As promised, second chapter not too far away, right? ;) I tried to make this longer, cause there is not very much really happening, and I decided to change a bit of the things I expected happening in this chapter, so there was a little more meat on it... Hope you like it, and think it is worth reading, and that I haven't disappointed anyone.

Disclaimer: See chapter one

Warnings: See chapter one

And finally, you can get to read on again. I have nothing more to say, at least not about this beginning-thing.

Venomous plant

They had passed pretty many rivers and forests, and there had been a silence between them ever since they had left the city and decided to go right into possible enemy arms. The sun began setting, and darkness slowly began to cover the area where they moved. After a while, they decided to stop before reaching the area the plant was supposed to grow. If they were right, there would lay an ambush there. And they did not want to fight in the darkness of night.

So they stopped before the forest got totally dark, and found a good place where they could sleep for the night. "Here is a good spot," Kankurou stated, looking through the twilight at the clearing in the trees. "Then we just have to start a fire, unless you are afraid they will find us by the fire's light, Temari?"

The blond girl shook her head, knowing they indeed did need the fire to cook their food and see what they were doing. It made them obvious, and they themselves would not be able to see through the darkness surrounding them, but they had to take the risk. "I'll go out finding some dry branches," she informed, but luckily for her, she did not have to go far. Actually, she did not have to go at all. Because Gaara decided to do the good deed of the mission.

Using his sand, the crimson haired boy felt through the undergrowth of the forest. The grains picked up twigs and bigger branches and broke those, which were too big, as if they were bones in a human body. And just when Temari was about to leave to do the job she had assigned herself to do, the sand floated over to the middle of the clearing and left a big bunch of wood for them to use to the fire. And then, before any more was said, Gaara dematerialized with his sand.

Materializing on the branch of a tree besides the clearing, the redhead gave himself some privacy. Unfortunately for him, this was not the desert, and the clouds made it impossible for him to see the stars and feel the half moon's beams on him. But he was able to hear them interact, the wind lifting the words up to him. The wind his always faithful messenger.

"What was that about?" Temari said, while he could hear one of them, or maybe both, moving the wood he had collected around, getting ready for the fire. "I have a weird feeling about our little brother, Kankurou. It is... as though... he is no longer who we know him as. And I think it is a good thing, even if he still disappears without warning to kill someone. But what I don't like about it is... I have the feeling he expects something from us."

"I thought it was just me imaging things." The voice of his brother seemed somewhat relieved, and suddenly, the sound of a breathing fire filled the silence. But Gaara did not come down to be a part of them. He did not freeze. "I don't know, though... he may have changed, but it not that obvious, is it? He still acts the same way. I cannot really see what he should be wanting from us, either. It is not like he has been asking us anything directly, and he still..."

"He still is kind of freaking you out, yes. I feel the same way. Often, I wish we did not have a little brother. Life would be so different... far easier. Father would have been different, mom would be alive. And you would not have to fear for your life everyday living. If he had not been born." Temari's voice was trembling by the end, as if close to tears. She was always looking tough, but one thing was a very vulnerable subject to her. Her mom. And now also her dead father.

"I know what you mean." The redhead heard them move, and imagined his big brother moving closer to their big sister and tried to comfort her. He could hear her muffled sob, as she fought not to cry. All the siblings had learned from their father not to show weakness. The former Kazekage had been an angry man, and this had affected not only Gaara, whom he had hated, but also the two of his children he loved. "He has never caused anything... good for us."

Gaara did not know if he was moved by their words. No. He was not. He himself had wished his own death too. Their words did not hurt him. They only tickled. Only stung a little. Made him sad. Made him want to rip himself into pieces. Made him want to kill them. Only made him suffer worse mental pain than when Yashamaru tried to kill him.

No, it definitely did not hurt him.

"But..." Though Gaara somehow had found his way to his feet, with intentions of doing things he did not know what, Kankurou's continued words stopped him. Stopped him doing whatever it was he was about to. Something in that hesitant way of speaking made him hesitate too. "... But all have to live with the cards given to them. If he really is changing... and it is not just our imagination... we may... in the end... if he is willing... and maybe if we help him... if we guide him... I think... we can get something even more precious than our mother."

The redhead froze, and under him, he heard Temari sniffle. He could see how she dried her eyes and held her head up high even before her new found strength was confirmed by her tone of voice. "You know, I actually have a feeling... that you might be right."

He did not know where it came from. Did not know if it actually had been from his eyes, or if it was the first drop of the light rain that was beginning to fall. But Gaara had a small drop of water running over his cheek, and even before he could catch it and taste it to confirm if it really was a tear, it fell. And it was not caught by one of the autumn-colored leaves or crooked branches as the wind guided it to land on the ground in the narrow space just between his two siblings.

The rain still fell from the sky when Gaara stopped dozing off just before the sun began to rise. His gaze fell upon his two siblings, sleeping on the other side of the dead fire, lying close to keep themselves and each other warm. He did not know what he should do. If he was supposed to wake them up and say it was time to move on, if he should make breakfast to them, how he should react on their words the day before.

He had come down from the tree when the food was ready, not letting them know he had listened. He had not known what to say or do. He did not know how react on other people, or emotions. So he had decided to let it pass.

Now, though, he once again stood with the problem of speaking and being with a human. He wanted to move on, but his view on his siblings had changed in seconds the day before without him noticing. He did not know what it was that made him so confused concerning his siblings. Like not knowing if the water on his cheek was a tear or a weird phenomenon of the weather, he did not know if he actually felt anything for his siblings, or if he may be awkward around them for other reasons.

The emotional part of Gaara was not very experienced, and he was left confused and torn, that inexperienced part of him triggered for the first time in six years. So he just continued to watch the two forms as they breathed and did what he would never be able to. He was sure even if he was given the bless of being able to sleep, he would never do it. In the time he had been fully aware of his surroundings, he could have killed them hundreds of times.

Even if he always would have his sand to protect him, and always would have, he would feel too vulnerable to ever let himself fall asleep. Too many things would be able to happen around him that he would not be aware of...

Gaara decided he wanted to see the sun rise through the thin, rainy clouds, and left the spot away from his siblings to go up in the tree again. Despite that the rain was making his sand heavy and hard to move, it was not bad enough for him to be unable to use it. And so, he came to the top of the tree the same way as before, watching the life's light rose from behind the clouds in the form of a giant ball of fire. He preferred the moon, cold and cunning and murderous...

It did not take long from when he got up in the tree till he heard movement from his siblings, but he did not glance down as he heard the rush from fabric, which told him, that it was Kankurou. Temari's sound was much different. But the redhead could not decide what his brother was doing, and the brown leaves blocked his view. Not that it mattered.

Kankurou could do whatever he wanted... Could he not?

"What are you doing?" Temari's voice broke through the silence, and the sound of her beginning to move began. While Kankurou's was a rough rush of fabric as a cause of his clothes, where he was by far the most overly dressed of the three, Temari was simply the sound of bones scraping against each other and muscles tensing and relaxing as she moved. Of course, every once in a while, there was the sound of fabric, too, but not in the same way.

"What does it look like?" Kankurou answered, and Gaara lifted his gaze from the leaves to the sun, but it was gone behind the thicker clouds as it came up in an higher angle of the horizon. The rain seemed to be stopping, and that was good news. The worst condition for Gaara to fight in was in the rain.

"It looks like you use the same old trick for the hundredth time," she snapped at him. Seemed the emotions from yesterday had left her irritable and annoyed. This was pretty normal, since it was Temari when she had just woken up after a crappy night in rain and without her nice, warm bed. "But it seems the breakfast is going to be cold this morning, too," she continued, her voice even more deadly. "No way can anyone light a fire in this crappy rain."

"This 'trick' has helped me every time I have used it, and you know it!" The two continued bickering as Temari continued getting ready to leave and destroy all evidence of humans having been here over night, while Kankurou just did whatever trick they were talking about. After a while, both were ready, and the only things missing were the food and Gaara. But since they knew they would not be able to light a fire, they already realized it would end up with a boring breakfast of cold, dry bread and dry meat.

And the redhead came nearly immediately after they called his name to find him.

"The rain stops soon," he said before he motioned for them to follow.

Frustration was the only thing able to describe what they were feeling at the moment. They had not been attacked, as they had thought they would, and they had not been able to find a single trace of the plant they were looking for. It was not in the area, but they had not met any sign of an enemy. But the two unprotected did not dare to let their guard down, despite being forced to look down to look for the plant. Gaara knew he had his sand's protection, but still, he refused to look down and just waited for something to happen. He wanted to kill, and waited for it to come.

It was supposed to be in moist places with little sun, but it was not in the undergrowth of the forest. It was supposed to be a moss with branches and small leaves, but it was not where you usually found that kind of plant. Yet, they just continued their search, just waiting for an enemy to show. But with no progress after three hours in neither finding the plant or the enemies, they decided to take a break, and sought for a place where the water did not drop from the branches of the trees.

The rain had stopped, but the forest was still soaked. They wandered a little more, until they reached a field, the tall, green grass swaying in the weak wind. Also here, the grass was still wet, but it no longer came down from above, as it did when they were in the forest. In the middle of the field, a big amount of stones lied. There was over ten of them, the gray stones the size of a big dog, and it was there they sat down to rest a little.

Gaara had done everything he could to keep his sand dry, though they were beginning to stop believing in an ambush. For whatever reason the daimyo had been so nervous around them, it seemed not to have to do with the mission. Another option was that he had heard about Gaara after the chuunin-exams and had figured out that he traveled with his siblings. It was a possibility. Another possibility could be the plant itself.

A silence roamed around them as they sat there, on the cold blocks of stone, and for the first time, Gaara began thinking about the mission. If he wanted to help them, and that was a thing he did not know if he did or did not want to do, he could use his sand to search for the plant the same way as he did in his bloodthirsty nights. Deciding it gave him the chance of finding an enemy he could destroy, he chose to try.

He did not have to try for long. When the sand began to seep out from his gourd and landed on the ground, he felt the moist and warmth of a fast-growing, living thing radiating from right under them. He stood up and stared down between the straws on the field, but the plant was nowhere to be seen. But he felt it... He felt that it glowed in another way than the grass. But his siblings just watched him with fear; afraid he might be so unsatisfied he would kill them.

Instead of making the sand attack them, he guided it under the stone and made it roll. Under it, everything had a dark, evergreen color, and small, twisting stalks with tiny leaves seemed to be everywhere. A stench of rot and old water suddenly surrounded them, something nauseating coming over the air when the plant's gas mixed with the oxygen.

Automatically, Temari and Kankurou moved off their rock, which was a clever move. The stones rumbled, and then rolled over too, the sand causing it to roll over too, and it revealed the same scene as the first. On the other stones, some of the roots of the moss had bored into the cracks of the stones. There had to be over twenty pounds of the moss, more than enough for what the mission asked them to find.

The redhead bowed over it and stretched out his hand, about to take off the plant from the stones. But when he was just about an inch away from the plant, and just about to touch it, his sand reacted, and blocked his touch. He tilted his head to the side, trying once again with the other hand, and the sand reacted in the same way. It was dangerous to touch it, and that was a fact Temari and Kankurou had picked up, too.

"It's poisonous," Temari concluded, taking her hand up to her nose to block the stench. She was catching a headache, and she was quite sure it was a cause of the plants. How, she did not know, but the knowledge of it was enough for her. "How do you move a poisonous plant? How do you bring it to someone?"

She had got the problem, but it was what Kankurou said, which was interesting.

"It must be extremely poisonous if the sand won't let Gaara touch it. Why should we send such a poisonous plant to our enemy? They claim it is a medical miracle, but if its raw form is so dangerous, they might as well use it as a weapon." His last word made the redhead look up, but the two did not notice. He had not listened, and was not sure what they had been talking about... Who they had been talking about.

"You are right, but a mis-" A wind blew past them, and Temari looked up for something. Her green eyes roamed over the field in the direction the wind had come from, and she searched for long in total silence. Until she found what she had been looking for. In the shadows of the younger trees of the forest border, something was standing, and she seemed to have forgotten about their discovery of the plant when she saw the small figure.

As soon as she stopped in the middle of a sentence, Kankurou had noticed her weird actions, but Gaara did not even look up from the moss when she began walking towards the thing hiding in the shadows. But the small figure began moving too, his steps more elegant than hers as they moved closer, and the light that had fought through the clouds gave reveal something so surprising, that Kankurou failed to mouth his warning to his big sister.

Moving towards them was only a simple boy. Or something looking like it. He was just above the size of a dwarf, his hair white as flour, his skin pale the cold of the morning of winter, but it was scarred on his cheek. And his eyes where black and white, no visible iris to part the pupil from the white in his eyes. His clothes were ragged and all black; a contrast to the whiteness that would have looked pure if a sword had not been hanging from his belt.

He took one more step towards them, and suddenly, an extreme sadness overcame Temari. Two more steps and the same feeling attacked Kankurou too. Gaara, on the other hand, did not seem to react to this change. Either he did not care about it, or he could not feel it. And the former was preferred to the latter, though the latter seemed more true.

But the redhead did not care about the boy. Or whatever it was. He did not look at him, did not value his existence after having seen his skinny body. He moved about elegantly, graceful like a dancer, but silent as an assassin. But it was not enough. It was not enough to impress Gaara. With a skinny body and small form like that, no way he would be able to even come close to the word strong.

For that reason, Temari had no chance. For that reason, they all were taken by surprise by the sound of a blade being taken from its scabbard, and the figure disappeared from sight. Gaara did not even have time to notice, before an all-black blade in the pale hand of the boy tore the skin on Temari's stomach apart. He stood on one leg when cutting her, and as she gasped and bent forward, he changed leg and kicked her head backwards.

At the sight of his sister falling, Kankurou could not help but shed a tear. It was something he would normally never care about, as they had fought together for long and both had been wounded many times. But his mood was already saddened to the brink of tears, and her wounded body did not make it better. And he had the idea that his sadness, hurt and fear came from this boy, that this weird person radiated it...

But they could not hear his fast, small words, or see the tears in his eyes as he whispered; "I'm sorry," and they did not know his deed hurt him just as much as it hurt them. And it was while looking at him, at his tears and sad face, and while listening to those words, that Temari lost consciousness.

Before Temari's lifeless form fell to the ground, the unknown took another few steps, and as he seemed to dance towards Kankurou, his speed made him nearly unable to be seen. For that reason, Gaara only manage to send the sand out of his gourd, and then Kankurou's bloodless head fell to the ground. The sand flew up to attack, but the gracious movements of the boy got out of the way as the real Kankurou untangled from the bandages on his puppet's back.

When the boy realized the oldest of the brothers still was conscious, his eyes widened in fear, and he swirled around, trying to avoid the sand as he flung out the blade again. The sand rose to block it, but the blade soared through the grains. Of course, the speed of the blade decreased an extreme amount, but his attack still came all the way through.

When the sand fell to the ground again, Kankurou had come to his feet, and he grabbed the arm he used for the sword. The boy whimpered and tried to pull himself out of the grip, desperation clear, but his arms and the rest of his body did not have the strength or muscles to do anything. But then, he managed to get the sword into his other hand, and realizing that hand was just as useable, the captor let go of his victim by flinging him through the air.

The sand still after him, he had to land on his feet, and after rolling once, he did and jumped towards the hooded of the brothers. He still avoided the sand, his speed letting him do so, though it sometimes was just barely a dodge. It did not come to Kankurou's head that his hateful, monstrous little brother was trying to save him from death by that black sword in the boy's pale hands.

But it did not last. Unlike when someone attacked Gaara himself, Gaara's mind was the thing keeping the sand from his brother, and Gaara's mind was not faster than the sand's. The next time the boy attacked, and the sand stood up in front of Kankurou, whom was confused and unable to follow the fast fight, the enemy stopped the attack midway... and seemed to disappear. When he reappeared, Kankurou had already fallen, the boy having stabbed him in the back.

But the boy did not have time to even smile, the pleasure of killing and fighting overcame the shame and angst he felt for them. Once again, the sand flew towards him. He threw himself backwards, only one leg on the ground at a time, and he seemed to dance as he tried to block away the sand trying to get him. But while it was a good thing the sand was not strong enough to suppress his attacks, the blade slicing through the sand like butter now, where he wanted it away, it could not force the brown grains back.

Many times, he only barely managed to stay out of the way. Gaara was angry, and so, the movements of the sand faster. But the boy managed to get close to him, and the black blade flew directly towards Gaara's face.

You know, halfway into the fighting, I realized the similarity to the battle against Kimimaro. A big field of grass, a person with white hair which move so fast Gaara's sand can't follow, someone moving as if dancing, the opponent using a blade. And I have begun to try and remember when it was I made my OC, to see, if it was at the moment where I seriously liked Kimi. Don't think it was, but their fighting style is so similar I still may have based the OC on him.

Anyway, I hope you can accept his strength. I know it may look Mary-sueish, but if it had not been this character I love, it would have been someone else with the same strength and maybe a different weapon. Now, the whole story is based on what he is, and I will tell you that he is not human. What he then is, you will get to know later in the story.

His name fits Gaara, but I don't think I will tell you right now. He comes from a place where it always rains, and never had seen the sun before he was assigned by his master and was sent on his job. He has never seen snow, hail, and the only animals he has seen is pigs, cows, cats and dogs. Not even the sound of birds is a part of where he has used his whole life.

You will get to know him more. Right now, I will just apologize for the grammar.

Enjoy in joy ^^