Chapter 517: Preparing a Surprise
The evening ended in two completely different atmospheres.
On Satsuki's side of the house, the air had the quality of an interrogation room.
"You're telling me they're just friends?" Satsuki sat in her chair with her eyes fixed on Kankuro like a blade pressed flat against a surface. "You're certain, Kankuro?"
"Absolutely certain!" Kankuro sat rigid across from her, his posture so straight he might have had a plank bolted to his spine. His expression had the quality of something nailed in place. "Naruto was Gaara's first real friend -- the whole village knows that! They matter a great deal to each other, but it's just... it's the kind of mattering that happens between friends!"
He tried to keep his voice even and reasonable, but the fine layer of sweat continuously breaking out across his forehead was doing a thorough job of contradicting him.
Satsuki did not blink.
She had already covered a lot of ground. What was Gaara's tone like when Naruto's name came up? How did he behave in the days before one of Naruto's visits? What happened when a letter arrived from Naruto? Had there been any unusual behavior? Any at all?
Every answer Kankuro gave was airtight.
Which was the problem.
Too airtight. Every response had the quality of a prepared statement -- precise, sealed at every edge, no excess information anywhere and not a single crack to get a finger into.
A person answered questions like that for one of two reasons. Either they were a highly trained operative, or they were hiding something significant.
Kankuro was obviously not a highly trained operative.
Satsuki watched him sweating and avoiding her eyes, and reached her conclusion without much difficulty. This man was concealing something. Something important. Something that had to do with Gaara and Naruto.
She was not going to get it out of him tonight. His mouth was considerably more disciplined than she had expected.
"...Fine." Satsuki rose from her chair. She let her gaze rest on Kankuro for one final moment -- long enough to make him flinch. "We'll leave it there for now."
She walked away. Behind her, she heard Kankuro collapse back into his seat and start breathing again.
On Gaara's side of things, the atmosphere could not have been more different.
It had gone perfectly.
"As much as you want -- I'll give you as much as you need."
Naruto took the small Sand Crystal and turned it over in his palm, studying it for a moment before drawing on his chakra and beginning to channel it slowly inward.
At first the crystal simply began to glow, softly, like a wick catching flame. Then something unexpected happened. The transparent sphere began to shift from within -- points of light bloomed inside it, moving and clustering, until they had arranged themselves into a scene.
A starfield.
Countless small, bright points scattered across a deep blue, like a fragment of the cosmos sealed inside glass.
Naruto blinked.
His Stellar Chakra had long since woven itself through every part of him. He did not always know what form it would take when it moved. But apparently tonight it had decided to look like the night sky.
He was a little concerned that for most people, this might be slightly too strange to explain.
He looked up at Gaara.
Gaara's face held no confusion. No alarm. Only a joy that seemed to be having trouble staying contained in his expression. His eyes were fixed on the small crystal, on the miniature starfield drifting inside it, and they were bright in a way that was almost startling.
"Thank you, Naruto. This is more than enough."
The time to leave came eventually.
"I'll be back soon." Naruto raised a hand in farewell. Satsuki stood beside him, her eyes still making their quiet periodic assessments of Gaara.
"Yes."
Gaara gave a single nod and said nothing more.
He stood there and watched the two of them disappear.
Then he turned, went back inside, and closed the door. The moment it shut behind him, the composure he had been maintaining finally released.
In the room, a figure was sitting quietly on the edge of the bed.
It was a puppet in the form of a young girl. Her long golden hair had been carefully arranged into two pigtails, and she wore a bright orange tracksuit -- the same style, the same color, as the one Naruto almost always wore.
"Uzumaki Naruko."
The puppet built by Kankuro and Lady Chiyo working together, crafted with such precision that its movements were nearly indistinguishable from a living person.
She sat with her eyes closed. No breath. No heartbeat. No trace of life.
And yet she looked so much like him. So much like the person Gaara held at the center of everything.
Gaara walked to her and stopped.
His hand was trembling slightly. The Sand Crystal, still warm, still carrying the last of Naruto's temperature, was pressed carefully into his palm.
He drew a slow breath. Then, with great care, he brought the crystal close to the puppet's body.
Naruto's chakra flowed out from the crystal, tracing the channels of the puppet's activation array, filling it gradually from within.
The puppet's eyes opened.
----
"Naruto... what are you doing?"
Back home in Konoha, Satsuki sat on the couch watching the figure moving busily around the kitchen, and felt a low, quiet irritation beginning to build somewhere in her chest.
Just a little while ago they had been curled against each other, warm and close in the way that she could never quite get enough of. That particular kind of nearness -- the warmth of contact, the intimacy of shared breath -- was something she always wanted more of, no matter how many times they had spent evenings exactly like this. Her wanting in that direction had no ceiling.
And now Naruto had left her side.
"Sorry, Satsuki, just a moment."
He spoke without looking back, his hands moving quickly through the preparation. Dough was being worked, broth was beginning to roll in the pot, and the smell of it was already spreading through the kitchen.
"Gaara barely touched anything at dinner. I'm going to drop this off and come straight back."
Satsuki went quiet.
The dinner table came back to her. That red-haired man sitting across from her, picking apart her ramen piece by piece, comparing everything she had made to Naruto's version with complete, unself-conscious sincerity. He had set his chopsticks down after only a few bites and gone hungry rather than finish it.
Naruto stirred his broth and let his thoughts wander, a small involuntary smile working at the corner of his mouth without him noticing.
He was thinking about the evening. Gaara's stubborn, roundabout sulking. That fixation on wanting food made specifically by Naruto's hands. The conversation on the balcony, and what had been said there.
He thought he understood it now.
Gaara's reliance on him was deeper than he had recognized. It was the kind that existed between close friends -- and yet it was more than ordinary friendship at the same time. For someone who had spent more than a decade entirely alone, Naruto had been the first person to ever step inside that wall. The first to show him what bonds felt like. The first to make him feel that being alive was worthwhile.
So of course it was Naruto's ramen he wanted. Not because of some special quality in the taste, but because Naruto had made it.
Of course he had felt something when Satsuki was there. Not because he disliked her -- but because the position she occupied, the position of "the most important person," had been the one that was supposed to be his. Not a lover's place. Just the place of first importance.
Naruto thought back to the Chunin Exams. That boy radiating killing intent from every surface, coiled and hostile as a wild animal that had never been touched gently. Looking at the person Gaara was now -- the Kazekage, admired by an entire village, steady and composed in every public moment -- and then seeing him sulk over a bowl of noodles, light up over a marble filled with chakra, carefully ask to have ramen cooked for him next time...
Even now. Even after becoming the Kazekage. Even after growing strong enough to protect everyone he cared about.
In front of Naruto, he was still the same Gaara who had been pulled out of the dark.
That thought made Naruto smile before he could stop it.
He suddenly wanted very much to see what Gaara's face would look like if he appeared in front of him right now, unannounced, holding a bowl of hot ramen.
He would be happy. Obviously.
Decision made. He was going to surprise him.
Naruto picked up his pace, finished packing the ramen into a container, and prepared to use the Flying Thunder God to transport himself directly.
Then he felt a gaze land on his back.
He turned. Satsuki was standing right behind him, watching him without blinking.
There was no anger in those dark eyes. No accusation. Just quiet, steady attention -- but somehow that made him feel guilty anyway.
"Satsuki, don't worry." He produced a slightly sheepish smile. "I'll be right back. I'm just delivering food."
He paused, thinking of how Satsuki tended to be about these things, and hurried to add: "I promise I won't neglect you. When I get back I'll spend the whole rest of the night making it up to you."
The moment the words were out he felt his own face go warm.
Satsuki looked at him for a moment, then let out a quiet sigh. "...You're too sensitive sometimes, you know that?"
She stepped toward him and reached up to straighten his collar. "I trust you. You don't have to promise things like that."
Naruto relaxed and smiled.
What Satsuki added, in the privacy of her own thoughts, was somewhat different.
She smoothed his collar one final time. "Let me come with you. I want to go too."