A/N: Early update! ...well, earlier than usual, anyway. And I'm working on the 26th as well, already. Did I say, sometime in the past, that this story won't get to reach chapter 30? Well, I was wrong, though...
"They need more pain killers in tent Nr. 5!"
"I'll go take them!" Rin shouted from the other side of the tent. She wasn't used to shouting and had the opinion that her shouts sounded a lot like the ones of a cold-blooded prison guard, but the tent exploded with screams of pain, groans, medic nins calling one another, so, if you wanted to be heard, you had to scream your lungs out.
The air was invaded by the nasty smell of blood and the sharp scent of alcohol, and also burned flesh, a little. Her stomach threatened to throw it all up once again. And it's not like she had managed to eat too much after the first time, in the morning. So once she was given the chance to get out for a mere minute, she took it. She took off those bloody gloves and headed towards the supplies tent. It was positioned right in the middle, and the medical tents all around it, so that it had double protection. You had to get through the guards protecting the tents first, and then the tents themselves - you could only get there from the inside of one of the tents - and then the extra guards for the supplies tent itself.
"Nohara Rin," she raised her legitimation to the guards, inhaling the air outside, clearer, but still carrying the scent of medicine. Maybe it was just her, intoxicated with that smell. Or maybe that place had completely turned into a hospital already.
She entered and, once that cloak from the tent's entrance fell behind her, she threw herself on her knees, because there was nothing convenient to sit on, but she couldn't really complain. Her legs had been numb and stiff, so the instant she fell down, a muscular pain went down the legs, too, at an incredible speed, and now stationed in her feet.
It was past noon. They only got news when new wounded came in, but they only knew things about their fronts and many of them weren't in the condition to speak.
Rin didn't have any news from Kakashi's front. Wounded had not come yet from there. They brought some corpses from there, though. And she felt guilty for feeling relieved to see none of them were people she knew - not even ninja from the Leaf. And the guilt grew whenever she saw reactions of other medics - the sudden single twitch of their faces made it obvious they were not looking at nameless strangers, like she did.
"Ah, right, right, they need painkillers in Nr 5," she sighed and got up. The cramps bit her legs as she stood up and looked aimlessly around the tent. She unconsciously knew exactly where those painkillers were, but her mind just couldn't focus.
"Ah, dammit," she slammed her head against a box much taller than her. A tinier box fell from up there and hit her head, landing onto her arms as she instinctively backed away. "There they were," she mumbled, checking the inside of the box, to make sure nothing broke in there.
She hurried towards the exit and met a straight stare coming from a guard that had just popped up at the entrance. Maybe it had turned suspicious that she spent way too long in there. She opened her mouth to say something, but the guard opened his mouth to speak right then, too, so that she waited to hear him first. But words did not come out his mouth. Instead, there came blood, and he fell down, on his face. The sharp object that had stuck through his back retracted as he fell, and then it turned into a pale hand, the guard's blood dripping from it and onto the floor.
Rin looked up in horror, but finally focused, to see the full form of the attacker - this was one of the pale creatures the soldiers have been talking about.
She let the box slip gracefully down her leg and onto the floor and was about to take out some weapons, when the pale thing backed away, with a surprised expression, exclaiming, "Eyes!"
"What?" she winced, keeping her body in a defensive pose. What was with that thing? It was just standing there, looking at her, like rapt in awe. And then it took a few steps away, slowly, still wearing a look of something between confusion and amazement.
A mass of powerful light came from behind it and through the pale figure and it fell down - no blood, no sound of pain.
"What do you think you're doing, just staying there, staring at it?" Kakashi yelled at her.
It was something unusual, to hear Kakashi scream, so she flinched a bit, before snapping back with, "I was not staring at it. IT was staring at me!" Just then she realized not only that it was not good enough of an excuse, but it also sounded plain childish.
"...what?" Kakashi spoke after a little while, now more confused than angry.
"It was ready to attack... but it yelled and just...," she started, but it did not make sense so much any more, so she just changed the subject and voice tone, "Are you badly injured?" she asked, seeing the bandages on his wrist.
"It's not much. I brought Anko in and they insisted on taking care of this little thing, too," he walked past her and picked up the box she'd left down earlier, "These are the painkillers they said you came after, right?" His voice had cooled down to his usual calmness.
"You know I was perfectly able to carry it myself, right?" she replied sharply, feeling like she was treated as an idiot.
"Not with those fidgeting hands," he pointed out, taking the lead, with the box in his arms,without even glancing back at her.
She looked down at her hands - they were uncontrollable - and finally followed him.
"Which is Nr. 5?" he asked, as soon as she joined him.
"That one," she pointed the tent.
"The pale thing yelled? What did it yell?" he asked in a lower voice.
"Eyes," she recalled, whispering back, "It yelled 'eyes' and backed away. If this is their phobia, Obito surely screwed up," she made a poor choice of a joke, when there was nothing laughable in anything, accidentally bringing up Obito in the conversation.
"It looks like he put a lot of effort into it," he actually snorted.
"What?" Rin asked, confused.
"These are the painkillers you needed," he suddenly spoke louder and she looked around to notice they entered the tent.
"Finally!" a medic nin rushed to get the box. "What took you so long?" and out of sight he was, mumbling something about how stupid it was for only a few authorized ones to get into the supply tents.
Rin and Kakashi left the tent Nr. 5 and, for reasons she did not know, they were going back to the supplies tent.
"The other guard was injured only and reported the incident. Someone needs to stay here a bit until they send someone else," he explained and she understood that 'someone else' could as well be the two of them. They could surely make it without her for a couple of minutes. She really had to discuss with Kakashi. ...but why wasn't Kakashi...?
Anko!
"What about Anko? You said you came because you needed to bring her," she hurried to ask.
"She... they said she will be alright," was all he said, and it looked as if he didn't feel too comfortable, talking about that.
"How bad?" she questioned immediately.
"She'll be fine, ok?" he replied. And he seemed a bit irritated. Unlike usual him, again. It seemed there was no way she could find out too much before taking a look at Anko herself.
"Did he show up?" she asked lowly.
"No," he responded simply. "I told you he must have put a lot of effort into it and he's probably exhausted," he said slowly, as if annoyed that he had to repeat himself.
"In what?"
"Didn't you notice?" he got up, seeing the guard replacements coming their way.
"Notice what?" She got up, too.
"They know what your eyes look like."
"What?"
"It's been some time since and just so there wouldn't be risks, he gave them to remember the one part one always has the same - the eyes."
"What?" she remained on the spot.
"Good you came. Me and my colleague should be heading out," he greeted the newly come guards. "I came quite late to know it: how did those things manage to get in?"
"It seems they can copy both appearance and chakra - now everyone's an enemy," one of them explained worriedly.
Kakashi frowned, "I see," and he nodded them goodbye.
"How can he do that?" Rin whispered as they walked back towards Rin's tent.
"The change of...?"
"No! The 'eyes'!" she cut him off.
"Sharingan can cast genjutsu, so casting a certain imagine would be...," he was saying as they entered the tent.
"I know that!" she interrupted him again, speaking even lower. "But they're so many!"
"That's why I said he must be tired," he smiled and disappeared outside the tent, leaving her standing there, in the middle of the chaos in the tent, with a perplexed look on her face.
"Let's sum things up: there's an old, stubborn Tsuchikage, a Raikage we recently had a war with, a sadistic Mizukage
that agreed to be here just to make sure this is not a conspiracy against him. And, of course, our only official ally, the Kazekage, who turned his youngest son into a monster. And this strange gathering was possible just thanks to you, Hokage-sama," Fugaku did not restrain himself from bickering Minato, in a low voice, leaning a bit to the right, over Minato's shoulder, his arms crossed, his pose straight.
"He's not a monster," Minato contradicted him, talking lowly as well, although he was not quite sure how that cleared the matter.
"Really? That's why he was sent to a different location on the island, far from your son and wife?" Fugaku inquired,
raising his eyebrows.
"Has Madara appeared on the battlefield?" he avoided the subject, turning his chair to Nara Shikaku, whose face was not yet scarred.
The truth was that, despite trying not to have anything against a little child, the rumours concerning little Gaara spoke loudly. The child had no choice in becoming a Jinchuriki, just like Kushina, but he couldn't say he'd let his son anywhere near him.
Gaara was not yet over his uncle's words. Why? Why had the only person that had ever treated him like a human being had to call him a 'monster'? Everything... everything had been a lie. His mother cursed him. His father wanted him dead. They all wanted him dead. That's why they brought him there, wasn't it so? They brought him there in his sleep. Surely there had been something put in his food.
They left him in that old house. Were there some explosives in there, somewhere? Or did they just leave him in some deserted place, hoping he'd die from starvation and lack of water. He thought of them to be that cruel.
He walked to the door and went outside. Who knew where that place was... But it was surely not the desert. There were a lot of plants outside, big and green. He'd never seen so much of them in one place. And there THEY were, too, surrounding the area, but keeping the distance. So he had not been sent all alone there, after all. But why, then? What was the plan?
Suddenly, he felt a hand on his shoulder. Like always, the sand, feeling his uneasiness, pushed the person aside, and Gaara heard the body jump and fall, around two meters away.
"That hurt, ttebayo!" a voice came from down there. Unexpected, it was a young boy's voice, not of some dangerous shinobi. He turned and saw a blonde boy, probably his age, rubbing his head. Then, getting up on his tiny legs, he started trying to clear the dust from his orange clothes, but only managing to fix it to the fabric, mumbling, "Kaasan will be angry..."
Gaara raised his head to see the ninja he had seen earlier coming closer, with caution, but they weren't giving him those looks, but to the blonde boy.
"Do you think he got hurt?" one of them asked.
"He seems fine," another replied.
"But what if he got some internal injury? I'm not a medic, but that was quite a fall."
"I'm fine, ttebayo!" the boy said angrily, ruffled like a turkey. And then he started ignoring the ninja completely, walking back to Gaara, with a wide smile on his face. "How did you do that? Was it some jutsu? Show it to me!"
the blonde boy was saying, talking fast and enthusiastic.
Gaara just looked back at him, surprised and quite confused.
"Oh," he jumped in the place, and Gaara's sand made a short movement, before backing again, as the blond followed, "Kaasan said it's polite to introduce yourself first. I'm Naruto," he reached out his hand, continuing to smile.
Gaara was watching the hand and the boy suspiciously and so were doing the ninja around, not knowing what to do.
In the end, Gaara reached out his own hand slowly, cautiously, and their hands finally grabbed each-other. "Gaara," he said lowly, remembering there was still that part to be done.
"Wanna play, Gaara? I've been playing alone for the last two days, and that's not fun!" Naruto complained, letting go of Gaara's hand, who continued to watch it, still looking confused.
"Naruto-sama," one of the ninja approached, "actually, it isn't..."
"Naruto!" someone yelled, a scary yell.
Naruto flinched with terror. A wall of sand rose before Gaara. The ninja turned slowly, terrified to see a woman with blood-like red hair, flying around her face (how was that possible?), and a creepy glare. That surely was...
"K-kaasan," Naruto scratched the back of his head, drops of sweat forming on his forehead.
"You made me look for you throughout half of an island!" she continued yelling, and the ninja around, forgetting about Gaara, started wondering if it hadn't been better to watch all this from a distance.
"What's with that sand wall," Kushina suddenly asked, with a calm expression, as if she hadn't been creepily angry just a few seconds ago.
"That's my new friend, Gaara," Naruto said happily, forgetting, too, about being scared. What was wrong with that family?
Hearing the 'friend' part, Gaara let the wall down, but he just stood there and stared.
Kushina turned and took a look at him and, as soon as that happened, a smile brightened her face. "A boy! You can't be older than my little Naruto. Do you live here?" she said - and she had the same fast speech as Naruto's and the same tendency of smiling a lot.
Gaara just continued being silent.
"Namikaze-sama, this is the container of the One-Tail," one of the guarding ninja came in between.
"Oh, and you're keeping him all alone, here? I can handle that guy, rapping all day. Surely, I can be alright with such a sweet child around, too," Kushina said, reaching her hand for Gaara to take it.
"Namikaze-sama!" one of the ninja protested, meaning to say how Gaara was not at all that 'sweet child'. But Kushina impatiently waved her other hand in the air as in 'Enough of that' and then reached it to take Naruto's. The blond boy caught the hand in a jump and turned his head to look back at Gaara. Both of them, the mother and son, were waiting for him, he realized. But he was still confused. He took a look back, to see the severe stares of the guards and, unconsciously, his little hand caught Kushina's. It was so much warmer than his...
"Good," she nodded and pulled them ahead. "I was just making something delicious. Do you like chocolate biscuits, Gaara? Thankfully, Minato did take care to put some special supplies - he knows how much Naruto loves sweet. If he weren't such a restless child, he'd be a round balloon by now. Ah, I'm calling him Minato, but you cannot probably understand who that is. Minato is my husband, ya know, and he..."
The ninja, remained in their places, were stunned.
"Do you think we should notice the HQ about this?" one of them finally asked.
"The Kazekage would have as killed," another replied.
"...and the Hokage would totally agree," a third one added.