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Chapter 3
Kiera opened her eyes to a bright room with two porthole type windows. The floor was white linoleum and free from rugs. A door that led to a bathroom was partially open, revealing a sink, and the other door in the room connected with the hallway outside.
She tried to sit up, but was brought back down by a wave of pain throughout her body.
"Great." She mumbled, and winced. To talk even hurt. She felt drained and helpless laying in that bed, at the mercy of others.
The door opened slowly and the pink haired girl from the confrontation with Kiera's family was walking in the room with a clip board and a medical apron on. The pink girl smiled warmly at the newly awake girl lying in the bed.
"How do you feel?" The pink haired girl asked sincerely as she wrote some notes on the clipboard.
"Wonderful." Kiera remarked sarcastically. She didn't need this girl's pity, or help. She was a loner, used to taking care of herself, and watching out for her baby sister.
"Your uncle burned out a lot of your chakra channels, so I would advise against using any chakra for at least two weeks." The pink haired girl continued, without even noticing the sarcasm. "I am Sakura of Konoha, by the way." She smiled and turned to leave.
"Wait." Kiera began. "Why did you stop him from killing me? Its not like you people know me or anything."
"What kind of people would we be if we just let someone get tortured right in front of us?" Sakura furrowed her brow.
"You'd be normal in my village." Kiera ground out, pain coming back every word she spoke.
"Well this isn't Cloud, so be happy you are still alive." Sakura said with a note of finality, and walked to the door, opened it and let her self out.
"How is she?" Naruto hounded Sakura as she walked in the apartment. Sakura set her stuff down and looked at the blonde standing in front of her.
"Alive." She said simply and went to her room, leaving a confused Naruto behind.
"Alive? What is that supposed to mean? SAKURA!" he shouted and was hit in the head with a book from Neji.
"Leave her be Naruto, she is exhausted. Sakura will tell us what is going on when she is rested." Neji scolded and turned to walk out of the apartment.
"Where are you going?" Naruto whined.
"I am going to train with Kankuro, he believes his puppets can defeat the Gentle Fist." Neji said with a smirk, and left.
"I know! I will go visit Gaara, maybe he will want to train with me." Naruto grinned and left the apartment quickly, heading for the Kazakage's office.
Gaara was sitting at his desk, filling through a mound of paperwork when a whirlwind of mass destruction, called Naruto, came barging into his office. Gaara sighed, with deep annoyance and glared at the blonde Konoha ninja.
"Gaara, lets go train, you have been doing paperwork since we got here." Naruto sat down in a chair in front of his desk and picked up a paperweight that looked like a sand snake.
"Naruto, as you can see I am busy, perhaps later would be a better time to train." Gaara replied evenly, keeping his temper.
"But that's boring! Let me just kick your butt real quick and then you can get back to your work." Naruto smirked, knowing Gaara couldn't resist the bait. Gaara's eye twitched and he gave a big sigh.
"Fine." He said finally to a overjoyed Naruto.
Kiera stood out of her bed, ignoring her body's screams of protests to stay in bed. She dressed slowly in her own clothes, not liking the feeling of not having metal against her skin. When she was dressed, she carefully pushed out the glass on one of the windows, and crawled out to the ledge. She took her whip in her right hand and cracked it towards a clothes line a few feet below. The end of the whip wrapped around the line and Kiera let her self fall, wincing when the whip caught her, jarring her pained body. Grabbing on to the line with one hand, she released the whip and sent it to a light post, and swung to the ground. She didn't need chakra to escape the hospital.
"Sakura-san!" a young medic banged on the door to the apartment. Sakura opened the door quickly to reveal a harassed Yoko.
"She left the hospital!" Yoko exclaimed.
"How? She could barely move." But then Sakura had seen her old sensei Kakashi escape the hospital with much worse injuries. Sakura nodded and sent the young medic back to the hospital. She grabbed her gloves and sandals and ran out the door to look for the run away girl.
Sakura found Gaara and Naruto sparing a few blocks from the apartment. She explained the situation and they each set off in different directions.
Gaara walked down a back street, keeping his eyes open to anything unusual. He soon heard the sounds of labored breathing in an abandoned building. Gaara entered cautiously, not knowing if it was a trap. Lying a few feet in front of him was Kiera. She was curled in a ball, and pain was evedent in her face. Upon noticing the Kazakage, Kiera tried to stand.
"Please, just stay still." Gaara said calmly. Kiera rolled her eyes and stood up anyway. Once on her feet, Kiera took a fighting stance.
"You wish to fight me when you cannot use chakra, and you can barely move from the pain?" Gaara asked, with amusement.
"I've been worse." Kiera answered seriously.
"I do not wish to hurt you, Lady Kiera." Gaara said, turning away from her.
"Its just Kiera, Kiera! Not lady, not miss, not sama, just Kiera!" electricity cracked around her as her anger grew. Gaara turned back to the girl.
"They you may call me Gaara. Please, wont you at least stay in a proper room, if you wont stay in the hospital." Gaara looked at the girl, who was contemplating what he said.
"Fine, Kazakage, I will stay in the hotel." She said and walked towards the door, brushing past Gaara almost rudely.
"Very well, Lady Kiera." He turned to follow her, noticing her tense at his words.
For the next few days, Kiera was rude and openly hostile to anyone who came near her. Sakura developed a deep dislike for the girl, Naruto thought she was just a bitch, but Gaara said nothing to her insults. He recognized her anger as fear, but what was she afraid of?
Kiera began training for her ten hours a day only a week after the fight. Sakura shook her head in disgust at the torture Kiera was doing to her body. Sakura, Naruto, and Neji returned to Konoha the day after Gaara's birthday, ten days after Kiera was injured.
One night Kiera was training in the dark training grounds when she felt the air change, a thick tenseness came across her, and she couldn't shake it.
"Noxlight!" she searched the area with her night vision and saw a hole in one of the main walls. She gasped slightly and ran full tilt to the Kazakage's home.
"Gaara!" she shouted, banging on the front door. Gaara came down a few moments later, fully dressed, and looking as if he was never asleep in the first place.
"What is it?" Gaara asked concerned.
"Intruders, they broke in from the south wall." She reported and they were off, alerting the guards and rounding up shinobi for search parties. Soon the intruders, Sound ninja, we captured and taken away for questioning. It was no doubt that they were there to assonate the Kazakage. Gaara looked at Kiera for a long awkward moment.
"What?" she asked at last, breaking the tension.
"Why did you alert me there were intruders, this isn't your village, and you don't like me, so why?"
"You saved me, sheltered me, and protected me from my family. I owed you one. Plus, there could have been innocent people hurt by those mongrels." Kiera clarified. Gaara smiled and placed a hand on her shoulder. Kiera looked at his hand strangely, and then up into his face.
"Thank you." He said simply and walked away, leaving the lingering warmth of his hand behind. A small blush creped into her face before she sprang off to her room, her safety.
Two nights after that she was sitting on the roof of the hotel when she noticed sand spiraling around her. She turned to see Gaara, being lifted by sand to the roof. He stepped down off of the sand and went to sit next to Kiera.
"You don't sleep much do you?" Kiera asked, looking to the entrance of the city.
"Apparently neither do you." He retorted. They sat in silence for about an hour, Kiera stole glances every now and then to try and judge what he was thinking.
"I can only keep you here three more days, the council wont allow for a war against Cloud because we are holding one of their 'clan leaders to be'. I am sorry I couldn't do more." Gaara turned to see her reaction.
"So you came up here to tell me you are kicking me out? Well isn't that wonderful, thank you ever so much Gaara." She stood up and went to leave when a hand reached out and grabbed her wrist.
"What will you do?" She shook off his warm hand and turned her body to face him.
"What is there left to do but kill my clan?" She said with an eerie calm.
"So you would become like Itachi Uchiha, a criminal because you cant take the responsibility to do what is best for your people?" Gaara stood as well, anger in his voice.
"Well he is family, I suppose. Perhaps he could get me into Akatsuki." She struck a nerve with the mention of the people who killed him once before. His chakra flared, and her's did as well.
"You are a brat, a spoiled brat who cant live up to responsibility." Gaara growled.
"You were a monster, who was hated by his village, I though you could understand me a little better than that. When I go back, my village will arrest me on some stupid charge, and my uncle will order my execution. I have saved their asses so many times, and this is how I am repaid." She spat. "They see me as a monster Gaara, an evil creature that can only destroy. Why don't I prove their judgments to be correct?"
Gaara's eyes softened a little, he knew what she felt to be hated by a village but protect it all the same. To have family try and kill them, to be alone and caged, at the mercy of a higher being. With him it was his demon, with her it was the law.
"Go then, kill your clan, bathe in their blood. But it wont bring you peace." He said and turned to leave.
"No, never peace. But maybe freedom." She said softly.
"No, people like us can never be free Kiera, we are chained by our pasts, imoblized by what we have done. If you kill them, you will become exactly what they want you to become. Trapped." Gaara stepped off of the roof and onto his sand. "Think about it."
As soon as he was gone, a single tear ran down her face, he was right. She could never be free, she would have to kill or be killed but she would never have a life worth living.
Unless…
A/N: Cliffy! PLEASE PLEASE READ AND REVIEW!!!!