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Naruto - A Spark of Hope

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Weary chocolate brown eyes opened as the light of the sun peeked over the horizon, shining its rays through the circular window where she sat.  Still no prepared for the morning hours, I squinted behind the cover of my hand as it rubbed tiredly at my forehead, grimacing at the few hours of sleep I had managed to get. The night had been a particularly long one despite the fact that nothing of grave danger or concern had occurred.  But as I glanced over at the still form sleeping peacefully under the thin covers of our shared bed, I decided that it was well worth it.  

Mental worries and manifested fears bleeding into my psyche aside from the previous day’s events had kept me awake, unable to find comfort in dreams.  But the thought of letting him enjoy a good night’s sleep was most prominent in my mind, especially since he had so very few of them during his younger days.  Now, rest seemed to be all that he could manage without complications.  There was nothing I could do about the daily fits that he was so prone to having, nor the uncertainties concerning his condition.  But I was determined to ensure that he would have at least one night undisturbed by nightmares…even though I knew it was unnecessary.

“Up at the crack of dawn as usual, I see,” called a deep, yet feminine voice.

Shifting my eyes towards the crack in the door, I smirked at the familiar sight of Temari poking her head into the room.  The older girl returned the gesture as she stepped inside, her sandaled feet barely making a sound against the marbled flooring.  Clad in her usual training uniform with large fan in tow, the blonde gave her slumbering brother a lingering glance as she passed by the bed, worry lines prominent on her face.  Eldest of the three sand siblings and a great leader in her own right, it had been placed on Temari to serve as acting Kazekage while Gaara struggled to deal with his predicament.

“Getting up at the crack of dawn implies that I actually went to bed,” I responded with a light scoff, tiredly smirking at her from my seat at the windowsill.

“I know that your sensei can be extreme in his training regiments, but I doubt he would approve or support such a sleeping schedule, Tenten,” Temari stated with a hint of anxiety, sounding none too happy as her arms folded over her stomach while she leaned against the window frame.

“It’s hard for me to do that, knowing what’s going on with him,” I sighed as I wearily rubbed what little sleep I had managed to get the night before, “We’re all so helpless in this, I just…watching over him makes me feel like I’m doing something, at least.”

Joining the older kunoichi in watching the unconscious young leader of Sunagakure as he continued to sleep in undisturbed slumber, I looked on with an aching in my heart.  The one person who had become more to me than life itself, and there was nothing I could do to ease his suffering.  But deterioration of the mind had begun long before I had ever made my entrance into his life.  It had started with the extraction of Shukaku at the hands of the Akatsuki faction.  Having such a spirit inside of you since before birth ties your soul to it until a dependency forms between the two.  When the demonic said priest had been so forcefully taken away from Gaara’s body, all the structural stability that had formed to accommodate Shukaku’s mind began to crumble.  It had been slow at first, progressing at the rate of a crippled snail.  But as all things go, such luck was not destined to last.

“How was he last night?” the blonde inquired softly so as not to wake him.

“Slept like a baby as always,” I replied, only managing a small twitch of a smile before the previous frown returned in full force, “But it’s not the nights that we should really worry about.”

“…I know,” Temari stated tiredly with a soft sigh, doing little to suppress the somber thought that we all were thinking.

Gaara was dying, steadily falling apart from the inside out.  As all things, it had began small with the occasional forgotten document or mistaken mission assignment, and had been brushed off as nothing more than the result his overwhelming Kazekage duties.  But after a near chaotic misunderstanding in front of a group of shinobi generals, it became clear that there was more going on than overworked nerves.  It was for that reason that Temari had been assigned to step in and lead the village in his stead; a position she was more than qualified for but a role she still refused to take on a permanent basis.  Sometimes it amazes me the amount of hope the blonde is capable of possessing.

“You should really reconsider taking up the position of Kazekage permanently,” I commented, shooting the tall blonde a pointed glance out the corner of my eyes.

“I told you before that I wouldn’t take it,” the sand-kunoichi responded with her usual frown she would flash every time the subject came up, “You may have given up hope, Tenten, but I haven’t.”

“I hope every day that he gets better, but with the way Gaara’s been lately, the Council will have to appoint a new one pretty soon anyways,” I snapped, turning towards Temari with a scowl at the mere notion that I was less than hopeful, “I just figured it would be better that it stay in the family than be given to some half-wit who isn’t even qualified for the position.”

Brimming with irritation and annoyance at such a notion, I looked on as the proud kunoichi from Suna kept her eyes locked on her youngest brother with an even expression.  As the eldest of the three, it had fallen on Temari’s shoulders to take up the role as their mother and caretaker.  From what Gaara had described of his childhood, their father was never a real presence in their lives, merely a shadow of a figure who would appear to clean up the mess that Shukaku made.  But every child needed the sort of comfort that only she could provide, shifting through the dark haze of obstacles life always enjoyed throwing at an individual while they sought out the arms of the one person who always knew how to make things better.  And as hard as the kunoichi had worked to ensure that her siblings got everything that they needed, there was no replacing the mother that they had all lost.  

“…I wasn’t aware it had gotten that serious,” she finally said, her voice soft and filled with an indescribable remorse at not having known the truth of what was going on.

Taking notice of the faint frown lingering at the corners of her lips and the sadness hidden within the depths of her blue eyes (things that only someone who knew her well enough to look could see), I could not help but soften my approach towards here.  This was none of her fault.  The both of us were experiencing the same helplessness of the situation, if not more so on her part.  It was not my place or right to direct my anger towards her.  

“It has,” I responded in a more calming manner, using the sight of Gaara sleeping soundly in bed as inspiration, “He nearly killed the entire Council in a Sand Coffin the other day because he thought they were attacking him.”

“Like it would be such a bad thing if the Council members were all killed,” the tessen user scoffed, folding her arms over her chest in a defiant manner.

“If I didn’t know any better, I’d say that was a treasonous comment,” came my amused response as I glanced at her with an impish smirk.

Equally amused, the two of us exchanged a small smile, something that neither had been able to express in a long while since discovering the seriousness of Gaara’s steadily declining condition.  Taking it one step further, I placed a comforting hand on the older girl’s shoulder and gave a light, consoling squeeze as the both of us joined to watch over the red-head in quiet observation.  But such things as emotions were fleeting at best as the reality of the situation resurfaced once more to dim what little light we had managed to find.  

“He’s hearing the voices again, you know,” I stated matter-of-factly, turning my gaze towards the former demon vessel, “I promised I wouldn’t tell anyone, but…he told me he was hearing them again, only rarely but…like before when Shukaku was still…”

It seemed as if he was reverting back through the years with each passing day and the nightmares that he faced as a young boy.  There were times that a familiar face would be a stranger to him, moments where he would relive his lonely childhood and run away in fear at the sight of me, believing that I meant nothing but harm.  And then my heart would break as he called out of the warm comfort of the mother he had never knew, the woman who had sacrificed her life to let him live.  But there were also days where his conscious and mind resembled how it had been before all the trouble began.  And those were the moments I held on to, fueling my hopes that he would get better in time and that this was nothing more than a minor setback on his road to perfect health.  

All of us wanted nothing more than to believe that Gaara would get better, never quite willing to let go the beauty of his spirit.  But the reality of the matter always kept us from hoping too much.  And it was with that thought in mind that I felt Temari’s hand squeeze my shoulder, taking my attention away from the once prominent leader of Sunagakure.  She looked as if she were about to say something to me, pointless words of comfort that we both knew would do no good to help in this crisis, but knowing that we needed to hear them.  But whatever cliché thought or ideals that she was about to recite was interrupted by Gaara’s violent cries of pain and torment.  

“Naaaaaah!” he cried out, wreathing and squirming in the bed, “I’m sorry, Mother!”

“Temari, go get the medic-nins in here,” I called out as we both made to rush to his side, finding it nearly impossible as he lashed out whenever we would attempt to get anywhere near him, “He’s having another episode.”

“But what are you going to do?” the taller woman questioned, obviously hesitant to leave her brother while he was in this state.  

“Just go!” I snapped, almost matching Gaara’s ferocity as I bit out the command, “I’ll be fine.”

There was a momentary pause as Temari still was reluctant to leave her youngest brother’s side, but there was no time to waste.  Realizing that, she was out the door in a instant, her sandaled footsteps slapping loudly down the corridor as she rushed to inform the medic-nins about Gaara’s currently frantic state.  That done, I turned all my attention towards the once proud Kazekage, no doubt suffering indescribable anguish from what I could see from where I stood.  From previous attempts, I knew that the process of calming him would be a difficult task for anyone, especially when he was in this state of mind.  Friends and enemies alike were considered a threat, shunned and pushed away in order to protect himself from the demonic thoughts that were whispering in his ear.  

“Gaara, it’s alright,” I said as calmly as I could, slowly inching my way next to the bed.

“No, stay away from me!” he practically shouted when I tried placing a calming hand on his shoulder, managing to cut two lines of blood into my arm when he lashed out again to protect himself.

Fingers instantly coming up to press against the wound and stop the bleeding, I watched helplessly as the feverish leader of Sunagakure clutched at his head, his mind slowly slipping into that dark and lonely corner it had been so many years before during our first Chuunin Exams.  It was something I had feared would return ever since the cause of Gaara’s condition had been realized.  Feeling the biting sting the wounds he had made, I slowly poured out my chakra into the cuts, healing the broken skin like Sakura had showed me a few months before.  Tending to severe and more serious injuries was still out of my reach, but as a weapon specialist who worked with sharp objects on a daily basis, any little knowledge in that particular field was helpful.  

Suddenly, his screams of agony stopped along with his distressful struggle as his head popped up from under the tangled covers and slowly scanned the room like a predatory beast looking for its potential prey.  Black-rimmed eyes locked with mine and I fought the urge to step back under the intensity of his stare, though the flow of my chakra did falter under the intimidation.  The sand-nin’s reaction to that was immediate as his features noticeably softened, his head snapping around like a lost child in search of his mother.  Curiously, I emitted a small flow of chakra to my hands again, feeling the heat of the energy as I watched with interest for Gaara’s reaction.  

“M…mother?” he questioned with a tilt of his head, seeming unsure as to who he was addressing as he squinted his eyes for a better look, “Te…Temari?”

“…No Gaara,” was my response before quickly shaking the thought away with a sigh, “It‘s me.”

Spreading the chakra energy throughout my entire body, I took a few hesitant steps forward towards the edge of the bed, still not completely convinced that my theory had been correct and fearing a more violent reaction as I came into his personal space once more.  But as he willing made his way towards my outstretched hand, letting me gently cup his cheek as I pulled him into the circle of my arms, the answer had become perfectly clear.  Even though Gaara could not recognize my face amid his hallucinations, he knew my chakra signature to be a familiar one despite not being able to distinguish my identity.  

“I’m…I’m sorry, mother,” the former demon vessel grumbled under his breath, “The blood wasn’t…it wasn’t…good enough for you.”

“Shhh, it’s alright, Gaara,” I pleaded softly into his ear, a single tear streaming down my face at what he said, so reminiscent of his former self, “Just come back to me, one more time.”

Despite the years that had passed, there was no forgetting the kind of person Gaara had been while the sand spirit had been in control.  Though I was not there to see for myself, I heard the stories and I saw the aftermath of his battle with Naruto.  And it was with that lingering thought that let my calloused fingers so worn from years of handling the rough tools of a shinobi slip easily into his crimson locks of hair, rubbing soothingly at the scalp while I whispered soft words of comfort and reassurance in his ear like a mother would to her own child.  That was what Gaara needed from me and that was what I would give him if it meant another moment of peace for his erratic mind.  With a gentle kiss to the tattoo etched in his skin, I tucked his head under my chin, completely wrapping the both of us in my presence.  

So caught up in the feeling of simply being able to hold him so closely after such a harsh reaction to my attempts to coax him down from his frantic state, I barely registered the hands, his hands, steadily wrapping around my torso in a gentle squeeze as he buried his face into the crook of my neck.  It was all the strength he could manage, I supposed, after struggling against the ghost of his demons.  But no matter how small an effort it may have seemed, it was enough for me just to know that a little part of himself was still in there fighting to overcome this.

“Te…Tenten?” I heard him whisper, sounding nothing less than tired and confused as he pulled away to look deep into my eyes.

A stampede of footsteps echoing down the halls, interrupted whatever he was going to say, telling us of Temari’s return along with a parade of medical ninjas who soon rushed in through the door.  All seemed pause at the sight presented before them, standing in awe of Gaara’s tamed behavior as it contrasted what they believed they would be facing upon entering the room.  Temari in particular seemed shocked to see how calm and tamed her youngest brother was behaving, having witnessed first hand the level of fierce insanity the former leader of Suna was capable of during one of his episodes.  But the need to be near the young sand-nin and to be able to provide him with a safe refuge to be in his nightmarish reality outweighed any urgency concerning the stares of the other spectators.

“Tenten, how did you - ?” the tessen wielder started to ask, stopping after taking a step forward when Gaara reacted to her advances by burying his face into the crook of my neck, “What did you do?”

“Just emit a constant flow of chakra throughout your body,” I explained quietly while smoothing back locks of his red hair in a comforting gesture, “His hallucinations can’t disorient chakra signatures so he’ll recognize that long before he would your face.”

Never one to believe the things that others told her, she eyed me warily.  But curiosity got the better of her and soon enough I felt the light tingle of her chakra signature as she approached.  Sure enough, Gaara’s head lifted at the familiar presence and came into Temari’s open arms, holding her close as if she were his last lifeline to this world.  With the way things were going, I would not doubt that to be true.  

“Excuse me, Temari-sama?” one of the medic-nins nervously called out, “I hate to interrupt but we need to - ”

“I know!” the blonde kunoichi snapped, the irritation in her voice unmistakable as she turned to me with a more calming demeanor, “Are you gonna be alright Tenten?”

“Sure, do what you have to do,” came my restrained response as I slow and reluctantly slipped my arms out from around Gaara’s torso, “I’ll come by later to see him.”

Faced with the notion of having to stay behind as Gaara was carried away towards the medical building, I slumped down on the mattress, the springs squeaking under my weight.  A hand came up to rub away the small prickles of pain creeping along the left side of my head, clear indications of the migraine that was to come from the morning’s emotional stress.  But a deep sigh amid the faint smile that was set on my lips was the only outwards sign I gave to exactly how wearing I felt, too engulfed with the determination I had seen when our eyes locked.  

Gaara had returned from the darkness of his childhood, from the monsters of his nightmares.  And as small a step as that was in the long road ahead, I was hopeful in knowing that it was the first of many as he slowly fought his way back to me...because he had to come back.  And if he could not find his way now, then...I had a foreboding feeling that he never would.  


AN: ...I'm a little iffy on how I wrote the ending. :/
Theme: May - One Last Dance, One Last Chance
Character(s): Tenten, Sabaku no Gaara, Temari
Pairing(s): GaaTen
Warning(s): None
Disclaimer: I own nothing but these words.
Note: Written for the May theme at ten_squared. Yeah...no excuse for the lateness and for submitting it so close to the deadline, but I hope you'll forgive me anyways. ^^; Cut short because of plot complications and the limited amount of time I had to sort it all out.
© 2007 - 2024 TaoEmpress
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Crying-Rose's avatar
if you make another one and he dies.
i'll cry
i swear i will
or if he goes insaine lol