Naruto Fan Fiction ❯ Onyx Rain ❯ Red Dunes ( Chapter 4 )

The sun fell, like a setting phoenix on the horizon, and washed the desert in its evanescent glow. Final glimmers of periwinkle dotted it; at the corners the sky was still flaring with red-orange brilliance. The dunes rose and fell like coiled sidewinder snakes, outlining two silhouettes spread on one of them.

"I wish you would stop trying to kill me," a voice interjected with a sigh. "I mean, I'm obviously not trying to kill you - couldn't you at least be a little more friendly?"

Gaara chose not to answer this idiotic request, and instead slowly faced in the stranger's direction, allowing a better view of her angular features.

She was slightly shorter than him and wore her long hair in buns, though some still exited those and dragged by her shins. Bangs cloaked her stone ocean eyes, almost completely hiding them from view. The only threatening things about her were those eyes - it was as if you looked too deeply into them, you would drown in a sea of black.

"Where is my gourd?" Gaara questioned in his usual monotone, though his face was darkened with anger. His nails dug deeply into his palms, but Gaara ignored the few drops of blood that escaped the tears he created in his own flesh.

This girl was going to die.

She had taken the one thing that meant anything to him anymore, and now she was making some kind of pathetic attempt to befriend him. Something was obviously wrong with her head.

"Oh, THAT," the girl muttered, mostly to herself.

She reached behind her and pulled the hollow container off of her back. She tossed it over to Gaara without a second thought; Gaara caught it easily and hefted it back onto his own shoulders.

He hadn't emptied it back into the desert after he'd returned from Konoha because it had become the one thing that was a constant in his life. The heavy weight of sand in its oblong container had always been a comfort to him, a symbol that wherever he went, he could take a little piece of those he hated with him. Vengeance, if you will. Gaara intended to take it with him straight to Hell.

A newer, sharper thought entered his mind - there was no sand in his gourd. Now, it was too light, too empty, too hollow. His face darkened like the backdrop of the sky was busily doing; the anger forgotten returned in full force. He didn't understand how this witch had pulled it off, but somehow someone other than himself had manipulated HIS sand.

"I emptied it, as you may have noticed," the girl informed him, voicing his thoughts. "The sand in there has become. . . . different. Different from the desert sand. If you'll look to your left, you will see your sand."

Gaara's obsidian-edged diamond eyes glared at her, but eventually he turned his head.

And saw sand dunes, of course.

Then he realized that the reddish hue they sported wasn't from the fading light of day. No, this rusty hue was something else entirely. He checked his right to confirm his suspicions.

To his right, the sand dunes were a singed yellow-orange.

Gaara returned his sight to the dunes to his left. That rusted, iron ore color - he recognized it. And than the stench hit him in a nauseating wave.

Or at least, it would be nauseating to Gaara if he hadn't smelled it every time he had a fresh kill on his hands.

The yellow dunes were stained red.

With blood.