Sand Siblings

Part 19

"I'm sorry."

Silence reigned across the beach as everyone, including his siblings, started bug eyed at Gaara.
The redhead shifted uncomfortably under their gazes. His old urge of using a Sand Coffin on people who made eye contact with him returned for a second, before he squished it away. At least this wasn't as bad as hateful looks. Plus, this was the first step towards being forgiven so he was going to deal with any negative feelings he had.

Then, his siblings relaxed and smiled. Their respect, love and pride for their brother grew even more.
Reina was the next to snap out of her shock. She searched for the right words to express her feelings. She didn't particularly like the three children and Gaara's intense look was extremely intimidating but, now that she could see them up close, she could see that they truly weren't the monsters that she had imagined them to be.
"Please, don't apologize for surviving." she clasped her hands in front of her chest. "You three have every right to live."
"Most people don't think so." snorted Kankuro, closing an eye.
"But... I killed your brother." Gaara was confused. He would not have been that nice if he had been in her position. "You should hate me. You couldn't possibly... forgive that..."
Reina took a deep breath.
"I can't. Even if he did bad things, my brother is still my brother so I couldn't possibly forgive the person who killed him so easily." she answered honestly, hoping that she wouldn't be murdered for this. Baki might be able to stop Gaara if he attacked. "But... I understand why you did it. And I don't hate you because..." She sneaked a glance at Baki, then looked at the boy again. "... I really don't know you."

Gaara took a step back in surprise. Who was this woman? How could she not hate him?
The jinchuuriki was so accustomed to the hate that even the idea of not being hated by everyone seemed impossible to him. If this woman didn't hate him even after what he did to her...
Maybe the rest of Suna could one day accept him too.

"Tch, yeah." added Yuudai. Not really knowing how to be tactful or sweet, he pointed to Baki. "Plus, this guy has been entertaining all of the troops for the past few days with stories of your missions together. Nice to know that there will be more stories coming now that you three are back."
The siblings mentally groaned. Temari hoped that her sensei hadn't shared the more embarrassing details of some of their little fails. Like that one mission where they had ditched a passed out Kankuro in a closet and forgot about him.

"Hm..." Everyone turned to look at the chuunin, Atsushi. "So everyone died apart from you three?"
"Yes." nodded Temari.
Instead of being angry like Gaara expected him to, he looked up with a passive look on his face.
"At least we can now be certain of their fates. Where are all the corpses?"

"Follow me." answered Gaara, starting to walk along the beach.
Everybody exchanged glances before following the boy. After quite some time, Kankuro huffed.
"Yeah, I remember this place..."

Toshio suddenly stopped.
"I don't want to see my wife's rotting body." he said through clenched teeth, his eyes watering for a second before he blinked back his emotions. A shinobi wasn't supposed to cry, even at the death of a most precious loved one. Somehow, despite the years of training he had had, a few tears still managed to escape. The fact that doing this was seen as weak didn't make the pain go away.
"Don't worry about that." sighed Temari, her voice softening with sympathy. "We made sure that each citizen of Suna was treated with respect, even in their death."

They walked around the bend and arrive at the graveyard. Baki and the rest of the crew widened their eyes at the sight of the large mounds of sand, lines up across the beach.
"Are these... individual graves?" asked Reina, taking a small step.
"Yes. Everyone has their own. They are all here." answered Gaara.

There was a few minutes of mournful silence, before they all turned away and walked back from where they came from.
The three siblings had been surprised by the lack of agonized sobbing from the ninjas. It was amazing how accustomed they had become to the human freedom of expressing emotion that shinobi lacked. Right now, even they had returned to that numb, focused feeling.