. Who would become the Kazekage if he dies?"

"At this rate, it might end up being me. Most of the top ninja were taken down by that sickness when they hurried to protect the Kazekage jaan. I only missed it by a fluke. I was on a mission a bit farther south. I didn't find out until the next morning."

"You would make a horrible Kazekage."

"I can agree with that. I'd have to be serious and crap. I don't know how Gaara stands it."

The moment was light, and Temari felt slightly better because of it. The genin's looked at each other awkwardly behind closed doors as Sakura demanded solitude from certain annoying children.

The female smiled wide. "Male sounds cute. What's your name huh?"

"Wait…me?" Sarunte asked in surprise.

"Yeah. You."

"Uchiha Sarunte."

"OooOOooh." She cooed. "An Uchiha. I've heard of you."

"Miyaki stop making that noise." The male with the turban winced. "You know it gives me the creeps. I'm Ryoga by the way."

"I'm Keitaro." The male with the metal clasps said. "Who are you two?"

"Haruna." Haruna said in a barely audible voice. "Cataki. Cataki Haruna."

"Nara." Nara said simply. "Nice to meet you."

Keitaro frowned. They seemed dreadfully cocky to be revealing their surnames straight off the bat. Here in Suna it was considered bad manners to use family names, and commonly if people were to give another name, it would be 'so and so of the desert'. But, a different country, a different tradition. Even if it was a bit strange.

Miyaki smirked and walked straight up to Sarunte.

"How do you know where I am if your headband covers your eyes?"

Miyaki giggled. "I'm blind silly."

Sarunte was immediately fascinated by this. He proceeded to ask several questions that involved day to day functions such as walking and not hitting ones head into every doorway.

Nara face palmed at Sarunte's rudeness. "Sarunte, be polite."

"Whadid I do? I was jus' asking a question"

Nara groaned. "You don't need to be so intrusive."

Miyaki giggled again. "OooooOoooOOOooh. Sorry Uchiha. Didn't know you had a girlfriend."

Sarunte looked back at Nara. "OH EW NO! EWW! YECH! YECH YECH YECH!"

Nara turned slightly green. "Uh, no, we're just teammates."

Miyaki nodded. "Uh huh. That's why your heart beats are up."

"Maybe it's because you made that statement, not because they're lying." Ryoga grumbled, he had been subjected to this type of thing before.

Sakura entered the waiting room quietly. "Good news. I figured out what's wrong with the Kazekage."

Temari and Kankuro got up excitedly.

"Unfortunately, that doesn't mean I can heal him."

Kankuro frowned. "What do you mean? What do you need?"

"It's Redwater poison. We need the counteractive. Ever hear of Saunter grass?" Sakura asked

Kankuro nodded. "Yeah, yeah. It can be found north of the desert. In the Earth country."

Sakura nodded. "Yes. I just need that and I should be able to make an antidote. Most likely the assassin used Red water poison because it's common in the mist village, but there are not many antidotes to it."

After consulting the village elders, Kankuro was put in charge of the mission, along with his genin team and Sakura's genin team. Much to Temari's displeasure, she was forced to stay behind due to certain diplomatic issues that should have been resolved a while ago, but weren't. Apparently she had been travelling back and forth without a visa even though she was now a citizen of Konohagakure and just because she was the Kazekage's older sister did not give her diplomatic immunity.

Haruna and Sarunte prepared for the mission with clothing better suited for Sunagakure's atmosphere. Nara did not because she was already well suited for the atmosphere. With Kankuro and his genin team they prepared to head for Iwa to heal the Kazekage.

To Be Continued