The young child fell back onto his bottom and ogled up at the equally shocked Suzume standing above him.

The whole class was struck dumb by the unspeakable that has transpired. The teacher's spectacles slipped down her nose and her jaw was slackened.

Suzume just won her first sparing match.

_ _ _

Temari was getting worried.

She saw Kankuro come back home with a rental movie bag in his hands and a resolute look set into his face. He then proceeded to head in a beeline to the living room, pop the VHS into the player and sit back to watch a romance movie. A romance movie. Kankuro with a romance movie?

For the rest of the day, he played the movie, fell asleep, woke up at the end, look dissatisfied with something, and repeated the same routine over and over again. Temari wondered if it was a new naptime custom.

At the fifth rerun, Temari finally confronted him.

"I'd really appreciate an explanation," she said as the movie began its prologue.

Kankuro paused the video and ran a hand through his hair. "Did we ever know a sixteen year old guy with black hair and eyes?"

She knitted her eyebrows. "No?"

"Here." Kankuro patted the empty space next to him on the couch and reached into his back pocket.

Temari sat down and watched him unfold a piece of paper. He handed her the paper and she began to examine a rough sketch of the person she could only assume was the guy Kankuro was talking about.

The edges around him were marked sharply like Kankuro made it his job to solidify him onto the paper. The boy had a slender face and slightly wavy, black hair. But what caught her attention the most were his eyes.

"Those are Suzume's eyes," she remarked.

"Yeah," Kankuro rubbed his eyes. "Yeah, they are."

"And this has to do with why you're watching the recent Fujikaze Yukie film because...?"

"When I went to watch it with Suzume, I fell asleep. When I was asleep I saw him," Kankuro stared distantly at the sketch. "And he looked like he was making a huge decision. After deciding on the decision, he looked at me again and told me, 'She is the world herself. Nurture her with love and compassion if you don't want to see her crumble.' Which, according to Suzume, was dialogue from the movie."

"And you thought if you watched it again you'd be able to meet this mystery guy," Temari summarized.

"That was the general idea." He leaned forward and buried his face in his hands. "I know he's important somehow. He's undoubtedly related to Suzume and if he is how did my subconscious dig him up. Do I know him from somewhere? Have we met before? And I'm pretty sure what I think he said wasn't what he said, just the movie intruding at the most crucial time."

"I don't remember meeting him," Temari informed him. "He isn't a Counsellor or tribe member either. He could be someone we met on the street?"

"So Suzume's from civilian descent," Kankuro mumbled.

"It would certainly explain her inability to fight and the unused chakra system."

Kankuro grunted in agreement.

"Well, we can record the information in the Project Suzume file," Temari ejected the movie and replaced it in its case. "But I'm cutting you off. Watch it once more and you might never wake up."

Her brother snorted and only looked back up when Temari waved his drawing in front of him.

"I'll give you back your dream boy," she sneered.

Kankuro snatched it out of her hands. "I'm straight; and if he is related to Suzume, it would be incest."

"Whatever you say."

.

Suzume was walking home from school when she saw a little girl being bullied by a group of students from the sixth year. She dropped her stuff and ran over.

.

Gaara entered the living room and stood in the doorway with a weird look.

"What's the matter with you?" Kankuro questioned.

Gaara languorously drifted to the armchair and slowly lowered himself into it. "I think..."

His siblings glanced at each other in concern then leaned forward to listen intently.

Gaara looked up at them abruptly, his lips pressing uncertainly. "Would it be worrying if the voices in your head stopped speaking?"

The two on the couch simultaneously arched an eyebrow at this. "No?"

Their little brother thankfully elaborated. "Shukaku hasn't spoken a word to me for a decent amount of time."

"You had conversations with the tailed beast?" Temari said, astounded.

"Many," Gaara said brusquely, eager to continue. "But the thing is, whenever I try to remember the exact moment he stopped I can only trace it back to the day we met Suzume."

"Whoa, hang on a second." Kankuro raised a hand to cease Gaara's train of thought. "What does Suzume have anything to do with that monster?"

The redhead's eyes hardened. "I don't like the thought any more than you do, but I'm not going to pull wool over my eyes just because the circumstance is undesirable."

Kankuro sunk deeper into the couch. "What about the day Shukaku almost killed me? Weren't you under his influence then?"

"When Suzume protected you, the bloodthirst receded almost immediately. I remember feeling fear. Shukaku's never been afraid," Gaara told them. "Something about harming Suzume scares him."

"He won't or can't touch her."

The living room was seized by silence.

.

Suzume protected the little girl from a kick to her head and felt a flaring pain near her chest.

She rounded on the sixth years but didn't get a chance to do anything more before she was knocked out.

.

"As long as we're on the subject," the brother's eyes were drawn onto their sister, "I also figured something out.

"It's been nagging at the back of my head for a while but I was only able to make sense of it when I tied it into what we found at the archives. You know, the hibernation thing."

The boys nodded.

"It was during the Ruby Silence. The fake warning of a sandstorm was just a ploy to make us close the windows by the terrorists and it was a success; we closed the windows and the gas was stuck in the mansion.

"When Gaara left for the meeting at the Institute, Suzume reacted oddly." She gazed out at the grave in their backyard. "She told me she smelled something horrible but I couldn't smell anything out of the ordinary. I didn't think much of it but still made her stay at the house rather than attend the meeting."

"She smelled the gas," Kankuro gasped, straightening up.

Temari met their wide eyed gazes seriously. "I've done research and cats and some dogs have been known for detecting gas leaks. But we can't test it since they started adding the smell into gas ever since the terrorist attack."

.

A couple of kids were throwing a huge object into a dried up well located in an abandoned ghost town. After hearing the sound of a thud, they whooped and started back toward the Sand village set aflame by the sunset.

.

Gaara's eyes were cast down and out of focus. Animals. What did Suzume have to do with animals? Because if it wasn't clear before it was clear now: Suzume is to animals as animals are to Suzume.

Gaara raised his head. "About Hi—"

Bang, bang, bang! "Temari-sensei! Kankuro-sensei! Gaara-sensei!" called a panicked voice.

The family all shared confounded looks then hastened to the door.

When they opened it, a wild eyed Shiro almost fell forward.

"Hey, hey, hey," Temari said calmingly after catching her student. "Settle down. Where's the fire?"

"Suzume's gone! They took her somewhere!"

They've never combined in such a way before. Immediately taking action, they didn't need to exchange any words. Gaara disintegrated into sand and the river rushed out the door, spreading far and wide across every inch of the village. Kankuro disappeared in a column of smoke to get his puppets downstairs and Temari seized Shiro's shoulders.

"Where? Do you know where?" Temari asked urgently.

Shiro shook her head.

Kankuro appeared again and handed Temari her fan. Shiro's visage grew pallid. "They're just stupid bullies. That's it. I don't think they would kill her, at least not intentionally."

"I'm sorry, Shiro, but if you don't know anything you're useless to us." Temari strapped on her weapon. "Thank you for telling us and you can stand out of the way now."

.

Suzume woke to a ringing in her ears and the smeared frame of stars above her. She sat up to see she was in a circular room made up of cold stone walls and a dry bed of sand.

Her head spun and she bent over to puke out her innards.

.

Shiro ran after the two and stood in their way. "Suzume isn't a shinobi." She said these words with complete conviction. "You guys need to stop humoring her. She needs to stop. She's only putting herself in danger."

Temari and Kankuro scowled down at her.

"Who says we're humoring her, jan? We were against it from the start."

"But if it's something she has her mind set on, we should support her."

"Not if it's something that'll kill her!" Shiro hollered.

"We'll discuss this after we find Suzume, Shiro."

They side-stepped her and took to the rooftops.

.

"Is anybody up there?!" Suzume cried up at the gap of sky. "Hello?!"

Her voice didn't reach anyone.

Suzume wiped away the tears gathering in her eyes and clapped her hands to her cheeks. She was going to be alright. Her siblings would've noticed her absence by now, they'd be looking for her.

She considered the exit above her head and it stretched higher into the sky until it became nothing more than a speck. She hugged herself tight and crouched down, focusing on her breathing.

She was confined in a tight space, no way to reach the exit, and nobody to help her. She wanted to get out. She hated this. She was scared.

Suzume reached into her pocket and pulled out a roll of bandages and tape and started to prep her hands.

.

Temari leapt onto a rooftop and was joined soon by her brothers. "No luck?"

"She isn't in the village," Gaara informed them. "She must be out in the desert and my sand can't cover such a wide perimeter."

"Here." Temari tossed them each a wooden tile which allows them clearance outside the village walls. "Let's go."

.

Suzume sucked in a little breath and there was a whoosh of air then the bruise producing fall back to the ground. She groaned and turned onto her side. She pushed herself up and lifted her head to squint at the towering well. She made it halfway that time. Her concussion was making her disoriented and unsteady on her feet.

Suzume raised her quivering hands to see the bandages soaked with her blood. Her feet weren't doing so well either. She seems to have lost her shoes.

She shivered and rubbed her hands against her arms, her breath creating clouds of fog in the air. The desert heat was conquered.

Suzume stood up again and grasped the stone. She pulled herself up painstakingly with the attitude of a starved tiger. She'd get out of here and she'd do it now.

Fall.

Suzume didn't get to brace herself this time since the ground came to her. When did she lose her grip? How did she lose it?

In a daze, Suzume lay lifelessly on the sand trying to make sense of what happened. She was there and now she was here.

It's a baby Shizen...

Suzume bolted upright. "Who-who is it?"

.

They were scanning the landscape of the vast sea called the desert. They didn't know where to start. Which oasis, which territory, which ghost town, which safe house would she be at? There were dozens of places she could be. Where would those brats be keeping her?

"For now," Gaara spoke, "we'll split up. We'll each cover a single direction."

Temari concurred and was about to run off when Kankuro stopped her. "Wait!"

Temari and Gaara stared at their brother who was ardently gazing up at the sky.

"What?" Temari snapped impatiently. "Is Suzume flying?!"

Kankuro kept looking up.

"What're we waiting for, Kankuro?!" Temari bellowed, aggravated. "We need to move!"

His eyes expanded and he pointed up at something. "There!"

They all looked to see a hawk flying closer to them. It circled hysterically above the trio and let out a sharp cry then flew off toward the south-east.

The Sand Siblings bulleted after it.

.

Whispers encircled her. Hissing voices and menacing laughter.

A Shizen. It's alone. It's lost. It's hurt.

Do you think we can eat it?

I haven't tasted Shizen meat in centuries.

Suzume clasped her ears and curled in on herself.

What was this?

She felt cold hands reaching for her and the voices were closing ranks.

"St-stop it..."

The voices were sinking nauseatingly into her body.

"Stop it."

Wet, rotting skin clung onto hers. Hot, putrid breaths were sullying the air. Her head was rattling in her skull and her heart was beating out of her chest. The voices were corrupting her entire being.

"STOP IT!"

"Suzume!"

Suzume snapped her eyes open to see Kankuro in front of her, searching her face worryingly. "Kankuro..."

"You're okay now, Suzu." He held her face in his hands. "You're okay."

She clung onto his shirt. "Kankuro...!"

She buried her face into his chest and sobbed.

"I don't want to be scared anymore!"

"I know, I know." Kankuro enveloped his strong arms around her reassuringly. "You're okay. I've got you."

He eventually settled Suzume down enough to carry her out of the well where Temari and Gaara were waiting. Temari also cradled Suzume's face in her hands and gave her firm, comforting words. Gaara placed a blanket over her shoulders and Kankuro gave her a piggyback ride back to the mansion during which Suzume drifted off to sleep.