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Fifty-two: Mae
Kiba and I were deep into Fire Country forest with each step distancing ourselves from our home in the Leaf village. And, another step closer to our target, finding Sasuke. I trailed behind Kiba as he led with his sharp canine scents. Countless thoughts bombarded me, including how fast Kiba was moving with his injury he refused to talk about. He spoke little, only to confirm directions with Akamaru. His silence had been accumulating, boiling like an angry kettle. The pressure will have to escape and I was afraid it would be on the branches we leapt from. Each branch creaked with the impact of Kiba's steps, his misery, with the possibility of snapping and consuming him into the endless pit that was the forest floor.
Kiba unexpectedly stopped causing me to stumble, inches away from bowling through him like a lonely pin away from a spare.
"What is it?" I panted. We have been going top speed for some time.
"We're close," he mumbled. "The smell of his filth grows stronger."
"Listen, Kiba." I've been worried to bring this up, but someone had to be realistic. "Once we find Sasuke, even with your's and Akamaru's scent of smell, we don't know what we will be running into. We should make a plan."
"A plan?" He forced a laugh. "You and you're fucking plans."
That stung, that stung a lot, but I tried to push the hurt aside.
"You're just angry," I calculated.
The fact didn't sit well with Kiba as his eyes widen. "Yeah, I am pissed, Sherlock. You want me to standby and watch that son-of-a-bitch from afar."
"I want us to make a plan! Not run into something with so many unknown factors, knives blazin'" I argued.
"Unknown factors," he mimicked, taunted. "The only unknown factor is whether you're with me or not. If you have a problem with how I am going to handle him... then you might as well go home." He turned to leave. I couldn't let him, I couldn't have someone else hating me.
"We're here to save Sasuke, not go after Gaara!" I grabbed hold of his hoodie sleeve.
Bad decision.
"I said go home, Mae." His hand rose high. I knew it was an accident. He was always bad at using his claws rather than his fingertips. His hand swung to push my shoulder, to cast me aside, not before his claws nicking the side of my jaw. The motion knocked my glasses, falling into the tangle of the forest below.
I released his sleeve and touched the mark, seeing the faintest trace of blood on my fingertips.
Kiba was shocked, momentarily, before pride and rage overwhelmed his boyish hormones. "If you're not going to help me," he spoke softly, pleading, "then go home."
Before I could respond, he took off. His companion trailing shortly behind him. Leaving me to myself in the vast forest, frustration and defeat whirling inside. I shook, not with sadness, but hatred, self-deprecation. Everything I did resulted in failure. No matter how hard I tried to please my parents, they're disgusted in me. No matter how many books I read, I never seemed to know the right answers, say the right words. No matter how hard I try, I'm never good enough. I mess up, hurt people and they leave.
"I don't know what to do," I whispered to the trees. The wind picked up ruffling my short hair in reply. It was in this moment. As the wind whispered into my ears, wiping the tears that threatened to spill, the question which changed everything popped into my tormented mind.
What would Quorra do?
The question answered all my doubts, lifting the fog of confusion and without second thought, I raced after Kiba.
It took several minutes to catch up with him. Fury really fueled a person, but so did determination. I didn't bother to call for him as I performed hand signs, channeling a stream of water towards Kiba's legs, tripping him.
"What do you think you're doing?" He was unable to move as the water pinned his ankles firmly in place.
I stood and watched his struggle. He didn't appreciate the lack of assistance.
"Have you lost your mind?" He shouted, noise entering and exiting my ear canal. "Let go of me, Mae!"
Before I could doubt myself, I brought my shaking hand high above my head.
And slapped it across his face.
If he wasn't so shocked, he might have been in pain as a red handprint blossomed over his triangular markings.
"Hammurabi's Code," I explained. Quorra always knew the answers for how to handle situations like this. Even if she didn't, she had to confidence to make herself believable. Everyone looked up to her for it…
"What?" he rubbed his rosy cheek.
… including myself.
"It was a well-preserved Babylonian code of law of ancient Mesopotamia." I bit my tongue before I could go on a rant. That wasn't what Quorra would do.
Quorra explained the same to the Sound nin, Zaku, while we battle him and his teammates in the Forest of Death. Zaku affected our hearing with a sound manipulating jutsu, so Quorra drove a kunai into his ear canal. An eye for an eye.
"Point is. One of the codes was basically an eye for an eye, meaning, you hit me, I hit you back."
The rush of adrenaline quickly wore off and I was overwhelmed by a sea of guilt.
"Asshole," I mumbled in defeat.
"What?"
I didn't know what it was, but the way he said it. That oblivious tone tweaked me the wrong way.
"Asshole! I called you an asshole, you asshole!" I bellowed. "I want to help you but I can't because you won't tell me what's wrong. You're one of my best friends and it kills me to see you hurting. I feel terrible because I'm not good enough to comfort you, but then I realize, it is not about me not being good enough, it's you just being an asshole!"
Kiba stared at me with marbled eyes. "Ah, shit, Mae. Please don't cry."
I didn't realise I was until I pat my cheeks, making me more angry. "I'm not crying. The particulates in the air are irritating my cornea."
Kiba gave me a not-buying-it look.
"We're supposed to be a team," I surrendered with sudden exhaustion.
Kiba created a long rift of uncomfortable silence, staring indiscreetly at the my cheek, making me squirm. The same thought was probably going through his mind as it did in mine. It's going to scar.
Just as I scarred him before. We were both at fault.
"You're right," Kiba sighed. "As always, you're right."
I released him from his water bind.
Thanks, Quorra.
Kiba calmly, well as collective as a short-tempered boy could, explained what has been upsetting him. How he tried to talk to Quorra and she wouldn't hear any of it. He was convinced Quorra was hiding something, something bad that was keeping her quiet. In search of her, he found her in the Waiting Room of the arena sitting in a pool of blood. She wasn't alone though.
"That freak Gaara was there. He did it. He was the reason why Quorra was acting strange as he murdered those innocent people. There was chunks of flesh everywhere. Who knows what he would've done to her if I wasn't there when I was!"
I didn't respond. Only listened.
"When I tried to save her, take her somewhere far away from that psycho, she started defending him. Claimed how that monster was her friend. How can that murderer, someone who almost kills her, be her friend? As she lost her mind?!"
I must admit, what Kiba was explaining sounded bad. It was no secret Gaara was a killer. Between witnessing him in battle and what I've been gathering from Kiba, he definitely wasn't the 'friend' type. Despite Kiba's convincing argument, something didn't add up.
"Is that all?"
"What do you mean, is that all? He's a manipulator. Quorra saw him almost kill Lee, twice! And yet, she still defends him. Something is not right with her head." Kiba taps his skull, rather roughly.
"Was he trying to kill her?"
"What?"
"Gaara," I clarified. "Was he trying to kill Quorra? Was he physically attacking her?"
"Well… not at that moment, but trust me, he piece of douche shit was gonna lay his creepy sand hands on her. You should have seen his eyes. They were maniac, power hungry with greed and bloodlust! I should have sliced off his arms and use them to pummel him to death while I had the chance."
He continued to ramble about ridiculous ways he should've killed Gaara. It was beyond me whether he actually thought these were effective plans or rather he was talking crazy. I knew there was something he wasn't telling me. The evidence he was providing wasn't enough to make a proper conclusion.
"The point is," Kiba spoke out of breath. "That Quorra has changed. That's why she won't talk to anyone. Because Gaara wormed his way into her brain. Infected her."
Change. The word resonated through me, a low, haunting hum. Memories from the day Kiba and I decided to brighten our dampened moods by going to the market and purchased every fruit we heard and never heard of to make fruit smoothies. It was a small blimp of happiness, with Akamaru wagging his tail with excitement and it being the first day of sunshine in days. That's when we saw her. Wild eyes, frightened prey. Kiba tried to talk to her, apologize, but she wouldn't have it or rather, couldn't comprehend it. She ran off before I shaken off my shock. She looked like she was running away from something. It destroyed Kiba, it destroyed me and the basket of fruit to this day hasn't been touched, plagued with fruit flies and rot.
What if she wasn't running away from us because she wasn't ready to talk. Maybe she didn't want to talk. Ever.
I expressed this concern shortly after to Gachero-sensei:
"I don't know what to do, Sensei," I said, explaining what happened today at the marketplace. "This is all my fault."
Sensei places a supportive hand on my shoulder. The heat radiating off his hand warmed my shoulder, unaware how cold I have been.
"Mae," he spoke, soothingly. "You cannot blame yourself for what is happening to Quorra."
"But I can!" I cried. "I tore her down. A proper teammate should be encouraging, not someone who makes them feel like they're nothing."
Gachero-sensei grabbed my other shoulder and knelt so that he was roughly at eye level. "Mae Muruyama. You are a smart, cunning, beautiful young woman who I am thankful to call my pupil. You are strong both physically and mentally. Stronger than Leda and stronger than Quorra. You proved that during the Preliminaries."
"That's because you gave me that scroll. If I had known that's what it was going to do, I wouldn't've ever used it!"
Sensei ignored my statement. "And being so smart, you knew that your team was a strong as your weakest member. That's why you challenged Quorra. She is the type of person who sometimes needs that extra push. You knew that wasn't going to happen unless Quorra felt like she had to prove something.
You weren't aware of her jealousy. It is a sneaky thing, Mrs. Envy. You never know it's there until one day it sneaks up on you trying to ring it's perfect hands around your neck."
"But-"
"She's jealous, Mae. Angry at what you told her, but jealous that she couldn't be strong enough to prove you wrong. Give her time. She'll come around."
I didn't know what to think. My brain felt like it was swimming in hydrochloric acid. Part of me wanted to believe sensei, believe that Quorra running away from Kiba and I was a stem from jealousy. Sensei has seen a lot during his time with ANBU. He's wise with experience, especially since he specialized in interrogation. He knew how the human emotions worked. Despite his expertise, doubt and guilt rang through my mind.
"I want to tell her," I demanded. "I want to tell her about the Preliminaries, after my water dragon jutsu attacked her."
"No," Sensei's voice was so firm as compared to his smooth demeanor before. It made me jump.
He saw how scared that made me. "No," he tried again, calmer. "You did what you did to challenge her. You fought with all you had to challenge her. Why should she know the sequence of events from that day? We wouldn't want to cause her unnecessary pain, do we?"
I didn't want to cause her more pain.
No more pain.
Even after my conversation with sensei, I still felt guilt and unease. Every night I was tormented by the questions, the unknowns, and my hatred for wanting to dig for answers to prove or disprove my hypotheses. But I was me and I needed to gather as much information as I could to make proper conclusions. Even through inhumane ways and hurt people in the process. To do the things I did, just to prove to myself that she was strong enough. Unforgivable.
With this new information Kiba fed to me, like a drug addict, the rusted gears creaked to life. Maybe Quorra did change. Were sensei and Kiba right?
My flooded thoughts were interrupted by barks.
"Akamaru? What is it, Bud?" Kiba listened to his companions barks.
"You're right," Kiba agreed. "We need to go."
"What are you talking about? What did Akamaru say?"
"He said that they're close. Only a few hundred yards away. They seemed to be stationary at the moment."
As if on cue, a series of explosions set off.
"We need to hurry!" Kiba roared.
Without another thought or word, we followed Akamaru. Burying and running from my addictive thoughts.
It didn't take long to find Sasuke and the Sand Siblings. We didn't need to use our sense of smell when there were explosions as dead giveaways. When we arrived, I barely had enough time to hold Kiba back in a heavy foliaged branch. He opened his mouth to argue, but before he had a chance to make a sound, I covered his mouth.
"Quiet," I rose a finger of my free hand to my lips.
"I finally caught up to you." It was Sasuke, standing on a higher branch of our tree. The Sand Siblings stood across a large gap in the canopy. Gaara was unconsciously hanging over Kankuro's shoulder.
"You thought you could stop me using trigger wire," Sasuke sneered. "It was a nice trick, but that wouldn't work on me. And now that I finally found you and you're not going anywhere."
"Damn it," Temari growled, glancing at her unconscious younger brother. "This isn't good. We can't get away with Gaara like this."
Kiba couldn't hold back any longer and charged through the brush. I called, futility, for him to stop. I stumbled out from our cover like a newborn unaware of their surroundings.
"There's no place for you to run!" Kiba charged and performed his signature Fang Passing Fang, becoming a human drill with Akamaru and aimed his anger at the siblings. Before Kiba could get remotely close, Temari unfolded her massive fan and unleashed a relentless gust of wind that, if Kiba was prepared for, could've evaded. Rather, the hurricane-like gust reered Kiba and Akamaru off-course, crashing into one of the many enormous trunks. The momentum knocked the pair out cold as they collapsed thankfully on a branch not too far down.
"Kiba!" I knew my worries fell on unconscious ears.
"Wow, that was pathetic," Kankuro snickered.
"He tried the best he could!" I defended, like a mother telling her nerd child they were popular.
That dummy.
"Right…" Kankuro agreed, sarcastically.
He handed his unconscious brother to his sister. "Temari, take Gaara and get out of here. I can hold off these losers."
"But-" Temari rebutted.
"Just go!" Kankuro ordered as he pulled something from his waistband and by the time I realized what it was I raced to Kiba.
The explosion was quick and a smog of unbreathable smoke washed over us. It was dark, dense, but I made it to Kiba in time before we, too, were swallowed by it.
After the smoke dissipated, I realized Temari and Gaara escaped as well as Sasuke who undoubtedly ditched us, ditched me with him.
"'Sup, Honey Buns," Kankuro called, standing cockily on the branch above.
"So much for my freaking plans."
AN: as always, thank you for your lovely set of reading eyes. Hope this chapter didn't disappoint.
until next time!
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Xo