A/N: The last of the time skip. Please enjoy!
Bound
Chapter 54: Intermission pt. 3—Looking Up
Two Years and One Month Later
I lay low for the next few months after my meeting with the Council. And then I lash back, infinitely more determined than before to get out of the village where I will be free to do as I please. My plans that follow aren't any more successful than the first one and the man who had been on my tail during my first escape—Sato—has made it his personal goal to capture me and bring me home every time. More often than not, though, Shikamaru somehow ends up getting involved and being the one to bring me back.
Today, I manage to make it out of the village without detection. It's the first time I haven't been called out by a too perceptive shinobi guard, and I think: This is it. This is the moment I'm finally going to get out.
But I can't get ahead of myself. I keep the vibrations close to me and brush my fingers against the feather in my hair to feel the spirits every once in a while and make sure I'm not being followed. There are small trembles of movement, but they're not substantial enough for me to be anxious.
If the village does send shinobi after me, they should know exactly where I want to go, so I make the tracking part difficult for them. I use the vibrations to keep the amount of noise I make to a minimum and suppress my chakra as much as I can as I move around the forests surrounding Konoha. My best bet at the moment is to stay off the main path until I can possibly help it because, while scrambling through the forest raises the chances of me leaving a trail of broken twigs and scuff marks, there are more scents here to throw off my own in case anyone thinks to track me with shinobi canine. Not to mention they'll have to scour the entire forest before they're able to find a trail of any kind, whereas the pathway leaves me wide open for attack.
I backtrack a few times and loop around trees in order to throw off my scent even more. Although this puts me behind schedule, by the afternoon, I'm halfway to the Wind Country border. I give myself a chance to rest at this point, but choose only to down a single soldier pill and meditate. The feather Rei gave me heightens my sense of the spirits, but I doubt it's as acute as hers is. Meditation, she told me, would help with that.
Right, so, I meditate. It's hard to clear my mind at first as I consider all the things that could go wrong as I let my guard down, but once my head is clear, an ethereal calm spreads over me and I'm reminded, meditating like this, getting in touch with the spirits and vibrations all around me, my guard could never be truly down.
I feel the pitter-pattering of the animals, the way the leaves brush the air, feel the way the spirits come in touch with earth as it changes with the seasons. I feel the spirits fluttering around me, bridging the gap between the spirit realm and the human world as the energy from the feather draws them in and—
Someone's coming.
My eyes snap open and I jump to my feet, scooping up my bag and hightailing it, careful to avoid the roots jutting out from the earth and attempting to trip me, only to slam into a tree nearby when I lose my footing anyway. Breaking out of meditation as abruptly as I did has thrown me off, I think, as I push away from the tree.
Whichever the case, my left side hurts from ramming into the tree and I've lost track of whoever had been approaching me. I sweep my hair over my ear, sliding over the roots and up into the branches of the trees where I'll more easily be able to take cover while I tap into the vibrations. Training with the Hyuuga has improved the sight of my vibrations, but my technique still has one fatal flaw—I can only extend my vibrations a sizable distance when I'm not moving. Otherwise it's too complicated to follow the vibrations while I'm jumbling them around by running through them.
Pushing my chakra into the air around me—a dangerous move if whoever is nearby is close enough to sense my chakra—I clasp my hands together in the snake seal and focus as the vibrations begin to press against my skin. They shake and then calm to a still to let me feel movement in my surroundings.
Nothing in the immediate area. The vibrations shudder forward, covering more ground until I sense them—three hundred meters from the northeast, the direction of the village.
I curse, reeling the vibrations back in and stifling my chakra. I decide it's best, as much as I hate it, to travel through the treetops. I'll be able to move faster and leave minimal trace, which is my highest priority now I know someone is on my tail.
Then again, it could be some random shinobi out on a mission and in no way involved in tracking me. I'll keep my fingers crossed.
As I sprint through the remainder of the forest, though, I can feel the energy maintaining its distance from me when it should be dropping off my radar, and when I pause for a moment it spurts forward, lightning fast, and that's when I know: They are definitely after me.
I abandon my carefulness in favor of recklessness, charging each footstep with chakra in order to fly through the trees. Sure enough, my pursuer speeds up too, keeping pace with me easily, and I think this time it can't be Sato. In the first place, he's tactless, attacking straight-forward instead of resorting to sneak-tactics like this. Secondly, he's never been able to catch up to me so gracefully, without stumbling or faltering once.
The village must see I'm more serious about making my escape this time, being that I was more stealthy in my initial escape. Gone through the village gates and security without detection and five hours outside of the village without interruption. Yes, I am dead serious this time.
Hopefully, I'll be able to make it to the border of the Wind Country without confrontation. But maybe this is hoping for too much because as soon as I think it, I'm grabbed around my waist and tackled mid-jump.
How someone's managed to sneak up on me without my noticing goes beyond my level of comprehension. As we slam into the ground from our height, my attacker loses their grip on me and I roll across the forest floor, roots jabbing into my spine and scratching my face before I come to a stop inside a tangle of brush. I hear my attacker groan, hurt in their foolhardiness, while I scramble to my feet, breaking through the wiry branches of the bush I've been caught in.
Before I steady myself, a Nin is already coming at me, swinging a short sword in my face that I barely dodge. The Nin, a young girl a few years older than me who I don't recognize, slices off a considerable chunk of my hair, but I don't have time to lament. I duck to avoid her next attack, swinging my fist into her abdomen and releasing a blast of chakra at the perfect moment to send her flying into the tree behind her. The force of the impact is enough to render her unconscious, and the relative ease with which I was able to incapacitate her confuses me for a second. Shouldn't these shinobi have more endurance than that? Or maybe I'm a lot stronger than I know.
The vibrations flare and I spin around in time to catch a boy's foot before it hits my face. Gripping his sandal firmly in my hands, I twist his leg, forcibly turning the boy around and swinging him into another Nin that comes at me from the side. They crash together, but one boy braces himself in time to leap back to his feet and charge at me again.
I fall to the left, dodging his hook, and flip through hand seals quickly, activating the vibrations, as he drops with his missed hit and digs his fingers into the earth. As I pulse the vibrations at him, stretching some into a lower frequency than the others, he yanks his arms upward, and the earth comes with him.
A thick layer of earth rises and comes at me, rolling like waves, and knocks me in the face, sending me sprawling backward. I groan at the pain of the attack, annoyed I hadn't sensed what he was going to do earlier; I could have easily countered that attack with my vibrations instead of hitting him with them directly. Even so, I've been able to incapacitate him. His eyes have glazed over with a dreamy look as the genjutsu set off by my vibrations tends to his every subconscious desire. I allow myself a moment of swelling pride at the success of my new technique before I make a run for it, fueled by triumph and euphoria.
I've escape with a few bumps and bruises, nothing that will deter me in the long run. If those guys had all come at me together, I think they would have been able to do some real damage. And just like that I'm taken back to when Kakashi held our first training session, when no one would team up with me, where it turned out that the moral of the lesson was teamwork and caring for each other.
We've seen how well that worked out for us.
I break through the last of the trees in the forest and wind up in the main path to the Wind Country. I can't be too far from its border; traveling on the main road shouldn't cause me trouble, so long as I sprint the rest of the way. I have the energy for it after taking the soldier pill.
The vibrations shudder, and I turn around, expecting to see the Nin running after me, but it's something else. A massive body, moving on four spindly legs, chases me, weaving snake-like across the path. I stumble backward as it swipes at me, its claws grabbing for my ankles as I use my vibrations to pulse it backward. When I send a decisive blast of sound waves at it that will surely blow it away, it swerves out of the way of my attack and comes up behind me, spreading its arms and legs wide and lunging at my back.
Arms and legs squeeze me together, and chills run up my spine as I imagine my captor to be like a giant spider, ready to encase me in a slick web before devouring me for lunch. I let out a strangled groan of disgust, struggling to break out of my captor's hold when I hear, "Hey, wait a second."
I'm too creeped out by whatever has its grip on me to turn toward the voice, despite how familiar it is. I pull the vibrations close to my body, charging them up with my chakra until they're a maelstrom of buzzing. Once they're strong enough, I release them. They pulse out into the surrounding area, denting the ground on which I stand, shaking the trees nearby so forcibly that they lose their leaves, sending my hair flurrying around my face and, subsequently, the bug that had been holding me shattering apart.
I hear someone protest as I rub myself down, making sure I don't have any nasty slime on myself before whirling to face my attacker who hasn't made another move against me in the time it took me to make sure I'm all clear of goo. When my eyes register who it is, though, I'm less intimidated.
"Kankuro," I say, meeting his scowl with surprise. And behind him are Gaara and Temari. Temari looks amused by her brother, who sighs as he picks up the pieces of his puppet I'd destroyed. Gaara regards me with the same blankness from two years ago, although this time it's from under a large diamond hat with the symbol for 'Wind' on the front point.
I blink at it, stunned, then stutter, "G-Gaara, you—ahhh."
Temari scoffs at my inability to speak and says, "That's Kazekage-sama to you now. I always knew the Leaf were a little slow, but, yeesh, you'd think after this long they'd have caught up."
I'm about to retort when someone behind me shouts, "Kazekage-sama!" I don't bother looking to see who it is like the Sand trio does. Instead, I curse, and say, "Excuse me, guys." But then Gaara's sand wraps around my feet and Temari reaches back for her fan, and I look between them incredulously and wonder what in the hell they could be doing.
"Kazekage-sama," says, I know without even looking, one of the Nin who had attacked me earlier. "Thank you—that is, sorry for getting you involved, we—"
Gaara waves it off as Kankuro finishes collecting the pieces of his puppet, sealing it back into a scroll and muttering about having gone through so much work to put it together. I take my vibrations, threading them through Gaara's sand in my attempt to get away, but he reinforces them, continually building them up until they wrap up to my knees. I won't be able to break out of them in time.
"What are you doing?" I demand, scowling as the boy calls his friends forward. They stagger out of the forest, looking relieved either to have me caught or to not have to deal with me. "Kage shouldn't leave their villages unless something absolutely urgent is going on."
"Your Hokage called us up for a conference," Temari says. "I think you might want to stick around for it too. Come on," she says, taking my arm tightly. I wince. "We'll escort you home."
[+]
The conference room is much too big for three people to be speaking, but the void is filled quickly by either Kage's respective bodyguards—or aides in the case of Tsunade, who has Shizune and Sakura at her side. The Kage take their seats at either end of the table while I sit along the length of the table, centered between them.
Tsunade skips the pleasantries when she speaks, and says, "Do you have anything to say for yourself this time, Ren?"
"Nope," I say. I notice Sakura bite her lip, like she's wondering how I could have fallen so far downhill. I wish she weren't standing in for this meeting, and I wonder if Tsunade brought her in to spite me. "I'm only wondering why I've been drawn into a meeting with the Kazekage."
"It's more like," Tsunade says, "the Kazekage has been drawn into this meeting because of you."
To this I don't know what to say but, "What?"
"You seem to have a fondness for the Wind Country," Tsunade says, leaning back in her seat, "given your flight patterns. At first, we believed you were running west to throw our shinobi off your tail, after which you would start—northeast."
She gives me a pointed look, expecting me to react to her statement. When I don't, she presses her lips into a tight line, opens a manila folder, and says, "However, it doesn't look like you ever meant to go in that direction. You were, it seems, determined to get to the Wind Country each and every time without fail."
"I've told you," I say, "I have no intention of aligning myself with Orochimaru or Sasuke and that—that there's no way I could get in touch with them," I say carefully, making sure to avoid Sakura's gaze as she eyes me, "even if I wanted to."
"Yes, well," Tsunade says, pushing the papers together. "You can understand why the council has a hard time believing that, especially after what has transpired. The fact of the matter is, we no longer have the resources to spend on such trivial pursuits. On the other hand, we can't simply let you walk away from us either. Which is why I've asked the Kazekage to take you under his wing and he has so graciously accepted, even volunteering to escort you back to the Wind Country himself. That is what you want, isn't it?" she asks when I startle, looking to Gaara who doesn't betray any emotion, as usual. "To go to the Wind Country?"
"I—you're just going to—to hand me off?" I demand, sitting forward in my seat.
"You're a menace," Shizune says plainly. "Like Hokage-sama said, our talented shinobi are wasted bringing you home every time you try to run away. But what would it look like for us as a shinobi village to just let one of our own escape?"
I scoff because what Shizune really means is, what would it look like for the village if they were to let someone with connections to Akatsuki and Orochimaru escape? If I were anybody else with no real purpose, they probably wouldn't even acknowledge the fact I was gone. I suppose I should take pride in the fact that I'm of significance to the village, but I don't.
"Sixth months ago," Tsuande says, flipping through the papers—papers, I realize, which must document my every little move since I started my hobby, "you told the village council that you held the people of Konoha in high regard, but we don't see that. If this is what it takes to get you reformed, it is the least we can do."
"We understand the difficulty of your situation," Shizune says, sounding no more sympathetic despite her 'understanding', "but it's no reason for you to act out so childishly. Why don't you take the same measures as Sakura and Naruto—"
"Because I don't want him back," I say, glaring at her. "I don't want to bring him back. Not anymore, not after all he's done. He's an arrogant, self-absorbed brat who doesn't deserve any such kindness!"
My outburst effectively stuns everyone into silence as I massage my brow and take deep breathes to calm down. Then I say, "I know you guys think I'm going to leave and go after him, and that's why I've been trying to break out of the village. You think, if I do get out, if I do find him, he'll be able to control me and turn me into a spy for him, or maybe that I'm already a spy for him now. But no matter how many times I say I'm not, you won't believe me. And, you know, when I think about it, I can't even be sure myself."
I laugh bitterly then and Tsunade tenses and Gaara quirks his brow. I shake my head, crossing my arms, and say, "I just want to break—every connection I have with him," I finish carefully, remembering my place as Sakura watches me, miserable. "I'll go with Gaara—Kazekage-sama, I mean. Leaving the village Sasuke's from is another way to break away from him, I guess. And that's fine by me."
[+]
So I go home, but I don't pack. There isn't much I want to take with me. My shinobi supplies will be enough. Even when I was running through the trials, I never brought anything with me. Too much baggage. Too many things I didn't need.
I sit on my porch, watching the sun as it goes down, my mind thoroughly blank despite what's happened. I haven't talked to Shikamaru about my new way out of the village yet because he isn't happy with me. My attempts to run away have been especially annoying for him, given that he has the Chuunin exams to oversee but he has, so far, been the only one capable of bringing me home, so he's always called upon when I get loose. This time, though, he won't be able to keep me in the village.
I think I may not tell anyone. It'll be easier this way. A clean sever on my part. No looking at my friends and thinking about what it would be like if I stayed. No seeing their confusion and having to explain how I've lost favor with the village so much that I've been exiled. Besides, Sakura was there. She could tell everyone what happened for all I care. That would take a burden off my shoulders.
I quirk my head to the path leading up to my house when I feel the vibrations shift. Someone approaches at an easy pace, the earth sifting oddly as he moves his feet. Before he even comes into my view, I know it's Gaara, and I stand to receive him.
"What brings you to these parts, Kazekage-sama?" I ask, bowing my head. "Come to tell me when we'll be leaving?"
He sees through my pretense and doesn't answer, only motions for me to sit. I do, scooting over so he can sit beside me, and then we're watching the sun set together. I wonder if he has actual Kage duties to be fulfilling and why Temari or Kankuro aren't with him, but then he's a Kage, and rules don't apply to them sometimes. I knew as much from my experience with the Third.
"I talked to your Hokage," he says, hands clasped in his lap. "I convinced her to let you stay. Although I have no reign over what concessions she has to give you, she has agreed that there is a way to reform you at home."
"Is that so?" I answer. "What if I do want to leave?"
Gaara turns to me. "Then you're still welcome to," he says as though he can't understand why I would want to. "I'm not here to tell you what's right and what's wrong for you. I'm only here to remind you of your options."
"And why would you be so kind?"
Gaara drums his fingers against my porch as he considers his words.
"I know about the bond," he says, and I close my eyes and draw my hands over my face, so exhausted I wish I could fall asleep and dream forever instead of living like this. "Your Hokage sent your file to me when she asked me to take you to the Sand Village. I know about how the Third Hokage let you leave and how, upon your return, he put you into Team 7 in an attempt to have you rekindle your bonds, and how, even afterward, you expressed your—aversion toward creating new bonds. To tell you the truth, I don't understand your mindset, so perhaps I can't say this, but."
He sits back, straighter, and says, "In the conference room, I thought about how the villagers of the Sand used to treat me. It reminded me of the things Naruto said and did to convince me that—I'm not as alone as I believed I was. That I never have to face anything by myself, no matter the adversity."
He takes a deep breath and gets to his feet, offering me his hand. "You think the bonds you share," he says as he helps me up, "not only with Sasuke but with everyone else, are burdens, annoyances in their own rights. That's why you run away: because you're scared that these things will get in your way, and you won't become anything because you'll be lost in them. But to be able to share things with other people—sadness, hate, happiness—to be able to share bonds, that is one thing that cannot be so easily traded for something else. Not even freedom."
Again, I am stunned by Gaara's wisdom. This coming from a boy who three years ago had threatened to kill us out of his bitterness and regret. I wonder how he managed to become better than me when I had always had what he didn't, and I wonder if it was the sole power of Naruto that had changed him like this.
Momentarily I wish Naruto were here now to guide me.
"You should rethink the way you see the bonds you have with the people around you," Gaara says as he leaves. "Sinking into oblivion isn't the only way to find yourself."
.
Two Years and Two Months Later
Today, I'm waiting with Shikamaru at the fountain in the town square where the sun beats down on us mercilessly and nine year olds run by, playing ninja. We're waiting for our friends to show up so we can all go out to eat for another one of Ino's get-togethers. She's been in a planning frenzy lately, putting together dinner parties or friendly outings at the worst possible times, and I have been forced by Shikamaru to go to each one.
I never in any mood to be hanging out and having fun with the others. Ever since the close call last month where I was almost sent to the Sand Village, I've been rethinking . . . things. Too many things. It hurts my head. Not to mention, the bond has been on overdrive for some reason this past week, so I've been crippled by migraines that make me want to bash my head in.
Even with that, though, I still haven't felt anything from Sasuke since he'd left, or gotten a single word from Rei through her goddamn feather.
I'm lying on the thick rim of the fountain's basin, an arm thrown over my eyes to block the sun. Shikamaru is sitting on the ground, leaning up against the fountain. Occasionally, he tilts his head back to observe the virtually cloudless sky and sigh.
Shikamaru leans his head back now, his hair threading through my shirt and causing my skin to prickle. I listen as the sand groans beneath him as he gets up.
"I thought," he starts, "showing up early was supposed to be less troublesome than showing up late and being nagged by Ino."
"It was supposed to be," I agree, unmoving. "But I think what she did was tell us the wrong time, a time that would be a half hour before the others would meet, since that's usually how late we are, so we would show up on time when we were actually late for the time that she gave us."
I move my arm from my eyes to my forehead and watch as Shikamaru scowls and beats the dirt from his clothes. "Do you really think she would do that?" he asks me. "Sounds troublesome."
"Yes, I really think she would do that," I say, sitting up myself. "You know how sensitive Ino gets about these meetings. Maybe this is karma getting back at us for not trying harder to be on time."
Shikamaru's frown deepens and he sighs, sitting down beside me when he realizes we still have a long time to wait.
"It's not your fault, Shikamaru," I say, cocking my head to the side. "I have a feeling it's more on my part than anything. Our friends don't trust me like they used to. Case in point." I make a gesture to summarize our current state of affairs. "After all, I'm the one who makes us late." And the one who was almost banished from the village.
"That's not it," Shikamaru says without hesitation.
I regard him warily. The way he says it insinuates he knows exactly why our friends are giving us the wrong time, aside from our avid tardiness, which is, again, mostly on my part. So I ask, "What is it, then?"
He rubs the back of his neck, exhaling sharply through pursed lips. A nervous tick of his, I note. It's a silly one. It gives him away on a large scale: his tiredness, his irritation, his thoughtfulness; it all spills over in one simple gesture. I want to call him out on it, but then he speaks.
"You haven't been the same since Sasuke left," he says, and my fingers tighten around the edge of the fountain. "Granted, none of us have, but you especially. Ino and Sakura are making efforts to help you out, but you're not giving them any length. You keep . . . pushing everyone away, Ren, especially with the antics you've been pulling, and we don't want that. So they organize these monthly meetings and give you wrong times and have me go pick you up to make sure you're all right."
To make sure I'm all right. How altruistic.
"They think they're losing you. But I know," he says, "you may always be late, but you always show up eventually. You're not the type to give up or be given up on so quickly." He scowls and adds, "I tell them that, but for some reason, they never listen to me."
He doesn't flush red as he says this, doesn't look reluctant to admit it, doesn't look irritated to have to tell me as much. His eyes stay trained on me, sincere and firm.
I blink at him, his steady eyes, a warm brow that turns amber in the sunlight. His kindness fills me up, and that last part tips me over the edge. God, I love him so much. I love that he's my best friend, love that he always knows just what to say to make me feel better, and I think about something Rei had said once: I don't know what I did to deserve him, but I would do it a million times over to have more people like him in my life.
And yes. I suppose nothing compares to being able to have these bonds, and no amount of loneliness and independence could make me as happy as Shikamaru does.
I lean into him, and he stiffens, caught off guard by my sudden movement. I only press my forehead to his and breathe. The sweet smell of him—of the grass, the dew, the kindness, the memories—makes my head buzz. I can't even begin to fathom how I could ever repay him for his friendship.
For now, I settle with saying, "Thank you. Thank you."
[+]
A few days after that, I tell Shikamaru about the bond. Then, a few days after that, I leave for the Sand.
Shikamaru took the news of the bond considerably well. He was puzzled at first, disbelieving. But then I looked at him and said, "In a world where you can manipulate shadows and I can control the vibrations and Ino can walk into someone else's brain, why is the blood oath so insane?" and he relented. Reluctantly.
I told him about how the bond formed, how it had endured generations of Kagiru, and how I had inherited it upon being born as a girl into my family. I told him that, for the five years I was gone, I was on my own, looking for a way to break it because of how it had killed my family and how I didn't want to end up like them. I told him, when he remained skeptical about my story, if he wanted to confirm the bond's existence, all he had to do was talk to Kakashi or even Asuma, but he declined and said he believed me—that the bond was improbable, but not impossible, he supposed. He looked pale as he said this, like if there really was such a thing as the blood oath, what other kinds of twisted rituals were there in the world?
Even if he still doubted the bond's existence, there isn't much for me to say otherwise to get him to believe it. It's been severed for the past two and a half years, and without Sasuke—
I choke. Even after all this time.
"What I don't understand," he said after he declined to talk to Kakashi or Asuma about the bond, "is why you didn't tell anyone about this earlier. If it was bothering you this much, if this is what made you act . . . "
"Crazy?" I offered, and he scowled.
"For lack of a better word, yes," he said. "Crazy. If this . . . this bond is what made you act crazy all these years, why didn't you tell us about it, Ren? You said you were did all those things because you wanted to see if you could find a way to break the bond, right? Well, if you had told one of us, we could have helped you. What?" he asked when I laughed at him. "I'm being serious. Two heads are better than one."
"Yeah, I'm sure," I said. "But, Shikamaru, if I spent all those years around the Wind and Fire Countries trying to find a way to break this bond and couldn't, what makes you think any of you could have found a solution here in the village? That's exactly why I left."
Shikamaru wasn't convinced. He tried to offer another rebuttal, but I cut him off with, "I'm going to stay in Sunagakure for a while."
He froze, leaving his mouth gaping, which suited the situation fine. He narrowed his eyes, asked, casually, "Oh yeah? What for?"
I took a deep breath, running my hands through my hair and ruffling it for good measure. "To take my mind off things," I said, shrugging. "And . . . maybe just because. I mean, given, when I get there, I won't be allowed to leave the village. But if I stay here, I won't be able to leave the village either. At least when I'm stuck in Suna, I'll have new things to look at. New places to eat, new rooftops to sleep on, new people to meet. Also, I'm sure Godaime wants me off her back, so. All's well that ends well, I suppose."
"When are you leaving?" he asked, avoiding my eyes by deferring to the clouds.
"No later than the day after tomorrow," I said, jabbing a stick into a soft spot in the earth. I pierced a leaf through the top part of the stick, turning it into a flag, and built up the earth around it to keep it stable. "I'm going under the pretense of being a medical advisor to some of the medics in the Sand."
He rubbed his face down with his hands, and I could tell that he wanted to say more, something that would maybe deter me from leaving, but I laughed and shook my head, leaning back on my arms to watch the clouds.
"You probably don't understand where I'm coming from because you belong here, Shika," I said. "This place keeps you happy. This place keeps you safe. You keep this place safe. You are, through and through, a shinobi of the Konoha."
He asked, "So what does that make you?"
I blinked at him, the way his eyebrows creased together, the way his sharp brown eyes turned amber in the sunlight. I cleared my throat and sat back. I said, "I don't know. I want to be part of this. I want to be a part of everything here, but—" I pressed my hand to my chest, remembering the tightness and the pains and the overwhelming feeling of being crushed under this insatiable loneliness. "I can't if nobody trusts me. Going to Sunagakure will give me a chance to start over, and maybe if Tsunade hears about my good behavior from Gaara, she'll give me more liberties."
"You know, there was an easier way to get on Tsunade's good side than to resort to this," Shikamaru said.
"Yeah?" I asked. "And what was that?"
"Not attempting to run away all those times before," he said, and I snort.
"Yeah," I said with a small laugh. "I guess that would have been easier."
"A bond, huh?" he said under his breath after a small pause. He kneaded his fingers into his forehead, let out a long sigh that deflated his lungs, and raised his eyes to meet my gaze. "All this time."
"All this time," I confirmed shortly, wishing we could stop talking about it already. It had taken everything I had to mention the bond to him in the first place, and then to discuss it at such length afterward—even if it was Shikamaru, I was made wholly uncomfortable by the fact that the bond is seemingly out in the open. I felt the need to ask him, "Please . . . don't mention this to anyone. I don't want people to know until—either Sasuke comes back or the bond is broken. You can understand, right?"
Shikamaru wasn't pleased by my request, as evident in the way he pursed his lips and shook his head, but he agreed, and said, "What are friends for?"
And, in that moment, I felt as though I could truly be free of this bond.
[+]
I go to the Sand, escorted by only one ANBU, which I think is a sign that I've won one battle with the village. It's not much, but it's a start, and I am all for new starts.
I'm passed off to Kankuro at Sunagakure's borders and brought to the Kazekage's office immediately after my arrival. Kankuro tells me to wait for Gaara, who should be with me shortly out of a meeting with some of the village councilors. True enough, Gaara appears in minutes, heaving a heavy sigh as he closes the door behind him. It's the first time I've seen him look anything but blank, and even then his fatigue doesn't show on his face for very long. He's back to being his collected self in a matter of seconds.
"I'm glad to see you made it here safely," he says as I stand to meet him. "You must be tired from your journey. Please, sit."
"I'm not really tired," I say, easing back into the chair. The Kazekage's quarters are barren, much like the landscape around Suna. The only efforts to brighten the room at all are the cloth thrown over the desk as décor and then potted plants placed off to the side. The windows behind Gaara burrow in rectangular cubbies in the earthy walls before rounding off for circular panes that look out over the village, which is equally as plain and serious as the rest of this country. "I'm more excited to settle into things."
Gaara presses his fingers together in typical Kage fashion and nods his head, his eyes focusing beyond me. "We have an apartment set up for you," he says as I glance over my shoulder to see what he could be looking at, "in the east block of town. It's in close proximity to our hospital as well as my office, in case you ever need to see me on short notice. As you know, one of the terms of you being here requires that you service our village in some way, and I know you and your Hokage expect you to volunteer at our hospital, but I think I may have come up with something else that would more suit your talents."
"Something," I repeat, "else?"
He leans over his desk, closes his eyes briefly, and then says, "I still need to do some more arm-twisting before everything works out, but I'm sure it will. In the meantime, I think I would prefer it if you trained with me in addition to your volunteer work."
I'm taken aback by his suggestion, and say, "Train with you? Are you sure? I—"
He meets my gaze, finally, and the turquoise of his eyes cuts me off. "Of course," he says, and I swear I see his lips twitch into a smirk. "We're friends now, aren't we?"
"Ah—yes," I say carefully, "but you're—you're Kazekage. I can't just—"
"But I can," he says, sitting back. "Like you said: I'm Kazekage. We'll meet to train in the evenings," he says as though it's already been arranged. He turns in his seat to look out the window, his fingers still pressed together at the tips. "The councilors won't bother me around that time, so we should be free to train until sunset. What's the matter?" he asks when he notices me fidgeting. I twist my hands in my lap and bite my lip. "You are here to improve your skills, aren't you?"
"Something like that," I say. "I guess—I wasn't expecting this kind of freedom, these kinds of liberties. Back home I was this . . . pest, you know? I'm not saying I didn't deserve that title, given the trouble I caused, but—"
"No one," says Gaara, "deserves that kind of label. Being the head of a village myself, I understand what was going through the Hokage's mind as she tried to handle the issues you created within the village. She needed to keep it safe, for one, and then she needed to pacify the concerns of the councilors for another—and I know how . . . abrasive—"
"You mean annoying," I say.
"—some councilors can be," he continues without pause. "But I don't think she handled your situation as well as she could have. Don't get me wrong," he says as my lips twist in confusion. "I believe the incidents you caused did call for disciplinary action—but it also called for reform, and that wasn't a concern of your village council. They suppressed you," he says softly, and the hairs on the back of my neck stand up at how right he is. "They cut you off from what you needed most. And that only served to make things worse."
His words start to sink in slowly, and I understand what he means. Tsunade and the council had only ever determined how I was to be locked inside the village—by being placed on house arrest and having me spend every moment under observation even when I was teaching at the Academy. They never tried to help ease me back into being a normal, certified Chuunin, which is all I could have asked for.
I understood their fears. I understood their concerns in regards to Sasuke and Orochimaru. But who said they couldn't have placed me on a team with Shikamaru, who I would never dream of running away from? Or Neji or Hinata, Kiba, Shino, Chouji, or Ino, who would have reminded me why I wanted to stay in the village and enjoyed being in a place like Konoha? With any one of my friends, I would never have thought twice about Sasuke or Orochimaru on my missions, but the council was too caught up in the maybes.
"Their actions only served to make you angry and resentful," Gaara says, and I press the heels of my hands into my eyes, doubling over as my stomach twists and I have the uneasy feeling of wanting to go home, "and, in that way, their punishments were a hundred times more detrimental than they were effective."
"Spot on," I say into my knees with a weak laugh. "How could you tell?"
"I've felt that way before, too," he says softly. "When I was nothing but a monster that could be used as a weapon for the village or else destroy it completely in one of my fits of rage. I understand the loneliness that comes with not being trusted."
I snort, sitting straight and wiping my face with the ends of my sleeves. "All that loneliness made you this wise, huh?" I ask.
He blinks at me in wonder as though I should know better. "No," he says, clasping his hands together and pressing them to his lips. "It was the bonds that followed after the loneliness, when people started to trust and trust in me, which is why I'm granting you these liberties. Besides," he says, standing up, "if you step out of line and do anything to hurt my village, know that you will have to deal with me, and I will not let you off easily. But I have faith in you."
Despite the threat, his vote of confidence fills my stomach with warmth. It's more than I ever got at home. I could kiss him for his kindness, his understanding.
"Now," says Gaara, "it's about an hour until sunset. Would you like to begin your training immediately?"
I grin, wiping my face one last time as Gaara offers me his hand to help me up. "Gaara," I say. "I have a feeling we're going to be good friends."
