Chapter 8
"Y'all'd've."
"What?"
"You heard me."
"Yaldiv?"
"Y'all'd've."
"That's what I said."
"No you said it without the apostrophes."
"Woah you can hear apostrophes?"
"Yeah."
Kankuro was tired of the Gaara and Izuku's undefiant chatter. They spoke of useless garbage every hour of every god forsaken day, which was five days.
To Kankuro, it was months, years of constant giggling and pain in his ears.
Every waking hour he was reminded of why he hated children.
Every waking hour he was filled with worthless rage at their monotone and high pitched voices filling the space.
It only got more annoying when the room began to fill with more shinobi, including Naruto and Rock Lee.
Then, the only thing keeping Kankuro from killing them all was the though of Temari, how absolutely pissed she would be after realizing they screwed up the mission.
Kankuro would die by her hands.
Gaara was angry. He was usually angry, but he was even more angry now. At himself, specifically.
For letting his emotional barrier melt under the gaze of the green haired bastard called Deku.
He couldn't blame Deku, though. He was adorable. Perfect.
Luckily for Gaara, they could get out of the god forsaken room they were stuck in for days on end.
Everyone was eventually escorted out, Gaara and Deku (and Kankuro) with them.
They walked for a long while, and with Deku by his side, Gaara was almost contented.
It felt like summer camp.
That was Izuku's first thought as they walked through grass and dirt roads to get to wherever they'd be going.
He felt the warm air, the dry wind, the green foliage, and it felt like summer.
It felt like home.
The arena was huge, gigantic even.
An old man, presumably the hokage, was explaining the origins of the chuunin exams. Something along the lines of, "to make peace with the nations while also training people to do the war with the nations."
It was ironic.
The old man spoke more, but Izuku was too caught up in the scenery.
There was an electronic looking board at the front of the arena, and on the walls, there were balconies. This place was fancy enough to have fizzity-ucking BALCONIES!
U.A. can't compete with balconies.
Other than that, the grey cement walls were bland, and it really dulled down, well- everything.
Specifically the people.
Naruto's orange clothes looked grey-tinted, Sakura's hair was ashy, and Sasuke looked sadder. Gaara's scarlet hair looked more deep red, his pale face looked more corpse-like than usual, and his sea foam green eyes were more of a dark sage. He looked like he could walk away from an explosion he just caused, his hair flopping in the wind, smirking slightly, in a way only Izuku could tell- and Izuku flushed and looked at his feet.
He really didn't need that right now.
Gaara noticed Deku was periodically glancing at him.
It was perfectly fine, though.
Gaara was staring as well.
He noticed the grey room- the musty dusty crusty air- didn't dull his brightness one bit.
Deku was like a cucumber in a room full of store-bought wool socks.
And he was trucking radiant.
THE FIGHTS WERE FIZZITY-UCKING EPIC.
KANKURO KILLED A MOTHER DUCKER, SOME RANDOM CALLED INO AND ALSO SAKURA FOUGHT FOR LIKE TEN MINUTES, IT WAS USELESS BUT THERE WAS CHARACTER DEVELOPMENT SO IT WASN'T A TOTAL WASTE, SOMEBODY'S ARM FLIPPING EXPLODED! AND SASUKE WENT APESHIZ AND ALMOST KILLED A GUY! AND ROCK LEE ALMOST KILLED SOMEONE BUT LET THEM GO OUT OF SEMI-MISGUIDED MERCY!
Izuku liked watching people fight.
It was all fun and games, at least for him, until Gaara's name was chosen.
Izuku waited on the balcony in cruel suspense as the next name was being randomly picked on the board.
It read, "Midoriya Izuku."
He and Gaara glanced at each other. Izuku's grin grew. Gaara paled even more. Kankuro coughed.
Izuku, who'd been taught very simple chakra during the several days in that room (it was surprisingly like One For All), was eager for a fight, since the last he'd had was with Kacchan.
It hadn't ended well, though, which dulled down his confidence a large but not crucial amount. Even so, he was confident he could defeat him.
It was. . . an unrealistic assumption.
The duo stood on the middle of the floor.
"S-start!" yelled the obviously unwell referee.
Gaara and Izuku ran at each other.
Izuku noted Gaara wasn't using his sand as much as he had been in the forest.
He used that to his advantage.
As soon as they got close to each other, a wall of sand flew up from all sides, making a dome.
Gaara might have punched Izuku in the face.
(It's a blur, sir.)
Izuku tried to punch Gaara, but was blocked by sand, which then grabbed his ankle and dragged him downward and then forced him to the ground.
"Kin-ky," Izuku blurted. Gaara turned red.
Even so, he walked forward, and knelt before him, a cool expression on his face.
"Do you forfeit?" Izuku grit his teeth.
"Never."
Green lightning encompassed him, and he broke out of the sand things.
Gaara blinked.
Only at around 8 percent power (the sand was not trying it's best), Izuku backed into the sand wall, and bounced off of it, planning on crashing into Gaara.
He instead crashed into sand, then fell to the floor.
Gaara picked him up by the collar of his shirt and held him to the sand wall, growling. The sand walls mostly fell away, except for the part Izuku was backed against.
"Hot."
A moment passed, in which they both got progressively redder.
Izuku covered his face with both hands.
Gaara turned away, using one hand to cover his mouth.
"S-stop that."
Izuku, using that opening, kicked him in the ribs.
Gaara made an "oof" sound, and, the sand wall behind him falling way, threw him back, glaring.
Izuku grinned at his annoyance.
Gaara "tch"ed like Kacchan.
He wouldn't like to be compared to Kacchan.
Gaara was stuck in a difficult decision of "he's my only friend and I want it to stay that way but also he's grinning annoyingly and I want to kill him."
He decided to knock him out instead.
He could tell he was going easy on him, but they both were.
Gaara, with practically inhuman speed, ran up then behind Deku, and kicked him in the back, sending him flying.
He didn't come down.
"FIZZITY-UCK I KNEW I SHOULD HAVE ASKED URARAKA-CHAN ABOUT THIS ALL-MIGHT FORSAKEN QUIRK WHEN I HAD THE CHANCE-" He squirmed in midair, screaming childishly censored curse words.
Gaara sent a rope of sand and got him down.
"Thanks, Ga-"
He punched him in the face.
Actually, they both tried to do so at the same time, resulting in a very awkward fist bump, that resulted in both of them pushing against each other's fist.
It was weird. And painful.
They curved over each other weirdly in an angry fist bump of death, until Gaara kneed Deku in the-
Yeah.
He crouched over, hissing in pain, green hair hanging in his face.
Gaara then punched him in the stomach.
Deku only put a foot backwards, and looked up, tears barely escaping his wide eyes.
"You'll pay for that," he whispered. Gaara smirked condescendingly.
He's mocking me. . . he's laughing at me. . . why would he-?
Anger build up in Izuku's chest, and then burst out, quite literally.
Blackwhip!
It would destroy everything, himself ang Gaara included.
Didn't he look at you weirdly? Like he finds you inferior? Like he doesn't care? Like Kacchan did?
No, he wouldn't.
Wouldn't he?
Who even are you? A holder of One For All?
Oh honey.
A scream tore from Izuku's throat as the black strands tore through everything. It wasn't supposed to be that strong. He'd learned to control it. . . didn't he?
The thingy does the thing when you feel the feels, said the fifth OFA holder, some guy named Banjo, the original owner of the quirk.
Gaara noted the look of panic in Deku's eye when the magical strings of death erupted from him.
Finally, a fight.
He grinned in a wicked manner. How fun.
When Gaara felt the first string come for him, he blocked it with sand.
It burst through.
He barely dodged.
Gaara realized he'd have to mortally injure Deku to cause him to calm down, and that thought made him wither and die inside while craving blood even more.
Sand flew from him, surrounding Deku, the magic strings of death with him.
They tore through, like spider webs, dropping Deku, who decided "frick it" and ran toward Gaara, yelling.
They moved in a sort of rhythm.
Deku seemed in a trance, fighting not like his life depended on it but like he merely wanted to.
At that point, the rush of adrenaline was all either could think about.
The strings of death disappeared, a greenish lightning instead surrounding him.
"NO FAIR!" Gaara yelled over the sound of their battle. "YOU GET A BUNCH OF COOL POWERS!"
"DON'T WORRY," Deku responded. "I'LL STILL SPEAK TO YOU, I GUESS!"
And so they fought.
Deku seemed to be looking through him, and Gaara wasn't even fighting a human, but a blur of green.
Until that blur of green left an opening.
Gaara, his sand basically forming claws, scratched at his face, leaving a trail of deep red across his cheek, probably infected already.
And in the small moment of regret he had, Deku attacked.
His death strings tore though flesh, and sand did the same.
Regret in neither's attack nor demeanor.
They were a blur of blood and sand and green and black. When it was over, one could hear nothing but heavy breathing of two mortally injured children, kids, both waiting for the other to collapse or die, blood covering both of them. Waiting for their best friend to die just so they could kill another.
The awfully ironic though make Izuku laugh, and Gaara did the same.
Until Gaara went quiet, eyelids drooped, and he flopped to the floor, a ploom of dust poofing around him.
Izuku, adrenaline making pain a foreign concept, chuckled.
"I win."
And then he, too, collapsed, leaving everyone confused as ( ͡° ͜ʖ ͡°).