Suzume was out on the field that day and she was guarding the huge goal behind her. The sixth years held no restraint as they sent ball after ball hurtling towards her in air ripping speed. Kankuro had to watch as his sister got assaulted by leather clad comets while the other teachers turned a blind eye. He shook in rage when he finally got a glimpse of blood snake down Suzume's head. His hands curled into fists when she kept getting to her feet even when her whole body was quivering in pain. He finally lost it when a soccer ball hit her right in the gut and sent her flying backwards.

Kankuro jumped onto his feet, intending to rush over there and protect his sister from any further harm, however, someone beat him to it. He couldn't believe his eyes when a girl left the group of little shits to go help Suzume up.

He saw his little sister smile appreciatively as the girl checked over her injuries. One of the students threw an insult at them but the unknown girl bit back harshly with a mouth a sailor would be proud of. Suzume held her back as the girl tried to go at them.

Kankuro met Temari's eyes from across the stadium and exchanged relieved looks.

All Suzume would talk about was Shiro. Things she talked about with Shiro, what Shiro did the other day, how Shiro was cool and confident and everything Suzume wanted to be.

They were convinced they didn't need to worry about the bullying and a weight was lifted off the shinobi's shoulders. Temari could focus on her private project and planning her lectures and classes to her heart's content. Kankuro led the team that was in charge of spreading the telephone lines throughout the village and it was going by faster than he thought it would.

Gaara wasn't as relaxed.

Kankuro noticed how his brother was walking around like he was always on alert and his immediate thought was: another assassin? Since the Raid on Konoha, only two assassins were sent after Gaara and Gaara captured them without killing and ever since, there hasn't been any action taken for another attempt. Kankuro was immediately irked at the thought of the council members still refusing to give Gaara a chance even after everything that's happened.

Kankuro was more aware of Gaara and his surroundings and for some reason, while he was watching over Gaara, Gaara was watching over Suzume.

No. It couldn't be.

One night, Kankuro was heading upstairs for a drink of water when he heard something sneaking around in the kitchen. Hisoka must've slipped in through the window or something... Kankuro's mouth creased into a frown and the hand that was scratching his stomach froze. Hisoka was dead.

He rushed into the kitchen and pounced onto the stranger. A little squeak of surprise and then a grunt and Kankuro had to stare down at Suzume for thirty seconds before he realized it was her.

He jumped off and quickly pocketed his kunai. He let out apology after apology, making sure the cut he made on her throat wasn't deep. Suzume told him it was okay and she was the one who was comforting him when it should've been the other way around.

She cleaned up the mess that her broken glass cup made when Kankuro attacked and Kankuro couldn't miss the bruises on her skin and the bandages wrapped around her hands.

"Have you been training?" Kankuro saw her seize up. "It isn't your sleepless week."

"No, it isn't," she threw away the last piece of glass and got to her feet.

"Suzume," Kankuro said sternly. "You need to rest."

"I will."

"You're a horrible liar."

Suzume opened up the cabinet that stashed the trash can and stuffed the plastic bag filled with glass into it before shutting the door again. She whispered without looking at him, "I will when I deserve it."

"Suzume."

"Shiro..." she interjected, saying the name of her best friend shakily. "Shiro got hurt today. Because of me. I'm not letting it happen again."

Suzume walked away before Kankuro could reply.

Two days later, his little sister was significantly happier and she told them that she actually made a dent into the training post outside. It was a small achievement and the powerful shinobi in the room couldn't hope to relate but they kept their comments to themselves as Suzume went on about how she was going to get strong enough so they didn't need to worry, so they didn't get hurt.

Kankuro didn't want to think his assumption from before was true but as he was walking back home with Suzume at his side, he couldn't help it from haunting the back of his mind. They paused in the middle of the road when a street dog came up to Suzume and she bent down to run a hand down its fur.

"Is something wrong, Kankuro?" Suzume asked while the dog closed its eyes at her touch.

"Why do you think something's wrong?"

Suzume pulled off her bulking backpack, unzipped it, and pulled out a canteen of water and a bowl. "You crinkle your nose when you're angry or irritated," she said as she poured out the water into the bowl and let the dog drink it up. "Same with Temari."

Kankuro instantly relaxed his nose. "Really?"

"Really." Suzume poured some more water after the bowl was empty and the dog gratefully accepted it. "Are you brooding?"

Kankuro watched her bring out a bag of dog food and slowly feed the dog handful after handful. He managed to take a peek inside her bag. It was filled to the brim with dog, cat, and bird food and her poor school supplies were jammed in between them. "Do you want another pet?"

"No." She grabbed a Greenie and let the dog take it out of her hand. "I think they're better off as they are."

She packed away the food and the pair left the dog to chew on his treat.

"I told Shiro that you and Gaara were sad and she told me something that could make you feel better," she said.

"Hm? What's that?"

"If I called you nii-san."

Kankuro halted in the middle of the street and Suzume only noticed after going forward a few more steps. She looked over at him and saw the smile that spread on his face.

"Wow, I didn't know it would work so well," she said with her usual poker face, turning around to resume walking. "I should say it more often."

Kankuro caught up to her and wrapped an arm around her shoulders. "Thanks, Suzu!"

A small smile perked her lips. "You're welcome."

Back home, Suzume disappeared in her room and Kankuro wandered into the kitchen to find something to snack on before dinner. He ran into Gaara walking out of the room and go on his way after he nodded to his brother in acknowledgement.

"You would tell us..." Gaara paused in his step at Kankuro's words. Kankuro stared down the wall in front of him and felt his back burn with the presence of his brother behind him. "...if Suzume had more than one shadow, wouldn't you?"

Gaara walked away.

_ _ _

The newspaper deliverer was clumsier than usual. The kid couldn't seem to find their balance on the bicycle. They might never have possessed a form of steadiness in their life. The hat that hung low over their face and the darkness of the early morning might have had something to do with it but—oh, there they go. Right into a couple of trash bins. Yup. As usual.

A cat strolled over and nosed the hat that slid down to cover Suzume's face. Suzume secured the cat with her arms and pulled herself up into a sitting position. After fixing her hat so she could see, what greeted her was the sight of her bike's front wheel spinning in the air like a dog having a dream and the garbage from the bins scattered around everywhere almost as if a bomb went off in the area. She placed the cat on the ground and cleaned up the mess she made.

Suzume righted her bicycle and swung her leg over to the other side. She took in a breath and kicked off the ground just so she could ram into a telephone pole.

She gave up. She only had a few more assigned houses left, she didn't need to go that far. Walking her bike by her side she slipped in the newspapers into the mailboxes lined in the street or otherwise hung up next to the house's front door.

And the last house.

"Good work."

A cool beverage kissed her cheek and Suzume pulled it out of the person's grasp. She looked up to see her friend smiling down at her. Shiro held out a hand and Suzume gave her the newspaper. She sat down with her legs hanging out of the fence and flipped through the daily news with Suzume who crouched down against the wall behind her.

Shiro's house was on a hill's decline and the foundation was leveled out so the house wouldn't be slanted. All the streets looked the same to Suzume with their sand mist and clone like houses that looked no different from the other. But this one, Shiro's street. She could locate it on the map with her eyes closed.

Suzume opened the soda and took a sip. It was the same lemonade Shiro always gave her.

"They're so going to fire you," Shiro said through her newspaper.

"I know," was Suzume's response.

After this exchange, they'd move on to other subjects. How much Shiro's father nagged her about keeping the house clean, how her little brother was always hanging off of her, and how her mother was always on missions. Suzume's never seen Shiro's family but she imagined her father would look like the giant that held the sky wearing a pink apron and vacuuming the ceiling. Her brother had blue eyes, Suzume just knew he did; blue eyes that were as ever changing as the ocean. And Shiro's mother would be wild and an adrenaline junkie, unable to keep still for a single moment.

"How did it go with your brothers?" Shiro queried after her usual bout of complaints.

"I thought Gaara-sama stopped breathing," Suzume told her soda can.

Suzume heard Shiro laugh. "That's good, that's good!" the rustle of the newspaper and Shiro's foot was nudging her shoulder. Suzume looked up at her. "So they know about your job yet?"

"They haven't brought it up but I'm pretty sure they know. Where else would I be getting the money to buy the food for the animals?"

"Can't you stop doing that?" Shiro frowned down at her. "You're obsessed with animals, like you're one of them. It's not normal. It's a reason why the other kids call you a freak."

As the words left her lips, a bird flew down and landed on Suzume's shoulder, twittering in her ear.

"And that!" Shiro pointed at the bird. "Stop doing that!"

The bird whistled and Suzume whistled back then it flew away again. Shiro shook her head gravely. "You must've been a bird in a past life."

Suzume couldn't help but be okay with that.

Suzume only stayed for ten minutes before she began her epic journey back to the newspaper HQ. She'd then run back as fast as she could (which wasn't that fast and consisted of more face plants than footfalls) to the Kazekage Mansion. Where she'd get the mail and the newspaper one of her fellow deliverers dropped off and rushed into the house.

She dropped the mail onto the counter and the paper on the dining table and tried to keep her steps shinobi quiet while she sneaked into her room to get her clothes and into the bathroom to slip into the shower.

By the time she was done washing up, she could hear the sound of movement outside the bathroom. She was in the middle of wiping off the mildew from the walls and mirror when the sound of sleepy talking and cooking reached her ears.

"Baki's still not back from the mission, jan?"

Suzume opened the cabinet and pulled out the first aid kit.

"He did say in the letter that he'd be gone for a couple of months."

She winced when the alcohol prep burned the wounds on her skin.

"Gives us time to figure out how to reconcile with him."

Suzume wrapped the bandages around her fingers and ripped it in one slice once she reached the middle of her forearm.

"Good morning, Gaara."

"Good morning, Temari."

There were no 'good morning's exchanged between Gaara and Kankuro.

Suzume stored the first aid kit back in its proper place and, with a quick glance in the mirror to make sure she looked okay, she reemerged from the stuffy bathroom. The coolness welcomed her and filled her lungs with clean air. Her hair was still damp from the shower so she grabbed a towel to wring out the water further.

A hand latched securely onto her upper arm and pulled her sharply along.

"Temari?" Suzume was busy trying not to trip over her own feet.

"Dammit, Suzume. Don't leave me alone with them for no more than two minutes. It's stifling."

It really was. Gaara was emphatically engaged with his cup of coffee and the newspaper more than usual and was giving the section about the death of a comedian a raging glare that it didn't deserve. Kankuro was likewise chewing his toast so aggressively it made Suzume feel sorry for it.

Temari went back to her breakfast and Suzume hurried to join her. They share a look that only people who have experienced this pain together could perfect.

Suzume poured some ice water into her cup and thought at least her part time job was the least of their worries.

_ _ _

Gaara has never met an assassin that never went for the kill. If they didn't, they wouldn't be called assassins anymore. And what was bothering him, was the fact that there were ten of these non-assassins lurking around his little sister.

He could only assume they were shinobi. Whether or not of their village was questionable.

They blended in as civilians, their faces changed, their demeanor changed, and their eyes were the ones that never did. Always trained on Suzume with the coldest calculating gaze under their guise of a daydreaming daze or passing look. Their presence was as constant as the sand that creeped into their buildings.

At this point, the picture in his drawer was practically screeching for attention.

The cat, the picture, the tree, the name. What was the string that tied these things together?

All he knew was that he needed to know.

Gaara went out one day without his face. He used the transformation jutsu (one he rarely used) and left to hunt down a certain orphanage.

Suzume told him the name of the place and he used his resources to acquire a map to the orphanage named after the first Kazekage.

When he got there, he asked for the person in charge. He felt the eyes of the children digging into him. In their mind, he was a potential family member.

It was indeed quite crowded, it looked like there were more children than there were rooms to accommodate them. Crying overlapped with shrieks of laughter and it would only be described as a controlled chaos.

"Hello, sir!" came a shrill voice led in by a smiling woman. She shook his hand right off his arm. "I'm very happy to see you! I got your call the other day and I can't say how glad it made me to think that one of these angels will get a home at last!"

"Uh, no, I'm sorry," Gaara said in his unaccustomed voice. "I only came to ask a few questions about a child I adopted last summer."

"Oh," the woman immediately deflated. "I see."

"Except I didn't adopt her from here," Gaara continues. "I picked her off the streets."

"Yes, well, we often have to do that," she said aloofly. "The shinobi government's not helping either. Not enough funds to feed anymore mouths."

"Yes," Gaara faltered. "Anyway, do you remember a girl named Suzume?"

The woman scrunches up her face. "Suzume? No. Don't remember a Suzume."

"Not even a little?" Gaara prods, leaning forward.

"No, no, not at all. We've had no girls named..." a glaze goes over the lady's eyes. "Wait, we did have a Suzume. Light brown hair and black eyes used to like animals more than humans. You took her in, sir?"

Gaara leans back again and nods. The lady smiles. "That's wonderful."

When he left the orphanage premises and was back on the streets, Gaara lets instinct lead his feet back to the mansion while he thinks.

It had to be genjutsu. Or maybe even ninjutsu or a seal. Well, whatever the case, Suzume was never at that orphanage. Records could easily be replicated and memories altered. Suzume wasn't of Suna blood.

Gaara brusquely stopped in front of the door of the house and enlightenment swept over him as his transformation washed off of him. That explained her low tolerance of the heat. But, no.

He walked into the dark house and took off his shoes. Something was still off. Ninjas from other villages have survived the desert heat before and have never had such a severe reaction to it as Suzume did.

It explained the shinobi watching her though. Either Suna shinobi investigating a potential spy or foreign shinobi watching a fellow foreigner. And Suzume knew nothing of it. Of course she doesn't. She couldn't.

He was putting his feet into slippers when something cold seeped into him. What if she was another assassin? What if her job was to get close to him so she could end him? Her clumsiness and her absent aptitude as a shinobi could be as much of a mask as the disguise he wore that day. It fits too snugly.

Gaara found himself near the training room that rice paper doors separated him from. His fingers gathered into a shaking fist. "Just another Yashamaru."

"What about our uncle?"

Gaara twisted around to see Kankuro standing there with his eyebrows knitted and his nose scrunched up. His brother's eyes gathered the distress Gaara had let slip and he swiftly concealed it.

The two brothers stood in buzzing silence and Gaara found something in Kankuro's hand that only made the situation worse.

Would he tell them? Would he even believe himself?

Suzume's dead eyes stared ahead from out of the picture clasped in the puppeteer's hands.

If he said Suzume had more than one shadow.