I'm back. . . . Enjoy my new chapter. The adventure has truly begun now!
"Talking"
'Thoughts'
"Demon"
(flashback)
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Mika ran until she finally found the Subaku estate and since no one was home yet and out training, she ran to her room with no problems.
'How could Gaara just do that? Why did he slap me?'
She held her burning cheek with a hand and ran some cold water in the sink of her bathroom, patting the forming bruise with a washcloth, hissing as it stung.
She didn't have to wait long until there was a knock on the door.
She knew who it was, "Go away!"
There was silence before the person on the other finally just broke inside and found her himself.
He stared guiltily as Mika was treating her new bruise, "Mika."
"Shut up Gaara. Go away and leave me alone" she barked at him but he went on.
"I'm sorry but it was the only way. You were starting to lose control of your anger again."
Mika stopped, "I was in control."
"No you weren't, Mika." Gaara interrupted and took the washcloth from her and led her down to the kitchen, "Your sealing bandages were smoking for one and your eyes changed to gold again."
Mika blushed as Gaara wrapped ice from a freezer in her washcloth and placed it gently on her cheek. Mika hissed again but sighed gratefully.
"Hmm. I didn't notice it. I'm sorry Gaara." She looked away from him as she held the ice filled cloth to her face on her own.
Gaara just stared at her, "Perhaps it's time for you to visit Suna's library. Reading for a while could relax you instead of training around the villagers."
Mika nodded, "Yeah. I need to find out exactly where I'm going anyway in the Land of Snow."
Gaara nodded, "Tomorrow then. Tonight, however, you will rest and keep ice on that bruise."
Mika smirked, "Look at you. Never thought the great Sand Jinchuriki would act like such a mother hen!"
He red head didn't respond to her humor and just left her in the kitchen.
"Nice Gaara!" she teases and ran after him. However, before she could catch up completely he shut his door to his room.
She knocked on the door, "Gaara! Hey come out! No one else is here yet and I'm bored!"
She heard a mumble from in the room, "Read a book"
She laughed, "Can't do that until tomorrow, raccoon boy"
She heard a sigh and Gaara opened his door, "And you think I'll be interesting enough for you?"
Mika smiled, "Of course! You're my best friend Gaara! Besides, I don't care if you're interesting or not as long as you like me for me"
Gaara felt his face grow warm and Mika giggled, "So you gonna let me in Gaara?"
The red head sighed and stepped away for her to come in. Mika was in awe at what she saw. The room was painted a simple tan sandy color and the floors were maroon colored. He had his own large king sized bed that looked like he never used and a large window from floor to ceiling that showed the village of Suna. It was beside the window that Mika found interesting though.
"What are these plants?"
Mika creeped closer, watchful of Gaara behind her as she investigated the weird plants.
"They're cacti. They grow here in the desert."
"Oh. They're pretty. I like them. What's this one? It's huge compared to the rest of them." Mika reached out to touch Gaara's newest cacti. It was the one he had bought from Ayaka over a month ago.
"It's called a Monvillea cactus."
"It's beautiful." Mika pet the soft fuzz on the plant and gently glided her hand on the purple and cream flower, "Where did you get it?"
Gaara came beside her and pulled her hand away from the cactus, "From a greenhouse nearby. Would. . . Would you like to come with me sometime?"
Mika lit up at the proposal, "Oh yes! That'll be so much fun! Could we go now!?"
Gaara looked a little irritated but slowly thought about it, 'The greenhouse doesn't close until 6pm. It's only 3pm now since we didn't go to Tagaya for lunch.'
"I suppose we could"
"Yay! Let's go!" She grabbed his hand and Gaara was unprepared for the strength of Mika's grasp as she led him outside, "Which way?"
The red-head took his hand from her and started walking, only leaving Mika to run after him.
When they finally reached the greenhouse avoiding all of the weird looks, Gaara paused for a second.
"What's the matter Gaara?" Mika noticed his hesitation.
"Nothing" and he walked in with Mika close on his tail.
Mika breathed in the wonderful aroma that the flowers and cacti secreted and sighed, "This place is awesome. Do you come here often?"
Gaara didn't respond though and he cautiously looked around every corner as if looking for someone.
Mika didn't know who he was looking for but when she turned to look at a particular lily, an older female voice appeared out of nowhere.
"Good afternoon young lady what might I help you with today?"
"Ah!" Mika jumped up at the sudden appearance and Gaara ran over to her only to stop.
"Good afternoon Ayaka." He mumbled and the elder lady smiled wonderfully at him.
"Gaara!" she waved her hands and arms out and brought him in for a hug. Gaara tensed automatically but let her do as she wished.
"It's been a while lad" she spoke again, patting his arms lovingly, "Is this your new girlfriend?"
She turned to Mika but the two young teens blushed and looked away from each other. Mika giggled, "No mam. I'm his friend. I'm Mika from the village hidden in the Leaves. It's nice to meet you!"
She held out her hand but Ayaka hugged her forcefully as she did Gaara, "Oh! It's so good to meet the girl that changed Gaara so! I've never seen him so happy before until he came back from Konoha. I knew it was something to do with a girl!"
Mika blushed again and avoided Gaara's eyes.
Ayaka patted Mika's still sore cheek, "I'm Ayaka, dear, the owner of this greenhouse. Now what would you two be interested in looking at today? Cacti, Flowers, bouquets?"
Gaara spoke softly whist coughing a little, "We're just browsing Ayaka. Mika just wanted to visit to see what the greenhouse was like."
"Ah! Well if you need anything, don't hesitate to let me know!" And with that, the elderly woman walked off, leaving the stunned teens to themselves.
Gaara sighed and rubbed the back of his head. Mika smiled, "See? You really are making friends here now aren't you Gaara?"
"Not very many"
"It's a start. It's enough and a few is all you need really"
"Not if I want to be Kazekage" he argued and Mika rolled her eyes.
"Then do something about it! Volunteer for something! Do some D rank missions or something."
Gaara wrinkled his nose and Mika slapped his arms earning her a shocked reaction.
Mika raised a brow at him and he sighed, "Fine. Tomorrow while you are at the library, I'll volunteer for a few D rank missions. Happy?"
The sly girl smirked and walked over to some herbs and bouquets to sniff with her high acute sense of smell. They smelt delicious.
It was about twenty minutes later when they decided to leave with nothing in hand but a free coupon buy one get one free cacti. Mika gave hers to Gaara, who was pretty pleased on the inside.
On their walk back to the Subaku estate, many villagers watched them cautiously as if waiting for a bomb to go off. Mika unconsciously clenched her fists.
When they entered Gaara's home, Temari and Kankuro were in the kitchen, heating up some leftover soup and vegetables that Mika had helped Temari make the night before.
"Hey guys!" Temari noticed them and offered some soup which Mika gratefully took and started to eat at the table while Gaara sat at the table and quietly spooned some soup into his mouth, not making a sound while Mika slurped noisily and messily.
To Gaara's siblings, they couldn't be a better match.
"So little brother" Knakuro cooed to Gaara, "What's this I hear about you and Mika ditching Tagaya to go to the greenhouse?"
Temari sprayed out some soup from her mouth, "What?! No wonder he's eating the soup! He didn't eat yet! Why did you two not go to Tagaya's?"
Mika slurped her soup, "We had a little incident today is all. Nothing major."
"Incident?" Kankuro raised an eyebrow and turned to Gaara for an explanation, "What kind of incident?"
Gaara finished his soup, "Mika started losing control of her anger in front of the villagers so I had to hit her to get her to calm. Then she ran from me."
"Gaara! How could you hit her?!" Temari launched herself to Mika, "Is that what that red mark is from?"
Mika blushed, "Yes but it was my fault for losing control. Gaara just helped me the most effective way that he could."
Temari snarled, "Gaara, I swear! If you ever hit her again, I'll disown you as my brother and make Baki adopt you!"
Gaara paled slightly, "Then I'll kill you."
He stood up to go to his room, leaving Mika, Kankuro and Temari alone in the kitchen with smirks. Mika smiled at his behavior.
'I guess that's is way of arguing with his siblings still'
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The next day Gaara led her to the library. They went inside, both a little unsure of where to go.
Mika spoke up, "I guess I'll head to the myths and legends department first. I'll see you later at Tagaya's for dinner at 4pm, okay?"
Gaara merely nodded and left for his five D ranked missions. He had shown Mika his missions with anguish as she laughed hysterically at what the psychotic red-headed Jinchuriki had to do.
First he had to find an old lady's pet lizard that had disappeared somewhere in Suna.
Second, he had to clean someone's house spotless before noon.
Third, he had to clean a herd of camels and groom them to perfection.
Fourth he had to water all of the plants in Ayaka's greenhouse and make sure they are all properly positioned.
And lastly he had to babysit a six year old little hellion of a boy from noon until four.
Today was not going to be an easy day for either of them.
Mika walked to myths and legends and found at least twenty books on the subject which she narrowed down to eight that held legends in the different nations.
However, she got nowhere with most of them until she narrowed them down to beasts. That only left two books.
"Hmm" Mika hummed as she skimmed the introductory of each book. On the first one, she saw a subject in the book introductory called, 'Beasts of the wild.'
She looked into it but found nothing about the Land of Snow so she went to the last book that remained until she noticed the time. It was noon already and she smirked.
'I wonder how Gaara's doing?'
In fact Gaara felt that he was in hell. He arrived to the house he was supposed to be at to babysit a brat from noon until four. He had already finished the other missions, using his third eye to find the lizard, his sand to clean the camels and house and lastly he merely just enjoyed helping taking care of Ayaka's cacti.
He knocked on the door reluctantly and waited for what seemed like hours until a woman finally answered the door with a six year old boy holding on to her leg.
"Oh thank god! A genin! Good luck with him!" With that, she ran out, shaking the boy off of her, leaving Gaara with the brat alone.
The boy looked up at Gaara in curiosity, "Who are you?"
Gaara blinked, "Gaara"
The boy blinked, "What we gonna do?"
Gaara raised a nonexistent eyebrow in confusion.
'What are we going to do?' he thought.
Back with Mika, she came to her last chance.
She opened the ancient book and looked through the introductory, pleasantly surprised at the contents.
"Beasts of the Five great Nations, Demons, and Myths of the forests"
She went to the directed page and her mouth dropped.
The pages were ripped out.
"What the hell?"
In fact, the only thing that was in its place was a map and she unfolded it carefully, reading the title.
"The Land of Snow!" she exclaimed quietly in the library, "This is it! Now I just have to go through a few villages in the Land of Snow and maybe they'll know and tell me where the temple is."
She sighed, 'Oh I wish you could talk back to me Okami. That way I'll really know if I'm on the right track or not'
However, inside her mind, Okami was wagging his eleven tails enthusiastically, "That's it pup! You're nearly there! You just have to cross through the villages and go into the mountains."
Okami growled, "I only hope that sister will help you when you get close enough"
After a few more hours of planning and measuring the distance on how to get there, Mika finally figured out where to go. She just had to tell Gaara and prepare to leave next week.
Mika stuffed the map into her baggy pocket and left the library for Tagaya's to wait for Gaara.
Meanwhile with Gaara, he was not having any trouble at all at controlling the little beast he was forced to babysit.
The little brat was currently trying to catch the sand that Gaara was purposely floating around for the kid. The boy, whose name was Haru, happily tried to catch the floating ball of sand around the air. In truth, Gaara would be lying if he said it was horrible. The kid wasn't that bad, it was just that he wanted some attention and something to play with that would hold his amusement. Gaara was standing leaning by the door, waiting for the boy's mother to return. While he was waiting, the emotionless red head let a smirk cross his features.
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Mika waited for Gaara by Tagaya, trying to ignore the glares she was receiving from the villagers but she failed as one villager dared to walk up to her.
"Hey you little bitch!" The man was older and had long sandy blonde hair and dark eyes. He also had a scar on his cheek. Mika backed away from him a little.
"What do you want?" it was all she could do to control herself.
The man and two others behind him scowled at her, "You're a Jinchuriki aren't you?! That's why that other demon brat keeps following you around isn't it? You in heat or something? That why he's so interested in you?!"
The man and his groupies laughed heartily and a few others smirked, stopping to watch the scene.
Mika just looked away, "Gaara's my friend."
The blonde man bellowed with laughter, "Friend?! That little bastard has no friends!"
"I'm his friend and if you dare to say otherwise, we're going to have a problem."
They turned serious, "We already have a problem. We don't want another Demon in our village."
Mika narrowed her eyes, realizing where this was going, "The Kazekage knows what I am, and is permitting my stay here. Are you going to argue with that?"
The man cracked his knuckles but the two others behind him looked unsure, "Uhh hey Michi, are you sure we should be doing this? What if she kills us?"
"Oh shut up!" Michi shouted at them, "You guys are too soft! We should all just make her leave! She shouldn't be here, she doesn't belong!"
Another voice shouted out, "Yeah! Who needs another freak?!"
"Yeah!" others started agreeing and Mika began to get worried.
'This isn't good. Gaara, you better hurry'
Michi, the ring leader stomped over to her and hit her across the face over Gaara's previous slap from the day before.
Mika flinched back but held her anger in, not wanting to hurt anyone.
"Get out!" Michi yelled in her face, spitting on her.
Mika shook her head, "I have a right to be here" but she was stopped when Michi slapped her again.
'You should just kill them.' A voice in her head spoke, 'Then that would teach them. Teach them all'
'Who are you?' Mika asked the voice.
'Let it all out' the voice spoke again, 'They deserve your anger. They need to fear you.'
Mika grabbed her head, knowing it wasn't Okami. But who was it? A different force? A demon?
'I'm you, Mika. I'm your anger'
Mika growled as Michi grabbed her shirt collar and started pummeling her with kicks and punches, not paying attention as the bandages on her started to smoke and sizzle.
'Come on now. Just a little more. Let it go. Just let it go.'
'No. I can't!'
'Kill them all'
Mika's eyes widened as the voice in her head took over and her eyes opened golden, her hair turning white and her skin getting paler by the second. Michi let her go suddenly, fear all over his features.
"What" he shivered, "What are you?!"
Mika's transformation was finished and she smirked at him, "I'm your death."
Mika now sported white spiky hair, pale skin, and golden eyes. She was surrounded by black chakra.
Michi and the other villagers around looked fearfully at her as she prowled to Michi, "What's the matter, Michi? You afraid of me?"
Michi closed his eyes as Mika raised her chakra filled hand that held a black and spastically Chidori.
She launched the attack only for it to be blocked in front of Michi by sand.
"Mika! That's enough!" Gaara appeared in a swirl of sand.
'Mika' just laughed at him, "You. No. I'll have had enough when they're all dead!"
She raised her hand again this time sporting a black Rasengan and ran towards Gaara with such speed that Gaara barely had enough time to dodge.
'This isn't Mika' Gaara thought, 'This thing is too bloodthirsty to be her.'
Mika cackled and tried to launch another Chidori at a villager when Gaara stopped her with his sand again, "No!"
He wrapped her in his sand to trap her, "That's enough!"
He squeezed her tightly in his sand, trying to knock some sense into the girl, "This isn't you! Knock it off already and control yourself Mika!"
Mika smirked, "Heheheheheh . . . I'll be out again soon enough."
With that, Mika's hair faded to reddish-brown again, her eyes going blue and her skin healthy again.
Mika was still being squeezed though and gasped, "G-gaara"
She fainted but Gaara released the sand, letting her go before carefully going up to her to make sure the threat was gone. When he prodded her shoulder, he knew then that she was knocked out effectively.
Gaara sighed as the villagers around him gazed in awe.
He had saved them all.
Was he a hero?
He wasn't just a demon brat?
He really changed?
Gaara picked Mika up in his arms and carried her to the infirmary.
(flashback)
It was after the fight with Gaara after the Chunin Exams and the death of the third Hokage.
Mika was sitting in front of Kakashi in her and Naruto's kitchen. Naruto was currently training with Sasuke and Sakura was helping Ino in the flower shop. Kakashi stood over Mika with a somber look on his face.
"Mika, do you understand?"
The girl bowed her head, "Yes Sensei, I understand"
Kakashi sighed, "It really isn't fair I know but you have to lie to them just this once."
"But sensei!" Mika bolted up from her kitchen chair," I've lied constantly to my brother already! Can't I tell just him?"
"No" Kakashi seemed very serious, "And calm down. Your temper is very dangerous now remember?"
Mika slumped back down on her chair, "I know. It's just that what if something happens?"
Kakashi sipped some tea that Mika had brewed for him, "Like what?"
She closed her eyes, "What if I lose control and I hurt one of my friends in the process? What then? Then they'll know for sure that what I told them was a lie"
Kakashi sighed again, "That's the chance you take to protect them, Mika. They can't know. It'll only bring up more questions and then those questions will be directed to Naruto as well. Do you really want that?"
Mika growled but contained herself, "No."
Kakashi ruffled Mika's hair, "Don't worry Mika. I know you'll do fine. I know you'll do whatever it takes to protect your friends, most of all, your brother. Right?"
Mika smiled, "Right."
Kakashi smiled and that's how Naruto and Sasuke walked in interrupting the teacher-student bonding.
"Oh." Kakashi spoke, "You two are done early"
Sasuke glared suspiciously at how close Kakashi was to Mika but Naruto just grinned, "We're done early cause I kicked his butt!"
Sasuke glared, "Shut it idiot, you did not!"
Naruto smiled, "Did too!"
"Did not!"
Mika grinned, "Okay, did not" Mika spoke to Sasuke, "Would you like to stay for dinner tonight? We could invite Sakura as well too I guess and have dinner here as a team!"
Naruto licked his lips, "Oh yeah! That's sounds awesome! What we having?!"
Sasuke rolled his eyes, "Moron"
"Ramen of course with some fresh green beans and apricots I bought from the market yesterday"
Naruto's grin fell, "Ew. Gross. Vegetables?!"
Mika smiled at Sasuke, "Of course I bought a few tomatoes for you too, Sasuke."
Sasuke's eyes lit up with some emotion and smirked, "Alright. Fine."
Later that evening, the apartment seemed so crowded with the whole team there but they made it work.
Kakashi actually stayed as well, probably to make sure that Mika told them.
Sakura was the first to speak, "So why the sudden invitation Mika?"
Mika shrugged her shoulders but Kakashi glared at her.
She sighed, "Well the thing is, you remember in the final Chunin Exam when I blacked out and puked out blood?"
"EW! We're still eating Mika!" Sakura yelled but others merely waited for Mika's explanation.
"Well. . . It's because I was diagnosed with a weird medical thingy. It affects my body by blood pressure and shit. So if I get too emotional or something like too angry then I'll have another attack like that one."
The team in front of her sweat-dropped and Kakashi looked as if he wanted to smack her for her lack of proper wording.
"Medical thingy" Sakura asked, "Really?"
Mika nodded and Naruto finally asked, "Are you going to die?"
"I could if I get too upset I guess"
Naruto blanched and shouted, "Oh My God! What the hell!? Is there a cure?!"
"Sure" Mika smiled, "I just have to not get upset."
The group calmed slightly but Sasuke spoke up, "How can you do missions then and run if it is affected by your blood pressure?"
"Good point" she mumbled.
"What?" they asked but Mika just grinned.
"Nothing. But that's that so everyone finish eating and leave. Kay?"
'They can never know. Not even Naruto. Oh what Am I going to do? What if something happens I can't control? What if I do something terrible?'
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R&R