Chapter 3
When Roushi wakes up, Fuu jumps on him excitedly and starts asking questions about where he’s been, what he does for fun, and the people he may have met. She has talked to him before, in the bijuu mindspace, but they’re not often there at the same time, certainly not recently.
While she’s interrogating him, Itachi and Sasuke start on making and sealing a truly enormous amount of food. Gaara asks if it’s all right to take so much, but Shisui smiles at him and says, “I take S-rank missions and Itachi’s the headman’s personal assistant-slash-spymaster. We’re not exactly poor. And besides, you look like a twig! A gust of wind would knock you over if you weren’t so stubborn. I’d be a bad host if I didn’t try to fatten you up. Just make it last, okay?”
In the end, there’s too much that everyone wants to talk about and they don’t leave. Gaara and Roushi get to take showers (Gaara feels almost like a person after a shower) and they all go to spar outside the village. Roushi has something of a handicap because Fuu forbids him from setting anything on fire, but his forty years of experience allow him to defeat two young jinchuuriki and one prodigy. Sasuke has been talking about how he’s ready to become a jounin, and Gaara believes him. He’s no older than Gaara, but at fifteen he’s better than most of the hunters that have come after Gaara’s A-rank bounty.
Shisui and Itachi talk them into staying another night, and this time Gaara gets to sleep with Fuu and Sasuke, if only because Roushi needs the couch. It’s uncomfortably warm and his paranoia keeps waking him up, but he’s happy to be with them. Once every month or two is not terribly often for friendly human contact, after all. He’s considering asking Roushi or Utakata to travel with him once this is over. Neither of them loves hugs as much as Fuu, but another human presence would still be welcome.
He gets up early and finds Roushi already awake, staring out the window at the mist rising off the lake. “I was at the fire this morning,” he says softly. “Utakata will be here in two days.”
“We should probably leave today,” says Gaara. He knows neither of them wants to. Despite how long Roushi has spent alone, he likes Fuu and Shisui a lot, possibly even more than he likes being well-fed.
“We should.” Roushi sighs heavily. “I had no idea what having a family was like until I met them, you know. Until I met you. Thanks, kid.”
“Neither did I,” Gaara murmurs. “It’s so hard to tell if we’re truly imposing on them. I feel guilty for staying this long.”
Roushi puts a heavy hand on Gaara’s shoulder, silently conveying his understanding. After a long pause he says, “Do you think we should make them breakfast or something? As thanks?”
Gaara stares at him, wide-eyed. “I have no idea how to make actual food.”
Roushi hides his mouth behind one hand as he laughs. “Me neither. I can just about keep from burning a rabbit over a campfire, but these fancy pots and pans they have? Those are just confusing.” Gaara laughs too, quietly.
After a while of staring into the mist, the sun starts to rise behind them, and Gaara says, “Where are we going to go once Utakata gets here?”
“Does it matter?” asks Roushi, glancing sideways at him. “Three jinchuuriki can go wherever they want.”
“Where do we want to go?”
Roushi sighs. “I don’t want to go anywhere, but I don’t think the headman would take that well. Especially since we’d be bringing an unknown number of S-rank missing-nin to his doorstep. I have a couple safehouses, in various places in the wilderness.”
“To cower in?” Gaara mutters. Roushi looks around at him, surprised. “If we hide away in a safehouse, they’ll only go after someone else. It will probably be Fuu or Naruto, since they’re the least experienced. As far as I know, Naruto’s still away from his village, so he’s even more vulnerable.”
“You’re saying we should lure them out and take care of them ourselves,” Roushi says flatly. “I didn’t get to be forty-five years old by drawing attention to myself, Gaara. Most jinchuuriki don’t live until they’re thirty, and it’s because of stupid stunts like this. They think they’re invulnerable because they can borrow the power of a bijuu, and then they find out the hard way that they’re as mortal as anyone. I don’t want to see that happen to you, and I’m sure as hell not letting it happen to me.”
“We wouldn’t be drawing their attention,” Gaara insists. “We may already have it, and we can’t hide forever. Do you think they’ll just give up if they can’t find us for a few weeks or months?”
Roushi scowls at the lake, where the mist is starting to burn away. “We’ll talk about this with—” He stiffens just as Gaara feels a swooping sensation in his gut, like falling backward with nothing to catch him. Just like when Kokuou vanished from the mindspace the bijuu share. It must be even stronger and more disorienting for the bijuu.
“Shukaku,” says Gaara, “was that who I think it was?”
Ugh. Yeah. Seems like Saiken up and got herself sealed. Guess we don’t have to wait for Utakata any more, huh?
Roushi looks around sharply, coming out of a trance. “She left a note, at least. Says it was a blond guy with explosive clay and a guy with a huge cleaver, both wearing the red clouds. She went into a little more detail about their powers, then wrote that Utakata had passed out and she had to go.”
Gaara goes to the table to pick up the bingo book that has been lying there since two nights ago. In the section on Akatsuki, he finds a blond Iwa missing-nin—Sakuretsu Deidara—and a man who used to be one of the Seven Swordsmen of Kiri, Biwa Juuzou. The bingo book has no information at all on their abilities, possibly because no-one has lived to report back after meeting them.
“Well,” says Roushi gloomily, “at least I can tell you a bit about the explosion release bloodline ability. Might give us a chance of surviving them.”
