Comes Tumbling Down
Though the exact numbers vary depending on the quality of the gold and the composition of the sand, it is accepted that, on average, gold is roughly twelve times denser than sand. If you pick up a cup full of sand, it won't be all that heavy; however, if that cup was to be filled with gold instead, even gold dust, it would be more like picking up a leaden weight, but heavier still.
For all that, though, when the Shukaku breaks free of the attacks plied on it as though they're made of air, the Kazekage has to wonder exactly how that's supposed to help him.
All emotion, al feeling about what this means for the future (what it means for Gaara) has been shelved. It seems unimportant in the face of the enormous reality of what will happen if the Shukaku is not subdued, here and now, of what will happen if the beast if allowed to pass beyond the city walls. Not even ten miles from here in any direction there are more than a hundred thousand people. I can't…
Another wall of sand to dodge, to try to beat down, breaks off his train of thought.
The Shukaku wrenches yet another rabid howl from its throat; a glittering skein of sand hovers above it and for miles around it. Never constant, the sand cloud keeps shifting across the face of the moon, making the light flicker and the judgment of distances difficult at best. The air crackles with demonic chakra. The Kazekage tries to beat the beast down with another attack and not give away his location. For all that the Shukaku's a bijuu gone berserk, on the rampage, it does possess intelligence, and if it figures out where he is, he's done for.
THUMP!
There comes the crash of sandstone breaking and a building toppling to the earth.
THUMP!
He dives into an alleyway, trying to regain some semblance of his bearings. He's been at this for half an hour already and can't pretend to feel the same strength he'd had before those minutes flew away, no matter what lies the adrenaline pounding through his veins tries to feed him. His side stings, blood dripping down his leg—the cost of an early mistake, a stupid error but one that could have easily cost him his life had he not managed to avoid the rest of the bijuu's attack…
THUMP!
It is an accepted fact that there are few people living or who have ever lived who are capable of matching the power of a bijuu, let alone a bijuu in the habitat where it finds itself at its strongest. The Yondaime Kazekage of Sunagakure is not in any way, shape or form one of these people. At present, the only advantage he has over the Shukaku is the far greater weight of gold as opposed to sand. And even then, he can't afford to waste his energy by trying to combat the beast directly—a venture that would surely fail. The most he can do is try to beat it down, wearing it down and forcing it to expend its chakra more quickly in the attempt to shake him off. That's the only way to stop the Shukaku, by tiring it out.
Another roar, all drunken rage and wounded fury, fills his ears, deafening him for a few moments and leaving stars exploding beneath his eyelids. The Shukaku could be a few feet from him or a few miles; it doesn't matter when it screams at the top of its lungs. Is it even slowing down at all? the Kazekage wonders, listening to the crash of stone, to the tread of giant feet that makes the earth shake. Is it even growing tired at all?
In all likelihood, it's not. There's a time and a place for optimism, but in this situation it's best to assume that the Shukaku isn't tired—you can't judge a bijuu's energy levels by remotely the same scale as a human's. There are records that he has read, of how long it took the Sandaime to subdue the Shukaku the last time it went berserk during his tenure, but in the chaos of sand, stone and demonic chakra the details have slipped his mind, and he doesn't possess the Sandaime's stamina anyways, so what…
THUMP!
The tremors are coming closer.
It's heading this way.
Behind the shifting skein of sand, the Kazekage can see that the moon still hangs high in the sky. It's hours yet before dawn will even be hinted at. He has two choices: prevail or die. Setting his jaw, trying to ignore the blood pounding in his ears, he steps out of the alley, and the battle resumes again.
-0-0-0-
A few hours later, the moon sinking downwards towards the cliffs and mesas, it's over.
More than a thousand villagers will find themselves homeless when they pass back through the gates, and God only knows the cost of the property damage. Reconstruction of the neighborhood the Shukaku demolished during its rampage will have to commence immediately; meanwhile, the shelters will be overflowing, and procuring temporary housing for them will be nothing shore of a logistical nightmare. Several electrical lines have been snapped, more than a dozen cisterns cracked, and mounds of sand all but covering smaller buildings that escaped the destruction. At least it didn't get to any of the wells or the water towers. I'll have to get someone to make sure the pipes aren't damaged.
Winded, weary to the bones and starting to stagger just a bit with his steps, the Kazekage makes his way towards the epicenter of the devastation. Exhausted and discovering that the wound in his side wasn't quite as deep as he thought it was, he supposes he got off lightly. His picks his way through rubble, avoids the fallen electrical lines. The loose, inert sand shifts beneath his feet. Though he knows it no longer holds any power in its grains, whenever a newly-formed sand bank falls from a roof or a slab of sandstone, he stiffens, watching it tensely and preparing to defend himself. But it wouldn't do any good. He's completely spent.
It was maybe fifteen (twenty?) minutes ago when he started to notice the Shukaku falling apart. Its pace and the scope of its destructive power had been lagging for a while, but now, chunks of sand were falling off of it (And actually contributing to the demolishing of buildings by causing the roofs to collapse when particularly large chunks fell on them). Its hoarse, glass-shattering roars had dropped to pained moans that were more on line with the combined clamor of a crowd on a market day in spring—the weather is just mild enough to allow for the transportation of vegetables and sometimes even fruit.
And then, it started to collapse in earnest.
Rivers and waterfalls of sand cascaded through the streets and alleyways. The beast's great golden eyes dimmed and crumbled; it thrashed about and moaned before finally disintegrating entirely, its form lost to loose sand. The battle was over.
Strange, how not so much as a single gust of wind blusters through the empty streets. On nights like this, normally the howling would be all anyone can hear, but tonight, it's silent. Dead silent.
Finally, a small shape not stone or sand emerges from the pre-dawn darkness, curled like an unborn child still nursed in the womb; in a display only serving to emphasize his exhaustion, the Kazekage nearly trips over him before he realizes that he's found Gaara. He drops to his knees beside the motionless boy, all the breath hitching in his throat, never reaching his lungs. There is blood on the boy's forehead; his skin is cold as ice. For a moment, he's convinced that Gaara is dead.
It would, perhaps, be easier if Gaara died. No, he's positive that it would be easier if Gaara is dead. There would be no more attacks, no more letters from the Daimyo dropping ominous hints. People wouldn't be afraid to leave their homes to do business and live their lives. It's not an easy thing, to know that your own child is a menace, let alone the menace of an entire metropolitan area—even less easy to know that the child is a menace through little fault of his own, but that he is a menace all the same, a life-threatening one. If Gaara is dead, the Shukaku is dead with him. All they have to do is wait for the beast to resurrect, capture it, and keep it in the familiar tea kettle until such time as another suitable host can be found. Or perhaps they would scrap the jinchuuriki project altogether, citing the damage caused by the first three hosts, and simply hold the Shukaku captive.
It would be easier for everyone if Gaara was to die tonight. Safer for everyone, if he just died. There are no words to describe how easier and safer it would be for his father, but all the same, he derives no joy from the thought. Sweat bathing his palms, he tugs at the heavy scarf about Gaara's throat, and breathes a treacherous sigh of relief when he discerns a pulse. A weak, shallow pulse, but a pulse all the same. All the events that lead up to tonight will start again when he wakes. But for now, he's alive.
He… He's not dead. Just unconscious.
This… This would be the first time Gaara has ever slept; it's certainly the first time he's ever bled. It would be a lie to say that the look on the boy's face is a peaceful one. Pale skin is devoid of all emotion, but the expression on Gaara's unconscious face is better described as blank than as peaceful. The look is one of oblivion, not of rest. He might have been able to pass for peaceful, if not for the thick, dark, crusting smear of blood on his left temple, still oozing sluggishly down the side of his face. That wholesale destroys the cheap façade.
Ignoring the ache in his back and shoulders, the Kazekage leans down and lifts Gaara up off of the ground. He's not done this, not held him like this since the boy was a newborn—this has been a night of firsts for many things, though, so why not this too?—and it registers to him as it often does, though very dimly this time, just how small Gaara is for his age. What exactly had Yashamaru been feeding him? Had the boy's food have any nutrients in it at all? And why is he thinking about something so trivial, after everything that's happened?
Small he may be, but Gaara is also a leaden weight in his father's arms, limp, unmoving, eyes screwed shut—shut, they look more than ever like a child had gotten into their mother's kohl and smeared it all over their eyes without her help—and the walk home will be a long, laborious one.
As the Kazekage walks back towards the Governmental Complex in silence, Gaara shows no sign of waking, and his thoughts wandering and racing, he makes plans.
Some time around dawn, he'll send messages out to the evacuation groups to tell them that it's safe to return to the village. To the group assembled at Mount Heda, six miles due north, an additional message will be sent, asking for Elder Chiyo to report to the Governmental Complex immediately upon returning to Sunagakure; Gaara's seal will need to be examined. Construction workers will need to be dispatched immediately to the devastated neighborhood and plumbers will be brought in to make sure none of the pipes have been damaged. At one in the afternoon, he'll convene a council meeting—if he didn't do it one of the councilors would, and it's better to appear ready and willing to discuss the next course of action…
Once back inside the Governmental Complex, he makes his way towards the second floor.
Long before the days of shinobi and daimyos, this building was used as the home and administrative center of the ruler of this city. The Complex has since been modernized and somewhat renovated. The ground floor consists of the kitchens and offices for shinobi to go to in order to pick up mission scrolls and turn in their reports. The second floor comprises residential apartments, few of whom are ever actually used—the rest remain boarded up. The third floor is given over to the Archives; the fourth, storage; and the fifth and top floor, the administrative center and offices. Nearby the Governmental Complex are the ID distribution center, one of the local jails and police stations, the ANBU headquarters, the main smithy where kunai, shuriken and the like are produced, and what is without a doubt the largest cistern in all of Suna. The hospitals, the Puppetry Corps headquarters and the Academy are further off, but this is, without a doubt, Sunagakure's nerve center.
The Kazekage picks his way past all of these outer buildings, sparing not a single glance for any of them. Weariness and the overwhelming urge to sleep tugs at his consciousness, but he instead mounts the stairwell inside and does not stop until he comes upon the bathroom his two elder children share, and then deposits Gaara, still unconscious, on the seat of the toilet.
It's not the day for the water to be on in the pipes; the water in the deep basin by the sink will have to do instead. Temari and Kankuro will just have to deal with a bloody washcloth and blood on the floor. They're not blind to the sorts of things that go on in this city; they've likely seen worse in their time. Bad enough to stock their medicine cabinet with square adhesive bandages, it seems. Good.
His work done, Gaara cleaned of blood and bandaged, what little energy that had been lurking in his fingers and around his eyes dissipates from him entirely. The sterile light washes out the little color in Gaara's skin and makes it seem as though his whole head is bleeding, as though his hair itself has blood for pigment instead of melanin. He looks like a life-sized doll that no one ever plays with.
Gaara doesn't know it, but he's being stared at, intently, wearily, heavily. The Kazekage remembers… He remembers so many things, crystallized in that one moment of revelation. The roaring of the Shukaku. Yashamaru's warnings. Karura's look of clarity, of knowing the future. Temari and Kankuro's terrified faces as a wall of sand reared up behind their brother. Gaara, slipping in and out of the crowds, with them but also distant, cordoned-off, separate.
(The child wanders aimlessly. Walks well-trodden streets. Filches pistachios from a vendor. Pries off the half-open shells and pops them into his mouth, one by one, licking the salt from his lips languorously. Stares upward to check the time from the sun's progress through the sky. Blinks at the harsh light. Finds the shelter of a patch of shade, huddles down on the hard-packed earth and cries for no reason, cries upon end.)
This is what it's come to.
His heart is heavy as a water-logged corpse.
This was nothing but a mistake.
