This story takes place after Gaara's revival, assuming he has the exact same abilities. (Except for the Shukaku-ness.)
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto. It's the sad truth.
As the sun rose over the arid desert, so did he. Even though it was physically possible for him to sleep now, Gaara woke early and retired late. He missed the sunrise and the time of night when the moon hung perfectly above. He waited until the village was stirring as well before heading to his office.
The day progressed without any major event. He continued the ever-augmenting paperwork. That was, until the afternoon meeting with his advisors, the 'Sungakure Round Table' as Kankurou often joked. That was when Baki informed him that there was some unrest in the other shinobi villages, and he would now be attending the upcoming Chuunin Exams a few days early. Apparently, he thought it would be best to have some time to talk to the Hokage, Tsunade, without causing unsettlement to the ever-watchful villagers. They would just see their Kazekage leaving for the Exams, as he did every six months.
And so, it was that night that he and his older siblings set out to the distant village of Konoha. Temari always seemed to watch him from the corner of her eye. Ever since the Ichibi was extracted, she had seemed overly concerned with the young Kazekage's well-being. Kankurou retained the idea that Gaara shouldn't be smothered, which his younger brother appreciated.
As the moon rose, Gaara watched the campfire spark and flicker. The golden glow cast by the dancing flames illuminated the encroaching darkness, and gave form to his siblings' sleeping shadows. Sleep was still unnatural, so close to being dead that Gaara was always just a tiny bit worried he wouldn't wake up the next morning. He turned away from the peaceful slumber of the two jounin.
As the sun set on the third day, the Kazekage and his escorts reached the gates of Konoha. Gaara looked at the kanji decorating the giant doors, remembering his first visit to the Village Hidden in the Leaves. What had he been then? A murderous, self-righteous insomniac? Well, he didn't want to say it aloud, but he rued those days. Naruto Uzumaki released him from a life not worth living, and inspired him to find a life that others made worthwhile. He would forever be in debt to that hyperactive blond shinobi.
"I suppose we should go see the Hokage, right?" Kankurou said suddenly. Gaara blinked, yanked from his reverie, and nodded. Tsunade might be an alcoholic compulsive gambler, but she was doing a pretty good job of taking care of Konoha in its weakened state.
Temari was watching him again.
She watched him from the treetops, and followed his movements with critical eyes. Was this her target? He hardly looked like chuunin material, let alone Kazekage. She wondered if he really possessed the power she knew the Kazekage to have. His face was devoid of emotion. It reminded her of the face she saw reflected back at her. Without a sound, she was gone.
Gaara, in disguise, observed the crop of genin this year. Some he had seen many times, trying their luck against odds determined to devastate them. Some were new, fresh-faced and hopeful. He noticed a boy who could be no older than twelve, already scarred by some past battle. His eyes were drawn to a three-man cell that kept apart from the others, resting against the wall. It was a team of all kunoichi, unusual at the very least. From their forehead protectors, he gathered that the team was from Kumogakure, the Village Hidden in the Clouds.
Two of the kunoichi dressed alike, in short, kimono-like dresses with mesh shirts underneath, a katana strapped to their back, and tall boots. The third wore shorts with a cut-off shirt exposing mesh underneath. Her legs were wrapped in white bands to below the knee, and sandals.
The girls - young women - all wore their forehead protectors around their right bicep, and though none of the three spoke a word, they seemed to be conveying information through subtle glances and movements. Gaara took note of the team before leaving. Kumo was one of the most agitated shinobi villages.
Kankurou saw his younger brother take off, and nodded to Temari before departing. She stayed behind for a second, making brief eye contact with Shikamaru Nara before blushing and disappearing.
The first two rounds of the Exams passed without anything out of the ordinary happening. The Kumo kunoichi passed, and Gaara fought to quell the rising sense of distrust, in both this team and their other Cloud-nin counterparts. He shook the thought from his head and took a walk to calm himself.
Konoha was so alive with foliage. The verdant wildlife differed from Gaara's homeland in the desert so greatly that Gaara made sure he would never come to Konoha without wandering through its lush forests. It was a refreshing change in scenery, and though the shadows of branches blocked out the light of the moon and stars, Gaara did not feel uneasy at all. He was safer than anyone in this village.
Or so he thought. His sand defence exploded around him, as blows struck from all directions. The Kazekage readied himself for a confrontation.
She leapt from tree to tree. He didn't hear her, and she didn't expect him to. She had trained for this, after all. Her life was a cycle of training and killing.
Readying herself, she pulled out two giant shuriken and threw them at the Kazekage's back, fully aware of what would happen. As his trademark sand barrier tried to suck the shuriken in, she pulled on the wires and spun the shuriken again, and when his defence blocked them, she yanked on the wires attached to the star-like weapons and continued the intricate dance of attacks.
The sand reached out, forming a claw-like hand that pulled on her shuriken. Breath catching, she detached the wires, but not before being drawn from her perch on a branch to the cold, hard ground. She rose gracefully and cocked her head at him.
"Hello," she murmured absent-mindedly. The young man before her observed her stance and appearance. She tugged at the kunai pouch on her right thigh, more out of habit than self-consciousness. "Nice night for a stroll, isn't it? Did you see that sunset?"
The Kazekage nodded. His face was impassive, but his eyes betrayed a sliver of confusion. With good reason. Smiling, the kunoichi continued her polite conversation.
"I love watching sunsets, especially from the top of a mountain. It's the best view you'll ever have." She waited for his reaction. He hardly blinked, but his sand coiled in upon itself, retreating to hover around him defensively. Something inside her begged her to stall for time.
"You must not be local. I swear, you have to travel north or west of Konoha to find people who know how to shut up." The Kazekage said nothing. Time passed. She tilted back her head and watched the moon hit the peak of the night sky. Sighing, she said softly, "Kazekage-sama, I don't really want to kill you. But I cannot disobey orders, and it may prove to be a good challenge." Finally he blinked. "Sabaku no Gaara - I may have the advantage in this battle. I have learned all there is to know about your weaknesses, yet I am a stranger to you. It seems unfair." She closed her eyes briefly. "But I suppose even you deserve the name of your opponent. I am Kimiko," she inclined her head in respect. Gaara said nothing still. What was there to say?
They faced each other. The moon was their only spectator.
"Do you say nothing because you feel in control of this situation?" Kimiko inquired quietly. Well, he wasn't. "I won't wait forever. If you aren't ready to make a move, then I will," she told him. As she prepared to attack, she felt something bogging her down. A quick glance confirmed it - sand was accumulating around her and was swarming up her ankles. She leapt backwards, and again, and the sand followed her. She cursed and propelled herself from a tree trunk into the heart of the swirling, writhing sand.
As it closed around her eagerly, she spun and disappeared. The sand grasped nothing, and Gaara's face moulded around her fist. He was thrown back, but landed on a soft pillow of sand. Kimiko saw he had turned his gourd into more sand. It was like he was walking around with a desert on his back! Still, his shield couldn't keep up with her speed - she knew that much.
The young man rose slowly, and the sand armour Kimiko had been warned about cracked into a spider web pattern. She calculated how many hits it would take to wear it down, then took off again. She waited for an opening in the sand he had gathered around himself. When she saw it, she leapt, her body caught in the chase, her mind blank and reacting only on instinct. This was the worst part of battle. When she started to enjoy it.
Again and again the sand blocked her. Frustrated, she summoned a clone and they both attacked, both at the dizzying speed that the kunoichi possessed. Finally, a hit! And another, and another, until the sand armour lay in pieces and piles around the clearing.
Gaara stumbled backwards, and she closed in for the kill. With the kunai at his throat, she stopped. It pressed into his neck so hard she felt his pulse. But, she wondered…
"Why am I doing this? He never did anything to me," she muttered. The young Kazekage watched her tortured decision. Suddenly, she choked; closing her eyes in invisible pain, she fell back and clutched at her head. It was happening again. Old memories surfaced, wrenching her heart in two. And the voice, whispering those awful truths in her ear. It was worse than any pain ever conceived by an honest shinobi.
"Stop it!" she screamed. "Get out of my head!" Gaara saw something. In the dip of her shirt collar, a curse mark surfaced just below her collarbone. It looked like a comma with a bolt of lightning on either side, and it was burning red.
He felt the shortest spark of pity before she regained control, slowly standing. He hoped his shock wasn't too obvious in his eyes. Breathing heavily, she glared at him. She had lost precious time, they both knew it. The sand armour was already reattaching itself.
The Cloud-nin then did something surprising - quickly forming hand seals, she gathered long strands of lightning on the tip of each of her fingers, and using them like a puppet master, she struck at Gaara. The sand tried to protect him, but the lightning passed through it and hit him, the blow making him tingle and forcing him back. He wondered what effect the attack had had - until he found his arms ignoring his commands - his legs, too, were frozen, and he could barely move his head.
As the kunoichi rushed towards him, Gaara felt vulnerable for a second, a feeling so scarcely felt by the Kazekage that he found in his will the strength to overpower his paralysis and throw his arms up. If he couldn't dodge the attack, this was the best he could do.
The strength behind the kunoichi's kick made Gaara's bones tremble, as though to break, but stayed solid. She kicked again, and then threw a punch, which threw Gaara off his feet; his legs were still pillars of stone weighing him down with no independent motion. He grasped for sand, which swarmed around the distracted kunoichi's legs and torso, rendering her immobile as well.
Bringing her hands together into the u-hitsuji hand seal, the Cloud-nin charged herself with the electricity she'd displayed earlier. So, Gaara thought through the haze of battle, she was a lightning-style-user as well as a taijutsu-user. As the strange numbness ensconcing his legs disappeared, Gaara stood and faced the girl who was now free of his sand.
As the Cloud-nin touched her temple gingerly, Gaara sent forth a tidal wave of sand. She looked at it for a second, then she had taken off and was gone. She reminded him of Lee, of Sasuke, how their speed seemed to bestow them invisibility. He waited, drawing his sand closer and higher around him, waiting.
And then there she was, lightning streaming from all of her fingers, and she whipped them at him like the talented puppeteer she proved herself to be, each white-hot filament attacking various areas of sand, the last one driving in at his chest. Gaara barely had time to blink before he was sent backwards across the glade, his momentum carving a dent in the immense trunk behind him.
The sand armour had been loosely recompiled, and it was now Gaara realized the value of keeping it thick. The pain shooting through his back and lungs made it hard to breathe, so he leaned against the tree, letting his sand do the attacking.
The kunoichi watched him with blank eyes. She raised her hands and brought them together to form a triangular window. Through this Gaara saw the air distort and churn, until the chakra she was gathering was visible, a seed of electricity blossoming in the centre of the triangle.
Instantly, Gaara pulled his defences up, rushing to construct his Absolute Defence before she struck with that extremely concentrated chakra. As the last layer was closing, he saw the light flare from her hands. The entire clearing seemed to light up as the blue bolt of electricity aimed for his defence.
Gaara had fought an electricity-user before. But he hadn't thought to make lightning rods beforehand, and now all his sand was focused in his absolute defence. Still, would it stand up to her attack?
As these thoughts rushed through his head, his world exploded in light and searing pain. His body seemed to be on fire, suspended in a dimension where this second of impact stretched on with no end near. His defence shattered until it was just sand again, pooling on the cold hard ground he found himself lying on. If he hadn't restored his sand armour, that hit would've been fatal. He struggled to rise, but found himself pushed back by a blow to his stomach.
Kimiko had him at kunai point again, ready to kill…but she hesitated again. And this time, Gaara seized his opportunity and used his sand to crush her right leg (for this was all he had strength to do) and fling her away from him. She gasped in pain as a tree trunk stopped her cruise through the air. Gaara stood slowly, each muscle screaming and each limb protesting. He watched his opponent.
The kunoichi seemed worn out. If he was correct, that last attack took up far too much chakra to be any ordinary ninjutsu. If it was a last resort, she had had her last chance. Gaara stood over her in cold judgement.
"Go ahead, kill me," she whispered, blood leaking from her mouth. "You may as well, seeing as I can't even do what they keep me alive for." She coughed, crimson splattering the ground. Gaara was ready to finish her off, when the curse mark started to smoulder again.
Something inside him tweaked when she clutched at her head and at the mark, scratching it with her fingernails and drawing blood. She didn't scream this time, but he could only guess at what torture she felt on top of the damage he'd already wreaked upon her. Instead of making a single noise, she convulsed and cringed on the hard dirt. Her body fell still, and her eyes closed.
The sun rose above the forest, lighting his fallen opponent's face. Gaara wondered. He felt pity rarely, and in small doses, but this time, something deeper compelled him to take her unconscious form in his arms and set course for the Konoha hospital. Was this person a murderous, dangerous enemy, or a tragic victim of some twisted jutsu? If he asked her himself, he felt there may be an answer holding some fragment of truth.
The sand in the hourglass shifted. Grains fell, slowly but surely. Time was not yet limited, but the sand was not infinite. Soon, the glass would reach its final grain, and when it did, so would that person's final minute.
This is my first fanfic! Please review! thanks!