Weapon
The desert at night was cold, and unforgiving.
The endless dunes shifted minutely under the harsh winds that gave their name to the country of Kaze no Kuni, the few oasis scattered over incredible distances held the little greenery they could, which rustled under the starry, uncaring sky. And amidst the sands, a large, rocky outcropping had long been turned into a fortress that easily disappeared between the veils of dust that constantly danced over the ground.
North of the desert, a multitude of nameless rivers had managed to create grasslands that held back the otherwise advancing sands that reached the shore to the east, and that fell into canyons and dry, dead ground to the west.
The vast fortress in the desert was aptly named the Village Hidden in the Sands wasn't as lifeless as the surrounding environment: lights shone in the dark, and if the dunes and the veils of sands thrown about by the winds didn't conceal the entirety of the walls, making them seem like a shadow in the dark, it could have looked like a piece of starry sky lodged amidst the shifting environment.
Rasa of the Golden Sands had long been the uncontested ruler of this hidden village, but while he had grown up in the secret, harsh beauty of the desert and a deep understanding of its people, he wasn't blind to his, and their, faults. He sighed as he rested his back against the tall back of his chair, his eyes flickering toward the night outside as he realized that he had worked for too long.
Or he would have, if there was anything else for him to do besides caring for his village in every way he could. With a deep sigh, he returned to his thoughts: after the war, the stream of relevant missions being sent to his home had been trickling down: it was invisible at first, but only more obvious as the years went by: with the unmitigated, surreal success and might shown by the Yondaime Hokage, and the windfall following Konoha's unmitigated victory, brought Kaze no Kuni's own Daimyo and his court to favor the other Hidden Village.
The Kazekge nearly scoffed as he left his office, too fast and quiet for anyone but his guards to truly realize. What kind of fools can fail to see how this will undoubtedly bring us low in the future?
Only the extraordinary mutation of his own Magnet Release that allowed him to pull gold from otherwise impossible-to-find veins deep underground had allowed Suna to resist as long as it did, along with the minor sustenance granted by what little Konoha had left to his 'ally' from the last war. So, when the positively ancient jinchuriki of the Ichibi finally died of old age, it presented an opportunity.
Rasa moved with purpose etched in any single step, some reports had been... imprecise. Not in direct conflict, but, they gave off the feeling of being incomplete: it was in the things that weren't said, in hesitations too brief to be noticed until someone examined it with some distance.
It was necessary for Suna's survival that the Hidden Village rose again in the ranking amidst the Great Five, and the solution had been obvious: have children, and put into one of them the One-Tailed Demon that could theoretically make the whole desert move. There was even the remote chance that his own fabled bloodline, the Magnetic Release, would be inherited by such a child, and empowered beyond reason by the power of the human sacrifice.
The halls of the building that hosted the slim bureaucratic parts necessary to implement his will upon his village passed him by before he left from a glas-less tall window that was meant to help deal with the unbearable heat of the day thanks to a clever exploiting of air currents, a cloud of gold particulate catching him as he moved over his home, his mind awhirl as always with what needed to be done.
It also meant virtually giving up one of his sons to be nothing more than a weapon for the Kage to throw at their enemies time and time again, until it died and another one was picked, or less likely but all in all better for the fate of the village, the weapon became the deterrent it was meant to be. In short, a jinchuriki provided the almost certainty of a mission being completed, even if it would never be the silent, and often more important, kind of task that resolved a conflict in Suna's favor before an actual battle could break out.
Soon, Rasa reached the home of his family, expertly ignoring the soft, heavy pang of grief that echoed with the absence of his long-departed wife, and he moved silently until he reached a window that gave on an inner courtyard: few lamps were scattered about, playing shy games with the shadows of the people lounging about, and for the first time in a year, he witnessed the entirety of his progeny together.
Rasa hadn't been lucky in his endeavors: his first child, a female, lacked his bloodline, even if she promised to grow into someone with a higher than average chakra capacity, and with the kind of instruction and instructors she had received, she'd one day be one of the premiere jonin of Sunagakure no Sato. His secondborn was... nothing special: moderately clever, but without Rasa's Magnet Release, and a smaller than average chakra capacity.
Two failures hadn't been enough to stop the Kage though, and Karura had been willing, just as he was, to do anything in order to secure the future of their home. Finally, the tests on his last son had revealed that he'd be a true hair to the might of Suna. And I had to give that up.
The rage he should have felt at that thought was distant and something that he had long since had the time to work his way through: he had compartmentalized what he could, distanced himself, only to leave their wellbeing to their uncle Yashamaru, as he had both been aware of Suna's plight, of Rasa and Karura' choices, and was competent enough to train them to an adequate standard.
His absence as available ANBU had been felt, but the alternative as a sensei for his children had been Baki, and he was more useful where he was, at least for the time being. Rasa knew Yashamaru: strong, and loyal enough to not be doubted when the time came to truly turn Gaara into the weapon he was born to become.
But, even trusting Karura's brother as much as he did, he needed to be certain of how all of his progeny was when together. He spotted enough of Temari to know that she longed for his attention and for him to recognize her as worthy, while his disappointment of a second son seemed determined to follow the proud tradition of puppeteers that set Suna apart from the rest of the Hidden Villages. But Kankuro is no Sasori.
Finally, Rasa brought his full attention on his two children and the weapon that he'd soon need to unleash upon the world to grant Suna some breathing room: the three sat more or less slouching over sacks of sand arranged amidst the lanterns, and were discussing more or less animatedly.
"Well, you can barely lift it, and it sucks up chakra like crazy, doesn't it?" Kankuro's voice was the first to trickle into the Kazegake's ears, and he observed how the boy tinkered with a knife and a piece of wood while clearly teasing his older sister.
"I'll be strong enough to use it perfectly," Temari's strong opinions were hardly ever hidden from her face, but this time she had a glint in her eyes as she slowly lifted over one shoulder the massive folded warfan that Rasa knew had caught her interest a few months before, "you'll see! Uncle Yashamaru adapted my training, and I'll be crushing any of your stupid puppets!"
"We're going to be on a team together, aren't we?" for the first time in his life, Rasa hear the voice of Sunagakure's weapon: while obviously young, it was poised and calm as the red-haired jinchiriki played peacekeeper between his two older siblings. "I'll always be the powerhouse of us, chakra-wise at least. It will always be up to me to rain down big ass ninjutsu on whatever we find in front of us: does it really make sense to dedicate your entire career to a specialization that will by necessity be mine?"
"Uncle Yashamaru said that someone truly capable in the wind release can use one of these to fly." Temari unfolded the fan full then, hiding completely her body from view: "And I'll be the first kunoichi to ever fly, I swear!"
"I heard that Onoki flies without need for a tool to help him." Gaara's poised voice fluttered about the courtyard as he teased his older sister: "Won't a fan limit you? If you want to truly master an element, you'll need to grow beyond weapons or hand-seals."
And just as he finished speaking, Rasa felt it: stirring, like a hidden canyon amidst the dunes suddenly beginning to swallow all the sand surrounding it: but instead of taking, this particular one seemed to pour. Chakra rose at a controlled pace, and with it, the sacks of sand that had been acting as armchairs for the children who suddenly let out barks of laughter.
"Isn't Onoki the Tsuchikage?" Temari folded and closed her fan while the sacks of sand hovered in a circular pattern, steadily obeying Gaara's will.
"Are you saying that an old man is capable of doing something you won't ever be able to?" Kankuro's might not be the brightest of the three, but even he realized when his brother was setting up a challenge that was sure to keep their blonde sister busy long enough for him to tinker in peace, and so he was eager to help: "I guess that's reasonable, Temari, after all, you're just a..."
"I'm what!?"
Rasa tuned out the children's bickering in order to bring his full attention to the calm, and apparently carefree weapon that Karura had given her life up to create. The jinchuriki he had entrusted to Yashamaru in order to make him ready sooner rather than later. It was good that those three got along well, as Temari or Kankuro had always been meant to be those to direct him, but that he'd be the unspoken leader... that was troubling.
But perhaps, it could be seen as an unexpectedly lucky turn of events.
As silently as he had come, the Kage retreated in the night.
AN
Woah, I'm back and running on this one it seems! It's been a lifetime, I freely admit it, and this chapter is stupidly short, but I wasn't going to spend thousands of words on the POV of a newborn getting used to a new body and chakra: we'll get sorts of flashbacks while I get this story fully running.
Frankly, this chapter was more a recap for me than an actual advancement of the plot, even if I snuck in a couple of interesting facts while remaining vague enough in order to not write myself into a corner.
Still, I've also published the first chapter of both a Temari-SI and yet another OC-SI set up in Konoha in Neji's year.
Keep checking my stories, there's more to come!