Very Very VERY IMPORTANT!!!!!!!!!!!!!
BEFORE YOU READ THIS CHAPTER YOU NEED TO GO BACK AND READ THE SAKURA POV PART OF THE LAST CHAPTER
I TOTALLY REWROTE IT!!!!!!
yes so I went back and was rereading the last chapter and I felt like how it ended just did not fit
and then I realized I had made a terrible terrible plot flaw
so I freaked and rewrote the entire end of the chapter
and it is so dramatically different that you must go back and read it for this and the 11th chapters to make sense
so go!
Go back!
and then come back and read this extra shiny new chapter
and as far as this shiny new chapter goes I'm sorry I took so long to write it
you see the plot bunnies came and kidnapped me and we had to have a long talk in order to sort some things out
we're still in the middle of negotiating on whether some people get to live or not but as for now we've come to some sort of compromise
(maybe if you send some treats in your reviews for me to give the plot bunnies the negotiations for the next chapter will go quicker)
GUESS WHAT?????
I'm done with the next chapter!!!!
Yes it's short but as soon as I get enough reviews for THIS chapter then I'll post it!
and I'm already working on the next chapter after THAT!
WOOT!
anyways read on!
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Gaara's POV
I sat on the edge of my platform anxiously staring up into the black clouds above. Here, on top of everything else, was another problem that I had to deal with.
Because of the black moon last night I hadn't been able to go to my house and wash up and after everything today I really needed to shower and change, as Sakura's reaction to my back clearly showed...
Sakura...
I hurriedly pushed the thought away. I would deal with that later, right now I had to figure out how I was going to get cleaned up without leaving Sakura unguarded. I couldn't take her with me, what if she woke up? How would I explain that?
I considered taking a shower in her bathroom but dismissed the idea immediately. One, I didn't have a change of clothes here and two, being caught in her bathroom would be even harder to explain than her waking up in mine.
But I couldn't leave her unguarded after today and there was no one else who could guard her....
I slapped my palm against my forehead. Of course there was someone else who could guard her! How could I be so stupid?
Took you quiet a while to figure that out pup
Well why didn't you say anything?
Because it is good for the young to struggle. I believe it is said to build character
And you don't think that maybe I've struggled enough today?
...We will discuss that later, send your message and we'll talk after he arrives
hn
I watched as a ribbon of sand rose up from the expanse that rested around me and flew away over the rooftops.
A few minutes later I felt a pull in the dimension fabric and I heard the rustle of leaves behind me.
"Gaara," my mentor said as I heard him approach me, "What's up? Why the summons?"
I stood, avoiding my mentor's eyes. "I need to go clean up and I can't leave Sakura alone, can you watch her until I get back?"
"Are you going to explain what's going on?"
I sighed, "When I get back….I have alot to tell you."
Kakashi plopped down where I had been sitting and pulled his little orange book from his pocket. "Well then," he said, without looking up, "you'd best be going."
I nodded curtly and reached out in front of me. I felt around with my chakra for a moment before finding a fold in the dimension fabric. I grasped it firmly between my fingers, tugged it open and was swallowed by blackness.
I've never liked traveling through the fabric of a dimension. It's an entirely different thing than traveling between dimensions because when you travel between dimensions you choose your exit beforehand and once you make the dimension jump the fabric just gives you a spin and pops you out into the other dimension. However when you travel through a dimension it's as if you're floundering around underneath the fabric which is made even more uncomfortable by the fact that the dimension fabric makes it very clear that it does not want you there. It's like the fabric is conscious of you creating a bump underneath it's crisply ironed surface and it wants to iron you out until you fit it's perfectly pleated and starched shape. While I know that traveling through a dimension is incredibly handy since it's the fastest way to travel and it can be used every day of the lunar cycle, with the exception of the black moon, I've still never liked it.
Once I was completely surrounded by the black underside of the dimension fabric I focused my mind on where I wanted to come out. When I found it I twisted the dimension fold I still held in my hand and tugged it open again, stepping out onto the porch of a two story cabin. I didn't bother looking around to see if anyone had seen a teenage boy appear out of thin air, not only was it pitch black outside but my cabin was settled high into the recesses of the mountains and over 3 miles away from any one else. No one in their right mind would be anywhere near my place at this time of night.
Despite the blackness, having been born with the ability to see in the dark (something that I suspect may have to do with Shukaku), I could still see clear as day and I was easily able to punch in a password onto a keypad to the side of the glass door that would have otherwise been invisible.
The keypad beeped back at me and I slipped inside, the door closing silently behind me without so much as a click. I stalked past the cold neglected kitchen and went straight to the small room in the back right corner of the house where I proceeded to strip my clothes off and toss them, with the exception of my mangled blue shirt which I threw into my usually unused trashcan, into the small washing machine.
I started the load going and was about to leave when I noticed a folded up piece of paper that had fallen to the floor. I reached down and picked it up but I didn't unfold it-I didn't need to-because I remembered right away what it was. It was the number that Sakura had so cheerfully and innocently given me this afternoon-had it really only been this afternoon?-right before all of the insanity had started. And now here I was, holding a thread of friendship and communication with someone who, only a few hours ago, would probably have picked up the phone, elated that I had called, and talked happily for who knows how long about who knows what, but who would now, most likely, hang up the phone the minute she realized it was me…
I slammed a lid on those thoughts and searched desperately for something to distract me.
Shukaku!
Yes pup?
You promised earlier that you would explain how you could sense a flame-start explaining
sigh…alright pup but it is a long story, continue with your bathing ritual as I tell it
Fine
I left the laundry room and opened the door to my right, stepping into my echoing cavernous bathroom. I crossed the cold black marble and set the piece of paper on the bathroom counter before I let myself into my large glass shower. I started the water and let it flow down me for a moment until I felt the welcome heat seep into my bones.
The story?
……...……….long ago-long before any society of man was created-I was born in one of the dimensions your scientists have yet to discover. I wasn't born a small weak creature as you humans are born or I would never have survived, my parents not being the most nurturing of creatures.
I squirted shampoo into my hands and lathered my hair, scratching against my scalp as I worked the soap down to my roots.
I grew up wild and blood thirsty, very much like most of the others of my kind-those who were not strong or fierce enough did not last long in my world-and I did not care for anyone else's well being but my own. That was, until I found Mimic..................................................
I rinsed out my hair and reached for the loofah sponge that was sitting on the marble shelf beside my shoulder. I frowned at it in my hand as I squeezed out a blob of smelly body wash onto it. The loofah I suspected was another of the many tokens from my siblings that I had been finding all around the house. The body wash I knew came from Temari because she had dragged me out shopping for it a few months before I left, insisting that I needed a 'signature scent' but I suspected that the loofah was Kankuro's idea of a joke.
I realized that I had been drifting in my own thoughts for a while and that Shukaku had gone quiet.
Shukaku?
..............I'm sorry pup.....I will continue..............I had been out hunting one day when I passed by a river and saw a woman bathing. I had never seen a human before and though she was not human she wore a humanoid form. It was certainly not one that could ever be confused for a human but she was...............beautiful. I approached her and I was amazed when, instead of running away, she threw rocks at me for seeing her bathing and threatened to turn me into a towel.
She threatened to turn you into a towel?I said, reaching for a towel myself. I roughly scrubbed my hair dry before wrapping it around my waist and stepping back out onto the now even icier marble.
Yes Shukaku chuckled, the sound ringing like nails in a can, Mimi was always the spitfire
Mimi? I thought you said her name was Mimic?
Mimi is what I came to call her but her full name was Mimic because mimicking was what she did, she was a shapeshifter
What happened after she threatened to turn you into a towel?
Well after I had been thoroughly chastised Mimi decided that she would rather follow me around and bother me than turn me into a towel and after our first meeting we were rarely apart........eventually one thing led to another and we became mates in the truest sense. For one hundred years I was the happiest creature alive and then....................................she died.......................................................................................
I waited for him to continue, brushing my teeth through the silence. I usually didn't notice the closeness between Shukaku and I but right now I felt that I was intruding on something personal simply by existing in my own brain. Shukaku had never shared anything about his past before and I hadn't really stopped to think about him as more than someone who lived inside me. Once, back when I was a kid, I had asked him why I had him inside my mind when no one else did but he hadn't told me and I had never again stopped to wonder what he was doing here and if he had ever had another life. I wasn't quite sure what to think of all this and I didn't know what I was going to do if Shukaku didn't start talking again because I didn't think I could bring myself to ask him what happened next.
I am sorry pup. This is not pleasant for you to hear but it is necessary to understand everything. I will try and finish the tale as quickly as I can
hn
.............Mimi loved to travel and she decided one full moon that we were going to travel to what you now call the Defenders Dimension. I agree to go along thinking that it would be like any of our other trips.........................when we arrived Mimi decided that she wanted to bathe and she sent me to go find some food leaving her alone.................when I got back there was blood everywhere and besides Mimi's body was a panting woman covered in Mimi's blood..........................
What happened next can only be described as me losing my mind. I tried to kill the woman and would have succeeded if it were not for her three friends that came to her aid. My madness blurred everything and I do not remember how they did this but the next thing I knew I had been captured within a cage of four different chakras and I was thrust inside a man's mind without a body and unable to escape.
I had left the bathroom and was now up in my loft, sifting through my chest of clothes. I extracted some red boxers, a pair of dark jeans and a long sleeved dark gray shirt with red stitching along the hems. I pulled them on unceremoniously and after gently sliding the piece of paper back into my pocket I lay out on the bed as I listened.
I raged for months, nearly driving the man to madness himself but through it all he tried to explain to me what had happened. Slowly my sanity returned and I was able to listen to the story he told me. It had not been the women who had killed Mimi but a Danakian who had happened across her as she bathed. It had fought with her and was about to kill her when the woman found them. The woman, who was also the air flame, grabbed Mimi just as the creature tried to finish her off. She tried to fight off the Danakian and ended up killing the creature just before I got back. But it was too late for Mimi...........................................the man whose mind I had been trapped inside was the earth flame and the others who had helped to capture me were the other flames though at the time they did not call themselves that. Since I had finally come back to my senses the earth flame, whose name he told me was Kohaku, offered to let me go but I refused. I had nothing left to live for and I had no will to do anything so to me living in Kohaku's mind was agreeable. Over time the he and I became friends and we lived together companionably until the day he died.
When Kohaku died I figured that I had died with him but then when you were born I woke up, as if I had just been asleep. Somehow the earth flames powers were passed down through 2,000 years and I along with them.
I can sense the presence of the fire flame because it was the flames that imprisoned me in the first place.
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"Kakashi."
"Gaara, you're back."
"Sit back down, this is going to take awhile."
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I sat on the edge of the roof contemplating the stars, thinking on everything that had happened and all that I had learned today. Kakashi had gone home after a long talk during which we had come up with a plan for how to defend Sakura while training the other boys. Kakashi would be their main teacher while I continued to guard Sakura and tomorrow he would go around collecting them for their first lesson. I smirked a little at the thought of what awaited the unsuspecting young men. Kakashi was a very good teacher but his methods were not always the most pleasant.
Pup
hn?
There is something else that we must discuss
There is?
Today when you fought the lion you did very poorly. To be blunt you lost
.........
I have known you since you were born and I have experienced every battle that you have ever been in and because of this I know that you have faced ten times the odds you faced today and come out without a scratch. While I know not having your sand in battle with you puts you at a disadvantage you should have been able to defeat this enemy but instead you were distracted and unfocused. It is only due to that momentary burst of power and Sakura's sudden access to her own powers that kept harm from coming to her.
......
You must do something to remedy this. I know what you are capable of and you must, you MUST find a way to stop yourself from being distracted by your worries for her because losing cannot be an option
..................I know I-
"Mmm!..."
I stiffened and listened carefully to the sounds from the open window below me. I slept right above Sakura's room and I had never before heard anything from her once she had fallen asleep. At first I heard nothing and I wondered if the sound had been my imagination. Then I heard her panicked cry.
"Get away!"
Like lightning I swung myself off of Sakura's roof and onto her window ledge, my sand swirling around me and my body coiled, ready to spring at the first sign of a threat. I rapidly scanned Sakura's room for any signs of an intruder but I saw nothing but dirty laundry on the floor and the fluttering scarves she had hung around the room. Confused, I turned my eyes back to Sakura's bed to see her with her eyes closed and her face scrunched up. It looked as if she was having a nightmare and as I watched she twisted in her bed and whimpered softly, a tear sliding from the corner of her eye into her tangled pink hair.
What?...
Remember what her elementals told the seers? There was more than one dream visitor. The other Danakians may be hunting her in her sleep.
What Shukaku said was actually very likely so I closed my eyes and focused my chakra vision before looking back at the sleeping girl.
Now with my chakra vision enabled I could see that around her flaming green, vine ridden figure were the ghost colors of other chakras. There was a pale slimy looking neon green chakra that seemed to slither across her body and there were grey and black and white puffs of chakra that flitted around her as well. I didn't know who these chakra's belonged too but there was one chakra color that I recognized immediately. But instead of one there were two burning orange chakras stalking across her sleeping form, one flickering feebly but still there.
I glared at the shifting chakras. So they thought that they could find her in her sleep did they? Well if they figured that once she was asleep that I couldn't protect her they had another thing coming.
I had my sand settle into a chair like shape by the side of Sakura's bed and I sat in it, making sure I was comfortable since I was going to be there a while. I reached inside myself for a sinuous ribbon of my chakra and pulled it out until the ribbon coiled and pooled in my hand.
Since it would be easier for me to do this if I was touching her I took her frail hand in mine and gently wrapped my fingers around it. Reaching for that chakra ribbon again I took the end of it and sent it twining up her arm.
Blood red in color my chakra streamed forth like the cursed Nile to cover Sakura's body from the top of her head to the tips of her iridescent feet. It swirled across her figure and flowed to form a glove around her flickering emerald form.
Satisfied I opened my eyes to see my chakra glowing steadily around her body; the other colors had been banished by the wave of my chakra and now she was safely encased in red liquid light. Underneath the glow I could see Sakura's pale face but now, instead of being screwed up in fear, she was smiling softly and she turned on her side towards me, her fingers tightening around mine in her sleep.
I'm not sure why but it comforted me a little to know that, at least in her sleep, she was glad to see me.
Sakura....
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So now that you have read the end of the last chapter(if you haven't read the rewritten second half of chapter 8 then go back and do that now please! It's important!) and the whole of this chapter what do you think?
do you like it?
OH!!!
and two more IMPORTANT MESSAGES
One
I AM LOOKING FOR A BETA
anyone interested can either contact me through a review or through the PM
Two
if you don't want me to respond to your review(cause I like to do that but some people don't seem to like me doing it) just leave a little mark like so
xo
Thanks!
REVIEW!!!!!!
and send the plot bunnies treats!(they have me at knifepoint as I type this-HELP!)