Gah! Sorry about that everyone! The last chapter has been fixed. That's what happens when you stay up all night writing, people D: You mess up! Sorry about that =( To make up for it, here's Chapter 14 two days ahead of schedule D: Sorry again!
Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto... But I own Inuyasha! *points to a poster of Inuyasha* Haha!
Also, no, I didn't post the wrong chapter. It was just bugged, but it should be fixed now...
I ran towards Sunagakure wearing my red and white bordered yukata and traditional sandals. I had no weapons on me, and my mid-back length pink hair was loose with a red headband to hold it out of my face. I had stopped to wrap my arm up with bandages since I couldn't heal it myself without getting weakened and I needed to be at full strength with where I was going. I was several yards away from the gates when a kunai flew towards me. I immediately dodged it and then stopped moving, holding up my hands.
"What reasons have you to disobey your orders of exile and return here?" One of the gate shinobi demanded as he jumped down several feet away from me, narrowing his eyes.
"I was under the impression that the Kazekage had questions for me." I said calmly, keeping my hands up in surrender. The shinobi reached for his kunai pouch and I frowned. This isn't going nearly as good as I intended… Come on, Gaara. Get your slow ass out here before he stabs me. I thought as I felt his chakra start to head towards the gate. "I have no weapons on me. I am completely at your mercy. Why would I do that if I planned to cause harm?" I pointed out softly.
"Why would you come here at all?" He retorted and I sighed.
"Because I was told the Kazekage wanted to speak with me." I explained in a calm tone that I was far from feeling.
"I do." Gaara stated calmly as he descended from his cloud of sand. Instantly, the shinobi dropped to a kneel quickly, while I just tilted my head and met Gaara's eyes.
"About time. I think I was about to get stabbed." I said with a light sigh.
"I was under the impression that you didn't want to talk." Gaara said coolly, ignoring what I said.
"I don't. But I need access to the Sunagakure library, and I'll answer whatever questions you have if you allow me that." I explained and he narrowed his eyes, motioning for the shinobi to leave with a twitch of his hand. I watched as the shinobi jumped away immediately and snickered slightly. "Faithful like dogs."
"At least they do not betray their village." Gaara calmly remarked and I narrowed my eyes slightly, but ignored it, knowing he knew very well that wasn't the case.
"Do we have a deal? You grant me access to the library and in turn I will answer all your questions." I stated the terms again and Gaara eyed me before nodding.
"However, you will be supervised the entire time you're in the library." He said and I nodded in agreement.
"And once all is done, you won't hear so much as a whisper about me ever again." I said with a small smirk. "Shall we, then?" I asked, raising my eyebrows at him. Then, none too gently, Gaara formed a cloud of sand under our feet and we flew into the air over Suna. Strange… I haven't seen Sunagakure from the sky in a long time… I mused, smiling very lightly at the memory of the last time we had.
"So Gaara, you love me, right?" I asked him as we walked along the large mesa's surrounding Sunagakure, headed towards our usual spot on them.
"Yes…" Gaara said, looking at me curiously.
"If I fell, would you catch me?" I asked him and he frowned in confusion.
"Yes?" He answered almost questioningly, so I grinned.
"Then catch me." I said before I playfully spun around and let myself fall over the side of the mesa. He didn't disappoint. I felt his arms wrap around my waist and pull me against his chest, my feet touching the sand cloud holding us up.
"You're insane." Gaara said, pressing his forehead against mine.
"I hear love does that to people." I replied, smiling softly.
"Remind me to stop spoiling you." Gaara muttered with a sigh and I kissed him passionately. After a moment or two, we pulled away and I glared at him, putting my hands on my hips.
"Don't you dare ever stop spoiling me." I said sternly and he chuckled before kissing me again.
I shook myself from my thoughts and frowned deeply. "Wait, I need to go to my old house first." I said suddenly and Gaara looked at me with a frown. "I need some of my old treatment books for my sister." I lied easily and Gaara frowned further before suddenly descending. Unable to use chakra in my feet to hold my balance, I quickly grabbed Gaara's sleeve with one hand to stay upright. I felt him tense and he gave me a cold look before we landed in front of Chiyo's old house.
"All right, come on. I'll answer your questions while I'm getting these things together."
"Who is she?" Gaara asked pretty much the second I sat down at the table with tea, the whole table covered in my old notes and Chiyo's notes as well.
"Gaara… I'm not happy with my past." I said calmly as I started to go through the scrolls and journals, looking for a specific year or subject. I didn't even look at him, completely disregarding him.
"I'm not either." He said coolly, but I ignored it.
"I have… a complicated… family." I said before smiling bitterly. "One might say I followed my father's footsteps well."
"I thought you didn't know your family." Gaara accused, narrowing his eyes.
"I didn't. I only learned things very recently… Gaara, I know that you didn't find out about Alleria through anything of mine because I have never written her name." I said calmly but I knew he could see I was extremely tense. "Though it took me a while to remember that."
"You're right… Ebizou-sama died recently… and he gave me a letter beforehand. Asked that I give it to you… But due to your status as a traitor, I couldn't fulfill his wish, so I read it myself… Who is Alleria?" Gaara asked coldly and I sighed. I didn't answer for several minutes, searching through the pile until I found what I was looking for. Aha… from exactly thirty years ago… I grabbed the journal and sat down, sipping my tea.
"My mother died in childbirth." I said as I scanned the pages, looking for the right entry.
"So you told me." Gaara said icily, obviously unhappy with me avoiding the question again, and I nodded.
"I didn't mention that it was because I was born almost two months premature… My father clung to the hope that I would survive, but the doctors told him that he had already lost his wife and that he would lose me too… and so his sanity was lost with us. He abandoned Sunagakure and became a missing-nin. Chiyo came the minute she heard about my mother's death, but he had already left. She used her jutsu's to keep me alive until I was fully developed. The Third Kazekage was worried he would return for me when he realized I was alive, so he took me into his care… But when my father found out I was still alive, he came for me."
"But the Kazekage got in his way, so my father had to get rid of him first… Without him there, Chiyo took me in and protected me." I explained with a small frown. "My father was Sasori…" I glanced up to see Gaara's frozen expression, and I met his gaze strongly. "And my mother's name was Alleria Haruno. Chiyo was my great-grandmother, and my father helped kill you… So I killed him with my bare hands. Funny that I go so far for someone I apparently want to kill…" I said dryly with a pointed look at him. "In the process, I was mortally wounded. I was left with an injury so bad I would have bled out within only a minute, but Chiyo saved me the same way that she saved you…" I looked back down at the journal I was flipping through.
"So while I killed my father to save your life, knowing he was my father as I did, and tried to sacrifice my life so you could have yours, I'm being interrogated by you as though I were the criminal…" I mused emotionlessly before narrowing my eyes. "Found it…" I murmured softly, quickly reading the fine hand written script.
"November 19th,
Today we cancelled the second project. To recap, the jutsu came with greater risk than we had originally anticipated. It brought life, but killed the user in the process. When I realized this, I stopped another shinobi from completing the jutsu so they wouldn't follow in his steps. But I was too late. The user lived, but began to suffer from chakra malfunction, causing them to lose their ability to control chakra. At first it started out as simple weakness. We assumed it would correct itself, but it did not… And so began a branch project. We studied their chakra intently, learning everything that we could.
The user, over time, began to get weaker and weaker. It got to the point that they couldn't so much as stand on water or on a wall. Finally, we realized what it was. The user had transferred some of their life into their patient, but not all of it. It was enough to allow the patient to live and recover, then return to their shinobi training. Because of this, the patient had some of the user's chakra in them. Because it came from the user's life force itself, the chakra was permanently missing and wouldn't properly meld with the patient's chakra.
So I created a way to balance the user's chakra with this knowledge. The user and patient had to fill a phial with their blood and mix a small amount of the herbs that create soldier pills. Then the user ingests it, and it will restore their balance for an amount of time that seems to be undeterminable. When the effects start to wear off, the user will have to ingest more. However, the damage is done, and the patient will be forever connected to the user by the chakra and life force. For some reason, through this connection, if the patient begins to lose chakra, they will automatically and unknowingly tap into the user's chakra.
Today, the patient killed the user when they lost too much chakra on a mission and unknowingly used all of the user's chakra, thus ending the branch project."
I frowned deeply when I read the passage, narrowing my eyes. "Well… This complicates things." I mused and glanced up to see Gaara watching me without an expression. I closed the book silently, hiding how much the information irked me, and grabbed a scroll that I had earlier set aside.
"Kekkei Genkai's?" Gaara read the label of the scroll and I nodded, rolling it open. I reached out and used my finger to pinpoint where I was reading on the small texted scroll, causing my sleeve to ride up a bit. "What happened?" Gaara asked and I looked up to see he was staring at the edges of my bandage wrap with a frown.
"That's what I'm trying to figure out." I replied honestly, looking back down at the scroll. I scanned it quickly, thankful that Chiyo separated the Kekkei Genkai's into sections based on the element it used, making it easier to find what I was looking for. I read the information and paled immediately, my body cold.
"What is it?" Gaara asked in slight alarm and I slowly raised my eyes to meet his.
"We have a problem…" I murmured softly and Gaara frowned. "Gaara… I need you to do something for me… it's very important that you do this…" He said nothing so I continued. "I need you to get the council together immediately."
I was sitting on the edge of the large circular table, my toes touching the floor and my other leg draped over that knee. My arms were folded across my chest and I chewed my lip softly as I waited for the council to arrive. Sitting in the chair only a foot to my right, Gaara watched me intently. I could tell that he was concerned by whatever it was that was making me freak out like I was, but he remained expressionless as we waited. Finally, the doors opened and the council of Sunagakure started to filter in, pausing when they saw me.
"Kazekage-sama! How dare you allow a traitor into this sacred room!" Joseki shouted instantly, his eyes wide with anger.
"Quiet yourself. I'm sure our Kazekage has a good reason for this." Baki said coldly and Joseki scowled unhappily. The council slowly started to sit down, and Baki was the one to sit on the other side of me, eyeing me warily.
"Now then… What's the meaning of this?" Ryusa asked calmly, and I was reminded why he and Baki were the only Council members that I never wanted to strangle with my sock. He, like Baki, actually shut the hell up and listened before giving their opinions, and even when they didn't agree, they'd still follow Gaara to the death. Gaara looked at me and I sighed heavily. I stood up and instantly began to pace behind Gaara and Baki, who turned their chairs to face me, rubbing my temples to calm myself down. It didn't work, and I ended up just blurting it out like a panicky child.
"I got the fuck burned out of me by a god-damned Jeriko!"
And so with the end of one mystery comes the beginning of another! All will be revealed next chapter, promise =) (And I totally made up this whole 'Jeriko' thing, so it should be interesting) Again, sorry for the chapter mix up! D:
Please review!