The Man Behind The Mask

Chapter Eight

Gaara POV
I wake up the next morning and turn to see that Elizabeth is not in her sleeping bag. I look around the campsite and spot her sitting next to the water fall. I get up, put away my sleeping stuff and walk over to her with a breakfast bar for her. She looks up at me and smiles at me, her blue eyes still showing pain from last night. I hand her a breakfast bar then walk back to my stuff to erase our presence. When I am finished she appears at my side and offers me a weak grin.
I wish she could know how hard it was for me to see the disappointment on her face when I told her about the ANBU. We start walking into the hot forest again. We walk for a few hours, stop for lunch, then continue walking. She offers no conversation as we walk. After we stop for the day I notice something around us. There is a strange feeling that is making me uneasy as we begin our nightly routine. "Ma'am, please come over here and stay close," I say. "Is there something wrong?" She asks. "Just a precaution," I reassure her. She nods and comes over to me to stand next to me.
There is a whizzing and my sand flies out of the gourd to block an incoming kunai. I whip around and see three shinobi standing in front of me. "Please stand behind me and stay low," I say calmly to Elizabeth. "Okay," she says with out a hint of fear in her voice. The shinobi waste no time attacking again. They each throw six kunai in our direction which I easily deflect with my sand. Who are they? So far their fighting is not too impressive. The one on the right pulls another kunai out of his bag, this one has a tag attached to it. He throws it at me and Elizabeth but I create a barrier around us to stop the explosion. When I pull away the barrier I see the three of them charging at me wielding kunai. They reach me and attack all at once, I will my sand around to block and counter their attacks. They are incredibly fast and good at blocking my attacks. I place a barricade in front of Elizabeth to make sure she will be safe while I take care of this.
I start to move my sand much quicker to finish this and land many more hits on two of them. The third is still very quick and evades more attacks then his comrades. I land one final blow to the first two and knock them both out. The third sees this and retreats into the trees. "It is not safe yet, I can still sense his presence," I tell Elizabeth who had started to get up. I turn around and scan the forest for movement but see nothing. Then I spot a rustle of leaves behind Elizabeth and he jumps out of the trees. His arm is outstretched holding a kunai with the intent to kill. I fly forward and grab his arm then slam him as hard as possible into the ground. I turn to assist Elizabeth and feel and stabbing pain in my side. I look over and the man is still conscious and has thrown his last kunai into the space between my chest plate and back plate, under my arm.
I bring a spear of sand up and pull it down right onto his chest. With a sharp wince of pain I pull the kunai out of my side and throw it to the ground. Elizabeth is at my side before I can turn towards her. She starts unclipping my chest and back plates with out saying a word. "Please remove your shirt," she says flatly. "Yes ma'am," I say and pull the torn fabric off. She wets a cloth with water from her flask and starts cleaning my wound. I keep a straight face as she tries to gently wash away the blood from my wound.
She puts her right hand above the wound and green light emits from her palm. It burns but I know that she is healing my gash with her medical ninjutsu. She finishes once the gash has mostly closed up and pulls out a long bandage. She takes the end and lays across my wound then reaches around my back then across my chest to wrap it around me. Each time she does this her face comes mere centimeters from touching my body. She reaches the end of the bandage and tucks the end into the rest of the bandage.
I start to get up to do my part of the nightly chores but she grabs my arm and pulls me back down. "It may look healed but the wound is still fragile, I want you to rest tonight and let it heal more," she commands. I nod and sit back down. She goes around and gets the fire ready then cooks our dinner. She walks over to me and hands me my bowl. "Thank you," I say to her and nod my head towards my injury. "Thank you," she says and nods her head towards the forest.
We eat our meal in silence as usual. She hands me her bowl then goes to bathe. I go to wash the bowls then go back to the fire to wait for her. She comes over and sits next me after her bath. "Does your side still hurt?" She asks and looks at my side, which is now covered with a shirt. "It is healing," I say. "That's good," she says. She leans against my left side to avoid hurting my wound. "From now on I would like to be as close to you as possible, I need to protect you," I tell her.
"Would you mind if I took a look at your wounds before we go to bed?" She asks and looks over at me. "No, please do," I say and pull off my shirt so she can take care of my injury. She undoes the bandage and starts unwrapping it. The feeling of her body so close makes me feel something, but I don't know what it is. She finishes unwrapping the bandage and gets out a healing cream. She puts some on her fingers and spreads it across my wound. Her hands are gentle and soft as they run across my skin, treating my injury. She gets out a fresh bandage and begins to wrap it around my torso. She accidentally leans forward too far and falls into my lap.
"I'm so...sorry....um," she stutters as her face goes completely red. She tries to get up by grabbing my side but accidentally grabs where my wound is. I gasp loudly in pain and she starts stuttering frantic apologies. I lift her out of my lap with her thanks. She tucks in the end of the bandage and hands me my shirt. Our hands touch when she does this and her blue eyes lock onto mine. We sit and stare into each other, both of our arms outstretched and our hands almost interlocked.
She moves forward and brings her free hand to my face. She places it on the edge of my mask and rests it there. I put my free hand on her wrist to bring her hand away but she doesn't let go. I know I shouldn't let her lift my mask but it's so hard to resist now. She slides the bottom of the mask up slowly. I stop her so she just reveals my chin and lips. Her hand slides to my chin and she leans farther into me. Our faces are only an inch apart now. Heat flashes where her hand touches my face. She leans in and closes the gap between our lips.
My face burns and I am in complete shock. Her lips pull away before I even realize what has happened. The feeling of her lips is still imprinted onto mine, haunting them. She slides my mask back down and hands me my shirt then walks over to her sleeping bag. I sit still for a moment trying to process what she just did. Elizabeth kissed me and I didn't resist. I pull on my shirt and walk over to my sleeping mat.
Elizabeth is laying down, facing the sky, the stars reflecting in her cyan eyes. My face burns looking at her figure and I turn away to sleep. I hear her turn over in her sleeping bag. "Goodnight Gaara."