It took a while for this appearance to register in Gaara's mind. Moving pictures of what could have happened to her raced through as a vision and made the boy nearly speechless. "Hinata..." His voice was quite, much quieter than he had ever used in his life, but all the rest of his energy was still on his imaging her past few days.

She finally registered the gentle touch that held her up in a warming, yet trembling, embrace. It took a little longer to register the face though: His flaming red hair was unkempt as ever and his scar was just as clear to read as last time she saw him, but these were not what caught her attention. There were cuts and small smudges of blood that seemed to be scattered on his face, and his clothes were all worn and dirty, not how a fight with him ever ended. "Gaara...?" She couldn't believe he would, or even could, ever be beaten. She would know, because she had sparred him a few times when he was never given the chance in school.

"Hinata. What... happened to you?" It was hard to bring himself to say anything at all. And he had thought the green guy and blond kid had looked like wrecks after he fought them.

"I'm mo-ore worried about you..." It seemed harder for her to get any more words out, so he continued to talk a bit, 'Maybe distract her a bit' as he sent some of his sand to fetch both their siblings.

"I was on a mission that turned out... a little harder than I thought... to protect..." He couldn't bring himself to say any more as he thought back to his conversation with his siblings those weeks ago.

"Does look like the other guy had a hard fist..." Hinata attempted to joke with the few words he had said. It only made him think of the punch that did in fact wake him up from the only sleep he'd had in years.

"Please, tell me something that I don't know, like what happened."

She still looked hardly able to talk now, but she put all her strength into telling him a part of her past: "My dad used to tell me life was like a tea that I used to drink: bitter and sweet. Depending on how you tasted it in your mouth, you could make it taste one or the other first, but both come. Yet when I drink it now, all I'd taste was bitterness, and I see now that's all my life is anymore. I had the good and now it's gone. Because of my ignorance of everything, I killed my parents and the authorities are only yelling at me about other stuff instead of punishing me. I'm just a useless stupid piece of shit that's always kicked around by the elders just waiting for one day... for the day an honest person will pick me up and throw me away to die."

Tears fell like a steady rain from a pearly cloud, but the main storm on that block of the street was rising in the heart of a boy too upset to think straight.

His voice rose in the subtle fashion it usually did when he was frustrated, not even thinking of how terrible it sounded to a weak person. "How could you think of such a thing. NO ONE deserves to have their life thrown away! Especially not throwing it away themselves, especially you! Top of the class ninja letting herself get beat up and being depressed. Snap out of it! This is not who you were!"

He realized his mistake at that moment though, as he felt his anger transform into another's shaking fright. Even with her head now turned away from him, he saw her eyes closed with double the tears wetting the sand around her, falling faster as she trembled.

"You..." she started with a shaky voice. Then nearly as a shout, "You don't understand!" her voice searched for that understanding. "You haven't seen it," he could see every last tear hit the grains below her. "You haven't f-felt it," and it came. She winced hard, then fell on her side, holding her knees to her head bowed toward them. Her hands were at her throat.

He could not understand what had happened, even when he heard footsteps running toward his direction. The pair of feet closest to him seemed to have screamed at the sight. It came up behind him and firm arms trapped his own arms to his side, but he was in too much shock to understand it all. The other two pair of feet that had followed the one behind him stood back for a bit before approaching the writhing figure. "Dear Kami," came a male voice from above him, "what do we do?"

An ordering feminine voice responded, "Use your puppets to take her to the her house. I'll run ahead and get something set up." And so her presence did disappear from the scene. And still, Gaara could not understand what was happening. He finally registered the male voice as his brother's and saw one of his freaky puppets pick Hinata up by the crook of its arms and walk (or hover) away with the puppet master.

It took a few minutes for him to register that he had not followed Hinata back, but as he went to stand up, he finally realized the other girl was still holding him down. "What are you doing" sounding as distant as he usually was when he talked. "I have business elsewhere so you can tell by what just happened..."

"I still don't trust you, even if you told the apparent truth about her. You could very well be the culprit behind all her misery outside her stupid ninja group." Her mother's warnings about the boy never left Matsuri.

"What about her group do you know," showing ever so slightest of interest.

"Nothing, but I hate them just as much as I hate you." She was showing much more dominance than what she usually would, especially in front of the most frightening person she knew, but had put her fear aside as she tried to be as strong as her sister, for her sister.

Gaara had had just about enough of the negativity toward himself when she spoke again, "And therefore, I demand you to never talk to her again."

Final strike, sand rose, and Gaara broke out of her grasp. As sand swirled, eyes glared, and no one wanted to give in. "Why do you take such drastic measures!" He was cracked, and so he was now shouting. "You have no right as a both a mere pupil and as a lesser of two surviving members of a family. Or more like the last survivor of your family. I am Sabaku no Gaara, and you will not stand in my way."

"I," she started as forcefully as Gaara ended. "am Matsuri of Sunagakure, younger sister of Hinata of Sunagakure, and I will protect my family as she once attempted."

Still blasting his anger he shouted, "Then why did you ever accuse her of killing them when it was all your fault!" He didn't even realize what he had said until he replayed their conversation from start while there was only the sand swirling around them. He let it down when he caught up that she hadn't answered yet. "Why did you?"

Her face had gone blank from shock at his question and accusation. She thought about it for herself many moments before and now this one, but she never had any intention on sharing any of her thoughts pertaining to the sore matter, especially not to a monster, 'But could my fear take over that I do end up telling him? No... it can't...' she thought.

"Why!" He wanted to hear her view, badly now. She was trying to skip it over and avoid it as if traumatizing, but he read her better than that by her fear-filled eyes. "I know you've figured it out, now tell me, please! I want to help her, and I'll confess why too. She helped me. She wasn't like you, accusing me of being the monster that I know I am, but she tried to make me feel accepted. Our school days were miserable unless we were together because after she acquainted herself with me, she became an outcast too. And I think that's why we've both been miserable since then: we've never been together, never.

'Could that really be the truth? Hinata had enjoyed school but I thought that was from her actual studies. No, why would she ever have gone against MaMa's rules?'

Gaara was becoming impatient though, and he forced it out with her own fear by wrapping his sand around her left ankle, then up to her knee, then both her legs were unseen. She panicked and let it spill: "I hate when it's my fault! I always convince myself it was someone else's fault, especially yours. Everyone hates you, you have nothing to lose if something's your fault, and so it always is your fault."

"Then what about Hinata? She had everything to lose! She lost it all because of you!"

"I payed my debt for it and we've made up. What else am I supposed to do?"

Gaara was at an end. He had nothing out to say to this girl and he didn't want to, but he had to respond nonetheless. "Keep her safe from now on. She'll be in more danger, but I'm going to help her too."

And he walked off.

Gaara finally made it to the sisters' house by the evening. He spent his whole long and slow walk thinking about what could have happened to her, again. He was also thinking about how he would bring up his new information for her. He was almost positive it would help her. It had to help her...

Opening the front door he had first met Matsuri at, he walked in and saw the living room couch Hinata was resting on. He made his way over and kneeled next to her. "Hinata..." Gaara spoke lowly, laying a hand on her shoulder. She was so at peace now. He remembered his face from their lunch times in school, and their trip to the garden the first day of school. He only missed her smile now, the one that was so radiant, the sun wouldn't have needed to be out to light his world. Her smile that made him feel accepted, like no one else had outside his family, because Yashamaru had made him feel that way before he found out the truth.

Hinata woke up, slightly groaning in pain. Gaara regretted waking her up from her peace, but he felt he had to tell her this as soon as possible. "Hinata?"
"Yes?"
"I know something about your kekkei genkai. Meet me in the clearing my group trains at and I'll show you, and tell you about my experience with it."