Silvered Sand: A Gaara Story Chapter 1, a naruto fanfic

First off, this story is chock-full of Gaara spoilers, just in case you cared

Second, it's not exactly accurate in some cases. It is my understanding that Gaara became Kazekage at age 14, I believe, and here he is 15, but not yet Kazekage. I also messed with his memories and his emotions a lot. I admit I did this. I don't do it often. I also did not make it as unbelievable as I have seen it done. Gaara does not suddenly have a 2-second change of heart, fall deeply in love, become a cheerful person, or become obsessed with a girl and refuse to leave her alone or let her have other friends, or anything like that. In fact, I tried to keep it as normal as possible while changing it. If that makes any sense.

THIS IS THE ONE WHERE I BEND THE RULES. GAARA IS MILDLY OUT-OF-CHARACTER IN SOME PLACES. I KNOW THIS. I ALSO KNOW THAT THERE ARE NO MAGES IN NARUTO.

Third, I don't own Gaara, sadly. Masashi Kishimoto-sama does, lucky duck. But I do own Ayama, Vallan, the mysterious girl, and the story idea (Ayama: --kicks-- I belong to no one but Gaara!; Vallan: --bites head off--; Mysterious girl: --beats over head with stick--; Story idea: --sits there--)

Silvered Sand: A Gaara Story

She hated calling herself a ninja.

She had the same powers as one, even some of the same techniques as one, but she wasn't one, and she didn't use chakra either, and thus wasn't restricted by the amount of it she possessed.

Of course, she was restricted by the amount of magic she possessed, instead, but it still felt like cheating.

But then, it was the only way to find him. So she disguised her magic as chakra, albeit chakra no one could sense, called herself a ninja, and entered the tournament.

There had to be an easier way to do it. She had thought the same thing at first, too. She had searched all over the world for him, but the only ones who had known where he was were now dead. A shudder always went down her spine at that thought, because she knew it wasn't his fault.

Those who had heard of him called him "creepy", called him "mean", called him "insane". Her response to that was always the same.

Wouldn't you be like that if your father sacrificed your mother at your birth in order to bind an incarnate of sand to you that never allowed you to sleep?

Or if you were raised by your uncle, who was the only person in the entire world that you loved, and who was, you believed, the only person in the entire world that loved you, and then he tried to kill you? And you found out that he really hated you for the death of his sister, your mother, and that he had attempted to kill you on your father's orders? And then you killed him, the only person you ever loved?

Or if your name meant a self-loving carnage, and that your mother named you that, and she died cursing your village?

Or if everyone, including your own family, hated and feared you for something you'd never done, even when you helped them, and your father knew you only as a tool and a weapon?

Or if you never knew what pain felt like, because sand protected you, whether or not you wanted it to, even when you tried to hurt yourself?

Or if you forced the sand to scar your own face above your eye with the character for love to remind yourself that you were to love only and fight only for yourself?

Or if you killed people because you believed that it was the only way to know that you were still alive?

And wouldn't you be creepy/mean/insane if all those things applied to you?

You can bet your bottom dollar you would be, so you have no room to talk.

So she came here, to join in the tournament, because she knew that he would be there.

She wasn't invincible, though. No, she was far from it, and there were plenty of real ninjas here that she'd have trouble beating. If she could beat them at all. She'd just have to hope that she wasn't forced to face them and waste her false-chakra.

Many would wonder why she wanted so much to find him. She did herself, at times. But then she remembered.

The six-year-old boy with vivid red hair and seafoam eyes was all alone in the sand. Under the desert moon, he sat, and his tears fell, soaking the sand, which protected him, but could never comfort him.

The six-year-old girl with unnatural, long silver hair and pupilless pale grey eyes that seemed lost in dreams stood at the top of a small sand dune and wished she could talk to him. Because she was alone, too, so very alone…

He finally noticed that she was there. Fear flashed through his unnatural eyes and he cried out. A sphere of sand rose up to surround him, obscuring him from view.

Her power was mist, but it was too dry here for mist, even at night. So she did something else, perhaps something better. She slid down the dune and walked over to the boy, and simply reached out to touch the barrier.

Immediately, it grabbed onto her hand and squeezed. She, too, cried out, and blood soaked the sand as his tears had. But then, oddly, the sand let go, and the shield fell.

He looked at her with those wide, frightened eyes. "You touched it," he whispered, unnerved. "You touched it. And you didn't run away. Who are you?"

"Who are you?" she whispered in turn. "You look so tired."

He looked away, pain dancing across his face, pain that no six-year-old should have to experience. "I'm Gaara," he muttered. "Gaara of the Sand, or of the Desert, whichever you prefer, I s'pose. And I can't ever sleep, because then the demon inside of me would take over."

"I'm Ayama," responded the girl. "Of the Mist, or of the Fog, whichever you prefer." She held up her wrists; manacles wrapped around them like cold, iron bracelets. "And I can't ever wake up, or the demon inside of me would come out."

He looked at her, startled. "What do you mean, you can't wake up? You're awake! You're talking to me!"

Ayama knelt down and looked into his frightened, anguished eyes with her own, unfocused ones, her own eyes that were wise far beyond her six years. "I'm awake, but I live in a dream. Even so, I can see that we're the same. That we both know that loneliness is this world's worst kind of pain. And yet, Gaara of the Sand, we're so different. Because you're a ninja, and I'm a mage."

Sorrow flashed across her pale features, illuminated by the moon. "Remember me, Gaara of the Sand, one who's so similar to me, yet so different…"

And then she left, because she was called, even though he cried out for her to stay.

"And remember that all their words are lies. Monster will never be your true name."

She always remembered crying as she left him then, nine years ago, because she didn't want to leave as much as he didn't want her to, but she was forced – she was called.

Now here she was. And now the tournament would begin.

She flew through the preliminaries, flew all the way to the finals. She was lucky, and was never placed against one she wasn't sure she could defeat easily. She saved her magic for him.

And in the end, it was him she fought. She had thought, briefly, that she wouldn't be placed against him, that she would fight instead Uchiha Sasuke, but she got lucky. He slipped up and lost in the round before to a person she overcame easily. She was filled almost to the brim with magic.

They both stood in the ring, motionless, Gaara of the Sand and Ayama of the Mist. Her arms were crossed, like his, but hers for a different reason; to hide the cold chains that still adorned her wrists.

That, and to hide the scar on her right hand where his sand had eaten away at her all those years ago. She didn't want him to recognize her, not yet.

The audience held its breath, at first, wanting to know who would make the first move. Gaara of the Desert, infamous for his murderous intent, or Ayama of the Fog, unheard of before today, but who had flown through the rounds below? Who would strike first?

It was said that Gaara never moved when he fought. But then, neither did Ayama.

The audience was becoming impatient now. They had seen no movement, no indication that the fight had begun, although it had. It had simply begun with a battle of will.

Restless cries rose from the crowd, shouts to get started already, jibes that inquired as to whether either of them had noticed the announcer start the match. They were all ignored.

Mist was gathering on the stone floor at Ayama's feet, but it went unnoticed. Then it was slinking across the floor, toward Gaara. The mist didn't move of its own volition for her, as the sand did for Gaara; she had to control it, and it used magic. But this small movement took almost none.

The fog was suddenly there, grabbing for Gaara, and the sand hadn't even noticed until the mist latched onto his leg. Then it slammed down on the mist, but the mist wasn't solid, and it seeped through the grains, through the cracks, and held on.

The audience couldn't tell what was going on, exactly, except for a select few, but they all knew that something had finally started happening, and a thunderous cheer exploded from the stands. Gaara and Ayama ignored it. They stared each other down. Gaara seemed unnerved that his sand had been breeched without him even knowing it, but he hid it well with the cold, emotionless mask.

While she concentrated on keeping ahold of Gaara, she didn't notice the sand whipping towards her along the floor now. It rose up, surrounding her in a sphere. She gasped for breath, but not because she was truly running out of air – more fog surrounded her and let her breathe. Instead, it was because she felt as if she'd been immersed in an icy pool.

He finally noticed that she was there. Fear flashed through his unnatural eyes and he cried out. A sphere of sand rose up to surround him, obscuring him from view.

Immediately, it grabbed onto her hand and squeezed. She, too, cried out, and blood soaked the sand as his tears had. But then, oddly, the sand let go, and the shield fell.

The orb twisted and rose into a cyclone of sand, whirling around her. On the other side of it, she could no longer see, but the fog was wrapping around Gaara, blocking his view as well. But he didn't need to see to control the sand.

The cyclone squeezed as it turned, crushing the air out of her. Blood stained it, as it had so many years ago, strengthening it this time, not weakening it The mist struggled to push the spinning walls back at Ayama, but she had only a thin bubble of air that wouldn't last long now. The whirlwind was draining her strength, as it had been meant to. She couldn't breathe.

Ayama remembered, suddenly, the last tournament she had witnessed. She hadn't been able to make it in time, but the mist had showed her an image of Gaara's battle with Rock Lee. She had seen Lee's Sensei stop Gaara from killing him. She had seen Gaara's bewilderment at Guy-Sensei's desire to protect and obvious love for Lee. She had seen Gaara's pain escalate at the memory of Yashamaru, protecting the girl he had almost killed for the simple reason that he no longer wanted to be alone.

There was no one here to protect her. She was running low on magic. The sand beat at her mercilessly.

She was going to die.

Choking on sand, she used the last magic she had to force the rotating walls back and rise on a disk of solid silver fog. She stood there, above the cyclone, even as it was rising to consume her once more, and uncrossed her arms, opening them wide and showing her chains, her scar.

Then she turned and, choking still, shouted, "I forfeit!"

Then she collapsed.

The cyclone had died; the sand had fallen. Gaara's eyes had widened in shock, in recognition, in – fear? Ayama barely saw; she had used more magic than she ever had before in this battle, and she was spent.

The mists that supported her dissolved.

She plummeted.

Almost as if the sands protected her as they did Gaara, they rose into the air and caught her in a blanket of smothering gold. They set her gently down on the floor.

The mask slipped back over Gaara's face. He turned and started walking for the exit with only a cold, "If that's all." As if he had not just won the tournament. As if he had not just been confronted by a girl he had not seen in nine years.

The crowd had been booing; the match had grown exciting, and she had ended it in a forfeit, of all things. After Gaara's exhibit of extremely strange behavior – saving her, of all things – they had grown oddly silent. Disappointed, but silent.

She smiled, wearied as she was, slipping into unconsciousness as she was. Of course she had forfeited. She didn't want to die. He would have beaten her anyway, so it wasn't as if she was giving him something he hadn't earned. Well, he would have beaten her if she hadn't revealed her secret.

Besides, the point of coming her, of entering, had not been to win. It had been to find him¸ to meet him in battle, and to show him that she had not forgotten, even if he had.

Black mist swirled across her vision and she couldn't think any more.

They had put her in a small, unused house. It was one room only, with nothing more than a bed and a table. She wasn't staying there long, so they figured it was all she needed. They were right, of course.

She'd only be here 'til he came.

The door blasted open in a spray of sand. Trying not to smile, she swung her feet over the edge of the bed and stood up, even though every bone, every muscle in her body ached. In the doorway stood Gaara.

Unable to contain a relieved smile anymore, she limped across the bare floor. Gaara looked alarmed, but hid it quickly, as he did with every emotion.

"I came to see if you were alive," he said shortly. Then he turned to go. He made no mention of their meeting almost a decade ago.

"Gaara," she called sharply, not wanting him to leave, not yet. He half-turned back.

"Thank you," she said softly. "You saved my life." He flinched at the words, as if ashamed. "I probably would have died in that fall." She hobbled the rest of the way over to him, trying to stand straight. He was taller than her, though they were the same age. Not by much, but still taller.

She stood in front of him; he drew back. Hesitantly, she stood on the tips of her toes…

…and kissed him.

He pushed her away; the sand did, too. She was flung across the room; she hit the wall with bone-shattering force. Even though she landed on the bed, the mattress failed to cushion her fall, but she gritted her teeth against the pain, refusing to cry out, even as tears leaked from her abnormal eyes. She was waiting for something.

But it never came. He pivoted and fled the house.

And she cried.

She had missed her chance. She had meant to follow him when he left. She hadn't wanted to lose him again. She could only view him through the mists if she knew the place where he was. So she had been going to follow him.

Instead, she acted rashly. She ruined her own plan. He had left. And she hadn't been able to follow. She had barely been able to move.

She couldn't let him get away. Not again.

She struggled to her feet again. Pain shot through her body; she was sure her arm was broken, and blood trickled down the side of her face. But she had to follow him.

She would have asked the mists to carry her, or at the very least, hold him back, but she had not replenished her energy, her magic, not yet.

She stumbled across the floor again and out the door. She had brought nothing with her, so she left nothing behind.

Outside, there was no sign of him. No sign, except…

…except a cloud of golden sand that drifted this way and that in the wind.

She reached out to touch it with her good arm, her scarred hand. A shock went through her. Fire ran through her veins instead of blood. All she knew was pain.

Then she was down on her knees, and the anguish faded. The sand hovered around her. It recognized her scar, somehow.

She waited for it to do something. But the sand dissipated, and she was left, kneeling on the cold, hard ground, with no way to find him.

She couldn't wait until the next tournament. That would be too long, and he might not even show, not that she'd… done what she'd done.

Fool, she called herself, again and again. She should have waited.

But she hadn't. And now there was no sign of him.

Except…

Except a scattering of sand. She found it only by touch, by sweeping her hand through it when she fell forward, cursing her stupidity. There were only a few grains, overlooked, left behind.

But what could she do with them?

She summoned the last ounce of magic from her reserved. It was the tiniest bit that she kept for emergencies. It could do very little; perhaps blind an enemy long enough for her to escape, or staunch the bleeding of a wound temporarily, just until she could reach help. It was dangerous to use it now, because then she'd have none.

She used it anyway.

A tendril of mist drifted from her fingers, the last she possessed. It mingled with the sand, and then fused with it.

She screamed.

Her fingers scrabbled pointlessly at the now-silver sand. Her eyes were blank with fear.

She was inside his mind.

It clutched at her and puller her deeper and deeper into its tortured depths. Fear, pain, confusion, hate, uncertainty, despair…

Locked in the vortex of Gaara's mind, she didn't notice when her body stood and began to walk. Though she moved through crowds of people, none saw her. It was as if she had become the mist itself, invisible, unnoticed, but ever-present.

She saw everything. She saw his beliefs. She heard, again and again, Love only yourself, and fight only for yourself. But she found no trace of that love on the maelstrom. He claimed to love only himself, but there was no truth in that statement.

He hated himself. But he killed anyway, because he thought – he hope, prayed – that it would relieve the pain.

How can he stand it? she sobbed.

She had long since left behind any signs of human civilization. Her body was exhausted, but her mind didn't know that and forced her on. She was so weak, so tired, but she kept walking.

She had to find him.

Finally, her body collapsed. She coughed up blood from some internal injury that she hadn't known she'd possessed. But the sand had latched onto the mist and it tried to draw her ever onward.

"Gaara!" she screamed into the emptiness, and it released her.

She went limp, and once again, her world went black.

She awoke to the stench of death.

She opened her mouth to shout something, anything, and inhaled a lungful of sand.

Gaara!

And death…

Her mind made the connection and she began scrabbling at the sand the weighed her down. So much sand…

She gagged when she saw that it wasn't golden, or even silver, but a deep crimson with blood.

Air wouldn't come to her lungs. She choked, coughing again and again and again. And then, quite suddenly, there was no more sand on top of her.

She scrambled for safety, away from the quicksand, gasping for breath. She turned; bodies littered the ground like leaves after a storm. And he was there, in the center of it all, a snarl twisting his features.

"No, Gaara, please," she begged, but her voice was far too soft to be heard.

One by one, the people died. Some emotion flashed across Gaara's warped features, and Ayama guessed that it was supposed to be joy for the killing, but all she saw was pain.

"Stop!" she shouted. This time, he heard. She could tell by the way he flinched at the sound of her voice. But he didn't look at her.

Instead, she suddenly found a great tsunami of sand bearing down on her.

Ayama of the Mist tried to call up the fog that was her namesake, but none came. There was no silver haze to form a solid shield against the sand.

She held up her arms to shield her face, as if that would protect her from a thousand tons of sand about to crush her.

Somehow, it did.

The tsunami never fell. Not a grain touched her broken arm, which she'd barely been able to raise. No sand entered and burned her still-open wounds.

Tentatively, the mist mage raised her head to see Gaara staring at her. But his eyes were glazed over, as if he wasn't seeing her, but someone else.

Yashamaru. She still had enough of a connection to his mind for the word to drift through her thoughts, too.

There was no Yashamaru here, though. He was Gaara's uncle; he was dead. Why, then would that be the name – ?

Ah.

The images joined the name. Yashamaru standing, arms crossed in front of his face as Ayama's were now, protecting the prone figure of a girl, and pleading for Gaara to stop.

Ayama turned her head just enough to see, out of the corner of her eye, a child's body behind her.

"Gaara-sama, please, calm down," cried Ayama in the words of Yashamaru, hoping it was the right thing to do.

All around her, the sand fell lifelessly to the ground. Gaara took a step or two towards her. Fear twisted his features further, and his eyes were no longer cold and hard, but those of a terrified six-year-old.

"I don't want to be alone anymore," whispered the sand ninja.

Hesitantly, Ayama closed the rest of the distance between them. He seemed so tired, just as he had when she'd first met him.

Before he could resist, she wrapped her good arm tightly around him.

Her touch awoke him from the memories. He stiffened, pushed her away, ignored the cringe of pain.

"Don't you get it?" he hissed. "I am the predator, and you are the prey. Now die!"

A bubble of sand enveloped her, cutting her off from Gaara. She glimpsed his face, briefly, and saw that there was no satisfaction there, only sadness.

But if doing this made him sad, then why did he?

The sphere contracted, squeezing the life out of her again, her blood mingling with the sand, her breath coming in ragged gasps. He was merciless.

"Gaara of the Sand!" she choked. "Remember, please! We're the same!" Her voice softened, but she had no doubt that he could still hear.

"Loneliness is this world's worst kind of pain, remember? We both know that!" She coughed as sand filled her lungs.

"You don't understand at all," he responded, and it was so quietly that she could tell that he thought she couldn't hear him. "You are nothing like me." His voice was growing fainter, as if he was walking away – which he probably was. She had to strain to hear his last words, and she almost didn't catch them. They were so uncharacteristic of Gaara that she couldn't be sure that there was no one else around who might have spoken them instead.

"Don't you get it? This isn't who I want to be."

"Gaara!" she screamed with the last of her air. But the sand didn't ever let up.

She awoke somewhere strange and wondered if she was dreaming, because she was supposed to be dead. Since she had basically told Gaara, all those years ago, that she was living in dream that she could never wake up from, this was so hilariously funny that she began laughing hysterically.

It was then that she noticed Gaara himself. He was sitting cross-legged on the floor, facing the blank wall, his back to her.

At the sound of her hysterics, he turned around. She stopped immediately. His face was so full of conflicting, uncharacteristic emotions that Ayama could find no words to say.

"I didn't know who you were before," he said abruptly. She looked at him blankly, and he growled with frustration.

"I recognized the chains, and the scar, but I didn't know why, so I thought you were just another assassin who was too stupid to give up. That didn't make sense when you forfeited, but I believed it anyway. Then you kept saying all those things that I knew I'd heard before, but I didn't get it then, either." He looked extremely irritated, and Ayama almost believed that he might fly into another rage.

"But then, as you were dying, I remembered." Just for a moment, he looked ashamed, of all things, and she felt like she was looking at his six-year-old self, his emotions laid bare for her to see.

"Who and what are you, Ayama of the Fog?" he growled. "I didn't remember you, even as you said to, and that should never bother me, but it does. I saved your life, twice, and both times, I was the one who almost killed you. How can you make me do that?"

She was silent for a long time. When she finally spoke, it was slowly, uncertainly.

"I didn't make you do anything, Gaara of the Sand. When we were six, I saw that you were as lonely as I, and my heart cried out for someone who understood. So I went up to you, and I did something that was either incredibly stupid of me or incredibly right of me. I touched your sand, and then I touched your life, for better or for worse, for the simple reason that we are the same."

Gaara glared at her, suddenly angry. "How can you possibly understand what I've gone through?" he said dangerously.

She didn't answer, but she looked into his eyes. He glanced away, ashamed, and even though she said no words, he understood that, whatever she'd known, it was as bad as his own.

Uncomfortably, he changed the subject. He stood and walked over to Ayama. She drew back, but he only fingered the iron wrapped around her wrists.

"You should take these off," he murmured, his voice thick with emotion that he tried so hard to hide. "You shouldn't be bound."

"I can't," she responded softly, pulling her hands away, and gasping slightly as she jarred her broken arm. He flinched, knowing that he had done that to her.

"Then I can. It's easy, the sand…" A tendril of gold wrapped around the shackles and began wearing away at them.

"No, Gaara, I can't!" she shouted, but it was too late; the bracelets shattered in a spray of deadly splinters.

She convulsed on the bed, crying out in pain. Her eyes suddenly had pupils, black, bottomless pupils, and when she looked at him, they were full of terror.

"I told you," she whispered. "I can't ever wake up, or the demon inside of me will take over."

Then she screamed.

The sound rent the air and went on and on and on. Gaara stared at her, completely nonplussed, and without the foggiest idea of what to do. The sand whirled around her wrists, uselessly attempting to recreate the bindings, but they would not stay.

With a sound like paper ripping and a flurry of feathers, wings burst from Ayama's back. They spanned at least a hundred feet, and the house could not hope to contain them; when the wings hit the walls, the whole small building collapsed on top of them. She continued to scream as her body lengthened, growing into something different, something strange.

It was vaguely feline, with a body at least forty feet long and pure silver. Its muzzle was long and frozen in a snarl, black fangs bared. Its ears were slim and tufted at the tips. Its tail was similar to a lion's, though far longer than a lion's ever would be. Its paws were enormous and adorned by talons of the deepest ebony.

There was no trace of Ayama, not even a hint of pain in the creature's eyes. And no recognition.

Gaara rose from the wreckage of the house on a cloud of sand. His eyes had hardened, and they, too, held no recognition for the demon in front of him. It was quite clear that he was ready to kill; it was almost as if he had already forgotten that his being was, deep inside, Ayama.

The creature rested about ten feet above the ground on a bank of swirling mists, thick and damp even in this arid place. It snarled and leapt downward for Gaara, intending to crush him, but the sand was strong, and it forced the demon back.

"Desert Coffin," Gaara muttered. Sand swarmed over the beat's paws, dragging it down, and he followed up with, "Desert Funeral!"

The creature roared in irritation and shook the sand off. A drop of silvered blood fell, but that was all.

Quickly, coldly, he changed tactics. His hands began to move in complicated patterns as her called out, "Quicksand in the Style of a Waterfall!"

It seemed like the whole desert moved beneath his feet and rose up to meet the creature that hat previously been Ayama. The sand engulfed that demon, and Gaara shouted, "Desert Imperial Funeral!"

As the attack crushed the life out of the demon, it cried out in pain and its voice was that of Ayama.

Gaara froze. His eyes, cold up until now, glazed over again, as if the memories had taken hold for a second time.

The sand squeezed the air and the blood out of the ninja that had attacked him, and then, hesitantly, he removed the mask that veiled the assassin's face.

With a cry of horror, he fell back at the sight of Yashamaru, the beloved uncle who had raised him, who had loved him…

…Who had just tried to kill him.

Terror and disbelief twisted the child's features. "Why? Why me?" he begged.

Yashamaru spoke, but the words were not words of comfort, as they always had been before. Instead, they were of condemnation, a confession of hate where the child had thought there was only love. And with his dying breath, he tried once more to kill the child of sand, betraying him, marking him forever…

Now, once again, the only person who'd ever cared was trying to kill him.

"No," he whispered. "No, I don't want to be alone anymore!"

The sand fell from the beast and silvered blood ran down the thing's sides, but as he watched, mist drifted across the wounds and they were no longer there.

Using Desert Suspension, he launched himself into the air, the sand forming into a massive cone with a deadly point behind him. Oddly, he no longer displayed any of his usual malicious joy, or even the customary emotionlessness. Instead, desperation haunted his gaze.

What was it that she had said? I told you. I can't ever wake up, or the demon inside of me will take over.

The sharpened cone of sand flung itself for the beast. The creature moved surprisingly agilely for something so enormous, but the sand, fed by Gaara's desperation was faster, and plunged into the demon's lithe body. It screeched, a high, horrible sound that was completely inhuman, but still, he heard Ayama's voice.

Blood poured once more from the beast's side, but this time, it had no way to heal the injury, as the sand weapon remained lodged in its side.

Its cry went on for an eternity as it thrashed about. The sand rained down, again and again. There was no intelligent thought left in Gaara's head; his insatiable desire to kill had finally returned, blocking out the other emotions that he had no desire to feel.

Again, his hands moved in the patterns required to execute Quicksand in the Style of a Waterfall. He rarely used it twice in a battle – most didn't survive the first time – but he barely noticed how much it tired him.

The creature roared as it fell to a barrage of sand, and this time, Gaara held the Desert Imperial Funeral, squeezing the sand tighter and tighter, crushing the beat, drawing the moisture out of the air in order to weaken the mist.

All of a sudden, he became aware of something tapping on the shield he had thrown up around his anguish. He shoved it back, concentrating only on the desire for death.

It came back as a full-force hammering, causing a headache almost as massive as the demon he fought. He temporarily lost control of the sand, although it protected him of its own volition, as it always had, from the violent mist attack of the fog demon.

Mist. Mist would seep through the grains of sand, as Ayama had demonstrated during the tournament, though she had less of a chance, due to her smaller wellspring of power.

Hurriedly, he layered grains upon grains to create an impenetrable shell of sand. But the mist kept coming, even as the shell kept growing.

Eventually, the mist completely pierced the sand barrier. Then it abruptly formed into a silvered sword and plunged into his shoulder.

He gasped, choking at the physical pain he was so unaccustomed to. As he fell, he became away that the obnoxious knocking in his head seemed to have opened a door and walked in.

If you put her to sleep now, it warned, she will not survive. She overexerted herself before, and the demon is draining her further by using up magic she does not have. If she falls asleep now, the demon's attacks will cease… but she will cease to exist.

He tried hard to make sense of this, but the fog sword had pierced even his Armor of Sand, his last line of defense, and he unused to both the pain and the sight of his own blood. His vision swirled, and he sank slowly into the sand.

Outside the blanket of gold, the massive demon leapt away, satisfied that its quarry had been eradicated.