The Setting Stage

I immediately found his unhappy eyes and locked on.

"But...What?" I questioned.

"Do you not want it?" He asked, his face already a mask of disapproval. I looked back down at the forehead protector, felt its weight in my hands, and I came to the conclusion that I didn't have the slightest idea what to do with it. All those years of dreaming of going back to the academy were suddenly null because...I had the diploma. Was this some sort of joke, or was it a miracle? Did I even qualify? After Gaara discovered me, I promised to tell him the truth, the whole story: I was not possessed by an ancient deity or heir to a fantastic bloodline, my powers had been bestowed upon me by accident...by Giia.

After he was over the huge fit he had about it, Gaara told me it would be best if we told Baki, their sensei. I wouldn't have agreed if he hadn't insisted. The Jun Chi Noroi was a forbidden Jutsu and the last thing I wanted was to get Giia in trouble. But Gaara met my argument with his own: because it was such a forbidden and rare Jutsu, incidents such as this needed to be recorded. Incidents such as it going wrong and filling me with shadows. But this prize was not what I expected when I let the medical nins examine me for what felt like hours or when I agreed to meet with Baki on a weekly basis. I was not looking for a short cut to Genin. I only did it because…well because Gaara said he understood.

"I don't know what to do..." I admitted, looking to him to tell me what direction I was supposed to run in.

"Baki made arrangements for your first assignment to be on my team." He continued, unwilling to guide me. He wanted it to be my choice, I realized.

"But Temari and Kankurou-"

"They don't know." He added quickly to quiet my concern. It wasn't like they would never find out but...the fewer people who knew about it, the better.

I carefully watched his face for a long minute. In the past couple of weeks I had become more accurate on reading his emotions. Most people would think he doesn't emote, but they would be wrong. It's all in the eyebrows. And even with my novice experience I knew...Gaara was upset by this. I sighed and stepped forward, resting my forehead on his shoulder and clutched the protector tightly in my hands.

"I'm sorry." I hiccuped. This was all my fault. I had this stupid curse and it was causing trouble for the first person who ever found out. I felt him put one hand on my back and pull me a little closer as he said,

"There is no need."


Gaara stopped himself short of pulling her to him and hiding her away where no one could ever hurt her again. It didn't matter that he knew she could defend herself, or that he always felt better when she was with him. It didn't even matter that giving her this assignment would keep her farther away from Giia...He couldn't help but worry. For her safety, for her health, for her sanity, and most of all...he worried about her image of him. Would she begin to fear him if she ever saw him fight? Would she leave him alone? Gaara didn't think he could tolerate it if she did.

But Daagana lived for her friends, just as Naruto had, and in that, Gaara could sense her strength. But at the same time, he saw her weaknesses. She did not believe in herself in the way the blonde did and it was because of that, that Gaara was troubled about this decision to give her authority. Daagana was good and honorable, but what worried him was that maybe she was just a little bit as crazy as he was.

She pulled away from him slowly and gazed up at him with those big golden eyes.

"I didn't mean to give you the wrong impression." She said taking one of his hands in her own.

"It's just...the shadows—"

"I understand." He repeated. There were no other words he could offer her but this, that he knew exactly the kind of fear and confusion she was living through. The corner of her lips perked up.

"Does this mean I get to go on missions?" She asked excitedly, all traces of apology gone. He nodded somberly, not really a fan of sudden mood changes. With a shake of his head, he led Daagana out of the kitchen.

"Look's like someone's a ninja now!" Kankurou sang. He and Temari were standing in the entryway of the mansion, obviously waiting for them to emerge. He'd instructed them that he would tell Daagana alone but Temari had nearly sliced his head off in contest. So he allowed her the honor of presenting the forehead protector. Everything else would be his doing. Thankfully, they complied.


My smile only got bigger as Temari came forward, taking the headband from me and tied it around my neck.

"Isn't it supposed to go on my forehead?" I fingered the plate.

"Yeah but who wear's it on their head anymore? The only reason to wear it there is if you can't dodge." She said with a smirk and an obvious taunt thrown at Kankurou. He ground his teeth and was about to pull the string to unleash his puppet before I intervened.

"What now?" I asked quickly.

"Now for your assignments." Temari said, and handed me a scroll.

It wasn't until later that Temari realized that maybe letting the girl who had been abused all her life watch children, had not been a very good idea. The original thought was to make me a staple face with the villagers. After all, I held no fear of Gaara, and that was the goal for the village. Baki wanted people to see me interact with him and laugh at him. They wanted the village to see Gaara as the new human that he was.

My first assignment; The little boy was so cute…and so slobbery. I held him under his arms, a full arms length away from me, and we stared at each other. I didn't understand how this was a mission, but Baki said that all D ranked missions were like this: simple and easy. All Genin had to complete them, as a right of passage I supposed.

Absentmindedly, I felt a tickle in my nose and sneezed. And it somehow set him off. His tiny baby eyes got so big and brimmed with tears. I quickly put him down in his crib and crouched down to look at him through the bars.

"Oh no, please don't cry." But there was no stopping this hurricane. His tears sprang from his face like a water fountain as I covered my ears from his wails. "Stop! Please stop!" I cried, and the fact that I was shouting only made him cry louder. It was a competition apparently, to see who could cry the loudest.

"Stop stop stop stop stop!" I quickly got to my feet and ran from the room and slammed the door behind me. Panting, I leaned against the door. I couldn't do this…someone else would have to do this...

I beat the noddle dough into submission as Ojiisan took them and tossed them into the hot oil. I had left my headband, my shoes, and my pouch in the back room, not wanting to be bothered with looking at them. By chance, Temari walked by. When she saw my back, beating noodles, she quickly ran inside.

"Daagana, aren't you on a mission today? Is it over already?" She asked.

"Yeah." I said.

"Haku's mom came home from the store early then." Temari mused.

"I guess so." I said and continued to roll noodles. Temari's bow furrowed.

"You guess so?"

"Mhmm."

"Why do you guess so? Didn't you see her when she came home to relieve you?"

"Well, the baby was crying, and I didn't know what to do, so I left it to calm down." I said. Suddenly, my Ojiisan stopped what he was doing and stared at me.

"You left a baby by itself!?" He cried. Temari's face was completely shocked and I looked between the two of them in confusion.

"Uhhh, yeah? So? What's the issue?"

"You can't just leave a baby alone!" Temari screamed and ran out of the shop. I watched her go, still not understanding.

"Giia left me alone all the time. I don't understand…" I looked back to my Ojiisan whose face had darkened considerably.

"She ain't somebody you need to be taking lessons from, my desert flower." He squeezed my shoulder and took the time to explain what I had done wrong. I felt appalled at myself for not realizing my mistake and I hid in the back room when Temari came back to tell me that everything was fine, that she had fixed it.

Luckily, she'd made it to the baby before anything bad happened, and before his mother got home to see he was left unattended. After that, I was tasked with non-living things: tending the herbs in the canyon, hunting down stray cats, picking up trash in 'Poor Side'. Over the course of a few weeks, I became known as a D-rank expert, and people always seemed so happy when I would stop by to assist them. Sometimes, in a very strategic fashion, Gaara would accompany me on my missions and we would interact in front of the villagers. Most still feared Gaara, but not as much anymore when they saw him holding a basket full of vegetables while I shopped for the elderly. This was all working out for the better and things were going smoothly until…Sasuke had to go and run off.


"But...WHY?" I cried.

"You know very well why." Baki hissed down at me. I swear the man would be less scary if I could only have seen the other side of his face. Because I had disclosed my power to him, I agreed to weekly meetings with him for record keeping purposes. Usually they were awkward, and we would sit in his office in silence, but today he felt like getting actual work done and was cleaning out files in his cabinet. "Konoha needs our assistance and this gives us an opportunity to prove ourselves as the allies we should have been." He picked up a stack of papers and started to walk down a long sandy hallway of the Admin Building.

"But," I protested as I followed after him. "We attacked them! How can they ever trust us again? Sure, we were manipulated and twisted into doing the works of a freaky psychopath that thinks he's a snake but, how can they trust us!" I cried. It made absolutely no sense to me.

Baki stopped walking abruptly and I bumped into his back. He looked back at me clearly annoyed.

"I don't have this answer. Perhaps since you think we are so untrustworthy, you should go and inform them yourself." My jaw fell to the floor as he continued on with his work.

I flinched openly as I remembered his glare. Gaara, who was walking beside me, raised an eye ridge. I smiled weakly at him and said,

"Baki."

"How is that going? That great, huh? Learning all the typical Genin stuff?" Temari asked and she trudged through the sand. I looked forward at her. The other two sand siblings didn't know about my curse or the shadows, so Gaara and I told them that my weekly meetings with Baki were for catch up purposes. I didn't graduate from the academy so he was supposedly helping me understand the duties and responsibilities of being a Suna Shinobi.

"He wouldn't be so scary if I could see his whole face!" I muttered weakly. Kankurou sputtered into a fit of laughter and Temari and I joined him. Gaara just smirked.

"I don't think I've ever seen him without his stupid little flappy mask on!" Temari cried and we all grinned like fools.

Camping in the desert was probably my very least favorite of the new experiences I was having! Temari and Kankurou went about making a makeshift tent in the side of a big sand hill. It was pretty much just two poles and a tarp, but it fared quite well. Night falls quickly in the desert so, not thirty minutes after we pitched tent, Temari and Kankurou were already asleep under the tarp. I, on the other hand, couldn't sleep knowing that Gaara was sitting up against the pole outside waiting for the sun to raise. Situated in between Temari and Kankurou, and trying not to wake them, I quietly got to my feet. Kankurou's arms flopped around like a fish out of water, and the noise he was making was enough to make Gaara turn around.

When he saw me standing there his eyes softened slightly. He stretched out his hand and a small patch of sand came hovering over to where I was standing. I smiled and stepped onto it lightly. It was like stepping onto a hard surface. It didn't bounce or shift. It was completely stable as it hovered back over to where Gaara was sitting, and placed me on the ground beside him.

I looked behind me to make sure I hadn't woken up Temari or Kankurou but both lay still and I sighed in relief.

"Thanks." I said turning back to Gaara. He gave me a quizzical look but didn't say anything. "What?" I asked. He just shook his head and turned away to look at the stars. But I pressed. "What?" I asked again and tugged on his sleeve. He didn't bother to look over at me as he said,

"You should get some sleep." I gave him a good hard look until he finally met my eye.

"Is that why you're sad?" He actually scoffed like he couldn't believe I had asked that question. Even I realized the tactlessness of it, but there was no taking it back now. In an attempt to make up for it, I slipped my arm around his and rested my head on his shoulder. "If that's why, then I guess I'll have to stay out with you." His head quickly snapped to the side and stared at me.

"You...would do that...for me?" He stuttered. I lifted my head and looked at him.

"Of course I would." There was a short pause, then he said,

"But...why?" I smiled up at him and rested me head on his shoulder again.


"Why else?" It wasn't an answer, but at the same time, it was? Gaara couldn't process it, not right then, with her so close. She seemed to make his thoughts jumble in on themselves until all he could do was nod. So he did just that, he nodded to her and then turned back to the not confusing stars. They had been his constant companion at least. And they never caused the tips of his fingers to go numb or his tongue to feel like it was swollen. Stars never made him jealous or ecstatic or furious...although they still sometimes made him feel lonely. They also never cooked for him after a long day of training or meetings, and they never calmed him when he felt mad enough to kill again. Daagana's mumbled something into his shoulder shifted and he glanced down at her. Her head was resting comfortably and her eyes were closed and her breathing was slow.

She was asleep. There was a pang of jealousy in Gaara's eyes but it was soon conquered by the one emotion that still held any importance in his life. She mumbled again and this time it sounded more like a whimper. The overwhelming urge to fight away her nightmares surprised him and then fueled him. If he couldn't make it so she had nothing to fear, then what was the point of him? And then he could finally make out what she was whispering...

Giia. Giia. Mother...

His untamable passion was suddenly squelched by a bucket of cold reality. This range of emotions was truly exhausting and he felt suddenly hollow when he looked at her. If she still loved her mother after everything she had done...how could she even understand how to love him?