DISCLAIMER: I no own Naruto...it sucks, I know. I do own Gaeans, Riso, Amako, Kikai, and Sebraya.
Ryu: Ok, as a result of a few of my fans saying that they won't wait to get my next chapter, I am updating TODAY! Yay! I've been looking forward to hearing what you think. Also, (you'll be happy about this) the next chapter is almost finished!
Gaara: This is what happens when she gets only one hour of sleep and has to get up for work the next morning at 7.
Ryu: {sticks tongue out at Gaara} Just because I'm turning into you means...that means I get to spend more time writing. You gotta teach me that "waking meditation" that you do.
Gaara: {rolls eyes} The second I teach you that is the second everyone else in that apartment will find a way to hunt me down.
Etna: Why don't you just sleep for three hours instead? I mean, you don't have a demon who'll take over if you sleep. Well, except for me...{giggles evilly}
Ryu: Yeah, but if I do the waking meditation, I can think about what I'm going to do in the next chapter...
Count D: And, I'm assuming you're going to be wanting our help with this.
Ryu: Yeah...why?
Etna: Wait a second. You expect me to go on no sleep?!? Just three hours of waking meditation?
Count D: Well, technically, since she'd be thinking about story ideas during her meditation, we wouldn't have any reprieve. It would be 24/7.
Kyo, Sumomo, Ed and Etna: No way!
Ryu: Alright, alright, you win...for now...
Chapter 3: Beginning Anew
Kisaike stirred. She felt warm and...safe, somehow. She opened her eyes.
She was lying on a bed in a stark white room, her clothes carefully folded and placed on a chair in a corner of the room. Her gourd, uncorked, leaned next to it. She rubbed her eyes and looked around again.
I'm in a hospital, she realized. She closed her eyes again, thinking back to the last night of her memory. Why didn't the sand protect me, she wondered. Sighing, she went back further. Gasping, her eyes flew open. Of course! Temari was in an advanced class and had learned a sealing jutsu. She ran home, hoping to see if it would work on Gaara or Kisaike. She had tried it on Gaara first and failed, but when she tried it on Kisaike, it worked! Kisaike had proven that by cutting her finger on Temari's kunai.
Is it still sealed? Kisaike saw a kunai on the table next to her bed and grabbed it, pausing for only a second to wonder what a kunai was doing on the table in a hospital. Slowly, she lowered the point of the kunai to the back of her hand. Sand, familiar-scented sand, fountained up from the gourd and rushed to her, stopping the kunai before the point made contact. She sighed in relief, ordered the sand back to the gourd, and lay back. Just as she closed her eyes again, the rest of that terrible night flooded back. She sat bolt upright, breathing heavily.
Her mind began to race and she stood. She went over to the corner, got dressed and strapped on her gourd, and turned to leave the room. Then, almost as an afterthought, she turned and grabbed the kunai again. It might come in handy, she told herself.
She turned back and opened the door, looking both ways down the corridor. The coast was clear. She slipped out and, trying to use everything that she had learned in class about stealth and secrecy, moved out into the corridor and to the right, looking for an exit, any exit. Clutching the choker Gaara gave her in one hand, the kunai in the other, she moved as quickly and quietly as she could. She didn't know where she was, and all she wanted right now was to get out, go home, tell Gaara that she still loved him, and kill her father, not necessarily in that order.
"Where are you going?" A soft, kind male voice spoke behind her. Kisaike turned and set a protective ring of floating, swirling sand around her. She was facing a man who looked to be about 20, with shaggy, spiked brown hair and honey colored eyes. He was wearing a hitae-ate with a five-pointed star inside of a circle. He saw the ring of sand around her and the kunai she wielded and smiled. "You won't need those here. I promise you." He scratched his head and looked at her. "I'm Kikai. What's your name?"
Kisaike lowered the kunai, but not the sand. "Kisaike."
"Kisaike. That's a nice name." He grinned at her again. "Why do you have that sand floating around you?"
"Just in case." Kisaike called the sand back to her gourd and stood facing Kikai, absently playing with her choker. "My sand isn't as fast as my twin's."
"Gaara?" Kikai asked. Kisaike's head snapped up and sand started to creep out the gourd and towards him.
"How do you know that name?" she growled.
Kikai held up his hands, and eyed the sand. "I was the one who carried you here. My squad found you and killed your kidnapper."
Kisaike called the sand off, but kept it where it fell. "That doesn't tell me how you know that name."
"When the Sound nin told you that your father was telling your twin that you'd run away, you murmured it," Kikai said simply.
Kisaike nodded. "I remember now." She looked down sadly, then back up at him. "Can you take me home? Gaara-nii-san is probably really worried and angry right now."
Kikai looked a bit uncomfortable. "Unfortunately, no. Our leader, Sebraya, won't allow it. She's afraid your father might attempt to kill you." He looked into her aquamarine eyes. "I'm sorry."
Kisaike shrugged and nodded. "Probably. But it wouldn't be the first time. Nor do I think it will be the last if he finds out I'm still alive and not working for his little 'alliance'. Nothing new there."
Kikai looked at her, eyes wide. "How can you be so calm about that?"
She looked him directly in the eyes. "I've been living with it for eight years. He started when I was first born. He tried to leave me in the desert to die. The assassination attempts weren't just on Gaara."
Kikai shook his head.
Suddenly, her attitude took a turn. She looked at him with sad eyes. "But...what am I supposed to do now?" She slumped onto a bench and buried her face in her hands.
Kikai sat next to her. "Hey, I was sent to see if you'd woken up yet. Sebraya wants to talk to you. Since you're awake, do you want to go now?"
"Ok." She stood, black-rimmed eyes subdued. Kikai glanced at her.
"That's something I've been meaning to ask you. Why are there circles around your eyes?"
Kisaike stared straight ahead as they left the hospital. "I haven't actually slept since I was about two years old."
His mouth dropped open. "What?! Why?! How?!"
"Gaara is the vessel for the tanuki demon Shuukaku. If he goes to sleep, Shuukaku takes over, so, to protect me and my big brother and sister, he learned how to get by without sleeping. He does a waking meditation that revitalizes everything just like sleep does. I learned it so that he wouldn't have to be alone. Before I was kidnapped, we meditated together during the afternoon after school, and sat on our roof, talking, looking at the moon at night." Kisaike started to play with her choker again. "If I didn't stay awake, he'd be all alone, and I never wanted that."
Kikai said nothing, just turned his head forward and started straight ahead, a serious look on his face. Kisaike dropped back a little, worried.
Uh-oh. I shouldn't have said anything about Shuukaku. What if they try to kill Gaara? What if they think that I may have it too? Her mind raced.
Kikai stopped and looked back at her. She took a couple of steps back, ready to run if anything happened. "What's wrong?" he asked, startled.
"You...Do you want to kill me and Gaara just like everyone else?" She looked down. "Do you hate me too?"
He looked at her for a second, then burst out laughing, causing her to look at him like he was crazy. He noticed and got a hold of himself. "No, I don't hate you. Why would you think that?"
"Everyone did. That's why I look like I do, exactly like he does, right down to the 'ai' tattoo. People were trying to hurt Gaara. With two Gaara's, they had less of a chance of getting the right one. They just started to hate us both. Why should you be any different?" She locked eyes with him.
Kikai knelt down in front of Kisaike. "I am. In fact, I think you are the bravest, most loyal and most loving person I've ever met." He placed his hand on her shoulders, looking into her aquamarine eyes. "Don't ever change that."
A shy smile crept over her face. He returned it with a grin of his own.
"Now, let's go see what Sebraya-sama wants to talk to you about, ok?" He ruffled her soft, short, blood-colored locks. She nodded and they set out again.
When they reached the office of the leader of the village, Kisaike just stared. A vine-woven staircase spiraled up a large tree, disappearing into the branches overhead. Carved into the tree was the symbol on Kikai's hitae-ate, the five-pointed star inside a circle. Kikai started up the staircase, Kisaike following behind silently.
"The rest of my squad should be here too, so you'll get to meet them," Kikai said, looking at her. Seeing the look on her face, he cocked his head in confusion. "What? You're looking around like a genin on her first trip outside the country."
She turned her curious eyes to him. "How...?" The words she wanted seemed to elude her. She tried again, but no luck.
Kikai laughed. "I think I know what you're trying to ask. You know how different villages have different abilities, right?" She nodded. "Ok, well, our ability is to control the forces of Nature. You see the symbol on my hitae?" Another nod. "Well, each of the points represents something. The four lower points represent fire, earth, air and water, the four main forces of Nature. The top point represents spirit, which reminds us that we are who we are. The circle surrounds all, reminding us that we live in the same world as all the others." He gestured to his hitae-ate band. "Each shinobi chooses one element out of the nine to be specialized in. You learn the others, but the one you choose, you learn all the tweaks for. The color of the band represents each element. Also, when you use the element, your eyes change that color as well. The bands were made to reflect this. The nine are:
Sand: Tan, and yes, I think you'll be very good at this one
Water: Dark blue
Lightning: Purple
Fire: Red
Wind: Yellow
Rock: Grey
Earth: Green
Star: Silver
Ice: Light blue
"When you choose a specialty, you are called a Gaean. I'm a Fire Gaean, because my specialty is fire.
"Also, we have a village technique that only three people in the history of the village have ever performed. It's called Gaea's Rage. It's the most powerful technique. When you use this one, your eyes turn pure white, and when you successfully perform it, no matter where you are, Sebraya knows. And when you get back, you are presented with the white hitae-ate band in a village wide ceremony. It's a really big deal."
Kisaike looked at him. "So you were the one that killed the kidnapper."
Kikai looked uncomfortable again. "Unfortunately, yes. I don't like killing people. I'm actually studying to be a medic nin."
She smiled at him. "I think you'll make a great medic nin. But you won't ever have to treat me." She took her kunai and shoved it toward her hand. Kikai moved to stop her, but halted dead in his tracks as sand fountained up from her skin. "Unless someone, like my sister, seals the sand, it always protects me." She held up the finger that she'd cut with Temari's kunai. "My sister, Temari, sealed my sand. We knew because I cut my finger." She stuck the finger, which had split again, in her mouth.
Kikai shook his head. "That's how he managed to knock you out then." Kisaike nodded. "Let me see your finger."
Curious, Kisaike held it out. Kikai placed a finger above hers and concentrated. She watched in amazement as his finger began to glow blue. She looked at her finger and gaped. The wound was closing! A few seconds later, the wound was gone. His finger stopped glowing and he smiled at her.
"Better?"
She nodded.
"Good, because we're here."
She looked around in awe. Everything, walls, doors, even desks and chairs were all made out of vines. There were people sitting, waiting, playing Go on a board made of vines with wooden pieces. She stood there for a moment, taking it all in.
Two people stood up as they walked in. One was a man about three inches taller than Kikai, with deep-blue hair to his waist, neatly braided, and eyes to match. The other was a woman with shoulder length black hair in stubby pigtails high on her head, baby blue eyes and a bright smile. They both looked about Kikai's age. They looked at Kisaike.
"So, is this our guest of honor? Good to see you're up. I'm Amako." The woman giggled. "What's your name?"
Kisaike, suddenly shy, hid behind Kikai.
The other man smacked Amako's arm gently. "Awww, Amako, you scared her." He laughed, then turned to Kisaike. "I'm Riso. Don't let Ama-chan scare you. She's a bit much, I know." He leaned closer. "It comes from being a Star Gaean."
Amako crossed her arms, silver hitae band flashing. "Big words, coming from an Ice Gaean."
Riso stood, hand on his light blue hitae band, and laughed. "True. Very true."
Kikai placed a hand on Kisaike's shoulder, as she had finally come out of hiding. "Well, this is Kisaike. It looks like we'll finally get a Sand Gaean."
Riso and Amako looked impressed.
"Wow," said Ama. "No one's ever become a Sand Gaean. They don't think it's worth it."
Kisaike's eyes flashed. "Well, I'll prove them wrong," she said, folding her arms, giving them the patented 'Gaara Glare', complete with tendrils of sand flying about her.
Everyone looked taken aback for a moment, then laughed. Kisaike laughed too, and ordered her sand back into her gourd.
"Well, it seems she does have a voice after all," Riso said, placing his arm around her shoulders.
"So, does that mean you'd like to stay with us?" A new female voice rang out. Everyone turned, and Kisaike ducked behind Riso, who covered her completely from view. The woman speaking had dark green hair to her knees tied in two braids, and soft brown eyes. She laughed when Kisaike hid from her. "It's ok. I don't mean you any harm."
Kikai ducked behind Riso. "It's ok, Kisaike. That's Sebraya."
A shock of short, blood colored hair peeked out from behind Riso's waist, followed by black-rimmed aquamarine eyes. Sebraya laughed.
"Don't be afraid. You are more than welcome to stay here. You will be trained, if you wish."
Kisaike turned her eyes to Kikai. "Really?"
He nodded. "If you want. Do you want to?"
Kisaike stepped out from behind Riso and smiled brightly.
"Hai!"
Ryu: There. Now everyone knows what happened to Kisaike. Don't worry, next chapter will be up soon!
Gaara: Yeah...right.
Ryu: {throws Gaara into lake}
Etna: If you don't want to take a swim in an iced-over lake this winter, press the little button labeled Submit Review: Go...Don't worry...it's just standard boilerplate...the lawyers insisted.