Chapter 6 - Mission

Gaara sat up suddenly, fully awake. Who had that girl been? He'd never seen her before. Those mismatched eyes, her wavy black hair separated into two bunches on the top of her head with her fringe hanging down to frame her face, dressed in all black apart from the red scarf round her neck.

"Ow..." muttered a voice, there was someone else in the room.

He looked round. There was a girl sat on the floor, wearing a blue skirt and white shirt. There was a stool on its side not far from her, she must of fallen off it when he'd jumped up suddenly. Then it occurred to him that he didn't know where he was, or why he was completely naked.

"I was beginning to wonder when you'd wake up." said the girl, pushing herself off the floor, picking up the stool and sitting on it. "I found you out in the forest, out cold you were" She reached out a hand and placed it on his forehead "You're fine now though, fever's gone at least... although... you might feel a bit off for a few days." she stopped talking and looked at him, and for the first time Gaara looked at her properly.

Her eyes were earthy brown and her hair was middnight black and was pulled back into one pony-tail on the side of her head.

"I'm Sayomi by the way, Minami no Sayomi, and you are?"

He just stared at her for a moment, "Gaara"

"Hmm, Gaara... You're not from round here are you? Oh! I nearly forgot." she left the room.

Minami no Sayomi, that translated to Sayomi of the south, maybe she wasn't 'from round here' either.

When she come back a short old woman followed in her wake, "You're right dear, he is awake." she said.

***

Partially against his will Gaara ended up staying in the village, apparently fetching and carrying boxes of ingredients for the Ramen shop the old woman owned. As it turned out he was quite good in the kitchen, so when he wasn't carrying, he was cooking. Unlike everyone else in the world Sayomi wanted to be around him. She wasn't scared, not by him or his appearance, neither was Mrs. Wantanabe. He was accepted here, in this small village. When Sayomi had managed to drag him round the village 'on a walk' no one ran away, the odd person said hello, one even came up to talk to them, seemed to know Sayomi quite well, but they didn't ignore him. That was a first, a civilised conversation with a human being.

***Sayomi***

It was a Monday evening, so relatively uneventful and they only had one customer in, as soon as they left it was her job to close up shop. She waved as the other waitress, Oki, left, leaving just her and Gaara, and the slightly drunk old man. Mrs. Wantanabe was at her friends house in the neighbouring village and wouldn't be back till morning.

"Money's on the table Suzuki, goodnight" said the slightly drunk old man and he stumbled out the shop.

"Goodbye Mr. Akiyama," said Sayomi, not bothering to correct him, not like he'd remember it. She gathered up the empty bowls and glasses and carried them over to the kitchen, pushing the door open with her back. Dumping the things with the rest of the washing up she turned to Gaara, who was examining a knife edge. "You alright?"

"Hn..."

"You don't talk much do you?"

"Hn..."

"I'll take that as a..."

"Hello?" called an obnoxiously loud voice

The colour drained from Sayomi's face, there was no mistaking that voice

"Anyone in?" called another man, he had a dreary voice.

Garra put a hand on her shoulder "Are you...?" shock cut him off. The iris in her left eye was slowly changing colour, getting darker, then greyer, untill it was the same colour as storm clouds. He remembered, it had been months ago now, but the little girl he'd seen in a memory, the one that hadn't been there before, she had the same eyes. "Sayomi?" she looked up at him, her eyes back to their normal colour.

"Yeah?"

"Customers."

"Oh right," she muttered, straightened out her shirt and left the kitchen.

She walked up to the four ninja waiting at a table 'okay deep breath,' she thought "Can I take your orders?" she asked,

The one with silver hair and a mask covering most of his face eyed her suspiciously for a moment "We'll have four of your Ramen of the day please." he said brightly.

"Okay." Sayomi went back to the kitchen and gave Gaara the order. After she'd taken it to their table and come back to the kitchen she pressed her ear up against the kitchen door, listening to their conversation.

***

Sakura didn't speak until the waitress was back with their orders and gone again. Now was probably the only chance she had to ask.

"Kakashi sensei, I don't mean to be rude, but shouldn't we be looking for captain Sakamoto, she's been missing for almost a year now." she said,

"We are."

Even Naruto stopped eating "I thought we were looking for the Hexagon scroll." said Sasuke,

"We're doing that too. Captain Sakamoto went out on a mission to retrieve the Hexagon Scroll, she never came back so we assume she's dead or having more trouble than we expected in getting it."

"Sakamoto?" exclaimed Naruto "Isn't she one of the best in our village though?"

"Yes, which is why we need to get her back, there's almost no chance of winning this war without her."

"Maybe she just left..." whispered Sakura,

"Huh?"

"Well, I didn't know her that well, but when we were kids, she was always covered in bruises, sometimes she wouldn't even turn up for school. Once I was with Ino, we were going to the Sakamoto grounds, to ask why Sayomi hadn't been at school for weeks, then we heard it."

"Heard what?" asked Kakashi, already knowing what she was going to say

"The yelling, her father was yelling at her and hitting her, telling her how useless she was and... and he ..."

"Sakura?"

"He called her a demon, a worthless little demon. We ran away after that, and agreed to pretend we never heard anything."

"What's your point?" asked Sasuke, who couldn't care less

"Well, she's spent her whole life being known as things like that, never as a Sakamoto, but now that the clan's gone, for the first time, we need her and that just proves that we didn't need herwe needed what she could do, maybe that's why she never came back."

No one spoke for a while, they just stared at the table

"No," said Kakashi eventually "You might of been closer to her than I was, but I know her, and if there's a way around it she won't fight"

"I don't understand."

"You see, this scroll is our last hope of winning the war..."

"And she wanted to stop the war, not win it." finished Sakura, cottoning on

"Whats the difference?" asked Naruto, thick as ever.

Kakashi sighed, "To win the war we have to fight, to fight we have to make sacrifices, but to stop it we just needed to know why Suna attacked us, and I think Captain Sakamoto knew why that was."

***

Gaara listened to their conversation aswell, not really understanding most of it, but he wanted to know what had Sayomi interested. When they mentioned Suna, Sayomi had jumped away from the door. She pulled the door keys out of the pocket in her skirt "Lock up for me?"she said, then left through the back door before he could answer.