Friends and Further
by thatreevesgirl/Lemon Drops
Chapter 11: Never the Same
Warning: This chapter is very sad
The day had begun with such innocent words.
"Hey dad, let's spar."
It had been a good day, a good match, a good...
"Naruto, stop," Gaara told the distraught blond man forcefully. "Let go, let go now."
"I have a new jutsu, dad. I think you'll be proud of this one."
Naruto had watched Kari focus her chakra into her fingers, threads spindling out and weaving wildly into the air. Kankurou had taught her well, and Naruto proudly marveled at her skill. Unfortunately, Kari caught him off guard. Naruto hadn't known that she was already targeting him, and he didn't have the proper focus to maintain himself when the chakra laces snuck up from beneath him in the sand, lacing around his legs and cutting his skin with their sharp knifelike threads.
Naruto didn't have control of the Kyuubi, and the demon fox lashed out. In a split second red chakra flared over Naruto's body, through the threads, and a tremendous heat engulfed his and Kari's body. Naruto attacked blindly. Naruto attacked Kari.
"Let her go!" Gaara growled out, sand encasing Naruto's hands and trying to pry Kari loose as Naruto clutched his injured daughter to his chest. "She needs treatment now!"
Naruto was murmuring quick, broken sentences, still trying to hold onto Kari as he cried, "I killed her, I killed her," over and over again.
Gaara couldn't tend to Naruto now, because Kari's life truly did hang in the balance. Anger seeped into the Kazekage, and a harsh crack of bone filled the air as he literally ripped Naruto's hands off of their daughter. Naruto wailed and six sand ninja were on him, a flurry of hand seals and restraints put on Naruto to hold back the Kyuubi as Naruto began to transform again.
This was Naruto's worst fear, his nightmare, and it was coming true. Gaara winced as he picked up the crumpled body of his teenage daughter, disappearing in a whirlwind of sand to take her directly to the Suna hospital. When Gaara reappeared it wasn't in the emergency wing of the building, but rather in the research lab. Tears streaming down his face as he held the dwarfed body in his arms, Gaara thanked the powers that be for the visiting med-nin sitting in a lab coat with a vial in her hands. Her green eyes were wide in shock as Gaara laid Kari at his feet.
"Sakura, please save my daughter," the Kazekage pleaded. Naruto's teammate dropped to the floor immediately to assess the girl's damage.
A quiet whimper from the corner of the room was followed by light footsteps as a dark haired girl of about twelve joined Sakura. Mikoto was trained in medical jutsu just like her mother and it didn't hurt that she also had the Sharingan. Mikoto could copy any medical jutsu known, and she desperately wanted to help her mother save her friend. Kari and Mikoto had become the best of friends over the years, so the young Uchiha heiress would do everything in her power to save Kari.
Gaara couldn't do any more, he could only watch as the two women went immediate to work on restoring Kari's most important chakra pathways. Gaara gulped down a large lump in his throat as Suna med-nin's also rushed into the room, bringing supplies that Sakura and Mikoto would need.
"Where is he?" a calm, deep voice asked the Kazekage. A hand was laid on the Gaara's shoulder and he turned his head to see Uchiha Sasuke's concerned gaze. "He probably still doesn't have the Kyuubi under control. I can help. Where is he?"
Gaara was more than aware that the Uchiha had the ability to control the Kyuubi within Naruto. Sakura's mentoring Suna's med-nin's was an important mission assignment, but Tsunade had temporarily transferred the entirety of the Uchiha family to Suna. Gaara knew it was because the Kyuubi was surfacing so frequently, and that Naruto couldn't control it, but Sasuke could.
Gaara sighed, he didn't want to leave Kari, but he had to. "Come with me," he ordered Sasuke. Sasuke nodded to Sakura and Mikoto and they left as quickly as the Kazekage had appeared.
After that day Sasuke's position in Suna became permanent. That was also the day when Kari's life as a ninja ended. The injuries she sustained from Naruto were too much for Sakura or Mikoto to heal completely, but at least she was still living.
Naruto blamed himself, and Gaara noticed how after that day Naruto was never quite the same.