Here with number 2! We're going to delve a bit more into Gaara and Miyako's young relationship. Prepare for fluff!

Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto and this is still a work of fiction.

Believe and you shall Receive

"C'mon Gaara! We're gonna be late!" The tiny pitter-patters of running feet alarmed the villagers, and they jumped back in shock at the appearance of two laughing children racing along the streets.

"Miyako, wait!" The redheaded one whined, but the large smile stretched across his face communicated to everyone around that he was secretly enjoying this.

"No way, no way! Gaara-chan just has to move faster if he wants to beat me!" A dark-haired girl called over her shoulder, barely stifling giggles as they wove between the legs of shocked villagers milling about.

Instinctively most moved back, already anticipating the wild rush of children, this was the quickest path to get to the Academy after all. Some even shook their heads fondly at first, mumbling under their breaths about youth and responsibility. The older ninja dotting the path to the Academy however immediately stiffened.

He just barely eyed them as they whizzed past, still laughing too joyously to be on their way to school. But there was no mistake about it, it was definitely Sabaku No Gaara, container of the Ichibi, with a young girl his age he'd never seen before.

"Oi, you saw that didn't you?" His comrade gripped his arm, slowing them to a complete halt as they digested their surprise.

"Yeah, the demon of sand is…running to school, laughing, with another kid." They gazed at each other, stunned that those words could be stringed together, ever, out loud.

"That girl…have you seen her before?" His comrade questioned as they slowly started up their pace once again, back towards the Kazekage's mansion.

"No." He would have definitely remembered someone like that. He wracked his brain, wondering what this meant for Suna. What Gaara…happy, meant for the rest of them.

"We have to tell the Kazekage, regardless." He finished, turning briefly to his companion with a meaningful look.

"Ah, yeah."

Down the road, Miyako and Gaara burst through the door with a minute to spar, huffing and puffing, but most importantly, attracting the attention of the entire class.

"Ha! Beat ya!" Miyako wheezed, doing a little dance of victory, which she gave up on fairly quickly in favor of catching her breath.

"I'll…win…next time. For sure!" Gaara exclaimed, closing his eyes and forcing his breath to steady in his still hunched position. When he'd regained breath and opened his eyes again, the entirety of the class was openly gaping at the two, and reality creeped up on Gaara.

He didn't know if it was her magic, or simply the familiarity she'd been able to establish, but Gaara had nearly forgotten who he was to the people in the span of a few short hours. Now, with the looks of scared confusion on their faces, it dawned on him and he felt he flinched, cheeks coloring in misplaced embarrassment.

"Gaaaa-chan~." Little fingers pulled at his cheeks, drawing his attention back to his new friend, who was pouting now in dissatisfaction.

"Mi-Miyako-chan." He murmured, eyes darting to the still frozen faces of the class, but she seemed to pay them no mind, steadfastly gazing at him until she commanded his entire attention.

"Where do you normally sit Gaa-chan?" He scanned the classroom before pointing to the back corner which was sparse with people, precisely because he enjoyed any spot by the window.

"Let's go!" Miyako cheered, grabbing the hand he'd unconsciously been fisting in front of his body and dragging him to his seat, eliciting an eruption of murmurs across the room that turned into a din by the time they'd settled themselves, though Miyako paid no mind to the stares and hissed whispers.

Miyako kept his mind off of the sudden uproar with continuous whispered questions about what they were supposed to be learning. While at first it was hard to ignore the sudden attention, and he thought he wouldn't hear her over the roar of the students attempted provocation, Miyako had a way of commanding his gaze back to her every time it strayed.

Finally the teacher seemed to come to her senses when it seemed like the two weren't bothered by what was happening around them. She smacked her ruler on the table, cutting through the chatter and regaining control in a snap.

"That's enough. Let us begin our lesson." She coolly regarded the girl practically plastered to Gaara's side, intending to analyze her over the course of the lesson, but the girl locked gazes with her and gave her a beaming smile that somehow sent chills down her spine.

The teacher whirled around to the blackboard, heart in her throat as she sketched a formation on to the board. Mind anywhere but on teaching academy students proper formation layouts for a three-man platoon.

Who was this girl that appeared by the side of the demon of the Sand? Was she unaware of just who she was smiling at? Was she aware of what he was capable of? And where had she come from?

The teacher composed herself before turning once again to the awaiting class, mechanically explaining the pros and cons of each diagram laid out on the board, but all the while observing the girl who boxed Gaara into the window.

She was child, but if Sunagakure knew anything by now it was not to underestimate anyone, no matter the age. Something about her was unnerving, the girl wasn't even looking at her, but out the window, twirling a strand of hair on her finger and occasionally gazing down at Gaara's notes. Still, she set off warning bells in the teacher's head.

"Now can anyone tell me what the best formation would be for a three-man platoon attempting to escape with collected information?" Many children, mostly the overzealous overachievers in the front raised their hand, but the teacher kept her gaze steady on the girl who didn't give her a lick of attention.

"How about you in the back, near Gaara?"

Said boy jumped a little in surprise at having been mentioned by name and looked between the board and his friend, confusion painted on his face. The teachers never bothered with Gaara at all, so why we're they questioning the first person who bothered to associate with him?

The girl leisurely ran her eyes from the window to bore straight into the teacher, face a neutral mask.

"Oh sensei, I wasn't paying attention, forgive me." Though her tone implied she wasn't contrite in the least.

"That's alright." The teacher dismissed coolly, refusing to take her eyes from her surprise pupil. "I'll repeat the question for you, what, out of the formation on the board, would be the best for attempting to escape with collected information?"

There was a tense pause of silence where the adult in the room felt as though she was being dissected by her own student, before something seemed to tick in the girl, who gave a little smirk. A weight felt like it had been lifted when the girl regarded the board instead of her, scanning it quickly before giving her answer.

"Hmm, I suppose from what you listed diagram B would be the most sufficient, though if I were a Chuunin squad leader I wouldn't keep the information on one person the entire time, especially if the information was important enough for the enemy to send a pursuit team."

The other students, who had been at first snickering at the idea that someone was going to be embarrassed for not paying attention in class, balked. Even Gaara balked for a second, before regaining composure and grinning widely at Miyako, who had turned to him to fix a couple of spots on his notes.

"Ve-very good, Miss…"

"It's Miyako." She answered, not even bothering to turn back to her teacher. She picked up another of Gaara's pencils and added notes to his margins, along with random doodles that he giggled at.

"Miyako." The teacher finished, wholly caught off guard. The woman turned back to the board and erased, mind swirling with thoughts as she went through the rest of the lesson, never again calling on Miyako, assured in her first impression now.

That girl, she and Gaara were a potentially dangerous combination, there was a precociousness about her that spoke of deadly experience. The Kazekage would have to be told about this immediately.

G/M

Miyako made herself a place in Gaara's life, and in doing so attracted the attention of every upper-level ninja. The Kazekage at first couldn't see what there was to be worried about. So a kid had taken an interest in Gaara? As odd as it sounded it wasn't entirely unbelievable. But at the urgings of his teachers and several Chuunin and Jounin that had caught their interactions these past few weeks, he decided to run a little test and see if the girl really knew Gaara at all.

It had been on his mind for quite some time, whether or not to kill his youngest son. He knew Karura would be devastated to know what had been going on in his mind, but in a way she had been right, they should've never attempted to seal their children with the Ichibi in the first place, his influence was too powerful. He can still remember that night, when it had partially possessed his youngest son, and caused havoc amongst the villagers, many of whom died. Maybe he was a terrible father, but he was running out of options, it was either see his whole village potentially suffer, along with his son, or eliminate the problem entirely at the sacrifice of his son.

"Kazekage-sama." He raised his eyes to the Jounin in front of him, the would-be assassin's face draped in white cloth to hide his identity, save for his eyes.

"Go." He commanded, receiving a bow in confirmation before the man disappeared. Yashamaru slipped into his vision from the shadows, leveling the Kazekage with a single look that spoke volumes in between them.

"You know he won't succeed. He's far too weak." Yashamaru's scoffs always sounded like gentle reprimands in that soft voice of his. On the outside, he was the least intimidated man you could meet.

"I know, but that isn't our purpose. Follow him, I want to see what happens when this girl sees Gaara's power." He raked fingers through his hair when his Right Hand still made no move to exit.

"All of this because he has a friend? You're wasting men, Rasa." He tutted, but put on his mask anyway.

"Witnesses claim she's a threat, I think she's a misguided little girl." The Kazekage sighed, "Regardless, we need to ascertain just what we're dealing with here. It's an anomaly."

"Fine, fine." Yashamaru hummed, and flickered away in the next second, leaving the leader to stare out the windows of his office wearily.

G/M

"Go far!" Miyako challenged, dribbling the ball between her feet. Gaara agreed, running closer to the buildings that fenced in the popular local playground, though it was dead at this time of the night, moon high in the sky.

"Here it comes!" She sang when he was far enough and gave a powerful kick that may have been amplified with magic. The ball went sailing through the air, arcing far over Gaara's head and missing the grasp of his sand entirely, disappearing between the dark alleys of the nearby buildings.

"Miyako, that was too hard!" But Gaara was laughing as his friend came barreling towards him. "I'll get it!" She crowed, palm out in a stop motion when Gaara tried to follow. "No, no, stay right here!"

She made it to the playground's edge in no time, and disappeared from Gaara's view. The onlookers, the masked jounin and his shadow Yashamaru, waited until she was out of sight to spring into action. As the masked Jounin made to approach Gaara, the scuffle of feet distracted him, and a tiny figure emerged at the mouth of the alley he occupied.

"There you are!" The girl, Miyako they'd called her, was suddenly in front of him, grasping a ball he was sure wasn't there previously.

The girl grabbed the toy and looked up at him. "Hey mister! What are you doing all alone in a dark alley?" She cocked her head curiously and the man scrambled to come up with a lie.

"Ah, I thought I had lost something back here as well, but it doesn't seem to be here." He mused aloud, after pretending to look around at the dark pavement beneath.

"I guess not." The girl answered, her voice sounding all together mysterious, but her face showing a wide happy grin.

"Well, don't stay out too late, have fun." He bid, eager to get away and commence with his mission out of this odd girl's sight.

"Mmm, you should go home soon too mister." Her agreement settled on his chest and he flickered away before he could get anymore trapped in that all too calculating gaze.

Miyako slowly turned, ball in hands, and looked up to the rooftops, lingering her gaze on the moon, full and pearly. She held her gaze steady for an uncomfortably long time before walking out of the alley, voice filling the streets as she called out that she had found the ball.

Yashamaru was stiff in his perch. 'There's no mistaking it, that intense gaze, she saw me.' He didn't have time to question how she knew he was there, he made quick work of the distance between himself and the children, hanging back just enough to be able to better see the scene that was about to unfold.

They were back to running around across the sparking beige sandstone of the park, leisurely kicking the ball now between them, with Gaara's short legs working double-time and occasionally missing. The longer they were undisturbed and laughing, the antsier Yashamaru grew. What happened to the assassin? He knew that Rasa ordered the man to proceed no matter who could've been around—was the man getting cold feet because Miyako stuck to Gaara like glue? Was he waiting for her to leave before he struck?

No, there was something wrong here. Yashamaru watched for another 10 minutes, which by then saw the children settling in to take a little rest in the sandbox. When he was sure they weren't going anywhere, he took off, searching for the chakra signature of the would-be assassin.

G/M

The assassin had taken a few back alleys in order to strike Gaara from an optimal angle, and to avoid suspicion from the little girl—he couldn't be seen following her back.

He reassessed his target from the darkness, the boy amusing himself momentarily by having the sand move into simple shapes as he waited for his companion to reach him. The sand around him relaxed as the girl's voice traveled to him, calling that she had found the ball. The man reached into his pouch to strike, fingers clutching senbon quickly and eyes zeroing in on the vital tendons on Gaara's neck.

Just as he moved to flick the needles with the needed speed and accuracy, a low growl sounded behind him, and all the hair on his neck stood at attention. He whirled around, expecting a stray dog, or a possum. Instead he was faced with a brown teddy bear with a neck wrapped in purple ribbon. Weary of the sudden arrival, but knowing he'd have no other chance of Gaara being distracted, he turned to get back to his mission, only for another low growl to sound and crescendo rapidly. In front of him, his stretched shadow was engulfed by darkness that made his heart stop.

He spun, coming face to face with a snarling mammoth of a bear, so huge that his head barely reached the top of the bear's chest. The low growls thrummed in the air between them and the assassin somehow knew—he was going to die.

Still the senbon he reached for were clutched inbetween his fingers. He moved to launch them, but the bear was faster, claws striking down on him before he could even gurgle out a scream.

G/M

Yashamaru paled, jaw clenched and body slightly shaking as he took in the scene in front of him.

He'd found the assassin, pinned to a building wall by what looked like a thick claws running through his arms. The body was almost unrecognizable, his chest cavity torn open so severely the organs were visible, his face was a mess of jagged claw marks, the shredded material of his cloth mask stained red and sticking grotesquely to his skin.

Tied around his body with a purple ribbon was a toy teddy bear splattered with blood. When Yashamaru got his bearings, he approached the body and checked his surroundings. There were no traps, clearly this ambush was meant only for the assassin.

In the bear's hands was a folded piece of parchment. Yashamaru scanned it briefly with his chakra, but there were no traps here either. He turned away from the body and unfolded the note, hands clenching as he read over the sentence, once, twice, thrice.

Don't play with me, you will lose.

'There's no doubt about it' he turned back to the body, wincing at the look of it, 'that girl, she killed him.' He pocketed the note and looked back at the two now batting at twirling sand and laughing boisterously.

'You put on a good show, a bright little personality to mask your cunning cruelty.' He felt a chill down his spine, cursing himself for not catching on as soon as she'd locked eyes with him in the alley.

'You and Gaara are certainly a pair. But who are you? What do you want with him?' He leapt onto the rooftops quickly, stomach dropping at the news he'd have to deliver to the Kazekage.

G/M

Class was over for the day and the students rushed out, after four weeks still wary of Gaara and his new friend and him being happy.

As usual the friends were paying no mind, Gaara chattering about practicing his throwing after school while he and Miyako packed up his things.

"Oh, oh! And my uncle is back from his mission." He cheered, taking Miyako's hand in his unoccupied one and tugging her excitedly down the stairs.

"That's great." Miyako swung their hands as they straggled out behind the other kids, leisurely making their way to the training fields.

"Ah," he paused suddenly, making Miyako almost run into his back had she not wobbled herself to a stop. "Do you…maybe want to…" His cheeks were on fire under Miyako's patient gaze, "gohomewithmetomeetYashamaru." He mumbled into his chest.

"I'm sorry, what was that?" She teased, causing Gaara to shoot his eyes to the ground and stomp his feet petulantly.

"Do you want to…come with me and meet Yashamaru, my uncle, he's really nice, and—" he babbled quickly, but with a singular raise of Miyako's palm he snapped his mouth shut.

She gave Gaara's nervous stare and reassuring smile and squeezed his hand. "I'd love to."

He grinned so widely that the cutest wrinkles appeared beneath his eyes. At this point, most would think that Miyako, who was quite used to this expression on Gaara, would be immune, but her heart still stuttered momentarily before galloping in her chest. Her face, thank God, never betrayed her though.

"Ahem, let's go train first!" And she was the one dragging now.

G/M

"Meeting Yashamaru" had somehow turned into a whole family affair. She could tell by the way the Kazekage twitched that he hadn't intended it to, but really, thought Miyako, he only had his own self to blame.

She and Gaara had returned from the training grounds just before sunset, panting because Gaara had practically sprinted all the way there.

"And…yet…you can't beat me…when we race to school?" She huffed, looking at him incredulously. His noncommittal hum let her know he wouldn't give in to her teasing, and she was barely allowed to catch her breath and make her hair look presentable before Gaara was tugging her through the door and up the stairs.

"Yashamaru!" He called poking his head in various doors. "Yashamaru!" They'd made it to the end of the hall with no Yashamaru in sight, much to Gaara's disappointment.

"Yashamaru…"He mumbled sadly, deflating visibly at not being able to find him. Miyako was just on the verge of opening her mouth and encouraging him to look for Yashamaru in another part of the mansion, when a soft voice interrupted them.

"Gaara?"

The two whirled around, Gaara's face instantly lighting up at the sight of a blonde man with dark purple eyes, dressed in casual clothes. Miyako barely schooled herself from narrowing her eyes, his presence instantly recognizable to her. 'You were there the day that man tried to kill Gaara.' It didn't matter that he was in a mask, Miyako could feel him watching them that night. 'So you're the uncle Gaara adores huh? How would he feel if he knew the malice you hold in your heart?'

Miyako knew how chakra worked for other people in theory—they could detect a chakra signature, and some could even see or differentiate chakra signatures using various senses or ninja tools. She'd never experienced it herself in all her years serving masters, but the way magic worked was through feeling the intentions of others. To her senses, everyone had a particular "taste" so to speak. Depending how strong a particular person's energy or chakra was, determined the radius in which she could feel it. For instance, because Gaara had the Ichibi inside him, and because she was connected to him, she could feel his emotions even with several kilometers of distance between them. However, the closer a person was the more she could "feel", for instance Gaara felt like warmth to her—something akin in her mind to her childhood when she would lay in the still warm sand as the sun went down between her mother and father, drinking prickly pear juice—mixed with red, which must've been the Shukaku. It was hard for her to describe the "red" she felt interwoven in Gaara's presence, sometimes it was bloodlust, sometimes it was anger, sometimes it wasn't all that dark and was just passion, but it always reminded her of the red hair of her first love, no matter what emotion it took on.

Yashamaru felt like simmering black sludge veneered by cloying perfume. The mental image in her head was a toxic vat steadily churning—biding time for eruption.

"Yashamaru!" Gaara's joyful exclamation broke her out of her thoughts, and she watched as he flung himself into Yashamaru's arms, who embraced him gently.

Hardly anything got past Miyako, and she noticed how his limbs hung loosely around Gaara's frame, barely touching. 'You can't even put on enough of an act to touch him huh?' She bit back a sneer in time for Gaara to turn to her and pull her into Yashamaru's eyesight.

"Yashamaru, this is my best friend, Miyako!" He pulled her by the shoulders to stand front and center, but still close to Gaara's side, his cheek lightly bumping hers.

'He's trying to give me comfort,' she gave him a side-glance, 'or possibly comfort to us both, he's just as nervous as he thinks I am.'

"Hi Yashamaru-ni-chan!" Miyako gave Yashamaru her best smile, 'you're not the only one great at playing pretend'.

The man gave her a soft smile back, but she read his eyes, guarded—he was futilely trying to hide something from her.

"Hello Miyako-chan, it's so good to meet you." And he shook her little hand, eyes curving into little "u"s.

Before any awkward eye contact could be made, footsteps approached from behind, and they all turned to regard the Kazekage, still donned in robes, eyeing them carefully.

"Ah, Yashamaru, you've returned." The Kazekage's eyes slid over to his son and Miyako, almost surprised to see her fearlessly making eye contact with him.

'She's as daring as they say.' He observed, still hardly coming to terms with the fact that his son, an actual container for a demon, couldn't even make eye contact with him for more than a few seconds, yet this mysterious girl, albeit who potentially single-handedly killed one of his Jounin, was practically challenging him to a stare-off.

"Hi, father." Gaara greeted quietly, toeing the ground instead of meeting his eyes. The girl grabbed Gaara's hand and waved with her other.

"Hello Kazekage-sama, nice to meet you!" She all but screamed while giving a bow.

The Kazekage played dumb, "and who is this?" He kneeled down to she and Gaara's level.

The girl rose from her bow as Yashamaru turned to answer, "This is Gaara's new friend, Miyako." She waved again for emphasis, ear-splitting grin on her face.

The Kazekage and Yashamaru had a silent conversation in their short moment of eye contact, and Yashamaru turned back to the two, warm smile in place once again.

"Gaara, why don't you invite your new friend to stay for dinner?" He proposed, rising to his full height beside the Kazekage.

Gaara snapped his head up, eyes shining in barely concealed delight, "really? She can stay for dinner?" He looked hopefully between the two adults and Miyako.

Miyako kept her eyes on the adults. She wasn't stupid, she'd seen that eye contact between the Kazekage and Yashamaru, they clearly wanted to extract information from her. She was 85% certain that Yashamaru suspected her of the attempted-assassin's murder, she wasn't certain if he knew that she had already figured out it was him watching them that night, but two could play at this game.

"Of course." She answered easily. After all, if she was going to be interrogated, it was only fair she collected information herself. She suspected that the Jounin hadn't acted on his own, hence the note she left that night, but she wasn't entirely sure why the Kazekage would go to such lengths to kill his son.

She wasn't privy to the ins and outs of Shinobi nations, she'd seen them in action obviously, but the innerworkings were still a puzzle to her. However, she'd have to be deaf not to know about the existence of the tailed beasts, thus she also knew that nations considered them to be great resources of power, and did as much as they could afford to protect them. She couldn't be certain, but she assumed that Gaara's father had ordered the Shukaku to be sealed in his own son, for what reasons, who knows, but why would he send someone to kill Gaara knowing that the tailed beast would also die?

The group was just passing the foyer, the adults in front discussing things in a low voice, with Gaara and Miyako trailing behind, one lost in thoughts and the other wringing their hands nervously. Only one guess as to which was doing what. The door flew open suddenly, letting in the twilight and two bickering children who looked to be just a little older than Gaara.

The 6 of them froze as their eyes crossed paths.

"Temari, Kankuro…" Gaara whispered beside her, gripping her hand tighter.

The boy, who Miyako assumed was Kankuro, caught eyes with her and sniffed, eyeing her up and down. "Who's the girl?" He inquired. From beside him, Temari was quiet, eyes flickering between her father, Miyako and Gaara.

'She's analyzing.' Miyako observed and then put on her happy façade.

"Hiya! I'm Miyako." She added in an obnoxious wave for effect.

This seemed to snap the Kazekage from his trance. "Temari, Kankuro, go to your rooms." He ordered.

Temari made to obey, closing the door and squatting to take off her shoes, but Kankuro was still too curious.

'You don't want them in the same room as me, you won't be able to ask what you want. We'll see about that. There's no way that one will stand for it.' She eyed Kankuro briefly before putting on her best confused expression.

"They're not having dinner with us?" Temari, she noticed out of the corner of her eye, paused. Kankuro looked plenty affronted for the two of them.

"You're all having dinner together?" Kankuro put his hands on his hips and squinted at his father.

"Kankuro, do as I say." The Kazekage warned, calmly.

"But why can't they cooooooome?" Miyako whined, stomping her feet cutely. "I don't want to interrupt your family dinner." She continued, pouting for extra affect.

Gaara held her hand like a lifeline, torn between looking hopeful at the prospect of a family dinner and eyeing his father warily.

'I see, family dinners aren't a normal occurrence in this house. Why aren't I surprised?' She analyzed the barely concealed tense expressions on the adults' faces. 'Now then, what will you do? Will you risk making yourself look suspicious and giving away possible information to me? Or make interrogating me that much harder for yourselves?'

Yashamaru sighed fondly, "It would be nice to have a family dinner after so long, Rasa. Let the kids wash up and meet us downstairs."

'Clever boy.' However, if they thought they were going to get what they wanted out of Miyako in the time it took Kankuro and Temari to freshen themselves up, they were sadly mistaken.

"Fine, go wash up for dinner, Kankuro, Temari." The Kazekage then made his way to the dining hall without another word, leaving Yashamaru with the children. Kankuro eagerly fell to his bottom, pulling his shoes off in haste and all but throwing them to the side.

"Oi, Kankuro!" Temari scoffed, but he was halfway up the stairs, clearly not listening. Temari rolled her eyes, straightening up both his and her shoes and following after, albeit at a much slower pace.

"Then, let's go take a seat and talk while we wait." Yashamaru beckoned the two forward with one hand and they followed after obediently.

G/M

Yashamaru had made the mistake of trying to make the start of the interrogation too casual, inquiring about their day at school, which only gave Miyako license to rile Gaara up into a frenzy and eat away at their available time.

"Then, then we got all our kunai knives to stick into the targets, right Gaara?" She crowed loudly, squirming in her seat beside his.

"Yeah! And then we had free time, and Miyako helped me study for the upcoming test, and—"

"Okay, okay," Yashamaru let out a frantic little laugh, trying to play off his annoyance as being overwhelmed. "You had a very jam-packed day I see." The two kids nodded, Miyako hiding a smirk behind her teacup.

Across the way, the Kazekage twitched just slightly before allowing a calm silence to overtake the table, the four of them sipping on the fragrant jasmine tea before dinner.

"So, Miyako-chan, how did you meet our Gaara?" Kazekage inquired, turning his cup just slightly so a servant could come and fill it up once more.

"Gaara and I met on the playground." Miyako's face morphed from cheerful to forlorn in an instant. "Some really mean kids were bullying him and calling him all sorts of mean names." And then her expression switched to determination. "But I saw him and I knew I had to cheer him up!" Though their chairs weren't all that close, Miyako still managed to wiggle their pinkies together, in plain view of the adults.

"Ah, I see, how nice of you." Yashamaru gave a little grin and sipped his tea. "Our Gaara needs someone like that." 'But, just where did you come from?' He thought, and carefully mused over how to ask his next question.

"I'm glad you're able to see past the other villagers judgments, your parents must be proud."

'What are you playing at bastard?' Miyako made a show of stiffening up and sniffling.

"Um yeah, they would've been, I think." She mumbled, playing with the lip of her teacup. At the sudden turn in her demeanor, Gaara inched closer and wrapped more of his fingers around hers.

"Oh, I'm so sorry, I didn't mean-" Yashamaru muttered, sadly.

"N-no, it's okay," She rubbed her eyes with little fists, "my parents, they died on a mission. M-my aunt brought me to Suna to live with her."

She was willing to bet they hadn't even checked for her existence in the village, and she held back from rolling her eyes, even after she'd gone to all that trouble of planting paper work as soon as she'd gotten here. There wasn't a crack in her cover story.

"May they rest in peace, they died honorably." Yashamaru offered softly, almost genuine.

"Your parents, where were they originally from?" Kazekage questioned awkwardly after a long silence.

"Kumo." Miyako poked at her little spoon, almost bored at how quickly they'd seemed to back off just because she turned into a kid with dead parents. She could feel Gaara's confusion, but he said nothing and was only trying to steadily squirm closer to her.

"That's quite far, it must be very different." Yashamaru remarked, desperately trying to keep up his cordial nature while looking for a route to another question that wouldn't seem insensitive.

"It is! But I like it." She welcomed Gaara's whole side pressing into her, noting that he'd probably gotten sand to scoot his chair as close to hers as possible.

Yashamaru's eyes seemed to light up, he must've come up with a proper strategy, but just then Kankuro came storming in, Temari demurely on his heels.

"What are we having for dinner?" He wormed his way next to Yashamaru, Temari taking the next seat available on his right.

"Manners, son." Kazekage reprimanded, and Kankuro settled down.

On cue the maids brought out the dishes, delicious delicacies paired with aromatic rice. This would be the best part of this whole ordeal, in Miyako's opinion.

They ate mostly silently for a while, the Kazekage engaging in light conversation with his older children, while Yashamaru encouraged Gaara to eat all his food and attempted to use sly methods to pry into Miyako's life.

As soon as Kankuro had cleared his plate however, Miyako decided that now was the time for the tables to turn. She had much more of an advantage, being in a younger body meant she could get away with asking outright tactless questions in the guise of not knowing any better.

"Yashamaru-ni-chan?" She called, chewing on her last bite of rice as she waited for him to acknowledge her.

"Yes?"

"How come all the Academy kids are mean to Gaara?" Miyako kicked her feet under the chair for added emphasis on innocence.

Everyone at the table looked at her incredulously, even Gaara, who was honestly confused about the whole proceeding.

He obviously knew that she was lying, what he didn't know was why, she was just thankful he hadn't seen fit to interrupt or give her any looks of disbelief. But this had to be the most curious question of all, because they had discussed the Shukaku at this point on multiple occasions. It had taken a couple of weeks for him to come out and say exactly what the "monster" that he had inside of him was, but he'd deflated in relief when she hadn't batted an eye or even needed any more of an explanation. She'd simply reiterated that Gaara wasn't Shukaku and that Shukaku was responsible for his own actions, so Gaara shouldn't take what anyone said to heart.

Temari, who ate much slower than the rest, darted her eyes from her father, to Miyako, to Gaara again, her bite of food paused midway to her mouth.

"You don't know and you're hanging out with him, do you have a death-"

"Kankuro, manners. That's enough." Rasa gave him a pointed glare and he sat back in his chair, eyeing everyone suspiciously now.

Gaara cuddled closer to Miyako, pouting at Kankuro's sneered words.

"But whatever it is isn't Gaara's fault right? You're his dad can't you make the villagers stop?" She inquired, tilting her head cutely.

Everyone hesitated, but the Kazekage finally cleared his throat and answered that public opinion wasn't for him to control.

"But, but what about when people try to hurt Gaa-chan!" She hugged his arm, pouting.

The Kazekage's interest was piqued, if his little shift in his seat was anything to go on. "You saw someone trying to hurt Gaara?"

'Gotcha.' She laid on a thick sad pout, nodding a little, grasping Gaara's hand tighter.

"There was a man watching us play the other day, he looked bad." Gaara wasn't all that surprised, but everyone else was squirming at the revelation.

"This bad man, what did he look like?" The Kazekage urged.

"It was too dark, but I saw a Suna headband." She played with Gaara's fingers absentmindedly.

Now this would be the pivotal moment, what would determine if Miyako got one over on them, or if they would get one over on her. Her focus was laser-sharp, hidden behind a sulky visage, as the Kazekage shifted his body just the slightest bit forward.

"This ninja, did you see him again?"

'He's trying to determine if I came in contact with the assassin twice to prove I killed him between the time I retrieved the ball and the time it took to get back to Gaara. Please, I may be a child, but I wasn't born yesterday.'

"No." She whined, and tightened her grip on Gaara slightly. "But what if he comes back? You can tell them not to, right?" She let her lip quiver just slightly.

The Kazekage looked wholly uncomfortable now, his eyes betrayed nothing, but he couldn't stop his hands from crossing his body and rubbing the edge of his sleeve, or the way his torso turned slightly away from her as he said:

"Rest assured Miyako-chan, anyone who would go against my order would not be in Suna for long."

She didn't miss the meaning behind the carefully constructed sentence. 'Bastard, so you did order him to kill Gaara.'

Miyako let herself put on a beam as Yashamaru quickly changed topics, obviously they'd gotten what they wanted, but Miyako had gotten all the confirmation she needed as well.

G/M

"What was that?" They were alone on the rooftop now, Gaara lying in her lap and letting her pet her fingers through his hair as he gazed at the moon.

"Hmmm?" She mumbled, playing dumb.

"All those questions, why did you ask about Shukaku when you already knew? And why did you lie about your upbringing?" He frowned a little.

She stared down at him, unsatisfied until his gaze met hers, and it came to him like a sharp slap in the face. Miyako wasn't a child, she was just masquerading as one, some times it was really easy to forget.

"Gaara, you have to promise me something, okay?" She stilled her fingers to show she was serious and so he sat up.

"What is it?" He murmured.

"You cannot tell anyone about what I am, okay? Not your father, not Yashamaru, not even your siblings." Her gaze was intense, this is the same one he occasionally saw her shooting at others, the fault in the façade.

"Why?" He grabbed her hand. "I…you think…"

She couldn't answer his first question. To implicate Yashamaru and his father would destroy him and they were too early in their relationship for her to be able to put him back together again. But in the same vein she knew she had to stop Yashamaru, she didn't know what he and the Kazekage were planning to do to Gaara, but she knew the assassination attempts wouldn't stop. She may have thrown them off, for now, but if they continued to push whether they believed she was the one who murdered that Jounin or not, they would find out it was her. But she had to keep it from Gaara until she could figure out what to do about Yashamaru and the Kazekage.

Yikes, only one wish in and already her life was looking messier than it ever had been.

"It's not about your family specifically, it's about the fact that I don't want them to get hurt by the ones who would want to do something bad with my powers. Who would go through them to get to you to get to me, do you understand?"

Gaara made an "o" shape with his mouth and nodded, determined. Miyako couldn't decide if it was nice that Gaara still cared for the people who were supposed to be his family, half who wanted to kill him and the other half who didn't even want him around.

"Good," She grinned, rubbing a palm through his hair, "tell me more about Yashamaru."

As Gaara glomped her and proceeded to babble about his uncle for the next half hour, Miyako was plotting, hoping she wouldn't have to kill the only two adults left in Gaara's life to ensure his safety.

Whooooo, chapter 2. Fair warning this is not edited ^.^'. Give me some comment love, or just general feedback, your choice, darlings!

See you in the next one!

.Acronym.