Disclaimer: It'd actually be hilarious if I owned Naruto. Then fanfictions would just be for my plot bunnies gone astray or scenes that didn't make the final cut. However, I don't. Which sucks.
Chapter Seven
He doesn't know how long he lies there, doesn't realize he'd fallen asleep until he wakes up on the floor with his face sticky with spittle. His gaze drifts to his wrists. The shackles blink lethargically, signaling that at least he's alive, if only barely. He tries to lift himself, but it takes all of his effort to even move his arm. His tongue is dry, his saliva thick and stale.
Cry out, the sensible part of him thinks, cry out and maybe someone passing by will find you and help you. But what if that someone happened to be Kuronma? He wouldn't bear that. Never.
So he remains silent. Paralyzed, he tries to think of pleasant memories- Kisa-sama's jokes, Utakata-sama's laughs, the way Hinata tasted that day, like tears and herbal tea.
The sun has long ago risen; it's rays are warm on his cheeks. He hears bustling outside his door. If he concentrates, he can tell just how many nurses are passing by, rolling carts filled with food and instruments. Who will find him? Maybe no one. He heals quickly- Shuukaku has kept him from what, for other shinobi, would certainly be fatal, but chakra is much harder to replenish than flesh.
A few hours pass. Why hasn't anyone brought him breakfast? He wonders. Hesitantly, he drags himself up to his knees, bracing himself on wobbly arms. They buckle under his weight, but he manages to boost himself up long enough to sit up and position himself against the wall. He pants from over-exertion. His entire body trembles, as though the effort is too much for it.
"He'll pay." Both he and Shuukaku say it aloud and in unison, and the result is a haunting whisper underlayed with a guttural snarl. They've bonded with a single goal- for once, Gaara doesn't fear that his demon will try to overtake him. When Shuukaku fixes it's eyes upon a target, he hunts it relentlessly, endlessly. Kuronma will regret this, deeply.
We won't kill him, Gaara reminds Shuukaku. I won't kill him.
In his mind's eye, he sees the demon's sand-covered face stretch into a ghastly, toothy smile. No, it responds, we'll do much worse.
It's Utakata-sama who finds him, coincidentally, around lunch. By then, Gaara has recovered somewhat and moved to his bed, where he lies quite still. The shackles are blinking more quickly, but he's still exhausted. When the older medic approaches his cot, he doesn't even have the energy to send him away.
Utakata takes one look at him and freezes; Gaara grins grimly. Half of him wants to tell him how he ended up like this (Utakata, cool as he is a majority of the time, has a temper and a few truly terrifying jutsu under his belt), but then Shuukaku reminds him whose battle this is to fight.
"What the hell happened to you?"
Gaara grins grimly. Lie, Shuukaku murmurs.
"I got overenthusiastic with my training." he says simply. Utakata's eyes narrow; he isn't stupid, and Gaara's half-truth is obviously lacking.
Lie better, Shuukaku drawls.
"I tried some ninjutsu." Upon seeing Utakata's shocked expression, he frowns, irritated. "I am shinobi as well, you know."
"I do," he says emphatically. "It's just that it's..."
"Against the rules," Gaara finishes darkly. "The same rules that kept me chained to a wall for the better part of this year." He grins; it's toothy and slightly manic. "I think you should know where I'd like to stuff those...rules."
"Gaara," Utakata says emphatically, "I don't like them either, and, honestly, I could care less whether you practice in here. But, erm, apart from Kisa, Hinata-chan, and I, only a few people...trust you. It isn't safe to test them."
Gaara closes his eyes. He's passed the first stage, Utakata believes him-
"Regardless," Utakata is saying, "I don't really believe you. With Hinata-chan's shackles, you can't really drain yourself this far without some kind of interference."
-or not. Gaara reminds himself never to insult Utakata's intelligence by underestimating him ever again.
Utakata's smile is grim, but oddly understanding. "You won't tell me who, or when, or why, and I'll accept that for now- a shinobi should fight his own battles, right?" He turns away, the whips back around. "However, next time I find you hurt, you will tell me who and I will find them." His eyes flash dangerously before softening again. "I'll go get you something to eat."
True to his word, Utakata returns, food and Kisa-sama in tow. The kunoichi walks purposefully, and her mouth is set again; even from the door he can tell she is furious. His heart thrums a little- these are true friends, he thinks, these people actually care about me.
"Baby!" Kisa-sama shouts as she launches herself at his bed. She looks him over, and then her face contorts with anger. "Who the hell did this to you? Throw away your pride, Gaara, I can feel foreign chakra all over the room; it's layered like soot, and it won't benefit you at all not to tell us."
Too perceptive, Gaara thinks. Shuukaku just thinks that his host, for a person who speaks without ever showing emotion, is a terrible liar.
"Kisa," Utakata says, gently placing a hand on her shoulder. "He'd rather not."
"Like a give a damn what he'd 'rather' do," she scoffs, shaking him off. "Listen, Gaara, if you don't tell me, I will investigate. And when I find out what scum did this-I'll wring him dry!"
"Then investigate," Gaara says warily. Resting all day like this has given him some energy, but speaking so much, and listening to Kisa-sama's shrill cries for revenge, is immensely tiring.
"Listen, squirt-"
"I want you to go ahead and investigate, if you wish. I just ask that you don't act until I have dealt duly with the perpetrator."
Kisa stands stock-still as she considers his proposal. She sifts her hand through her hair, and it's painfully obvious that the last thing she wants is sloppy seconds, but he knows she will give in. It shows in the way her stance relaxes, her shoulders lower and her lips arch.
"Fine," she hisses.
Utakata, who has resigned himself to a corner of the room, stands. "Well, then," he says devilishly, "If you plan to teach this guy a lesson," he lowers his voice, and Gaara realizes that as gentle as he is, the man can almost seem evil, "we'll have to train."
His eyes light up like beacons. "Train? Shinobi training?"
"Of course," Utakata says. "I think Hinata-chan has done a fine job in prepping your body for it."
"Best thing you've said all month," Kisa-sama says approvingly. "When should we start?"
Gaara's heart is thrumming wildly. Hinata's ninjutsu instructions had initiated it, but now he can feel it surging, that stupid, stubborn feeling that pushes through no matter how hard he tries to squelch it, that hope. He hates beings hopeful- he can only be disappointed.
"The moment Gaara-kun over here thinks he can walk, we begin," Kisa offers, grinning wildly.
Utakata nods. "So. Tomorrow morning?
Gaara shakes his head and heaves himself out of bed. Hinata will be back in six days; he has to do this before she arrives. Her presence makes no difference-he'll have Kuronma crying for mercy regardless- but he doesn't want her lamenting over him. Time is of essence. He takes a few wobbly steps until he's towering over Kisa. She grins wickedly.
"Now would be preferable," he says. She gives him a playful punch that feels like a bag of bricks on his shoulder.
"That's my boy," she says, and cracks her knuckles. "Ante up, Uta-chan. We've got work to do."
At first he's a little nervous about sneaking into the hospital's staff-only training room, but then he reasons that he's already been frequenting the staff-only mess hall and gym and shakes it off. Besides, he reminds himself, he is sneaking around with Kisa-sama, a former Anbu and seal-master, and Utakata, a jounin who is only just because he opted out of the Anbu lifestyle. Together, they are all too capable of cloaking their chakra signatures, slipping into the room, and locking it shut with a nearly impenetrable seal.
Kisa-sama tests his physical capabilities first. She's a hard teacher, nearly as hard as Hinata, but not quite. He follows her orders with relative ease, and it's only after Kisa-sama commends him that he realizes that Hinata's excercise regimen was geared specifically toward shinobi- a fit civilian, asked to do the same, would likely fail miserably.
But after that, things get infinitely more difficult. Utakata steps in to teach him chakra control, and this is something he's never understood, because Shuukaku has always aided him. The small things are harder than expected; making clones was difficult enough, but manipulating his own appearance is even harder. His attempts at turning himself into replicas of Kisa-sama are laughable, and indeed she laughs, but not before half-beating him to death. By the advent of the next hour he's finally done it, and two Kisas stand facing each other and grinning. Kisa pinches his transfigured belly and complains that she isn't nearly so thick there, but she's beaming so brightly that he knows he's done it right.
He progresses quickly, maybe because he subconsciously remembers what to do, or maybe the thought of bringing Kuronma to his knees is extraordinarily motivating. By the end of the day, he's zipped through a majority of the ninjutsu in the Academy handbook. His chakra is relatively low by now, but he feels oddly energized. As Kisa-sama undoes the seal and Utakata places an advanced cloaking genjutsu around him, Gaara can't help but wish it weren't over. Even when he was shinobi, he'd never really been trained. Baki-sensei had taught him some, the bare minimum. This was his own fault. Back then, training had meant being around people, people who would only look upon him with contempt, people who smelled deliciously of salt sweat, people who occasionally bled and left pools of mesmerizing red in their wakes. He'd endured it for a while and let Shuukaku teach him the rest. Baki-sensei had not protested.
Things were different now. He was more aware of the triumph that came with a successfully executed technique than the smell of the bodies of his comrades. He relished the sweat and utter focus that came with each jutsu.
"You done good," Kisa-sama says, flashing him a grin, as Utakata releases the genjutsu. They are at his door, and he knows this is good-bye for the day, because if his two new sensei are absent for any longer they will be missed, and if they are missed too long suspicions will arise.
"Be sure to sleep well," Utakata-sama advises. "Your levels are low again, and before we can train again they must be replenished."
Gaara nods twice, once in response to Kisa-sama's praise and the other to acknowledge Utakata's advice, and then closes his door. It's only when he collapses backwards onto his bed does he realize how truly exhausted he is again.
A/N: While I try to be open(ish) to crit, I do want the crit I do recieve to be qualified. One reviewer mentioned that my present-tense here was amateur-ish and that this story would be better off in past. While I do hold that I've chosen to write in present-tense for stylistic reasons and that I'm not, for any reason, going back to rewrite this in past (hellz to tha noes), I do want to know if anyone else is of the same opinion. If you are, that means that I have to work on some aspect of my writing. If not…then, well, we carry on. :D
