Family Clash
Chapter 7

As Tetsumari walked home, she spotted Gaara running up to a house with a brown bag in his hand. She hid herself and watched to see what he was doing. It looked like Gaara was hesitating to knock on the door, but he eventually did. Tetsumari recognized the person that opened the door, it was the girl that pushed her down and told everyone to run from Gaara.

"Hey…" Gaara said with a shaky voice, "I brought you some ointment for your wounds."

He put a smile on his face so she wouldn't get scared, but it didn't work, she was still horrified.

"Go away!" she slammed the door, "Monster!"

Gaara was shocked, he dropped his bag on the ground than turned the opposite way to run while he cried. As he ran away quickly, Tetsumari walked over to the bag he dropped earlier and looked inside.

"Ointment?" she thought. A flashback of the time when Yashamaru explained to Gaara and her about pain popped up in her head. Tetsumari felt sorry for Gaara, he was just trying to help. He had always tried the best to help someone with his best smile on, but the kind of thanks he gets back always tore his heart apart. Tetsumari held the bag tighter and decided to go look for Gaara. While Tetsumari was looking around, she spotted a masked ninja sitting on the roof watching someone. Suddenly he jumped off and pulled out a couple of kunais in each hand. Tetsumari began to run because her conscience urged her to for some strange reason.

When she got closer, she realized that the ninja was aiming right for Gaara so she ran faster. Tetsumari was a second late when she got there. Some of the kunais had cut her, but the rest went past her towards Gaara. Tetsumari fell back a little from the hits of the kunais. Before she knew it though, sand starting rising up and blocked all the attacks from the kunais. Gaara turned around startled to see the injured Tetsumari than over to the masked guy. He trembled and went insane; his sand began to get out of control and attacked the guy. Gaara was mixed with anger, sadness, and confusion as the Shukaku began to take over him. The sand wrapped around the masked ninja that was on the floor and crushed him.

"Gaara!" Tetsumari yelled as loud as she could," Stop it; don't let it take over you!"

Gaara struggled, but he finally stopped and fell down to his knees. He started to tear up a bit while the sand loosened up.

"Tetsumari…," he said softly, "It hurts…"

"Don't worry Gaara, I'm here," Tetsumari comforted. He was squeezing his chest again. Tetsumari was sad to see him like this and went over to hug and kiss him on the forehead like the other days. This made him feel a bit better and relaxed. The sand finally went away slowly revealing the attacker who was badly injured now. The two kids both looked over frightened that he might get them. Gaara than stared at the guy's hand, one of his fingers was wrapped around with bandages. The little red head walked over to masked ninja slowly along with Tetsumari leaping from the pain of her injuries behind him. Gaara put his hand over the guy's masked and pulled it off and to their surprise; it was Yashamaru, Gaara's uncle.

"Yashamaru…" Gaara said crying. He continued crying and wondering why Yashamaru was trying to hit him with the kunais.

"Gaara…" Yashamaru whispered softly.

"Why'd you do this, Yashamaru?"

"It was an order, I was sent by the Kazekage to assassinate you…"

"So that means you just did it unwillingly because he ordered you to, right Yashamaru?"

"No, he gave me a choice…"

"Huh? What do you mean…"

"Gaara… I've always hated you… hate you for taking my beloved sister away from me," Yashamaru explained, "My sister sacrificed her life for this village and died cursing it."

Yashamaru explained more about how Gaara's father wanted to seal the Shukaku in him and about Gaara's mother. Gaara cried loudly as Yashamaru explained to him more about everything that was going on.

"So this is my last time… Please die…" Yashamaru opened his jacket and revealed explosive tags that were all over his body. Gaara and Tetsumari were scared and held each other tightly closing their eyes while the explosive tag blew up killing Yashamaru. When the smoke cleared away, Gaara pulled away from Tetsumari, she was still too scared to open her eyes, but she could still hear Gaara crying crazily. He began to hold his head and screamed. Tetsumari finally opened her eyes and looked over at Gaara who was going insane.

"Gaara," Tetsumari yelled frightened from his screaming," Please stop it!"

She began to cry on Gaara as he was still screaming. Tetsumari took a peek to look at what was going and saw that the sand was all going to his forehead where she usually kissed him. She backed away as Gaara slowly stopped screaming. When the process was done, the sand cleared away. Tetsumari could see the kanji word for "love" written in red on his forehead. Gaara stood up with the coldest eyes Tetsumari has ever seen, they looked like they were glowing in the dark night. Tetsumari began to cry even more out of sadness, but Gaara didn't even notice.

"Gaara…" she said softly. Suddenly, Gaara fell down on his knees and than his stomach, he was unconscious. Tetsumari went over to Gaara to try and wake him up, but he wouldn't move.

"Oh no!" She yelled, "I have to get you to Granny right away."

Tetsumari carried Gaara up and put one of his arms over her shoulder with all her strength, she struggled while taking him to her house.

"Granny!" Tetsumari yelled almost out of breath. She was knocking on the door loudly and could hear Granny walking over to open it.

"Tetsumari! I was worried, where were you?!" Granny scolded.

"I'm sorry, but can you please help my friend," Granny looked over and recognized Gaara right away, but unlike others, she didn't care much if he had the Shukaku sealed in him.

"Oh dear, hurry, take him in your room," Granny helped Tetsumari carry Gaara in her room and placed him on her futon. Granny took charge and did some hand seals. She put her glowing hands over Gaara's forehead.

"Get me a tub of water and small towels, " Granny ordered. Tetsumari quickly got up and did what Granny said. After an hour of hard work, Granny said he was going to be alright, he just needed some rest.

"Thanks so much Granny."

"No problem," they both walked to the kitchen and sat down to rest.

"Granny I'm sorry for making you worry…" Tetsumari looked down.

"It's okay," Granny noticed Tetsumari's wounds, she walked over to Tetsumari with ointment and bandages, "Sit still and let me heal those wounds."

"Ow, that hurts!" Tetsumari said as Granny held her to keep her still, "And it stings a lot!"

"I know, but just try to take it. Otherwise, it'll take longer to heal or even get worse." Tetsumari tried to stay still as she could while Granny covered up the last cut.

"Thanks again Granny, you should go rest now," Tetsumari mentioned.

"No problem, I will. Good night you should sleep soon too."

"Yes Granny," Granny walked towards her room while Tetsumari walked towards hers. When Tetsumari got to her room, she sat down by Gaara who was peaceful sleeping on her futon. She smiled at the sign. Tetsumari then changed the towel on his forehead to a new one.

"He knows so much pain…" She thought silently while leaning on the wall next to Gaara.

"His mother died when Gaara was born just like mine and his father didn't even care about him, he even wanted to kill him! Poor Gaara, I wish I could help him somehow…" Tetsumari yawned and began to doze off thinking about Gaara, her older brother, Moukoshi, and her dreadful past.

"We're alike, Gaara and I… but he never had a single person to care about him like I did. I had Moukoshi, Granny, Temari, and Kankurou. The person that he thought cared about him ended up wanting to kill him. Maybe I could help him with something, " Tetsumari yawned again and before she knew it, she fell asleep.