Fiat justitia, ruatcaelum

{{A/N; I know Shukaku is supposed to be male, more or less, but I have flavored the demon as such due to the nature of Gaara’s birth. Here, Shukaku is largely feminine. Thanks always for your support. And I'll keep that last idea in mind...hehehe C.D.}}
Of Demons and Perverts

The trail of upset shop keepers and people still in a state of shock wasn’t hard to follow. Even the number of mothers with the children’s eyes covered seemed fairly high still.
And most hid from Sakura, or hurried to get out of her way.
Until she reached the base of Monument Mountain. Near the emergency shelters, she simply lost the trail. As if there wasn’t one to be found. And it stopped at a sign that read; ‘Beware Dangerous animals’.
Beneath it were two simple chibu illustrations; one of a pair of squinted eyes, pointy ears, and little whisker marks around a dot, the other began with the nose and whiskers topped with almond shaped ring-eyes and a diamond with chevrons to one side.
“Guys!” Sakura called out. “Hey! I have Gaara’s underroos and I want mine back!”
“Guess my full name!” Gaara called out.
*Great. This game.* “Gaara of the Desert!”
“How do you know that?”
“It’s on the inside of the waistband!”
“Oh…”
“Now give back my underroos!” Sakura waved Gaara’s in the air.
“Show us a jutsu!” Naruto shouted.
“What?” He had to be nearby. Closer than Gaara.
“Show us a jutsu!” Naryto repeated, “If it’s a good one, we might help you.”
“All this just for my underroos?”
“Umm, yeah!” Naruto called back, “But if it’s a lousy jutsu you won’t see your precious swimsuit-looking unmentionables again!”
“Umm, Naruto?”
“Yes, Gaara?”
“One’s undersuit is not their unmentionables. Unmentionables are, well you just don’t talk about them conversationally.”
“Really?”
“Who cares!?” Sakura cried out.
“I do!” Gaara called out, “One’s grammar must always be as correct as it needs be for any given situation.”
“Nary ain’t it not the untruth, inn’t?” Naruto to replied. “Or, somm’it akin roundabout sorta.”
“How long do I have to put up with this?” Sakura shouted into the trees.
There was a short silence. And it grew longer.
“Naruto?”
Sakura waited for a reply. “Gaara?”
“About three seconds after you show us a good Jutsu!” Naruto called out.
“We had he going for a second there.” Gaara laughed.
“Fine.” Sakura threw together a quick shadow doppelganger of herself. “There you go. Now give them back!”
“Lousy!” Naruto called out, “Any cadet can do better than that! Try again!”
“Come on. I just escaped from the anbu and I’m low on chakra!” Sakura though about pouting. *It’ll never work on them… Damn tricksters.*
“Lame!”
“Excuse!” They chimed one after the other.
Sakura grabbed a cord of chakra from the surface of her well. The henge wove easily and flashed.
Ryo stepped out of the smoke, “There! Happy now?”
“That is pretty good.” Sakura could imagine Naruto tipping his head to one side.
“Nice attention to detail,” Gaara called out, “I can even see the bulge in his pants!”
“And?”
“And it isn’t quite good enough. We need to see something special.” Gaara seemed closer.
“Yeah!” Naruto had shifted closer as well, “Something exciting, daring even!”
“Something perverted?” Sakura focused on her shadow clone. It was slowly ingulfed in smoke and with a chakra tone rang out.
“Hey, she did it!” Naruto cheered.
The smoke cleared slowly and where once Sakura stood, now posed a centerfold, the last lingering tendrils of smoke clinging to her body.
Naruto fell from the tree he was in a short ways away. “That is the third most perverted thing I’ve ever seen!!” He let Sakura steal her undergarments from him as he went by.
“That’s good enough.” Gaara appeared from a shrubbery.
Sakura held Gaara’s pants back and away from him, “I want something before you get yours back.”
“Oh-ho-ho!” gaara put his hands on his hips, “I see how it is! It’s all good when it’s your idea!”
Disgust ran over Sakura’s face, “You’re a shameless pervert, you know that?”
Gaara crossed his arms, “I don’t look like a leather wearing fruitcake hugging girl’s underwear.”
Sakura dropped the henge.
“And then there’s that little gem.” Gaara pointed at her shadow clone.
She turned. Naruto was trying to fan away the concealing smoke as the doppelganger tried to swat his hands and protect her veiling clouds.
“Point taken.” She let go of the clone. “When do we eat?”
“NO!” Naruto tried to hug the smoke back together, “Come back! I didn’t meant it!”

Sakura drained the last of the broth from her bowl and set it beside the chopsticks.
“And then Naruto came around the corner. That’s the whole story.”
Naruto mumbled something in his sleep, having dozed off at some point. Gaara nodded over his steepled fingers, “That’s the best campfire story we’ve heard in a long time.”
“You don’t believe me, do you?” Sakura sighed as Gaara shook his head. *At least I got to eat…*
“I believe you. And so does Gaara.”
“Huh?” Sakura looked more closely at the boy in a toga. He had crossed his legs at the ankle and his face seemed rather more feminine. And the dark rings had grown larger and darker, bridging the bridge of his nose. His eyes, usually a medium sea green tone were a pale yellow.
And a second Gaara stood from behind the chair, “Check this out!” He poked the sitting Gaara, the doppelganger shifting and loosing color, appearing as a statue of sand that swatted his hand away. Gaara sat beside the chair, quietly fiddling with his nails.
“Shukaku?”
The body smiled, “Yes. Though I am subtly surprised. You are indeed a powerful ninja. Though perhaps not in the way Gaara suspects.”
Sakura held her tongue. Waiting.
“And you do seem to know Naruto well. Perhaps better than most anyone. Except Kyuubi.”
“Ha! It’s hard to know someone better than the person who can choose the hear your every waking thought and remembers your dreams better than you can.”
“How can you know what the demon within may know? I am curious.”
Sakura shifted in her seat. “Where I came from… Naruto wrote a poem for me and slipped it into my bag. It was a long time ago, and… At the time I didn’t know him well enough to understand what he meant.”
Shukaku shook their head, “Rehehehe. Perhaps you are wiser now than before, then? But even now you know enough to realize you know very little.”
“You have to accept you have a problem before you can fix it.” Sakura countered.
“Rehehehehe.” Shukaku held her sides, “Do you think ignorance is something so easily with which to be dealt? Perhaps you are not so wise as I thought for a moment.”
“I can have my moments.” Sakura leaned back in her chair, “Your turn. Tell me about yourselves.”
Sakura watched as Gaara’s rings faded. His eyes changed color, back their darker hue.
He then reached down, jiggling his underparts.
“Why? Why does she always tuck it in!?” Gaara stood up and took a few steps in a small circle before he sat back down. “Okay. I’m good.”
“Wait…” Sakura watched as the Gaara on the floor melted into a puddle of sand. “Who was who?”
Gaara looked up from his doppelganger.
“Umm… Actually, I can’t quite answer that question. Each was one, or the other, but both were both.” He frowned, “Does that make sense?”
“So what about your story?” Sakura shook her head and settled in.
Gaara mussed his hair, “It really isn’t that long. I was born from to the Kazekage, back when there was one, and grew up constantly training. I was a three year old genin and I was subjected to a chunin test for my fifth birthday. When I was nine, I was proclaimed the youngest jonin the village had known and, really, no one argued.”
“Why would they?”
Gaara smirked, “Well, my old man was the leader of the village. And there was on open challenge then on all jonin rank nin. If another nin beat a jonin, they were taken down a peg. Lose too many, or to the wrong person, and you lose your rank. I was undefeated until I was twelve. When I fought my old man. He knew what I was. That and the sand wouldn’t fight him.” Gaara looked inwardly, “Or my siblings. It would protect me, to a point. But it wouldn’t act against them. The spirit of my mother was really the catalyst to it all, I think. Dying as I was given life and all that…”
Sakura nodded, “And so…?”
Gaara shrugged, “I do get distracted when it comes to family. A few years ago, Orochimaru decided he wanted to be Hokage. And he took it. Just like he’d done with everything else he wanted.
“Well, one day he decided he wanted to marry my sister. Perhaps because someone told him he couldn’t. As an end result, he went to my old man and, long story sort, the discussion went downhill after the formal greetings. Pop said no, snake boy said he’d kill pop, pop dared him to try. In the end, the tower fell, a big ass hole blown in the side you know, and pop got ate by a big ass snake.” Gaara sighed.
“This made my big brother, Kankuro, the Kazekage by default. Like anyone else wanted the job. Anyway, snake breath went to Temari and told her he’d kill Kankuro and bury Suna unless she married him. Then he went to Kankuro and told him to sell Temari to him. Being ninja and all, that was actually a viable offer. And the sum he put up was pretty outrageous. A mile of wagons, all loaded down with gold, silk, a few filled with top notch ninja, pretty much two of anything of real value. There was even a Hyuuga family of four in there.”
“And Kankuro told him to buzz off.” Sakura was playing with her chopsticks.
“I was there. Kankuro ordered him to, and I quote, ‘Get your filthy bribe out of my city, out of my desert, out of my country and don’t let the gates shut on your scaled ass.’ Well, Orochimaru wasn’t happy. Told him he wouldn’t live to regret it and neither would his precious city.” Gaara sighed, “Temari heard about it and confronted Orochimaru. And then he killed her. What was said must have been pretty serious, or perhaps she simply attacked him. He was actually pretty keen on marrying her. And he wasn’t done, after that. He went back to Suna and buried it like he’d promised. I would be lying under the sands now with my brother, but I was in thunder country. Making allies and signing treaties. Well, trying. They really didn’t want anything doing at the time.
“I got back to find that every recognized sand nin had died. Either trying to protect my city or avenge it.”
“Except you, right?”
Gaara shook his head, “I’m registered as a the Kazekage, also by default, but I never graduated from an academy. So technically, I am not and never was really a ninja. And no one is willing to call me a member of their village. I’m a jinchuriki, like Naruto, mostly.”
“Mostly? Does the difference in demon matter that much?”
“No, no.” Gaara waved his hands, “I was born with the demon already within me. She and I have always been one. Inseparable. Like a silver ring that has been decorated with gold. You could take one from the other, but it would destroy the ring.
“Naruto was once merely human. Just a silver ring. And then Kyuubi was bound to him, like a gemstone set into the ring. You could, in theory, remove one from the other and still have each.”
Sakura let the idea sink in. *Naruto and Kyuubi…ring and gemstone…*
Gaara stood slowly, stretching his long limbs, “Anyway, with your position, I think we might be able to help. Your story is crazy enough to be remotely possible, especially since a death seal was involved. Death seals can be really tricky, so it’s usually better to leave them alone.”
He pressed a panel on the wall, a hidden doorway revealed as the stone slab pivoted, “Of course, not all who know of seals as such have sense enough to think that way.” He winked back at Sakura and lead the way into the dark tunnel beyond.
“Doesn’t this lead back to the emergency shelters?” Sakura focused chakra in her hand, channeling it down to one finger. The tip began to glow and she used the dim light to navigate.
“It used to.” Gaara ran one hand along the wall, “And it would again, if the need arose. If we let them.”
“I know you two live here, but why wouldn’t you shelter the people of Konoha?” Sakura moved closer to the wall, trying to discern what had been used as paneling along the walls. It looked like dark cloth with randomly placed metal bits that were reflective. And every so often an oval of some random color was set into the cloth.
“We might. Or we may just wander on out and do the whole defender of the city thing. Or we could just let them all die and wait for the dust to settle. I’m a little moody like that.” Sakura looked behind her. Naruto had padded up, his eyes gleaming in the light with an amber reflection.
“But as it is,” He continued, “They tend to just leave us alone. Took ‘em long enough though.”
Naruto touched the wall, pulling up one of the hanging objects. “Each of these is from someone we killed. Every. Last. One.”
Sakura brightened her light and picked at one of the reflective plates. *There’s a symbol…* A leaf. Sakrua dropped the headband, letting it swing back against the wall. She looked back toward the door. The wall was black. And deeper into the tunnel for a long ways yet. “All of them…?”
“In self defense, mind you.” Gaara interrupted, “Sure, we go out and have fun with them on occasion, but we have never gone out looking for a fight. And we don’t usually stay around for one. But fun. Battle is not fun. Well, it might be fun, but death is no joke and going to the hospital isn’t funny.”
“I don’t get it…” Sakura looked at the pair of them in the semi-dark, “Why bring me to the trophy room?”
“Because we can help you.” Naruto opened a door, “And Gaara forgets what’s where back here.”
Gaara shrugged, “So what? The pair of us isn’t big on organizing.”
Naruto flicked a switch on the wall inside the room he’d opened, “Kyuubi, on the extreme contrast, is a vicious neat-freak. Especially when knowledge is concerned. ‘Knowledge is power’ he says.”
Sakura stepped into the slowly brightening room. “If knowledge were wind and a single book a breeze…” She gauged the size of the room as lights lit in the far recesses, “Here is the residence and origin of tornados.”
Shelves filled the room, rising to the ceiling and chasing to the back of the room.
“Hehhehehe, hey Gaara. We stole a tornado.”
“Liberated, Naruto. We liberated the Hokage’s collection.”
“And I suppose we rescued Suna’s library rather than grave robbing?”
“Yes.” Gaara beamed with pride, “And here resides the single largest collection of scrolls, tomes, tapestries, pedants, charts, and diagrams ever assembled.”
Naruto chuckled mischievously, “Yeah. And when that snake loving freak of a bastard finally gets through the last Hokage’s protection seal and into the forbidden storage room he’s going to find nothing but dust bunnies, dead spiders, and one tiny little note.”
“Our dearest friend, scales, We borrowed a few scrolls. Hope you don’t mind. Have them back soon. Jinchuriki.” Gaara laughed to himself. “Right, kids. I’m off for my mid-afternoon nap. Have some fun, eh?”
Naruto lead the way as Gaara faded into the shadow of the hall.
“If it’s in here, it’s alphabetical. Give or take.” Naruto stepped to one side.
Sakura didn’t wait for a second invitation. Her feet fell quietly, but quickly as she scanned the titles along the rows. She turned quickly as she spied the ‘H’ for Hyuuga.
The endcaps of scrolls and the spines of books rolled past her. Though one grabbed her attention.
*Holy Arts and Rites…?* She pulled the tome out and opened to the table of contents. Instead she found an anatomical drawing with numbers indicated to various parts of the drawing.
She hesitated before turning to the page that seemed to indicate the heart.
Naruto stood silently as Sakura’s eyes widened and the book slipped from her grasp. She stepped back from the tome as it hit the floor hugging herself, one hand covering her mouth.
“That was my iniatial reaction as well.” Naruto picked up the book, quickly snapping it shut and returning it to the shelf. “Proof positive that our gentle, caring Hokage is the second to none in his persuit of knowledge.”
“H…he wrote… that…” Sakura tried to collect herself, the image on the page haunting her, the words playing over in her mind.
Naruto nodded, “That and a few others, though it is one of the worst. Such jutsu are indicative that there really is no justice in the nature of higher spiritual powers. If they really was, he would have been struck down by a god long ago for the things he’s done.”
Sakura pried her eyes from the book and moved down the row. “Things like Grave Spawn?”
“Let it be said that if it were not for us,” Naruto let one hand trail along the shelf, “Orochimaru may have taken these halls for his own demented uses or rented them out cheap by now. Perhaps both. He is rather odd in that fashion.”
She paused. Naruto’s voice buzzed, echoed within itself. As if two tongues spoke at once. She turned to face him again. He seemed taller, two tufts of his blonde hair rising akin to large ears, his own slightly pointed. His eyes had gone red, the pupils narrowed to slits. Long eyeteeth pressed at his lip and his whisker marks seemed deeper, darker. His fingernails had grown thicker, longer, sharper. Coming to points.
“There have been a few trials,” He continued, “That the kit and I have overcome, courtesy of the snake sannin.”
Sakura shifted her footing, “Kyuubi?”
The head of Naruto nodded, “I am he, youngling.”
“What happened to Naruto?”
“Yeh yeyeyeye, Do not fret, youngling. He has simply allowed me to borrow his flesh for a moment. I intent neither of you any harm. I was only curious if I might be gifted a few moments of your time.”
There was a quiet flash of smoke and a pair of clones appeared, the two of them forming a human chair.
“Please, be seated.” Kyuubi rested back, tails of raw chakra supporting him in the air.
Sakura sat, finding the copy of Naruto to be more comfortable than she felt was probably right. “Why don’y you come out in one of the clones?”
“You mean as Gaara and Shukaku are wont to do?” Kyuubi smiled, “It is easy, I suppose to suggest, but difficult to explain. They are two living as one; symbiotic. Neither is complete without the other. But we…” Kyuubi paused, “We are two made into one. What we are is not a natural thing. I am imprisoned within the kit’s body and unable to escape him, no matter where he goes.”
“What about the doppelgangers?”
“They are what their source is. If one were to speak as Naruto, I would have to make it speak his words. It is different for Gaara and Shukaku. The sand that obeys their will exists on it’s own. No matter who speaks from their body, the other can control the sand independently.”
“Oh…”
“Yeh yeyeyeye,” Kyuubi waved a hand, “Do not feel foolish, youngling. It is the nature of your youth not to know. And on the topic of knowing, I have gathered much thus far; That the anbu seek you almost actively, your subtle ability to upset nearly all that you touch and yet leave half truth and rumor in your wake, and that your true home is a place far removed from where we now enjoy this conversation.”
“That sounds about right…” Sakura relaxed, *He isn’t so bad here…*
Kyuubi leaned over sideways, reclining, “The reality of good and evil is largely in the eye of the beholder, As I am fairly certain you are aware by now.”
Sakura nodded, recent memories of her mischief coming to mind, *Lies, pranks, theft, grave robbing…*
“Harmless pranks and small lies for the benefit of the whole, and survival’s sake. And you work to repay your debts. I would not fret over such things before their time, youngling.”
Sakura shut her hanging jaw, “How…?”
“You think even more loudly than the kit.” Kyuubi winked, “And you cannot call laying the risen back to their grave murder, especially if they began the battle. You are twice innocent on that count.”
Sakura sighed, “So this would almost be easier if I thought my questions, wouldn’t it?”
“Kyuubi chuckled again, “Were it we were here for your queries only, yes.”
“I’m so sorry.” Sakura bowed low in her seat, “What did you want to know?”
Kyuubi righted himself, eyes solemn, “Why do you seek the knowledge you quest after?” His words were slow and grim. Deathly serious, “What do you intend to gain by breaking the Hyuuga girl’s curse seal?”
Sakura swallowed, gathered her thoughts, “Neji already intends to sell Hinata off, I’m almost certain. And if he does that, he won’t lift a finger to save her from the elder’s wrath. As soon as her absence came to light, they’d suck her mind through a sieve or razors.”
“So you seek to shield one you consider an ally, even perhaps a friend? More noble of you than many would perceive.” Kyuubi opened his eyes, the crimson gaze plumbing the depths of her own eyes, “But why do you seek the bloodline scroll?” One of the tails raised over his head, looking for all the world like a question mark, “You realize that it may take years of work to identify the traits and abilities, should they even surface in you. The results may not surface for several generations.” He leaned closer to her, “And failure is quite likely. Perhaps even death should you fail badly enough.”
Sakura crossed her arms, “I’ll just have to be really careful then, won’t I?”
“Yeh yeyeyeyeye, You are a strong one, youngling.” Kyuubi set his feet back on the floor, “When you are older, girl. We shall see where you progress from here.”
The red chakra tails slipped back into Naruto’s body as he blinked several times, his eyes returning to their natural blue in shades.
He cracked his knuckles and broke out into a wide grin, “I have everything you need for this.” He set off down the row, chuckling, “Man, oh man. The Hyuuga are gonna be soooooooo pissed! This is gonna be great!!”