The Akatsuki has taken almost some of the greatest Shinobi in all the lands and has separated them, because they themselves are separated. Even some of the original members are somehow still alive, and Sasuke's brother, Itachi, used to be a member before leaving. Itachi then went rogue on his own accords before Kakashi, the current Hokage, forgave him for killing his clan. (After all he looked into the Uchiha's himself and understood the corruption, and how Itachi wanted to protect his brother.)
They've all been split up into duos. Matsuri and Gaara are to take on Hidan. Naruto and Hinata, Pain (Yahiko). Sasuke and Sakura, Sasori. Itachi insisted on going alone, he is going to give Deidara the fight of his life. All of the others were sent on evacuation missions so that all retired Ninja, children, and non-ninja can evacuate. If they happen to run into a member of the Akatsuki, take them out.
Matsuri and Gaara are the first to arrive to their destination. A small village near a cliff, the people running around like the world is ending. The brunette is the first to gain control of the situation, grabbing the people's attention and making sure that they are able to leave calmly instead of a hurry. Matsuri turns to her former sensei. "Go, find Hidan." She orders.
"Are you sure?" He asks.
She nods. "I can handle things here, you need to take of Hidan. You're the one with the power that can take him." She reasons. He nods in a hesitant agreement before leaving her. He doesn't want to but if they split-up they may be able to get the people to a safe place before Hidan can take their lives.
Gaara runs into the nearby forest when he comes upon a clearing near the bottom of a neighboring mountain. A man with slick-back grey-hair is sitting their, a black coat with red clouds tied around his waist, a scythe attached to his back. His feet are crossed in front of him, eyes closed.
"Good, someone finally showed." He opens revealing distinctive purple eyes. "I was starting to get bored, I was about to make a sacrifice out of myself out of boredom."
"You won't be making any sacrifices any time soon."
"I see. Well, we'll see about that." Hidan smiles, grabs his scythe and starts swinging it at Gaara who misses it. Gaara counters with his Sand Tornado. Hidan remarks on Gaara's new move, but informing him that he and the other Akatsuki have learned some new jutsus of their own.
Gaara smirks. So have we.
Gaara jumps into the air and uses the sand to make bars pining him to a nearby tree. "How does it feel to feel helpless? Because this is just bringing up some bad memories." And it is. Gaara remembers his uncle telling him about love then trying to kill him again later that night, his father's hatred towards, his brother's and sister's fear, when he Matsuri first became his student and she got kidnapped because of him and she saw him transform halfway into Shukaku.
"Better than what your future holds." Hidan moves his hands and he turns into mist. "You have touched death, there will be no reprieve and no escape." He reappears and grabs Gaara around his throat, Gaara returns the favor.
"You think so? This must be my lucky day," The sand from Gaara's jug starts coming out and surrounding him, attaching to him like an armor. "Then this must be my lucky day, I've been looking for a place to die." Gaara head buts the religious Akatsuki member.
By this point Matsuri has evacuated the entire village, unfortunately some of them have come in Gaara's direction. And she has come to try and get them away. . . . and she's heard what he just said about looking for his final resting place. The two resume fighting, Gaara getting a good punch in, causing Hidan to land on the ground. A large smile growing on the grey-hair man's face.
"That's a good one, but I have Bane Particles in the air, and they kill anyone who inhales them, soon a sensation will take over, that's your organs liquefying."
Gaara remarks that he doesn't think so. The Kazekage thinks back to the Fourth Ninja War, when his father came back to life because of a resurrection jutsu and informed him that his mother never hated him, that she in fact did love him despite Shukaku being inside of him. She had held him close as a newborn and the sand he carries is in fact his mother's love protecting him.
Sorry if I don't make it out of this, Mom.
"I don't think so," Gaara moves into the air.
"Good," Hidan's smile somehow gets bigger. "It's been a while since I've faced a truly challenging opponent."
"Sand Tsunami!" Gaara gasps as his sand just passes through him, not even leaving a mark. "What the-?"
"Silly human, my body is made up of Bane Particles and sacrifice. Attacking me was a huge mistake. I am a God of Death, riding this world of sinners, dragging them down into the pits of Hell!" As Gaara screams. flying through the air because he is dodging Hidan's scythe, that is when he sees all of the towns people near him, grabbing their own throats and screaming in agony. "Even if you do survive, what about those without you gifts?"
Gaara shouts at them, ordering them to leave, not to go near Hidan. Gaara crashes into the bone-covered ground, moving around him as if it's forming a hurricane. Gaara is trying to think of a way out;Hidan sends his scythe again, and this time the red-head is sure that Hidan will get some of his blood when a Johyo blocks its path. A familiar voice shouts, "Wind Style: Storm Winds!" The skulls and the rest of the bones surrounding him disappear, Matsuri standing in front of him in her black socks, brown sandales, black shirt and skirt, and a tan vest.
"What is this?" Hidan curses as his plan fails.
Even Gaara is surprised to see Matsuri, before he can ask she declares that she isn't going to leave him. He counters that she has to go, after all if she inhales the Bane Particles, the first and only person to have become his student and his first Suna friend who isn't Temari or Kankuro. Matsuri turns to face him, revealing her yellow scarf is tied around her mouth. He praises her for thinking.
"Are you sure it's going to hold?"
"Of course I am, it's a gift from my parents." Right, both of Matsuri's parents are also dead. Perhaps their love is surrounding her as much as Karura's is protecting Gaara. "Now, I don't want to hear things like you're looking for a place to die."
"I didn't mean it." Gaara tries to reassure his former pupil. "It was said in the heat of the moment? What's with that look?"
The brunette looks down. "I mean it. Your life is very important to me, Sensei, and not just me but your friends and family too. What would Naruto and your other friends of The Leaf do? What would Temari and Kankuro do? You can't die so watch what you say."
Hidan then takes this opportunity to start inhaling some of the air, reminding them that he is death and he will take them to Hell himself if he has to. "When the first seal is broken," Hidan starts making is sacrificial symbol in the skeletons. "Bane Particles drains your chakra, the second opens up a door to hell among this field of corpses, upon breaking the third seal the God of Death renders judgement on you, and when that happens you are condemned." He sticks his scythe right through himself, his body changing, growing until he about ten-feet tall, his skin black and white (the white outlining a skeleton) as purple mist surrounds him.
"I get that you're trying to be scary," Gaara comments. "But your magic power is a joke, you've got nothing on the other Akatsuki do you?"
"That's because I also wield the Power of Curses."
Gaara and Matsuri gasp in surprise.
"Does that mean. . . . what I think it means?" Matsuri wonders.
Hidan confirms her suspicions by telling them that he controls what rises from the Underworld. "Curse Fallout, Death Style: Explosion Spiral!"
Hidan is successful in separating the two partners, he goes in for Gaara again; the protective sand keeping the Kazekage from harm. Frustrated, Hidan uses a water style that raises the tides from the ocean below them.
Damn! Gaara thinks as the same time the thought in Matsuri's head is Not this again! She's faced this before, with her parents just days before they died.
"Can he use all of the forbidden jutsus?" Gaara dreads.
"I don't know, but I'm not falling for the same trick twice!" Twice? Matsuri swims a little ways away before using a new style of wind justsu that makes the ground into quick sand, absorbing all of the water. Gaara can't help but smile at his former student, a sense of pride washing over him.
Gaara takes the chance to makes a sand tunnel and absorb some of the air, Hidan following him, both releasing their attacks; equal in strength and in power. Gritting his teeth, Hidan uses another Death Style and makes a vortex, separating the; Gaara in the center, Matsuri on the side. With all of his strength Gaara reaches for his former student and pulls them both out of the vortex, landing on some of the ground that isn't covered in bones, shocking Hidan.
Groaning as he pushes himself up, the insomniac hears his friend (which is putting it lightly) coughing not to far. Pushing himself up on to his knees, the leader of the sand sees that her scarf is no longer covering her face. "Your scarf! You have to get back on now!" His heart is pounding in his chest, something gripping at his heart as he sees her push herself up weakling.
"I'm sorry, I was bluffing. The truth is: Bane Particles don't just get in haled, they get absorbed through the skin too. Guess I never had a chance, huh?"
"Then why did you come here?" He demands, not in the mood for a joke at a time like this. How can she even think this is a good time to joke around?
"I just wanted to protect you." She answers honestly, staring him in the eyes, locking him in place. The light, the fire in her eyes, fades as she falls to the ground, eyes closing.
"Matsuri!" He shouts, trying to reach out for her, his body unmoving.
Sakura and Sasuke arrive at their destination, it's near the desert and for some reason is colder than it should be, the sky is grey and looks like it could be dropping snow or rain at any minute.
"Sakura, you've fought Sasori before, what is he like?" Sasuke inquires.
"Not good." Sakura replies, voice vacant of any emotion. Her fight with Sasori replaying in her mind. How he used puppets with poison, how Lady Chiyo used Sakura as a puppet so the pink-hair girl actually stood a chance. If Sakura hadn't agreed to that, she's sure she would be dead by now.
Sasuke is disturbed by Sakura's lack of tone. He doesn't know if it's because of her pain reliving her fight with the puppeteer, or at Sasuke himself, or both. The last Uchiha recalls how he and Naruto were walking around Konoha, how during one of their last battles when Sasuke faced Sakura on her own accord because she left Yamamto, Kakashi, and Naruto at an INN they were in.
"Sakura tried to pull some BS on me," Naruto had said. "Tried to tell me she loved me, then she went off to try and capture you, maybe even kill you."
Something about Sakura telling Naruto she loved him, as in love with him, bothers Sasuke. He can't name it, but when Naruto confided that in him something strange washed over him. It was an unpleasant warm feeling. He doesn't mind Sakura telling other people she loves them, as long as she isn't in love with them.
Why should I care whom she falls in love with? Sasuke wonders, as he and Sakura observe the area for any sign of Sasori or his puppets. Sakura is looking around on foot while he is using his Sharingan. I had been blinded by my vengeance at Itachi, left to become Orochimaru's puppet, ready to learn everything he could teach me. I left her for three years, if she moved on during that time and is in love with someone else, I can't force her to stop.
"Watch out!" Sakura pushes him out of the way as an something goes off, causing the sand to implode.
"I see you've improved since our last match." The duo looks up and sees Sasori standing on the ruins of an old stadium. Sakura growls his name, an anger in her eyes. Sasuke as never seen an anger in her like this before, not even when she is scolding him and Naruto for doing something stupid that leaves them injured before using her medical jutsu to help heal them. Something grainy and hard wraps itself around his and Sakura's necks. Sand, a choker of sand, with a matching chain to connect them. "This is a Sand-Lock jutsu, it traps away you consciousness, making the two of you my puppets. And the only way to break it is if one of you dies. Meaning one of you will have to take the life of the other."
Sakura!
Sasuke!
Before they know it, they're fighting. Sasuke attacking her with his fire jutsus while she dodges and tries to land a punch on him. And from what Sasori has heard, Sakura's strength is enough to even make the Tailed Beasts wish they were never created.
Wait, what am I doing? Sakura groggily wonders in the depths of her mind as Sasori watches the battle from afar. She screams when Sasuke grabs her leg and crashes her into the ground. Oh, right, I've been forced into a fight because of Sasori. I don't want to hurt him, don't want to kill him, why doesn't he hurry up and kill me? No, that won't work either. He'll blame himself, I know he will. Sakura punches Sasuke, they're standing just a short distance away from each other.
Both are considerably strong, either could win. But I would prefer it if the girl did, after all she and I have a score to settle. Sasori ponders as he sees determination in their eyes.
Meanwhile, Sakura has come up with her own plan of defeating Sasori's chain and freeing herself and Sasuke: suicide. Sasori sees Sakura raise her hand in the air, green chakra starting to surround it. The former sand ninja reminds her that they cannot break that chain without killing the other, any feelings are futile.
"My feelings are not futile! I love each and everyone of my friends and family," memories of her parents, aunt and uncle, Ino, Choji, Shikamaru, Kiba, Shino, Hinata, Neji, TenTen, Lee, Gaara, Matsuri, Temari, Kankuro, Tsunade, Kakashi, Naruto, Sasuke, everyone. Sasori and Sasuke stare at her, the green chakra forming into something sharp. "It was good to see you again, Sasuke, to build our team and friendship back up." She smiles sadly before impaling herself.
Gaara pushes himself up, blood seething with rage. "Just hang in there Matsuri, I'm going to take him down for good." Forming a club with his sand, the leader of Suna sends it straight for Hidan.
"All of your struggling is fruitless!" Hidan hisses as he sends the young Kazekage flying. On the ground, Matsuri slowly wakes up and sees the fight, quietly she wishes for Gaara to be careful.
Said person hits a rock as he thinks about his life thus far. Not being able to sleep ever since I was born because of Shukaku, uncle telling me about love only to try and kill me and found the opportunity by my father's orders, Temari and Kankuro fearing me. Part of me wanted to run away to keep them safe or give in and become the monster they so feared. Meeting Naruto and his determination to be calling me a friend when he barely knew me. Temari, Kankuro and I making a new ninja academy back home where Matsuri became my first and only student because she wasn't afraid. Then she became my friend outside of my siblings and Baki. Rising, Gaara plants his feet on the ground as he looks over at his former pupil. But none of that matters if I can't protect even one person I love.
Matsuri stares back at her former sensei, seeing his determination in his eyes along with something else that she cannot name, probably due to her body having absorbed all those Bane Particles making her bones and blood feel like led and iron. A slight breeze comes over her, the dark mist moving towards Gaara as he makes a sand tunnel that is breathing in the mist, the tunnel is near his face but she can't tell where it ends. "No. . . ." she croaks out, mind racing if he is about to do what she thinks he is.
Hidan even comments on how stupid it is on what Gaara is doing, that it can't mix with a jinchuriki even if a person is no longer a host for a Tailed Beast. The poisoned Jonin cries out to Gaara, begging him to stop because he doesn't have to do what he's about to.
When the sand tunnel stops, the mist evaporates and a light surrounds the fair-skin young man. Disappearing, the light reveals Gaara in an armor of sorts made from the sand covering his entire body, shirt shredded and scattered on the ground (although his sash is still somehow intact). But the sand isn't its usual sandy color, it's a dark grey that's almost black.
"What? His body-he's turned himself into black sand, into iron sand!" Hidan marvels.
"No! It's going to kill you!" Matsuri tries to plead.
"There's some iron in sand and I think he's mixing that with the iron in Bane Particles!" Hidan concludes. "So he could ingest them!"
Ingest. . . . Oh no! Matsuri can feel her heavy eyes spring open.
Gaara makes his move and punches Hidan. He isn't normally one for hand-to-hand combat but he highly doubts that ironized sand would even hurt him. Hidan is confused and shocked that Gaara would suck in his poison just to hit him. They turn into a spiral of jutsus and and fists. Matsuri watches the Akatsuki member and her former teacher, tears brimming her eyes as sees Gaara pull his right hand back, glowing, before hitting Hidan one final time. Out of the corner of her eye, she sees the scythe and is trying to get control of her muscles so she can move and get the weapon to Gaara; without it, Hidan is defenseless.
I'm going to get Matsuri home, safe and sound. Is Gaara's only thought as he makes the final blow, sending Hidan back to his Hell. Matsuri is finally up on her knees as she smiles seeing Gaara as the victor.
That's my sensei, the Kazekage.
Gaara sees her smiling. "Are you okay?" His voice calm, cool as steel, as he peers at her over his shoulder. Before she can respond, white ropes with surrounding purple wraps around the young Kazekage. Surprising both the former sensei and student. They're pulling him towards a portal that Hidan himself is going through.
"I'm not going to die alone. I'm going to the Underworld, so are you!" Hidan growls as Gaara is halfway through.
"Gaara!" Matsuri yells, not believing her eyes. She wants to look away, close her eyes and hopes that this is nothing but a horrible nightmare but she can't.
The auburn-hair young man is trying to move legs and arms in the slim hopes of trying to get free. Unfortunately Hidan informs them that this is a portal to an eternity of torment, upon which, their is no return. Hearing Gaara scream in agony as Hidan dissolves, Matsuri encourages him to fight against it. Coughing up blood, Matsuri finds the strength to move, removing her brown flack jacket and making her way towards Gaara in the vain hopes of trying to help free him.
Seeing this Gaara feels the familiar creeping of fear wash over him. "Get away!" He shouts at his former student, he can't let her get sucked in to. If he's going to Hell he isn't going to drag her with him. "Don't come any closer, I'm just a big thing of poison now anyways." Gaara looks down, his fringe covering his eyes. Her warns her of what will happen to her if she touches him.
"I don't care what happens to me!" She declares, dashing towards the Kazekage. He screams her name, in fear or admiration he isn't sure. She continues to declare that she isn't scared, not anymore, and that she is going to save him. Begging him to hold on. Not wanting her to get hurt, Gaara uses the last of remaining strength to send some iron-sand braces toward her, wrapping themselves around her wrists and ankles, forcing her against a rock. "What do you think you're doing?"
"Saving you." His voice is gravely like sand. Using her own strength, Matsuri breaks the holds and starts towards him again, her determination running deep in her veins. Exclaiming that she isn't the same person as before. When she was his student and she couldn't even bare the thought of using a weapon without hurting someone.
I've already lost my parents, I can't lose you too! They think in unison.
Why does she even want to help me? Because I was her teacher? Because I'm the Kazekage? Gaara wonders, but looking into her eyes he knows that isn't the case. There's an emotion in them that Gaara has seen in many of his friends, even in Temari, but hasn't had the chance to ask them what it is.
He shouts her name again. Just as Matsuri is reaching out her hand, she feels some sort of string chakra connect itself to the points of her body a puppeteer ninja would do to control their puppets. Feeling a body against her back, she hears the sound of a grunt she's grown accustomed too over the years.
Kankuro wraps his arms around her in a tight hold. Gaara smiles, seeing his older brother keeping her back and not trying to help her free him. She begs Kankuro to let her go.
"I'm not going to let you get dragged in to." Kankuro states, his own eyes burning as he tries to hold back his own tears. He lost Gaara once to Deidara and Sasori because they kidnapped him because of the One-Tail inside. Now he's losing his brother again, this time more permanently and he'll be damned if he can't help save one the person his brother cherishes most that isn't friend or family.
"I can help him, if we stay and do nothing he's gonna die!" Warm tears are now streaming down both Matsuri's and Kankuro's faces. Matsuri may be trained in medical ninjutsu, but, Kankuro is certain, even if Sakura helps her they won't be able to save Gaara. Which will just hurt more.
"Listen," he tells her gently as he picks his final words carefully. "I used to be a real bad person. Only looking out for myself and no one else. I didn't care if bloodshed was spilt because I was a weapon and that's all I ever thought I'd be. I couldn't even look at my own siblings as family. Then I met Naruto and started to think about things differently. When you chose me as your teacher, I couldn't help but feel that maybe there was a chance of the people of Suna not seeing me as a monster. You made me happy as time went on, and I learned that even I could truly-" Gaara doesn't get the chance to finish as the portal fully sucks him in, the tears pouring out of Matsuri's and Kankuro's eyes as Gaara disappears. Both brunettes scream into the night sky.
Sasori watches in amazement as blood drips down from where Sakura stabbed herself. Who knew that she had that much control left. Well, at least the boy will be able to burn away her body. Sasori is snapped out of his thoughts as Sakura gasps in horror at Sasuke, who himself has a kunai in his abdomen. How can this be? A double suicide?
"Sakura. . . why. . . you didn't have to. . ." Sasuke croaks out.
"Sasuke, you shouldn't have!"
"There was. . . no other choice. . . I didn't want to hurt a friend. . . no. . . I didn't want to hurt you." Sasuke admits. "I wanted to. . . protect you."
"My glad my last moment was. . . a happy one." Sakura tells him as the heavy weight of sleep overcomes her.
It wasn't supposed to end like this! Naruto, please, avenge us. Sasuke thinks as he and Sakura's bodies hit the ground, leaving Sasori stunned.
Stopping the sand, Sasori turns to leave knowing he should catch up to Deidara before the blonde artists meets up with the ex-Akatsuki member, so he can be shown the image of another person he loved.
Not too long after the sand settles, and Sasori is just a few yards away, Sasuke opens his dark eyes. What the. . . ? I'm certain that I died. He feels the beat of his heart. In shock Sasuke pushes himself up and turns to face Sakura in horror, her right arm is outstretched towards him with her green chakra flowing to him.
He hears Sakura's soft voice inside his head. There's this reanimation jutsu that Granny Chiyo used to save Gaara's life at the expense of her own. I practiced the jutsu in secret in case anything happened to any of my friends during this war, performing the jutsu at the very last second to save you. So, don't be sad for me, because, in a way, I'm still living.
Sasuke pulls Sakura into his arms, tears of anger and sadness streaming down his face. "Sakura, you can't die!" He cradles her head as he thinks of all the memories they had together. When they were just kids in the academy and she cheered him on in fights against Naruto, when they were placed on the same team and Kakashi had them talk about what they wanted to be in the future. Reuniting after three years and she was ready to kill him despite her love for him. When she tried to kill him again, by herself, before Kakashi and Naruto showed up. Then Sasuke coming back to his senses and rejoining Team Kakashi, Team 7 was back, and now this. "Please, just wake-up. I'm sorry for everything. For leaving you, not taking your feelings seriously when it seemed you actually cared for me as a person rather than appearance. [. . . .] Sakura."
Sasori is twelve feet away when he senses a great amount of chakra coming from where the two Shinobi of the Leaf killed themselves. Turning around he sees Sasuke emerging from the rubble, walking towards him, something an emotion beyond fury in his eyes. Sasori comments on his shock that Sasuke is alive, but doubts that the young Uchiha is ready for a fight. Clenching his fist, Sasuke connects his fist to Sasori's cheek. Then a kick, another punch, until Sasori realizes that Sasuke is forcing his hand in battle.
"If that's what you want," Sasori moves his hands and connects his chakra and swings out his puppets. "Then so be it." Sasuke starts attacking the puppets with everything he's got. "That's not going to work, these puppets are enhanced with my new jutsu that will make the sand hitting your skin feel like you're on fire."
Sasuke hates to admit that Sasori is right, the sand coming at him from his dolls are making his arm feels as if every atom within him is splitting apart, and not in a good way. Despite this, he continues on until he breaks the head of the figurine, making contact with the redheaded puppeteer. The former sand shinobi hits the ground with a thud, staring at the youngest Uchiha brother.
"Your demonic jutsu may be powerful, but it's nothing compared to the fire jutsus of my clan's." Sasuke spits out, already feeling the fire starting to burn within him and blistering up his throat. He considers using his family's signature Great Flame Sphere to trap the puppet master but he isn't trying to let his anger and vengeance guide him anymore, when he was with Orochimaru before killing him, Sasuke may have killed him but he isn't the same person anymore. "Fire Release: Great Flame Flower!" Flower-shaped flames form in the sky, hitting the ground around them as one aims for Sasori's legs.
"How. . . . can this. . . . be?" Sasori is shaking.
"Sakura had a live a head of her, a future! You took that from her! And I'm going to make you pay!" A fire ball hits Sasori on his legs. "As much as I would like to continue pummeling you and using my jutsus, that isn't going to bring Sakura back."
The young promising shinobi does not care that Sakura's blood is now pumping in his veins, keeping her alive in a sense, because she isn't breathing anymore. He won't hear her voice when she's scolding Naruto, but still be polite, her unrivaled strength when she hits something in the ground, how Tsunade's teachings have transformed her from a pampered princess into a hot-headed no-nonsense independent young woman. He regrets not taking the time to form stronger bonds with them and training with Orochimaru. Maybe if he had stayed and trained with them, stayed with Kakashi-sensei as she learned under Tsunade and Naruto under Jiraya then Sakura could still be alive.
"Like your parents right? Your entire clan?" Sasori inquires.
"How do you know about that?"
"Because that is your fate in this life, misery and hardship will follow until you can stop this war by defeating Madara Uchiha."
"I already plan on beating him." Sasuke growls as the twisted orange mask flashes in his mind.
"You've got it wrong," Sasori coughs up blood. "The one in the mask, with the one-eye Sharingan, he goes by Tobi but his real name is Obito Uchiha. As skilled as he is, the real Madara is far more superior."
"Well, then, it's a good thing I have someone in mind to help me bring him down." Sasuke turns left, going to look for Naruto as he wonders what the real Madara looks like, and how they can defeat him.
Once the portal that took Gaara is gone, Kankuro releases his hold on Matsuri, both of them falling to their knees, hands clutching the grass as the earth gets under their fingernails. Tears dampening the ground beneath them. Matsuri has several memories of her and Gaara.
She just enrolled in the new Ninja Academy in Suna being taught by Temari, Kankuro, and Gaara. She's only a few months older than him, but he was a chunin while she was still a genin. She asked why they all had to have weapons because she and her classmates had the possibility of hurting each other, a reminder of what happened when she went on a mission with her parents and they had been slain right in front of her. (To this day she still doesn't know why she was spared.) When Gaara tried to explain what a weapon is to a ninja she wanted to find out what he was going to say, and when it was revealed that his siblings were the more favorable of the three it gave the tiniest bit of courage she needed to approach the Fourth Kage's youngest and ask him to be her instructor, having to verify that she was certain that she wanted him after he himself seemed uncertain. Then she got kidnapped by the Four Celestials because she was Gaara's student. (They wanted to use him to bring back their villages founder, Seimei, and the only way they were going to try and get Gaara to cooperate was kidnapping those close to him. Again, that was a mystery to her because she just met him and barely knew him.)
Then when she saw him almost transform into Shukaku, that didn't scare, that just made her want to train even harder to make sure that nothing like that ever happened again.
A few years passed, she was put on a team with Yukata and Mikoshi, while Gaara became Kazekage. They still saw each other every now and again, but not much due to him being the leader of Suna and she being sent out on missions. Their contact was very little, treasured by both. Then the Akatsuki kidnapped him and initially killed him by extracting Shukaku from him, finally arriving where Naruto brought him to wake-up, she had been so happy to see him open his sea-foam green eyes.
Then when she was put with Temari in the Fourth Division. Gaara may have been the division's leader, but she followed under Temari and Shikamaru. They've lost many but not a significant amount that they should start to fear that they might lose. They split everyone up into groups. Gaara, Matsuri, Kankuro, and Sari before duos. Gaara's always been an insomniac but earlier that night, Matsuri was the one having trouble sleeping. They were on a cliff and she was observing the stars.
"Is everything all right?" Her former sensei wonders from behind her.
"This battle feels different from anything we've fought before."
"We are at war, these missions are going to be harder and more draining than our past ones." Gaara points out in an attempt to reassure here.
"It's not that." She lowers her head. "Everyone is stronger in their ninjutsus and genjutsus, have amazing controls over their weapons and chakra. . . . I'm just weak compared to them." She screams as sand bars encase her from the ground. She looks at her country's leader.
Gaara's face is calm, his arms and legs are crossed, the bags covering his eyes evident by his closed lids. "It seems," he breathes. "That my job as your sensei isn't done quite yet. Looks like we'll have to find to resume lessons once the war is over."
A smile forms on her face as heat rises to her cheeks. He opens his eyes and smiles right back at her.
His name escapes her lips through her tears and screams, no formality with it. She can vaguely hear Kankuro trying to get himself under control. That he's lost his younger brother before and that Gaara always comes back; he quickly scolds himself for trying to have hope. They both saw what Gaara did, what happened to him, even if he hadn't been dragged down to Hell there's no way that Sakura, Ino, Tsunade, and all of the other medical ninja could combine their powers and save him. Gaara doomed himself to save her and that isn't fair. He's worked hard to come from the monster people thought him to be, while Matsuri has grown deep down she still has a fear of hurting someone and ending their life. he was the Kazekage, she was a chunin at best. She's meant to die in this was, she's the weakest person in all of Suna. Not Gaara. He's the exact opposite of her. Someone people cared for and cherished, she'll be lucky if people who weren't her sensei, his family (yes, she counts Baki as his family), or her teammates even bother to remember her name. He's the one that mattered most, not her. Now he's gone.
It's not fair.