Chapter 8: Acceptance
As Toriya bounced away from Oto, the only image she saw in her mind was Sasuke's angry, and distressed face. It both pained and rattled her. She could have turned out that way if it were not for baa-sama's kind upbringing and wisdom, though meeting Orochimaru face to face had nearly tempted her to slice off his head with a single wind-talon strike (not that he would die that easily with his countless body-borrowing techniques).
Choosing a faster mode of transportation, Toriya summoned Tsumemaru in his full hawk form and flew back to Suna on his back. As the landscape changed from rice fields to grass, then rain, and finally desert, Toriya was deeply immersed in her thoughts, stormy sea of desolation.
Nii-san…
She closed her eyes and tried to press out the clenching pain in her memories, but the ghastly image of her family's corpses rose hazily from the depths of her mind again. Glistening blood and glazed brown eyes. Dark realization and crushing shock. The faded photographs were torn, shredded like shards of rain, and yet…
She remembered his deep, soothing voice that had always been analogous to safety and bliss. His smile, radiating with warm rays that would always lift her from the abyss of her sadness after kaa-san's scolding her for accidentally tearing her new clothes. His brotherly touch that promised protection, his humility and rolling laughter. He would always bring her to look at the glowing sunset, the sun a burning scarlet jewel beset in the distant golden sand. He called it a palace that would return the next day, and return it did, always there to nourish her imagination and foster her happiness.
Why…
It wrung her heart, mind, and soul.
The sky is bleeding…
Then there was immeasurable sorrow, lashing out into a doleful wail, a cry of distress at finally uncovering the unexpected truth.
Hate… Despair…
But this was all in her head. She brooded silently and willed herself back into calmness. Gradually, the sea appeased itself into gentle aquamarine waves. The eerily fluttering sensation, like ruffling feathers and bloodthirsty excitement, died down, and Toriya could have sworn she felt a sense of beastly disappointment deep within her, perhaps behind the bars of a seal.
It was late at night they finally reached Suna. At the moment her feet touched the sand outside the cliff entrance and Tsumemaru disappeared in a burst of smoke, five Suna guards surrounded her.
What now, Toriya wondered bitterly.
"Toriya-san," the guard in front of her said importantly, "Kazekaga-sama has requested that we bring you to him."
And with that said, the five guards tied her up and marched her to see the Kazekage.
"You didn't have to make them bind me, Gaara," she said ruefully once they entered the Kazekage's office room and the guards dropped her to the ground.
Gaara looked upwards (or actually downwards, as Toriya was sitting on the ground), and she could immediately see that four years had changed him as well. His pale face, stoic as ever, had somehow softened into a paternal gaze fostered slowly from giving and receiving the love and trust of the villagers over the years of Toriya's absence. She felt another stab of guilt at this, remembering his recent capture and extraction of Shukaku the ichibi at the hands of Akatsuki.
"I will talk to her privately," Gaara told the guards, standing up from his chair.
They inclined their heads, untied her ropes, and left the room. A muffled silence fell except for the soft hums of the evening wind outside.
Toriya shook off the strands and stood up, forcing a grin.
"I see you're still short."
Gaara chose to ignore this comment on his height and continued to stare at her, green against brown eyes. He still showed no emotion on his face; Toriya thought wryly how it was strange that she had encountered three of the most expressionless guys within the course of a week.
"I have just received news about an attack on Otogakure," he said.
Toriya wanted to remark how quickly Gaara had obtained this information, but she chose wisely to hold her tongue.
"What were you doing in Oto?" Gaara inquired, still maintaining eye contact.
"Finding out what really happened with my clan."
"…"
"We had been attacked by Oto-nin," Toriya added hastily in response to Gaara's meaningful silence. However, she was purposefully straying away from the core part of the tale, not wanting to mention her brother.
Gaara's face did not change at this, but Toriya saw a faint stirring of surprise in his eyes.
"I will not question you anymore," he said, turning away and returning to his desk. "I will only ask that you remain in Suna for a month in order to—"
"What?" Toriya gasped, completely dispelling the already disheveled game of calmly-look-into-my-eyes-and-show-no-emotions. "Why a month?"
Gaara gave her a look that clearly said, Shut up,I was about to tell you, baka. (But of course, Gaara would never say something like that, Toriya chided herself.)
"You will stay in Suna for a month," he repeated, "to better acquaint yourself with your home village."
There was an awkward pause at the end of his sentence.
"You will also take the jounin exam; I permit you to skip the chuunin portion," Gaara continued. "You will complete no less than ten missions. Also—"
"I am not going to teach at the new academy," Toriya broke in sharply. "I have better things to do."
If Gaara had any eyebrows, he would be raising one right now, but since he did not, his expression merely implored Toriya to continue. Toriya took a deep breath.
"I presume you know about Akatsuki. I… want to learn more about Akatsuki," she resumed. "Its members have been capturing jinchuuriki to extract their bijuu, and I want to find out why. I want to…"
Toriya could no longer look him in the eyes and instead dropped her gaze on the houseplant on Gaara's desk. She focused on the bug crawling innocently on the plant's leaves as though it was the most intriguing feature in the room.
"I want to stop them from doing so. It causes too much pain already," she whispered. "And if possible, I want to bring about the fall of Akatsuki."
An even heavier silence followed this proclamation. Toriya knew it was an extremely bold, extremely dangerous, and perhaps even impossible goal, but as she had already found out why the Mizuiro clan was destroyed, she no longer wished to dwell in the past. What was done was done, and she now wanted to pursue her original goal of gaining power. And using this power to save both herself as well as the remaining jinchuuriki.
"Gaara," she said, looking up again, "I will take the jounin exam and achieve the missions. I will stay in Suna for a month. During this timeframe, I will also be making the necessary preparations to accomplish my goal: training, researching, experimenting. After the month is up, I will leave Suna again. If I stay, I will only pose as a threat to the village. Akatsuki might come for me."
Gaara's eyes widened slightly larger in sudden realization.
"Good afternoon to you, Kazekage-sama," she said softly. "I should go now."
She walked away and opened the door.
"Toriya…"
"Gaara-samaaaaaa!!"
Matsuri, with enough bounce and cheerfulness to rival that of Kon's, rushed into the room, nearly trampling Toriya in the process.
"Gaara-sama!" she exclaimed happily. "I have the latest report on the eastern border…"
While Matsuri chattered on about random sandstorms and a sudden growth of cacti, Toriya took one last look at Gaara and left the room, her new purpose resolved.
As promised, Toriya stayed faithfully in Suna for a month. She passed the jounin exam with flying colors, crushing any doubts other Suna-nin had voiced about this special circumstance of skipping the chuunin test. In one week, she quickly finished all ten of her missions (using Earth Bunshin, of course) and devoted the remaining three weeks of her month plus two extra weeks to preparation: more training in medical ninjutsu with Sora-san, expanding the spy and information system past Mizuiro generations had commenced, and learning about Akatsuki.
The birds that she used in the spy system were apparently extensions of baa-sama's Origami Message Jutsu. Instead of being origami birds that carried words, however, they transformed into sparrow-like robots and collected data via small camera where their eyes would be. With a bit of already-made artificial intelligence, her own chakra, many all-nighters, and endless bowls of instant noodles and super-caffeinated coffee, Toriya created hundreds of these birds. Situated them in various places across the lands, they would alert her in her mind if something out of the ordinary was recorded.
She also sat down with Jiraiya-san to talk about the achievements of Akatsuki, as it was known that this sannin had been spying on the organization for a while. It was relatively easy to get information out of him when she transformed herself as a male nin and treated him to endless cups of sake. This, in addition to her robot birds, shed light on an astonishing discovery by the time Toriya had used up the month and a half.
Akatsuki had already captured and extracted six of the nine existing bijuu; the only jinchuuriki left were herself, Naruto of Konoha, and a boy in Snow Country with the five-tails (gobi). Currently, Akatsuki was down to five members, having lost the long-defected Orochimaru, Sasori, Kakuzu, Hidan, Deidara, and Tobi. However, strangely enough, try as Toriya's birds did, they could not find any traces of Tobi's remains. She strongly suspected that Tobi was still alive, which brought up the number of members to six.
That evening after a rowdy farewell dinner with Kon, Kai (looking sullen whenever Toriya talked to anyone of the male species), Temari, Kankuro, and even Gaara, she ambled over to the site where the Mizuiro clan once lived and where it was now a gravesite. She passed rows and rows of pale gray tombstones and eventually reached the four that she sought. Her family's.
"Baa-sama, kaa-san, tou-san." Hesitant pause. "Nii-san."
Toriya kneeled down and stared at their graves. Their names stared right back at her.
"I have found out why our clan was destroyed," she began, calmly speaking to the stones, "and I accept it. We should not dwell in the past. Nii-san, I forgive you."
A dust of sand gently wafted into the cooling evening air.
"And now, I will pursue my own goal."
She smiled. It was neither happy nor sad, just a simple smile.
"Wish me luck."
Toriya woke up at the first break of daylight the next day. Her objective this time was to go meet the gobi of the snow. Dressing quickly in new attire instead of her training one, she equipped herself with the provisions and weapons she had packed yesterday. A glint of metal on the table caught her eye. Hesitating at the sight of her Suna headband, she decided to bring it with her anyway and then quietly slipped outside. Glancing back at her house one more time, Toriya wondered if she would ever see it again.
"Toriya."
She nearly slipped on the stone streets in shock.
"Gaara!" she gasped after a swift wild search for the speaker. "You nearly gave me a heart attack! What are you doing here anyway?"
He merely looked at her with a mixed expression on his face.
"Why did you never tell me?" he said.
Toriya's surprise was wiped off her face; she knew exactly what he was talking about: that she contained a demon within her. Though hesitant, she braved herself to tell the truth.
"I felt guilty. You were never truly loved as a child, but I had baa-sama. I thought that…you would feel bad because you…"
She lapsed into silence, remembering how she too had once avoided Gaara but not for the same reason as the others: she had always been a quiet child who preferred to be left alone after the massacre because she distrusted other people and was too focused on training.
"I don't," Gaara said calmly.
Toriya twirled around in a second state of surprise. Once again, they maintained eye contact, and a sort of understanding passed between them. Without a word, Toriya comprehended what Gaara wanted but couldn't say: he accepted her decision.
She smiled, this time a relieved one.
Then she set off toward Snow Country.
A/N: I'M STILL LAMENTING THE LOSS OF DEIDARA. (hides in a corner and sobs) And yet I leave him out of my story. FILTHY HYPOCRITE!!!!!!! O.O (dodges a rain of poisoned kunai and runs away)
I am lame. Do ignore me. After you review, of course. O : )
