This chapter is not really part of the plot. There will be several "interludes" where I can write about some other aspects of the story I find interesting. You don't have to read them but they give some clues about the plot.
Also, as they tend to be short, I will always publish them with another chapter.
4. Interlude 1: Of obedience
Temari was waiting in the room Konoha had given them for the week. She shared it with kankuro because Gaara had taken the other room and neither of them wanted to be alone with him. Their sensei was talking with the other sand-jonins and Temari knew why. She felt a weight settle in her stomach. Aged thirteen she had never been on a battle field before. Se had been on missions of course, had seen death in the eyes several times. She was the Kazekage's daughter after all she reminded herself. She had made genin when she was ten and the only reason that could prevent her from becoming chunin this year was if she had to carry out her fathers, her Kazekage's orders before the end of the exam.
This was what she had been trained for all her life. What they had been trained for the three of them. Kankuro, Gaara and her would be her father's best soldiers.
It wasn't quite the truth of course. Everybody knew that even the Kazekage feared Gaara. He wasn't a soldier, he was a time bomb. Still, on this mission he would serve his purpose and contribute to Suna' s victory.
Temari did her best to forget he was her brother too and not just Suna' s weapon. It was easier when she felt his murderous aura that could turn just as easily against her than against a stranger or an enemy. It was harder when she saw him alone in a dark room, the eyes wide open and looking up at her and suddenly she couldn't ignore that he was still the same frightened boy she had once protected fiercely.
When Temari was eight, Kankuro seven and Gaara six she had always been the one to get punished. She was the oldest and cared for her siblings more than for the village. For that alone she got punished. When they took Kankuro from her and told her that he had the best chakra control and that from now on he would train with the puppeteers she had refused and began a strong resistance. She went and tried to change her father' s mind with sound, logical arguments and not with pleas and begging because her father hated "useless sentimentalism". He ignored her and when she insisted he punished her. They took her brother away. When she saw him again two years later he was almost completely mute as if the dark caves in which the puppeteer apprentice learnt and lived had taken his voice. Puppeteers were silent people, used to guard the secrets of their craft. They lived in the cold caves in the desert so that they could work without distractions. They were good soldiers. They left their feelings in the caves and hid their traits with the ritualistic paint. They became puppets themselves at the hands of the brass. Kankuro over the years had taken it one step further and he had let his puppet take his place. Temari knew that the person at which side she walked was her brothers proudest creation and not him.
When she had seen him again after two years she hadn't recognized the silent, calm boy which skin was completely white from never leaving the caves. Temari's skin was golden-brown, burnt by the sun under which she trained every day. The wind lived in her and she had learnt to love the kiss of the sand on her skin. She was brilliant everyone said but none of her teachers had been able to inculcate obedience into her. After all her real teacher had been the desert and he had taught her the cruelty of life, the beauty of the world and the taste of absolute freedom. No one can cage the wind.
At age ten she got punished a lot. They made her a genin because she was to good for them to deny her. She still didn't know how to obey. Each morning she left the city walls and danced, trained in the desert. Her father forbade it, she did it anyway. They punished her. Some days her hands were numb from the hits they gave her on it. Her sensei bandaged them carefully and threw her long, contemplative looks. He came form the west of the land of wind and knew the rocky mountains like Temari knew the desert. She liked her sensei.
When Temari was eleven her brother Gaara began to kill more and more. Her father locked him away. Temari went to change his mind. She knew it wouldn't work, she knew she would get punished, she did it anyway.
Gaara broke out of every cell he was locked in. For some time it made Temari laugh with unrepentant glee. Then Gaara began to slaughter again. Temari learnt to fear him.
Temari grew up and she didn't always have the time to dance, train in the desert. She had to go to her father' s councils. She was not allowed to say anything and had to bite her tongue until it bled to refrain from saying what she thought. Her father did not care for Suna's shinobi, he did not care for Suna's people, he only cared for Suna' s pride she realized at that time. Sometimes she couldn't stop herself and protested with sound, logical arguments because her father hated "useless sentimentalism". She got punished anyway. She repeated her arguments to her teacher and some of the chunin which she knew were weaker than her. And they nodded jerkily. More and more people knew she was right.
Her father caught wind of it. He punished her but that was nothing new. He sent her on a long, difficult mission. She came back even stronger. She was informed that her brother had been sent on a mission to, he barely came back alive. Waiting in the hospital room for Kankuro to wake up she realized how selfish she had been. She promised Kankuro to be obedient now, he asked her not to be in his quiet voice. She went to her father and promised to follow his orders from now on. The desert wind had stilled.
When Temari was thirteen she was more calm and rarely got punished anymore. She loved her siblings but feared them too. She was good at pretending they were only her fellow sand-shinobies. Kankuro got louder as if to fill the blank and he got punished from time to time. But Kankurro had never known the freedom of the desert and learnt its fair but bitter lessons. He knew some things were wrong but he didn't see like Temari did. When they got their mission: infiltrate the chunin exam in Konoha and help the surprise attack against the leaf, he accepted because they would be together and they would be able to prove themselves outside of their father' s influence. Temaro bit her tongue and did not say that attacking the leaf was stupid. The leaf was no threat for them. On the one hand the desert protected Suna from the land of fire but on the other the wind could not force its way through Konoha's deep forests. Why risk such a long standing peace? Why endanger their shinobi? Why burden their citizens with the consequences of disrupting their exchanges with their main trade partners. After all crop does not grow in the desert but it does in the large fields that stretch themselves beyond the deep forests of the fire-nation's border.
Temari bit her tongue. She was only thirteen, a genin and her father's soldier. In her room in Konoha she went over the battle strategy instead of wondering if her brothers would survive the fight.