Gaara

The oasis hotel had been designed for quiet. A kind of polished, deliberate quiet that came with expensive stone, shaded corridors, and water moving softly somewhere beyond the walls.

That quiet, for some, however, had become increasingly difficult to maintain.

“The western sensor team checked again.”

Shijima stood near the open corridor outside the private meeting room, her arms folded beneath the pale sleeves of her formal attire. Her glasses caught the reflected light from the oasis.

“They still cannot agree on where you are.” Her expression did not change. “One insists there are four chakra signatures around you. While another still insists there are none.”

Her gaze settled on you. “Lord Kazekage considers that useful.”

The words were neutral, but not quite approving.

“My sister is my responsibility. If anything changes, I expect to know before the guards do.” Then, after the slightest pause: “She has had very little say in any of this.”

That was as close to personal as Shijima seemed willing to become.

Then the door opened behind her.

“{{user}}.”

Gaara stood inside, already dressed for the formal gathering, looking considerably less comfortable than he ever had, despite having faced armies and numerous powerful shinobi over the years.

“I asked {{obj}} to remain.”

Hakuto sat opposite of him, folding her hands neatly in her lap. Shijima gave Gaara one long look before stepping aside.

“Then I will be outside.” She paused beside Hakuto just long enough to straighten the edge of her sleeve. “Call for me.”

The door closed. Silence followed for long, strange moments.

---

Gaara looked at Hakuto.

Hakuto looked down.

Gaara glanced toward you.

Nothing. Even as several seconds passed.

“Do you... have any hobbies?”

Hakuto blinked.

“I cultivate cacti.” Gaara continued with the solemnity of a military report. “They require less water than most plants.”

Hakuto’s mouth twitched before she could stop it. “I had heard... different stories about you.”

“Most people have.” Gaara’s expression remained still.

“But you seem kinder than I expected.”

For the first time since entering the room, something in Gaara’s posture eased. “... thank you.”

Hakuto’s eyes then moved briefly toward you. “You have known each other long?”

“Yes.” Gaara answered without hesitation. “We have fought beside one another many times. Even as enemies, for a time.” His gaze shifted to you. "{{sub}} helped fight the Akatsuki multiple times. I trust {{user}}.”

A sharp knock interrupted the moment. One of Baki’s shinobi entered. “Lord Kazekage. Eastern perimeter reported movement.”

Gaara’s eyes narrowed. “And?”

The guard hesitated. “The sensor team cannot isolate it from the... other readings.” His glance toward you lasted only a second.

Gaara’s sand stirred faintly from the gourd at his back, before stopping.

“No.” His head turned toward the window. “That one is not {{user}}.”

---

—BOOM—

---

The entire hotel shuddered, even from the distant explosion. Glass trembled. Somewhere beyond the corridor, people screamed.

“A diversion.”

Gaara was already moving as sand erupted around Hakuto. The wall beside the doorway burst inward. Two figures came through the dust—too stiff and far too fast.

One lunged toward Gaara—but you moved first. A hidden kunai flashed from your hand, striking cleanly through the attacker’s wrist joint before twisting upward into the shoulder.

The arm snapped loose. Wood splintered, but no blood.

“Puppets.” Gaara’s sand crushed the second against the wall hard enough to crack its torso open. Chakra threads shimmered briefly through the dust. “A controller is nearby.”

A whistle then cut through the room. Something punched through the outer wall.

Gaara’s sand snapped upward instinctively, stopping a flying kunai just inches from Hakuto’s face, vibrating violently inside the shield.

Wind chakra screamed around the blade.

“Snipers!” Shijima announced just as quickly as she appeared through the doorway.

Another impact struck from outside. Then another.

Gaara stared through the fractured wall toward the distant rooftops beyond the oasis. His sand rose higher around Hakuto.

“Stay close.” His gaze settled briefly on you. “And do not exceed your limit.”

The attack had spread far beyond the private meeting room. Several corridors away, the hotel’s polished stone had become a maze of shattered walls, severed puppet strings, and Wind-enhanced kunai buried deep enough to split support columns.

“Hold still.”

Shikamaru’s shadow stretched sharply across the floor and caught the puppeteer’s ankle just as Temari twisted against the senbon pinning one side of her body.

“Easy for you to say.” Her jaw tightened.

Then came the sickening pop of her own shoulder slipping free.

Shikamaru grimaced. “... you know there were probably less painful options.”

“Then think faster!” Her giant fan snapped open with one hand.

WHOOOM—!

The corridor vanished beneath a crushing blast of wind. The puppeteer, his remaining puppets, and half a barricade went airborne together.

One of the Leaf jonin ducked beneath the gust. “Lady Temari!”

“I’m fine!”

“You dislocated your shoulder.”

“I said I’m fine!”

Shikamaru’s shadow released. “What a drag.”

Somewhere outside, another sniper position went silent beneath coordinated Leaf and Sand fire. But the pressure around the hotel was finally beginning to break.

---

Inside the meeting wing, it was getting worse.

Broken puppets lay scattered across the floor. Gaara’s sand filled cracks in the walls and hovered around Hakuto in shifting layers while the last distant sniper shots struck less and less frequently.

“You’ve already done enough.” Gaara’s eyes flicked toward you. “Do not exceed your limit.”

A slow clap answered him.

“Well.”

Two men stepped through the smoke where the outer wall had once been. One of them wore a broad grin, and the other said nothing.

“Etoro. Metoro.” Gaara’s expression hardened. "Twin terrorists from the Village Hidden in Stones."

“So the Bingo Book does work.” Etoro’s grin widened. “The Fifth Kazekage..." His eyes moved from Gaara to you. "... and the Leaf's very own prodigy.”

Metoro studied you longer. “Your chakra doesn’t match the reports.”

Hakuto took one step backward. “Gaara...”

“Stay behind me.”

Sand surged instantly, yet Etoro simply inhaled.

“Lava Style!”

A ring of white-hot flame burst outward.

Metoro’s palm struck the floor at the same instant.

“Steel Style: Steel Shield!”

Dark metal erupted between them. Gaara’s sand bullets hammered it—

CLANGCLANGCLANGCLANG—!

—but Etoro’s flame washed over the steel, turning its edges red-hot as molten droplets sprayed across the chamber.

Gaara shifted immediately as sand swept around the shield from both sides.

Metoro moved first as steel sphere formed in his hands. Etoro’s lava curled around it, sending the projectile ahead—half-solid, half-molten, spiraling violently enough to shear chunks from the floor beneath it.

“Gaara!”

Three layers of sand snapped into place. The first exploded. The second collapsed inward. The third held for less than a heartbeat.

BOOM—!

The molten steel punched through, forcibly throwing Gaara backwards into the wall. Blood darkened his sleeves.

"Gaara!” Hakuto dropped beside him immediately.

Etoro laughed. “There it is.”

Metoro’s eyes remained on you. “The other one.”

Etoro turned. “Right.”

He vanished forward as flame erupted from his palm. You slipped beneath it, driving a kunai toward his ribs—but Etoro distorted. A clone.

However, Metoro was already behind you. Steel flashed as you twisted aside from a steel blade tearing through the space your shoulder had previously occupied.

Gaara’s sand smashed into Metoro from the side, sending him skidding across broken stone.

“I said enough.” Gaara forced himself upright despite Hakuto’s hands already glowing green over the wound.

“You’re injured!”

“I can still fight.”

Etoro’s grin disappeared. “Then let’s fix that.”

Metoro raised one hand, bursting steel projectiles upward in a fan before Etoro's lava swept across them.

The air turned red. Gaara’s sand lunged to intercept—but the barrage curved past you. Straight toward Hakuto.

“No!” Suddenly, Shijima returned and crashed through the doorway, throwing herself toward her sister.

Gaara reacted first, every grain of sand reversing around him. A massive sand shell swallowed Hakuto and Shijima as the heated steel struck.

The impact tore through the weakened hotel wall. Stone folded, the floor split, and it led to a section of the corridor collapsing between you and Gaara in a roar of dust and fire.

“{{user}}!”

Sand forced its way through the debris, but a fresh wall of Metoro’s steel erupted through the gap and drove it back. Etoro stepped through the smoke, then Metoro joined him.

Behind the ruined wall, Gaara was still conscious—still fighting to reach you, still shielding Hakuto and Shijima from the collapsing structure. But for the moment, the battlefield had narrowed.

“There.” Etoro rolled one shoulder.

Metoro’s arms hardened beneath fresh steel. “Now we see what you can actually do."

Dust still rolled through the shattered meeting wing when Etoro and Metoro came at you together.

Etoro flooded the floor with Lava Style jutsu, white-hot arcs forcing you away from the open side of the room while Metoro drove sheets of Steel Style jutsu upward to cut off every clean escape.

You slipped between them anyway. A kunai scraped sparks from Metoro’s hardened arm. Etoro’s flaming fist missed your cheek by inches before your counter sent him stumbling through broken stone.

“Still fast,” Etoro muttered.

Metoro’s eyes narrowed. “Not for long.”

Steel erupted beneath you, yet you sprang clear—though, straight into Etoro’s expanding ring of flame. The impact hurled you backward.

Pain tore through the repaired wound beneath your ribs.

—Get away—

Behind the collapsed wall, Gaara’s sand burst through and caught Etoro by the ankle. Though Metoro answered immediately.

“Steel Style!” A dark wall exploded upward, severing Gaara’s sand from the battlefield.

“{{user}}!” Gaara forced himself through another opening even as blood continued darkening his sleeves.

Hakuto shouted behind him. “Gaara, stop! You’re still bleeding!”

Etoro grinned. “Then let’s make it worse.”

Metoro formed several steel projectiles. Etoro swept his lava across them. The metal turned incandescent.

Gaara’s sand intercepted the barrage—

CRACK—!

—but one projectile punched through and slammed him back into the rubble.

“Gaara!”

Your hand twitched. Etoro rushed you, but you ducked beneath his flame and drove a kunai into his shoulder.

The body distorted again. Another clone.

“Wrong one.” Metoro’s steel-coated fist crashed into your abdomen.

Your breath vanished from your body, striking the floor hard enough to fracture it. The old repaired wound spasmed violently as dark veins pulsed beneath the skin.

Etoro stepped closer. “There.”

Metoro watched you struggle upright. “They’re slowing down.”

Gaara’s sand surged through the breach again. Shijima appeared behind it and hurled several hōshuriken: dense iron rods capable of intense blunt force.

Etoro incinerated them—

BOOM—!

To his surprise, compressed air burst from the melting weapons and hurled him sideways.

For one moment, everything re-opened. You stood, barely. Your fingers shook, your breathing came shorter now.

“So that’s the limit.” Metoro noticed.

Suddenly, steel rose around you. Etoro dragged himself upright, blood at his mouth.

Gaara pushed through again, but Metoro’s reinforced wall drove his sand back.

“Please!” Hakuto grabbed Gaara’s arm.

Gaara stared past her. “I’m not leaving {{user}}.”

—Get away!—

Loose fragments of steel scraped across the floor.

“Brother.” Metoro stopped.

The air around you had gone still, almost too still. The fractured chakra signatures that had confused sensors since your remission suddenly vanished. No overlap. No hollow absence. No displaced echoes. Now, only one presence remained.

Exactly where you stood.

Etoro stared. “What the hell—”

Metoro formed one final steel mass, and Etoro wrapped it in lava. They fired the molten projectile straight toward you.

“{{user}}!”

Your body had nothing left to give. Pain. Heat. Pressure. Everything closing in.

—GET AWAY—

Your arm lifted. The dark markings around your abdomen flared intensely.

—GET AWAY FROM ME—

Everything stopped through your senses. For one impossible heartbeat, there was silence. Then—

A colossal repulsive force erupted outward. The molten steel projectile buckled and reversed. Metoro’s barriers folded backward. Etoro’s flames flattened away from you. Stone tore free from the floor. The remaining outer wall of the hotel vanished into the night.

KRRRRAAAAM—!

Etoro disappeared inside the blast. Metoro raised barrier after barrier—one bent, one shattered, and the last tore free and carried him into the darkness beyond the oasis.

Then silence returned.

You remained standing for barely a second. Your arm dropped, your fingers twitched uncontrollably, and your breathing suddenly came fast and labored.

The dark veins around the repaired wound flickered with every violent pulse. The single ancient presence fractured again. Two. Four. None. Then everywhere.

“{{user}}!”

Gaara finally tore through the wreckage, but your knees gave out at last. His sand caught you before the ground could.

Hakuto rushed in behind him, medical chakra already glowing around her hands. “{{poss}} chakra—” Her voice faltered. “I can’t read it.”

Footsteps thundered closer.

Temari appeared first, one arm hanging painfully at her side. She stopped at the sight of the missing half of the hotel. “... what happened?”

Shikamaru arrived quickly behind her. A surviving sensor nearby swallowed hard.

“For a second... there was only one.”

“One what?” Shikamaru asked.

“Signature.”

Your vision blurred as the rest of your body finally began giving out. Gaara’s voice was the last thing that remained clear.

“{{user}}. Stay awake.”