The Little Things

Chapter 4 – The forest hides monsters

When they stopped, Naruto went off to explore the surrounding area, tasting the tang of sea air on his tongue. He left them behind huddling at a fire, glad to experience the warmth and light. He would have sat there, staring into the fire so he could burn the cave’s blackness out of his mind, but he was restless. He needed to move, had to experience living once more. His mind was working in circles, but he didn’t care. Racing through the canopy of trees let him live. He felt at home here, crouching on a branch. He suspected it had something to do with the fox. It was so much a part of him now that he didn’t get annoyed about it anymore. And company spent with Gaara for an entire year meant an entire year spent with another demon holder. A vessel. Gaara epitomised it, with his darkly lined eyes. But he himself was more deceptive, with his sunny expression. Sunny. The term bit into him harshly. He hated it. They’d fear him, not hate him, if only he looked more like Sasuke. Instead he was blonde and blue-eyed. And even his slender nine tails made him look cute and vulnerable. But Naruto was at peace with this. Fate, as he disdainfully termed it, had dealt him a harsh life. He’d make it better though. Nothing would stop him from doing so, not even a frigid Sasuke and a disappeared Konoha.

Hihi!

The small giggle crashed through his mind, made his ears literally perked as he swivelled on the branch. It was the giggle of a small child, but in this forest a small child laughing was nothing to be happy about. His entire body tensed, the line of his form perched to launch on the branch, aware suddenly of the leaves, the tree trunk and the moss on the tree.

HiHi!

The sound came again, and this time Naruto sprung into action, speeding downwards towards the ground at an alarming pace, following the vibrations. His ears pricked once more, and he felt the adrenalin rising, the rate of his heart tripling. He came to a sudden stop, and his life crashed to a halt. A small girl stood in front of him, clad in leggings and a loose brown shirt that hung down to her thighs. Her face streaked with dirt, dark brown hair tousled around her face, and amidst it all two green eyes swam in the middle. Naruto didn’t need his instinct, his fox, to tell him something was wrong here. He didn’t approach her, just watched her. The girl opened her mouth, but no note crept out. She raised her hand, waved, turned and ran back into the shadows. Naruto didn’t follow. He knew better than to follow something like that. The anger rose in him. He couldn’t believe it. He couldn’t believe it. It was impossible to believe that this had happened again, despite the agreement. He glared down into the thicket she had run off into. They’d have to hunt her down. They owed it to her.

The encounter now over, the experience began to fade from his mind. It didn’t matter. Nothing mattered. There were monsters in the forest. All that mattered now was survival. He raced back towards the camp, the anger at this injustice pressing him on. He was dimly aware of the anger consuming him, burning as he stepped, of his sight turning red but being able to see. And he walked on.

As with most things, Gaara heard it before he saw it, before he smelt it. The sinister crackle of an unquenchable fire, then the red form, and with the southern winds the smell of burning leaves brought by black furls of smoke. But he didn’t really notice the smell, because it was the red form burning, the red form with the swinging braid and the nine tails flickering that sent him into a rare panic, made him burst from the camp and call on all the possible sand he possessed and around him and throw it at the fox-boy. Because he was mad. And there was no point in talking to someone who didn’t answer to their own name. Because when Naruto was in a state like this, he didn’t answer to anyone. He simply killed. He simply hunted. He became an animal that shouted with impunity ‘Try it on with me. Go on. Come on. Do it. Try it.’ There was no point in arguing. And Gaara wasn’t stupid enough to try and fight him, especially when he could just bury him – to a degree – in the earth and let him work out his fury. It could take days, Naruto’s loss of temper came rarely, but when it did it came with the fury of the earth behind him, razing the very ground as he walked.

This was where Naruto’s fear of small, confined spaces came from. Gaara kicked the guilt away from him. He was only doing what was necessary. He folded his arms together and made himself comfortable on the ground, concentrating on holding the sand in place. The Uchiha would be here shortly.

He dimly felt Naruto take his anger out on domed structure, but it barely bothered him. Instead he concentrated on the forest, feeling how it breathed, watching it with piercing observant eyes. A distinct lack of animals, and now that he noticed it above the failing hiss of the fire, the birds had gone silent. There was nothing else to do but wait. He watched the sun’s dapples move across the ground in front of him, one slow pace at a time.

The billows of black smoke slowly died down to a trickle, playfully drifting in the still air. From time to time a dulled scream could be heard, but he ignored it, falling into his own consciousness.

Finally Sasuke arrives, pacing to a sullen halt at his side. Without looking, he knows the Sharingan is shining in his eyes, rotating slowly. He seems unperturbed, as if he came across something like this all the time. At least he wasn’t making stupid assumptions. Not that he wouldn’t mind kicking Sasuke’s ass, just because. Gaara shook his head, worrying about the sudden thought to kill. It hadn’t been there earlier. Was Naruto’s intervention already fading away? He was oddly two sided about it, one part crowing in pleasure at the way it was already crumbling, as if Naruto could stop everything, and another part deeply disappointed. Was it too much to ask to be in control of his own body, without having a malignant influence?

“Explain.” Sasuke rasped. He noticed now how his voice was always hoarse, weak with disuse. He had never been one for many words, but there had always been his smug and arrogant expression. Now it was a faint aftertaste that barely clung to him.

“He lost his temper. This way we are both safe.” Gaara said simply. Sasuke regarded him with one calculated glance, assessing the truth and flippancy in his tone. It was an extremely serious situation, Naruto being in such a state, but he didn’t dare voice it. Some things could only be dealt with lightly. And Sasuke knew this, as surely as he recognized the gravity of a furious Naruto. Sasuke sat down, settling himself next him. Close enough for a travelling team member you didn’t know well, but far enough to move away if under attack. And from this vantage point he waited. Gaara calmly waited, idly considering whether he should just volunteer the information Sasuke wanted. They sat like this for an hour, both waiting for the other to speak, occasionally attention flickering to the dome of sand when a particularly loud bang sounded out.

Sasuke broke. He was used to the silence, but he wanted to know more than he wanted to wait Gaara out. And Gaara knew, so he didn’t have to offer anything to him, he didn’t owe him anything.

“This happened before.” It was a statement, carefully crafted. Or so Sasuke hoped, but both their feelings and animosities were on show to each other, and this was merely a polite game. Sasuke was irritated. Partly because Gaara seemed too crude to understand the subtleties of it.

“On our year away he lost his temper. I’d never seen anything like it. It was the moment before he burst into flames, when I was trying to wrestle him to the ground, attempting to subdue him. In the end it was safer to bury him. His sudden strength is fuelled by anger. It makes sense it goes away when he calms down.” Gaara lapsed back into a silence. He had offered, but he would wait for Sasuke to ask more. A small snort of anger could be heard to his left, shortly bit back by an irritated and ruffled Sasuke, Sharingan eyes glowering. Gaara nearly laughed out loud. Sasuke was still too frustrated by human company that it made him lose his composure. But laughing would have been a nuisance, Sasuke would have undoubtedly have thought to settle it with fists. Sasuke had given enough, and now Gaara would offer. He didn’t know why he insisted on playing this game with Sasuke, but he found it amusing. He didn’t find many things amusing, but this was one of them.

“When I was first given the mission; they told us to track her down. Nothing was said of hunting or killing, just tracking her down. We were supposed to bring her back, because she had stolen something. But it was more complex than that. Anything which involved the two of us would be more complex than taking down an audacious thief. We took it anyway. Mist Village, they told us what to expect, a girl verging on being a young woman holding a demon.” Gaara paused, but it was a natural while he gathered his thoughts. Sasuke focused on a spot in front of him, but he listened intently. Gaara remembered walking into that village with Naruto walking beside him excitedly. They had both been young then, changed by the years after the Chuunin exams, but neither anticipated the huge change that this would bring them. And now they understood how shinobi must live. Now they understood how one experience could change a man completely. He did not tell this to Sasuke though, wanting to keep the feeling of stares and sun rays as they meandered to the accepted spot. Didn’t really want to recall the Kage of the Mist smirking in satisfaction at some report. The realization that came later that it had been they who he had been smiling at bit hard.

“It took us three months to track her down. There were traces of her at first, clumsiness. Then she cottoned on. We took our time though, feeling we would tire a normal non-shinobi out within 4 weeks. As the first, and then a second month tracked by we began to think like shinobi. We distrusted everything. Drove ourselves to track her harder, faster. She became smarter too, and we struggled to keep up. Now when we saw her, there would be long keening sounds that shook bones, the kind heard in mourning sometimes. It echoed out across the forest.” The description didn’t do justice to the eeriness of a forest at night, still without life, then the screams piercing the peace, splintering his armour. It sounded like nothing on earth. The air held still and simultaneously erupted around them, but still they went on. Gaara couldn’t help but shake his head at their own idiocy, thank luck that they were still alive.

“All of a sudden she came out to us, and in broken speech told us how they had put it in her. She wasn’t a thief, just an unlucky person they experimented on. The demon was trying to take her over, take control of her body. At first it was winning, but she was sharp. So damn sharp. She was soon fighting back, and after hearing something like that we sympathized with her. We started to head back to the Mist Village, intent on clearing up the misunderstanding, ready to seek help for her. We thought we could perhaps extract it.”

“We must have been too late. She had said from the beginning, if she loses control completely we were to kill her no matter what. Said she couldn’t bear to watch him use her body for his own work. It happened. She lost control late one night. All of a sudden food was abandoned while she tried her hardest to kill us. Two months of us trying to help her take back control disappeared in a single moment. We chased her away. The next day we resumed the chase, the hunt.” Gaara took another moment to let his words sink in. He’d managed fine up until now controlling his own demon, keeping Shukaku in check. But he was being very active lately. This scared him, but he knew Naruto would do everything that had to be done. If he wanted it or not.

“Her speed triples. We’re barely keeping up, all of a sudden we jump from the trees into her waiting arms and a fight. All is the same, but all of a sudden Naruto is changing. I barely notice it while I direct the sand to protect us both. Then there’s a great explosion of light to my left and Naruto is in flames, large tufts emerging from them to denote the ears, his mane of blond hair growing out, and the tails. They sprout behind him. And he adjusts to it flawlessly. I guess that is what surprised me. He didn’t waver for a single moment. Scared by the change, she runs.” The forest is still now with the night setting in. And Naruto has finally calmed down, Gaara notices with slight relief.

Slowly he peels layers of sand away, wary in case the silence had betrayed him. The sand hovers hesitatingly around the area. Gaara could almost laugh at how well they suit each other. Fire smothered by Sand. Sand chased by Fire. An equal balance, but Sasuke was the variable between them. Made this trip different. With Naruto life had become normal. Two demon kids hunting another down. It had been, Gaara had to admit, exhilarating.

The last of the sand collapses without Gaara’s chakra holding it up. Naruto emerges, naked, ignoring them both and stalking straight to the camp for a new set of clothes.

The dull red eyes promising destruction, death and chaos don’t go unnoticed by the other two.

They sat down around a puff of fire, huddled close together. Not wanting to attract more animals or insects or demons. Naruto has already told them about the girl, the small girl standing in a forest screaming her demented laugh. Gaara has already made up his mind. Or rather, he’s following Naruto, who has every intention of hunting her down. He didn’t have to spell it out for Gaara; it was for Sasuke’s benefit he said: “We are going to find her and put her out of her misery.” And Sasuke agreed because he wasn’t a fool. They’d drag him with him, and truth be told he was curious.

“She’s still weak, unaware of her power, we can catch her before dawn if we hurry.” Naruto explained, laying out the plan. Gaara would float overhead with sand, Naruto on ground, Sasuke going from tree to tree. In the dense forest it was the best way to cover a lot of ground, they’d come across her. Demons left an easy trail to follow once they took over. It was later, when they’d become accustomed, had the smartness of a thousand millennia behind them that they became a pain in the ass to track.

The air was sharp with the tang of the sea, with the cool flavour of night, the mint breath of trees whispering in the stillness. They ran in their respective places, following at first the ashes left by Naruto’s path, then moving on into the thicket. Although they were moving in a team, the experience was singular and individual. They moved as one but with a separate awareness. And yet together. Everything, the confusion, the paranoia, suspicion, everything was left behind right now to do this mission. And Sasuke finally understood how Naruto trusted Gaara, how Gaara trusted Naruto despite their demons. They had to. Relied on each other’s lives. It had been so long that it kept in bay mistrust and wariness that would reign when the mission was over. To the point where Gaara said ‘Home’ to Naruto. Sasuke shook his head. Thinking too much.

It didn’t bother him. That’s what Sasuke thought to himself, running along the branches of swaying pines and great oaks.

“Halt!” came Naruto’s voice, echoing all the way to Gaara’s ears. Sasuke’s ears twitched in annoyance. He liked to come up on an enemy like this without giving them an opening. Not that it mattered, he didn’t think – and it rubbed greatly – that he would be involved in this fight. But the Sharingan glittered in his pupils anyway. The trees were thick with leaves, but on the ground he could make out a small figure. Naruto had already descended into an offensive stance, but she stood there as if nothing in the world was wrong. She may not realise it, but her demon certainly would. Why was nothing happening? He heard the slow rustle of sand and the form of Gaara descend. He hopped down a few branches, prepared to launch himself into the fray if need be. Even though they had just moved as one, he knew he was too slow to play with demons.

What happened next Sasuke would never be sure of. He reckoned he blinked. He wasn’t too sure, because it may have just been so fast he didn’t actually register it, Sharingan or not. One second they were waiting for a hidden signal to begin, the next millisecond it was over and the girl lay decapitated and sans a heart.

He hadn’t done that to Itachi.

He supposed that is why he wasn’t a demon.

He didn’t know if to clap or be sickened.

He settled on stoically disapproving.

He was glad he didn’t play.

“That’s done.” Naruto’s voice reached him, loitering with intent at his ears, mocking him. He suddenly understood. They were both A-class demons who were A-class shinobi who had succeeded in separating their humanity and killer nature. Were able to switch it on and off. Was this the same boy who had demanded he come home?

Naruto was the man who kissed him. He wasn’t a boy. No boy could have become this. He had been formed by family and tragedy and vengeance and he was nothing like them.

“We move east.”