How to deal with a dark soul
Chapter 1
The Chunin Exams are now in progress, so we have all classes off. And we are now free to roam Konaha as we choose. The others seem excited. Well, I know their excited because I can feel their aura's warm. I'm not though, I have nothing to do.
So I decide to go walk the streets. It's very busy as many of the Chunin contestants are finding their place to stay. This year it's supposed to be even more spectacular than usual. Now that the Sound village has joined. I'll be allowed to take it next year. I'm nervous about it but I'm also overjoyed to see how I'll do. I begin kicking a rock as I move down the road. Maybe I should go train? I don't want to get soft just because we have a few weeks off. Yeah, I'll have to train a lot. If the training grounds aren't full because of the newcomers. I won't train in front of them. Even if they're only a year or two older than me. The Chunin Exams are like a rite of passage, it's a big leap nobody can easily follow.
I exhale loudly. Then suddenly voices come echoing off the walls between the streets. If I wasn't a ninja in training I would never have been able to pin point the location of the voices that are coming just from the other street. I feel agitation, anger, fear, and a swarm of other emotions clashing with one another. I follow the waves of uncertain emotion around a corner. I peek around the corner shyly not wanting to be seen. What I see barely surprises me. It's one of Konaha's squads confronting one of the other villages that had come for the Exams. I can't see their forehead protectors to guess which one but I do recognize the three Leaf genin. Their squad seven, the squad the infamous Nine Tailed Fox boy had gotten into. I hear that he barely passed, so they put him into the squad with Sasuke Uchiha and Sakura Haruno to make up for any of his shortcomings. I'm surprised that they hadn't complained until he was removed.
I lean forward seeing his teammates with him. I usually stray clear of Naruto Uzimaki and Sasuke Uchiha because they are always letting off powerful streams of emotion. I can feel them even now. Even from this distance, the power of their suffering throbs in my temples. I can't hear their words, only the noise. If I'm going to eaves drop I may as well do it right. I creep a little closer finding a better place to hide. The other squad turns on their heels only to be called after. They turn to say something, the emotional storm becoming calmer yet more menacing. I still can't hear! I crawl until I'm as close as I can get. The others are leaving.
"Don't you want to know who I am?!" Naruto Uzimaki shouts after them. They ignore him. He grumbles something. I allow myself a glance. The other squad is the typical three, though the people themselves aren't common. I can see now that they're from Sand, in the Wind Country. They seem so different from the genin in the Leaf Village.
The only girl is tall, her blonde hair pulled behind her in four buns. She's dressed well and her presence is strong enough to out stage the giant fan on her back. The guy to the right is dressed head to toe in black. Purple markings lace over his bone structure. I can't help but wonder at their meaning. Both of them are pale in comparison to the third. While their two souls seem to float and their emotions are only whispering small hints as to what they are feeling the third guys soul seems to be sunk deep into a thick darkness and his emotions all but scream to be heard. His hair is a bright red that seems to clash with the bland colors of Konaha. His hairs so bright it's almost hard to take in the rest of him. Which might have been his goal. He is dressed mostly in black, and a gourd like object manages to go almost unnoticed on his back. I'm struck when I see his face. Even though his emotions are clawing at his soul his face is blank. His teal green eyes remain emotionless. I search for any sign of him fighting his anger thinking that maybe I only can't read it because he doesn't have eyebrows. But that can't be it. I think for a moment that maybe the marking over his right eye could be sealing it all. I quickly expel the thought. The marking says 'love' and has too much of a connection to his pain to be sealing it.
Once I feel the darkness growing distant enough I stand and jog home. After swinging my door open and almost slamming it closed I lean against a wall to catch my breath, my runners high slowly fading as my heart beat slows.
"What happened shorty?" my sister asks coming into the kitchen. She calls me shorty because for some reason I hadn't been able to grow for almost three years. She'd stopped calling me by my name, Lace, two years ago. The same day my keke-gen-kei had kicked in. Several things happen one our keke-gen-kei becomes active. First, I guess, we stop growing. Second, our hair starts to turn grey and white and silver. Third, we begin to feel emotions. Now my hair holds many colors. Bright white, silver, grey, and black. She was mad that mine had started changing before hers. Her hair is only white at her roots, just beginning to change. The white looks hilarious against the brown it had once been. She began feeling emotions then too. She had come home startled from training with her squad and sensei. She was practically hyperventilating. My parents had got off work to soothe her. It's not as if she didn't know, it happened to me first and we had been told everything. She had come to me with questions a few weeks later when too embarrassed to ask our mom. It had felt good to be the experienced one. Especially after all the time she had spent proving she was better than me. Mostly at tei-jutsu.
"Have you seen the genin from the other villages yet?" I wonder. My panting finally slows, the exertion burning deep in my ribs.
"No why?" she responds going to the fridge to check and see if gold bricks had magically appeared since last time she checked. She pulls away with a grimace.
"It's nothing." I lie. I have no way of explaining how powerful his emotions were. And if I tried she wouldn't believe me. She isn't going to be able to know I'm lying because we can't read one another. I tried to a while ago thinking that if I could read her then I could bust her for her nights out. But I found I couldn't even read small emotions. I can't feel my mothers, or my fathers, or any other family members.
"I'm going to wait outside the exam hall in two days during the first part to cheer them up." She smiles. "Do you want to come?" I snort. I know what she means by cheering them up. She's going to go flirt with the shinobi from the other villages. She'd either disappear for the night or I'd have to deal with awkward chit-chat over breakfast the next morning. Either way, thanks for the heads up.
"No thanks. But be careful. Some of the genin have incredibly dark souls." I warn before grabbing a prepacked bag and slip out the door again. Too train. I'd rather train than be stuck with her any longer. Maybe I can get some info about the Sand genin.
Author Note: I hope you enjoyed this. It's my first fanfiction. There will be more of Gaara, lots more. Just be patient.