Okay so I'm gonna admit it, a large part of why I haven't posted for this in a while was out of embarrassment. At the end of chapter 6 I thought I was dropping a bomb when I introduced Yagura. I'm still happy with my decision to bring him in, without adding someone else there wouldn't be anybody capable of standing against Gaara, especially not if Shukaku took over. The problem was instead of saying Yagura I accidentally typed out Kagura who we all know is just a punk ass wannabe. Anyway I just decided to bury my head under the pile of other stories I'm working on, but now I'm back. Let's get started.
"So how has your training with Professor Ozpin been going?" Ruby asked as she drew a card from her deck and set two down onto the tile on the roof. "This past week has been so busy we haven't had any time to hang out."
Gaara nodded before drawing a card from his own deck and playing one card of his own. "Adjusting has been difficult but we can survive. I heard you were having troubles with your partner."
"Oh Weiss, yeah we had some issues at first but we're doing a lot better. You never answered my question." She said as she moved several cards to the discard pile.
Gaara hummed. "It's been... taxing." Gaara answered vaguely. "The headmaster has an odd way of teaching, we've been doing quite a bit of sparring as well." It was true, over the past week the two would simply go into the forest and spar until one of them, almost always Gaara, was to exhausted to continue. As much as losing to the old man over and over again frustrated and infuriated him he couldn't deny that he was already beginning to show noticeable improvement in his close range combat. Then after he woke up at around three in the morning he would begin his training with Shukaku which had already multiplied his chakra control multiple times, before the demon had come along he'd been doing everything so wrong.
"Well it can't be any worse than Professor Port's class, he's soooooo boring." The girl whined earning a small smile from the boy. "He goes off on like twenty minute stories and leaves us to learn most of our actual lessons from the textbooks."
"Don't forget that I get almost all of my other lessons from just the text books." He responded still smiling before placing down another card. "That's game."
"WHAT!" Ruby looked down at the cards on the field. "ARG! I hate the deck, all you ever do is summon a few Grimm Drakes and attack me from the air."
Gaara chuckled before gathering up his cards. "Maybe you should have spent your allowance on some better cards rather than cookies and gun magazines." He said standing up as she also gathered her cards, once she was done he held out his hand to her and helped her up to her feet. After a few moments of staring at her Gaara's smile dropped a little. "Ruby, what's wrong?" He asked having noticed a somewhat down look on her face when they first met up to play cards. Ruby was always good at hiding when she was upset, it was something she picked up after her mother passed apparently but Gaara could always tell.
Ruby lost her smile and slowly Gaara watched the dam break as tears began to pour out, dropping her face onto his shoulder Ruby sobbed for nearly a minute as Gaara did his best to comfort her by rubbing her back. "I'm so scared." She whimpered between sobs. "Yesterday... all the team leaders had their first class on how... how to lead." She did her best to get a hold of herself as she spoke but couldn't help but choke on her words. "I'm not ready for this!" She nearly shouted before bursting back into further sobs.
Gaara had never been good at comforting people, having next to zero experience as a child it was one of the many social skills he was severely lacking in, but he always hated seeing Ruby sad. Wrapping his arms around her he decided it would be best to just let the girl get it all out, this had only happen a handful of time in his time on Remnant and usually Yang or Tai would do the heavy lifting, but on the very few occasions where he had to be the pillar of support this is what he'd do.
"Every one is counting on me, and I don't know if I have what it takes." Her fragile voice was muffle by his shirt. "What if I mess up and someone gets hurt?"
Gaara continued to hold the girl as she vented her fears and stresses, they stood there for nearly half an hour like that. At one point an upperclassmen girl with tall rabbit ears opened the door to the roof only to freeze and slowly reclose the door with sweat forming all over her body and every hair standing up after seeing the glare from Gaara, Ruby never noticed. Nor did she notice the large wall of sand now barricading the door to prevent any further intrusions.
Once Ruby's sobs finally stopped and removed her face from his shoulder she quickly wrapped her arms around him. "I'm sorry for doing that, but thank you." She finally separated from him and wiped her eyes and nose on her sleeves.
"It's fine." He gave her one of the smiles he reserves for her and rarely Yang. "But I think you're looking at this wrong." He said earning a confused look. "A team may be nothing without their leader, but a leader is nothing without their team. You have Weiss, Blake, and Yang to fallback on if you ever need to. All you have to do is ask and none of them would hesitate to help you. I believe in you Ruby, and so do they." Gaara more long windedly than he was use to but he knew it needed to be said.
Ruby seemed to smile again as she thought about this. "But what about you?"
"Huh?" This time Gaara being the confused one.
"Can I ask you for help." Ruby asked with a small blush as she stared at her feet.
Gaara couldn't help but chuckled causing the reaper to send him a small glare. Smiling he began walking towards the door, the sand blocking it began reforming the gourd on his back. "You wouldn't need to ask."
Later
"Why are you putting so much chakra into, this is a wind style jutsu not fire so stop acting like your generating the air yourself, use the air around you as fuel. You should only be focusing your chakra into you lung to expel the air." Shukaku explained from inside of Gaara's head. Gaara released a tired sigh before letting the built up chakra disperse before trying again. After a moment he quickly flipped through the hands signs required and took in a deep breath. "Now let it all out in one go, strike your stomach if you have two. I find it helps me get a bit of extra power behind it."
Aiming for a nearby tree Gaara raised his fist and quickly brought it down into his belly as he released the attack. Out of his mouth shot a large basketball sized sphere of wind that sped through the air and grazed the side of the tree he'd been aiming at, tearing out a good chunk in the process. Gaara coughed for several seconds afterwards while rubbing his throat. "That hurts."
Shukaku only laughed inside his head. "Eh you'll get use to it, once your lungs toughen up a bit you won't even feel it. Besides any damage will be taken care of by my chakra. What you should be worrying about though is that god awful aim, how do you miss a tree that's right in front of you?" The demon continued laughing in his head.
Gaara growled at the voice in his head but didn't reply knowing that was what the beast wanted. He hadn't been nearly as malicious since waking up but it was clear that he still truly enjoyed getting under his skin whenever possible.
"Well now, that was an interesting attack. Though you don't seem to have it down just yet." A familiar voice spoke from behind him.
"Oh yeah, that headmaster guy has been watching for several minutes now. Did I forget to mention?" The demon cackled loudly.
Gaara growled again before turning to look at the older man who stood several yards away with his cane and ever present mug of coffee. "Headmaster Ozpin, why are you out so late?" Gaara asked casually trying to ignore the still laughing demon in his head.
"Hmm." Ozpin hummed to himself before taking another sip from his mug. "To be honest I believe I should be asking you that question. Normally any student caught out of their dorm rooms after curfew would get detention for a few days. A student in the Emerald forest at two in the morning however, that's much more serious." Ozpin spoke very casually.
Gaara sighed again before dropping to the ground in a cross legged position as began rubbing his eyes, he was way to tired for all of this. "What do you want headmaster?" This time he spoke with far less formality.
Ozpin chuckled. "Nothing really, I was simply in the middle of completing some late night paper work when sensors picked up odd readings out here. I checked the cameras and found you practicing those hand signs you've been using lately. I must admit I'm curious about that, mind shedding some light?" He asked genuinely interested.
Gaara was silent for several seconds. "It helps me to mold my... magic into a useful form." He felt ridiculous for having to refer to chakra in such a way. Even if he was lying to the old man he was still in a way telling the truth, the purpose of hand signs was to do just as he said, mold chakra for jutsu.
Ozpin nodded before walking over to the sitting red head. "Gaara, you don't trust me." He stated out of the blue, though if Gaara was surprised he didn't let it show.
"No, I don't." Gaara responded simply.
Ozpin smiled. "At least you're honest about it, when you spend as much time around politics as I do the false smiles and back stabbing really begins to grate on your nerves." Looking up at the moon Ozpin took another sip from his mug. "After everything you went through as a child I completely understand your mistrust. Even forgetting about your past I'd be hard pressed to ask you to trust me with how little you actually know about me."
Gaara never removed his eyes from the old professor as he spoke. "You want something from me." He did ask and instead said it as a statement.
Ozpin nodded. "Yes I do, but I won't force anything out of you. If you tell me something or do something for me I want it to be because you want to, not because I've manipulated you into it."
Gaara was silent again for almost a minute. "Why do you really want my power?" He asked the older man who sighed.
"Normally Gaara I'd give you a cryptic and vague answer that would likely only serve to annoy you." He chuckled before finally looking back to the sitting boy, his eyes not holding any amusement. "Telling you everything now would take far to long, but I will tell you very soon. But to make it quick... I'm desperate. Old, tired, and desperate. Fighting an enemy nonstop for your whole existence and not making any real progress... it's beyond exhausting. I've slowly been losing what little hope I had left for a long time, longer than you could imagine. Then I learned of you and your strength and power, I thought that with your help we could finally shift the scales in our favor. That's why I came to you."
Gaara stood up and rolled his neck a bit before looking at the professor. "I still don't trust you, I doubt I ever will. But I'm willing to keep an open mind. What do you want to know?"
Ozpin actually looked a bit surprised at this before smiling again and pulling out his scroll. "Right now the only thing I wish to know is this." He opened up a file and showed it to Gaara.
The redheads eyes widened significantly when he saw footage of Shukaku's chakra burning the grimm during initiation. "How did you-"
"We record every students initiation every year in order to get a good understanding of their abilities. There are dozens of camera all over the Emerald forest, we also use them to monitor grimm movements and possible intruders. As for why this interests me so much, well aside from it's affects on grimm, Qrow mentioned you using this once before when you first woke up and attack them seven years ago." Ozpin explained.
Gaara's mind was racing a million miles a minute as he tried to think up an excuse. "Hey brat, I have an idea. Let's me talk to him."
"What!?" He blurted out accidentally, surprising both himself and the Professor.
"He got you by the balls kid, talking to yourself isn't gonna help you. Now calm the fuck down and let me talk to the old bastard." Shukaku's voice was loud and serious. Gaara forced himself to take a breath.
"Why do you want to speak with him?" He finally asked the demon in his head.
"I gonna explain shit." The demon said simply earning a growl.
"Fine, how?" Was not happy with this.
"Simple, tell him to place his hand on your head, then both of you need to clear your minds." The beast explained.
Finally looking back to the old man Gaara let out another sigh. "Someone wants to talk to you."
Well I hope you all enjoyed this chapter and again I apologize for the wait. Leave me a review and let me know what you all think. Until next time.
