Wow this week went by supper fast.

Good thing I have a lot of buffer.

I also have a good and bad news kind of thing to say. I'll start with the bad news. Sadly my lovely Beta reader told me she has to be put on hiatus due to RL problems. I completely understand this and simply wished her the best, problem is I am once again in need of a second pair of eyes. I'm looking for a beta that will work with me to improve my writing, not just blindly correct everything and not tell me what was wrong. If this interest you pleas message me!

Good news: well your looking at it, cliff hanger over! Haha! Things area bout to make a bit more sense to you guys so strap in for the ride. Enjoy!

DROH

Chapter Six: Status

Dust and sand coated Kira's throat. Her eyes burned and teared up to try and clear them as she coughed, spitting out gritty, nasty tasting saliva. From where she laid face down in dirt, forehead and nose pressed firmly to the ground, she heard similar coughing on either side of her. Stupid kids. If she hadn't been feet away, if she hadn't been distracted from her conversation with her team by the glint of that knife...

She retched, coughing and spitting again as she pushed herself up, sitting on her legs. The dust was settling, and she rubbed at her eyes, brushing the dirt off of her face. She could hear shouting now, hurried footsteps. It had hardly been more then a minute since her risky action, one Kira knew she'd do again in a heartbeat.

People appeared from all sides, different expressions of worry, anxiety and anger on their faces. Shura reached her first. Crouching next to her, he put a hand on her shoulder to steady her. She hadn't realized she'd been shivering. Not from the cold or from fear, just a side effect of adrenalin and using so much chakra so quickly.

Kira saw Aya crouching next to one of the boys – the one with sandy colored hair, the one who'd had the knife – and sat him up, checking him over. The sand siblings were next, coming up behind her, Kankuro going to the other boy. She could feel Gaara's eyes on her, but she didn't turn. Her ears were still ringing slightly.

"You alright Kira?" Shura asked reaching out and in a rare moment of compassion he rarely showed, brushed her hair out of her face. She hadn't even realized it had come undone. "There's a cut on your cheek."

Kira nodded slightly, the sting she felt on her face now confirming that fact. She quickly checked the rest of herself, clenching and flexing each muscle and joint. She winced slightly, looking at the arm where she'd been hit while sparing. She landed on the thing too, just her luck.

Her upper arm was red and swelling slightly, the darkening shades of a deep bruise forming. She could already tell this one would be a purple and blue one at the very least. In the end though a scratch on her cheek and a sore arm wasn't much.

"Quick thinking Kira," Kankurō said with a small sigh before looking at the two boys. Kira copied the action. They were as dirty as she must have been, both still rubbing at stinging eyes and newly forming bruises. She didn't see any blood though; she'd been farther back then them as she'd basically thrown them forward, so it appeared they were mostly alright. That was until Kankurō hit them both soundly on the head. "Idiots! Where'd you get that bomb anyway?"

Kira let out another low breath and looked down for a moment. She could feel eyes on her now, though the boys and her puppet master friend took most of the attention. She knew to the carefully trained eye she looked off. The training ground stood mostly in shadow, and as normal everyone in them appeared shaded, but as she looked at her lap and her hand Kira knew the difference from that to her.

Shaded she was, but her entire being was darker still, as if wrapped in a veil of see through black gauze. Even her clothes, her pale skin, her bright yellow eyes were darker then they should have been. It gave her an eerie look, one her teammates were used to, one Kankurō had seen before. Everyone else though…

For the first time she turned her head to glance at the young ruler. Gaara was practically staring her down with barely concealed confusion and shock. His eyes were on her hand, the one still on the ground, still touching the cast of a shadow. The edges of her skin seemed to blend perfectly into the darkness, as if eaten up by it. She swallowed, dread making her limb heavy before she pulled her hand up and formed a common hand sign, whispering 'release'. Justu broken, Kira watched with knowing eyes as the veil on her body quickly dissipated, sinking into the shadows around her, waiting for her to need them again.

She had a lot of explaining to do now, and Shura's knowing pat on her shoulder told her he'd seen it to. Glancing at Gaara again she gave him a small, worried smile and nodded her head. He blinked before returning the jerky movement with a smoother version and moving his attention back to his brother. Kira would find him later, once things had settled down. If she didn't – and really she didn't want to – she knew he'd come find her.

"We should get you cleaned up Kira." Aya appeared beside her and held out a hand. "Lets go to the bath house, we haven't been in a while." Kira nodded her head slowly, feeling the grime on her even more now that it was pointed out. There was sand in places there should never be sand. She took the hand and got to her feet. Glancing around once more, she wondered if she should stay, but the tug on her hand got her feet moving. With a fleeting glance at the Kazekage, Kira left the shadow of the training ground. "Don't worry," Aya muttered once they were further off. "I'm sure it won't be half as bad as you think."

Kira was too worried to really think about how her friend always knew what she was thinking. It was one of the reasons Aya was a good Shinobi, as well as a good friend.

The bath didn't take nearly long enough, and the sense of urgency kept her mind buzzing the entire time even as the hot steaming water threatened to send her to sleep. It was all to soon that her blond friend was gone, and Kira was left to climb the tower up to the roof where a guard had directed her. Gaara was waiting for her.

The roof was a familiar place to her, she'd spent countless night there, watching, waiting – doing her job. It was one of the highest points in the village after all, the perfect place to watch over it from. That was how she found him too, as she stepped onto the roof, the trap door closing with a snap. He was facing the village, feet planted on the edge of the building, arms firmly crossed as he looking over what he was sworn to protect. It was oddly breath taking for Kira at that moment. Gaara looked a great deal like some avenging hero of old.

By the time she was standing straight again, her hands running over the front of her gear, Gaara had turned to look at her. She froze for a long moment, caught in that piercing, burning green gaze. She didn't know how this was going to go. Didn't even know how to go about starting. What should she say? A hello hardly seemed appropriate or needed. He knew why she was here.

When she finally tore her gaze away, her eyes landed on her feet, hands itching, twitching for something to hold or do but her weapons and string were at home. The silence stretched on, even after Gaara had stepped off of the lip of the roof and fully turned to look at her. The harsh northern wind kicked up, catching her newly fixed hair, tugging at her scalp.

"I presume you want answers for what you saw today?" She choked the words out, knowing it would be better to get it over with then to stand there waiting. She'd known this day would come, she'd told him she would tell him more, but she hadn't expected it to come so soon.

"What are you afraid of?" he asked her quietly, and it surprised her that those were the first words for him to speak. She expected him to be angry, maybe demanding, but when she glanced up at him she didn't see the pity or annoyance she had been expecting for her sudden tightly clasped lips and cold sweat. She saw concern in his sea green eyes, though the rest of his face was carefully blank. She pressed her lips together again, eyes on the ground once more. She traced a crack in the stone's surface, considering his question carefully.

There were many reasons to be afraid of telling him the truth, many consequences to her answers. Loosing her rank, being stripped of her job as a ninja, being told to leave the sand village. She winced slightly at the last one, thinking about the punishments Korin Esley had used on her when she'd done something wrong. She had plenty of things to be scared of, but in the end it came down to one thing.

"That I'll loose the chance to be your friend. That once you hear this, you'll want nothing to do with me." It defied all logic; surely loosing her home should scare her more. Her eyes flickered up again and surprise lit his face, breaking the careful blankness. She reeled, her next words coming out in a suddenly rush of anxiety. "I mean, at least that's what I thought we were. You told me to call you by just your name, and normally that would mean you want to be friends, but if that's not the case, I'm sorry. It's fine if you don't..." She trailed off, suddenly out of air and gulped down another breath.

"No." It wasn't a rejection; his tone sounded confused, almost bewildered and though Kira would have rather kept looking at the ground, curiosity tugged at her so sharply it felt like it physically tugged her chin up and moved her eyes back to the redhead. His face matched the tone of his voice, pale brows pulled together over almost glowing eyes that seemed to bore into her soul every time she looked at him. It looked as if he were trying to finish the last part of a puzzle, so when he spoke his answer, it startled her. "I prefer to be called by my name, but only Naruto has ever referred to me as a...friend." It was a sad reminder of what Kira had already observed herself, one that made her wince internally.

She cleared her throat. "Well I could be one, if you still want to after this is over." It felt awkward, having to talk about it in such a way. She'd never had to announce such a connection, Kankuro and Aya had just...started being there.

"I would like that," he said suddenly, talking a few steps towards her to stand next to her. "I doubt what ever it is my father had you do would change that."

"That's because you don't know yet," Kira whispered.

"Then tell me." It wasn't an order, more like a request, or the answer to her fears. There was only really one way to find out if they would be true or not. She took in another long breath.

"Alright." She just had to figure out where to start. The beginning? No, Gaara already knew that, he knew how she came to live here, knew who had trained her.

"How does it work?" Gaara spoke, either tired of waiting or seeing that she was struggling to start. "Your ability? It didn't look like a Kekki Genki, but from what I've seen, it doesn't seem to be anything else either."

"Honestly? I don't know what it is. I only know it is a form of earth chakra because that's my chakra type." She eyed the ground again, toying with the empty holster for her tonfa on her leg. "It's just something I can do, like how your sand moves on its own to shield you. If I'm scared or I panic and I'm touching a shadow it swallows me up. I end up somewhere else, normal in the same area just a different spot. It doesn't happen too often now that I know how to use it. I can hide in them too, as I'm sure you've heard. " Kira use to tell Kankurō about it when they were younger. About the world inside of a shadow, about the window that each one created. It was hard to explain that place, like everything was a photo negative except for the bright patches of color where shadows cut into the world. "The ability to completely disappear, not even leaving any scent or chakra behind, I call it 'Shadow Shift', I don't know what the real name is, I'm sure is has one. That's why your father wanted me. It's the only reason I got to live here."

There was a long stretch of silence after that. She could only guess that he was trying to puzzle out her tone. Her feelings towards the former Kazekage were mixed, one part loathing, one part sadness, and a very small part of gratitude. She was sure her tone had relayed all of that rather clearly; she'd never been very good at keeping the inflection from her voice.

"What missions did he send you on if you weren't on a team?" Gaara questioned and Kira shook her head.

"No missions. I had never left the village until around the time of the Chunin exams you went to. I don't think your father wanted to risk anyone finding out about me." She had been one of the former Kazekage's prized weapons, a secret to use against an enemy if the time had come. There was silence again and Kira shifted restlessly, moving to tug at her hair. Just a few more words and she was sure Gaara would figure it out.

"Were you one of his guards?" His words surprised her. She hadn't thought that would be his guess. She almost smiled at the idea of that; surely she would have hated that even more.

"Not quite. I was a guard of sorts, but I was looking after someone I'm pretty sure he thought was more important. Someone who needed a guard to keep people away from him instead keeping a that person safe per say... "

She looked up, still tugging at her ponytail and saw on his face that he was rather quickly putting together the pieces. A girl with the ability to disappear into shadows without a trace, confined to the village to guard someone more valuable then his father.

"Me," he said finally, not confused, merely surprised. He must have seen something on Kira's face that confirmed it, though she had been trying to keep her expression blank. "You were guarding me." At his statement, Kira could only nod in a jerky motion, her hand dropping from her hair to hang at her side. This was the beginning of the end, she thought, and waiting quietly, staring out over the city, for him to turn his back on her.

…

It was that moment in time when everything fell into place and for better or for worse he was stuck with what he knew. Gaara could see now why so many things had confused him about this girl, including the incident that had first introduced them. Staring at her now – her face down cast, eyes locked on the ground, hands limp at her sides – it was like Gaara could see straight into his father's mind.

Some how he'd found out Kira's ability and it hadn't taken him long to realize her potential. He'd let her stay only because she was useful and only on the condition that she was put into the academy. Then upon graduation he'd put his plan into motion, using one of his closest generals to strip her down bare and build her back up as his tool.

Once she'd proven she could master her talent, his father had put her to work. He gave her ANBU status so no one would wonder where she was or why she was never around. He isolated her so firmly that all she could do was what she was told. She'd been his guard, kept as many people as she could from him. Some part of him had wondered why so many of the threats and confrontations had stopped after he'd graduated from the academy, but at the time he hadn't cared to know. In a way, she had been more of a bodyguard for the village then for him.

A knot formed some where between his chest and his gut at the truth that lay out before him. She had seen everything he'd done in the village in those years. How was she even standing there now, unguarded and so trusting?

"How long?" he said finally. "How long did you… guard me?"

She seemed surprised that he had asked the question, her eyes flickering up for a moment before looking back down. After what seemed to be a moment of thought, she took the needed steps forward, past him and sat down on the lip of the tower. One leg pulled up to her chest, she rested her chin on her knee and looked out over the city much like he had been minutes ago. Much like she must have done he realized, for a long time as he had lived here, in this building all his life.

"From a few months before you were put on a team, up until the fourth was killed, maybe a little after… as for times of day, it was random at first. It wasn't till the fourth learned that no one would approach your team that he let the times when you were all together be my time off. So… a lot of nights, normally till mid afternoon the following day." She scratched at the ground with a nail, catching a loose pebble and rolling it on the ground idly as she spoke. "It was… tiring. Often I came home and would just sleep till I had to get back on duty. Mother worried a lot."

She was able to speak with less panic when she was simply retelling something, Gaara noted, and not having to look at anyone seemed to help a great deal too. Still the knot in his body only tightened. All of those hours… had she known nothing else?

"Your weren't allowed to leave." He recalled thinking of her earlier words. She shook her head, back hair whipping around her.

"No. When you were on missions, I normally was put back on regiment training with Esley. Some times I got breaks, once I was better… trained."

Gaara clenched his jaw, once again reminded how in depth his father could be. For the first time it was Gaara's turn to look away, even if her back was to him. "What you saw, when I was in the village…" he ventured, the need to know both consuming and painful. She took in a low breath and he heard it blow back out before she spoke again. She knew what he was asking.

"What I saw… horrified me a first," she whispered. "I remember the first time I messed up, not long after I stared. I fell asleep and a group of ranked shinobi approached you. I woke up to them screaming in agony and to…" She trailed off and Gaara couldn't quiet recall the incident. There had been so many people he had killed senselessly he'd never even given it a thought. They were in his way, they bothered him, tried to hurt him, and so he hurt back. Only he didn't stop there, not till Naruto.

Gaara's jaw ached, guilt and dread curling around the knot, making it worse. So why was it that she was there, this girl that had seen him do those things. Why would she so easily turn her back to him? "You didn't ask for reassignment?"

"I did," she replied quickly, a hint of sadness in her tone. "I nearly begged, I was so frightened, so scared that some how you'd find me. I didn't want to die, but your father didn't budge, and Esley saw my plea as weakness." Kira bit her lip and sighed again. "I didn't have much of a choice in the end, so I kept watching, submitting my reports, cutting people off from your path. No matter how young I was, most listened to an ANBU mask."

"Yes." Gaara agreed off hand, far to distracted for the moment. He didn't understand why she was so calm about this, of all things. Slowly, he took a step toward her. "Your story doesn't add up to your actions now." It was possible she was lying, but that made little sense. He wanted to believe she had some reason for staying, but how could he when he thought about everything he'd done?

"I guess it doesn't." She sighed again, as if tired of her own story. "From what you've heard, I can only guess you think I should hate you, that I should fear you, but I don't."

"Explain." Gaara tried to make it sound like a request, but he knew it was an order. He had wanted to go about this differently, to gain her trust enough so that she would tell him things piece by piece. He wanted to know this piece though, almost needed to in order to understand. He didn't want her to decline his request, and that was why his voice came out a bit more forceful than he intended.

Kira was quiet for a time, her eyes now on the slowly setting sun. Its light outlined her form in reddish gold, making the vivid bruise on her arm even more apparent now. It wasn't red anymore, but a dark angry purple dotted with blues and dark greens. He wondered how much of that had been caused by the first blow and how much from her falling on it to save those boys.

"I saw… a lot of horrible things," she began finally. "But not all of them were caused by you." She shifted turning her head to glance back at him for a moment, and smiled slightly. "It wasn't till I had gone back after trying to get out of the job that I really took to it. I didn't just watch, I listened and I thought. I did a lot of thinking, since it was the only thing I could do in the shadows. I heard the whispers, the looks people gave you when you were out of sight. It reminded me of myself, the whispers they had given me, and then it reminded me that none of it had ever been your fault."

Her eyes had trailed back to the ground again, her head still cocked to the side as the young ruler stared at her in bewilderment. Not his fault? "I'm not sure I understand," he said finally. It felt like he was missing something, or a piece of her story was missing, something.

"I mean what I said," she answered, a smile tugging at her lips again. "I knew the stories of course, I'd been given your file, but a lot of it was bare bones, so I had asked my mom. She told me more. It was just that I hadn't made the connection, not till then." Slowly, she lifted a hand and rested it behind her, letting go of her knee. "You were born into this world that way and for that you were shunned and hurt and left alone. I started thinking about how it didn't add up. You hadn't asked for any of it. It wasn't fair. I felt… guilty. How could I fear someone who had probably never wanted that in the first place, but the world had taken the choice away from?" She shook her head, hair flying about again.

"They had their reasons," Gaara said after a moment. After all, it had been done with good intentions, but the one tails was anything but tamable. She frowned looking intently at the ground.

"That was their reasoning for me too, you know. I'm supposed to be some secret weapon. At least I was. I don't know about now, but that's … It shouldn't have mattered either way. I knew I could do nothing anyway, it was already too late to try and fix things myself, so I watched and waited and did my job, hoping things would change." When she looked up at him again, Gaara saw the smile that had lingered at the edges of her mouth finally form. "And they did, didn't they?"

His mouth went dry, and for a moment he couldn't find any words. If what she had was true, then she was one of the only people that had truly accepted him, even before becoming Kazekage. Slowly, he shook his head trying to clear it.

He recalled her early statements, the ones about him turning from her because of all of this. It was unnerving, he admitted to himself, but how could he turn from her when she'd stood behind him even back then? Granted she'd been under orders, but there had been a span of time between his father's and Esley's deaths, and the reformation of ANBU groups, almost a year's worth of time.

All of this, the pieces that now fit into one whole picture, solved the question for the reasoning of her out burst over a month ago. If it had been her job to watch over him for years and then she had been gone during the one battle Gaara had lost... When he looked to Kira again, she was facing the sky once more. It was a fading red now, the sun all but gone behind the dunes of the land he ruled. Slowly he took the needed steps to stand a few feet to her left and loosely cross his arms.

"Thank you for telling me," he said finally, keeping his eyes off of her because he knew it only made her more nervous. Maybe one day that wouldn't be the case, but for now he'd just do what he could to maintain the trust and the faith she'd so clearly put in him.

"What are friend for?" Kira said quietly, as if testing the waters, and Gaara realized she was wondering where they must have stood now. He didn't say anything for a while, contemplating everything that had happened that day. Aya's words echoed in his mind: Do you? She'd been asking if he really understood how much Kira cared about this village and what she would do to protect it. He thought of the boys, the same ones Gaara realized now, that had nearly knocked Kira's foster mother over in the streets that one time. She couldn't have liked them much, and between her actions and what she had told him today, he was starting to realize just what the blond ANBU had meant. Slowly, the knot in his chest unraveled into nothing.

"Yes," he replied finally. "Friends." Though the word sounded foreign on his lips, Gaara found it pleasing all the same. He felt the girl's eyes flicker to him, felt her stare in shock, but he didn't turn is gaze to her. Instead he kept a close watch on the vibrantly changing sky, where they stayed till the stars took their place in an endless night.