I feel so bad; this story has been so neglected for the past few months! I got so caught up in finishing Silent Angel and getting Demon Dance going that this one got shoved to the back burner. Even Pint-sized Demons and Cookies has a decent amount of chapters done! I'm so sorry for the wait, so here we go.
Chapter Two
Gaara was in the arena, watching Temari and Shikamaru battle it out. The stupid blond had let him goad her, and her anger had made her reckless. Now she was taking her eyes off of her opponent, and that was going to cost her. He watched him make his hand sign, and…yeah, she was caught. And she had the nerve to act all surprised. What a moron. He sighed, and tried to ignore the slight rattle in his lungs. That had showed up yesterday; not only was he throwing up blood, he was coughing it up too. Oh goody, that just made his day. Not only that, but he had a fever, of one hundred five point eight degrees. His head was pounding, and that bastard Sasuke wasn't even here. He didn't feel like fighting, really, didn't feel like doing much of anything. He wanted to go back to the apartment and hide in his dark little room.
The exam proctor announced that it would take ten minutes, and then the Uchiha would be disqualified. He held back a sigh, and silently bade the kid to hurry up. The kid had talent, but he wouldn't pass the exams, not even if he won all of his battles. He simply wasn't mature enough to be a leader. He constantly underestimated his opponents, and when things got tough he either threw a fit or ran away. His soul was ripe for Orochimaru to take, full of betrayal and a desire for powers that he was too irresponsible to use.
The crowd yelled, and he saw Sasuke and his teacher appear in a whirlwind of leaves. The proctor called for him, and he trudged down, after killing off two henchmen and scaring the crap out of the fox and the shadow user. He stepped out into the light, and began to walk toward the proctor and his opponent when a wrenching pain doubled him over with a cry. The crowd shouted when he began to vomit up blood, and medical ninja swarmed around him. At first he tried to bat them away with a transformed arm-when had that happened? His face wasn't transformed; he knew that because his teeth were still normal.
Gaara began to convulse suddenly, and Baki and his team were dragged to the arena, and the Hokage himself came down to check on him.
"The demon within him is making him sick, and releasing a lot of chakra. We need to get him to a room that has a chakra seal on it. He is unfit for battle, and this battle will be postponed until I say otherwise. Go now." The Hokage dismissed them, and he was scooped, convulsions and all, onto a field stretcher and rushed to the hospital.
When he awoke, he was in for a rude surprise. Not only was he all alone in a strange bed in a strange room, each of his hands were handcuffed to the bedrails. He growled furiously under his breath, and tried to gather his chakra. The sand only responded to the area immediately surrounding him, and wouldn't do anything else. He glared at the seals surrounding him furiously, willing them to disappear, but they stayed where they were. He was trapped there for the time being. He could get the sand to defend him like a shield, but it wouldn't even attack the handcuffs. His rage increased, building within him and waiting to explode like a volcano.
At least he wasn't attached to an IV or anything else important really. They had little pads on his chest connected to wires and machines that measured his heart rate, respiration, brain activity, and his chakra. They had that glue that left your skin feeling gummy and would take forever to come off in a shower. His legs, too, were chained to the metal rail. He would've been able to snap them, if he was healthy, but his current state didn't offer up any perks, really. He was surprised that no one had decided to kill him yet.
Maybe they wanted him to starve to death, since they hadn't left him any food or water, and he hadn't had any for weeks. That could be it, but why stick him in a hospital bed? Sealed room and chains he could understand, but a bed? What the hell was that?!
It could also be death by boredom. He had nothing to do; he didn't have anything to read, or write with, or even look at. The walls were white, but they looked gray in the gloom. There weren't any windows, or pictures. A clock was on the wall in front of him, ticking away, but nothing else. The floor, well, what little he could see anyway, was simple white tile. His gourd was in a corner nearby, and he had to wonder what they were thinking, leaving it in here with him. Unless… perhaps they tampered with it? It was certainly a possibility. If so, then what did they do? Glue the cork in? A fat lot of difference that would make. Poison? How on earth would that hurt him? Explosives? On the surface it made sense, but they wouldn't destroy the sand, and if he was paying attention he would be able to detect them. Chakra seal? No, it wouldn't work, and even if it did, the sand wouldn't even be able to shield him.
His musings were interrupted by a coughing fit, causing blood to drip out of his mouth. The bastards didn't even have the decency to leave him some tissues. A tendril of sand dabbed the blood away. He pulled the sand around him in a cocoon. They had the air conditioning on high, and all they left him with was a damn sheet, white of course. How novel. He'd be damned if he froze to death in this place after walking around the desert at night in the middle of winter with nothing but his regular clothes on, which were, of course, at the base of the gourd. He growled again, how dare they strip him!
The door banged open, and he glared at the intruder. A nurse wheeled in another bed with-what the hell was she doing here? Hinata lay on the bed unconscious. The one with the heavenly blood, that shouldn't have been let out of the hospital in the first place. He had seen her in the stands, and he had wondered what she was doing there. Now he was stuck in the same room with her unable to even taste that crimson elixir flowing through her veins. Death by torture.
The nurse skirted him nervously as he glared at her, and darted out. He sighed and rolled his eyes. The incompetent ninny had forgotten to check his chart, or anything else for that matter, such as the dainty girl in the bed beside him, whose chakra was also now sealed, since the seals applied to anyone in the room. The girl shuddered, and coughed up some blood. He hissed angrily. This was gong to be a long day.
That evening, according to the clock, three ANBU came in. They tried to act confident and businesslike, but it was ruined by the fact that he could smell their fear, and see it in their eyes through their masks.
"Three ANBU to check on a genin?" he growled sarcastically. They stiffened.
"Sabako no Gaara, you are here under the suspicion of harboring a dangerous contagion, you are to remain quarantined until further notice."
"Then why is she here?" he jerked his head in the direction of the unconscious Hinata.
"She has been determined to be a low-risk individual. Exposure to you would confirm your disease, and her loss is not considered important to the Hyuuga clan."
"Fine, how will you determine if she is exhibiting any symptoms? She already coughs up blood, so…"
"That is not your concern!"
"That tells me that you don't know, or that your little excuse for imprisoning me is a lie. Either way, you are far too incompetent to deserve the rank of ANBU. The real reason you're here is because I am the only living demon vessel who was born with a demon, and you want to use me as some sort of guinea pig."
"No, we really think-"
"Fine, we'll play it your way. I have the plague, and Temari, Kankuro, and Baki were all exposed. So was the Kazekage, many of the other nobles in the stands, including our feudal lord, and many of their body guards. We're all gonna die horrible deaths because a shipment of grain also carried infected rats and fleas, and they were also brought here. I also sprayed Uchiha with blood, and the exam proctor-what's his name? Genma?-and the other candidates in the final exam were exposed. The Hokage was too. You gonna quarantine them too?" his face was blank, and the ANBU shifted nervously. The plague was too big a risk to chance it all on speculation. It was too hard to tell if the kid was being serious or not.
The ANBU rushed out and Gaara bit back a smile. Sometimes it was best to simply share the misery. Those poor ninja were in for a mountain of paperwork. Every single person in the stands was going to have to be quarantined and tested for weeks. It was almost worth being locked up in here. It was a pity that he was going to miss the look on his team's faces, and his father. He began to chuckle softly, and coughed again. Of course, this would mean that the plan would fall apart, and the mission a failure, but really, who cared? He didn't, and there was no way that they would go ahead without him, because they didn't have a chance without him. He chuckled again, blood dripping from his mouth. He wondered how long it would take for them to realize that the threat of an outbreak of the plague was a joke.
Stupid is as stupid does, and the three stooges would suffer for it all. The processing, rounding up the "exposed," getting themselves tested, hunting down non-existent rats and grain, it was a pity that he wouldn't get to see it. Share the misery, and watch the show.
