It took us around two days to reach Suna but it felt like more days passed thanks to Suigetsu's incessant whining for the entire trip, the dry desert and the burning sun made the life impossible for him who was practically made of water and as the natural order of things he had a moment where he felt like being boiled alive.

Thanks to him we had to spend half our supply of water on him to keep awake, at least his problems disappeared at night and kept his silence until the following sunny day.

Other problem we run into was the fact that we were traveling by foot on a dessert, since we had been using the trees all the time we never bothered with the wildlife, but inside the Wind country we had a couple of encounters with giant scorpions and other oversized respective animals from the local fauna.

I could agree with everyone that the smell of insect blood was disgusting and didn't want to deal with any of that for anymore time and rushed to our destination taking fewer breaks.

Before we entered the village I had to change my disguise because I had beat up Suna shinobis days ago and it would bring us problems if they were to recognize me in the middle of their village. To fit with the scenery, I wrapped a blue sash around my head and mouth to hide my identity and I wore a tattered beige poncho.

Juugo kept his long robe except he added a hoodie to protect his face from the burning sunlight.

Karin wrapped her uniform around her waist leaving her only in her upper underwear but she covered her body with a brown poncho.

Suigetsu didn't change clothes despite whining about the heat.

We had to pass what I could refer like a migration control of sorts, Karin was the one who pulled out an ID card and explained our situation to the guards, I had to admit that she was good in coming up with excuses for my animosity, for the occasion I was a burned wandering shinobi self taught in the art of kenjutsu. But if her excuses failed, then I would have put a genjutsu on them with my sharingan; those eyes were truly the most broken tool in the entire world, even in the initial stages.

The village despite being in the middle of the desert had as much life like others towns, with people walking across the streets and moving to their business while merchants offered their products to any potential customer.

Except the only glaring difference were the foreign shinobis calmly walking in pairs or in groups of three around the village, these shinobis flashing the symbols from minor villages which I had beaten up many times.

All those teams that tried to get past me were trying to reach Suna, it all made sense. Shame they chose the wrong road and ended up losing their belongings.

Our group kept walking across the main street looking for a place to stay, the best one in the village since money wasn't an issue and I was sure that it would have some sort of air conditioning and relative unlimited water.

However, we were getting some attention as we crossed the crowded street from both civilians and shinobis.

I felt the growing need to leave the area but Suigetsu ran away towards a stand before I could say something, from the distance I saw him pilling up cups between his arms.

Karin sighed in annoyance and adjusted her glasses before going to retrieve our team member and probably pay for the bill.

Moments later Suigetsu arrived with a single enormous size cup at hand, drinking from a straw. "I was really thirsty."

But the further we went I slowly realized that the street became desolated as the building of our surroundings were had every door and window closed, the perfect sense of isolation.

When we checked our surroundings, we noticed Suna forces surrounds us from all directions staring us down waiting for a signal to proceed to pounce on us.

That caught me by surprise, there was no way I could have been recognized that easily.

I turned to see Karin for an explanation, who averted her gaze in shame.

"There are just too many moving freely inside the village."

I shook my head, I couldn't blame her for her limitations.

Beside there were more pressing matters at hand like I couldn't see an end to their numbers and how I could get out, unless I had the Mangekyo Sharingan in the meantime I didn't have enough confidence to even try to go against those horrifying odds.

I felt the sand in my feet shift and gather in a single point but I didn't move; I directed my eyes at the gathering point, analyzing the situation as fast as I could. I even had to use my hand to block any kind of movement from Suigetsu who was becoming impatient by the second.

The sand soon erected a small dune that kept growing in size.

Soon after from the sand a person in white and blue robes wearing a long circular hat emerged.

"I never expected I would encounter Naruto's lost friend in my village, however I doubt this will be a heartwarming reunion." Gaara revealed himself staring at us with his cold eyes.

"How did you know?" I asked, the doubt was still eating my mind and racking my brain for an answer.

He extended his hand, and the sand gathered to form an orb before revealing a single iris staring right at us.

"This desert belongs to me, you cannot hide from my sand." He crushed the eye in his hand, and the sand returned where it belongs.

I sighed, even if I wasn't considered a missing nin before other villages wouldn't think the same, and with the kind of world we live in the news of my pardon perhaps didn't reach the Kazekage's ears yet.

However, I would not fight him or any of his shinobis if I could avoid it, at least not inside his village.

"Read this." From my belt I quickly pulled out the message scroll where Tsunade specified everything and threw it to Gaara, who stopped it with his sand and opened the scroll.

I didn't drop my guard even for a second as he kept reading and shifting expressions of surprise and understanding.

"I see." He closed the scroll and slowly made his way in front of me to personally hand me the document as a show of trust.

I received the scroll and stored inside my belt, our surroundings remained the same with too many prying eyes for my liking.

"It would be better if we discussed at your office."

My suggestion earned another look of surprise.

"You have changed Uchiha, you do not match the records and my memories from our last encounter."

"I hear that, but let's go to your office I really don't want to be seen by Konoha, at least not now."

"Everyone return to your positions!"

Gaara's orders were heard and all the Suna shinobis left the area in seconds leaving our group alone with him.

He turned and guided us towards his office, which conveniently wasn't that far, we only had to go through a couple of turns and the Kazekage building was in sight.

The guards bowed in respect as Gaara passed, allowing us to follow him inside.

And the reception had a big tank of water, much to the delight for our swordsman, who didn't hesitate to fill his cup for another drink for this dry environment. We could only keep silent to his antics or we would be forced to hear his incessant whining from hours ago with new company.

When we reached his office Gaara reached for his desk and took a seat and slowly took off his hat revealing a long straight red hair.

My heart skipped a beat.

However, such revelation was too much for Suigetsu to handle making him to spit his drink and point Gaara accusingly.

"The kazekage is a girl?!" Suigetsu blurted out.

The kazekage stared at him with a blank expression, processing the accusation for a second before furrowing his brow. "No, I'm not. I only have overlong hair."

There was a rather lengthy silence between us, becoming a staring contest until Karin got everyone's attention by clearing her throat.

"That's a very beautiful hair." Karin complimented, breaking all the tension that was built moment prior.

"Thank you." Gaara leaned on his chair, getting into a more comfortable position. "So Uchiha, why have you come to my village is not an everyday occurrence the apparition of a rather infamous Uchiha."

"I've come to watch the Chunin exams." I quickly answered him.

His calm face distorted into a frown.

"If you cannot reveal your objectives then I usually wouldn't put pressure but this time will be different." Sand soon filled the room through the walls, but I remained calm, unlike my team who became uneasy. "Why have you come?"

"Relying on threats are we?" I raised an eyebrow, I didn't expect him to be that quick.

Sand kept pouring into the room.

"I won't put my village's safety in jeopardy for you and even if you have been pardoned I will not forget the damage that you have done to my friend."

We stared at each other eyes for a solid second until I took a seat in front of him and took off all of my headgear.

"The Akatsuki will make a move soon, and there is a possibility that Itachi Uchiha might be part of it."

Gaara breath stopped as he stared at me wide eyes, his mouth open in shock trying to mutter a reply but failing to do so.

His shock didn't last long, he leaned closer with head in hands before looking at me with his narrowed eyes.

"I will prepare my village defenses as soon as possible and if it is necessary, I will cancel the Chunin exams."

I was quick to shake my head. "Is better to do not cancel them, if you do so then they will immediately realize their cover is blown and change plans."

The kazekage pondered for a moment and nodded in agreement.

"You are correct but the Akatsuki already extracted the Shukaku from me, so why would they try to do something again in my village unless…" His eyes widened when the realization finally struck him.

"From my apart I stared at him in silence letting him do all the thinking.

His eyebrows scrunched together. "But who? Kumo Jinchuurikis are famous and impossible to not recognize them, Iwa's are secluded inside their territories and there had been no reports or signals from them and Kiri have lost their bijuus leaving...Takigakure."

He pulled a drawer under his desk and search for specific files which brought to his desk and opened them reading each file and document as fast as he could.

When he found what I assumed was the correct one, he slowly closed the file and placed it on his desk before rubbing his temples to relieve his new build up stress.

"I should have noticed sooner." He lamented.

"Now do you believe me?"

Gaara closed his eyes for a second, taking deep breaths. "I do and thank you for giving me this information, I can rest easy now that we had avoided a potential calamity."

"Can we leave now?"

Gaara shook his head. "I need to know more, specially about what are you planning to do."

I released a sigh, I getting annoyed. "I won't cause any trouble to your village if that's what you are worried, and I only know that they will try something against the Jinchuuriki but I doubt they will try something inside your village."

"I will have to inform Konoha."

His words caught my attention for a moment, but I shrugged them in dismissal.

"Do it if you deem necessary but not mention me, I do not want trouble going my way."

"Haven't you been pardoned?" He questioned me.

"You should know being pardoned from crimes differs from personal opinions and other loopholes, and I don't want any of them following me around."

"I won't lie to my friend." Gaara's reply somehow irked my bad side, yet I didn't act on it. But I didn't understand what was truly happening inside my head whenever Naruto was mentioned.

"And you owe me for giving you vital information, you are the Kazekage think what's better your village because I doubt our encounter won't end up in a big fight." It was a fact that the blonde knucklehead would do everything in his power to drag me back to Konoha just to keep his promise with Sakura, it was also a fact that I would fight to keep my freedom.

Gaara said nothing for who knows how long in our staring contest until he sighed in defeat.

"Just this one Uchiha, after this ordeal is over I want you out of my village." He pointed the exit of his office.

Knowing I overstayed my welcome, I got up from my chair, ready to leave through the door.

"You won't even notice I was here." I wrapped my sash around my forehead and mouth once again.

But our redhead interrupted our departure and raised her voice.

"By the way, why the long hair?"

He grabbed part of his hair and passed his fingers through it like an improvised comb, yet his action showed his hair could be compared to silk and the amount of care he put in it. "I heard many times that taking care of overlong hair consumes a lot of time, before I lost the First tail I needed an extra activity to pass the time but I grew fond of my hair after years of taking care of it hence why I still keep it."

Karin didn't hesitate and left my side, to get the first row to speak with the kazekage leaning closer to his face. "What shampoo or oil do you use? Any particular technique? Or number of strokes?" Karin bombarded the kazekage with question after question.

Gaara tilted his head for a second, trying to make sense to the sudden turn of events. "You should leave."

Face palming from the sheer stupidity was understandable, but I couldn't allow Karin keep pestering Gaara any longer and drain any goodwill from him.

I was about to grab Karin and pull her away but Suigetsu was faster except that he didn't have any consideration on her and practically dragged her away from the Kazekage office while she screamed profanities towards our cheeky swordsman who became immune to any kind of verbal abuse.

Ignoring the past events I focused to find a place to pass the couple of days in Suna, luckily the Kazekage building was in the wealthiest district of the village giving us an excellent starting point for our search.


With Gaara remaining vigilant towards our presence he had been sending operatives to watch us in secret, a thing that was blatantly obvious thanks to Karin who noticed them; her reason was that they were the only shinobis who stayed in a single place and always maintaining the same distance.

We could lose or deal with them, but that would only cause more problems than benefits, but that limited our movements inside the village and what we could do.

I chose an apartment over a hotel for the features they were offering, like a compact training room and personal bathrooms for each room with unlimited hot water included. Suigetsu immediately went for his room and rushed for a long cold shower.

I, on the other hand, went for the training room and checked the place to evaluate how useful would be to increase my strength. However, I was disappointed with the room itself beside the ring for simple sparring sessions the rest of equipment couldn't be considered that helpful to me who had been fighting shinobis as a form of training and the rules strictly forbidden the use of destructive jutsus inside the room. Leaving me with the only option to request Gaara a training ground for me to practice, which in turn would reveal my techniques thing I would rather avoid.

To get rather decent training would be accepting Suigetsu challenge and fight him, that left me again with meditation to properly understand everything that my Sharingan assimilated and copied in the last couple of days.

Karin took notice of that and accompanied me in my session of mediation to further develop her sensory skills, the big slip up from hours before did damage her pride as the best sensor.

Of course I used that time as well to review my 'memories' again, but those memories had a large focus on Naruto and our fight at the Valley of the End. That particular fight was way worse from I could personally remember of what was supposed to be, Naruto had far better control of the Kyuubi's chakra thanks to Jiraiya being there the whole time and train him.

It finally clicked why I was getting flared up whenever Naruto's name popped up, he absolutely destroyed me before I used the second level of the Heaven cursed seal to keep up and even surpass him by a slim margin. As an Uchiha who prided himself in being a prodigy in almost every aspect, a kid like Naruto mopping the floor with my body destroyed that view of myself.

The chidori with I pierced his gut wasn't just to fight his rasengan, but it came from genuine malice, jealousy and frustration.

Our rivalry had deeper roots than expected, better said I didn't know if that train of thought could be classified as rivalry anymore but I needed to fight him and utterly defeat him to restore that part from my pride.

And our last encounter where I practically revealed myself as the ultimate edgy hotshot and made a joke out of him and Kurama didn't satisfy me at all, but until I've dealt with the Akatsuki and Itachi, our fight to restore my Uchiha pride would need to be in low priority on my list.

By the time I was done with my meditation the sun disappeared from the sky and giving the green light for the streets of Suna flourish with more activity than before, I left Karin who was still focused in her mental training and headed to my room.

The very first thing I found after leaving the training room was a very calm but interested Juugo watching the streets below from a large window, basking in the wind.

Suigetsu was nowhere to be seen so I opted to assume he was still in his bathroom relaxing and cooling down.

I left toward my room and crash on my bed, hoping to get a well-deserved rest after a rather interesting week; fighting Kisame and standing face to face with Gaara of the Sand. We would spend the following day discussing and designing a plan for our first big fight against the Akatsuki.

Yet my train of thought was interrupted when the door slowly opened giving full entrance to Karin who didn't even knock to ask for permission.

"What are you doing?" I felt a bit of annoyance, thankfully I was only relaxing any other situation I would've lashed out.

"What I can't share a moment with you now?" She tried to get closer but immediately stopped when I raised my hand and pointed at her feet.

"I don't want sand in my bed."

Her face distorted into a frown. "That's rude Sasuke-kun."

"..."

"Alright I will take a shower." She turned around in direction to the bathroom.

"In my room?" I questioned her choice.

She clicked her tongue and looked away. "Dammit so close."

"Go back to your room." I ordered her because I wanted to sleep earlier than ever, sleeping on makeshift camps and beds didn't sit well with my neck and other muscles.

"Hmpf" Instead she sat on the edge of my bed without intentions of leaving anytime soon.

"What do you really want?" I groaned finally understanding that she had no intentions of leaving.

She turned her head to look at me and give me a sweet smile as she adjusted her hair. "I didn't get the chance to thank you for beating all those shinobis from Kusa."

"Thank me?" I got up from my bed and took a seat on the edge of my edge next to Karin.

"I hate them, watching them suffer under you was euphoric." Her spat venom from her voice, she couldn't make it more obvious than before her hatred towards that village. I didn't know the details of her role besides being used as a chewing toy.

"You would have preferred if I broke an arm or a leg?" I asked her as a form of twisted joke.

But she surprised me when her smile gained a lot of malice and her eyes burned with the flames of hatred. "I would have preferred if you crippled them but that would have been counterproductive but if you have a chance another time, then please do it."

I looked at her straight to the eyes, with no visible expression. "Suigetsu was right, you can be quite cruel."

To add to her twisted personality she only giggled in response.

I felt the need to shift the direction of our conversation, no need to venture in a route I didn't want to discover; at least not yet.

"How is your progress with the sealing chains?" I suddenly asked.

She got a complete turn of personality and changed back to her cheery and excited self.

"Look!" She did a ram seal and soon after the golden chains came out from her back. "I can use them freely now!"

Her golden chains followed her waving and erratic arm movements in synch like a snake.

Compared to the first time when she could barely keep them stable it was an excellent progress, but keeping them stable wasn't enough to be considered useful in the environment where they would be employed.

I extended my arm. "Restrain my hand."

Her chains wrapped around my wrist and pulled down however I put up resistance, my arm didn't budge no matter how much Karin tried. Sweat formed around her forehead her concentration seemed to have a hit as the chains lost power and the binding slowly giving me leverage to break free.

I yanked my arm, and the chain dissipated into nothingness. "The strength is not enough."

I checked my wrist for any kind of after effect but found none, my skin didn't have a single mark from the grip.

Karin crossed both arms, trying to express her dissatisfaction. "Hmpf, I thought it would be enough."

'Enough for what?'

I laid on my bed again, my eyes fixed on the gray roof. "You should rest for now, tomorrow might be a rough day."

Karin instead of leaving my room; threw her weight on my bed, laying next to me before sneaking one of her arms around and under my chest.

In simple terms, she snuggled next to me and buried her face on my shoulder. Thankfully she didn't go any further and try to drown me with kisses or I would have kicked her out from my room.

It could be considered as a reward of sort for her excellent progress.

"I told you I didn't want sand on my bed." I tried to complain while using my free hand to carefully remove her grip from my body.

"Hush now..." She placed a finger on my lips and caressed my hair trying to act all motherly with me, that was enough tolerance from my part towards her antics.

I pushed her away and got up from my bed.

"Don't get all cheeky with me." I warned.

However, rather than disappointment she got up and walked up close enough to whisper directly to my ear.

"My door is always open at night."

She flashed a smile before quickly leaving my room and closing the door.

Left behind slightly confused by the sudden turn of events, I went towards my bed my but instead of feeling the soft surface my skin was greeted by a rough and uncomfortable feeling forcing me to leave.

I held my head while I release a tired sigh.

She purposefully filled my bed with sand.

"Clever girl."


AN: So somebody brought up if I would write lemons in the future, the short answer is no I won't write lemons. The long answer is while I have no problem in trying I don't want to write them because I feel I would disrupt the flow in some way and I doubt you would like the type of eroticism I prefer to read and even try to imitate but I will write rather heated scenes at most.

Still, a lot of mature themes will be touched.