#ready to murder some Iwa-nin

[badninken]

rescued scrap

[gaasaku-fanfests]

Broken Hearts (Empty Grave)

Title: Broken Hearts (Empty Grave) Author: ofhealinglove Rating: T Word Count: 2,940 words Summary: Haruno Sakura was killed in action fighting Akasuna no Sasori. While Konoha grieves the loss of a beloved shinobi and friend, Gaara is keeping her safe and secreted away until she falls in love with him. He's the one who saved her. He's the one who brought her back from the brink of death. Konoha couldn't keep her safe, so he will. Forever. Trope: Yandere.

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Gaara attends the memorial for Haruno Sakura.

He, his siblings, and several council members who want to suck up to the grieving Hokage (they didn’t even know Sakura) travel the two days it takes to get to Konoha and stay for three days: one to rest and settle in, one for the memorial, and one for politicians to politick and Gaara to spend with Naruto, and then leave that evening.

The memorial is enormous; most of Konoha is in attendance. In her work at the hospital, Sakura had saved countless lives and it seems like there isn’t one family or friend her healing hadn’t affected in some way. The flowers come in all shapes and sizes; the mourners are genuine in their grief. ANBU, jounin, chuunin, genin—all of them have something to thank her for.

But it is the Konoha 11 that grieve the hardest. Some stoic, some with tears streaking down their faces, some still standing shell-shocked, like they can’t believe she’s really gone. These are the two blonds of the group, both with blue eyes: one is a Yamanaka kunoichi Sakura’s age, and the other is Naruto.

Gaara watches Naruto closely, a small part of his heart guilty for what’s happened. After all, it’s because of him that this memorial is taking place; if he had been strong enough to defend against the Akatsuki by himself, Sakura would never had fought Akasuna no Sasori—a criminal from his own village, at that—and been injured as she was.

There are other reasons why he feels guilty, but with a clan that has a mind-reading kekkei genkai in attendance, Gaara doesn’t dare to think of them.

The Godaime is one of the stoic ones, but there is more than that: she is furious. Gaara thinks, looking upon her face from his seat in the delegates box, that she has lost one person too many, and knows it when she announces all-out war against Sakura’s murderers.

Sakura’s death could have been prevented. Chiyo had been old and Sakura not ready to fight an Akatsuki with just a retired jounin at her side. They should have had back-up and they shouldn’t have been left alone, no matter what Chiyo said. When the old woman had crawled out of the wreckage of the fight, Sakura’s body lost to the cave-in and Sasori dead (by Sakura’s hand, Chiyo had solemnly emphasized with her head bowed, “I wouldn’t be alive without her,” and “She sacrificed herself for me”), Gaara heard that Hatake Kakashi, her team lead and jounin sensei, had just about killed her on the spot. It was only with the restraint of Maito Gai that Chiyo had been alive to revive Gaara, and Hatake still hasn’t recovered.

Naruto had told Gaara on the day of their arrival that “Kakashi-sensei” was on a two-month-long suspension and had mandated weekly appointments with a Yamanaka psychologist after he had attempted suicide, but Gaara had to keep it a secret.

(Gaara doesn’t feel guilt for that, not like he does for Naruto.)

After the memorial is over, everyone leaves except for the Suna shinobi and council, Konoha 11, and the Hokage and her assistant. They meet in a room in Hokage tower and drink and reminisce. Gaara doesn’t partake and doesn’t say anything. This isn’t a sad occasion for him, it’s a victory. While everyone else grieves over Haruno Sakura, Gaara doesn’t.

He knows she isn’t dead. She’s recovering in a secret room beneath the Kazekage manse, well enough that he was able to leave her alone for a few days.

Temari had said that Konoha deserved to know. Kankuro disapproved of what Gaara had done. But they’re both his brother and sister as well as shinobi of Sunagakure, loyal to him before all, and by the time they’d figured out what was going on, it would endanger the alliance to reveal the secret.

Now that the memorial is over and Haruno Sakura officially declared dead after weeks of excavating the rubble trying to find her body (long gone), there will be war if Sakura is ever discovered.

She won’t be, though. All the world needs to know is that she died a hero killing Akasuna no Sasori.

And Gaara is going to keep it that way if it kills him.

 When Gaara first noticed Haruno Sakura, she had been doing her best to defend Uchiha Sasuke and was going to pay for that with her life. She hadn’t been strong or particularly useful, either; just cannon fodder, likely as her council had intended. She squirmed and fought under his crushing sand but didn’t give up until she passed out from lack of air, but even in her unconsciousness, he had noticed that she still twitched against death like she was fighting to survive even when her mind was gone.

This had intrigued Shukaku and Gaara had hesitated, and then Naruto saved her life and changed his.

Shukaku had seen something in her, something he liked, and that was why Sakura had survived. Gaara had been fast enough even then to end her before Naruto arrived—it was Shukaku’s order to stop that had spared her.

Even moving forward on a different path to a different destiny, Shukaku kept going back to the pink-haired girl and Gaara found his interest piqued, as well. It started with wondering why Shukaku had hesitated, then soon enough, he was following the bijuu down the rabbit hole.

What led such a weak kunoichi to fight for her life like that? As soon as his sand was upon her, she had to know that it was over, and yet she struggled even near death. For a shinobi of some caliber, that was to be expected. To a pathetic little genin who hadn’t even made it past the preliminaries? It made no sense.

Naruto talked about her in his letters, and while Gaara did his best to be circumspect, he learned much about the kunoichi he’d grown so interested in. Shukaku praised every tidbit of information—except for the fact that she was in love with Uchiha Sasuke.

But he was kidnapped and she was killed in action.

After he was revived and Sasori defeated—they had found his body, or at least the splinters left of it—he thought he’d never see her again. Shukaku was gone but the obsession was not, and he had spent his time off during the rebuilding venting his fury deep in the desert.

That was how he found her.

 Sakura had not, in fact, been killed by Sasori’s poison.

When Gaara had found her, deep in the desert between Iwa and Suna going vaguely north, she had been grievously injured by the cave’s collapse, traces of poison flowing through her veins, fever, severe dehydration, and on death’s doorstep.

His first thought was that he was seeing a mirage but he went to her side anyways. Later, he found out she had kept herself alive through complex ninjutsu that she had subconsciously invented purely to survive just that much longer; her Will of Fire, but more importantly her will to live, had kept her going this long, delirious and confused and injured but alive.

She would have died within the day if he hadn’t found her.

Without hesitation, he hurried her back to Suna, but with hesitation, he didn’t take her to the hospital. He took her into the bunker beneath the Kazekage mansion and brought a traveling doctor in to care for her, supplying all his needs with the best money could buy. He hadn’t known what it was he was doing until the next morning when he woke up and realized that he should have immediately sent for Konoha to bring their med-nin to care for their kunoichi before bringing her back home, but…

She was alive—because he found her. She was going to recover—because of the money out of his own coffers. She had been found—because he grieved her.

Didn’t that make her his? And why should he send her back when it was her own team lead’s neglect of her that had gotten her declared KIA in the first place?

So he didn’t say anything, and killed the doctor (quietly, discreetly, no sand coffins or blood splatters) as soon as she was stable and Gaara knew how to care for her.

No witnesses.

 He remembers the moment she first opened her eyes. She still looked sickly and burnt from the sun, but they had opened with clarity and she had looked around quickly, assessing her situation even as her hands and feet flexed and twitched against the restraints holding her down.

She saw him and whispered in a croaky voice, “…Kazekage-sama…?”

He’d hurried help her sit up and drink a glass of water to wet her throat. She drank greedily but not too fast, not needing his advice to not make herself sick. A prodigious med-nin, to be sure.

Once he’d pulled the cup away, she’d blinked and asked in a clearer but still thready voice, “…Where am I? Why… why am I restrained?”

“Safety precautions, Haruno-san,” he’d told her. He would stay polite, even if he wanted to be able to speak the caress of her name on this lips and tongue. He would stay distant for now. He didn’t want to scare her.

“Where… am I…?” she asked again, eyes roving over the interior of the bunker’s main room.

“Safe,” he said.

She seemed wary of him but was too out of it to be outright suspicious, and once he let her drink a second glass over water, she fell back asleep. He laid her down carefully, determined for her to never feel any pain ever again.

It was Konoha’s fault she had almost died.

He didn’t want her to die.

She was better off safe down here in his bunker where he could protect her. He would never let any harm come to her.

Ever.

 It didn’t take her long after her first awakening to start asking questions. Her memory of recent events was spotty at first, but once she started remembering healing Kankuro, going to save him, bits and pieces of her fight with Sasori before her injury and ‘death,’ their relationship became strained.

He told her what he could, and most of it had to be lies. He truthfully told her that she had killed Sasori in the end and Chiyo had been a casualty of the fight. Gaara had had Shukaku taken from him, but he’d survived. She had been searched for, but only for a few days before her team headed back home. Naruto was going to try to come back for her body, but they all assumed she was dead and he heavily implied they didn’t care.

(Hatake didn’t, sending her in unprotected like that.)

Some of the lies she believed, some she didn’t. It took time and constant repetition to get it to sink in that Konoha hadn’t really cared about her. She fought against the lies about Naruto and Tsunade the hardest; she’d been suspicious of being restrained.

And then she found out she didn’t have chakra anymore because of Sasori’s poison, just enough to survive with civilian levels, and she’d just about broken.

He’d been sad to see it, but it was necessary. It was, in fact, a seal he’d discovered deep in the family’s library, used for subduing dangerous criminals for execution. Archaic and brutal, he’d gotten a sealmaster to bastardize it into being temporary. He was no Uzumaki, but he said the seal should hold. Gaara didn’t want Sakura in the bunker forever. Once he felt she could be trusted, she would ‘regain’ enough chakra to defend herself. Maybe one day, she’d ‘miraculously’ get all of it back.

But that would be after they were married, after they had children, once they were older and there was no chance of her defection. He had to keep her safe.

He made sure to repeat that to her. She was safe, he was always going to keep her safe. Konoha hadn’t kept her safe, and they didn’t care what happened once she wasn’t. She’d been left behind, by her team, by her village. No one was coming for her; no one cared enough.

That was apparently her worst fear and what started breaking down the fastest.

He brought her meals, took her to the bathroom, brought her knowledge and entertainment. He was her only source of social interaction, the only person she relied on for all her basic needs, by design. He needed her, so she had to need him.

It was basic conditioning. He was sad he had to use it on her, but there was no other way to make sure she’d willingly stay by his side. The first time he had touched her, she’d flinched. The day he’d left for the memorial, she had initiated a hug goodbye.

(He knew she would fall for him eventually, just like he’d fallen for her.)

Telling her about his three days away for her memorial service had been very, very difficult. Of course, she hadn’t known it was her memorial service, but she had still cried and pleaded for him to stay. She didn’t want to be without him, she said. What would she do, all alone? What if the food ran out? What if something happened to him?

It was hard to leave her, but he did.

 He’s eager to get back to her more than anything else, but he doesn’t show it. He worries that if he’s away for too long, some of her conditioning will start to wear off and she’ll regress. If she thinks too long, she might untangle some of his lies; after all, he knows she’s extremely intelligent and it’s only been a little under a month. There’s a large margin for error here, leaving so soon, but it would have been more suspicious if he hadn’t come. She’d killed one of his village’s own missing-nin in the conflict to save his life. If he’s not there, barring an emergency, it’s a blow to the alliance.

Gaara needs this alliance, but he might not always. If Sakura were to surface back from the dead in, say, five years or so, Konoha’s reaction might not matter.

(She won’t want to go back anyways. He’ll have made sure of it by then.)

When he comes back to the bunker, Sakura is pacing the room. It doesn’t look like she’s tried to escape and there’s no damage speaking of any fits of pique or defiant anxiety, which is somewhat surprising.

“Gaara-sama!” she calls with a smile once he’s sealed the door behind him.

“Sakura-san,” he replies, finally able to call her by her given name, a small smile quirking his lips. He doesn’t necessarily expect her to run up and hug him, but it’s nice anyways.

His sand doesn’t even try to keep her from him. He thinks it’s a sign.

(A sign that they’re meant to be. He’s doing the right thing, keeping her here.)

“Don’t leave me like that again, okay?” she demands. She’s still got a temper, which is something that is so integral to who she is that he’s glad it’s not completely conditioned out. Still, she hadn’t destroyed anything. It’s a sign of progress. And the desperation with which she’d run up to him…

Maybe he should leave her alone more often, but his heart says otherwise.

(He has to keep her safe. He loves her, he loves her, he loves her.)

“I’ll do my best,” he says. He’s always been a man of few words.

“Did you bring any food?” she asks. “I’m pretty hungry—I ran out this morning.”

No, Gaara had not brought food. He’d been too excited to come see her.

“I’ll go get some for you,” he tells her, and turns for the door. Sakura steps back to give him space—she always does—and he unseals the exit.

He doesn’t see her coming from behind him and his sand doesn’t react when she hugs him again; she doesn’t mean to harm him, if the sand isn’t reacting. “Don’t take too long, okay? I’ve missed you.”

“Stand back, Sakura-san,” he orders her quietly, warmed by the fact that she’s so desperate to touch him, feel him, hold him.

Sakura nods against his back. “Okay…”

In a move he hadn’t expected and therefore was unprepared for, Sakura’s hands snake up under him and grab his throat.

He chokes on her inhuman strength. She shouldn’t have chakra! What is going on?

“Next time you put a seal on someone, you should make sure you know it’ll hold,” she snarls, and her hands clench brutally.

 When Gaara wakes up, it’s three days later in the hospital. Sakura had crushed his windpipe, but Temari found him in time to get medical treatment and survive.

He grieves that Sakura got away, but he swears he’ll find her. She can’t have gotten back to Konoha yet and therefore he still has time to find her and bring her back. He’ll leave her in isolation for much longer this time, a punishment. He’d hoped to never have to do that to her, but Sakura has a strong will (Naruto had emphasized that so often and Gaara had seen it firsthand when she fought against his sand coffin) and it needs to be broken down more… thoroughly this time.

“I’ll find her soon enough,” he tells Temari.

And then Kankuro rushes in with a crumpled missive with the Hokage seal in his hand, announcing with worried eyes that Konoha has declared war.