Chapter 9

I didn't rewrite to much in this chapter because as this story progressed my writing got much better. So hopefully as we go along there will be less for me to edit and rewrite so i can get on with continuing this story! Also after this chapter is when things take a turn away from the original Naruto storyline. Mysteries about Amai are revealed and a relationship between her and Gaara starts to form!


"When you are sorrowful look again into your heart, and you shall see that in truth you are weeping for that which has been your delight"


The two simultaneously looked at each other.

"What plan?" asked Temari, feigning ignorance.

"The sand-sound agreement." I made sure to keep my voice low, so the conversation did not reach any unwanted ears.

Silence.

I sighed. I would have to do this the hard way. I looked over each of them, and finally decided that Kankuro would probably be the easier of the two to get the information out of. His mind would probably yield more easily. Before he even had the chance to blink, I was in front of him and had caught his eyes with my own.

I entered his mind, which resembled a large hallway with many doors. The hall itself was white, and the doors were different colors. The floor was dusted with a thin layer of sand, so my steps were padded and virtually silent except for the soft sound of shifting sand.

There were many doors in three or four different colors. The darkness of the color usually represented how bad or good a particular memory was. The black doors, even though there were few of them, told me that these were considered particularly bad memories. There were quite a few more red doors then black, but they were still few in number. These doors represented memories both good and unpleasant. The ones that were currently on either side of me were faded and older looking. This meant that these memories had happened quite awhile back, and were in no way present. I was sure that as I traveled along the red door would become richer in color, meaning the memory was more recent.

As I moved along down the hallway, searching for one door in particular, I encountered many more yellow doors. These, I knew, represented a particularly happy time in his life. With out thinking I walked over to one of those doors and stood in front of it. You know what they say, curiosity kills the cat. Good thing I was not cat. I opened the door to reveal a small family sitting around a table. At the head was a younger Kankuro; in front of him was a big cake. This was obviously a birthday celebration.

I felt a strange welling in my chest at the sight, and quickly shut the door.

"This is not the time to get off task." I reprimanded myself, and continued along the hallway.

I walked down the seemingly endless hallway it until I came to the door I was searching for. It contained the particular memory. It was a conversation with Kankuro, Baki, Temari, and Gaara. Baki was informing them of their orders from the Kazekage. I listened into the conversation for a while, until the scene before me started to fade and blur. I turned and retreated out of his mind, already having the information I needed.

Coming back into the conscious world, I pulled away my gaze from Kankuro's just as he collapsed on the ground, drawing the attention of the other participants.

"Oi, is he dead?!" yelled Naruto, being as dumb as ever.

Gaara had entered the stadium by now, and was standing straight across from Sasuke. Both were sizing each other up.

"The rules are the same as in the preliminaries. The match will continue until one of you dies or gives up." said the proctor. But off course, this match would only end in the destruction of Konoha. With hundreds of sand and sound nin in the fire nation or on its borders, it would be hard to defend the leaf village, even with all the ANBU and jounin Sarutobi had placed around the gates and in stadium.

This was going to be a war.

But in a way, peace can not exist with out war, and war in turn cannot exist with out peace. That is the way of man, the needless fighting. If the had found a way to exist with out war, what would that do to mankind? Would they be any less advanced? Or would they be more primitive? But that is wishful thinking; mankind made its choice of using war as a tool for peace and now they must pay the price of it, with thousands of human lives.

The only thing I could do now was watch this battle carefully and protect Sarutobi. I pulled some shadow from the corner of the room and merged it with some of my own chakra. Releasing it, I looked around to make sure none of the people in the waiting area had seen my little display. They hadn't. I used the other shadow in the arena to transport the shadow merged with my chakra over to the kage box. I attached it to Sarutobi. It served as a kind of tracking device in my mind, so even if I could not smell or sense his presence I would be able to find him. It was virtually undetectable. Even if it was sensed, most would just pass it off as the chakra of one of the many kekkei genkais in Konoha, as there were many of them.

Gaara's match hadn't even started by the time I pulled my attention back to the fight. He had a look on his face, a smile, but not one of joy. Sand was just starting to leak from Gaara's gourd. Seeing this, Sasuke leapt back in a defensive position. I don't know what happened, but Gaara doubled over in what seemed to be pain.

"Don't be mad at me kaa-san," he said in a raspy voice. That's when it happened. His memories hit me like a brick wall, sending pain coursing through my body and memories coursing through my mind. His memories. "Back there…back there I made you absorb foul blood. I'm sorry. But… this time…It'll taste better" again, another wave of memories swept over me, making me loss my composer take a small step back, stumbling slightly. But this, to my relief, was not noticed by the others.

It was incredibly painful. I had trained my mind and body to deal with pain. But this was different; there were no wounds on my body. I was in pain but the pain did not belong to me.

It was his.

I stopped trying to go against the pain and allowed myself to absorb it. Taking it all in, my body calm, I was able to see some of the thoughts and memories that were causing him such pain, me such pain.

Distantly I heard Kankuro's voice. "He has begun to converse now, this is bad!"

Black.

That was all there was to see. The ground I was standing on, I'm not even sure if I was standing on anything, felt like shifting sand. I could feel a soft wind gently caressing my face, carrying along small grains of sand with it. Slowly, the sound of children playing reached me. At first it was distant, but it steadily grew louder. The blackness around me seemed to twist and blur until a scene cleared before me.

It was a children's playground in Suna. A bunch of kids were playing a game with a small red ball off on the other side of the playground.

"Throw it over here!" the ball sailed over the small child's head, landing over by the small swing set. "Aww, you threw it to far, go get it!"

"But look who's over there." One pointed and lowering his voice to whisper "My mommy told me not to talk to him."

"My mom told me he was a demon, and that we shouldn't talk to him or he would give us a weird disease or something."

I followed their barely concealed gazes over to a small swing set, where there sat a boy with very familiar red hair. He was sitting forlornly, clutching a worn and dirty bear to his chest with one hand, the other gripping the chain of the swing. He was very young in this particular memory, about five or six years old. He looked pretty much the same, except of course shorter, and the rings around his eyes were significantly smaller.

As if he sensed the others talking about him, he raised his head and looked over at them. His seafoam eyes were somehow softer. They did not yet hold hate or malice, they only held hurt and confusion. It was strange, almost as if I was looking into the eyes of a completely different person. But no, they were the same. This version of him had just not learned the truth to hate.

The world blurred, swirling, contorting until it became a different image. This one took place on a rooftop. The moon reflected on the kunai in a masked ninja's hand as he attacked a young Gaara. Gaara's face was twisted into a look of pure pain and confusion.

The person's face was covered with tan cloth that covered all but his eyes, so Gaara could not identify who had come to make an attempt at his life this time. I sniffed the air around him slightly, his scent was like Gaara's, marking him as Gaara's kin. The only difference was his individual scent that every person (human or otherwise) had, and it was not mixed with Shakaku's, as Gaara's was.

It was his uncle. I knew this because of all the other little memories that were swirling around the outer edges of my mind while I focused on this one.

Gaara's sand swirled around him and lashed out at the man, who tried to dodge but was too slow. The sand wrapped around him in a vice-like grip, pinning his arms and legs to him so that it was impossible to move anything from the neck down. The sand constricted and tightened, crushing the man's bones with a series of pleasant snaps and cracks. Blood spurted out of the sand, falling to the ground and staining the sand a rusty brown.

Gaara released the sand, letting the man's body fall to the ground and lay there.

"W-who are you? Why?" He tried to swallow the knot in his throat, and he approached the man.

With a trembling hand, he reached forward an pulled the mask loose so that it revealed the mans identity. As he recognized the assassin as his uncle, his face first showed disbelief then just anguish. He had just been betrayed by the only person who had showed him any sort of compassion. As a child, his emotions were fragile; this was bound to break them.

He turned his head and addressed Gaara. "You are strong as I expected, Gaara-sama."

His hand reached and clenched where, under his skin, his heart beat. He screamed. It was a terrible sound. And his sand flew through the air to him, as if wanting to cease his hurt.

"Yashamaru!"

Tears streamed from his sea-green orbs. His sobs were choked, and sounded as if he was trying to keep them in himself. Grasping his head, he fell to his knees and bowed down to the ground. Yashamaru's breaths were shallow and caused him pain as he struggled to get enough air into his crushed lungs. I allowed myself a brief feel of satisfaction.

"Why. Why? Yashamaru why did you – why? I thought that you were - I thought that you were -" Gaara looked at his uncle, searching for some sort of answer in his eyes.

"It was an order. I was ordered to kill you, by your father, the kazekage-sama."

"Father? Wh-why me?"

"You were born with Shakaku of the sand. You were observed like a guinea pig. Since they saw they couldn't control you, they ordered this.

"So you were only doing this because you didn't have a choice, right?" there was hope in his eyes as he said this statement.

"No, that's not correct." Gaara's eyes widened fractionally at this. "It's true I received the order from your father, but I could have refused it if I wished. Gaara-sama, deep within my heart I hated you. You took the life of my sister when you were born. I tried to love you by thinking of you as her treasured child. But I couldn't. She became this village's sacrifice. She died cursing this village. She gave you the name Gaara. One who loves only himself. Love only yourself and fight only for yourself. My sister didn't give you that name because she loved you, she gave you that name so you could continue to exist. You were not loved." He pulled open his vest to reveal a bunch of exploding notes. "This is it. Please die."

Gaaras did not move as the tags exploded.

Meanwhile, the world blurred again around the edges, then everything went black and I was thrust out of his memories. When I pulled out of his memories I shivered slightly; knowing what had happened in every moment of Gaara's life and looking into one of his most private memories was, in my opinion, to intimate.

I observed my surroundings and realized that neither Temari nor Kankuro were present, they were down in the stadium. They each slung one of Gaara's arms over their shoulders and leapt out of the stadium. Gaara, meanwhile, was unconscious. While I was in his memories I was paying little to no attention to what was happening in the stadium, so I did not know what had happened to cause this new development. All I knew is that the invasion had begun, and they were taking Gaara out of the village. For what reason I did not know. This was not part of their plans.

I cursed silently for my stupidity. I was careless, but I had no time to be sour about that, I had to follow Gaara. For whatever reason I did not know, but I felt that I had to make sure he would survive whatever was going to happen, now that their plan had been thrown off.

The sound had launched their attack. Most of the audience had been put under a genjutsu to make them fall asleep. The Hokage and Kazekage were sitting in higher part of the stadium and could have disspelled the jutsu easily. But the kazekage's scent had disappeared, to be replaced by one I had smelled in the Forest of Death. Orochimaru. So that was who was hiding under that clever little genjutsu. But the Hokage and snake man were not in their seats, they were in the dark purple barrier that was being held up by four sound nins.

Orochimaru was a sannin. Sure Sarutobi was the Hokage, but he had grown old and his body would not be much competition for Orochimaru's. Then I guess it was good that Sarutobi had more than just physical strength. One of them was going to die in this battle. I wanted it to be Orochimaru, but hope is only a false lead half the time. I didn't deal with false leads, I dealt with facts, and the facts told me that Sarutobi did not have a very good chance of winning. Besides, who knew what new jutsu Orochimaru had created after he left the village.

It agitated me slightly; too much was left to chance. Everything that happened from now on out would happen completely randomly. I hissed under my breath and jumped onto the large wall around the stadium to get a better view of the happenings. There was a large amount of ninja fighting, of the battle that had no doubt begun.

The wall around the village had been breached by a giant three-headed snake, probably summoned by at least six nins. There were also nin all over the village, evacuating, fighting, and blowing things up in general. If they kept blowing things up they were going to destroy the city.

The human race, destined to destroy itself from the inside out or to destroy each other. And it was true. Whether it be from a war with an outside force or enemy, or an internal conflict that rips apart the village, as easily as a disease slowly destroying and shutting down organs. But that was what shinobi and politicians or council members were for. There was a difference, though - while politicians and council members sat behind desks, we shinobi killed and died like animals. I refused to be part of that useless fray.

I turned away from the breached village and looked in the direction that Gaara and his siblings had fled. They were heading out the wall. I could still see them heading into the forest.

Without hesitation I took off after them, cutting down any nin who was stupid enough to get in my way, regardless of what village he or she was from. I was careful not to deliver any killing blows to any nin i recognized as being from the leaf village.

"Sarutobi my friend, do not die."

I moved swiftly, wanting to catch up with Temari and Kankuro before the others who had been sent after them did. I was out of the village in less than two minutes and had left quite an impressive number of dead nin in my wake, some of which I would not like to be leaf nin. Not that I cared about them, just that I respected Sarutobi and he wouldn't want me killing off his little lap dogs.

I scaled the wall quickly and jumped into the surrounding forest, following Gaara's scent. Ahead of me were Naruto, Sakura, and a nin dog. Ahead of them was Sasuke, following Gaara. As I passed them I veered a little off course so they wouldn't see me. I jumped from tree to tree lightly and caught up to Gaara and his siblings, in no time. I landed on a branch a few feet in front of them, causing them to stop abruptly, as they did not wish to fall off the branch.

"Move out of the way!" Kankuro shouted.

"Kankuro, you take Gaara ahead, I'll -" I cut her off.

"I do not wish to fight, I'm here to ensure that no harm befalls Gaara," I said slowly, making no moves of advancement. Often when animals were cornered and the thing they viewed as a predator made a move towards them, they ran. I did not want for them to run, no matter how similar to animals they were.

"Hmph, why should we trust you?" I'm sure Kankuro would have crossed his arms if they weren't full with his brother.

"Kankuro, we don't have time. Just let it go, she can follow if she wants."

He made a noise in the back of his throat showing his disapproval, but shifted Gaara into a better position and took off again. I followed. Someone was gaining on us, I didn't know who; I would have to wait until he or she got closer to identify him or her. I stayed behind the group, because if we got attacked it would most likely come from behind.

My assumptions were correct that we would get attacked very soon, but it was not from behind. Kankuro had sensed someone following us and had elected to stay behind. By the small individual movements inside this person's body I guessed Shino, and Sasuke was with him. I don't know what had happened to Kankuro, if he was too weak or there was an ambush, but not 5 minutes later I could hear someone behind us again, and I could smell poison in the air as well. If that weren't his poison, he would surely be dead by now. Stupid boy didn't even detain our real pursuer. The footfalls were the exact same ones that had been behind us a moment ago. I wanted to growl in frustration. I could get Gaara out of here much faster if I was alone - Temari was only slowing me down. She was endangering his life in his condition.

Why I even cared I don't know. It would be his own fault if he died, he let his bloodlust and need to kill Uchiha cloud his judgement. Now here he was in this weakened state, because he pathetically rushed into his transformation into Shukaku. But somehow I felt like I had to protect this young man, really only a boy, from harm. It was as if we were the same, as if I had experienced the same things in life as him. But no, that couldn't be it. In the part of my existence that I could remember, I always played the part of the tormenter, not the tormented. Still, it tugged at the back of my mind and pulled even harder at the back of my subconscious.

I sighed, focusing on the task at hand.

The footfalls were closer; they kept approaching at a faster speed until they were right behind us. Just as I had expected, Sasuke appeared in front of us, halting our progress. I looked at Temari.

"Take Gaara, its my turn to fight him." she didn't look at me, she was already intent on the fight that was going to occur.

I nodded and shifted so I could support all of Gaara's weight. Without one glance back I took off. Sasuke tried to follow, but was cut off by Temari. Behind me I could feel the wind as Temari launched her assault on the Uchiha. Some of the trees around me even got cut in half by her wind blades.

Great - no meeting point, no backup plan, no plan AT ALL. This was a badly planned out escape attempt.

I looked over to the boy I supported. Even unconscious he was wearing a scowl.

This boy, why was I helping him, what could I possibly gain from this? It's not as if I was doing this out of the kindness of my heart. I almost laughed at that. I wonder can a heart still care when it's stopped beating? I supposed not, after all I hadn't cared about anything as long as I can remember, and that was a very long time. Yet I got the feeling that I wasn't a really caring person before I could remember, either.

I felt a fluctuation in Gaara's breathing and glanced over. He was stirring slightly. And not a moment too soon. Sasuke was back, and right behind us. I growled slightly. Completely useless humans, only served as five minute distraction. I looked to Gaara again; he was slowly opening his eyes, revealing his groggy green eyes, still heavy from his first sleep in 13 years.

Realizing where he was, he gruffly pushed me away from him and I complied, moving away before he could actually make contact and push me away himself.

He clutched his head, as if in an effort to suppress his massive head pains. He spotted Sasuke and immediately narrowed his eyes further.


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