Gaara

Heat. That was the first thing you understood.

Not where you were. Not how long you had been unconscious for. Only the heat against your face, the sand grinding beneath your boots, and the dull, nauseating pull of something dragging through your abdomen every time your body shifted.

“Careful.” A voice reached you through the dark: Hakuto.

Green light flickered somewhere near your side. “Again... {{sub}} is bleeding through the bandages.”

“We can’t stop here.” Shijima, Hakuto's sister.

Your eyes opened for less than a second. It was enough to spot two silhouettes against an endless orange horizon—one supporting your shoulders, the other looking back.

Then darkness swallowed everything again.

---

...

Footsteps. Wind. Someone lifting you beneath the arms.

“Whatever happened at the hotel, {{poss}} chakra still hasn’t settled.” Hakuto’s voice, closer this time.

“{{user}} is why we’ve made it this far.”

“That doesn’t make this safe.”

“No.” A pause. “But it makes us difficult to follow.”

Your vision surfaced again. Shijima’s glasses caught the sunlight as she glanced over her shoulder. Hakuto knelt beside you, one hand glowing faintly over the wound beneath your clothing.

“Shijima.” Her expression tightened.

“What?”

“{{user}}'s eyes moved.”

You tried to focus, but Hakuto blurred, the desert tilted. And you fell away again.

---

Far behind them, Gaara crossed the desert alone.

Sand carried him over the dunes in a low, relentless sweep, his gaze fixed on every broken ridge and disturbed patch of earth below.

The sensor reports had become useless almost immediately. Three signatures. Five. One. None.

At one point a patrol had insisted {{user}} was moving north while another team, less than a kilometer away, swore the same chakra presence had never left the oasis.

By then, Gaara stopped listening. The sand remembered pressure better than chakra did: a heel dug too deeply into a slope, a second set of steps beside it, marks where something—or someone—had been dragged.

He changed direction, and minutes later, a figure appeared between the dunes.

Gaara’s sand rose before he had fully landed. “Shijima!”

She turned sharply. One arm was hooked beneath your shoulders, your weight sagging heavily against her as she dragged you through the sand.

Gaara’s eyes moved once over you: the bandages, the pallor, the darkened markings on your abdomen barely visible beneath torn fabric. Then back to her. “Where is Hakuto?”

Shijima breathed hard before answering. “Taken.”

“By whom?” The sand around Gaara shifted.

“I never saw his face clearly.” Her grip tightened around you. “He separated us after we left the medical convoy. I held him as long as I could. Hakuto was taken farther east.”

Gaara looked toward the horizon. “And {{user}}?”

“I got {{obj}} away.” Your head shifted faintly, enough for her to notice. “But not while waking intermittently.”

Gaara was beside you immediately. Sand slid beneath your body, taking your weight from her without jarring the wound.

“{{user}}.”

Your eyes opened. But this time, they stayed open, if even for a few moments as Gaara’s face came into focus above you.

His expression remained controlled, but his voice lowered. “You’re safe.”

“For now.” Shijima looked away.

Gaara’s eyes sharpened. “What does that mean?”

She hesitated. “The one who took Hakuto understood what their chakra was doing.” Your hearing still rang. Gaara glanced down at you as Shijima continued. “Every sensor trying to follow us received a different trail. Whoever planned this used {{user}} to bury Hakuto’s movement inside the confusion.”

A partial truth, spoken cleanly enough to sound whole. Gaara said nothing for several seconds, until his sand lifted you fully from the ground.

“You’ll guide me.”

Shijima nodded.

---

Through the desert haze, ruins had suddenly come into view. Ancient stone protruded from the dunes ahead, broken walls surrounding a sunken courtyard where moisture darkened the sand in unnatural patches.

Gaara slowed, and Shijima stopped beside him. Someone stood below—black hair, sand shinobi clothing, and water already curling around one raised hand. But behind him, Hakuto. Alive, unbound, and standing close enough that she could have stepped away.

But she didn’t.

Gaara’s sand stirred. “Hakuto.”

“Gaara—” Her eyes widened, but the man moved between them. Shijima’s expression changed almost imperceptibly.

“Who are you?”

The stranger’s gaze passed over Gaara, then you, then Shijima. “... my name is Shigezane.”

Hakuto stepped forward. “Please. Don’t—”

“Step away from her.” Gaara’s sand rose higher.

“We didn’t want this fight.” Shigezane did not move. More water began to gather around his arm. "But you've left us with no choice."

Gaara’s eyes hardened. “Then you should not have taken her.”

Hakuto inhaled sharply. “That isn’t—”

Shigezane’s hand dropped.

WHOOOOSH—!

Water erupted from behind the ruined walls in a roaring wave, crashing across the courtyard and tearing into the surrounding sand.

Gaara’s shield surged upward. Shijima moved. But the ruins disappeared behind rushing water as the fight finally began.

Water tore through the ruins in white arcs. Gaara’s sand met it head-on, hardening into a wall before Shigezane’s Water Blade carved halfway through it with a shriek of pressure and stone.

Shijima moved from the flank. Three hōshuriken spun toward Shigezane. He slipped aside.

CRACK—!

The rods struck broken masonry behind him and burst apart. The compressed wind inside her weapons threw iron fragments across the courtyard.

You were already moving through them. Pain dragged at your abdomen with every step, but consciousness had finally stopped slipping away. You drove in from Shigezane’s blind side just as Gaara’s sand swept low beneath his feet.

Shigezane vaulted backward, and water erupted beneath him.

“Enough!” Hakuto shouted from behind the ruins, but nobody stopped.

Shigezane thrust both palms downward—another geyser burst through the courtyard. Gaara’s sand caught the impact and collapsed strangely beneath it.

His eyes narrowed.

The ground around your boots had darkened. Not from shadow, but from the water. Hakuto saw it too.

“Gaara!”

“You should have left.” Shigezane’s expression tightened.

The sand beneath Shijima gave way first. “—!” Her leg disappeared to the knee. Then the waist.

You lunged toward her, but the ground liquefied beneath you too. Your repaired abdomen seized violently as the desert swallowed your footing.

Gaara could still move. His sand surged upward, carrying him above the collapsing courtyard, but then he stopped. Shijima was sinking, and you barely kept your head above the churning sand.

Gaara descended.

“Gaara, don’t—!” Hakuto’s voice vanished beneath the roar.

Sand wrapped around Shijima, and then you. And then around Gaara himself.

All three of you slowly disappeared beneath the desert.

---

......

...

When consciousness returned, hours had passed.

Cold stone pressed against your back. Water dripped somewhere in the dark. Your lungs drew one sharp breath—and something hard touched beneath your jaw.

“Don’t.” Shijima. One arm held you from behind while the edge of a hōshuriken rod rested against your throat. “I don’t want to hurt you.”

Your body barely answered anyway.

Across the cavern, however, Gaara was motionless beneath a thin shell of sand.

“He’s alive.” Shijima noticed your gaze.

A grain of sand moved. Then another. Shijima froze as Gaara’s eyes opened and the sand around him lifted instantly. His gaze found you, and then the weapon at your throat.

“Release {{user}}.”

Shijima’s grip tightened. “If I do, you’ll both go after them.”

“Them?”

Silence. Gaara rose slowly, but his voice remained level.

“You said Hakuto was taken.” Shijima looked away, but Gaara’s sand shifted closer. “And you said whoever took her used {{user}} to confuse our sensors.”

Her jaw tightened.

“... I lied.”

The cavern went still.

“I knew what {{user}}’s chakra was doing before we left the oasis." Gaara stared at her. Shijima swallowed. "Every sensor around the hotel was contradicting the next. Once we started moving, it became worse.”

Her eyes flicked toward you. “I used that.”

Gaara’s expression barely changed. “You took someone who could barely remain conscious.”

“Yes.”

“To hide Hakuto.”

“Yes.”

Another silence.

“Hakuto never wanted this marriage.” Then Shijima lowered the hōshuriken slightly. “Shigezane is Hōki.”

Gaara said nothing at first. “He belongs to your family?”

“He has for years.” Shijima’s voice softened despite herself. “He knew Hakuto before the Council ever put her in front of you. Before anyone decided what kind of life she was supposed to live.”

Gaara’s eyes sharpened, and Shijima met them. “She chose him before the Council chose you for her.”

Understanding settled quietly across Gaara’s face. Not surprise, but confirmation.

“I was supposed to inherit the Hōki Family.” She finally removed the weapon from your throat, though her fingers kept tight around the iron rod.

“I thought I could make myself stronger. Useful enough that no one would ever have to carry what I couldn’t.” She touched the edge of her thick glasses. “An old... adversary... offered me that chance.”

Just enough, she lowered her thick glasses down to let the crimson flash of a Sharingan appear. But she never once looked your way.

“Orochimaru offered me... strength. It failed. My eyesight was ruined... and the succession passed to Hakuto.” Her voice dropped. “She inherited the life that was supposed to be mine. I won’t let the Council take the rest of hers too.”

Gaara looked toward the cavern ceiling. Then back to her.

“Why did you think I would?”

Shijima blinked. “You’re the Kazekage.”

“That wasn’t my question.”

She stared at him for several seconds. Then something harsher surfaced. “Why did you come back for me?”

Gaara understood. Aboveground, he could have escaped. Or, at most, gone down with you alone. Instead, he hadn't left her behind either.

"Leaving either of you would have meant your deaths.” His eyes shifted briefly toward you.

“I lied to you.”

“Yes.”

“I used {{user}}.”

“Yes.”

“And you still—”

“A life doesn’t become worthless because someone made the wrong choice.” Shijima stopped. Gaara’s voice remained quiet. “I learned that a long time ago.”

“You know the way out.” Finally, Gaara turned toward the tunnel behind her.

She hesitated, then nodded. “There’s a shaft east of here.”

Gaara’s sand began gathering beneath all three of you. “And Hakuto?”

Shijima closed her eyes briefly. “Heading for the Land of Fire.”

---

By the time Gaara carried you through the fractured desert floor, sunset had begun bleeding across the horizon.

Gaara set you carefully onto a moving bed of sand rather than your feet.

Shijima stared east. Fresh tracks cut faintly between the dunes.

“Which way?”

Shijima adjusted her glasses, then pointed. “That way.”

The tracks had finally ended near the border of the Land of Fire. By then, the desert had begun thinning into harder earth and scattered brush, the last dunes stretching behind you beneath a darkening sky.

Gaara’s sand carried you most of the way, keeping your still-unsteady weight off the wound while Shijima guided him toward two figures ahead.

Hakuto turned first. “... Gaara.” Her face went pale.

Shigezane spun around. For one instant, he simply stared. At Gaara, Shijima, and then at you—alive, conscious, and still following after everything he had buried beneath the desert.

“... no.” Water immediately gathered around his hands. “You survived?”

“Shigezane—” Hakuto tried reaching toward him.

“Why did you follow us?!” His disbelief sharpened into something close to panic. “I warned you. I gave you every chance to stop!”

Gaara stepped from the sand. “You tried to bury us alive.”

“Because you wouldn’t leave us alone!” Shigezane moved protectively in front of Hakuto. “We’re almost across the border. Turn around!”

“Gaara, please." Hakuto’s expression tightened. "Shigezane didn’t kidnap me—”

“I know.”

Silence.

Shigezane’s eyes flicked immediately toward Shijima as Gaara continued.

“You’re Hōki. Hakuto knew you long before the Council arranged our meeting. She left willingly.” Hakuto stared at him, and Gaara’s expression remained calm.

“I won’t force you to marry me.” For the first time, Hakuto’s shoulders loosened to Gaara's words. Then, he looked toward Shigezane. “That doesn’t mean I can ignore this.”

Shigezane frowned.

“You’re both shinobi of the Hidden Sand." Gaara added. "If you cross that border without permission, you become missing-nin. Criminals to the village.”

“We already made our choice.”

“Then come back and make it without running.”

“No!”

Water stirred immediately around Shigezane’s feet, and Gaara’s sand answered once more.

“Please!" Hakuto tried stepping in-between them. "There has to be another—”

“Move, Hakuto!” Shigezane’s voice wasn't any softer toward her. “This ends here!”

Gaara’s sand began creeping forward.

“Stop.”

Instead, it was Shijima who stepped between them.

“Shijima.” Gaara looked at her.

Slowly, she lowered her glasses, revealing the crimson eye beneath them. The incomplete Sharingan caught the fading light.

“If you attack him...” Her voice trembled only once. “I’ll stop you.”

“Shijima...” Hakuto inhaled.

Gaara did not move. “You had that chance underground.”

“To kill you? And {{user}}?” Her expression tightened.

“Yes.”

Silence stretched between them.

Shijima’s eye remained exposed, but her voice lowered. “I couldn’t.”

Gaara watched her for another moment. “Then don’t become my enemy now.”

Something metallic screamed through the air. Shijima turned too late as steel spears suddenly tore from the darkness directly toward her exposed side.

KLANG—!

You moved, and instead steel crashed against your guard hard enough to drive you backward through the dirt.

Pain ripped across your abdomen, but you stayed standing. Shijima stared at you, and for half a second, even the Sharingan seemed forgotten.

Then a figure stepped from behind the broken ridge: burned clothing, blood dried along one side of his face, and Steel crawling over his arm. Metoro.

His eyes passed over Shijima—and settled entirely on you. “You.” His jaw tightened. “My brother died because of you.”

Gaara’s sand snapped toward Metoro—but Shigezane, desperate not to lose his final chance to escape, attacked first.

WHOOOSH—!

A Water Blade tore across the ground, forcing Gaara’s defense upward as Metoro’s steel spread beneath your feet in jagged lines.

Shijima raised her hōshuriken beside you. Across the battlefield, Gaara faced Shigezane.

Metoro stepped closer. “Let’s finish what you started.”

Steel and water split the battlefield apart. Metoro came at you first, his arm hardening into a jagged blade while Shijima’s hōshuriken screamed past your shoulder. He raised a Steel Style wall—

CRACK—!

Compressed Wind burst through it. You were already inside his guard.

Metoro twisted, steel crawling across his ribs, but through one of your many, secret summoning scrolls—a last resort technique you had only recently learned—a summoned kunai found the narrow seam before the steel armor could close.

“You—” Metoro's breath vanished as he staggered backward, blood spreading beneath the metal.

Across the field, Shigezane’s Water Blade punched straight through Gaara’s Shield of Sand.

“Gaara!” Hakuto gasped.

The blade stopped just short. Instead, something darker glittered through the sand.

Shigezane froze. “Magnet Style...?”

Metallic particles threaded through Gaara’s defense, reinforcing it until the Water Blade shattered against the surface. Sand surged around Shigezane’s limbs before he could retreat and dragged him violently to his knees.

“Enough.” Gaara tightened his hand, holding Shigezane stationary.

Metoro laughed weakly behind you, Shijima, and Gaara. “Still think this ends here?”

Gaara’s eyes shifted toward him. “Who hired you?”

Metoro spat blood into the dirt. “Ask your Council.”

Silence.

Metoro's mouth twisted. “Tojuro... wanted the Kazekage gone... long before we ever reached that hotel.”

Shijima’s expression changed. Gaara’s did not.

Metoro suddenly drove both hands downward. Steel erupted beneath your feet, though you moved through the pain.

One final strike.

THUD—!

Metoro’s body hit the earth and did not rise again.

Hakuto ran immediately to Shigezane in the moment of chaos. “Please.” Gaara’s sand still held him helplessly.

Shijima stood beside you, her glasses returning over the dangerous crimson eye. Whatever resolve she had carried into the confrontation seemed to drain as she stared at Metoro’s body.

Gaara eventually released Shigezane, and all eyes looked at him. “You cannot return to the Village Hidden in the Sand as though nothing happened.”

“We understand.” Hakuto lowered her head.

“And I cannot permit two Sand shinobi to simply abandon the village.”

“Then finish it.” Shigezane suddenly moved closer to her.

“No—” Shijima stepped forward.

Gaara raised one hand, letting the sand flow across the ground. Hakuto flinched, but it stopped around her feet.

“Metoro died here.” Gaara looked toward what remained of him. “By tomorrow, very little evidence will remain that he ever stood here.”

Shijima stared. Understanding reached her first as Gaara continued.

“Hakuto Hōki was abducted by Shigezane while fleeing toward the Land of Fire.” Hakuto slowly looked up as Gaara spoke. “Shigezane killed her before the Kazekage could intervene.”

“What a troublesome report.”

A familiar voice, and sigh, suddenly came from behind the ridge. Shikamaru stepped into view, his hands in his pockets.

Shigezane stiffened.

“You followed us.” Gaara barely reacted.

“Eventually.” Shikamaru glanced toward you, then the battlefield. “Your trail got a little harder once nobody was being dragged unconscious through the desert.”

Shijima looked away.

“So I witnessed Hakuto’s death.” Shikamaru stopped beside Gaara.

Gaara nodded.

“And mine?” Shigezane then asked quietly.

“The Kazekage executed you immediately afterward,” Shikamaru answered. “Pretty straightforward.”

Hakuto’s eyes widened.

“The Hidden Leaf can take two people who no longer officially exist.” Gaara looked toward the distant green beyond the border.

Shikamaru sighed again. “I’ll arrange names, records, and somewhere quiet. The Nara can absorb two more headaches.”

For several moments, neither Hakuto nor Shigezane spoke. Then Hakuto bowed so deeply her hair fell forward. “Thank you!” Her voice slightly muffled by her position.

Gaara’s expression softened almost imperceptibly. “You should have been allowed to choose from the beginning.”

Hakuto’s shoulders trembled. “Shijima.”

Shijima turned away before her sister could see her face, but instead Hakuto crossed the distance and embraced her tightly.

For once, Shijima did not hesitate. “Go,” She whispered.

When they finally separated, Shigezane bowed toward Gaara—and then toward you. No challenge remained in his eyes, only exhaustion mirroring yours.

Hakuto and Shigezane crossed into the Land of Fire beside Shikamaru without looking back as night settled over the border.

Shijima stood quietly beside Gaara. “I deceived you. Used {{user}}. Threatened your lives.”

“Yes.”

Her head lowered. “If you still allow me to return... my service is yours.”

“I need shinobi who can make difficult choices.” Gaara studied her for a moment, before his eyes moved briefly toward you. “And who can learn when they chose wrongly.”

Sand gathered beneath your exhausted feet before your body could protest again. Gaara turned west. Toward whatever had been happening in the village while all of you were gone.

“We’re going home.”