Chapter 2 - Girl WIth No Name

The Kazekage sat at his desk, staring down at a pile of papers he was tapping with his pen. He couldn't think and he felt a little stir-crazy. He glanced up with insomnia-lined eyes, out a window, at the darkness outside. He stood and put the candle on his desk out with the grip of sand, then exited his home.

He started out into the wild land of the Wind, wandering once again. He had, so many times before, but he knew more now. More than the killing. Thanks to Uzumaki Naruto, he understood that killing was not a purpose, not just mindless killing.

The wild was calming, with its wind and the passing sand, that felt so alive to him. All of the land was pale... Except that black. He frowned at the mass of black and white that was pointedly obvious in the moonlight and started over to it. Once he had crossed the small distance, he eyed the unconscious female lying there. She appeared oddly fragile... A line of white and red suddenly whipped up from her and his sand rushed to snatch it out of the air. He looked at it and realized it was nothing more than paper, torn up into the air by the strong wind.

He took it and scanned the item, then frowned when he realized that the chosen ink was her own blood. He shook his head with a small sigh of puzzlement, then took the paper and folded it up, on some strange whim. He stuck it in his pocket and his eyes flicked down to the other issue. The female.

He sighed again and knelt down, then pressed two fingers to her jugular. He rested there for a moment, focusing.
There.
Just barely, but she had a pulse. Not for long, by the looks of her though. She seemed naturally pale, but it went beyond natural here. A sickly white, with flushed cheeks and pale lips. Those lips were slightly parted and she just slightly breathed. He sighed and pulled her up, to drape her arm around his shoulders. She weighed barely anything at all. She seemed a fighter, by the fine play of muscles just under her skin, and she seemed very well proportioned. He sighed. He didn't need a risk in Suna.
But she was hurt.
And, she could help them, if she felt there was a debt there.

He sighed again and continued onto Sunagakure.

-----

In the end, she was bandaged up, for several wounds, wrapped in a set of Temari's old clothing, in his bed. She was surprisingly small and he had managed to change her from the bloodied, old clothes without scanning her body. It really hadn't been too hard, considering. He didn't usually notice women like that.

She had a pretty face. Open and innocent, heart-shaped, with full lips, a pleasing nose and what he could tell were wide eyes with thick lashes. He had spent several minutes studying her, and questioning his motives. He should have left her there, or killed her. But, he had brought her here.

I should probably tell Temari or Kankuro, so they can care for her. He thought, but something in him immediately railed against it. He knew how abrasive Temari was and he could easily see Kankuro shirking it. It was his problem now.

She suddenly shifted and cried out softly, voice weak. He stood up, ready to attack, something, despite an odd stirring in him at the lyrical sonance that had come from her. It was a beautiful sound, oddly enough to him.

She didn't move again. He moved over and he found her conscious, with very odd colored eyes indeed. A deep onyx, very shocking, as deep as the abyss, and slightly glazed. The pain that filled them was sheer mental agony. She found him and he realized the small glaze he saw was fever. She was healing, but her body was reacting badly.

"W-where am I?" She said, licking her lips once. He blinked.
"Sunagakure." He answered. His voice sounded like the desert wind itself, though she seemed calmed by it.
"The village hidden in the Sand..." She murmured, closing her eyes in pain for a moment. "You wish... to ask me questions? Imprison me? Kill me?" She inquired quietly. She wasn't very trusting.
"No, none of those." He responded. He could see the doubt playing across her features. "I swear it." The tension left, she relaxed and seemed to fall once more into unconsciousness.

The seventeen year old Kazekage sighed. He would have to work hard to save this one. She was terribly weakened... He frowned now, noticing something he hadn't before. She had shifted, moving the blanket. He could see the symbol of the sand ninja burned into her arm, an old wound. He brushed his fingers across it and wondered.

He pulled back and sighed. He remembered the papers she had held, as she supposedly fell into death. He pulled those from his pocket now and unfolded them, starting to read the shaky handwriting, scrawled in her own blood. He sat down on the edge of the bed, eyes moving as he absorbed line after line. When he finished, he glanced at the girl, understanding the distrust. He decided there he would help her, because he knew what it was like to be alone. And what it was like to fear being forgotten.
He knew, he remembered. And he didn't want to see it in anyone else.