Part 2 Sacred Jewel

Kotaro kept falling off my head as we progressed down the corridor, which resulted in me and Kankuro both freaking out and attempting a frenzied rescue which, often resulted in one of us receiving a whack on the head.
After the most recent incident we both looked an absolute mess. I was apologising frantically to Kankuro for the black eye I'd given him and I swear I had more bruises then I could count at the moment.
"No! You dammed bird!" I yelled angrily as, once again, Kotaro threw himself off my head in, what I could only assume as, a failed attempt to fly. He flapped his short, stubby wings frantically before giving up with an exhausted chirp and plummeting to the ground.
Kankuro threw himself to the ground and finally caught Kotaro just before he hit the ground. I grabbed Kotaro out of Kankuro's hands and rocked him back and forth.
"It's ok baby, mommy's here."
This earned me a particularly odd look from Kankuro but he was the one lying on the floor after all.
"Kankuro-sama,"
All three of us looked up at the two guards that were standing on either side of the door to the Kazekage's office.
Their expressions were hilarious but then again they had just witnessed a high ranking ninja throw himself on the floor for an arrogant fluff ball and a grown women cradling and cooing the said fluff ball calling it her baby.
Yeah, I'd be freaked out at this moment too. They'd also probably noticed our injuries from previous rescue efforts.
"Are you alright Kankuro-sama. One asked weakly?"
Yes all three of us are fine. He stood and brushed himself off.
"You may say that but I think I've hatched a suicidal bird," I said holding Kotaro up to my eye level. "And he's fat too!"
"Yes, but he's just hatched," Kankuro tried to reason with me as to why I had an obese baby.
"Then he should be thin! He hasn't had the chance to eat anything!"
"You don't know much about birds do you?"
I looked away from Kotaro's fat face and was met with the exasperated expression of Kankuro's.
"What?" I asked tilting my head to the side. Kotaro copied and fell over on my hand.
"Never mind," He groaned and knocked on the door,
"Enter,"
Kankuro pushed open the door and stood back to let me pass. I walked in and stood in front of the young Kazekage again. He continued writing for a bit until he looked up at me with Kotaro once again perched on my head.
His eyes widened slightly but other than that he acted as if he saw woman with obese baby birds perched on there head everyday. Kankuro appeared at my side and the Kazekage surveyed the two of us.
Evidently he was now wondering why a woman with an obese bird on her head, and a man with a hat that made him look like a cat, were sporting various injuries and probably why they were standing here in front of him at all.
"Gaara, she has hatched-" Kankuro started but I interrupted him.
"No. His name isn't Gaara its Kazekage-sama," I corrected stupidly. Kankuro sweat dropped and turned to me once again.
"Kazekage is just a title, his real name is Gaara,"
"Why do you call him Gaara? That's just a bit informal don't you think? Or are you two?" My eyes widened at the conclusion, albeit the wrong one, I had come too.
"You're gay?!" I screeched pointing an accusing finger at the two of them. "Don't look Kotaro! You're too young!"
"We're brothers!" Kankuro screeched back at me. I blushed about a million shades of red and wailed in embarrassment.
I covered my face with my hands and shook my head from side to side, not believing that of all the conclusions I could have come too that was the one I did. I didn't even consider that they might have been brothers!
With a surprised chirp, Kotaro was sent flying off of my head and skidded to a halt in front of Gaara on his desk. Gaara looked down at the dazed bird, then up to me and Kankuro who was yelling his head off at me.
"Stop this at once, you two!"
We ceased our childish behaviour and looked up sheepishly at Gaara. I giggled nervously and Kankuro sighed.
"S-sorry Gaara," Kankuro said lamely.
"Yeah Gaara," I mean- at Gaara's glare I hastily corrected myself. "Kazekage-sama, hehe,"
"Now I was going to ask why you two are even here but I think I've figured it out now that I've seen this," He held up the dazed Kotaro who made an incoherent sound while feebly flapping his wings,
"My baby!" I screeched and ran forwards. Gaara allowed me to take, well, snatch Kotaro away from him and return to my position alongside Kankuro. I cradled the bird and glared at Gaara, not realising that it was me who did this to Kotaro and not him.
"Yes, well, I assume you're here so that I can tell you what's so important about that bird-"
"Kotaro," I corrected,
"Yes, yes Kotaro," he waved it off with his hand and continued, "Anyway, as you are not from the sand village you will not know of the legend that has been passed down from generation to generation. Although some aspects of the legend are merely make believe others are very real and have been witnessed many times over. But it has been years, generations have passed in fact, since that bird has reincarnated,"
I glanced down at Kotaro. Was he really important? Was he really old?
"How old is he?" I asked.
"No-one knows for sure, all that's known is that he belonged to the family of the founders of Sunagakure, that makes him ancient by anyone's standards,"
"So he's older then me, yet younger than me?"
"Exactly," while the clogs in my head whirred frantically trying to make sense of this new piece of quite frankly absurd information, Gaara and Kankuro talked quietly in hushed whispers.
Kotaro had somehow climbed back on top of my head and made a nest in my hair. He pecked the top of my head as if to say, 'That's right youngster, you better have some respect for your elders now you whippersnapper.'
No, I could never let him speak like that. Correction, I would never let him speak like that. Wait. Can birds even speak?
While I thought over this new piece of info Kankuro exited the room and Gaara stood up from his desk and walked towards me.
I didn't realise he'd been calling my name for the past amount of time, until he waved his hand in front of my face.
I squealed in surprise and jerked backwards, Kotaro clinging on, grimly, to my hair.
"Don't do that!"
"Do what?"
"Wave your hand in front of my face of course!"
"Why not? I called you for god knows how long but you didn't answer, you were just standing there sucking your thumb!"
"I was?" Now that he mentioned it my thumb was covered in saliva, but that didn't prove anything. "Prove it,"
He pointed at my thumb.
"Do you honestly need more proof?"
"That's not proof!" I gasped at his stupidity.
"Right, of course it isn't," He rolled his eyes and beckoned me to follow him out of the room.
"I win!" I exclaimed gleefully and Kotaro joined in with my cheering. Gaara paused for a second, and then carried on like nothing had happened.
He led us down a corridor me and Kotaro hadn't been in before so I told Kotaro to take in every detail but not make it look suspicious. Unfortunately, a baby bird perched on a woman's head is quite suspicious, especially if the baby bird is attempting to look through binoculars.
Scrapping the idea after several strange looks, we had to continue with our mission without the binoculars. Becoming increasingly bored made me resort to the one game that my artistic friend had always refused to play. Mission Impossible.
Humming the theme tune to myself, I rolled, crawled and slinked down the corridor. Plus we were both wearing sunglasses. You had to wear a cool set of sunglasses to make the game complete.
But sunglasses only really work in the sun, not dimly lit corridors. So it was inevitable that I was going to go crashing into something or someone. I banged, hard, into someone going the other way down the corridor that was too busy reading a piece of file work to watch where they were going and move out of my way. After bouncing off him I fell into the wall.
I pulled out my imaginary gun and shot him. Then me and Kotaro scuttled along after the seemingly oblivious Gaara. Yet he seemed to become increasingly annoyed as we progressed down the corridor leaving a trail of destruction in our wake.

I'd knocked over a vase inconveniently placed along the wall that I was shimmying along and I'd tripped over it and Kotaro fell in. So I promptly smashed the vase to retrieve my ally.

The next thing that annoyed Gaara was the amount of people I ploughed over. Bodies were literally scattered across the floor at one point where I'd run through a group of ten or twelve people, thus setting off the domino effect. Also, every piece of paper they'd had was now fluttering merrily along the corridor whenever the doors at each end opened and a blast of the cool air was let in. The rug, which I'd tripped over, was now screwed up at one side of the corridor. Kotaro had also experienced the call of nature when he was waiting on the floor as I disentangled myself from a tapestry.

All in all, I was genuinely surprised that Gaara hadn't suffered from a mental brake down yet. Any self respecting women would have but then again, he wasn't a woman but what did I know?
"In here," Gaara said briskly as he guided me into a new room, "And take off those sunglasses for heavens sake," he added impatiently as I gazed around the new room without seeing it at all.
I took off the sunglasses and surveyed the room. I recognised it to be the council of Sunagakure. I'd messed up enough times in my own village to recognise one anywhere. I was a familiar face among my hometowns council, heck, I was even on first name terms with a few of them.

I whipped off Kotaro's sunglasses and tried to listen to what they were saying. Gaara had crossed to the other side of the table and sat down on one of the high-backed chairs. The council stared at me before one of them spoke,
"You're kidding me Kazekage-sama, she cant be our last hope, look at her!"
"Hey! I know I'm ugly but you should never insult a mother in front of her child, how degrading!" I cuddled Kotaro close to me and glared at the ugly, balding, stupid, council member, old too,
"Yes she is a ridiculous choice but Kotaro chose her and no-one else so were stuck with her," whether we like it or not," Gaara said as he leant his head on his hand and surveyed me across the table. "What are we going to do with her? How will we keep Kotaro safe? She's an outsider, also, what has happened to Kotaro to choose her of all the people out there?" There were mummers of agreement and in general more slagging off of me. A girl can only take so many insults until she snaps. And unfortunately for them I was someone that didn't handle criticism very well.
"Hey!" I roared as I lugged a heavy paperweight, that was sitting conveniently in front of me, at the one who'd started the entire bitch session in the first place. It connected with a satisfying thunk and for that moment I was satisfied until something wrapped around my neck.
I gasped, trying to take in oxygen as the thing tightened its grip. It took me a moment to realise that it was sand that was suspending me in the air by my neck. I took me even longer to realise that there was no way I could hurt sand.

I thrashed around wildly but only succeed in having the grip on my throat tighten. I stopped moving and waited for the oxygen to run out. If my mind had been working clearly, I'd have used a jutsu or something but when you think you're going to die and you're starved of oxygen, these things don't generally pop into your head.
The sand released its grip and I sprawled on the ground gasping for air and rubbing my throat. Kotaro rubbed up against me and cheeped in my ear, trying to make me get up and stop acting strange. I glared up at the council members who were snickering away at me and snarled. I picked up Kotaro and turned to leave,
"Where do you think you're going?" I stopped at the sound of Gaara's voice,
"Dunno, out of here," I turned the knob on the door but it wouldn't budge. I tried again, putting more force behind it but it still didn't turn.
"You can't leave because Kotaro will go with you," I turned to see him glaring at me. I returned the glare full force and put Kotaro up on my head,
"You can't keep me here you know,"
"I beg to differ,"
"Really," I said not quite understanding what he meant but it still registered as a challenge in my opinion. "You're keeping me here against my will and I'm the one that has the thing you're after, I could kill Kotaro you know," Kotaro appeared in my field of vision wide eyed and my heart melted,
"You could never kill him,"
"You're right; he's just too darn cute!" I squealed, "But there is one thing I can do,"
I smirked at them. Some of the council members shifted uncomfortably in their seats yet Gaara remained calm and waited to hear what it was that I could do,
"Kotaro, I want you to do something for me, never take an order from these guys only me, hate them and all of Suna unless I tell you otherwise, if they hurt me or kill me I trust that you'll avenge me," Kotaro nodded and glared at the people in front of us. Anyway I looked at it, they were trapped. Kotaro would only do as I said and when he was old enough to fly I'm sure I could turn him into the biggest problem Suna would ever have to face. I admit, I was feeling pretty pleased with myself.

"That's quite smart of you, I can't think of a way now that we'll ever get Kotaro to assist us without your say so, Very clever," Gaara said. He leaned back in his chair and smirked, "But there is one thing I can do, to make sure Kotaro stays within this village I will have you under watch at all times, You can live with me in the Kazekage manor and that way there will always be someone around to keep you under surveillance,"
"That doesn't solve your problem of getting Kotaro to comply with you,"
"No, but it does mean causing you to suffer, it could be called a form of torture I suppose, which one of us will crack first and give in? I assure you it won't be me, how long can you go with being stuck in one room for the rest of your life?" I blanched. He'd completely turned the situation around now. He couldn't harm me because of the order I'd given Kotaro but he'd still found away to hopefully make me crack. No way! I'd take the punishment like a man! No wait that came out wrong.
"Just try it, I won't back down, the older Kotaro gets the more of a nuisance he'll be, can you really handle him if he gets loose on Suna? He is supposed to protect Sunagakure from major catastrophes right? That means this little guy obviously has some pretty strong powers, so he'll become a big problem, won't he?"
"Thankfully we've got years before he is fully matured so I'm sure you'll have plenty of time to figure out what you want to do,"
"I wont back down,"
"Neither will I,"
"Fine,"
"Fine."