Back again- and sooner this time- with another chapter!
Thank you for the lovely comments: Angel Hatake, lizy2000, Paperboy Jacky, Jemmy, and The Reviewer.
Many wonder who/ what this person is going to tell Quorra happened before she blacked out so let's find out!
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Chapter Forty-five: Weapons for War
My airways closed, going into anaphylactic shock. I wasn't Lee, about to get mummified by sand, but my body reacted as if the sand was wrapped around my own neck, leaving me speechless.
Acting like its own serpent, Shikamaru's shadow slithered from his feet, his signature possession jutsu. For that, I was grateful. The possession prevented Gaara from clenching his fist, finalizing his blow to Lee.
"What do you think you're doing?" Shikamaru asked,
Instead of an answer, Gaara wheezed. What could have easily been speculated as an illness, I was mortified to discover it wasn't.
Glee shimmered from his green eyes. He was hyperventilating with excitement. The thrill of the hunt. To kill.
"I'm not going to ask you again, man. What do you think you're doing?" Shikamaru demanded.
His voice was strong, forceful, but I could see the truth in his eyes. Shikamaru was freaking out.
Gaara ignored the questions, keeping his gaze on Lee. A predator never loses sight of its prey.
Shikamaru opened his mouth to repeat his demand, but was cut off. The perpetrator raced into the room and connected its fist into the side of Gaara's temple.
"What the fuck do you think you're doing?" Naruto barked.
There he was, long hospital gown and all, resurrected from pure exhaustion. Naruto. I didn't know how he did it.
"Hey, go easy, Naruto. I'm using my shadow possession here. When you're bashing him, you're bashing me too," Shikamaru winced.
"Oh sorry, Shikamaru," he apologized.
Gaara ignored the ordeal. A crack stretching from his ear to chin. He was wearing his sand armor, camouflaged until now.
"Out with it, what were you trying to pull?" Naruto pointed.
"I was going to kill him," Gaara replied.
The brutal honesty took its toll on Naruto. "You bastard," he growled.
"He can't be serious," Shikamaru stated, bewildered as well.
If only Shikamaru knew how serious Gaara was. When Gaara wished someone dead, he meant it. I would know, I saw it firsthand with Dosu.
"You already beat him once in competition. What's your problem? Wasn't that enough for you? Do you have some personal grudge against him or something?" Shikamaru questioned.
That wasn't the only thing disturbing Shikamaru. His shadow possession was still in check, preventing movement, but Gaara wasn't even phased. Shikamaru never witnessed such… animosity.
"I have nothing against him. It's nothing that complicated. I simply want to kill him, that's all," Gaara explained.
"You know what, you're crazy," Shikamaru spat.
"Yeah," Naruto agreed. "You think we're going to stand by and let you do what you want, you sick psycho."
"If you don't stay out of my way, I would have to kill you two as well," Gaara warned.
"Oh, really? I would like to see you try!" Naruto shook his fist.
"Hey, whoa. Take it easy," Shikamaru interrupted.
Naruto growled. "Quorra, what do you have to say about this?"
I was frozen, a deer in headlights. All I was concerned for was Lee, how chaotic his world around him was without him realizing.
I wanted to hold him and whisper into his ear that everything was going to be alright, even if we were crushed by thousands of pounds of force.
"Quorra!"
"We've watched you're last match. We know you're tough, but Naruto and I have a few little tricks up our sleeves," Shikamaru tried to intimidate. "We were holding ourselves back. There are things you haven't seen yet. On top of that, it's two against one so don't be a fool. Just take my advice and go. Quietly."
Without hesitance, "I'll say it once more. If you get in my way. I'll kill you."
"And I'll say it again. Let's see you try!" Naruto barked.
"Back off will ya? This guy fights like he's mad. Like he's a demon or something," Shikamaru observed, wide-eyed.
"He can act like a demon if he wants, but you know what? I got the real thing inside me," Naruto jabbed his thumb towards his chest.
That settled it. Naruto came to the realization with what was going on inside him, answering Jiraiya and I's question. He faced his demon and grew terms of acceptance, something I had to commend him for, even if it sickened me. The chain of events that occurred to a boy barely born made my skin burn, but I was more at peace knowing Naruto was strong enough to carry that. He definitely proved it today.
Shikamaru didn't find it as accepting as he jabbed an elbow into the blonde. "Idiot, leave this to me. What's the point of getting him mad?"
"A demon, huh?" Gaara mused the thought. "My demon is as real as yours is."
Demon. Was that what I witnessed? A demon, who maliciously juiced Dosu of the Sound? Even thinking about the possibilities sucked me back into the warped scene:
Dosu, sound weapon prepped to kill.
The stars, shining with mystery; alongside the moon, who smiled at the sea of blood.
Gaara, morphing into a creature. Golden eyes glaring at me, contemplating whether I was prey or ally.
Was Gaara trapped, like Naruto? It couldn't be possible.
"From my birth, my upbringing was what most people considered an unhappy one. To ensure that I became the strongest of strong, my father casted his ninjutsu on me, infusing my unborn self with a sand spirit."
Shikamaru and Naruto listened to Gaara's story with horror. I, on the other hand, was becoming grounded. Before, I was floating in the abyss, frozen by Gaara's hostility. But the same person who disconnected me, now anchored me—back to realization. It was beginning to make sense. Why Gaara was Gaara.
"I destroyed the life of the woman who gave birth to me. I was born a monster. Its name is Shukaku and it's the living incarnation of an old monk of the sand village who has been sealed up in a jar of tea."
"Ye, some kind of demonic jutsu, but to use it on a baby? Before it's even born?" Shikamaru snorted. "What a swell guy your dad must have been. He must have loved you a lot."
"You speak of love?" Gaara spoke, for the first time, with emotion. It was clear disgust. "Don't measure me by your standards. Love? Family? The only emotional ties I have to my family are the ones I like to wrap around their necks with the ties of hate. Given life by the death of my mother, I was brought and nurtured as the salvation of the village. I was the Kazekage child. My father taught me the inner most secrets of the shinobi. He pampered and protected me, he left me for myself. For a time, I thought that was love. And that was when everything started…" Gaara drifted off into silence.
The Kazekage child? That means he's the son of the leader of the Village in the Sand.
"When what started?" Naruto initiated. His eyes were like marbles, glossy, and his face frozen. He just made his own discovery, about a demon who was banked on destroying a village. Now, he was finding out that there was another—all in the same day? It was shocking for myself, but it was life altering for Naruto.
"What was it? Are you gonna tell us or not?" Shikamaru barked.
Gaara remained silent, staring stone faced at all of us or none of us.
Shikamaru grew more irritated. "So go on, what started? What was it?"
"Crazy." Gaara smirked in a reminiscing tone. "In the six years since I became six years old, my father tried to destroy me more times than I can count."
Naruto gasped. This was getting too much for him.
Shikamaru, on the other hand, wasn't buying it. "You just finished saying your father pampered and protected you. So which is it?"
"Those who get to be too strong are ought to be feared. The jutsu that gave me birth unbalanced something in my mind. Even the fools in my village realized I had… emotional problems. My father, the Kazekage, created me as his ultimate weapon but I became a threat to the very village I was meant to save. By the time I was six, I became a figure of terror to the villagers. To them, I was a relic of the past that they wished would disappear."
Weapons of war. It was as Jiraiya spoke, it was the Hokage's duty. He was to protect his village at all cost. All shinobi were simply tools for war.
I didn't want to believe it, even now. But hearing Gaara's story, I felt like a machine. Broken gears? Sprain a leak? Fuck them, there's plenty more where they came from.
"So you see, I failed at the one purpose for which I was given life. What then was left for me in this world? Why go on living? For a long time, I couldn't find an answer to that. But in order to live, you needed a purpose. To exist with no purpose, that's the same as being dead."
"What is this guy talking about?" Shikamaru spoke with a tone I didn't like.
"You began killing…" It was barely a whisper, my first words of this encounter, but Gaara heard me.
Shikamaru talked like Gaara was crazy, but as crazy as it was and Lee laying lifeless, I understood. I got where Gaara was coming from, at least, why he was the way he was. Did that mean I was crazy, too? I wasn't certain, but I felt something and could tell Naruto felt it, too.
The Sand nin nodded. "Then, in time, the answer came to me. To put it simply, my reason for living was in the killing of others. For years, I lived in fear of those who were sent to murder me. But now, I was at peace. I killed many wimpy assassins."
The pieces were linking together. When I talked to him about my memory lost:
"All you left behind was hardship and pain. Be thankful those things aren't haunting you."
This was why. This was what happened to him. He was explaining from experience.
"It was then the truth became clear to me. I live solely for myself. I love only myself as it was the death of my mother who first gave me life, it is now the death of others that sustains me. It almost makes me feel happy to be alive. And there's no end to it. As long as there are people to kill in this great wide crowded world. I will never disappear," was his final sentiment as he moved his sand, breaking the chain binding himself to Shikamaru's shadow.
"What? Impossible!" Shikamaru cried.
Instead of moving forward to defend Lee, Naruto stood still.
"Naruto, what's going on?" Shikamaru yelled, but it was futile. Naruto looked lost in another universe. Gaara's life story hit too close to home for him.
"Wake up! Oh man, what a drag. Naruto!" Shikamaru plead.
With prayer, a hand shot out and grabbed the wrist of the sand demon. It shouldn't have, but it miraculously stopped the sand which now hovered stealthily in nothingness. However, it wasn't Naruto's.
"Quorra! Are you out of your damn mind!?" Shikamaru cried.
Driven by an unknown strength, it was my hand that reached out and grabbed a demon. Not a demon, Gaara and it wasn't an unknown strength, but my own.
"It doesn't have to be this way," I explained.
"Don't make me kill you as well," Gaara warned. His face twisted behind his words.
It didn't stop me from trying to reason with him. "Please don't hurt my friend."
"And why shouldn't I?" Gaara pushed. "I would be doing him a favor. He won't ever become a shinobi. He's a crimpled."
"Because my friends are precious to me!" I countered.
Gaara hesitated. The conversation we had on the rooftop was ringing threw his mind as it was for mine.
"He's precious to me. That's what he said," Gaara continued. "Why would he say such a thing to a failure?"
"Because Guy-Sensei loves Lee," I explained.
Gaara was taken aback, a rare occurrence. "Love?" the words echoed from his lips, escaping into the night air. "But he isn't the shinobi's family or have any relationship to him."
"Love doesn't need a reason to exist. Newborn stars take millions of years to form, billons of tons of mass to make. Just like the endless stars that scatter the night star, it just exists," I explained. "The people you love are the ones you are willing to risk your life for. They are your family, even if it isn't by blood," I finalized, smiling sadly.
Gaara was perplexed by my speech. "So his sensei was willing to risk his life for his pupil, despite his weakness?"
I nodded. "Because he loves his students and his students love him."
Gaara pushed me away, shocking me rather than hurting. He grabbed his head, a common action for Gaara. I didn't understand what was happening to him. It was as if he was fighting with the thoughts in his mind, or his demon.
"Gaara…"
He cried in pain and despite my efforts, was going through with it. He was going to kill Lee.
"Alright, that's enough," someone called.
I didn't even notice a new presence in the room. Guy-Sensei. I should have known he wouldn't be far off. This was his student after all.
"Save it 'til tomorrow. That's when the final competition begins. You're just wasting it today. Is that what you want?" The hurt behind Guy-Sensei's voice was inexplicable. The person who did this to his student was in front of him and yet he still communicated with reason instead of hate. I didn't know how he could do that.
Thankfully, Guy-Sensei's forceful tone was enough to stop Gaara. Continuing to grasping his head, the sand slowly receded back into the gourd.
And as if nothing happened, Gaara was back to himself. Cold, unexpressive. He began to walk out of the room. "All the same. I will kill you, just you wait."
Before he left the room, something stopped him. "You should figure out who you trust in the world," he spoke.
I realized he was talking to me. "What do you mean?" My voice shook.
"You wanted to know about your past—about the Preliminaries," Gaara continued.
And just when I thought it was over, it wasn't. My heart picked up beats, my stomach flipped.
"You ought to know what happened," Gaara suggested.
"Leave. Your presence isn't welcomed here any longer," Guy-Sensei commanded.
"Don't listen to him, Quorra," Shikamaru warned. "He's psychotic."
Naruto was silent, staring at me.
Gaara didn't listen nor take offense. "When you were fighting your teammate, right before you collapsed…"
"Enough!" Guy-Sensei warned.
Gaara continued. "Right before you collapsed, you blacked out. You were screaming—
"Shut your mouth!" Shikamaru yelled that and more, but it was all static to my ears. All I could see and hear was Gaara. His yelling didn't stop Gaara from saying:
"Screaming, 'No more needles. No more of Unknown's blood'."
'No more needles. No more of Unknown's blood'
'No more needles. No more of Unknown's blood'
'No more needles. No more of Unknown's blood'
"Pleading you would do anything to make it stop. Screamed until there was no voice left in your throat and you went unconscious."
ξ
Shikamaru and Guy-Sensei couldn't let out a peep before I was out the door. I couldn't look anyone in the eye, even Gaara as he watched me practically bumping into him.
Endless amounts of emotion radiated through me with such ferocity, I couldn't even interpret them. Gaara could have been lying, that much I thought of, but I never told anyone about Unknown. How it haunted my dreams and I awoke screaming telling myself it wasn't real. There was no way he could have known, this proved that the Unknown may actually be more than just –
They knew—they all knew what happened and they have the nerve to hide it from me. Not just Shikamaru, Guy-Sensei and Naruto, it was everyone who witnessed the battle.
Sakura.
Kiba.
Mae.
Was that why Mae was giving me that look? Not out of distaste but pity? I didn't know what was true or not anymore.
Who gave any of them the right to keep something like that from me? It was my life. They know how much I struggle and yearn to self-discovery. It was my choice. Not there's. And it came down to Gaara clueing me in, a suppose enemy.
I wanted to burn bridges, destroy villages. Pillage families so that they could possibly grasp the pain that was consuming me. Have them understand what it's like to lose something, to appreciate even having it. They were all lucky, they had people. They had valuables like memories and love and kindness. I thought I had that, had a family built on friends who cared for me. Now, I wasn't too sure.
I felt betrayed.
It was far past night fall by the time I reached my apartment. Millenniums seemed to fly since the last time I stepped foot inside. My so called home.
Maybe it wasn't a home anymore, but a cave. Darkness ready to welcome me.
The hallway echoed with heavy footsteps, weighted down by Eeyore emotions.
The key jangled in my weapons pouch and it slid into the lock. I was ready to get inside and to finally, finally end these nightmarish couple of days.
The jostling must have echoed because it attracted unwanted attention from a person who I deemed to have gone missing.
"You're out late," spoke my neighbor, Kakashi.
Kakashi, I wondered since awakening at the hospital where he was. Now, I wanted nothing to do with him.
Ignoring him, I opened the door and stepped inside to shun the world. It unfortunately couldn't be that easy.
Kakashi threw his foot into the door's gap. "Rough day?"
"Why didn't you tell me?" I asked seething, ignoring his question. My fist clenched.
He rose a curious brow. "You're going to have to be more specific than that."
"You didn't tell me what happened at the Preliminaries!" I snapped.
"Calm down, Quorra," Kakashi shushed.
"I can't calm down! No one fucking told me that I was screaming off the top of my lungs, begging a person who wasn't there to stop injecting me, like a fucking lunatic!"
I was shaking.
Kakashi grabbed my shoulders to steady me. "I said calm down. You're going to wake the neighbors."
I hated him. I hated his nonchalant being, his insensitivity. But I shut my mouth, I was still human and cared about others' well rest even if they wouldn't do the same for me.
I pushed him away. "Forget it. You disappeared. You don't care, no one does."
"Of course I care for you," Kakashi spoke.
"Then tell me," I asked without hesitation. "If you care for me so much, would you have told me what happened tonight, as I returned home a few minutes ago? Would you have told me?"
"It's not that simple," Kakashi replied.
"Bullshit," I barked. "Were you going to tell me? Yes or no?"
Kakashi sighed. "When the time was right."
"When the time was right," I mimicked. "And when would that be? Tomorrow? A week from now? A year from now? A person who cares for me wouldn't hide this from me. Which means you don't care. You left me without second thought—
Kakashi gave me a fierce look before impulsively pulling me into an embrace, something very unlike him. "I was training Sasuke for the finals, but I could've told you where I was."
"And, I'm sorry," he said, sincere. "I care for you, believe me, more than you will ever know."
"It doesn't matter anymore," I spoke into his chest. "My compassion for others has either thrown back in my face in a form of hate or lies. I don't know who to trust anymore, Kakashi."
The last person I wanted to cry in front of, but it couldn't be helped. Fresh tears streamed down my pitiful face. My head leaned against Kakashi's chest in defeat.
"So much bad shit has happened these past few day, I don't know if I'll ever be the same again," I spoke somber.
Even recalling the past events made me ill. Waking up in the hospital, lost. Gaara killing Dosu, Gachero-Sensei tearing into my soul through a jutsu, the visions, learning that Naruto had a demon inside him as well as Gaara, who tried to kill Lee. There was only so much the human heart can take.
"I'm sorry," Kakashi held me tighter.
I understood now, to some extent, how Gaara felt. He was betrayed, only viewed as a weapon for war in the eyes of people who he thought loved him. That pain turned him into who he was today, a person who feels killing was his only comfort.
I told him about how important it was to take care of your loved ones. To be there for them because they would be there for you. Now I know I can't trust anyone. Even now as Kakashi held me, telling me how sorry he was, my brain wanted to believe, but my heart knew he was lying.
"I told him that love exists the same reasons the stars do. I gave him a reason to believe anyone you love is considered family," I cried, losing hope on that belief.
"Who?" Kakashi asked, rubbing the back of my head.
"There are millions of stars birthed into existence every day, and now I know there are just as many black holes… ready to consume life."
Quorra finds out what people have kept from her. How would you react in her situation? Did she over react? Or didn't react enough? Next chapter begins the final rounds of the Chunin. Will Quorra even attend?
As always, thank you for reading. Until next time!
XO