Trouble Brewing in the House of Sand

Chapter 7: Rosemary's Brother


"Yashamaru, I have some bad news," the Kazekage greeted his brother-in-law. It was very late, and he was worn out from the events of the day and simply wanted to go to bed and deal with... everything. The last place he wanted to be was talking to a man that he had only put up with for Anita's sake in the first place, but like him or not, Yashamaru had the right to know what had happened.

"Daddy! Daddy! Where's the baby? Is that it?" Temari and Kankuro came running into the foyer of their uncle's house, ruining the moment. "Can we see it? What's it's name?"

"Gaara, he's your new little brother," their father said, dumping the baby-carrier down unceremoniously on the ground near the excited children. "Don't piss him off, your mother spent her last moments telling him to kill everyone who—,"

"Last moments?" Yashamaru asked cluelessly, almost desperately.

"Yash, you may want to sit down," sighed the Kazekage.

As their father broke the news to their uncle, Temari and Kankuro amused themselves with the new baby. And, quite frankly, it was the best new baby ever. Every time they tried to touch it, an inch of so of sand would magically appear to block them. It was great fun.

"Dead?" Yashamaru repeated hollowly. "What do you mean, dead?"

"I'm sorry, Yashamaru. I know you two were close."

Meanwhile, Kankuro tried to fake out the sand by sneaking up behind the baby and poking at it.

"She... she can't be dead. She was fine this morning. I talked to her..."

This proved to be a mistake on Kankuro's part. A sand arm grabbed the boy and picked him up off the ground.

"Uh... Daddy?" called Temari, not taking her eyes off of her two brothers. "Uncle Yasha?"

"AAAH!" screamed Kankuro as the sand tossed him around.

"Uncle Yasha!" Temari yelled again.

"N– not now, Temari," her uncle called back brokenly.

"But, Uncle!"

"Not now!" he snapped. "It was that... thing, wasn't it, that killed her?"

"I... miscalculated."

"My sister is dead because of your 'miscalculation'?"

Temari was jumping up and down, trying to snatch Kankuro back from the sand, but he was being held above her head, out of reach. So, she tried to pick up the baby and tell him to stop picking on Kankuro, but the sand lashed out at her, pushing her back. "DADDY!"

"Be quiet, Temari! Yashamaru, you think I don't have myself for this? You think that I didn't love her?"

"Basically, yes, that's exactly what I think."

Temari ran into the next room and dragged the old vacuum cleaner over (her uncle had been cleaning when her father showed up) and, aiming the hose at Gaara and Kankuro as best as her three-year-old hands could, turned it on.

At first the sand resisted, but the vacuum was one of those old, powerful, extremely dangerous models. It kept ripping from Temari's hands, anxious to go after the dirt that dared invade its home. In seconds the sand was gone, leaving Gaara crying and Kankuro with his hand stuck inside the vacuum cleaner hose. Temari turned the power off.

"No," she told the crying baby sternly. "Kankuro is our friend."

Suddenly, the vacuum started bucking as though something living and angry was inside of it. Kankuro started to struggle to free himself from the violent appliance. "'Mari!" he cried, panicked, "I stuck!"

Temari grabbed the end of the hose closest to the vacuum and tugged desperately.

FWOOM! POP!

The vacuum made a bizarre noise and exploded, falling back together in one piece, only now it was smoking. The hose blew off in the blast, leaving a sooty and shell-shocked Temari and Kankuro blinking. The noise frightened baby Gaara so much that he stopped crying.

The Kazekage and Yashamaru noticed none of this in their melancholy conversation. Yashamaru finally stood, his eyes red, and walked to where his niece and nephews were sitting in a silence not unlike that of those who have been struck by lightning. He walked past the remains of his vacuum cleaner and the frazzled Temari and Kankuro without glancing at them and picked up the innocent-looking Gaara. No sand attacked him, although some did follow at his heels as he sat back down with his former brother-in-law.

"To think that such a tiny body could hold such an evil," he whispered. Behind him, Temari and Kankuro blinked once, in unison. As if to agree with their unspoken complaint, a solitary piece of vacuum cleaner dropped to the floor.


Baby!Temari: Kankuro, I hoped you enjoyed your childhood.

Baby!Kankuro: Why?

Baby!Temari: Because I think it just ended.