tampered | Log; COMPLETE

Log; COMPLETE

When; 8.11 ; SOME... TIME
Rating; PG-13 for FAITOIO
Characters; Sui [

cherryhoops] & Sabaku no Gaara [

sandmullet]
Summary; Couple o' pugnacious kids try to get it out of their system?
Log;

Gaara was not known for his patience. With only a little tolerance for the wordplay over the network, he had swiftly enough cut to the point and left for the forest. The forest was large, of course, rivaling those within Fire Country, and knowing he had hardly given a new citizen enough information to find him, Gaara determined it necessary to raise a sign.

Though not necessarily needing the room, having found an appropriate clearing, Gaara saw little wrong with being flashy. (A symptom of restlessness, of boredom?) A satisfied muscle twitched in his jaw as he maneuvered the sand from his gourd, slicing into the nearest tree until it made to topple, at which time he thrust it, held aloft by a pillar of sand, into the air.

With the hefty wood far above his head, leaves sprinkling down over his head from the disturbance, Gaara crossed his arms, considered the shattered remnants of the trunk, and waited.

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What a fucking signal. He had to be strong, this guy, or had to be fast, to get there so far advanced that he could knock a damned tree over, right? This would be fun, a good stretch before she actually got back to business with getting back to that bastard who had beaten her, made her cry. Tch.

The hair she kept long despite herself floated wild about her face when she landed in the clearing, the hoop she fought with already in her hands, larger almst than her own body.

"You ready for this, punk?" The concept of her own loss was still painful, but readily dismissed. Stronger, stronger.

At her arrival, his fingers moved; the sand twisted, jerked, and the tree was thrown some feet to the left, crashing down and over its rooted brethen.

His head tilted, and he yielded what would be his only vocal response for this: "... Pft."

The sound had hardly cut the air before his hands moved, fingers twisting into shapes and forms as sand lurched, spiraling out of his gourd, raising from beneath his feet. He flicked three fingers on his left hand, sending three darts of razor-like sand to her left; he bent his right arm, fingers reaching, and a rope of sand whipped at her right.

She was about to get another word in, something along the lines of "Don't you pft me!", "Impressive tree tricks", or "Bring it on", but she didn't quite have the time for it. Fast, right, because he moved like that, and the suddenly it wasn't him moving, he wasn't strong, it was-

Sand?

Gritting her teeth, dangerously close to biting her tongue, Sui threw herself backwards, the metal hoop in her hands arcing light in a flash as she backflipped, followed by the ribbons of dark purple hair, landing gracefully as she could manage, still graceful, but sloppy by her own standards, eyes wide at the idea- Sand? How the hell has- Sand?

But she was a fighter, if not a fighter of his abilities, and she threw herself again, lean body jumping full force in to contact, over the arc of dirt and gravel and glass and towards the figure that seemed so much smaller than his weapon, almost as she did, calloused hand swung, the blade of the hoop preceeding her feet towards a body.

Hoops. His eyes narrowed on her weapons of choice, evaluating their strength, their utility. But, aware that the only way to ascertain their true capability would be to allow her the attack.

Gaara moved his fingers as if over a keyboard, constructing a simple pretense of offense, tendrils of sand lashing at her legs as she ran toward him. She was fast, he would give her that, and perhaps if he had not used his sand, soaked in blood and chakra, it might have been less pretend that she always remained one step ahead.

As the hoop swung, so the sand moved. The susurrus resonated in his ears as the sand encircled, cocooning him in its automatic shield. The blade of the hoop cut into the hard packed grains, and he glanced with deliberate inexpression at the impact before, as slowly, redirecting his gaze to her.

The sand that did not cover his face responded to his gesture, made an attempt to hook an ankle.

How-

It was unheard of, in her world. This shouldn't be happening, and as this is not your world had yet to fully sink in, she was confused, mind racing and trailing behind a mile a minute. Avis stuck in to the sand, and she ended up following, her shoes collided in to sand after the weapon, tugging back instinctively but struggled against a quickly hooked ankle.

"The He-" Was grit out, switching to try and go forward over his shield to kick off the grip, reactions tight and controlled despite her overwhelming unfamiliarity.

It wasn't a bad kick, a poor attempt to free herself from the tightening clutch. Or, it was, against an opponent of his caliber. She would need to try harder than that, and he felt disappointment swirl in his gut as his hand twisted on his wrist, the sand curling faster, now up her leg, wrenching her back from her ambitious move forward.

It dragged her away, back, as his other hand moved to introduce another rope of sand, now with the aim of snaking up her arm, entwining a hoop, weighing her down.

And finally, he spoke:

"Is that it?"

Edited 2008-08-12 02:10 (UTC)

"Shut the hell up." She snarled. She was strong, yes, strong, and she was sure, without that sand, she could take him, and yet- And yet-

Her teeth grit, an audible noise, and a noise built in her throat, veins twining up her throat as she arched, shoulder popped, wrenched, and she managed to somehow grind her arm forward enough to slam the hoop once more towards his exposed face, the noise built to a cry.

Through it all, he did not react. Not so much as a blink as her teeth ground, as bone popped, and as her arm shoved against the force of restraining sand to try one last time - as it truly was a desperate last try. She had a lot of grit, a spitfire, and Gaara was not sure if it was annoying, pathetic, or on some level deserving of respect.

And Gaara did not react, nor did he need to, as sand swung up, displaced from some position behind his elbow to crash against the blade.

"Too slow," he said, too monotonous to be a reprimand. His fingers curled toward his palms, his hands lifted suddenly. The sand pulled into the air, and if successful, her with it, to dangle her upside down by foot and hand.

Humiliating? Perhaps. But disappointment mingled with irritation at how ineffectual she had proved, and it was this or consider the urge to fist his hands and break something.

She struggled, she did, but against the sand, this foreign power, her own was nothing. Nothing, and it made her like trash, but she wasn't- Even that bastard Fallan, was even he this strong, with powers like this-

"You-"

She struggled to say the words, managed to mouth them, "rematch", "not fair", but she suddenly went lip, shoulder creaked a bit from the strain she'd put on it, a sniff, it sounded suspiciously like a sniff, and that looked suspiciously like water in the corners of her eyes.

She wasn't trash, she wasn't-

He did not suspend her too far above the ground, only a rough foot. The sand he let, pushed to grip tight enough to leave a bruise, but nothing more; his eyes focused with vague interest on her face, waiting for red to swell against the white, for the blood to settle with gravity.

The sniff, the water; these sounds and sights he had failed to notice, unable to comprehend them and what they prognosticated.

"Do you yield?"

There it was. Just like when Fallan had turned her attack, pushed her down and held her, and she couldn't comprehend the idea of it, of losing, of not being strong enough, and-

Like a small child, Sui started to bawl, her sniffs turning in to cries that shook her shoulders and squinched her eyes shut, steadily increasing in volume.

Gaara stared.

Her face had contorted, she was making some bizarre wailing noise, and water was dripping off her forehead and to the ground. Gaara stared, and for a minute, struggled with the proper label for this. What?

It took him that minute, then he understood: she was crying. He felt his lips press, almost curl in disgust, his eyes narrowing, chin tucking, body almost urged into a step back to find some distance from this spectacle.

"... Ninja saying #25," he said, his emotionless voice now close to disdain. "What are you ... doing?"

Unable to think of anything else to do, and acknowledging that this, at least, was one way of totally giving up, he dropped his hands, released the sand (whistling as it crawled back to his gourd), and thus, dropped her straight to the ground.

She hit the ground hard, straight on her ass, Avis landing with a clatter around her, hands wiping hastily at her tears. This couldn't be, losing not only once to that Fallan, but twice? And to some little boy, too, not a dark and handsome martial artist even-

"Sh- Shut up about your stupid ninja rules!" Sui managed to get out, blubbering like a child who'd had ice cream stolen from her.

"I'll kill you, I swear-" It was hard to even understand what she was saying, shaking her arm at him in what might have been threatening, if she hadn't been crying so pathetically.

Rather than shut up, he elaborated, tone very much thick with are you kidding me: "No matter what situation a shinobi must keep emotions on the inside. You must make the mission your top priority and you must possess a heart that never shows tears."

If Gaara had stolen her ice cream, he wouldn't even have licked it at this point. He'd have thrown it to the ground and thrown sand on it.

"No, you won't. You're too weak." He couldn't even shake his head, could only turn his back on this, on her. Even threatening to break something lest she stop would be a waste of his time. Gaara pivoted, sand entirely returned to the gourd, and began to walk away.

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Log; COMPLETE

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