Chapter 15

Gaara (the next day, approximate time: 3:30 AM)

Gaara slowly made his way to the field outside Sunagakure. His father never minded whenever he left, seemingly knowing that despite the damning solitude he forced onto his son, he'd always return—to fulfill his purpose as a weapon in his father's hand and be the harbinger of vengeance Yashamaru said he was. It wasn't the fact that Suna was ever Gaara's home that kept him coming back, it was the fact that he was created to be a weapon and therefore needed a hand to use him, that did. And so Gaara stayed, his purpose unfulfilled until the world was dead.

Windows shuttered as he passed; people cleared the streets. Gaara ignored them, for the moment, that was. They were afraid, their lives meaningless, pointless. He could've slaughtered them like cattle if he so desired, but at the moment there was something else that yearned for Gaara's attention.

Something else at the moment that drew Gaara's desire for blood.

He stopped outside of a field of twiggy branches, protected by a rocky wall to the west. Further away, a sparce colony of what we recognize as saguaro cacti stood stoically.

He stood there, watching. Waiting.

He wanted to kill him, his father, for forcing him into this solitude. But he lacked the strength for it. Even at the height of his power that night, he could not do it—his father's strength too strong.

He promised himself, after that night, to someday gain the strength to kill him. To kill his father. To kill them all, and prove his worth as his mother's instrument of hatred, perhaps the only one that loved him, for he now became the weapon she desired.

But for now, he had to settle for this.

In his mind, Katiya was as guilty as his father and Yashamaru for isolating him. Yashamaru, already dead. Killed that night in an uncontrolled attack that failed to quench his insatiable thirst for blood. His father, too strong for him to kill. A heart still beating will always fail to quench his thirst for blood. And then there was Katiya. Katiya. Gone. Gone before he could kill her. Gone when he needed her most. Gone and left him all alone, with nothing except his newfound purpose. The wind rustled his hair, blood red, aware of his purpose since his birth.

Gaara's heart pounded in his chest. Shukaku within him watched but said nothing, his head on his front paws, his single tail wagging slowly like a pendulum. An ordinary night like this, he would have been riled up and begging for gore, but today, Gaara's own seeking for blood piqued the raccoon-dog's curiosity.

An owl was flying back to its nest in the arms of a cactus. A barn owl, white and ghost-like. Silent. An apparition appearing as if not even there. Gaara's icy green eyes widened. He with a breath, he stretched his hand out in the motion of a Sand Coffin, his fingers clawed.

It was the same jutsu he used to kill those servants after his father put him on a team with his siblings; siblings that weren't there when he needed them most. Just like Katiya, who left him all alone.

A hand formed from sand curled its fingers around the apparition, a fluttering of white feather. With a decisive clench of his fist, the owl was crushed. A splash of red; an owl now dead. Hollow bones shattered; crumpled feathers floating away. Simply a stain on the ground.

Katiya leaving was out of his control. His inflicted loneliness as a child was out of his control. Being a Jinchuriki and having assassins sent after him was out of his control. Everything, it seemed, was out of his control.

No longer.

Gaara was a weapon. The lives he took, the lives he'd take were in his control, would always be in his control. Their beating, fluttering hearts in his grasp, at his mercy. He was a weapon. The Jinchuriki of Shukaku the One-Tail. A weapon did not need friends, nor companionship, nor love to survive. Even without the owl, the cactus would still stand.

He would love himself, love only himself. It was his mantra, one he repeated daily. And he will prove that—that his love was stronger, better, more powerful than that offered by others—than the love his father withheld from him.

The cactus would live on, providing only for itself, the sharp needles driving everyone else away. Gaara could not help his isolation. He could not help his spines and needles and demons. It was useless to fight it. They were a part of him, all of it. A part he would not soften, would not hide. It was a part of him.

In the end, everyone else would leave. Unable to bear his spines and needles and demons for much longer, they'd seek out someone else, and leave him for some reason or another. Humanity was a curse on themselves, he simply a perfected manifestation of that curse. Those spines, those needles, those demons drove everyone else away, and protected him. Gave him power.

He was doing himself and humanity a favor, even. Himself a favor by sparing himself from the need to watch that owl fly away, leaving him all alone every night and every moment left alone in darkness, to fight for himself while he was still grasping desperately for someone else's receding light. No more. He'd be doing humanity a favor by giving them a merciful death, a crushing, sudden one rather than the slow agonizing pain of being left all alone, betrayed by the people they loved but who cared so little as so to be able to leave.

He slowly turned away from the bloody owl's body. Katiya now dead to him.

Lord Rasa (approximate time: 3:30 AM)

For all intents and purposes, insomnia was something that ran in the family, or at least, among all members of shinobi leadership. The Lord Kazekage had stood over his desk the past hour, dealing with the Council paperwork and the mission assignments and the autopsy reports of every shinobi reported dead within the past few days.

He was awake when he watched Gaara leave the village, unworried as he left, a third eye made out of his golden sand hovering behind the boy, at a distance he expected to be out of the boy's sensory range.

With a frown, he watched the scene.

Temari (approximate time: 2:30 PM)

"Come on, lazy bones! You can move faster than that!" Temari yelled.

"Faster!"

"FASTER!"

Temari barked at "her" students out in the dry field of sand. As the tutor to the class (because she had yet to be assigned a real mission), she had been asked to lead the class in physical exercises, which she did, despite her tired and sordid mood. She ran beside the fastest student in the lead, who was setting the pace for the single-file train of students behind him.

"FASTER!" she yelled at him.

As the student beside her picked up the pace, one of the children behind Temari stumbled and fell. And then someone else turned to help her, breaking the pace of everyone else behind them as they tried to go around. Temari groaned.

She slowed down, letting the boy leading the rest of the class exceed her. "Leave her!" she yelled, angry at the reduced pace—not even a workout by her standards.

The girl's friend froze beside her fallen comrade like a startled deer. Temari stopped. The leading students, seeing Temari stop, stopped as well.

Great, we're all going to be late back—and I'll be late to my real training.

Exasperation tugged on the edge of her lip. A fiery look danced in Temari's eye. A fiery look that came from her own struggles, and the physical manifestation of a part of her she never showed anyone else: her own weakness. The younger girl pampered with a normal childhood had yet to learn the lessons she'd been taught young as a child.

Temari inhaled sharply at the sight of the girl's face. "You're all going to grow up and into shinobi. In the shinobi world, you stumble and you DIE! No one will be there to pick you up! You die, and the mission FAILS! The mission fails, and the village FALLS!"

The girl who fell recoiled from the ground, shrinking in on herself, ashamed. The village would fall because of her.

"You'll be remembered as nothing except a failure to the village. Your enemies won't care how hard you've tried so long as you failed; your enemies won't care that you're crying, they'll kill you all the same. That's why you train—here and now—so pick yourself up now so we can continue training," Temari continued in what sounded like some sort of battle worn desperation.

The fallen girl's eyes were now puffy and red, a sure sign she was about to cry. Seeing that, Temari got even angrier. Crying means you're giving up on being a shinobi—shinobi don't cry. Shinobi never show emotion. How dare you give up?!

"GET UP!" she ordered, "You pick yourself up! No one will ever do it for you—so you get yourself up now before you become nothing except a burden to this village!"

Those were the same words Temari told herself, to keep herself moving. As a child, she vowed to never cry—to never give anyone the satisfaction of seeing her weak. She vowed to never become the burden she saw in the reflection of her father's eye. She picked herself up when she fell, her father too busy to do it for her. She never cried, no one there to wipe the tears and tell her it was alright. And it was that act, more than anything else, that made her strong. The fact that she willed her tears dry herself and got up by herself made her strong, no matter how much it hurt. So she told herself.

The girl on the floor shook. Temari was doing this for her now, so that the girl would have the strength to get herself up later—when everyone else has left. With a trembling hand and watering eyes, the girl brushed off her friend gently and haltingly stood up. She didn't want to be condemned as a failure to the village forever. She hugged herself, still shaking, and bit back a sob as she pulled herself to full height, revealing a bloodied knee and a slight limp. She tested the leg out, and put her weight on it. The girl was silent, and yet tears poured down her cheeks.

Temari continued, turning her back to the girl now, pointing to her as an example. "WE ARE TRAINING TO BECOME SHINOBI, WHEN YOU FALL, YOU PICK YOURSELF UP AND YOU KEEP MOVING UNTIL THE MISSION IS COMPLETE BECAUSE IT'LL BE YOUR JOB AS A SHINOBI TO SALVAGE A BOTCHED MISSION OR YOU RETURN HOME AS A FAILURE AND A BURDEN OR WORSE! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?"

"Yes!" the students nervously and reluctantly squeaked.

"I asked you a QUESTION! DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?! YOU ARE ALL TRAINING TO BECOME SHINOBI—WARRIORS! A WARRIOR DOES NOT SQUEAK! NOW DO YOU UNDERSTAND ME?!"

The students stiffened. Temari was right, they were training to be warriors... and warriors did not fall and cry. The more boisterous boys sent angry glares to the girl's direction.

"YES SIR, TEMARI-SENPAI SIR!" the students yelled back.

"GOOD, THEN I WANT YOU TWICE THE SPEED YOU ARE NOW, AND THREE EXTRA LAPS!"

The students straightened their backs, but didn't complain. The fallen girl's eyes were puffy and red with tears, but she was standing without leaning on her friend. She was standing on an injured leg, an action that would hide the pain of the wound and therefore the weakness of it. With a nod, Temari set the pace this time, at the lead. It was a pace that now could serve as training for both the students and herself as well, rather than just the students.

It was a pace that would make her students as strong and unyielding as the desert or crumble them into dust.

Temari flicked her gaze back to the fallen girl after a few minutes. The girl was biting her lip as she ran at the back of the class, letting everyone else exceed her, but she was keeping the pace with the class nonetheless.

Good, Temari told herself, because no one else will pick her up if she'd fall in battle.

Gaara (approximate time: 6:30 PM)

Gaara turned the corner to the pathway leading to his edge of the Kazekage's compound. Two ANBU agents were stationed outside his door.

hE'S HerE… WaiTiNG FoR YoU… Let'S KiLL HiM—kiLL hiM NoW, CoME ON NOw, LiTtLe GAARA.

Gaara didn't bother asking who this time. It was obvious. He met the eyes of the ANBU outside his door, who were both as still as statues under his gaze. He narrowed his eyes.

He sensed his father's chakra himself from the outside and with a nearly inaudible growl of disgust, he sent two spikes of sand into the ANBU's chests. He threw the bodies behind him with a casual flick of his hand. As he knew would happen, the concentration of his father's chakra inside the compound grew sharper as two of his men died.

Gaara calmly pushed open the door, which was now painted with blood.

His father was standing facing the door and met Gaara's eyes as he came in. Gaara broke off his stare after a moment, ignoring his father temporarily to move to the kitchen.

He hated the compound. The room was sterile, furnished with new furniture, half of which Gaara never even touched. He hated the furniture. They were all only sitting there, unused by him, not fulfilling the purpose they were made for and therefore were worthless. His bed remained set, the way it was left when he just began living in the room more than a week ago. He hated the room, close to the ground and away from the moon—the beautiful, intoxicating moon that trapped his eye when he couldn't sleep. He wished he could simply live outside, under the stars and in the chill of the night.

He hated his father, who was much too close to him, more than three meters away. Gaara grabbed at his own chest and leaned onto the counter, his back to his father, suddenly glad there was an island counter between himself in the kitchen and his father in the living room.

"Hhhhnnnn…" he breathed, trying to still his hammering heart.

Jerkily, he turned from the counter and with the hand that was just previously over his heart, he grabbed down his jar of food pills.

The servants (they were actually low-ranking shinobi sent by the Kazekage) were too scared to deal with Gaara on a daily basis, so they simply dropped a jar of food pills by his doorstep the day he was sent to the compound to live. Food pills were edible and non-perishable, but they were not quite food, contrary to the name. But they did serve their purpose to keep the little Jinchuriki alive.

High in fat and meant to provide both a full dose of every nutrient and vitamin necessary to human life, food pills were disgustingly bitter and were made even worse by the fact that one must chew them to swallow them, the pills being so large. They were emergency rations that screwed with the body, being so much packed into so little and so one was not meant to subsist on solely food pills for more than three days, and surely not more than the time he had been eating them. But Gaara, having already lost his sense of taste and sweet, and a body wracked by the ailment of Shukaku, didn't mind.

Gaara placed the round thumb-sized lump of a food pill into his mouth. Of course, if it were up to him, he wouldn't have eaten at all, his appetite gone after Yashamaru's attempted assassination. He had even begun losing weight after Yashamaru's passage. But as a living weapon, he had a purpose that condemned him and kept him alive. Gaara had to live and therefore eat at least the bare minimum. So he ate.

He swallowed the food pill with a gulp. "What do you want?" he rasped when he was done chewing.

The Kazekage moved to sit on the couch, eyeing the amount of dust on it, and the signs of a lack of usage on any of the furniture in the room. "Don't you know your manners to address me properly?"

Both Gaara and Shukaku growled. In Gaara's mind, one could almost see Shukaku's sand body twisting to reach past the bars of his cavern and kill the man who held him captive. Gaara reined Shukaku in, barely.

Gaara stiffly turned his head to look at his father. "What do you want… Father?" he asked again.

The Kazekage's eyes bore into Gaara's. Gaara's bore into his father's. The Kazekage considered his son. Gaara considered killing his father.

"I want you to stop killing the villagers," the Kazekage finally said.

Gaara growled. That was not what he nor Shukaku wanted to do. Not at all.

Stop sending… assassins… after me, then, Gaara mentally countered, Shukaku laughing like a maniac in his mind, thinking both Gaara and the Kazekage were being sarcastic. While the former truly didn't mind either way, the latter certainly was not being sarcastic.

Truthfully, the Kazekage had recently stopped sending assassins after his son, Yashamaru being the last officially sent ANBU assassin. However, the villagers, not all of whom were under the Kazekage's complete control, had other ideas about the boy—especially after the rampage destroyed their homes and livelihoods more than three weeks ago. Those villagers, who went on suicide missions to kill Gaara in foolish attempts of revenge, upon dying, had surviving friends and family members who in turn who ran to the Kazekage and Suna Council pleading for the removal or death of the boy—his boy, whom he had wanted to carve into Suna's perfect savior since his birth.

The Kazekage sighed inwardly. He had thought the test on Gaara would yield good results, and they had—only the villagers and now the Council were now forcing his hand and skewing his plans. Even worse, the Kazekage now also had to worry about the Land of Wind's daimyo getting ear of the mess of his son and applying even more pressure on Suna.

Rather than simply leaving the villagers and his needs for companionship behind like the Kazekage wanted from his son, Gaara had begun attacking the villagers with more zeal after they repeatedly provoked him with their attempts to murder him. The Council worried that just one more minuscule slight for anyone else would start another rampage, a worry also growing in the mind of the Kazekage after seeing his son murder his two ANBU agents by the door. Gaara's growl just then confirmed no verbal communication would resolve the matter of his rampant kills.

The Kazekage removed the hat that established his position—the one trimmed with green and bearing the kanji for "wind" on its front—exposing his hair the red-brown shade of burnt umber. He wanted this to go differently. Wanted his plan to go differently... If only his wife were still alive.

"If you insist on killing the villagers, I have no choice but to send even more assassins as after you," the Kazekage simply said after a moment of thought.

Gaara said nothing in response. The people he killed—none of them meant anything to him. Gaara drew his breath in through his teeth. Rough, ragged gasps. Shukaku writhed within him. To Shukaku, the spilt blood was a reward.

He moved to exit his compound, the place suffocating, as if the Kazekage had said nothing. Gaara thought back to the owl—to the men he had killed before, unintentionally, and then intentionally—and then finally, back to when he was four, allowed to play in the sand with his siblings and showered with as many teddy bears as he desired. The teddy bears, their dead unseeing eyes, how that loneliness with them was not any better and in fact worse than being alone under the moon.* And then those he killed—the life shifting between his fingers, beating away in those eyes, the fire in them dying out.

Stop? Gaara had no intention of stopping, not when he could see those eyes—those eyes that followed him with their hatred after his birth—since his birth—crumble into the sand that gave him power.

"I'm going to be sending you on missions with your siblings, Gaara… Missions away from the village, where you cannot harm the villagers," The Kazekage added when Gaara was almost over the threshold of the door.

Gaara's knuckles were white against the edge of the door frame, trying to interpret what he heard.

"I was the one who gave you that ninjutsu that now gives you your power, Gaara… I can take it away… And if I hear of any harm to your siblings, my children, I will ensure you suffer a fate worse than death."

"Hhhhffffttttt… Hhhhnnnnnnn…" Gaara breathed.

Those eyes. Those apathetic eyes, seeing nothing but tools at their disposal and bones beneath their feet—his father's. Those eyes. Those fearful eyes, those ones with fires that died out under his grasp— the weak. Those eyes. Those eyes. Strong from the sadness and loneliness they'd been forced to endure, looking for something to kill to prove their own worth—his.

No, no he would not stop killing the villagers. No, he would not stop killing the assailants that come after him. They deserved it, for attacking him, for leaving him, for isolating him and leaving him all alone.

But no, he would not kill his siblings, because that would mean his own head on a stick. Because as strong as he was, he was not yet strong enough to kill his father.

"Hhhhffffttttt…" Gaara inhaled, still trying to regain control over his breath, madness dancing in his eyes.

Gaara left the compound to head to the ruined part of Suna, still not repaired from his rampage. The sand blown on the outside patio shifted to his presence as he passed the threshold. He silently begged for an assassin to grace him with their presence as he left, to ease his loneliness and tension and bloodlust from his interaction with his father—if only until their own lives seeped out to the floor.

Author's Note

Sheridan: "I-I never thought there could be anything worse than being all alone in the night."

Delenn: "But there is. Being all alone in a crowd."

(Babylon 5, The Coming of Shadows)

… This is a bit of a dark chapter…

But for those of you who do feel alone, I would like to provide the assurance that you are not and that most tales have happy endings if you see them through to the end or if you find it in yourself to write your own. Because this author does not condone violence when it can be avoided, regardless of to whom said violence is inflicted.

But just in case: Suicide Prevention Hotline (US): 988

(Number edited July 16, 2022)

Temari (approximate time: 7:00 PM)

Baki slipped into a close range again. Temari put her open fan up to block. Too slow. Baki punched it, and Temari was thrown back.

"Oof!"

The wind was thrown from her lungs, sand entering the collar of her shirt, rubbing abrasively with her sweaty back. Baki went for what would be an aerial kill with a kunai. Temari grabbed the rivet of her fan and swung with her entire arm. It was Baki's turn to be thrown back. Baki threw a pair of kunai in retaliation. Temari kicked off the ground and swung her fan again. Too slow again. One of the kunai grazed her shin, drawing blood. The wound stung, but Temari resisted the urge to cry out, as she had always done, with every training wound he had thus far—tears and screams having no benefit on the battlefield other than to make one an easier target.

Temari gritted her teeth but prepared for her next move as if she were not wounded at all. Kankuro had found it in himself to show up to training with his sister. And she was going to use him in her strategy, because there was no way she'd win against her jonin instructor otherwise.

Baki Body Flickered behind her. Temari snapped her giant fan shut and reverse-jabbed with the makeshift club. But Baki moved away a breath of a second before the blow landed.

Still too slow.

Irritation with herself bit at her shoulders. She pulled her fan to completely open—all three purple hoshi exposed. With a pirouette and a 360 degree swing of her fan above her head, the top layer of sand joined the sky to serve as a smokescreen.

Temari took an enhanced chakra jump from her position, sliding her fan underfoot. Placing a foot on the rivet and another on one of the ribs, she let the wind glide her and her fan above the dust. She spotted Kankuro moving to the edge of the dust cloud and into position. She scanned for movement. Only once the dust started to settle did Temari finally find it.

"NOW!" she yelled.

Kankuro pulled his puppet out of the ground where he was positioned with a violent jerk of his hand. Karasu or the Crow, his puppet, wrapped two of its four arms around their sensei. The other two arms detached to reveal poisoned stiletto blades that came out of a compartment in the joint. The blades entered opposing sides of their sensei's body.

Baki-sensei disappeared with a poof of smoke as the clone dispelled.

The real Baki jumped down from the roof of a nearby building. He surveyed his students, who were bedraggled but victorious.

"Good job today," he grunted, "I have a good baseline of your skills and your ability to work together now. We can begin real training tomorrow. And the first thing we're going to work on are your defensive techniques."

The pair nodded, exchanging glances.

"Temari, stop by the shinobi medical department to have them check your leg. I don't poison training blades, but get into the habit of doing so after being injured with one. Some foreign poisons have time delays to them, but a shinobi can detect them and administer an antidote before it's too late."

Temari bit back a small gasp, but Kankuro nodded his head knowingly. If the blade had been poisoned, she would have been dead.

"Dismissed." Baki said, nodding his head and disappearing with yet another plume of smoke.

Kankuro sighed after he left, "Another day, huh."

Temari smirked at him but had her mind elsewhere. She was too slow. Her mid- to long-ranged combat was second to none, but her close-combat? She frowned. She knew what she had to work on tonight before Baki-sensei could comment on it and report to Father.

… (approximate time: 11:00 PM)

Under the dim starlights, Temari began her workout. She ran for kilometers, her fan on her back, a pace even faster than the one she set for the Academy students' training. She repeated her overhead, backhand, and forehand open-fan swings fifty times each, each one faster than the last.

But she was still too slow.

Temari snapped her fan shut and jabbed with it like a club. She twirled it overhead 360 degrees. She kicked, she pivoted, and she blocked an invisible enemy.

Still too slow. Your enemy isn't going to slow down for you! Temari yelled at herself.

She channeled her rage into her strokes, each one becoming a faster flick and an easier swing. She closed her fan suddenly, mid-swing, bringing it to her face to block an imagined blow to her head. Moving faster now, she swung her leg out and opened her fan, using it to block the lower half of her body.

She pulled it out of the ground and with a new feverish energy, she wretched from it from the ground and tossed it while spinning to change her grip into that of a reverse one. Light from the crescent moon glinted on the metal of her fan.

Backjab. Forward swing. BLOCK. Side step. Kick. Backswing. BLOCK. Open fan. Kick. Twist fan. BLOCK.

Temari's body blurred at the speed, but it was still too slow.

Sen and Yome stood at the edge of the training arena, worried.

Temari ran through the close-range combos again.

Come on, she told herself, what'll you do if someone gets into your close range? You can't just sit there. You can't just rely on your long range combat.

Faster and faster Temari moved. High energy, close-combat attacks and defensive moves. Kick. Sidestep. Pivot. Kick. Forward jab. Block. JUMP. Temari skidded over the sand from a backflip. She flicked her fan over the field, a wave of sand rippling from the wind, Temari panting heavily.

I need to go faster.

Temari stood to repeat the sequence. But to Sen and Yome, that flick of a fan didn't even register—Temari moving too fast.