Naruto stood there, looking in that direction.
"He..." he began, not knowing what to say.
Shikamaru leaned against the wall and sighed.
"What a drag."
Nobunaga didn't speak.
He stood there, looking at the door.
Sunlight shone in through the window, falling upon him.
He thought of the Gaara from the other world.
That child, finally kneeling on the sand, looking in Temari's direction.
"Sister, I'm standing at the front now."
Nobunaga closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, Might Guy was talking to Rock Lee.
Naruto walked over and stood beside him.
"Nobunaga."
"Yeah."
"The things you said... are they true?"
Nobunaga looked at him.
"What is true?"
"That Jinchuriki are heroes," Naruto said. "Is it true?"
Nobunaga was silent for a moment.
He looked into Naruto's blue eyes. There was expectation, unease, and a tiny flicker of light within them.
"It's true," he said.
Naruto grinned.
It was a small smile, but very bright.
"That's good then."
He turned around, walked to Rock Lee's bedside, and began talking to Might Guy.
Nobunaga stood in place.
Sunlight fell on his body.
He suddenly felt like doing something.
...
Gaara walked out of the patient room, through the corridor, and down the stairs.
The sound of footsteps echoed in the empty stairwell, one after another, like something being struck.
He didn't know where he was going.
Back to his lodgings? Back to that empty room? Back to that place where even his father didn't want to see him?
He didn't want to go back.
He just wanted to walk. Keep walking until he couldn't walk anymore.
The words that black-haired youth had just said were still swirling in his head.
"Jinchuriki are heroes."
"Heroes who protect the Village."
"Even if your father doesn't love you, he wouldn't do such a thing."
Those words were like stones, falling one by one into the dry well of his heart.
There was nothing in the dry well. Only darkness, only silence, only himself.
Now those stones fell in, making dull thuds before sinking down.
He couldn't see what was at the bottom.
He only knew that something had changed.
Gaara walked out of the hospital and toward the edge of the Village.
The Sunagakure delegation was stationed over there. He should go back. He should stay by Kankuro and Temari's side. He should...
He didn't know.
He just wanted to walk.
The moonlight was very bright. Konoha's streets were empty, and the shops on both sides had long since closed. Occasionally, one or two stray cats would jump down from the walls, see him, and quickly run away.
Gaara reached the entrance of an alley.
The alley was deep, with high walls on both sides. The moonlight couldn't reach inside; it was pitch black.
He stopped.
Not because of the alley, but because someone was standing at its entrance.
Black hair. Ordinary features. An ordinary build.
Nobunaga.
He was leaning against the opposite wall with his hands in his pockets, as if waiting for someone.
Waiting for whom?
Waiting for him.
Gaara's pupils contracted slightly.
He remembered the first time he met this person. On the day of the Chunin Exams registration, they had passed each other. At that time, this person had glanced at him.
There was hostility in that glance.
It was faint, but it was certainly there.
Later, in the Forest of Death, he had seen this person once more. He hadn't cared back then.
And then, it was in the patient room.
The things this person said.
Those words about Jinchuriki.
Those words about his father.
In those words, there was no hostility.
Only something he couldn't quite describe.
Now, this person stood here, waiting for him.
"You..." Gaara spoke, his voice somewhat raspy, "Why?"
Nobunaga looked at him.
The moonlight fell on his face, making his eyes look very deep.
There was something in those eyes. Something very complex.
Gaara couldn't understand it.
He only knew that it wasn't hostility.
It was something else.
"Gaara," Nobunaga spoke.
He called him by his name.
Not "Sunagakure brat," not "Jinchuriki," not "monster."
It was Gaara.
"How long has it been since you last slept?"
Gaara froze.
How long?
He couldn't remember.
It had been like this since he was a child. Shukaku was inside him, liable to go on a rampage at any moment. He didn't dare sleep. If he fell asleep, Shukaku would come out. If Shukaku came out, people would die.
So he didn't dare sleep.
He could only keep his eyes open, enduring night after night.
"A long time," he said.
Nobunaga nodded.
Then his eyes changed.
Those black eyes suddenly turned red. Red sclerae, with three black tomoe slowly rotating. Then the tomoe merged together, turning into a hexagram pattern.
Mangekyo Sharingan.
Gaara's body instinctively tensed. Sand flowed out of his gourd, forming a shield in front of him.
But Nobunaga didn't move.
He just looked at Gaara.
Those hexagram eyes, like two rotating windmills, turned slowly under the moonlight.
Then Gaara felt a surge of power.
It wasn't an attack. It was a pull.
His consciousness began to sink. Sinking deep into his body. Sinking into that place he had never dared to face.
Shukaku's sealing space.
All around was endless darkness. Beneath his feet was a cold water surface. The moonlight was reflected on the water, but the moon was not here.
In the distance, a massive figure crouched in the darkness.
A tanuki composed of sand, its body covered in purple tattoos. Its eyes were golden with vertical slits, like a cat's, yet also like a snake's.
Shukaku.
It crouched there like a small mountain.
At this moment, those golden eyes were staring straight ahead.
Staring at the black-haired youth standing on the water's surface.
Nobunaga.
Shukaku's pupils contracted.
"Uchiha brat?"
Its voice was low and raspy, like the sound of sand rubbing together. But in those eyes, there was wariness and surprise.
Nobunaga stood there, looking up at it.
"Shukaku," he said, "are you suffering?"
Shukaku was stunned for a moment.
Suffering?
It had been trapped in this narrow body for decades, unable to leave, unable to move, only able to occasionally come out for a breath of air when that brat fell asleep.
Of course it was suffering.
But no one had ever asked it that question.
"What are you trying to say?" Shukaku's voice grew even deeper.
Nobunaga looked at it.
"Let's make a deal."
Shukaku narrowed its eyes.
Those golden vertical pupils gleamed in the darkness like two lanterns.
"A deal?"
"Five years," Nobunaga said. "Within five years, I will help you get out of the Jinchuriki's body. I'll give you your freedom."
Shukaku's pupils snapped shut.
Freedom.
That word was too distant for it. So distant that it had almost forgotten what it meant.
"You?" Its voice was tinged with doubt. "Just you?"
Nobunaga didn't speak.
He just looked at Shukaku. Those Mangekyo Sharingan slowly rotated in the darkness, the hexagram pattern clearly visible.
Shukaku looked into those eyes.
The Uchiha Clan. The Mangekyo Sharingan. The eyes rumored to be able to control Tailed Beasts.
This kid had that power.
"And the condition?" Shukaku asked.
"Within five years, you are not allowed to cause trouble," Nobunaga said. "You are not allowed to come out when Gaara is sleeping. You are not allowed to go on a rampage when his emotions fluctuate. You are not allowed—"
"Enough, enough," Shukaku interrupted him. "To put it simply, you want me to behave for five years."
Nobunaga didn't speak.
Shukaku looked at him.
Something was moving within those golden eyes.
It was thinking.