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cratersSUNAGAKURE
๏ผ sunagakure's third division was a medical corps. the last remnant of lady chiyo, gone in an instant against edo tensei, targeted specifically because of their utility. they'd made a tactical mistake, and the third division had fallen back from the main flank. white zetsu clones had poured out of the earth and slaughtered them nearly to a man before they even knew what they were up against. generations of knowledge and talent eradicated from the world. they still have medics, of course — only a foolish commander (and gaara is hardly that) would have stacked their deck so poorly, but they are stretched thin in the regions, and there aren't enough to spare to teach replacements in any quality or quantity.
so, in the name of their alliance — and in honour of lady chiyo's memory — she drafts up a plan. spends a few months working out the logistics with konoha's own medical division and with suna's delegates, until they've landed on a suitable arrangement. sakura will be effectively 'on loan' from the hokage to the kazekage, for a period of three months (or more, at her discretion) until such time as they've found equilibrium again, and in exchange sunagakure will give them cuttings of their rarest plants and poisons, secrets so closely guarded that only chiyo knew where they grew in the wild.
both kankurล and temari welcome her warmly at the borderlands, accompanying her in a symbolic honour guard to the village. it's been months since they've seen each other, and the idle chatter is pleasant and bracing the way it is between strong acquaintances with the promise of friendship lurking on the not-too-distant horizon. they talk about anything but the war. temari's contract summon is a new father, with four strong kits. kankurล is designing a puppet to replace those destroyed in the war. temari murmurs in a stage whisper that he'll talk sakura's ear off about it if he lets her, and they all have a good laugh. it feels — nice. freeing, almost, to laugh like this.
(one thing shinobi are is resilient. you would never know that they buried nearly sixty thousand collective souls less than six months prior. you'd never know what they lost.
maybe that's more sad than it is strong.)
they set her up in a beautiful room, high in one of sunagakure's towers, with a view of the city and the endless sand. it's palatial — far fancier than anywhere she's ever stayed in konoha, and she finds herself uncomfortable amidst the finery and pillows and gauzy drapes. she ends up sleeping on the floor more often than not, or sometimes not sleeping at all — down in the clinics, giving succor to those with long-term injuries held over from the war. missing limbs, bodies twisted with awful rigor. an unusual number of them seem to have locked-in syndrome, frozen stiff but for the way their eyes track her frantically across the room. it's puzzling, and not something she's ever seen before in these great numbers — no history of ischemic stroke, but something seems to be affecting their corticopontine tracts in the brainstem.
she makes a mental note to ask if there was an undocumented poison specialist among the resurrected on suna's side — it could account for a somehow undetectable haemorrhage — and sets to her work. by day, she trains a baker's dozen of handpicked students, each with promising aptitude. sakura doesn't judge them by their grades or even their chakra control — both are nice, and helpful for advanced techniques, but what's more important by far is one's will to do the work. healing isn't for everyone, after all.
by night, she works in the clinic.
when she does sleep, it's done in fits and starts, jarred awake most frequently by the stir of scouring sands that seem like wild spirits trying to grind the city down to bleached bone. sirocco, they're called, and even the word seems foreign on her tongue. in konoha, you could count on gentle rain or the trill of insects to lull you to sleep most nights. here, it's harder — and it's not the only thing that is wildly different. the village guard changes at unfamiliar times. the people rise earlier and sleep in the afternoon to escape the heat. the food is different, more things fermented or dried, and heavier in fatty meats than she's used to. fresh vegetables and fruits are an imported luxury, as the carefully tended greenhouses in sunagakure have strict regulation about what can and cannot be grown. temari brings her strawberries once and refuses to say where they're from. oh, i have my ways, many and mysterious as they are she says, and sakura snorts.
but it's a thoughtful gesture, and the taste of strawberries is never far from her mind.
she finds herself enjoying temari's little visits. they spend a great deal of time talking about konoha, the cultural differences thereof. temari has a broad and far-reaching knowledge of tactics and war history, something she's clearly spent more time studying than sakura ever has, but she knows poetry, too. they discuss ato hiyori's beautiful waka poetry, more than once arguing interpretation of various verses until the sun was a slow burn on the horizon.
sakura had known temari was smart — her performance in the chลซnin exams both in konoha and its second iteration in sunagakure where they both graduated more than proved that — but she hadn't known she was so studied. it's intriguing. maybe a little exhilarating. they still live in a world, after all, where women are expected to blunt themselves to a dull edge, and temari's refusal to do so is refreshing.
more than once, conversation drifts to the nara clan, and sakura finds herself being oddly jealous.
(it's ridiculous. she shouldn't be jealous. what is there to be jealous of? she likes shikamaru. she'll be happy for him, if that's how this all ends. but she does wonder if temari's ever brought him strawberries.)
they both have their duties — and as one of the village's elite jลnin, temari sometimes seems to blow in with the breeze and vanish just as quickly, here and there and gone on missions in an uncertain pattern that's comforting in its familiarity.
one day, she returns with an injury.
nothing serious, kankurล tells her, although there's a tightness to the corners of his eyes that belies his worry. sorry, could you take a look? he's fetched her at the end of one of her classes, when she is messy and sweating and missing the cool fall evenings in konoha, and off they go.
temari's quarters are plainer than hers, which surprises her (but, she supposes it shouldn't) and kankurล excuses himself to tend to other business, leaving her alone to clear her throat as she enters the room. she should probably be flattered he trusts her enough to leave her alone with his sister. ๏ผ
Ah — Temari-san? Kankuro-san said you could use a medic.
so, in the name of their alliance — and in honour of lady chiyo's memory — she drafts up a plan. spends a few months working out the logistics with konoha's own medical division and with suna's delegates, until they've landed on a suitable arrangement. sakura will be effectively 'on loan' from the hokage to the kazekage, for a period of three months (or more, at her discretion) until such time as they've found equilibrium again, and in exchange sunagakure will give them cuttings of their rarest plants and poisons, secrets so closely guarded that only chiyo knew where they grew in the wild.
both kankurล and temari welcome her warmly at the borderlands, accompanying her in a symbolic honour guard to the village. it's been months since they've seen each other, and the idle chatter is pleasant and bracing the way it is between strong acquaintances with the promise of friendship lurking on the not-too-distant horizon. they talk about anything but the war. temari's contract summon is a new father, with four strong kits. kankurล is designing a puppet to replace those destroyed in the war. temari murmurs in a stage whisper that he'll talk sakura's ear off about it if he lets her, and they all have a good laugh. it feels — nice. freeing, almost, to laugh like this.
(one thing shinobi are is resilient. you would never know that they buried nearly sixty thousand collective souls less than six months prior. you'd never know what they lost.
maybe that's more sad than it is strong.)
they set her up in a beautiful room, high in one of sunagakure's towers, with a view of the city and the endless sand. it's palatial — far fancier than anywhere she's ever stayed in konoha, and she finds herself uncomfortable amidst the finery and pillows and gauzy drapes. she ends up sleeping on the floor more often than not, or sometimes not sleeping at all — down in the clinics, giving succor to those with long-term injuries held over from the war. missing limbs, bodies twisted with awful rigor. an unusual number of them seem to have locked-in syndrome, frozen stiff but for the way their eyes track her frantically across the room. it's puzzling, and not something she's ever seen before in these great numbers — no history of ischemic stroke, but something seems to be affecting their corticopontine tracts in the brainstem.
she makes a mental note to ask if there was an undocumented poison specialist among the resurrected on suna's side — it could account for a somehow undetectable haemorrhage — and sets to her work. by day, she trains a baker's dozen of handpicked students, each with promising aptitude. sakura doesn't judge them by their grades or even their chakra control — both are nice, and helpful for advanced techniques, but what's more important by far is one's will to do the work. healing isn't for everyone, after all.
by night, she works in the clinic.
when she does sleep, it's done in fits and starts, jarred awake most frequently by the stir of scouring sands that seem like wild spirits trying to grind the city down to bleached bone. sirocco, they're called, and even the word seems foreign on her tongue. in konoha, you could count on gentle rain or the trill of insects to lull you to sleep most nights. here, it's harder — and it's not the only thing that is wildly different. the village guard changes at unfamiliar times. the people rise earlier and sleep in the afternoon to escape the heat. the food is different, more things fermented or dried, and heavier in fatty meats than she's used to. fresh vegetables and fruits are an imported luxury, as the carefully tended greenhouses in sunagakure have strict regulation about what can and cannot be grown. temari brings her strawberries once and refuses to say where they're from. oh, i have my ways, many and mysterious as they are she says, and sakura snorts.
but it's a thoughtful gesture, and the taste of strawberries is never far from her mind.
she finds herself enjoying temari's little visits. they spend a great deal of time talking about konoha, the cultural differences thereof. temari has a broad and far-reaching knowledge of tactics and war history, something she's clearly spent more time studying than sakura ever has, but she knows poetry, too. they discuss ato hiyori's beautiful waka poetry, more than once arguing interpretation of various verses until the sun was a slow burn on the horizon.
sakura had known temari was smart — her performance in the chลซnin exams both in konoha and its second iteration in sunagakure where they both graduated more than proved that — but she hadn't known she was so studied. it's intriguing. maybe a little exhilarating. they still live in a world, after all, where women are expected to blunt themselves to a dull edge, and temari's refusal to do so is refreshing.
more than once, conversation drifts to the nara clan, and sakura finds herself being oddly jealous.
(it's ridiculous. she shouldn't be jealous. what is there to be jealous of? she likes shikamaru. she'll be happy for him, if that's how this all ends. but she does wonder if temari's ever brought him strawberries.)
they both have their duties — and as one of the village's elite jลnin, temari sometimes seems to blow in with the breeze and vanish just as quickly, here and there and gone on missions in an uncertain pattern that's comforting in its familiarity.
one day, she returns with an injury.
nothing serious, kankurล tells her, although there's a tightness to the corners of his eyes that belies his worry. sorry, could you take a look? he's fetched her at the end of one of her classes, when she is messy and sweating and missing the cool fall evenings in konoha, and off they go.
temari's quarters are plainer than hers, which surprises her (but, she supposes it shouldn't) and kankurล excuses himself to tend to other business, leaving her alone to clear her throat as she enters the room. she should probably be flattered he trusts her enough to leave her alone with his sister. ๏ผ
Ah — Temari-san? Kankuro-san said you could use a medic.
no subject
Date: 2022-06-06 02:14 am (UTC)The purpose of the entourage from Konoha speaks sense and reason. Temari understands this, and she brooks no argument when told of the plans from her brother, the Kazekage, himself. She's shepherded efforts between the two villages, Leaf and Sand, enough times to be familiar with the unique workings of Konohagkure. As a close ally and friend, this is a kindness. It is a recognition of loss. Were Konoha in the same position, it is understood that Suna would make the same sacrifice, and indeed they've offered an equitable trade of information to merit the exchange.
More surprising to Temari is that they've parted with one of their most powerful and valuable medic nin, Haruno Sakura herself. A young woman who looks little different than the last time they saw each other on the unified battlefield โ a focused, mature, confident version of the little girl at those first chลซnin exams โ even as something pulls Temari's eyes longer than she can name. Conversation is idle, easier than she expects over the days of their village's arrangements. Temari will be the first to admit that she doesn't have great practice in social interaction with other women. She has been raised surrounded by men; it is her career, and she has never felt a natural part of her own delegated gender group, insofar as their focuses circle the drain of crushes, clothes, and soft, delicate things.
Through the days, she begins to pursue their interactions more purposefully. She knows where Sakura is meant to be working, and she never tries to interfere in duty, especially given the need of her own village. But there are mild visits. Talk, in between tasks or errands. A gift of strawberries, one hot afternoon, when a vendor from Konoha is ushering them to the Kazekage's office as a formal donation โ and she intercedes with diplomatic power and only a little bullying. It's worth it to see the smile bloom on Sakura's face.
(And if she notices anything when Nara's name arises in conversation, it's without perception โ the assumption that Shikamaru and Sakura are friends is the one she's under. Surely, by now, Sakura is homesick. She must miss her home, and her comrades.)
So the other woman is a fascination. From their nitpicking of poetry, to the sharp blade of Sakura's medical mind, to the subtler changes of expression on her fair face. Temari can't help but feel drawn to it. Only the looming date of Sakura's eventual return keeps her modest and conscious of statecraft.
Yet is becoming friends not what the alliance of their nations is meant to encourage?
(Friends. Even her mind keeps hanging on it.)
Temari startles at the sound of the door where she's seated at the foot of her bed, a low sandstone frame draped in sheer white, undecorated curtains. She has disrobed, left only in a black binding around her chest, a pair of shorts, and mesh underfitting โ and she is starkly aware of this near nudity upon Sakura's entry as she has never noticed around the men in her life.]
... Ugh, that moron. [It's a grumble.] I told him it wasn't serious, but he wanted to get you anyway. You have more important things to be doing.
[The injury is easy to spot โ a gash across the upper bicep, and another skirting just beneath her collarbones, both vivid red. Temari has gauze pressed to the one on her arm; the other is leaking a steady trickle of blood into her bra.]
The wounds are probably poisoned. I think that's the reason he freaked out, as if I've never handled getting poisoned before. [They're both Suna shinobi, aren't they?] I guess I can't blame him. Without anyone else trained up on antidotes properly yet... [She bites her lip. She can still remember looking down at her younger brother, close to his death, locked into a prison of paralysis by that Akatsuki missing-nin. She'll never forget the terror. And that Sakura was the one who saved him.]
... Sorry to bother you. [Her eyelashes flicker, vision blurred.] It's mild. It won't kill me. Probably.
no subject
Date: 2022-06-06 02:44 pm (UTC)๏ผ coming from temari, that protestation almost seemed self-conscious. she stands, briefly awkward in the threshold of her door, and then takes a deep breath and steps the rest of the way inside. ๏ผ
After all, what sort of ally would I be if I didn't help, hm?
๏ผ that's said playfully, as she draws the door closed behind her. the room smells like sandalwood and spice, she identifies an ornate pot of incense on a low dais as the source, smoke curling away from it lazily, turning the air a faint, heady blue. shinobi are accustomed to concealing themselves — no sight, no sound, no smell, but she recognizes the incense as a faint scent that clings to temari's clothing when she visits, and for some reason she cannot discern the intimacy of it strikes her.
she might blush, were she younger and less focused on her work.
instead, she goes to temari's side and sits next to her. her awareness of the woman's state of undress is largely peripheral — as a doctor, no amount of nudity troubles her at all. later, perhaps, she'll be quietly mortified at her own forwardness, but for now there is only what needs doing.
she pulls a small bottle of antiseptic out of her medical bag washing her hands thoroughly before setting it aside, and then — ๏ผ
I think you're right about the poison.
๏ผ the livid red of the wounds draws the eye, and she is frowning as she leans in to examine the one on her collarbone. her skin is hot to the touch, and a press of the inside of her wrist to the woman's forehead confirms it. mild, but there. ๏ผ
What can you tell me about the one who did this?
๏ผ it's as much to keep her focused and talking as it is to give her an idea of what treatment it might require. pulling the poison out shouldn't be too difficult in and of itself, and an antidote may not be necessary in that case. however, it pays to be thorough when one is dealing with unknown toxins. ๏ผ