I hope you enjoy it! :D
Chapter 3: I'll Never Leave You
Someone knocks on Gaara's door. We both get up from his bed and look at each other.
"Who do you think it is?"
I ask Gaara. Gaara shrugs and goes to open the door. A very kind looking man comes in. Is that his dad? I don't think so… He looks too nice to be his dad.
"Yashamaru!"
Oh, so that's Yashamaru.
"How have you been, Gaara? And who do we have here?"
I rush to Gaara's side and hide behind him a little. What? I get a little shy around strangers who are older than me!
"This is Kiu, my friend. She's going to be staying here with us."
Gaara seems much more cheerful around that man. He does seem like a really nice guy.
"Are her parents aware of that?"
Yashamaru crouches a little to be at Gaara's and my eye-level.
"I don't think I have any."
Yashamaru looks at me with a little surprise. I try to hide even more behind Gaara.
"She doesn't have any memories from her past."
"That's unfortunate… Well, you can stay here as long as you like. I'm sure Gaara will be happy with some company."
"Thank you…"
Even if I'm shy, I don't forget to be polite. I'm excited about this. It's like an infinite sleepover! Well, until I find my own place.
"Well, I'll leave you two together then, since I have a mission I need to attend to. Gaara, why don't you show Kiu around?"
"I'll show her the roof! It's where we can see the entire village!"
"Perfect! Have fun, you two."
He then leaves us alone. The roof? That sounds like fun! I finally get out from behind Gaara and stand next to him. He looks at me.
"Why were you hiding behind me?"
"…I'm a little shy sometimes! Deal with it!"
"You don't seem shy with me."
"You're different…"
You're my age!
"Anyway, you talked about showing me the roof. Do you hang out there a lot?"
"Well, I spend most of my nights up there."
"Wait, you sleep on the roof?"
"I don't sleep…"
"At all?"
"Very rarely…"
"Why? How?"
"Well, you can say that there's this monster inside of me. It keeps me from sleeping. It's because of that monster that everybody's afraid of me…"
He looks down. He clenches his fists. A monster? So that's why everyone is acting all scared around him.
"Kiu, you didn't know?"
I shake my head.
"Are you… going to be scared of me too?"
He looks at me with a sad face.
"Well I'm not running, am I? So no, I won't be scared of you. You're my friend. Now show me that roof! From now on, you won't be spending your nights there alone, because I'll be there!"
Gaara instantly smiles after hearing that. He should smile like that all the time. I'll make sure he does!
Gaara takes my hand and takes me to where the roof is. We both stand close to the edge.
"Wow…"
"You like it?"
"This is awesome! You can see almost everything from up here!"
The houses in the village look like the doll houses that Mari and I used to play with. Gaara sits down on the edge, dangling his feet in the air. I do the same. I sit next to him on his left and playfully push his left leg with my right leg. He does the same and we both start giggling while having a mini feet war. I feel a cold breeze blow. Man, it's cold in the desert…
"Gaara, I'm cold."
Gaara moves closer to me until our sides are glued together.
"Better?"
His body heat is keeping me a little warmer.
"Definitely."
Just then, I hear something piercing through the air and getting closer to us. Before I could turn around, I hear the rustling of sand. Gaara seems alarmed. I look behind us and all I see is sand. Once it starts falling, I notice… Kunai knives? It seems like the sand stopped them from getting to us. Gaara gets up. He's looking at a man who's standing in the shadows, ready to throw more kunai knives at us. He's using some kind of weird magic trick to keep them floating in the air without touching them. Is that what people call jutsu? Gaara looks angry… and scared.
"Why… Why me…? Why is it always me?"
"Gaara…"
I get up and stand behind him. The man throws more kunai knives at us, but sand stops it again. Why is the sand doing that? Gaara then lifts his arm and… the sand moves along! So it's Gaara that's been controlling it! The sand then goes and wraps itself around the man in the shadows and… squashes him! The sound is sickening! The man is then dropped on the ground. Is he dead…? Gaara goes closer to the man. I follow closely behind. He takes off the man's mask and… it's… Gaara's uncle? Why? Why would he do that?
"Yashamaru…"
Gaara sounds like he's about to cry. I feel like I'm about to cry too… How could Yashamaru do something like this?
"Yashamaru… why? Why were you trying to kill me?"
"It was an order… By your father."
Blood is seeping out of every orifice of his body.
"Father? Why… would he want me dead…?"
Gaara… It feels like he's going to break down any second. I put my hand on his shoulder. He looks at me. He's… crying. I feel my own tears falling down my cheeks. His own father… How could a father ever order someone to assassinate his own son?
"You were born… to be possessed by the Sand Shukaku… Until today, you have been watched over as an experimental subject… However, you are yet unable to control the powers of the living spirit Shukaku… Before long, your existence will become too dangerous to the village itself… We simply couldn't let that happen…"
"Then… then you had no choice… It was because of father…"
Gaara looks back at Yashamaru.
"No… You're mistaken…"
What…?
"Yes, I did receive Kazekage-sama's orders… but… I would've declined if I wanted to…"
But he didn't decline… Does that means…?
"Gaara… Deep down inside… I must've always… resented you for coming into this world, stealing life away from my beloved sister…"
Gaara lets out a hiccup. This is way too painful for him! How could anyone be so cruel!
"I tried my best to love you by thinking of you as her memento… but I couldn't…"
"Stop it!"
I can't take this anymore!
"Can't you see that you're making Gaara suffer? He never asked for any of this!"
Both of them look at me.
"Kiu…"
"You're a foolish little girl… Soon, you'll leave him too… When you notice how dangerous he is…"
"I'm not like you…"
"Nobody ever loved him and nobody ever will. Now… please die…"
Yashamaru opens his vest to reveal a bunch of papers. Before I could realize what they were, a big explosion occurs and the shockwaves send me flying to the edge of the roof. I think I hit my head… My ears are ringing from the sound of the explosion. I close my eyes to try to stabilize my breathing.
After a bit, the ringing in my ears starts to disappear and I hear… crying. Gaara's crying… I get up, feeling a bit dizzy, and get closer to Yashamaru's unrecognizable body. The smell is horrible. A terrible headache starts pounding in my skull and I feel as if something has entered me. My head…! What is this? I get away from Yashamaru's dead body and the headache instantly leaves me. Did I get the headache because of the dead body? Wait… Somehow… I know how to use that technique he used to keep the kunai knives floating in the air. How's that possible? I never learned any jutsu before. I barely even know what a jutsu is! It doesn't matter right now; there are more important things right now.
I see Gaara kneeling on the floor, his head hanging low. I go to where he is and notice blood coming down from his forehead. I crouch down in front of him and look closely at what's causing the bleeding. It looks like a kanji. Ai… Love. Gaara needs it the most right now.
"Gaara…"
"Get away from me!"
He pushes me and looks away. I get closer and hug him. I start crying too.
"And where would I go if I left…? You're the only person I have in this world… Don't push me away, Gaara… Please…"
Gaara sobs harder and buries his face in my clothes.
"What Yashamaru said… He's wrong… As long as I'm alive, I'll never leave you. I'll always love you Gaara…"
"Kiu… I'm sorry… I don't want you to go away…"
We stay like this until we both calm down and then we pull away.
"Haha… My clothes are soaked because of all the crying. Yours are too."
"Yeah… Kiu, you're bleeding!"
"I am? You are too…"
"Yeah, but you it's your head. I did it to myself, you didn't."
"It must've happened when I hit it from the explosion… Let's go inside and take care of all of this."
I take Gaara's hand and we both go inside. I'm still a little confused about what happened when I was close to Yashamaru's body. Can I really do that flying kunai technique? I'll have to talk to Gaara about it. He probably knows more about jutsu than I do.
So, how was it? We're getting to know more about Kiu and the relationship between Gaara and her is growing!
Review and tell me what you think :D
