part 5
Out of all of them, Sai has the most skill and practice at skipping over borders past patrols without being noticed. Sai ran ANBU-level missions early and often, ROOT ops where even stopping at the border post to pick up intel was forbidden because Danzō was circumventing the Hokage's authority and therefore the missions were truly done in complete secrecy, and it's not pleasant to think about that...
...but it is practical to take Sai's experience into consideration, and Sai doesn't flinch from discussing or utilizing his knowledge and skills. Sai is the one who suggests that they head directly north, to cross the border out of Fire closer to Rain than Konoha ninja usually prefer when going to Wind, and then head south-west to the usual River-Wind border crossing.
Kubisaki Pass cuts through the very north of Land of Rivers, practically tracing the backs of the mountains that make up the Rain-River border. So, Sai explains, much of the manpower in the area is spent tracking border crossings there and making sure that Fire's end of the pass is maintained to an acceptable degree. Ninja coming in to Land of Fire are unlikely to get by the large outpost — used as a command center in the Second War — that's set further back from the border than the crossing-point outposts, but ninja leaving the country can easily blend in with other traffic.
It's kind of chilling to listen to Sai lay out the problems with their country's security, holes purposefully left open by Danzō that Tsunade evidently hasn't gotten around to fixing yet even though Sai says he's told her about them, but in this case it's also useful.
They hit the Fire-River border before nightfall and agree that Sai should be the one to call the shots as they cross the border. Shikako gets the impression that Sasuke has absolutely crossed some borders secretly before, probably on ANBU missions, but he's apparently never done this border crossing before.
Sai runs through the hand seals for a summoning immediately, and when the chakra mist clears he has a crow perched on his arm. A crow who looks very, very unhappy.
"Uzume said to tell you that you're an idiot and to come home," the crow says, shifting on Sai's arm like it's so annoyed it can't sit still.
His feathers, Shikako realizes, are literally ruffled. She tries to keep the humor off her face as Sai fends off the crow's displeasure and proceeds to introductions. The crow is named Kansoku — "observation" — which might be a title more than a name.
"I didn't realize you had summons," Shikako says.
Kansoku peers down his beak at her. "It's more like we have him."
Cute.
Sai explains what he needs from Kansoku and Kansoku grumbles but compiles, taking wing to find and observe the Konoha patrols in the area. Once he finds them, Sai uses a sight-sharing jutsu to track their location and reactions as they sneak around the patrol and slink across the border, Shikako taking point because she's most likely to be able to sense non-patrol ninja in their path and redirect them.
Before he had summons, Sai must have done this with his ink animals.
The crossing goes without a hitch, contrary to Shikako's usual missions, leaving her stomach tight with tension long past the reasonable threat of discovery. Once they've cleared the patrol zone on the River side of the border, they head mostly south, following rivers full of civilians herding rafts of fresh-cut logs downstream.
Early evening, Shikako starts to hear Gelel's sound, its indescribable music, the same deafening but silent tune that hums through the nature chakra in River, powerful reverberations carried through the water table and the bedrock. Shikako is surprised by how much better she can sense it now, although she's not sure if that's because she's so familiar with it or if it's because she's had sensor training now.
She finds she feels it especially strongly in her abdomen, where her Gelel stone is still embedded.
They're still in River when night falls. Sasuke and Sai seem certain that they'll need to announce themselves to the Sand nin patrolling the Wind border if they want to cross out of Rivier without incident. Sand is somewhat understandably on higher alert for border crossings from River than Konoha is for border crossings from the Kubisaki Pass.
"I've heard they have Gaara on the border somewhere, to make crossing unnoticed difficult," Sasuke mentions, and that pretty much cements that they'll need to forge an appropriate mission scroll.
"Okay," Shikako says. "So... we just need a reason for us to really need to head to the Dead Wastes. Can Kansoku cross the border and wait there for us?"
"He'd find it boring," Sai says. "I don't have the necessary ninja wire to bribe him with."
Knowing that Kansoku is nearby, probably listening and watching, Shikako doesn't let her amusement show. She just says, "I have ninja wire. Have either of you ever written your own mission scrolls?"
No, it turns out, they have not.
"Then you two make dinner while I write a draft," Shikako says. There's no real reason to choke down nothing but water and ration bars when they've stopped to handle this anyway.
She finishes writing the mission draft before the rabbits Sasuke caught finish cooking. Sai reads it out loud while Sasuke uses his Sharingan memory to mimic the handwriting and format of the scroll Shikaku wrote for Sai the day before.
"You want to imply that someone actually managed to steal the Sword of the Thunder God? Managed to get at it in the first place, and managed to get back out of the village afterwards? Shouldn't we go for a lie someone might actually believe?" Sasuke asks halfway through, his pen stalling on the page instead of writing down the perfect phrasing Shikako had just come up with.
It doesn't actually say "Sword of the Thunder God", obviously. Just "powerful Senju relic".
"It could happen," she says. "I mean... technically, since Sai broke me out of jail and I took point on our border crossing, you have been following a criminal who has a Sword of the Thunder God?"
"What?" Sasuke asks. "Why? How?"
Sai asks, "Did you steal it?" and sounds only mildly curious. Shikako supposes that someone willing to casually commit treason for her wouldn't be very bothered by the thought of her doing other legally questionable things.
"I took it from a guy who stole it when we ran into him on a mission." Shikako gestures impatiently at the scoll. "You're going to need the specifically nonspecific Senju relic excuse. Just write it down."
"Tsunade-sama would be very intent on retrieving her great-grandfather's sword if it were stolen," Sai agrees.
"Sure, that too," Shikako says.
Sasuke eyes her doubtfully, not really looking assured, but goes back to writing out what she'd suggested before, sharingan shining in the light of one of Shikako's LEDs as he reproduces her father's handwriting stroke for stroke. He's doing the signature when his pen suddenly stills again for a moment in the middle of writing the kanji before completing Shikaku's name.
He says, "My clone dismissed itself."
"Any response to Sai's attack from my—" Shikako cuts herself off and rephrases her question: "Has Shikaku done anything?"
"Shikaku hasn't made any moves that my clone was aware of, but that Tenzō guy showed up looking for you, Hikaku, and said you were last seen leaving the Nara compound, so..." So maybe they've got the Jōnin Commander on their side. Or maybe he's just biding his time.
"Did your mother believe that the clan was at risk?" Sai asks.
Sasuke shrugs. "Apparently Kakashi wasn't joking and the official story really was that you kidnapped me, so it's probably fine politically. But Uzume-ba is pissed. She's going to throw you in The Pit the minute you get back to the village and train you into the ground." He says the pit like a proper noun. The Pit. "Next time you're going to go on the run, let her know first."
"She would have insisted on joining me."
"Better than her sitting at home worrying and driving my mom crazy," Sasuke says, exasperated. "Besides, you're an Uchiha now, remember? It was stupid for you to plan to do this alone."
Sai doesn't respond to that except to nod tightly.
"Anyway," Sasuke goes on, "for now. I don't think Tsunade really wants to take on the Uchiha. And she's still dealing with the Yamanaka's reaction to one of their members being forced into performing a dangerous technique." Sasuke glances at Shikako, but when she doesn't add anything about Yamanaka Fū he asks her to elaborate on why the mission scroll only lists himself and Sai.
"There's a chance we'll run into other Konoha ninja at the Wind border crossing who might know that I'm supposed to be dead," Shikako says, grateful for the change of topic. "I could put down a different name but..." She gestures at the Nara mon on the new shirt Tōshōdai had dug up for her. "...better for me to just sneak over the border in Sai's shadow."
They eat the rabbits Sasuke caught for dinner, negotiate with Kansoku, neaten the campsite, and then continue to travel through the night and into the morning because Konoha has likely come to the conclusion that Sai and Sasuke never returned to the village at all. It's easier to cross River than Shikako remembers, probably because the last time she crossed River it was chakra-exhausted, coming back from the newly-grown Garden of Life from Death, forced to move at a civilian pace and trying not to let how badly Shikamaru was freaking out freak her out. This time they're able to move rapidly across the rivers and gorges, eschewing bridges and moving in a straight line to the border crossing.
Shikako enters shadow state and slips into Sai's shadow when they're an hour out from the Wind border.
"It's still weird to see you do that," Sasuke says to Sai's shadow.
Shikako creates a hand and arm of shadow, reaches out from Sai's shadow at an angle and waves cheerfully to Sasuke. It's not weird, she wants to say.
Sasuke seems unconvinced.
Traveling in shadow state is strange, as usual, but now comes with the addition of the Song of Gelel, which is easier to hear once she's incorporeal. The stone in her abdomen amplifying the Song, maybe, or else just a lack of physical sensation to provide distraction.
A patrol stops Sai and Sasuke before they're even in sight of the border post.
"We aren't expecting any Konoha missions to come through tonight," says the Sand squad leader. The voice comes out of the guy standing in front of them, but the chakra in the air says that they're actually talking to a puppet. The ninja piloting the puppet and throwing their voice via jutsu is hiding well-back. Shikako knows that this is usually thought of as cowardice on the part of puppeteers, but she suspects it's just... basic, simple caution.
Someone has to get back to the base to report if there's an attack.
"Our mission was sudden and urgent," Sasuke says.
"Uh-huh," says the Sand spokesperson. "We'll show you the way to the base."
The squad of Sand ninja escort them to the border post, which is a squat cement building that has a couple of basement levels that Shikako assumes she's not supposed to know about, since by all counts the border post has been made out to be a small operation. But she can sense the basements, or at least the people in the basements. Assuming they haven't buried dozens of people twenty feet under their base, alive, somehow, the border outpost has barracks, cells, and maybe some kind of intelligence hub.
The detour to check in with the Suna ninja is annoying, but at least they don't have to wait for a meeting. They're immediately hustled in to see the jōnin in charge of the base, who turns out to be a middle-aged woman. The burnt-orange lines and swirls of her makeup are so crisp and flattering that Shikako immediately, retroactively recognizes that Kankurō is a novice at applying his facepaint.
"We're tracking a dangerous criminal who stole an item of considerable value and power from the Senju vaults," Sasuke tells her. "We have a summons tracking him; he crossed the border into Wind headed for the Dead Wastes. We're requesting access to Wind to pursue him and retrieve Senju property."
The base commander asks, "What manner of summons?"
"A crow."
One of the discreetly eavesdropping chakra signatures leaves, winding deeper into the base. Probably going to contact various patrol teams and border posts to try and confirm that a crow passed into northern Land of Wind from River recently. It's not as impossible as it sounds — a lone crow of a type more commonly seen in forests and grasslands headed into the desert probably would be noticed, and Sai had specifically told Kansoku not to hide using a genjutsu.
"I will, of course, need to see your mission scroll," says the base commander.
Sasuke produces their forgery.
"And I don't suppose you'd be willing to wait here and let Suna hande the retrieval in Wind?"
Predictably, Sasuke says, "No. It's a Senju artifact. Konoha would take poorly to Sand's involvement."
"Very well," says the outpost commander, sounding irritated and resigned. As a last-ditch effort to assert some control over the situation, she adds: "But you'll have to wait for us to draw up a second mission scroll. Please go wait outside; it will only be a few minutes."
The delay isn't ideal — and would be really annoying if their story about following a thief were true — but it's much less of a problem than being denied access to Land of Wind.
They go and wait outside the border post, in broad daylight, because no matter how unpleasant it is out there one can't just loiter in a foreign village's military base, especially with tensions so high. The sun bakes them even though they're barely properly into Wind yet. The base is at least arranged to block the worst of the wind that kicks up dust and sand even this close to River.
Sai and Sasuke find a place to loiter and try to look like decent, law-abiding citizens who would never think of forging mission paperwork to enter a foreign nation under false pretenses while smuggling a wanted criminal. Shikako reflects again that she's really turned their lives around, and probably not in a good way.
Before this had been kind of humorous, but here — observing the way the Suna ninja glance at Sai and Sasuke and then adjust themselves as if the very presence of Konoha ninja is reason enough to be not just observant but actively wary, ready for danger — Shikako thinks it's probably wrong that she's leaning to much on their loyalty to a dead girl. It's probably shameful and immoral. It's probably something that Shikako should stop doing, except that at this point it's much, much too late.
But maybe that's not fair to them. Maybe... well. They're basically adults. Still terribly young, only seventeen and sixteen respectively, but by all the other markers of adulthood in this society, absolutely. It's only Shikako's life Before that makes her still look at them and think, even now: oh god, I'm the adult in this situation and I'm failing them.
She's sure that native Shikako felt the same, felt that enormous pressure. Struggled to accept her tiny seven year old hands as her own, her tiny seven year old legs as her own, her tiny seven year old anything ever as really herself. The body, her body, the body of Nara Shikako... it's more of a piece of assistive technology that Shikako uses to interact with things and people and the world in general. It has no real meaning, even as its growth and development sweep her along. That's just feedback. An inevitable part of adapting to circumstances.
What she should have done was actually send them away once they got to the Nara farm. Standing in the deer barn before sunrise two days ago, listening to Tōshōdai sing off-key as he tended to the deer outside, Shikako should have told Sai and Sasuke to just... go home.
And yet. They certainly wouldn't appreciate her doubting having them along on the way to the Dead Wastes. They'd probably refuse to even accept that she could have gotten them to leave. Now that they're here beside her... now that they know she wants them here... it's too late.
But in that moment in the deer barn, Shikako could have sent them away and made it sound logical.
She could have said, A diversion is what I need.
She could have asked for, A really good head start.
She might have reasoned, If they really, really buy your story, then they'll never think to try and track me from here.
But instead she'd had them at her back on their walk down that tunnel, and when this is over, Sai and Sasuke will probably be in some kind of trouble, foreign or domestic, physical or political. And Shikako will be gone. She can't help them. She can barely help herself.
While they're waiting, and Shikako is wishing she hadn't dragged two people who owe her nothing into this, two familiar faces turn up.
Kankurō is looking... a little worse for wear. Not quite as well-equipped as she's expecting, a little care-worn and exhausted. His makeup is smudged. Gaara looks like Gaara always does, more or less, except that he keeps his eyes down more than she'd expect. Earning his place in the village, Shikako sees, hasn't been easy for him. Hasn't happened at all, even, since he's apparently stranded out at this base. The other Suna ninja give him a wide berth.
"You," Kankurō scoffs at Sasuke. "You just keep turning up."
"Just admit you're happy to see me," Sasuke shoots back, in a tone Shikako has never heard her Sasuke from home use for Kankurō — the same tone he uses to shit talk Kiba.
Gaara doesn't speak, but looks at Sai.
Kankurō's eyes flick over to look at him too. "Naruto's not back yet, I guess."
"Yeah, he'll be pissed he missed you again," Sasuke says. "I'm sure you'll hear about how unfair it is next time you see him."
Kankurō laughs. It's an easing of stress, a relaxing into old patterns, like maybe he wasn't sure of the reception he'd get from Sasuke.
"This is my cousin, Uchiha Hikaku," Sasuke adds. Sasuke introduces Kankurō and Gaara, although Sai surely knows who they are given their political importance. Or, their former political importance, maybe.
Sai nods in greeting. He doesn't react to Gaara, but Shikako figures either he's reacting to how relaxed Sasuke is or Gaara's sane disposition has had time to make the gossip and intel rounds.
"Temari...?" Sasuke asks, letting the question hang, not completing it. He and Temari are probably friends, or at least friendly, but asking after the location of a foreign jōnin — Temari is probably a jōnin, at this age — is something to be approached cautiously, especially in the apparent political climate Sasuke has to navigate.
"Politics," Kankurō says vaguely, with a sweep of the hand like he's brushing the topic of conversation away. He waggles his eyes at Sasuke, though, and says, "But I'll tell her you asked if you promise me I can plan the wedding."
Sasuke scowls at him. "I'll tell Naruto you're in love with him," Sasuke threatens.
Kankurō pulls a horrified face. "You wouldn't," he asserts, but drops off teasing Sasuke and gets down to the business of all ninja: gossip.
With familiarity and no small amount of enjoyment, he and Sasuke perform the typical information swap. Sasuke fills Kankurō in on conditions in Land of Rivers, including news of a washed-out bridge, and Kankurō shares a fairly detailed weather forecast for the next several days. Kankurō doesn't elaborate on what kind of "politics" have kept Temari away, if indeed that was even the truth, but Sasuke doesn't seem bothered by the lack of elaboration.
A chūnin comes outside with their new scroll and the forged Konoha scroll. He delivers a long explanation of the exact parameters of their foray deeper into Wind — essentially that they're to go directly to the Dead Wastes, apprehend the thief, and return to this base on their way out of Wind — and then hands the scrolls over to Sasuke.
He doesn't look at Gaara or Kankurō at all, much less address them, only turning away immediately and making his way back inside as if Sasuke and Sai had been the only people there at all.
Neither Kankurō or Gaara react like being snubbed is new or upsetting. Kankurō just smoothly switches topics while the chūnin walks away. He asks, "Some nutcase really stole something from the Leaf and thought it would be best to hide in the Dead Wastes? Because they're literally, actually cursed, you know. Corpses don't rot there."
"I mean I think it's less that the guy was going there and more that we drove him there, tracking him with summons," Sasuke muses. "He seems to think we wouldn't or couldn't follow him into the Dead Wastes."
"Well, Suna ninja wouldn't," Kankurō admits. "Almost everyone who goes into the Dead Wastes dies, and there's no point in trying to track and fight someone there. We usually just drive people in there and wait around on the borders to confirm they're dead."
A new Sand ninja sticks their head out of the door of the base and yells that Kankurō has a mission. Kankurō's shoulders, which had relaxed completely while talking to Sasuke, tighten again. He claps a hand on Gaara's shoulder, nods to Sasuke, and says, "See you around, Sasuke."
He looks tired, walking away into the base, but Shikako can't help him any more than she can help Sasuke and Sai.
Gaara watches him go for a moment and then turns back to look at Sasuke and Sai. He says, "You should be careful."
Sasuke nods. "We will," he promises, probably aided in feeling like he's not lying because he knows there's no actual thief to catch, no enemy waiting for them.
Well, no enemy until he and Sai get back to Konoha.
Gelel's music swells and swells as they leave the River-Wind border behind, headed mostly north and a little west. Shikako is glad to be hiding in Sai's shadow rather than trying to pilot her own body across the desert, because she can hardly hear herself think.
In a slight concession to environmental factors, and because pursuit from Konoha is now highly unlikely to make much of a difference, Sasuke and Sai don't move at the all-out sprint that they'd kept up through Land of Fire and Land of River and, when the hottest part of the day hits, they settle down in what scant shade can be made with a quick earth jutsu to rest. Shikako finally slides out of Sai's shadow, unaccountably exhausted by having done nothing but observe the two Uchiha and listen to Gelel's song for hours.
Outside of shadow state, Gelel is no less distracting, although the effect is more like the reverberations of a bell that's been struck hard than the sound of Gelel itself.
"My sensing is completely useless," Shikako says when they've all fed and watered themselves.
Sai blinks at her. "Sensing is usually very useful," he offers.
"I mean I can't sense anything useful right now. The natural energy is... loud."
Sasuke and Sai both look at her skeptically. "Is that even a thing?" Sasuke asks.
"Yeah," Shikako says. "It's really annoying." And dangerous, but there's nothing she can do to stop it.
Sai asks, "Are you be able to take a watch shift?"
If Shikako says no, they'll split the day evenly with no complaints, she knows. Pragmatically, if someone can't give a watch shift the right amount of attention it's better for the rest to miss out on some sleep. Less pragmatically, both of them have proven themselves willing to do much more problematic things for her than this without complaint.
But what's really important is: does Shikako think she can pay enough attention around the Song of Gelel to keep watch?
"It's better out of shadow state," Shikako says. "I could take last shift."
When Sai wakes her for that shift, Shikako finds that her entire body feels like a piano wire, tense and ready to harmonize with the Song still thrumming through the ground, with the wind, humming along to itself in the air she sucks into her lungs. But it's not as overwhelming as it was in shadow state, even if her sensing is still shot for everything except telling exactly what direction Gelel is in, so she trades places with Sai so he can catch the second half of his allotted sleep.
As the sun starts to set, Sai and Sasuke both stir of their own accord before she has to wake them. Shikako can trust herself not to trip over her own two feet but still can't sense anything, so she ends up feeling half-blind as they run through the desert, unable to tell whether or not there's anyone else around.
As sand sea fades into canyons and bare rock, Shikako also ends up having to take the lead, because although Sasuke and Sai are aware of vaguely what direction the Dead Wastes are in, Shikako's the only one who's actually been there, although she guides them much less by memory than by the sense-feel of Gelel's location.
At the edge of the Dead Wastes, Kansoku flutters down from some high-up, shaded perch to land on Sai's shoulder.
"I hate this place," Kansoku tells Sai. "Never make me sit around out here again."
"Shikako has extra wire for you," Sai says.
Kansoku looks deeply miserable, so Shikako forks over twice the previously agreed upon payment. He disappears in a puff of smoke.
"Why do you even carry around that much?" Sasuke asks her as they start into the Dead Wastes. He's probably caught that it's the same kind he prefers.
"I just buy everything in bulk," Shikako says. "It's not like I'm going to run out of space."
Sasuke replies, but Shikako lets the conversation fall away, concentrating instead on trying to zero in on the origin of the song thundering through her head. Necessarily this involves a good deal of backtracking because Shikako's not going to attempt to earth-walk through solid stone feeling as out of sorts as she does.
Shikako wishes they'd managed to drag Gaara along somehow. He'd made discovering an ancient, lost temple so easy last time.
When they do find it, they find it from above. There's a thin crag in the ground at Shikako's feet, Gelel's song thrumming so strongly up through the air and rock that it practically makes Shikako's knees weak. Shikako means to say something, anything, to let Sasuke and Sai know she's found it, but the words slips away from her. Instead, she wordlessly uses an earth jutsu to pry enough earth away so that they can slip underground.
The jutsu should be draining — she's essentially using Earth Wall to peel up a good chunk of rock in a place that sucks chakra away greedily the moment it's outside one's body — but instead it feels easier than usual, and rather than making a hole just big enough for them to drop through, she creates a substantial opening Instead of dropping blindly into the darkness of the cave, she's able to maneuver herself through the hole such that she ends up standing upside on the ceiling of the cavern hiding the Gelel temple, waiting for her eyes to adjust to the new light conditions.
Sai and Sasuke quickly join her while she's struggling to ignore the way using chakra to cling to the rock of the cave ceiling makes her chakra coils feel Gelel's song like heavy base. The shaft of light from Shikako's hole highlights a particles of dust kicked up by her earth jutsu but quickly fades into the dim lighting of the rest of the cave. Below, the temple is visible, looking old and unstable.
Sai asks, "Are Wind temples known for time-space seals the way the Fire Temple is adept at defensive seals?"
"Land of Wind doesn't have temples," Sasuke says. "They don't pray like that."
Shikako doesn't say anything. The less they know, the better, probably. Besides, information about the long-dead civilization that created this isn't really relevant. She also considers asking Sasuke why he knows anything at all about religion in Land of Wind, but it seems like the answer is probably Kankurō and it's hard to pay attention to conversation, anyway.
They make their way to the ground with more expediency than caution.
"Is this the thing messing up your sensing?" Sasuke asks.
"Inside." She stumbles on, not missing the concerned looks Sasuke and Sai trade over her slightly clumsy movements but unable to slow down to assure them that she's fine. She doesn't know that she's fine, only knows that she has to get to the room with the stone, the room with the seals. She leads them through the dingy, plain upper portions of the temple. Through hallways, down some stairs.
When they enter the better-lit temple room, all of its carvings pristine and beautiful still, light emitting from nowhere in particular, Shikako gestures at the carvings. "Seals. Uh, try not to touch anything."
Sasuke flicks his Sharingan on to look at the seal himself and then winces and turns it off, blinking. "Too bright to even look at," he advises Sai.
There's a lot of power here, power she'll need to get home.
The seal consists largely of lines of symbols worked into solid stone with no visible toolmarks. Shikako knows the basics of how the seal works and why it was made and even a little of how it was constructed from the Book of Gelel, but the Book wasn't an instruction manual and besides which whoever had written it hadn't been thinking about using the seal as a battery to fling people across universes.
Figuring out how to access Gelel's power without accessing Gelel wouldn't be impossible, but now that she's looking at the seal again, Shikako has to acknowledge to herself that it's incredibly impractical. It would take a long time. Years, or more likely decades, and that's too long to waste.
"Is it the stone?" Sasuke asks. Is the stone the thing that's going to help you get home? is what he means, and it's the obvious question, really — the stone is literally on a pedestal, and Shikako has been stalled in this room staring blankly at it for several minutes.
"The stone is a weapon." Each step closer to the Stone of Gelel makes the Song louder, stronger. The easiest and most immediately obvious thing to do would be to grab the Stone of Gelel and see what that does, but Shikako is leery of any plan that involves snatching up powerful objects whose purpose and mechanics she doesn't understand.
Sasuke is saying, "A weapon that does what?" and she can barely hear him, can't even glance at him.
Distracted, Shikako says, "It could solve a lot of problems. It could wipe this whole place off the map."
A slightly less awful plan is to go into shadow state and see if using her Gelel stone this close to Gelel's center does anything. Which is still just blind fumbling, but does mean delaying picking up the Stone of Gelel. Which is safest? Which is most likely to get results? The Song of Gelel soars to a fever pitch, waiting for Shikako to choose, but the decision is taken away from her.
Kankurō drops from the ceiling, whatever concealment jutsu it is that Sand puppeteers use falling away just as he hits the ground, and lands in front of the pedestal. He snatches the Stone of Gelel up and holds it in a clenched fist.
"You know," Kankurō muses, "I'm feeling kind of betrayed."
Parsing this sudden change is like slogging through chest-deep mud. Kankurō had been called away for a mission shortly before they left the Sand border post. Kankurō had been called away for this mission, to follow them, to make sure Sai and Sasuke were really doing what their mission scroll claimed. There are political implications here — has Kankurō had the chance to report anything? Hopefully not — but Shikako is more struck by the interpersonal ones.
Kankurō does look betrayed, is the thing. He looks sick to his stomach, clutching the Stone of Gelel and looking right at Sasuke. He looks terrified, holding a weapon he doesn't know how to use and talking to three enemies. Does he have back up? He doesn't look like he thinks he has back up.
Shikako should say something, but she can barely put coherent sentences together in her own head at the moment, let alone outloud, as the power beginning to pour into Kankurō also pours out of him, washes over her, drowns everything else out.
"Kankurō," Sasuke starts.
"I don't want to hear it," Kankurō says.
This is a misunderstanding, Shikako starts to say, but she only gets as far as saying, "This—"
What they've all forgotten is that you're not supposed to pay attention to the puppet master if you don't know where his puppet is.
A limb made of lacquered wood slides a blade across Shikako's throat. She lives just long enough to catch the poisoned shimer of Karasu's wrist-blade, appreciate that she won't have to experience dying by Kankurō's poison, and hear Sai shout her name like the world is ending.