Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Gaara's Story ❯ "Love" or The Ultimate Betrayal ( Chapter 3 )

Another day, finally over. Another night, to do what I want. Another day, to anticipate tomorrow, Gaara thought, sitting alone on the balcony atop the roof of the Council Hall. He swung his legs slightly.

I don't want to be alone anymore.

He sighed, and stared up at the cold moon rising high above. The stars were just coming out. He covered his face with his small hands. Why me? Why, Father?

Gaara suddenly jumped as he felt the sand appear and shift to cover his back. Protecting me? But why? He turned, the wall of sand moving with him, and saw the assassin.

He was masked. Gaara couldn't see his face. About half a dozen kunai floated in midair before him, supported by his chakra.

Why, Father?

Gaara clambered off the balcony and stood, small and alone, facing the silent assassin. “Who are you?” he demanded, crossing his arms even though his heart was pounding and his mouth was dry. There was no answer from the ninja. “What do you want?” Even if I know full well what you want…

As a response, the nin gestured, using his chakra as a sort of catapult to fling the kunai at Gaara. But of course, the kunai were blocked by the sand. The child scowled. He was angry now. “All right,” he snapped. “If it's a fight you want, it's a fight you'll get!”

Gathering the sand, he sent it at the ninja and flashed a few hand-seals. He scooped up his chakra. “DESERT COFFIN!”

The sand swooped up around the thrashing ninja, wrapping tightly around him and lifting him high into the air. It kept swathing him until only his face could be seen.

Gaara pulled together his remaining chakra, flashing more hand-seals. “D-DESERT FUNERAL!” he screamed, voice breaking. He held out his hand, the fingers crooked into claws, and squeezed it.

The sand expanded, constricting the assassin like a snake squeezes its prey. It crushed all his ribs and half his bones with sickening cracks. Blood spurted everywhere, splashing Gaara. The ninja screamed—and it sounded frighteningly familiar.

“Stop!” Gaara ordered the sand. “I want to see his face as he dies.” The sand loosened its vice-like grip, and the ninja fell soundlessly and limply to the ground. He lay there, breath shallow. He coughed, and Gaara heard blood gurgling in his lungs.

The boy paced over to his would-be killer, and put out a trembling hand to yank away the cloth covering the nin's face. He let it fall to the ground in a sudden wave of shock.

Yoshomaru.

He stared at his uncle in paralysing astonishment. Yoshomaru took a painful breath, and swallowed, then coughed harder. Blood dripped out of one corner of his eye. “Y-your father sent me,” the man whispered. He spat and it was all blood, no saliva. “Why?” Gaara cried. “Why did you do this, Uncle Yoshomaru-san!?” “It was easy,” Yoshomaru snarled weakly. “I never loved you. I always blamed YOU, Gaara, for killing your mother. My sister!” Y-Yoshomaru… “Your father sent me and I went gladly, even joyously. My only regret is not having been able to watch you die.”

Yoshomaru unzipped his vest. Gaara, paralysed by shock and grief, couldn't move fast enough to stop him. There was a ticking noise, and suddenly everything was blinding light, thundering noise and searing heat, and small things flying past him. “YOSHOMARUUUU!” Gaara screamed, huddling on the ground. He was blind, deaf and filled with such grief that if he could have ensured his death he would have flung himself from the balcony that instant.

When he could see again, he was encased in a slowly crumbling, protective globe of rock-hard sand. Yoshomaru's body was nowhere in sight, having exploded with the bombs he'd had underneath his vest.

Gaara sobbed hopelessly, hands pressed to his face. His hands were soaked with his tears, yet they still came. He dug his fingers into his chest where his heart was, and raised his other hand, which shook like a leaf in a gale, before his eyes. It was splashed with Yoshomaru's blood. Y-Yoshomaru!

He had always thought that Sabaku no Yoshomaru was the only creature in the world that had ever loved him for what he was. To now find that was not true nearly broke his spirit. To find that he was not loved, to learn he never would be, shattered his heart like glass.

Yoshomaru…

Gaara wasn't thinking straight anymore. "I never loved you. I always blamed you for killing your mother.”

"I never loved you.”

Gaara gathered the sand around him, smoothing it into a large sheet. How could—Father—Oh, Yoshomaru!

He wrote a single kanji in the sheet of sand: love. He touched his forehead gently, just above his left eye, and told the sand what to do. It responded by whipping up and swirling around his head. For a moment, he couldn't see a thing, not even a speck of light. Then it all rushed in again.

The sand, saturated with Yoshomaru's blood, sliced across his forehead where he'd touched it. There was no physical pain. The Shukkaku saw to that.

Gaara raised his head slowly, face now expressionless and cold, though tears flowed freely down his face. “I will love no one,” he whispered. “On Yoshomaru's body and broken promises and my own blood I shed, I vow I will love no one but myself, from now on and forever!”

Blood from the new tattoo `love' on his forehead merged with the tears from his eyes. They fell together to mix with the sand on the ground.