2 Befriending the Sand Raccoon Vessel pt 1

"Why aren't you running?"

Fuck, Fuck, FUCK. Why in the fuck flying fuck and I fucking here? I take it back I want to be in normal land please! Oh dear…. Who do I pray to? Well I just kinda got screwed over being in this world so I guess none of the normal ones? Work in progress I suppose. Anyway, for the sheer amount of things I could have gotten into, it had to be here.

The Naruto world, or as I will fondly call it the scary world where I can die super easily. Like nowhere is safe, either it will get nuked when I become a teen again and this place gets bombed by those dudes who want them sweet sweet Jinchuuriki- Oh wait.

Is smol boy crazy right now? I look over to him and see him sad something I clearly remember he did not do when he was insane. Okay… so he's not a deranged child at this point. This is good I think. I think, think Gaara wants a friend if my mind decides to be benevolent to me with information and not malevolent. Fuck, I'm not even in the fucking leaf! At least then I know I will stay safe there … after the invasion… and after Pain destroys the whole village… when he revives everyone.

Okay, maybe the sand village is a good place to be in terms of survivability. Could have at least been in the future or something just saying. So what would be a good way to survive? Easy, be friends with the person that everyone is afraid of in this village and other people who see him. The sand Jinchuuriki! He's still here so I can make this work and not die by the time I barely get into puberty.

"How come you didn't run like everyone else?" Fuck, well I guess I should try and attempt that right now then.

"Dooo you want me to?" He widens his eyes and shakes his head furiously

"No, just that everyone runs away from me." Damn that hurts, for your whole life to see people run from you.

"Why?" Good, just play like an absolute clueless child for that is what I should be right now.

"They say I am a monster, everytime they see me." Fuuuuck this is hitting me in the damn feels, why must small child suffer? My elder sibling instincts are flaring and not the one where you make fun of them, nah its the one where your sibling gets made fun of someone not you and you are about to nock the block off the kid. For legal reasons this is an example. Wait, different laws here, duh.

"Why?" Ah yes the most word provoking world out of all the words every created none can bring forth more words than why.

"I- It's because I can do this." He lifts his hand and sand starts to shift and move and just do what its not normally doing.

Tha- that's so sooo "Cool!" He jumps and the sand fell back down to the ground a lapse in his concentration.

"That is so cool! You can control the sand? Why would they call you a monster for that?" Out of the majority of superpowers out there the one that had me most enraptured as a kid besides the normal one all kids want was sand manipulation. Watching Spider Man 3 as a kid and seeing sandman do all that stuff really made me think it was cool!

It is especially cool when you grew up in a place that was functionally a desert and sand dunes were never too far away. Plus… I could never make cool sandcastles at the beach. Anyway this is a pretty cool power to have especially in the desert where we are currently.

"I, I don't know…" Oh yeah, still in a conversation whoops.

"Well that isn't nice, hey since you got a ball wanna play?" Once again I just realized how starved for attention he was, with him nodding his head so quick it was nearly a blur. Likely his first time playing with someone else his age.

"How do you play?" Ah ok. Guess I will have to explain kid things to him probably.

"Easy I throw the ball to you and you have to catch it, then you throw the ball. Pretty simple right?" He nodded his head and tossed the ball to me and so we started the boring task of catch which gave me time to think things through. Namely how to not die a most painful death.

I want to be a civilian but at the same time I don't. If I do I can't really do anything if I were to be targeted for no reason. If I become a shinobi then I will be able to defend myself… at the cost of being in a large food chain of death. I do get to use Jesus mode with water though… And I also get other cool Jutsu to spam…

To be determined for later. For now… I have a ball to throw

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After playing for a while, Gaara finally got bored and I suggested to him to start making things with sand. It was fun, I would poorly draw something into the sand, then he would make it but only much better. The Sandman one was very funny if I do say so myself... though Gaara didn't get it for obvious reasons. He did have a much better time understanding the poop he made. Well he is a child.

Unfortunately it became night and we had to go home.

"Alright I have to go now, see you late-"

I forgot.

I don't know where to go.

"What's wrong?" My new friend that is also my lifeline asked me meekly.

"I don't know where the orphanage is."

The kid scrunched up his face in a cute way as he was thinking of something. Ah, my savior in the form of a child. Maybe he knows where I can find to go... and make sure the Matron doesn't completely wreck me. I may be in a world of bigger things, but I have seen how she wields that sandal against the other kids. Not even my Grandma could do that!

"How about you come to my house?" Orrrr that, that works to I guess.

I shrug, not like Imma go around all the place. "Sure, that works too."

We start walking to his house, well more like I followed him as we meandered through the city. As we went through the city doors and windows were being shut when Gaara came into view. Dang, that must suck really. To have doors shut in your face as soon as you have a sliver of yourself show up. It seemed to not affect Gaara though he had some sort of a pep in his step. Did me just playing with him for one day really affect him that much? I must say those sand figures does make for great bonding.

.

.

.

Oh we're here.

I look at the house in which Gaara residing in and half expected it to be defaced or something but to my surprise it was a really nice house! Really large as well. I then remembered his father was a Kage and his uncle was a ninja or something. Ah I forgot about that man, the one who really put the start of Gaara's insanity. One question that won't really be asked though... Why? That makes sense, if he actually cared for him why do that and vice versa if he truly hated Gaara why would he care for him and teach him things? It's very convoluted if you ask me.

We step into the house and I look around only to see how empty it is which is jarring. A large and spacious house only for there to be near to nothing inside when you enter. I see regular furniture and even those look like they are there for functionality, not comfort. He led me to his room and once again another contrast was made. Where the rest of the house had nearly nothing his room had a large assortment of toys and other things. There was just a large pile of toys in a corner but aside from all that was a small bear with a shinobi headband with what I think is the sand's symbol.

Gaara went to the bear and held it and went to a bed that was overshadowed by aforementioned pile of toys. He looks at me and gestured to his bear. "This is my bear stuffings."

"Why is he called that?" He put on a big smile on his face and squeezed tightly and a piece of stuffing came out.

"Because when you give him a big hug he lets out a stuffing!" Ok, that is cute, small child's smile must be protected. Which is kind of hard when it is likely that he will be driven insane by his uncle for nearly no good reason or any reason at all!

I decided to take part in something that I had not done since I was a kid, err the first time round. Play with toys. Going through the toys I find nothing that could keep me occupied until I come across a great thing that can lead to all sorts of fun. A card deck. Why does Gaara have one? No clue, I do know that I have something to do now.

While I like cards and have a decent amount of skill in it along with luck, for some reason I have almost no luck when it comes to solitaire. The amount of times I've won is very much overshadowed by how many times I have lost, and while most people would get better at this somehow I don't. After playing a few times and mostly having to restart Gaara decided to bring himself into the fold.

"What is this game?" Ah, if I can get him into cards I can be able to play the games that I really am good at, like speed!

"This is called solitaire, it fairly simple you have to make the cards go into a stack going from Ace to two all the way to King, but you can only put cards together that are faced up and they have to be the opposite color unless they are in these four slot areas. Uhh also when you have nothing you can flip three cards from the deck and you can only grab the one on front and any cards faced down that have no other cards on them can be flipped. I think that's it?" Gaara looked confused from my convoluted explanation and barely followed anything. I don't blame him, I suck at explanations.

After a few games where I coached Gaara though he finally got it and attempted himself... only to fail. He tried once again and got it, which I say he only got because he just happened to get luck alright? No skill there, mostly luck. Uh huh that's right, definitely just beginners luck.

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After seeing Gaara win solitaire so many times, I decided to teach him a few other games. These games were all one's that I played with my friends and can help pass the time easily. We engaged in the fast paced game of speed, where precision was the key. We screwed each other over in the poor man's Uno, also called by my friends as Swiss. Along with those, we just played for fun and Gaara truly seemed to be having fun. So did I and I really liked I had someone who didn't complain when they lost, even though he didn't really lose that often.

Eventually I started to get sleepy and try as I might, the child body that I was now in was not designed for staying up at all. Years of trying to stay up and failing have taught me this. I asked Gaara why he didn't get tired, fully knowing the answer and he responded as I already knew. That when he slept he wouldn't be able to sleep for long, with nightmares plaguing him.

I slowly started to fall asleep on the floor reclining on some soft stuffed animals that I assembled as a seat. The last thing I saw was Gaara on the floor playing solitaire.

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Waking up was an interesting affair. Getting shaken awake certainly always is.

When shaken awake, I look around the room to realize that the lights were off, I was on the bed, and more importantly Gaara was not the one shaking me awake.

It was some masked shinobi that happened to scare me only a slight amount. Okay, that was a lie, he scared me lots. Where was Gaara, and why the hell is this ninja looking ready to make me a shish kabob? I started to kinda freak out, fitting giving the situation.

The ninja then unmasked his face to me and he had somewhat of a solemn look.

"It's okay, I'm Gaara's uncle I don't have much time so listen to me okay?" I nod for I remember that this is a man who blew himself up, you don't mess with a person like that it's common sense. You know what else is common sense? Freaking the fuck out silently on the inside.

"Alright, now I know you haven't been friends with Gaara for long, but as you seem to somehow not be afraid of him I need to ask of you to do something. Make sure Gaara is okay. Right now I'm fighting him with my real self and I will blow myself up, this is to make all these assassination's on Gaara stop I wish I didn't have to do this but it was either this or Gaara died for real. When I die this clone of me will crumble away. Although I know it's been very short I plead you to be there for Gaara for me. Alright?"

What? So... the reason why the uncle did what he did was to stop the assassination's? Sure that worked, but at the cost of his nephews sanity. I thought that I had a much longer time before this shit happened! I guess I'll die then since Gaara will be the same and very likely will kill me. But I can try, and I can hopefully survive till after Naruto drives some sense into Gaara or something.

"O- okay then." The man smiled.

"Thank you take care o-" Before he could he crumbled into pieces of rock and sand onto the sheets and the grip he had on me was gone. Along with that, a large boom went through the silent night.

Well, I'm fucked. Just wonderful.