The cavern's silence was broken only by the pained moans and groans of an emerald-haired woman lying on a flat rock. Flaming sconces illuminated a man with short, white-blond hair standing beside her, his two hands cradling her left, his sharp features wrestling between concern and stoicism with every flicker of the dancing firelight. Grey eyes flitted over to a second woman who was standing at the rock's foot and murmuring to the supine woman to keep pushing.
Her cries increased in volume until they were finally joined by another, this one high-pitched and continuous, a long wail interspersed only by short hitches to breathe. One dark-skinned hand reached out to comfort her child, but a man with the wrinkles of late middle age swooped in and grabbed the babe from the midwife's arms. His hand came up to cradle the thin layer of mint green fuzz on the newborn's head, though the gesture lacked any sort of comfort or care. "Takigakure thanks you for your contribution," he said to the new parents in a flat, stately voice. The father's expression was pinched, tight, every effort going into not reacting; he gave one stiff nod, the firelight glinting off the polished metal of his forehead protector, a sigil of his subservience.
Newborn in his arms, the older male walked into an adjoining cavern, the mother's cries fading with distance while the baby's became more pronounced. Six others watched him approach from their positions around a large stone pedestal, where an elaborate urn decorated with even more complex seals sat. He placed the newborn in a rocky bassinet one of his companions created with a few hand signs, then stepped into the open spot left for him to complete the circle. "Is everybody ready?" He received a chorus of agreements before turning to the woman next to him and giving her a nod. "Then begin."
She gave a return nod, long, vibrant red hair and unlined facial features belying her true age. Her hands moved carefully through a long string of seals, her associates copying every movement. "Hakke no Fūin Shiki!"
Chakra burst from the urn and formed into the specter of a massive, multi-winged insect. It loomed over the bassinet for a brief second before spiraling into the newborn in a hurricane of bright, golden-orange power. Then it was gone, and all that remained were the seven Elders and a wailing baby.
-l-l-l-
It was the middle of the morning, the sun was high and bright, the sky was blue, and Fū was still unhappy.
She'd been in Konoha for weeks, lured by Utakata's promise of being accepted by the Hidden Leaf and the people like them, but everyone that surrounded them seemed to have the same sort of prejudice that the citizens of the Hidden Waterfall had held, seeing her as a…a Jinchūriki rather than as her, an individual. Upset at the apparent deception, she'd been avoiding Utakata's repeated attempts to talk to her – a fairly simple feat for someone with her chakra-sensing capability – and remained in the village to…
Well, she didn't really know. Going back to Taki didn't seem like a real choice, and really, deep inside, she kept hoping that maybe, just maybe, Utakata's words held the truth she wanted them to. After all, his chakra when she'd interrogated him hadn't reflected any deception, so at the very least, the Kiri-nin seemed to believe what he'd told her.
But it was hard for her to believe him when all evidence pointed to the contrary.
Of the other…Jinchūriki…the older redhead's chakra was a mass of boiling, simmering energy. Even with the distance she kept, the heat of his chakra was almost palpable to her senses, as if approaching him, being near his person, would burn her. If it was at all possible, the other Iwa-nin's chakra was even more volatile, a balloon one breath from bursting. Both felt like anger personified, and although one seemed distinctly more contained than the other, neither seemed likely candidates for friendship.
There was a red-haired boy her age, but he felt…desolate, a lone cactus amidst a sea of sand. Even without having seen him in the Hokage's office, Fū knew that this was the Suna-nin she and Utakata had sought; everything about him felt as inhospitable as the desert, vast and empty. She couldn't understand his presence, because where the two Rock shinobi at least felt hot and full-bodied – alive – the Sand shinobi was cold straight through to his core (if he even had one; hollow like a bird's bones, she thought).
It was hard to even think of him as a person, and Fū felt guilty thinking it because she knew what it was like to be judged as something non-human.
But then there was the last boy. Naruto.
She'd studied him the most, his chakra a warm beacon on a cold night, a gentle breeze in the scorching heat of summer. It was fluid, mercurial, shifting with his moods – frustrated, cheery, confused – but there always remained an undercurrent of optimism. Joy. He was happy, genuinely so, nothing like the cheer Fū had to force herself to inject in her voice to feel like maybe today would be different from the last 13 years.
She wanted to meet him, to befriend him, this boy who felt like every good thing in the world, and yet she couldn't, because he was always around someone else, someone who felt so different from him that Fū couldn't fathom how he could stand to be around them for more than a few minutes. And in the precious few instances he was alone, it was because Utakata was too busy looking for her to devote his time to Naruto, and their game of cat-and-mouse prevented any potential interaction.
So she studied him from a distance, imagining what he was like in person and building him up to such a degree that she assumed he couldn't possibly be as great as she thought.
The sound of the door opening and closing drew her attention to the path below, where a man with sandy blond hair was leaving. Fū had noted his chakra a couple of times over the past month, in close proximity to the Suna-nin for an hour at a time; she'd never considered him anything remarkable, another cog in the machine that ran the Hidden Leaf who apparently had some business with the young redhead.
She watched him cross paths with a boy with dark hair held in a spiky, gravity-defying ponytail who was just entering the complex. They exchanged a few words, too far away for her to hear – not that she cared all that much – and then the older man gestured around the corner of the courtyard before they went their separate ways.
Orange eyes followed the new boy as he walked around towards where Naruto was busy exchanging blows with the armored Iwa-nin. His chakra felt…stagnant, like it was a great effort to utilize it, but there was nothing intrinsically negative about it that discouraged her in the same way the other Jinchūriki's did.
Naruto has other friends-ssu?
It was the first time she'd seen him interact with someone who wasn't another Jinchūriki or the white-haired man who'd been in the Hokage's office during their first meeting, and it gave her hope that there were others who were willing to be friends.
Not that she was supposed to go anywhere, but maybe if they came to the compound…
"Awesome! Let's go!"
The cheer in Naruto's voice was infectious, and Fū felt a genuine smile cross her lips for the first time in a while as it floated up to her rooftop perch. She wondered what it was that had gotten him so—
Naruto and the new boy left the complex at a brisk pace, their backs disappearing into the late-morning sun. Fū felt her opportunity to corner the blond without the presence of the other Jinchūriki slipping away. She hopped off the roof and followed their chakra signatures at a distance, keeping her own cloaked from any onlookers – ANBU, probably – prowling the area.
Their team grew one-by-one, adding chakra signatures that felt…comfortable, and wild, and rigid. They felt so different from Naruto, an amalgam of contradictory chakras, that she didn't understand how he could bear to be around them.
Then again, since the blond spent days on end surrounded by the likes of Jinchūriki who felt darker and angrier than any member of the quintet he was now a part of, it seemed likely there was something she didn't understand.
This is my chance…
Their signatures sped off to the north, and Fū continued to follow them at a distance over the Hidden Leaf's great gates and into the surrounding forest. It was easy to keep a couple miles between them and focus on tracking Naruto's bright chakra, an easy lighthouse among his four teammates.
The distance from the village also made the cold, empty chakra following close behind her even more obvious. She stopped on a thick bough and called out, "Why're you following me?"
He stopped on the same branch, as if she'd invited him there, and stared at her with the same emptiness in his pupil-less teal eyes she could feel in his chakra. There was a healthy 10 feet of space between them, though in the middle of their isolation, it felt like hundreds. "I do not trust you."
"I don't trust you," Fū shot back. "You or the rest-ssu! You're all the same! You just feel angry and sad and alone, and you're just okay with that when Utakata told me things would be different!" It seemed like a strange place to vent the feelings she'd been keeping pent up for weeks, but the accusation that she was untrustworthy when the other Jinchūriki felt like great masses of negativity was a slight she apparently could not stand.
"Sad…" he repeated slowly, testing the word, "…alone…" He nodded, head moving up and down like a tilted metronome, keeping time with something only he could hear. "That makes sense."
"Why should it?!" She was shouting now, tears brimming at the corners of her eyes. "We're people, too-ssu! We deserve to be around others and be talked to and loved and not be alone!"
The Suna-nin was silent in the face of her short tirade, and Fū used the back of her hand to wipe away her blurry vision. When she could see clearly again, the redhead was visibly trembling, hands clutching the sides of his head as if in pain. Mumbling fell from his lips, but it was too quiet for her to make out.
His chakra was rolling with emotion, more than she'd ever felt from him, more than she would've thought him capable of, a mixture of self-loathing, fear, pain… Some trauma buried deep within. Fū hesitated before reaching out to him, guilt and concern in the gesture. "Hey, are you okay?" He didn't respond, and the Taki-nin stepped closer, carefully, watching for fluctuations in his chakra with her senses. When she was next to him, an arm's length apart, her outstretched hand fell on his shoulder, the comfort of human touch one she'd never received but always desired.
Wild teal eyes snapped up to stare at her, shock clear despite the terror and madness. If she'd only been watching his face and not his chakra, she would have recoiled, but in the moment where he'd realized she was touching him, his chakra had flickered with a momentary serenity that she'd assumed he could never know. His shallow breaths slowly but steadily became long and deep, the insanity disappearing from his eyes until he was again calm. Empty. "You touched me."
"Yeah, you were kinda freaking out."
"You weren't…afraid," he stated. "Others…nobody touches me. Only Naruto has…" He frowned. "Why?"
Fū cocked her head to the side; this curious, if still distant, version of the redhead was new. Everything was new, she supposed, since she'd been studiously avoiding him and the rest of their associates. "You looked like you needed it."
"You helped me." There was a tinge of some unknown emotion in his voice; Fū wasn't sure she would have noticed it if it wasn't for the fact that his normal timbre was so flat. "Why are you out here?"
"I was following Naruto and his friends. I wanted to meet him, away from everyone else-ssu. They're so—"
There was a sudden spike of chakra in the distance, a presence so foul that it pushed all other thoughts from her mind. Whatever grievances she had reading the chakra of the other demon containers, they didn't carry the weight of evil that this one did. And beneath it, a capsizing ship in a tumultuous storm, was the scared chakra signature of someone else. "I think one of Naruto's friends is in trouble," she said instead.
The Suna-nin's head tilted. "How can you tell?"
"I can feel it."
The boy blinked. "You can…feel things?" He appeared contemplative, musing the apparently rhetorical question. Fū watched him, trying to understand what he was thinking; the emptiness of his chakra did not impress upon her that he was capable of such thought. Yet here he was, silent, calm…
Companionable.
"Take me there."
She blinked. "Eh? Naruto's not there, why would you want to—"
"Friends are important to Naruto. He cares." The boy frowned. "I do not fully understand, but…Naruto says we are friends. And he promises to help his friends. He does not like to see them hurt." He turned to stare at the Taki-nin, expression unreadable. "I am indebted to him. So I will help his friends."
"…Okay," Fū agreed unsurely, drawing out the word. She gestured in the direction of the overwhelming chakra, and they took off at a clipped pace. Orange eyes flickered toward her companion at irregular intervals, analyzing him.
He seemed different than she thought, given the feel of his chakra. Yes, his manner of speech was empty, stagnant with indifference at times, but he apparently could feel things, small moments of emotion spliced among the emptiness. And they were strong, too – loyalty, fear, even some semblance of morality.
It didn't mesh with what her senses told her, which was how she'd seen…well, everything. Her worldview was based on judging people from a distance because there'd never really been anyone willing to get close. People were how they felt, their chakra, the one thing that defined their essence so clearly she could read it like a book.
And now it felt like she had dyslexia, the world flipped on its axis, because this boy (at the very least) was different from what his chakra said.
She'd always assumed that finding friends would be easy because it would show in their chakra. They would be bright and engaging and happy, like Naruto. But no one ever felt that way…or at least, they never felt that way when she was nearby.
Am I wrong about him? About everyone?
Fū was drawn from her musing by a massive surge of chakra, and then a brown-haired boy wearing a green, short-sleeved top and a white scarf appeared seemingly from nowhere, his form quickly growing until he dwarfed the Land of Fire's impressive treetops. She gaped in surprise, the boy's coarse voice shouting, "Chō Baika no Jutsu!"
They were so close to him and he was so large that it was clear as day when his small, dark eyes widened in shock, and a deeper, rough voice called out, "Shōgekishō!" Fū froze in her tracks, an even darker wave of chakra than the previous washing over her, its source far too close for comfort. Whatever technique the green-shirted boy was using ended, his form shrinking down to normal size and disappearing beyond their sight.
Her companion seemed undeterred by the foul chakra, his pace unhindered by its presence, and Fū forced herself to follow him into an area completely void of foliage. At its center laid the brown-haired boy, and standing over him was the epitome of a demon, the clear source of the energy that was sending shivers down her spine: mottled umber skin pebbled with sporadic warts, long orange hair with a strong widow's peak, pinpricks of gold peering out of pitch-black sclera… He raised an open palm and brought it down upon the supine boy—
A block of sand a foot thick interposed itself between the two combatants, silica spraying outwards as the sheer force of the blow demolished it. All eyes turned to the Suna-nin, whose hand was extended towards the fighting pair. "You will not harm him," the redhead intoned gravely.
"More scum come to save you?" The demonic-looking male turned his attention to the two Jinchūriki. "Maybe you'll be able to sate my hunger better than this useless fatass."
The Sand shinobi's fingers twitched, and the surrounded silica condensed into a multitude of shuriken that converged on their enemy. Umber arms came up to shield their bearer's face, a gruff scoff escaping him. "Is that all? Pathetic."
Orange eyes flitted over to catch her companion's small frown. Then the demonic male was rushing him, footsteps like thunder, and the gourd on the redhead's back disintegrated into individual particles. One open palm was thrust forward toward the smaller boy. "Hōshō!"
A compact shield of sand formed in front of the Suna-nin's face, exploding in every direction as the Crumbling Palm blew through it. The boy staggered backwards, and Fū used their enemy's distraction to rush toward Naruto's fallen friend. He looked too stocky for her to pick up, so she knelt at his side and met his wide-eyed stare. "Who're you?" he croaked.
"The name's Fū." The cheer in her introduction felt even more forced than usual, the clashing chakras behind her a palpable weight unbalancing her emotional equilibrium. She could see him tense, his left hand gripping a rectangular case with a red-colored sphere the size of a dango ball inside it, and realized that her answer gave very little context to someone who had just been on the verge of dying. "We're here to help."
"Who—"
"Can you move?" she interjected, pitch a little high. A quick glance in the direction of the fight showed the Suna-nin stiffly defending against a series of heavy blows the umber-skinned male was raining down on him, and every step seemed to bring them closer to her. Not good. The feel of the demonic shinobi's chakra was overwhelming in its intensity, and Fū found that the closer they got, the harder it was to keep her wits about her. The boy beside her nodded, though he grimaced while leveraging himself into a sitting position. She grabbed his arm to help, urging, "C'mon c'mon c'mon," when it felt like he wasn't moving nearly fast enough.
She slung his arm over her shoulders and turned around just as the Suna-nin slid to a halt in front of her, arms crossed in a block. Orange eyes locked onto the demonic form hulking before them, too-white teeth bared in a smirk. "Well, that was more of a morsel than the fatass, but now it's time to end this." He placed his hands on the ground and pulled up an oblong chunk of earth dozens of times longer than he was tall. "Doton: Doryō—"
One pale hand stretched outward. "Suna Hoko!"
A short, thin spear formed from sand buried itself in the demonic shinobi's throat, cutting off his ninjutsu in a spray of blood. The foul chakra immediately began to dissipate, umber skin fading to fleshtone, orange hair thinning to a short mohawk and small tufts above his ears.
It was likely the lack of overwhelming chakra, but it suddenly seemed like things were normal, their enemy a boring, awkward-looking human rather than some sort of hellish creature. His form disappeared beneath the crushing mass of whatever Earth Release technique he'd started to use, clouds of dust billowing towards the three Genin. The Konona-nin at her side let out a breathy 'whoa', and Fū found herself nodding in agreement.
The Sand shinobi turned towards them. His teal eyes retained their hollow gaze, and blood speckled his face; he seemed unperturbed by the mess, though Fū thought it made him appear even more like the sociopathic serial killer his chakra suggested he was. She waited for him to say something, but he appeared frozen in the moment, unmoving, as if trying to come to terms with what had happened.
When he finally moved, the motion was rigid, and it was simply to reach into his pocket and pull out a small gem, red as the blood on his face. It sat in the palm of his hand, and he stared at it for a long time, transfixed, as sand particles coalesced back into the shape of a gourd. When it had reformed, he blinked and met the gazes of the pair watching him. "Is there more?"
Fū blinked back. "Huh?"
The Leaf Genin at her side apparently understand what he was asking, for he said, "Three more. Oto-nin. They've got Sasuke."
"Uchiha Sasuke?" Her companion sounded almost curious. He appeared pensive when the brown-haired boy nodded in confirmation. "He is strong. Like Naruto." He turned to glance at the giant clod of earth that marked his opponent's grave. "They all are," he muttered, and then, in a more decisive monotone, "we must go."
Fū nodded, slipping out from under the chubby boy and shooting him an apologetic glance when he stumbled. After a moment of focus, she found another set of chakras to the north, taking off after them with the second demon container on her tail, leaving Naruto's friend spluttering behind them.
He seemed content to travel in silence, but Fū found herself more and more curious about the discrepancies between his chakra and his actions. "You did good against that guy."
"…Han's training…has been effective. I did not expect…" he trailed off, the thought lost to the wind whistling through their hair. "Naruto told me there would be those who could help me…help me become strong like him. I did not believe him, but…I was wrong. It is not the first time."
The Sand shinobi's dry monotone was a suitable distraction from another spike of evil chakra in the approaching distance. It seemed a fair assumption at this point that the three enemies Naruto and his friends were chasing all had a supply of malevolent chakra they could access. "What have you learned from Han?" she asked, even as she picked up her pace. That was probably the name of the armored giant whose chakra felt like it was barely contained, always on the verge of exploding; she'd felt their signatures in close proximity to each other countless times over the past several weeks.
"Taijutsu."
"Taijutsu?" Fū repeated when her companion did not elaborate. "But…that's like a cornerstone of being a shinobi-ssu! How'd you get here without knowing taijutsu?" The idea that someone who'd just defended them against a physical behemoth had to learn taijutsu was…baffling.
"Han says the same. It was not necessary before. Now, I accept whatever help I am given. Although," he mused, sounding strangely pensive, "I am…not proficient."
"But you held your own."
"Han says it is best to play to one's strength. The only strength I have ever known is my sand."
"So…" she said, the single syllable drawn out with her musing, "you learned to make weapons? Could you not do that before?"
"It had not occurred to me. Crushing…squeezing the life from others…that validated my existence."
Fū glanced backwards, studying him. The redhead's voice had broken out of its usual monotone and reflected a sort of…nostalgia, his chakra flickering uncomfortably, desire echoing in the void. He opened his hand again, staring at the gem within, and after several seconds the feeling in his chakra disappeared. "What is that?"
"A garnet," came the flat response. "Because of its coloring, it was named for the seeds of the pomegranate fruit. Shamans have historically used it to expunge toxins and purify the body, usually by increasing the ways chakra flows through the body. Some cultures believe that it is a natural remedy to heighten sensitivity, desire, and libido during sexual activity, and may deepen romantic connections."
"I…see." She almost regretted asking, the conversation a little too awkward, but the silence felt even more uncomfortable, and so she continued, "And does it, uh, help you…with that?"
"I doubt any of that is true," the Suna-nin refuted without affectation. "It is a composite stone of alkaline earth and transition metals, silica, and oxygen, and has no mechanism of absorption into the human body with which to diffuse any sort of medicinal properties. People are fools. They believe in things which are demonstrably untrue."
"People want to hope?" Fū offered unsurely. She knew she'd hoped – often foolishly – all too frequently. "If you don't believe it, why do you know all that stuff?"
"The library has a great many books. One indicated that garnets have been considered protective talismans against negative energy. I can…" he paused, the silence filled with his careful thought, "understand, in some respects, how some might believe that. Rōshi gave me this one to center myself, and if I focus on it, it is…easier to think. When I told Inoichi that, he called it a talisman. It reminds me of my purpose…that I have value. …Perhaps I am also a fool."
Fū remained quiet at those admissions. Despite everything, she'd lived her life knowing what her purpose was. Takigakure's Elders had made it abundantly clear that her one job was to protect the village. Memorize the chakras of its citizens, monitor for any potential intruders, anyone with poor intentions, and intercept them. They didn't care about commending her for what she did, that she was unappreciated despite the drudgery of her assignment, slandered with the title 'Jinchūriki'; her duty, designated by those in charge, came first.
But to live each day having to reassure herself that her life meant something…even at her lowest, she'd never questioned why she was alive, merely why she was treated so poorly. She knew the effect, but not the cause…and the Suna-nin seemed to know the cause, but not the effect.
Except…she did know the cause, didn't she? Takigakure's Elders had told her she contained the Nanabi, even if they'd never explained what that meant. Utakata, for however upset she was with him now, had made it pretty clear that the people like them, the…Jinchūriki…were almost universally reviled across the lands, hated for something beyond their control. They kept the Bijū, entities of chakra given demonic form, at bay, and yet were treated like the embodiment of their prisoners. Knowing that probably explained…a lot about why her red-haired companion was the way he was.
Orange eyes hardened at the realization. If people wanted to treat her like a demon, then she would oblige and hide no longer. After all, there was no way the chakra the Oto-nin were using could make them more demonic than being the host of the Seven-Tails.
She wouldn't be afraid any more.
The second wave of foul chakra that erupted nearby nearly shattered her new resolve, but she dulled her heightened sensory perception and instead flipped through seals as a break in the trees became apparent, chanting an internal mantra that she was scarier than they were. The whistle of a projectile traveling at high speed was drowned out by her shouting, "Fūton: Daitoppa!"
A great buffet of wind ripped through the surrounding trees in the direction she'd last sensed the evil chakra, leaves falling around the pair as they arrived in a small clearing littered with what appeared to be spiderwebs. Next to them was a boy with long dark hair that felt straight to mid-back, his beige short-sleeved shirt and fair skin riddled with dirt, blood, cuts. He adopted a defensive posture at their presence, white eyes not all that different from her own wincing with the motion. She could just barely see the outline of a pupil dart to her side, focusing on her companion. "Sabaku no Gaara," he stated, timbre a stately baritone at odds with his current condition, "how unexpected."
Fū shot the redhead – Gaara, she told herself, committing his name to memory – a glance. "You know this guy?"
Gaara shook his head. "There are not many who capture my attention."
The dark-haired boy snorted. "I feel I should be insulted, but I admit that I'm more curious why you're here."
"So, two new players have joined the game, eh?" Three pairs of eyes turned in the direction of the low, echoey rasp, and Fū's widened with horror at the site before her: a male shinobi with brown skin darker than her own, his six arms sporting curved spikes and black wristbands. Two more horns protruded from his forehead and further accented his inhuman features, including a third eye in the center of his forehead, giving him the appearance of an oni. Grey hair fanned out from the back of his head, messy, bushy, and a golden bow longer than he was tall was slung over one shoulder. "No matter." The white-eyed boy charged at the Oto-nin with an open palm, but the demonic-looking male merely brought his bow around to slap the strike away. "Hah! Gotta level up more before you think to take me on!"
"How 'bout me then?"
The Oto-nin's beady eyes shifted to Fū. A chill crept down her spine at the glance, and she fought the urge to look away. He spat out a series of small net-like projectiles that looked like they were made of the same webbing material that blanketed the ground, and Fū could sense the chakra of both boys beside her surge to retaliate.
She quickly inhaled and then exhaled, chakra-enhanced air sending the incoming webbing back in the direction it came. Her opponent dodged, jumping backwards into the surrounding trees with a cackle. "Not bad! Let's see how you do in round two!"
Fū tracked his movements with her senses, focusing on the fluctuations in his chakra rather than the inherently foul nature of it. The white-eyed boy pointed to her 8 o'clock and said, "He's—"
"I know," she interrupted with a calmness that surprised her. She unleashed another blast of wind in the direction he'd pointed, and leaves rained down around them.
She could feel his chakra ripple with a reflection of his annoyance at her interjection. As if to prove his worth, he added, "He has strong analytical abilities and likes to set traps that focus on overwhelming the opponent from all directions. He can also secrete a liquid metal from his pores which solidifies into a form of armor that can block chakra and resist physical attacks."
"Then I guess we don't give him that opportunity," Fū replied. She leaped in the direction she could feel the enemy's chakra, twisting in midair and using the Wind Release: Violent Wind Palm technique to repel the multitude of L-shaped golden projectiles that had been flung at her. When her rotational momentum ended, the green-haired girl expelled a strong, continuous stream of air from her mouth that blasted her even higher as a golden arrow whistled through the spot she'd just occupied. Another stream of wind pushed from her palms propelled her towards the oni-looking shinobi. Wind circled around her fist as she crashed through the branches with enough speed to see the Oto-nin's beady eyes widen in surprise. "Fūton: Senpūken!"
Dark hands grabbed her elbows, stopping the Whirlwind Fist a foot away from its target. The multi-armed shinobi let out an amused laugh. "A valiant effort by the new player, and yet completely futile!" He opened his mouth wide, a spike of gold forming within his maw. One free arm reached up to grab it. "And now it's game—"
"Fūton: Senpūashi!"
The Oto-nin's proclamation died with a rattling gasp as her foot met his stomach, the Whirlwind Foot sending blood and entrails rupturing out his back. Like the male Gaara had killed, the foul chakra and demonic appearance of the Sound shinobi disappeared with his death, leaving only the dark hair and eyes of a six-armed teenager. His grasp on her relaxed as the corpse fell backwards off the tree bough, her feet finding purchasing on his chest as gravity brought them down. The body hit the ground with a boneless thud, Fū hopping off and landing daintily in front of the two boys. She let out a breath she didn't know she'd been holding, a sudden calm pervading her body. I did it…
"That was…impressive," allowed the white-eyed boy, his tone even despite the acknowledgment.
Fū nodded at him, a sudden shyness sticking her tongue to the roof of her mouth. It had been a long time since she'd gotten a compliment, even one as toneless as the boy's, but she'd never before had a problem speaking her mind.
Then again, maybe that was the old Fū, the Fū who had stayed in the Hidden Waterfall and made no friends despite every attempt to do so. But now…now she was Fū, the container of a Bijū – a…Jinchūriki… she admitted reluctantly – and that person was a stranger to her.
An identity crisis, she realized, or perhaps more of an identity acceptance, a person she'd always been but hadn't wanted to be.
Gaara's monotone broke through her reverie. "There are still more enemies."
"Right." It took only a moment to focus and locate the multiple chakra signatures heading north, and with a nod to the redhead, they took off again, leaving the white-eyed boy behind before he could offer any additional commentary. His chakra seemed to flicker uncertainly for a moment before departing to the south, back where they'd come from. Contemplative, she watched her companion as they traveled. Gaara seemed to have accepted who he was, what he was – his name even meant 'self-loving demon', which felt…a little on the nose – so perhaps he had some insight? "Hey, Gaara, what…um…" The question faltered in its escape, its very essence one of impropriety. What way was there to ask someone what it was like to be a demon?
"You are quite strong," the Suna-nin noted in the void she'd left. He seemed indifferent – or oblivious – to her internal struggle. "I think…after this, I would like to fight you."
"You would?" The idea that someone, especially someone her age, would want to interact with her in any context was almost foreign. Her teachers' chakras had all felt reticent, reluctant to be near, though they'd done the duties assigned to them by Takigakure's Elders without complaint, making her a capable tool to be used for the village's benefit. The lack of a proper team, of the ability to be a child at a time when all she'd wanted was an ounce of companionship, had birthed her goal to make friends. At least one. Though that had gone nowhere…
"Mm. It would please—" and then he cut himself off with a rasping gurgle, one hand coming up to clutch the left side of his face. A hoarse 'no' escaped him, and Fū watched, concern written on her face, as the redhead fought to get his ragged breathing under control. When it evened out once more, he muttered a tired apology to the Taki-nin. "There is still work to be done," he murmured.
Fū swallowed, unnerved by how her companion's chakra had roiled with a tumult of negativity, but not scared like she would have expected. Perhaps she was growing used to the waffling emotions buried within the void of emptiness. "What work?"
"To be someone different. Better. It is…difficult to change all I have known."
"What are you trying to change?"
She glanced back to find teal eyes that seemed to stare through her. "Everything." When he seemed unwilling to elaborate, Fū allowed the thread to drop, disappointment flooding her veins; she was sure he had been a hair's breadth away from touching on the topic she couldn't bring up herself, but the distance in his gaze forestalled any questions she might have wanted to ask. "You are like me," he said suddenly, jolting the green-haired girl from her mood. "Like us. A demon," he clarified, as if the point hadn't been clear. Fū swallowed thickly, mouth dry and voice gone at the abrupt continuation, unable to even answer before the redhead continued, "But…no, you do not bear the same hatred."
"Hatred?" she echoed, pulling the snaggle of thread offered. She slowed down enough so that the redhead was only half a jump behind her.
"Hatred is…comforting, especially when you are alone. There is no purpose in solitude, except if you create one. With hatred, that purpose becomes a quest to seek out the strong and destroy them, because they are the only threat to your existence. Everything else is meaningless. The ideas you speak of…care…love…" he spoke the last word so quietly Fū could barely hear it, his attention fixated again on the palm of his hand, on his talisman, "they are foreign.
"Once," he continued, "I thought I understood. I was told that, even though my mother died during my birth, she loved me. But there was no proof. It is…intangible, a measure of belief. My father, the Kazekage…as a child, he spoiled me to placate the demon, but what meager affection that offered turned to fear, and then to hate. Others' hate caused me pain…pain which could not be seen or healed, and which grew into my own hatred. Others were not meant to exist alongside me because I was not meant to exist, and so I sought to end them." The redhead's voice had slowly become more pitched throughout his diatribe, and he paused after the last word, seeming to have come to the crescendo of his own fervor. Fū could feel his chakra whirling rapidly, but with several deep breaths, he seemed to calm himself back down. "Han and Rōshi…they are strong, and alone, like me, but…Inoichi says correlation is not always causation. I believe he means that being alone did not make them strong. Utakata and Naruto are also strong, and they fight on behalf of others, so there may be merit to that, but…" he frowned, "it is difficult to ascertain the truth."
"Don't you think we deserve love?" Her voice was quiet with hesitation; after that revelation, she felt like she understood Gaara, at least a little, and her question was a dagger poised to slit their détente. He had never really answered her when she'd asked at the beginning of their journey, but maybe he would now.
"…We have value," he said after several moments, "I am told, so it could be that we are deserving of something. What that is, I do not know. I…am not confident I can believe in something so nebulous."
"I've spent my whole life trying to find someone who'll see me for who I am," Fū shared, "and nothing ever came of it. My mother…" she swallowed around the sudden dryness in her mouth, the truth of her heritage an acrid taste, "she gave me up when I was born. When I was four, I found her. Her chakra felt like…home. I went up to her and she pretended I didn't exist-ssu." Emotion was constricting her voice, but she held back any other signs of emotional distress; she'd shed enough tears over her life in the Hidden Waterfall. "I didn't understand, so I just watched her after that. Sometimes she was alone, sometimes she was with my father. They seemed so happy…without me. And whenever they saw me, their chakra changed. Fear, anxiety…I was their daughter and they didn't want anything to do with me-ssu.
"So I was raised by shinobi who were indifferent to me at the best of times because the people who should've cared didn't. And it sucked. But the worst part was that no one cared about me, they only cared about what I could do. Utakata told me that there were people who would understand me, who would like me, but no one feels like they care. It's just like my parents." She glanced at the redhead. "Aren't you tired of being treated like we don't mean anything?"
Teal eyes stared at her. Gaara's gaze was weighty, carrying an intensity that made her feel like he'd absorbed everything she'd said because she deserved his attention. Finally, he intoned, "I am not sure I know how to be treated any differently."
The fragility of the Sand shinobi's admittance was broken by a sudden explosion up ahead. It sent their shared stories spinning into the surrounding trees like shards of glass, and Fū forced herself to concentrate on the multitude of nearby chakras. Two – no, three – were falling away, like they'd been thrown in a deep hole, and three others, including Naruto, were directly ahead, with a fourth quickly closing in from the north. "Keep going forward and you'll run into Naruto."
"Are you not coming?"
There was no change in his outward appearance or his chakra, but Fū almost thought he sounded…concerned. She shook her head. Because her purpose had always been to know how people felt, she'd always assumed that someone's chakra was representative of who they were as a person. But the Suna-nin was clearly more than he seemed, even if it was buried deep within, and she'd allowed her innate ability to poison her perspective. Now, after everything they'd shared, it seemed more and more obvious that she'd misjudged him, that they had more in common than she would have ever expected. "There's another one. The goal is to save Naruto's friends, right-ssu?"
"Mm."
"I'll find you after." She stopped suddenly on a branch, ready to change directions, and Gaara stopped beside her, expression blank but clearly curious. "Do you…after this is all over, do you want to be friends?" Her voice was small, but she forced herself to keep it steady and maintain eye contact.
"You…wish to be friends?" The redhead's surprise was reflected in the widening of his eyes and the slight hitch in his raspy voice. In his shoes, she thought she probably would have felt the same. "With me?"
"We deserve someone who cares," Fū asserted, "why not be each other's?"
Gaara nodded slowly, apparently finding the logic in her argument. "I…would like that. And when we return, you can meet Naruto. I think he will be…happy, to know you."
Fū smiled brightly, an emotion she hadn't felt since leaving the Hidden Waterfall filling her up. "Can't wait-ssu."
Gaara gave her another nod and then jumped out of sight, heading in the direction she'd given him. The Taki-nin watched him disappear and then headed east, following the path of the fallen chakra signatures and leaping out over the ravine that had swallowed them whole.