Author's Note
Kabuto intentionally written as creepier than usual.
Chapter 51
Temari* (approximate time: 12:00 PM)
"Oh no, no, no, no—CHOJI!" Shikamaru yelled, picking up the pace as a critically emaciated Choji came into sight. Whom had previously described himself as a big-boned shinobi now laid gaunt.
"What happened? Wasn't Choji—?"
"It's his family hiden," Shikamaru replied in brief. A jutsu that released chakra previously stored the fat cells, some of us might know.
Shikamaru looked up to the tree Choji was propped against. "Oh, man…" He flipped over what looked like a glass medication container before checking for breath and pulse. "Still breathing, that's good. The smoke from the flares should last for about an hour still—standard issue?" he asked, turning towards Temari.
"Yes," she answered curtly. She knew a strategic mind like his churning kilometers per minute wouldn't have time for wishy-washy responses.
She narrowed her eyes and brought her gaze up. There was an arrow carved into the tree. I see, Temari thought. More discreet than flares, the direction markings would have only had significance to trackers or teammates unified under the same directives. But a team leader leaving them so close to a known battle scene would have meant they expected—or hoped—their ally would be in working condition by the end of it.
"That's good… I was banking on the medical team being nearby already and Kankuro should have Kiba covered," Shikamaru went on, "but if they don't show up, do you think you can double back to—"
"—Shikamaru, we'll take it from here," another voice said.
Temari turned her head. The silver-haired jonin from the Chunin Exams and three shinobi in beige medical gear.
"Kakashi-sensei!" Shikamaru exclaimed.
"Flare discharge roughly fifty kilometers due north, another at two hundred, northwest," Kakashi said to the medic team. They had already packed up one Oto-nin corpse from the area for autopsy and all knew the drill, "Think you can handle it?" Kakashi asked rhetorically.
In response, one of the medics—the most senior of them, likely, nodded to the other two for dispatch.
"The Oto-nin we faced appeared to be dead—we managed to get eyes on them… though I didn't know if I needed to do anything with the bodies," Shikamaru told the Konoha sensei.
"That's alright, the medic team can deal with that themselves. Are you hurt?" Kakashi asked Shikamaru.
Shikamaru was about to shake his head before he looked down onto his hand and realized. "It—it's just my finger. I broke it to break out of a genjutsu," he told Kakashi.
"I can't give treatment to the patient here, we've got to head back," the medic-nin said now, referring to Choji. "I don't want to risk worsening his condition by re-saturating a possibly burst chakra network—so I can't immobilize and seal—we'll have to carry."
"I'll—" "I'll do it," Kakashi said over Shikamaru.
Kakashi-sensei gave Shikamaru a look. "You just take it easy, Shikamaru. We'll meet up with you in Konoha, okay?"
"R-right," he responded. Temari gave Shikamaru a look at that, his shoulders sagging with guilt as the medic secured Choji in Kakashi's arms.
Men, Temari thought.
… (approximate time: 3:10 PM)
"No point in making yourself nervous, you know. Don't you remember your psychological training?" Temari asked Shikamaru, his hands in a clasped prayer-like position, flicking his fingers in nervousness as she sat opposite outside of an operating room. "With every mission comes sacrifice," she told him.
It was why shinobi were taught to not show—and oftentimes acted to not have—emotions or friends. To make it less painful should they fall in battle.
"Training and reality are two different things," Shikamaru replied. "I thought I knew about missions—I thought I knew what it meant to be a shinobi. Now after this first mission as a squad leader, only one thing's clear… I'm just not cut out for it."
"Honestly. All of you men with such fragile egos," Temari replied to that, though missing the fact she thought similarly herself, with the Kazekage position. Perhaps she thought herself better, not being so obvious in displaying those thoughts.
"This mission… I thought all I had to do was depend on everybody else. Some leader… I should have done more, but I didn't have the strength. It's all my fault."
Temari bit back a scoff. Psychological training in Konoha was something different if that was what leadership was supposed to mean there. In Suna, leaders like her father would have the strength… but trusting anyone else to get their jobs done was a different story. At least from his perspective.
"What, are you afraid you might get hurt?" she asked. Herself, and Shikamaru.
Shikamaru didn't answer, standing to walk away, crossing by a hallway corner where a voice came out of. She narrowed her eyes. Shikamaru's father, she presumed as the voice went on about boy and girl stuff—and how real men didn't take disrespect from girls, didn't need rescues from girls, weren't cowards like girls...
Least I know where he gets it from.
"From where I'm standing, you're nothing but a coward… You've got a chance to reflect on your mistakes and to learn from them. Use your failures to make yourself a better leader. You won't help your friends by running away. Instead, you should be trying to make yourself stronger, for their sake," Shikamaru's father said, "So the next mission goes perfectly and everyone gets back safely. The choice is simple: you're either a leader or a coward," he went on, "So, which are you?"
Temari paused. Tough love was common in the shinobi world, but skipping over all of the sexist crap, there was actually an interesting message in it. To make yourself stronger for others, she tilted her head upwards, That's a new idea… She supposed Gaara was trying to do that, after meeting the last orange—Naruto Uzumaki—brat… but her? She thought about her siblings. Kankuro. I guess, in a way…
Her thought was cut off as someone strutted into the hallway, leaving the emergency room in a grey kimono-style blouse, wrapped low over the chest. The person let out a breath as she settled down on the same bench Shikamaru had just vacated. Temari tilted her head. Twin blonde pigtails, what would look to us like a normal purple bindi, and without any Kage garb, Temari would not have guessed the woman was Konoha's most recently coronated Hokage, Lady Tsunade—much less a practicing medic-nin—had she not read the public file. Lady Tsunade delivered the message she came out to deliver, that Choji would make a full recovery before thanking the Shikamaru's father, the Nara clan head for their resources.
There was the sound of rapid heel steps running towards the Hokage—another medic-nin, by the message she had for the Hokage. Neji Hyuga's condition had stabilized and apparently Naruto Uzumaki had returned, in serious condition, but alive.
Water droplets of relieved tears hit the floor.
"Hmm," the Hokage hummed before sighing, "Shikamaru, your mission was a failure…" she started before telling him sympathetically, "However, everyone is alive... And that's the most important thing."
"The next time… the mission would go perfectly," Temari heard Shikamaru tell the Hokage.
Temari stood to leave. She'd have wanted privacy, crying like that. "I think Kankuro and Gaara should be back. I'm going to go find them, unless you guys need me here?" She exchanged glances with Lady Tsunade and the other medic, who nodded before bowing and leaving herself.
"Go ahead, Temari. You might want to share them the good news," Shikamaru's father said for his son around the corner of the hallway.
Temari nodded before walking out of the hallway, past the bend Shikamaru was with his father. And out of the corner of her eye, she saw them… hugging. Shikamaru's father met her eyes as she passed. She put a hand around herself as she continued walking away. She had never gotten that when she cried. For all of her own father's tough words.
Kankuro (approximate time: 3:15 PM)
"I've got a body I'll need to check back in with Suna when we get there, but I'm alright," he told Temari. He had already dropped Kiba off for treatment. "You know if Gaara's back yet?"
"No, I was hoping he'd come in with you. Do you think he's alright?"
Kankuro snorted. "I'm pretty sure he would be. Wanna get some air? The roof of the hospital's a pretty good vantage point if you want to try looking for him."
They nodded to each other before heading out.
Gaara (approximate time: 3:15 PM)
"Thank you for bringing me home," Rock Lee said, arriving back at Konoha's border. Gaara nodded to him mutely and Lee bowed to the two border guards, verifying his re-entry into Konoha. Not that most enemies didn't generally sneak around them anyways. One of the guards put their arm around Lee and Body Flickered away in the direction of the hospital.
"Sabaku no Gaara, support mission from Sunagakure, we've got you. Live prisoner, though?" one of the guards asked, "You've got to check that in with the tokubetsu division. It's right—"
Gaara swallowed his sense of—Shukaku's—"That will not be necessary," Gaara replied evenly. "Katiya will be coming with me to Suna."
"Uh? Uhh, nuh-oh, that's not how that works. You've still got to check her in since she's a prisoner of a Konoha-led mission. Only if Konoha decides she's ready to be discharged from the tokubetsu division, you'd have first dibs for Suna's judicial services," the guard told Gaara, misunderstanding why Gaara wanted to bring her back to Suna.
Hhrrrggggh… Gaara narrowed his eyes. "No," Gaara corrected, "She is a rogue-nin formerly from Suna, who yielded to a Suna-nin in battle. She is an ally of Suna, and according to Suna's and Konoha's alliance treaty, shinobi rights granted in one region are carried to the other. She will return with me."
"Still, security liability, being a rogue—" i ThoUght I toLD yoU HuManiTY's A NUISaNCE—! juST— "—nin. If you're planning on being in here for debriefing with the Hokage or getting her to a hospital, you'll need to check in with—" k—! "—tokubetsu."
Gaara sucked in a breath.
Kankuro (approximate time: 3:20 PM)
Kankuro and Temari arrived next to Gaara silently.
"Temari, Kankuro," Gaara said by way of greeting, turning slightly. Kankuro quickly took in the worn-down flak vest of Otogakure and then the firm grip Gaara had on the Oto-nin's hand he held. Notably, the sand that agitatedly swirled around it but Gaara's nonchalance despite.
Gaara turned back to the Konoha-nin. "Even… by shinobi capture law, she goes back to the country of the shinobi that captured her. Unless recaptured by another shinobi village. Those have been the terms of the alliance since its establishment. Either way, she belongs with Suna," Gaara said quietly, his brow furrowed.
Ever since Gaara had gotten back to Suna after the Chunin Exams, he had been more soft spoken, but something told Kankuro… that Gaara was having a hard time avoiding grimacing. Kankuro blinked. The clauses Gaara had mentioned were the same clauses that let Kankuro keep the body of Oto-nin he faced, to give to Suna for analysis. Taking into account the hand-holding…
So an ally, then. And… one… ?
"—Your superior really going to be happy you're making a scene with Sunagakure right after we fixed up our alliance? And risked our butts to support you guys?" Kankuro asked, stowing his thoughts. "If she's a rogue-nin originally from Sunagakure, that makes her Suna's business, even after defecting to Oto."
Kankuro turned his head to give Katiya and Gaara a look. Neither of them refuted the story he just pieced together in the moment.
The guard hesitated.
They just want to keep her for interrogation because she's the only live Oto-nin we've managed to recover.
"What, don't you trust us?" Kankuro asked aloud, lifting his brows to keep his expression light.
"According to Suna's and Konoha's alliance treaty, shinobi rights granted in one region are carried to the other," Gaara reminded the guard, his eyes now boring into him. "Those were the terms of the alliance. Unless Konoha now wishes to object."
To the alliance and to his protection of the Oto-nin. The lower-level guard wouldn't have the authority.
Kankuro turned and raised a brow at Temari. Still think he's not Kazekage material? he mentally asked her with the look.
Temari gave him an uncertain look in return. Kankuro let out a small exhale. He was… proud? of how well Gaara handled the situation and himself… but he supposed Temari would have been justified, to still be skeptical, if she noticed how hard it was for Gaara to keep himself calm.
Gaara* (approximate time: 3:30 PM)
"We were lucky Katiya was the one who came to face us in battle and the other one died when he did," he told Lee. Katiya and Gaara's siblings were outside the exam room, but Gaara had followed Lee to make sure he was alright before a medic would arrive to the room for him. As Gaara needed… time.
Away from… her.
"My sensei has often said to me that a good shinobi always makes his own luck," Rock Lee replied. He put a hand over the temporary bandages he had wrapped around him. "Even if the circumstances were different, I am sure we would have prevailed!"
"That meddlesome mother hen," Gaara breathed.
"Gai-sensei is nothing of the sort!" Rock Lee exclaimed. "Yes, he stepped in, but only that once because I was not yet strong enough," he said, referring to his Chunin Exam battle. "I am very grateful to you for having saved my life, but I warn you: I will not abide anyone speaking ill of my sensei!"
"All the things you could possibly want to kiLL. You took such joY in it before—You wanted to kill this one before. I remember. What's cHanged since then?"
"OthErs who mean a lot to me… KILL… I care more about them than I do myself… I will stop you, even if I have to kill…"
"… So you're another one, aren't you. You have someone in your life who you honor and revere so much that every hurt inflicted onto them is inflicted onto you as well. And the closer they are to you, the greater the pain," Gaara observed. "To feel so strongly for someone that you would fight for them… and die for them… you and Naruto Uzumaki have that in common." Gaara said, pausing as he remembered his fight from earlier.
Somehow… he—it was easier—away from… Katiya.
"However. What if this person you honor and would even die for is not a virtuous person?" Gaara asked.
"Impossible!" Lee replied ardently. "Such a person would not be worthy of honor or respect!" He paused. Then again, it had happened. Calmer, he told Gaara, "My sensei has also once told me that a shinobi should have a strong mind as well as body. A shinobi with a strong mind should always be able to see through deception! If that is so, then this would not have happened!"
Gaara closed his eyes. "You think I don't know that? But wHaT dOeS it MatTeR!? People are all the same…" Katiya repeated in Gaara's mind. Lee's response implied that Katiya didn't have one, a strong mind. And that a strong mind would always find deceptive virtue abhorrent. He remembered Katiya, from before… But how would you know? If a person wasn't virtuous? And what would you do? If everyone around you was not?
The medic knocked on the door and entered. "Gaara, sir, you can go now," the medic said politely.
Gaara bowed his head, reopening his eyes. "Until next time, Gaara!" Rock Lee called as he left.
He closed the door behind him and met his siblings and the Konoha-nin escort that was their compromise in the hallway. Katiya was seated on the floor, her arms draped over her legs, hanging her head. Gaara brushed a hand over his own… head.
"No… but perhaps the companionship of even an evil person is preferable to loneliness," Gaara murmured to himself. He had a buzzing headache, but he knew he would just have to let it pass. He knelt in front of Katiya, grabbing her hand. Sand moved, but Gaara knew it had to move before it could settle. Their eyes met and he pulled her up gently.
Katiya (app… t—time: ko… no. Ha.)
She got stares as they left, the fact that she was holding hands with a Jinchuriki given his performance during the Konoha Chunin Exams. And the sand barrier flaring with their hands' contact. She tried to let it go as they left the village. Just outside Konoha's main doors.
Gaara gave her a look. "What's wrong?" he asked strainedly, not wanting to let go.
She had contemplated running away, to Konoha. Before. But they're right, Konoha. The first thing when I get to Suna is for me to be checked into Torture and Interrogation.
It's only a matter of time… Kill or be killed… kill… or…
"Nothing," she replied, clasping her hands to herself.
Gaara looked at her worriedly, but she moved forwards in the direction of Suna all the same. Uncertain, he did not attempt to re-establish contact after that.
Gaara (approximate time: 5:00 PM)
Katiya was quiet on the road back. It bothered him, just as her avoiding his contact did. Whereas Katiya had returned with him, Sasuke had not returned with Naruto. And in that moment, when Gaara realized it, he knew almost instinctively how it must have felt, for Naruto. Despite the smile Naruto had given Gaara, and the word that he wouldn't give up. But without an answer to the question, Gaara worried for Naruto. How would you know, if a person wasn't virtuous? And what if the person you held precious wasn't?
She and Temari walked ahead, Katiya following placidly behind his sister, eyes on the ground.
"Did Katiya speak with you?" Gaara asked Kankuro, trailing behind and asking about the time he left her with his siblings as he spoke to Lee and Naruto before leaving Konohagakure.
"I only got out that her name was 'Katsu'—I didn't even get how you two met," Kankuro shook his head, talking quietly. Kankuro, having been met with a quiet "I don't know" and silence when he had tried for further conversation.
Gaara bowed his head. Where was home if not the place with an answer to the question: Who will find you, if you ever lost yourself? He did tell her that he would show her, even if she didn't remember.
"So what's the deal with her?" Kankuro asked. "I know it's not like you to hold hands with a stranger." Not one that would still set off his automatic sand barrier, anyways.
"She w—is—my friend," Gaara replied. "She cared for me, with Yashamaru. But she left the day he…" Gaara trailed off.
"It was my fault," Gaara told Kankuro when words came back to him. "I couldn't control Shukaku—"
Kankuro frowned and gave his brother a look. He—Kankuro—didn't know what to say to that. Gaara swallowed thickly, putting a hand on his stomach. "I can't hear or see or feel what you feel... I don't know how to help you." She had—before—Gaara removed the hand over his stomach to touch his forehead—the marking upon it.
"You okay, Gaara?" Kankuro asked uncertainly.
Gaara gave his brother a look. "No," he wanted to reply. "I don't know if I can control Shukaku," Gaara softly replied.
I'm afraid.
"I—eh—you've been controlling him pretty good this far. Maybe you've just got to trust yourself," Kankuro responded as he gave Gaara a hopeful look. "Not rely on Shukaku's power and… I don't know, work on defining yourself away from him."
Not… ? Who I—?
"Ayy! You two coming or what?!" Temari yelled behind herself, interrupting Gaara's thoughts. She and Katiya were roughly seventy meters from him now.
"Yeah, we're coming!" Kankuro called back to her. He checked Gaara over one more time. "You okay?" he asked again.
"Then we can learn to move forwards," Gaara had told Katiya… when she had said she couldn't go back—like he couldn't go back. Gaara gave Kankuro a look. "I think I will be," he replied.
Kabuto (approximate time: 7:30 PM)
Orochimaru tended to only accept willing hosts—that was—he preferred them like one would prefer game strategies. Sure, they made his life easier, rendering the jutsu a greater chance of success and allowed the vessels to last longer—not struggling against him. But there was always that part of him that Kabuto knew enjoyed manipulating the game pieces.
Candles. There had been five of them, not along the walls, but placed atop a shelf in Orochimaru's private chamber. A strand of hair threaded into the wicks of each candle—one from each member of the Sound Five. It could be considered similar to how one could potentially make a "voodoo doll" except the candles were made… willingly. Similarities to a civilian's questionably effective voodoo doll lost on the Oto-nin, beliefs in anything other than Orochimaru strictly curbed. The jutsu placed on them, however, meant in lighting them, and leaving them undisturbed, their light would not burn out until the shinobi tied to them ceased.
It was a simple jutsu.
All of those candles burning out hardly mattered since Sasuke made it to Otogakure largely unharmed.
And so Kabuto returned to his quarters.
Not everything he did was under Orochimaru's orders. There were some cards he kept to himself. And so there was yet another candle upon his desk. He was a game piece too, as was she. He did not know—if he was a game piece manipulated to care. He did not know if he did. Perhaps the jutsu working at all indicated that had he asked, she would have been. Willing. Willingness, a rather subjective item in Oto.
He had to know, though. It was a spymaster's job, wasn't it?
He opened his room door.
Gaara (three days later, approximate time: 3:00 PM)
The moon was waxing.
Gaara held his hands up, taking the lead this time. The sandstorm they were in was a particularly nasty one, but they were in the empty stretch of land between Sunagakure and the last possible resting area at a civilian city outpost. There was nowhere else they could go except forward, having nowhere to shelter.
He felt apprehensive, using his sand like he was. "Not rely on Shukaku's power…" But it was Gaara's sand, and Gaara's chakra. He knew—but having since forgotten—only recently, just re-remembering—which parts were his own will and which parts were Shukaku's. It was a separate voice for him, to him. To him, for him. Shukaku's voice, distinct from his own, except in the small moments when he and Shukaku spoke in unison; otherwise found themselves entrapped in one another.
Gaara breathed deeply, focusing on his—defensive—jutsu. "Defining yourself away from him…" It had been a while since he felt such a strong pull back into Shukaku's deep, dark cavern. But some memories—some memories and some thoughts—spoken by some people—some people in the brightest parts of his mind—kept him turning away.
"The spirit of devoting yourself to someone important and close to you… caring for and protecting…"
They became the reason why he wanted to—
"OnLy a foOL WaLkS in CiRcLes aND ExpeCTs it tO leAD soMePLaCe—"
"There is OnLy One desTiNY we all sHARE eQUaLLy: D—"
—and wanted to become Kazekage—
"—you and your stupid 'destiny' stuff! It may be the Hyuga way to cave into destiny, but it's not mine! … I'll change the future—after I become Hokage!"
—that spirit of love passed down out of love.
If one could remember, a memory perhaps from years ago. A sandstorm just like the one they were in. His sand barrier did not protect anyone except himself. He did not know then—that he was distinct. But they, these—now—were his thoughts. His memories. Not Shukaku's. He knew the apprehension he felt was not his own, Shukaku putting it there. He knew now.
"I'm afraid of what would happen if I weren't there for you."
The fault was not for him to bear alone. Just as it was not his fault for being born with Shukaku and made to be alone, only taught to deal with outbursts of Shukaku's, not how to live with him. It was his fault, only, for thinking it was the same and pushing away the people that could have helped him realize otherwise, in order to make himself be alone. Gaara looked behind himself, meeting the eyes of his brother and seeing his sister's firm guiding grip on his friend's shoulder. That, he would make amends for.
Kabuto (approximate time: 3:00 PM)
Opening his room door, he knew. And that was all he needed to know. She had survived. As if. By plan. He blew the candle out. And a few hours later, the candle would be just an ordinary candle like any other, the biological tissues of hers returning to her body as she slept, as we but only we would know.
But for all intents and purposes, she was to be dead. He did his duties as usual, emptying her room as he did Ryuteki's after joining with his lord in immortal union. It was easier than one might expect—her rooms had been largely empty throughout her stay as she carried much of what she valued on her person. Her rooms were empty, only sans toiletries and gear and the scrolls and books she gathered from the libraries. Stationery and writing utensils. The only personal effect of hers he found was a small ebony figurine. Of a perched crow, one eye closed and one eye painted red.
He had his subordinates deal with the disposal or reallocation of the reappropriated supplies. But the crow, he kept. Out of wonder of what it meant.