After uncovering Hakuto and Shigezane’s planned escape, Gaara ultimately allowed the pair to disappear under fabricated deaths while Shikamaru escorted them toward the Hidden Leaf. Now, still weakened from repeated overexertion and with Shikamaru temporarily absent from the Leaf delegation, you returned alongside Gaara and Shijima to a village recovering from an attempted coup, unfinished political cleanup, and the research that had originally brought you to the Hidden Sand in the first place.