Chapter 58

Katiya : )

It was a slow trudge back to Yashamaru's two-storied house.

She, wanting to curl up under the sheets of her bed, would walk there. And trudge to her room to curl up into a ball under the sheets, not quite wanting to exist outside. She would attempt to sleep, attempting to dream of better realities, only to have a rest plagued with nightmares.

But the heat would quickly make her hot and sweaty. Make it hard to breathe under the covers. And so after a while, of sleeping without rest, she would kick off the covers as if suffocating under the water of her own sweat. And out of bed, she would be made cold quickly from her open window. Leaving her to go to the roof for air.

Just as she felt she was meant to.

As if she were under a genjutsu.

Shikamaru (approximate time: 4:10 PM)

"What a drag…" Shikamaru drawled out loud.

"What?" Naruto asked. "We won!"

"Yeah, but who'd going to clean up this mess and report to Lady Tsunade?!" Shikamaru asked, referring to the giant sand pit they now stood on. "We can't dig out the body with Gaara out and we can't leave the weapons just buried there, you know!"

"This is such a drag…" Shikamaru repeated to himself.

"What, you can't just write the body's location into your report and have someone else dig it out?" Temari asked. "It's just a few meters from here," she said, helping Kankuro lift an unconscious Gaara off the floor.

"I can, but since this was a joint mission, how am I supposed to explain us losing the spoils of war to a jutsu from Suna? Lady Tsunade's probably fine with it, but the Council's going to chew my ass up!"

Temari smirked. "That's your problem, not mine. Though, just for the record, the wind-swords from the enemy we faced are clearly meant for Suna."

"Now hang on—!"

"Oh yeah, and the punk I faced had a sword that used a jutsu similar to our Puppeteer Jutsu. I think that oughta go to Suna too," Kankuro pointed out humorously to Shikamaru's pain.

"Ayy—dontcha mean 'we' faced?" Kiba Inuzuka, the canine unit from Konoha, butted in.

"Yeah, he's right!" "Yeah!" some of the others called out. "We gotta split things evenly!"

Temari grinned, meeting Shikamaru's eyes as she saw the tension of everyone saying something slowly build on him. Temari's smile grew as Shikamaru's exasperation did.

"—Everyone just shut up!" Shikamaru finally called. "We don't even have the weapons in hand to fight over right now!"

Shikamaru massaged the bridge of his nose. "Kiba?"

"Yeah?" Kiba asked.

"Start digging. We'll go from there," Shikamaru said.

Kiba's mouth dropped open, staring at the mounds of sand, his dog letting out a yelp of shock.

Gaara (approximate time: 4:10 PM)

In a dream, Gaara dreamt that the prison bars of what was Lady Chiyo's sealing jutsu weren't between him and Shukaku. And rather than like before, with Shukaku threatening a takeover via his chakra—or like the Playing Possum Jutsu was—with Gaara forced to be in Shukaku's cage as Shukaku took over, it was instead a union in unison. One in which the prison bars weren't necessary, the two working as a true pair, each retaining who they were without one dominating the other.

It had been nice.

Gaara slowly opened his eyes. The battle was over. Matsuri—Matsuri, his student—had been saved.

did yOu rEallY meAn it? Shukaku asked quietly as Gaara came to, referring to Gaara's contentment with his dream.

Gaara bobbed his head as he was lifted up by his siblings.

To have worked alongside Shukaku and have shared chakra without truly losing control and causing the destruction of everything Gaara cared about?

… Yes, Gaara mentally replied. It had been nice in the dream.

Shukaku squirmed before settling his head on his paws silently. Gaara closed his eyes again. It would be the first time Gaara had been able to sleep without Shukaku threatening to take over.

Katiya (time: )

She made her way to the roof, zombie-like, climbing the stairs. Shuffling one foot after another, she was exhausted. Mentally. She threw her weight against the roof door and it banged open. She breathed a sigh after she recentered herself. Her, nearly tumbling out. But looking up at the rooftop, she felt a lurching feeling in her gut. For there was someone there.

Katiya's eyes widened, realizing her defenselessness without being able to use her chakra.

Temari (two days later, approximate time: 10:30 AM)

It was a two day hike back to Konohagakure—the closer of the two shinobi hospital locations between Konoha and Suna as Gaara needed a medical evaluation for the chakra exhaustion he experienced—according to Sakura Haruno, the pink-haired team medic.

The travel time, though, had given Temari plenty of time to reflect.

Her opponent from the Four Celestials—whose twin swords can twist winds into counter currents while amplifying the user's chakra had enigmatically broken off her team en route back to Takumi Village—and managed to cut across and redirect the winds of Temari's attack back to her, knocking her out. Before then, though, Temari had been losing chakra fast, the exchanges of wind-style techniques between the two having cleared the area they were in until it was devoid of the tree life the Land of Fire was known for.

Trying to ensure her summon reached back to Suna for Gaara's sake, Temari had to use one of her newer jutsu.

"Wind Style: Sea Dragon!" she had called moments before being knocked out.

She focused on the sensation she felt afterwards, the familiar feeling of someone's chakra meeting hers from the ground up. Calm and laid back but with a distinct focus, she felt the foreign chakra encircle hers and roll her—rather ungracefully—forwards, a move that caused her to slowly come to.

Shikamaru, she realized as she woke herself up in the hold of a Shadow Possession Jutsu. Shikamaru, she mentally chided herself as she rationalized that it was only because she couldn't use her summon when the battle began that she needed the help of Konohagakure.

She mentally replayed the memory she had of Shikamaru's chakra meeting hers, like the calm coolness of free-flowing night air. She recognized the chakra signature and so hadn't fought it as it enveloped her own. But she remembered from the Chunin Exams the last time she was caught in his jutsu. She wondered if she had fought it again, if he would have let her go again; that calm and relaxed chakra perhaps respectful of her boundaries. The potential respectfulness of free-flowing night air.

Temari shook her head out.

Katiya (approximate time: near noon)

"Who are you?" Katiya had asked as the mass of a person turned round on the rooftop they both stood upon.

Far away and with the sand of Sunagakure floating around, she had been just barely able to make out the makings of the man's black uniform—Puppeteer Corp uniform—where it met the dark ebony of his skin. She had narrowed her eyes. A dark colored ghutra covered his hair, but from his face, she made out a neatly trimmed beard and a war paint design she had never seen before.

Of the puppeteers she had known, most of them favored blocky or jagged designs, and usually in colors of reds or blacks. But the one that was before her was different. His markings were different. White and grey against the ebony of his skin, she saw a rounded line from his forehead down his nose and two crescents circling his eyes. But unlike the crescent markings of Kimimaro under the influence of a curse mark, the puppeteer's markings sang of stability and hope rather than that of a sickness seared into the skin.

It was an asymmetrical design, this puppeteer's. Under his crescent markings on one side, two bars of purple streaks. And over the other crescent, an arc of yellow dots. She had recognized the purple to mean nobility. But the yellow?

"Who are you?" Katiya had repeated, her eyes on the puppeteer's body language.

"My name's Takeo," the puppeteer had replied evenly, "I've been sent here on behalf of my student and one Sabaku no Gaara to watch over you," he said.

Shikamaru (approximate time: 1:00 PM)

So… the body turned out to have disappeared but the equipment was way deeper than how he expected it. And Shikamaru actually had to stay behind in order to supervise the dig-out.

Kiba. Was not happy.

But Temari had stayed behind to negotiate what weapons went to who.

Shikamaru let out a sigh.

Temari had wanted to take the dark trident-like sword for Kankuro and both of the wind swords for Suna, but Shikamaru had managed to negotiate it down to one of the Four Celestials' wind swords and the dark trident-like one while he kept the armor and other sword.

He tried to argue that since Konoha was doing Suna a favor, Konoha should've gotten the sweeter deal, but Temari had had none of it. Shikamaru sighed again, shaking his head out. Women.

"So how was working with Suna, Choji?" Shikamaru asked as they waited in the hospital waiting room for some of their injured teammates to be admitted.

"… Uhh… it went alright," replied Choji while side-eying Kiba and Kankuro.

Shikamaru turned his head to the others.

"I don't wanna talk about it," Kiba replied as his canine ninken, Akamaru, yelped.

"I don't wanna talk about it," Kankuro would later reply to Temari when asked the same question.

For a bunch of veteran village genin and unofficial chunin, all of them wanted to forget the parts where they acted like fresh Academy students. Shikamaru gave his villagemates a quizzical glance but dropped the matter entirely. He supposed the reason why they didn't want to talk about the matter was unimportant considering their victory.

Temari (approximate time: 1:00 PM)

Beside Temari, Ino nursed her dislocated shoulder with ice. Ino looked up from her seat to Temari, who was standing.

"What." Temari said without looking to Ino.

Konoha was closer than Suna so they had taken the two-day journey over. Gaara being chakra-drained, only a shinobi hospital would be able to treat him. Hence their current situation being in a hospital waiting room.

"N-nothing," Ino replied, looking away.

Really, Temari was sure the pain from the shoulder was more psychological than physical, Ino already having been treated by their pink-haired teammate's Mystic Palm Jutsu. Temari let out a scoff. She recognized the other blonde from the time she went to a Konohagakure flower shop. If what Ino wanted to talk about was anything related to what happened then, Temari didn't know how that'd play out.

"... How do you do it?" Ino finally asked after a moment of silence, surprising Temari.

"Do what."

Ino shook her head. "The mission—!" Ino exclaimed. "During the mission, I was just sitting there!"

Temari's lip twitched. "Simple," Temari replied. "I just remember that if I don't do something, the enemy's going to finish me off. Nothing to it," she replied.

Ino frowned, her eyes shocked wide open. It must have been the other blonde's first time getting hurt on a mission.

Temari shook her head exasperatedly in response.

Gaara (approximate time: 9:00 PM)

"It wasn't orders, Gaara… it wasn't…" Gaara remembered Katiya saying to his sand clone.

Gaara had splayed himself flat on his back on top of his hospital bed, the memories of his sand clone replaying in his mind. Shukaku only let him get eight hours of sleep but that was alright with Gaara. He—wanted—to process what Katiya had said to him—his shadow clone. And the heat of battle had hardly been a good time to process it.

"It's true, I received the order… but I could have refused…" Yashamaru had once said. It was close—too close.

"I killed your father, Gaara. And Yashamaru, I knew. I knew he was going to try to kill you and I still let it happen," she had said.

I'm a monster, Gaara's memory paraphrased from Katiya's words.

Gaara exhaled quietly. He was in a bed adjacent to Naruto, similarly hospitalized overnight for chakra exhaustion among other battle injuries. From the sounds of things, behind the privacy curtain between their beds, he was asleep. Thankfully unaware of what was replaying in Gaara's mind. He had once thought similarly for himself—being a demon host. Naruto was the one who taught him that being a Jinchuriki could mean something other than just the unstable weapon everyone treated him as.

"If I didn't kill them, someone else would have. 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?" Katiya had asked.

In Gaara's memory—the sand clone of himself—he—shook his head. The sand clone had been able to exist without feeling Shukaku's tug on his gut but he himself couldn't. Gaara choked back a sob in his physical reality—running his hand across the marking he carved onto his forehead. "It's true, I received the order… but I could have refused," Yashamaru had told him.

"No. You didn't betray me," Gaara replied in his memory. "All the moments you had saved me from myself outweigh that of any one betrayal," he had said.

Gaara sucked in a breath. All the moments Yashamaru had saved him outweighed those of any one betrayal—the betrayal hurt—but it made… it made him who he was and so—

"I already told you, I'm too far—" Katiya had attempted to argue.

"No, you're not," he had replied almost automatically. "And I told you 'I will not give up on my word until my last breath,'" Gaara had verbally countered the Katiya in his memories, "That I will not turn from the people who saved me from myself."

"But I betrayed you," Katiya argued with so much emphasis on the word. "What 'saving' could I possibly have done for you—? What is it in me that you just won't let go?" Katiya had asked, repeating in Gaara's mind.

All of you, Gaara mentally replied in the now. All the moments that we shared—what you mean to me is the worth of all of those moments together—

—he would not trade his life for any other. No matter how any betrayals he'd face.

"So long as you're willing to make up for the harm your betrayal caused, all the moments you had saved me from myself will outweigh the harm your betrayal caused. That's why I won't let you go," he had said to Katiya aloud.

That's why, Gaara thought, breathing; remembering Yashamaru. That's why.

Yashamaru could have refused the order he had, Gaara knew… But someone else would have taken it. So Yashamaru had accepted the order knowing that and tried to control how much pain he inflicted, Gaara realized. And Gaara knew—and had seen—he knew what a guilty conscience would have driven a good person to do.

Gaara exhaled, lightly touching his fingertips to the corners of his eyes.

All the moments Yashamaru had saved him outweighed those of any one betrayal. The betrayal hurt, but it made him who he was and so he would not trade his life for any other. No matter how many betrayals he had to face to become who he was, he thought to himself.

"Let's go eat," Gaara had told the Katiya in his memories, gesturing to the sandwich buns she had set aside for food.

"Let's go eat," Gaara's memory repeated to himself.

Katiya (the next day, noon.)

She cried the first day Gaara's sand clone had taken her out for Land of Waves style sandwiches—what we might recognize as Vietnamese banh mi—but since then, didn't really know how to make herself eat.

"What if I don't want to help save fourteen people?" she wondered aloud as she played with her food.

A small thought in her mind contemplated walking down the seedier districts of Suna, even. Picking a fight. Winning. And killing the people she won against. Just to prove to Gaara that it'd be her choice. Not to change. And that she was as much a monster as everyone wanted her to be.

Suna would kill her for that. But that'd be the point, wouldn't it?

Wouldn't it be best for her to be dead?

"You'll probably be moved to a shinobi prison then," Takeo pointed out logically. "It's a lot less friendly than what you're getting now."

Katiya rubbed her face, allowing her fingers to pull her skin from her eyes downwards, stretching her skin for a brief moment.

"Friends," the Gaara in Katiya's memory stated simply. "All the moments you had saved me from myself outweigh that of any one betrayal," Gaara told her from her memory.

How many misdeeds do I have to do to finally tip the scales? she wondered.

She did—what she thought—was best. Always. For herself—and for the world, she hoped. It was why she headed to Gaara—seeing the look on his face all those years ago combined with his uncontrollable power. She thought to help him… among other reasons.

She was as dangerous as he was, as a shinobi like he was; Gaara.

Katiya's mind quickly flicked to Itachi. Wasn't orchestrating her own death a favor to the greater good of society?

"Isn't that a good thing for Suna?" Katiya asked aloud.

"You said you wanted to die in the name of others' justice… But what about living?" a memory of Gaara asked in response to her thoughts.

"Not really," Takeo replied, there for his noon check-in with her. "Suna would essentially have to rent the cell for you in the prison—not to mention food and clothing," he told Katiya bluntly. "While the death penalty's cheap, no one smart wants to kill a source of information on Otogakure when we know nothing about them," he replied.

Katiya closed her eyes. She knew Takeo was there as a favor to Gaara and Kankuro—but she didn't understand it—why such a man would do something for anyone else.

She always did what she thought was best. For herself—and for her idea of the ideal world. It was why she headed to Gaara—seeing the lonely look on his face all those years ago combined with his uncontrollable power. She had thought to help him… or allow him to kill her. Him, back then, a child and therefore what she envisioned was the most innocently pure view of "justice".

"You said you wanted to die in the name of others' justice… But what about living?" Gaara asked once more in Katiya's mind.

Tears dropped down from between her eyelashes. Katiya wiped them away with the back of her hand, bemused in the knowledge she was crying, quietly bringing a morsel of food into her mouth.