But when children start disappearing from the village, Gaara uncovers a cruel and terrifying secret that could shake the very foundations of the shinobi world forever…
It's never easy being the Kazekage.
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Note: Shiraha (which means 'White Feather' in Japanese) is the sequel to my other story 'No More Running'.
A little advice on the chapter titles: These will be in Japanese, but there will be a translation at the bottom of each chapter. I don't speak Japanese, so if you do and you spot any mistakes with my feeble attempts at the Japanese language, please let me know.
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Shiraha
Chapter One: Maigo
In the silence of early morning, the rickety sound of wheels on cobbled roads could be heard; but no one was listening. Premature rays of sunlight began to weaken the depth of the night sky; but no one saw. All that was left was one lone star in the highest canopy of the heavens. It shone brightly, but soon even this star would fade as if it had never existed at all. Daybreak was securing its victory.
The aforementioned rickety wheels belonged to a horse-drawn trailer. The trailer was unmarked and humble, just as inconspicuous as any other trailer of its kind… but what was IN the trailer was anything but ordinary…
Children. Maybe fifty of them. Crammed inside this cart, like cattle being taken to slaughter. The noisy ones had been rendered unconscious. The others clung to each other for comfort, too frightened for words. They didn't know why they had been kidnapped like this, or what fate lay in front of them. The trailer that was their prison just continued to carry them from Suna to a sinister, unknown destination.
At the same time, a small boy was crouching out of sight, hidden behind a low wall. He heard the sound as the trailer set off down the road in the opposite direction. It was a welcome sound. That meant they had not yet realised he was missing. Even so, the boy willed himself not to breathe. He had to stay silent, at least until the trailer was out of sight. He knew what fate awaited those captive children. He winced at the memories and prayed that the other children would perhaps find peace. Maybe they would find a way to escape, like him. He couldn't help them now, he had to look out for himself. They would have to cope alone. He cursed his own cowardice. He wanted to save them, but he was too frightened, and too weak. He hated himself for it.
The boy cautiously pressed his face to the corner of the wall to peep into the distance. The trailer was gone. Long repressed tears began to sting at his eyes sharply. He was free. No more torture. No more pain. No more experiments. The boy broke down in tears, overpowered by ragged sobs that made him feel as if his very spirit was being pulled apart. His eyes had remained dry for so long, but now that he was safe from the beatings the floodgates had opened, and he couldn't stop crying. It felt good to cry, to let it all out. Is this what freedom feels like? he wondered. He marvelled at the thought. He was allowed to cry now. It was alien to him.
He raked small, boney hands through his shocking platinum blonde hair as he wept. Shifting uneasily, he shakily struggled to his feet. Once he had reintroduced himself with the sensation of his feet on the ground, he began to run. He pelted through the empty streets of this early morning ghost town. Flocks of sitting birds scattered as he sprinted past rapidly, despite his limp. The cool air quenched his stuffy lungs deliciously and he breathed it deep.
When he could finally run no more he spotted a dim, derelict alleyway. He snaked his way through it, meandering around the bags of rubbish and empty boxes left lying in this forgotten passageway. He settled into a small space between two large plastic bags, probably filled with all manner of household waste. But to this child, they were the most luxurious cushions he had ever experienced. He snuggled into one of them and rested his pounding head. The sky was getting lighter by the second. The boy held out his fragile arms in front of him. They shook violently and his fingernails were blue. No matter how skilled he was at calming his mind with rational thoughts, his body always betrayed him. He tucked the arms into his armpits tenderly, as if trying to comfort and shelter them. He curled up into the tightest ball his body could adopt and squeezed his eyes shut. He could feel more tears coming, and he would let them come. He wanted to treasure this long lost sensation of crying. Freedom, he thought to himself. This is what it feels like to be free.
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Naoko's sleepy eyes fluttered open. Another morning. She focused on the wall clock. After a few seconds, the early morning fuzziness faded from her eyesight and she was able to read the time. 5:30am. Well, it may be morning, but there's no way in hell I'm getting up THIS early, she thought. She settled back into her sleeping husband's arms and pressed her face into the warm, soft skin of his chest before closing her eyes again. If she was lucky, she might be able to get another half-hour of much needed sleep.
However, her hopes were in vain. The sound of floorboards creaking outside the bedroom door roused her from slumber and she snapped her eyes open again. There was another creak. Suddenly, the bedroom door burst open and something small darted into the room with a loud "Squeeeeee!!". It clambered onto the bed and jumped straight on the sleeping Gaara.
Gaara let out a loud "oooff!" and snapped his eyes wide open to look at the thing that had woken him so abruptly. It was his hyperactive son, Kizuki.
As usual, the chubby little two-year-old giggled in delight at his father's surprised reaction. He began shrieking with laughter and bouncing excitedly on his father's stomach.
"Dadadadadadada!"
Naoko pressed her face into the pillow to stifle her laughter. Sabaku no Gaara- Suna's strongest shinobi- never failed to fall victim to the ambush of a two year old little boy.
"Dadadadadadada!" Kizuki shrieked, still bouncing.
"Urghn… ok, Kizuki, ok… Daddy's awake" Gaara groaned.
Sand flowed out of the gourd that was propped in the corner of the room and wrapped itself around the child's ankle, lifting him into the air upside down. The infant squealed happily.
"The attack came a little earlier than usual this morning" Naoko chuckled, smoothing back Gaara's messy crimson hair. He glanced at the time. 5:35am.
"Hn". Damn right it was early.
The sand lowered little Kizuki to the ground. The now red-faced child staggered giddily before tumbling over. He shook off the dizziness and stood up. His mother watched adoringly as he toddled over to her, beaming. He wrapped his chubby little fingers around her arm and pulled.
"Mama! Come on, Mama!" he yelled, with his limited infant speech.
Naoko winced at the loud, shrill squeals of her over-zealous son. "Sshh Kizuki, you'll wake baby Ai"
"But Mama! Get uuuup!! Pwease!" the little boy whined, pouting.
Gaara let out a long sigh as he stretched. He might as well get up now; there wasn't much chance of him getting back to sleep. He stood up drowsily.
"I'll go" he offered, grabbing his son around the waist and tucking him under his arm like a parcel, before carrying him off to the living room.
Naoko remained in bed for a little while longer, running her hands over the now empty space beside her, and the warmth Gaara had left behind. She took in the view of the bedroom. The earliest edges of the morning sun peeped in through the windows, lending a hazy golden aura to the beige walls. Upon said walls were infinite sheets of paper, decorated with multicoloured scribbles- Kizuki's artwork, which he dedicated enthusiastically to his parents. One illustration depicted Naoko as a huge round blob- Kizuki's unflattering portrayal of his mother when she was pregnant with his little sister. Beside the huge round blob was another, taller blob, topped with a scribble of red. Gaara. But unlike the drawing of Kizuki's mother, the drawing of Kizuki's father had arms. There were numerous brown splodges around him, which Naoko assumed was sand. Another drawing exhibited some clumsy calligraphy, documenting Kizuki's tireless quest to learn how to write his name. There were another twenty-two drawings identical to this. Every picture was as messy and scruffy as the one before it, and every picture was equally treasured by the artist's parents… which explains why the pictures took up most of the visible wall space.
Naoko smiled and closed her eyes again, but she promptly smacked herself in the head with the palm of her hand to wake herself up. She needed to get up and get the kids ready, and make breakfast. Tempting as it was, she couldn't let Gaara do all the work. He already had enough on his plate regarding his overly stressful job.
She dragged her dormant body out of bed and made her way to the baby's room to check up on Ai. Sure enough, Ai was awake (Kizuki's outburst had made sure of that), and she was quietly gazing up at ceiling, blowing spit bubbles like babies do. Naoko gently scooped the delicate baby into her arms.
"Good morning, Ai" she whispered, kissing her daughter's forehead before carrying her off to the kitchen for breakfast.
Gaara was seated at the dining table, quietly skim-reading some documents while Kizuki sat on the kitchen floor, gazing up at his father and chewing the ear off a teddy bear. Naoko placed the baby in the lovely pink and blue high chair that Temari and Shikamaru had bought when Ai was born. Gaara had already set the kettle to boil.
"Come on Kizuki sweetie. Breakfast time!" Naoko chirped, turning to her son. Kizuki stared at her, as if calculating something in his mind.
"Cookies!" he declared loudly.
Naoko shook her head. " No, Kizuki, you can't eat cookies for breakfast, its unhealthy"
Gaara stayed perfectly still, like an animal trying to avoid being noticed by a predator. But the betrayal was inevitable.
"Daddy did!" Kizuki said with wide, puppy dog eyes, pointing an accusative finger at his father.
Naoko's eyes fell to the tabletop in front of Gaara, spotting an incriminating dusting of crumbs. Gaara turned to his giggling son.
"Traitor" he hissed.
Naoko folded her arms. "Well, if daddy keeps eating cookies for breakfast, he'll get fat" she announced.
Kizuki found this vastly entertaining and threw his little arms up in the air with laughter.
"Daddy fatty!"
"Oh no" Gaara sighed, unimpressed at his new nickname. He wouldn't hear the end of this for a long time.
"Daddy fatty daddy fatty!"
Naoko burst into fits of laughter at her son, and Gaara shot his wife a stern glare, which just made it funnier. She gripped the kitchen worktop in an effort to steady herself. Baby Ai just sat serenely in her high chair, watching the situation inquisitively. Her eyes moved between her incapacitated mother and her big brother, before settling on her father. Before long she went back to quietly blowing spit bubbles. Afterall, young babies have very short attention spans.
Naoko recovered from her hysterics, but not for very long. She shakily placed a cup of coffee on the table in front of her husband.
"Your coffee, daddy fatty" she said, and with that she broke down again.
Kizuki, having realised he'd come up with something funny, started laughing with his mother.
"Naoko" Gaara chastised.
"I'm sorry, I'm sorry" Naoko said as she turned back to preparing breakfast, sneakily winking at her son and giving him the thumbs up. She busied herself about the kitchen, quietly laughing to herself every so often.
After the boys had eaten breakfast, Gaara went to get Kizuki dressed while Naoko fed Ai her bottle. Naoko gazed around the kitchen absent-mindedly. She and Gaara had moved out of their residence in the council building shortly before Kizuki's birth, because it was really too small to raise a family there. Plus, being Suna's shinobi nerve-centre, the council building was no place for small children to grow up in. Their present house was quite large and spacious, a couple of streets away from the council building. It was just perfect.
Gaara and Naoko had been married for four years. Initially, the Council of Suna had not been happy with Gaara's choice of bride; they saw Naoko as a 'gesuonna', or 'a woman of low rank'. It was unheard of for a Kazekage to marry a commoner from another land. Usually, the bride was of superior social standing- for example, a woman of noble birth. It was also common for a Kazekage to wed the daughter of a Lord from another shinobi nation for political reasons. Even a woman from a prestigious or lauded clan would have been acceptable. But Naoko was just an ordinary girl from Kumogakure. Hell, she wasn't even a ninja! The Council didn't like it one bit, but they eventually came round to the idea. Gaara had made his decision and it was obvious that he would have no one else as his wife.
Even so, the Council were quick to present their soon-to-be First Lady with a set of etiquette rules for the wife of a Kazekage. Apparently, they told Naoko, these rules were tradition and had been adhered to by every wife of every previous Kazekage of Suna since the First. The set of guidelines advised the wife on how to behave and how NOT to behave. For instance, the wife of the Kazekage should be a good hostess (even to unexpected guests), she should always have meals ready on time, she should be quiet and poised and should serve the Kazekage in all of his needs. The wife of the Kazekage must always dress finely and appropriately. She must behave like a lady. However, she should never nag her husband, or cause him undue stress, she should not be outspoken and she should not be gregarious or flirtatious. The theory behind the rules was that it advised the bride on how to be a good spouse, and a respectable public figure as the wife of the Kazekage. Naoko had snorted at the whole ridiculous idea. Afterall, she failed most of the requirements, and she thought it was all very old-fashioned. But she agreed in order to appease the Council slightly. Not only that, but she actually tried to be a good wife for Gaara. She really tried. She wanted to make him as happy as possible, and cause him the least amount of stress possible, what with his already unfadingly stressful profession and all. Not that Gaara cared about how Naoko dressed or spoke, or any of it for that matter… he just wanted her to be his, and she was. The rest was irrelevant.
Naoko's thoughts turned to her memories of the wedding day. It had been a quiet, private event, with only their closest friends and Gaara's family in attendance. Naoko smiled to herself as she remembered. It had been an amazing day. Yuki and Temari were bridesmaids and Kankuro was the best man. Naoko's uncle Kakashi had walked her down the aisle, because obviously Naoko's father wasn't alive to do so. Kankuro had delivered a clumsy but thoroughly sweet best man's speech and contrary to everyone's expectations, Naoko wasn't actually the one that got drunk at the wedding reception afterwards- but Kakashi did.
In fact, he got more than drunk- He got well and truly plastered. At one point he'd hijacked the microphone to do a drunken rendition of 'I Can't Get No Satisfaction'. He'd also attempted to pole dance with the microphone stand. Naoko had watched him in disbelief whilst telling Naruto, Sasuke and Sakura about the one time when she'd seen her uncle without his mask. They listened intently with wide eyes. Meanwhile, Tsunade had been inappropriately placing bets with the guests as to how long they thought the marriage would last. She was never one to miss a good chance to gamble.
As for the honeymoon, Gaara wasn't really at liberty to just up and leave Suna for a holiday. But a couple of weeks after the wedding he'd had to take a brief diplomatic trip to Kirigakure, so he'd taken Naoko with him. They stayed in a delightful little hotel by the sea, and when Gaara wasn't busy attending a meeting or conference, they had spent every free moment together.
Naoko snapped out of her memories when Ai gurgled a little bit and Naoko drew back the bottle, mopping the baby's milky, dribbly chin. Ai soon opened her mouth again, indicating that she was ready for more of her bottle. She suckled away sweetly. Naoko tenderly stroked the soft, fine wisps of baby hair that were sprouting cutely from her daughter's head. Baby Ai was nearly five months old now, and Kizuki was two years. Both children had been unplanned and unexpected, the products of Gaara's large sexual appetite and Naoko's forgetfulness when it came to taking the contraceptive pill. Indeed, she and Gaara had enjoyed married life without children for two years before Kizuki came along, but neither regretted having him or Ai one little bit. Gaara and Naoko loved their children more than anything… both pregnancies were accidents that they were deeply glad had occurred.
Their daughter Ai was quiet, like her father. The baby's hair was deep red too, just like his. Kizuki, on the other hand, was free spirited and turbulent like his mother. He had his mother's jet-black hair. Though the little boy's hair was usually a mess, Gaara-style, and his eyes were exact replicas of Gaara's- the same captivating shade of aquamarine. Kizuki was mischievous and brash, and along with his cousin Sumire, he caused all sorts of havoc. Sumire was Temari and Shikamaru's four year old daughter. Like Gaara and Naoko, Temari and Shikamaru had been married for four years now, and Temari had given birth to Sumire just a few months after the wedding. Shikamaru had moved from Konoha to live in Suna with Temari, because we all know who holds the power in that relationship (hehe). Anyhow, Kizuki was glad to have a playmate, and the two of them had a mischievous partnership that could have put Konohamaru's Ninja Squad to shame.
Presently, Gaara entered the kitchen again, dressed and ready for the day, carrying a folder. He was followed by an equally serious looking Kizuki, who was also carrying a little folder of his own. He tended to imitate his father a lot. Gaara gave his son a little smile.
"I'm going" Gaara announced, bending down to kiss his wife and baby daughter. He turned and ruffled his son's hair.
"Be good, Kizuki" he said knowingly. Kizuki could be quite a handful. The little boy beamed that familiar disarming smile at Gaara, who smiled back. Smiling came a little bit more easily to Gaara these days, especially when it came to his children. He set off to leave for work.
"Bye daddy fatty!" Kizuki yelled as the front door closed behind his father.
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Naoko quickly fed the cat before she left the house. She'd found the poor stray kitten a couple of years earlier in a dirty little alleyway, and she'd brought it home. Since then, Naoko and Gaara had realised that it was some kind of desert wildcat hybrid, and every so often it displayed violent hunting urges, with its prey usually being the couch or Gaara's legs. However, despite the fact that the cat had no issues with savaging Naoko's arms, it was never aggressive towards Kizuki or Ai, becoming a fluffy bundle of serenity even when Kizuki tried to pull its ears off. The cat's unpredictable behaviour was a mystery to Naoko, resulting in her naming it 'Psycho Cat'.
After feeding the cat, Naoko and the children set off for Temari and Shikamaru's house. Both Naoko and Temari worked part-time now, with Temari taking a more administrative role in Suna's shinobi affairs. This way, the two young mothers could take it in turns looking after the children. Today was Naoko's turn to work.
"Hey Naoko honey" Temari sang happily as she opened the door to her sister-in-law. "Hey kids!" she said, turning to a bouncing Kizuki and a comatose Ai.
"Is Sumire in?" Kizuki asked. He always asked this despite the fact that the answer was always the same.
"Of course sh-" Temari was interrupted as her daughter barged past to grab Kizuki.
"Come on Kizuki!" Sumire ordered urgently, dragging her cousin indoors.
"Sumire! Don't be so bossy!" Temari scolded her daughter.
"Well she doesn't get it from MY side of the family" drifted a lazy sounding voice from somewhere in the living room.
Temari rolled her eyes at her husband and turned back to Naoko.
"So what's on the agenda today?" she asked.
Naoko sighed. "Nothing too strenuous. I need to go to the electrical hardware store first." She planted a gentle kiss on Ai's forehead before passing her to Temari. "Thanks Temari, I'll be back to pick them up at around 5 ish. KIZUKI, I'M GOING! BE A GOOD BOY!!" she shouted, but he'd already disappeared somewhere.
"Take it easy Naoko, see you later" Temari said before closing the door.
Naoko strolled in the direction of the East Side of Suna towards the store. The sun was blissfully hot; it was an ordinary, uneventful day in Suna, or so Naoko thought. She made her way towards a dim, scruffy little alleyway, the one in which she'd found Psycho Cat two years ago. Gaara didn't like Naoko to be anywhere near the alleyway; it was dark and secluded, and it was in a rougher part of town, but Naoko ignored his over-protective warnings and used the alley anyway. It was a convenient shortcut to the store.
She snaked down the narrow passageway, kicking the rubbish out of her path. The air here was damp and stale and she screwed up her nose at the putrid odour. Suddenly, she saw movement to her left. She stalled and scanned the area. Again, she saw something shuffle amongst the black plastic bin bags. She approached slowly, cautiously. She lifted away a bag of rubbish and saw a shock of bright platinum blonde hair, so bright it was almost white. A small, skinny body cowered away from her, trembling. It was… a child… a boy…
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Maigo- A lost or stray child
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A/N: Hope you like it so far. Make my day- leave a review!