Author Uozumi
Genre AU/Drama/Romance
Rating PG-13
Disclaimer I do not own nor claim to own this. The characters, ect...contained within are not my property. This is an act of fandom and I do not make a profit from this endeavor.
Summary Hell was full and so was Heaven, there was no place to put him. By default, he would go to Hell, but due to last minute soul transformations, he could score a place in Heaven if he proved himself in the mortal world. SPOILERS. Gaara/Hinata.
Chapter One
Chapter One
It ripped through him, a violent shudder with no sound. He was reverting, time passing so fast that it hitched his last breaths. He felt his knees buckle and he tried hard not to scream; only receiving tears as recompense for his emotions. Falling to his smaller knees, he felt tiny hands wipe desperately at his cheeks, the gourd on his back considerably lighter than it had been beforehand. Then he stretched out on the ground and found himself wailing. There were strange people around him, and by the tones of their voices he was sure one was his father.
"… save the village," his father finished.
"But, Kazekage-sama - " a hesitant voice protested.
"Do it." It was an order from the highest man of power in Suna up until only a few years ago.
"He's - " the voice protested weakly, shaking with the word.
"Do you want this opportunity to pass?!" the baby's father roared. "Gaara is - "
Yet, before anyone could say anything more, the redhead slammed into the ground on all fours, back to what he knew he was. His greenish eyes surveyed his surroundings before he cautiously stood. Brushing off his Kazekage robes, Gaara noted the odd landscape before him and tried to judge where he was. There was a road that seemed to be stretching through the clouds. Looking off to his left, he noted a line that led up to an impressive ancient Chinese-style palace. He watched as another person slammed to the road before joining the line of people headed towards the building.
Seeing a lack of options, Gaara soon joined the line. Sometimes the line moved quickly and other times it seemed to drag on forever. There was a man sitting on a trunk, a woman with a baby on her back, and other people from all over the world. They stretched up to the building that seemed to gain another religious symbol as they moved. Never needing religion before, Gaara recognized symbols that meant things to his people but meant nothing to him.
Finally the man with the trunk disappeared to Heaven and it was the Kazekage's turn. A large giant squinted his eyes down at Gaara, hair covering his massive arms and face. Finally the giant said as though he was going to tack something onto it, "Gaara of the Desert," but then he paused and then opened a large book at his side, flipping through the pages. He had trouble locating a page, his meaty fingers not made for separating two statically charged papers, but finally he ran a finger down a list of names and looked down at the fifteen-year-old. "You have nowhere to go," he finished the sentence.
"Every so millennia or so, we run into this problem," the giant Enma-sama explained. "This book contains the death dates of everyone living in the world. When they arrive, their name glows so that they're easier to find and place." He met Gaara's eyes as he continued, "However, some people die too late or too early, so the place we fixed in Heaven or Hell for them isn't open.
"You, Gaara of the Desert, were to die almost a decade ago," Enma-sama stated, "but you survived, something that isn't uncommon amongst some carriers of the Jinchûriki I might add." He sighed. "So your place was taken by someone who died too early. However, this isn't a problem. We could easily put you in Limbo while you wait, but there are circumstances that come to light that might change where we were to place you years ago."
Gaara's gaze didn't wavier and his eternal reaction to the words didn't show on his features. He chose to remain silent for the time being since it seemed to be the best way to gain information at the moment.
"I will turn you over to my assistant Hamaru-san," Enma-sama motioned to a creature standing near his podium. "He'll explain everything to you." Then the large god declared, "Next!"
Gaara walked over to the creature. It was about his height with hunched shoulders and a lizard's face. Down its back and tail, it had spikes that were shaped like spades that went from small to big and then back to small. Its small clawed hands gripped a clipboard and it's scaly kangaroo-like legs bounced slightly as he hopped up to the shinobi. "Good evening, Gaara of the Desert," Hamaru-san stated. "Let's step over here and I'll explain what is going on to you."
Gaara followed him cautiously, looking over his shoulder at Enma-sama before turning his attention to the odd looking talking lizard.
"According to these files, you were to die on the night that your uncle Yashamaru attacked you," the lizard stated without much consideration as he looked through the papers on the clipboard. "However, Shukaku helped protect you from him and he died instead." The lizard sighed. "I remember that somewhat. It would have been a better trade off if you were both going to the same place since he died early." Finally the lizard looked over at Gaara. "Your place is Hell, but we filled that with someone who died early. Right now, Hell is backed up several hundred people and we need to begin negotiations to get you a spot down there." The lizard paused and then raised a scaly eyebrow. "You seem rather calm for someone who's assigned to Hell."
Gaara regarded him and then responded, "I know where I'm going. There's no point in worrying or causing a scene. I have known this since before I was supposed to die."
Hamaru-san didn't blink or shudder as some people Gaara knew might have. The instant faces began appearing in front of him, Gaara chased them away. He was dead now and there was no point in dwelling on what was now merely a past life.
"Anyway, due to recent events, you can get a place in Heaven that will come up before the place in Hell," Hamaru-san announced. "That is, if you want to take it."
"Either works," Gaara answered. He knew he would be stuck in Limbo no matter what he chose.
"Pick one," Hamaru sighed. "It's important."
"Heaven," Gaara replied. Since that was the earlier opening, he knew that meant less time in Limbo. From what he remembered hearing, Limbo sounded extremely boring.
"Alright, good choice," Hamaru-san stated. "Now, we need to get you ready to go to Earth."
Gaara decided now was the time to ask questions, otherwise he would get no information. "Why Earth?"
The lizard gave him a 'don't you know anything?' look. "If you want to get to Heaven, you have to finish what you were doing on Earth." He motioned his head towards a door. "Follow me, I'll explain as we go to the preparation room."
Gaara debated his options and then followed Hamaru-san with his eyes on his guide at all times.
"Towards the end of your life, you began to change," Hamaru-san explained. "All the demonic and sadistic nature was greatly diminished until it was purely Shukaku that was keeping it within you. Of course that was close to when you died so we haven't seen all that your soul is capable of. That last act to save your village can go either way since you were captured in the middle of it all." He paused as though talking and walking took extra thinking. "Anyway, if you want to go to Heaven, you have to go back to Earth and prove yourself. If you are deemed unworthy by the time the position opens up, you'll be sent straight to Limbo to await the opening in Hell."
When Hamaru-san looked at Gaara, the teenager purposefully nodded to show he was listening.
Satisfied, the lizard kept his bounds subdued and then he stopped outside of a door. Checking the words that Gaara didn't recognize against the paper in his hands, Hamaru-san nodded. "Here we are." He knocked on the door and soon it opened. Hamaru-san spoke in a foreign tongue to a different kind of creature inside the room. Finally the creature looked over at Gaara. "Gaara of the Desert," the snow hare with gloved hands and webbed feet spoke with a thick accent on his Japanese, "please come in."
Gaara followed the rabbit creature into the room, noticing that it duck-walked. Hamaru-san shut the door, leaving the pair in the room alone. The room was lavish and carpeted with futons, cushion chairs, and other fluffy fuchsia colored furniture everywhere. "I am James," the creature told him, "but everyone calls me James-san." James-san waddled over to a stool far into the room in front of a large mirror with spotlights around it. "Come have a seat, we have to take care of some things before you can move on to the next part."
Gaara regarded him for a moment and then followed. James-san instructed him to sit on the stool in front of the mirror and then James-san scrutinized Gaara's face. "You have the worst bags I've ever seen…" he cocked his head, "or you don't have a clue about mascara."
Gaara gave him a dangerous and well-practiced death glare. James-san was unfazed. "Oh well, we'll have to get rid of them of course. Otherwise, those humans will recognize you." He rummaged through the top left drawer as Gaara looked at himself in the mirror. Like religion, Gaara never bothered with mirrors. He trusted that running a comb through his hair would straighten it out without him having to look at it. The marks of the badger demon, two tailed Shukaku made him look away in thought. Closing his eyes, he frowned as he searched within himself. Shukaku wasn't there, unless she was planning some elaborate payback for the Atatsuki capture.
"You had a Jinchûriki inside of you, right?" James-san asked as he mixed some things together. He glanced at Gaara and nodded. "I thought as much. Don't worry about the demon, when you died, he was sent back to his true form." James-san inspected his concoction and then said, "Now, I'm going to put this on your marks. It's going to sting, but we have to remove them."
Gaara looked in the mirror and tried not to look away at the Badger markings. He wanted to remember them even if it meant pain. Shukaku had been a part of him for all his life after all. He closed his eyes at James-san's instruction but kept his guard up. The concoction stung, but he weathered it. James-san spoke constant reassurances, but Gaara rarely heard them. This was pain. He had always wondered and this had to be pain. It hurt - if that was the word for it - worse than when Lee and Naruto fought him.
"Alright, keep your eyes closed, I'm going to wash it out now," James-san cautioned before tilting Gaara's head under the sink. When the water hit his eyes, Gaara went to pull back but a burning sensation permeated through his body. His mind began racing for a solution as he went to call his sand to himself, but the gourd wasn't on his back any longer.
Finally, James-san pulled him back and turned off the water as the burning sensation continued and James-san gave Gaara a towel, the sensation ebbing away. "Sorry about that, Gaara of the Desert, but I couldn't have you attacking me."
"Where's my gourd?" Gaara growled, towel over his eyes.
"It will be returned to you when we leave the room," James-san explained. "After treating many a warrior, we learned to leave their weapons outside. Don't worry though, only you can see them and touch them." There was a pause and James-san added, "Wipe off the water and then we'll see if that worked."
Gaara dried his face and then blinked a few times before looking over at James-san. At first his vision was extremely blurry but after a bit it cleared back into its normal range.
"Good, good!" James-san clasped his hands. "It worked!" He made a motion with his hand. "Look in the mirror. What do you think?"
Gaara surveyed himself for the longest while. He still had his red hair, his greenish eyes, his nose, his mouth, but it all looked so different. Without thinking, he touched the area under his eyes as though he expected his skin to feel different without his markings. It didn't.
"I got rid of the inevitable dark circles," James-san smiled pleasantly. "I couldn't fix your eyebrows though."
"I don't need them," Gaara stated.
"I should change your hair and eyes, but I really don't want to. Rarely do I see them, you're so unique…" the creature murmured and then he said, "I can tweak them though since I'm supposed to change them after all. We can have people saying 'you look like someone I know' but not 'is that you, Gaara of the Desert?' and besides, I get paid for changing appearances."
James-san appraised his charge a moment and then said, "If I change the colors ever so slightly, they will still be unique but less so…" He nodded. "Alright, I know what to do to you now."
He rummaged through a drawer and then produced a stocking cap and swim goggles. "Put these on. This won't hurt this time, but the goggles might be a bit tight."
Gaara did so and then asked, "How long do I have to keep them on?"
"When the egg timer goes off - oh and close your eyes, please." He noted that the boy had done so and then James-san set the egg timer and began looking for something in another drawer. When the egg timer dinged, he told Gaara to take off the cap and goggles. After that, James-san said, "Look in the mirror. What do you think? I think it might be a bit too bright, but it can't be helped, unless you want orangey-red hair."
Gaara touched the strands of his longish hair that was now a bright flame red. He then studied his eyes that were now a dark green with a bit of gray around the edges. It reminded him of Temari's dark gray eyes. His mind chased the thought away before he could dwell on it.
"Well?" James-san prompted him. He didn't like the lack of speaking from his charge.
"It's okay," Gaara stated, taking the hint.
"Okay?" James-san stared. "Well, that doesn't matter because we have to cut your hair anyway."
After almost an hour of tweaking, James-san finally stepped back from his creation. "Stand up, let me take a look at you."
Gaara stood up, his hair now shorter much like it had been when he was younger but ever-so-slightly longer. His flame-red hair caught the light and his dark green-gray eyes seemed to avoid it. His hair was still pointed and spiky, and he still had no eyebrows.
"I guess that's the best I can do with you," James-san sighed regretfully. "Maybe Hilda-san can work with it." He led Gaara to the door and then said, "I can't leave this room, but if you go down the hall and turn left, you should find Hild-san. She always has her door open and her room smells like incense. You really can't miss it unless you can't smell or see."
Gaara nodded and strapped his gourd back on. Starting down the hall, he kept his eyes to the left especially when the smell of strong incense greeted him. After a few minutes more of walking with the scent growing even stronger, he finally came to a room decorated tastefully. A woman stood in front of him wearing clothes he had never seen before. She looked up when he entered without his gourd that was waiting for him outside now.
"Welcome!" She smiled brightly. "You must be Gaara of the Desert - we were talking about you in the coffee room." She gave him the once over and then she said, "Never ever wear that color ever again. It's hideous!" She grabbed him by the shoulders and forced him towards a set of curtains at the far end of the room. "In there now! Oh and don't go into the first three I have people already in those."
As soon as Gaara closed the curtain, clothes flew at him over the top of the cubicle. "Put these on. I suggest you do not mix the blue with the black, which only works for some people, but not everyone. Oh and this," she threw a necklace at him. "You look like the type to like Gothic clothing. Ever considered piercing something? Oh! I need to check on someone. Try on those things and I'll come back to you in a bit."
Gaara looked down at the clothes everywhere. There were some on his head, in his arms and most were on the floor or the seat built into the corner of the cubicle. He picked up the clothes and set them on the hooks in the room and then surveyed them. He picked out black pants and a long sleeved black jacket that was long and flared. On the hanger with the jacket he found a red scarf-like decoration. He eyed it a moment and then looked down at the necklace on the floor. It clipped so that there was a black string around his upper neck and another loop that ended down past his collarbone. On the bottom loop there was a silver pendant about half the size of a sand dollar with the Kanji for Kage on it. Gaara eyed it and then clipped it in the back. It hung comfortably enough and didn't look too bad.
"How are you doing?" Hilda-san's voice asked from behind the curtain.
Gaara pulled the curtain back. He watched her blue eyes appraise him and then she frowned. "Where's the band?" She looked in the cubicle and then pulled out the red scarf-like article. "This will help you carry around that gourd of yours." She looped it over his head and across his chest. Fastening the clasps, she stepped back and appraised the clothing. "That looks good, very good. Too bad you can't wear it in your child form."
Gaara looked at her. "Child form?"
"Oh didn't you know? Whenever you go down to Earth for whatever reason outside of reincarnation, you have two forms. That is because you need to conserve battle strength so depending on which side is stronger in you, you're a child during the day or night and what you are right now the other half of the time." She smiled. "So do you like this?"
Gaara shrugged. He didn't like the sound of going back and forth between a child and an adult, but whatever kept him out of Limbo.
"Alright then, it's time for you to get the full story from Len-san." She pointed him towards the door. "I think you can figure out how to hook up your gourd. Len-san will explain everything to you and activate the change."
Gaara left the clothing stop and continued down the hallway.
"Young man," a gentle voice called out to him. An old man with white hair smiled pleasantly. "I am Len-san. I take it that Hilda-san didn't tell you how to find me, right?" At Gaara's nod, the man motioned to the interior of his room. "You maybe keep your gourd when you come in here, it will be needed in what must be done next."
Gaara followed him deeper into the wood floor with rugs on the walls and floor. They finally stopped in the center of the room and Len-san began to speak again. "Gaara of the Desert, there are many things I'm sure that no one has explained to you. Hamaru-san never was one to tell someone all the implications before sending them on their way to James-san and Hilda-san." The elderly man met Gaara's eyes. "What you must understand is that by agreeing to go back down to Earth, you must give up things that go beyond your appearance."
He let that information hang in the air and then Len-san continued, "If you chose to continue, you will be given two forms. Since your power is most closely associated with Hell, during the day you will be a small boy of about four or five. You will not have your gourd and your shinobi skill will be depleted so that it is at the level you were when you were that age." He let that information sink in and then continued, "At night, you will have the power to turn into the form you are right now where you will be at your most powerful."
He noted Gaara's look and laughed to himself. "Ah youth. I know that look," Len-san declared as he turned away from the teenager. "You realize the disadvantages, don't you?"
Gaara waited a moment to see if he had to verbally answer. After a silence he finally shrugged.
Len-san tutted. "You realize that if you develop friendships or even a romantic relationship, if that person or people get into trouble when you can't transform into your true self - "
"I don't think that's going to be a problem," Gaara stated.
Len-san wagged a finger reprimanding and then he sighed. "You aren't the first to say such things." Len-san finally turned back to his charge. "But if you insist that you haven't a problem, step forward."
Without hesitation Gaara stepped forward. Len-san eyed him and then nodded. "Remember that this was fully your choice." Then he tapped his forehead.
Gaara felt white searing pain erupt all around him. He reflexively closed his eyes and gritted his teeth as tendrils of white flame encased his body. It twisted and constricted him, forcing the breath out of his lungs and pushed against his eyes and mouth as he felt himself begin to hover off the ground. He began to spin, his teeth clenching harder to resist throwing up with the fast motion. Finally he felt himself falling but the instant he seemed to register it, he landed with his feet.
"Feeling different?"
Gaara didn't give an answer but simply looked down at his hands and body. He was small. He was wearing that old sand colored outfit from when he was only five-years-old before he had to live with his siblings. His small mind chased thoughts of Temari and Kankuro away before they could progress back to memories of Yashamaru.
"Now to return to Earth, you must go through Ku-sama. He has the power to teleport people to the mortal world," Len-san instructed and then he smiled. "You can't transform back to your true form since it's the day time where you come from. Now, Ku-sama is down the hall and around the corner. Good luck to you."
Gaara began down the hallway and shifted his shoulders. He didn't have his gourd. In all the other places, he retrieved it once he left the room, but he didn't have that option right now. His pace quickened. He knew that he had some shinobi skills, but his major weapons and major jutsus came from the gourd. Vulnerable, Gaara finally made it around the corner and soon found Ku-sama's room.
Ku-sama was smaller, just a bit shorter than Gaara in his child form. He also had odd body proportions that Gaara had never seen on anyone before now. Ku-sama smiled at him. "You must be Gaara of the Desert," Ku-sama said gently. "I won't waste your time. Are you ready to return to Earth?"
"Yes."
"Good. When you get there, you will be received by Zuma Arashi. She's promised to take you in for now so you can adjust to this new situation," Ku-sama explained. "You have a few hours more before you can change back into your true form. You won't automatically change back, it will be a conscious decision on your part. The only time that you have no control over changing is during the day when you will change back into this form at sunrise.
"Do you understand?"
"Yes."
"Good." Ku-sama raised a large staff above his head and began to chant. Gaara tensed for a moment, expecting the painful light to attack him again, but instead there was a flash and he found himself falling in a white vacuum of nothingness.