16DISCLAIMER I own naught but the plot and pieces of writing. The characters etc belong to the creators of Naruto.
This story I had posted on my old fanfiction account, but I've re-written numerous aspects that I've found I much prefer this way. Three chapters overall and the two following this first are intended to be released swiftly. Anyhow, without gilding the lily or any further ado: enjoy~
The Moon's Revulsion
Sabaku no Gaara didn't sleep, didn't cry and couldn't love. He knew no emotion but hate; he had discarded even sorrow. He was known for the merciless slaughter of thousands. People believed that he revelled in their suffering, that he lived only to hear them scream, to hear them beg for their lives... so he knew he was alive. Gaara was a monster.
Gaara of the Sand sat on the tip of the Konoha Hokage's mansion, staring into the sky, hating the full moon: it provided light to the darkest cesspools of the world, it had the ability to give hope of victory to those who would inevitably lose, and it prompted even the cruellest of people to think of warmth, comfort. The moon was pure and one of the few existences left that were good.
It was logical that Gaara didn't understand how the moon, something of that wonder, that virtuous perfection... could ignore his existence, could discard him like trash, could label him a monster like everyone else did. For this he despised it, like how he despised everyone. Why should the moon receive special treatment if it was just like everyone else... if it was heartless? No one realised that by hating him, that by wishing to rid him from the world, they were as much monsters as he was. With every look made by cold, loveless eyes, or with every whispered curse on his soul, another creature of the dark was born. Gaara glared at the pearl of the sky. He was ignoring the fact that he would be participating in the Chuunin exam tomorrow: bloodlust would only distract him from hatred.
A sudden wind blew into his face and he closed his eyes, growling softly. Now even the wind had seemingly turned on him. When it had passed he opened his gaze and ran a hand through his crimson hair. He growled again when he realised he had lost his trail of thought, and tried to focus on something else, admitting defeat. He caught a flash of something in the bottom of his vision. He looked down and saw it was another shinobi streaking through the streets, the fifth he had seen that night. Konoha was too lively for Gaara's taste; perhaps he could fix that at times when he wasn't feeling too alive. His eyes followed the blonde ninja below him jadedly. The person passed a few buildings, ran down a few streets then stopped at a ramen shop. Gaara, realising this person wasn't going to move for a while, looked into the sky.
His attention was once again ripped from his thoughts when he heard a noise from behind him. Disappearing was the rush of wind that had been created while the thing (most likely a human) had been running, thus was revealed the sound of seemingly stumbling footsteps. They eventually dwindled into nothing: for some reason, this person had stopped. Behind him. What a horrible mistake for them to make. Without turning, Gaara entwined his too thin fingers and relaxed his chin on the bulging knuckles, before saying so incredibly nonchalantly:
"I give you this chance: You can leave now, or I will kill you." He waited for the rush of wind to reappear as the person ran from him. It didn't. Gaara almost smiled, but held that look of craziness within him, for now. Obviously this person didn't understand how serious he was. Remedying that, he let the bloodlust pour out of him, the air becoming heavy as if clotted with his murderous intent, smothering all life and happiness around him without mercy. It reeked of decay. He spoke again, his soft, yet gravel-like voice emitting emotionlessly from his mouth.
"Too late." He waited for another few seconds for the sound of the person attempting to escape him, but instead heard a thump behind him. Of a nonplussed curiosity, he turned and looked at the motionless form lying down in front of his eyes. The person had fainted.
Gaara lifted an eyebrow a fraction higher than its usual position and silenced his bloodlust, continuing to stare at the body. He sat for a while, pondering what to do. He could destroy the person, but it wasn't half as fulfilling when he couldn't see the fear in his victims' eyes as his sand, slowly and agonisingly, disabled their ability to breathe... The person's closed left eye twitched.
When nothing else happened, Gaara stood up and walked towards the body before squatting beside it. He studied the face: it was a female, about the age of twelve with short midnight blue hair, the bangs hanging over her face. She would be considered pretty by most people, but the multiple bruises over her pale skin stunted her looks. Gaara supposed she had been training late and had far passed her stamina. He was irritated that she hadn't passed out from fear, but merely exhaustion and that it was simply a coincidence Gaara had said he would kill her while she was falling. She probably hadn't even seen him, never mind having felt frightened from what he said.
Gaara sighed and relaxed his eyebrow, before rather purposelessly reaching out his hand, poking the girl's shoulder a single time. Her eyelid's shot open so quickly that a lesser person would have fallen backwards with surprise. Gaara showed no reaction. The girl, seeing Gaara, sat up quickly and crawled away backwards by use of her hands, eyes wider than Gaara truly thought humanly possible.
Her eyes. They looked remarkably... like two moons...
"I'm sorry!" The girl blurted out, and Gaara raised his eyebrow again.
"What?" He growled blankly, and the girl answered, speaking quickly.
"I apologise. I d-don't know what I did, but I must have done something wrong for the o-oddness of this situation and I'm so, so very sorry." Gaara blinked. Looking at the girl who was so utterly weak, helpless and even seemingly dizzy for how she spoke now, Gaara knew his bloodlust should have been increasing. It should have become frenzied, uncontrollable, fatal, but her eyes distracted too much for him to feel anything else. They sat in heavy silence for numerous minutes, until the girl spoke.
"Thank you for h-h-however you he-helped me... but I have to, to go." Gaara dragged his attention from her eyes and noted her almost amusingly pathetic stuttering. The girl stood, not once taking her gaze from Gaara's forever staring orbs of cerulean. Neither ninja blinked.
Until a wave of exhaustion hit the girl and she fell to the side. She would fall off the roof. Gaara's eyelids widened, then, because a reflected shaft of moonlight suddenly blinded him, stabbing at his eyes like a blade. Only once he regained his sight did he realise that the girl was lying –unhurt—on a pile of his sand; his gourd had opened while he wasn't concentrating. A paralysed Gaara only watched as the girl lightly stroked the sand suspiciously with one of her hands, before standing up, straighter this time. She looked at Gaara as the truth dawned on her.
"Thank you." She whispered in her quiet voice, which was softer than even before, for how it was now filled with unconfused gratitude. Then she smiled at him, and Gaara's eyelids widened again: the smile had caused her eyes to shimmer in the moonlight, and it sent shivers that were... the opposite of brutal and painful, through the skin of Gaara's back. He forced himself to nod, but it was then that a speck of red on the girl's face caught his eye.
There was a short, crimson line on the girl's cheek. She was bleeding.
For that sight, near everything of the world melted away from Gaara's vision and attention, leaving an entirety of black nothingness acting as surroundings to a new reality. He was aware of himself, that girl and the cut alone. All his confusion, along with any other oddness he had been experiencing only moments ago, fizzled into naught until he was driven by only one thing. The aspect or object tore apart his insides, drilled into his brain and ridded him of his thoughts so incredibly that Gaara's entire consciousness was engulfed by this... yearning.
In a formidable trance, Gaara began to take slow steps towards the girl, his face blank and his stare fitted only upon the cut. The female stood there, watching Gaara walk towards her, more wondering about his purpose than fearful. Sabaku no Gaara stopped when he was close enough that the two teenagers' thighs were brushing, and slowly he lifted his hand towards the girl's face. Another bead of blood squeezed from the slice.
Gaara placed his thumb on it. A chill reverberated through his body for touching the girl's glacial skin, despite the sand coating his flesh blocking him from her. Only in a world of almost nothingness could such impossibility occur. For a pause even the pulsating yearning of his spirit silenced, and there was no noise in reality for this last moment... until he swiftly swept his touch ever so gently across the cut, wiping the blood from it. The sand of his fingertip did not absorb the droplet, and instead it slid from his grasp.
The splash of blood drip upon roof-tile awoke him from his trance. He realised how he had noticed the girl had briefly closed her eyes and let out a small breath as he had brushed his thumb across her cheek. Gaara lowered his hand and took a step back, realism having now returned. Reality contained the flush that had risen to the top of the girl's cheeks and the emotions that ran through her face as she looked at Gaara. Not one of the emotions was one he was used to receiving. When her expression settled, she smiled faintly again, that look holding some feeling that Gaara had never truly see before. His attention moved from her lips to her words when she spoke.
"Well, um... goodnight. I hope we s-see each other ag-again sometime." She said quietly, and then with one last look at him with those eyes she took off, running out into the darkness. Silence spread thickly upon the night once more as her steps faded into nothing. He was, once again, alone.
Gaara stood for a time that he didn't care to measure, watching where the girl had disappeared. He summoned the sand back to his gourd and then walked back to his perch to sit again. He set his mind on the memory of the girl's eyes, thinking of only them.
They were incredibly different than any others he had seen directed at him in his life. They had looked at him without hate and without fear, but with... with that which he had seen other people share, but never with him: thankfulness. The girl had been pure, true —and innocent. She had been genuinely grateful to him. Only one person had ever looked at him like that, yet at the same time they were incomparable: The look he had received from the first person, his uncle, had been tinged with falseness, the tenderness blatantly a horrible lie in hindsight. The girl's look, however, was too strong to be faked: every inch of the pearl white had been filled with emotion.
Gaara thought of the final smile she had given him. He knew its unknown, secret emotion had not been something evil or cruel, for Gaara was well acquainted with such reactions to him, but what truly confused him about it all was that he felt as he thought of this unexplained emotion. He had experienced a feeling.
Suppressed thoughts he had forbidden himself to ever remember began to attempt to force themselves from his subconscious into his current mindset –and, for some unknown reason, Gaara had a feeling again. He felt that he wanted to know what these hidden thoughts were. The feeling of wanting was similar to bloodlust, but differed in how destruction alone would not fulfil it. Instead he knew that he'd have to fight with his own mind.
However, upon encroaching on starting to begin that battle, a blinding burst of fluid crimson colour shot into Gaara's sight. The world was coated red... and then delayed agony struck him with smothering horror. For this attack from his mind, he clasped his hand to his forehead, the place he was mentally struck: just over his tattoo.
There was no existence external to this punishment, and he opened his mouth in a silent scream and fell onto his back, writhing on the floor in unbearable agony. Pain overrode everything: his senses, his thoughts, his wanting, his memories, the very knowledge of the world around him. He trashed about, helpless, and his eyes rolled into his head. He had lost in battling his brain before even beginning. There was no release, no escape, only torture.
When without a warning the pain abated. With every deepening breath, the outside world came back to Gaara's attention, and he embraced the rushes of reality. After a length of time, he remembered what strength was and noticed that it was returning to him. Forcefully, he rolled onto his hands and knees, gasping, sweating under his swathe of sand. His eyes had leaked some clear fluid he knew to be tears, though he had not spilled them in many years: since his first slaughter in fact, of a traitorous relative whose blood had tasted of failure and weakness...
When a gentle throbbing was the only remnant of the pain, Gaara sat up. He wiped his forehead with the back of his hand, causing the front of his hair to stick up with sand crystals wet with sweat. He listened to the sounds of the night as he contemplated what could possibly have happened to start that session of struggling.
Solid, sombre and desert dry once more, Sabaku no Gaara considered seeking his lost trail of remembrance of memories from his past long suppressed, but realized that they were once again heavily buried and hidden away in a corner of his being. He snarled –with a fury that caused animals in the houses around him to give terrified yaps in response—and thumped the ground beside him with his fist, ignoring the few particles of sand that fell from his hand afterward.
He cleared his mind, not wanting to know horrible emptiness or loss –he knew those sensations for the times he swallowed bad blood, and how it sickened him. Doing pointless things, such as worrying over this failure, was not of his interests. Seeing naught else to do instead, the son of the Kazekage looked into the sky to the moon.
A mental copy of the girl smiling and her final words appeared before him. Gaara thought on those for a long time.
For perhaps, despite even this loss... just maybe... the moon had not utterly abandoned him yet, after all.