The end of the day was nearing; the sun had already started to set. Gaara paused to glance out of the hospital window at the sky. There was nothing more he liked doing better than watching the sky, especially at night.
"C'mon." Temari said, wrapping her arm around him. He could feel the sense of worry coming off of her in waves. Normally, he would reject her affection but allowed it for now.
Tsunade led the way down the hospital hall, it was unusually empty. She suddenly halted at a door.
When she opened it, Gaara was shocked to see how many frantic people were inside.
Running from one corner of the room to the next, throwing information in machines which printed piles of paper out the other side. Some people stood by a life size statue with a disturbing face, while others looked as if they were chanting some sort of rhyme.
"What is going on in here?" Kankuro's voice was full of confusion. "I thought you were going to show us his fiancée?" Followed Temari, just as confused.
"That is Gaara's fiancée, the statue you see over there."
No one spoke for a moment.
Gaara didn't know how to react. If this was the case, he felt like he could have stayed home and married a wall! He opened his mouth to ask for some kind of explanation when there was a shriek.
"Her chakra levels are plummeting! She has ONLY 10% LEFT!" A woman shouted.
A medic ran to Tsunade, "The riddle doesn't make sense no one can come up with a proper answer!"
"Someone has to come up with something!" She yelled, and snatched the paper from the medic's hand to look over it. Her blank face told everyone she didn't know the answer either.
"Time is running out!" "What do we do?" The room was clouded with medics in vain, who had no idea how to help at all.
Gaara, who had been silent until now finally spoke.
"Let me see it." He said, his voice held no panic but was simply calm unlike everyone else.
The Hokage, out of options gave him the sheet of paper. She had nothing to lose.
The Kazekage eyed the sheet.
Pronounced as one letter,
And written with three,
Three letters there are,
And two only in me.
I'm double, I'm single,
I'm black, blue, and gray,
I'm read from both ends,
And the same either way.
Answer this question, answer it right.
A new individual will be insight.
He sighed. This was painfully easy. Could no one see the answer? It was literally right before they're eyes.
He walked toward the statue. He heard various people calling out,
"5% left!" "What are you doing?" "Stay away from her!"
He ignored all their calls; it would be over soon anyways. When he reached the statue, he took a good look at how solid she was….whoever did this knew what they were doing.
Without wasting time, he did what he thought would probably undue jutsu. He took the statue's hand and fused his chakra into it. While doing this, he said the answer to the riddle.
A loud crack could be heard throughout the room. There was complete silence. Until another crack rung out. "You broke her!" a voice yelled out.
Gaara took a step back. He was sure that his answer was correct, so why was she breaking?
A visual crack could be seen starting from the top of her head, to across her shoulder. That crack then split, going across her knees to the bottom of the statue. It kept splitting in every direction possible until it was a wonder it still stood.
Then, as suddenly as it began cracking, the whole thing fell to the floor, making a deafening sound as it collapsed. Smoke rose from the rubble creating a fog like appearance throughout the room.
What a great first impression, Gaara thought to himself. I officially broke my future wife…
People had now obviously begun to curse him. "How could he do that?" "We just lost her!"
He tried to ignore them but they continued to get louder, and louder. But It was then that he heard a cough.
He would have otherwise ignored this too if it wasn't coming from the pile of rubble on the floor. He turned to it, and watched as the rubble twitched slightly.
Then, a small hand pushed its way out of the mountain of small bits and pieces of rock.
The Kazekage was clearly the only one who saw this. He could still hear the mutterings and insults around him.
Without hesitation, he reached down and grabbed the hand. The pieces of stone shifted away as the girl was pulled out from mountain of stone.
She was conscious, at the moment. She however, looked like she had just been electrocuted. Her hair sprung up in every direction, her clothes tattered and torn, and her skin had a musty look to it.
She heaved in, taking inward a fresh breath, and shakily looked up at him. Gaara thought about what he and Temari practiced, should he say something?
Before he could, the girl passed out. He caught her in his arms before she fell to the floor. He pondered if he should leave her there and have those incompetent medics come carry her, but changed his mind.
The girl felt pretty light in his arms. He smirked when he heard how completely speechless those medics were when they saw him walk by with her in his arms. He could actually feel how utterly stupid they felt.
Tsunade's mouth hung open. "But…how?" She managed to choke out.
One of the smarter medics in the crowd managed to wheel in a hospital bed which he put her in.
He replied to her by shrugging, "I just answered the question and she appeared, under all that stone."
She nodded, "When you answered correctly, she must have been inside some kind of outer shell…that's what cracked."
She took hold of the hospital bed railing and began to wheel Hinata out of the room. "Thank you…Gaara." She said before leaving the room completely.
The medic nin, who were there all morning, now had nothing more to do, and followed the Hokage out the door.
Gaara glanced at his siblings. They store back, for a moment no one said a word.
"A+!" Temari shouted, with a big grin on her face. "I thought that girl was a goner for sure, but you saved her. Maybe you did get something out of my lessons hmm?"
Gaara didn't bother replying to her comment, and began to walk out of the dusty room.
They trailed behind him, making their way out of the Konoha hospital.
"I thought you murdered her for a sec there!" Kankuro started, "I mean…I know you don't wanna get married but…you did good out there."
Trying to sway the conversation, he mumbled, "Let's find a hotel."
"Good idea! Make sure to come back tomorrow and visit her." Temari said with a wink.
"Hey." Kankuro stopped short, "What was the answer to that riddle anyway?"
"The answer was an eye."
With nothing more to say, the three of them checked into the nearest hotel to spend the night.
Dynamite