Nindō: Dominion

By the time Suna came into Naruto's view, Temari was fast asleep. Not only was she extremely weakened, but hanging on to Naruto via chakra ropes that held her tightly against him, once she got used to the momentum, she felt like she was a baby being rocked in a cradle, making sleep an inevitability. She instantly woke up when Naruto stopped running and stood still. As her eyes opened and her first instinct was to stretch her limbs,

"Fuck …" Temari groaned as her current state of powerlessness hit her like a truck, making it almost impossible for her to even flex her limbs. That was when she registered the presence of the tight chakra ropes that were wrapped all around her.

"You're up, I see?" Naruto said as Temari tried to contract her muscles to feel even an ounce of power. Unfortunately, she was unable to gather even the slightest hint of her strength.

"Yeah …" She sighed, her chin weakly falling on Naruto's shoulder as she felt a wet sensation and blushed. "Was I drooling?"

"It'll dry up once the sun rises," Naruto said. "We need to get inside the village and rendezvous with Sai, you know any way we could bypass their detection?" The village was situated at the bottom of a mountain that provided them with a natural cover. As for the rest of their surroundings, it was plain, uninterrupted desert sand as far as the eye could see. The dunes had been deliberately removed to destroy any possibility of enemies hiding from them if they approached from the desert route. The only reason that Naruto wasn't yet detected was that he and Temari were still significantly far away and the natural cover of the night served to keep them hidden from the detection of the patrols.

"Do we need to infiltrate?" Temari asked. "I'm sure that if you just walk in, no one should be willing or able to stop you. You are the Hokage of Konoha, after all."

"It doesn't work that way," Naruto said. "If the Anbu were the ones taking us to the village, we would've been brought to the Anbu commander, the leader of the rebellion, first, allowing me to gauge her intent and demands. But if we come to the village completely free, it will be the current leaders, the elders who receive us. In her desperation, Maki could possibly decide on a suicidal move where she takes down Sai and Kankuro with herself. I'm confident in Sai's survivability and even his gaining an upper hand, but Kankuro, in his already injured state, might not be able to survive such a situation."

"There is a secret path through the mountain," Temari said. "You'll have to go all the way around if you want to bypass the detections though. Fortunately, or unfortunately, Suna doesn't have an omnipresent detection barrier like Konoha, which will allow us to infiltrate with relative ease."

"That's because they were the ones who got the worst benefits from destroying Uzu," Naruto said. "Both Iwa and Kumo were able to not only form their own sealing corps, but they were also able to establish similar barriers around their villages as Konoha."

Temari paused when she heard Naruto's words, unsure what she should say. Naruto didn't wait for her reply and started moving to circle around the village to get behind the mountain.

As a few minutes, passed, Temari continued to be unsure of what she should say and just sighed, placing her chin on Naruto's shoulder and tilting her head to the side to rest it against his head.

…

Under Temari's guidance, with his strength and experience as a Kage-level ninja, it was child's play for Naruto to infiltrate into the village, and quickly meet up with Sai.

"Greetings Hokage-sama," The Anbu commander greeted respectfully, not even glancing at Temari, who was barely conscious, drifting in and out of sleep while strapped to Naruto. When it came to his job, Sai's indoctrination, stemming from Danzo's Root division of the Anbu was very beneficial. He was able to work with immense focus toward his defined objective without trying to pry into meaningless matters.

"Sai," Naruto's clone nodded. "Bring me to see Kankuro, I will stabilize his condition before we decide what the next course of action is going to be."

"I understand," Sai nodded, turning around as Naruto followed behind him. They moved covertly through the alleys and the hidden areas of the village while still under the cover of the night and barely reached the temporary safe house just as the sun started rising. Throughout the journey, Temari was drifting in and out of consciousness before finally succumbing to a deep sleep while still on Naruto's back. She couldn't keep herself awake anymore. Neither Sai nor Naruto mentioned her as Sai led him to the room that Kankuro was staying in.

There were two Konoha Anbu, their faces covered by masks, stationed inside the room. They were focused on keeping Kankuro stable and quickly took defensive positions as the door opened.

"Hokage-sama," They both greeted in tandem, bowing respectfully at the man after seeing his face and the face of their commander standing right behind him.

"At ease," Naruto said. "You both did well looking after the mission target. You may clear the room, I will take care of him now."

"Understood," The two shared a look before walking toward the exit, leaving only Sai and Naruto in the room. Temari was also there, still on Naruto's back, but she wasn't conscious.

"Clue me in on the current state of Suna while I heal Kankuro, Sai," Naruto said as he approached the bed where the injured puppeteer lay. The man's body was covered in multiple light injuries along with a particularly bad wound on his stomach that seemed to have formed a scab thanks to the efforts of the two medics who had just been dismissed. Naruto put both hands on Kankuro's chest as a gold glow appeared on his palms due to his invocation of Yin-Yang Release.

"Things were shady the moment we entered Suna," Sai said, not expressing any emotion with his tone, but Naruto could detect a hint of bitterness. "One of our agents was disguised as the Kazekage and departed the train station alongside Kankuro, Shinki, and his two squadmates. The first thing that seemed off was that there was no one present to receive them at the station. Still, we decided to follow them from a safe distance. That was our biggest mistake. We never even realized when, but in a crowded civilian area, suddenly, all of the civilians erupted with the presence of chakra and ambushed all of them. Our man who was impersonating the Kazekage didn't stand a chance against the almost fifty trained killers and was murdered before we could come to his aid. Just as the assailants realized that the Kazekage was merely a disguise, they reacted quickly and suppressed Shinki and his squadmates while focusing lethal force on Kankuro. That was when we arrived, barely keeping him alive against the assault of those assassins."

"This was a premeditated attack against the Kazekage. They must've heard that Gaara had been injured in Konoha and realized that this was their best opportunity to act against him. They just didn't expect that his condition was so bad that he never even left Konoha," Naruto said. "Have you found out about this Maki? The commander of Suna's Anbu."

"We have," Sai nodded. "She is the disciple of the late Pakura, dubbed the Hero of Suna, and with good reason at that."

"I know," Naruto nodded. "Pakura singlehandedly prevented a skirmish from turning into a war between Iwa and Suna, and that too at a time when Iwa was at a much higher standing than Suna. This person was later killed by Kiri in the middle of a diplomatic mission from what I recall."

"Indeed," Sai nodded. "But that's not how the story goes. Pakura's death was a conspiracy by the Fourth Kazekage who merely used Kiri as his sword to get rid of the Hero of Suna. She had too much influence amongst the masses and even the younger shinobi. They knew that they couldn't dismiss or suppress her without causing backlash from their own people. So the Kazekage came up with the brilliant plan of making her a martyr."

"And where does Maki fit into all this? Merely to get revenge for her teacher? She'd have to steal the reanimation jutsu from us to bring back the Fourth Kazekage," Naruto said sarcastically.

"From what I've been able to gather, her motivation is to remove the line of the Kazekage from the throne completely. She doesn't want anyone of Rasa's blood becoming the Kazekage."

"What about Shinki? That kid's adopted. Is she planning to put him up there as her puppet?" Naruto asked.

"That's what seems like the plan to us. The information that we've been able to gather has been a little limited. Leaving us to make conjectures about her motivations."

"Are you able to get in contact with her?" Naruto asked. "I wish to talk to her directly to understand exactly what she wishes to do. Because her actions have left Suna ripe for an invasion."

"I'll see what I can do," Sai said. "They are aware of my presence and I might be able to set up a meeting by using your name."

"You can," Naruto nodded with a smile. "I want them to know that the Hokage is currently inside Sunagakure. They will automatically become more restrained in their actions."

***

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