AUTHOR'S NOTE: Hands-down the most psychologically disturbing chapter I've written so far. Like, I might even have to rate some parts of it M (let me know right away if you think I need to, don't wanna be banned from fanfiction)…It's my favorite chapter (tells you a lot about me, doesn't it?) Be warned…

Chapter 12—The Real Monster

Twenty-four hours.

He had twenty-four hours to pass or fail. Twenty-four hours to prove his worth. Twenty-four hours to live or die.

He used the first ten seconds to scream the anguish and despair of his soul into the frigid desert night. The piercing sound of his own voice penetrated his own consciousness, but he couldn't be sure if it was real or not, because there were no other ears to hear his outcry. The round moon sat forlornly and unaffected in the sky.

After thirty minutes and seventeen seconds and much frantic scrambling, he realized that he was truly alone. He ran and ran and ran and ran under the guidance of the directionless moon, stumbling upon dune after dune of shifting sand that always seemed to carry him back to the same place and no closer to Sunagakure than he had ever been.

After one hour, fifty-three minutes and thirty-nine seconds, he decided to follow the moon. The eerie white orb that was so close and yet so far away, forever in view and eternally out of reach. It was the source of his wakefulness, his hope and his crushed dreams, his lucidity and his insanity, the source of his answers that never answered him. He called to it and swam in the seas of sand basked in moonlight.

After three hours, eight minutes and twenty-two seconds, the ghostly white sand beneath his fingers slipped away to give way to a glowing orange. His energy and zeal slipped away with it. The moon was finally abandoning him over the flat, hopeless horizon, and the unfamiliar sun promised pain even through its first rays.

After six hours, thirty-five minutes and one second, his raw throat stopped screaming because of pain and thirst. He had tears in his eyes, because it felt as if coarse sand had engraved bloody scars of agony in his vocal cords. The anguish in his mind hollered louder.

After eight hours, fifty-nine minutes and forty-five seconds, he was betrayed by his empty stomach as he felt it crush itself from the inside. The acidic bile that rose from inside him stung his throat and he fled, in a frenzy, the wretched spot on which he'd stained the sand.

After ten hours, nine minutes and thirteen seconds, he clawed at his eyes as the unobstructed desert attempted to blind him. He bowed his head and debased his quivering body to the unforgiving sun that sat high in its throne in its endless kingdom in the sky. Its power spilled into the glaring, bright yellow sand and attempted to drown him, trap him, in a bright prison where even his closed eyelids couldn't protect him from the cruel light. The sun was uncompassionate, and not even for a second would it relent in meting out his punishment.

After eleven hours, forty-nine minutes and twenty-seven seconds, he realized that he was not alone, after all. The angry sun continued to flog him with its rays, the heat continued to drown him without relief, the stinging sand attempted to devour his skin, and the wind clawed at his body and at his mind, willing him to a place he didn't want to go. He was not alone, but he was lonely. Isolated. Not alone.

After fourteen hours, sixteen minutes and twelve seconds, he realized that the desert was a monster. Its sole purpose of existence was the promise of demise and the "liberation of pain and death". Those who met the desert either left it, scarred or dead, or never did. It discriminated no one, for it hated all. Killing was not enough for it. It peeled off a person's layers, one by one, until the person's body was scattered across the desert sandscape and his soul ironically caged by the sands that always shifted. He felt his own body manifest itself in the desperate sands that devoured his soul.

After fifteen hours, thirty-three minutes and eighteen seconds, the desert finished chewing him and now prepared to swallow him in its burning, blinding, brightness. He shivered, a ghastly creature in the sand, quaking from the heat that consumed the outside of him and the cold that consumed the inside of him. He wanted to want to fight unconsciousness, but the sun had sucked him dry of water and spirit. He resigned himself to becoming an empty shell of sand, floating in the dry sea.

The insane didn't sleep, and the desert's wretched prisoner was now condemned to the torture of never sleeping. His dull teal eyes had been removed of everything but a faint memory of their color. Nothing changed when he closed his eyes, because vision, too, had been removed from them a long time ago.

The desert had done nothing but lock him in a prison inside himself. Now that that was done, the desert could begin. The prelude was complete, and now the living or dying would commence. That was up to Shikadai, of course, because the desert was a monster and would do nothing but kill.

"Why you…is this really the pathetic excuse of a son Temari raised? Is this really the state of the Kazekage Clan nowadays…? Goddamn…"

Black eyelids flew open, teal eyes leaving the bright, sunny nightmare in which they had been trapped and confronted with the sight of a dark, starry sky. The boy no longer had any concept of time.

In fact, he no longer had any concept of anything. He felt as if he had been jarred awake after ten lifetimes, and now was commencing his eleventh with no trace of memory the previous ten except for the emotional exhaustion and physical pain.

"Get up, you foolish child! At a time like this…"

That male voice. That voice was so terribly familiar, he thought. "Who are you?" he croaked, wincing as he used his raw voice. "Who am I?" he added as afterthought.

He listened as the voice cursed. "I said, get up, you fool! Aren't you even in the least bit concerned about what's happening to you?"

"What's happening to me…" he muttered tiredly, but shifted himself nonetheless to try to get up.

The boy froze. He knew he was lying in the sand, but the small movement of his body suddenly made him hypersensitive. He peeled himself up off the ground, frowning at the way his clothes clung to him. It was too dry for him to be sweating, so…

Squelch

He heard the ground beneath him and it felt inexplicably warm. Night had already fallen, so what…?

He used one of his hands to support himself and immediately tensed up when it came in contact with something sticky. Suddenly anxious, he quickly got up off the ground and winced as he heard more squelching sounds beneath him. Cold sweat beaded on his temple as he stood there, facing the cold desert night.

Then he turned around to look.

There, in the sand, was a deep imprint where he had been lying. It looked like a snow angel, but in sand.

And that sand angel was filled to the brim with blood.

"Ahhh—oh my god." He started hyperventilating. "Oh my god, oh my god, oh my—"

In his panic, he brought his hands up to his head and harshly tugged at his hair, remembering too late the sticky substance he'd felt when he'd hoisted himself up. He'd smothered blood all over his hair.

He started down at his hands, mouth open with terror. Tainted hands, they were, that marred and dirtied everything they touched, including himself.

"Ahh-!" he screamed again, the rawness of his throat the least of his concerns now. "Oh my god, oh god, god-!"

"Shut up and make yourself useful!" the voice reprimanded sternly.

The boy blinked once or twice, momentarily distracted as a name for the voice surfaced in his mind. "…Rasa?"

"Hmph."

He remembered Rasa. He was mean. He never had anything nice to say to him and was always scolding and expressing disbelief at his incompetence, but there was always an underlying current of care and concern under that hard tone.

But the boy didn't care about hidden care or concern or worry. Rasa's meanness made him want to cry, made him feel pathetic. "K-k-k-k-ka…K-karu—"

"Speak clearly, boy!"

"K-k-karu…K-Karura."

"Karura?" Rasa sounded surprised for several moments. "Hn. She's not here." The stern, unmovable tone was back.

But the boy didn't care. He wanted Karura. He wanted her kindness, her assurance. "Karura…" he continued to implore.

"I said she's not here! You have to make yourself worthy if you want her presence! Now get out of here, start moving!" Rasa screamed.

"You're scary," the boy whispered, but he had no desire to stay near his bloodstained silhouette in the sand, either. He obeyed Rasa and started running, the sound of the mean man's voice acting as guidance.

He ran and ran, eyes screwed shut because he was in the middle of nowhere in the flat desert and there was no need to watch out for obstacles. Or rather, they entire desert was one, huge, impossible obstacle.

Huff, huff. With eyes still squeezed shut, the boy leaned on his knees, body bent and panting harshly. "Did I run…far enough…away…Rasa…?" he asked, breathing heavily.

He allowed his eyes to open, only to jump in fear when he saw vermilion once again.

His voice caught in his throat as he looked at the bloody trail. His footprints shouldn't have left such clear tracks in the dry, shifting sand, but on the path behind him on which he'd just run were very clear impressions of his sandals. And each one of them was filled with sticky, red blood.

He stared back down at his own two feet and found them standing in two pools of crimson, the vile liquid oozing around the edges.

In horrified curiosity, he lifted one foot and set it down on the dry, unmarred sand in front of him. When he lifted his foot once again, the sand was no longer unmarred.

He twisted his ankle upwards to get a good look at the soles of his sandals. To his surprise, they were completely clean and dry, if not for a few grains of sand stuck between the crevices. Confused, he ran a finger along the bottom of his shoe, only to have it return wet and dripping.

He gagged at the blood on his fingers and quickly leaned down to rake his hands in the sand to get the warm stickiness off. To his horror, his hands left bloody rivers of crimson in their wake in the sand.

He realized what was happening. Everything he touched was turning into blood.

"Rasa!" he cried. The man was mean, and the boy would rather have Karura for comfort, but he was scared out of his mind and he needed company. Some other company than the warm, deadly elixir of life that was not his own but oozing out of his body and touch nonetheless.

He was answered by the wind's silent rustling.

"Rasa? Rasa!" No reply. The boy started to sob. He wanted to escape—to flee from the source of all this blood. But he was the source of the blood—anything he touched turned to the red essence. Yeah, he wanted to run away from himself. The hot tears that slid down his cheeks made him shudder even more, because they felt too much like blood. And he couldn't wipe his tears away, either, not with his tainted hands. He couldn't escape but he started to run anyway, his frenetic fleeing turning into staggering as he continued to wail and run about in his shortness of breath.

He wasn't running in any direction, because direction didn't exist in the desert. The glowing moon sat in the lonely sky over the lonely sky, like a silent, watchful eye observing his every move.

He was about ready to collapse when he stopped again, breathing heavily into the frigid night air. He couldn't keep his eyes closed forever, and he was too tired to keep them closed. So he opened them.

To his pleasant surprise, his footsteps were no longer laced with blood. With a leaping heart, he looked down at his two palms—clean and dry. But were they really, or was this a deception…?

He didn't have time to ponder further. From somewhere behind him, he heard the voice of a young girl. "Hey Shikadai!" she called.

Shikadai…? the boy thought. I've heard this name before…I'm sure I know this person…somewhere…

"C'mon, Shikadai, let's go play." This time, it was the voice of a timid young boy.

Shikadai…Shikadai…Shikadai…his brain scrambled to connect that name with a face, an identity.

The boy jolted with sudden realization when he made the connection. Shikadai! That was his name, wasn't it! I'm Shikadai! Someone is calling to me!

"C'mon, lazy butt!" It was the girl again. "We don't have all day you know."

He opened his mouth to respond, but before any sound came out, another voice beat him. "Yeah, yeah, coming, coming," said yet another young male voice, dripping with sarcasm and exasperation. "Sheesh, you two. Troublesome."

He frowned. The boy and girl had been calling to him, right? So why had someone else answered? And why was that someone else's voice so familiar?

He pried at his brain. That lazy tone, that annoyed flair…the voice's evident youth. The speaker couldn't have been more than five or six. Shikadai realized, with a jolt as recognized where he'd heard those voices before, that he had just heard a conversation between his younger self and a younger Chouchou and Inojin.

He frowned, wondering why the hell he would be hearing a conversation from his younger days at this place of all times. He'd heard them speaking from somewhere behind him, so he turned around to look. And he saw—

Konohagakure?!

He was just outside the village gates, grand and tall, the triangular-and-swirly symbol of the Leaf emblazoned proudly on the façade. It was a perfect, immaculate picture of his home village—

And everything was wrong.

For one, the Konohagakure sky was never cloudless. The sky behind the sprawling city was now stark and bare, making the pale city a shock against its uniformly dark backdrop.

Secondly, Konohagakure was a very colorful city. Mismatched, if not random, colors emerged from the different and altogether varying buildings. But this Konohagakure had only one color. It was the color of sand.

Thirdly, Konohagakure was never silent. There was always a bustling body or two or hundred—especially at the village entrance, where he was now. But this Konohagakure was bustling with the noise of silence. The lack of movement, of activity, of humanity—made this place as foreign to Shikadai as Amegakure, even if he did recognize the village walls and symbol.

Feeling apprehensive, he took tentative steps forward toward the gates of Konohagakure. He peered inside. Everything was as it should be—and as it shouldn't be, for eerily deathly silence stagnated in the air. Kotetsu and Izumo's normal place was empty.

He turned his head several inches to the left, and was suddenly bombarded by a stench so strong that he doubled over and retreated several steps backward. Clasping his hand over his nose, he looked back into the empty village of Konoha, much more apprehensively this time, because that smell had scared him. It had smelled like—

Death.

The procession in his chest was speeding up, and he felt the thump thump thump of his heart hard against his ribcage. Nevertheless, he got up, and suddenly felt a magnetic pull on his body towards those pale, eerie village gates once more, the stench of death no less prominent. He looked above the "village" and saw the moon hanging in the sky, a cursed orb drawing him in with its power, coaxing him against his will.

He dragged his feet along the sand, not really wanting to go into "Konoha" but feeling like he had to. He wrapped his arms around himself and whimpered. He hesitantly looked up to the moon and saw it burning brighter than ever. "Stop…stop…" he pleaded to it. "I…don't want to go in there. I don't want to die…"

"Hmph."

He stiffened. The sound of yet another voice was enough for him to overcome the moon's pull—if only just momentarily.

"I'm not going to kill you." In an undertone was added the word, "yet."

This new voice…it wasn't just a voice; it came with a presence. Shikadai knew that once he turned around, he would find out who it belonged to, because he could feel someone standing behind him. It was a voice laced with lethality, and although it had been used to assure Shikadai that it would not kill him, it made Shikadai more frightened than the prospect of death. Low and gravelly...he'd heard this voice before, too. It was too familiar to him for comfort, yet so foreign to him as to wipe any inkling of its origin from his mind.

Shikadai commanded his feet to move, and with stiff, jerky movements, he turned his entire body around.

The white moon basked the pale figure before him in an ethereal light, and Shikadai couldn't help but gasp when he saw it.

Sparkling, unmarred, untouched alabaster skin. Hair the stark color of blood rustling in the wind. Bangs parted sharply at the left side of the forehead. A firm mouth drawn in a taut line. A dark getup furnished with flowing sashes. Tightly folded crossed arms. A bold, shocking crimson 愛. Tanuki-like rings surrounding sea-foam green eyes.

It was a boy. He looked no older than twelve—he was most likely no older than Shikadai himself. But the boy was much thinner and much shorter. The oversized gourd on his back was bigger than its carrier.

Shikadai remembered that Uncle Gaara's eyes had seen all the darkness in the world. Now Shikadai knew from where Uncle Gaara had seen it: in his own eyes, because the pale aquamarine eyes of the boy before him held nothing but darkness and evil.

Shikadai had always thought of human beings as sources of warmth. Surely, then, this creature before him was not human, for just looking at him sent frigid chills through Shikadai's veins.

No wonder Shikadai had heard this voice before. It was his uncle's—but it wasn't really, was it? This was a twelve-year-old Gaara, and at this point, Gaara wasn't his uncle yet. He'd but spoken a few words—but each word was a whispered curse of a demon, heavy with the weight of pain and insanity.

For a moment, Shikadai looked at the familiar shade of hair and eyes, and thought of nothing but one word: monster.

But after that initial moment, memories of his uncle came flooding back to him. The older version of this boy that he'd grown up with. The respected Kazekage whom he loved and admired. The beloved uncle who'd betrayed him and left him to die stranded in the middle of the desert.

He shivered and wondered how in the world the two could have possibly ever been the same person, and which version of his uncle was worse.

He looked back at the boy in front of him, and although he knew his name, Shikadai realized he didn't really know who this child was at all.

Yes you do, Shikadai reminded himself, unbidden and to his own dismay. This is the demon Ryomen told you about. The one created by the Fourth Kazekage. The one that plagued Sunagakure's days and nights. You wondered about it and you've met it at last.

The name Ryomen was still unwelcome in his head, and even though the dead man's words were being proved true right before Shikadai's eyes—this boy was indeed a monster—Shikadai couldn't help but reject them. I don't know anything about him yet, so I shouldn't judge. I should find out, he resolved to himself firmly. And no way in hell is he an it. He's just like me. A monster.

With this in mind, he met the crimson-haired boy's eyes confidently. Shikadai realized that this gourd-wielding child was simply a more seasoned monster than he was, for he could tell he'd already let go of all human attachments. But on the basic levels, they were the same. Fear still thrummed steadily through Shikadai's veins, but he allowed the thick barrier between himself and the boy to drop. "What's your name?" he asked lowly, even though he knew the answer, but waiting with heavy anticipation for the answer all the same.

The redheaded boy was silent for a long time. He moved his head a nearly undetectable millimeter, piercing through the teal of Shikadai's eyes as if he knew that Shikadai knew his name but was asking anyway. Then and now, it seemed, whether young or adolescent or adult…those sea-foam green eyes always knew everything.

"Sabaku no Gaara," the boy answered nonetheless. Shikadai shivered at the thrill of hearing that silkily coarse voice once again—but he was slowly leaving the throes of fear. The fact that Gaara had already assured he wouldn't kill him—and the fact that they were now engaging in conversation, tense as it was, was helping Shikadai relate to him more and more. Others might, but he was coming to realize that he had nothing to fear against this Sabaku no Gaara. For now, anyway.

"Gaara," Shikadai greeted, testing the name out on his tongue. It did not feel strange to be addressing his uncle by name alone, without "Uncle" attached to the front of it, because this Gaara was not Uncle Gaara. To keep his mind from bursting from over-confusion, he classified them as two different beings. Besides, this Gaara was too young to be anybody's uncle. He was probably younger than Shikadai was right now. "I'm Shikadai," he introduced himself.

"I know," Gaara quickly growled in return.

Shikadai hesitantly raised an eyebrow. "How?"

If possible, the sea-foam green eyes blazed with an even greater intensity, leaving Shikadai to wonder how such a cool color could burn like the sun. They never left Shikadai's teal ones as the tight mouth opened and replied, "We are the same."

Shikadai felt all the fear he felt for Gaara drain out of him to be replaced by wariness. Gaara had acknowledged himself that they were the same—both of them wretched creatures. Those who are the same should have nothing to fear of each other. "Is that why you're not going to kill me?"

Gaara's eyes hardened. "You're still useful to me yet."

"…Am I…?" Shikadai questioned. "What for?"

Gaara's eyes finally left his to look at the village standing behind him. He gestured to it with a small movement of his head.

Shikadai turned to look behind him at the city of Konoha once again. "Konoha? What about it?"

"There's something we both desire in there." Gaara's fists clenched and his ringed eyes suddenly widened marginally. His lips still barely moved, but his voice was significantly raised, giving it a mad edge, "There's something in there we both desire to destroy!"

Gaara's sudden excitement sped up Shikadai's heartbeat, and he tried to subtly catch his breath. He felt the cold sweat prickling the back of his neck and he, too, clenched his fists, but not out of excitement but out of anxiety.

"I want to see it from the inside out!" Gaara exclaimed.

"What is 'it'?" Shikadai breathed in a low whisper.

The answer did not come immediately. Instead, a throaty, scratchy chuckle permeated the air. A slow, deliberate sound of amusement. Shikadai couldn't help but think that Gaara's laughter sounded extremely creepy and disturbing.

Finally: "Humanity."

A cruel smirk was twisted Gaara's pale lips, but as the high of his excitement passed, Shikadai watched as the smirk faded and the twisted lips fell back into a tight, straight line. The gleam in the dangerous pale green eyes receded and hardened over once more.

Then Gaara began to walk forward. He dragged his feet while he walked, his sandals not leaving the ground until the very last moment and falling heavily back down into the sand as he took his next step. Slow, deliberate steps that made small clouds of dust rise up from the sandy ground. Step. Step. Step. Shikadai watched as Gaara approached him—and walked right past him, the edge of his gourd ghosting past, but not touching, Shikadai's shoulder.

Fear leapt back at his heart when Gaara started to leave him behind, and alone, and, suddenly desperate, Shikadai cried, "Gaara—wait!" his hand reaching out in attempt to grab Gaara's shoulder.

His fingertips were a centimeter away from the white sash draped across Gaara's shoulder when a ribbon of sand suddenly latched onto his forearm, coiling tightly around his appendage. Still, Shikadai felt no fear except for that of Gaara leaving him alone.

Gaara hadn't even moved when the sand had reacted and burst out of his gourd—Shikadai couldn't see his face. He held his breath as the head of shaggy red hair slowly began to turn.

Shikadai expected to see anger or offense etched onto Gaara's pale face—he had, after all, tried to grab him—but there was nothing but impassiveness. The sand was still wrapped around Shikadai's arm when Gaara stated, in a quiet voice, "You wanted to touch me."

For a split second, the hard shell covering those ringed eyes dissolved. Shikadai gulped.

But it was just for a split second, and the eyes were twice as hard when the coldness returned to them. The sand abruptly let go of Shikadai and slithered back into the gourd. "I said I wouldn't kill you. But I have no qualms about hurting you. Don't step out of line." Gaara turned once more and continued walking.

Shikadai released the breath he didn't know he was holding—before realizing once more that Gaara was walking away from him. Shikadai shuffled to catch up with him. "Where are you going?" he asked.

Gaara did not stop walking or even turn to look at Shikadai this time. He must be impatient with me, Shikadai thought.

"Isn't it obvious?" Gaara growled.

And it was. Gaara was obviously determinedly trudging towards the gates of Konoha.

Feeling like he had no choice, Shikadai followed Gaara. He decided to join him by his side so he would not be trailing him like a lost puppy—and so that he could see Gaara's face, in hopes of finding the smallest inclination of what the boy might be thinking. But here was yet another similarity between this Gaara and the Gaara Shikadai knew—their faces never revealed anything.

Shikadai glanced down at Gaara, again made acutely aware of their difference in height. "It smells terrible—i-in there."

"That's how the sand is supposed to smell," Gaara answered cryptically.

What the hell is that supposed to mean? Shikadai decided not to press further, so he would have an excuse for not knowing what Gaara meant.

They entered the utterly colorless city. It really was made entirely of sand, Shikadai observed. But the details—the patterns on the pavement, the cracks along the wall—were so entirely congruous with the actual Konoha's that Shikadai doubted he wasn't really in Konoha after all—just Konoha with all of its life and color leeched out of it.

Shikadai noted how Gaara walked through the empty streets of Konoha like he knew them. Not for even a moment did the redheaded boy hesitate in his journey. Shikadai wondered if Gaara had a destination, but didn't open his mouth to ask. No, he wasn't afraid of Gaara. But he was wary of him.

Step. Step. Step. Their footsteps echoed in throughout the sandy walls of the empty Leaf Village. It was so deathly silent that each footfall reverberated in Shikadai's brain like thunder.

Shikadai then took it upon himself to take a look at his surroundings him. Konoha was his home village after all; he ought to recognize where he was going, rather than follow a foreign Suna-nin around. He was surprised when they passed the façade of a familiar dango shop…turned right at the corner…

And there it was—at the end of the street. The Nara Clan Compound.

Mom! Dad!

His breath hitched loudly and he turned to look at Gaara in alarm—did Gaara know where they were headed? Did he know they were nearing Shikadai's home? But Gaara kept his faithful, metronomic procession forward—step. Step. Step.

Shikadai was much too distracted to keep his attentions on Gaara for much longer, however, and he subtly picked up his pace, his eyes glued to the façade of the Nara Clan Compound, the place his mother and father were waiting for him—he just knew it—

Step. Step. Stop.

An eerie pause in the consistent sound of Gaara's footsteps was what made Shikadai stop his mad dash for his house and turn back to see what his short companion was doing. He stopped short when he saw Gaara with one hand pressed firmly against a sandy white wall, whilst his head was hanging, face parallel to the ground and hidden from Shikadai's view. The stark, crimson mop of hair was all Shikadai could see.

"Um…Gaara?" Shikadai asked cautiously. "Are you okay?"

When Gaara made no inclination of hearing him, Shikadai took a step towards him. "Gaara—"

"It's so pure…"

"Huh?"

Gaara's next words made Shikadai realize that it wasn't him who was being spoken to. "Do you see it, Mother? So pale, and white, and pure…do you see the way it glows under the full moon? Sparkles with innocence…" Gaara's breath started to speed up, becoming audible. "Do you feel it, Mother? The sand is so cold and smooth…it pulses with innocence beneath our hands…isn't it beautiful? This sand is still untainted and untouched…untainted and untouched and pure and beautiful…it's the perfect canvas—the perfect—canvas!" Gaara was starting to pant now. "This is all for you, Mother; tonight, the white moonlit sand will be painted with such pretty colors…tonight, we'll make the blank canvas come alive…we'll splatter these white, pure, innocent walls with pretty colors…don't you love the color red, Mother? I know you love the color red, Mother, I remember…we'll paint this white village red…we'll bathe the clean white sand in crimson, just you wait…we'll soak this untouched village with blood…their blood, so warm and wet against the cold, cold sand...our prey is waiting, let's watch them rain and splatter for us…will you drink it in, Mother—drink it all in? Drowning…in crimson ecstasy!" Gaara lifted his head, and Shikadai took a step backward when he saw the crazed eyes, the gorged veins along the whites of eyes of with dilated pupils, the baring of teeth in a half-snarl, half-grin…Gaara's entire body was moving from the exertion of his now heavy panting. Bloodshot, aquamarine eyes stared straight at Shikadai as the grinning mouth started to yell. "Drinking and drowning in the crimson ecstasy of sin and we'll rip the screams out from their throats and the prey will shatter the silence it will be so so loud Mother have you ever heard such a beautiful sound of pure agony? And their beautiful red blood will coat the walls of this clean clean village and then it won't be so clean anymore and we'll mark this place curse it—curse it with our existence...we'll rip off their limbs and tear out their eyes and we'll see it all from the inside and the cold corpses will pile high in a funeral pyre and the red red red blood will come raining down you'll feel it Mother it'll coat our hands, our tainted hands…it's going to spill out in a flood of ecstasy and the moon will shine upon the running red blood like rivers on the village walls and in the sand and it will flow and feed its source, Mother, it will taste so sweet and so good, Mother, sooooo gooooood..."

"AHHHHH!"

Shikadai nearly jumped out of his skin at the scream, and his heartbeat sped up to the point it almost became a constant, thundering drone. At the same time, Gaara wildly threw his head back and started laughing, his entire tiny body convulsing from the jerky movement.

The scream ended, but Gaara's twisted laughter continued to ring in the air like a broken siren. Shikadai felt himself shaking uncontrollably, and, in a quivering mess, turned to the source of the scream, which had come from behind him—

"A-a-a M-M-M-MONSTER!"

Shikadai jumped yet again as he confronted the screaming person. It was a young girl with short, dark hair, perhaps five or six years old—she stood just outside the Nara Clan Compound. Shikadai recognized her as one of his distant relatives—a fellow clan member he saw perhaps once or twice a year at Nara Clan gatherings or in the vicinity of the Compound. Altogether insignificant in his life. He wondered what she was doing here now, and took in her appearance: the little girl was a splash of shocking color—a splotch of life—among the mundane uniformity of the village. Her feet were bare in the sand and she was wearing a long, peach nightgown. One of her hands was clutched tightly around a teddy bear. The other was stretched out in front of her, a tiny finger pointing at the object of her fear. Shikadai followed the direction of her finger with his eyes and ended up looking down at himself. Me. She's afraid of me.

Shikadai looked into her wide, brown eyes dilated with pure terror, and in turn, Shikadai felt his own heart twist with horror within him. She's not a monster, so why am I afraid of her? he asked himself. Because she's not a monster—that's why I'm afraid. I am and she isn't. We're different.

But Shikadai couldn't help but wonder why the girl was pointing exclusively at him—and not at Gaara. It was, after all, Gaara who had just given an insane speech about strewing blood and bodies around the village, not Shikadai. Gaara who was still chortling maniacally while Shikadai trembled in evident distress. Is it so obvious already? That I'm a monster? he thought.

As if reading his thoughts, Gaara chuckled from somewhere behind him. "You see…Shikadai Nara…humans are shallow creatures…they fear only the…immediate…source of their…misery…."

Loud whimpering and sniffling distracted Shikadai once again from the crazed Gaara—and, to be honest, he didn't even want to begin to attempt to interpret what the cryptic redhead meant. He turned his attention back to the girl, noticing how she flinched when his gaze landed on her, as if his eyes alone were enough to hurt her. She attempted to scramble backwards and away from the one she perceived as a monster, but ended up tripping over her own nightgown, landing on her bottom in the sand.

"Hey," Shikadai cooed, unsure of what he was doing or for what purposes he was reaching out to this little Nara girl. "What's wrong?"

The girl's response was a shriek and she began to scoot try to scoot backwards.

Shikadai frowned as he saw this and he took a step forward. "Stop scooting away," he commanded. "Tell me your name."

"N-n-no…nooooo…" the girl disobeyed.

"Tell me your name."

"No-o…please, g-go away, go a-a-away…."

Shikadai's response to that was to take yet another step forward. "Tell me your name," he repeated.

"M-m-mommy…Dad-d-dy…someb-body, someone…p-p-please! Help…help me…I'm s-s-scared-d-d…"

Shikadai felt his frustration peak. He strode meaningfully towards the girl until she was completely consumed by his overbearing shadow. "I. Said. Tell me. Your name!"

The girl screamed and hid behind her teddy bear as when she heard Shikadai raise his voice. She shuddered violently; it was like fear was playing her like an instrument and causing her to vibrate with a note of despair. "N-no…g-go away…someone…g-get it away…it…it…i-i-i-it's a m-mons-ster…!"

Something inside Shikadai snapped and he suddenly lunged towards the girl. He wasn't really sure of his own intentions, but all he knew was that this girl in front of him scared and disturbed him and that she was different from him and Gaara and that all he'd asked was for her fucking name and she'd disobeyed his orders and called him a monster and an it—

"Do it!" Gaara shrieked from behind him. "You must do it, Shikadai Nara-! That look of fear in her eyes shall stain the sand, immortalized till the end of time!"

In the back of his mind, Shikadai wondered do what but then his fingers wrapped around the girl's tiny neck and all of his thoughts were washed cleanly from his mind. Yes, in fact, it seemed that he had lost all ability to see or do or hear in that moment and given way to the sole capability to feel—

After a few moments, he became aware of a terrible, piercing sound that split the desert night like a knife and rattled his eardrums—and he realized it was the sound of his own screaming. The hand that was wrapped around the girl's little neck felt as if it had been thrust onto a red-hot furnace: it was as if her skin was the hot boiling cauldrons of hell itself. He tried to remove his hand, attempting to jerk his hand away, but found that it stuck to the little girl's flesh as if it each and every one of his fingers had been nailed onto her throat. He screamed his heart out.

It seemed as if the girl was experiencing the same pain as he was, for her eyes were so wide they were ready to pop out and her mouth was open in an agonized scream. Behind them, Gaara laughed even louder, the only pause to his amusement being when he loudly sucked in a breath to laugh even more. Together, they sang their dissonant chorus of cacophony, agony, and insanity into the silent night air of Konohagakure.

But then something happened, and Shikadai nearly forgot his pain and screaming in favor of the sight before him burning itself into his eyes. He was utterly repulsed and horrified, but his eyes were as transfixed to the little girl before him as his hand was her neck—or what was left of her neck, anyway, because right underneath Shikadai's grasp, right between his fingers, the little girl's flesh was melting right off her bones. He felt the flesh shift and soften beneath him and turn into a mucky, sticky, red liquid that slid down her body like mud, feeding into a thick puddle of blood at their feet and flooding over his sandals and in between his toes.

Her head—her face, her nose, her mouth, her eyes—split apart right before his eyes and out oozed the mucky vermilion substance now pooling on the ground. Shlick—he heard as her melted flesh slid off of her body—shlap—he heard as the essence of her body slapped the sand in thick goops.

He stared at the two gaping holes where her eyes should have, but now he was gazing into the endless depths of her fleshless, ghostly white skull. His fingers were wrapped around the neck of her skeleton. He gasped and choked on air, suddenly remembering to move. He released his grip on her neck, and now that all of her skin had melted away, he easily retracted his hand. Without anything holding it up any longer, the girl's skeleton fell in a heap of bones in the puddle of her own melted corpse.

"Oh, my god—" Shikadai uttered. Shakily, he brought his palm upwards before his eyes, and every inch of it was slathered with warm crimson.

He had killed her.

Flicking his eyes downward, he found that one thing had escaped the wrath of melting flesh and blood and bones, after all: the girl's teddy bear. It lay neatly on top of her unrecognizable carcass like an uncanny, ironic, mockingly innocent decoration.

"Oh my god—" he repeated—

"Akiko? Akiko!" A woman suddenly rushed out of the Nara Compound, startling Shikadai. Her deranged eyes caught sight of the blood puddle and skeleton in front of Shikadai. "AKIKO!" So Akiko had been her name? Why had he wanted to know, anyway? "My daughter…my baby, my darling…NO!"

The pain and anguish radiating off of this woman in great powerful waves was so powerful—and so scary, for Shikadai, anyway, that he started retreating backwards. His bloodied sandals left red imprints in the sand leading away from the scene of the crime. Shikadai caught sight of the eyes of the girl's mother and immediately regretted it. They were not filled with agony—they were agony. The power of the mother's pain was so great that Shikadai felt himself hurting, and he clutched the part of him that hurt the most—his heart.

An animalistic, inhuman howl released itself, and Shikadai thought that even Ryomen's excruciating cries when he'd sawed his arm off couldn't compare—because this woman's pain was greater than Ryomen's. Her tears were for another human, for the blood of another—and this fact scared Shikadai more than the pure hatred that had been directed towards him in Ryomen's eyes.

Shikadai found himself scrambling backwards faster and even more desperately, but was stopped when his back collided with something and he fell onto his bottom with an "oof!"

Bewildered, he looked up, but his blood immediately ran cold when he saw that the something he'd collided into was Gaara, and that the boy was now leaning over him with a manic grin of sick glee etched into his face, his heavy breath only inches from Shikadai's face and blowing hot air into Shikadai's eyes. Before Shikadai knew what was happening, an arm of sand had wrapped itself around his torso and yanked him upwards to his feet, pushing him away from Gaara and back towards the corpse whose mother was grieving it. The ecstatic smile remained unmoved on the wide-eyed face of Sabaku no Gaara.

"No—Gaara-!" Shikadai yelled as he felt himself being thrusted forward. His protest was fruitless, however, and he landed right in front of the bloody skeleton.

As if sensing someone in front of her, the mother's broken eyes looked up and found a black-haired, teal-eyed monster. Shikadai stopped breathing as the woman's gaze continued to bore into him for many long moments, the air between them thick to the point of stifling.

Suddenly, another look hardened over the dark eyes of the woman: hatred. Shikadai had seen this look before in the ocean-blue eyes of Ryomen, but they were coupled with agony and grief in this woman. He nearly screamed just at the look the woman was giving him itself.

"You…" she snarled. "YOU!" The woman suddenly leapt up onto her feet. "You…you touched her, didn't you?! You touched her, you touched my Akiko, you touched her…" The woman stepped around her daughter's body and started advancing upon Shikadai. "You hurt my Akiko, didn't you? It was you, wasn't it? You…" The woman suddenly sobbed. "YOU KILLED HER, YOU KILLED MY AKIKO!" she screeched. "My darling, my baby, my life…" the woman moaned. "You KILLED HER! YOU MONSTER!" The woman pulled her hair desperately, looking more and more crazed by the second. "You DEMON…you killed her! I'LL KILL YOU, YOU MONSTERRRRRR! I'll kill you for killing my Akiko!"

This time, it was the woman who lunged for Shikadai's throat, not the other way around. Shikadai was so stunned that he didn't even react when the woman's hands closed in upon his throat.

And in the next moment, he was screaming once again, because that blinding, white-hot pain he'd felt on his hand now seemed to be incinerating his neck—it seemed as if this happened every time he made skin-to-skin direct contact with anyone. He remembered what had happened to Akiko Nara when he tried to strangle her, and Shikadai wondered if the same was going to happen to him—if his flesh was going to melt right off of his bones. He felt something warm and sticky engulfing his neck, and in agony and fear his eyes rolled to the back of his head while he choked.

But after several moments of feeling very much alive, Shikadai opened his eyes again and saw that what had happened to Akiko was again happening to her mother—even though her mother was the initiator of the strangling this time. The hands tightly wrapped around Shikadai's neck started oozing with crimson, and the boy watched in horror as the woman lost consciousness and slumped forward on top of him, her flesh sliding off of her body all the same. Before long, nothing but a bony skeleton still held Shikadai's neck in a chokehold, but all of the bloody, gory, melted flesh of the woman had fallen straight onto Shikadai's body. He was now completely soaked in blood from the neck down.

Shikadai quickly took a step backwards and the woman's hollow skeleton dislodged itself from his body, falling in heap next to the bones of her daughter.

The sound of his own breathing had all of a sudden become too loud. It was the sole sound still permeating the air, for the agonized screaming had ceased, Gaara's laughing had—

Shikadai jumped when he looked to his side and suddenly found the shorter boy standing next to him. He hadn't even noticed Gaara move. Shikadai studied the redhead closely, unsure of what he was thinking. Only moments ago, Gaara had been in the throes of sick euphoria, but now, he had resumed his passive, statuesque, foreboding expression.

Shikadai jumped again when the cork of Gaara's gourd popped open. He watched with apprehension as the grainy sand slithered out of the large container on the boy's back, but was still unprepared when a coil of sand wrapped around his own bloody collar and yanked downwards, forcing him to kneel next to the dead bodies.

"So much blood…it's so sweet, Shikadai Nara…" Gaara rasped.

The sand around Shikadai's collar suddenly yanked him forward harshly, and in the next moment, Shikadai's senses were overflown with something sharp and metallic. The crimson heat nearly consumed him, and he realized that Gaara had forced his face into the bloody gore, so now not only was his entire body dripping with blood, but his mouth, nose, and eyes were filled with it as well.

"This is the taste of power and insanity…if must feed us eternally for we crave it forever and it will...never…be…enough…" Gaara croaked.

Shikadai was doing all in his poor power to remove the disgusting substance from his face and mouth, but was having great difficulty, as not an inch of his skin remained clean and dry anymore.

The sand from Gaara's gourd slithered out over the dead corpses of Akiko Nara and her mother, and Shikadai watched as the sand scooped up the mess of blood and bones and started to grind and pulverize the skeletons into nothingness. The sand hovered in front of Gaara, now stained with death and the bodies of crushed human beings, and then slithered back into the gourd. Shikadai gasped, wondering how many other dead bodies joined the two in the large container on Gaara's back.

"The blood and tears…mingles with the sand that surrounds my body…it feeds my soul and makes me…stronger…" Gaara breathed.

"How can the Kazekage possibly be protecting the people of Suna when his sand is still soaked with the blood of their dead? How can my father and sister rest in peace when their corpses still lie within the sand that their murderer uses as his ultimate defense to protect himself, when he wears their dead bodies on his skin like armor?" Ryomen screamed in Shikadai's mind.

He stared in horror at Gaara, and Gaara stared back at him, the atmosphere between them cackling with unspoken tension.

The silence was that lingered in the air was meant to be broken, and when it did, it was broken with an explosion. Shikadai yelled out in surprise when, without prelude, the buildings around him—the entire village of Konohagakure—burst into trillions of grains of whirling sand that swept about him in a sandstorm tornado, completely blinding him from anything and everything, deafening him from all sounds except for the wild howling and screaming of the wind. He screwed his eyes shut—the sandstorm was so strong Shikadai wondered if it would completely tear his limbs apart, sucking in his body until he was nothing more than a few grains of sand amongst the trillions in the chaos. He wondered if this was what is was like to be inside a grinder—only this grinder was life-sized and much scarier, because it was the desert and the desert had no barriers, no walls.

As quickly as it had begun, the sandstorm ended, and Shikadai stumbled when the wind and sand flying around him abruptly ceased, the howling of the storm suddenly silenced. When he opened his eyes, he found a thick layer of dust hovering in the air, but he was still able to see through the haze, and what he saw was—

The ruins of a destroyed Konoha.

The scene before him hit him like a ton of stones, and he actually stumbled backwards in shock at the state of the village that was his home country. Had he spared his companion a look, he would have seen Gaara standing there looking as impassive as ever, but he was far too distracted to pay even the redheaded Suna ninja any heed. Instead, he took off in a wild run, searching for remnants of something—perhaps someone—that could be salvaged.

He ran and ran, his heart beating erratically within the confines of his rib cage. He heard the step step step step step of his footfalls as he ran past the crushed and demolished buildings of Konoha.

Step step step step step. He heard himself running. Step step step step step step step. He heard someone running beside him.

Without a second thought, Shikadai turned his head to see who it was running beside him, fully expecting it to be Gaara, since the short redhead had been his uncanny companion for most of the night already. He was not expecting to see what he did see, and so surprised—and terrified—was he, that he let out a loud yell and fell to the ground.

There were in fact two someones, not just one, but their running was so in sync that their footsteps sounded as one. One was taller, one was shorter, but they looked very much the same save the difference in height. They were clad in skin-tight green jumpsuits, their black hair trimmed neatly.

Only two people in the world would be running in such a disciplined manner, wearing such clothes—

Rock and Metal Lee.

Shikadai would have been very deeply disturbed that neither Lee was yelling "YOUTHHHHH!", pumping his fists in the air, swearing to run around Konoha one trillion times, or, at the very least, acknowledging Shikadai's presence and insisting he train with them, were it not for the fact that he was entirely too disturbed with something else. That something else was the fact that neither Lee even had a face—gaping, dripping bloody holes replaced their visages, and it looked as though something had torn their faces right off from their heads. Such an injury should have undoubtedly resulted in death, yet there they were—running, dead and robotic, leaving a trail of crimson in their wake, raw, bloody flesh replacing their nose, mouth, eyes, and bushy eyebrows, but running nonetheless. Upon closer inspection, Shikadai noticed that the left arm and leg of Rock Lee, the older of the two, seemed terribly mangled—the bones underneath his arm looked downright crushed, and it hung limply at his side.

From his position on the ground, Shikadai held his breath and stopped all movement, lest either of the faceless Lees "notice" him, if that were at all still possible, but they continued running past Shikadai, the rhythm of their footsteps dead and metronomic. Step step step step step. The sound faded away and the sight of the two Lees disappeared into the sandy fog hanging over Konoha.

Shikadai finally let out a strangled yell and finally scrambled up off his feet and began running again, this time in the opposite direction of the Lees—he had no desire to run into them again. He didn't even begin to try to interpret what he had just witnessed. He ran past broken boulders, halved buildings, piles of jagged debris, and stopped when he saw the cracked façade of a very familiar wall. It was adorned with a round fan that Shikadai remembered to be white and red, but neither of those colors showed in this sand-colored, uniform Konoha. Nevertheless, he could easily recognize the Uchiha Clan symbol.

Carefully, quietly, he slipped inside. To his grief, most of the Uchiha Clan Compound was demolished, and the dust inside it was thicker than outside, making it relatively difficult for Shikadai to see. He coughed several times from the debris, and, peeping one eye open, called, "Aunt..Sakura? Are you in here? It's me, Shikadai!" Silence answered him. "Aunt Sakura! Sarada? Hellooooo? Does anyone know what's going on? Sarada!"

He kicked a particularly large piece of debris on accident and nearly tripped. "Oof!" he cried, righting himself. However, as he recovered, he looked up and in front of him and nearly retched at the scene that greeted him.

The entire, debris-strewn area was splattered with blood. Dismembered, mutilated body parts were scattered about, but from the carnage it was obvious enough to glean that the remains belonged to a pink-haired woman and a black-haired girl.

Shikadai's vision suddenly blurred, the appalling crimson before his eyes shimmering. "Aunt Sakura…Sarada…"

He turned and ran again, searching frantically about in the other areas of the Uchiha Compound. "Mr. Uchiha!" he screamed. "MR. UCHIHA!" His calls went unanswered, and Sasuke Uchiha was nowhere to be found, no matter how hard Shikadai tried.

In a tearful frenzy, Shikadai fled the destroyed Uchiha Compound and ran through Konohagakure's streets once again, panting loudly as his tears slid down his cheeks and mingled with the blood that stained them. He passed the corner, and he saw a splotch of color in the butcher's shop. He ran to it, swiping his tears from his eyes so as to clear his vision, and when he did so, he couldn't help but fall to his knees.

It was common to see the sliced-open carcasses of skinned pigs or chickens hanging in front of the butcher's shop, but now, the four carcasses hanging in the front of the shop belonged to neither pig nor chicken. Strung up by their necks in the butcher's shop, naked, sliced open, and degradingly displayed, was none other than the Hokage's family: Uncle Naruto, Aunt Hinata, Boruto Uzumaki, and Himawari Uzumaki.

Shikadai let out a scream. "NOOOOO!" he shouted.

Turning once again, he sprinted, more frantic than ever, this time towards the Yamanaka Flower Shop. He could feel his heart in his throat as he ripped through the ruined streets, approached the shop, and slammed the door open. The moment he did so, however, his heart plummeted.

It seemed as if a tornado had visited the inside of the Yamanakas' shop; the flowers, which were, interestingly, colored and vibrant as ever, were strewn across the floor. However, splayed on the ground alongside the upturned pots of soil and uprooted plants were human bodies: he saw Aunt Ino, Uncle Sai, Uncle Chouji, Aunt Karui, Kurenai-sensei, and Mirai, blood and flowers decorating their corpses in death.

He choked on his own spit and what sounded like a cross between a gurgle and a shout escaped his lips.

He had no choice but to step over their bodies as he desperately searched the rest of the shop, but it was soon evident that it save six bodies, it was unoccupied. "Where are they?" he cried as he ran out of the shop.

"Where are you?" He ran and ran looking for them. He ran past a dark black stain on the ground, and only upon close inspection did he realize that it was a swarm of dead bugs. In the middle of the mound of insect bodies was Aburame-sensei…

"Where are you guys?" He still couldn't find them. He passed the cold, rotting corpse of a white dog, and as he continued to run he found corpse after corpse of dogs neatly lining the street. He ran, seeing dog after dog after dog after dog after dog after the cold, rotting corpse of Kiba Inuzuka…

"Are these what you're looking for?"

Shikadai whipped around, still panting, when he heard the cool, low, smooth voice of Sabaku no Gaara speaking to him once again.

Sabaku no Gaara was staring at him with an unreadable expression. The boy's pale arms were not crossed in front of his torso as usual, each one instead holding onto an object roughly the size of a head. In fact, the objects in Gaara's hands were not only the size of heads; they were heads.

Gaara held the decapitated heads of Inojin Yamanaka and Chouchou Akimichi as if they were mere souvenirs he had picked up at the tourist shop. Shikadai gaped at his two teammates, whose eyes were still wide open and the last moment of fear and terror still etched into the pale blue and golden eyes, respectively.

"What did you do?" Shikadai whispered.

"You were looking for these things, so I found them. Your running around was pathetic and a waste of time."

"No!" Shikadai shouted. "I mean what did you do to them?"

"I didn't do anything," Gaara informed him calmly. "You did this to them."

"What—"

BANG "Temari!"

Shikadai spun around at the noise and the outcry and was shocked to see himself back in front of the Nara Clan Compound. Even more shocking, however, was the fact that unlike the rest of Konoha, his home looked utterly perfect and untouched. He left Gaara and his two dead teammates behind and ran towards his house. He had very distinctly heard the voice of his father calling out to his mother.

"DAD!" Shikadai screamed, the torture and pain in his soul pouring forth in his voice.

"Shikamaru!" It was Temari's gruff voice! However, Shikadai couldn't remember ever hearing such desperation in his mother's voice before. "Shikamaru, get out of there! You still have time! Just go! I'll hold it off!"

"MOM!" Shikadai screamed.

"Dammit Temari!" Shikadai heard Shikamaru sob. "I'm not leaving you alone—where are you—just let me come to you—shit I can't get through-"

"Crybaby, you will leave this instant or I will pulverize you, you hear?" Temari's words sounded like the normal banter she usually had with Shikamaru, but her voice was shaky and undeniable pain laced it. "I don't want to see you right now—just go!"

"I'm coming Temari, I'm getting help, hold on, hold on—" Shikamaru pleaded. It sounded like he was crying. Very hard.

"MOM! DAD!" Shikadai burst through the front door of the Nara home.

There, standing a mere few feet in front of him, was Shikadai's mother.

Temari of the Sand, in her full kunoichi glory, her four ponytails sharp and glaring and her teal eyes even sharper. She was dressed in her battle gear, her Suna forehead protector tied tightly around her head, and she was holding her iron fan open to all three moons.

There was a full second of silence as Temari stared at Shikadai, and Shikadai stared at Temari. Then, from somewhere in the back of the house, Shikamaru cried, "TEMARI! WHAT WAS THAT?"

There was the banging and scrambling, and it sounded like Shikamaru was trying very hard—and failing—to reach them.

"It—" Temari began, her voice suddenly much softer and calmer. She looked at Shikadai straight in the eye. "It's the monster."

Temari's words struck Shikadai like a real blow, and he couldn't help but take a step backwards, away from his mother, as tears swarmed his eyes.

"Mom…" he whispered. "I'm not—"

-a monster, he was going to say, but he realized that he was, so he couldn't deny that, could he? "I'm, I'm, I'm…I'm Shikadai…! Don't you…remember…? Your…son…?"

"TEMARI! HOLD ON! I'M COMING! JUST HANG IN THERE, TEMARI, HANG IN THERE—"

"GODDAMMNIT, SHIKAMARU, HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU TO LEAVE ME THE HELL ALONE AND GET THE FUCK OUT OF HERE? I SAID, GO! WHAT DO YOU TAKE ME FOR, SOME WEAK WOMAN? I SAID I CAN TAKE IT! THIS IS MY FIGHT, FOR FUCK'S SAKE—J-JUST—LEAVE!"

Shikadai heard the crack in Temari's voice. "M-mom—" he tried again, but then Temari's eyes hardened and she brandished her giant fan, as if preparing to use it.

"N-no, MOM, stop! Can't you see-! Why don't you remember…! I'm, I'm—" Shikadai's words were turning more and more into a garble of nonsense.

He fell to his knees. "You're…my mom. I'm your son. I'm…Shikadai, Mom, I'm Shikadai…"

Shikadai clenched his eyes shut as Temari raised her fan high above her head`.

"Ah!" Crash

Shikadai's eyes flew open once again at Temari's outcry. His eyes widened when he saw that his mother had dropped her fan altogether, and that she was clutching her throat. He didn't realize what was happening at first, and cried out, "MOM!" once again, but when Temari's face started losing a little bit of color, Shikadai realized what was happening.

The black ribbon Shikadai had tied around his mother's throat when he left Konoha was slowly constricting. The thread of fate that tied mother and son together was now choking Temari to death.

Shikadai watched in dread as Temari lowered her head and coughed and struggled. Her hands fumbled at her neck and tried to remove the ribbon, but she was evidently failing. Shikamaru was raising an even louder racket from wherever he was, banging and screaming, but Temari ceased to reply him.

After several more moments of struggle, Temari lifted her head once again, and Shikadai's heart constricted in his chest when he observed the tinge pale of his mother's hearty cheeks.

It was with evident strain that Temari lifted her hypnotizing teal eyes and met Shikadai's own, although the woman still seemed unable to recognize him as her son. She dropped her hands to her sides, giving up her fruitless attempts to save herself, and she suddenly released a bitter chuckle.

It was evident that it took her great effort to speak, but Temari was always one to overcome obstacles, so she did it anyway. "Death by—asphyxiation—eh? As a little girl, I always—dreamed of—dying in a tornado—funny, isn't it? But this is—strangely fitting—" She coughed. "I'm one of the Sand Siblings—I'm a shinobi—not a afraid to die—ha, ha…I'm happy I get to die first—big sisters are—supposed to die—before their little brothers—not the other way—around—"

Temari's entire body convulsed, but she kept pressing on: "I'm—really happy—that this is the way things are—gonna end—I don't have to pretend, do I-?—with—you—of all things…" She looked at Shikadai meaningfully, still, somehow, deaf to his implorations. "Never wanted—to be a heroine or—a martyr—this is the rightful kind of—end for someone like me—" She gasped. "I was born—a bad woman—shinobi—did things I'm not—proud of…so this is the way—things will end…'cause who am I kidding, crybaby? Not gonna—win here—gonna—live up to everything I did—after all—always—hated liars—don't wanna—die a lie—" With great difficulty, she chuckled. "They'll be in—hell, waiting for me—not 'cause they want to see me—they've—waited too long for me—to go back to the place—I belong…"

"N-no, stop saying—that—" Shikadai cried. "MOM!" he screamed when Temari fell onto her knees, shaking violently. Her lungs were evidently severely depleted of oxygen and her face was now starting to tinge an unsightly blue. Shikadai watched with a breaking heart as his suffering mother clenched her fists so tightly her knuckles turned white.

"B-but—you know—what? I d-don't think I—I don't think I regret it at all…! B-because—in this l-life—I-I got to be—I got to be a m-mother…! Y-you have…n-no idea what it's like…to…be a parent…"

"M-mom…"

"M-my boy…is still out there...but—don't worry, Shikadai, Mama will—always…protect you! I-I…hope I…lived up to…K-karura…"

Shikadai nearly froze at the mention of Karura, but the mysterious woman's name was soon forgotten as he was too distracted with his mother's state.

Temari was nearing the end. She fell onto the floor, flat on her back, sprawled next to the trusty fan she'd carried all her life. "S-Shikadai…" she whispered weakly. Temari closed her teal eyes and smiled, looking much less like someone who was about to die than someone who was nearing enlightenment. "P…p-lease…t-tell…Shika…dai…t-that I…l-love…h-h…h...h…"

Temari suddenly stilled, and her muscles stopped twitching in pain and misery. The ghost of her last smile remained on her face. The feisty rhinoceros was suddenly at peace.

For one full second, the only thought that crossed Shikadai's mind was how beautiful his mother looked in death.

Then reality sat in, and the grief hit him so hard that he was unable to sob, or scream, or bawl—he was shocked numb and he sat soundlessly on the floor beside his mother, endless tears flowing down his cheeks.

Shikamaru's banging and screaming continued to permeate the air from somewhere far away, but as time passed, they became farther and farther until they stopped altogether. Perhaps he had died too. Cause of death: sadness. It wouldn't be a surprise: who could survive the loss of a woman like Temari? As the silence weighed in, death finally gained full reign.

Shikadai's lungs were constricting horribly, and as he sat there, nothing but the sound of his own sniffles and accompanying him, he thought he had never known the meaning of loneliness until then.

There was a rustle from behind him, but Shikadai paid it no mind. He gave absolutely no reaction when Gaara's slow, deliberate footsteps approached him.

"Weak little monster, crying in the sand…" Gaara spoke, his voice strangely calm without any malice. This time, Shikadai lifted his head slightly at the voice. Temari was Gaara's sister—wasn't the redhead going to react to her death at all? Granted, this was a twelve-year-old Gaara, but Temari's four ponytails should be recognizable at any age…

"Weak little monster…take my hand…"

Shikadai resolutely ignored Gaara, too grief-stricken to pay the boy much mind.

"You've much to learn."

Shikadai did not acknowledge the statement.

"You've much to learn," Gaara repeated.

If Gaara expected an answer, he didn't receive any; Shikadai didn't even turn around to face him, instead sitting dumbly next to his mother and quietly sniffling.

Gaara leaned down, and, right next to Shikadai's ear, whispered, "Shut up."

This time, Gaara's voice held a note of threat, but Shikadai wasn't going to stop grieving just because Gaara wanted him to. He continued to cry.

People only ever had one chance to obey Sabaku no Gaara's orders. Because if you didn't obey him the first time, you'd surely be dead before you had the chance to be ordered a second time, so too bad. If you did obey him the first time, well, what he probably told you to do was to shut the fuck up before he killed you, so it was still, too bad.

But Shikadai was neither human nor prey in Gaara's eyes right now, so when the sand slithered out of the gourd and wrapped around him, it was not to crush him to death. Instead, Gaara's sand firmly wrapped itself around Shikadai's mouth, stifling his crying and any protests he would have made. This time, Shikadai whipped around to stare at Gaara in questioning alarm, but did not have much of a chance to do anything when sand wrapped around his legs and forced him to stand up.

Unable to speak and unable to move to his own will, Shikadai stared at Gaara, wide-eyed, as the Suna ninja stared back at him with pale, passive aquamarine eyes. Without another word, Gaara turned and started walking out of the Nara house. "Mmm—" Shikadai protested against his gag, but the sand around his legs moved of its own accord and forced him to walk alongside Gaara.

Their pace was leisurely, but every step that Gaara took seemed to be laced with danger. They walked through the ruined streets of Konoha until they had reached the gates. Shikadai again made a desperate noise of protests when the exited the Leaf Village, but Gaara paid him no heed, and the two of them travelled out into the empty desert.

Shikadai did not know how long he was forced to walk against his will, but every unintended step drained a little more of the nearly nonexistent energy from his body, and he soon found his eyes fluttering closed with exhaustion, even as he and Gaara continued their procession through the desert.

Shikadai's eyes only flew open again when he felt the sand around his legs stop moving. He could not open his mouth to ask Gaara what was going on, and why they had halted in their journey, but when he opened his eyes, he found himself face to face with a wall.

Shikadai turned his head to look at Gaara, and found the boy staring intently at the wall with an almost contemplative expression. They stayed that way for a while—Gaara staring at the wall and Shikadai staring at Gaara, until the sand-wielder opened his mouth and said, darkly, "This is my realm."

Shikadai did not really understand what Gaara meant by this, so he looked at the wall for some answers. Only then did he take a double take as he realized what it was, and where he was.

This was the outer wall of Sunagakure.

Shikadai's heart leapt in joy for a full moment when he saw the city, but it plummeted once more when he remembered his Uncle Gaara, the Kazekage. What did this Sand Village mean to Shikadai now?

When Shikadai first arrived in Sunagakure, he'd been in awe of the intricate carvings pictured on the walls of the city, and his Uncle Kankuro had told him that they depicted the history of Sunagakure. This time, Shikadai observed those carvings for the first time to see what kind of stories these walls held.

And the first thing he saw was the demon of the desert. Carved onto the wall, was the image of Sabaku no Gaara killing.

Sabaku no Gaara strangling a jonin to death. Sabaku no Gaara ripping open the womb of a pregnant woman. Sabaku no Gaara standing in the blood rain of a man he'd crushed. Sabaku no Gaara standing in the midst of a crowd of thirty dead people.

Sabaku no Gaara killing.

Sabaku no Gaara killing.

Sabaku no Gaara killing.

A muffled yelp escaped Shikadai's lips, but even before he had the chance to finish his gagged exclamation, Gaara was again forcing him to walk alongside him through the narrow alley at the entrance of Sunagakure and into the city.

In the middle of the passageway, they ran into a jonin guard. The man frowned at first when he witnessed someone walking toward him, but as Gaara drew closer recognition dawned in the shinobi's eyes. "L-lord—Gaara-!" he squeaked.

Gaara barely spared the jonin guard a glance as sand coiled around his neck. "N-no—" the man started to protest, but he never got to finish his protest as the sand started constricting tightly around his throat. He gurgled and moaned and his eyes rolled to the back of his head. Shikadai waited, but the jonin's eyes never returned from the back of his head. His gurgling had also stopped.

It was in utter horror that Shikadai looked for Gaara's expression after the redhead killed a man in cold blood. What Shikadai found on Gaara's face was the worst thing he could possibly expect, because there was no expression there at all.

It was somewhat surprising to Shikadai that the streets of Sunagakure were not completely empty, and there were stragglers strolling about. Gaara walked slowly and determinedly ahead in his own village, and the softly bustling streets suddenly turned into alleys of panic and fear. Shikadai watched as the villagers scrambled several steps backward for every step forward he and Gaara took through the streets. Most quickly filed away into the closest refuge they could find.

A scream pierced through the air, and at the sound Gaara stopped. Shikadai looked to see a pregnant woman staring at the two of them in shock and fear. One of her hands covered her mouth while the other was placed protectively around her stomach.

Gaara did not blink or so much as move a finger, but his sand did otherwise. In one swift motion, Gaara's sand was tearing towards the woman. Shikadai yelled against his gag as the sand turned into a large and menacing claw that pried away the woman's hand from her stomach and buried its sharp nails into her stomach, eliciting an agonized wail from the pregnant woman. The claw of sand closed and yanked itself away from the woman's body, and she fell onto the ground in a bloody heap. Shikadai closed his eyes so he would not have to see the bloody mess that was a baby that was supposed to be inside of the woman's womb, not outside of it and lying on the ground.

The Gaara-Shikadai duo walked into a part of town that Shikadai did not recognize. They stopped in front of a large building, outside of which a shinobi was standing guard. The man's pupils dilated when he saw just who—or what—had decided to visit him. "L-lord Gaara—" the man squeaked in a manner much like the jonin at Sunagakure's entrance gates. Sand engulfed his entire body and lifted him up into the air. Shikadai watched as Gaara's fist slowly closed, and suddenly he was drenched in blood rain.

Gaara tilted his head upwards by a millimeter, as if relishing in the feeling of the warm, sticky, crimson drizzle. After it had ended, the boy, now coated in blood, reached for the handle of the door of the building and slowly pulled it open. It was almost as if the door, too, protested this action, and it creaked loudly.

There were about thirty shinobi and kunoichi inside of the room, and whatever the noise they had been making quickly ceased when Gaara opened the door. Gaara stood in the doorway and glared at the thirty people for several tense moments. In a low voice, he spoke to Shikadai. "The fear and hatred in their eyes is so loud…so I make their fear louder."

The sand lashed out. In less than five seconds, there was one less person among the thirty in the room and one more splatter of blood on the wall.

"One," Gaara counted.

The sand lashed out again. "Two."

Again. "Three."

Again. "Four."

Gaara monotonously counted as if he were not numbering the people he was killing in a single night. He was doing a great job at making the fear of what remained of the thirty shinobi scream loudly. Nevertheless, as Gaara's numbers grew bigger and bigger, the amount of blood running off the walls and on the floorboards of the room became more the amount of screaming.

"Twenty-four."

Shikadai gasped as the sand around his mouth and legs suddenly loosened and released him. He instinctively took a step away from the short redhead, but Gaara didn't even seem to notice. Instead, his eyes searched the six remaining shinobi, who were all cowering and quivering in corners. After some contemplation, Gaara seemed to make up his mind and set his eyes on a brown-haired, chocolate-eyed kunoichi—

Wait.

"GAARA, WAIT!" Shikadai screamed, not thinking about what repercussions his outcry might cause. "GAARA, THAT'S—"

The sand lashed out.

As the kunoichi's corpse slid to the floor, Shikadai noticed that the smiling face of Matsuri would forever be smiling, because a wide, eerie Glasgow smile had been cut into her face.

Gaara finally responded to Shikadai and slowly turned to look at him.

"…your student…" Shikadai finished weakly.

"Twenty-five," Gaara said, looking straight into Shikadai's eyes. Shikadai felt his knees grow weak as Gaara suddenly started walking toward him. Is he going to kill me now…?

Gaara stopped inches away from Shikadai's face. "She's not my student...you are."

Shikadai was genuinely surprised at this comment. "…What?"

A ghost of a smile twisted on Gaara's lips. "Weak little monster, you've much to learn." Gaara turned away from him and his sand lashed out again. "Twenty-six."

Shikadai did not wait to spectate twenty-seven through thirty; now that his limbs were free, he turned resolutely and took off on his heels. He ran from the crime scene, from the massacre, the holocaust, from Gaara—he ran as if he were running for his life. He ran towards the gates of Sunagakure. He did not stop. He ran out of Sunagakure and into the open desert. He did not stop.

He tore through the sand, almost blindly, with no destination in his mind except for away—and it was at this moment that the voice that had woken him up decided to visit him again.

He could almost hear Rasa shaking his head. "You always run away. You never face anything head on, you just run away like the sick coward you are."

Shikadai nearly stopped in disbelief. How could he not run, after everything that had happened?

"It's really such a disappointment to see you fail," Rasa continued. "Running away never solves anything. It will only make things worse."

"P-please," Shikadai whispered at Rasa, "let me talk to Karura."

"HOW MANY TIMES HAVE I TOLD YOU, SHE'S! NOT! HERE!" Rasa exploded. "How many times have I told you…you don't deserve her...?"

Shikadai flinched at Rasa's words, and felt overwhelmingly sad by them. "Karura…" he whimpered. He thought of everything that had happened today.

Sabaku no Gaara. His village. Its destruction.

The death of his comrades.

The death of his family.

Gaara's village. Sunagakure.

The massacre, the holocaust.

Pain suddenly swept through Shikadai, and he had to look down to see if he had been wounded somehow. He was still covered in the drying blood of Akiko Nara and her mother, but none of it was his own. He fisted the area over his heart with his hand. "Karura," he began again, deciding to directly appeal to the gentle woman whose comforting words and voice he missed dearly. "Why does it hurt so much here?"

A gentle voice answered him so immediately that Shikadai actually jumped in surprise. It was not, however, Karura, and Shikadai wondered who this stranger was.

"Blood does flow from a wound on the body, and the wound may appear painful. But as time passes, the pain naturally disappears. By using medicine, the healing is even faster. But what's dangerous is a wound of the heart. Nothing has more trouble healing…A wound on the body and a wound of the heart are slightly different. Unlike a wound on the body, there is no ointment and sometimes, it doesn't heal for one's life. But there is one thing that can cure a wound of the heart. However, this is a complicated medicine. It can only be given to you by another person. The thing that can cure a wound of the heart…is love."

Shikadai gasped, and this time he completely halted in his tracks. "…Love…?" he whispered. His fingers tightened around his chest. "But…how can I get it…?" he asked desperately.

"Don't you know, Gaara? It has already been given to you…"

The gentle man's words were so riveting that Shikadai failed to notice that he'd been acknowledged as Gaara, not as Shikadai. He simply stood there as the words repeated themselves in his brain.

Love…it has already been given to you…

"There you are."

Shikadai stopped his musings when he was spoken to by yet another voice. This time, however, it was easy to pinpoint who the voice was. "Of all times to show up…why now?" he asked himself. Because the voice that spoken to him had been himself. His one tormenter and his one true self. The voice inside his mind.

"Turn around," it commanded.

"Where have you been?" Shikadai asked again.

"Turn around."

"Why?"

"Just turn around."

Apprehensively, Shikadai turned around, hesitant about viewing whatever it was that his voice wanted him to view. And then he gasped.

It wasn't the voice speaking to him from inside his mind at all. Because there, standing a mere few feet in front of him, was himself.

He gazed into the teal eyes of Shikadai Nara.

There were several key differences between himself and the copy of himself standing a few feet in front of him, he decided.

Firstly, they sported different hairstyles. The Shikadai standing in front of him had bangs, a style he had never sported before. Copy-Shikadai's bangs were parted sharply at the left side of his forehead, and Shikadai gulped upon realizing where he'd seen the style before: Gaara always wore his hair this way.

Secondly, Copy-Shikadai wasn't coated in blood like he was. However, Copy-Shikadai was holding a bleeding human in his arms. It was a kunoichi.

Worst of all, however, was the hardened, cruel expression that Copy-Shikadai wore on his face. A expression too much like Sabaku no Gaara's.

Shikadai's eyes slid to the bleeding kunoichi in his copy's arms. He was just wondering who it was when he suddenly caught a glint of steel-colored hair in the moonlight. Icho.

Shikadai suddenly felt panicked. "Put her down," he urgently told his copy, not trusting the actions of his replica.

Copy-Shikadai cocked his head at him. "Why?"

"Put her down," Shikadai insisted again through gritted teeth.

Copy-Shikadai continued to stare back at him for several moments. Shikadai jumped when he saw himself suddenly burst into a fit of maniacal laughter. "What? You couldn't possibly be worried about her…could you? Because monsters don't worry about anything…other than themselves."

"I want you to stop touching her, and put her down!" Shikadai screamed.

Copy-Shikadai didn't miss a beat. "No, you don't. I know you want this, Shikadai Nara. I'm you, remember? You can't wait to see her blood running through the sand—"

"N-no—"

"—because this is the purpose of your existence."

Copy-Shikadai's words struck a chord in Shikadai's memory. "…What is your purpose as a shinobi?" Uncle Gaara asked him.

"What is the purpose of my existence?" Shikadai asked Copy-Shikadai.

Copy-Shikadai smirked, and Shikadai felt his blood run cold. Copy-Shikadai took slow, deliberate steps toward him, and Shikadai couldn't help but think that it was terribly disconcerting to watch yourself approach yourself. It was just weird. Copy-Shikadai leaned in and spoke into his ear. "To love yourself and only yourself. You are monster who walks the world alone, and you are a monster…who uses others to prove your own existence."

"Using…others...? …How…?"

The answer to this question should not have been spoken in such a bland, uncaring, unaffected tone. But Gaara did it anyway. "By killing them."

Shikadai whipped around while Copy-Shikadai smirked. He saw Sabaku no Gaara approaching him once again, and Shikadai couldn't help but wonder what heinous crimes the twelve-year-old redhead had just finished completing.

"You…" Shikadai breathed at Gaara. All of a sudden, he felt a blind and unquenchable rage at the sand manipulator. To a spectator, it could be observed that Shikadai Nara snapped. "WHY DON'T YOU JUST KILL ME ALREADY?"

"I said I wouldn't kill you, yet, because you're useful to me yet."

"In another place…and time…you asked me the purpose of my existence," Shikadai seethed at Gaara. "And I told you I didn't know, so you said I was as good as DEAD! WHAT ARE YOU WAITING FOR NOW?"

Gaara glared at Shikadai in a deadly manner, but Shikadai could no longer find himself caring. "I am a relic of the past," Gaara finally answered. "Twenty years ago, I asserted my existence to a world that didn't want it…and twenty years ago, my existence was quashed by…Naruto Uzumaki."

Shikadai started. "Uncle Naruto?"

"He fought me, and because he was stronger he nearly eliminated the world of my existence. Out of that fight, the Kazekage Gaara was born. But…I never ceased to exist, no matter how weak, suppressed, forgotten…or unmissed I was.

"But the purpose of my existence has never changed. To kill others to prove my existence. Because there was still hate in the world, I never disappeared. For years I have waited for the perfect vessel that will undertake the purpose of the forgotten Sabaku no Gaara, so that they world may never again forget my hate as it did twenty years ago…"

Gaara paused. "I found you, Shikadai Nara."

"M-me?"

"Yes!" A feral grin broke out on Gaara's face. "You are my reincarnation—the reincarnation of my pain and hatred. Through you, I will squeeze the great big Earth dry of its warm, sweet blood…the world will once again cower in fear at the mention of my name, and my existence will never be forgotten!...Shikadai Nara, you will be the monster that I was. You will kill as I killed…you will show the world that there is no such thing as love, only hate! …And you will make me feel…alive again."

Shikadai couldn't help but gasp at Gaara's explanation. For a long while, he could only stand there, dumbly, as he processed the mission Gaara had assigned to him.

Finally, he opened his mouth to shakily ask, "But you said you wouldn't kill me, yet. So when are you planning to do it?"

"I love no one but myself," Gaara replied. "I'm only keeping you alive because you still have a purpose to fulfill. But I don't love you, Shikadai Nara, and once you are the only one left on this wretched Earth I will kill you all the same. You will prove my existence for the final time, because it is your blood that I truly want to taste! I want to see your entrails covering my hands…I want to rip your throat out and maybe gouge out your pretty little eyes…"

At this moment, Copy-Shikadai snuck up on Shikadai. "But we are monsters like he is," Copy-Shikadai whispered in Shikadai's ears. "We don't love him either. He is our teacher, and he will teach us the ways of pain and hatred, but when the time comes…it will be us…we who kill him…because we too, have our own existence to prove…"

Shikadai showed no reaction other than closing his eyes and clenching and unclenching his fists. He could feel the cold sweat beading on his temple as he processed everything he had learned so far.

"Come, Shikadai…" his own voice whispered in his ear. "Now is the time…join me and let us finally begin living…as the monster that you truly are…"

All right, Shikadai thought. I've made my decision. I've already lost everything anyway, so…

It's about time I did something.

He opened his eyes and unclenched his fists. Then with a hard shove, he pushed Copy-Shikadai away from him, causing his replica to actually fall down into the sand out of surprise.

Shikadai watched as his replica's teal eyes boiled with sudden danger. "You…" Copy-Shikadai growled. "Are you really going to keep denying what you are?"

"What does it matter, anyway?" Shikadai answered coldly. I'm not going to run away anymore, Rasa. "I've already lost everything. Mom, Dad, Uncle Naruto, Konoha…even Suna. And I think I lost Uncle Gaara a long time ago, but I still remember the time when…he loved me." Shikadai choked on his own speech and tears. "So what does it matter?"

Copy-Shikadai quickly got up onto his feet. "I'm telling you. You. Are. A. Monster. Nothing—no one—can change that—least of all, you—"

"I'm telling you, I believe you. I'm a monster. I ACCEPTED THAT A LONG TIME AGO!" Shikadai yelled. He clutched his heart with his hands again. "So why does it hurt so much here? HUH? I accepted that pain and hatred is what I am. Look at tonight! Look at everything I touched. Look at me," he hissed. "Gone, gone, gone…"

"It's only the beginning!" Copy-Shikadai argued back. "You think what you did tonight was so great? There's so much more blood to spill in the world, Shikadai, it's waiting for you to kill!"

"No. I think what I did tonight was HORRID!" Shikadai cried. "My own mother…couldn't even recognize me! You're always telling me to accept that I'm a monster. And I have. Everywhere I go, I leave destruction behind!" Shikadai panted a few times. "I've accepted that I'm a monster. But you know what? I'm not going to accept going on like this. Why should I protect myself if I'm a monster?"

"You should always protect yourself, it's the only way—"

"FUCK YOU!" Shikadai screamed. "I've lost EVERYTHING! Everything…I ever cared about! Everything that I ever loved! Yes, as a monster, I'm not supposed to love anything…other than myself! But I'm flawed, and I've accepted that too! I don't want—I can't have—this—" he pointed at chest—"hurting forever." He gestured at Icho, who was still unconscious in Copy-Shikadai's arms. "She may be—the only one I have left—because I was too busy trying to be a monster. I destroyed my worlds in the process. So dammit, if it's between saving her from a monster or protecting myself, I don't have the energy to allow the latter anymore. I'm sorry."

Copy-Shikadai's eyes narrowed. "You've chosen your path—so be it. But that doesn't change anything."

"I thought I said you and I were the same—" Shikadai protested.

"No. I am you. And I am the monster that you are too afraid to be, Shikadai. But I—heh, heh—I am not afraid." Copy-Shikadai sighed and suddenly smirked again, but this time, his evil intentions shone through clear as day. "I'm afraid I have no choice, Shikadai Nara. I need this to survive, and unlike you, I don't plan on dying. Lesson Number One: monsters never allow themselves to die. I'll make sure you never forget it, Shikadai Nara!" As if from nowhere, Copy-Shikadai procured a knife and hovered it over Icho's neck.

Several things happened at once. All of a sudden, Icho's orange eyes flew open and she stared at the knife that would mean her death in a few moments. She opened her mouth and screamed, "SHIKADAI!", acknowledging her Kazekage's nephew by name (rather than Lazy Prince) for the first time.

Copy-Shikadai started to drive the knife in its downward journey into Icho's heart.

Shikadai saw Icho, still alive and kicking, and saw with clarity the fear and betrayal in her eyes that he swore he never wanted to see again. "ICHO!" he yelled, sprinting forward. He didn't know what he would do and how, and he didn't know if he would die, she would die, or if they both would die here today. He was only sure of his now immovable resolve to protect her, because she was the only thing he had left that he still cared about, even if he didn't know her that well. He wanted to protect her in the memory of his fallen village and family. In memory of the uncle he once knew.

Then, the world exploded in gold.