About as Subtle as a RHINO

GaaraXOC Fanfiction

Chapter three:

"I loathe paperwork." Abbi grumbled, laying her head on her palm while looking to the scroll I was also looking at. I have never known anyone to want to sit so close to me, but Abbi just volunteered as if it were nothing. She even had a special chair ordered for her to sit in, one with wheels and was soft enough to sleep in. My was bigger, and it allowed me to stretch out in. Infact I could fit Abbi in the seat with me if I would allow her, but that might be too close. I had enough with the sudden turning my world upside down. Abbi also was wearing glasses, black framed reading glasses and was nibbling on her pen while looking to the scroll.

"Break?" I suggested, looking to the woman sitting next to me. She looked to the clock on the wall with a sigh and nodded. It was around midnight and we still hadn't finished all the paperwork for the first day. The council said this was the most amount of paper work I would have to do but that begged the question, what did they consider a lot?

"Definitely a break, my glasses are starting to irritate my eyes." She grumbled, taking off the glasses and rubbing her eyes. I leaned back into my chair and laid my head back. My hands felt like they would just crumble off like wet sand.

"Is this the job?" I asked, looking to Abbi. She looked up from her palms and then to the paper.

"It's most of it, the politics on paper. This, however, isn't a lot compared to the officials and council members I used to assist. I once had to help a council member go through a stack of paper taller than I was. And that was just one law they were trying to pass." She added, running her hand over her pulled back hair. Abbi pulled her pony-tail scrunchy out of her hair and began to shake out her hair. "Neeko? Ne…Damn"

I looked to the lounge chair in the room where the tall man in the black ninja wear had fallen asleep. I chuckled, laying my hands on top of my head. Neeko, my new body guard and head of security. I was the Kazekage, one of the most powerful people in the world, but the council still hired a man to protect me. Neeko wasn't a talker, Neeko didn't have a family that I knew of, and Neeko was once apart of the Sunakagure Anbu Black ops. Plus, he had a dry sense of humor and sarcasm that I enjoyed. The moment I met him this morning I knew he would be perfect to work with.

"Slacker." Abbi laughed.

"Worn out slacker." I added with bemusement. The man was just sunk into the lounge chair, head against the arm rest, and he was gone to the world. I looked to Abbi who pursed her lips at her glasses and shoved them back onto her face.

"Come on, this is the last scroll, if we get it done fast we can still get some sleep time in. Besides, you don't have to be awake till 9 tomorrow." She added, looking back up to me. I eyed her before sighing and looking to the scroll. She was right, the sooner this scroll was read through, edited, and sent out, the sooner we could relax.

My eyes scanned the paragraph in front of me, my hands holding the pen as best as they could. I could feel them cramping up quickly, but I needed to finish this. The scroll was for a better water/irrigation system. The city was going through a drought and last years plan didn't exactly work. This whole plan was using the lake that somehow survived in the desert, drawing a line from there than splitting that line into several that would travel to the main points that we needed water. To the utilities, to the food, and to the shops. The plan was to limit the water, to only draw some at certain times and warn the people of limits and have them change their schedules until the monsoon. I was hoping for the monsoon to come soon, I hated the rain but it was for the village and we needed the rain badly.

I began to scratch out this and that and edit it with something else, letting out a sigh. Two more paragraphs to go.

"Gaara, do you actually sleep?" Abbi blurted out, not looking up from the scroll. I let my eyes look to her from the corner of my eye then back to the paper.

"No. I can't." I spoke.

"And I'm a light sleeper." Abbi jumped and looked to Neeko still laying absolutely still. "and I'm not a slacker, I'm just resting."

I could see Abbi scowl and go back to the scroll with a glare, and I wanted to see amusement on Neeko's ever stone cold face, but nothing. It seemed like he never even spoke. I chuckled to myself, and looked back to the irrigation scroll, intending to finish soon. I wanted a break till morning when I could expect an even more hectic day.

Too bad I wouldn't get what I wanted. The poor scroll would have to be dealt with later. Because, the second silence was resting in the room, a giant explosion went off in the city, rattling the floor beneath me. Jumping to my feet, Neeko in suit, I rushed to the window and looked out to my city. There in the street was a mass amount of people shouting and holding torches. The shouting was suddenly getting louder as my eyes caught a building off to the side on fire, people screaming and running from it.

"What is that?" Abbi called to Neeko who was instantly pulling on his vest and holding a Kunai.

"A riot!" He snarled.

"Where are you going… WHERE DO YOU TWO THINK YOU'RE GOING?" Abbi screamed after me and Neeko. The second he said riot I was rushing towards the door of the office room. I had to settle my people down, I needed to get this riot under hand. Neeko was just beside me, not saying a word. I didn't look back, but I soon heard the sound of Abbi phoning/waki-talking to all the ninja heads to warn of the riot going on in the town square.

Neeko came bursting out of the building, kunai and one hand sword ready. The cork in my gourd flew out as it came swirling through sand at me in my Kazekage uniform. Abbi was going to have to buy me a new one after this.

"GET THE KAZEKAGE!" The crowd began to scream as I stood in front of a giant crowd of people pointing their torches at me. The smell of liquor began to absorb the air around me and Neeko as we stood our ground to the drunken uproar.

"Protect lord Kazekage!" Suddenly, ninja came flying off the roof top and landing around me.

"I can defend myself! Go check the buildings! They're burning!" I demanded but they didn't move. "THAT'S AN ORDER!" I shouted, my voice growing louder than it ever had as the rioting mob grew closer to me.

These were my people, I had only been Kazekage officially for one day and I was already being attacked! I should have know that the whole city wouldn't be comfortable with me being Kazekage. The fire was growing warm against the cool night air as my sand began to crawl from my gourd and around my feet.

"Kazekage, we have to protect you!" The ninja called back.

"Protect the people first!" I hissed, "Go!"

"Hai!" In seconds, have the team was split up and running to the burning building and to the one story building that had crumpled. I watched them leave before turning to the other half that had stayed by my side then to the people threatening Neeko, the ninja, and I with torches and drunken slurs.

"Neeko, take the ninja and take the torches from them but do not hurt them." I spoke, stepping up closer to the crowd. Neeko and the ninja grew tense but when I crossed my arms, sand swirling behind me, they nodded.

In a blur, my sand and my ninja had snatched every torch from the mob, leaving them motionless and shocked, most of them stumbling to keep standing.

"PEOPLE OF SUNA!" I snapped, catching their attention. "It has come to my attention, some of you are upset with my becoming Kazekage." I added.

"YOUR DAMN RIGHT, YOU MONSTER!"

"YOU NEARLY KILLED MY DAUGHTER!"

I clenched my fists, trying to keep my cool as I let out a huff of air through my nose. This would be a whole lot harder than I imagined. I knew this would happened, but nothing makes a better plan than just winging it. So I unscratched my face and put out my hands. They all flinched for a moment until they saw me put my hands down.

"You're angry at me, then why take out your anger on them!" I hissed, pointing to the building where I found one of my ninja extracting a body. It was a smaller, more fragile body, like that of a child, almost teen.

"Her family voted for you! They voted in a monster!" a voice called out, shakey and unsure.

"So you would take that child's blood on yourself, all because of your pride!" Neeko barked, snapping his sword back into its seethe on his back.

"It's the honor of Sunakagure were protecting! This monster will only destroy us!"

Honor? They were protecting Sunakagure's honor? I looked to the sand then up to the crowd that had fallen silent. I took a step closer to the crowd, watching the majority of them stumble back, the rest flinch. Their unstable feet took most of them to the ground, an unfortunate few fell to their faces.

"Honor? Honor killed a child! Honor just killed a family and probably injured more! Honor has no place here, if you all say you've acted on the honor of Sunakagure…" I shook my head, "This is not the city that I vowed to keep safe…" I took three steps back. I grabbed my gourd and threw it over my shoulder, crossing my arms and glaring at the mob.

"Gaara…" I turned to see Temari and Kankuro rushing out of the building, weapons in tow, "What… what's going on."

"A mob of drunks with a sick sense of pride…" Neeko whispered, looking dead at me. "My lord Kazekage, what would you have us do with them?"

I looked to the mob in front of me. Half of them were fallen on the ground, the other half stubbornly standing their ground, ready for a fight. I should have them locked up, all forced to live the sentence of how many were killed. But then a chunk of the people would be gone, and I had too many enemies as it was. Besides, I knew the next morning, there would be a funeral, and the city torn into halves by my being Kazekage would not set the tone the family deserved at their funeral.

I had to be stern… but, these were my people, and I wanted them to love me.

"Put the incoherent ones in jail for drunk in public, and the others… let them go, they've ruined enough for one night." I stated and turned on my heel, storming right back into the building. I had one more scroll to finish to be caught up on them all and this 'mob' had already killed all the time I had.

X-X-X-

"Abbi?" I called out from my bathroom, knowing full and well that she was out in my room getting stuff ready for me. The door of my bathroom opened as I stood there drying my hair, wearing atleast the boxers and pants she set out for me to wear underneath the uniform she had made to make up for the one that was covered in ash and sand from last night.

"Alright, let me see!" She smiled, standing in front of me with her purse and clip board in hand. Quickly ruffling my hair, she looked at my face with a smile before plopping herself down on the toilet she made sure had the lid down.

Last night when I came back in, she didn't say anything, only sit down next to me in the office and help get the scroll done. Within an hour, it was finished and Neeko popped in to tell me everything was in order and people were taking care of the happening outside. Only 10 people were put into jail to sober up, the others were put into the random mass of people aiding to fix the damages, so only the people who did the damage knew they had done it.

"Okay, schedule for today. Due to last nights events, we've had a little change in plans." She stated. Her eyes down to her clip-board, she pulled out note cards and flipped a page over to it's back. "The council wants you to do a speech about what happened last night, then we're doing an appearance at the funeral. Then we're having lunch with the families of the hurt and injured to keep their support. Then we're going to a meeting with the council about what their rules are. Then you and Neeko are going to go scout the town and offer help with anything you deem worthy to help with… Try not to get this uniform dirty." she looked up from the clip board with suspicious eyes. I shrugged it off, walking to the towel rack where my tunic top was waiting to be put on.

"Wait…" I stopped and looked at her oddly, "Speech… I didn't write a speech." I pulled my tunic over my shoulders. I tied it around my waist, pulling it comfortably tight as she handed over the kazekage robes from the sink.

"I know, which is why I wrote you one! Now, this will be the last one I write for you by myself!" She explained, putting the few cards on the sink and standing up. I watched her straighten out her skirt and her blouse before pointing at them, "Read them over… I'll go get us breakfast." With a smile, she walked away.

Eyeing the cards, I pulled the robes over my head and let them flow to the ground around my feet. Looking into the mirror, I let out a sigh at the robes. Just because of these stupid robes, 3 adults were dead, one small child, and two teenagers. Because of me, my people were up in arms and forming drunken mobs in the middle of the night. I ran a hand through my hair, my other hand grasping the cards.

So much was done because of or for me. These cards, she wrote my speech for me. How long did it take her to do that? Did my assisstant/secretary/god of schedules stay up all night instead of sleeping because of me. I could live without sleep, but she ran on it.

Just then a knock came on my bathroom door, ripping me from my trance.

"Gaara?"

I looked from the mirror to Kankuro standing into the doorway.

"This is going to be a stupid question… but are you okay?" He asked, looking at me. I slapped the cards in my hands and headed for the door, squeezing past him and into my room.

"Yes, it is a stupid question." I stated, looking at him, "I'll be okay once I get breakfast." I smirked at him as Kankuro rolled his eyes at me.

"Hey! I'm sorry it took me so long to get breakfast, but you don't have to complain." I jumped to Abbi standing in my doorway with a tray of breads, fruits, meats, and drinks. "Geez, you men are so demanding!" She laughed, setting the tray on the bed.