beboots | Res Ipsa Loquitur, Tabula in Naufragio

Chapter Two: Opening Moves

Gaara was a creature of the desert, and had nothing to fear from it. Although his gourd of sand, which was equally twice as heavy as he was, burdened his young body, he would weather it. The desert sand showed him hidden wellsprings of water, and shinobi can go without food for days, living off of chakra reserves.

And Gaara had nothing if not chakra reserves.

It wasn’t something that he liked to do, but he was quite capable of crossing the desert alone with no supplies. Despite the shifting and fluid nature of the sand dunes, Gaara could never become lost. He had gotten to know these sands very well in his lifetime, and the sands knew him, or, rather, the ancientness inside him.

He was perfectly suited to weather the worst of sandstorms. His own sand would protect him.

The same could not be said of the ANBU that had been sent to retrieve him.

Rescuing them would be his first good deed in this world.

Naruto, too, was having his own ANBU troubles. Since infancy, the “Kyuubi brat” had been watched by Konoha’s finest. It wasn’t a desirable assignment, but it was a necessary one. Needless to say, when the demon child suddenly disappeared from under the gaze of some of the most watchful shinobi in the entirety of Fire Country, there would be hell to pay.

Mostly by Naruto.

That would, of course, depend upon which ANBU came to find him. If worse came to worse, well… It could be bad. Many – well, most shinobi still keenly remembered the Kyuubi attack, and the majority still blamed Naruto for it. They could react really badly to having to bring him in. Even if they were ordered to bring him in “alive,” they could still claim he was hurt by other means before they arrived, were he to be brought back to Konoha in less than pristine condition. It would all depend on who was sent to fetch him back.

Luckily, Naruto knew how to deal with ANBU. Different ANBU, of course: that went without saying, as hardly anyone lasted over five or ten years in the corps, let alone seven decades. Every Hokage had their little tricks to get the proud shinobi to do their bidding. For Naruto, it was to do what the ANBU expected him to do; or, rather, manipulate them into doing what he wanted by making it seem as if they had thought of it all along.

ANBU hated surprises, after all.

But Naruto hadn’t been known as the number-one most surprising ninja for no reason.

Naruto had appeared in this world several days travel outside of Konoha. Normally, that would be hardly any distance at all for him, the Hokage, but his younger body had a shorter leg span, and was, well, kind of pathetic.

At the age of six, Naruto had hardly any notion of what chakra was, let alone how to utilize it. As such, the “boy’s” first task was to relearn how to focus chakra down into his feet. It wasn’t terribly difficult, as he had known how to do so before. It was time-consuming, at first, though, when he accidentally broke the branches that he landed upon, or overshot the branches that he aimed for. Sometimes, less often, he didn’t even reach them, if he overcompensated. His younger body didn’t know how to rapidly heal itself, either, so he had to be very careful not to fall too far from the trees.

After sixty-eight years of being the most bad-ass ninja around, it was almost disheartening to suddenly be almost incapable of even tree climbing.

This meant that he’d probably have to relearn how to do some of his most awesome techniques, too.

But he would manage. Naruto always managed, somehow.

When he got within a day’s travel of Konohakagure (he had run all night, so as to look suitably lost and tired to those that found him), he began flaring his chakra in imitation of that of a distressed child. After that, it was only a matter of time before the ANBU found him.

When he began to sense their muted chakra signatures approaching, Naruto dropped from the trees to the ground, and slowed to a snail’s pace. He was sure to walk right through bushes, thrashing as he was caught among their thorns and branches, and tried to look overall pathetic and lost.

Apparently, it had worked. He felt more than saw or heard the shinobi alight on a branch above his head. He pretended not to notice, continuing to try to plough through the woods, “accidentally” tripping over a tree branch and stumbling. Before he could hit the ground, he was caught by a white-armored arm. Ah, good. It was one of the more trustworthy ANBU. Most would have simply let the Kyuubi brat fall, or would have brutally “helped” him to the ground.

Naruto jerked and turned to look towards the masked face, feigning fear and confusion. “Who- who’re you?” He gasped, working up some tears into his bright blue eyes.

The ANBU was silent, not revealing his identity to the child, just as a good soldier should. He, as Hokage, approved.

“I am Wolf.” The man said after a suitably dramatic pause. “We have been looking for you, Uzumaki Naruto.” ‘We’ would probably be referring to the other chakra signature he wasn’t supposed to be able to sense, still in the tree above him.

So it was Kakashi, then. Some real tears leaked out, then. His old sensei had died in the thirty-fifth year of his rule over Konoha, on a simple B-class mission turned S-class by a band of rogue missing-nin.

It was good to see him once again.

Feigning hysteria, Naruto tried to scramble away. “Why’re you looking for me?”

Obviously, such a young boy as Naruto was supposed to be wouldn’t be able to wrench out of an ANBU’s grip so easily. Kakashi’s hand remained clamped onto the boy’s shoulder. “You have been missing for nearly five days, Uzumaki Naruto. The Hokage sent us to find you,” the copy-nin said in the flat tone of voice unique to ANBU operatives and Gaara.

“O- old-man Hokage sent you?” Naruto questioned, timorously. So he had been missing five days. Interesting, considering that he had only been in this world for three. He wondered how that had worked – he supposed that his younger self would have had to arrive in that clearing somehow so that he could replace him.

“You will come with me back to Konoha.” That wasn’t a request; that was a statement of fact. Naruto didn’t argue. “Have you eaten?”

Naruto wordlessly shook his head. That was a lie, but it would be expected that he didn’t know how to feed himself out here. He was hungry, but not starving as he should be after five days without food. He had eaten a little bit in the past two days. The forest was full of edible plants, after all. But his younger self wouldn’t have known that, having lived in the village for all of his short life. No-one had taught him what could be eaten in the wild and what couldn’t be until his sojourn with Jiraiya.

He had been living off of his chakra this past day, which would also give him a suitably gaunt and hungry look: just what the ANBU were expecting.

A ration bar was shoved into his hands. “Eat, and then we shall go.” The ANBU intoned. Naruto knew that they specially practiced those tones of voice to achieve particular effects: namely, intimidation. Naruto wasn’t fooled, but pretended to be suitably cowed. He scarfed down the tasteless bar of granola and vitamins – he really was hungry – and once more looked to the masked man.

Even through the mask, Naruto could tell that the man was concerned at how quickly he had eaten that food. That itself was significant, because Kakashi rarely got concerned over anything (according to Maito Gai, his rival was too “hip” and “cool” to show concern over anybody).

Excellent. He concentrated on looking tired and hungry. He was already getting somewhere.

Gaara hadn’t spoken to the ANBU when he had come across the them, huddled in the slight protection of a sand dune, feebly trying to shield themselves from sandy death in a distinctly un-ANBU fashion. Gaara figured that he looked rather dramatic, framed by walls of sand and sudden silence from the storm’s wails. The ANBU might have even looked relieved behind their masks before they realized just who had saved them. The redheaded child directed the sand around them with his hands, knowing that hand-gestures made it easier to concentrate and, well, looked more impressive.

Gaara was concentrating on holding the sandstorm at bay so the ANBU he had encountered wouldn’t have the flesh stripped from their bones. This act was actually rather difficult, because he had to move the sand in a way contrary to the direction that they wanted to go, which was along with the wind. Most of the time when he moved sand, he used chakra to feed it along natural currents either in the ground or in the air… although, he could force it in another direction, with difficulty, like he was now.

His current actions created a sort of “eye” in the storm in which air was totally still. Surrounding them on all sides were massive walls of immobile sand.

“Any port in a storm,” as they say. As such, the ANBU were quite willing to put aside any harsh feelings they had for the faulty weapon of Suna if it meant that they would be able to get out of this sandstorm alive.

As Gaara directed the sand, he gestured for the trio of sand shinobi to move forward, in a direction that he knew that Sunakagure lay. Perhaps it was his inherent leadership qualities, honed through seven decades of undisputed political control, or perhaps it was that Gaara really was scary enough to frighten hardened ANBU into obeying, but they followed his silent orders without question.

They ran forward, the four of them, and the bubble of sand-less air followed them.

Gaara had abandoned his heavy gourd for convenience’s sake. It wasn’t as if he didn’t have access to ample enough sand to be able to defend himself out here.

Unlike Naruto, who had made a sort of contract with his inner demon, Gaara had never truly defeated Shukaku, or really made a proper agreement with him. They hadn’t even come to a truce; it was more of a stalemate than a détente, truth to be told. The most they had agreed upon was a mutual “I’ll prevent your death if you prevent mine.” Gaara would indeed kill people who were threatening him or his village, but that wasn’t enough to satisfy the bloodlust of the Ichibi. Both of them had become well aware that Gaara as sure as hell wouldn’t fall asleep and let Shukaku out, and with his entire will focused to such a task, there wasn’t much the one-tail could do to resist. As such, it was less of a formal cease-fire and more of a “watch and wait for weaknesses in the enemy to appear.”

Apparently, Shukaku had spotted a weakness.

The walls of Sunakagure had just come into dim view through the swirling sand when Shukaku made his move. The one-tailed beast suddenly and without warning roared directly into Gaara’s brain. Eyes widening in shock, the boy instinctively clamped his hands over his ears. He then squeezed his eyes shut in a vain attempt to shut out the horrendous sound. This did no good, because the demon’s attack upon its host was purely mental. Because Shukaku did not require air, he therefore didn’t have to pause to breathe, extending the incredibly loud bestial cry for a surprisingly long time in Gaara’s mind.

The ANBU, however, knew none of this. They just knew that all of a sudden, their protection against the raging sandstorm was gone. Purely for selfish reasons (they hadn’t gone into that storm to fetch back the demon child only to come back empty handed now), they grabbed the demon brat under the arms and dragged him into the city. It wasn’t a terribly difficult task, as Gaara really was a skinny little kid and wasn’t all that heavy.

He was also acting very strange. Well, strange for a normal person. Perhaps clutching at one’s head and screaming was normal for a demon-possessed child.

Luckily for these ANBU, someone came right away to relieve them of their burden: Yashamaru. “You there! You have Gaara?” The blond man called out, above the sound of the wind, from a nearby doorway. “Is he alive?”

“Yes!” One of them replied. Well, the brat was screaming pretty loudly. That had to mean that he was breathing, right?

“This way!” They were lead into the nearby sentry outpost for the wall. It was, mercifully, closed to the elements. The sound of the sandstorm raging about them continued, but they were no longer in danger of being torn apart.

“Here, give him to me!” That was something that the shinobi were very eager to do. But just as they were handing him over to Yashamaru, Gaara’s eyes snapped open and sand began to swirl angrily about his feet. Yashamaru instinctively took a step back.

The boy’s eyes were, well, black pits – for lack of a better term. They weren’t human. Mercifully, they closed after only moments, and Gaara clutched at his head. “Let me go-“ he grated out, the last word cut off as he growled. He actually growled. The ANBU were all too happy to drop him. He was dumped unceremoniously upon the floor, where he lay, curled into a ball, still clutching his head.

The ANBU would have likely fled, orders to complete the mission be damned, if the sandstorm hadn’t still been raging around them.

The four ninja watched, silent, as the demon brat battled with… something, probably bloodlust, on the floor in front of them. Occasionally, the redhead would mutter something that sounded like “shutupshutupshutup!” before falling silent once more.

An eternity later, the demon brat’s form finally relaxed, his hands falling to his sides, breathing in sharp gasps indicating exhaustion. “I am… all right.” Gaara managed, sitting up. He had slapped up the mental equivalent of sandbags, dams, and stone walls against Shukaku - all guarded by metaphorical mental ANBU. That would be the last time he would let himself be distracted from keeping the demon at bay for a long, long while.

“What… happened?” Yashamaru finally asked, as if afraid to know the answer.

“Shukaku wanted you dead. I didn’t.” He met his uncle’s eyes. There was definite fear there, and perhaps a little bit of disgust now that Gaara knew what he was looking for. Gaara’s already bad mood plummeted, but he tried not to show it. He didn’t want to have his uncle’s death on his hands again, even if the man hated Gaara’s guts for causing mother’s death.

“Hey, but aren’t Shukaku and you- er - the same –ah…“ The ANBU had begun to wonder something aloud, and was silenced by a glare from Gaara.

“I am a vessel of a demon, not the demon itself.” He deliberately injected bitterness into his tone, and a bit of hurt, calculatingly ‘glancing’ at Uncle Yashamaru. “Do you blame the bars of the jail for the criminal’s crimes?” Gaara knew he was introducing a radical concept. He didn’t expect them to get it right away. Perhaps with enough repetition, the idea would spread. He hoped so. “You may not really love me, uncle-“ Gaara whispered just loudly enough to be heard over the noise of the storm, avoiding Yashamaru’s gaze and ignoring the gasp and sudden scent of fear from the blond man, “But you are a citizen of my village and I don’t want you to die.”

Res Ipsa Loquitur, Tabula in Naufragio

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