Chapter Text
Suna lets her in without a protest.
To be fair, there is little to protest – she is in no bingo books, has made no name for herself, and wants no name for herself. She is not distinctive like Zabuza, not in stature nor look nor weapon, and Kubikiribocho is tucked securely away. Haku even has civilian papers, though those truly matter little when it comes to things, for any shinobi worth their salt could get those successfully faked.
This place is… strange. Truly, and honestly strange. Not in terms of the people – people seem to be people, wherever one goes, and appearance alone is not enough to set them apart from the people of lands like Kiri or Wave – but the location, the climate…
Haku does not think she’s ever seen so little water in her entire life.
It is hot here, but not the humid heat that she is used to enduring. Arid, dry, parching her throat and leaving her uncomfortable in her water-resistant clothes, not made for this sort of weather. It is a simple matter to cool herself using chakra, but she purchases local clothes as soon as she has decided which inn to stay in (near the edge of the village, in case something goes very wrong and she needs to make a break for it). Haku is not looking to stick out here, not if she can help it.
The sand is fascinating. It is different than walking on sand at the beach, and this is not the kind of sand she wants to bury her feet in, to feel the grains curl beneath her toes. If she tried that, she would burn herself, barring an application of ice.
And her ice still works here. It had been… a thought, when she passed into the desert to journey to Suna. Would her ice work in such dryness? Would she still be herself? She had assumed it would, but it had still been a relief to see that her ice is still her ice, blazing sun or not (though she does have to expend more chakra to keep it from melting).
Of course, she does not wish to broadcast such in Suna, so she does not. Haku eats the food – their cuisine tends towards spicy, which she is not used to – explores the village, creates a mental map of the place, and speaks with the locals. After all, Haku hopes that here… here she can linger, and have it be on her own terms. It would not due to be a stranger.
So she smiles and speaks warmly with the Granny who runs a dumpling stand she soon frequents. She gets to know the Uncle who runs the bookstore. In some villages, some nations, the people are friendly, and known to be thus – here in Suna, they do not tend to be, but that does not mean people are hostile either. It simply takes time. Multiple visits, and she spaces them out just right.
This is not the first infiltration job that she has undergone, after all.
The mention of her older brother passing, the only one who took care of her after her parents passed, is enough to grant her sympathy and a dumpling or two. It has been long enough since a true War in these parts that someone recently ‘orphaned’ is a tragedy rather than a common occurrence.
Gaining conversational access to these people also means that Haku can learn of local gossip more easily. She prefers it to hunting people down and eavesdropping – it becomes more natural, with what people would truly tell an outsider and someone newly moved, than her having to rely on her own judgement. Most of it is fairly inconsequential. The most civilians know of shinobi is that one of them is a ‘demon’, and such a title makes Haku instantly long for Zabuza.
A demon is not someone to be feared, and Granny knows little but that the Kazekage’s son, a boy with hair the color of blood, is one. He has killed many.
Haku wishes to meet him soon. A demon caked in blood is her kind of person.
But such a demon is away, competing in the Chunin Exams in Konoha. Konoha… She wonders if this demon will be like her own, as presumptuous as it feels to call Zabuza hers, and will slaughter every other person at this exam. Naruto is new enough to being a shinobi she doubts that he is taking it, but she feels she knows him well enough that he would react poorly to the slaughter. (In truth… she does not like death much herself, but…)
She hopes the demon will not.
Haku thanks Granny for the information, promises that of course she will take care once this terrifying, villainous demonic child is back in the village, and returns to her inn room to weep useless tears. Zabuza. She wants Zabuza.
He would not like it here, she thinks. Despite leaving his home many years ago, Zabuza is a man of Kiri, and he wants his home to be better than it is. He likes the water, though he would never say so. A place like this, where lingering outside too long could burn you, where the only water you see is what you yourself conjure up? Madness. He would hate it.
People are not friendly in Kiri, either – Haku has infiltrated the actual village itself a time or two, but never lingered long – and he would appreciate that about Suna, for he hates overly friendly people. It is difficult to picture him here, so she stops trying, and simply weeps useless tears for her single precious person.
The return of the shinobi who went to Konoha is a welcome distraction. She does not watch them arrive but hears of their arrival afterwards from Uncle at the bookshop. He does not speak to her of a demon – rather, of something else.
“Did you hear?” he asks, and she blinks at him.
Haku tips her head to the side just slightly, in a way that emphasizes her ‘innocence’, and shakes her head. “No? What’s going on, Uncle?”
He shakes his head slowly. “All those shinobi came back from the chunin exams… they say there was an invasion, and the Kazekage is dead!”
She doesn’t have to feign her shock at this. “What?”
The whole tale – or at least what he knows – spills from him. It’s much rumor and hearsay, things that certainly cannot be true like the Kazekage being replaced by a missing-nin, but there are two specific truths that Haku is able to ascertain. First, that the Kazekage is dead. Unless there is a drastic change, such as when Kirigakure targeted those with a kekkai genkai, this means little to Haku, and she doubts such a thing will occur (usually such a large change requires a coup instead of a new leader being appointed). Secondly, that there was a fight within Konoha.
A civilian is not able to parse the details, and Haku needs to eavesdrop and invest herself to fully understand what has happened. At this point, it does not matter what she should reasonably know, for the only person who is precious to her could have been… could have been…
If Naruto perished in such an event, she will never forgive herself. She could have been there to save him. She must know.
While it seems that civilians will not find out the truth, enough lower-level shinobi do hear the details that Haku is able to piece it all together by the end of the next day. Suna had led an invasion against Konoha – despite no one quite seeming to understand why – and was defeated. The Kazekage was killed (and the Hokage!), and that was seemingly enough to stop Konoha from holding it against them. That is what she is able to piece together, and while the exact nuances of the situation escape her, they are not the important facts.
She does not care why Konoha is not set on destroying Suna for what happened, not really. Nor does Haku truly care about the politics behind the situation, at least not at this moment.
Naruto is what matters. Naruto, Naruto, Naruto.
It takes her one day further to find the best target. A boy, with hair as red as blood – the demon. He is smaller than Haku had pictured, for the tales she had heard painted him larger than life. He is but a boy, around the same age as Naruto. Haku could make an attempt to sort through the other shinobi, try to determine who she had witnessed previously and which faces are brand new to her, but she knows for a fact that this shinobi was gone. Had witnessed the events.
No wonder they sent along a demon to the chunin exams if they wished to start a war. It makes sense now.
Haku follows him for several hours, attempting to determine the best way to approach him. The demon starts out with two alongside him, a taller, covered figure and an older girl, but they leave him after about an hour, and no one else dares to approach him. He wanders through the streets, utterly silent, and causes everyone around him to fall into silence as he approaches.
They all fear him, completely and utterly, and Haku watches and Haku wonders. She does not wish to approach him in the streets – low profile, low profile, especially given that there is nothing she can do about Naruto’s fate now, whether she finds out the truth today or tomorrow – but she is beginning to think no matter how she approaches him, it will not seem natural. No one else does. Even the simple act of engaging with him will set her apart and-
The demon boy appears behind her in a whirl of sand. “Are you here to kill me?” There is no inflection in his voice. Perhaps he is about to kill her.
Haku turns. He is smaller than her, around the height of Naruto – she had determined that from afar, but seeing it in person is different, for those eyes… “You have the same eyes as me,” she says.
The boy was already still, but now he is even more still. His arms folded across his chest, tight as can be, those dark-rimmed eyes focused on hers with intent. “...What do you mean?” he asks, after a moment. His voice is raspy — is it natural? Born of speaking little? Born of speaking too much?
Haku does not know if she can truly articulate it. The deep, profound sense of loneliness that bubbles up within her – she had shed that, shed those eyes once, but they have found her again. The blood on their hands, that of her father’s, that of Zabuza’s classmates, that of the countless this demon boy has killed… “Forgive me,” she says, and she smiles slightly. “I followed you because I knew you were at the chunin exams, and I wanted to ask about a friend of mine.”
He looks her over. Haku does not know what he sees in her – does he see himself in her eyes as well? He is a shinobi. Can he look through her mask, now only metaphorical, to see her underneath? “...Uzumaki Naruto?” he asks, and her heart stills in her chest. “He’s your friend?”
“Yes,” Haku breathes, taking a small step forward. “Please. Tell me everything.”
They sit together on a roof top, the end of Gaara’s tale hanging in the air between them. Haku lets out a quiet laugh. “That… sounds like him,” she says. Demon, huh… It is interesting, to know the truth. She knows now what that strange power is that Naruto had used, that she had simply chalked up to a kekkai genkai. “He likes to save people. He is… he is truly kind.”
The boy – Gaara, he had introduced himself – has not taken his eyes off of her. She is uncertain if he has even blinked, if he even needs to. Is his demon a snake? Such education was never of strong importance to Zabuza. “Did he save you?”
Haku inclines her head just slightly. “Yes.” She exhales. “He… when my precious person passed, it is thanks to Naruto that I am still here.”
Gaara’s mouth only slightly moves, tipping down into the faintest frown. “Naruto used those words, too.”
Oh. Had she truly impacted him so much? She smiles a little, helplessly. “I suppose he learned that from me.” He seems interested, and so her own story spills from her lips. Why would it not? To this boy who… well, she understands him, in a way. Though Haku still finds that she is the most comfortable with those declared demons, with Zabuza with Naruto and now with Gaara, when it comes down to it… rejected and targeted and attempted murder, simply for their own innate powers, innate selves.
Did she deserve to die at her father’s hands, simply for her ice? Does Gaara deserve to die at the hands of his uncle, simply for the demon inside of him and his sand? Does Naruto deserve the profound loneliness he has felt, that desire to latch onto to anyone and anything, and whatever else he has gone through, because of the demon inside of him?
They have done nothing, and yet… They are who they are, and yet…
It makes Haku’s heart ache, but it is not all bad. She longs for Zabuza, but she also has comradery here. Both in who they are… and with Naruto. When she finishes, Gaara’s eyes are still intently on her. He does not seem to emote like other people. “You said he was your friend,” comes his flat statement.
So she had, when speaking before. “I did,” Haku agrees. “But… it is not truly what I would call him, I think. He is my precious person.” Civilians have friends. Haku did, when she was a child. But a tool like her… she has precious people who are allowed to wield her as they please. She smiles softly at Gaara, and asks a familiar question. “Do you have any precious people?” If Naruto used such a statement, she doesn’t think she needs to explain.
Finally, finally, Gaara looks away from her, casting his steady gaze out to where the reds of the setting sun glimmer over the horizon. “...I do not… know how it works,” he says. His voice falters a little, the first hint of emotion she has heard. Even when telling his tale, his voice had been flat, empty, drained of anger that was once there but lacking anything else yet to fill the holes. “Can Naruto be one?”
She reaches out and touches his shoulder, and he goes very still under his hand, hands curling into fists, but he does not pull away nor look at her. Haku keeps her hand there. “Yes. Naruto would think of you the same, I think.”
Gaara gives the barest hint of a nod, gaze still fixed steadily ahead. “I wish… to make my siblings precious people as well, but I do not know how.”
They had not attempted to kill him, not like that uncle. Is it pitiful, that her bar is so low for family, or does it speak more to their experiences? Is it the shinobi experience? Her only real comparison is Zabuza, and he is just like the two of them. “...It will take time, I think,” Haku says.
He looks at her once more. “How long will you be here?”
Haku hesitates under that deep gaze, and shrugs. “I… do not know. Some time.”
Gaara is quiet for a moment, simply looking at her. Haku looks back, though she does not know what he is searching for. “If Naruto is your precious person, and he is mine, does that make you my precious person?”
She has to smile again at that. “If you want.”
“I do.”
They meet up the next morning. Haku had found herself forced to explain that no, Gaara could not come to her inn room with her – he did not sleep, he explained, but she had not wanted him to simply stay there and watch her – and that she would consider staying with him in the future. Keeping a low profile is far beyond her at this point, if they are to belong to each other. She knows it is not even a consideration.
He meets with her outside of the inn, thoroughly scaring the worker at the front desk, and though Gaara should be the tour guide given he has lived here his whole life… that is not the case.
Gaara has nothing and no one, nowhere that he frequents and no activities he wishes to share. It is a lonely existence that he lives, and Haku gets to see that first hand. Granny at the dumpling stand seems to think that she is near being held hostage. Uncle at the bookstore hides from them their entire visit. They are afraid.
“At least they are not trying to kill you,” says Haku, thinking of the uncle that he mentioned. A poor joke, perhaps, but one that she thinks will be received fine.
“They used to.”
Gaara says it with such a deadpan that Haku almost stops in the street midstep. “They did?” He had not mentioned that.
“My father sent them to kill me. There were many before Yashamaru, and after as well.”
Ah. Haku inclines her head. “My father tried to kill me as well.”
He looks at her steadily. “You killed him for it? My father is dead, but I did not kill him.”
“I wish I had not,” she says. “Him dying a different way would have been preferred.”
“I wish I would have killed mine,” says Gaara, and they leave the conversation at that.
They do not speak much, but it is a companionable silence. Their topics of conversation are not exactly light ones, though Haku is delighted to find out that Gaara does seem to know a decent amount about the plants of the region. She certainly knows the plants of Kiri and its surrounding regions, but those of the desert are entirely unfamiliar to her.
“Plants aren’t afraid of me,” is Gaara’s simple explanation. He does not know any proper information, only a few names, and that drives them back to the bookstore to further frighten poor Uncle and retrieve a book on local plants in the region.
It is not… exactly how she expected to spend her morning, walking around with this demon of a boy to identify plants and discuss them, but Haku feels more… whole, for once. She remembers learning about plants as a child with Zabuza. It had begun simply, with him teaching her how to identify plants for food, for poison, for healing, and then she had dug into it further with all her might.
She had enjoyed plants, has always enjoyed it, and doing something she has always enjoyed with someone who understands her… it is a good morning.
They have already caused Granny enough grief with their breakfast dumplings, so Haku is going to suggest finding a place to get ramen – both of them have the same boy in mind as they mutually agree, and Haku thinks Gaara may have something that just barely resembles a smile – when the two happen upon them.
The two she had seen him with yesterday. The siblings. They seem to be around her age, older than Gaara. The sister, pretty but fierce, half-glaring at Haku while also showing a surprising amount of concern. She had not thought they were close, given that Gaara did not consider them precious (or perhaps it is more that he does not know if he is allowed to consider them precious…?). The covered figure in all black with face paint must be his brother, and while he does not glare he somehow manages to look both concerned for Gaara and nervous of his reactions at the same moment.
Time, she had told him. It will take time. She thinks this is correct.
“Gaara,” asks the sister. “Who is this?”
Gaara meets her gaze evenly, and though she falters a little, she does not look away. “This is Haku,” he says. “She is like me.”
They both balk immediately. “What?!”