Part II

The figure trudged through the sand, covered by cloth the same color as the desert floor.

The face was hidden, dark eyes barely glinting through the wrappings that protected from the wind and the sand and the sun. He or she walked with a slow, shuffling gate; one that would minimize energy loss; one that could be maintained for hours; one that hid the tracks that would show the person was travelling alone.

The figure's destination soon became apparent when large walls slowly rose above the horizon. His or her shoulders rose slightly at the sight, but the pace remained the same, neither quickening nor slowing. He or she knew that in the desert, things could be much farther away than they appeared. Just as it was in life.

The desert had many lessons to teach.

The sun had begun to set, though that did nothing to abate the blistering heat. The sand would retain its warmth for some hours more, until the chill of night set in. The cold could come more quickly than most were prepared for. Just as it was in life.

The desert could be a harsh teacher.

Long shadows jumped out from shifting sand dunes. The desert was just another sea; it simply moved more slowly. Every day you could look out upon it's waves and see that nothing had changed, day by day, but then, suddenly, looking back, everything was different. Just as it was in life.

The desert spared no one from its truths.

When the figure was approximately fifty yards away from the walls, two figures jumped down to confront him or her. Everyone and everything froze but the desert's constantly shifting sands.

"State your purpose, stranger," the older shinobi ordered, voice roughened from the desert's wind and unwavering sun. Silence rang for several moments. The shinobi pair tightened the grips they had on their weapons, prepared for resistance. They would defend their home to the death.

The figure studied the pair in silence. His or her stance didn't even shift as the two guards prepared for any possible attack. Then, finally, the figure opened his or her mouth to speak. "I will see your Kazekage," the figure said, rasping voice dry as the desert air. The voice was harsh, as though the woman—it was now clear by her voice that the figure was female—had spent hours screaming at the severe and unrelenting truths the desert had chosen to reveal to her.

"You may see the Kazekage if we deem that you will not be a threat to him." This time it was the younger shinobi who spoke, and his voice cracked halfway through. He couldn't be older than twenty one. The woman shifted slightly, tilting her head as though either amused or choosing the best place to strike. Maybe it was a mixture of the two.

"I will see your Kazekage," she repeated.

"We can't let you do that," the older shinobi growled. "Not until we are sure you are not a threat."

Silence—the kind found only in the desert—grew around the three. The woman broke it, just as the desert had broken her.

"And if I was?"

"Excuse me?" The older shinobi asked, wondering vaguely whether he should attack even though the girl hadn't yet been proven as hostile to the village.

"If I was a threat," she spoke calmly, demanding the shinobi to follow her logic. "If I had come here to assassinate your Kazekage, do you think you could stop me?"

"What are you getting at?" the younger questioned agressively. His voice trembled, and he wiped at his sweating upper lip with an equally shaking hand.

"The Kazekage is supposed to be one of the, if not the, strongest shinobi in a village. If this is so, and I had come to assassinate the Kazekage, I would have to be fairly strong, yes?"

The younger shinobi noticed that he was nodding. He stopped himself quickly.

"And if I had come to assassinate the Kazekage, and I believed myself strong enough to at least threaten him... then what could you do?"

The two shinobi found that they could not answer.

"There are two options here," the woman laid out painstakingly, word by word. "One is that I am not a threat, and so you will take me to your Kazekage as I said."

"And the other?" It was the older shinobi this time, the one with graying hair and harsh mouth and hard eyes. The woman tilted her head in the same manor as before, and with a start the younger realized exactly what that action resembled: the way a falcon looked at its prey just before striking.

"The other is that I am a threat to your Kazekage, you discover it is so, and I kill you—quite easily—before attempting to assassinate the Kazekage as well."

The shinobi glanced at each other and nodded, preparing to strike at the enemy. The woman seemed to completely disregard the growing threat as she continued to speak. "The only difference in these two scenarios is that in one, the Kazekage has prior warning about a visitor, and is therefore on guard even if that visitor was cleared by the guards. In the other scenario, he is completely unaware of the threat that grows at his back."

Both the shinobi paused. The cold logic lit the truth in their mind, like how the full moon illuminated each individual grain of the desert's sand. It was terrifying, just as the desert was at night. Its silence once again settled around them.

And once again, it was the woman who broke it.

"I will see your Kazekage."

The younger shinobi tensed, looking away from the woman to glance at his partner from the corner of his eye. He would follow his elder's lead: if they were to die today, fighting for their village, he would do it gladly.

But he would so like it to not be in vain.

The older shinobi gestured with his weapon for the girl to walk forward. She did so without hesitation, seemingly unconcerned about the weapons at her back. "You will see our Kazekage," the grisly guard growled. "And he'll kill you as a threat to our village."

The woman didn't even glance back as she walked. "We will see."

***

The younger guard knocked on the door so the elder could maintain an advantageous position behind the woman.

"Yes?" The Kazekage's voice called.

The woman's shoulders slumped slightly. Why, the elder guard wasn't sure. Perhaps she was preparing to spring forth and attack. Perhaps she was realizing the futility of attacking their Kazekage with his impenetrable defense. Perhaps she hadn't thought this far through her actions.

But the shinobi couldn't put the thought out of his mind that she simply looked exhausted.

"If you are prepared," the elder guard spoke loudly, knowing that that phrase would let the Kazekage know that they were here under duress. The Kazekage would be prepared to attack the moment the door slid open. The woman made that same little movement with her head, and the guard experienced a thrill of fear as he realized that she somehow knew that he had warned the Kazekage.

All he could do now, though, was keep speaking.

"There is someone here to see you from outside the village. We received neither name nor identification."

"Come in," the Kazekage ordered. His voice was monotonous, emotionless; you couldn't hear anywhere in his voice that he was about to kill.

The younger shinobi opened the door. The moment the Kazekage had a line of sight, sand was rushing forth, too quickly for the guards to ever hope to dodge. They froze like a mouse under the shadow of an owl, barely able to spare a grateful thought that the sand wasn't aimed for them.

The woman didn't even attempt to dodge as the sand enveloped and dragged her into the Kazekage's office. The woman's dark eyes, her only visible feature, met the Kazekage's blue ones readily, not even flinching at the anger and hate aimed at her as the one who dared threaten his village, his people, and their safety.

"You have," the Kazekage spoke, rage deepening his voice into a growl, "five seconds to explain yourself before I crush you."

The woman, once again, seemed utterly unconcerned about the acute danger she was in. "You once promised," she spoke slowly, leisurely, as though there wasn't a countdown on her life. "That I would always be welcome in the Village Hidden in the Sand. I wasn't aware that you went back on your word so easily."

Gaara's eyes widened in shock. His grip on the sand loosened, dropping the woman to the ground where she landed lightly. The silence of the desert was in there as well, within the sand shinobi themselves. This time, it wasn't left to the women to break, but Gaara.

"Cashile Kuroki?" He whispered slowly, disbelief shining in his eyes.

Cashile pushed her hood back and pulled the cloth covering her face down, shaking sand loose of shoulder length hair.

"Gaara," she greeted. "It's been a while."

________________________________

And so it begins!

Make sure to comment long beautiful comments so we can get the next chapter out asap!!!

Comment, Vote, and Fan!

Ja ne!

Insomniac_Lullabies