Chapter Two- Eight Again
Gaara ran his fingers along the outline of his features. No, it was impossible. Completely unnatural. It could not happen. But the forbidden jutsu…the side effects…he was…a child…!
For the first time since Gaara was six, he screamed.
It was unbelievable. It could not be happening. It had to be a dream, no, a nightmare. But it was neither. It was happening, as much as he wished it wasn’t. Gathering his jumbled thoughts, the now, much smaller, but the same level of maturity, Gaara paced back and forth quickly, obviously extremely troubled. The incense…the jutsu…Where will I go? Where will I live? I can’t go back to Sunagakure like this!
“Wait a moment.” Gaara remembered something. Sure, between all the confusion of the past few moments, it was easy to forget things, but…Gaara glanced down. Sure enough, his clothing was, well, a tad too big for his tiny child-like self. In fact, it had dropped down completely, to the point where even Jiraiya would have turned red.
The pale boy’s face flushed a light shade of pink, although this would have to be forced out of his brain, because new, more frightening thoughts were flowing into his mind.
What about the war? What if I can’t turn back?
---
“The Hokage-Sama, Raikage-Sama, Mizukage-Sama, Tsuchikage-Sama, Kazeka-?” The confused Chuunin, Iruka, glanced up from his papers, a look up puzzlement creeping its way onto his face. “Where is Kazekage-Sama?”
Tsunade shuffled the paperwork in front of her before replying. “We received a telegram from Sunagakure that the Kazekage is away, and wouldn’t be back in time to attend. So in turn, his son, Gaara, will be attending instead.”
“And it appears that the boy doesn’t have a sense of time,” The Raikage retorted impatiently, “Tsunade-Sama, we have orders to address.” Tsunade held up a hand. “I cannot promise he’ll be here. Something may have come up.”
“Hmph. Perhaps we should give their household a call, in case he did forget.”
However, the Kazekage household was having some problems of its own.
---
“DARN IT, KANKUROU! WHERE ARE YOU WHEN I NEED YOU?” Temari kicked at the faucet under the sink. She knew it was a bad idea to try to put an old shoe down the garbage disposal, but her mind had been floating off to Shikamaru; excuse me, la-la-land at the time. And now it was jammed. “SHOOT!” A small fountain of water was spewing from a crack, making a puddle on the tiled floor. Temari forced her body under the sink to try to see the problem. Sure enough, there was a deranged shape in the pipe, in which only God knows how managed to fit itself into it. “Un…”
CRACK.
“Oh, CRAP!”
Oh no. She tried to move, but, oh no, she had to assume the worse. Temari was stuck.
---
Poor, half-naked, Gaara was now more stressed out than ever. It was getting harder to breathe; his air passage was tightening up and his heart beating was abnormally fast. But this was normal. Gaara was actually in better condition than most people would have been in after turning into a child. Hinata would’ve fainted the moment she saw her, er, new body (Or old?).
Calm down. Gaara repeated the words to himself over and over, but they didn’t seem to help him much. He wasn’t calming down at all. In fact, he was becoming even worse. Gaara had to get it together; he knew he would pass out as this rate. He had a few choices. He could go back to Sunagakure and risk missing the meeting and causing an entire war; or, he could continue onto Konohagakure and see if, their Hokage, Tsunade or something like that, could somehow find out a way to restore his original form. Hm, choice A, or choice B? Not a hard decision.
Choice B.
He flexed his fingers, trying to get used to his, er, again, old, body. The same body Yashamaru had tried to kill. The body he gone through all that suffering with- no. Gaara shook his head, he couldn’t think about that now. He had to focus on the main problem. He had to find a solution. But it seemed impossible, since the unimaginable had already happened.
Gaara sighed, half-closing his eyelids. Going to Konoha could mean a lot of things. It could mean being shunned (People would obviously notice that he would be wearing sand clothing, and automatically revert their minds to think he was running away), being picked on (For his eyeliner-like results of insomnia), but it could also mean…meeting Tsunade and becoming a teenager again.
And that was exactly what he needed.
---
Tsunade was at the point in which she was about to downgrade to one of her childish habits of chewing the ends of her pigtails. She shook her head in defeat. “I’ll give him five minutes, and then we’ll have to start,” She stated plainly. The Raikage glared at the platinum-haired woman before taking a quick swig of the coffee Shizune had given everyone.
The five minutes passed slowly for all four of the leaders, the clock on the wall ticking away the seconds. Tsunade sighed. “Alright, it seems we’ll have to start without him.” The Raikage smirked. “About time.”
“Alright, Raikage-Sama, what are the issues you wanted to discuss?” Tsunade folded her hands together calmly. “Hn. We’re tired of Konoha nin trespassing whenever they like over our country’s border. We need to establish some kind of system!”
The fifth nodded in agreement, although she had no record of Konoha Shinobi crossing illegally into Lightning Country. “What do you intend to do?” She inquired serenely, “This matter does not exactly seem to be severe enough to start a war.”
“Food supply is shortening, water is being polluted, have you any idea what our children are going through?” The Raikage snapped, showing no repentance in his disrespect for the Hokage. Tsunade stared at him for a moment. “Do you have proof we’re in your country?” She asked. “You saying that is proof enough!” The Raikage hissed, standing up in his chair. Tsunade took a sip of her coffee. “You can always just ask for help.” She acknowledged firmly, tapping her red nails on the side of the ceramic glass.
“It would be disgraceful for us to take money from another country!” The Raikage spat, “I am not allowing that!” The other two Kage’s kept to themselves, intimidated by the Raikage’s impertinence. “Then what do you intend to do?” Tsunade repeated. Her mind knew this argument was pointless. The Raikage might adore his people, but his manners were awful. What was this poor kunoichi to do?
---
Temari swore she heard the call of angels when the sound of a door sliding open echoed throughout the house. The wind girl prayed to the Kage’s that it was Kankurou. However, it wasn’t. But it was a member of her family, and it couldn’t possibly be Gaara. It was her father, the Kazekage.
Temari bit her lip. It was embarrassing enough to be stuck under the kitchen sink, and it just made it worse when it was her FATHER and the KAZEKAGE! Her brunette dad, although he didn’t look it, had a sense of humor, and would probably do his best to humiliate his daughter by taking a picture and posting it on the front page of the daily paper (This was one of the few reasons she wished her father wasn’t the leader of the Wind Country).
Poor Temari. Her hypothesis was unfortunately (-Cough-) correct. The Kazekage paused at the sight of his daughter sticking halfway out of the kitchen sink. His eye twitched before he burst out into uproarious laughter and pulled out a camera (That just happened to be there) to take a snapshot.
Temari scowled. “Well, aren’t you home early.” She noted stiffly. The Kazekage nodded, wiping a tear from his eye. “Hm.”
So that’s where Gaara got his “language” from. Must be an inherited gene. Heh.
---
Gaara had decided on taking his chances and going to Konohagakure. It was better than causing a war. But being late might cost him his head. He had overheard the Kazekage telling Temari and Kankurou horror stories about the Raikage and his awful temper.
Gaara rummaged through his clothing and withdrew his map (Which wasn’t very helpful because it was sliced in two). He squinted at it, tracing his fingers along the graphed lines. Judging on how far he was from Suna, he was about an hour’s worth of walking from Konoha. Not too bad. But he still had a bit of a problem, besides the fact he was stuck as an eight-year-old; HE WAS HALF-NAKED! Perhaps he could fix that dilemma easier than he thought. Pulling at his red cloak, which now lay on the ground, Gaara stumbled backwards with a strip of cloth that was overly big enough to use as a poncho.
He raised it up over his head, tugging at it hard enough so that it ripped and made a hole large enough for his head. Gaara lightly pulled it over his shoulders, making it serve its purpose. Okay. NOW he could go on to Konohagakure. But which way? All he knew was that he was in a forest somewhat near the border of Konoha.
Eenie. Meenie. Minie. Mo.
---
“Ready? One…two…three…PULL!” The Kazekage tugged ineffectively at Temari’s lower body. The two had managed to get her legs out, but her upper body was another story. The Kazekage grimaced, somehow managing to stay on two feet on the slippery floor.
By now, a vein was pulsing on Temari’s head, and she was getting more than enough of her share of the musty smell under the sink. “HEAVE! HEAVE!”
“Darn it, Temari! Why can’t you be a NORMAL ninja and just have a kunai and shuriken pouch instead of this huge-ass fan?!” Her father scolded in a half-joking, half-frustrated way.
Temari shrugged. “You’re the one who said, ‘you’ve gotta grow big and strong for Daddy,’ remember?”
The Kazekage hung his head in defeat and dropped Temari’s legs on the floor.
“OUCH!”
---
Gaara opened one eye, staring at the way his finger was pointing. North. Or was it east? Either way, it didn’t matter. He was just going to have to go that way, anyway.
He shrugged, and relying on instinct, followed that path (If it counted as one, with so many weeds and all).
The trees made it extremely dark and dense, not that Gaara minded. Why wasn’t he panicking? Gaara was asking himself the very same question. Why wasn’t he panicking? Should he be? He sighed, was it just bad luck that these kinds of things happened to him? FOR GOD’S SAKE, HE WAS 4’1’’ TALL! Did this happen to normal people? No; and besides, he knew he wasn’t normal. Who else could stay this calm in a situation like this? Only himself, most likely.
The one good thing that happened that day managed to break Gaara out of his thoughts long enough to notice he had actually picked the right path. Standing in front of him, well, it was inanimate so it couldn’t be standing, were the two grand doors of Konohagakure. The only problem? How could he get inside wearing obvious sand attire?
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Chapter notes: I had this when I first posted. :P