Chapter 15: Gaara's Nightmare
Sasuke sat up with a small yawn, shaking his head lightly to wake himself up completely. He had a habit for waking up early, usually before sunrise. He glanced over at Konohamaru who was sleeping next to him, the boy mumbled incoherently and pulled his arms away which had been latched on to Sasuke during sleep. Konohamaru never really ever got up early, it was hard to say when Konohamaru got up since it was so erratic.
Sasuke climbed out of the opposite side of the bed with nothing on but a pair of boxers, a chill prompted him that he'd better get dressed before doing anything else. So he retrieved a pair of clothing and walked out of his room, usually he'd be coming up from the basement, but he wasn't sure Konohamaru was ready to go back down. It was warmer there though...
Sasuke proceed outside for his usual session of training, noticing that the bathroom was halfway fixed on his way out.
It was just before dawn, leaving barely any light outside, not that it mattered to Sasuke. Light was never really a-- "What...?" Ok, this was different. Upon leaving the front door he found himself one step away from stepping into a canyon...a huge canyon. All around he could see other islands of desolate earth protruding from the seemingly endless abyss, some parts even held water in them... "What the hell is going on!"
His mind immediately thought back to when Naruto and Gaara were first experimenting in time travel, and it ended up Konoha being destroyed, twice. "No...they couldn't have...the wouldn't have, Gaara and Naruto haven't spoken to each other in days...and Gaara wouldn't do something this stupid." If that wasn't it, what could it... Sasuke stepped back in to the building...only to almost fall again because it was now gone...and the small patch of ground under him was crumbling. "This can't be real!"
Sasuke froze...and only then when he stopped thinking he realized that he felt something odd, almost as if he was in a dream. It was dream! One that he couldn't seem to wake up from...
! - ! - !
Sasuke yelled loudly and forced his eyes open, only to find he was looking directly at another eye...a very strange creature was on it's hands and knees directly on top of him, holding him down. It had a human form, a human form that looked exactly like his father, except for a few very large differences. It's eyes were glowing red with level 3 Sharingan, and there was another larger eye...on each one of it's shoulders, one pair directly under each elbow. One pair in each palm, one on the chest and back, and one under each knee, all of them glowing with Sharingan. "What the hell is this!"
Konohamaru shifted in the bed next to him... "Sasuke, what's with all the yelling--AAHhhh!" The boy nearly fell off the bed at the sight of the strange creature that was holding Sasuke down..."Sasuke!" Konohamaru jumped to his feet and punched the creature in the side of it's head , knocking it off of Sasuke and to the ground on the side of the bed.
Sasuke rolled over and climbed off of the other side of the bed next to Konohamaru. "Sasuke, what is that thing!"
"I-It..." Sasuke just watched the demon stand to it's feet as if in shock, what ever this thing was it was, it had Sharingan eyes, lots of them, and the image of his father. "Those eyes..."
"Uchiha."
"It talks too!" Konohamaru flinched at the sound of it's voice, it sounded exactly like Sasuke's father, a voice that bore a small resemblance to Sasuke's.
Sasuke grunted and ran at the demon, throwing a punch at the eye in it's chest...only to have it go right through, and then disappear..."What!"
! - ! - !
"AHHH!" Naruto jumped, dropping the books in this hand and turned around.
"Did I scare you?" Gaara looked around the library, it seemed to be larger the previous visit each time he came.
"Oh, not really, I heard you come in." Naruto rubbed the back of his and smiled. "So, are you ok?"
"Fine, I just..." Gaara's voice started to trail off, and his eye lids started to drop, before he knew it he was falling face first toward the ground.
"Gaara!" Naruto ran forward and caught the boy, just as he thought... "Gaara..." He sighed and eased the taller body down to the ground and sat him against the bookshelves. "Come on Gaara, I've got 300 leads left, it may sound bad but I had 500 before...Just hold on..."
! - ! -!
"!" Gaara flinched, blocking his face with his arms as he came face to face with the ground, slamming into it from out of nowhere... 'What?' Gaara grunted as he opened his eyes and pushed himself off of his stomach, one minute he was talking to Naruto, the next he was... in the basement, he was in Konohamaru's shrine. Everything was normal, except for the fact he didn't know how he got here. 'I must be asleep again...Damn.'
He didn't like this, bad things happened when he fell asleep like this, bad things happened to him... Gaara climbed to his feet, looking around at the flames that gave a patchy source of light. He wasn't sure how he got here, but all he had to do was go back upstairs,... Gaara repeated that to himself as he walked confidently toward the other side of the large room...
Sheeekelop, Sheeekelop, Sheekelop
"?" Gaara heard a distinct sound, that sounded similar to a mildly soft object being cut through. He proceed with a bit of curiosity that heightened his pace, he moved quickly, straining his eyes just ahead to see the source...There was a chair...and a table...and someone sitting there, someone unfamiliar. "Who are you?" Gaara asked bluntly, peering over the unresponsive form's shoulder.
This strange man wearing a Konoha hunter nin uniform, was holding a Kunai to his elbow and was halfway through cutting his arm off. Blood was flooding over the table top and streaming down over the side. 'What-What is this!' Gaara's eyes widened and he drew back in surprise, the man turned around, his face clawed with bloody scares with no eyes. "Aruggaaaa!"
In the blink of an eye the man was gone, leaving behind the table, the blood, and the severed arm. "What...what is this..." With another blink of an eye, the table, and everything that was on it disappeared as if it had never been there...and he wasn't asleep anymore. He was actually standing in the basement now, not just asleep in the library dreaming "..."
! - ! - !
"What is it Iruka?" Naruto walked into the lobby where Iruka was currently working. Busy at random things, like more paperwork Naruto noticed, leaning against the desk, laying his head in his arms.
"Where's Gaara?" He asked
Naruto dropped his head "He fell asleep, so I took him to his room."
"Naruto, I know you want to save Gaara." Iruka pushed away the stack of papers he was working on to the side and leaned forward so that he was face to face with Naruto, "But you can't keep doing this to yourself."
"I'm fine Iruka."
"No your not, you haven't eaten or slept in 3 days." Iruka gave him a stern and chastising look "Go get some rest."
"Come on Iruka, I can't do that right now." Naruto wined. "Gaara's getting worse, he's falling asleep every 2 hours! Soon he wont eve--"
"I know your worried about him and you want to help..." Iruka's voice trailed off and he looked away. "You should stop."
"Stop! What! Why the hell would I do that!" Naruto shouted.
"I mean just take it easy, you can't keep going like this and your little help to him when you can't even concentrate..." Iruka sighed "I wish I could have helped you more but things are getting hectic around here, A demon attacked Sasuke this morning even, he's with Neji now... Jiraiya and I think we're breeding animosity with the demons, we're being attacked directly now."
"You mean... the demons are after us?" Naruto looked up questioningly "Really?"
"Yeah." Iruka nodded "Things are going to get a lot busier around here, you have to be on guard. But you can't even protect yourself in this condition, how can you help Gaara?"
Kiba walked through the front door "Naruto, we need to talk now." he leaned against the counter next to Naruto, resting his head in his hand. "I know your trying to save Gaara, but your killing our funds."
"Huh?"
"Look at these bills, what the hell are you buying that cost thousands each?"
Naruto laughed nervously "I was testing out some stuff, and the stuff I needed for it were really rare."
Kiba sighed and dropped his head on the desk "Come on, there is a thing called a budget and your over yours by a couple million."
"I'm trying ok." Naruto said "I'm trying to do something really big here...I'm trying to find out what's wrong with Gaara, and I'm not going to stop until I do."
"Your department, your call." Kiba said with a shrug "But ease it with spending, leave some for Konoha."
! - ! - !
"Hmm..." Gaara looked through the rows of books in the library, searching for Neji or at least Naruto, he needed some help with this, he needed an explanation. But all he found was Naruto's notes scattered around in an unreadable script along with open books on the ground. 'Whatever your working on Naruto...hurry.' Gaara himself had only experienced fear once, and that was in his fight with Naruto. He feared for his life then but mildly. Now he was feeling fear on an entirely different level, he was scared for himself, scared for what was going to happen to him, for where he was slipping into when he slept, for Naruto and for what he might do to him.
He needed help. And if not for his own sake, for Naruto's. It seemed that each and every time he fell asleep that he attacked the boy, not just sometimes like before.
A shadow streamed along the wall behind him with the sound and feel rushing wind, Gaara glanced back though already to late to see what he'd just felt. "?" With out warning the lights blacked out, leaving Gaara alone in the dark..."What's going on around here..." Gaara said to himself, looking up at the long florescent light above him that stared flickering, then turned off again, then the one in front of it flickered and turned off, the next and the next, trailing all the way to the door.
"This can't be serous. You must be done cutting your arm off in the basement." Gaara's eye's narrowed and he folded his arms. "I am not going to follow some damn lights." He called out to what ever was causing this, was he asleep again? Did he ever wake up? He had to have, because when he fell into the basement he felt it, and had the bruise to prove it. Now he was just standing there, in the dark...another sound floating through the air.
It was the sound...of someone crying, sobbing lightly, and it was coming from the direction of the door. "Doesn't look like I have a choice... Fine." Gaara snorted annoyedly, walking slowly and cautiously down the shrouded path...At the very end of the row he could see something, a person crouching with their back turned, a woman.
She looked over her shoulder and reviled her face, half of her mouth and right cheek looked as if it had been sliced off and she was soaked in blood. Even worse yet, she had no arms. The woman stood up completely, blood streaming from her half severed mouth over her shoulder and down to the ground "Hold me...hold me please."
Gaara winced and steeped back with his eyes wide, she started walking towards him "It's coming..." She started running forward at Gaara, but as soon as she should have touched him the woman disappeared, just like the man in the basement.
Gaara gasped, his breath caught in his throat. He looked behind him from both sides, only finding himself alone in the dark still. Now he was starting become unnerved.
! - ! - !
Kakashi wiped the sweat from his forehead as he came through the back door, stripping himself of his weapons in a heap on the ground near the exit. He'd just taken on a very time consuming mission, one in which he had to leave at sun set when he received the mission, take out the demon and finally return at sunrise.
He went by himself since he'd heard rumors of a demon that sounded similar to the copy he was perusing. His attempt to protect Iruka, who was the only one available to go at the time, ended up causing himself a lot of trouble. Now that it was over he just wanted to fall face first into his bed. Which he fully intended to do as he walked into Iruka's room, a lot closer then his own. "It's after hours Gaara, I'm closed."
"I...was looking for Naruto." Gaara stood in the doorway looking around the room carefully. "I can't seem to find him."
Kakashi tossed his vest aside and sat down on the bed, looking up at Gaara "Your starting to feel it aren't you, how close you are to slipping in to hell."
Gaara looked at him with his usual stone expression, "What if I am, not like It matter's much. My existence doesn't seem to mean much."
"Guess not." Kakashi laid back, resting his hands behind his head "Maybe most people don't want to see you alive, maybe to them your a monster and that's all you'll ever be. As a mater of fact, most people won't ever see you as anything else, but you knew that didn't you."
"Then what's the point? If nothing I do matters then why bothering trying to save myself?"
"You know the answer to that." Kakashi rolled over and away from Gaara "If you didn't then you wouldn't still be here."
Gaara was silent, watching Kakashi for a moment to think about what he said. Then turning to leave.
"It must be scary."
"?" Gaara stopped, looking back.
"Going through something like this, unable to go a second with out wondering if the next time I fall asleep will I wake up from a hellish nightmare, and what and I going to do to the one I love. You probably want company, I don't blame you."
"..." Gaara sighed and turned back, leaning against the wall "Your act in the strangest manner I've ever seen."
Kakashi rolled over so that he was facing Gaara again "Yeah, yeah."
Gaara didn't respond, and after a few seconds it queried Kakashi enough to open his eyes. Nothing was out of the ordinary...but Gaara didn't seem that way, he was looking around in a defensive manner as if on guard "What?"
Gaara glanced at him then quickly went back to looking around "Don't you see it?"
"See what?"
Gaara stared toward the corner of the room, seeing a man standing there in a weary manner with his face half rotted through and seeping with maggots as if he was long since dead and burred. But Kakashi didn't see it. "Nothing..." He said, thinking it was just his imagination as he watched the strange man carefully, but as soon as he closed his eyes for a second the man was gone "To much talking like this I suppose." He barely noticed when he felt a cold breeze on the back of his neck, Gaara looked over his shoulder and flinched. Another person, a very large man with a seeping hole in his chest stood directly behind him. "!"
! - ! - !
"Are you sure?" Kakashi asked, pacing around the small area and surveying the room carefully with no sign of anything other then them.
"Yes I'm sure." Gaara retorted anxiously, moving around erratically with seemingly no cause "Damnit, I'm not talking to you! Go away, you don't scare me!"
"Wait, who is he talking to?" Iruka asked, watching in confusion from the hallway next to Naruto.
Kakashi's shrugged "Ghosts? Himself? I don't know."
Neji and Kiba walked into the room from the lobby entrance, stopping curiously at the doorway to Iruka's room "We found no trace of anyone or anything other then us." Neji said. "Sasuke can't find anything with his Sharingan either."
It's coming for you
Gaara abruptly turned around, finding the same woman with half of a mouth and no arms he'd seen upstairs in the library now standing on the other side of the bed. Gaara turned back towards the group "Check again." he said firmly.
"Maybe we should go upstairs." Naruto suggested, looking over Gaara with evident concern "You know, have Neji check you--"
"No, I'm telling you they are here." Gaara was hastily with his words, afraid. It was strange to see him like this, "Something is happening, you have to check again--" Standing right next to him was a boy, about his size and age, deathly pale with blood covering his face from a place hidden by his hair.
It's here
Gaara took a deep breath and walked slowly seemingly in a calm but obviously shaken manner out side of the room and over to Naruto. "Naruto listen to me, you have to do--" Gaara's voice began to waver, gradually becoming weaker and weaker until the boy unexpectedly started falling.
Naruto reached forward and caught him for the second time in 10 minutes. "Gaara?" Naruto slowly laid him to the ground, he was out completely.
"What happened to him?" Kiba stood over him, looking down at him, then up at Naruto.
"It's ok." Iruka said reassuringly but with a given amount of worry "He dose this sometimes."
"No way, this can't be right. He just feel asleep like this 15 minutes ago." Naruto sighed "And he never acted like this before..."
! - ! - !
Naruto knelt down "We just have to find away to wake him up."
"What are you talking about?" Gaara stood over Naruto questingly, watching everyone stare down at the ground.
"I'm not sure we can wait this one out... and don't try hitting him, it doesn't work." Naruto told them.
"Wait a minute, I haven't gone to sleep...?" Gaara said, looking around in confusion as everyone began to walk away, couldn't they see him, couldn't they hear him? "Naruto? Wait, I'm here...I'm still here!" Before Gaara knew it everyone was gone, and he was alone...completely alone. "Naruto!"
He can't help you now Gaara. No one can. The sound of light laugher could be heard, a voice that came from all sides with no source, an unfamiliar voice, a deep and hunting one. It was like Gaara had become a ghost, he couldn't be seen, he couldn't be heard. Gaara ran towards the nearest door where Iruka had just exited through, but when he reached for the door knob...his hand went right through, he couldn't touch anything. Almost as if he wasn't real anymore...
"Is this the part where I say who's there." Gaara stood up strait and looked around, hiding his confusion. "And something creepy happens." ... A shadow streamed across the wall behind him with nothing to cause it, just like before, blowing an audible breeze over his body. Gaara looked back, nothing. "Thought so."
Taking one last look around, Gaara started walking. Moving with slow and cautious steps down the long wall with nothing but the sound of his own echoing footsteps to accompany him. There was a clicking sound as the door knob to door just ahead of him turned seemingly on it's own and the door swung open to a stairwell leading to the basement that lay behind it. "What are you?" Gaara looked around for any more signs of other presences, he wasn't sure what was causing all of this but he intended to find out. He walked forward, unsurprised when he heard the door slam shut behind him.
! - ! - !
"Naruto dose have a point." Neji walked through the open doorway to the library, moving quickly through the rows of books towards his study. "Gaara has been falling asleep more frequently lately."
"I say give him 20 minutes." Kiba said nonchalantly, "He'll be waking up next to you...man that is creepy."
"Look, I know he's done this before but look at the way he's acting, something's different this time!" Naruto slipped past the two and walked backwards so that he was facing them. "He's nervous, he's seeing things."
"Gaara can do that?" Kiba asked.
"We are dealing with a unique case, he dose have a demon inside of him." Neji opened the door to the small room and sat down at his desk "Gaara was suffering from insanity before, dementia certainly isn't out of the question."
"That isn't right." Naruto protested "All those times before he told me he never had these kind of problems, he never saw things that weren't there before, He's not crazy."
Kiba wasn't so sure. "I don't know Naruto, screaming about people who aren't there, and this is Gaara we're talking about. He's always been crazy."
"And think about it Naruto, every time he falls asleep he tries to kill you, Shukaku is said to eat away at him and cause nightmares when he sleeps." Neji added.
"This isn't like all the other times. These nightmares aren't like those, and he never tried to kill people during those." Naruto's voice was nearly shouting level now "And if that was it, why didn't it happen all those times he fell asleep before this? This all started after we got back from the past."
"You guys don't know what Gaara's dealing with, were he goes when he falls asleep like this..." Naruto spoke solemnly, holding his head down "At first it was nightmares...now it's hell."
There was a small silence between them.
"Of course." Neji said.
Kiba shrugged. "Kinda of figured."
! - ! - !
"Hey..." Konohamaru moved quickly down the familiar corridor, checking each room as he went "What happened to Gaara? He was just here?"
! - ! - !
The basement, of course he was brought to the basement, this seem so predictable. Gaara looked around from the foot of the stairwell, at each flame burning dimly along each side of him, the larger one on the back wall could be seen from here. Again he heard that sound.
Sheeekelop, Sheeekelop, Sheekelop
"I've already played through this one." Gaara called out in annoyment, "Another go through isn't going to scare me." despite his words he walked slowly, moving through the outcasts of shadows and light that lay interlaced across the floor. He saw it...the same table, the same knife, only an arm lay in a pool of blood with no one in site. Gaara walked to the small table, examining everything carefully... 'Then...what was that sound?--!' The arm twitched making Gaara pull away quickly.
"Nightmare."
Gaara looked to his left, watching a woman step out of one of the shadows, out of nowhere. Her left eye had a Kunai driven into it, the blood long since ran out and dried around it. She laughed as she moved closer to Gaara.
Gaara watched with his mouth open slightly and his eyes narrowed "And what exactly would Nightmare be?"
"Nightmare wants you..." She stopped, face to face with the boy now.
Gaara smirked "Nightmare? If you think I'm afraid of a bad dream them your mistaken."
"It hurts..."
"I've been going through this same sleep thing for the last few months, If I--"
"Don't worry Gaara." The woman reached up to her left eye and took hold of the blade's handle, slowly pulling it out slowly with a disgusting sound that followed. "Haven't forgotten you." She flipped the Kunai around and drove it through his shoulder before Gaara could even react, making him flinch and stumble back. By the time he looked up again the woman was gone, leaving behind only the stinging pain of a knife that had been thrust in to him and the wetness of blood running down his left side.
Even without his gourd, sand should have tried to block, but it didn't move. In fact, Gaara hadn't even felt it move try to move... Gaara looked around again, everything was really gone...now he was starting to feel scared.
! - ! - !
Naruto sat in the last row as usual, his eye scanning over the demon book and then shifting to a notepad and writing key points diligently. He didn't even need the translations anymore, after a few days of non stop working he'd memorized each letter, abbreviation and symbol. And seeing it so much, looking at it was as natural as looking at his own language. "Yeah...the symptoms are right..."
Gaara sighed as he paced around lightly before him. "I think I know what those ghost I've been seeing are." He knew Naruto couldn't see him, but he wished more then ever that he could at least hear him. This was still unclear, why he suddenly fell asleep and couldn't be notice anymore, he even felt differently, as if his body was hanging over a hole and he was slipping down. With everything he'd gathered, Gaara was starting to piece things together. "They must have come to take me...Must have gotten tired of waiting for me to fall in on my own."
"...I think I can get those..." Naruto mumbled to himself, pulling another book in to his view, completely ignorant of Gaara's presence.
"It knows my name, it knows how to hurt me..." Gaara stopped, a sadden look coming on his face as he watched Naruto working diligently. He didn't want to die, he didn't want his existence to just fade away as if it were nothing. And to most people it was just that, nothing, except to a few people...like Naruto. "I wanted to thank you, for everything you've done for me. You tried to help...I wanted to tell you how much that meant to me but--"
"Damn, I'm good." Naruto smiled as he picked up his notes and started to write.
"What?"
"Just...add type O blood to it... I'm a genus."
Gaara smiled and knelt down next to Naruto. "Look's like It's not over for me yet."
Naruto looked over the book, his smile slowly fading until he picked up the book and threw it in to the wall "And it sends a feed back that turns half of Konoha in to mush! Damnit!"
"No!"
Naruto slammed his fist in to the ground and let his head fall back against the book shelf "I'll never figure this out."
"Yes you will!" Gaara called out "Don't give up Naruto please!" Gaara sub-consciously reached forward and grabbed Naruto's shoulder, but his hand drew back quickly and Naruto flinched 'I just...touched him..' Gaara reached forward again to only to see his hand go through Naruto's body.
Naruto jumped to his feet, looking around frantically. He felt something, he knew he felt something. It was so familiar, like sand grabbing him, it was just like him. It couldn't be...could it? Gaara had just disappeared with out warning, what if he was still here? What if that had been his sand? "Gaara? Was that you?"
"You...you felt it too didn't you?" Gaara stared down at his hands, it happened, it really happened "I'm here, I'm still here."
The lights flickered, just as they had before, and abruptly cut out. Leaving Naruto alone in the dark.
"No!" Gaara yelled, climbing to his feet and looking around. "He can feel me! He knows I'm here! I'm not going yet! Your not taking me!"
"G-Gaara...If that's you..." Naruto said, looking around in the darkness "Give me some sort of--Whaaa!" Naruto jumped back and fell after turning around and coming face to face with Kakashi's chest. "Damn it will everybody stop doing that."
"Naruto, we looked everywhere." He said, "Gaara's gone."
"The hell with that, I know what I felt. Gaara's still around here some place and we have to find away to find him." Naruto told him "If he keeps falling asleep then maybe he's trying to get to me and can't make it, maybe he's trapped someplace, maybe he's in trouble, maybe--"
"Naruto calm down, we'll find him."
! - ! - !
"Are we really going to do this?" Konohamaru asked questingly, staring down at a large steal that had been painted on the ground in the basement in a design that suggested a Jutsu.
"This is pointless, he's gone. He just left, get over it!" Sasuke snorted.
"Shut up Bastard! He didn't just walk away, not the way he is now, he couldn't have. I know I felt it, he's still here!" Naruto growled. "Neji, come on start already."
Neji looked up from one of the demon books he was reading "Patience Naruto, I've never done this before and if I don't do this correctly, I guarantee that none of you are going to like the results." Neji was certain of that, these Jutsu were so closely created that one wrong hand seals could mean a very hostile demon instead of a locating one. There was no way Gaara could have gotten out of the range of there search in 30 minutes, he would have been found, he wasn't fast enough not to be. "Just give me chakra and I'll do the rest."
Iruka and Kakashi looked at each other "I hope this works." Iruka clasped his hands together and began to concentrate, from there it was simple, all he had to do was get his Chakra flowing and the seal on the ground activated. Black lines of paint and blood became a light blue, the color of Iruka's Charka, and then black, the color of Kiba's Chakra (which Neji was taking note of, Kiba's chakra wasn't supposed to be this color). Deep orange followed, the color of Naruto's chakra, then a shift to white, the color of Neji's chakra, then a deep blue, Sasuke's, Followed by a gray, Kakashi's, and finally yellow, the color of Konohamaru's. All of them mixed into a glow of deep black.
'Here goes.' Neji lifted two fingers before his eyes and activated his Bakyugan, before he started performing head seals "Summon No Jutsu, Paragonta Norta Ninpo!" He shouted, causing a shockwave of red energy to propagate outward in a strong burst of wind. Sasuke had to grab Konohamaru and hold him down to keep him from flying away. Neji knelt down and picked up a large crystal at his side and tossed it directly into the center. "Offering of Pentantro stone."
Another shockwave resulted, a stronger one that sent everyone sliding backwards away from the seal. And as if the ground under the markings were made of glass, a wing burst through the seal, shattering it and dispersing it in to countless pieces. Most of them flinched when a loud screech shook the walls, and with the wing already above ground it pulled it self up. It happened to be a large bird, a red bird with long tail yellow tail fathers streaming down from it's head to past it's feet. It's eyes were a light green, a yellow beak with an orange chest, and the tips of it's wings were lined with yellow and green feathers. And more importantly, it was on fire...at least it's wings were.
"Whoa! What the hell is that?" Konohamaru shouted, pointing a finger at the large bird.
The bird narrowed it's eyes "What the hell are you?" It said mockingly "What do I look like, a roasted turkey? Now what the hell did you guys call me for, Do you know what time it is? And if it's something stupid then all of you are so gona be smoted."
"I'm...sorry if we woke you up...but we need your help Fuhicho." Neji said nervously, this was unexpected, he wasn't sure how to deal with something with type of personality.
"And there wasn't anyone or anything else you could summon?" Fuhicho asked annoyedly. "Never mind, Just tell me what it is you want and if it's good enough I might help you out."
Kakashi and Iruka looked at Neji, who gave them a light shrug "A friend of ours is gone, and we think he may not have left physically."
"You mean he's dead?"
"We're not sure, but we think he's still here, but we can't find him. And the reason we--"
"Yeah whatever, your not making any sense." The Phoenix said with an annoyed sigh, landing on the ground and pulling in it's wings. It was large enough to have to crouch and tilt his down to fit in the room, even if the ceiling was high. "Now, I have something to do at the crack of why the hell am I awake, so let's just move this along shall we. I'll just see what I can find."
The demon bird closed his eyes "Now, I'm going to let out some calming vibes to get us in the zone and we'll see if we can bring up your missing human." The bird started to glow in a fiery mix of orange and red, the light started to pulse off and on, dimmer and brighter, creating in a oddly soothing sound. Sasuke and Kiba, who were next to each other, exchanged looks, and Konohamaru just looked up at the both of them and shrugged, still mad about the insult Fuhicho. "Alright Humans, Clear your minds."
The demon looked around at the 7 of them quickly "...Which judging by the looks of you wont be too hard." The demon closed his eyes again, not seeing the look that Konohamaru was giving him.
"What, should he hold hands too?" Konohamaru retorted angrily.
"Only if your lonely" Fuhicho said with mocking sympathy "Now shut up!" The demon was silent for a moment, and then started to hum... "Those that have left us, passed through the gate of death, ascended from the living, those that are living that have not been found..." The bird spread it's wings, throwing fire embers into the empty area's of the room, and causing another red flash... "Show yourself to me, show me your spirit, show me your soul." Fuhicho took another deep breath, "I feel something...a presence."
"Hn." Gaara folded his arms as he watched the bird from his place unseen and unnoticed next to Naruto. Still clinching his bleeding sholder "Yes..."
"It's not human...a demon...a dark soul."
"Yes, I'm here, tell them to help me." Gaara said, not sure if the bird could hear him or not.
"It's coming..."
"What?" Gaara stared upward in confusion "Are you talking about, I'm already here."
The Phoenix took another deep breath, exhaling more embers from it's beak. "It's here...so much pain...suffering. A black soul..."
Naruto looked up "What? He's in pain?"
"It's here..." Fuhicho opened his eyes wide, "It's...it's Fea---..."
"Nightmare!" Gaara yelled "It's Nightmare damnit! Tell them!"
"No.. it's leaving.." Fuhicho scanned the room with it's green eyes "There are two demons here."
'Dose it mean me this time?' Gaara didn't say it out loud this time, just watched questioningly 'Two demons? Shukaku? '
"It's..Nigh--Ughaa!" Fuhicho eyes grew wide as sand jumped up from the ground, clinching the bird's legs, pulling it down as more sand fell from the ceiling and wrapped around his neck .
"Gaara?" Kakashi looked around seeing no sign of the boy except for the sand that was now attacking. "Gaara let him go."
"What? It's not me!" Gaara ran over to Kakashi, shouting at deaf ears.
...The sand became docile, running loosely off of the demon's body, Fuhicho gasped, taking in as much air as he could. "Whoa...Are you ok?" Naruto asked...only to have blood splattering on him from a thick spike of hardened sand that drove itself through the demon's chest.
! - ! - !
"Ok, what the hell was that?" Konohamaru softly closed the basement door. "I know that Gaara used to be a complete sociopath but why would he kill him?"
"He wouldn't." Sasuke said. "No advantage in killing someone you need help from."
"You think it was an accident?" Konohamaru leaned against the wall and let him slide down to the floor.
"...Or the dark soul that demon found wasn't the one we're looking for...theirs something else here, something worse. What bothers me is that it said there were two demons...what were they?"
Konohamaru looked up, thinking..."I...think I know what one of them is. It has to be the one that was after me...but, what was that name?" Konohamaru thought on it for a moment... "Where is Gaara anyway?"
! - ! - !
Naruto leaned back against the tile walls of the shower, hot water streaming down on to his body. The blood that covered him washed off in pink pools, he was happy to be rid of it...he heard a light and quick sound of rushing air that made him look towards a pate glass door that separated the shower. But with a light shrug he looked away.
Gaara stared at Naruto's blurry form from the other side of the door, watching, thinking... 'Why did it kill him? What ever this Nightmare demon is it's after me so couldn't have been worried the other demon was going to help, he didn't even know I was there...unless it wasn't about me..." Gaara paused as he stared down at the ground in thought...then he looked up toward the shower again "Wait, I think I know why it killed him, it was trying to hide something. Something it didn't want you too know--" Gaara sub-consciously lifted his hand, barely noticing it bump in to the glass...it touched the glass...!
Gaara slowly and curiously pressed his finger against the fogy window and as expected it went right through...'Come on...' He pulled back and tried again, concentrating hard as his finger touched the glass again... Gaara thought better of the moment and started writing, spelling out a word, a name. Nightmare.
Naruto reached forward and turned off the shower, shaking as much water out of his hair as he could before he turned to leave, deeming him self clean again. Naruto reached to open the shower door "What the..." He saw something, letters slowly being written on the glass as if someone was writing it on the other side, and though it was backwards he could still make it out. That didn't make it any less creepy. "What...the?"
'! The glass shattered and Gaara flew backwards feeling a strong impact on his chest, going through the wall in a ghost like way.
"Whhaaaa!" Naruto fell backwards in a rain of glass.
! - !- !
Gaara fell hard to the ground in the hallway out side of that wall, sliding to a stop a few feet away with a strong impact to the side of his face. Before he could even think of what had just happened to him, he herd something, someone...he looked towards the door leading to the library, where the distinct sound of someone coming down the steeps had been echoing from.
Gaara pulled himself to his feet "Fine, let's get this over with right now." He ran towards the door at the end of the corridor "I'm sick of this!"
The form coming down the steps finally was in view, and it wasn't what Gaara expected. It was a man in a suit, holding a briefcase the sight made Gaara freeze in confusion, this couldn't be it. "?"
"Gaara." The man walked past him, giving Gaara a complete view of his body, and revealing that half of his face was burned and disfigured beyond recondition, most of it was hanging off. Gaara turned around as the man's figure continued going, He started backing away slowly, and bumping in to something else.
Gaara flinched and turned around, finding that same woman with no arms again. "Gaara."
He couldn't even feel them coming, he knew his training should have given him the senses to detect when someone was coming from behind. But not these things, not whatever they were, Gaara never saw them coming until it was too late. "No." Gaara moved away, heading up the stairs to get away.
He nearly ran into another person, the woman who'd had the kunai in her eye was standing two steps above him. "It hurts..."
"No!" Gaara pushed past her and continued upward in a full sprint. "Damnit! I'm not talking to these things anymore!" Gaara pushed himself upward and in to the library. "I know what you are now, your sending them in to scare me. Your just a weak little demon looking for a fight aren't you! Nightmare, coming to pull me down to hell. It's -- UAHHAAAA!" Gaara fell to the ground, clinching his body tightly. This immense pain washed over him unexpectantly with no source...
That same black shadow ran across the wall behind him, only this time it stopped above him, "I haven't forgotten you..." From behind, a demon walked over him, standing in to his view. It was blue, with a human shape but nothing but a large shadow for a body... "But first...I get to play."
Gaara stared up at the demon with wide eyes and his mouth open, the same demon that had been haunting him for months, the same that had forced him to try and kill Naruto while he slept, that made him fall unconscious into a hellish nightmare at unexpected times. And now Gaara was staring at it, and he was afraid, so afraid that his body started to tremble.
! - ! - !
"The dark soul...there are over 1000 different references." Neji flipped through a book of indexes for every other book in the library, something compiled partly by him and partly by his family for the books he'd gathered from them. "Four of them are about Gaara specifically."
"What?" Iruka walked quickly from outside in the library to Neji who was in the study a few feet away. "Let me see that."
Kakashi watched Iruka take the book and look over it carefully, noticing the large flaw in what they were doing "This is pointless, we'll never get anywhere like this. Even if we search inside Naruto's 300 references it will take to long."
"Hey this isn't fair!" Iruka called out "He was being controlled by a demon when he did that."
"Nightmare!" Naruto ran into the large room, slipping on his shirt as he moved throw the rows of books toward the others, working diligently. "Look up Nightmare."
Exactly what Neji had been looking for, He got up from his desk and headed into the library for a certain volume in the demon index.
Iruka looked up from the book, "Where did that come from?"
"It...came to me in the shower." Naruto picked up his notes from the ground and started looking over them carefully.
"I found something." Iruka stopped his pacing and set the book down on Neji's desk "Not much here though, 16th century demon named Nightmare for inhabiting and inducing types of sleep, it was killed though..."
"What kind of sleep?" Naruto paused long enough to pull on his jacket.
Neji reentered his study with a thick book in his hand and his Bakyugan active "The kind you don't wake up from, Nightmare inhabits a host and pulls them in to deeper and deeper sleeps until they don't wake up at all. Even then it keeps pulling until the body disappears completely, and the way it happens suggest intimate knowledge of Jutsus and some sort of supernatural powers." Neji turned the page.
"So what, is it eating Gaara?" Naruto asked
"No, there have been suggestions that this demon doesn't even exist, well not technically, the way it attacks suggest that it's pulling to another plane of existence. Which is most likely why it's inhabits bodies of others, because it's not "real" in this world." Neji told them. "Gaara's body is already gone."
"It's been taking over Gaara...so that's why he kept attacking me." Naruto's face lit up in realization "That thing was making him sleep and then controlling him. But didn't you say it was killed."
"Since it knew Jutsus and had powers..." Kakashi said "Maybe it knew a way to stick around."
Neji nodded. "I'm not sure why it was after you Naruto, but this would explain the more frequent sudden losses of conciseness. It must have been taking over more and more of him, and pulling more and more of him in to--"
Naruto pounded his fist into the wall with an angry growl "It can't be too late... You said it pulled body and all, but he can't be completely gone yet, I know it! Whatever it's doing to Gaara, we need to find away to get him back. Now."
! - ! - !
Gaara clinched at what he could as he struggled to get away, his left eye started to sting and closed instinctively to block out the steady stream of blood that flowed down from his head someplace hidden by his hair. His arm reached forward, covered in cuts and scars, moving desperately to get away. But before he could make another move on the library floor, flashes of someplace unknown rolled before his eyes, making his whole body feel burning hot and unbearably cold at the same time. He cried out in pain, trying to move faster.
The same blue shadow followed behind him, which Gaara suspected wasn't actually it's real form. "Demon soul, different then the others, squirms more..."
Gaara narrowed his open eye as his body gave out momentarily "Go...Go to hell." He growled, forcing himself to move again, only to stop again when a long shadow was cast over him. He slowly lifted his head and looked up, the light hurt almost as much as the blood in his eyes.
"Your trip, not mine."
The sound of hurried footsteps could be herd next to them as the unseeing Naruto walked through the rows of books and back to the spot where his notes and books were scattered. Gaara stared up at him, wishing that somehow Naruto would notice him, but the boy couldn't and he knew it. Gaara was no longer there, he wasn't real anymore, just an echo of himself. 'N-Naruto."
Nightmare looked over towards Naruto absorbingly, standing over him much to close for Gaara's comfort. So close that the demon could be touching Naruto if it was possible. "The Kyuubi boy, still trying to save you..." It was looking down at Naruto too hard for Gaara's comfort, watching carefully as Naruto flipped the pages of the demon book while he tapped a pencil against the ground impatiently "Such passion, youthful...and sweet... I'll can't wait until I can have a taste of him."
"No!" Gaara shouted, staring upward with wide eyes. He could feel his adrenaline pumping, giving him enough strength to climb to his feet and throw a hard punch at Nightmare, only to have his arm travel right through and his body stumble forward from the lost momentum as if the demon wasn't even there.
Nightmare laughed "Still thinking like flesh." The demon turned around abruptly so that it was face to face with Gaara. "There's none here, not in these place. All rules--"
The bright florescent lights suddenly dimmed and Gaara looked around in confusion as he suddenly found himself in the basement, standing in the faint light of Konohamaru's shrine. "--Are mine. Reality bends to my desire, the way it was meant to."
Gaara looked around feverously for the source of the sound, walking uneasily forward toward the back of the room. "Bending Reality...I didn't just fall asleep, it was you. That's why they can't find me, they can't see me anymore, why I can't touch anything..." Gaara continued to look around, breathing heavily to catch his breath from his previous struggling. There was still some energy left in him, enough to lift his right arm to his throbbing shoulder and hold his hand over the wound that had been forced open wider and wider by Nightmare during the process of his torture.
Simple tricks, to amuse...your blood--
Gaara looked down when he realized he didn't feel the wetness anymore, all of the red liquid was gone completely from every wound on his body. Scares and holes only remained... and the pain.
Nothing here with out my will, Your voice, your body...
"Clothes you think you wear." Gaara flinched and stumble to the side when the woman with kunai that had been through her eye appeared next to him, and his clothes were gone.
Bloody killer, Murder and destroyer. Heh, heh, but scratch the surface...
Gaara felt a chill run down his spine as the previous man who'd had half of his face burned and disfigured beyond recondition brushed his side as he walked past. "Weak, lonely child still crying for someone's love..."
Know all of your hiddens, your dirty secrets. But fell in love, stopped doing dirty things...
Ignoring his nakedness, continued to look around in complete confusion, watching for the people he'd just seen. "Thinks it matters, Hell still wants you." Gaara turned around quickly and found himself face to face with the woman who had no arms. Gaara fell backwards, his weak body was barley strong enough to catch himself.
Knows he deserves it, like all the others.
That's when Gaara realized something. "You killed them, these ghost I keep seeing."
I took them, they were like insects, scurrying from the flames
"They were fine..." Gaara called out angrily "Until you pulled them down...If they're in hell, then they can't be here, they aren't real!"
Real enough
From behind, the man with the knife that had been cutting his arm off, came through the darkness and drove the knife in to his back. Illustrating Nightmare's point. "Uhaaa!" Gaara tumbled forward and fell to the ground, blood seeping in pools around him from an area next to his spinal cord.
You are nothing but a soulless murder, I want him
"N-Naruto!"
! - ! - !
Kakashi and Iruka looked curiously as Naruto wrote on the hardwood ground in his own messy, nearly unreadable handwriting with a black marker. Seemingly engrossed in what he was doing. Kakashi folded his arms "That's never good."
Naruto glanced back at the sound of his voice, "Oh no, I just ran out of paper, I'm not crazy."
"Just scary persistent." Kakashi's comment earned him an elbow and a look from Iruka.
"Do you really think this is going to work Naruto?" Iruka asked "I mean you barley know what your reading, let alone know what needs to be done."
Naruto nodded "I know, that's why Neji is helping me. See, I'm going to try and use a re-embody and recreation Jutsu. Look, there he is now." Naruto pointed behind the two men with the black marker in hand toward Neji who was coming toward them with a scroll.
"Naruto, I can set this Jutsu up, but if this is going to work then we're going to need massive amounts of Chakra." Neji rolled up the scroll he'd transcribed from one of the demon books and placed it under his arm. "Where are we going to get that?"
"Well.." Naruto stopped and thought about it for a moment, his eyes drifting around the room... until they settled on himself. "I think I know a place."
! - ! - !
"Pace yourself Konohamaru." Sasuke said, "Just take it easy."
Naruto was laying on the ground in the open space of the library, surrounding by another seal composed partly of paint, partly of his blood and partly of Konohamaru's, who was knelling down beside Naruto. Konohamaru was pressing his hands against Naruto's exposed torso, his finger tips just barley touching the seal on Naruto's stomach. Yellow chakra was pulsing into the seal, making it glow with a golden light, it was hard for Konohamaru to use small amounts, which was needed for this, but he was getting better at it. "I'm...trying."
"You can do this." Sasuke reassured from outside of the intricately designed ensign, standing near one of the flames encircling it. Konohamaru needed his chakra to be as small and precise as possible, because with Naruto's help he was putting a crack in the seal, with Naruto forcing it of course. And this task took a lot of Chakra.
Iruka and Kiba watched ideally nearby while Neji and Kakashi, the only other person that could work with this type of Jutsu, prepared. "Are you ready?" Kakashi asked, holding a few strands of Naruto's hair as a medium for the Jutsu about to be performed.
'Damnit fox, Your in my body.' Naruto yelled in his mind, his body tense and shaking "You have to help me out...please? Come on, I'm cracking this damn thing on my stomach, isn't that what you want?' Naruto waited, pushing his own Chakra in to the seal and since it was on him he had more power over it. He could feel it weakening, no matter how small and little that weakening was...and then he felt it, a hairline crack appeared in the designs of the seal. "! Ahhaaaaaa!" And it hurt like hell. "Uhaaaaaa!"
Naruto's cries of pain made a violent shift into a loud, animistic growl and an explosion of red Chakra. "Whaaaa!" Konohamaru flew backwards in a gust of red wind, and in a second Sasuke was there, catching him. "Thanks Sasuke...Uh...I don't think I can move." Konohamaru tried to lift his arm, but he'd put out way to much Chakra at one time, more chakra then his body was supposed to have. The strain made him weak.
The marks on Naruto's face grew longer, his hair grew so long that it was nearly covering his eyes. His canines grew into fangs that extended outside of his mouth, and his eyes shifted into golden orbs with silted pupils. "I think...It's working." He said, panting and sweating heavily. Red Charka flowed in to each and every line of the seal, making it glow...
Neji and Kakashi started the hand seals, a very long and complicated set of them.
"If Gaara is around here, how do we let him know where to go?" Iruka asked.
"He'll know." Neji said "Any and everything in this building is about to feel the feedback. Hold on to something."
! - !- !
Gaara fell to the ground, cold, naked, shaking, hurt, dripping with blood. He felt so weak, and his attempts to fight back were all useless. He could feel Nightmare moving closer to him, running it's finger's through his hair, clinching the strands tightly and pulling his head off the ground. "Your starting to realize it now..."
"No. You...you can't be real, Your not!" Gaara shouted surprised but uncaring how frightened his voice sounded. Nightmare just laughed, lifted Gaara's head up even more in a painful grip, outstretching a blue and shadowy hand. "No, your not...you couldn't be to do this to me, you can't be alive to do what you did to me, to make me hurt him. What are you?"
A black light started to glow from the large flame at the back wall, it covered everything in a deep shadow as it expanded until it covered the entire wall. Then it became like liquid, shifting and stirring like waves in a storm. This was it and he knew it, it made his shaking become violent and a chill shudder through him...he was afraid, more then he ever thought possible. And as the demon dragged him along the ground towards it, he couldn't do anything about it, except to watch it reach out for him. This was hell, and he was staring it in the face, he could hear echoing screams from the other side, causing him unrelenting fear that would haunt . "W-what are you doing...why did you pick me..?"
"You go now...so I don't have to go back, so I can stay."
That's when Gaara realized everything. "Your not real...you can't be alive, You...your using me, you've been pulling me down so you can pull your self out of hell...y-you want Naruto." Gaara's face contorted in anger and his body tensed "But I'll go to hell before I let you hurt him!" Gaara threw his elbow back into Nightmare's face, knocking the demon off of him.
Nightmare stumbled back on to the ground "You dare..."
"Damn right." Gaara stood up, watching as the black light of the outreaching hell fade away, he turned back towards Nightmare "Reality bends to desire, isn't that what it was? That's why I could touch Naruto, write your name in the glass. You may be killing me, my body may be gone, I may barely exist and slipping in to hell anyway, But if I desired it enough..." Gaara looked down at himself as his clothing reappeared, and his existence was returning by the second. "What do you think I desire to do now?"
! - ! - !
The Shadowy form of the demon flew up the stairs, it's body landing halfway between the hallway wall in a ghost like way. Gaara jumped from the darkness of the lower level and landed on top of Nightmare, grabbing it's neck and sending a volley of punches to it's face. "You killed these people to get your self out of hell, took over them, push them in yourself. But I see now that you could never quite get out completely."
Nightmare threw a punch at Gaara, but Gaara caught it's hand and drove his knee into it's stomach repeatedly. "So you tried to use me to get to him. So you could take him, so you could get." Gaara started throwing punches at it's face again, this time grabbing on to it's forehead "It's not so fun when the souls you take fight back is it!"
Nightmare drove it's head upward into Gaara's, making him veer back, then punched him in the side of his face hard enough to send Gaara flying. Now free, the demon stood up strait, holding it's arms outward, the blue body becoming a black shadow "Starting to be." From it's body, long tentacle like appendages spewed forth, the red eyes glowing visibly. With in seconds, Nightmare's form had become a shapeless mass of countless tentacles, two red eyes larger then Gaara seemingly floating separately from the body.
Gaara drew back, just enough to stay out of range. "I am not afraid of you!" He took a step back and then ran at Nightmare, diving into the tentacles and punching as deep in as he could. This would have been much easer with his sand. The black tentacles wrapped around his waist, his arms, his legs, his neck.
"Learned a few of my tricks did you." Nightmare began to constrict, tighten around him, that voice seemed to have no source. "Mean's nothing dose it?" The tentacles became sharp blades, and the demon began to spin. Faster and faster until it's body was a black blur acting as a vacuum while the sickles digging into his body and tainting the black tendrils blood red before Gaara was thrown from it. He flew through the next door, landing on the stairway that lead up to the library, bleeding from scares in just about every different place on his body.
Nightmare's long appendages reached through the wall in the same ghost like way, latching on to Gaara's legs. Gaara grabbed them before they started to draw him in, ignoring the pain that came when the black tentacles became blades again and dug in to his palms. Gaara placed a foot back and gave one sharp pull with all of his strength, a jerk powerful enough to pull the demon towards him completely and slam it to the ground by the same two tendrils. But as soon as he was close to it, the demon started to wrap it self around him and entangle him again.
And just before it was about to tighten completely, a large, red shockwave came down from below and knocked them apart.
It was Chakra, strong Chakra, and from here Gaara could hear force, winds blowing above. This was his sign, he felt that Chakra, he felt Naruto. Gaara turned and ran for the steps, leaving Nightmare behind.
! - ! - !
"I feel it!" Naruto yelled out, staring up at the ceiling from the center of the seal. "He's here!"
Kakashi and Neji, standing on opposite sides of the seal to direct and manipulate the Jutsu. They looked up at each other and nodded.
"Gaara!" Iruka's called out, looking around for any signs of him "Step into the seal and hurry, we've only got one chance at making you--" Iruka's eyes grew wide and his hands clinched at his neck, choking from some unseen force. Nightmare was there already, one of the long appendages wrapped around Iruka's neck un noticed by him.
Gaara finally reached the top of the stairs, looking around at everything, and hearing Iruka's directive voice suddenly cease. And then he spotted Nightmare. "Iruka!"
"It's Nightmare." Kiba took his best guess, inferring that from what had happened to Fuhicho before as he ran over to Iruka "He's killing h--" Before he could even get close, an invisible force gave him a strong blow across the face, knocking him away.
"Which is it boy, the man's life, or your chance to escape hell."
Gaara looked ahead, and at the back of the room he could see that same black light as before, unseen to the others. "Damnit!"
Decisions, Your hope, or the flesh. No time for both
Gaara came from behind in a blur of speed, fast enough to be un noticed by the demon "Let him go!" He dived into the air, driving his body into the mass of sourceless tentacles and thrusting his feet into it hard enough to knock it away.
! - ! - !
"Ahhaaaa!" Naruto screamed out, "Something's coming." Chakra was being pulled from him into some unknown source. "Is it suppose to be this bad!"
"Something's wrong." Kakashi said, feeling chakra being pulled from him in much lager amounts then he was giving . "Bringing Gaara back shouldn't take this much."
From thin air, a black tactical surfaced above Naruto, followed by more and more until Nightmare appeared, wrapped around Gaara who was fighting against it with all his strength. As soon as the Jutsu as broke, Kakashi ran over to Iruka and Neji headed for Kiba.
"What have you done!" Nightmare yelled, apparently not happy. "Infantile, I'll destroy every one of you. I'll--"
A loud growl came from below as Naruto jumped upward, swiping his claws at the demon with all Kyuubi's strength and knocking it away from Gaara "You'll shut the hell up!"
"Naruto!" Gaara took a step before his body gave way and he stumbled to the ground. "Don't kill it! If it dies again then it'll just come back."
And when Nightmare saw Naruto touched Gaara, it realized that what it wanted all along had just happened. It was real in this dimension, where it was in reach of Naruto...
Naruto grabbed Gaara's arm and pulled him on to his feet, Gaara had to hold on to his shoulder. "Gaara, your ok! God I was so worried about you" Naruto gave a fanged smiled as he looked over Gaara's body, the body that was covered in blood and wounds. Naruto was putting out so much of Kyuubi's Chakra that he was starting to transform, he didn't care though. "I knew you weren't gone yet!"
"Wait..." Gaara looked around frantically from the ground "Where is it? Where is Nightmare?"
"That thing?" Naruto asked, taking a quick scan of the room "I don't know."
Gaara held on to Naruto's shoulders for support, "No...we can't let it get away..."
! - ! - !
"Go ahead Naruto." Iruka rubbed Naruto's head lightly, who was back to normal now. Iruka had his own visible set of bruises around his neck from Nightmare. "We'll finish cleaning."
"Sure?" Naruto asked with a yawn, "It's a lot."
Iruka looked around at the Library, Neji was not happy about this one. Paint and blood from the seal was everywhere, not to mention Gaara's blood that was all over the place, and a large burn mark from Naruto's Chakra. "Yeah, I've did more work on one of your pranks, remember that one with the half stick of dynamite? I think we can handle this." Iruka smiled "Go talk to Gaara."
Naruto took one last look around, Kakashi, Kiba, Sasuke and Neji were still cleaning. Konohamaru was sound asleep in Neji's study, and Gaara was...someplace. "Thanks Iruka."
"Yeah yeah, just go find him."
! - ! - !
Gaara looked at himself, laying in his bed, his whole body wrapped in bandages. He'd died, his soul was nearly fed to hell, and he'd reentered the world through a Jutsu, a demonic one at that. He could barley move...but he was happy he could let out a sigh of relief, it was over and he was glad for it.
Naruto walked into Gaara's room, looking around the nearly empty space as he made his way over to the bed and sat down. Gaara looked up at him for a moment, both sharing a moment of silence before Gaara spoke. "Thank you."
"Thank you? For what?" Naruto queried.
"You didn't give up on me, I almost gave up on myself." Gaara said. "I just want to thank you."
Naruto smiled, climbing on to the bed next to Gaara and laying his head on Gaara's chest "Good to have you back Gaara, I missed you so much."
"I missed you too Naru." Gaara closed his eye and wrapped his arm around Naruto, he opened them again when he felt Naruto shifting out of his hold.
"Hold on." Naruto said, climbing out of Gaara's bed and running over to the dresser where a CD player was sitting. Then he made his way back to Gaara, and curled up next to him "Are you going to tell me your favorite song now?"
Gaara looked down at Naruto "I don't know if I have one."
Naruto reached upward and slid the headphones over Gaara's ears, "Make sure you tell me when you pick one. Promise" Naruto said, he knew this was important, because the last time he asked that, Gaara hadn't given him an answer. He needed this, some type of reassurance that Gaara wouldn't leave, not after everything they've been through.
"Yes, I promise."
"Thank you."
