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The First Shifting Grains
CADEL
CHAPTER 8
The sand receded back into Gaara's gourd and Temari quickly crouched down to do a basic check-up.
The youngest noble was unconscious with a dark bruise blooming on his forehead. The cut on his brow looked superficial despite the amount of blood dripping down the side of his face.
Tor and Abu were now crouching over their little brother, their expressions a surprising mixture of alarm and concern. In their haste, their robes became unkempt for the first time and surprisingly seemed to care very little for it.
Kankuro observed that maybe their only redeeming feature was their care for each other.
"What's wrong with him?!" Abu ordered but despite the demand, his voice was laced with concern.
Temari felt a swelling on the boy's scalp.
"He's got a minor concussion from the looks of it but I don't think it's too serious. Except for some bruising and the cut on his brow, I don't see any other injuries." Temari answered patiently.
Tor stood up and gave Gaara an accusatory glare. "What did you do?"
Gaara continued staring down at Rue. Eventually he looked up and met Tor's eyes.
"He fell."
"You did something." Tor spat as he took a step closer.
"He fell." Gaara repeated patiently.
"I saw the way those two looked at you when we found Rue." Tor pointed towards his siblings. "You attacked him. What were you planning to do after you knocked my brother out?"
Kankuro and Temari glanced at each other and then glanced at Tor.
"Hey, it's not a good idea to throw around-" Kankuro began to warn the boy but was abruptly cut off.
"Shut it!" The oldest barked. "My father will be informed about this." Tor threatened with promise.
The jinchuuriki stared impassively at the boy's threat and repeated, "I didn't do it. The child fell."
"Liar!" he hissed, "Desert mongrels."
Gaara held Tor's gaze for a long moment, pinning him with a most unnerving look. It might have even been vaguely disapproving. After a few beats, Tor began to find those dew green eyes akin to looking at a marionette. Unflinching and glassy. Not being able to stare him down, the eldest noble averted his eyes with a sniff.
Kankuro lifted Rue up and cradled the boy in his arms.
"I'm going to send him to the hospital." He gave a stern look towards Tor and Abu. "You two can follow."
Tor walked up to Kankuro and began to grab his brother from the genin's arms. "I'll carry him."
Kankuro all but growled. "I'll carry him. You just stand behind and look pretty. I'm here to help so shut up and walk."
The puppeteer didn't bother to wait for a response and leaped towards the infirmary. The genin cursed under his breathe. If Tor, Abu or Rue ever inherited their father's land, Kankuro promised he would avoid their entire village like the plague.
The middle son, Abu had been watching the new red-haired boy with calculating eyes.
It wasn't his appearance and nor was it his soft-spoken voice, but something was there, something that tugged on his natural instincts to turn the other way and run. All in all, it was rather mixed but he knew he didn't like this genin on an instinctual level.
Abu flinched back when Gaara's diverted his attention towards him and quickly scampered off to follow his Tor.
Temari and Gaara were now the only two left standing. The blonde kunoichi glanced over to her brother. She had no doubt that the whole event could ruin their father's plans, but she would have to report this to Baki-sensei at least. The problem was Temari wasn't sure what she was supposed to tell him. Did Gaara hurt the boy or not?
A little surprised at her reluctance to jump the gun on Gaara, she realised that she had taken Gaara's statement seriously. He fell. The kunoichi glanced upwards and observed her surroundings.
They were standing near the corner of the street and several sails were pitched up at different levels to provide shelter for street-side markets. The dome-like buildings were naturally curved but they had grooves, window sills and balconies that would make climbing relatively easy. Rue could have fallen from any height if he managed to climb up. What he was doing at that height, Temari didn't want to know.
"Do you believe me?" asked the quiet voice beside her.
Temari glanced over to Gaara whose question was spoken with a colour of curiosity.
He fell. Did she really believe his words? She never really needed to question his motives before because his drive was always clear. To kill. But Temari noted that as homicidal as Gaara was, he never had the need to lie. Her brother would admit to murder just as easily as admitting the sky was blue. He had no reason to lie.
"Doesn't matter." She answered reluctantly but her words were the truth. "Let's just hope there isn't too much damage from this."
With that, Temari ran back to the Kage building to give in an official report before the brats twisted the story. Hopefully the Kazekage wouldn't be too mad that his youngest child almost killed his guest.
III
It was late evening by the time that Temari and Kankuro had been informed about Rue's condition.
"He woke up about two hours ago and seems to be active and well." Baki explained.
"The brat lives?" Kankuro asked while picking his ears. "What a shame. So I guess everything's cool now."
Despite the good news, both siblings felt the sting of responsibility fall on their shoulders. Rue had been under their care when he got hurt.
Temari sighed, "What did they tell their father?"
Their sensei crossed his arms. "Well, they think the Kazekage's son assaulted their brother. Basically they made it as horrible as you can spin it – that Gaara is as homicidal as they come and deliberately attacked Rue with premeditation."
Silence stretched and then Kankuro rubbed his forehead.
"I'd laugh…if it wasn't so ridiculously possible."
"How did their father take it?" Temari paused, "Wait…how did our father take it?"
"I've been informed that their father had put all negotiations with Suna on hold. Last I saw the Kazekage, he seemed…irritated."
Both siblings deflated.
Kankuro growled. "Stinkin' brats, it wouldn't nearly be as horrible if they didn't have to be so melodramatic."
The blonde kunoichi thought for a moment then added. "Well, the little maggots weren't entirely wrong but…I think I'm more inclined to believe that Rue just fell."
Kankuro scratched his head. "If Rue fell, what the hell was Gaara doing there then?"
Temari shrugged. "Wrong place, wrong time? I dunno, you'll have to ask him but I'm just saying…for once I'd rather team up with our insane baby bro than the Terrible Trio."
Baki ran his hand over his covered scalp and added, "Well, I wouldn't worry too much about it, despite the brother's fanciful account of the event, they still weren't there, their words don't hold much validity…except maybe to their father." He sighed. "There's not much we can do to change things at the moment."
Kankuro crossed his arms in irritation. "Well if that's the case, why are we still talking about this? I'm going home." With that, the puppeteer left.
"I expect you guys to meet up at the training ground tomorrow morning at nine." After a pause Baki added, "Get Gaara to come if you can."
Temari nodded and followed her brother.
III
The next morning when Kankuro and Temari arrived at their usual training ground, they found their space was already occupied.
Tor and Abu stood in the middle of the rocky field, waiting for them.
Their formal silk were exchanged for lighter robes practical in design and made for functionality. Neither one had their long hats nor any other unnecessary accessories except for thin belts attached to the waist with pockets. The brothers looked both contemptuous and smug as they watched the two sand siblings stop to a halt.
Kankuro frowned. "You're not supposed to be here, this place is for shinobi only." He pointed rudely to the exit. "Get lost."
"Honestly, you desert barbarians never cease to amaze me with your hospitality." Abu smiled tightly. "We were just looking around." The boy glanced disdainfully at the open, stone arena and sneered. "It's not much but it'll do for now."
Temari crossed her arms. "Leave, we have training."
The blonde kunoichi began to walk away but she suddenly felt something fly past her head. There was with a loud 'thwack' past her ear.
Temari froze and stared at the small straight blade knife buried firmly in the rock behind her.
A few strands of her blonde hair dangled lightly in the wind.
Tor had his his arm extended outwards with a series of straight-blade throwing knives protruding dangerously between his knuckles.
His mouth was set in a gleeful smirk. Daring. Cocky.
"You don't mind if we join you for today?" Tor's grin widened. "After all, we're still your guests. It'll be rude to ignore us…especially after what happened yesterday."
Kankuro couldn't contain his disbelieving snort.
"You want to train with us? Are you crazy?" he barked out a laugh. "Do you even know how to use that thing? I wouldn't want you stabbing yourself while trying to find the pointy end your highness."
Despite his words, Kankuro discreetly eyed the knife that had almost cut off his sister's ear and inwardly frowned. That was not a throw on a novice.
The two nobles didn't seem fazed by genin's word.
"Well if you're so good, you won't mind it then?" asked Tor.
Temari gave them a firm look. "Why are you really here?"
"We want to fight you." Tor replied with a lift of his chin.
Both Kankuro and Temari stared at each other and let his proposal sink in, then not a moment later they began to laugh.
Kankuro huffed and looked back up to the two boys. "Wow. I didn't know you clowns had a sense of humour." He snorted again. "Look, get lost. We really don't have time for you two today." The puppeteer pulled out a kunai and began to spin it around his finger. "Besides, I'll get into a lot of trouble for killing the guests, can't have that happening now do we."
The nobles frowned at the lack of seriousness the sand siblings were showing towards their proposal.
"You take this lightly without knowing the implications of our proposal." Abu snapped. "We're not requesting some light brawl."
Tor suddenly withdrew a small white cloth from within his robes. With a bit of confusion, Temari and Kankuro noticed that Sunagakure's symbol was embroidered on the silk. With a quick flick, Tor drew out one of his blades and cut the symbol in half. Then with little care, he threw it onto the floor.
Both sand siblings froze as the silk landed in the dirt.
The action of cutting another's emblem symbolized only one thing between those who were in the right status to call for it.
A duel.
Tor sneered gleefully. "I apologize, we were not being clear enough. We formally request to engage in a duel on behalf of our respective villages. We will fight in the name our village, its honour and strength. Whoever loses the match will openly admit defeat, carrying the combined dishonour and reputation of their village on their backs."
Kankuro snarled with reluctant excitement. "Fine we accept your challenge!"
"Kankuro shut up!" Temari hissed.
"What? They obviously want this, so why not just fight? We can beat them blindfolded." The puppeteer gave a disdainful look towards the nobles.
Temari eyed their village's emblem dirtied on the ground and clenched her fists.
"Are you two stupid? Do you have any idea how serious this can get?" Her glare sharpened. "An official duel is not something you call upon lightly, especially against a hidden village."
Temari couldn't care less if Tor and Abu got hurt playing ninja. The duel was a bad idea for all of them.
Both sides would become proxies for their Lord, Daimyo, Kage or Master. A great deal of dishonour and damage for the losing pair would follow. Even if Kankuro and Temari won the duel, it would still mean that the Nobles from the South could deal a social and political embarrassment. The repercussion would not be as serious as it was hundreds of years ago, but the risks were not worth it. Also the fourth Kazekage would not appreciate it if they embarrassed the honour out of their official guests.
Temari could only marvel at the idiocy the two boys were displaying.
She crossed her arms and shook her head. "No, we refuse."
"Wha-" Kankuro began to protest.
"No," she cut him off. "As much as I'd love to cut up your face Tor, we refuse. Go back to your quarters and look after your brother or something, but this duel will not happen."
Just as she finished speaking, another knife flew towards Temari but it was deflected with her war fan.
Not a beat later, she felt a sharp pain in her shoulder.
The first blade Tor had buried into the rock behind her had been pulled back by and thin cord of steel attached to its handle. Recoiling throwing knives.
She could feel blood running down her arm from the puncture but she ignored it as she instinctively threw a kunai in Tor's direction.
To her surprise, he deflected the incoming weapon but quickly threw two more. He could throw and deflect rather well. But he still was not good enough since he gained a sharp cut across his face.
Temari bleeding from her shoulder and Tor bleeding from his cheek – they both seethed at each other from across the field.
Kankuro growled as he moved towards his sister. He was more than ready for a fight.
Abu stepped forward to meet him.
The bespectacled noble reached into his pocket and without warning, catapulted a small object directly at Kankuro's head. But the puppeteer easily stepped out of its way. The genin frowned when he saw that the younger noble was still grinning. It was then that Kankuro realised the object Abu had thrown was not a projectile weapon at all.
It was a bomb.
Seconds later, Kankuro narrowly avoided a face full of fire as he duck low and rolled away.
The genin stood back up and glowered at his opponent who was already pulling out more small orbs of metal and readying them in his hands.
The Sand Siblings stood side by side as they glared at the two nobles, both of them grossly annoyed at themselves for being hurt by the fight, a fight against a bunch of idiot, bullying civilians. It should have been easy but Temari and Kankuro realised that they didn't know the noble boys had been marginally trained.
They had underestimated them, an embarrassing rookie mistake.
"Are you really ninja?" Abu snickered. "If so, then your hidden village has no hope."
The next moment Tor shot his blades towards Temari in quick waves, and each time Temari deflected them with her fan, he just retracted them back towards himself. Temari remained on the defensive as she continued to block the boy's flying blades, but realised that he was pushing her back every time she tried to get closer.
Kankuro didn't even have time to draw out more weapons, since he was constantly avoiding the rain of grenades Abu was showering on him. The brat seemed to have an endless supply in his pockets.
The puppeteer decided enough was enough.
Kankuro suddenly bolted in confusing zigzags towards Abu and dodged the bombs as he weaved his way across the training ground. When he was only a few metres away, the genin expertly aimed his shuriken at the Abu's pockets, hoping to cut them off the noble's waist.
It should have worked, it would have worked…if it weren't for the smoke bomb that suddenly exploded in his face.
The bitter fumes of the smoke engulfed the training ground and for a few moments nothing could be seen. It eventually cleared and revealed Tor and Abu once again smirking at them from the other side of the dirt field.
"What's going on here?"
All eyes turned towards the jounin standing at the edge of the field.
III
Baki analysed the scene and sighed. He was late only five minutes.
As soon as Temari and Kankuro saw their sensei, the noble brothers took the opportunity send another attack of flying knives and bombs. Of course the genins promptly forgot their sensei's presence and retaliated.
Baki suddenly felt far too old.
With another sigh he decided to end the fight before all four of them gave their father's a reason to go off the handle. He took a step forwards but not a moment later a hand shot out, effectively halting him on the spot.
Baki turned to find Gaara next to him, unaware as to when he arrived.
"Watch." The jinchuuriki commanded softly.
Baki glanced at the boy again, his interest a little piqued. "You would let them risk a political fallout?"
The jinchuuriki shook his head. "Let them fight, they need to get it out of their system."
Baki gave him another hard gaze. With one last look, the teacher nodded. He turned his attention back to the fight and found that the noble boys were putting up a decent fight. He turned to look back at Gaara and something occurred to him.
"You knew those boys could fight." Baki stated turning back to the field.
"Yes."
Baki nodded. "Well…for people of nobility, they did have a surprisingly small guard number and next to no private security for the boys."
Gaara answered simply. "Their father didn't place handlers because they didn't need them."
It was noted that Kankuro and Temari weren't using any ninjutsu despite how much the two brothers were egging them on.
It was in the code. Shinobi must never use their ninja art on civilians unless they have a criminal status.
It was a difficult thing to follow by the way the noble brothers had been antagonising Temari and Kankuro. Baki approved of his students' sense of self restraint.
"Do you think the brothers will win?" Baki asked, suddenly curious to know Gaara's opinion.
The boy didn't answer for a moment but slowly shook his head. "No, even without chakra, my brother and sister are far more advance in combat then those two."
Baki blinked.
My brother and sister.
He was sure that was the first time he heard Gaara address his siblings in a familial and personal manner. Mildly surprised by the small detail, Baki almost missed the next smoke bomb go off.
III
Temari had effectively cut the steel strings from several of Tor's flying knives.
Kankuro threw his shurikens directly into Abu's grenades mid-flight, effectively detonating them before they got the chance to get near him.
Tor and Abu were now visibly panting while Temari and Kankuro seemed only slightly sweaty – their stamina and strength outstripping their opponents.
A voice suddenly cried out from the side.
"Hey! Come on, beat them!" It was Rue. He was standing a little further away from Gaara and Baki with his head wrapped in bandages. "What are you waiting for? Cut them down!" Rue rallied.
"Oi, shut up you little termite!" Kankuro growled. He pulled another kunai and grinned. "Well, it seems you two aren't as useless as we first thought but why don't we start making this real eh?"
"Couldn't agree more." Tor smirked.
Kankuro suddenly bolted towards Abu and threw several shurikens in rapid waves, each one aiming for different pockets hanging from Abu's waist. A few hit their target and slashed gaping holes in his supply pockets, causing the noble to lose a large majority of his bombs.
The puppeteer didn't stop there.
He threw a kunai towards Abu's feet were his bombs had fell from his pockets, and activated his own explosive tag. The explosion caused a chain reaction. A moment later, all the bombs on the ground detonated, one after another.
Abu scrambled back when he realised he was standing on a carpet of exploding bombs.
For a moment Kankuro worried if he overestimated Abu's speed.
But his moment of worry soon passed as Tor quickly grabbed his brother by the collar and jumped out of the range of the explosion.
As soon as they were a safe distance away from Abu's sabotaged load of grenades, Tor began to twirl his blades from their steel cords in a fast circular motion over his head. After a few rotations, he threw the steel towards Temari and began to assault her with his make-shift whip.
Temari successfully avoided any contact with the blades and dodged him cleanly.
"I've had enough of this." Temari finally huffed with an annoyed sigh.
Disregarding the code, the kunoichi open her war fan to the first third. One purple moon faced her opponents as she pulled her arms back and gave one big sweep.
A sudden wall of wind slammed into both Tor and Abu, pushing them off their feet. She watched as they flew back and then crashed back down in a graceless heap.
Temari closed her fan and scowled down at the boys.
"We fought like you wanted and we won." She reeled in the urge to spit. "Just get out of here and stop wasting our time."
Abu fussed over the cut on his brow but Tor glared at Temari like he meant to set her on fire. He was livid. His sense of pride was larger than anyone had known and his misogynistic tendencies drove his disgust towards Temari further.
Tor's next actions prove to be more recklessness then anyone thought him capable of.
"Abu, detonate them!" He suddenly snapped towards his brother.
The younger brother stopped fussing over his cut and turned with wide eyes towards Tor. "What?"
The older boy glared viciously at Abu and stormed towards him. "I. Said. Detonate. Them."
Abu blinked at his brother then suddenly shook head, his eye's laced with reluctance and even a little bit of fear. It was the first time the genins had seen the two brothers disagree.
"Tor…look, it's over. I don't think that's necessary –"
Tor suddenly cut his brother off and grabbed a small device from Abu's robes and clicked the remote.
For a moment nothing happened, and then the ground suddenly exploded.
Massive debris and stone shot towards the sky and began to rain violently back to earth. Everyone took cover and waited for it to die down.
Afterwards when they looked up, the training ground was littered with holes with little metal spheres inside them.
The noble brothers had rigged the entire ground into a mine field.
Tor flipped another switch and the spheres released a small surge of energy inwards, shredding the ground around it and then explosively deploying the sharpened debris in all direction.
And they were all headed towards Temari and Kankuro.
They were both too close to avoid the blast, so Temari quickly snapped open her fan and covered her and Kankuro just as the explosion began to pelt them. The force felt like a wall and some of the sharpened stone had ripped through her fan cutting them both.
They had no time to rest as the next wave detonated.
Kankuro cursed and Temari suddenly tugged her brother to start running while trying to cover them both. Both siblings could already see lethal projectiles heading there way. Their eyes widened for impact.
But nothing ever came.
No impact, no cuts, not the smell of each other expiring underneath the fan.
Kankuro dared to snap one eye open but suddenly felt an entirely different fear.
III
Sand.
A curtain of sand hung above their heads like a dark rain cloud and Gaara stood at the helm, his back towards them.
It took Kankuro much longer than normal to fully understand what had happened…or what didn't happen. But when he realised that Gaara was now the only thing standing in between them and begin pelted by debris…well it still didn't make sense.
Temari gazed up at her youngest brother and did her best not to hiss. For now, as long as she wasn't dead, she could cope with Gaara looming over them. But her mind repelled against the sand, instincts driving her to see it as a second enemy on the field.
The torrent of exploding earth finally came to a stop, its sound against heavy sand dimming to nothing and suddenly the field became quiet.
Baki stood by the side lines, attentively watching as the fight unfolded.
Slowly the shield of sand that had protected the Sand Sibling began to drip back to the jinchuuriki's feet. No one moved as Gaara's entire body was finally revealed from behind the gold veil.
His face gave nothing away, but the tenseness lining his back and limbs match his alert gaze. There was no anger and there was no killer intent or bloodlust. Just the condemning stare of an eleven year old genin.
Tor disregarded Gaara's appearance on the field and he chased away the traces of embarrassment painted on his face. Abu had fallen to the ground at some point, his glasses broken and his robes dirtied. Rue, which had been on the sidelines, was now neatly tucked away in Baki's arms, when he shielded the boy from the explosion.
Gaara eyed the craters that decorated their training ground and spoke.
"That was an unwise move."
Tor stiffened as the sand around Gaara's feet started to move towards him. He backed away but the grains continued to climb up his legs like marching ants.
"Wha-what are you doing!?" Tor stumbled back.
Gaara took a step forward.
"I believe the South is known for their mining. Coal and granite. The soil there is softer than the stone ground of Sunagakure." The jinchuuriki directed his sand to a left-over mine in front of him and commanded his sand to sink into the ground to detonate it. A moment later a loud bang was heard but nothing could be seen.
"Are you aware that planting bombs is a criminal offence, noble-san?"
Abu choked down the ash in mouth as he watched the jinchuuriki eye his older brother.
Tor pasted on a brave face of contempt and nonchalance. But his hands shook as he eyed the sand crawling against his thighs.
"W-we initiated an official duel, all our actions are pardoned due to the nature of our fight."
Kankuro and Temari watched wide-eye at Gaara's advances and both slowly backed away from ensuing slaughter.
But their sensei only narrowed his eyes as Suna's jinchuuriki stalked the two nobles.
Gaara's posture and gait was soft, casual and it didn't have that rigid tenseness that usually seized the muscle when his mind was clouded with violent excitement. But it was the boy's gaze that was most telling – where there should have been broken glass and fire…now swirled a sober shade of dew green.
Baki knew his student. Something was different about Gaara's prowl.
Gaara blinked once and added, "Your duel is not valid."
Temari and Kankuro's head snapped up at the words. Wasn't valid?
It was Baki who answered.
"The duel wasn't carried out in the presence of a superior officer or proctor and it wasn't approved by your Daimyo, Kage or Lord. Merely saying it's a political duel doesn't make it so."
"Duels do not apply to Hidden Villages." Gaara added.
Tor stared incredulously at the smallest genin and quickly sneered.
"It doesn't matter. Those two," he nodded to Kankuro and Temari, "Fought back. They are still honour bound to their village so they're responsible for their actions."
"Honour?" the jinchuuriki shook his head. "We are Ninja, not Samurai. We have no honour."
His words were ice chips sinking like dead weights in their bones.
Gaara took another step forward as he detonated another bomb safely within his sand.
Without knowing anything about Gaara's status or history, the two noble boys could feel that there was something off-kilter about their current opponent.
Despite the fact that he wasn't much older than Rue, he held none of their brother's behaviour. He was not a child. They could feel it in the air and they could see it in the way the boy stalked them. He was a predator hiding beneath a youthful façade.
"S-stay away!"
Tor stepped back, nearly tripping over Abu. But Gaara noted that he was stumbling onto the mines still buried in the field. So he commanded his sand to direct their path away from the bombs but it mostly looked like Gaara was intending to finish them off.
But before Baki and his student could prevent Gaara's supposed massacre, Rue began running.
"Wait, hang on you guys!" Rue ran forward into the grounds without caution and headed straight towards his brothers.
Temari suddenly saw everything going wrong. "Wait you idiot!" she cried out, "Go back!"
Abu suddenly turned around at the sound of Temari's warning and felt his mouth go dry. Rue was running straight towards one of his mines.
"There's a bomb! Rue run back!" Abu cried out desperately, already trying to get to his youngest brother. But it was too late.
There was only muted horror as everyone watched Rue disappear behind a blinding cloud of dust, sand and smoke. The ground shook and the rocky towers collapsed around the boy, encasing him in a tomb of rubble and dirt.
Kankuro – for a brief moment – felt a small rush of movement brush past him before being blinded by suffocating dust and smoke. They covered their noses and mouths as the dust and dirt settled. When it cleared, Baki was already searching for the child.
Tor and Abu rushed over in a panic but saw nothing except daunting mound of stone, piled five metres high.
Cold realisation clenched around their stomachs as they came to one conclusion. Rue was buried alive.
"Rue!" Abu cried out. "Rue, can you hear me?!"
Tor stood off to the side with his hands shaking and something like disbelief twisting his face.
Without saying a word, Tor stepped back from the rubble and stumbled to the ground. He continued to crawl backward, as if trying to separate himself from the reality he saw before him.
Kankuro and Temari couldn't understand how their morning had turned into such a political nightmare. All they knew was that when their father's found out, there would be no way to salvage the situation.
Rue was as good as dead. And so were they.
Baki's narrowed his eyes again and realised he was the only one that seemed to have noticed one crucial detail.
Gaara was missing.
III
It was a veritable tomb.
It took Rue a minute before the ringing in his ears subsided to a dull humming and he could feel the skin on his elbows and knees were gone.
Then he waited for his eyes to catch up, but unlike his ears, they didn't recover.
Not matter how many times he blinked, all he saw was a void. Rue couldn't even see his hand, there was absolutely no light and it was only gravity that told him which way was up and down. In a panic, he grappled around to get a corporal feel of his surrounding till his fingers brushed against the wall. But the only thing he could feel was tiny little things moving underneath his palm.
Rue shrieked and fell back. It was like tiny little insects were crawling inside the small cavity he was occupying. Was the wall alive?
Suddenly, the idea of being in the dark with creepy-crawlies became too overwhelming. The child's chest tightened and breathing became taxing. Rue began to shout and scream.
"Let me out! Let me out!" he cried desperately. "Help me! Tor, Abu! Help me!"
Though he could not see, Rue could feel hot tears dribbling down his chin as he continued to scream, and with every shout, his fear escalated.
"They cannot hear you little one."
Rue suddenly jerked back as the unknown voice penetrated his cries.
"W-who's there?"
"Sabaku no Gaara." The voice answered.
The child didn't recognise the name but found the voice to be familiar. It belonged to the scary red hair boy that had magic sand.
"Let me out, let me out!" he continued hysterically.
"Save your breath, there's not enough air in here for you to be shouting." Gaara explained quietly, his voice echoing against the darkness.
"Let me out! I don't want to die!" He choked on tears and snot as he clawed at his surroundings. "I can't breathe, I can't breathe!"
There was a moment of silence then Gaara's low voice asked, "You're afraid of death?"
Rue kicked blindly into the darkness, his child mind hoping he could kick and punch his way out of there. "I-I can't breathe! I don't want to die!"
"Everyone dies eventually." Gaara stated bluntly without sparing the boy. "Why not now? Dying here won't make a difference."
Rue sobbed pathetically as he puffed for air. "'Cause I'm too young to die!"
Gaara raised an invisible eyebrow. "We're suffocating in a tomb Rue. No one will here you scream." The silenced stretched. "You're never too young to die." He added simply. "I've seen infants die before their first breath. Their life so fleeting that their own mothers barely remember. Why not you? A mischievous child intent on causing trouble without a second thought." He paused. "If you die noble-san, it will be insignificant and no one will remember you, because you're a trouble maker – born to cause misery to others."
Rue's eye's widened with every word Gaara hushed into his ear, each syllable cementing needles into his ribcage.
"No, no, no, no, that's not true!" He shook his head violently, despite the fact that no one could see him. "I-I just do those things because my brothers do them, that's all!" Rue explained desperately.
"You say you're afraid of death, but its people who cause trouble who tend to die first." Gaara added softly.
"I-I just didn't want to be different from them!" Rue finally shouted back.
"Why not?" Gaara asked.
"Huh?"
"Why is being different so repulsive? Surely it's better than being a menace? A rat."
"Because it just is!" Rue answered weakly.
The child heard a soft sigh from beside him as Gaara shifted in his spot.
"Trouble makers are followed by hate, you will give people reason to despise you and hunt you down. Your brothers are already following a dangerous path." He stated with a voice full of foreboding promise. "I suggest you try to begin acting like a true noble because all I see is a snotty-nosed infant with hat too large on his head."
"I'm sorry!" Rue suddenly blurted out into the darkness.
"Why are you apologising?"
There was a wet sniff.
"I don't know…"
"Those that say sorry are people who have done things that need apologizing. Are you are one of those people Rue?"
"I – no…yes…maybe…" he whimpered as he tried to wipe his snot on his sleeve. "I just wanna to be like my brothers…if I am…then maybe my dad will like me more, instead of ignoring me all the time. I really didn't mean to be so horrible! Honest! I'm really sorry, I just don't wanna die down here."
Gaara held the sand shield above their heads, cocooning both of them in a ball of sand. He had been lucky when he saved Rue before the mine exploded and the rubble avalanched on top of them.
The genin could hear Rue's labored breath and rapid heartbeat as the child cried and tried to scream his way out. Now the poor boy was sobbing in the dark and Gaara felt pity swirl in his gut. Rue was only nine after all. But Gaara didn't regret his previous harshness. Humility was sometimes a lesson best served bitter.
Rue hiccupped.
He felt calmer but questioned still ran amok in his mind. Were they ever going to get out of there? Was Rue really going to die down in some dark hole underneath tons of cold stone? Buried alive and never seen again?
As the seconds passed by, Rue once again found it hard to breathe. His mind had dragged him back into that dark place where the black walls crushed his hope.
Just when he was about to start crying again, the noble child felt a warm hand on his head.
He almost jerked back from the contact but he found a hand was drawing slow circles on his back.
A few tense seconds later, Rue suddenly jumped towards the direction he thought Gaara was sitting and clung to the older boy with all the strength he could muster.
Gaara was alarmed to find his arms suddenly occupied by a distressed child. Rue buried his face in Gaara's stomach and wrapped his small arms around the jinchuuriki's waist. For a moment, Gaara didn't know what to do. He forgot how impressionable little children were. A few comforting words and they were suddenly enamored. So after a moment of listening to the panic in the child's heartbeat, Gaara continued to rub Rue's back.
"Breath slowly and focus on conserving your breath. Your claustrophobia is all in your mind, it doesn't exist." Rue closed his eyes and listened to the strangely comforting drone of the older boy's voice. "Close your eyes and imagine a field so vast that it meets the open sky without ending. You're not here." Warm circles pressed into Rue back. "It's just you and open skies…"
III
It was near pandemonium on the surface.
Apparently the series of explosion during the fight had attracted some attention and now there were both ninja and ANBU lifting rock after rock. No one was going to risk doing an earth jutsu because it could cause harm to the two boys trapped inside.
Baki had promptly noted that Gaara was not with them. Kankuro had commented that he probably left but Temari and her sensei came to the same conclusion.
Gaara was in there. He was trapped underneath all that stone and rock with Rue, meaning that the likely hood that they were both alive had increased due to Gaara's automatic sand protection. It would be a nightmare to inform the noble patriarch that his son had died because of his own two older children and their recklessness.
Tor and Abu helped as well, and for the first time they were neither snide nor snarky. Guilt sank low in their stomachs.
Kankuro was of course enjoying their misery with Temari but both decided to keep their mouths shut as Baki promised D rank mission for a month.
As the minutes passed by and each boulder was carefully excavated, everyone became increasingly apprehensive. There couldn't be much air down there for two bodies to breath.
"Sir, we're breaching the bottom layer now." A ninja shouted.
Baki nodded and everyone watched as the last remaining stone was pulled away. Tor and Abu were practically crawling forward, hoping to find their brother while Temari and Kankuro waited further back.
What they found was nothing like what they had expected.
After a moment of dumb silence, Kankuro ask what they were all thinking.
"Where the hell are they?!"
Everyone looked into the opened pile of stone and found that there were no bodies inside.
There wasn't a single trace of either Rue or Gaara.
III
The Fourth Kazekage was about to sign off the last piece of document when an ANBU suddenly appeared before him.
"Speak." He commanded while putting his pen down.
"Kazekage-sama, you have been asked to join the Noble of the South in the infirmary." The shinobi explained simply. "He requests your presence immediately."
The Yondaime looked up and knew immediately what this was about. Suppressing the urge to sigh, he quickly made his way down into the infirmary and found his guest standing next to his son's bed. The small child called Rue was sitting up with an incredibly subdue pout as the nurses patched his wounds.
The Noble moved around his son and greeted The Fourth.
"Ah, Kazekage-sama, thank you for coming here in such short notice but I thought it would be best if I gave this to you as fast as possible." The man deposited a scroll into the Kazekage's hand. "The contract has been signed and sealed." The noble explained.
The Kazekage simply stared.
"You signed the contract." He repeated. Only the day before, the Noble had wanted nothing to do with Suna. The Kazekage hid his confusion and asked, "I was under the impression that you required more time before signing the forms."
The man waved his hand in dismissal. "Yes, but that was yesterday and now I believe I owe your village my son's life. I am not a man that likes to be in debt."
Debt? The Kazekage frowned as he unfurled the scroll and read its contents. He looked back up at the Noble in alarm. "You've made Suna your exclusive security contact and you want to be a permanent client."
"Yes, I know it's not the original contract but this is all I can do for now." The noble added honestly which only made the Kazekage's frown deepen.
Not enough? It was a great deal more in Suna's favor than the previous drafted contract. It was almost too much.
Rue suddenly sat up and gave a deep bow towards the Kazekage. He gave his father a look of support than turned to look at him.
"I humbly apologize for the trouble I have caused and I wish to show my deep gratitude towards your son, Sabaku no Gaara."
The Fourth Kazekage blinked at the little boy who was bashfully staring up at him from his pillows. What was going on?
"And what did my son do to warrant your gratitude?"
"Sorry, for not being clear Kazekage-sama." Rue added a little flustered by his slip-up. "I owe him my life. He saved me from an avalanche and then he came in like this and then like that and then got me out before we both suffocated to death!"
Gaara's father let the words sink in and decided that the explanation didn't helped at all.
"Also, we will be leaving this afternoon Kazekage-sama." The Noble patriarch informed.
The Fourth eyes darted back to the man. "Is your son fit to travel so soon?"
"Yes," the man nodded. "I'm afraid we've made arrangements that cannot be cancelled." The noble suddenly turned to his son and asked, "Where are your brothers?"
For a moment, Rue didn't seem to know either but suddenly perked up. "Oh yeah, they don't know I'm in here. We should probably tell them I'm not dead." Rue turned back to Gaara's father and nodded again. "Arigato for your hospitality Kazekage-sama."
With that said, both Rue and his father left the infirmary with a last bow.
The Kazekage watched them through the window and shook his head. It was all so absurd.
He looked back at the contract in his hand and turned to leave.
III
Temari and Kankuro rejoiced when they heard that they would not be held responsible for the day's events.
It was even better news when Rue had mysteriously turned up after the whole fiasco. Although the true events remained a bit of a mystery, it was a relieving conclusion. They pushed no more and decided not to pester their youngest brother for answers.
Gaara on the other hand had been avoiding the crowd.
He had tunneled them out of the rubble with his sand through the back to avoid detection. There was no need to be so sneaky but Gaara felt that Tor and Abu needed a few more minutes of grief. Remarkably the event left little long term damage to Suna relationship with the South.
But that was not the reason for Gaara's sudden solitude.
He needed to think because he suddenly recognised the house symbol embroidered on Tor, Abu and Rue's clothes.
Sabaku no Yuri.
The desert lily.
During his years as the Godaime Kazekage, Gaara knew all his allies in his surrounding neighborhood.
The Nobles of the South had never been Suna's ally within his timeline.
It had been that way long before Gaara had taken the title of Kage. What he knew for sure was the South had decided to never involve themselves with Sand. The relationship was neither hostile nor friendly
Keeping that in mind, Gaara knew that something had shifted dramatically.
The genin distinctly remembered that Southern village had been ruled by a woman, not a man. He had seen Tor, Abu and Rue's father and he was absolutely sure he had never met the man, even in his future. But this very same man had just signed an indefinitely permanent affiliation with Suna on both a social and military level.
The more Gaara thought about it, the more he began to realised that Rue's father should be dead.
It should have happened either before he arrived for Suna or during.
It definitely should have happened before any opportunity to sign a contract with Suna. There could've been hundreds of reason why that man was still alive. There could have been hundreds of ways he could still die. Either killed by thieves or an assassin or an illness or…
…or a lethal allergic reaction…
The wasp.
Gaara closed his eyes.
"Um…hey" Rue called from below.
Gaara broke out of his spiraling thoughts and looked down at the child. He quickly jumped from his perch and landed to face the boy.
Rue shuffled his feet.
"My brother's didn't want me to talk to you, since you're crazy and all, but we're leaving now…so…"
Gaara watched as the child fiddled with his robes hem and glance uncertainly at him with bashful eyes. The genin inwardly smiled and placed a gentle hand on the boy's head.
The way the child was looking at him, he believed that he might actually be the boy's first idol. It was a strange and incredibly ironic thought.
"Are we saying goodbye now?" Gaara asked softly.
Rue looked up with all the innocence of a nine year old and nodded. "I just wanted to say arigato…nii-san." The last part was said a little uncertainly but he smiled as Gaara patted his head.
"I might not see you again in long time little one."
Rue looked down, "Yeah…"
"But when we see each other again, show me how much you've grown." Gaara encouraged. "I know you follow your brothers' lead, but maybe it's time for your brothers' to learn from you." Gaara leaned down and gave the smallest smile. "Remember, the old can still learn from the young."
Rue stared wide eyed at Gaara as he nodded.
"Your father is waiting." Gaara stood back up. "Till another time noble-san."
The jinchuuriki watched the boy run towards his family and looked back up at the sky.
Things were shifting. He was already causing waves. The question was how he would ride them out.
He could try to fight it with all his might. He could flow through it and leave everything to destiny and chance. Or he could slip, get pull under and drown under its collective weight.
Either way, Gaara was lost in an ocean of shifting sand with nothing but a fragile tether to land.
.
A/N: My brain tends to drip from my ears at 4 am in the morning so I apologize for the patchy action scene. I only hope to keep improving so thank you for sticking with me this far.
I'd love to hear your opinions.
CADEL
[EDITED – 10 APRIL 2015]