Enlarged Summary: Set about half a year after the Chunin exams. Gaara, Temari and Kankuro are heading back from their first assassination mission. Unlike Gaara, the two oldest siblings aren't doing so well…
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Gaara was thoroughly annoyed. His stupid, weak siblings (not that he considered them siblings) didn't seem to have the capacity to understand death. Kankuro was sniffling like a baby and Temari looked disturbed. All they had to do was kill three troublesome weak Mist nins. Mission complete.
But Temari and Kankuro had just stood there, unable to do it. They called themselves children of the psychotic Kazekage. They were nothing but weaklings to get in his way. The two aforementioned lagged behind, but that didn't bother him. He had no desire to get home.
Temari was very uneasy. She'd never killed anyone before, contrary to popular belief. Sure, Gaara killed on a daily basis, but even that made her wonder how he did it. She had managed to kill one mist nin, and Kankuro had killed one himself. But Gaara, he struck down the third in a bloody, practiced slaughter.
She shivered slightly at the thought. One's little, 12 year old brother should not be a killer. It was times like this when she despised the Kazekage (They never referred to him as 'father') and what he had turned Gaara… what their family into.
Kankuro was a bit shaken up. In his mind, and anyone else's who happened to look closely enough, he was probably the sibling with the weakest will, and probably the most different out of the family. He couldn't match Temari's strong, fighting attitude, nor Gaara's blood lusting personality.
Not that he wanted either, but it was times like this when he wished he was a little stronger. He, like Temari, had just killed for the first time. And was probably faring the worst. Gaara didn't care. Temari was strong enough to shake it off slightly. Kankuro… he just wasn't like them. He sighed.
"Gaara…. Can we rest?" He asked, trying to keep his voice from cracking. Gaara wasn't in a good mood. The target's weren't enough of a fight for him… or his demon. Sometimes it was hard to separate the two. Very hard.
Gaara glared over his shoulder at the slightly perspiring boy. "You had a rest barely two hours a go."
"Y-yea, I know. But…"
"We will continue."
Kankuro sighed. At least he hadn't killed him. But, in fairness, Gaara had gotten better since the Uzumaki kid…
Temari sighed. She understood where her brother was coming from. But running was clearing her mind, helping her to forget…
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Nightfall came and Gaara allowed the team to rest. Not that he really needed it. Temari and Kankuro were fast asleep. Both of them were always reluctant to leave themselves vulnerably asleep with a psychotic little brother nearby, but today they didn't really care.
Temari woke up to a slight wailing. She sat up with breakneck speed. What was going on?
Kankuro was in his sleeping bag next to her, sobbing. Her tension deflated and was replaced by pity. Her dreams hadn't been that sweet either, but she knew he was taking it the worst.
She shook the puppeteer gently, and he gasped and woke up.
"Nani…?" He looked disorientated. Temari smiled gently.
"Shhhh… Just a bad dream." She whispered.
Kankuro fidgeted and sighed. "Sorry."
Before she could reply, Gaara appeared out of the shadows, looking like something out of a vampire movie.
"Good… you're awake. Your whining was starting to annoy me"
Kankuro sat up and glared at him. "Shut up you."
Temari poked him in warning. Kankuro went off at Gaara sometimes. It didn't end well.
For Kankuro.
The stoic boy raised his eyebrow in a major display of emotion.
"Just because you can't sleep, can't dream. Doesn't mean you have the right to make fun of us."
The red head stood there, staring down at Kankuro like a bird and it's prey.
"I can sleep…But if I did, we'd all likely to be dead now." He hissed.
Kankuro flinched, but continued glaring.
"Whatever. Go back to your hole."
Before Temari could slap him, Gaara's feared sand had snaked around his neck, and was now choking the boy.
Kankuro hissed in pain, arms fighting the sand around his neck fruitlessly.
"Gaara… Please, stop. He- he didn't mean it." Temari pleaded, not taking her eyes of Kankuro.
"I'm sick of his whining." He rasped. Kankuro made a gagging sound.
"Stop!" She pleaded.
Kankuro gasped and went limp, arms falling to his sides. Gaara let him fall from his sand.
"Kankuro!" Temari shrieked, running to her brother. She felt his vitals. He was unconscious, and would probably have a pretty bad bruise around his neck. But at least he was alive. She sighed in relief.
"Next time, he will die."
She turned to see Gaara walk off. That's it. Her turn to scream at the psycho I-can-kill-you-all-in-a-second brother.
"Stop." She commanded, standing five metres behind him. Surprisingly, he did stop.
"What." He hissed.
"I'm sick of you. You… monster. You threatened Kankuro and I one to many times. I don't know what your problem is, and I don't care, but you leave us out of it!" She gestured wildly. Gaara turned slightly to face her. "I could be 'Temari; daughter of the Kazekage', or 'Temari; shinobi of the sand', but no. Do you know what they call me, brother? 'Temari; daughter of the psychotic, power crazed, evil Kazekage'. Or 'Temari; sister of the demon who will kill you if you look at him the wrong way so we shouldn't go near her.'"
Temari took a deep breath, then continued. "Same with Kankuro. You treat us like dirt, Gaara. And we have to put up with it. You took our mother away, you made Yashimaru leave" Gaara twitched. "You're the reason we don't have any friends, don't have our own lives. And you were the reason we never had a father, he was too busy off pampering you." She huffed, but before she could continue, Gaara spoke up.
"Do you think I wanted to be born?
"I…" Temari felt a little unsure. Gaara never actually asked her a direct question before, or at least, not one as rhetorical as this.
"If I had the choice… do you think I would still be alive?" He drew a kunai and plunged it towards his wrist. Temari winced and flinched even as the sand stopped it.
"Tell me… If I was so pampered, and you were ignored, and you want to be me, and I would be you. I would sit at home and do nothing and play like a normal child, why you would be alone, until one day your own father tries to kill you." Temari gasped. Gaara had never spoken so much… in his life. "Yashimaru. Do you know what happened to him?"
"I… Father said he was killed on a mission." Father had tried to kill Gaara?
"Yes… father said. He always lies, though. He was the first."
"The first… what." Temari almost whispered.
"The first to try and kill me." He spat. Temari flinched and her eyes widened in horror. Yashimaru had been Gaara's only friend. He had done this… to him. "I was six years old. I killed him. I don't feel sorry for it now."
Always six years old. That was the age when Gaara had turned… evil, for lack of a better word. That was when Gaara had gotten his tattoo on his forehead.
"After him, father sent seventy four other jonin to try and kill me. I had nothing better to do than count. I was scared at first… a child, not even in school, was being attacked by people five times his age." Temari noted how he talked as though he was not that child. "But that's when I realized that my purpose was to kill them. But after I met Naruto Uzumaki… I'm not so sure what I have to do." He turned away from her. "I'll leave you two weakling to cry over the loss of three worthless lives." He began to walk away.
That snapped Temari out of her horrified trance. "Oi! Don't you dare call us weaklings! Just because you don't care who you kill, doesn't mean that we are monsters like you!"
He kept on walking. Temari growled.
"Come back here, Coward!" She threw a kunai at him.
The sand nin stumbled forward at the force of the kunai… as it penetrated into his back.
Temari froze, horrified. She hit Gaara. She stabbed Gaara. She made him bleed. This was not good. But how? How? How? How? How?...
"Why did you miss?"
Temari looked up, expecting death. He was still facing away from her. She was expecting tantrums and screams, but not this.
"What…?" She whispered, trying to steady her shaking hands.
"Why did you miss?" He whispered again, turning to face her. His eyes were tired, and his face was passive, bordering on sadness. This wasn't like Gaara at all.
"I-I hit you? The sand… but…" She blurted. "I-I mean… well… what do you mean? Why did I miss what?"
"My heart." He stared at her.
She blinked. "I-I…"
He reached out to pull the kunai from his back. Ignoring her shouts of; "Don't!" He pulled it from his back, then elaborated on his earlier statements.
"Only you, Kankuro and father can touch me. The sand won't protect me from you."
"But… Why?" She whispered. She was terrified. She had hurt Gaara. She was so dead.
"It's my punishment… for not killing you."
She flinched. Shukaku wouldn't protect him from her kunai because he was annoyed that Gaara didn't kill her.
What to say… "Well… thank you… for not killing me. I mean… yet."
Gaara raised his eyes from the floor and stared at her. He had… the most peculiar expression on his face. "I don't want to. Shukaku does. I wanted you to kill me" He turned to leave again.
"Wait!" she stepped cautiously closer to him. "I need to fix your wound."
An expression flickered across her youngest brothers' face, if only for half a second. Was it… could it have been alarm?
"I'm fine."
"No, you're not." And indeed he wasn't from his back, Temari could see blood was pooling around his wound, large amounts of blood. She touched it, and he flinched.
They both froze as Kankuro groaned, and his eyes flickered open.
"Kankuro!" Exclaimed Temari, hurrying over to her brother. "Don't move." She commanded Gaara, who she could see was starting to seriously consider his chances of slipping away unnoticed.
"Ouch." Kankuro coughed, as he sat up. He spied Gaara still standing there, and quickly surveyed Temari to find any wound that may have been inflicted while he was asleep. His eyes fell on the blood on Temari's hands where she had touched Gaara's back.
"Temari…" He asked, alarmed.
"What?" She followed his gaze. "Oh, it's not my blood."
He looked at her quizzically, then started surveying himself, frowning. A feminine hand stopped him.
"No… it's…" she nodded towards Gaara.
Kankuro stared at her like she had just told him that Sasuke was gay, Naruto was an emo, their Father liked white kittens with pink bows and Rock Lee was straight. (AN: I kinda like Rock Lee. But seriously… spandex? And the hugging…)
"I'll explain later." She turned to her youngest brother. "Come here."
He twitched, but complied, stopping three feet away from them. Temari sighed.
"I need to see your wound. You shouldn't have pulled the kunai out."
Kankuro twitched with curiosity at the word kunai.
"I'm fine." He insisted quietly.
"No, you're not. Here. Now." She pointed at the ground in front of her.
He went to take a step back, but Temari caught his wrist before he could get too far away. Surprise flickered across his face as he was pulled to the ground.
Kankuro just sat there, hoping beyond hopes that Temari hadn't lost her sanity, and that she wasn't going to die.
"No." Growled the youngest boy there, sand shifting angrily. Despite all protests, Temari still had him pinned to the ground. (AN: It's more of kneeling on the ground, but I wanted to say pinned :P)
"Pass me some bandages, Kankuro." Commanded Temari as she held Gaara's arms. He nodded dumbly.
While he did this, Temari seriously considered the magnitude of the situation. There was quite a good chance that pushing her brother too far could end up with her dead, but she really needed to help him. Whatever, she decided.
Temari took the bandages from her brother, and tore off a strip with her teeth,
Both siblings missed the fact that Gaara was shaking, and that his eyes were wide and unfocused.
Temari gestured for Kankuro to help with her head, and Kankuro took the task of holding his brother's arms, albeit gingerly. He was seriously considering grabbing some paper to write his will when his sister let out a muted scream.
"Wha..?" Kankuro looked at his sister in alarm, expecting sand and blood. But she was staring at Gaara, with a horrified look on her face. To be precise, she was looking at Gaara's back.
"What is it?" He asked curiously, edging sliding around Gaara until he was sitting next to Temari.
His eyes widened and his mouth fell open. Alongside the supposed kunai wound, Gaara's back was covered in scars, scabs, lacerations, burn marks, and every square inch that wasn't cut in any way was bruised with a horrible purple hue. Someone had been hurting… no… torturing his ototo.
Kankuro ran his finger's gently down his brother's back, almost in an attempt to convince himself they were real. Gaara shuddered, bringing both Temari and Kankuro out of dreamland.
"He's shaking." Whispered Kankuro, who had just noticed the fact, as he was still holding one of Gaara's arms.
"Gaara?" Whispered Temari, as she laid her hand on top of his head. He was indeed shaking. She knelt down beside the boy, whose face was still facing the ground.
"Gaara?" She asked again.
"Don't hurt me." He whispered in a voice worthy of a tortured child.
"Shhhh… it's okay." She whispered. "What happened. Who is hurting you?" What thing… what bastard had hurt her ototo?
"Don't hurt me." He repeated, shaking his head.
"We won't hurt you." Volunteered Kankuro, sliding over so he was sitting next to the scared boy.
Gaara looked up. His face reminded both siblings of when he had been the tearstained child before…
"Promise…?" He whispered pleadingly.
Temari smiled weakly. "Promise." He was just a little kid again. He was the kid he could have been… the kid he should have been.
They both felt and saw him relax, and Kankuro leant the boy against himself. He had his eyes closed and was still shaking.
The oldest two siblings looked at each other. What had happened to him?
"Gaara?" Asked Temari.
"Hn?" He made a weak affirmative growling noise to show he was listening.
"What happened?"
The 12 year old shook his head, and Kankuro wrapped his arms around him. Somewhere, in the back of their minds, they realized this was probably the first time Kankuro had hugged Gaara, and the first time Gaara had been hugged.
"We want to know Gaara. So it can stop."
"'T has stopped." Sighed the small boy, head drooping. "He's dead."
"Wha…?" Temari was cut off.
"Father? Did father do this to you?" Kankuro's urgent voice and the tighter grip made Gaara flinch, but he nodded timidly, still with his eyes closed.
Kankuro blew air out his lips in a menacing hiss, and Temari looked thunderstruck.
"Since… since when?"
"Since I was two." Murmured the half-conscious boy.
"Why… why didn't you tell someone? The guards? Anyone?" Exclaimed Temari.
The boy finally opened his eyes, looking a little surprised at the concern they were showing. "Because… they already knew."
Kankuro made an angry choking noise, and Temari froze.
"They knew you were being abused?!" Roared Kankuro. The boy in his arms flinched again, and Kankuro realized he had to be quiet and gentle, like one would be when coaxing an animal out of it's hole.
Gaara nodded sleepily.
"But… why didn't you tell us?" Asked Temari.
Gaara closed his eyes again and turned away from her slightly, into Kankuro's chest.
"I didn't think you would care."
Both the siblings looked angry at themselves that he felt that way. But before they could reply, Kankuro felt Gaara go limp.
"Gah!" He exclaimed. But he had only drifted off into one of his rare sleeps.
Temari smiled and smoothed both her brother's hair back, then went on to dress Gaara's nearly forgotten wound. Kankuro smiled at her. As the boy lay sleeping in Kankuro's arms, both siblings knew that he would get better from here on. And they would both be around to make sure no one ever hurt him again.
Both of them made a mental note to talk to the personal guards of the late Kazekage.
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As the years past, Gaara became a chunin, jonin, then the newest Kazekage. One thing anyone of the Sand had learnt, was never to insult him. No one really feared the wrath of the demon sand anymore, what they did fear was getting locked in a puppet, or having a surprisingly heavy fan knock them unconscious. Oh yes, everyone respected the Kazekage, but those who dare insult him, beware a visit from his ever-protective siblings.
AN! AN! AN!
What'd ya think? I had this crazy idea for a story last night… so with nothing better to do over the holidays… I rather like it. I think it's my first Naruto fanfiction. I love Gaara, and the sand siblings. I'm sorry, but after typing for an hour, I really couldn't be bothered to re read for mistakes, so if there are any MAJOR problems, like… I've missed a whole line or whatever… but please, don't be like my English teacher and complain about spelling. Because I have the same problem. My word check is in American. I'm not American. You get it. Any good Sand sib fanfics? I want to read more! Pls send me a message if you are one of the awesome people who has written one.
Oh… REPLY! TELL ME WHAT YOU THINK! DO IT NOW! I ACCEPT NO SIGNED IN!! NOOOOOOWWWWWWW! HEHE.