Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Onyx Rain ❯ Rainbow Cloud ( Chapter 10 )

Sunlight dimly filtered through closed eyelids that gradually fluttered open to reveal pale cerulean eyes.

The heat was the next thing to kick in, and after that came thirst and hunger.

Why was it so bright, though? Maizul usually woke him up at dawn. Maizul. . . . . she. . .

Gaara leaped up with a start, and his surroundings clicked into focus.

There was the acid sun; the rolling, glittery gold dunes; the scarlet dunes and their stench of death. The crystal periwinkle sapphire sky. Where was Maizul?

Maybe she had gone to look for water. That was it. She wouldn't leave him alone, would she?

Alone. Of course she had. She couldn't survive much longer, and she knew it, so she had left. Gaara felt the bitterness begin to invade him - the bitterness of being alone yet again. He was going to die soon. He was going to die; without her, without killing anyone and taking them with him, without anything. He was going to die a worthless death in the desert.

Or maybe he would make good on his vengeance. Maybe he could catch up with her and kill her so he wouldn't be alone in his worthless end.

Gaara struggled up to the peak of the dune and stumbled down the other side, his eyes darting around in the search for her footprints. He found them, too; some indentations in the sand which couldn't have been created by wind or sun. He began to follow them in an almost blind fashion, blocking out everything else but his feet moving towards where she was bound to be.

Despite Gaara's zombie-like state and appearance, he did notice when a shadow encompassed him, giving relief from the sweltering tepidity of day. His eyes subsequently trailed towards the sky, where the only possibility for creating such an adumbration lay.

The sky was blue.

The sky was blue, but not entirely blue.

The ashen thunderhead of an incoming storm was blocking out the sun, and steadily moving at an incredibly quick pace to join with another cumulonimbus approaching from the other direction. There was a patch of blue between them - a groove in the sky that was soon to be filled in.

It occurred to Gaara that this could not be a natural phenomenon. Two clouds converging in this manner was not possible because it meant that the wind was blowing two different ways at the same time. In the same place. And furthermore, this was a desert; in the middle of a drought. It was not the rainy season, so. . . .

Gaara knew it had something to do with Maizul's disappearance, but he didn't know enough to figure out why yet. All he knew was that Maizul and the incoming tempest were inexplicably connected.

And then the rains came. The rolling, boiling clouds, filled with all the ferocity of a bull charging a matador at top speed, opened their bellies and released an onslaught of stabbing points of aqua.

Gaara struggled to stand in the cloudburst that beat against his head, shoulders and back. His own matching points of gray and blue tried to make out the heavy gray froth that was boiling somewhere beyond the darts that were trying to pierce his skin. Thunder boomed and rumbled and crashed - a frenzied stab of lightning crisscrossed the sky and vexed the thunder into producing yet another discordant, earsplitting blast.

A sudden gale toppled the already unsteady Gaara over into a huge puddle, and he forced himself up, though he did let the blessed water slide down his throat and into his body that was caked in mud and dirt and more of the liquid. Gaara continued in the direction he hoped he had been heading, all while he slogged through knee-deep water.

Then the rain began to let up and slow; now it only tapped his head. Gaara could have sworn it was echoing in his ears, but he pushed it off as another effect of the heat wave in the desert had caused. The pit pat of rain turned gentle and the gales became zephyrs that now only misted his chapped face. The clouds were still a heavy, leaden gray, and they still held the occasional mutter of thunder, but it was clear the storm was letting up.

In front of him, a bend appeared in the sky. It was a many-colored curve, glowing with the ethereal light of colors he hadn't learned the names for.

A chill went down Gaara's spine as he recalled something that had happened just before he'd met Maizul. He glanced at his reflection in one of the puddles surrounding him. It was blurry, still being rippled by the occasional drop of rain, but there he was, a bedraggled ghost with an unlikely shock of red hair.

That dream he'd had. . . .

Gaara looked up at the rainbow again.

He remembered a ridiculous old legend that said there was a pot of gold at the end of a rainbow. Funny how it didn't seem so ridiculous now.

It had rained in the desert. No, it hadn't just rained, it had flooded.

Gaara scooped up two full containers of water and drank his fill before he set off for the curve in the sky.