Naruto Shippuden: girl from whirlpools

The Puppeteers

Chapter Seventeen: The Puppeteers

The cart had not been a smooth ride, and Minato thought he had been sorely misled about the terrain of the wind country. There were songs about this place, that waxed on about the columns of sand dunes and the ever-changing face of the landscape, but the driver insisted that was only true to the far west of Suna. East of Suna, where they travelled, was only a flat, barren landscape where the parched earth cracked and the only signs of life were a couple of cacti and some dry, dead looking bushes.

Minato hid in the paltry shade of his hood, sweltering quietly. This was probably what Kushina felt like on those hot days in Konoha. Except down here nearer the equator, the sun seemed twice as large and twice as hot as the sun back home, and Minato had already finished his supply of water and had started on Sakumo's.

The older jonin didn't appear to mind. In fact he seemed impervious to the harsh climate of the desert, sitting bolt upright in his seat with his face turned into the light, eyes closed like a dozing lion. Of course, he was going to be far more at ease with this temperature since while Minato had been splashing around in the bogs of the far east during the war, Hatake Sakumo had been in this very desert, fighting Suna.

Given such a history, Minato wondered about the wisdom of sending someone like Sakumo on a peaceful exchange program. It had to be rather like sending Minato as part of a peaceful envoy to the Mist village, knowing he'd killed one of their finest generals, savaged their strongest outpost, and overall struck a very humiliating blow. The Hokage seemed to think it was an appropriate choice, however, and the Hokage's word was always final. Minato knew because he had done this best to wriggle out of this program for some very good reasons.

The first was that Hatake Sakumo didn't like him. They'd travelled together for three days now and it had been an almost entirely silent journey, save for that hour when Sakumo had listed all the things that could and would kill Minato in this country, ranging from flat-headed snakes and red flies, to simple things like standing outside for more than four hours without water (a list which Sakumo had enjoyed relaying far too much). It was true that after the guinea pig incident it was understandable for Sakumo to be especially frosty towards him, but altogether Minato thought very little harm had been done. Not when, after having the cruel facts of death spelled out for him, Kakashi had merely turned to Minato with wide eyes and asked when he would be getting a replacement pet.

The other reason was because he really hadn't wanted to leave Kushina behind.

When he'd left, he'd made her promise to put her troubling conviction to leave the village aside, at least until he got back. No one else he spoke to was taking it any more seriously than an ordinary tiff. Mikoto believed she'd had an argument with Ren, but her blues would soon wear off. Ren, when Minato forced himself to approach him, was flippant and refused to accept that there was anything wrong with Kushina at all – which Minato viewed as the best evidence that Ren was responsible, as well as a bastard. And when he had casually mentioned Kushina's compulsive plan to Sakumo as they set off for Suna, her teacher had merely shrugged and said, "She can't leave the village," as if that was that and there was no more to it.

So although Minato was faintly relieved when the high, sandstone walls of Suna appeared on the curved horizon, he was not the lightest of moods. He barely attended as Sakumo rattled off another list of must-not-dos, this time of all the things that were considered rude and antisocial in Suna culture. "The thumbs up gesture means something else here, so don't use it under any circumstances. Don't point at people, don't show people the soles of your feet, don't do anything I don't do, refer to men with their surnames and women with their given names, and don't ever turn your back on the Kazekage when in his presence. Do you remember the Suna bow?"