Disclaimer: Not even a little.
Hello again, my good friends. Here's to my reviewers!
avater-chik
stargazer101
(drinks toast) Thanks!
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-Part XIII-
The Kazekage stared at the bright, star-filled sky from his study balcony. The moon in nearly full, he noticed privately. I may never get to see it again. I wonder if I'll be missed. He shook the thought violently from his cranium. What use was it to think of such things? None at all, he concluded. The sky was so beautiful that evening. Better, even than most nights in the dissolute wasteland of Suna. The stars glowed brighter than the sun, and the moon resembled a crystal ball of a mystic of old.
The Kazekage sighed, glancing across the shadowy landscape. No, I would probably not be missed. He sighed again and thought of the second and third chances he had had. He was given so many opportunities to change himself and to make himself a loveable, touchable, miss able person. He had failed. Horribly. Twice.
He was disturbed from his dreading by a quiet, even voice behind him. "You're time is up, Kazekage." He turned abruptly around to face one of the last people he ever suspected as the killer.
"Kira Ukuniki of Snow," Gaara said quietly.
The Jonin looked at the crimson haired shinobi with eyes of iced steel and said nothing.
"Perhaps I was foolish not to pay more attention to you. So it was you all along?"
Kira's eyes glistened oddly. Gaara could not place the expression hidden in them. "An interesting proposition, Kazekage," the kunoichi said, "But you seem to have come to the wrong conclusion. I am only a solder. I follow the strict orders from my higher-ups."
"You were ordered to do all this?"
"Let me make myself clear before I kill you, sir. I am the most skilled assassin in the north. I am a master killer. However, I am not responsible for the six killings in the past week. You and I may never find the true villain here."
"If you are so skilled, why in the gods' names are you speaking to me instead of doing your job?"
For the first time since the two met, Kira was the one to break the toxic eye contact. She reached into her pouch and pulled out a single kunai. "It is a revocable decision."
"I am one shinobi that you will not be able to defeat head-on," Gaara warned.
Suddenly, Kira slashed around her feet. Sand flew away from her. She chucked the kunai at the Kazekage's face. He caught it too easily with his sand and dropped it to the stone floor. "Your skills suffer due to your unease."
"You don't know a damn thing about me." Kira seethed, striking forward with her fist and hitting the Kazekage firmly in the left eye. He bounced back from the hit instantly and caught the Snow kunoichi around the neck in a head-lock. She struggled, gasping for air for a few seconds before giving up the effort as fruitless.
Together, in an odd sort of way, the pair stood looking out across the nighttime view. Finally, Gaara spoke quietly into his attacker's ear, "If I let you go, will you speak with me peacefully?"
Kira nodded shortly. She was released. She stood beside the Kazekage silently for a long moment. Finally, she spoke. "The lord of Yukigakure has chosen to side with the Village hidden in the Sound."
"I gathered that," said the other, "Do you agree with the decision?"
"I am a solder that dose as I am ordered to do."
"That isn't what I asked. You did not attempt to kill me with all of your ability. Why?"
"I…" Kira hesitated. "I'm not completely certain." She admitted to the horizon. Gaara stared. He didn't know what to say. "It isn't like me to question an assassination mission. It's all I know and how I live."
Gaara nodded. "You will be punished if you fail?" He found he knew the answer before the girl spoke.
"I only exist in this world as a weapon for Yukigakure. That is how my wrongs are tolerated. I will be killed in the most painful way Village Lord-sama can come up with upon my return." The way she said it made a chill run up Gaara's spine. Even now, she showed no emotion in her words, no fear, no regret, nor even anger.
"I am sorry." The Kazekage finally said.
"I deserve it." Replied Kira bitterly. A small girl tottered through the silent village, blood red snow surrounding her along with the white-grey of the rest of her world. The oversized sword in her small hands dripped crimson identical in hue to the tears streaming down her attractive, pale face. Her ice-blue hair fell messily in her dark grey eyes. It hurts! She cried to herself, as no one was there to listen, although had someone been there, she couldn't keep them anyway. People had failed her. The word 'love' could no longer be aloud in this child's life. It was already too late for her.
"Why do you say that?" Gaara demanded.
Kira stared out across the night sky. "I tried too hard, then not hard enough." She took a ragged breath. "I have nothing to live for anyway."
Gaara sighed. "You have to find your place. We are more alike than you think."
"Yes," it was now barely more than a whisper. "Yes, I know… These stars… They are different from the ones in Yukigakure."
"No," Gaara explained quietly, his voice soft and calm as if Kira hadn't only minuets before tried to kill him, "You are just seeing them from a new perspective."
Kira turned to face the Kazekage solemnly. Gaara opened his mouth to say something, but was abruptly disrupted by Kira whipping a kunai out of her pouch. She threw it just past his right ear, passing so close that Gaara heard a whistle. Then, she grabbed the red-head by the front of his shirt and shoved him to the ground.
Gaara rolled to his back just in time to see Kira activate her ice weaponry technique. She wielded it not at him, but at someone on her other side. Kira stood between the Kazekage and a dark figure. This figure was about twice Kira's size and could have weighed no less than four hundred pounds. He was obviously male, and his gruff laugh chilled Gaara right to the bones.
"And I was told that you might be of some use to me." The man chuckled towards Kira. "I suppose my informer will need to be punished. It doesn't matter really, my little death princess, you will die today anyway."
Gaara could feel Kira trembling with anger. "Who in the Hell do you think you are?" She demanded.
"I go by many names little girl. You may call me Ukuniki Juann, as it would suit your knowledge of the world." The man stepped out of the shadows and into the moonlight. He was indeed enormous. He had a small amount of very light green hair and matching whiskers and beard. He was clothed in heavy leather armor. He looked something like the Vikings Kira had read about from times long past.
"You're-"
"Yes, your relative." Juann sneered. "Of a fashion. We are brethren of the noble Devil's Kiss at least, if not blood related."
"How dare you," Kira said, taking half a step backwards.
The man laughed his horrible laugh again and said, "Yes, I will call it by name. Dose your little friend know that you can do it too?"
Gaara looked from Kira to this stranger and back a few times in wonder. Kira pulled her ice sword in front of her in a battle position. "Leave him out of this."
"But he is why I'm here, little princess." He smiled with yellow teeth and placed his hands into several deadly hand signs. Suddenly, a pain like nothing else Gaara could have ever imagined surged through is body. He let out a scream as his insides felt like they were exploding inside of him.
Through blurred eyes, Gaara saw Kira swing wildly at her opponent's right hand, screaming, "No!" She cut Juann's hand clean off. The pain instantly subsided.
The most intense battle Gaara had ever witnessed ensued. Blades and chakra swirled all around, clings and clangs blasted parts of the balcony to bits every few moves. Before Gaara's mind had cleared, Kira had saved his life for the second time in two days.
"Argh!" the Snow kunoichi gasped as Juann's sword embedded itself in her left shoulder. She grasped the blade with her left hand, so tightly that blood dripped from her fingers. "You will not kill Gaara." She insisted through clenched teeth as she struggled to keep the blade from digging deeper into her flesh. "Not like that."
"Really?" Juann jabbed his sword sharply further into Kira's body. The blood-soaked blade stuck several inches out of the back of her shoulder. The girl took in a sharp breath, but her right hand came up forward instantly forming all-too-familiar hand signs. Suddenly, the man called Juann screamed shrilly. He dropped the blade and toppled to the floor screaming and panting like his whole body was boiling. Several moments of this horror continued before the killer lied still and fell silent.
Gaara stood up shakily, almost falling back down due to the weight of the familiarly terrible aura. He stumbled to Kira who was standing exactly where she had been minuets before when she was first stabbed. Gaara faced her and murmured, "What?-"
Kira was staring blankly ahead as if the Kazekage was not even there. Her eyes were glassed over like she was the one who was dead. She was trembling horribly. Slowly, a single crimson tear leaked from her right eye and traced a path down her smooth cheek. Gaara whipped it away gingerly. "Kira?" The crimson haired shinobi carefully pulled the blade from the kunoichi's shoulder.
"Ga-Gaar-"
"Kira!" Erokay stood on the railing to the balcony looking fearful. "What the Hell happened?!" His eyes fell on the completely uninjured Kazekage. "Oh no," He launched himself off of the railing and in a single bound he had grabbed Kira up in his harms and had dived over the side. Gaara leaned against the railing, watching the teammates descend into the night. He knew what he had to do.
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WOW, everyone. I can't believe I just wrote that. That was one of the first images of childhood Kira I ever had. I don't know how many times I had to rewrite that before I was happy with it. lol I can hardly believe that it's almost over. What am I supposed to do with my pathetically unadventurous and Gaara-free life when this is done?
So anyway I have a little tid-bit of info for you all, just in case it wasn't clear. Juann and Kira are both capable of using the "Devil's Kiss" which is a sort of kekke-genkai known only to Kira's clan. Kira didn't kill her whole clan as a child, as it was very large, and she didn't know all of the side branches. That is how it is possible for Juann and Kira to be blood-related.
R&R if you would? Later! XD