Rabbit Princess [Gaara] [2]

☾ 7 ☽

"Cancel the Third Exam?" Temari asked, turning to look at Gaara in surprise. It was the night of the last day of the Second Exam and Gaara had gathered all of the proctors and Jonin Senseis into his office at the centre by the Demon Desert. Even Shikamaru had arrived at the checkpoint. Tsukiko stood in the back, observing Gaara closely.

While having Daifuku, Gaara had admitted to her that while he did allow the Second Exam to be resumed, there was no way he could allow the Third Exam to continue at that state. Tsukiko knew that everyone would be a little annoyed at this decision but encouraged Gaara to do what he thought was right (after being rather moody about how he did whatever he wanted anyway).

Her ramblings had prompted the older male to dangle a Daifuku in front of her mouth so she would just get distracted by it. Gaara wasn't sure whether it was a good thing or a bad thing that she was so easily distracted by sweet food and cute things. But he kept his own mouth shut since he didn't want to annoy her any further. At least she wasn't violent...

Gaara did do a lot of thinking after Tsukiko had left the dining table to go and overlook the conditions of the Genins, and to provide aid to those who were injured. He could understand Tsukiko's feelings about him being so reckless and not thinking things through properly. He wouldn't like if something happened to her either.

Tsukiko... There was no way that Tsukiko should get hurt. That cannot happen now. She was his friend, the first person to ever accept his friendship, the first person to ever offer a friendship to him. She may be strange and silly at times but Gaara knew he was miles away from being the kind of person Tsukiko was.

In his eyes, Tsukiko was unreachable. She was better at understanding, she was better at quick-thinking, she was better at sticking to her morals, she was better at getting through people, she was better at reading him and she was better at making him feel better. Just the sight of her silly smile and bright blue eyes eased the pain in his heart and sealed the hole driven into it.

But was he someone like that for Tsukiko? Gaara didn't have the courage to ask of it from her. What if she refused to be friends with him any longer after that? What if he was too strange, too demanding of her friendship? Tsukiko wouldn't ever leave him behind, would she? No... She wouldn't...

"I'm sorry," Gaara answered, snapping out of his thoughts. "I can't go into details, but this is a domestic matter within Sunagakure," Tsukiko bit her lower lip, knowing that Gaara wasn't that happy with it either.

"Then how do we determine who passed the Chunin Exams?" Shikamaru asked.

"We've prepared detailed reports about each team's performance in the Second Exam," Gaara replied. "Tsukiko has also contributed to it," Tsukiko nodded slowly. "I'd like the respective villages to use them to decide whether their participants should be promoted to Chunin,"

"Well, these exams were meant to test their ability to carry out missions as Chunin," Shikamaru responded, shrugging.

"It can't be helped if things turned out like this," Kankuro said. Tsukiko nodded to herself, even though they already knew it would turn out like this.

"But the participants put their lives on the line to cross the Demon Desert," Guy pointed out. "Will they be satisfied with this?"

"I understand that," Gaara said, catching Tsukiko's eyes. The white-haired girl just nodded at him and Gaara nodded back. If Tsukiko thinks it is fine, then it would be, wouldn't it? It was safe for everyone this way...

Gaara stood up as the others in the room began to move out of there, leaving only him, Tsukiko and Kankuro behind. As he pulled on his Kazekage robes, Gaara looked between Tsukiko and Kankuro, who seemed to be having some sort of grave conversation with just their eyes. He wondered if they were somehow conveying what happened in the Demon Desert.