After creating the multi-village shinobi academy, Keiko falls ill with an unknown virus. Suspicions that Orochimaru is to blame begin to circulate. She turns violent before nearly tearing the villages apart. It's a race against the clock before thei...
More than a year went by and Keiko began feeling irritable. She didn't know why, but unfortunately it was something that did tend to happen occasionally among her kind she supposed. One morning, she woke up and felt like her head was going to explode. She rolled over on the bed and covered her face. Gaara had already been up doing his Tai Chi. It was unusual for her to still be in bed. He came in and pulled the covers off of her.
"Hmm? Are you sick?"
" Yokai don't get sick," she mumbled sleepily. Gaara felt her forehead. It was warm.
"Well you sure feel like you might be sick. Maybe you should rest today."
"No, I need to get to the academy," she muttered as she rolled over.
It had been two years since she thought Kakashi had died. They were once to be married until his untimely death facing Itachi . At the wishes of the village councils, Keiko and Gaara had been matched. She didn't intend for it to be anything other than duty, but she fell in love with him all the same, and he with her. About a year after Kakashi's death, Keiko was in the hospital recovering after they had defeated Itachi . Itachi's last great act was to seal away part of what remained of Orochimaru's soul. Unexpectedly, Kakashi strolled into the hospital having himself woken from a near year long coma. Keiko had been devastated. She went home with her husband, but battling the conflict within her was a constant. She busied herself teaching at the academy and coming home to spend evenings with Gaara .
They all had accepted that the circumstances were unusual, but that didn't make it much easier for any of them. On top of it, Keiko was a Inu-Yokai and the idea of love and caring for one human over another was relatively new to her. While in more than 200 years of war she had typically commanded herself with confidence, now that she was exploring what it meant to love she felt incompetent. She didn't know what to do with these feelings for the first two men to really care about her.
Part of the peace they had established among the villages under the guidance of the Allied Shinobi Forces was a graduate academy where all the villages could come to learn together. Keiko was one of those in charge of cross training between different fighting styles. There was much she still had to learn herself, but she was fairly good at bending the elements with just her chakra and not even using ninjutsu.
The academy was waiting for her, she thought. Keiko shuffled to the closet and got dressed. When she made it to breakfast in the long dining hall, she started nodding off again.
"I've never seen you like this. I really think you should stay home today," Gaara said. "I'll send a hawk to the academy and let them know."
"No," she grumbled, "I'm fine." She stood up and she swooned, stumbling into the chair. Gaara grabbed onto her.
"Fine, if you're not going to behave and do as I ask, then you're going to rest on the couch in my office," he said.
He carried her up to his office. She fell back asleep halfway there, so he put her on the couch and covered her before going up the stairs to send the message. When he reached the top of the stairs another hawk was returning from the Hidden Leaf Village. He made for the window to retrieve it and stroked the hawk absently as he read the message. Great, that's just what he needed today. He sent the other message off before sighing and making his way back to his office to go through paperwork.
A couple hours later, an expected knock came at the door. He hadn't even noticed how much time had gone by. "Please come in," answered Gaara .
Kakashi opened the door and stepped through wearing the formal robe of the Hokage , though he had the headpiece draped across his back. He still donned the mask that partially obscured his face even in his formal attire. "Thank you for seeing me Kazekage-sama ."
"Please. There's no need to be so formal. Gaara is fine."
"Ah," said Kakashi distractedly, noticing Keiko on the couch.
"I think she has a cold," Gaara explained. "She woke up not feeling well and thought she was going to go teach, so I brought her with me."
"Really?" said Kakashi interestedly. "I've never seen her sick before. She refuses to even go to the hospital unless someone makes her."
"I know," Gaara grumbled.
Kakashi approached her carefully under Gaara's watchful eye. "Are you sure it's just a cold? She's not looking so well. Did you see this veining pattern on her face? It's almost like she's been...poisoned or something." Kakshi pulled the blanket away from her face and looked her over.
"She couldn't have been. She's been only between home and the academy for months."
"What about the 'between' part?" Kakashi asked.
Keiko's breath was becoming raspy and Gaara's eyes flashed with concern. Before he could even come over to take a look at her, another knock came at the door. Baki stepped in hurriedly without waiting for a response. "I'm so sorry to bother you, sirs. There's been an attack...a snake attack."
Gaara's eyes went wide and he flicked his eyes between Keiko and Kakashi, understanding washing over him.
"I wasn't sure, but I suspected that either he or Kabuto may be up to something. We've been getting strange reports," said Kakashi. "People have been disappearing again."
"Damn. I suspected Orochimaru was not completely gone, but I hoped... I...I have to deal with this. I really hate to ask this of you, but could you please take Keiko to the hospital...just to be sure?" asked Gaara .
"Of course," Kakashi replied.
"And Kakashi?" Gaara paused as Kakashi looked back at Keiko, "I trust you to act with integrity ." With that, Gaara followed Baki to the scene of the disturbance.
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