Lashing against its bonds the four-tailed fox ripped the earth into great chunks, tossing the broken pieces of the inclosing sphere into the ozone and scattering the sand shackles as if the chakra bonds weren't even present. And still the sand poured up from the crater, as if a geyser of grit were spewing forth from the earth.

Kankuro stared up in awe. I guess I'm not the only one who's been practicing either. When did he learn how to do this? The creature was rising like a star, the sand shooting up, trying to form a shell and crush in on the creature. Temari felt fresh shock at the display. The would be predator was rising and howling hundreds of meters into the air, the sand clawing and crushing around it, grasping at its appendages and tails, forming multiple leashes around its throat and forcing its head skyward.

The creature broke its leashes and another set of sand shackles, but the shell was taking form, collapsing in and pouring down from all directions. He's made more sand beneath us from the soil! Just how much… Kankuro's mind blanked as a miniature moon with a monster at its center took shape. No, not a moon, it's more like…

Gaara struggled to close his hand. Make a fist and you wall it off. You protect them. But it was very difficult. From the tree top where he had repositioned he could see it. It roared and squirmed, kept trying to summon chakra bubbles into a collective sphere of its own, and the boy knew he must never allow that. The sand flowed in, grasping at its tails, pulling them away from the coalescing chakra allowing it to again destabilize. This is growing more difficult…

Gaara had learned the futility of trying to bite his lip in frustration; it remained an itch he would never be able to scratch. Instead his features remained stoic and set, having seen so few smiles in his life he bore his expressionlessness as one more scar from childhood. Inside the boy there was turmoil his stillness belied. What is this? It's not madness. Is this fear? But not for myself?

He had over eight hundred cubic meters of sand to work with, nearly half that was made of the strongest minerals he could pull from the soil. His ultimate defense had become a cage. I have but to close it. Naruto, what has happened?

The Fox fought against its bonds, its strength was truly monstrous, and Gaara struggled. It's like trying to crush a ball bearing. Gaara felt the fear as his fingers struggled with the empty air. What happens to them if I fail?

The sand had stopped rushing out of the ground and the enormous clump of silt and pulverized stone hung in the sky in defiance of the natural law. That didn't worry Temari in the slightest. What worried her was what would happen if it fell.

She chanced a glance at her brother, saw him rub his chin instinctively, smearing the makeup there. He's really shook up to do something like that. Kankuro had always prided himself on being a professional at puppeteering (Temari had often teased that meant he was always serious about being a professional ass), to even smudge his makeup unintentionally was a gross faux pas. He glanced at her just as she turned her head back to the woods, searching for the boy responsible.

"You think he's going to be able to pull this off?" Temari didn't look back at her brother. Nor did she answer. Come on Gaara… Above them, the shape of the sphere became more artistic, a form was taking shape.

He could see his father's disapproving stare. See the distance between himself and his brother and sister. The little girl who had called him a monster. But most of all he could see the smile on the stranger's face as he talked about friendship and sacrifice. Gaara's fingers inched closer as the sweat turned his clothes into dead weight.

Why go so far for them?

Gaara could see its face still, felt it trying to burrow its claws out of the prison, shoot them toward the ground. The space left open between his digits had room enough only for a marble. It was enough space for the four tails to slip through his fingers.

The sand sphere was cracking. Red light poured out from within and a fine shower of sand was descending upon the scarred field. Very shortly the cruelty of the beast was about to be revisited on the plain, and Temari knew its fury would target them alone. She and Kankuro were moving now, speeding back to the tree line. We can still get clear, get Gaara, get time for him to try again… The Fox's muffled roar of triumph made a mockery of hope.

Gaara felt the knuckle begin to fracture and splinter in his fingers, felt the bone fragments slip into the space of the joints and grind together. He realized he could go no further. It was going to get loose and kill his family.

I love them.

Gaara closed his fist.

10 hours before

Sasuke threw the wires down from his sweat drenched hands. He couldn't see the victim now, obscured by the executioner who stood one hand braced against the tree, the other deep inside the deceased. Kakashi's shoulders moved up and down in heavy labored breaths, whole form shaking from the exertion to catch up and kill. He had discarded his flak vest. The weight got to be too much for him?

"I'm through."

Those were the last words Sasuke had expected.

"Wait, you can't be through. Just-"

Kakashi lurched to his right and the corpse slipped to the left, both hit the ground and Sasuke sprinted to the platoon leader's side. The fear was back, and Sasuke hated the adult for it. Damn you! Get up! Kakashi rolled over, struggled to push himself into a sitting position. "You all right Sasuke?"

Sasuke stared daggers at his superior, eyes filling with rage. Don't act like that. Don't act like you care!

"How can I be okay? Huh! Did it ever occur to you that I haven't been okay for a long time? I DON'T NEED THIS!"

The boy slid to his knees again for what seemed the hundredth time that day, head hanging down in abject dismay. Kakashi watched him with his own eye. Slowly, gently, he placed his blood stained right hand on the Uchiha's shoulder.

"Sasuke,"

"What?"

"Would you have done it? Would you have gone with him to gain more strength? To get revenge?"

I don't want to watch those I love die in front of me again.

What did brother sacrifice to become what he is?

The answer was stark. Everything.

And I might have given the same thing.

"No," Sasuke looked up at his teacher. "Not in a thousand years."

His teacher smiled through his mask, an honest, innocent, trusting smile. He leaned back against the tree he had just killed a fourteen year old against. "Go get Naruto for us."

9 hours later

Kankuro felt like a toddler again he was so giddy. Standing on the treetops next to his sister and baby brother, looking at an enormous floating sand sculpture of a blood crazed tanuki. Like a parade they'd have in one of those dopey Fire Nation cities, we'd just need cotton candy and some shinobi with some other balloons and we could march down their main street!

He grinned down at his brother who looked back emotionlessly with wide raccoon eyes. "Nice hat you put on the Shukaku, Gaara."

"It just sort of happened," responded his brother without emotion and gazed back at his jutsu. Temari nodded her approval from beside them both. "Gaara, that's just amazing." The words were laden with pride and appreciation, and Gaara felt something stir within his heart. Is this a connection?

Gaara turned to look at his sister's smiling face as she gazed upon the sand prison. "I wasn't sure it was going to work."

The eldest turned to face both her brothers. "All right," her face had gone as serious as the youngest now, "then why did you even try."

"I owe him a debt."

"Kind of a funny way to pay it back." The grin in Kankuro's voice was what made him the ass he was, but the point was valid. Gaara didn't know quite how to respond so he looked back at the prison. "No, I still haven't paid him back yet."

The whole conversation was starting to make Temari uncomfortable, which was unusual for the girl. She decided to move onto more constructive matters.

"Gaara, how long can you maintain the jutsu?"

"I wonder what happened to him. Do you think he lost someone he cared about? Did he think he was alone again?" Gaara looked at his sister. Is that what you were Gaara? Did we leave you alone?

"I wish I could see his eyes. His real ones. Then I might be able to know. I might be able to…"

"Gaara, how long?"

"The jutsu was strictly in its formation. No further chakra is needed to sustain it, just open and move it."

Temari gave a sigh of relief. Thank God. If that thing got loose somehow without us being prepared…

"Do you think his village will help him?" the youngest asked the oldest.

"I hope so, Gaara."

"So we're really taking it back to the Leaf?" The grin was back on the middle child's face as well as in his voice.

"Of course we are," responded Temari, slight grin in her own, "they are after all our trusted allies again."

"Yeah, yeah, I guess," sighed the puppeteer, "it's just, you, that's the Nine-fucking-Tails we just caught here!"

Both the elder teenagers chuckled. The cockiness had returned now that the danger had past.

"No, it's not."

Both teenagers stopped laughing. Since that day, this was the first time Gaara's tone carried that old hint of threat that had once marked his every sentence. It was muted, but it was present. Wait, no, not threat, just anger.

"That is Naruto Uzumaki. My friend."

"Sorry Gaara."

And they both meant it, from the bottom of their hearts. Gaara nodded once, accepting their apology just as honestly and completely as it had been given.

"All right let's get him back home," Kankuro began, "I'm sure they're all concerned about-"

The blast snapped half the forest down, tossed the siblings from the heights, and the shadow of a gigantic monster blotted out the sun. Fear warred with shock for dominant emotion as they fell, but of the three, only Gaara saw it clearly, and then only for an instant.

Eight tails.

Then it was gone, the light returned, and Gaara had too much else to worry about.