Aaaaaand I'm back! Phew, that took way longer than I promised ^.^. I still have some catching up to do as far as the series, but that's just going to have to be crammed somewhere in between work kicking my ass and trying to move . .
Anyway, welcome to Chapter 1 of the Dream Makers! Ahhhhh. Thanks for coming back, and to all of the new followers, reviewers and favoriters and readers welcome and I love you! *Confetti* You make this strange girl so happy
As a reminder:
Thoughts are in italics
Memories/flashbacks are in bold italics
Bold if not for emphasis, is for my beginning/endnotes
Disclaimer: I've sent several letters to what I thought was Kishimoto's home address begging for him to sell me the rights to Naruto for like $20, but they all keep getting returned to sender, so…still not mine
Aftermath
Her new master felt like melancholic death knolls ringing out along a bloodied warzone. At first, when she opened her eyes to find herself in the middle of the desert, the length of her bare legs and palms burning unprotected against the hissing grains that whipped against her bare face, she'd thought he was Kakashi. The similarities between their auras were almost dizzying, but when she looked up into a swirling orange mask to the lone red and black eye underneath she experienced real nausea.
"You seem shocked." He paced his way calmly to her, who stared up at him in abject, unmasked horror on her haunches. His voice was dark, even—it could've been arguably attractive if she could get past the ringing in her ears and the steady sinking of her stomach.
'Unnatural.' She blinked as he stopped inches from her, hand reaching out to cup her chin, the touch gentle but petrifying as he angled her head up to stare into that eye. 'There's something unnatural here—this man, this Uchiha, he shouldn't be alive.'
She thought back to her brief visit to the Uchiha compound years ago, how she in no way had detected this presence anywhere—but that it would be easy to blend into the environment considering the death that blanketed the entire district. This wasn't the quiet, twisting dragon that serpentined across every street corner of the abandoned district— bright scales stamped in nearly every house where the blood that couldn't be washed out fanned in gruesome arcs like fearsome fire. She certainly thought he could be capable of such carnage, but there was a madness beneath the melancholy that wasn't present in the remains of the Uchiha compound. Whoever this was—Miyako hoped he wasn't an Uchiha and she was desperately wrong, or he'd escaped the massacre, because the alternative was something inexplicable and something she didn't want to think about.
"It must be difficult," he sounded lamenting, a thumb smoothing just under her eye. "To have just completed your duties to Gaara—to go through such emotional turmoil, to now being mine with no rest."
Miyako had, with every master, the ability to detect their emotions in one form or another. She wasn't sure if it was true—that her ordeal with Gaara and all of the emotions that came with it was throwing her off balance, or if it was the man himself with his cloying presence seeping into her pores that made her believe whatever was said. She couldn't unearth what was hidden beneath the words even though she knew them to be disingenuous.
A voice that hadn't been active for at least a decade urged her to simply agree, fear unlike any she'd felt before vibrating her insides and warning her that crossing this man wasn't wise. Still, it warred with a feeling come back to her at the re-discovery of humanity—defiance. That opposing voice had been built up in Gaara's presence and sent her mind racing to think of a plan to maneuver her way out of this man's clutches.
She compromised, nodding silently, but eyes peering into his own with open distrust. He withdrew his hand from her face, so sensitive after being masked for so many years that she could feel the barest grains of sand he left behind as if a constant itch gnawing away at her skin. He held it out in front of him, the invitation clear as he continued to speak.
"Still, you're where you belong, the missing piece returned." Her hand paused halfway to his, eyes boring into his lone red in question. When she made no move to complete her motion, he leaned down with a heavy sigh to grasp her hand.
"You have many questions, but unfortunately they cannot be answered here, we wouldn't want your foolish former master to make the mistake of finding us."
At this point he had hauled her up, jolting her into tripping midway with his words. With one hand clasped in his and his other hand bracing her shoulder she opened her mouth without thinking indignant on behalf of the man she loved, and longed for.
He laughed, head thrown back and everything, and before she could get a word in and shushed her after recovering from his fit. When she thought to continue with her defense of Gaara's character anyway, 'foolishly' that self-preserving voice in her head hissed, he put one finger to her lips.
"Now, now—don't ruin my fun. All in time, I assure you. For now, my first wish." He paused, and she could see, from the slight glimmer in that eye, his mounting amusement at her prolonged silent astonishment.
"I wish for you, Kurosawa Miyako, to follow my every order." He watched as she shuddered, the thick dulled golden chains and choker hissing with a purple glow that passed over her eyes as well before subsiding, the only sign of struggle and weakness being her solemnly closed eyelids. He let out another titter of laughter, removing his finger from her face, but keeping a tight grip on her hand.
"Remember this well, you are to call me Tobi when we are amongst others unless told otherwise. And you are not to tell anyone you are a genie under any circumstance unless told otherwise. Do I make myself clear?" He gave a pleased hum at her nod, though he had to wonder when the other shoe was going to drop. This was nothing like the Miyako that he and Zetsu had been tracking, with varied success, for years. And though he wasn't particularly…eager to reveal the cold, calculated and cunning creature he knew she was capable of being, it was better to know now how much control he'd have to assert in their relationship.
"Any questions?" He goaded, and was only slightly displeased when that lilting voice flatly asked him just one:
"And what am I to call you in private, master?" He didn't miss the sardonic hiss at the end of that statement.
"Uchiha Obito." He delighted in the darkening of those amethyst eyes, convinced that the next few months would be nothing if not a thrilling little challenge.
G/K/T
Gaara understood he wasn't being a very good leader right now.
While Temari and Kankuro's action had been, understandably, delayed, they'd still done something moments after Miyako had disappeared after—after revealing she'd been Raccoon the whole time.
Oh god what had he done?
Temari had sprinted out of the room, yelling at the top of her lungs for the nearest Chuunin to alert a team of ANBU to seal off the borders, and another to organize a search party for Maki Miyako.
"Gaara?" Kankuro had been the one to initially jolt him out of his shock, but not enough for him to form coherent thoughts or sentences, not yet.
"I—I." He gulped down breath. Was the room getting smaller? Hotter? Why couldn't he breathe?
"Hey, hey, it will be alright, we're going to catch her this time. She can't have gotten far." Kankuro's firm grasp on his neck was the only thing keeping Gaara grounded.
Right yes, they needed to catch Raccoon—Miyako, because she had a lot of explaining to do. She had so many questions to answer. He couldn't think of any important ones right now, but he was sure they'd return to him once she was found. He just needed a minute. Maybe several.
"Stay with me Gaara, in the present okay?" In a strange gesture, for the two of them anyway, Kankuro brought Gaara's body into a side-hug. It was too hard, Gaara almost felt like his brother was trying to absorb him into his own person, or maybe use the pain of the crushing hug to distract him. Either way he appreciated it more than he could communicate at this point.
He tried to fight his way to focus, but it felt like…like he was being skewered with Sasuke's Raikiri, except instead of an inconsequential thing like his shoulder, it was his chest. But not just once—it was if Miyako was exacerbating the wound, twisting those wicked fingers around his heart and squeezing—over and over.
She'd betrayed him, again. And yet the only questions he could conjure up were the ones that didn't make any sense, the inconsequential questions: was any of what she'd said or done real? Did she ever care about Gaara? And why had she worked so hard to ensure he cared for her? Why, in whatever her plans were, couldn't she have just been another subordinate? If it was all lies, why did she fabricate an entire personal life to share intimately with him? If she was set on taking down the village, why had she worked so hard in sharing her opinions and supporting Gaara in bettering the village? This level of involvement, what was it all for?
It seemed like all he did was blink, then suddenly he was sitting in his office, no recollection of how he'd gotten there. Kankuro was gone, but there was an ANBU Black Ops standing near the corner, Raccoon's corner, and through his haze he spoke:
"What are you doing? Get out!"
Because whoever this was: Gaara vaguely recognized the animal mask of a bird with black markings swirling along the edges—Raven, Crow, he couldn't remember. All he knew was that this corner wasn't for him, for any other ANBU who didn't have rings around their eyes. He didn't want to see anymore masks, dammit!
"I'm afraid I cannot leave you unattended while the threat of Miyako Maki roaming around the village remains." The man sounded hollow and entirely unapologetic. Had Gaara been in a more logical and reasonable mood he would've stopped his objections right there, because of course an ANBU was the best course of action while they sought out Miyako, she'd proven to have skills on par with their elitist.
Still, a paranoid part of his brain told him that anyone affiliated with "Raccoon" couldn't be trusted. Had he known? Who could honestly be trusted at this point? And the sentimental part of his heart that was still intact despite the beating he was currently taking, didn't want anyone pretending to be Raccoon, his Right Hand, when they were not.
He almost preferred it when he could barely feel anything other than rage.
"Bring me Baki." Gaara snapped, mouth on autopilot.
"Kazekage-sama—"
"If it cannot be Baki, than it has to be Temari or Kankuro, I want no one else in this room."
The Kazekage and the Bird-like ANBU had a momentary stare-off in which Gaara almost believed the man was going to defy him, and he didn't know how to feel about that possibility. His entire being was warring with each other, his anger towards this uncontrollable situation bit at him to pick a fight with this ANBU—to take out his frustrations with the ANBU who had tricked him so thoroughly on this innocent man. But the still confused part of him that kept him from tearing the room apart in sheer fury and hunting Miyako down himself, it yearned for his obedience with no questions asked. As dangerous as it would be to be alone right now, it was what he clearly needed.
"Very well." The man loped to the door and knocked on it, a sturdier man was briefly seen on the other side and they spoke it barely discernable whispers for a moment. The cat-like face of the ANBU guard looked over the Bird-like ANBU's shoulder before he teleported away.
In a bid to carry out his duties, but also respect Gaara's wishes, the Bird ANBU straddled the open doorway, and while Gaara found this somewhat hard to ignore, he managed enough to get lost back in his feelings once again—staring off into space unseeingly with a thousand questions roving around his head. Still none of them were the right ones.
A hand landing on his shoulder brought him back into the real world once again, this time it was Temari, and in shock, Gaara noticed an orangey hue slanted halfway across her body—evening was approaching, hadn't it just been morning? How long had he been sitting and absorbing this information, doing nothing?
"Gaara?" She called, hesitantly. He sat up straight, frown marring his face at how careful everyone was being—as if he was glass.
"Have you found anything?" There, finally, a pertinent question.
Her brow furrowed and her hand squeezed his shoulder. "Are you feeling any better?"
'No!' He wanted to scream, he was not better, how could he be when there was no Miyako standing before him to explain herself?
"Temari, I want to know if you have any leads on Miyako, do you?" If they were going to play this game of avoiding questions then he would win—he was much more determined.
She studied him intensely, arms folded in contemplation as she chewed her lip. Underneath this microscopic gaze he twitched, brows furrowing angrily enough that he felt his cheeks pinking in his mounting frustration embarrassingly enough. Just as he was to open his mouth and demand that she debrief him on the search as her Kazekage, she sighed in defeat and flopped into the chair across from him.
"We've had no luck thus far in finding her, but if the search parties fail by nightfall, the patrols will take over from there. We've already implemented a curfew, but the villagers are under the impression it's due to the Akatsuki. Baki and Kankuro are rifling through Miyako's paperwork as we speak to see if they can find any clues as to her motives or where she might be headed, and the rest of the Council is interviewing anyone with prolonged contact with her."
Gaara let that information sink into his brain, distract him for a moment from the painful jolts of longing he still felt despite the fact his anger was slowing winning this fight.
"I won't beat around the bush with you Gaara." Temari said after a moment, blowing her bangs from her eyes, "It's not looking good on either front." She leveled his blank stare with a steady one of her own. "The ninja hounds are unearthing some…interesting information, but they haven't picked up a fresh trail yet. The interviews aren't proving as fruitful as we'd hoped in unearthing a motive, if she had an accomplice they left with her—but we can't account for anyone missing. Thus far all the testimonials line up with what we knew of "Raccoon" and her methods and don't mention any foul play. And Baki gave Kankuro fair warning before they went through the documents that the Council had already done a fairly thorough search the first time and couldn't come up with anything solid."
So…they had nothing? She'd disappeared without a trace, again, and in all these hours they'd been searching and locking down, implementing patrols, interviewing villagers and comrades to weed out any possible accomplice, she'd simply slipped out?
"Temari," he heard himself say flatly, "has a search party already been sent outside of the village?"
"Two." She wrinkled her brow.
"Send out another. It's more than likely she's escaped—she knows the innerworkings of this village too well." He rose, Temari mimicking him with an alarmed look.
"Where are you going?"
"To look at this paperwork myself." He murmured, making his way around his desk smoothly.
Somehow this sudden onslaught of anger made him sharper, reminiscent of his younger days under the thrall of power Shukaku provided him, except this visceral red haze in front of his eyes was all him, he could blame no one else. In this case, he caught Temari's panic before she could mask it and stopped short.
"Is there a problem?" He groused, eyeing his sister with thinly veiled suspicion. He was reminded suddenly of their own suspicious behavior after recovering him from the Akatsuki. If he recalled correctly, and by the slow narrowing of his eyes as his sister maintained a dutifully innocent disposition he had—the two were speaking of searching not only for Raccoon a week prior, but of sending search parties for Miyako. He'd gotten so caught up in the fact that Raccoon was missing that he completely forgot to follow up on what he'd heard before that news. But why would they be discussing such a thing before discovering Miyako and Raccoon were one in the same if they hadn't seen her beforehand? And recently?
"It's just— are you sure you're in the best condition to be able to handle this? It's okay if you aren't Gaara, you've been through a lot—"
"Temari." He interrupted, far too coolly if the way his sister's jaw snapped shut and wary gaze were anything to go by. He tried to curb his steadily sizzling anger—the last thing he needed was anyone thinking he was going to go into one of his old fits of murderous rage. It was bad enough they felt like he couldn't handle conducting an investigation, he didn't need to give them any more reasons to further isolate him from this problem.
So he took a moment to breathe and assess. Was he okay? No. As long as Maki Miyako remained on the loose holding the answers he sought, he never would be. But obviously being left to his own devices was going to get him nowhere. He needed to occupy himself—to be grounded in the logic of the facts they had at their disposal rather than be allowed to come up with his own fanciful notions.
"I need to do this." He said, evenly. His anger had cooled some, which must've been expressed in his eyes, because with a jerky nod Temari led him out of the room and down the hall to the Council chamber.
O/M
In what seemed like an entirely other life, Miyako was once considered something of royalty. As the daughter of the Daimyo of Wind, before Suna was even established, she grew up spoiled with riches. Retrospectively, even though those memories were very blurry at this point, Miyako wouldn't call herself a entitled or spoiled child—her mother, before she left anyway, had made sure she understood the plight of those they governed, from their own staff, to the merchant, to the beggar—of which her father worked his hardest to ensure there were few and far between.
The foundation her mother had instilled in her was a modified version of the saying: "children are to be seen and not heard". She used to say—as she woke her in the light of dawn, weaving the looser curls of her youth into a crown of braids, that Miyako was to "listen to understand, always be watching, and to speak when words are needed."
She wondered how many people would be surprised to learn that she had been a precocious child—it had taken several swats to her mouth for speaking out of turn—either without completely understanding a situation, attempting to insert herself into adult business, or for expressing indignation—for her to learn what her mother had been trying to teach her. Still, she hadn't completely mastered the technique that made the woman so formidable in the political world until she was forced into her current situation.
This skill had proven paramount with Obito—and she had only known him for a total of 5 hours at this point.
He had proven in such a short span of time that he was nowhere near an idiot, his first wish—while not to the specificity needed to get out of potential loopholes Miyako could find—of which there were many, had nearly negated his need for others. With this single wish he had created a whole scenario to present to others with only a few short commands.
So here Miyako sat, in a hotel in Akatsuki-controlled territory just between the Land of Rivers and Ame, quiet as a mouse in dark, oppressively deafening silence while Obito Uchiha slid a brush through her now stick-straight hair. Had he been a more approachable type of master she might have made fun of him for wanting a human doll, but she'd been ordered shortly after they arrived to sit still and make absolutely no sound.
He'd left her alone for a short while—vaguely saying something about finishing up a search, before leaving her to her thoughts.
And oh how she'd thought.
She began on thoughts on how Gaara was doing—brows furrowing as she tried to measure how angry she thought he might be. While he'd evolved past the volatile anger of his youth; past attempting to destroy others with his sand, he was still young and she had to wonder if he was angry enough at her to destroy rooms and objects in lieu of people. Or was he the composed anger? The kind that spoke of calculations, of a detachment existing between the offended and the object of their offense? She didn't know which she preferred.
Regardless she was positive of one thing—he'd never find her. If she had been thinking at all instead of gaping at the discovery that there were more than two Uchiha alive, she would have left some sort of clue.
As she went to touch her hair in her usual nerves, her fingers, instead of meeting the resistance of thick curls and coils to tug and twist, easily passed through the silky curtain of suddenly ramrod straight hair.
Panicked in the dark, Miyako pulled her hair free of the elastic keeping it in a high ponytail with scrambling fingers. She combed frantically through the strands, disbelieving when the texture stayed the same despite the many times she tried coaxing it to curl around her finger. She pushed the now nearly shoulder length dark tresses around her shoulder and into her cheek harshly with silent gasping breaths. She choked back a sob, tiny trails of tears she hadn't realized she was crying sticking the foreign hair on her face.
After many failed attempts at heating it back into curly-q's—the ringlet she made was too loose and she could feel it falling back into a straight line—she took to silently crying and frizzing her now lifeless mane of hair with both hands.
Her brain skipped all over the place, to details she hadn't even given thought to until she was alone. 'Just who is Obito? How did he find me? How skilled must he be to slip into Sand and steal the lamp even after security was increased after the Akatsuki attack? What does he want me for? What am I the "missing piece" for? And what did he even mean by that? How does he know my real name? Gaara was the only person I ever told and even he forgot. He knows a lot more about me then he should—my name, what I am—what else does he know that he hasn't yet revealed? He made it apparent that it would all be answered in due time—but what if it's not nearly soon enough to warn anyone, if I'm even able to do so at all?'
By the time Obito had returned from his "errand", Miyako's hair was a wild mess of frizz flying about in every direction. It was this that prompted him to sit behind her, without a word, and begin the painstaking task of untangle her chaos.
He said nothing else other than that she not touch it again. She knew he felt the dampness on her cheeks from the tears that hadn't dried as he collected several pieces of hair from her face. In fact, the pads of his ungloved hands had pressed purposefully into her cheek and lingered there. Despite the gentle way he'd combed through every knot she'd intentionally created, there was something cold and impersonal about his touch. She didn't dare move even if the order of "sitting still" wasn't reinforced when he'd arrived back, the warning was clear in the way he methodically worked through the sections of her hair. Even though she couldn't quite distinguish it, something in his aura communicated to her that this man was controlled patience with no doubt the outcome would be what he wanted—total obedience.
Miyako just wasn't sure if it only applied to her.
He left her hair loose, murmuring something under his breath after nearly an hour of silence that vaguely sounded like avoiding headaches. He then patted her shoulder twice before sliding his hand down to her elbow, one firm tug had her on her feet.
Before she knew it she was on the other side of the bed staring at a dark ceiling and thinking that she definitely shouldn't have left a clue—that would be selfish. After all, she strayed her eyes to her new master's back—it wasn't clear what was out of the realm of possibilities, what Obito wouldn't do, or even what he was doing, and that was the scariest part.
G/K/T
It took a lot of glaring on Gaara's part, but eventually Baki and Kankuro stopped trying to restrict his access to the files and their insistent claims that the files weren't worth his time dialed down to halfhearted attempts as he sat before the massive piles of paperwork, barely keeping his eyes from widening to the size of dinner plates.
"This is all the documentation we have on…" He cleared his throat around the sentimentality Raccoon's name had for him and choked out, "Miyako" under the scrutiny of the rest of the table. He was sure they were looking for any sign of weakness so they could make the excuse that he wasn't ready to deal with the rectification of the enemy they so long sought for acts of espionage and the dear confidant who'd been by Gaara's side for three years was the same person.
And while he was still boggled by this turn of events, he wouldn't let it stop him from piecing together the truth, even if it meant going through all…these…documents.
"Yes." Baki started slowly, still assessing Gaara with one eye. He cleared his throat when Gaara gave him an unimpressed glower right back. "Right, well Kankuro and I have already begun compiling all known information and cross-referencing it with mission documents to determine motive. Goro-san is conducting interviews with anyone known to be in contact with Miyako's ANBU persona. Hopefully between these sources of information we can glean what exactly she wanted."
Gaara made a steeple of his fingers, staring down the paperwork and wondering if they'd been any more successful than 3 years ago.
"What do you have so far?"
Kankuro grunted and Baki shifted; both of them matched in their expressions of frustration and discomfort.
"The only connection we have is…well you." Baki sighed over Kankuro's grumble of: "she keeps coming back for you."
Gaara skimmed a finger down the stack of paperwork nearly eye level. He curiously filed away Kankuro's statement as Baki continued.
"We don't have a connection yet that makes more sense than our original theory—that she's working for a larger threat that intended to exploit the Shukaku."
Defensive words rushed to the seal of his lips, threatening to burst forth as he recalled over the years all of the ways Raccoon, 'No, Miyako', had kept the Shukaku from being extracted from him multiple times. But he could easily conjure up a counter to that defense— that she was simply keeping the wrong people from getting ahold of Shukaku.
"You think she's working for Akatsuki." He droned, fingering the edge of the stack in front of him unseeingly. The silence was answer enough and he sighed heavily in response.
"That's a heavy accusation."
And one Gaara couldn't bring himself entirely to believe, and he didn't know why. The anger was still very prevalent, Gaara could feel it threatening to coat his insides once more in an impenetrable haze if he found the right trigger amongst this paperwork. Right now it was a simple simmer just under his skin, like the anger was a thing and it was there, but it couldn't quite decide what it was angrier at her for—abandoning him, lying to him, confusing him, or the idea that this could've been her plot from the start.
It might've been that his brain couldn't paint malicious intent out of her actions, though he knew that could've been largely based in ignorance. But he couldn't deny that it felt like comparing apples to oranges—they were asking him to take speculation of ill intent and mix it with the volley of images flickering before his eyes.
While people understood that Gaara didn't believe Miyako was working for Orochimaru, the only person that truly knew the depths of how upset he was over the entire ordeal was Naruto. But most of his emotion was frustration born out of confusion she'd caused with her actions. Everything associated with "Miyako" had been a mysterious conundrum. From threatening his target:
"Actually, if Uchiha Sasuke is seen as such a threat to you, maybe I should kill him myself before he becomes a distraction for you when it's time to strike."
To pulling him out of a killing haze that would've been a grave mistake.
"Gaara, enough. Let's go back, Baki is looking for you." She whispered, firm and calm.
Gaara looked right past her, seeming to take delight in Naruto's still frozen look of horror, while Shikamaru tried to urge him to get himself together.
"Gaara!" She commanded, slamming her foot down on the sand in front of her and spiking lightning through it, not even having to turn to know that it fell uselessly at Naruto and Shikamaru's feet. He brought his eyes back to her, scowling as sand continued to writhe all around him. They had something of a stare-off, the scene looking positively eerie to Shikamaru and Naruto as sand continued to lash out violently behind Gaara and the lights flickered, visible streaks of lightning popping up from the ground in random intervals to shock sand into submission.
"I said that's enough." She seethed quietly, her palm lighting up with crackles of lightning to back up her words.
She'd in that time captured his interest in a way that was almost frightening. He'd felt a range of emotions in that month and a half of knowing her that hadn't ever been pulled from him before. And while that interest had been tinted in paranoia and a defensive drive to kill or be killed, retrospectively he had to admit that he'd never given any serious thought to it—chiefly because of that soft whispered phrase on the wind he wasn't sure he was meant to hear.
"I hope you'll understand one day all I've done for you."
Somewhere, deep in him, he detected the sincerity; the genuineness of her words. In the back of his mind he knew she had no intention of hurting him, physically that is. Still…
He blinked and over the image of a smiling Yashamaru, the only person he'd thought would ever love him, purple eyes smiled down at him.
'Miyako…'
He wondered what life would be like if Miyako was one of those precious comrades instead of glaring him down in challenge. It made him warm: the idea of it.
He'd forced himself to move on from figuring out what she meant to him—Miyako had left, and with no way of knowing why or what her purpose was, he'd just assumed to avoid punishment. Raccoon had arrived shortly after to fill the hole in his heart. He should've known the hole was Miyako-shaped and wondered at why Raccoon seemed to be just Miyako-sized enough to fit into it.
Kankuro and Baki had set documents in front of him, they were explaining something he should probably be listening harder to, but it sounded like they were simply establishing a timeline so the two identities fit together. Her forged documents of the identity of Raccoon were flawless, unlike the rushed job she'd done previously for "Miyako Maki". Baki speculated that she must've taken months on crafting "Iyasu Ai", and he and Kankuro were grumbling something back and forth about Suna's shortcomings in background checks. Gaara was content to get lost back in his thoughts again, bored of the leaflet of mission reports in front of him that he'd signed off on, when Baki let something slip.
"The documents for Raccoon were certainly more on par with her first set of forgeries—I have to question why her second attempt was so sloppy." The man groused as he angrily shifted through the nearest stack of paperwork, a shorter one that Gaara was suddenly very interested in.
"First set?"
The two arguing men froze, Baki with documents halfway to his face and Kankuro with his arms braced on the table.
"Are you going to tell me what you mean by that? As far as I am aware, Miyako only has two identities."
The two had a stare-off, Gaara couldn't practically see the words pass between their eyes as they silently argued over whether to release the information or not. At this, Gaara straightened in his chair, eyes narrowed in challenge—he would like to see them try to keep any spec of information from him.
"A slip of the tongue." Baki said into the documents, scanning them with sudden rapt interest.
"Kankuro." Gaara demanded, eyes laser-focused into his brother's tense visage.
"Gaara, it's really nothing." Gaara may have believed that if the two weren't looking anywhere but at him.
"In this investigation there is no such thing as nothing. Tell me." And with authority, Gaara sat back, content to wait as long as he had to in order to break his former sensei and older brother.
As expected, Kankuro cracked first, never able to lie when it counted—it was why Gaara never sent him out onto undercover missions. He had to wonder how he'd managed to keep his mouth shut about the infiltration while they were in Konoha.
It wasn't verbal, he just deflated while pushing the small stack of paperwork nearest to him, tapping on the top silently. Gaara pitched an eyebrow up silently, but took the first papers from the top, thinking to skim over them quickly, but his eyes stuttered to a stop directly on a grainy picture.
Purple eyes so familiar to him, but from a much younger and smaller face stared out of the low quality picture that outlined, again not at all well, a child Miyako grinning—the most surprising thing being her uncovered face.
His voice got caught in his throat, a slightly strangled sound coming out of him. He looked up to just catch Baki and Kankuro darting their eyes away in guilt. He forced his eyes back to the document, just blearily understanding that it was an Academy official report. The stats blurred in his mind, and he retained nothing through his shaking and the overwhelming feeling bubbling up inside of him. Blinking another document was before him, this one a school progress report and he had to steady his breathing several times before he could properly read the words in front of him.
It outlined attributes of Miyako Gaara already knew: incredible intelligence, obstinate, advanced analytical thinking. What shocked him were the connections to Raccoon—"protective of Gaara" was written, "outspoken—draws Gaara out of his shell", "Gaara is the most human I've ever seen him".
"Protect…Naruto…Matsuri." He looked down balefully… nose wrinkled in disgust, knowing that behind that very mask he couldn't read, Raccoon must be grimacing in either pity or revulsion.
"I'm to protect you." She answered softly.
Protection.
"But if I may speak freely?" She inquired softly, mostly directed at Gaara. He nodded brusquely, arms crossed now and Raccoon held back a wince—that disappointment was more potent than she'd thought.
"In this life we are given, we do the best we can with it, but still people make mistakes. And unfortunately, as fallible beings, we hold the mistakes of others over their heads to make ourselves feel better about our own choices, while trying our hardest to hide those choices. The best people are the ones who can admit their mistakes, face them head on, and do their damnedest not to repeat them. I think Gaara-san is brave for looking at the people who want the worst for him, who won't look at their own mistakes and the parts they played in this tragedy, in the face and wanting to love them, to protect them. It takes a strong person, a strong leader to do that, and that's the type of Kazekage we need."
Drew him from his shell.
"Have you ever been in love?"
This kind of question was dangerous to their relationship of leader and subordinate. Gaara seemed to want to take these notions and throw them right out the door. When her silence stretched on for too long, Gaara opened his mouth to withdraw the statement, she could see it in the way his shoulders slightly fell and his face smoothed out—he was trying to convince her that he wasn't upset.
Made him feel human.
This was the marriage between the two personalities that he was looking for, staring at him out of this bare-faced cherubic looking little girl that was supposed to be "Maki Miyako" the traitor spy of Suna that had pulled wool over their eyes. And he had known her…as a child. They had been—he flipped back to the report, the word stark against the page—friends.
So why couldn't he remember her?
He was well aware that he'd blocked out most of his childhood, before that traumatic night with Yashamaru was hazy, but he hadn't ever bothered to try and dip into those memories because he knew he'd find no happiness there.
But according to these reports, he'd had that, at least for a time.
Overcome by a sudden desperation, he pulled down more paperwork, because he needed to know when this had happened and where she had gone and why couldn't he remember her?
He found what he was looking for, finally in the middle of the stack, eyes rapidly digesting her intake papers. She'd apparently come from Kumo after her mother's good friend, the famed recluse of Suna Sato Kaede, had agreed to take her in after her parents had died on a mission when she was barely five years old. She began attending the academy shortly thereafter and was recommended, several times in fact, to be accelerated to final exams and graduate after displaying an astonishing amount of maturity and, as mentioned in the reports, an impressive amount of analytical and critical thinking skills. His father, it seemed, had even made the request nearly every month she was accounted for in school, but Kaede had refused to have her even move up a grade. After a little more than a year of schooling, she was reported as an official missing persons after missing several weeks of classes. An investigation was conducted, but it seemed like his father hadn't put in much effort—he found himself gritting his teeth—probably because he was obsessed with robbing Gaara of everything that brought him even an ounce of joy. Notes were scribbled at the bottom of the parchment referencing the other two sets of documents, "Maki Miyako" and "Raccoon". He closed the file folder and stared unseeingly ahead for a moment before noticing the…disarray of their workspace.
White littered the desk from sheets having been haphazardly tossed this way and that way. The large stack that had been before Gaara had been spilled over in domino fashion onto the floor below. He blinked, seeing that even at the other end of the long desk sat scattered sheets.
Kankuro was picking up the papers silently, lips pressed together tightly, on Gaara's other side sat Baki calmly stacking together other parts of the mess in a calm fashion.
"Did I…?"
Kankuro nodded stiffly to the chorus of Baki's murmured "mhm". He scrubbed his hand through his hair in frustration, trying to get his thoughts in order. The first thing he had to come to terms with was that he knew Miyako as a child. Okay, sure. Then that they were friends. Not as easy to come to terms with. Also, she had apparently made enough of an impact on him that his teacher had notated it, several times, and he'd forgotten. Finally, she'd gone missing and was never found, only to come back ten years later. It was certainly a mystery, and it threw more elements into an already odd situation with very few helpful clues, but—
"Why were you trying to keep this from me?" Gaara's voice cut through the silence unforgivingly.
Baki and Kankuro shot desperate looks at each other, but the pressure of Baki's one eyed stare and Gaara's expectant gaze cracked Kankuro, again.
"It wasn't helpful." The teenager groused, sweeping papers fiercly to him and refusing to meet Gaara's eyes.
"That's not it. Look at me." His younger brother demanded.
The puppet master breathed in and out slowly before regarding his brother.
"Gaara, when it comes to Miyako you get…" he gestured around himself, to the carnage of wrecked paperwork everywhere with a grimace. When Gaara was unrelenting in his questioning gaze, he finally huffed out a complete answer.
"I don't know how to describe it, forgiving?" He shrugged helplessly. "It doesn't matter what she's done to you, what she's put you through, how guilty she looks—you ignore the obvious signs and give her the benefit of the doubt." Kankuro's searching gaze morphed into a determined one before Gaara's eyes, and it nearly made the usually stoic teenage want to flinch.
"We let you get away with these ideas before Gaara—because we had no hard and fast evidence of any foul play, we couldn't make the right connections and were largely going off speculation. But you have to understand in this instance that she infiltrated our ranks, masqueraded as an ANBU in order to gain access to highly sensitive information, and led the Akatsuki straight into an opening. Gaara—" Kankuro sighed at his brother's haunted look. "The timing is too perfect, for her to reveal herself and leave the village right after the Akatsuki succeeded? She was a spy, sent here by Akatsuki to gain your trust and feed them information, it's the only explanation."
A strange strangling sensation was enclosing Gaara's windpipe. They'd been throwing the idea around all day, but to have it thrown in his face like this was…too much. He needed…he needed…
"Why do you think she forged her childhood paperwork?"
Kankuro looked at Gaara incredulously, which was fair, considering he hadn't reacted whatsoever to his brother's accusation. Kankuro didn't know if that was a good sign or a bad one—had he come to accept this possibility, or was he still continuing to ignore the signs by not acknowledging the idea at all?
Baki answered this time. "Your teacher was the first to notice her strange tendencies. She described the two of you together as "a frightening pair" and she feared your raw power mixed with her adult level intellect could make for a deadly combination. It was why she and your father kept recommending the two of you be separated, but Miyako somehow always managed to get her way. From what the reports say the two of you were…inseparable." Baki looked timidly at the too calm Kazekage, but plowed on anyway despite the warning look Kankuro was shooting him.
"But what really alarmed your father and the Jounin Council was how she was able to—"
"What Baki means is we just have reason to suspect, based on a culmination of all of the reports, that Miyako may have infiltrated the village at a young age. We won't know until we receive the files we requested from Kumo on her parents and their deaths."
Gaara scrutinized his brother, then Baki, again no one wanted to look him in his eye, and said eye twitched, having had enough of the secrets and lies surrounding his former ANBU.
Gaara's sand smacked the papers Baki had in his hands, sending them flying in a wild arc above his head and floating down on them like tumultuous rain.
"I want the truth, no more secrets, no more lies." The redhead grunted between his teeth. "Baki." He snapped. "Finish your thought, what did my father and the Council find so alarming about Miyako at the age of 5?" His face twitched at the idea that anyone but him could be threatening, especially to grown adults, to anyone at such a young age, but if there was anything that he'd learned it was never to underestimate anyone.
The Jounin hesitated for a split second, looking between the resigned Kankuro and the resolute Gaara before choking out the words.
"She…she killed every assassin your father sent after you—a total of 15, all except Yashamaru."
What?
"I take it you haven't read the failed mission reports…"
Wait, but wasn't Yashamaru the first?
"Father sent out the first assassin two weeks or so after she began attending the Academy. They didn't have solid proof she was killing them at first—just that the assassin never made contact with you because their bodies were found miles away, viciously gutted and with stuffed animals tied to them."
His vision was tunneling again, and he hadn't even realized his thoughts were taking on solid form out of his mouth, or maybe Baki and Kankuro could read his mind? Whatever it was he didn't like it, there was a ringing in his ear because this was a lot to contend with. Miyako and he were friends in his childhood, inseparable as was described, she'd apparently brought about a happy period in his life that was further fueled by the blissful ignorance she'd afforded him in taking care of assassins that had been after him far longer than he'd first known. And he forgot.
The tail end of Baki's original bomb became suddenly razor sharp in his mind though, the words tumbling out of his frazzled mind before he could stop it.
"She was there—Yashamaru?"
"We're not sure." He faintly heard Kankuro, and swallowed past the cotton stuffing his insides. "You were…alone when they found you." He whispered, making it very difficult to hear him past the roaring in his ears.
Gaara's breath hitched and stayed that way, trapped in a swirling vortex in his chest much like his emotions. There was a pressure on his back, his face smushed into something solid, the vibrations shaking the stuffing in his brain but not doing nearly enough to knock it loose. Try as he might to grip onto it, the vibrations, the solidness of the chest, the picture around him—he was too dizzy and there wasn't enough air because there wasn't enough of him to make sense of this.
So he'd just close his eyes for now and deal with it later.
O/M
Obito liked playing games, especially with people's lives. Miyako learned this the hard way.
The next day, after braiding her hair, slapping a bamboo hat low over her face, draping a dark cloak around Miyako's shoulders and reminding her not to say anything unless directly spoken to, they set off.
Plenty of people stared at them as they made their way out of the tiny, dusty town betwixt River and Rain, but it was stupid early and they were walking so quickly Miyako figured the farmers up at dawn and the merchants setting up shop would think they were nothing but an apparition and go about their day unbothered by the man in the garish orange mask and the shapeless woman beside him.
As they got further inland, Obito pulled off her cloak, the sun warming up the otherwise cool morning in the lush, deserted forests they were traipsing through. They were taking a small break, the ominous man beside her basking in the sunshine and Miyako allowing a million thoughts through her head about where they were going and why they weren't simply teleporting there with Obito's fancy ocular jutsu. It could only stand to reason that this particular parlor trick wasn't meant to be performed for the rest of the Akatsuki, but the question was why.
Her thoughts must've been too stark on her face, because in the next second he was taking a thumb and smoothing it along the ridges between her brows with a soft sigh.
"You're much too expressive, but I guess you haven't had to school yourself for quite a long time when you've had masks to hide behind for so long." He trailed a finger down to her barely downturned lip and nudged it into a strictly straight line.
"You need to be a blank canvas, I can't have the rest of the Akatsuki thinking I have any weaknesses." His next sigh seemed almost forlorn.
"Your next command is to be expressionless, unless you and I are alone. You will obey this order until I lift it myself, understood? Answer me verbally."
"Yes, master." Her lip wobbled, but only minutely, and only for a moment, before she took on the visage—for her own good.
"That's better."
Obito fanned out her cloak and folded it into a neat square. Then, using the technique she'd only seen twice and experienced once, the cloak disappeared from his hand—sucked into the vortex his eye created.
She briefly thought about the chilly winds caressing her skin and asking for her cloak back, but Obito seemed to be intent on uncovering her now that they were in a more secluded area, taking off her hat from her head as well—and he obviously believed they wouldn't run into anyone who would make trouble for them—either because he wore an Akatsuki cloak, or that she was a recently wanted criminal on the run.
She might have been able to stand it with discomfort, because obviously the cold wasn't going to kill her, if she had more clothes on. Now, there was no reason to be fair with Obito—considering that he might be shaping up to be one of her worst masters yet—but this wasn't the worst outfit a master had ever manifested. She once had a master with a cat fetish who topped his objectification off with a giant bow on her ass for an outfit that could barely be called a kimono. There was also the bikini top and sheet skirt of the not-so-far-gone past. She winced, best not to dwell on that fresh and not quite settled wound now.
And although most of her outfits couldn't be considered anywhere near conservative for the most part, this was pushing risqué. Aside from the large, heavy chains that connected wrist and neck manacles weaving across her arms and shoulders—there was only three pieces to her outfit. A black bustier, matte leather that, regrettably only because she didn't want to give Obito any credit, made her breasts look great. A mini-skirt that stretched over her ass just barely, and thigh high boots that only left a strip of skin barely an inch across between the tops of the boots and the edge of the skirt—unless the material rode up.
Despite how impractical the outfit seemed, especially for long distances or battle, they made it to the hideout without much of a hitch. The walked through a cavernous underground tunnel, one of many as Obito had deigned to inform her, and just before they had rounded another bend Obito stopped, causing her to oblige as well.
"If you have to refer to me at all you will call me Tobi-sama in front of the Akatsuki. Verbally affirm your understanding to me."
"I understand, master." She droned. They kept hold of eye contact for a beat of silence, studying one another through the piss-poor lighting mounted on either side of them. Obito brought a hand to her chin, twisting her face this way and that, slowly. Their bond, weak as it was and unbending as they both were to reveal any weakness to one another, was no help in deciding what it was he was looking for. She moved not a muscle regardless as he completed his inspection, and without a word he turned on his heel and strode around the corner.
O/M
"Tobi" wasn't anything like Obito at all, and now she understood why he'd ordered her to be emotionless, because if he hadn't she would've given him away with blatant shock at this 360 change in personality.
The two had walked into an…interesting scene. A stocky, tower of a man was bent at the waist over another person lying on a rock slab and looked to be sewing. She couldn't make out any defining features what with the poor lighting in the large open area, save for a bright portable lightstick propped up near the makeshift workstation. On the other side of him was a man with fair hair slicked back that glinted in the residual light, snickering in amusement at…something.
"Tobi" let out an exaggerated gasp, hands clapping onto his face audibly. Miyako hung back a bit, content to blend with the shadows for now and watch. After all, Obito hadn't ordered her to hang onto his coattails, and she wanted to see just what "Tobi" was for and how far he would go.
"Deidara-senpai?" And with two words her entire perspective of him changed. That dark voice so characteristic of Uchihas had been buried under a pre-pubescent wail. The grace in his movements was replaced with gangly gesticulation that over exaggerated emotion he would never allow otherwise. He had sunk into a character—but for what?
At his exclamation, the fair-haired man on the other side of the table and the body, which was thankfully not dead, jerked up to stare at him, the "patient" bent at the waist, throwing half his face into shadow. All Miyako could see was a head full of blonde hair and a peachy colored chest—no discerning features at all, and yet something began to rise up inside of her, a vicious feeling her mind was frantically attempting to pinpoint.
"Deidara-senpai, you're alive!"
The burly man, having since gotten over the shock of "Tobi"'s obnoxious interruption, grunted something to the blond that had him sitting still, but not without scoffing.
"Oi Tobi! You're late—did you even bring back what we needed, hm?"
Miyako didn't need to see the man to know he was glowering, and after getting over the fact that in these half-lights he vaguely reminded her of Ino, she was keyed into the conversation. She was caught between wondering what exactly Obito needed to retrieve for them and why he was playing the part of fool.
Miyako caught the wiggle of what looked like thread in the light before it disappeared just as quickly as it came, and she had to wonder if she imagined it. There was no use in studying the dark, burly man-shape still hovering to the blond man's side, she couldn't make him out well enough in the dark, and the standard dark Akatsuki cloak hid everything fairly well. She briefly let the thought of using her magic flitter across her mind, but she didn't think it was worth it to potentially draw attention to herself and risk the potential ire of Obito, if he would even break character to discipline her.
She traced her eyes over her now wiggling master, who was flourishing a scroll and practically screaming at the gathered company that he was a "good boy" and that "senpai was mean".
"Shut the fuck up Tobi!" The man on the opposite of "Deidara-senpai" yelled, at the exact same level, cleaning his ear exaggeratedly.
The blond shrugged back on his cloak, mumbling something under his breath to Kakuzu as he moved off the raised stone.
"Anyway it shouldn't have taken so long for you to run one fucking errand you weird little shit." The cursing man stepped closer to the light revealing almost lilac colored hair, slicked back and a long expanse of pale, unblemished chest adorned with some sort of odd pendant. "Kakuzu and I thought you'd abandoned this girly looking fucker with us."
"Eat shit, Hidan, un!" The blond retaliated, stomping closer, his features becoming more distinct as he approached, and the odd, visceral feeling growing teeth and fangs inside of her, welling up with such strength she nearly shook with the intensity of it—still she couldn't quite put her finger on why.
"Ah, sorry senpai—" the masked man made an exaggerated show of bashful guilt, "but Tobi ran into a friend and had to bring her along!" He crowed, flapping his arms for added effect.
Deidara had only just came within feet of them, arm held out expectantly for the scroll "Tobi" had in his other hand, when Tobi reached behind him, locating Miyako fairly easily despite her being tucked into a dark corner, and jerked Miyako with a firm grip into the light—if it could even be called that.
Several things happened at once. Deidara and Miyako caught a good look at one another in the now open space before them, and simultaneously recognized each other. Miyako now, could properly name the feeling—hatred, and it screamed at her to kill the man before her with an almost animalistic fierceness. If "Tobi" noticed her shaking he didn't say anything about it.
In the background, Kakuzu and Hidan had also seemed to see her, the more vulgar of the two blurting: "You picked up a hooker?! Are the two of you fucking or did you hire her to play games with you? Or is that the same fucking thing to you?"
Or Miyako thinks that's what he said, because the next second Deidara had his hand around her neck, yelling at Tobi behind him about being a "fucking idiot" and "letting in the girl who attacked him". Or, again, that's what Miyako thought he said, "Tobi" was screaming at the top of his lungs.
"SENPAI PLEASE DON'T KILL TOBI'S FRIEND!"
It would've been funny had she not wanted to rip this man's face off and shove it down his throat so he could choke on it. In her rage, something within him called out to her, a magic—her magic she realized subconsciously, on the same frequency of powerful anger sitting dormant and beckoning her to let it spread like a poison through his body.
She reached out both hands, barely grunting when he slammed her head into the stone floor below for a more jarring impact. With one hand she snapped the wrist holding her neck, and the other she slammed into the center of her assailant's—this murderer's—chest.
The force of it sent him careening off of her and onto his back with a pained gasp. He clutched his chest, clawing at it with blunt nails as he tried to rip off the cloak and open his eyes wide enough to even discern the problem.
Miyako herself was even surprised at the result, being the only one, presumably, who could see what was actually happening. Whatever magic she had thrown at this man before she'd passed out from her wounds when he took Gaara, was something parasitic. She didn't know if she could exactly call it sand, but it was a fine substance that was eating microscopic holes through the skin of his chest in an effort to escape, only to leave no trace of its existence at all, save for the thin blood trails. The technique it seemed was supposed to be slow expanding holes that eventually ate away a whole section of the chest, torturous and nearly impossible to reverse—because if you couldn't see it to even know what it was, how were you supposed to fight it? A Hyuuga would've been their only saving grace.
"SENPAI!" Tobi screeched, turning his attention to the otherwise stoic looking Miyako. He scurried over to her side, grasping hold of her shoulders and shaking her theatrically while wailing: "MIYAKO-CHAN PLEASE DON'T KILL TOBI'S SENPAI!"
When she didn't immediately reverse the effect, he growled low under his breath: "that's an order."
With a brief look in his direction, she sighed out, though still looking quite bored, her eyes glowed and Deidara's pained gasps cut off in a choke, but at least he was still alive.
Obito grunted, but Tobi yelled "DEIDARA-SENPAI, YOU'RE OKAY!" and tackled him into a hug.
While Tobi was crying into Deidara's shoulder, something he did not appreciate, Miyako barely heard the other two approach. Hidan mumbling, "Damn blondie, she fucked you up. Tobi's hooker is nothing to play with."
But the crude man wasn't who she was worried about, it was the thus far silent, foreboding tower of a man next to him who looked at her with, oddly enough, red-green eyes, that she was worried about.
When Deidara had successfully detached Tobi's sniveling form from his clothes, all under the watchful eye of Miyako who had stood and shrank back into the shadows, Kakuzu made an offhanded comment.
"Tobi, did you know your…" he trailed off with a meaningful look up and down her frame, and not in a sexual way, "friend is wanted in the Bingo Book for 50 million Ryo?"
If Miyako could shiver and glare she would, she would almost rather be objectified than looked at as a quick cash grab.
"KAKUZU-SENPAI PLEASE DON'T KILL AND SELL TOBI'S FRIEND!" And then he was back to being latched onto Miyako, half-shielding her with his body. Miyako looked dispassionately to the heavens, understanding that Obito/Tobi wasn't the only challenge she was going to have to deal with when it came to Akatsuki—she apparently also had to watch out for at least two people wanting to kill her. Joy.
GGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGGG
Gaara was attempting to be as quiet as possible, drawing upon his ninja training as to not give away his position. Still, stifled little giggles filtered through his sealed lips at the steadily collecting lilac-tinted snow on top of his mittens, as he hid behind a compacted snow wall and with every snowball made.
"Gaaaaa-chaaaaan~" A giddy little squeal escaped his lips despite his best efforts and he tensed at the sudden quiet. Had she found him? Which way was she coming from? Maybe he could escape.
"GOTCHA!" He only barely caught an eyeful of a purple-wrapped Miyako popping up on the other side of his wall before she was a blur and then sudden weight on top of him.
"AHHH!"
They wiggled around with peals of laughter, Miyako using her position on top of him to shove snow down his jacket and then attempt to sprinkle it onto his face. Gaara made a valiant effort to fight back, pelting the nearest snowballs at her head before giving up when she kept dodging to instead throw up loose fistfuls of the powder around them in a desperate attempt to blind her. Soon both children were covered in a fine layer of half-melted snow, cheeks glowing as their laughter became uproarious—and so racked were they with glee that eventually they gave up, Miyako collapsing onto the ground next to Gaara with half-giggles while the other tried to catch his breath.
"Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday to you. Happy Birthday dear Gaaaaaaaaraaaaaa~"
Said birthday boy snorted a laugh as his best friend persisted in her elongate shrill high notes.
"Happy Birthday to yooooUUUUUUU!" They both applauded, Miyako nudging Gaara with a face-splitting grin to blow out the candles to a small cake decorated to look like a lilypad floating in a river. He paused for a moment under the watchful eye of friend, before blowing out the candles to her even more exaggerated applause.
"were your birthdays like this? that you can 'member?"
There was absolutely no need to whisper, they were completely alone in this Winter Wonderland of perpetual snow and ice. Their little voices cracked around the sweetness of icing sugar lingering on their tongues, the excited screams they'd let out when they chased each other around the expanse of white and the simulation of cold. Now nose to nose on their sides they basked in the sound of wind swirling around their puffy jackets and scarves, winding down from the day they'd had—the best birthday Gaara had ever had.
Miyako looked so much older in her eyes as she whispered back. "i can't remember details. but i'm pretty sure i was happy."
At his forlorn look, dark purple wool landed on his cheek, Miyako's tiny fingertips caressing just below his eye. "you didn't make a wish." She gave a wane smile at his scrunched up thinking face.
It hadn't occurred to Gaara to wish for anything, why would he? Because—
"you're my wish." The smile she gave him back could rival the sun.
G
Gaara startled awake, blearily staring into the dark as he digested the dream…memory?—of what must've been his sixth birthday. He squinted a little, some hazy still sleep-addled part of his mind recognizing that it fit the timeline.
He sat up slowly, despite his brain desperately wanting to fall back into that space—but his fingers were itching fiercer than his comfort. Phantom aches chased him from the dream—and ache in his throat that belied hoarseness from overuse, the taste of sugar on his tongue; the tips of fingers trailing across his face…
The light stung his eyes a little, but he still forced a pen into his hand to write down every detail he could remember, and not just the vivid use of his senses, but how he felt the entire time. The unbridled joy, the laughter, the sense of home, and that brief moment of empathetic sadness he had for her—especially that last one, because several things were puzzling to him about this vision.
What did the younger version of himself mean by asking if Miyako could remember her birthdays? Did she have amnesia? Repressed memories despite being so young? He put several notes and question marks near that particular section.
Another lesser question bounced around in his head—Gaara had heard of the idea of "blowing out the candles and making a wish" but as the custom was explained to him the wisher didn't say the wish out loud or it wouldn't come true. So how could Miyako had known if he'd wished or not?
But the most important phenomenon was underlined in his entry at the very bottom, the impossibility of it causing a shiver that wasn't due to the sensation of feeling those cold flakes on his skin.
It doesn't snow in Suna.
MGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMGMMGMGMGMGMMGMGMMGMGMGMGMMGMG
Yaaaaay the first chapter is here! Sorry it took so long to update guys. My life has been…yeah, hectic isn't enough of a word. But I'm back!
Let me know what you thought of the chapter, I hoped you enjoyed overall. Leave me a review pretties, thanks
Also, The Wishful Thinker won't be marked "Complete" only because I might still add "what if" scenarios to it. So keep your eyes peeled for that.
Catch you next time.
Silly. Frisky. Acronym