Disclaimer: I don't own Naruto, it's setting, characters, or plots. I only claim this story and if anyone wants to put it up somewhere just ask me. I'll most likely say yes.
Author's Note: I'm so sorry for the LONG wait! School and life in general swamped me and fanfiction had to take a backseat. I feel terrible for leaving you all hanging for so long. I decided to break this story up into slightly smaller chapters so that I can hopefully get them out in a more timely fashion. I'm going to shoot for one a month at the very least. It should go much faster at first because I'm just typing up what I already have written. I hope I can make up for the long wait. Thank you all for sticking with me. Please read and review!
Sandstorms and Falling Leaves
Chapter Two: Discovery Part One
A rapid trip over the rooftops later, the two genins arrived at the Hokage's office. Shizune took one look at Naruto's worried face and his unconscious cargo, and ushered them into her office next to Tsunade's larger one. She had Naruto lay Gaara down on the room's worn couch and quickly performed a basic diagnostic jutsu. Her brow furrowed thoughtfully as she finished and stood up.
"Wait here. I'll go help Tusnade-sama wrap up her meeting. Stay quiet and out of sight." She instructed firmly, before hurrying back out the door.
Naruto sank onto the floor in front of the couch. 'It can't be anything serious or Shizune wouldn't have left, but....if it's nothing, then why didn't she just say so and send us away?'
Matsuri positioned herself between the couch and the door, falling into her official role as Gaara's guard.
The redhead was still unconscious when Tsunade entered the room twenty minutes later. Naruto scrambled to get out of the blonde woman's way.
"She did a really big jutsu and passed out." Naruto informed her in an unusually subdued tone.
Tsunade nodded and performed a chakra scanning jutsu, "Naruto, would you and...Matsuri-san?" The girl nodded at the Hokage's correct guess at her identity, "Would you please step outside?"
Naruto nodded and pulled Matsuri with him to the door. The younger genin balked and the blonde boy smiled at her reassuringly.
"Don't worry, Tsunade-baachan is the best med-nin in the world. Gaara will be fine with her."
Matsuri reluctantly allowed the Leaf genin to drag her from the room and shut the door.
Tsunade was just finishing a second type of diagnostic jutsu when her patient shot upright with a strangled yell. The med-nin hastily leaned away from the wild eyed young woman.
Gaara froze for a moment as she struggled to focus on her surroundings, the painful snatches of memory and dream were shoved hurriedly into the back of her mind. She forced herself to breathe evenly and her face slipped into an expressionless mask as she recognized the Hokage watching her patiently.
"You're in Shizune's office, next to mine." Tsunade informed her calmly. "You passed out and Naruto carried you here."
Gaara nodded and forced her tense muscles to relax.
"Have you been thoroughly examined by a medical ninja since you were rescued?" Tsunade asked curiously.
"No." The redhead looked away from the older woman's sharp eyes. She had avoided it at all cost in Suna. She couldn't have anyone there finding out she was a girl.
"May I?"
Aqua eyes darted back to the blonde woman's face. After a few moments Gaara shrugged and looked away again, still embarrassed that the elder ninja had witnessed her panic earlier.
"Lie down and be still." Tsunade ordered, all business.
The redhead obeyed silently, eying the Hokage's chakra charged hands warily.
"Have you been sleeping?"
"Some." Gaara hedged.
"Nightmares?" The blonde woman prodded.
The younger woman clenched her jaw and refused to acknowledge the question.
"Hn." Tsunade shook her head as she finished thoroughly examining the redhead's chakra system.
Gaara looked at her curiously, having never been successfully examined with a medical jutsu before. The sand armor had always prevented the scans from reaching her.
"Three things." Tsunade announced bluntly, "One, whatever jutsu you used did not wipe out your chakra reserves. You have plenty of chakra, you just can't access it."
The redhead raised an eyebrow, that didn't make any sense. 'Why wouldn't I be able to use all my chakra.
Tsunade continued, "That is the second thing. It seems like the one-tail made some very interesting modifications to your chakra system. I've never seen anything like it. You seem to have twice as many chakra points as you should have and the chakra flow is divided between them. It's almost like the one-tail built a completely separate chakra system to enable your body to handle the massive amounts of chakra it needed for it's jutsus. I would guess that Shukaku was acting as a bridge between the two chakra systems, helping you to move the chakra when you needed it. Without the beast you are only pulling from one system, that's why you ran out of chakra."
Gaara sat up with a puzzled frown. "So, I'm only accessing half my chakra?" She asked for clarification.
"Probably less than half, though it is hard to judge with one system so depleted. The other system is much stronger." Tsunade struggled to find the right words to explain the girl's situation. "It's...it's a bit like someone who has had a stroke. Except instead of needing to relearn how to use part of your body, you've got to relearn how to access the rest of your chakra."
"But some stroke victims never regain full mobility." The redhead pointed out sourly.
"That's true." The older woman's response was not reassuring.
"I see."
"Hmm...actually, perhaps if you were to allow someone who could see your chakra systems to help you. The retraining might go more smoothly.
Gaara raised an elegant eyebrow. She knew that medical jutsus let the user sense a person's chakra network, but the only ones who could actually see it..."A Hyuuga?"
Tsunade maintained her thoughtful expression. "Yes. If you are interested, I recommend asking Hinata. She's around your age and she has also been trained as a medical ninja. I don't know for certain that she can help, but she would be most likely to be willing to try."
Gaara nodded once, she would consider the idea. "You said three things." She remembered suddenly.
The buxom blonde grew very serious. "I did. You need to get more rest. Your muscles are strained, your pupil response is sluggish, and you're as pale as a gh...as paper." Tsunade rephrased carefully, remembering that the girl in front of her was very recently dead. "You don't have Shukaku to compensate for your lack of sleep. Driving yourself to exhaustion is only going to hurt your chances of recovering."
The young Kazekage's face went blank and steely as the older woman spoke.
Tsunade sighed. "If you are having trouble with nightmares or memories, that would be perfectly normal in your situation."
Gaara remained stonily silent. 'Nothing about my situation is normal.' She thought ruefully.
"Fine, you don't have to talk to me." Tsunade reached out and laid a hand on the girl's shoulder, feeling the thin frame tense at the contact. "But please confide in someone." The young looking blonde released her hold on the frozen redhead, stood and brushed off her knees, despite the floor being perfectly clean. She then held up her hand putting up fingers as she repeated her advice. "Get some sleep, talk to someone, and see if Hinata has any free time to help you figure out that dual chakra system of yours. That is my professional advice as a medic."
The young woman, nodded and stood to leave.
"Gaara-san."
The redhead paused with her hand on the door.
"Here's some advice as one human being to another." The blonde said gently. "Don't bottle things up so much. There is no demon waiting for you to lose control now. Let some feelings out or you'll explode."
The young woman stood still for a moment, but didn't reply. Instead she simply pushed open the door and left the medical ninja behind as her protege and her...Naruto swarmed her with inquiries about her health.
Shizune entered the small office after seeing the group of teenagers on their way.
Tsunade scowled and shook her head. "I think if Orochimaru hadn't beaten me to it, I could've killed the fourth Kazekage for what he did to that child."
It took Gaara almost an hour to convince Naruto that she was fine and get him to stop looking at her like he expected her to fall over again at any moment. Matsuri was easier to appease and Gaara ordered the girl to say nothing of the incident to the others and then sent her home.
Once the Sand genin was gone, the redhead felt more relaxed. Matsuri's hero-worship made her self-conscious at times.
"Naruto," She started thoughtfully, as they stood on a bridge over looking the small waterway that cut through the village, "you know the Hyuuga girl, ne?"
The leaf genin looked at her curiously. "Hinata? Yeah, why?"
"Tsunade-san thought she could help me with my training." The young woman explained evasively. She hadn't told Naruto about Tsunade's discovery of her bipolar chakra networks, she had merely admitted that she had exhausted her available chakra.
"Oh." Naruto nodded as if that made perfect sense. "Hinata's really nice. I'm sure she'll be happy to help." He grinned.
"Hn. I'll ask her tomorrow." The redhead said, more to herself than to the leaf ninja.
The sun had long set, so Gaara decided to make her way home. Naruto walked her as far as the front of the building. The blonde blushed madly as he quickly kissed her cheek, before heading to his own home to have some cup ramen before bed.
Gaara made her way up to her own apartment and nodded a greeting to her sister. She ate the supper Temari had saved for her without really tasting it. "I'm tired." She told the fan-wielder truthfully as she stood up from the table. 'Even the words sound strange coming from me.' She had been tired for her entire life. It didn't mean she would be able to sleep. "Goodnight, Oneesan."
"Night, Sis." Temari said absently as she cleared the table and washed the few dishes.
Gaara shot upright in bed with her knuckle shoved in her mouth to stifle the scream that was still trying to rip it's way out of her throat. She tasted blood and the coppery substance, along with the pain, helped her to get control of herself. She removed the wounded digit from her mouth and eyed it critically in the darkened room. It wasn't too bad, she decided. The bleeding would soon stop without bandaging it.
She stood wearily and threw her long red coat on over her pajamas. She didn't bother with shoes as she headed for the door.
"Gaara? Where are you going?" Temari blinked sleepily at her from the bathroom door.
'Kuso!' The redhead gritted her teeth. "Out." She forced her voice to have it's normal flat tone. "Just getting some air. Go back to bed." She hastily escaped the apartment before her elder sister could respond.
For a moment, Temari considered following the younger girl. 'Nah, she can take care of herself.' The sleepy blonde decided. After all, Gaara had always wandered around at night. It was only the next morning that Temari remembered that Gaara's reason for not sleeping was gone.
Gaara spent the rest of the night on the roof of the apartment complex, watching the waning moon pass overhead. Shortly after sunrise, she slipped back into the apartment and got dressed for the day.
Her sister wasn't up yet, so the redhead made toast and scrambled eggs for breakfast. Temari drifted into the kitchen just as Gaara was putting it on the table.
The older girl gave her little sister an odd look and opened her mouth to say something, but she seemed to decide against it, instead taking her seat at the table with only a mumbled, "Good morning."
Gaara nodded and took her own seat.
"Itadakimasu." Temari said with a strained smile.
The redhead focused on eating her own food as quickly as possible. When she finished, she dropped her dishes in the sink. "I'll be back later." She announced as she headed towards the door.
"Where are you going?"
"Training." The young Kazekage opened the apartment door.
"Gaara." Temari's hesitant call made the redhead turn back to face her sister with a carefully blank expression. "If...if you need anything." The blonde girl blurted nervously. She sucked at this emotional crap. "Help with training...or just someone to talk to...I'm here, okay?"
Gaara's cold expression softened and she acknowledged the sincere offer with a small nod before she continued on her way.
To Be Continued...
Author's Note: YAY!! It is moving again! I hope that whets your appetite for the upcoming chapters. I have lots of plans and I am determined to work in time for writing. All work and no play make Boo a have a nervous breakdown. Been there, done that. No thank you. Please read and review so I'll know I didn't lose all my readers due to the wait. ^_^' Alright, next chapter: Some of your other favorite young ninja's get in on the action! With appearances by Hinata, Shikamaru and several others! Stay tuned to find out what will happen. ^_^