Author's Note

I use "priest" here as a generic term for a person with the authority to perform religious rites in a house of worship, regardless of their religion. Certain definitions only refer to priests in reference to Christianity and I want to disclaim that is not the case here. It and (my version of) Temari's religious leanings come up in this chapter. The subject of child abuse is also broached. I am not sure how well I wrote any either, so please read no further than you are comfortable.

Side note: children tend to realize the meaning of death around five years of age. A two-year-old with a limited understanding of death may have an apparent lack of reaction due to that lack of understanding. Another (older) child, however, might not understand death is permanent even if they understand the difference between life and death. It also comes up in this chapter. Again, read no further than you are comfortable.


Chapter 65

Katiya (around sunrise.)

She had sent Gaara's siblings mission briefings she had annotated herself the day previously, in addition to whatever official briefing the siblings would have received from the missions office before even then. Annotated, with information from Oto. Gaara, perhaps the only one not needing it, having stood by her side as often as he could as she relayed her information from Oto to Suna interrogators.

She made her way with Gaara to the border before the sun rose, to where they had agreed to meet with his siblings. Kankuro, and… Temari… the blonde in a dress Katiya hadn't interacted with during her journey back to Suna.

Temari, the blonde, rolled up the map she had been looking at as she saw Gaara. Kankuro met Gaara's eyes from where he was looking over his sister's shoulder.

"Well, how about we get going?" Temari asked, tucking her map away.

Kankuro flicked his eyes over to Katiya, perhaps in a silent question. The latter, mentally sighing to herself.

"Wait," Katiya said, holding up an arm beside her head.


Temari (approximate time: 5:00 AM)

"You did what?!" Temari screeched in shock.

"I was the one to kill your father," Katiya repeated. "I… killed your father," she tried again, changing the phrasing.

Temari flicked her eyes to her siblings. None of them were as shocked at the revelation as she was. "You knew about this before but you never said anything?!" she asked them.

"We thought it'd be best if you heard it from the source," Kankuro replied.

Temari clamped her eyes shut, balling her fists. It was her father that Katiya killed—her father that raised her into a shinobi. Trained her into who she needed to be. Made her who she was. She wanted to explode on Katiya because how could she? Wanted to want to explode, but her true feelings for her father were actually conflicted. And she, Temari, was still in Suna and had a mission to complete. Her father would've slapped her if she exploded on a mission.

Temari gritted her teeth.

"No one say anything to me for the next hour!" Temari declared, turning about on her heels and walking ahead in what could be described as an angered silence.

She stomped away, not Body Flickering away, but still crossing ground rapidly. Needing to do something with her anger, anything. And wanting to put some distance between herself and the defecting Oto-nin. The remaining part of her team exchanged glances and resolved to walk silently behind her.

Step, step, step, step. Step, step, step, step.

It was her father that the defecting Oto-nin killed… Her father who raised her into a shinobi… Trained her into who she needed to be. Beat into her head the strategies she would need to survive. Pushed her down so that she learned to get up on her own.

Step, step, step, step.

About a sixth of the way to their borderland rendezvous point, Kankuro caught up to her. "He wasn't the best father," he said quietly as he walked next to her, knowing what was on her mind.

"How could you say that?! He was our only father!" Temari countered. "He was the reason why you were able to join the Puppeteer Corp at the age of four! He was the reason why I was unofficially promoted to chunin as early as I was! The reason why Gaara was able to survive as many assassination attempts as he did!"

"Temari, if it wasn't for him, Gaara wouldn't have had assassination attempts against him and I wouldn't have needed to join the Puppeteer Corp as early as I did," he said, he having joined them out of a desire to have an escape from his father's "training".

Temari shut her eyes. "He was our only father, Kankuro," she tried.

"That doesn't make him any better a person."


Kankuro (approximate time: 12:00 PM)

The sun began to rise to noon on the traveling team. Kankuro pulled out a fob watch. "The hottest part of the day's coming," he said, "Camp?"

Temari checked her map and took in the area they were in. She had luckily slowed down and allowed the rest of her team to catch up to her by that point, after Kankuro said his piece. They had yet to make it to the next border outpost but as they were near the eastern ridgecrest, the ground was luckily hard-packed and not as sandstorm prone as the central Land of Wind. As ideal for camping in the Land of Wind as one could get.

"We can get to the next outpost if we push it," Temari replied. The hottest part of the day wasn't for a few hours due to the time it took for the atmosphere to heat up from the noon sun, a fact Temari knew well as a desert native.

"You forget I'm basically a civilian right now," Katiya reminded Temari with narrowed eyes. With her chakra collar and suppression bands, she couldn't move nearly as fast as a shinobi. Worse, she couldn't regulate her temperature with chakra and was therefore more prone to heatstroke.

"We scheduled ample travel time with the Council traveling as slowly as genin. If we move faster, we will still need to wait for the team from Konoha," Gaara added methodically. Gaara might have been able to carry Katiya with his sand but a simpler solution would have been to camp out until nightfall when the desert climate was cooler.

"I second camping out," Kankuro called.

"Fine," Temari assented. "But we're moving out and into the next morning once the sun sets."

If the team was full of able shinobi, all capable of regulating their body temperature, they'd have kept a standard sleep-wake cycle of being awake in the morning and sleeping at night. Shinobi not naturally being able to see in the dark without special eyes (which only one of them had), moving at night actually posed a liability from the possibility of injuries from rough terrain or being blind to enemy engagement. But no one thought to bring that fact up with Temari.

Kankuro shrugged. Gaara's sand barriers came up irrespective of light availability and he had a pair of rudimentary night vision goggles someplace. Gaara should've been able to pick them up in the event something happened if they traveled at night, he rationalized.


Gaara (approximate time: 12:05 PM)

"Hey, can you make a giant sand castle like you did when we were younger? Only, big enough for us to camp in for the day?" Kankuro asked him.

Temari and Katiya both paused. Temari, some ways away with her tent and bedroll already unsealed, and Katiya where she was, combing her pack for the Storage Scroll that held her beddings for Gaara to unseal.

"I can, but I'm not sure I'd have enough chakra to last until nightfall," Gaara admitted. At least, not without relying on Shukaku. It also was something he never considered doing before, so he wasn't sure how to scale his chakra expenditure. Creating a sand tsunami was a one-time chakra drop whereas maintaining a castle and its rooms would be continuous. If he lost concentration on the shape of the castle or didn't have sufficient chakra, there was also the chance the structure could collapse on them.

Katiya and Temari resumed their activities.

"I can keep watch through the entire day though. Sleep still eludes me," Gaara continued, though he did have some moments of reprieve here and there now. Shukaku screamed out that he hadn't been pestering the former as much, not like he still threatened to kill everybody anymore, but it was no real comfort to Gaara. (Shukaku still threatened to kill people for random offenses, it was simply not a threat to kill everybody anymore. As comforting as that was.) Gaara narrowed his eyes at the slight headache he usually had when Shukaku spoke. Shukaku screaming that he was bored in general every thirty minutes or so tended to have that effect.

"That'd be good, Gaara. Thanks," Kankuro replied for the team. Gaara had already volunteered to dig the travel latrines with his sand, something Baki used to do with an earth-style jutsu.

Temari withdrew into her tent, not remarking on the arrangement. It would be the first mission she'd have taken where there wasn't a sleep rotation to monitor Gaara, actually. Katiya tried to see if she could read discomfort with the idea off of the former's body language, but she didn't have a good baseline on her. Still, she mentally filed the potential tells away for future reference.

Katiya turned her head away. "Can you unseal this for me?" she asked Kankuro, who was seated closer to her around the shade of a scraggly looking tree.

"Sure, any booby traps?" he asked before putting his finger onto the Sealing Jutsu.

"Not skilled enough for that, so no," Katiya told him.

Kankuro poofed out a wrapped-up tent and bedroll from Katiya's scroll. "Your Sealing Jutsu's not bad. I'm surprised you can get your brush strokes into such a tiny space. Usually, my Sealing or Storage Scroll needs to scale to however large the object I'm seALiNg is," Kankuro's voice cracked.

Kankuro coughed, trying to clear his throat.

Gaara looked at him curiously. To Gaara, the vocal croak sounded somewhat like how Shukaku would sound when bored and certainly not how he'd have expected Kankuro to sound.

"Puberty," Katiya explained to him in a word. "You're going to be going through that soon too, Gaara," she said a little wistfully. It was a reminder she had missed Gaara's youth, after all. "Did anyone explain it to you before?" she asked.

"A little bit," Gaara replied. Several people did, actually, each covering slightly different material. Katiya, among them. He didn't quite remember Yashamaru's explanation though and his father's explanation came with the implication he wasn't going to live long enough to need the information. But whereas Kankuro and Temari both had the Academy's health and anatomy class for their puberty education, he did not.

"We can go to the library when we get back. They should have a section on it." She flicked her eyes back to Kankuro, "I'm surprised you don't have some fancy ventriloquist trick to hide your voice cracks though."

Kankuro cleared his throat. "That'd only help if I can anticipate a voice crack. Usually, I can't," he admitted.

Katiya hummed noncommittally. "I wonder how puberty will affect Shukaku," she mused. "Do you still get Shukaku-nightmares?"

The term was incorrect as Gaara rarely slept in order to get true nightmares but it was the term Katiya had used to describe the bloodthirsty ramblings of Shukaku's in the quiet moments of the night when Gaara was supposed to be asleep. Back when she used to live with him and Yashamaru.

Shukaku squealed surprisedly, enthused by the fact Katiya remembered he liked to keep Gaara up at night. Biju, GAARA, bijU! Don'T foRgeT to teLL her it's "BIJU"! Shukaku told him.

Gaara met Katiya's eyes. When there's a good moment to tell her, Gaara told Shukaku. "Shukaku still gets bored and bloodthirsty," he says aloud to answer her question, "But at least he's not threatening to kill everyone anymore."

"But he's still threatening to kill people," Kankuro summed up.

"Yes."

Shukaku let out a growl. What mOre do yoU wanT froM me, eHH? To not thReaTen to kiLL anybody?! At ALL?!

Gaara didn't bother answering that one. Shukaku knew what his answer would be.

Katiya sighed. "Anyways, I sent you an annotated mission briefing to the entire team about the base we're raiding and the Konoha team we're meeting. Any questions about what I sent?" she asked Kankuro, because she knew Gaara didn't have any questions.

"Uhh, yeah. How the h—ahem—heck did you end up with an entire psychometric profile on Anko Mitarashi?!?"


Temari (approximate time: 12:10 PM)

Temari had closed her tent, sitting within it silently. Seals written along the inside of the tent door allowed sound into the tent, but not out, so long as the tent door was closed. Standard issue in Suna, to allow one to pray as needed in privacy if one was religious, because enemy shinobi learning that one was religious—or rather, of what religion one was—was akin to handing them a weapon.

And Katiya was an outlander shinobi.

"It's several years outdated, but she was one of Lord Orochimaru's students in Konoha before he went rogue. I got access to the profile as a medic-nin in Oto. Apparently L—Orochimaru—himself made the profile on her," Katiya's voice replied to what was Kankuro's question from outside the tent. "I'd have put in notes from the psychometric profiles of the entire team we're meeting, but I don't have them. They're strictly Konoha-nin with no Oto ties."

Kankuro's voice rang out again. "Does the Council have Anko's psych—?"

Gaara this time replied. "No." And we could note whatever the Council did not ask for, Katiya did not provide.

Temari checked the seals on her tent one last time before setting up to pray, to catch up to the noon prayer she had missed while traveling, as per her mother's religion. She pulled out a compass to determine the correct direction, then threw an unmarked grass mat over the tent floor and cleansed herself with a bowl of water. In true shinobi fashion, if she were to be captured, nothing of what she was carrying would have been able to give her away as being religious.

She tuned out whatever Kankuro replied to Katiya outside the tent, and prayed. The obligatory verses of her holy book, but then two more.

She wanted to be angry at Katiya. The first voluntary verse was about her anger. Her holy book said to forgive, but there was no sin not to. Her choice to forgive, if to forgive, would be her own.

The second verse she chose was about death; her father's.

"What happened to Mommy?!"

"Where's Mommy?!"

"I miss Mommy. When is she going to come back?"

"What do you mean, Mommy's not coming back?! She has to because she said she'll love me always and forever!"

"I told you already—! She's dead! Dead, Temari, dead! You're the daughter of a Kazekage and you're going to grow up to be a shinobi—you need to understand death better—your brother's handling this better than you are! Are you the eldest or not!? How can my daughter be this pathetic!?"

"Wh—!!"

It had been the first time her father slapped her. She hadn't really known what "pathetic" meant at that point, but she got the sense it wasn't good. It was Uncle Yashamaru who told her later on, what it meant.

"You hit me! Mommy would never hit me!"

"Enough with this 'mommy' and 'daddy' talk—I am your FATHER, Temari. I cannot have you acting this childish in front of the Council. I CANNOT have you breach decorum in front of them, do you understand me?!"

"Mommy—!"

Slap.

"Mother never hit me! Why do you keep hitting me!? Mother would n—m—"

"Your mother is dead, Temari. At this point, don't you understand what that means?"

"Crying?! Crying!? How can my shinobi daughter be doing something as weak as crying?!! You're the daughter of the Kazeka—where do you think you're going?! Get back here!!"

And then she had ran, slipping away from the gold dust of her father's jutsu. Running to the house of worship her mother frequented, just down the street. One of the last places she had remembered her mother being, the day of the latter's funeral.

"Little Temari, what's wrong?"

"Da-f-Father said Mommy's not coming back. Daddy—everyone—said she's dead, from giving birth, but why? Why won't she wake up?! Did she—did she get too tired trying to make a baby because she was tired because I wanted her to play with me too much?! Is it—is it—is it my fault—?! Is it—!?"

That priest that had found her running down the halls trying to find her mother, at that time knelt down in front of her, and made a gesture for her to lower her voice. Temari broke off her questions and tried to breathe normally amid her panic.

"No, it's not, child," the priest had told her.

"Then why—?"

"Our Prophet—peace be upon him—taught that every soul will face death eventually, but only at their appointed term, as ordained—ordered—by God. It is not your fault and cannot be your fault, Little Temari, because only He can determine a soul's fate and for those who do righteous deeds, admit them into Paradise. Heaven, Temari."

She had gotten quiet, hearing that, trying to understand it.

"S-so it's God's fault Mommy won't come back? But I love her! Why won't God let Mommy come back?"

"God only ordained one death per soul," the priest had replied. "After that is the time for His judgment for where your mother's soul belongs. That is why she can't come back, Little Temari. But if your mother is true and right in her faith, she will be awaiting you in Paradise for your own time to come. If you too, keep on the path that is true and right, you will meet again."

It had calmed her four-year-old mind to know that her mother was waiting for her in heaven. Paradise, as the priest had called it. He, Priest Rafi as she later learned his name, then walked her around the house of worship, found her a version of their holy book with pictures and color, and showed her the burial site of her mother's. And it was then, months after the funeral, that Temari felt at peace.

After she had calmed down, Rafi walked her back to the Kazekage compound she had run from. She hadn't told him about why she had run, and neither did her father. Civilians didn't understand the need for the physical aspects of training and shinobi didn't like talking to outsiders about their training either. And that was what her Academy instructors—and the school nurse she habitually went to for healing—assumed her father was doing after she showed them her bruises, cuts, and scrapes.

Temari finished her prayer, breathing out heavily. She had already done all she could do in her religion to ease both of her parents' souls into the afterlife, by the fortieth day after they had been declared dead. The colored kid's version of her holy book, the one she got from Priest Rafi, still on her book shelf alongside her mother's old cookbooks and reference manuals. Temari slowly tuned herself back into her surroundings.

"—She doing alright in there? She's not the sort of person to attack me when I go to sleep, is she?"

"Nah, she'll probably wake you up and then attack," Kankuro replied to Katiya.

"Temari, why don't we have a mother?" Kankuro had eventually asked her, after coming home from the Academy one day, when he was seven and when Yashamaru had been too busy with Gaara.

And at that point, she had an answer for him.

Temari moved to stand and open her tent.

Logically, Temari knew the… Katiya. Didn't. Need to have told her. Who really killed her father. Nor did Katiya need to have prepared a written annotated briefing for the team, sent out before delivering the news that she was the one to kill her father. Done so as to increase the likelihood of it being read in light of the news.

She didn't need to have told her. Katiya didn't need to have told Temari, not face-to-face and certainly not before a combat mission. It meant Katiya had been willing to face whatever retribution Temari felt necessary to give.

"Temari, do you want a piggyback?" her father had told her before picking her up and placing her on his shoulders. "You can feel the wind better from up there."

"You inherited my wind-style, I bet. You'll grow up into the strongest wind-style kunoichi in Suna, Temari. I just know it," Rasa had told her as she had gripped her father's head.

Her, holding a paper pinwheel at the time. Her mother, smiling at her. Back then. Holding a baby Kankuro. She had forgotten where they had been heading, how old the memory was.

Temari walked out of her tent.


Katiya (approximate time: half an hour after twelve?)

Squared shoulders, even pace, clenched fists. Eye contact. But no red or puffy eyes. Determination, not anger, though it was easy to mistake. Eye contact, potentially to intimidate? No red or puffy eyes, so no telltale signs of crying; only medic-nin knew how to disguise them with healing jutsu.

Katiya stood up, hands clasped behind her back, as Temari approached. Gaara and Kankuro both remained seated, however. Albeit warily. Temari stopped within a meter's distance from Katiya, arms crossed. Face-to-face, Temari three centimeters shorter, Katiya raised a brow. Neither of them had made moves to attack or enter a defensive position.

"I won't forgive you. Not yet," Temari announced evenly. "But I can work with you."

Katiya curtly bowed her head once. "Understood," she said at last. She understood she wasn't going to be assassinated in her sleep, and she wasn't going to die for her sins, not by Temari's hand at least. Or at least, not yet.

"That's it?" Temari asked. "You're not even going to try to ask for forgiveness?"

"... I have no intention of asking for something I neither need nor want. If you found me deserving of forgiveness, I'd have assumed I'd have earned it in your eyes. That would not be true if I were to bribe you with my words for it. I fail to see the reason why I'd want a disingenuous forgiveness," Katiya replied in a monotone, her eyes never leaving Temari's.

Temari's lip curled into what Katiya considered to be a partial sneer, but Temari said nothing. Katiya likewise let the silence beat on.

"Wanna sit with us, Temari?" Kankuro asked from behind her.

Temari flicked her eyes from Katiya and Katiya finally turned away with the motion. Temari flicked her eyes back to Katiya before moving to sit, following the latter.


Temari (approximate time: 1:00 PM)

There was an awkward silence as the team watched the campfire. Kankuro was splayed out on a grass mat while Gaara and Katiya sat on sand-formed stools, another one made by Gaara when she had approached.

"I don't know how we'll handle the combat when we get there," Katiya said, breaking the silence. "I can't use jutsu and my specialty's hand-to-hand combat."

Temari lifted both her eyebrows. That was uncommon for a medic.

"Chakra scalpel attacks," Katiya clarified for her benefit.

Ah.

Suna was different from Konoha, in how they treated medical training. After becoming officially chunin, Suna-nin were required to enroll in a trauma medicine course. Puppeteers, required to have an additional poison control one. It decreased the need for a squad needing to accommodate a medic that can only heal but can't fight and made it easier for a medic specializing in short-ranged combat to exist.

"Either way, I can't heal though. Unless you want a band-aid," Katiya added sarcastically.

"I mean, you can still throw kunai and shuriken, right?" Kankuro asked.

Katiya glared silently.

"You will stay with me," Gaara declared.

"No," Temari countered. "Gaara would be in the rear. We don't have home turf advantage and even though we might have maps, they're outdated. The risk's too high for the enemy to sneak behind us. And we still don't know what positions Konoha would take relative to us."

Everyone's eyes snapped to Temari and she started drawing a diagram.

"I'm fighting short range once we get into the base. I don't want to risk collapsing it with my wind-style. Kankuro, you'll be in the middle. Konoha looks like they fight mid- to short-range and unless we split up or the tunnels get too tight, we're probably going to be fighting in two lines of four people.

"Katiya, you'll have to be with Kankuro in the middle so Gaara can cover us in the rear. Behind Kankuro, in front of Gaara. And Konoha can do their own thing, we should be fine. Everyone good with that?"

Everyone nodded.


Katiya (a few days later, approximate time: few hours before sunset)

They had made it over the Land of Wind's eastern ridge crest and so the desert and rock gave way to the giant Land of Fire forestry. Their rendezvous, a small lake off the road from a civilian merchant route.

Anko Mitarashi noticed their approach first, looking up from her campfire and grinning.

"Now that we're all here, let's get going!" Anko yelled, pointing skywards, a huge-assed grin on her face.

Oh boy, Katiya thought.