Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ I'll Fight For You ❯ The Darkness Within ( Chapter 16 )

I don't own anything but my ideas.

 

The Darkness Within

 

“So are we done?”

 

“Yes! For the eighteenth time Kankuro, we are done!”

 

“Awesome.” Kankuro rubbed his hands together. “And we don't need to start back until later, right?”

 

“They don't need us home until late tonight, they said we have all day to try and settle this thing between the villages. It was lucky Tsunade was so agreeable because of you being best friends with Naruto, it only took an hour.” Temari smiled craftily. “Now we have the rest of the day all to ourselves in the Konoha market.”

 

“…I'm… going to go look at those kunai on sale over there…” Kankuro said slowly, walking over to a group of girls sitting at a small table in front of a café.

 

“…And I'm going to look at the shops over here.” Temari said, heading off in the opposite direction for a boy window browsing for god knows what.

 

Gaara blinked, his eyes shifting left and right to where Kankuro and Temari had disappeared.

 

Right as it started to rain.

 

Downpour.

 

There was a miniature freaking monsoon falling from the sky.

 

Buckets were deluging from the sky and raining down on Gaara's head. Slowly his eyes blue eyes drifted upwards to stare at the sky before drifting back to the road in front of him.

 

People were pulling out umbrellas or running into shops as they pulled their coats over their heads, having been prepared since this morning because of the threatening skies, but the weather in Suna had been perfect, none of the sand siblings had brought anything to save them from the rain along. Gaara probably wouldn't have bothered taking it out anyway even if he had, and not three short minutes later he was soaked through the skin and clean through to the bone. His brick red hair and clothes were already a shade darker he was so wet.

 

When all of a sudden the rain stopped falling above him.

 

His eyes snapped to the side to meet with a white shirt. His eyes flicked up to look into the pearl grey eyes of Neji Hyuuga, who was holding an umbrella over his head. (Note: Neji is actually about four inches taller than Gaara)

 

“What are you doing?” Gaara said stiffly.

 

“Keeping you from getting drenched.” Neji returned easily. Gaara's eyes narrowed.

 

“Do you want to be carrying around a gourd full of mud?”

 

Gaara's eyes flicked back to the road.

 

“I heard you were coming with Kankuro and Temari today, where are they?”

 

“Off being sluts.”

 

Neji blinked. It was incredible how different Gaara was from his older siblings.

 

“You're soaked. How long have you been here?”

 

“Long enough.”

 

Neji moved to stand next to Gaara so it was easier to hold the umbrella over both of them. Across the road, a couple was laughing as they tried to shield themselves from the rain with their bags, falling over each other as they ran from awning to awning to stay out of the rain, their fingers tightly entwined as they ran.

 

“…How big is your hand?” Neji asked, looking over to Gaara. The Kazekage remained motionless before his eyes drifted over to meet with the pearl ones again. Slowly, and with minimal effort, he removed one of his hands from crossing his arms and held it out.

 

Neji lifted his hand up and pressed it against Gaara's. Gaara's hand was soaked from how long he'd been under the downpour, and the water dripped down both of their arms, dripping off of their elbows and onto the flooded ground below.

 

“Mine's bigger.” Neji stated, turning his hand to see from the side. The difference wasn't much, but it was noticeable to a ninja.

 

“You're taller.” Gaara let his hand drop back down to his side, but he didn't break his gaze with Neji.

 

Neji looked around after a moment, twisting to get full view of the now nearly deserted street. “Do you know how long Temari and Kankuro will be?”

 

Gaara looked back to the road. “As long as they feel like making me wait, they love to test different ways to piss me off, like Naruto.” He said in his chilling, monotone voice.

 

“Do people normally leave the Kazekage alone in a strange village?” Neji asked lightly.

 

“Normally the Kazekage doesn't have siblings that have survived for this long. They're usually killed for bait by some idiot who thinks the Kazekage would abandon the village just because he can't accept that his sibling is gone. We can't have emotions like that.”

 

“But if they did survive.”

 

“…No, I think only Kankuro and Temari have the guts to pull something like this.” Gaara growled, mostly to himself.

 

Everything was silent aside from the rain for the next ten minutes, as it became apparent that the older two sand siblings had no intention of returning anytime soon. The light mist from the droplets splashing in the puddles that were quickly becoming deeper by the second created a delicate haze over the market place, eventually making it hard to see very far in front of you clearly. Of course it was visible, especially to a Hyuuga with the Byakugan, but it was almost mystical in a way. Like the pair of them had been isolated in their own world together. It was pretty in the light purple glow of the darkened sky, like an island hidden in the mist… an island that was slowly flooding or sinking into the sea.

 

Neji's eyes looked down to the puddles forming around his feet and stepped back to be closer to the wall of the building behind them so he was on higher ground, but Gaara apparently felt fine standing right where he was, and didn't flinch as the rain momentarily pelted down on him again until Neji noticed that Gaara wasn't moving with him and stepped back into the forming puddles to shield Gaara from the rain again.

 

“It's been half an hour, and neither of them are back yet.” Neji stated, taking Gaara's lack of movement, and lack of a response at all as his cue to continue. This was the step he had to take, like Lee said. “If someone wants him because of who he is, they will need to chase him, because I do not think Gaara knows how.” Wasn't the raccoon a clear sign? And the caresses of sand? He wanted to feel the coarse sand running over his skin again. He took a breath to steady himself before asking, “My apartment is right down the block, would you like to wait there?”

 

Again, Gaara stayed more motionless than a statue could ever pull off, but very slowly, his eyes moved to look at Neji. Neji angled his body, inviting Gaara to follow him and at least wait until the rain had passed.

 

This means nothing. Neji told himself firmly, probably firmer than he had to. He'll just stand by the window until we see Temari and Kankuro, just like a business exchange.

 

Gaara's ice blue eyes moved to watch the street again before he turned and began walking over to where Neji stood, and Neji—knowing not to make him wait or stand unnecessarily in the rain—led the way down the deserted road. He took care to keep the umbrella over Gaara's head, knowing the redhead wouldn't bother making sure to stay under it himself.

 

Neji shook the umbrella out under the awning of the apartment building before pushing the door to his apartment building open. Thank god the attendant wasn't at her desk; this could just be passed off as a kind gesture or for the sake of Konoha's reputation, but it was better to not have to fight the rumors. His uncle was forgiving, but he also wasn't an extremely trustful man after everything that had happened to him as a ninja and the clan leader.

 

He started slowly up the stairs to his room, and pulled the key out of his pocket. He'd barely pushed his door open an inch before Gaara whirled him around and slammed him back into the wood, smashing his lips against Neji's.

 

The rest was a blur. The whirling sand barricading the room, the torn clothes, the incredible heat and tightness, the fire between the two, Gaara's arm practically crushing his shoulders and spine in his hold, and the way Gaara roared his name as they came. It was all a blur, to amazing and too bliss filled to remember a single detail, just the feelings, and then he was asleep, lying with his head on Gaara's muscular and perfect chest, Gaara's legs still around his waist, his head still spinning.

 

It had all happened so fast. More like the world around him was going at the speed of sound, but he and Gaara could barely get faster than the breeze on a calm day in the summer. Neji smiled, catching sight of the sleeping little raccoon of sand on his bedside table before he fell asleep.

 

Its fur was ruffled.

 

Meanwhile

 

Temari heaved another sigh and looked down the street again as Kankuro crossed his arms impatiently, the rain pelting down around them as they stood waiting under the little awning of where Gaara should have been, or where he had been when they'd left him.

 

“This had better be a damn good reason to make us wait.” Kankuro snapped.

 

Next Day

 

“Sasuke I'm assuming you know how strong her power is, but did you even feel how dark it was?! I know you're looking for the strongest person you can find to repopulate your clan, but did you have to choose someone who looks like she just escaped from a mental institution?! Her chakra was so dark, I thought I was dead! Those arrows were chakra reinforced, went three times as fast as a normal arrow shot by a longbow, and were rigged by her chakra to not stop flying until they hit her target!”

 

The Kyuubi was controlling the arrow, you have no idea just how dark she is, or at least her chakra is. Sasuke thought in exasperation, resisting the very strong temptation to deck Sakura.

 

“Sakura, this does not concern you.” Sasuke spat, ignoring the looks they were getting from the people walking by them. He normally got looks like that, but did Sakura have to pick the middle of the market to confront him on this? And did she have to pick now of all times?! He cast another wary glance above him, where the sky was growing darker and more menacing by the second. Rain, every weather channel had said that, only three of them had said chance of thunderstorms, but that still meant that there was a chance, and the clouds above him were dead proof that there were going to be thunderstorms that day.

 

And Naruto was alone in the compound.

 

All alone in the huge, wide-open area, with nowhere to hide and no one to keep him from the thunder.

 

Flashback

 

“Naruto!” he yelled over the next deafening crash of thunder, looking back towards the direction of the waterfall when he felt a surge of chakra. Naruto's chakra. He flew towards it as fast as he could, thanking the heavens at the same time he was planning all the ways to mutilate Naruto for just running off like that.

 

Sasuke whipped around when he came to the place he had felt the chakra, waiting for the next pulse he could follow. Naruto was damn good at masking his chakra, and that could be good or bad considering the situation, but here it just made Sasuke want to beat him into a bloody pulp.

 

The thunder crashed again, and Naruto's chakra throbbed again, leading Sasuke just a little farther into the forest where he saw a small opening into a cave behind a pile of boulders. He stepped cautiously over to the rock, placing his hand on the cold stone as a guide as he ducked down and inched into the cave.

 

As he went deeper, taking care of his head on the low ceiling, a glow became noticeable at the back of the cave, and two enormous red eyes took form as he got close enough. A low, sinister growl grew louder until Sasuke stopped moving forward, where it stayed the same volume, a low rumble reverberating around the close walls of the cave.

 

The thunder cracked behind him, and another dangerous chakra surge flooded the cave the second the lighting lit up the cavern, and Sasuke's eyes went wide at what he saw.

 

The Kyuubi, three times larger than he was, somehow fitting in the cave and lying at the back, it's teeth revealed in a threatening snarl as it growled warningly up at Sasuke, but more shocking than that, was the huddled up thing sitting curled up next to it, buried in its fur.

 

“Naruto?” Sasuke asked, carefully creating a ball of light to see farther into the cave.

 

The Kyuubi growled warningly, wrapping its tails tighter around the huddled ball, which slowly looked up, revealing the tear-filled, sky blue eyes of Naruto Uzumaki.

 

His hair was drenched from the rain, though the heat in the cave the Kyuubi was creating was beginning to dry it, and his clothes clung to him like skin because of the rain. His bangs were matted down into his eyes, and his hands clutched at the sides of his head, the tear tracks on his cheeks shimmering in the light.

 

“Y-you…” Naruto stammered.

 

“What is it?” Sasuke crawled a little more towards him until Kyuubi barked a threat for him to stay back.

 

“Y-you s-said… my name.” Naruto choked out. He recoiled suddenly at the next flash of thunder, curling back into a ball tighter than he'd been in before, his chakra surging unstably again. The Kyuubi's tail wrapped comfortingly around him, hiding him more from the outside.

 

Sasuke looked unsurely back to the mouth of the cave, watching the rain pounding the ground just outside of the shelter of the rocks. “You're… afraid of thunder?”

 

He heard Naruto swallow, and then whimper loudly at the next crash of thunder, but Kyuubi's rumbling and low barking quickly drowned it out.

 

Sasuke let the light he'd created go out, leaving both of his hands free to crawl forward into the blackness.

 

Kyuubi's growling was growing louder by the second, but Sasuke ignored it, feeling his way into the murky darkness. His fingertips touched the blazing fur of the Kyuubi, and he carefully edged over its tail, using his chakra to make sure he didn't step on it.

 

“Naruto?” he asked quietly, reaching out to find the blonde.

 

Naruto looked up, and his blue eyes briefly caught the light of the next flash of lighting before he shrank back into a ball, burying himself farther into the Kyuubi's stomach.

 

Sasuke winced at the sight. Naruto, the boy with no fear, sitting in a very vulnerable, very defenseless ball in front of him, quaking like a live time bomb in his fear. He was a time bomb, every time thunder shattered the dark skies, Naruto briefly lost control of his enormous and already unstable chakra, putting them all in immense danger. He had to try and calm him before Naruto's chakra literally exploded.

 

End Flashback

 

“You're going to abandon us again, aren't you?!” Sakura demanded, grabbing his arm just as he turned to go back to the house. “You're going to leave here with that… that girl”—she spat the word—“and you're going to leave me again!”

 

“Sakura, let go of me.” Sasuke said dangerously, looking up at the sky again, which had gone from a charcoal grey to a light black (as light as black can get) in just the time it had taken for Sakura to say those few sentences.

 

Did anyone beside him know? It was obvious Sakura didn't know, or she'd be fighting him to get to his house first, partly because of Naruto and partly because she'd said herself that she'd always wanted to see his house. Tsunade maybe? No, Naruto was really mad the next day that Sasuke knew of his fear; he had been the first person to find out.

 

“No!” she yelled, planting her feet firmly on the street and grabbing his arm with both hands. “The last time you left you broke my heart and you nearly forced Naruto to kill himself! You destroyed who you are, completely changed your personality—you came back and I didn't even know if it was you! You killed everyone who got in your path, and you even killed your own brother!”

 

“Damn it Sakura, let go!” Sasuke yelled, yanking away from her, but damn her strength to hell, she didn't let go.

 

“I wont!” she shook her head frantically, pulling him back. “You can't leave us again! You've been acting weird since you got back, but we wont let you go this time! Naruto would drag you back to your house by your ears if he were here—”

 

Thunder cracked suddenly overhead as the rain began to pummel the street, and lightning streaked across the sky as something throbbed in the distance. Something very dark, dangerously strong, and severely unstable. Something all to familiar to Sasuke.

 

“What was that?” Sakura whispered, the rain matting her hair against her forehead. People came to a standstill in the street to look over to the source of the chakra.

 

“Shit.” Sasuke spat, and the thunder boomed again. The chakra surged, making Sasuke's ears ring like his head was being crushed in a compressor. There wasn't time to do this with Sakura the nice way.

 

“Sasuke!” she yelled as he started to run towards the chakra, but this time she was yelling out of fear for him, not for herself. “What are you—”

 

“Damn it! If you wont let go then start running!” he barked, grabbing her hand and yanking her forward as hard as he could. He thought he heard her shoulder pop out of her shoulder, but he didn't care, and he cared even less as thunder—loud enough to make the houses around them shake—made the chakra surge again, and this time, the air around them started to heat up, another degree every second.

 

“That's…!” Sakura gasped, running faster now. “This is the same chakra as when Naruto fought Orochimaru—when he used the fourth tail of the Kyuubi!”

 

She knows. Sasuke grimaced. She's seen it before, the damage Naruto can cause.

 

“Faster.” She said to him, and they both shot forward.

 

Sasuke smashed through the side door into his kitchen and raced through the main room and over the furniture, flying up to the third floor where he knew Naruto would be in his room.

 

“Naruto!” Sasuke yelled, pressing his hand up against his door and shoving it open.

 

Empty.

 

Sasuke whirled to the window and practically flew through it. Of course the idiot had to go farther away to make this harder, it made sense that he didn't want to be close to the village, but if Sasuke couldn't get there in time…

 

The world was moving at light speed around them, but Sasuke and Sakura were going in slow motion. Sasuke's feet pounding against the tree branches, cracking them under the speed, his arms pushing aside the branches as he ran, clearing the leaves from his eyes, his muscles wound to grab Naruto and hold him until he calmed down if it killed him, but even though the world was moving at light speed, the blast of chakra caused by the next crash of thunder was three million times faster, smashing into them with the burning, incinerating heat that pulsed through the forest, first just flaming wind, and then the shock wave hit.

 

Hundred-year-old giant trees exploded in on themselves and everything that was flammable incinerated into nothing but black ash. People miles away from the forest screamed as they were whipped off their feet by the power, and buildings caved in, flying backwards with the wind as it swept like a beast itself over the village, destroying anything too close in range. Sasuke vaguely registered Sakura screaming with the heat he could feel burning him alive before he was forced off of his feet along with the rest of everything within three miles and was rocketed back, smashing through what remained of the trees of the Konoha training grounds and shooting back out of the forest, skidding to a halt behind his house. Sasuke gasped, crying out as a tree branch stabbed through his arm and his spine almost snapped as he was thrown through another tree.

 

His eyes went wide as the treetops of a clearing in the forest seemed to evaporate into the black ash, rising into the sky as something as red as blood and hot as the sun slowly bubbled out of the opening.

 

“The time is nearing fast.” The Kyuubi's voice growled, loud and echoing over the hills, before the bubbling mass became the shape of a fox, transparent and constantly shifting shape like fire. The fox smiled, its gleaming white teeth glowing with the red aura, and it morphed again into a shapeless mass, shooting into the sky like a bolt of blood red lightning and disappeared into the black clouds.

 

Sasuke roared and flipped himself, land roughly on a tree branch that shattered beneath him before launching himself back towards the flaming forest.

 

“Naruto!” he yelled, raising his arm over his eyes to shield them from the scalding heat.

 

Meanwhile

 

The bolt of lightning-like fire streaked through the skies, incinerating clouds and smashing through cold masses of air to create freak thunderstorms that came seemingly out of nowhere to the people they rained down on. The fire again became the shape of a fox, looking down at the land, watching for something, before bubbling back into the shapeless bolt, streaking through the sky faster than the naked eye could detect.

 

“It's close.”

 

The fire shot out of the sky and rocketed along the ground. It was faster than anyone could see, and first only a light breeze hit the people as it flashed by, but then the shock wave hit and entire villages were torn off the ground, people screaming as they were thrown miles through the air.

 

It was a red blur that would only have been seen if someone was looking for it. It soared like a bird with supersonic flight along the ground, leaving a burned trail from the heat as it flew through forests, villages and over mountains and cliffs.

 

The fire shot up into the sky again, hovering for a millisecond over a dark cliff, shrouded by clouds, before it blasted out of the sky like a bullet, blowing a hole through the side of the cliff as it smashed into the cave within. The heat set everything in and around the cave on fire, but its target wasn't the cave, it was the massive statue in the back, its hands out and open like it was holding a mass of chakra, the huge open mouth, waiting to drink up the power of the jinchuuriki and their demons, nine eyes, wide open and staring into the darkness, rocks like horns surrounding it's head, but the thing the Kyuubi wanted was inside.

 

The fire morphed into a fox again, hovering in the air in front of the statue as the eyes watched him, waiting to swallow his power along with the other demons.

 

The Kyuubi smiled dastardly. “In another lifetime.” He hissed before careening towards the nine eyes. “I have already been trapped, but soon that will end. I refuse to be captured again like a lab rat.”

 

The explosion as he collided with the rock was more deafening than the destruction of all of the villages the Kyuubi had literally uprooted, and very slowly the fire and flaming wind blew the smoke away, revealing a single crack running down the center of the statue.

 

The crack popped and grew, small pieces of the stone chipping away as the demons inside tasted the freedom through the tiny fracture, and forced it to grow bigger, pushing against it with their powers.

 

All at once, the statue split in two, the two halves shattering and crumbling off into the cave, filling it with millions of tiny fragments, stained with the demons' chakra.

 

The auras of the demons flew out, leaving the cave through the hole the Kyuubi had knocked in the cave, every one of the different colored auras vanishing into the clouds and rocketing to different ends of the lands. All but one.

 

“And so you will be returning to Suna now.” The Kyuubi smirked, the mass of fiery aura taking on its animalistic shape again.

 

“Ah, you and I still have to go back to babysitting the brats.” The Shukaku agreed, floating in a bubbling mass of a bloody, reddish-purple aura, two glowing eyes staring at the fox from the aura. “Damned humans and their need to own the world.”

 

The Kyuubi chuckled darkly. “Good, if that is the way you still feel, then I have a proposition that I think you will be interested in.”

 

“And what makes you think that I want to work with you now of all times?” the Shukaku asked smartly, the aura twitching eagerly toward the freedom of the hole in the cave. They were both being drawn back to their jinchuuriki, like something was pulling them back, forcing them back into their cages.

 

“Because I know how to get free and to extract my revenge on the villages who sealed us.”

 

“…Go on.” The Shukaku said, suddenly much more interested.

 

“It's simple enough, but both of the kits must be kept in the dark. Neither of them can be allowed to learn anything.”

 

“I'm listening.” The aura drifted closer to the ground, where the Kyuubi's fox form was hovering, and morphed slowly into the Shukaku's true form, a bubbling, shifting form of the one-tailed demon. “Anything to make those humans suffer more I will gladly contribute to.”

 

The Kyuubi's smile widened. “Good. Are you familiar with Orochimaru? The snake man who was a traitor to both Konoha and to the Akatsuki before starting his own village?”

 

“I thought he was dead, fox.”

 

“Was, correct, until his right-hand man thought it would be a good idea to try to absorb some of his remains to become stronger.”

 

The Shukaku blinked, pausing for a moment before roaring with laugher, the mass of demonic chakra shaking with its amusement.

 

“And just when you think humans can't get any stupider,” it bellowed, wheezing with laughter, “they go and pull something like this on us!”

 

“During the time I was traveling in the kit with the Uchiha, I was able to use the prick as bait for Orochimaru because the snake man still wanted his body. It did put the kit in a little danger because I had been messing up his chakra control, but I was able to see into the snake man's chakra when the kit attacked him. As I thought he might, he had developed or discovered, either way, a special jutsu that is specifically designed for Kekkei Genkais.”

 

“Interesting. This is starting to really interest me.” the Shukaku laughed again.

 

“I have two goal as of now, to annihilate the village that dared bind me into a human form after using me for their petty battles—”

 

“Can I ask how you plan on avoiding that this time?” the Shukaku asked innocently. “I would rather not make deals with demons who are likely to turn on me.”

 

The Kyuubi laughed again. “You don't need to worry, this has all been a little game from the beginning, with me at the controls. I had more than one reason for merging with the kit. Because it would stop him from disintegrating every time he used my power for a jutsu, because it would give me access to the outside world and to his body and chakra at any point when he is vulnerable, and because merging with a human would cut the ties that allowed them to control me. The Uchiha bloodline dared use their firepower to control my fire, but after merging with the kit, they no longer have control over my fire because it is not all fire. The kit's chakra, without my own, would have been wind, like his father. With the wind chakra, and the fact that he is human, both which the Uchihas have no control over, have rendered them unable to control my actions or my powers. I have two goals, to annihilate the village of the fourth Hokage, and to free myself from this flesh prison I am trapped in, or to at least take over it.”

 

“Well I will gladly join with you on both accounts, as I can say that I share your views, but I myself have one other goal.”

 

“And that is…?”

 

“To figure out why you would need me, and why you would go through the trouble of freeing me.”

 

The Kyuubi smirked. “Because the kit trusts Gaara, and I can't use him, but youcan. Gaara would be the last thing I needed for complete control over the kit, well, along with his body.”

 

“And how do you plan on that?” the raccoon demon asked accusingly.

 

“What if I told you that I helped to impregnate the kit—to give him the one thing he couldn't give the Uchiha, the one thing that he needed to be with the Uchiha—to gain his trust?”

 

“Interesting. Very interesting!” the Shukaku laughed, throwing his head back to the sky. “I will work with you on this fox, and I look forward to burying the village of the sand beneath ten million tons of its own element!” the raccoon bubbled into a shapeless blob before flying out of the hole in the ceiling, being drawn like a magnet back to Suna, where Gaara was sleeping, unsuspecting of the evil that had taken place.

 

The Kyuubi chuckled to itself. “Well, Konoha's element isn't fire, but I look forward to burning the village with such a flammable element into the ground.”

 

It too became the mass of chakra again before shooting into the clouds, racing back to Naruto's body.

 

Meanwhile

 

Gaara was sleeping, to which most of you will probably say something like `stop kidding around', or `I can't read this if you can't even keep the basics of the story straight', but the Shukaku had been gone for four years ever since the Akatsuki had sucked it from his soul. The one thing keeping him from sleeping, and then not dropping dead when he didn't sleep was gone. The first night he had been brought home to Suna after the incident with Akatsuki, the entire village had wanted to throw a party, but it had been cut short when he had fallen asleep leaning up against the wall, right in the middle of a conversation with the council. It had amused the young villagers to no end, and annoyed and offended the council almost as much, but try as they might they couldn't wake him up. The sand even attacked someone who tried to forcefully wake him up, so they just moved him to a chair and let him sleep for the next three days, and then thrown the party.

 

But, Gaara was sleeping, in a now fairly regular sleep pattern.

 

He was sleeping as the guards stood outside his door, against intruders.

 

He was sleeping as the clouds parted above Suna in a very irregular way, considering the wind.

 

He was asleep as a mass of bloody, reddish-purple chakra streaked out of the sky through the parted clouds.

 

He was sleeping.

 

Until the chakra smashed through the ceiling of the Kazekage tower with a deafening crash and began swallowing him whole.

 

 

 

“Kazekage-sama!” the guards yelled, bursting through the door of the room just to grind to a halt in horror.

 

The sand in the walls, the furniture, the ceiling; the sand in the air and the roads outside where being sucked toward Gaara like a black hole as he hung like a limp doll in the air, thrashing and groaning in his sleep.

 

“W-What…?” one of the guards asked.

 

“Go get his siblings!” the other barked, taking up an attack stance at the forming mass of sand. The other nodded and raced out of the room, screaming for the council, Temari and Kankuro.

 

Gaara forced his eyes open to the dark chakra and the pounding headache, staring down in confusion at the guard that looked like he was preparing to attack him.

 

Gaara gritted his teeth and grunted, pressing his hands over his eyes at the pressure in his head, pulsating through his mind and trying to force its way out through his temples. He drew his hand back slowly at the feeling of the right side of his face crumbling and stared at the sand he held in his hand. He twisted his hand over and over as the sand ran off until it was just his skin, and then his fingers turned to the light brown rock fragments and too began to crumble to the ground; the entire right side of his body was turning to the sand that couldn't hold together and falling to the floor.

 

“Gaara!” Kankuro and Temari yelled as they ran into the room. Temari gasped and her fan thunked to the ground, being buried in the sand belonging to the Kazekage's body.

 

Gaara watched as his arm completely disappeared before his eyes along with the right side of his body before the sand on the floor swirled like a whirlpool and swept up, again reshaping the right side of his body and coating his left side in the armor of sand.

 

“What is this…?” Kankuro yelled.

 

“Gaara!” Temari yelled again, trying to get her little brother's attention.

 

Gaara turned to face them slowly, the sand on his body taking on the colors of his clothes and skin, so that all but one thing was the same. Temari pressed a hand to her mouth to stifle her scream, and one of the guards fainted as people began to accumulate in the streets to see what the blast had been.

 

Gaara's left eye was the same icy blue it always had been, but his right eye, was a swirling, demonic yellow that seemed to mock all it looked at. As they watched, that too became Gaara's normal color, but the presence that had turned it that hadn't left.

 

Gaara managed to move his hand enough to the get the sand to set him down on his feet, but it continued to swirl around him without his authorization, moving on its own accord.

 

“G-Gaara?”

 

What is this? The darkness… he hadn't felt this since before…

 

“Did you miss me?”

 

Gaara's eyes widened in fear to the point where even Kankuro was worried about not staying conscious, because Gaara, to them, feared nothing.

 

“You.” Gaara mouthed.

 

“What is it? You sound… upset.”

 

Gaara clutched his head, stumbling back as the darkness in his head roared with amusement.

 

“N-No… mother…” he seemed to plead.

 

Temari gasped, backing farther away from him to the door. “Mother… no… it can't be… that…”

 

“That thing was sealed away.” Kankuro spat, taking his puppet off his back and banging it onto the floor. The sand shot up out of the swirling mass on the floor and slammed it back out of his hand and into the wall.

 

And then Gaara started to laugh, dark and sinister, a laugh that was not his own as he clutched his head.

 

“I'm back.” The dark voice came out of Gaara's mouth, the right side of his mouth twisting up into a cruel smile as his right eye flashed yellow again, the left side of his face remaining horrified and pained, his left eye remaining ice blue.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

AAAAAHHHH! I know! I'm cruel!

But how's that for a twist to the plot? Not what you expected? Things are heating up!

RR&R!

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Thanks for reading!

We have cookies on the dark side for all who review!

I'm going to hell, that's it; I'm going to hell for everything I put these characters through.

I wouldn't worry though, you'll like the ending, just keep reading!