Author's Note

Warning for non-linear writing and oodles of flashbacks. I had a psychiatric emergency fairly recently (March 2023) hence the delay and potential change in writing-style. My original intention was to finish by 2025… I'm less certain I'll manage to do that, unfortunately. My apologies.

Chapter 56

Katiya (two weeks later, approximate time: after first meal after waking)

A work contract. Rather than needing to save just fourteen people in life-threatening condition, the number of patients she'd treat in the emergency room of the hospital—divided by the number of people she had worked alongside to treat that person—would make the fractional number of lives she had saved out of the fourteen the Council knew she took from Suna.

She read over the contract and signed it.

A contract that specified a chakra collar prototype. One that she had to wear in addition to suppression bands during her house arrest and over the course of her free labor. Unlike the cuffs that only suppressed the chakra leaving her body, if she were to gather chakra at all, a needle would shoot through the back of her neck to paralyze her.

She read that contract over and signed it as well.

And then there was another contract—one that said she knew she would die if she attempted to leave Suna or kill anyone else in Sunagakure's territory.

"What stops you from killing me anyways?" she wondered out loud as she signed that contract as part of the deal brokered out with Ebizo. "After I tell you everything I know about Lord Orochimaru?"

The councilors in the room turned their heads to Gaara. We, and the councilors in the room, could recall Gaara's warning should they choose to harm her.

"Friends do not want their friends to die," Gaara promptly responded.

Katiya narrowed her eyes. She shook her head, realizing what must have happened—death threats for her safety—as she signed yet another contract that said she understood her information would be shared with Suna's allies.

"—You keep saying that friends care for each other, but if I cared for you, I would have gone back for you," she had argued at one point when Gaara had visited her again, one time out of many. "I'm not a good person, Gaara. Even before we ever met, I was already a killer—what's there worth it to 'care' for?"

"So was I, by the time we met," Gaara replied quietly. "And yet you still found something worth caring for in me."

"You didn't know what you were doing. I chose this. You? You were born a monster so you didn't know," she had told him. "Me, I know what it's like to be pathetic, sickly—what if being a monster is just what I want so I never have to be that way again? We're all monsters in Oto—and they know—you can train a monster to obey, but you can't stop its instinct for blood. Inwards or outwards, that thirst of blood has to go somewhere… locked up in a cage, isn't it natural for it to go inwards?"

"—Listening to it is a choice," Gaara had replied. "Your instinct is there to keep you safe but if it harms you instead, why… ? Why should you listen?"

She rubbed her hand over the part of her mouth that would have been covered by the mask she used to wear. "House arrest." Having no house in Sunagakure, she would be moved into a home of Gaara's provision—Yashamaru's. Gaara signing a contract for that as well. "House arrest." Jailed to a place meant to be her home, what was the difference between that and the jail made for her in Oto?

"You would have liked it in Oto," she had told Gaara at a different point in her memory. "We're all monsters over there. You'd have fit right in, with no need to pretend to be a 'good' person. I'd have brought you there, after the Kazekage died but you tried to kill me before I could do that. Why should I betray his truth for nothing but false promises?"

"You told me yourself, Orochimaru is no different from the common criminal," Gaara replied in her memory. "For all the loyalty you may show him, that he still would harm you."

"You did the same. What makes you any different?" she had asked in response. It was the same question she had asked Itachi. She couldn't remember if she ever got an answer.

"We are friends," Gaara had replied simply. "I do not have many relationships to know how to maintain them well. But friends will care for each other and friends do not harm friends so once knowing I've harmed you, I will not repeat the same action that harmed you again... Can Orochimaru say the same?"

She had replied Orochimaru had saved her and never harmed her at all.

"Then why did you want to harm yourself because of him?" Gaara had asked.

She couldn't answer then and still couldn't answer.

"I'm done signing," she told the councilors aloud. In the present. "I'm ready to finalize things."

One of the ANBU in the room adjusted the seal on one of her cuffs and Katiya began to push a bit of her chakra through each paper with her thumb beside her name. The paper edges shimmered as they absorbed her chakra, her thumb print likewise becoming the papers' shimmering focal point. Written signatures could be faked, thumbs removed. But there were only a few people in existence known to be able to copy chakra signatures.

"A friend would not wish for their friend to experience suffering," Gaara had argued. "Friends would not wish for their friends to die and though you're willing to die for him, would he say the same?" he had asked, referring to Orochimaru.

And her answer had been "no".

Was it that she was jailed to a place meant to be her home? Or was it that she had sought refuge from a place meant to be made into her home?

Gaara (approximate time: 11:20 AM)

"Well then," Ebizo decided, "Shall we get her moved into her new home, then?" Ebizo asked after his colleague left with the paperwork Katiya had signed.

Gaara gave Katiya a look, who shrugged, compiling together all her pile of contract carbon-copies.

…

The fact that mostly everyone fled the area of Yashamaru's house during Shukaku's rampage was an apparent gift to the ANBU (plural) dispatched to guard Katiya so an agreement was readily made to stuff her there. Though, with the labor aspect and being allowed out for grocery shopping and the like, Katiya's house arrest was closer to "village arrest".

"I'd have thought this place would be closer to rubble," Katiya said aloud as she looked around Yashamaru's living room cautiously.

Shukaku… quietly… yowled a question about why the place wasn't rubble. "It was," Gaara informed her out loud. She was the first person Gaara had interacted with in the newly restored neighborhood that wasn't Kankuro. "Kankuro and I fixed it."

Katiya dumped the Oto gear she wore upon intake onto the couch before emptying the singular pocket of her vest and extricating her pouched belt from the pile. "Open these," she said, pulling out a few Storage Scrolls.

Gaara looked them over.

"I got into the habit of carrying everything I needed on my person everywhere after the third place I had to move or something," she explained in a whispered monotone. She couldn't pull the supplies out herself from the Storage Scrolls with the chakra restraints she had.

Gaara began unsealing toiletries and clothing from the scrolls. But he paused after a green-blue bath towel—similar in color though not shade—to a vest she used to wear—poofed out of a scroll. ThAt COLoR—! Gaara recalled the vest she wore when they first met and everything started. Everything… He looked to Katiya, who was still dressed in prison beiges—chakra suppression bands around her wrists in place of handcuffs.

"The vest you used to wear," he started, "What happened to it?"

Katiya bowed her head. "I don't know," she told him. "It probably got bloody when I was on the run. Probably threw it away," she told him.

Gaara's brow furrowed. Still not one known for starting conversation, he looked about the house for something to talk about.

The fridge was a new one, but it was emptied out. The bathroom was there, but Gaara realized it was never stocked with toilet paper. And then he remembered human bodily anatomy. Shukaku got hung up on the memory of Gaara's—his father teaching him about human anatomy when he was four… Blood... Knowing anatomical weaknesses as a shinobi warrior was important to their line of work, Gaara was taught. Gaara remembered the weaknesses of his body being made very apparent to him. But then female anatomy…

Gaara looked to Katiya uncertainly after he pulled himself out of the memory. She had brought her own toilet paper and ate that morning while still imprisoned but he hadn't unsealed any menstruation products. Gaara blinked.

"Mm?" Katiya hummed in question to Gaara's uncertain glance.

Gaara looked to her. "I didn't stock the house to live in yet. There's no food or toilet paper in here. And there's no… menstruation products either. And there's also no pots. Or utensils. Or dishes. They all got cracked or bent during m—Shukaku's—rampage so Kankuro threw them out. I'm sorry," he told her awkwardly, realizing the list of everything that was lacking in the house.

"I don't remember signing anything that prevented me from buying those things, Gaara," she sighed. "Though if you wanted to go buy those things for me, I won't stop you—free labor's not going to go well for the finite money I have."

Gaara nodded, still thinking.

"You paid for electricity, water, and gas at least, right?"

Gaara gave Katiya a look. And then a look to the light switch, which was in its off position. He used his sand to flick the light switch. The lights did not turn on. Gaara gave Katiya another look.

Katiya let out another sigh.

Baki* (one month later, approximate time: 1:00 PM)

Baki made his way to the top of the Council building warily. He had been called there, to the rooftop balcony, for a meeting with a council member.

"We've detected foreign shinobi heading inbound towards Suna. Our sources have indicated they're from Takumi Village," Senior Joseki told Baki as Baki made his presence known. "They're calling themselves the 'Four Celestials'. I've come on behalf of the Council to order you not to intervene when they engage Gaara in battle. They're obviously after the One-Tail as Gaara is Suna's ultimate weapon."

The order gave Baki pause. "If we already know that, then why—?" Baki asked before being cut off.

"—Although powerful, the ultimate weapon posed by Gaara is also a double edged sword. If they destroy each other, they'd be doing us all a favor," Senior Joseki steely replied.

"The least I can do is go with them," Baki stated, trying not to sound like he was attempting to argue a superior.

"No. This is something they must do without you. I have another mission for you that requires your skill," the Council member replied. "A mission scroll will be sent to you within the hour containing a full mission briefing and team arrangement."

"... Understood," Baki replied neutrally.

"The Oto-nin we captured had been… kind enough to yield information about some of Orochimaru's hideouts and the Council decided you could be trusted to investigate them. Carefully," Senior Joseki briefed. "Two other jonin assigned by the Council will be accompanying you, but it's been decided you'd be leading the operation. Considering your luck locating the body of the last Kazekage, we expect this mission to go successfully," the councilor told him.

"Of course… sir," Baki replied.

Though Senior Joseki had said he was delivering orders on behalf of the Council, Baki felt their conversation occurring on the roof of the Council building—away from the watch of anyone else—indicated otherwise. As he left the rooftop meeting with Senior Joseki, Baki made his way down to the mailroom.

Temari (approximate time: 1:00 PM)

"You know, when I said the Council's going to be sending us on a mission soon, this isn't what I expected," Kankuro told his siblings. "Overseeing academy curriculum changes from Konoha, seriously?"

Temari frowned over the paperwork she was reading. Kankuro wasn't known to be fond of kids, but the mission seemed pretty up her alley from her old tutoring assignment. Gaara, on the other hand, looked over the assignment papers neutrally.

"I guess it's better than what we originally had considering how badly Konoha beat us out," Temari replied. "The kunoichi classes though… Make-up class? Flower arrangement? No wonder their kunoichi are so pathetic."

"Okay—the Puppeteer Corp taught me make-up can be pretty important when it comes to passing as a civilian in another village with sensory-nin around," Kankuro countered. "And you never know when you need to poison your neighbor with their flower arrangement, I guess?"

Temari and Gaara both turned to eye him.

"—Maybe not that second part. But I stand by the make-up class. Genjutsu or Transformation Jutsu can be detected by strong sensory-nin and the last thing you need on a spy mission is that."

"I call 'not it' on teaching that one," Temari snapped. "Really, if it's that useful, they should be teaching it to all shinobi—not just kunoichi."

"… Probably right," Kankuro conceded before changing the subject. "So how're we doing this? We giving the Council the heads-up we're not sticking with the curriculum Konoha gave us?"

"Yeah. And recommend changes though I doubt the Council would let Konoha know that," Temari replied. "We'll probably start with weapons today since the instructor says they just finished up basic hand-to-hand combat a few days ago and full combat training needs a weapons course. And then we'll have a break and let them regroup in one of the greenhouses for… poisonous plant identification. Sounds a lot more useful than 'flower arrangement,' anyways."

"Mm, yeah. I don't know how many flowers we could've spared for kids to stuff in their mouths and fool around with otherwise," Kankuro joked.

Baki (approximate time: 1:40 PM)

Intelligence information all had to go through the mailroom for security before being sent to the Council—but for bookkeeping purposes—photocopies would be made. And thankfully his security clearance as a jonin got him as far as he needed to go.

While the orders from the Council stated he wasn't allowed to accompany his students himself and likely would have prevented anyone from Suna taking action—or would have meant his head if he asked for anyone from Suna to take action—the same wouldn't have applied to foreign aid if he were to request it. And given the incoming assailants were from Takumi Village and the encounter with Gaara would be a trap, it was more than likely the assailants would return in the direction they came.

Baki just needed to find the report that read the date the approaching foreign shinobi were reported as heading towards Suna and their distance… And calculate out the time needed for Konoha to be able to get to Gaara and his students in time to provide aid.

…

He had just a few hours before the oncoming adversaries arrived at Suna assuming they didn't speed up. Three days between Konoha and Suna was the rushed jonin travel time between the two villages—five and a half for a rushing genin—but Takumi Village was closer to Konoha than Suna. And it was there he suspected the adversaries would head back to. But he had to get the message out now though for any hope of giving the Konoha team leeway for scouting.

Baki quickly dispatched a war hawk and made sure to watch it as it flew past Suna's border.

Gaara (approximate time: 2:10 PM)

Weapons combat… Temari and his brother both relied on their weapons for safety, to them, the thought of forgoing one akin to forgoing a coat in winter. But to Gaara, having lived the life of a weapon and the harm they could cause, when one of the Academy students balked—nervous at the idea of picking up a weapon when a weapon could spell death—he sympathized. From interacting with Katiya, he understood the mindset—that perhaps if weapons such as them did not exist, so many wouldn't have been harmed.

But if Naruto taught him nothing else, Gaara knew there was something to be said for the people who carried a coat not for the warmth of themselves but for others. Gaara wanted to say so to the student, Matsuri, as we would learn later, nervous at the thought of wielding a weapon. But the words died on his lips. It seemed hypocritical for him to say what he thought, having killed so many. Especially when people saw him, still… as nothing but a killer.

"You can train a monster to obey, but you can't stop its instinct for blood," Katiya told Gaara in a memory from after Ebizo had made his offer to Katiya, from the beginning of when he started to visit her. Shukaku echoed the statement as Gaara replayed the conversation tidbit over in his mind. He didn't know what it was about being with the Academy students, but something brought the memory back to his m—

"Gaara, you should smile more," Temari told Gaara, snapping him back out of his mind after he haltingly failed at trying to communicate to the Academy students he and his siblings were meant to educate. "Don't look so mean or no one's going to be in your group," she told him.

Just thinking of trying to smile brought him the thought of his old blood-thirsty—WhaT's TheRe nOt to SMiLE AbOUT!?—haunts.

"Listening to it is a choice," Gaara had replied to Katiya. In his physical reality, he narrowed his eyes, ignoring Temari. Smiling wouldn't have helped heal the damage he caused.

BuT wHYYy cHoOsE noT to? InsTinCt KEePs yoU SafE! WhaT's TheRe nOt to SMiLE AbOUT!?—CAn'T sTop—WoN'T STOP—thE iNStiNCT FOR—!

"Your instinct is there to keep you safe but if it harms you instead, why… ? Why should you listen? If your instinct tells you to chase away everyone, you'd get lonely. And die from your loneliness all the same... Like the story about the stray dog you told me when I was younger," Gaara had responded to her after countering the same point Shukaku previously made in Gaara's memory.

"… If all I am to you is some kind of dog, I see no difference between that and being one of Orochimaru's pawns. No one cries when a stray dog dies. No one's harmed by the dog's death. Because even if you were to capture it, groom it, say you 'love' it, there's the chance it still might bite if you ever let it out of its cage—and people will always know that."

Back in Gaara's physical reality, the Academy students split up into groups for their weapons training. Cohorts, not formal teams for mission assignments. Gaara silently closed his eyes. From the sound of shuffling footsteps and not-so-subtle whispering, the bulk of the students split themselves between having Temari or Kankuro as a trainer.

"Even if you choose to fight your instinct, nothing changes… You, you were bOrn A monSter, gaAra," she continued, her voice blurring with Shukaku's in Gaara's mind.

"Euthanasia's just the KiND choice for an aNimaL like that," she had told him. "It'd be a wAsTe oF TimE to try and save something that can't be saved—but what does it matter in the end? When a monster's dead, you ceLeBraTe iT! So why can't you—"

"—Excuse me sir, would you please be my sensei?" a voice asked, pulling Gaara out of his mind.

Gaara blinked his eyes open. It was the same student as before. Unlike the others, this student was the one who had been hesitant about using weapons… for fear of harming others. Wearing a pair of steel arm guards—but a skirt that exposed the legs—the shy child brave enough to approach Gaara was something of a contradiction.

"I want to become Kazekage and change my destiny to beyond that of a monster," Gaara had told Katiya. "But how can I become Kazekage, a leader of soldiers and saviors of others when I can't save one person from themselves?" he had asked, paraphrasing a quote he remembered from Naruto.

"If you spend all your time with just one person—there's still a countless number of them that would have died. Letting someone go is just a matter of cutting losses. It's just something you need to learn how to do if you want any hope of being a leader," she had replied.

"—Then I will just have to learn to be a better leader, and you a better healer. I cannot save everyone, but as a shinobi, I will not run from my path. I will not give up on my word until my last breath. And I will not turn from the people who saved me from myself,"* he had replied to her then. Over the course of the Chunin Exams, Neji Hyuga had lost the match he had to Naruto despite his apparent destiny. Gaara himself, born and raised as a weapon, lost his battle to Naruto as well.

In the memory of his, Gaara meaningfully met the eyes of Katiya.

"Are you sure you want that?" Gaara asked quietly to the student in front of him in his physical reality. It was a question if the student was willing to have him as a sensei. If the student was willing to learn, he would teach. If his people were willing to follow, he would lead.

The student, Matsuri, bowed in affirmation.

Author's Note

"I'm not gonna run away and I never go back on my word, that is my nindo! My ninja way!" - Naruto, NARUTO.

Katiya (approximate time: meal making time.)

She started to slice her carrots into thin matchsticks. Gaara had restocked the house supplies she needed. Dishes and cutlery. Food. Her hands were slightly shaky. Electricity and heating were still out but the food she was making didn't need it. It was just that she hadn't cooked in Yashamaru's house since she had left Gaara. Katiya rubbed at her eyes, her eyes burning as she remembered. Gaara had brought her up to the roof to tell her about Yashamaru one time. Staying close to her the whole time as he did.

The roof had been redone, but Gaara had carved beside one portion of it, into the stone: "For Yashamaru". The roof being the place where he died. He meant a lot to Gaara…

But Katiya didn't tell Gaara about the letter she got from Yashamaru when she left him. She—didn't know how to—and she barely remembered what it said. If she were a good person, she'd have cared more about the message Yashamaru left her, she thought, since it concerned both Yashamaru and Gaara—but she didn't remember and burnt it to ash.

"You keep saying that friends care for each other, but if I cared for you, I would have gone back for you. I'm not a good person, Gaara," she had told him.

We're all monsters in Oto, she mentally told him.

The knife in her hands became a kunai as memories grew from her mind like garden weeds she had never sown. She had to put down some of her patients—they had begged for it and—she hadn't had the resources to save them or even ease their pain any other way. She began to shudder—she tossed her knife into the sink, unable to look at it anymore. She plucked the weeds and tossed them away but still they came more and more—the knife became a scalpel—chakra scalpel—her hand had slipped—it was her twentieth patient of the day in need of amputation—she had made the injury worse.

A good person—a normal person—would have been scared—shocked—but no—she just cauterized the wound automatically despite the patient's screams—she rarely had the chakra to use the more effective and less painful Mystic Palm Jutsu—wouldn't a normal person have felt guilt—? She was a monster—a monster—she could have at least tried the Mystic Palm Jutsu—a good person would have tried—but she was too afraid of dying from the chakra drain then, trying to heal a patient she botched up on.

"Katiya—what's wrong?" Gaara—or the sand clone of Gaara that he had left with her—asked muffledly over the sound of her thoughts.

She was a monster. She had more patients to go—she killed more than fourteen. More than fourteen. She didn't remember how many it actually was but it couldn't just be just fourteen. She covered her eyes, trying to pull chakra from them—they burned—so badly. She turned away from the kitchen counter, pulling down to hug her knees. If she cared, she'd have counted.

Gaara had left a sand clone with her—to stay with her—like she did with him—but unlike her clone, his didn't leave her like hers left him.

"You keep saying that friends care for each other, but if I cared for you, I would have gone back for you. I'm not a good person."

Gaara had left a sand clone to stay with her but all she could think about was how half of his chakra was with her, in that clone, when he could need it on his mission—she was a gibbering mess—Gaara shouldn't have been the one caring for her—it was supposed to be there other way around—it—Katiya banged her head against the kitchen counter wall behind her. It hurt, but not enough—not—

The sand from Gaara's clone caught Katiya's head before she could bang it into the counter again. "Katiya—stop—please," he said to her.

Katiya shut her eyes but couldn't stop seeing things in her mind's eye. Even asleep, the things she saw in her mind's eye haunted her dreams. What was death if not it's only escape?

She began to claw at her arms, writhing. Her eyes hurt—so badly—with the weight of tears that wouldn't fall—she couldn't let any chakra out of anywhere or she—she'd—

"Katiya—! What's going on—tell me—please—!" Gaara begged as the things in her mind grew worse.

Katiya let out a gasp. "What—what is death if not it's only escape?" she asked, opening her physical eyes unseeingly.

"—An unknown—!" Gaara replied, his voice breaking through to her mind. "We don't know—if it is an escape!" he exclaimed as he repositioned to have one hand behind her head and the other on her hands, holding them still to stop—anything—rash—

Katiya let out a breath. "You keep saying that friends care for each other, but if I cared for you, I would have gone back for you," she repeated. "I would have gone back…" she choked on the words.

"You did—you did—" Gaara cried, replying. "I was the one who pushed you away—! The first time we saw each other—I was the one who pushed you away—!" he replied.

Katiya didn't reply immediately, her eyes still emptily blank. "But I triggered your automatic sand barrier… It's been reacting because of me."

Gaara let out a breath, repositioning to hold her hands with both of his since she had stopped her head banging. "My automatic sand barrier responds to the intent to harm… isn't your intent to harm yourself just the same?" Gaara asked.

Katiya shook her head, pulling her hand out to rub her face. Finally, she let out a sob and started to cry. "I killed your father, Gaara… and Y-Y-Yashamaru—I knew. I knew he was going to try to kill you and I still let it happen—!" she sobbed. "I'm a killer—" Katiya let in a shuddering breath.

She had only been allowed to kill Gaara's father because of her lord. Her lord.

"I'm one of his soldiers… Gaara. He tells me to jump—and I jump. I belong to Orochimaru… in Oto," she told him. "Oto took me in… became my home… trained me… like I trained them," she said, her voice turning whimsical as she remembered the fight rooms—going from someone who needed Guren's help to win and then the victor each time.

"It wasn't orders, Gaara… it wasn't… Your father, Gaara… when I killed him… Orochimaru let me choose. And I did… Just like all of the people I killed in the name of Otogakure," she told him. Just like all of the people she killed from the "Sound-Hidden Village".

"If I didn't kill them, someone else would have," she told him. "At least if I did it myself… I could… control it… myself. How much… pain. They were in… But in the end, didn't I still betray them… ?" she asked, her eyes blank.

She finally turned to look at Gaara. And she saw… Gaara was crying too.