H-Hey everyone *backs away slowly* sorry for taking such a very long time to update. I was away on an exchange for a while, and then started writing this after I got back. Many apologies for taking so long. As one of these apologies, I will have a poll up on my profile for the next couple of days for which fic to update, so you guys can choose which fic I update next.

Aside from that, I hope you guys enjoy this chapter. I must admit that it took me longer than expected to write this one, even though it's admittedly not that long. Enjoy :)

They had only begun traveling a few days ago, and she could already tell that this time their journey to see her parents was much different than her first time being with the group on the ship.

Everyone was much more relaxed and open around her. No one acted like they were hiding anything from her anymore. Kiba no longer seemed conflicted. She and Tenten could spare without being surrounded by guilt, not that she really felt like doing it that much.

The only one who hadn't changed was Gaara. He was still quiet, closed off from her. She had tried countless times to spark a conversation with him, only for him to give one worded response. Temari and Kankuro said not to take it personally; he shut himself to most people. Kankuro referred back to his prior explanation of trust issues. She asked why, but no one would elaborate; only saying that he had a 'tough past'.

Despite the improved relations, Sakura still felt torn in the same way that she had before. These people had tarnished her island . The reasoning for this was different and morally better, but that did not change their actions. And now she was helping them. Gosh, she must be insane. Was she really going to help them fight a war? Well, kind of anyway. She was going with them to borrow a dragon and then what? She might not ever see them again after that.

And then there was the fact that she was going to see her real parents. She left them when she was two, so she only had very scarce memories of them. A glimpse of their faces, a flash of what she thought was her old room, a smell that triggered the memory of eating in the dining room. That was all she had to go by. What would meeting them again be like? Would they recognize her? Well, pink hair wasn't exactly common, so likely. What would they be like? What were their opinions on this war? There were so many things that she wasn't sure about. Her hands gripped the railing of the ship.

She didn't know what to think anymore. Things were simpler when she just thought that they were pirates. Honestly, she often wondered why she agreed to come when she learned the truth. After all, she didn't know anything about Konoha, Suna or Sound.

"Everything okay?" Kiba asked as he walked up to her.

Sakura lifted her gaze to his. No, everything wasn't. "As good as it could be," she answered.

"Are you sure?" He leaned on the railing next to her. "I thought that once you knew the truth about us, everything would be better. We could talk and laugh with each other all the time. But you've been closed off ever since we left and you always have a sad or confused expression on your face."

She wanted to open up to him about her conflicting thoughts. But he was still one of the people who destroyed her home. On top of that he and the rest of the people on here seemed adamant about helping their cause. How could she possibly explain to him about how she felt hesitant to help them? She couldn't.

She shrugged. "I guess I'm just feeling overwhelmed. Everything's happening so fast." That wasn't technically a lie. Both of those things were true, even if they were only 'part of the story'.

He offered a small smile. "Yeah, I guess things would feel like that for you. But if you want to talk about it, I'm here."

She smiled. He really was a nice guy. Not that she was planning on taking up his offer or anything. Despite that latter thought, she felt a pit in her stomach. "Thanks."

He looked as if he was about to reply, but stopped when he was called by Neji. "Looks like I have to head off, see you later," he said as he turned and left.

Sakura looked out to the ocean again. Why couldn't this be easy for her? Why did everything have to be so complicated? She couldn't even talk with Kiba without feeling guilty. She sighed and decided to walk back towards her cabin.

The cabin was the same one that she had stayed in when she thought that she was a captive. Her walk to it was now so familiar that she could do it with barely any thought.

The pinkette had planned on being in her room alone, but she soon found that that was not the case when she tried to close her door. A hand reached out to prevent it from closing. Gaara then appeared in her doorway. And he did not look happy.

"Yes?" Sakura asked as she tried to figure out why he was here. He usually never sought her out.

"Are you going to help us or not?" he demanded to know. He was inside her room now and had shut her door.

"What?" She said, caught off guard. What did he mean?

"Are you going to help us when we get to your kingdom or not?" he repeated as he looked darkly at her. "Ever since you came back onto the ship you've been conflicted about it despite initially joining us in Suna."

She gaped at him. How did he find that out?

"You're an open book," he stated plainly. "Why are you rethinking your decision to assist us?"

"Well I-uh," she stuttered, unsure of how to answer him.

He glared at her. "Don't lie," he commanded. "You told us in Suna that you would help us. Did you lie?"

"No!" Sakura insisted. "Also, I said that I would go with you, I didn't say that I'd be another crew member or anything."

Even as she said that, she realised that it was the wrong thing to say. "So you're just using as a free trip to your homeland?" Gaara spat at her.

"No, of course not," she retorted. "Look, I get that your cause is important to you, I do. But I can't just overlook the harm that you and the others did to my island."

"That again?" Gaara asked, sounding exasperated.

"What do you mean 'that again'? It is a perfectly valid reason!" She exclaimed.

"You know our reasons for doing it," he reasoned.

"Your ends don't justify your means," she snapped.

"You're blowing it out of proportion," he scolded. "We made sure to not kill anyone or get anyone severely injured."

"Oh that's so comforting," Sakura raged, her voice getting louder with every word. "You rampaged through my island, you terrified most of the people, and you destroyed most of the village, sometimes beyond repair. But you're right, I should forget about it because you at least took the time and effort to not murder anyone."

His gaze darkened even more, if that were even possible. But she was not going to back down, even if he looked ready to bite her head off. "Maybe what you did is justified in that sick mind of yours but it's not to me. I can't just look past the turmoil that you and the others caused. You could have just tried to kidnap me during the night or something. Heck, you could have taken a leap of faith and just asked me to go along with your strange plan."

Gaara stared at her like she was an idiot. "It wouldn't have had the same effect if we had just 'kidnapped you'. Sound would have heard that she was taken by someone, and if they had two brain cells to rub together they could figure out that it was someone from Konoha or Suna. And we weren't about to risk our identity being revealed by some girl that we didn't know. Besides, if we tried either one of those, that spy woman you lived with," Sakura flinched when he said that, but that didn't heed his speech, "would have likely found out about it and reported our activity."

"Don't act like what you guys did was risk free either. Pretending to be pirates and pillaging the land doesn't exactly sound like a fool-proof plan either."

"It was the best we could come up with under the circumstances. If you knew anything about Sound-"

"But I don't!" She interrupted, balling her fists up as she did so. "I don't know anything about Sound or the war or anything else. No one tells me anything. You can't expect me to help you if you don't let me in."

"Yeah, well we 'let you in' about not being pirates and look at how far that's got us so far with you," Gaara reasoned, stepping closer to her.

Not one to be intimidated, she took a step towards him. "I saved your life, which you still haven't even thanked me for by the way. And agreed to come with you again on my own free will. Any half decent human being would agree that that's more than enough reason to trust me with their crappy plans."

He didn't respond. The redhead just sent her another icy glare before storming out.

The pinkette stared at the door for a few moments before sitting down on her bed and sighing. Fighting with him was exhausting. She had to fight the urge to cry and scream and kick like a little girl. And she felt almost worse than when they had started. Why was he like this? Why was he so closed-minded and harsh? And why did he affect her so much?

"Sakura?" The pinkette looked up to see Kankuro slowly walking into her room. "I need to talk to you."

"Sorry," Sakura replied, "but I'm not really in the mood."

"It's important," Kankuro insisted as he continued to walk inside. "It's about Gaara."

Sakura couldn't help but look up at that. But then she cast a warning look at him. "If you want to tell me that he feels sorry and just can't express himself…"

"Oh no, he doesn't," The guy said as he sat down beside her. "He's not exactly the apologetic type. He's very closed-minded, and tends to not emphasize with other people very well. The way he sees it, raiding your island was for the greater good. If the place got run down as a result, that's just collateral damage. In fact, to him, going out of his way to not maim or seriously injure other people was extremely humanitarian and kind." Sakura opened her mouth to comment but Kankuro held up a hand. "I know, but he really had to go out of his way, so it was big for him okay? It was also something he might not have done at a younger age.

"You see, Gaara had a rather…nasty childhood. When our father heard that his wife was pregnant with Gaara, he decided to use Gaara as a weapon. You see, during this time Suna was involved in a lot of conflict with other nations. Our father, who was the head of the military at the time, thought it would be a good idea to make Gaara a vessel for a beast. And so he was. But then his wife, my mother, died giving birth to Gaara. My father always blamed Gaara for her death and treated him like a monster. And because of the beast within him, so did other people. He grew up alone."

"Alone?" Sakura interrupted. "But you and Temari were there, weren't you?"

His cheeks became red and he looked down in shame. "We weren't exactly there for him either. When we were young we, like our father, saw Gaara as the reason for our mother's death. Then we saw how other's treated him and we began to see him the same way they did: like a beast just like the thing inside him. We were bad to him. All he had to cling to was a beast with bloodlust. Soon he developed a bloodlust of his own, with the strength to back it up. He was incredibly powerful and soon everyone, including Temari and I, began to fear him even more than before. Our father decided that Gaara had grown to be too great of a threat and tried to kill him. Gaara ended up killing him in self-defense. After that he became even more untrusting, volatile and harsh. The idea of killing another person didn't even cause him to bat an eyelash.

"I think he would still be like that today, if it wasn't for a boy named Naruto. Like Gaara, he had a beast inside of him. He met Gaara and really changed my brother. He became my brother's first true friend and helped him look past his suffering. I know that he's not the easiest to understand or get along with, but he has come a long way from where he was. So really for him, going out of his way to not harm the villagers shows a lot of progress. I don't mean that he deserves a pardon for everything he does, but I think you should keep in mind what he's been through."

Sakura paused to take in this new information. Wow, Gaara had a really rough life. She couldn't imagine having her own father try to kill her. His trust issues made sense now. He didn't get a pass for harming her village though. Her eyes turned to Kankuro. Neither did he. "What's your excuse then?"

Kankuro looked confused by the question. "What do you mean?"

"So Gaara had a crappy past, what excuse do the rest of you have for what you did?" She asked him.

He continued to look put off by her inquiry. "I thought you knew the reason-"

"I know you wanted it to look like a pirate raid, but that just doesn't justify it to me."

"Look, I'm sorry for the damage we caused. It was wrong to cause all the harm that we did. But it was the best plan we could think of at the time. We needed our true purpose to remain hidden. When we get to Heilig we can send money and assistance to the island," Kankuro told her.

That seemed like slapping a bandage on the wound while the wound could have been avoided in the first place. But it was good of him to offer, and she understood more about why they did it. A pirate raid would make sense if they didn't want word to get out about their true intentions. But still…

"Hey guys," Tenten announced as she walked in. "We're here, we're at Heilig."