"Naruto-sama?"
He sat at his desk, his head resting against his fist, its elbow on the armrest. He spoke without even looking up from whatever spot his eyes bored into the wooden furniture infront of him. "Come in Suzume."
The door opened, and from the corner of his eye he caught the diminutive brunette walking into the room. Her usual mannerism was subdued. Her head was bowed slightly, her arms cradling many large, rolled up papers as she shambled through his office door. He voice was so very soft, muted in what he nearly misjudged as fear; but he knew better; it wasn't fear echoing in her tone. It was something else, something he was thoroughly unused to being on the receiving end of.
Empathy.
"Naruto-sama, here are the maps you requested of Suna."
"Thank you." He answered, making a vague gesture to the empty side of his desk with his free hand. "Leave them there." He still hadn't pulled his eyes away from the spot in front of him.
The crinkle of pages disrupted the silence for a few moments. He watched Suzume through his peripheral vision, but she was little more than background static, white noise, to him.
When she's completed her task she straightened and he dismissed her as he always had. "You may leave."
However, she didn't not follow her usual pattern; not this time.
She stayed, and shifted from one foot to another, nervous. And that was what drew his full attention to her.
"Naruto-sama." She said finally. "On a more personal level...well...are you...alright sir?"
He blinked, blue eyes staring at the woman in front of him and she continued shuffling nervously in tense anticipation for his answer.
After another, seemingly endless moment of his silence she wondered why she'd said anything at all. If nothing else, Naruto was a private person who kept his affairs and thoughts strictly to himself. Maybe it had been too presumptuous of her to think that if he would talk to anyone right now it would have been her; but she had been concerned.
He went off to fight a naval battle that was, by all accounts, a complete, bloodbath on both sides. After that he'd ended up stranded on some island off of Kiri, then got kidnapped, and almost killed, probably by some missing ninja, only to come back to having one of his oldest...in truth she didn't even know what Hinata-sama had been to him. She assumed close friend while some along the grapevine said that she'd been his lover. Regardless, he returned just in time to watch a person who was...significant...to him just die from poison.
It had been perfectly reasonable for her to be worried, right?
But still maybe it hadn't been perfectly reasonable for her to voice that worry. Would he take it as an insult or something?
Just as she was ready to give an apology of some sort, his voice reached her, wistful and melancholy.
"You almost sounded like her for a moment."
Despite herself, Suzume balked, surprised that he had said such a thing. She half expected him to have simply told her to leave after she asked him if he was alright – but for him to actually answer her; and with a statement like that no less!
He straightened in his seat, seemingly returning to himself releasing a sigh through his nostrils as he reached for the first of the maps.
He seemed to contemplate something for a moment before he finally spoke again. "You may take the rest of the day off Suzume."
"Wha-?" She found herself stuttering, the words tripping over themselves as they sought to get past her lips. "I- I don't…"
"You've done well enough handling affairs while I've been gone. Take the day off"
She was unsure what had just happened right now, whether or not he was doing this out of a genuine wish to reward her hard work, or if he didn't want someone who 'knew him' so close right now. But it gave her an odd feeling, like something just wasn't quite fitting well with him. It worried her, both for him and for the others around him.
He was repressing his emotions, burying them so deep that once he was finished they would never again re-emerge. That was his desire. But the wound was raw, and it was still bleeding. If anyone was going to reach him in some way, now would be the time, maybe the only time.
But she knew that it would not be her who would reach it. It could not be her.
She lowered her head slowly. "Will I see you at the funeral tomorrow, Naruto-sama?"
…
…
"You may leave Suzume."
One scroll rested on his desk. A mass of slits of wood, stitched together at the edges and rolled up, sat upon his desk, almost mocking in its simplistic appearance.
His fingers drummed over the wooden surface of his desk, fingernails tick-tick-ticking against the smooth flat plane at regular intervals.
The orderlies had been both confused, and more than a little startled at the state of his office. But a wall of sand to act as a proxy to seal up the openings of his little breakdown the previous night and an order to have someone scheduled to come over during the weekend to fix it and everyone had gone back to business as usual.
Truth be told, half of him just wanted to throw the thing away, bury it somewhere so deep beneath the sands that it would take ten thousand years of geological evolution for it to even have half a prayer of resurfacing if it even survived that long.
The other half knew his duty and it knew that despite his seething anger of betrayal, and whatever his personal feelings for the man might be, Zhuge Liang was not a man who would not have foreseen and prepared, for the possibility of his death. And whether it was another lie or some genuinely necessary information to be imparted, he needed to read it regardless.
Taking a deep breath, he steeled his resolve, reaching forward he grabbed hold of the thing that had all but plagued him since his short return.
Pulling free the blue silk ribbon that had tied it shut Gaara felt himself swallow once before he finally pulled the scroll open.
The next thing he knew, his world went white.
"Ahh, the sleeping beauty rejoins us."
Akina woke to the sound of a chuckling, unfamiliar voice and it took her a moment to realize where she was again before she remembered.
For a moment she felt sad and lost, wondering just what the hell she was going to do now, where she would go.
Then the moment passed and she made herself sit up inside the tent, fire once again crackling merrily in the center of it. Her, for lack of a better word, host, still sitting across from where she was, with more food held out over the flickering tongues of flame.
"So..." The monster of Kiri continued after a few seconds. "You got that answer for me girl?"
"You mean of what I want to do now." It was rhetorical and she smiled bitterly as she reiterated his question, still staring down into the flames. "I'm going to do, the only thing I can do. I have to try and stop this."
"Ahh." Kisame smiled wagging his finger. "That's what you can do girl, I asked you what you wanted to do."
"What I want-" For a second he could almost swear her voice cracked. "What I want is an impossibility right now. So...I'll settle."
He raised a non-existent eyebrow before he shrugged. "Well then, why don't you share how you plan on doing that?"
The answer she gave was simple, and though he had already half expected it, it still made him smile with amusement when he heard it coming from her lips.
"I still have to defeat my brother."
When he opened his eyes he wasn't in his office anymore, he wasn't sure where he was really. He hadn't exactly visited many places in his life with waterfalls. He hadn't visited any for that matter. If that wasn't startling enough, not a grain of sand responded to the call of his will.
"These surroundings-" He found his heart leaping into his throat before he turned around, eyes wide as he found himself gazing on a face that should not be there, with a voice he should not be hearing. "were my choice Kazekage-dono I do hope that they do not make you feel too out of place."
He sucked in a sharp breath. "Zhuge Liang?"
"Now that's a pipe dream if I'd ever heard one, girl." Kisame answered. "You're no closer to killing your brother than I am to sprouting wings and flying."
"I never said kill." She answered, unfazed by his mocking. "I said defeat."
"Even less!" He guffawed. "You can get lucky with a kill shot. A kunai you threw when he was distracted fighting someone else, a jutsu you just so happened to counter with what was just right at the time. It takes a lot more skill to beat someone than it takes to kill them."
"I have to try." She continued. "It's different this time."
"Why?"
"Because…" She paused, thinking for a moment why she was answering him in the first place. Her hesitation last but a mere moment before she decided to do so anyway, if not for anything else then just to hear herself say it aloud. "When all this started...after Naruto took over Konoha and he...all I wanted to do back then, all I thought of was fighting and killing him. It was...it took me over almost. I know now that, some of it was Zhuge Liang's influence but...a lot of it...most of it had been from me."
"And then?" The fish man probed after a lengthy pause, turning the meat over the fire.
"Then I found out who exactly he was. You know...my brother. And I just wanted then to get away from it all. To get away from Zhuge Liang, from Tsunade, Yugito, Naruto everyone and everything I'd ever known. I just wanted to get away from all of it. Get my head clear."
"So you went to Suna?" Though, somewhat interested in her past he could fill in the blanks easily enough from the names she was throwing down.
"Yes I went to Suna. And there..." A sigh escaped her lips. "There I was able to get away for a while. The war wasn't nearly as close to home there as it was in Kumo. And it was starting to get good you know...starting to feel like home. So, I fought for them...in a way I guess I still am."
"Then again...what's changed? What are you fighting for now?"
After a lengthy pause she replied evenly. "When I fought him during the battle at sea...I confronted him. I said he was scared of bringing peace; of stopping the fighting."
Kisame smiled.
"Then here, when I spoke to him after we rescued him from...well...from you." She gestured vaguely in his direction. "When I asked him again, to just bring it to an end, to stop the fighting. He told me that he couldn't. That his freedom was forfeit long ago."
That smile just got a little bit wider. "And what does that tell you."
"It tells me...that he's got no choice. He's trapped..." She answered finally. "More trapped than anything or anyone else I've ever seen...he doesn't want to stop fighting because it's the only thing he really knows how to do; and even if he wanted to stop he can't, because something is keeping him on that course."
"So how will beating him change anything then?"
"Because...if I beat him...if I stop him. I might be able to show him that there is an alternative, I can make him see that this isn't necessary. Maybe if I beat him, I can get him to listen."
"Or you'll just increase his determination to kill you."
"Maybe so, but I have to try something."
"You'll try and you'll die." He laughed.
"It's always a possibility."
"Ain't no simple possibility girl. It's what's gonna happen."
"Why are you so sure?"
"Because-" He answered. "He ain't like you girl. He ain't like your little Kazekage, hell, he ain't even like me."
"You mean strength wise?"
"No, I mean in everything."
"You..!" He snarled through his teeth, advancing on Kumo's previous Kage with ill intent. "You miserable lying-" He found his fist passed straight through empty air, with the Raikage's body dispersing into tendrils of white smoke before reforming.
"Despite appearances Gaara, this construct is formed of little more than chakra and my own will. How exactly does one, punch a thought?"
"I'd do a lot worse than that if I could get my hands on you right now."
"Hmm…I see that, I did not die with you on the best of terms."
"You know what you did."
"No quite frankly I don't." He drawled, his tone much too bored for the Jinchuuriki's liking. "I created this construct shortly after we arrived in Suna after the sea battle. Whatever has happened in the days or months since then, I would not know."
"You used me!" For the first time since he could remember, Gaara actually wanted his sand at his side, wanted it to crush the person in front of him just for the sheer pleasure it would bring to see him suffer at least once.
He didn't like that part of him, but only now as he stood face to face with his betrayer did the full magnitude of the treachery truly hit him. Its full, unbearable weight and all its consequences sunk in slowly; crawling over his mind like the slime of an amoeba.
"You used me, Kankuro, and Temari to drag my people into a war we didn't have to enter."
"Either then or a year later the war would have still touched your people, Gaara." He said neutrally. "You cannot shield them from it with a mere wall of sand."
"We didn't have to fight. We could have negotiated, spoken-"
"It would have made no difference."
"So many people dead on your presumption!" He roared. "You arrogant bastard!" Despite himself, he tried to lash out again, even while knowing it would not work.
As expected, Zhuge Liang's spectral image vanished in smoke, before reforming again.
"It is no presumption. It is fact. Uzumaki Naruto will never accept a surrender. Especially not your surrender."
"Why is that?"
Kisame chuckled. "Because girl...he is a shinobi. He is what you, that Kazekage and all your little friends have been playing at for years."
"You keep saying we play at ninja. You've been saying it since I met you even. Why?"
"Because you don't know what it is. Not really. You just fight, you kill and you defend others. You're a soldier. You haven't stayed under deep cover for years, decades even, before given the confirmation order and then turning right around and gutting the people you've called friends for the last four years. You haven't needed to make sure a certain family is eliminated from the eldest wiseman down to the minute old newborn. You haven't been thrown to the wolves that are your hunters so your country can avoid a war. You've never been..."
He paused, almost searching for the word before he found it, his smile growing a little again. "Expendable. Your brother has done, still does things. But he was expendable once. So was I, so were all those guys back at Akatsuki."
"Don't presume to tell me what I have or have not been in my life." She bit back, memories of Zhuge Liang, Tsunade and Shizune creeping back through her skull.
"Fair enough." He shrugged. "Point still stands. He's in a whole 'nuther league. "You were trained to fight, for you, it's a skill you've acquired in your life. You can pick it up and drop it whenever you feel it's time to do so. For me, it's a part of my life. I've lived on the battlefield and will die on it. For him though, his life has been spent tirelessly in perfecting the art of killing other beings. Everything else he knows is a skill he's acquired around that and for that."
"I still need to try."
"Nah nah nah let's be clear." The shark man tisked as he wagged his finger. "You're heading down this road for one reason and one reason only.
"War will come here." The last Raikage's voice held firm, unyielding conviction and confidence; his coal black eyes staring into Gaara's green with unnerving certainty.
"I have no reason to trust you, nor hear you. Let me out of this place now."
"Not until you've listened to what I have to say to you Gaara." The sleeping dragon retorted as calm as ever in light of the younger man's anger and impatience. "I control this construct. It was designed so that after the first minor burst that would bring you here your chakra would be absorbed by the scroll's seals. So in essence, your chakra fuels my illusion. It will last as long as you do." Glaring now at the Kazekage who glared right back he added. "And I assure you. We will be here a very long time indeed with your reserves."
The words were bit out through grit teeth. "Say what you have to say. And let me out of this place."
Liang took a breath, almost as a parent looking down on an impatient, disobedient child before he decided to speak.
"I told you once before that Naruto will grow to fear you."
"That he would fear what I would become."
"In point of fact; what you already are. A leader."
"He is a leader too, so were you. What does that-"
"No. You are a leader. He is a ruler, a commander. As was I. You inspire your men. The shinobi of Suna would fight for you because they want to. Not because they have to, rather each and every one of them wants to. I saw it at Kumo clear as day. Not one of your men hesitated to enter a city which was not their own, exhausted, tired and weary, to save people they'd never met before. Simply because you asked it of them. It's not a lot of people that can inspire such dedication and loyalty in their men."
"Their loyalty, will not shield them from him. Or an army that by all estimates is triple the size of ours."
"They need not be shielded; they need to be set loose."
"You would have me set my people on a course that will almost certainly end with thousands of them slaughtered."
"They would die fighting to save themselves from a lifetime of having the threat of death, looming over their heads; much closer than this war would ever bring it."
"I'll take my chances before I choose to trust you again.
"What do I have to gain by tricking you now?" He said with a shrug of his shoulders. "This construct, and thus, the last of what I am will cease to exist the moment I release you from this illusion. Whatever end you believe I may have in mind, I will not be here to see it bear fruit."
"Then why leave this at all then?"
"Contrary to what you have grown to believe apparently Kazekage, I do care for my people and what will happen to them now. It's why I left them in your care. You are the one leader that can show both the temperance to win their hearts; and the strength to keep the peace in his lands." He paused, seeming to think for a moment before he sighed, as though resigned. "I left this here to offer you one last piece of advice."
He paused
"You may no longer trust me Gaara. But it matters little. Trust that he will come with the intent to fight. There will be no surrender. You and Akina must prepare the people for what is to come."
"Akina is gone."
For the first time the man seemed surprised, his unflappable countenance falling for a moment. "Gone?"
"I sent her away when I discovered that she was..." He trailed off, a lingering regret creeping through the back of his mind, second guessing his decision before he could stop himself.
"I see."
"That's all you can say?" His ire for the man he'd helped and known for the last several months resurfaced. It was hard to think that this was the same person he'd risked his own life to try to save and help. "Is that really all you can say?" The question was repeated; more to verify that it needed asking rather than expecting a true answer.
"It is inconsequential that you have sent her away at this point. She will find her way back here. And she will be prepared for it."
"I told her that my captains would attack her on sight. She won't come here."
"She will." He answered waving a hand dismissively. "And she will be prepared to fight against him at your side."
You're not always right."
"You're right." He acknowledged. " However, she-"
"You're heading' down this path, because you think it's what you still have to do." He chuckled, mocking. "We all know what's coming, Don't pretend that you don't. The last big one, and anyone that has something to lose, or something to gain, is heading straight for it. Then there are people like you and me."
"And what are people like you and me." She crossed her arms, almost offended at the insinuation that she had anything in common with the mass murderer.
The former Akatsuki smiled, chuckling as he spread his arms wide, leaning back. "We're the people who can't step away even if we wanted to. We're the ones that have got to be there. Be it because of a sense of duty, like you, or just for the hell of it like me. For whatever reason, we need to see this through."
"So you're saying that...no matter what."
"You're fighting that fight."
"Then why'd you ask me what I wanted then, If it's so irrelevant?"
The fish man smiled.
"Because girl. Its the people that are fighting for something that are gonna survive that fight. People with purpose. I wanted to see if you would be one of them."
"What would be your purpose then?"
Pulling the meat free of the flames with a roaring laugh the monster from Kiri's smile was wider than ever. "When did I say I had one!"