Shinobi Isekai!

Midnight Musings

Gaara pressed a hand to his temple, pressing down in a vain attempt to keep the pain at bay. The pulsing headache had worsened over the course of the day, and he knew Mother would be making demands soon. The last month had been strange. He'd resisted Mother more in the last few weeks than he could remember ever doing, before, and she, in turn, had not pressed him as hard as she could have. There was a fragile equilibrium between them, now. One which he felt might shatter at any moment.

"Gaara?"

He tensed, sand rising up around him in response to Hanako's voice. How hadn't he sensed her? He knew the positions of the various Konoha Anbu watching him where he sat on a roof top, could sense civilians in their homes, but, somehow, she had slipped under his radar. He turned to look down at her where she leaned out of an open window, the yellowed light setting off golden highlights in her brown hair. Her mask was off, and he beheld her face for the second time, noting the pointed tips of too large teeth as she smiled up at him.

"What are you doing up there?"

Inside him, Mother's chakra roiled.

Why is she here? How long has she been watching?

She cocked her head inquisitively. "I live here, silly. This is the Hatake compound."

Had he spoken aloud? Not good. If Mother was already taking control, he had to get away from Hanako as quickly as possible.

"Stay there," she said as if in response to his thoughts. "I'm coming up."

NO!

Hanako had already leapt up onto the roof, a blanket wrapped around her narrow shoulders. She came over to sit beside him, knees pulled up to her chest. She smiled up at him, teeth gleaming in the moonlight.

Were they why she wore the mask? It was unnecessary, if so. They were unnerving, to be sure, but hardly unattractive.

"So," she asked, bumping his shoulder with hers. "What's up? Can't sleep?"

She didn't know the half of it.

Cheeky brat. She knows the answer to that question. Don't listen to her. She's manipulating you.

Was she? Her soothing chakra was already reaching out to him, wrapping him up in a foreign calm. There was something different about it. The anxious undercurrent was gone, replaced with a still certainty. No longer a stream rushing nowhere, her suiton was a deep seated river with a set destination. There was still that hazy overlay of grief, though, tinting every other emotion with a tangible sadness, but it wasn't as thick.

Something must have happened.

"Hn," he answered lamely, unsure what to think about Mother's words in the face of Hanako's honest chakra.

Fool. That's literally the first skill any manipulator learns; how to be honest without being honest. What she feels doesn't have to match what she says.

That was true. He was still hesitant to believe it, though. Not after she clung to him so tightly in the Forest of Death. The memory of her fear and pain had his own anger rising up alongside Mother's. If even he couldn't elicit such a reaction from her, then what had Orochimaru done?

A pang of guilt rang through him and he frowned at the foreign emotion. He and Mother were in agreement when it came to the snake—he was an unnatural fiend to be avoided at all costs—but his loyalty, however thin, was to his village. If his father saw fit to ally with the snake, then he would do his part and kill any who stood in his way.