I never thought I'd write a songfic, but here I am. The other chapters won't be songfics, I swear.
And Dandelion means "Until we meet again" in the language of flowers.
Seven Deaths: Tales of the Jinchuuriki
Chapter one: Gaara
Sabaku no Gaara, Godaime Kazekage, was the container of the Ichibi, the Shukaku. His father was the Yondaime Kazekage, who was in the habit of sending assassins after his youngest son. Gaara was sent to Konoha and participated in the Suna-Oto strike against Konoha, which ended with two Kages dead- Suna's Yondaime and Konoha's Sandaime. He was also part of the alliance with Konoha, and was even sent on a S-rank mission to retrieve a fugitive from Konoha. Afterwards, he became Suna's youngest Kazekage. His Biju was forcibly taken from him at the age of 15. He died, but was revived by one of his village elders, and resumed his duties as Kazekage.
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"Gaara, I'm serious, be careful. It's bad luck to see the sandwalker. Listen to your big sister for once." A twelve year old Temari cautioned her nine year old brother.
"Shut up. It is not. You can go off and wish on your stars. Try and find a boyfriend while you're at it." Gaara replied spitefully. Temari looked hurt.
"Okay then, Gaara. Make your own choices. Me and Temari are gonna go to the cotton candy booth. You want any?" eleven year old Kankuro asked.
"I'm not going to the stupid festival. And I hate cotton candy." A lie. He secretly loved it, but his sister and brother had been trying to stop him from seeing the sandwalker, and he wasn't going to show them anything that might be interpreted as affection.
Tonight was Sunagakure's biggest festival of the year, the Hoshiakari festival. It was famous for having the brightest starlight of the year, and also for a legend surrounding it.
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"What's the sandwalker, Yashamaru?"
"Well, it's sort of hard to explain, Gaara. There's a legend about the sandwalker that many people believe. It's said that there is a sort of spirit who roams the desert in the form of a beautiful woman, so enticing that she makes even the flowers draw towards her"
"But we live in the desert. There aren't any flowers growing here"
"That's another part of the legend. Sunagakure and the land surrounding it used to be lush and beautiful, but it became desert. All the seeds of the flowers that used to grow on those hills are sleeping beneath the sands. The sandwalker is so beautiful that all those seeds bloom into flowers within seconds, but without her beauty to sustain them, they fade and die. She and all traces of her melt away like a dream. It's said to be bad luck to see her because she makes all the flowers bloom hopelessly. And she is also said to spirit people away. My father, and your mother's, was said to have gone with her, because he vanished for seven years, and then when he came back, it was with your mother and I. Some people thought that we were the children of the sandwalker, and my father never told us who our mother was. Neither of us had any memories before the day we came back either, so maybe it is true."
"Oh. I didn't know that"
"Well, it's just a story. One of my favorites, but still a story"
"I'd like to see her someday"
"Well, I don't want her to spirit you away, so if you simply have to meet her, be careful"
"Okay, Yashamaru"
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Gaara went to go sit on the cliffs on the edge of town, watching the desert. The Hoshiakari was supposed to be the best time to spot the Sandwalker, and he was determined to see her.
"Do you think we'll see her tonight, 'kaa-san? I really want to." He asked the sand around him.
"I'd like to see her. Even if she's just a story. I don't think she is. I'd like to believe that she's real. And that I can see her. And ask her why all the flowers bloom. And if she hates being called bad luck
I can't escape this hell
So many times I've tried
"Maybe she knows how it feels to have people look at you with that fear in their eyes. Maybe that's why she took Ji-chan. Maybe he could look at her without fear"
But I'm still caged inside
Somebody get me through this nightmare
"Maybe that's why he came back. Maybe he really was scared all along, and she just didn't know it, and then one day she found out"
I can't control myself
"Maybe he lied to her all along. And it hurt so much to find out, that she left him, or took him back or something"
So what if you can see
The darkest side of me?
No one will ever change this animal I have become
"And then afterwards, when she was alone, maybe she regretted it. Maybe she felt so sad and lonely. Is that why she lures the flowers out? So they can see something that beautiful, just to lose everything?"
Help me believe, it's not the real me
Somebody help me tame this animal…
"But she did that all along. She was always that way. Maybe she was just lying to herself, the way he lied to her. She was always the sandwalker. Everything else wasn't real, and she thought it was."
I can't escape myself
So many times I've lied
"And then one day it all melted away like a dream. And she saw everything as it truly was. Maybe she had it all stripped away from her."
But there's still rage inside
Somebody get me through this nightmare
"And so she left everything behind and became what she always was"
I can't control myself
"And then she just stopped feeling. Maybe she just wants to prove that she still exists. So she makes the flowers bloom, and then they die and leave her alone, and then she makes more bloom, and then they die, and she just has to keep walking and hoping" Gaara hugged his knees to his chest. It was cold out, and he was only wearing his yukata. It was near one in the morning, and the night seemed endless.
He steadied his glance on the horizon and kept a closer watch on the desert, frigidly lit with starlight.
It seemed that eons went by as he sat there, unmoving. He tried to tell himself that it just seemed like a long time, and he still had hours to try to see the sandwalker, but after awhile he noticed the sounds of the festival dimming. People were going home to sleep off the sake, to put excited children with bags of goldfish to bed. Temari and Kankuro were probably struggling to keep their eyelids open as they trudged home with cotton candy.
He was ready to go home as well, but he wasn't going to give up. He forced his eyes open and shifted a little, to stretch his legs. He stared ahead resolutely.
The starlight began to dim in the approaching light of dawn. He sighed. His best chance to see the sandwalker was gone. He'd been trying for five years, and still nothing.
He happened to glance down when he felt something tugging at his leg. Dejectedly, he detached his pant leg from a flowering vine. Still no-
Wait.
He looked up so fast that his neck popped. In the first light of dawn, he saw someone below him. There was a woman in a silvery kimono, with long golden hair. She was followed by a thick trail of flowers that faded when she moved too far from them. Each burst of color seemed to strain on it's stem to stay by her a bit longer. Then they slowly wilted and melted away. He inhaled quietly, and the woman looked up at him with pale jade eyes…
…Gaara…
…Gaara…
…GAARA!
"Gaara! Snap out of it!" Temari commanded. For the first time in his life, Gaara realized that beneath the annoyance, there was worry in her tone. He looked up at his older sister.
"I was worried about you. It's noon, and you never came back to the house. No one knew where you were." She scolded.
Kankuro grinned. He was standing beside his sister, and he offered his hand to Gaara. For the first time any of them could remember, Gaara accepted help from someone else. Gaara took his hand and stood up.
"So did you see her?" Kankuro asked, as he had every year for half a decade.
"Yes." Gaara replied nonchalantly. He walked away from his awestruck siblings.
For the longest time, he couln't remember what happened after that moment that his eyes met the sandwalker's. It always bothered him, and he continued to watch for the sandwalker on the Hoshiakari festival, hoping to revive his memories. But he never saw her again.
On the first night he slept, his first night without Shukaku, he finally remembered what happened. It was as if he was thrown back into that moment.
-and the woman looked up at him with pale jade eyes. The flowers bloomed ever more closely around her feet as she paused to watch him carefully. Then she had carefully plucked a dandelion that had turned to fluff and she blew the seeds toward him. She smiled, placed her finger to her lips in the universal gesture for silence and blew him a kiss. Then the sun rose completely, and she vanished like a dream.
He'd woken up, startled.
Later, when Temari had been cleaning his room, she'd opened up his journal. It was a force of habit- he almost never wrote in it, and when he did, it was usually only a completely incoherent fragment. But he'd written down a whole paragraph. She stopped and sat down to read it.
"I think I understand now. I read somewhere once that nothing exists if it doesn't exist in time. You can think of anything, and if it only existed for a millionth of a second, it was real. But no matter how real something seems, if it wasn't ever there, even for that fraction of a second, it was never real. The seeds spend all their time dreaming of existence. They aren't real. But the sandwalker comes and gifts them with it. Even though it is only for a short time, they exist. It's her gift to them. They would never bloom, so she gives them that brief moment of glory. I think she comes on Hoshiakari because it's the most beautiful night. I'm not really sure about any of this. As I read back through what I've written, I understand what I'm trying to communicate, but I don't think I could explain it. Sleep is weird."
Temari sat, rereading it. She shook her head. She didn't quiet understand it. So she shut it and placed it back on his desk, exactly where it had been, and then she finished cleaning his room.
"Gizzard? You never give me gizzard for breakfast. You say it's disgusting" Gaara asked, confused, when Temari set down his plate in front of him.
"So you don't want it?" she teased.
He pulled his plate closer towards him. She rolled her eyes as he started to eat. Then looking at him made her start to feel queasy. Disgusting.
"…Are you doing this to appease me, since you're seeing Shikamaru again tonight?"
"It's not like that! He and Ino are going out." Temari snapped… Gaara coughed something that sounded like "right…"
She was never going out of her way for him again. Ever.
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Hello readers! No this is not a Gaaruto fic. The story is about the Jinchuuriki, so that's why I put Gaara and Naruto as the main characters. THEY ARE NOT A PAIRING!
The plan is to have a nine chapters for each Jinchuuriki (so this is going to be LONG), in the order: Ichibi, Nibi, Sanbi, Yonbi, Gobi, Rokubi, Shichibi, Hachibi, and Kyuubi. Kisame is the Sanbi, Zetsu is the Gobi and Orochimaru is the Hachibi. Lots of people think that Sasori was the Yonbi and that Deidara is the Shichibi, but I don't buy it. There aren't enough similarities between them and their presumed Biju to convince me. So that means four of the Jinchuuriki are OCs. If you mind that, then sorry. Don't read. However, the OCs will come into contact with some of the canon characters. We'll still see all our favorites. And, if it isn't hugely plan damaging, I'll take requests as to who you want to see in contact with who.
Also, I'm going by the creatures that are presumed to be the Biju. I can't read Kishimoto's mind, and therefore am just doing my best with the resources at hand. I'll fill in the description of the Biju I'm using at the end of each chapter for your education. I'm trying to make this as easy as possible for all of us. Until next time!
Last minute note:
ACK! PEOPLE, GO QUICK! Read the scantilations! New Jinchuuriki! The Nibi! Great timing! And two more Akatsuki members, but who cares, the Nibi! And it's a girl! Yeah... I'm having fun. But also must go rewrite much of the master plan, as I had stuff planned out for her... that is nownot possible. Anyways, I might be forced to wait awhile before I actually post the second chapter, since I want to stick to the Naruto II as much as possible.
Kyo