Happy Easter guys! Long time no see - sorry for the wait, this chapter has been a pain to write. Battle scenes always feel like my weak point so I think I rewrote this four times? Let me know if you think it went well!

I hope everyone is doing okay during this pandemic lockdown. I myself am bored and restless, but at least I have time to write? If you're bored be sure to hope by my Tumblr( featherfang) and say 'hi'. Right now I'm looking to get ideas for prompts and head cannons for practice, so feel free to ask me a question!

Anyway, enjoy the chapter!

DROH

Chapter 31: Forlorn

They didn't give Korin the chance to react, to speak, to even think. In the span of a moment, the blink of an eye, Kira narrowed her focus blocking out the sounds of the other fights and distant voices, her intent sharpened to that of a blade.

Then they moved.

There were no words, no hand signals, they moved as any ninja unit might after training and working together long enough. True, they hadn't worked as a unit for long; the war had cut into their time working together and then her recovery even more so. Still, it didn't seem to matter. They knew exactly what they needed to do.

Kira bolted forward, the sand under her feet packing tighter in order to let more speed be possible, flipping her weapons to the position she wanted as she quickly closed the gap between Korin and herself. Gaara wouldn't follow her far. In fact, he'd stopped several feet back around the exact moment Korin had stopped reeling from her words and quickly struck out with his blade, whipping it through the air. The blade of wind soared towards her and the sand at her feet bunched and gathered instantly pushing her upwards as she crouched and jumped. The added height from the sand and the momentum it gave her easily saw her dodge the first attacks and she landed again, having to slide across the sand, arching backward to miss the second wind sickle.

As Kira pushed her way back to her feet she spotted sand gathering behind Korin and the rogue must have seen it too as he quickly jumped to the side just as sand spikes reared up, hitting nothing but air where a body had been. Knowing that would be Gaara's first move gave her the advantage and as Korin landed from his jump she swung forward with one tonfa, blade extended to slice through his chest. Her blade cried out as it met the jagged sword that had slipped in for a block and Kira pushed back the wince at the sound before unleashing a flurry of twisting consecutive strikes at her opponent.

Korin blocked them all. Every. Single. One.

He whirled, spinning around and pushing her back with a sudden wind strike, the curling sickle of air blocked by crossed weapons as she skidded backward in the sand. Her arms buzzed with pain, the bones aching from her own weapon's vibrations. As she watched, another torrent of sand shot out from the ground intending on engulfing the man before her.

"Wind Style: Upward Torrent!"

Kira hadn't even seen him make the hand signs, but sure enough, Korin twisted and shot his palm upward, a spiraling blast of air ripping up the sand above him and sending chunks into the sky above as if he'd broken apart a cliff.

It was the perfect opening.

As sand reached out towards the man from the broken wave, he turned his attention to that onslaught and Kira took that moment to step backward into her own shadow. It grabbed her with a gentle pull, dispatching her into the negative world she knew so well, the small portals above shaped to match the sun's casted darkness. She knew what she was looking for, the randomly shaped clumps of sand still falling through the air casting window-sized shadows all around Korin's own. Kira mentally flicked a lock on her prosthetic and leaped upward. She appeared at his five o-clock, the shadowy veil of her power dispelling as Kira jumped forward and swung down at the man's back with her now spike covered leg. She saw him release her attack a moment before it hit, saw him twist to get away, but not fast enough.

It connected, catching him on the left side of his back and sending him crashing down the side of the hill she'd crested at his side under an hour ago. She moved forward a step, stopping her forward momentum and using her chakra threads to click the latch again, the ring of spikes on her leg sinking back into the inner frame. Heart pounding in her ears she let out a breath, glancing at where her former teacher had disappeared down the hill.

Daring a glance to Gaara, she met his gaze as he walked towards her, sand swirling around him in a gentle mist. He was, of course, perfectly fine and she nodded her head in greeting, a small smile on her lips. It had worked! After all that training, all those hours, real combat was the only way to know if the strategy would truly work. She'd been pretty sure it would after sparing alongside Shikamaru but to see it happen… something about it was just so relieving.

"Good work," Gaara said as he reached her and she reached out with a hand to touch his own for the first time since he'd gotten back, the first moment she'd let herself think about that. Her fingertips brushed warm skin and then the world around them exploded in the same heartbeat. Kira cursed, berating herself for being stupid – because of course, this fight wasn't over – as she was thrown backwards yet again. Sand wrapped around her before she got far and she landed softly on a cloud of it. Opening her eyes she blinked away the sting of grains and pushed herself back up as Gaara crouched beside her on the small patch of sand he'd elevated into the air, a wall in front of them for protection.

"Sorry," she murmured, regretting her actions, but the redhead just shook his head and together they stood again, their shield lowering and trickling back to the ground below. Once again Korin stood a few feet away, standing in front of what looked like a bitten out chunk of the hill he'd gone over. Wind roiled around him in blue chakra infused rivulets as he glowered distastefully at them. Kira swept her gaze over him and spotted a small patch of blood on his left shoulder staining his shirt and grimaced slightly.

So he had evaded the brunt of her attack. He hadn't been dodging away but rather shifting enough so that she didn't make as good of a connection and struck at less body mass. At least it looked like it hurt. She should have known this wouldn't be that easy, but now their little surprise was over and all it had done was tick the SS leader off. Korin eyed them with a near lustful loathing as he moved to rest his blade on his uninjured shoulder.

"I'll admit that caught me off guard," he stated flatly, a bitter smirk edging onto his lips. "My man on the inside had reported you two seemed to have been working on a fighting formation, but they could never get close enough to really look. It was smart using our old training ground; not many places to hide. Combining sand and shadows, not a bad idea and certainly something Rasa would have never thought of."

The jab at Gaara's father seemed uncalled for and Kira bit back a glare at that fact. He was trying to get under their skin, trying to irk them by being disrespectful of a past leader's title. She supposed with how closely Korin had worked with the last Kazekage, it was possible they had been on a first name basis, but there was no way of knowing.

"You've certainly come a long way Koyote," he mused off hand, taking another step towards them. "You've gotten a lot stronger than the girl I used to leave bleeding on the ground to cry. You have gotten past that right – bursting into tears?" A small chuckle left him as he stopped after another step, leaving little more than two yards and a foot of height between them. "You have always been such a bad mongrel-"

"Silence."

The flat statement was accompanied by the sudden rush of sand, two swarms of it rushing from either side of Korin to meet in the middle and crush him. Caught off guard, the rogue was trapped instantly, struggling and clawing at the sand as it curled around his limbs and neck, growing tighter with each second till his dark eyes nearly bulged. Kira whipped her head around to stare in shock at Gaara as he raised a hand, his face as blank as unused paper. It was his eyes – a torrent of darkening seafoam that leaked out hints of anger – that had her doing a near double take. Kira had been so focused on not letting her own emotions get to her she hadn't even considered Gaara's. She surmised it was much the same feeling when she heard someone badmouth him: a knee jerk anger that came more on animal instinct than conscious thought. Gaara had always been so controlled in combat, but this, those eyes… for a moment time slipped backwards as she saw hate and blood lust in them. Panic clawed at her for an instant at memories from years ago echoed in those eyes.

Then that moment was gone and Gaara's hand fisted.

"Sand Coffin."

She braced herself, knowing what would come next; the sand would turn red and mist the color of fresh blood would spring into the air. But where there should have been blood and untold gore, there was only the sudden distinct puff of gray smoke and cracking, wood splintering before turning to dust. A substitution. From above them, the sudden flicker of chakra had Kira whipping her head up in time to see Korin diving at them, a quick slash of his sword rendering a wind sickle through the air.

Whether surprised or slightly bewildered by his own attack moments ago, Kira saw Gaara hesitate for just a moment, and a moment was too long for her. She moved, launching forward and pushing him to the side with her. She expected some kind of pain, for surely she hadn't gotten completely out of the attack, but Kira felt nothing, only saw sand curl to cover her legs just as the edge of the attack hit. The two sand ninja landed on their feet, Kira taking the step forward as the sand cleared, her hands moving in quick succession once she'd stored her weapons. Seeing as it had worked before, she tried it again, slamming her foot down hard into the ground as she finished.

"Earth Style: Stone Fist!"

The hand shaped attack propelled toward Korin as he landed on the ground, but with a quick slash of his blade the fist crumbled midair, the tiny rivets on the serrated blade acting as dozens of smaller blades inside one large sweep. As she watched it crumble before her, Kira was reminded of just how powerful the man was. Of course, the same move wouldn't work when it was outright and straight laced like that. As if to prove the difference in power, the man took a moment to brush grains of sand from his armored vest.

"I'm not sure when you lost that fear you had Koyote," Korin went on, acting as if they hadn't just attacked each other again, though his eyes were solely on Gaara even as he spoke to her. The redhead had moved to stand next to her once she'd attack, his arms once again crossed and any trace of anger, or the surprise at that anger, gone. "That fear was what kept you in line, what kept you alive. So I wonder, little stray, what happened to it?" He seemed honestly curious, his stance relaxing slightly as he spoke. While she wanted nothing more than to ignore him and attack once more, despite herself, his question gave her pause. Because in that moment, Kira realized he was right: she wasn't scared of him.

How many years had it been?

Since the day she'd been put under Korin's control at the mere age of eleven, Kira had feared him. Every day a nightmare of hard choices, tough lessons, and pain had greeted her – things she needed to learn, she'd been told. She'd submitted to it, she'd done everything she could to not draw his attention and therefore his ire. She'd learned, she'd been sharpened and honed and used like the weapon Rasa, and by extension Korin, had wanted her to be. She'd done her job as Gaara's shadow even as she'd trembled in terror at the thought of being found, or worse, at the thought of failing.

Then Korin and Rasa had died: both her puppeteers gone, her stings cut, her limbs free. She'd been free and yet their ghost, Korin's presence had kept her caged in fright, a lingering sense of what he'd taught her never truly leaving. Years of time, years of conditioning slowly but surely being rewritten with soft touches and even softer words. She'd been rebuilt, reformed into her own self, not a puppet, not a tool, and yet… and yet that lingering sense of dread, those dregs of nightmares had stayed like poorly healed scars.

Then she'd become Gaara's friend and things had changed. Ever so slowly the confidence she'd worn only with her mask transferred to her entire being. She started looking people in the eyes, started overcoming a shy, nervous tendency so crippling she'd hated it. A confidence that had nearly shattered and then reformed when she'd fallen in love with Gaara. Like a struggling turtle on a beach trying to reach the ocean – water the color of his eyes – she'd reached it.

After years of a fear too deep to find the bottom, she'd finally emptied it out. She'd been scared when she'd left the Leaf with Korin, she'd been worried and fearful as they'd traveled home and yet… and yet, it was gone. Vanished without a glance back as she stood stronger than she'd ever been next to Gaara, her friends at her back, her demons in front of her. No, not demons; demon. Just one for she had conquered the others. She wasn't afraid, not anymore, not of him.

As if he could read her mind, Korin smirked and ran his free hand along the back of his sword, air coiling around it like binding ropes. Then his eyes moved from Gaara to hers and she saw no color in them, she never had.

"Don't worry, I'll give you that fear back, just you wait."

Kira was incapable of stopping the shudder that rippled through her.

His hand moved to the tip of his sword and with a careless flick, sliced the pad of this thumb wide open. Gaara tensed at the same time she did and then, with a single glance at each other, they moved. Gaara ran forward and arched a path around the rogue, sand shifting and lurching up around him to strike as Kira reached up and wiped at the slowly clotting notch in her ear.

In the hours before Gaara had left Konoha over a month before, they'd worked out a plan. Kira had told Gaara everything she'd known about the traitor's fighting abilities. What had been kept on record was scarce and nearly useless to them and Gaara had never seen the man fight. So, despite any discomfort she'd felt about it, she'd run through everything. His weapons, his Jutsus, and of course, any summons he had.

They were nearly mirrored with their movements.

"Summoning Jutsu: Ash Born Alpha!"

"Summoning Jutsu: Stone Familiars!"

Korin's summon appeared in a puff of white spoke, the large black and gray demonic looking wolf standing easily at rib height on her. She'd only seen the summon creature a few times, only heard his name twice and yet she still remembered it: Marrow. Ram horns ripped out from its skulls at the temples to curl around ears while glowing silver eyes stood stark against black sclera. Overly large claws gripping into the earth as it bolted forward the moment he was spawned. He moved towards Gaara, the closer of the two opponents, only for the ground to explode in front of him.

Ruu and Ryoko snarled, both smaller than Marrow but still powerful as they leapt at him. Their bodies were nothing but rock and sand, the glowing orbs of green and yellow stark within their eye sockets.

"What?" The surprised outrage from Korin was worth it as Kira darted forward, Gaara acting as a decoy of all things, and moved into attack. As her tonfas bared down against his sword once more she couldn't help the smirk cresting her lips at his shock and confusion. He'd always called her Koyote because she was weaker than him, but an individual is always stronger when they aren't alone and she had a pack at her side now.

"Who's afraid now Korin?" she snapped ducking backward as he jabbed out with his sword. Using her tonfa to direct it upwards she let the shadows swallow her as a wave of sand eclipsed them both.

...

The Black Wolf.

The name echoed through his head as Gaara watched Kira reappear from a shadow across the way, only to have to guard against the large wolf summons – Marrow, Kira had called it – smacking her tonfa across the beast's face. The title was an old retired thing Korin had once used and had been one of the only things in the man's file that had been of any use. Before he'd become the leader of Scorpion Section, Korin had been a normal ANBU and ninja during the second and third ninja wars. He'd gained fame like many ninja had in those times, earning a name for himself that left enemies on edge. Korin Esley The Black Wolf, a nod to his demonic summon animal and serrated blade of wind sickle moves that were often described as invisible teeth. Yet that wasn't the title Kira had first called him by, nor what most people knew him as in SS. The Caged Mind.

It was a strange, Gaara thought as he struck out with sand at the very man he pondered, why Korin had apparently stopped using the creature, thus the first title fading away. Had he grown tired of it? Kira had mentioned seeing the beast only a handful of times in her life, and mostly in passing. The few times the wolf had been directed at her it had been to prove a point, a hierarchy between them of wolves and coyotes. To see such a large and eerie animal at such a young age must have been effective, even if Kira had hardly ever seen it.

That didn't of course mean Korin had truly stopped using it; Kira never saw her former teacher on missions or in real fights, and what information Gaara had on paper for the man was less and less helpful the farther down the timeline it went until it stopped shortly after he gained control of the SS. From the coordination the man had with his partner, Gaara could only assume it hadn't been a long leave of absence since they last fought together.

He supposed in the end, it didn't really matter.

A chorus of snarls drew his attention to the side for a bare moment, only to see Kira's familiars aiding her once more, stone teeth snapping into dark fur. The shadow user took that opportunity to twist and skid into their created shadow, disappearing once more.

"Best keep your eyes focused, Kazekage!" Another snarl reminded him, as the sand at his feet twinge in warning of an oncoming attack. The redhead turned, hand sweeping up as sand curled in an arc to stop Korin's sword, wrapping around it in a vice grip. He smirked against the hold, not moving to pull away but rather baring down on his blade more despite the lack of movement. A shiver down the grains warned the young ruler a moment later and he jumped to the side as his sand exploded, sliced apart by dozens of tiny air blades once again. Korin touched the ground where Gaara had been moments later only for Kira to jump from his shadow and move to strike the older man in the back once more. Her tonfa landed a hit on the same shoulder she'd gotten before, but only briefly as her opponent whirled around and landed a kick into her gut.

Gaara winced in sympathy as Kira flew backward only to land in a softened pile of sand. She coughed there for a moment, wiping at her chin as she pushed back up onto one knee. Thankful she seemed to be okay, relief rushing through him once again. Not for the first time he wished he'd been able to figure out how to give Kira sand armor, but all their attempts at doing so had fallen short. While his sand didn't appear to think of her as a threat, it also didn't see her as it saw himself. This meant all he could really do for her was trying to make things a little bit less painful on the rebound of attacks. Blows he knew weren't going to get any weaker any time soon.

Despite their teamwork this was turning into a much longer and hard fight than Gaara had thought it would be. The training they'd done together for weeks was working well, and he had a feeling most opponents would be long defeated by now, but this wasn't just any ninja. The Black Wolf. The Caged Mind. Despite being in hiding for so many years, Gaara had to admit his father had certainly kept powerful people close to him.

It was too bad that it had backfired so badly on him.

"You're such a nuisance," Korin hissed his free hand over the once again bleeding wound on his shoulder, eyes focused solely on his once student. "To think all that planning, all those years of work – all but gone in so little time. I might as well have not even bothered with getting you to Suna." His words, devoid of any warmth had Gaara pausing for a moment in gathering sand. One look at Kira and he knew those words had confused her too.

"You didn't get me anywhere except the SS core," she snapped, rising back to her feet once more. Korin just gazed at her, that cruel smirk forming once more as he let out a low, short chuckle.

"How little you truly know." The words were backed with a lunging attack towards her. Kira's tonfa caught it with a scraping metallic echo as he bared down on the young woman. "Do you really think you survived by chance?" he hissed, glaring down at her for only a moment before he leapt to the side away from Gaara's attack. The sand meant to crush him twisted around Kira in a corkscrew turn before chasing after the man. It gave Kira the moment she needed to right herself and follow the sand, though from the way her brow furrow momentarily, she was certainly becoming confused.

She wasn't the only one.

That didn't mean the battle would stop though and Gaara watched as Kira dove back into the shadows before he switched his attention back to Korin completely. He found the man had moved back towards Marrow, slicing one of the two sister spirit's body in half with his sword so quickly Gaara didn't even have a chance to stop him. He knew it wouldn't truly hurt the spirit as according to Kira their bodies were more like armor than bodies, but the redhead still winced as the yellow spirit yelped and the body turned rigid and began to crumble. This gave the large wolf enough time to knock the other spirit away, jumping away with Korin latched on to his side, giving them both enough speed to outrun Gaara's sand.

But not their own shadow.

Striking from in front of the wolf, Kira appeared already halfway through a spinning kick, her prosthetic already locked and armed as she made contact with Marrow's jaw. They crumpled, a sharp yelp and blood splashing from the impact as both man and beast rolled to the side. Korin dislodged himself quickly, standing behind the shaking form of his partner as Marrow pawed at the wounds marring one side of his face. The horn on that side was broken, much to his surprise, and that reminded the redhead never to get hit by one of Kira's kicks. His partner didn't advance right away, instead she retracted the spikes on her leg and glared as her teacher let out a small feral chuckle, palm on his forehead.

"I never really thought I'd have to kill you – not after all the work I did – but I find myself less and less inclined to try to salvage that hard work." His words were savage, icy cold and Gaara felt anger rear up in his mind again at the death threat. Once again that streak of violet tendency Gaara could only connect to appearing when someone went after Kira. Was it just because he loved her, or was there something else to that? He didn't know, all he knew was he wanted the shadow user safe, and that wouldn't happen with Korin alive.

"What are you going on about?" Kira asked flatly, irritated, but curious despite herself, and despite himself, Gaara had to agree. Korin clicked his tongue and crouched, putting a hand on Marrow's head. After a moment chakra appeared and to Gaara's surprise, flowed into the summon beast. It wasn't medical ninjustu, he knew that much, but it was healing the wolf somehow, it's bleeding wounds scabbing over as Gaara watched.

"You really never wondered, Koyote? Well, I suppose you're not as clever as I thought. Not every Nara can be like your cousin, can they?" Korin pet the wolf's head as he spoke, chakra still being pulled in by the contact for another moment before finally stopping. "How should I put this so that you can understand? I suppose… you could say I'm the only reason you ended up in Suna." He stood again and Marrow followed but Gaara wasn't really watching them the way he should have been as he processed those words. He couldn't possibly mean…

"I came to Suna by chance," Kira growled. "I almost died because I'd run in a random direction." Or at least that's what she believed had happened from what she'd told Gaara. Kira still couldn't remember what had happened back then, and while Shikamaru had helped fill in some blanks, there were still quite a few left. Korin shook his head in a slow, idle way that one did in frustration.

"No. You were there because I did everything I could to get you to that desert. It didn't exactly work out but… it was close." He shrugged his shoulders and twisted his hold on the serrated blade, the smirk on his face just as sharp and cruel. "Did you really think your parents were killed by chance?"

For what it was worth, Kira didn't freeze up like Gaara feared she might, but she certainly didn't look steady on her feet suddenly. Her prosthetic leg quivered a bit as the shock of those words hit her and she lost control for just a moment. Gaara shifted his sand to twist on the ground around her just in case it got worse, then he moved his attention to Korin again as the man spoke, letting Gaara set up another attack. The sand at his feet shot up, clawing at the man and his wolf, but much to Gaara's annoyance they seemed to have been ready for it.

Wind ripped at his sand and then boosted both of them forward and apart. Kira had to block with her tonfa as Korin's sword came down at her with a shrieking wind on it's blade and that was all Gaara clearly got to see before the wolf was on him again. Marrow was leaping at him, fanged mouth wide before Gaara quite simply had had enough and grabbed the beast out of the air. Sand curled around his middle and slammed him back on onto the earth as Gaara stood over him frowning and watching as Marrow struggled and snarled.

"When I first made a deal with Orochimaru all those years ago, I was just as eager to take Rasa's place as I was when I killed him. But I knew I'd need an edge Koyote," Korin's voice drew Gaara back to the battle locked vice of blade and tonfa. Pushing harder against Kira, Korin went on talking and Gaara readied sand once more, splitting his attention as he moved to crush Marrow and be done with it. "I looked all over, researched different clans in other nations, their abilities, and then I stumbled upon the second branch of the Nara's and you. The only one in the entire clan who apparently had the rare ability as it had skipped your father. I knew I had to get you." He pushed harder and Gaara watched as Kira jumped backwards to get away from the attack, knowing the redhead was there to cover her.

He was. Sand shot up between them before Korin could do anything and then, like a tree sprouting limbs, another stream went for Korin directly. The rogue was forced backward, eyes flickering across the field and finding his partner immobilized before sidestepping the sand and turning to block as Kira ran at him from the side, a look of anger crossing her face for the first time.

"You're lying!" she snapped as Korin jumped back once more and as the smirk never left his face, threw something down on the ground. It exploded instantly, throwing dark red smoke into the air in thick clouds that blocked the sun as it spread, covering both Kira and Korin and moved into Gaara's surrounding area too. He grimaced, the sharp smell of smoke reaching him along with something almost spicy. It pricked at his eyes and stung his nose enough that the redhead moved back and that was enough of an opening that Marrow took it. The sand holding the beast down broke apart as he wrenched free with a sudden show of strength that left the Kazekage reeling for a moment. Instantly, he moved to recapture the beast but wind rippled around the dark coat like an aura and Marrow wasted no time to dart into the plume of red without hesitation.

Back to Korin, and towards Kira.

Frustrated at his own shortcomings with the beast, Gaara pushed those thoughts away and concentrated on the sand. It wouldn't be fast, but if he focused on the layer at the top, he could find where people were due to the weight of their steps in the sand. It would just take time and as he stood there, arms at his sides, he could hear the conversation that hadn't ever truly broken.

"All I had to do was get you away from your family. That was the easy part – hiring some bandits willing to kill. The hard part was getting them to bring you to me alive." Korin's voice rang out clear as day despite the smoke and distance from Gaara, which meant the sadistic bastard wanted to make sure both Kira and him heard this. Closing his eyes, the redhead concentrated on the sand. Four pressure points moving in pressures of twos. That was more than likely Marrow, or it could be the other familiar Kira had, he couldn't tell. The clank of metal alerted him to Kira finding Korin, but her silence to the man's tale didn't seem to hinder his words, even as the sounds of battle continued.

"It should have been simple for them, keeping a child under control, but somehow – somehow you got away during the night in the middle of the desert. Stupidity had rendered my plans useless and I was left with the realization that they had fallen apart – until you showed up anyways." There was a chuckle then, humorless and tight and Kira only seemed to reply with more attacks, the vibrations of her movement making them both easier to find. Sand curled at their feet planning to snatch them both and pull them out, before wind rippled hard and fast from the center of the smoke with a sharp, unmistakable howl.

The shockwave from the force threw the red cloud out, dispersing it, and causing Gaara to get a face and lung full of the stinging smoke as it blew past him in a wave. It disoriented him, causing him to shake his head and blink rapidly as the red smoke grew thinner and thinner before disappearing all together. Sounds became clear first, snarling and snapping off to his left while erratic clashing sounded off to his right. His eyes flickered to both, analyzing the scene quickly.

The snarling belonged to Marrow and Kira's other Earth Spirit. The green one. Despite being almost half her opponent's size, the sandstone coyote was holding her own, jumping onto the back of the wolf and biting down hard. Figuring he wasn't needed there, Gaara quickly switched his gaze to his bigger concern. Korin and Kira were at each other's throats, the former grinning like the beast he was partnered with while the latter was… wearing her mask again?

He almost did a double take.

Sure enough the Koyote mask was back in place on Kira, expression hidden there as she launched attack after attack on her former teacher. Confusion ran rampant for about thirty seconds in Gaara's mind, a billion questions twisting – before he remembered the Mask had a build in ventilation system in it. Perhaps not the best one out there now, but certainly better than what he'd had to work with.

Gathering sand back around the area the two were fighting in, the young leader waited for an opening, watching Kira's movements carefully for telltale signs of when she would back off to lead her opponent into traps. Except, as Gaara watched, he realized she wasn't doing that, she wasn't fighting at all how she normal did. The sounds he'd first heard to draw him to their fight matched perfectly at what she was doing.

Erratic.

The shadow user was throwing attack after attack as hard and fast as she could at the man, wasting energy by doing so. She knew better than that, with all her experience fighting and yet she was deliberately putting herself at risk. Looking to her opponent, the redhead could see he was blocking her attacks with ease now, her moves too predictable. Worse yet, Korin was still grinning, and when he opened his mouth once more, Gaara understood what was going on.

"You fell right into my hands, and even though I had planned to never let Rasa know about you, I still won." He changed his stance suddenly, moving to a more offensive striking pattern that had Kira swapping rolls as well. "I still got the Nara's little shadow dancer, Koyote, or I suppose you don't like that name do you?" He kicked suddenly, catching her hip with the heel of his foot and making her stumble back a foot. Gaara tensed, sand coiling to move in, but moving slower than normal as despite himself, Gaara was listening to the rogue. "Should I call you by your given name? It's really ironic actually, eh little H-"

"Shut up!"

Sand that had been lurking to spin upward and capture Korin halted mid coil as Kira's voice screamed across the battlefield. Shock paused Gaara's in place having never heard such a sound from the soft spoken, even tempered girl he loved. Korin had struck a nerve Gaara hadn't seen and didn't even have a real chance in reacting to as she lunged forward in a near mindlessly angry attack. Bladed tonfas slashing out at the man.

Gaara knew it was a bad move the moment she made it.

While the downward blow was more than likely meant to crush and kill instantly, the journey of it was made sloppy by emotion. Korin saw the attack as quickly as Gaara had, using the back of his blade to catch both attacks in one sweeping motion and guiding the onslaught off course and to his advantage. He side stepped out of the way and then flipped the blade of his sword, leaving her own weapons to soar into open air and leaving her wide open. Her head whipped to the side, but her arms weren't as fast. Korin's blade came down at her designed to cut her through at the shoulder.

Except, Gaara was still watching.

At his command sand rose up and, while it wasn't nearly enough to stop the blow completely, Gaara had enough time to make sure the slice was dampened. Sand flew everywhere on impact, and the blade sliced across Kira's shoulder as she jumped backwards, a splash of blood hitting her own neck and mask in the process. He heard the muffled and startled sound of pain even from his place yards away and instantly hated the sound. Anxiety working its way through him along with worry and anger that seethed on a rising tide once more.

He turned his sand back on Korin instantly.

This needed to be over. While Gaara was rather sure the fight hadn't been going on for more than fifteen minutes, the fact that Korin had gotten under Kira's skin enough for her to make a mistake like that meant it needed to end. Somewhere behind him he heard more snarling and the distinct sound of stone breaking. A quick glance to Kira showed her still on her feet, clutching at her newly acquired wound.

This needed to end now.

His sand responded in kind. It speared out from the ground in every direction, aiming to grapple or pierce or crush, any of those would do. Yet Korin's wind blades kept him free enough to keep moving, even as sharp blades of sand managed to cut into limbs as he went. He could run all he wanted to though – Gaara wasn't going to make the same mistake as Kira and attack mindlessly. His fingers twitched in command, herding the rogue away from Kira to give her the chance to recover and move into strike once more. Korin didn't seem to be fighting that direction either, instead, he moved another direction.

Towards the Kage himself.

Foolish. A good tactic in most cases when it came to long range fighters like Gaara, but not with Gaara himself. Still, the SS leader was grinning as he flipped away from another sand attack, pivoted on one foot and then sprung at Gaara, wind wrapped around his blade. Near his feet, Gaara felt the earth move in order to protect him like it always did. Spikes of hardened sand shot up instantly, five long vines ending in fang sharp spikes that arrowed forward to right where Korin would land. He saw the Man's eyes widen in realization at the fact that he couldn't dodge out of that, and yet, the grin didn't fade as the sand struck out a fatal blow –

– and ripped through Kira's body like paper, the dark spider web cloak of her power still encompassing her, arms raised, weapons out to attack and stop Korin on her own. For she was forever his shield against any danger, no matter the cost.

The air itself halted.

Something sharp and pitched into agony blared through his ears as the sickening feeling of silence that fell across the dunes so unnaturally hit him with the force of a bucking horse. Red spread across sky blue combat gear and sand, streams veining down arms only to drip in uneven tempos that Gaara couldn't hear. He couldn't hear anything, not even his own thoughts over the shrieking silence that racked across his mind with claws. It was a memorable sensation, one that he'd felt before: his mind silent yet not because it had never just been him in his head. An exhausting, agitating feeling imprinted into his very soul that he had nearly forgotten but now was unable to ignore.

For the briefest of moments, he was back on that deck in Konoha, soft lips pressed against his scar in one of the most cherished experiences of his life. Those moments, those words. Her eyes, the color of a harvest moon – the color he'd randomly chosen for his favorite so long ago, now true.

I love you.

Drowned and torn into the keening, ripping metal of his mind. Never stopping, always growing louder and louder like insistent nails on a window–

A wet, guttural sound pierced the silence, bringing everything back into swift motion as twin tonfas fell like dead weight from once tireless hands. It was his undoing, all the fight and anger and strength left the Kazekage with that one brief sound, the memory of that moment shattered into dust.

The clawed weapons of sand – their tips oddly black and hauntingly familiar – fell away instantly, leaving Kira to stand on her own. He didn't know where Korin was, didn't look for him. The man fell away, leaving Gaara's mind as soon as he'd come, leaving him to zero in on the ANBU who stumbled on wooden and broken limbs, her prosthetic nearly cut in two. It snapped when she turned, brittle under the movement, and Gaara shot forward to catch her, his legs moving on their own because his mind still refused to process what had just happened. All he saw in that moment was her eyes. She'd lost her mask at some point, though he couldn't quite figure out when, leaving him to stare into eyes like a harvest moon, filled with such fear and confusion it nearly crushed him under the weight of her gaze.

He wasn't going to make it. Even as he moved, his limbs weighed down by unexplained exhaustion only found from years of sleeplessness, a cycle he'd long broken. He was too slow, but his sand, the very thing he'd used to help her through the entire fight, could reach her. It rippled at his command, shivering and rising in unglilating waves that refused to form anything but sharp blackened needles. Unusable. He pulled them back and flattened them.

Kira crashed to the ground mere moments before he could get there, and he ended up in a crouch beside her form moving in increasingly frantic motions as he rolled her from her side to her back. His hands felt wet against her rapidly cooling body, sending a tremor unnoticed through the appendages. It was the amount of blood – in her clothes, in the sand around her – that finally snapped his brain back into reality with the biting truth of what he was staring at. The holes ripped through her torso, her chest, her leg – they fountained blood that pooled around her in the likeness of a demonic sacrifice. They mirrored bodies that he'd ripped apart himself in desperation for the same silence he heard now.

The deafening shriek came back in the form of twisted murmur, bubbling just high enough to hear it, but did nothing to block out his own throughs as the pitch rose higher and higher.

He'd done this.

For so long he'd worked and trained to protect those close to him. He thought his sand was his to control and yet he'd forgotten that when it came to his own life, the sand acted on its own. It was why he'd always fought alone, to prevent this. He'd thought she was safe, thought he'd been in control. But he hadn't. He'd been losing control since before this madness with Korin had been revealed. Brief moments of anger fueling actions done by his sand without thought and only been it had involved Kira.

Why hadn't he been able to control it, to stop it?

Why?

A sudden jerk on his body had him pulled from spiraling thoughts, Gaara wheeling at the fact that he just barely managed to stop from toppling over Kira's prone body, eyes shifting down. A hand gripped at the lower part of the strap for his god. The very hand that had crafted it, now smeared blood across the woven threads in a blind, panicked movement. His eyes followed the hand and arm up and up till he saw her face once more and couldn't look away.

Shallow, tight breaths hitched out of parted lips before skidding back in. Her eyes, wide to the point of where white surrounded gold entirely, focused on him solely as her teeth clacked together and snarled apart. Choking. Wheezing. Whatever she wanted to say stifled into silence once more. The fingers on his strap clenched harder.

He didn't know what to do. Hopelessly he tried to remember first aid – one hand pressing over a hole near her collar bone – and failed to recall anything useful. The nails in his head grated lower against his brain and his teeth clench together in a desperate attempt to stop the screams echoing louder in his ears.

A dream. A nightmare. This had to be something he could wake up from, but even Gaara knew better than to hope for that. He knew fatal wounds when he saw them too, but he still shook his head in pained denial as his mind played back over that scene of his own sand striking down the girl he loved. His shield, poised to always guard him, but never herself. A shield he hadn't needed, never had, but that she was still determined to be.

"Gaar-a," a gurgling, drowned sound spilled from her lips, carried by a stream of red that cascaded down her neck. Wincing, the redhead used his free hand to wipe at it, as if doing so might wipe away the pain and the wounds that caused it. Her throat moved, swallowing and failing to produce words again as her back arched slightly with the effort, desperation mirroring his own through her eyes. A sinking, dragging feeling that took him past frantic and straight into numb finality.

He didn't want to see her like this. He had to do something.

So, he did.

Grabbing at her hand still clutched to him, he ignored how frozen her fingers were and easily disentangled them, clenching it tight even as the sand around him seemed to have a mind of its own. It twisted and gathered, blackening in places as it built up behind him. He ignored that too. Instead he removed his hand from the weeping wound and touched it to the side of her face, let it curve against her cheek like he'd wanted to do since he saw her again. There had been a better version of it in his head, something not dyed red and soaking wet, but it would do.

"It's alright," he choked out finally, shifting to bend down and slowly, rest his forehead to hers, his fingers skimming into her hair. "I'm right here." It did little to comfort him, but his words hadn't been meant for him, only her. Kira's hand twitched in his, another struggling breath that she somehow found the strength to pull in. Despite that strength though, what came of it was barely more than a whisper, the lingering traces of a smile on her lips.

"It's okay," she breathed, eyes rolling away from his for a moment to stare up past him. "It's… okay." She didn't fight him on his lie, though she clearly knew it to be one. Instead, like always, she confronted him in an echo of his words. This close to her, he could feel the light tickle of her breath as it wheezed out, the sound overpowering the screams tearing across his mind. So close in fact, that he felt it when they got farther apart.

"Kira?" He pulled back enough to look at her fully again, as the dazed and dulling embers that lit her sight. His fingers tightened in her hair. "Kira, please…" Gaara wasn't sure he'd ever begged in his life before, not like this, and yet, he couldn't stop himself. "Don't go."

"It's… okay…" Breathless. Resigned. It was infuriated.

"It's not!" he snapped, his freed hand grabbing at her chin, forcing her head back. Slowly, her eyes rolled back to his, her gaze made glassy and useless. Too far down in darkness to ever reach, but he still tried. "I can't lose you!" Frantic once again, he bent his head towards her again, considering CPR, something, anything –

"…Yo-u…Won't."

The words brushed against his cheek with a tired sigh, nearly soundless and lifeless like the very sand that had taken hers away. The hand still in his twitched, and then stilled, only kept there by his own crushed grip as the hand on her face curled at the fingers. Cold settled over Gaara so bone deep, he couldn't move, didn't want to.

The shrieking cry grew louder, turning to a growl and then a humorless laugh, deep and familiar. It vibrated through his frozen bones, coming from the roiling sand behind him, the black and gold swirling markings reseeding into teeth and eyes to match the sound. It loomed over him, casting a shadow Gaara had thought was long gone, but was too unendingly dark for even the dead ANBU to have traversed.

He couldn't look – wouldn't look. Instead, he selfishly pressed his face into Kira's neck like he'd always wanted to and waited for a heartbeat that would never come.

*cough* Now I know you guys are probably livid but...

10 points if anyone figured out Kira's original name?

Please Review!