A Single Drop Of Nuwa's Blood Which Grew To A Tree

Gaara surveyed the temple with caution. Judging from the tingling on his forehead, he knew the Rinne Sharingan had forcefully activated itself again for the first time in several months but, he had enough confidence in his control over it so he didn't worry too much.

Though, something about the temple didn't seem right to him. Especially that giant tree. It just made his skin itch in the wrong way.

Determined to investigate the cause of this bad feeling, Gaara slowly made his way up the stone staircase after making sure that whatever barrier was keeping the chakra locked in wouldn't keep him out.

He studied his surroundings, taking note of the temple's appearance. Although it currently looked old and weathered down, he could still see traces of a more glorious past hidden beneath the snow. Towards the sides of the staircase were stone pillars which had depictions of guardian beast statues atop each of them, watching the people passing by below them. And the temple itself was shaped like an ancient Chinese pagoda which, oddly, looked like it served to seal off the giant tree behind it rather than to welcome visitors.

"One hundred ninety-eight!!!"

Suddenly, from the top of the staircase, Gaara heard a loud and energetic voice shout, causing his contemplative thoughts to come to a halt.

Looking up, he saw a young boy wearing a just a green jumpsuit even in this cold weather, who seemed to be around the same age as his current physical body, now running down the staircase, his young face obviously filled with frozen sweat and exhaustion but he still pushed on even as his body emitted visible steam.

Somehow, looking at the boy, Gaara's chest had a sudden surge of warmth that made him feel as though he were meeting an old friend despite being sure that he had never met the boy before. Something about him just felt familiar somehow.

Wait. He seemed to have yelled 198 earlier. Was he counting the number of times he ran up and down this staircase? This staircase has atleast two hundred steps!

Seeing as the boy was rapidly approaching him, Gaara moved to the side of the staircase to avoid disturbing his training, watching as the boy passed him by.

All of a sudden, the boy stopped and stared at him for a long time, then he shook his head abruptly, heading for a stone pillar and smashing his head on it, only to later cry out in pain.

"..." Gaara didn't really know whether he should feel amused or concerned.

Then, the boy was back to staring at him again. This time, Gaara could discern the obvious disbelief in the child's eyes as he gazed at him, eyes filling with unshed tears.

How come the child ended up crying just by looking at him? He wasn't really that scary, was he?

Now, while most people would call Gaara emotionless, he was in fact, not heartless. And if a child was crying in front of him, he would do his best to calm them down.

"Are you alright?" Gaara asked gently as he slowly approached the boy, to which the boy just stared at him tearfully. Now that he was closer to the boy, he noticed that he was actually wearing extra weights on his ankles. The feeling of familiarity became much stronger. "Does your head hurt?"

Suddenly, the boy seemed have noticed something on Gaara's forehead which caused him to grow so pale that Gaara thought he were talking to a ghost. Though, when he reached for his forehead, he began to realize what the boy had been looking at.

It seemed that the Rinne Sharingan had been opened this whole time. Gaara was so focused on the strangeness of the temple that he forgot to seal it.

Immediately, Gaara was even more suspicious of the boy.

During the course of the past few months, Gaara learned that seeing various strange mutations on the streets were considered normal in this world.

Normally, upon seeing his third eye, most people would just pass it off as just another mutation quirk.

The only reason someone would grow pale with fright upon seeing his third eye for the first was if they knew what it was exactly.

Gaara narrowed his eyes in suspicion, studying the other boy closely as he began to make conjectures, piecing the clues together until he came to a daring conclusion.

Under Gaara's intense gaze, the other boy seemed to be feeling uncomfortable, his eyes darting everywhere as his mouth struggled to form words.

In the end, all he could come up with was a weak question. "Why are you staring so hard at me?"

To which, Gaara replied with no hesitation. "You reminded me of someone."

Seeming to take Gaara's answer as saving grace, the other boy gradually became bolder, asking with secretive hope. "Really? What's their name?"

Gaara appeared thoughtful for a moment, hesitating before finally spitting two words out. "Rock Lee."

Suddenly, the boy's hands trembled, his knees visibly shaking as his eyes widened in disbelieving shock. After a few moments of silence, he picked himself up again and showed Gaara an expectant yet tearful smile. "Was he a great person?"

At this point, Gaara was almost completely sure that his conjecture was right.

Slowly, he let down his sand armor and gave the other boy a smile filled with complicated feelings.

"He was an incredibly good taijutsu fighter. Perhaps even the best in our generation." Gaara said honestly, speaking the words he'd always wanted to say to his rival in the past but was always unable to. "I almost killed him twice. But he also has an awful haircut."

"Oh." His hair wasn't really that bad, was it? The boy suddenly laughed through his tears. "He sounds like a strange person."

"You can stop pretending now, Lee." Gaara said dully, causing the other boy to flinch.

"Is it really you, Gaara-kun?" Rock Lee asked hesitantly, his eyes trembling as though he were afraid this was all a dream.

"It's me." Gaara nodded with a small smile. And that was all it took for Lee to come undone, bursting into a waterfall tears. "It's nice to see you again, Lee."

"Yeah, it's nice to see you too." Suddenly, he was enveloped in a warm embrace.

Gaara- THE Gaara, actually took the initiative to give him a hug! He was so taken aback that even his waterfall tears stopped all at once.

"I- I, Gaara-kun?" Towards his sudden loss of vocabulary, Gaara just patted his back before sitting down at the side of the stone steps, patting the space beside him for Lee to follow.

...

"So, how long have you been here?" Gaara asked after a while of comfortable silence that they both needed.

It seemed that Lee was more emotionally impacted by their meeting, causing Gaara to wonder what happened to him that made Gaara's appearance impact him so much.

"Four years... I've been here for four years." Lee whispered, causing Gaara to look at him in surprise. He initially thought that they'd have a difference of a few months at most but, Lee had actually already been here for a much longer time than him.

"I almost gave up multiple times... Thinking how if I died again, I might be able to go back." Lee gritted his teeth in regret, thinking back to the days where he was always alone in a big house in a foreign country and an even more foreign world, feeling hopeless in a child's body whose parents were just too busy to care. "Before I came here, Guy-sensei opened his Eighth Gate to let me live. I still don't know if he managed to survive."

Gaara listened to him quietly, sympathizing with his own experience.

"But you didn't give up. You're still here. It proves that you're still fighting. And I'm sure that your sensei would be proud of you for that." Gaara tried to reassure the other boy. "You shouldn't worry about your sensei too much. Someone as strong as him won't die so easily."

"I know. I know that sensei is strong and he would definitely survive!" Lee clenched his fists, unreconciled. "I'm just embarrassed of myself for coming so close to giving up so much! What if I really gave up those times? Then, wouldn't that mean I'd never get to meet you again? I can't help but feel afraid."

Towards those words, Gaara just froze, feeling awed by Lee's honesty.

Surely, even though the vessel was different, the soul contained inside had never changed.

Gaara silently studied Lee's current appearance and took notice of his now long hair which was tied in a low braid, immediately thinking back to one of Lee's former teammates. He understood.

"You have a lot of regrets too, huh?" Gaara asked, not really expecting an answer.

Following Gaara's gaze to his hair, Lee's expression fell. "Neji..."

...

"You're familiar with this temple, aren't you?" Gaara asked as Lee showed him around the temple with familiarity.

"I suppose. I've been living here with my grandparents for over a year now since this body's parents are too busy to take care of a child." Lee explained absentmindedly. "Before I got here though, I was living in Nanjing, China."

Gaara felt mildly concerned with the way Lee phrased his sentence.

HIS grandparents- as opposed to - This body's parents. And judging from how he looked, it appeared that his words came from a subconscious feeling rather than being deliberate.

It inadvertently showed his feelings of acceptance towards his new grandparents, but also alienated his parents.

Perhaps, he could look into it more in the future.

"And lastly, this tree." Suddenly, Gaara snapped out of his thoughts, only then realizing that they had arrived at the foot of the giant tree hidden behind the pagoda.

"You came to the temple because you felt this tree was strange, right?" Lee asked knowingly as Gaara looked at him in surprise.

"Don't worry. I also felt that this tree was strange when I first saw it. But, actually, it's not a bad tree. Not at all like the one from our previous world." Lee reassured honestly, cuing a musical rustling as the tree shook its branches, seeming to agree with Lee's words.

Not expecting a tree to move so suddenly, Gaara hurriedly leapt back, distancing himself from the tree and eyed it warily, his sand ready to defend him anytime.

"Please calm down, Gaara-kun! I promise that this tree would never do anything to harm you or anyone at all." Lee waved his arms wildly, trying to appease Gaara.

"This tree is called the Tree of Nuwa." Lee explained, patting one of the tree's thick roots. "Legend says that after Nuwa fixed the pillars of heaven, a single drop of her blood fell on the earth which later grew to this tree. Because of it's noble origins, the tree eventually developed its own consciousness."

"Unfortunately, since a long time ago, people thought that only humans should possess sentience and any other being that gained their own consciousness were dubbed as demons and therefore, had to be eradicated." Gaara listened quietly, a complicated emotion flitting through his eyes as he vaguely empathized with the tree.

"While at first sight, you might end up thinking that the barrier which traps the qi and chakra inside the temple is being used to seal the tree and prevent it from causing havoc to the outside world, in truth, it's real purpose is actually to hide the tree from malicious taoists whose aim is to eradicate all sentient nonhumans."

"I see." Somehow, Gaara felt a weird sense of comaraderie with the tree now that he heard of its origins.

Slowly, Gaara let down his guard, turning to the tree and bowing to it. "I had mistakenly judged you and for that, I apologize for my previous rudeness."

Seeming to accept his apology, the Tree of Nuwa shook its leaves, making Lee sigh in relief.

...