11. don't want the monster taking over

"So I kept trying, but all I could get were these stupid tiny little toads! Once it was even a tadpole, I don't know how that happened... Then the pervy sage said -"

Sasuke listened to Naruto ramble with half an ear, concentrating on the go board in front of him. Gaara had said he didn't like the game, but when they'd passed by the cafe with the board on an outside table he'd agreed to play, and he was turning out to be much better at it than Sasuke. Hmm - if Sasuke put a stone there, he should be able to protect his formation in that corner... He placed the stone and Gaara immediately flanked it with one of his own.

"- and then he threw me off a - hey, who's that?"

Sasuke glanced up, didn't see whoever Naruto was talking about, and turned back to the board before realizing that Gaara was staring past him with his brows drawn together. Sasuke twisted around to look and noticed a group of cloaked ANBU coming up the street, headed for the Hokage's tower. There wasn't anything that unusual about seeing ANBU around, he thought irritably; he was about to say so when he saw that all the ANBU had masks marked with Suna's symbol, and they were clustered around someone else - a man in long robes and a wide conical hat with the symbol for wind, the man Gaara's eyes were fixed on.

The gritty dust beneath the cafe table was rising, swirling around the hand Gaara still held over the bowl of white stones. Sasuke slapped a stone down - anywhere, it didn't matter - and said, "Gaara, it's your move. Gaara? Hey - it's your -"

"Gaara?" the man said, pushing past the ANBU and tilting his hat up. He had a plain face and beady eyes, like Kankuro's, and he looked furious. "What are you doing out by yourself?" he said. "Damn worthless - what do you think you're playing at?"

"I'm playing go," said Gaara, scowling. "With - friends."

"I told you not to go out except on missions or with your brother and sister," the plain man said. "Playing go..." He swept the stones off the board and onto the ground. "If you can't even obey one -"

"Hey, quit picking on Gaara, you jerk!" Naruto yelled, while Sasuke made frantic shut up gestures. "Who the hell are you, anyway? Gaara's our friend, yanno, so you better not mess with him!"

Gaara's frown deepened as the man gave Naruto and Sasuke a long, skeptical look and said, "You really think you're friends... You don't even know what you're playing with, do you? Gaara is -"

"Oh, for fuck's sake, do we need this fucking shit right now," one of the ANBU grumbled; another one, who towered over the rest, said, "Hey, that's no way to talk around the boss," and a third with pale hair moved up from the back to say, "Kazekage-sama, the Hokage is waiting for us."

The Kazekage gave Sasuke and Naruto another long look, then said coldly, "Of course. Gaara, go back to your team and we'll discuss this later."

"Yes, Father," Gaara said, and the Kazekage turned away and swept up the street, the Suna ANBU falling back into place around him.

"What a total jerk!" Naruto said, making a face at the Kazekage's safely distant back. "How'd an asshole like that get to be a Kage, that's so not fair - uh, sorry, Gaara. Um, Gaara? You okay?"

Gaara was clutching his forehead, as if he had a headache; he muttered, "Shut up - I will, Mother, but not right now - not now, shut up."

Naruto reached out and the sand slapped his hand away. "Don't touch me," Gaara said, his voice edged with panic, "I'll - shut up - I'll see you tomorrow," and he disappeared.

"Wow - even for Gaara that was weird, yanno?" said Naruto, as Sasuke knelt to pick up the spilled stones. "Maybe we should go after him..."

Sasuke shook his head - if Gaara wanted to be alone, it'd be safer to stay away - and reached for some black stones that had rolled under a chair.

"Man, his dad is really awful, though," Naruto went on, flopping into the same chair and knocking the stones all over. "What's his problem, anyway? It's not like Gaara was doing anything wrong, so what if he hangs out with us? I can't believe a jerk like that's a Kage!"

Sasuke grabbed the stones before they could roll too far, dumped them back into the bowl, and smacked Naruto in the back of the head. "Will you quit shouting about it already?" he said, keeping his voice down. "You can't just pick fights with the Kazekage, dumbass."

Naruto rubbed his head and looked hurt. "But he was -"

"Naruto!" There was a puff of smoke on the street and Jiraiya appeared out of it, pointing at Naruto. "What are you doing? I told you I was leaving tomorrow, this is your last chance to practice!"

"Aww, crap!" Naruto jumped up. "Sorry, Sasuke, see ya later! Hey, pervy sage, I wanna learn -"

"A cool technique, yeah, I heard you the first hundred times. C'mon, your summoning still needs work!"

They went off together, arguing cheerfully, and Sasuke looked after them. It must be nice, he thought, training with someone who wasn't trying to kill you half the time, but there was nothing he could do about that.

He went to find Orochimaru.

Sasuke tried the practice ground near the Inuzuka first, but the Hyuuga girl and her team were already training there; Sakura and Haku and that blonde girl were at the memorial stone field, not even practicing, just talking, and the field he'd met Orochimaru at the last time had been taken over by another Hyuuga and some weird kid in green. Apparently all of Konoha was out practicing today; there were people everywhere he looked, until he gave up and tried the last place he wanted to go.

Of course Orochimaru was there, inspecting targets that hadn't been used in three years. No one else was about to sneak into the Uchiha compound just to use a practice ground. "At last," Orochimaru said without turning around. "I was getting tired of waiting - you mustn't be so slow, Sasuke-kun. Now, where were we -"

"I want to learn summoning," Sasuke said.

Orochimaru did turn at that, raising thin black eyebrows. "Really?"

"Yeah," Sasuke said. If Naruto got to learn to summon toads, it was only fair if Sasuke learned summoning, too, not just techniques he could've copied anywhere.

"How very eager of you," said Orochimaru, the corners of his mouth twitching up in a smirk. "Well, I'll consider it and answer you tomorrow - yes, tomorrow will do nicely," and he laughed, though Sasuke couldn't see a reason why. "For now, let's see how you've improved since our last meeting." Sasuke already had the sharingan on as Orochimaru began forming seals; he copied the seals as fast as Orochimaru could make them, and the earth split violently beneath them both at the same instant.

For over an hour they ran through jutsu from every element, some new, some ones that Sasuke had already learned and practiced. Just copying didn't tire him out as much now, and as they threw spinning rings of fire at each other Sasuke slid under one, recalled an earlier technique, and punched the cracked ground. A giant fist of earth rose up behind Orochimaru and grabbed him; Sasuke quickly made the seals for a genjutsu and Orochimaru froze, staring into the distance.

Sasuke got up, breathing heavily but triumphant. Now he'd get some clear answers from -

He felt the cold edge of a kunai against the side of his neck and Orochimaru's breath in his ear as the figure in the earth's grip melted away. "Very good, Sasuke-kun," Orochimaru said softly. "You've certainly improved - that was almost a close call." The edge lifted from his skin, and Orochimaru was suddenly in front of him, looking completely unruffled. "I suppose that's worth a little information," he said, setting a knocked-over target upright again. "Hmm - what have I already told you?"

Sasuke had memorized every word. "That the Uchiha were unhappy because there hadn't been a Hokage from our clan," he said. "That the Kyuubi attacked and the rest of Konoha suspected that the Uchiha were behind it, so they made us move into the compound, which only made the clan angrier. But that doesn't explain anything!" The Uchiha had been Konoha's police, they'd protected the village, they wouldn't have tried to destroy it. "Anyway, there's no way to control the Kyuubi when it's not sealed," he added.

"Oh, isn't there," said Orochimaru, chuckling, and he picked up another target. That one had a hole at the edge of the central ring with U. S. carved awkwardly beside it; Sasuke's first hit in the center, and Itachi had taken the target down so Sasuke could reach to put his initials on it. "Sasuke-kun, did you know that a second level of the sharingan exists?"

"There's -" no such thing, Sasuke thought, but no - he'd seen it, hadn't he? That strange sharingan Itachi'd had after fighting with their cousins, and during that first raid... "Yeah, I know about it," he said instead.

"The mangekyou sharingan," Orochimaru said, savoring the name. "Its powers are immense, but it comes at such a painful cost... Don't worry - I won't make you pay that price yourself." He laughed for no good reason again. "And after all, with the Kyuubi sealed, who needs the power to control it?"

Sasuke's breath caught. That strange sharingan could control the fox? But he'd only seen Itachi with it, and Itachi couldn't have had it when the Kyuubi had attacked - unless someone else in the clan had been hiding it, and no one in the clan would have wanted to attack their own home...

"Quite a tragedy, for such a noble family of Konoha to come under suspicion," said Orochimaru. "Your clan was a proud one, wasn't it? Accused of treachery and shoved away into a corner - how do you suppose they would have dealt with such a disgrace?"

"They - they would've complained to the Hokage," Sasuke muttered, looking away from Orochimaru's mocking eyes.

"Mmm," Orochimaru said. "And what could the Hokage do? Order a village not to suspect the suspicious? Wave his hand and erase a clan's wounded pride?"

Sasuke didn't answer because Orochimaru was lying now. He had to be lying. The Uchiha had been part of Konoha's strength, that was the truth, that was what Father had always said. The Uchiha wouldn't have -

"Tell me, Sasuke-kun," Orochimaru said, and he took hold of Sasuke's face and tilted it up so Sasuke had to look into his eyes. "What does your brother love above all else?"

Nothing, Sasuke wanted to say, because if Itachi had loved anything he wouldn't have murdered their clan, he wouldn't have killed Mother and Father, Sasuke wouldn't be making deals with traitors for the power to kill him.

But that wasn't true, either, so Sasuke didn't say it.

Orochimaru let him go and turned to walk away. "Think it over, Sasuke-kun," he said. "I'm sure you'll be able to put the rest together yourself - although after tomorrow, it may not matter very much," and he vanished.

Sasuke looked around at the training ground. It was barely recognizable anymore as the peaceful place where he and Itachi used to practice, now that everything was burnt and muddy and torn up; only the two targets that Orochimaru had set back in place weren't damaged, and Sasuke didn't want to be there anymore and he ran.

Haku was working a late shift at Ichiraku that night, so Naruto and Sasuke were on their own. After they had gone to bed, Sasuke said, "Hey, Naruto - have you found out anything from Jiraiya yet?"

"Nah, not really," said Naruto, shifting around. "He talks a lot but he doesn't say much, yanno? He did say he taught the Fourth Hokage, though! That's pretty great, right? Maybe he can help me become the next Hokage! Yeah! And he told me if I could summon one of the big toads again, he'd answer one question no matter what it was, so I'm gonna do it before he leaves tomorrow and ask him about Akatsuki. He didn't say so exactly, but I think he's been spying on them, yanno, so he probably knows a lot!"

"Mmm," Sasuke said.

After a minute Naruto said, "Hey, what about you? You found anything out lately?"

"Mmm," Sasuke said again. "Not really." He was still trying to put Orochimaru's words together into something that made sense; could an Uchiha really have been behind the Kyuubi's attack? Would the whole clan have been angry enough about being mistrusted that they would try to damage Konoha for real? And then had someone told Itachi to -

No. Sasuke's hand's clenched into fists. Orochimaru was lying. The Uchiha would never have betrayed Konoha, and even if the Hokage was stupid enough to let Itachi stay in the village, he wouldn't have allowed a whole clan to be killed over a misunderstanding; that snake bastard had just been stringing Sasuke along for whatever reason. It didn't matter. Tomorrow he'd learn how to summon snakes and then he'd force Orochimaru to tell him the truth - not just about the Uchiha, about Orochimaru's plans, too. Sasuke hadn't liked the way Orochimaru had kept talking about tomorrow, tomorrow, as if something big was going to happen.

He would tell Naruto and Gaara tomorrow, too, he decided, and stretched out. It was only fair. He'd been putting it off, but as long as Gaara didn't get all strange again, there was no reason not to tell him about Itachi and get him to help, and he really hated keeping secrets from Naruto. Naruto needed to know about the mangekyou, at least, since Itachi might be able to use it against him, and maybe - maybe he remembered other people talking about the Uchiha, if they'd really been suspected of treason.

"Naruto," he said, "promise something."

"Ngh - yeah?"

"When you're Hokage," Sasuke said, "you'll treat everyone in Konoha fairly - you won't let there be any discrimination, right?"

Naruto rolled over to look at him and said, "Of course! I'm gonna be the best Hokage ever, yanno, so of course I gotta be fair."

"And you won't let people be suspicious of a whole clan just because there might be one bad person from it," Sasuke said, because Orochimaru had lied, he'd been lying all along, but just in case...

"Nah, that'd be totally unfair," said Naruto, yawning around the last word. "I definitely won't let that happen! Uh - you got someone specific in mind, or -"

"No," Sasuke said, and turned over. "Just checking."

"Okay," Naruto said cheerfully. "Man, you worry over weird things... G'night!"

"'Night," Sasuke said; he waited till Naruto started snoring to get up and sneak out of the apartment, heading for the memorial stone training grounds to practice the new jutsu he'd seen today. The moon was almost full - too bright to waste - but he'd have to be fast to get back before Haku did and still get any real practice in.

Tomorrow. He'd tell Naruto everything tomorrow, and then he wouldn't have to sneak around anymore.

Team Seven was used to waiting anywhere between one and three hours for their teacher, but they had barely settled into their usual time-killing routine at the front of the Hokage's tower when Kakashi appeared with a wave and a "Yo," interrupting Sasuke's fourth win in a row at jan-ken-pon.

"You're - not that late," Sakura said, looking suspicious. "What's going on?"

"Ah, well, the road of life had a few less twists in it this morning," Kakashi said, and held his hands up as all three of them glared. "Also, sorry, but no missions today."

"What!" Naruto yelled. "But that's boring, why not?"

"The Kazekage's in town," said Kakashi, and Sakura looked shocked - of course, she hadn't been around yesterday. "So genin get the day off while the rest of us make sure nothing goes wrong... Well, unfortunately the rest of us includes me, so you three have a good day," and he vanished again.

"Hmm," Sakura said thoughtfully, and then she grinned. "All right! Me and Ino-chan can finally take Haku-san shopping - see you two later!"

Sasuke took a moment to pity Haku as Sakura ran off, and then turned to Naruto. "Okay, you go find the pervert," he said, "and get him to talk about Akatsuki - I'm going to find Gaara and tell him about Itachi."

"Gotcha," Naruto said, but he didn't immediately head off. "Um - you sure about Gaara? He was really weird yesterday..."

"I'm sure," Sasuke said. "Just go, I'll meet you at the memorial stone with Gaara."

"Okay, okay," said Naruto, and they split up.

Sasuke had to look through half of downtown Konoha, and when he finally found Gaara he was amazed to realize how much Gaara must have gradually relaxed around him and Naruto; the Gaara currently sitting on an inn's roof looked like his face had been carved out of rock. Sasuke jumped up to the roof anyway and approached him. "Hey, Gaara," he said. "I've got something to -"

The tiled roof seemed to move under his feet and he jumped back, then saw sand and grit sweeping across the roof to gather at Gaara's back.

"Are you ready to fight me yet, Uchiha?" said Gaara. He hadn't looked up.

"What? No," Sasuke said. "We can train later, right now -"

He heard something hissing behind him, made a clone and switched out to another roof just as a column of sand collapsed onto the clone, constricting around it as Gaara closed his outstretched hand.

That could have killed me, Sasuke thought, suddenly furious, and his sharingan flickered on. "What the hell are you doing?" he said.

"Aren't you going to fight me?" Gaara said; he turned his head just enough to look at Sasuke, and his cold eyes burned with something Sasuke didn't recognize. "Fight to prove the worth of your existence - just like I do."

What a great time for Haku to be out shopping. Trying to keep his voice calm, Sasuke said, "I don't want to fight you, Gaara. We're friends, aren't we? If you're angry about something, we can -"

"I'm not angry," Gaara said, and sand whipped across the roofs as Sasuke flipped out of its way and decided the hell with it. If Gaara wanted a fight so badly, Sasuke would give him one.

He landed safely and made a seal, and the air thickened, lashing out at Gaara; the damn sand blocked it but he had already leaped over the barrier, his fist aimed at Gaara's face.

Sasuke punched sand and cursed as it scraped his knuckles, then sprang back. He made the seals for a fireball - let's see how well that sand moves when it's glass - and heard shouting just as he was about to release it, then sirens. He broke off the technique, dodged a blast of sand, and shouted, "Cut it out! There's a raid, we have to get to the Academy!"

Gaara hadn't even gotten up. Damn, he was annoying to fight. The sand whipped past Sasuke's face, stinging, and swirled around him; he slashed through it with another wind blade, grabbed Gaara's arm, and leaped.

Gaara didn't struggle as Sasuke dragged him towards the Academy, though Sasuke could feel the sand hovering at his back. "Why did you stop fighting, Uchiha?" he said. "We'd barely gotten started."

"Because of the raid, idiot," Sasuke said. "We can settle this later, but I'm not getting in trouble for playing around during an attack." He risked a glance over his shoulder and saw smoke rising from the wall near the gates. The enemy probably wouldn't get as far as the Academy - they rarely did - but it could still happen.

Sasuke jumped down from the roofs into the Academy's front yard, let go of Gaara, and looked around. Iruka and a female teacher were herding the last of the students out of the building and towards the shelters in the Hokage monument; no sign of Sakura or Haku, but the Hyuuga girl from their class was helping the teachers guard the line of kids, and only a moment later Naruto ran up. He waved at them, heedless of the bloody intent still radiating from Gaara, and said breathlessly, "Pervy sage already left! No fair, he's totally running away 'cause he -"

Sasuke tackled him to the ground as a curved sword swept through the air above them, and the students started yelling and screaming. Sasuke rolled away and came up in a crouch, hands full of shuriken; he saw three enemy shinobi, two with scratched-through Kiri headbands on the fence around the yard and then the one with the sword behind Gaara.

"Hinata, Iruka-san, get the kids out of here!" the other teacher shouted, drawing needles from nowhere. "You three -"

One of the Kiri missing-nin went for her and they both disappeared out of Sasuke's range of vision. The sword-user struck at Gaara and hit only sand that yanked the sword from his hands, then wrapped around him and tightened, and Sasuke looked away to see the second missing-nin make a seal. Suddenly there were three of her standing balanced on the fence; water clones, Sasuke could see that with the sharingan, and he said, "Naruto, take the two on the left, I'll get the other one."

"On it!" Naruto said, bouncing up, and a crowd of shadow clones filled the yard, then charged at the fence.

The missing-nin and her clones tried to disappear into the sea of orange, but the real one's chakra signature stood out. Sasuke darted through a gap and found her slashing through clones with a curved kunai. He threw the shuriken in his hands at her, but she spun out of the way and only one hit at all, scratching her shoulder. She hissed, grabbed one of the clones and tossed it at Sasuke; he ducked under it as it flailed over his head and drew a kunai - jutsu were no good, he'd just take out Naruto's clones and lose them as cover.

A clone burst in a puff of smoke and Sasuke jumped through it, saw the missing-nin's back as she struck at another - oh damn that one wasn't a clone and Sasuke shot under her raised arm and shoved Naruto out of the way and felt a line of pain drag across his back, then the tickle of dripping blood.

Naruto grabbed the kunai out of Sasuke's hand and charged at the missing-nin, forcing her back into the mass of clones. "Thanks," he said, "you okay?"

"Yeah - just watch out next time, idiot," Sasuke said, trying to feel the cut. It didn't seem deep, but if the enemy were using poisoned kunai...

Sand blasted through the clones, and they popped out of existence; the missing-nin only looked surprised by the sudden emptiness for a moment before the sand whipped back and twisted around her like a rope, binding her arms to her side.

There was no sign of the sword-using shinobi, just Gaara standing at the edge of the yard. He looked at Sasuke and said, "You're weak, after all. Getting injured protecting that useless 'friend' - what a meaningless -"

The missing-nin worked one arm free of the sand and threw her kunai at Gaara. It thudded into more sand, and Gaara's eyes narrowed. The binding tightened; blood was running down the missing-nin's trapped arm and Naruto yelled, "Wait, Gaara! You can't just -"

Sasuke heard a sharp chittering sound an instant before a dark shape appeared behind Gaara and slashed at his neck with an unnaturally bright kunai.

Instead of the blow taking off his head, Gaara's skin cracked like dry mud. Sasuke saw a bead of blood well up through one crack, and then sand exploded everywhere, stinging his skin as he threw one arm up to protect his face. When the sand cleared he looked and saw that it had condensed back into a dome around Gaara, and that the dark shape - a Kumo missing-nin, by the forehead protector - was a short, stocky man with one arm trapped in the dome. "Shit," the man said, trying to yank his arm free, "Midori, gimme a -"

Inside the shelter of sand, Gaara shrieked.

The other missing-nin, freed by the explosion of sand, had run for it; the Kumo guy just rolled his eyes. "Damn kids these days," he said, "can't handle a little scratch," and the dome burst outward and buried him and he didn't even have time to scream as it squeezed, blood spattering across the yard.

Sasuke swallowed hard and glanced over at Naruto. The Kumo nin's blood hadn't hit them, but Naruto's eyes were wide and his face had gone pale. "Hey," he said, "he - did he just - holy crap!"

Sasuke silently agreed.

Gaara was crouching in the middle of a miniature sandstorm, panting, his hands at his throat and the missing-nin's mangled body tossed aside. Sasuke didn't look at it. If he and Naruto ran now, they might be able to get away and find Gaara's team - they'd be used to dealing with this, they could handle it from here, and why the hell was Naruto walking towards Gaara? "Hey, Gaara," he was saying, "you okay? Lemme see - we can go to the hospital, yanno, it'll be okay," as if Gaara's health was somehow the thing to worry about.

"I'm bleeding!" Gaara screamed, and he flung one hand out, displaying a smear of red on his fingers. "I - I don't, I've never - Mother, why am I -"

The female teacher reappeared, the other Kiri shinobi's unconscious body slung over her shoulders, and taking in the situation with a look she snapped, "Get that boy out of here!"

"Y-yeah, sure, Kaoru-sensei," Naruto said, and before Sasuke could stop him he jumped into the blowing sand and pulled Gaara to his feet. "C'mon, Gaara, let's go - hey, Sasuke, you gonna help or what?"

Sasuke bit off a curse and pushed through the sand to take Gaara's other arm. "We'll head for the forest," he said. Gaara could keep freaking out and kill trees all he wanted there, and if any enemy shinobi showed up, well, it would be their bad luck.

"But he's hurt, we oughtta -"

"Forest," Sasuke said, as Gaara shuddered and snarled something incomprehensible between them, and Naruto swallowed and nodded.

As they took off, Sasuke thought he saw Sakura and Haku running towards the Academy, but he shoved it out of his mind. They had to get Gaara to the forest outside; there was no time to worry about anything else.

They'd barely gotten into the trees when the sand caught on and knocked them away from Gaara. Sasuke landed on his feet; Naruto, with his usual grace, ended up face-down on the ground. He sat up, spitting out leaves, and said, "Ow! Geez, Gaara, watch it!"

"Stay away from me," Gaara said, his voice thick and rough. "I don't need your help, I -" He was clutching his head, leaning against a particularly tall tree, and he growled. "You're both weak, I don't need you!"

They were weak? Sasuke was close to growling himself. Sasuke and Naruto weren't the ones who'd been screaming over what, now that Sasuke could get a better look at it, was barely more than a paper-cut.

"What the heck's going on with you, anyway?" said Naruto, looking hurt. "We're friends, yanno, you don't have to be like this! Is it 'cause your dad -"

"Shut up!" Gaara shouted. "You aren't my friend, you're just weak - you've never been my friend, I'm not like you, you don't understand!" He looked up to glare at Sasuke. "I thought you might understand, Uchiha," he said. "You have that same look - trying to prove the worth of your existence, hungry for power - ready to do anything to kill the one who put you through that hell of loneliness."

"Sasuke's not like that!" Naruto yelled, and Sasuke fought to keep a guilty look off his face. "It's just 'cause - anyway, it's different, yanno?"

"I can see that now," said Gaara; the skin on his face was beginning to crack and shift. "You're all weak, talking about 'friends' and 'teamwork,' and you tried to make me weak, too... But I won't be," and sand poured out of the gourd, wrapping itself around his right arm and leg, and black streaks twisted through it. "I'll only care about myself! I'll only fight for myself! I don't need anyone - that's what makes me strong!"

He shut his eyes and howled as his face distorted, darkening to the color of sand, and when they opened his right eye was black and gold and inhuman.

"I'm not like you," Gaara said, his voice rougher and warped through his twisted mouth, "I have a monster inside me," and as Naruto's eyes widened Sasuke formed seals, grabbed Naruto's jacket, and dove into the earth.

Two feet of solid dirt between them and Gaara made Sasuke feel a lot better, though there was barely enough room for him and Naruto to squeeze in between the roots winding everywhere, and one ground painfully against the cut on his back. Naruto didn't even seem to notice the new technique; he stared up as if he could see through the dirt and said, "He's like me - Gaara, he's a host, just like me..."

"You're nothing like him," Sasuke said. "You're not a killer, you're not crazy like that - you're not a monster, got it?" His mind was racing - he hadn't known that Suna had a host, couldn't imagine what kind of beast they had sealed inside Gaara, but that must have been what the Kazekage had been about to tell them. Obviously the seal wasn't as good as the one keeping the Kyuubi in; no wonder Gaara's siblings were terrified of him, and the rest of Suna probably was, too.

"Hey, thanks," Naruto said, punching Sasuke's arm, and before Sasuke could ask why, Naruto was trying to dig his way out, shouting, "Gaara! Hey, Gaara!"

A gigantic claw tore through the dirt, showering them both with grit, and Gaara thrust his warped face into the hole. "I won't let you escape," he snarled, "I'll kill you both - I'll prove that I'm the one who's worthy to keep living!"

"No, look, you don't have to kill us!" Naruto said. "I understand, okay, you don't -"

"You don't understand anything!" Gaara screamed; the claw that his arm had become ripped through the ground again and snatched Naruto up and flung him into the trees.

Sasuke made seals again and punched the side of the hole as Gaara turned back to him. The earth behind Gaara rose in a fist and grabbed him, but the sand blasted it apart and Sasuke switched away. He ended up in a tree and hid on the other side of its trunk, then saw Naruto running back towards Gaara, the idiot; Sasuke leaped down to block him, but Naruto brought his hands together and thirty more of him appeared to shove past Sasuke. "You gotta listen to me!" they all yelled. "And if you won't, then I'll make you!" and they piled on Gaara.

Gaara turned and twisted, trying to shake off the clones, and a tail of sand whipped around and smashed through the trees. Sasuke dodged and ran through techniques in his hand - earth jutsu wouldn't work, not enough water around for water techniques, fire or wind might hit Naruto - and then he remembered the glittering kunai the Kumo missing-nin had used, and the noise it had made. He hadn't learned any lightning techniques yet, but he did have a possible substitute on hand...

He charged through the smoke of popping clones, honed in on the real Naruto, yanked him aside and threw the kunai he'd just prepared - three in the claw-arm, three more in Gaara's back just where sand became Gaara, every one hitting perfectly, and he jumped into the tree-tops with Naruto as the tagged kunai exploded.

Gaara roared and smashed through another tree, but Sasuke could see that the half-transformed sand around him had taken some damage. Good. With Naruto out of the way, he could set up a fireball trap and try to take out the rest of the sand, at least get Gaara looking human again and then he'd be easier to deal with.

Naruto shoved past him and jumped back down, shouting for Gaara and drawing his attention. Sasuke gritted his teeth - why did Naruto have to make everything so difficult? - and leaped after him.

Gaara's claw-arm shot out towards Naruto and Sasuke breathed in for a fireball, but ice spiked around Gaara and encased him completely. Naruto bounced off it and landed by Sasuke. "Hey, did you do that?" he asked, and Sasuke shook his head.

Leaves swirled around them and Haku appeared, pulling them away from Gaara. "Ah, you're all right - what a relief," he said. "I came as fast as I could..."

"Yeah, yeah, we're fine," said Naruto, "what about Sakura-chan?"

Haku was pulling his loose hair back into a knot, pinning it up with needles; he said, "After we heard the sirens, we went to the Academy and saw the bodies. I realized something was wrong, and then the teacher told us you had left with Gaara... Sakura went to the Hokage's tower to look for Kakashi-san, and I came after you."

"You - I'll kill you too," Gaara snarled, straining against the ice; Haku took his left hand away from his hair and flicked a seal at him, and the ice thickened.

"Thanks, Haku," Naruto said, "maybe now I can get him to listen to me!" and he started to run back towards Gaara when Sasuke and Haku both grabbed him. "Hey, what -"

"Are you kidding me?" Sasuke yelled. "He's not going to listen to you, dumbass! He's trying to kill you, he's not like you - you can't just keeping going after him, it's too dangerous!"

Naruto knocked their hands away, and his eyes glared red at Sasuke. "You don't get it," he said, "he's - you don't understand, you don't even know what it's like when everyone treats you like a monster just 'cause -"

"Naruto-kun, Sasuke-kun," said Haku, reaching for them both, "let's talk later - I'm not sure -"

"Just give it up, Naruto!" Why did he have to pick now to be stubborn? Naruto hadn't even wanted to go near Gaara at first, Sasuke should have listened to him. "We have to get out of here now, while we can!"

"I won't!" Naruto shouted. "He's my friend now, I don't give up on my friends! That's how I do things, you got it?"

Sasuke pulled his fist back - if he had to knock Naruto out to get him away, he would - and felt something cool slither along his arm, then wrap around him. What the hell? He tried to break free but there were suddenly more, crawling all over him and he saw them on Haku and Naruto, too - thin green-and-brown snakes, tying them up. Shit.

"How sad, to see friends fighting like this," said a dry voice from behind him, not sounding sad at all. "I simply can't let this go on - Sasuke-kun, perhaps you had better come with me."

He heard ice shattering as white hands swept him up, and then all he saw was the forest floor rushing past him.