Note: This is the second-to-last chapter. Hooray! Your pain is almost at an end! For those who've read this far, domo arigato gozaimasu! -worship-

---

Errands done, Sabuka peered closely at the map. Locating her destination, the kunoichi stopped by the well to fill up her canteen, then continued on.

To the Ninja Academy.

The extensive building looked vaguely familiar, but then, there was one in every village. However, the structures did vary from place to place…

She was probably just grasping at straws.

Sabuka pushed open a door and stepped in. A bored-looking shinobi who obviously had not volunteered for this job was leaning on a desk, head on his hand. (Idly, Sabuka wondered if welcoming was labeled as a 'mission'.) He appeared rather hopeless, as if his shift still had a long way to go.

"You're too old to become a ninja," he said dispassionately as the kunoichi came closer.

"What is it with you people?" Sabuka demanded. "Why do you all think I want to just now start shinobi training? Is it inconceivable that I have any other reason for being here?"

"Yes. Now go away."

"Aren't you supposed to be welcoming?"

"Look, I didn't volunteer for this, and – "

"I figured. Can you just tell me where I can find a record of all shinobi?"

"Why?" he asked suspiciously.

"Because I want to look someone up. Is that such a hard concept to grasp?"

"Who?"

"What difference does it make?"

"Look," the shinobi said irritably, "I have no proof that you're not an enemy shinobi trying to gather – "

"Do you people really have that big of a problem with me coincidentally looking like Gaara?" Sabuka demanded.

"Look – "

"His name is Tianmaru," the kunoichi interrupted with an exasperated sigh. "I want to find out – "

"He died."

"What?"

"Tianmaru died a year ago," the shinobi repeated.

"Wh – How?"

"Mission," he said evasively.

"Can you be more specific?" Sabuka inquired.

"No."

"Do you have a picture on hand?"

"Why would I carry around a picture of a random dead shinobi?"

"Then can I see the records?" the kunoichi concluded exasperatedly.

"No!"

"Obviously," said Sabuka, "you've never fully comprehended the little thing called logic." Exchanging irritated glares with the shinobi, Sabuka left.

She would come back later, when someone else was there. Or perhaps she could simply go in another way.

Sabuka stopped dead in the street, then turned to survey the building. She had no idea where any sort of records room would be, but once inside, people might assume she belong there and direct her along. Or they might not…

Maybe she should simply go to the Kazekage and ask him for records. Surely he had a copy: How could the village leader not?

No, she couldn't go to him. He would not fear her for resembling Gaara, she thought, but he would hate her. And even if he wouldn't, she couldn't bring herself to ask for help from the one who could hurt a child so deeply.

She would just think of finding the records as a mission, something she hadn't had in so long.

an important mission, worth more than your lives…

Not worth that much, it was only to satisfy her curiosity, but… wait, what? Where had that come from?

blood spattering everywhere, spreading throughout the sand… screaming… and bodies, bodies everywhere…

Sabuka's head reeled and the kunoichi stumbled over to a wall, leaning her head on her arm, which she rested against the stone. Her breath came in short, pained gasps; she closed her eyes and tried to slow it down.

you made your choice…

Sabuka sank into a crouch, holding her hands to her head. Her fingers tangled in her hair, creating a cloud of wispy red.

blood for blood…

"You know how it feels now."

The kunoichi, startled, tried to stand. She almost crashed into the wall, but managed to turn and face the speaker, whose words were colder than the desert night.

"Gaara," she gasped out, "I – "

" – was told not to come back." Sand began to twist around him in a lethal waltz. "Or else I would kill you."

"Yes, but – "

"I gave you fair warning," he hissed. "You can call nothing from your foolish rule of lives for lives…"

Sabuka's vision blacked out. …life for life, and blood for blood..

Tears began to trail down her face, but they were as brilliant and crimson as blood itself. Gaara's image swam in her vision, a hazy sort of red, like everything in her sight.

"I remember," she whispered, and then she screamed.

--

But remembrance did not protect her from Gaara.

The sand did not stop because she cried tears of blood.

And Death did not wait for the past.

Sabuka watched it come, everything in sight still tinted red, and the snaking sand looked more like snaking blood. She stared at it, and then her seafoam eyes hardened desperately.

"Akagan," she whispered. "Ketsu no Ko – Red Eyes: Child of Blood."

--

She didn't know what it was going to do, and she wasn't about to find out. It was as if she had suddenly gone blind: Her sight was still veiled by scarlet, but it had darkened, and now it was opaque, solid, unchanging.

Sabuka panicked.

"Gaara!" she shouted. Though she could see nothing, she could hear it. It was a swishing, splashing, eerie sort of noise, like… like water, like…

Blood.

What have I done?

"No! Gaara!" This time, it was not her mother who attacked, and the kunoichi could no plead as a daughter pleaded with a parent.

It was not the mother… it was the child. The Child of Blood.

Crying, Sabuka stumbled blindly forward, her hand outstretched. Her bare feet splashed into an icy, vile liquid; the kunoichi squeezed her eyes shut, and a tiny, disgusted sound escaped her.

But when she reopened her eyes, she still could not see.

Sabuka crashed to her knees; the chilling fluid splashed up over her body, burning her skin, her face, her arms.

The kunoichi's hand clapped over her scar. She heard only the rippling of the blood around her; perhaps Gaara had made it away, far, far away…

Then he cried out in pain.

In that cry, Sabuka heard seven years stripped away, seven years of pain that had made him what he was today. What remained beneath those torn wrappings was a broken infant, a betrayed six-year-old, a child who had never felt physical pain or seen his own blood.

The child's anguish, so long hidden behind the inhuman mask, drew Sabuka back to her feet and carried her forward through the chilling blood. She tripped on the uneven cobblestones, stumbled in the shifting liquid, but did not fall again.

Gaara was silent now, though the chakra-infused blood was not, and Sabuka no longer knew if she was traveling the right way.

But then her questing fingers met a hard, grainy surface: Sand. Sand, trying to stop the threat.

"Gaara," Sabuka said, and then again, "Gaara." She pressed against the sandy wall with the palms of her hands, wondering whether he lay bleeding on the other side.

"There is," she began, then stopped, started over.

"Love," Sabuka said, and paused, then went on, "may be on your forehead. But hate is in your heart. You don't…" She stumbled, hesitated, continued. "You don't love yourself. You don't understand love at all." The kunoichi rested her head on the gritty barricade and closed her still-useless eyes.

"Neither do I. I don't get it at all. But I…" She choked, stopped, finished. "I love you anyway."

--

The sand thrust her away.

He was alive in there, at least. Alive enough that he continued to be shielded.

Sabuka was tossed back into the blood. It shifted around her, telling her that Gaara would not be protected for long.

The kunoichi grabbed for a kunai, but the pouch had been lost. So had her shuriken holster. Sabuka scrabbled through the fluctuating fluid, searching for something sharp, but her hands met only sandy stone and seeping blood.

At long last, her fingers closed around the hilt of a kunai. Sabuka breathed a sigh of relief and rose unsteadily to her feet. Though she couldn't see it, she knew exactly where the scar was.

--

Pinpoints of light, like stars, seared across her scarlet vision as the blade bit deep. Sabuka cried out before she could stop herself, then gritted her teeth and dug deeper. The blood that flowed forth glowed with chakra, and the fluorescent crimson fell to mingle with the carmine carpet.

She could see again, but everything was thrown into harsh detail, giving her a fierce headache to add to her other pain. Edges were too sharp, colors too bright, shadows too dark.

But she could see.

Without warning, all the blood around her exploded into the air, a storm of scarlet. The amalgam of Sabuka, her mother, and Gaara whipped into a frenzy, writhing, twisting, dancing, hurting

Sabuka screamed, but the wordless cry formed itself into one, distinctive name.

"Gaara!"

As if he would help her. As if he would even dream of thinking about considering saving her. As if there was a chance.

But there wasn't, and she knew it, and she was right.

You made your choice…

"Tianmaru," the kunoichi whispered, her head bowed in uncharacteristic humility. "Forgive me."

--

She awoke beneath stone and lay staring at the ceiling for an eternity. Her whole body throbbed in time with her heartbeat, and each breath sent shockwaves of anguish throughout her bones.

Ora came in. Sabuka didn't turn her head to look, but kept her gaze trained on the ceiling.

"Medic…?" the kunoichi croaked.

"Been and gone. There's nothing more she can do."

Sabuka sighed. Ora dropped into a crouch beside her. "You going to tell me what happened?"

"No."

"Ryūken found you in a pool of blood. I have a feeling he would have rather left you there."

"Probably."

"But he didn't. Tianmaru was his brother, you know."

Sabuka sat straight up and couldn't contain a whimper of pain. Around gritted teeth, she managed to ask, "What?"

"The people here, they're prejudiced, but not that much. The children who don't remember, maybe it's their reason, but not those who are older. They fear Gaara, and they might hate you for looking so similar, but it's not why they're scared."

"Everyone knew? This whole time?"

"Maybe not the details. But yes."

Sabuka slumped back down on the pallet. Ora left.

--