Gives a bit of background to where Gaara is coming from before the second Chunin Exams.
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Gaara has many things on his mind as he returns from Konoha for the second time. It's a different sort of contemplation, yet again his foundation has been rocked. And again Konoha is the cause.
"Yo, ah, you alright there man?" Kankurou said, shifting his shoulders awkwardly. "You look a little gloomy."
The fear that they have always shown him – that he has caused in them – has diminished but is not entirely absent. But they're trying. They're reaching out, trusting his word over his history and trying.
So Gaara tries in return. "Hidden Leaf," he says. "Is a strange place."
"Heh, you can say that again," Kankurou says fervently. "I'm so glad Suna doesn't rotate shinobi through the Academy like that. Little brats kept trying to put their grubby fingers all over Karasu."
Which would have ended very poorly for everyone involved, Gaara surmises. He is aware that Kankurou coats his puppets in contact poison, like most puppet masters.
Temari snickers. "Told you you should have left it at the hotel."
"Like hell," Kankurou objects. "I didn't see you leaving your fan behind."
The bickering, that Gaara could do without.
It isn't until Gaara catches his sidelong look and something shifts that he realises 'he's worried about me'. It takes longer still for the thought to coalesce into 'he's worried about something happening to me'.
"How'd your talk with that Uzumaki kid go?" Temari asks, very casually.
"Well," Gaara says. Naruto had been, after the initial surprise, strangely welcoming. He had expected hostility, or maybe – after he had proved his change of heart and willingness to understand their values – wary acceptance. The difference had been as great as expecting a closed door and finding open arms.
But although Naruto had been just as full of belief, as full of fire and strength as before, he hadn't had the answers that Gaara had sought. It had been… a disappointment, yet at the same time, strangely relieving. If Naruto, who had shown Gaara this truth, had not had the answers, then did anyone?
Perhaps, Gaara reflects, it was one of those things which could not be explained. Perhaps everyone sought their own answers and in the end built something that they could live with.
I don't think anyone should get hurt.
I made a choice. I thought it would be better this way.
The same, but different. The girl who had spoken about mercy. The girl who had sought him out – and Gaara can count on one hand the number of people who have done that of their own free will and still have fingers left – and warned him. Offered help.
And that. Well. That is another matter that consumes his attention.
"Kankurou. Your puppets… they were designed by Sasori of the Red Sand."
Kankurou blinks at the sudden change in topic. "Ah, yeah. That's right. Most of the Puppet Corps stuff follows his designs. Either that or Chiyo-baa-sama's and his build off hers as well."
"Tell me," Gaara requests.
The look Kankurou exchanges with Temari is baffled, but hides a tiny spark of pleasure. "Sure, man. What did you want to know?"
Kankurou is a wealth of knowledge on the topic, for all he pretends he is not the scholarly type. Gaara listens and absorbs, sifting through mentions of joint types, locks and catches, through poison names and descriptions, through Kabuki references and inspiration drawn from literature, and draws an incomplete picture of the man that apparently wants him dead.
When they reach Suna, he fills the picture further, with personnel files he probably shouldn't be reading but no one can keep him out of.
Then he goes outside the walls of Suna, to the old house on the hill and waits.
Gaara is the desert. And the desert is patient.
Eventually, the door creaks open and an old woman steps out. "Come to get your revenge?" She asks, voice dry and mocking. "Think old Chiyo should have never sealed you away? He thought that, by the end."
The reference to his father blows past him. That man is dead.
Revenge, he thinks, and is tempted. If he did not have Shukaku, would he have had a better life? But Gaara cannot even imagine what that would be like, beyond that Temari and Kankurou would be there, less fearful.
Perhaps, at one time, the death of this woman would have validated his existence.
Shukaku howls within its cage.
Mercy, he thinks and knows his answer.
"No," Gaara rasps. "Revenge will not achieve anything. I don't mean to kill you."
Not that it would be easy. Gaara is not fooled by her age. Chiyo-baa-sama is to be feared still.
"Hmph," she says. "Then why are you here?"
"Your grandson," he says, and knows he has her when her strong, deadly fingers go still.
Gaara does not, truly, understand the bonds of family. His are too small and lacking to give him experience. But Chiyo went after Sasori, once, just after he left. And she returned less an arm and refused to go after him again, no matter her orders. He does not think that refusal was from fear.
"He will come here," he tells her. "He wishes to have Shukaku." There is little he can tell her, little he knows, but Sasori is the bait he dangles for her, while he himself is the bait for Sasori.
And he will need Chiyo, he thinks, if he wishes to make his own path in Suna.
"So certain you'll be in Suna when he hits?" Chiyo cackles, dismissively. "A mission would be a far better time to strike. When you're alone, or have only a team for backup. What's my incentive there."
"I would stay in the village."
Chiyo snorts. "That's never going to happen. You're a weapon; you won't be laid to rest to gather dust. You'll be lucky if you see the village in the next three years."
Gaara goes silent. It is not agreement.
Chiyo regards him speculatively. "Go on. Say it," she goads. There is a peculiar kind of glee in her expression.
"There is one position that would keep me in the village."
Her wheezing laughter rings out into the night.
"Kazekage."