"Are you sick in the head or something?" Naruto asks in disbelief, shaking his own head back and forth.

"You're crazy" Shikamaru agrees, eyes widening slightly.

Gaara stares at all of us in turn, refusing to say anything. I almost cringe as he looks into my eyes, his own reflecting a deep darkness that almost seems to pull me into their void. I see nothing in those eyes. They just seem.....empty. As if Gaara has no soul.

"Do you really think we're just gonna kick back and let you do what you want?" Shikamaru asks condescendingly, his face screwing up into a menacing smirk. "Yeah right, you psychopath."

"If you don't stay out of my way" Gaara warns us, his expression darkening, "I'll kill all of you as well."

"Don't flatter yourself" I can't help snapping, my pride getting the better of me. "As if you could kill me!"

"Yeah!" Naruto agrees boldly. "Let's see you try to kill any of us!"

"Will you two take it easy and stop goading him?" Shikamaru hisses urgently, before that smirk returns as he casts his half lidded eyes on Gaara again. "We all saw your match against Lee in the Preliminaries, so we know you're strong. However, we still have a few tricks up our sleeves. We held back during the Exam."

I look down at Shikamaru with a confused expression, wondering why he's trying to bluff like that. Clearly nobody held back during their fights, Gaara saw all of our fights. The only one that quite possibly held back was Shikamaru himself, and that's only because he's lazy.

My gaze drops down to the floor as sand continues to pour out of the gourd on Gaara's back, gently swirling around Lee's bed. I clench my jaw and narrow my eyes at the sand, wanting to stop it, but not knowing if I'll be able to.

I'd barely managed to help Guy stop Gaara's sand at the end of Lee's fight with him, and if things get bad here, I doubt I'll be able to stop it on my own this time.

But still.........It can't hurt to try......Lee needs us right now. Even if he were awake, he wouldn't be able to defend himself in his current, seriously injured state.

"Besides" Shikamaru continues, "It's three against one here. You're outnumbered, so you should just take our advice and get out of here."

"I'll say it again" Gaara growls softly, his voice making the hair on the back of my neck stand up, "If you don't get out of my way, I'll kill you all......"

"Not on my watch Ichibi" I state loudly, taking a step forwards and bringing my arms up. I grit my teeth and stare intently at the sand surrounding Lee's bed, activating my Katsuryoku. "Your demon doesn't scare me!"

That said, I focus all of my attention on Gaara's sand, willing it to move up and away from Lee. For a few seconds, everything remains still and quiet, though beads of sweat are already forming on my forehead.

To my relief, the sand slowly begins to drift away from Lee and float towards me, my arms shaking from the effort.

While I may have trained enough with my Katsuryoku to be able to manipulate earth, water, fire, wind and to a lesser extent, electricity, I have not trained myself to manipulate sand.

I may not be carrying much sand with my Kekkei Genkai, but seeing as I'm so untrained in this area, it's so heavy. My arms feel as though they're holding up a large boulder or something, they're shaking so badly. My jaw is beginning to hurt, I'm gritting my teeth together so tightly.

Gaara watches as I drop his sand to the floor with a loud grunt, my shoulders rising up and down as I pant. I generally have good endurance, but the Katsuryoku requires so much focus and Natural Energy, I can tire pretty quickly......Especially if I'm using my Kekkei Genkai to do something that I'm so unrefined in, like moving sand. Not to mention this sand is full of chakra, which makes it even more difficult to manoeuvre.

The Wolf Inside - A Naruto Fanfic - Watty Award Winner 2013Where stories live. Discover now