If You Cannot Forgive: Chapter 3

                                                   
                                                

"You really ought to be more careful Naruto." Sakura said with a frown as she slapped a bandage onto his cheek. 
Naruto pouted. "I was living life to the fullest Sakura Chan!" Naruto said trying to mask the pain in his head. 
Sasuke shook his and rested his hand on his face. "Fullest doesn't have to mean stupid Naruto you moron." 
"I wasn't being stupid I just happened to trip down a hill and clonk my head on the landing." Naruto carefully explained. Sasuke was clearly confused in Naruto's eyes. 
"Naruto didn't really do anything stupid. His grace just left the building is all." Gaara added calmly. 
"See?! Gaara gets it!" Naruto said raising his hand outward towards Gaara with half an expression of satisfaction and confusion. "Don't you?" He asked raising an eyebrow to Gaara. 
Gaara gave Naruto a blank expression. "Why wouldn't I get it?" 
"...cause you're so...bland." Naruto answered wishing he didn't have to say that out loud but that was literally the nicest word he could come up with.
Gaara tilted his head at first as if he was confused now too, and then it clicked in his mind. Naruto just called him boring. Gaara's eye started to twitch as a creepy smile crept onto his face. "So I'm bland to you eh?" 
Naruto's eyes widened quick. "Sakura drop Gaara down the hill he's turning sadistic again." 
"I will not!" Sakura answered sharply. 
"But he's scaring me!" Naruto whined flailing his arms. 
"Naruto shut up." Sasuke muttered still face palming. 
"bland and sadistic...thanks for the opinion there....you're lucky I don't have any chakra you little mongrel or I'd knock you for a loop." Gaara muttered still smirking a bit. 
"Mongrel...wow...I think i should just get up and start running cause you're clearly passively pissed off." Naruto said slowly and shakily as he backed up climbing to his feet. 
After only a few seconds after Naruto had up and ran away Sasuke said looking up from his face palm. "I'll pin him you punch." 
"It wouldn't hurt him anyway." Gaara replied. "The strength in my fist is about as good as a child."  
Sasuke started to think. "Wanna trade roles then."
"Why don't you just let me take care of this." Kakashi added in standing between them.  
Sasuke shrugged his shoulders. "Go for it." 
Kakashi looked ahead of him then shrugged like Sasuke. "I guess he's going the way we're going anyway, let him run."
Gaara nodded. "Eventually he'll realize I'm not even trying to chase him."  
Hearing this Kakashi just smiled and the Sand shinobi started snickering at Naruto and the way he was spaz running. 
"Suppose we should follow him." Gaara said quietly and descended down the hill Naruto had sprinted. Naruto has all the grace in the world when he is trying to escape wrath. Gaara thought to himself shaking his head when suddenly. He found what took Naruto out the first time. In seconds the woods were a blur and the world turned a funny angle and leaves went flying in the air as Gaara went tumbling and rolling until THUD. ...And that must have been the stump that did the job...it was indeed quite an evilly placed stump. Gaara thought to himself as he saw Sakura and the Sand Ninja running down the hill after him asking him if he was alright. Or that's what it looked like from the lip reading he was doing given he was dazed and laying on the ground practically upside down. 
"I'm fine." he assured waving his hands them before they even reached him.
Sakura leaned over him. "Do I need to patch your head now too?" She said with a chuckle as Gaara could see she was trying so hard not to break out in hysterical laughter. 
"Well that makes two taken out by the rogue root." Kakashi commented also leaning over Gaara, it was too late for Kakashi though. He was already laughing but holding the best straight face he could muster up.

Naruto from nearly fifty feet away was pointing and laughing. Gaara rolled over spitting out leaves with a loud groan. Naruto sprinted back to the rest of them and with a shameless laugh offered Gaara a hand. Gaara groaned again and took his hand. Naruto may have been the one laughing the hardest but he wasn't too good to decline help. 
"Oh by the way I found what I was chasing before." Naruto said patting down Gaara's hair and pulling leaves out of his hair. I thought we were being followed...it was a squirrel.  
Gaara gave Naruto a funny look, "or so they want you to think."
"Oh no, if it was a person they're dead now...I kinda tested that theory. Just wound up with dinner." Naruto said holding up the squirrel it's back snapped and dangling like a dog toy. 
"Good lord Naruto." Gaara said choking up just looking at it and directed his gaze elsewhere. 
Naruto chuckled and hid the squirrel as Sakura and Sasuke reacted almost exactly like Gaara. "Well Naruto." Sasuke began. "if there was anyone following as a squirrel..they're dead now." 
"Heheheehe yeah." Said Naruto rubbing the back of his head with the hand that was holding the squirrel. 
Gaara couldn't help find it disgusting, it was nasty, Naruto was rubbing the dead on his head. A squirrel. A busted, dead squirrel. Shamelessly horrific, why, just why. Sure Gaara spent his childhood killing, but he didn't lay around making blood angels in it. 
Finally Gaara couldn't stand watching it anymore and snatched the squirrel from Naruto and threw it. "Stop it that's disgusting Naruto." 
Naruto's face went blank. "...uhm Gaara. You carry around bloody sand all day and I'm gross?" 
Gaara narrowed his eyes and just glared at Naruto for a cold silent minute. Not a word was said, not from Gaara, Sakura, Sasuke, Kakashi, no one. They all knew Naruto had about done it now. 
Gaara lifted his hand and Naruto gulped. He's plotting my imminent doom....I can feel it. Naruto thought to himself already flinching just at the Gaara's expression. 
Gaara lifted his hand and Naruto braced for impact. But what he felt was barely even painful. It about fazed him about as much as Hinata trying to say anything to him without turning beat red. That being not at all. What had happened was Gaara had simply poked him right in the middle of the forehead. "Watch your mouth Uzumaki or I will actually hit you next time."
"....except it doesn't hurt." Naruto muttered. 
"I will try very hard to make it hurt."
"And it will still have no effect~" Naruto chimed. 
"It will if I aim if I use a heavy enough object and aim at the right place."
Naruto's eyes widened again. Gaara meant business. I better keep in check before he pays off Sakura... 
Then acting as if nothing had even happened Gaara walked right past Naruto and started wandering further into the woods. "Shall we continue?" 
He's gonna throw his gourd at me...Naruto Thought coming up with irrational fears of things Gaara could do. 
Then Sakura walked past Naruto as well and whispered to Gaara. "Why don't you have any chakra?" 
Gaara glanced over at her. "It's a long story." 
"I don't mind listening." Sakura said hoping he might tell her briefly. In Gaara's language "it's a long story." Means I don't want to talk about it. She knew it must have been related to whatever happened in Suna that got him booted out of the village. But he had been pretty secretive about everything that'd happened. Sakura wondered if he was sworn to secrecy, or if it was personal. Whatever it was, she was sure it was bothering him. Gaara was never as passive aggressive as he had been lately. He seemed irritable, and if he wasn't irritable he was exhausted and seemed sad. 
"does it have to do with why you're so pale?"
Gaara looked at you. "I'm fine. I'm always pale, there's nothing wrong, nothing different. I'm fine let's leave it at that ok."
Yep, had everything to do with it. Somehow all of this linked together. There was a link in whatever story he wasn't telling. She could tell. No matter what he did he was not going to fool her. 

                                                                                               *******

"Stay back Gaara what are you doing?" Kankuro shouted as the large puppet crashed onto the ground. 
"I'm not just gonna let you go off on your own, what kind of brother do you take me for?" 
Kankuro sighed. "A smarter one actually." He replied pulling on the chakra threads to keep Gaara away from the large puppet that had attacked them. "You need to leave Gaara. You're clearly hurt."
"You clearly can't handle this on your own." Gaara answered right back trying to pin down the puppet with sand to limit it's movement. Then he took a deep breath. Why was using ninjutsu so draining all of a sudden? 
"Gaara I'm not joking around you need to run!"
"You need to understand that I'm not going anywhere!"
This was the argument that had occurred only minutes before the one moment Gaara had wished he could rewind and relive, he would have given anything to relive it, to change it. He would never forget it, nor did he think he could possibly forgive himself for it either. It just wasn't in him to accept it. 
Kankuro overtime was forced to accept that Gaara was just too stubborn to leave him alone, he always had been. Both of them were the same on that note. They could have been separated from their own legs and they'd still crawl to each other's aid. Even if that aid meant trading life for death. 
The memory continued to flood Gaara's mind and kept him from finding any rest that night. A tear streamed down his face as he quickly whiped it away hoping on one had seen it. Just the fact that everything that happened was real, he didn't know how to handle it. 
The image of Kankuro pushing him out of the way, the memory of watching those rogues practically make a slaughtering of his brother right in front of him. He remembered watching them run away, how for the first time in years someone was afraid of him. How he'd lost control of himself and just slaughtered the man who'd killed Kankuro right back in a enraged and distressed fit. 
"Gaara..." sakura said softly. "I've thought it through.."
"hm?" Gaara looked up at her quizically.
"...you're not pale from being hurt...you can't rest. You don't eat, sleep, nothing. You're still suffering over somthing." She said sitting beside. "I'm not going to tell anyone. Just..I don't want to sound pushy but. Out with it. Now. There's something you're not telling me. Why are you out here?" She took a deep breath. "What happened to them?"