Categories > Anime/Manga > Naruto > Break Down
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto.
... Break Down ...
... By IWCT ...
... Part Five: Beast ...
Life has taken on the unreality of a watercolor painting. He wakes up, goes to work, listens to the concerns of the villagers, sends men out on missions, assigns genin teams, goes back to sleep. Occasionally he remembers eating. He knows why, intellectually, he can’t grasp reality right now. He hasn’t been able to accept what he did. He knows, once he can do that, his world can break, and then he can pick up the shattered remains, just like always, and move on.
Baki is late reporting in, and when finally the Kazekage goes to the door of his office to ask the orderly in the driest of tones why Baki is not here yet, he sees his jounin talking quietly with Tsusho, and then break away from the Head Puppeteer with a curt nod. What happened to the youthful arrogance? Has Baki always been like this? He struggles to remember.
The report is concise, and Baki requests a meeting the next day. He has a new mission to propose. The Kazekage nods, and once the last report of the day is cleared from his schedule, he goes back to his apartment.
Temari, almost four, knows enough to pick up the teddy bear, and move out of the living room as he flops down on a cushion. Yashamaru comes in to see him holding his face in both hands, cold eyes visible through the net of fingers. Not one of his Kazekage’s good moods, then. Good thing he left the youngest in his crib, watching sand rotate lazily.
Yashamaru watches silently, as the man who taught him, his sensei, spirals inwards, focusing deeply inside on whatever passes for Sensei’s soul. Yashamaru’s hand unconsciously grips the thread wrapping the handle of the kunai at his hip. The Yondaime is completely unprotected. Yashamaru always used the winds to guide his weapons because his aim was horrible, but he could hit the hunched target from this five foot distance.
The kunai doesn’t make a noise as he draws it from the hip sheath. He balances it carefully, thoughts sleeting through his mind that are both his own, and not his own. He can. She can’t. He hates. She loves.
Whose fault is it really?
The kunai lowers shakily.
He is knocked to the floor by a sweeping kick, and the Kazekage is just as suddenly on top of him, pinning both his wrists above his head with one scarred hand. Yashamaru remembers another failure in the same position.
“Do you hate me?” his sensei leans over him, the wind master’s eyes blank.
Terror makes Yashamaru’s body quake. His brother is going to kill him. “She didn’t.”
“I killed her.”
“She loved you.”
“Do you?”
“Ye--,” this is not what the Kazekage wants to hear. His free hand is holding Yashamaru’s kunai, it presses the steel into his throat.
“Do you, Yashamaru, the great dissembler, feel any emotion that is not linked to her opinions?”
“I -- not yet,” Yashamaru’s stone-like eyes can’t meet the black pupils.
The Kazekage releases his grip on his brother’s wrists, and sits up again, kunai nowhere in sight. He looks around the living room, apparently not quite ready to get off Yashamaru’s knees. There is something vague and confused in his expression. “Temari will be four soon. And then Kankurou has his third birthday after, right?” he murmurs, as if he’s trying to remember something. “Where is Kankurou? I haven’t seen him recently.”
Yashamaru looks at the Yondaime, and realizes that his mentor is being completely serious. He has no idea where his son is. “Tsusho came by one day four months ago -- just a few weeks after the funeral, and said he was taking Kankurou. You said he could use the training, remember?”
“Oh. I must have. I wonder --,” the Kazekage rises from Yashamaru’s knees at last, and walks into the kitchen to see if there is anything to eat.
The next day Tsusho and Baki turn up for the meeting Baki arranged. The Kazekage isn’t surprised to see the conspiracy of two. He isn’t surprised by the proposal that Temari is ready for mentoring, and Baki, who has shown no interest in children, and in fact, down right despises them, has volunteered to be her mentor before she is approved to be a genin. Tsusho stands behind Baki, an anxious supporter, a clever puppeteer.
The Kazekage signs off on the proposal without comment. As Tsusho leaves, however, he inquires of the air when will Tsusho find someone to manipulate into taking the last child off his hands? Tsusho looks guilty under his make-up, but shrugs, and says the truth is that the Kazekage was not capable of taking care of children when his wife was alive, and Tsusho will manipulate things as he pleases so Suna can have three strong shinobi.
Kankurou is getting the care he needs with the great family of the Troupe, and Temari was going to be foisted off for training as soon as she turned four, anyway. Tsusho only let her stay with the Yondaime for so long after the funeral because her father did occasionally show an interest in her, but the former ANBU captain has observed enough to know how the Kazekage can only wince away from her large teal eyes, now. Don’t worry, Tsusho will make certain that Baki has her visit her father regularly.
He is so glad that his subordinates are taking care of things for him, he tells Tsusho scathingly.
He is the Kazekage, and he looks after the village well enough, Tsusho replies. Some might say better than the Third, but Tsusho will wait to see how Gaara turns out before he places any bets.
He leaves. The Yondaime scowls, but in the end, just lets the conversation fade into the watercolor of life.
…
He has to read the note a few times before getting the sense of it. Leaf was attacked by a monstrous chakra beast which was destroyed at the cost of the Yondaime Hokage’s life. The Sandaime Hokage sends his regards to the Kazekage, and requests a meeting.
Basically, the note says that Leaf had weathered a horrible storm, and now their allies through conquest had better not even think about striking, understand? Now is not a good time to mess with Leaf. Suna can’t at the moment, anyway. Not enough people to destroy a crippled village. How pathetic.
He agrees to the meeting, and drops back into routine. Late at night a week later he wonders if the monster was really destroyed, or ended up like Shukaku. Hmm. No. One man without training cannot create a jinchuuryki. However, when the meeting happens he will be careful to keep the subjects off demonic vessels.
…
On the first visit, he and Temari drink a stilted tea, and Temari tells him that she doesn’t like kunai, because they aren’t big enough to block with properly. He replies that there’s a reason why kunai are forged with rings on their handles, she just has to get used to rotating the blade. He asks her if her training is challenging enough. She shrugs, her four-year old face serious. She guesses, yeah. They finish the stilted tea, and she leaves.
He meant to ask her about the teddy bear.
On the second visit Temari brings some desert flowers, and it feels like a knife to the gut to realize that his youngest son is/has already/will be turning one. She has been dead for a year. Baki is with them this time, and Yashamaru comes in for the lunch, looking sick, and slightly sand burned (Shukaku can already make life difficult for anyone within the same room as the vessel). The Yondaime barely acknowledges his guest with a nod, and he doesn’t speak for the whole meal.
He meant to ask her about whether she missed her mother.
On the third visit he comes into the apartment, and finds Temari looking curiously at a little red-headed ghost with black-rimmed eyes that is sitting in a corner opposite from the two of them. Sand coils around his small body, moving the wooden blocks that Temari used to play with. Temari has her teddy bear with her. She asks if the blocks are hers.
He crosses his arms and nods, wanting to see what will happen. Temari stalks right up to the ghost the way she used to stalk right up to Kankurou. Her face twists angrily, and she reaches out.
Her hand slams off a wall of sand. She pulls back, confusion in her eyes, and then tries to snatch the blocks again. The sand wall leaps up a second time, the infant’s eyes wide and uncertain. The Yondaime doesn’t ever remember hearing the boy cry, but he looks close to it.
Temari looks scared, and says that he can keep the stupid old things. She doesn’t want them. She hugs her teddy bear, and backs off. The sand shifts closer to ground level, but continues to swirl around the vessel in a warning way.
They go out to dinner, which is as formal as the tea of the first visit. Temari reports on her studies, and he listens like the Kazekage he is. Nervously, as the bill comes, Temari asks who the other child was. Her youngest brother, he replies, and they leave.
He meant to ask her whether she’s seen Kankurou recently.
Her fourth visit lasts a week, as Baki is away on a mission to give himself a vacation from mentoring. Temari is quiet when he is near by, and he often doesn’t notice her, which is good, because he can’t afford to be distracted by children.
Yashamaru comes into his office one day with a scratched and bleeding Temari. Both look the worse for wear, and Temari’s expression is valiantly trying to hide her terror. Apparently she looked in on the jinchuuryki while he was asleep. The Kazekage sighs, and explains that there is a demon inside the little boy who stole her blocks, and it goes out of control at unexpected intervals. Temari nods.
Later he catches her in the boy’s room again. He hauls her away and spanks her. Does she want to be eaten? he hisses. That’s what will happen if she continues provoking Shukaku.
She clutches her teddy bear, lip trembling, fighting back tears. Shinobi don’t cry. He is relieved when Baki comes to take her away again.
He meant to ask her if she had made any friends her own age. There are a few children a little older than her still alive.
On her sixth visit, her fifth birthday is approaching. He asks the question he carefully prepared for the occasion: What would she like? She thinks, and he is prepared for the sting of some innocent comment, like: “For Mommy to come back,” or “A normal family.”
She says she wants a weapon that’s bigger than a kunai.
He feels strange. It takes a few hours after she leaves for him to realize that he actually felt something. Properly, rather than reflecting on the emotion that he was supposed to be feeling. What had he felt, though? It had been so brief. Had it been pride or regret?
He asked her exactly what he meant to this time.
On the seventh visit, apparently she has been in the apartment for hours before he notices that she is there. He only notices because he happened to spot the now two year old demon vessel in the room she normally uses, staring at the teddy bear.
He simply conceals himself in a shadow to see what happens, and right on cue Temari appears, bearing candied fruit. Obviously Yashamaru is cooking right now. She stops, seeing the stranger in her room. Her eyes trace the sand, and then the boy, before going back to the sand. Her father can hear her whisper “a shinobi is afraid of nothing” to herself before she tries to edge through the door without touching the coiling mass.
Its large ice-colored eyes move to stare at her. She gets past the sand, her teal eyes riveted to his, even as she sits down on the floor near the bear. The sand inches towards the plate, and she draws back. The smaller face twists in frustration, but he decides to grab for the food anyway, and the sand willingly brings it to him.
Things are silent and tense. Then: “I’m Temari.”
The head bowed over her plate of fruit shoots up in surprise. A tentative, quiet: “Gaara,” responds.
“That’s my food. Uncle Yashamaru gave it to /me/.”
“Mine,” is it the Kazekage’s imagination, or is there more than one voice claiming the plate?
“Fine,” Temari crosses her arms, and pouts. She reaches out for her bear and hugs it to her.
Gaara ignores the fruit, gazing at her with a frustrated lack of understanding. He wants something that she has, and in response the sand reaches out for her, but he draws back, instead. He doesn’t know how to take what he desires, only two years old, and barely able to toddle and talk, much less formulate coherent thoughts to explain the large emotions he’s feeling.
“This is my Bear,” Temari says angrily, eying the sand. “You can’t have him.”
“Dun want!” Gaara practically snarls.
“That’s ‘cause you’re stoo-pid. Bear’s been ev’rywhere,” Temari looks smug, her fear forgotten. Gaara doesn’t know the definition of “stoo-pid” anyway. Temari warms to the subject. “Bear came with Great Uncle from the sea. And then Grandma sang to him. And then he was given to Father, and now Father says he’s mine. That’s why you can’t take him.”
“Dun want!” Gaara shrieks again.
Temari sticks out her tongue, and moves to her futon. Gaara remains sitting in his corner with the fruit. Eventually he places the plate with the fruit just beyond the sand. Minutes pass. Then a whispered: “a shinobi is a master of stealth, and knows no fear.” More minutes pass, and Gaara looks around the room, eventually, his face dull. His sand flares up, and his head whips back to look at the plate. Temari is sitting on the futon, chewing, and Bear slumps where there once was fruit.
“Mine!”
“You can have him,” Temari says. Gaara looks up as the sand wraps around the teddy. “That’s how it works,” she adds, all superior. “I got him given to me. Now I give him to you.”
Gaara looks confused, but gets up, grasps Bear’s leg, and stumbles out of Temari’s room. She looks at the ceiling, and whispers: “a shinobi doesn’t need physical crutches when they are old enough to learn ninjutsu, anyway.”
Her father leaves his shadow.
…
The day that Kankurou comes “home” he’s only really there because he follows Tsusho everywhere like a puppy. He is turning into a stocky child, who looks like neither of his parents, although he reminds the Kazekage of the kunochi who was cut to pieces defending a bunch of kids. As Tsusho reports that Kankurou is already capable of making living animals dance, and has had to be reprimanded several times for tying cats’ tails together, the Fourth doubts that his son will ever be put in charge of any children.
Kankurou, bored with talk, shifts and squirms uncomfortably until Tsusho tells the boy to go find Yashamaru. He wanders off, and the Kazekage knows that he should be feeling jealous. He just returns to dealing with Tsusho’s report on the state of the Troupe, and the pulse of Suna as a whole. The verdict is simple: Sand is waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Quite a few shoes have been dropped, the Kazekage comments sourly. When will Suna stop waiting and start doing?
Well, that depends, Tsusho points out. They are all secretly hoping that the Third will return. Or at least get some confirmation that he’s dead.
Of course he’s dead, the Yondaime snaps. No one may have found the body, but the Sandaime wouldn’t do this to Sand. The Third loved the village like his child.
Tsusho doesn’t ask what “this” is. He just nods his agreement and switches the topic. So, how is Gaara-Shukaku progressing? He couldn’t help but notice that the boy is kept isolated from all of the other three year olds. Does this mean he really can’t control himself, or is this just because the Kazekage doesn’t understand that social isolation isn’t a religion that children should be dedicated to?
He is on very, very unstable ground, the Kazekage comments coldly. The earthquake could happen any moment now.
Tsusho waves off the warning. How will the Kazekage know where the limits of his power are if he doesn’t have at least one honest councilor? Or that it’s okay to be less than all powerful?
The Kazekage’s complicated expression at this statement is interrupted by a scream of pure terror. The couch is a barrier that he simply knocks over, and Tsusho is hard on his heels.
Chuckling of a drunken flavor is coming from the kitchen, and he already knows what has happened as he bursts through the doors. Kankurou is covered in sand, and it’s squeezing him, as blue markings crawl over Garra’s sandy brown skin, and the black rimmed eyes swirl with yellow four-pointed stars. It’s not a full transformation, Gaara’s body can’t handle that yet, but at three years old he is hunched, and the boy’s shoulders have bulged to same height as his father’s knees.
Seals form, and suddenly wind whips up, before dying, as Shukaku’s eyes hit on the Yondaime’s blank face. Kankurou has lost the breath to scream, but the pressure is released. Sand grains push, and attempt to join together against fine barriers of wind sliding them away. The Kazekage isn’t sweating (can’t afford the distraction) as he maintains the thousands of tightly controlled breezes surrounding each chakra infused sand grain. He doesn’t have the ability to do anything else, but keep the barriers in place, and they won’t last as he can feel the raw power of Shukaku pushing on him. The only reason his technique is working is because Gaara hasn’t trained his chakra channels at this point, and Shukaku is semi-bound by his vessel’s limitations.
Kankurou is suddenly ripped away from the vulnerable cage his father had created around him, and he can feel the fine threads of chakra that Tsusho is delicately manipulating. Shukaku roars angrily, laughter gone into an insane rage, and the sand rushes at Tsusho, as the demon throws a devastating blast of wind at the Yondaime. Where the Yondaime /was/. The floor explodes in stone fragments. The knives, skillets and anything not nailed down, throw themselves at the demon, and the sand flares up to block the objects, retreating from Tsusho who has wrapped Kankurou in his robe, and is trying to back out the door.
Above the demon-child the Yondaime appears, twisting to land between the demon and the sand barrier. He throws a glass of water in Shukaku’s face. The eyes widen in surprise, and the stars start to spin, changing back to blue as the markings recede. The sand reaches out for the Kazekage, but drops back to the wall as Shukaku shrinks back into Gaara’s skin. The Kazekage stands over the boy, his arms crossed, glaring down at him.
Gaara looks up at his father, water still dripping down his face. “I, I --,”
Anger is surging through the Kazekage, his internal barriers turning it into something useful, just like always. The seals form, and he puts one hand up to touch the sand. For now his chakra is stronger, and the grains blast apart under the wind. The knives drop to the floor with a resounding crash. The Yondaime just glares at Gaara one last time, and steps over the barrier of dispersed sand (already moving back together), and dropped kitchen utensils to leave.
By the sink Yashamaru is holding his breath. The Kazekage walks past him, not saying a word, and then Garra runs to his uncle. “I didn’t! I didn’t! I just fell asleep,” the little boy is crying.
Pain stabs through the Kazekage’s stomach. Kankurou was crying, and she rushed to pick him up. The assault of the memory creeping up from the carefully sealed chambers of the Kazekage’s mind makes him nearly run. He’s feeling the familiar need to run and fly, rip himself out of his skin.
“I’m not the other one,” Gaara breathes shakily, looking up at Yashamaru with his wide blue-green eyes. “I’m not. I’m not. I’m not. I’m not.”
“Yes, I know,” Yashamaru says, trying to sound as comforting as Tsusho.
“I’m not,” Gaara sobs. “I’m not gonna sleep. I’m not.”
The Yondaime walks away. If he stays his world might break down right over his son’s head.
…
When he’s alone, which is rare, he walks down to the sublevels. Most of Suna is actually under the sand. The bath houses, sparing arenas, laboratories, and so many more semi-public domain areas are accessed from basement hatches. The sparing rooms are where he heads when there are no aides, no guards, no Baki, no Yashamaru, nothing to distract him in the ways he clings to during the day.
Adrenaline hums in his veins, drowning out everything, except what he truly wants. Sometimes he just sits and meditates, screaming silently in his own head. Other times he practices his taijutsu until he is ready to drop, and then he keeps on going, his knuckles ripped open and bleeding from the punches he’s landing on the unrealistic targets. Sometimes that isn’t enough, even then, and he creates a few shadow clones (no more than three, his chakra won’t stretch much farther than that in his usual state when he needs to spar against the clones). But some nights, following really horrible days, no amount of training can keep the truth at bay.
It is then that he can apologize to her. Again and again, in his head, or begging for forgiveness in whispers between turning his fists and legs on another target. Often he wakes up the next morning with his throat sore and face sticky from tears, huddled on the ground like a child, amidst the wreck of the room.
He wants forgiveness for being stupid. For being wrong. For believing that if the jinchuuryki was a success, Suna’s prosperity would balance out the equation to him. It might have worked out for the Kazekage. It never could have for the man. He wants forgiveness for letting the Kazekage rule his actions until the only place of safety was under the blue and white hat.
She would forgive him in a heartbeat, he knows. She is that kind of person, always forgiving him. But she can’t forgive him without coming back. And she never comes back. He never wakes up to discover that it was all a nightmare. So, he knows he’s never, ever going to be truly forgiven.
…
Temari is growing up, he realizes with a funny jolt. She is eight. He was a genin at her age. And he realizes this is what she is here for, standing across the desk from him. Standing like a true shinobi should in front of her Kazekage. The blond hair that he admired on her mother is so much thicker now, and has been tied back into four fat, bristling ponytails. His wife only wore her hair up once, on the day of their wedding. And there is a level of furious intensity in her determined scowling face that was never her mother’s. And a certain devil-may-care air about her entire stance that reminds him of only one thing: dead, dismembered genin, and why he has worked alone when he has a choice about it.
He tries to ignore all these odd reactions to Temari’s appearance; they remind him of times he does not want to remember. Times when he could feel things without the barrier of responsibility to hold them back. Never mind them, he pushes the thoughts to the recesses they belong. Temari is here, Baki behind her, and it’s her birthday.
She is visiting today, but only visiting-ish. Today he is Kazekage, because Baki has asked him to assess Temari. Normally Baki, and one other master in her chosen style of combat would watch her for a day, and then tell the Kazekage if the child was ready to kill. Of course, Baki must be banking on the fact that he will pass his daughter, and get Temari out from under Baki’s feet. Not likely, but if his former student can’t be observant that is Baki’s problem.
He nods finally, and rises from his desk. They can go to the practice grounds before lunch, he tells her. Temari smiles, an expression that walks the line between triumph and uncertainty. Does she even know what’s going to happen?
He doesn’t give her any set task. When she asks what they should do, he merely replies that these are the practice grounds, and if she wants to stay here she needs to practice.
She nods, and rushes at a target with a kunai in both hands. She isn’t one of those lithe thin limbed girls, but she doesn’t have the body to be anything more than an average taijutsu artist. So why does her style, if that is what it can be called at this stage, involve close up fighting which she is not going to be truly skilled at? he wonders, as she slashes the target in half with an impressive upper cut from one of her kunai.
She whirls throwing her second kunai at a target which appears behind her. A third shard of metal is pulled from the pouch behind her, and she swings out with her legs to catch the next target.
Very good. So she’ll survive if she is attacked by sand bags tied to metal stakes, and cardboard that pops out of the ground at random intervals. The Kazekage reaches into a pouch almost unconsciously, and black serrated discs of death tumble into his palm. The shuriken whistle shrilly through the air, but Temari just whirls, and the kunai moves in a blur, knocking five of them off course, two more clanging off her mesh covered shoulder.
The Yondaime leaps to the left, suddenly just another shinobi again. Shuriken whirl through the air, shredding the wind, heading for the little girl’s vital spots. It’s been three seconds. She blocks effortlessly, and jumps back.
Only he’s behind her, his fist slamming into her spine. She pitches forward, and hits the ground rolling. The first thing a shinobi has to learn is how to fall. She doesn’t even cry out, getting shakily to her knees. Seven seconds.
She blocks the flying kunai with a swift upward stroke of her steel weapon, and his eyes widen. He barely rolls out of the way as a gust of wind shrieks toward him. The stone of the arena cracks and sends up fine fragments. He looks over to see Baki standing impassively. Temari is a wind user. For some reason this fact stuns him long enough for one of her shuriken to slice open his cheek.
He catches the next kunai, and flings it back. She tries to block it, swinging her kunai by the ring. Swing, swing. He doesn’t see his kunai hit because he’s jumping back to avoid a second cutting gust of air. Eighteen seconds. She is only eight. He lasted for thirty when he was two years younger than her, but even then they had all assumed that he’d be a prodigy.
His fingers slip and slide together as he masks the action with a grab at his shuriken bag. Temari tenses, kunai ready to block the hit that will never come, because she disappears. Stars burst in his skull as the kunai’s handle smashes into his temple. He ignores them, and twirls, hitting Temari with a swift punch to the gut. She crumples like a rag around his fist. He throws her to the ground, and stands over her. He nods, satisfied.
Something flashes in the light and he reaches up to catch the metal plate on its blue ribbon. He drops it at Temari’s feet. Twenty-five seconds. She hit him. He is getting old. She is growing up.
…
Temari wears the hitae-ate like a head band in a little girl’s hair. A strange contrast to her boyish face and frame. She is beaming all through the lunch they have together. He finally asks, knowing he shouldn’t, if she remembers her mother.
She tilts her blond head to the side thoughtfully, chewing on oil soaked pita-bread. “Not really,” she finally says.
When her father turns away to order more bread, and incidentally hide the look of relieved sadness, Temari thinks that she makes a fairly good ninja. She’s hidden the lie very well. Of course, she doesn’t remember her mother’s looks, despite the fact that she is told that they can be found in the mirror. But she remembers the events. She remembers having seen her father’s smile. But like all rare creatures it has gone into hiding. Or perhaps it is dead.
…
He looks at Yashamaru from the safety of the wooden desk. Yashamaru merely looks questioning.
“Can the jinchuuryki control Shukaku?”
“I -- Gaara can control Shukaku while he is awake. And he stays awake all the time now. But control is different from being able to use Shukaku’s full powers. Only Shukaku can do that, apparently. Gaara can only keep them from being used, and he can’t shut off the sand defense mechanism,” Yashamaru answers like a good shinobi.
“So, our jinchuuryki only works half way?” the Kazekage steeples his fingers. “When Shukaku does come out, it only wishes to serve it’s own indulgent need for entertainment -- no matter how bloody that might be. It seems that the experiment I requested of Chiyo-sama has failed.”
“Will Shukaku be resealed?”
The black holes bore into Yashamaru. The Yondaime appears to be considering things. Then the barest whispers: “No. Better that this ends with Gaara,” the Kazekage nods his head decisively, and speaks in a more regular tone. “I will be taking out a contract on the boy’s head, Yashamaru. Don’t stand in the way of whoever kills him.”
“Kazekage--,”
“That was an order. He has been your charge for the last six years, and now I am ordering you not to protect him. Do not go against me in this,” the Kazekage’s voice is as harsh as the caress of Shukaku’s Breath.
“That wasn’t what I was going to say, sir,” Yashamaru replies. “I will take the contract. He will be dead by morning.”
The Yondaime stares. “He has been -- you’ve been raising the jinchuuryki, Yashamaru.”
“He killed my sister. I have taken care of him because I have been ordered to do so. No compassion exists in our connection. He is the one at fault, and if ever he proved not to be useful to the village, then I would be the ideal candidate to kill him, Kazekage.”
There is nothing but honest emotion in Yashamaru’s expression. Horrible hatred and loathing shines from the repressive slate blue eyes. The Yondaime just nods. He has killed children before. It is horrible, but easily done. Yashamaru knows the same. That is a shinobi’s life. It may be that Yashamaru has picked the wrong target for his vengeance, but the Kazekage will not argue. If he can use Yashamaru then that is all that matters.
So he tells himself. It is only Shukaku’s Pity that keeps him from doing the deed himself. In a way, Yashamaru deserves this chance more than any other. Yet, if Shukaku’s power is channeling through the boy -- well, that is Yashamaru’s look-out.
He is about to lose his brother. But in a way, he is merely giving Yashamaru back to the winds. He hopes that Yashamaru will be carried to his sister’s side. It was what the shinobi needs, after all.
…
There is a second, just one moment, when he realizes that everything could be different. He feels the shock run through him, cold and biting as the desert night. If he were to reach out now, and turn back the pale blob coming through the shadows, everything might be different.
Yashamaru will wait forever on the roof top that the jinchurryki has claimed as his own. The boy will be back at home with milk and cookies. The Yondaime might even speak to the child. He can change this.
Gaara stops, looking up with an odd mixture of Temari and Kankurou’s expressions in the fuzzy light of the Kazekage’s broken vision. Hope, longing, fear, regret -- the Yondaime can change all of this instantly. If he doesn’t change this one valuable shinobi will die tonight. Gaara looks up at the man who shares his red hair and moon burned skin. For a second the father, chained and bound by the hat and veil of the Kazekage, sees his son.
If he doesn’t change this, Shukaku might truly awaken. Yashamaru, faithful Yashamaru, might die. Gaara, no matter what happens tonight, almost certainly will. If he doesn’t change this.
All the futures stretch before him in this instant. He can make his son into the child he should have been. He can save his brother from what is almost certain death. He can let Yashamaru kill Gaara. Yashamaru could force Gaara to truly retreat in pain, letting Shukaku have the body forever. Shukaku, the village’s most potent weapon, at the cost of his brother and his son.
The Kazekage wins.
Gaara, with his disappointed eyes, continues up to the roof top.
... Break Down ...
... By IWCT ...
... Part Five: Beast ...
Life has taken on the unreality of a watercolor painting. He wakes up, goes to work, listens to the concerns of the villagers, sends men out on missions, assigns genin teams, goes back to sleep. Occasionally he remembers eating. He knows why, intellectually, he can’t grasp reality right now. He hasn’t been able to accept what he did. He knows, once he can do that, his world can break, and then he can pick up the shattered remains, just like always, and move on.
Baki is late reporting in, and when finally the Kazekage goes to the door of his office to ask the orderly in the driest of tones why Baki is not here yet, he sees his jounin talking quietly with Tsusho, and then break away from the Head Puppeteer with a curt nod. What happened to the youthful arrogance? Has Baki always been like this? He struggles to remember.
The report is concise, and Baki requests a meeting the next day. He has a new mission to propose. The Kazekage nods, and once the last report of the day is cleared from his schedule, he goes back to his apartment.
Temari, almost four, knows enough to pick up the teddy bear, and move out of the living room as he flops down on a cushion. Yashamaru comes in to see him holding his face in both hands, cold eyes visible through the net of fingers. Not one of his Kazekage’s good moods, then. Good thing he left the youngest in his crib, watching sand rotate lazily.
Yashamaru watches silently, as the man who taught him, his sensei, spirals inwards, focusing deeply inside on whatever passes for Sensei’s soul. Yashamaru’s hand unconsciously grips the thread wrapping the handle of the kunai at his hip. The Yondaime is completely unprotected. Yashamaru always used the winds to guide his weapons because his aim was horrible, but he could hit the hunched target from this five foot distance.
The kunai doesn’t make a noise as he draws it from the hip sheath. He balances it carefully, thoughts sleeting through his mind that are both his own, and not his own. He can. She can’t. He hates. She loves.
Whose fault is it really?
The kunai lowers shakily.
He is knocked to the floor by a sweeping kick, and the Kazekage is just as suddenly on top of him, pinning both his wrists above his head with one scarred hand. Yashamaru remembers another failure in the same position.
“Do you hate me?” his sensei leans over him, the wind master’s eyes blank.
Terror makes Yashamaru’s body quake. His brother is going to kill him. “She didn’t.”
“I killed her.”
“She loved you.”
“Do you?”
“Ye--,” this is not what the Kazekage wants to hear. His free hand is holding Yashamaru’s kunai, it presses the steel into his throat.
“Do you, Yashamaru, the great dissembler, feel any emotion that is not linked to her opinions?”
“I -- not yet,” Yashamaru’s stone-like eyes can’t meet the black pupils.
The Kazekage releases his grip on his brother’s wrists, and sits up again, kunai nowhere in sight. He looks around the living room, apparently not quite ready to get off Yashamaru’s knees. There is something vague and confused in his expression. “Temari will be four soon. And then Kankurou has his third birthday after, right?” he murmurs, as if he’s trying to remember something. “Where is Kankurou? I haven’t seen him recently.”
Yashamaru looks at the Yondaime, and realizes that his mentor is being completely serious. He has no idea where his son is. “Tsusho came by one day four months ago -- just a few weeks after the funeral, and said he was taking Kankurou. You said he could use the training, remember?”
“Oh. I must have. I wonder --,” the Kazekage rises from Yashamaru’s knees at last, and walks into the kitchen to see if there is anything to eat.
The next day Tsusho and Baki turn up for the meeting Baki arranged. The Kazekage isn’t surprised to see the conspiracy of two. He isn’t surprised by the proposal that Temari is ready for mentoring, and Baki, who has shown no interest in children, and in fact, down right despises them, has volunteered to be her mentor before she is approved to be a genin. Tsusho stands behind Baki, an anxious supporter, a clever puppeteer.
The Kazekage signs off on the proposal without comment. As Tsusho leaves, however, he inquires of the air when will Tsusho find someone to manipulate into taking the last child off his hands? Tsusho looks guilty under his make-up, but shrugs, and says the truth is that the Kazekage was not capable of taking care of children when his wife was alive, and Tsusho will manipulate things as he pleases so Suna can have three strong shinobi.
Kankurou is getting the care he needs with the great family of the Troupe, and Temari was going to be foisted off for training as soon as she turned four, anyway. Tsusho only let her stay with the Yondaime for so long after the funeral because her father did occasionally show an interest in her, but the former ANBU captain has observed enough to know how the Kazekage can only wince away from her large teal eyes, now. Don’t worry, Tsusho will make certain that Baki has her visit her father regularly.
He is so glad that his subordinates are taking care of things for him, he tells Tsusho scathingly.
He is the Kazekage, and he looks after the village well enough, Tsusho replies. Some might say better than the Third, but Tsusho will wait to see how Gaara turns out before he places any bets.
He leaves. The Yondaime scowls, but in the end, just lets the conversation fade into the watercolor of life.
…
He has to read the note a few times before getting the sense of it. Leaf was attacked by a monstrous chakra beast which was destroyed at the cost of the Yondaime Hokage’s life. The Sandaime Hokage sends his regards to the Kazekage, and requests a meeting.
Basically, the note says that Leaf had weathered a horrible storm, and now their allies through conquest had better not even think about striking, understand? Now is not a good time to mess with Leaf. Suna can’t at the moment, anyway. Not enough people to destroy a crippled village. How pathetic.
He agrees to the meeting, and drops back into routine. Late at night a week later he wonders if the monster was really destroyed, or ended up like Shukaku. Hmm. No. One man without training cannot create a jinchuuryki. However, when the meeting happens he will be careful to keep the subjects off demonic vessels.
…
On the first visit, he and Temari drink a stilted tea, and Temari tells him that she doesn’t like kunai, because they aren’t big enough to block with properly. He replies that there’s a reason why kunai are forged with rings on their handles, she just has to get used to rotating the blade. He asks her if her training is challenging enough. She shrugs, her four-year old face serious. She guesses, yeah. They finish the stilted tea, and she leaves.
He meant to ask her about the teddy bear.
On the second visit Temari brings some desert flowers, and it feels like a knife to the gut to realize that his youngest son is/has already/will be turning one. She has been dead for a year. Baki is with them this time, and Yashamaru comes in for the lunch, looking sick, and slightly sand burned (Shukaku can already make life difficult for anyone within the same room as the vessel). The Yondaime barely acknowledges his guest with a nod, and he doesn’t speak for the whole meal.
He meant to ask her about whether she missed her mother.
On the third visit he comes into the apartment, and finds Temari looking curiously at a little red-headed ghost with black-rimmed eyes that is sitting in a corner opposite from the two of them. Sand coils around his small body, moving the wooden blocks that Temari used to play with. Temari has her teddy bear with her. She asks if the blocks are hers.
He crosses his arms and nods, wanting to see what will happen. Temari stalks right up to the ghost the way she used to stalk right up to Kankurou. Her face twists angrily, and she reaches out.
Her hand slams off a wall of sand. She pulls back, confusion in her eyes, and then tries to snatch the blocks again. The sand wall leaps up a second time, the infant’s eyes wide and uncertain. The Yondaime doesn’t ever remember hearing the boy cry, but he looks close to it.
Temari looks scared, and says that he can keep the stupid old things. She doesn’t want them. She hugs her teddy bear, and backs off. The sand shifts closer to ground level, but continues to swirl around the vessel in a warning way.
They go out to dinner, which is as formal as the tea of the first visit. Temari reports on her studies, and he listens like the Kazekage he is. Nervously, as the bill comes, Temari asks who the other child was. Her youngest brother, he replies, and they leave.
He meant to ask her whether she’s seen Kankurou recently.
Her fourth visit lasts a week, as Baki is away on a mission to give himself a vacation from mentoring. Temari is quiet when he is near by, and he often doesn’t notice her, which is good, because he can’t afford to be distracted by children.
Yashamaru comes into his office one day with a scratched and bleeding Temari. Both look the worse for wear, and Temari’s expression is valiantly trying to hide her terror. Apparently she looked in on the jinchuuryki while he was asleep. The Kazekage sighs, and explains that there is a demon inside the little boy who stole her blocks, and it goes out of control at unexpected intervals. Temari nods.
Later he catches her in the boy’s room again. He hauls her away and spanks her. Does she want to be eaten? he hisses. That’s what will happen if she continues provoking Shukaku.
She clutches her teddy bear, lip trembling, fighting back tears. Shinobi don’t cry. He is relieved when Baki comes to take her away again.
He meant to ask her if she had made any friends her own age. There are a few children a little older than her still alive.
On her sixth visit, her fifth birthday is approaching. He asks the question he carefully prepared for the occasion: What would she like? She thinks, and he is prepared for the sting of some innocent comment, like: “For Mommy to come back,” or “A normal family.”
She says she wants a weapon that’s bigger than a kunai.
He feels strange. It takes a few hours after she leaves for him to realize that he actually felt something. Properly, rather than reflecting on the emotion that he was supposed to be feeling. What had he felt, though? It had been so brief. Had it been pride or regret?
He asked her exactly what he meant to this time.
On the seventh visit, apparently she has been in the apartment for hours before he notices that she is there. He only notices because he happened to spot the now two year old demon vessel in the room she normally uses, staring at the teddy bear.
He simply conceals himself in a shadow to see what happens, and right on cue Temari appears, bearing candied fruit. Obviously Yashamaru is cooking right now. She stops, seeing the stranger in her room. Her eyes trace the sand, and then the boy, before going back to the sand. Her father can hear her whisper “a shinobi is afraid of nothing” to herself before she tries to edge through the door without touching the coiling mass.
Its large ice-colored eyes move to stare at her. She gets past the sand, her teal eyes riveted to his, even as she sits down on the floor near the bear. The sand inches towards the plate, and she draws back. The smaller face twists in frustration, but he decides to grab for the food anyway, and the sand willingly brings it to him.
Things are silent and tense. Then: “I’m Temari.”
The head bowed over her plate of fruit shoots up in surprise. A tentative, quiet: “Gaara,” responds.
“That’s my food. Uncle Yashamaru gave it to /me/.”
“Mine,” is it the Kazekage’s imagination, or is there more than one voice claiming the plate?
“Fine,” Temari crosses her arms, and pouts. She reaches out for her bear and hugs it to her.
Gaara ignores the fruit, gazing at her with a frustrated lack of understanding. He wants something that she has, and in response the sand reaches out for her, but he draws back, instead. He doesn’t know how to take what he desires, only two years old, and barely able to toddle and talk, much less formulate coherent thoughts to explain the large emotions he’s feeling.
“This is my Bear,” Temari says angrily, eying the sand. “You can’t have him.”
“Dun want!” Gaara practically snarls.
“That’s ‘cause you’re stoo-pid. Bear’s been ev’rywhere,” Temari looks smug, her fear forgotten. Gaara doesn’t know the definition of “stoo-pid” anyway. Temari warms to the subject. “Bear came with Great Uncle from the sea. And then Grandma sang to him. And then he was given to Father, and now Father says he’s mine. That’s why you can’t take him.”
“Dun want!” Gaara shrieks again.
Temari sticks out her tongue, and moves to her futon. Gaara remains sitting in his corner with the fruit. Eventually he places the plate with the fruit just beyond the sand. Minutes pass. Then a whispered: “a shinobi is a master of stealth, and knows no fear.” More minutes pass, and Gaara looks around the room, eventually, his face dull. His sand flares up, and his head whips back to look at the plate. Temari is sitting on the futon, chewing, and Bear slumps where there once was fruit.
“Mine!”
“You can have him,” Temari says. Gaara looks up as the sand wraps around the teddy. “That’s how it works,” she adds, all superior. “I got him given to me. Now I give him to you.”
Gaara looks confused, but gets up, grasps Bear’s leg, and stumbles out of Temari’s room. She looks at the ceiling, and whispers: “a shinobi doesn’t need physical crutches when they are old enough to learn ninjutsu, anyway.”
Her father leaves his shadow.
…
The day that Kankurou comes “home” he’s only really there because he follows Tsusho everywhere like a puppy. He is turning into a stocky child, who looks like neither of his parents, although he reminds the Kazekage of the kunochi who was cut to pieces defending a bunch of kids. As Tsusho reports that Kankurou is already capable of making living animals dance, and has had to be reprimanded several times for tying cats’ tails together, the Fourth doubts that his son will ever be put in charge of any children.
Kankurou, bored with talk, shifts and squirms uncomfortably until Tsusho tells the boy to go find Yashamaru. He wanders off, and the Kazekage knows that he should be feeling jealous. He just returns to dealing with Tsusho’s report on the state of the Troupe, and the pulse of Suna as a whole. The verdict is simple: Sand is waiting for the other shoe to drop.
Quite a few shoes have been dropped, the Kazekage comments sourly. When will Suna stop waiting and start doing?
Well, that depends, Tsusho points out. They are all secretly hoping that the Third will return. Or at least get some confirmation that he’s dead.
Of course he’s dead, the Yondaime snaps. No one may have found the body, but the Sandaime wouldn’t do this to Sand. The Third loved the village like his child.
Tsusho doesn’t ask what “this” is. He just nods his agreement and switches the topic. So, how is Gaara-Shukaku progressing? He couldn’t help but notice that the boy is kept isolated from all of the other three year olds. Does this mean he really can’t control himself, or is this just because the Kazekage doesn’t understand that social isolation isn’t a religion that children should be dedicated to?
He is on very, very unstable ground, the Kazekage comments coldly. The earthquake could happen any moment now.
Tsusho waves off the warning. How will the Kazekage know where the limits of his power are if he doesn’t have at least one honest councilor? Or that it’s okay to be less than all powerful?
The Kazekage’s complicated expression at this statement is interrupted by a scream of pure terror. The couch is a barrier that he simply knocks over, and Tsusho is hard on his heels.
Chuckling of a drunken flavor is coming from the kitchen, and he already knows what has happened as he bursts through the doors. Kankurou is covered in sand, and it’s squeezing him, as blue markings crawl over Garra’s sandy brown skin, and the black rimmed eyes swirl with yellow four-pointed stars. It’s not a full transformation, Gaara’s body can’t handle that yet, but at three years old he is hunched, and the boy’s shoulders have bulged to same height as his father’s knees.
Seals form, and suddenly wind whips up, before dying, as Shukaku’s eyes hit on the Yondaime’s blank face. Kankurou has lost the breath to scream, but the pressure is released. Sand grains push, and attempt to join together against fine barriers of wind sliding them away. The Kazekage isn’t sweating (can’t afford the distraction) as he maintains the thousands of tightly controlled breezes surrounding each chakra infused sand grain. He doesn’t have the ability to do anything else, but keep the barriers in place, and they won’t last as he can feel the raw power of Shukaku pushing on him. The only reason his technique is working is because Gaara hasn’t trained his chakra channels at this point, and Shukaku is semi-bound by his vessel’s limitations.
Kankurou is suddenly ripped away from the vulnerable cage his father had created around him, and he can feel the fine threads of chakra that Tsusho is delicately manipulating. Shukaku roars angrily, laughter gone into an insane rage, and the sand rushes at Tsusho, as the demon throws a devastating blast of wind at the Yondaime. Where the Yondaime /was/. The floor explodes in stone fragments. The knives, skillets and anything not nailed down, throw themselves at the demon, and the sand flares up to block the objects, retreating from Tsusho who has wrapped Kankurou in his robe, and is trying to back out the door.
Above the demon-child the Yondaime appears, twisting to land between the demon and the sand barrier. He throws a glass of water in Shukaku’s face. The eyes widen in surprise, and the stars start to spin, changing back to blue as the markings recede. The sand reaches out for the Kazekage, but drops back to the wall as Shukaku shrinks back into Gaara’s skin. The Kazekage stands over the boy, his arms crossed, glaring down at him.
Gaara looks up at his father, water still dripping down his face. “I, I --,”
Anger is surging through the Kazekage, his internal barriers turning it into something useful, just like always. The seals form, and he puts one hand up to touch the sand. For now his chakra is stronger, and the grains blast apart under the wind. The knives drop to the floor with a resounding crash. The Yondaime just glares at Gaara one last time, and steps over the barrier of dispersed sand (already moving back together), and dropped kitchen utensils to leave.
By the sink Yashamaru is holding his breath. The Kazekage walks past him, not saying a word, and then Garra runs to his uncle. “I didn’t! I didn’t! I just fell asleep,” the little boy is crying.
Pain stabs through the Kazekage’s stomach. Kankurou was crying, and she rushed to pick him up. The assault of the memory creeping up from the carefully sealed chambers of the Kazekage’s mind makes him nearly run. He’s feeling the familiar need to run and fly, rip himself out of his skin.
“I’m not the other one,” Gaara breathes shakily, looking up at Yashamaru with his wide blue-green eyes. “I’m not. I’m not. I’m not. I’m not.”
“Yes, I know,” Yashamaru says, trying to sound as comforting as Tsusho.
“I’m not,” Gaara sobs. “I’m not gonna sleep. I’m not.”
The Yondaime walks away. If he stays his world might break down right over his son’s head.
…
When he’s alone, which is rare, he walks down to the sublevels. Most of Suna is actually under the sand. The bath houses, sparing arenas, laboratories, and so many more semi-public domain areas are accessed from basement hatches. The sparing rooms are where he heads when there are no aides, no guards, no Baki, no Yashamaru, nothing to distract him in the ways he clings to during the day.
Adrenaline hums in his veins, drowning out everything, except what he truly wants. Sometimes he just sits and meditates, screaming silently in his own head. Other times he practices his taijutsu until he is ready to drop, and then he keeps on going, his knuckles ripped open and bleeding from the punches he’s landing on the unrealistic targets. Sometimes that isn’t enough, even then, and he creates a few shadow clones (no more than three, his chakra won’t stretch much farther than that in his usual state when he needs to spar against the clones). But some nights, following really horrible days, no amount of training can keep the truth at bay.
It is then that he can apologize to her. Again and again, in his head, or begging for forgiveness in whispers between turning his fists and legs on another target. Often he wakes up the next morning with his throat sore and face sticky from tears, huddled on the ground like a child, amidst the wreck of the room.
He wants forgiveness for being stupid. For being wrong. For believing that if the jinchuuryki was a success, Suna’s prosperity would balance out the equation to him. It might have worked out for the Kazekage. It never could have for the man. He wants forgiveness for letting the Kazekage rule his actions until the only place of safety was under the blue and white hat.
She would forgive him in a heartbeat, he knows. She is that kind of person, always forgiving him. But she can’t forgive him without coming back. And she never comes back. He never wakes up to discover that it was all a nightmare. So, he knows he’s never, ever going to be truly forgiven.
…
Temari is growing up, he realizes with a funny jolt. She is eight. He was a genin at her age. And he realizes this is what she is here for, standing across the desk from him. Standing like a true shinobi should in front of her Kazekage. The blond hair that he admired on her mother is so much thicker now, and has been tied back into four fat, bristling ponytails. His wife only wore her hair up once, on the day of their wedding. And there is a level of furious intensity in her determined scowling face that was never her mother’s. And a certain devil-may-care air about her entire stance that reminds him of only one thing: dead, dismembered genin, and why he has worked alone when he has a choice about it.
He tries to ignore all these odd reactions to Temari’s appearance; they remind him of times he does not want to remember. Times when he could feel things without the barrier of responsibility to hold them back. Never mind them, he pushes the thoughts to the recesses they belong. Temari is here, Baki behind her, and it’s her birthday.
She is visiting today, but only visiting-ish. Today he is Kazekage, because Baki has asked him to assess Temari. Normally Baki, and one other master in her chosen style of combat would watch her for a day, and then tell the Kazekage if the child was ready to kill. Of course, Baki must be banking on the fact that he will pass his daughter, and get Temari out from under Baki’s feet. Not likely, but if his former student can’t be observant that is Baki’s problem.
He nods finally, and rises from his desk. They can go to the practice grounds before lunch, he tells her. Temari smiles, an expression that walks the line between triumph and uncertainty. Does she even know what’s going to happen?
He doesn’t give her any set task. When she asks what they should do, he merely replies that these are the practice grounds, and if she wants to stay here she needs to practice.
She nods, and rushes at a target with a kunai in both hands. She isn’t one of those lithe thin limbed girls, but she doesn’t have the body to be anything more than an average taijutsu artist. So why does her style, if that is what it can be called at this stage, involve close up fighting which she is not going to be truly skilled at? he wonders, as she slashes the target in half with an impressive upper cut from one of her kunai.
She whirls throwing her second kunai at a target which appears behind her. A third shard of metal is pulled from the pouch behind her, and she swings out with her legs to catch the next target.
Very good. So she’ll survive if she is attacked by sand bags tied to metal stakes, and cardboard that pops out of the ground at random intervals. The Kazekage reaches into a pouch almost unconsciously, and black serrated discs of death tumble into his palm. The shuriken whistle shrilly through the air, but Temari just whirls, and the kunai moves in a blur, knocking five of them off course, two more clanging off her mesh covered shoulder.
The Yondaime leaps to the left, suddenly just another shinobi again. Shuriken whirl through the air, shredding the wind, heading for the little girl’s vital spots. It’s been three seconds. She blocks effortlessly, and jumps back.
Only he’s behind her, his fist slamming into her spine. She pitches forward, and hits the ground rolling. The first thing a shinobi has to learn is how to fall. She doesn’t even cry out, getting shakily to her knees. Seven seconds.
She blocks the flying kunai with a swift upward stroke of her steel weapon, and his eyes widen. He barely rolls out of the way as a gust of wind shrieks toward him. The stone of the arena cracks and sends up fine fragments. He looks over to see Baki standing impassively. Temari is a wind user. For some reason this fact stuns him long enough for one of her shuriken to slice open his cheek.
He catches the next kunai, and flings it back. She tries to block it, swinging her kunai by the ring. Swing, swing. He doesn’t see his kunai hit because he’s jumping back to avoid a second cutting gust of air. Eighteen seconds. She is only eight. He lasted for thirty when he was two years younger than her, but even then they had all assumed that he’d be a prodigy.
His fingers slip and slide together as he masks the action with a grab at his shuriken bag. Temari tenses, kunai ready to block the hit that will never come, because she disappears. Stars burst in his skull as the kunai’s handle smashes into his temple. He ignores them, and twirls, hitting Temari with a swift punch to the gut. She crumples like a rag around his fist. He throws her to the ground, and stands over her. He nods, satisfied.
Something flashes in the light and he reaches up to catch the metal plate on its blue ribbon. He drops it at Temari’s feet. Twenty-five seconds. She hit him. He is getting old. She is growing up.
…
Temari wears the hitae-ate like a head band in a little girl’s hair. A strange contrast to her boyish face and frame. She is beaming all through the lunch they have together. He finally asks, knowing he shouldn’t, if she remembers her mother.
She tilts her blond head to the side thoughtfully, chewing on oil soaked pita-bread. “Not really,” she finally says.
When her father turns away to order more bread, and incidentally hide the look of relieved sadness, Temari thinks that she makes a fairly good ninja. She’s hidden the lie very well. Of course, she doesn’t remember her mother’s looks, despite the fact that she is told that they can be found in the mirror. But she remembers the events. She remembers having seen her father’s smile. But like all rare creatures it has gone into hiding. Or perhaps it is dead.
…
He looks at Yashamaru from the safety of the wooden desk. Yashamaru merely looks questioning.
“Can the jinchuuryki control Shukaku?”
“I -- Gaara can control Shukaku while he is awake. And he stays awake all the time now. But control is different from being able to use Shukaku’s full powers. Only Shukaku can do that, apparently. Gaara can only keep them from being used, and he can’t shut off the sand defense mechanism,” Yashamaru answers like a good shinobi.
“So, our jinchuuryki only works half way?” the Kazekage steeples his fingers. “When Shukaku does come out, it only wishes to serve it’s own indulgent need for entertainment -- no matter how bloody that might be. It seems that the experiment I requested of Chiyo-sama has failed.”
“Will Shukaku be resealed?”
The black holes bore into Yashamaru. The Yondaime appears to be considering things. Then the barest whispers: “No. Better that this ends with Gaara,” the Kazekage nods his head decisively, and speaks in a more regular tone. “I will be taking out a contract on the boy’s head, Yashamaru. Don’t stand in the way of whoever kills him.”
“Kazekage--,”
“That was an order. He has been your charge for the last six years, and now I am ordering you not to protect him. Do not go against me in this,” the Kazekage’s voice is as harsh as the caress of Shukaku’s Breath.
“That wasn’t what I was going to say, sir,” Yashamaru replies. “I will take the contract. He will be dead by morning.”
The Yondaime stares. “He has been -- you’ve been raising the jinchuuryki, Yashamaru.”
“He killed my sister. I have taken care of him because I have been ordered to do so. No compassion exists in our connection. He is the one at fault, and if ever he proved not to be useful to the village, then I would be the ideal candidate to kill him, Kazekage.”
There is nothing but honest emotion in Yashamaru’s expression. Horrible hatred and loathing shines from the repressive slate blue eyes. The Yondaime just nods. He has killed children before. It is horrible, but easily done. Yashamaru knows the same. That is a shinobi’s life. It may be that Yashamaru has picked the wrong target for his vengeance, but the Kazekage will not argue. If he can use Yashamaru then that is all that matters.
So he tells himself. It is only Shukaku’s Pity that keeps him from doing the deed himself. In a way, Yashamaru deserves this chance more than any other. Yet, if Shukaku’s power is channeling through the boy -- well, that is Yashamaru’s look-out.
He is about to lose his brother. But in a way, he is merely giving Yashamaru back to the winds. He hopes that Yashamaru will be carried to his sister’s side. It was what the shinobi needs, after all.
…
There is a second, just one moment, when he realizes that everything could be different. He feels the shock run through him, cold and biting as the desert night. If he were to reach out now, and turn back the pale blob coming through the shadows, everything might be different.
Yashamaru will wait forever on the roof top that the jinchurryki has claimed as his own. The boy will be back at home with milk and cookies. The Yondaime might even speak to the child. He can change this.
Gaara stops, looking up with an odd mixture of Temari and Kankurou’s expressions in the fuzzy light of the Kazekage’s broken vision. Hope, longing, fear, regret -- the Yondaime can change all of this instantly. If he doesn’t change this one valuable shinobi will die tonight. Gaara looks up at the man who shares his red hair and moon burned skin. For a second the father, chained and bound by the hat and veil of the Kazekage, sees his son.
If he doesn’t change this, Shukaku might truly awaken. Yashamaru, faithful Yashamaru, might die. Gaara, no matter what happens tonight, almost certainly will. If he doesn’t change this.
All the futures stretch before him in this instant. He can make his son into the child he should have been. He can save his brother from what is almost certain death. He can let Yashamaru kill Gaara. Yashamaru could force Gaara to truly retreat in pain, letting Shukaku have the body forever. Shukaku, the village’s most potent weapon, at the cost of his brother and his son.
The Kazekage wins.
Gaara, with his disappointed eyes, continues up to the roof top.
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