Sakura Hiden: Thoughts of Love, Riding Upon a Spring Breeze

Chapter 2 Part 3

Sakura's eyes flew open. "Really?!"
What? That dream. It can't actually be coming true?

For a moment, a smile very nearly floated up onto her lips, but from
Gaara's tone and expression, she assumed that this situation was not all
smooth sailing and kept her grin in check.

"Sasuke's here?"

"Why?"

Sakura and Ino gave voice to their questions simultaneously.
Gaara clasped his hands together on top of the round table and let out a
deep breath.

"I'm not quite sure where to start. I suppose it would be best to simply tell
you what happened as it happened," he said. "Two days ago, Uchiha Sasuke
contacted terrorists hiding themselves in our village."

"What?!" Ino shouted, her voice wild. "Hold on a minute. Why would
Sasuke talk to terrorists-"

"Ino." It was Temari who interrupted her. "Gaara will talk first. Save your
questions for after."

"Sorry."

Gaara nodded and continued. "Two days ago, members of the Anbu and I
surrounded the terrorist base. Normally, the leader of the village would not directly accompany such missions, but the situation being what it is..."

The terrorists were originally ninja from Sunagakure, but they opposed
Gaara's appointment as Kazekage and
left the village to form an antigovernment group. For a long time, Gaara hadn't been able to pin down their location, but a month or so earlier one of the Anbu had discovered their base, and the group had been placed under Anbu monitoring.

The group had made a move about a week earlier.

A lone man visited their base to talk with the terrorist leader. The member
of the Anbu on monitoring duty had reported that the man visiting the base soon exited the tent and disappeared.

The meeting had been so short that the Anbu hadn't been able to eavesdrop on their conversation. But a concerning report from one of the Anbu was brought to Gaara.

"The man who appeared at the base very strongly resembled Uchiha
Sasuke of Konoha."

Sasuke quietly drew a sharp breath. But her questions would have to wait.

"I thought that it was a mistake, an accidental resemblance," Gaara
remarked. "But I was reluctant to simply dismiss the matter so easily. So I decided to join the Anbu the next day on their monitoring mission."

Gaara would have been able to peek inside the tent with his sand eye, and
if he manipulated the sand, it was an easy matter to plant a listening device.
A few days after he joined the monitoring team, Uchiha Sasuke appeared at the terrorist base. Once he was there, he began negotiating with the terrorist leader.

"Sasuke pushed at the leader and demanded that they become his
subordinates."

"Subordinates?" Ino furrowed her brow.

Gaara nodded. "Sasuke came to them with the idea that they become his
subordinates and help him destroy Konoha. If they did, he would help them with their own terrorist attacks."
"But that's-!" Sakura cried out reflexively.

Gaara ignored her. "The terrorist rejected Sasuke's demands. So the negotiations broke down. But rather than leaving then and there, Sasuke
killed the terrorist leader. He said he couldn't let him live now that he knew Sasuke's plan to destroy Konoha."

Witnessing this with his sand eye, Gaara had given the order for the Anbu to charge in. A melee soon broke out between terrorists and Anbu, and in the midst of the chaos, Sasuke escaped. Gaara took off in pursuit, but at some point Sasuke hid his chakra, and Gaara lost him.