Rushing Like A Warm Current In My Veins

"Holy shit. That's a huge bear." Gaara discretely sneaked past the lounge and was heading to his room to get the gifts he had prepared beforehand when he heard Nemoto's voice coming from inside the lounge.

"What do you mean bear, asshole?! This is a tanuki!" Irinaka screeched in annoyance. From his experience brought by months of interacting with both Nemoto and Irinaka, Gaara was sure that a fight was on the verge of breaking out. Within a split second, Gaara was off, rushing to his room without hesitation, wanting nothing to do with the chaos that was about to happen. "What about you? That's a huge dog you got there."

"Hah? You tryna pick a fight with me, you midget mannequin? This is obviously a nine-tailed fox!" Inside the lounge, Nemoto narrowed his eyes, veins popping on his forehead as he clutched a large nine-tailed fox stuffed toy in his arm.

"Oh? Those were tails? For a moment I thought those were feather dusters you stuck on its ass." Irinaka sneered, leaning on the couch beside a giant tanuki stuffed toy which made his body look unbelievably small. How did he even get that in the lounge?

"Alright, midget! Let's fight! I'mma fuckin mess you up!" Nemoto shouted, placing the fox on the couch and squaring up.

At the other end of the table, Chisaki, Arima, and Kurono were quietly drinking their tea.

Life is daijoubu.

A few moments later, Gaara finally entered carrying his intricately packaged gifts and headed straight for the quieter side of the room, ignoring the two who were about to break out in a brawl.

"Did you really buy everyone gifts, Gaara?" Kurono took one look at Gaara's arms filled with gifts and laughed.

Confused, Gaara turned towards the other two. "Was I not supposed to?"

"Well, you could if you want to, but it really isn't a must." Arima smiled in amusement. "In fact, the Shie Hassaikai never really celebrated Christmas before. This was just an excuse the kids came up with as an extremely late welcoming party for you since we never had the opportunity to hold one before. *cough* Chisaki *cough*."

"Oyabun-" Chisaki hissed in betrayal, cheeks reddening slightly, to which, both Arima and Kurono chuckled in his expense.

After finding out about the true purpose of this occasion, Gaara was frozen. It turned out that these people actually took the trouble to set up this gathering just to welcome him.

Suddenly, the cold no longer existed. The snow melted and a warm breeze blew which warmed his insides.

"It might be a bit late but, Welcome to the Shie Hassaikai family, Gaara."

...

That evening, due to the much more eventful day that he had, Gaara decided to take a rare break day and fell asleep as soon as he hit the mattress, clutching the two giant stuffed toys he had recieved as gifts.

Meanwhile, at the back gardens, Kurono was sitting silently by himself, concentrating on circling his inner chakra throughout his body despite gradually being covered in snow.

From the terrace, Chisaki watched on in confusion. "Why are you working so hard on your chakra? We don't live in a world where we have to fight for our lives all the time. Wouldn't doing the bare minimum be enough?"

Suddenly, Kurono turned towards him with a bright expression on his face which Chisaki had never seen before.

"Shinobi do not exist in our world, which makes us the first generation of Shinobi to exist." Kurono smiled brightly, his fists clenched in excitement. "Don't you just find that knowledge envigorating?"

Normally, when faced with a person covered in melted snow and dirt, Chisaki initial reaction would be to reel in disgust. But, at this moment, the way the moonlight reflected on Kurono's glistening skin looked so beautiful somehow.

The snow continued to fall throughout the night, covering the city in a blanket of snow. At one point during the night, Chisaki had quietly sat down on the terrace, joining Kurono in his solitary training.

...

In the early morning within the back garden of the Shie Hassaikai compound, Gaara was peacefully making sure his collection of potted cacti were still healthy. If one were to listen closely, they would hear a faint humming coming from the red-haired boy, making it clear to those listening of his good mood.

He had just gotten a night of peaceful rest and woke up to a message from his friend, letting him know that the previous day was not a dream.

Gaara smiled to himself as he stood up from his squatting position, only to be caught by surprise by a person suddenly popping out through the door.

"Gaara! Your 'friend' is here to see you!" Nemoto informed, leaning on the sliding screen door with his eyebrows wiggling suggestively and, as though being cued in, Lee rushed through the doorway, barrelling towards Gaara in excitement.

"Morning, Gaara! Ready for a youthful day of training?" Hurriedly, Gaara placed the cactus he was holding back on the rack, just in time to catch Lee in his arms, both of them crashing towards the wooden floor.

"Morning, Lee." Gaara greeted, his voice sounding strained as he was being squished between Lee's body and the floor.

"Just friends, huh?" Nemoto snorted and rolled his eyes, heading back inside.

"What was that noise?" Chisaki asked peeking out the door, only to click his tongue in distaste upon seeing the two boys sprawled on the floor without any regard for the dirt. "Tch."

Fortunately, Lee soon took hold of himself and sat up quickly, looking around the terrace and the garden in avid interest before settling on the cacti Gaara was previously taking care of. "Wow! Those are a lot of cacti. Are they yours, Gaara?"

"Yes, I- uh..." Somehow, Gaara felt embarrassed all of a sudden. "I like to take care of them in my free time."

"Huh, you actually like to take care of cacti in your free time? That's unexpectedly cute!" Lee blurted out, not realizing the implications of his words. Who knew that the all-powerful Kazekage actually had such a cute hobby?

"It's not cute." Gaara huffed, cheeks reddening in embarrassment.

"It is!" Lee teased, grinning like a playful cheshire cat.

"It's not." Gaara stressed. Cacti are dangerous and possessed sharp thorns which could cause injuries when one wasn't careful, therefore, those who cared for cacti are meticulous and courageous. Not at all cute!

"..." Lee and Gaara stared at each other, neither willing to back down.

"It is."

"Oh my god! Stop making me feel so frustratingly single!" Nemoto shouted from inside the house, contemplating whether to change his social media status to: Single and ready to Strangle.

...

"Come on, Gaara! You have to believe in yourself!" Lee encouraged, his breathing normal and looking as though he wasn't even winded at all. "This is just the first part of the training! You can't give up now!"

"I can't- I, ugh..." Gaara suddenly stopped, his body forcefully giving up on him as he slumped towards the ground in exhaustion, panting and dripping in rapidly cooling sweat. "It's impossible, Lee."

"Nothing is impossible, Gaara! In order to achieve something, you must first believe that you can do it!" Lee optimistically patted Gaara's back.

"My body isn't made for this..." Gaara said through gritted teeth, his head pounding and his stomach churning uncomfortably as though he were about to throw up. "Not everyone can do 100 laps around the entire neighborhood like you, Lee."

"Or, perhaps we should have taken this slower. Maybe get your body used to exercise little by little." Suddenly realizing his mistake, Lee awkwardly rubbed the back of his neck.

"I'd be grateful if we can take this step by step." Gaara sighed as he slowly sat up, normalizing his breathing.

"Alright! Step by step it is!" Lee smiled brightly, sitting down beside Gaara and waiting for the boy to rest enough so they could continue.

By the time they finished the amalgamation that Lee considered as a warm-up, more than two hours had already passed.

Fortunately, it was also at that time that grandma Maki called them both in for breakfast, serving them large crates filled with fragrant meatbuns and xiaolongbao.

Gaara didn't know if it were just the exhaustion fueling his hunger or something else, but for some reason, the food he ate seemed to taste unbelievably delicious.

He might have found out why Lee liked food so much.

Afterwards, they took a short break to digest their food.

Watching the pristine snowflakes falling on the ancient temple as they contentedly drank warm tea beneath the Tree of Nuwa's balding canopy, was a different kind of satisfaction.

As the world was slowly covered in white, all other colors within it end up looking more vibrant, standing out in one's eyes.

Lee never found red as eye-catching as he did now.

"Both of us grew up alone and friendless. But now, we're suddenly back to being kids again, though, this time, we're given the chance to grow up together." Lee whispered, laying comfortably on the tree's roots. "Don't you think this situation is a bit too deliberate?"

A cold wind blew past, dancing between the tree's few remaining leaves as Gaara smiled imperceptively. "I don't really care if it was a coincidence or something deliberately done. I'm just grateful that I'm no longer alone."

Looking at Gaara's small smile from the corner of his eye, Lee felt something warm fill his chest. It was a suffocating feeling that made him want to say something but not knowing what.

Instead, he discretely took his phone out and took a picture to commemorate this moment.

After four years of aimlessly drifting along the waves of the vast oceans, he finally found his anchor.

...

In the end, due to a sudden snowstorm alert, Gaara and Lee were forced to cut their training short, postponing their 'fated rematch' for another day.

With nothing else to do, Gaara weighed his remaining options.

He could choose to study his sixth grade materials and middle school materials, or he could figure out what his second dojutsu could do.

On one hand, by studying his future materials, he'd be able to quickly finish his online schooling and be able to set that aside as soon as possible in order to make time for more useful training.

While on the other hand, he knew close to nothing about his second dojutsu aside from it turning his eye color permanently gold-colored and being somehow connected to the chains which brought him to this world and subsequently connected to Arima's and Chisaki's souls. If Arima's theory was right.

Oh, and it apparently caused Arima to develop his Taigan.

Gaara thought to himself. He didn't really like being unprepared. If he were given a weapon, he'd study everything there was to know about it before using it in battle, therefore, he needed to master his second dojutsu as soon as possible.

Directing his chakra towards his eyes, Gaara activated his dojutsu, finding it much easier now that he had experience in mastering the Rinne Sharingan.

At first, nothing seemed to happen so, he tried to remember what occurred during the previous two times the dojutsu had been activated.

Perhaps he could summon up the golden chains?

Thinking of calling up the golden chains to appear before him, he focused his dojutsu, and his eyes flashed in a brilliant golden light.

Suddenly, hundreds of slender chains emerged from his chest, all floating aimlessly around him as though they were snakes ready to strike as soon as their master commands; all except two particular chains which were stretched taut, passing through the wall and leading to somewhere within the house.

Tentatively, Gaara controlled the rest of the chains to disappear back into his body, only leaving the two stretched chains out.

Somehow, something was telling Gaara to lightly pull on the stretched chain with his chakra and complete the connection. Deciding to trust that voice for now, Gaara channelled his chakra towards one of the chains and felt it get caught on something.

And, with a single thought, he pulled.

[-thics would not be enough. In order to take hold of the current market, a product which catches the public's interest-]

All of a sudden, Gaara could hear a voice in his mind. At first, it was just the voice. Then, everything bombarded him all at once.

A pile of documents on top of a table, the slight heat from a laptop's keyboard on his fingers, the faint scent of disinfectant, the sound of keyboard keys clacking, and the lingering taste of green tea.

He was disoriented, experiencing a completely different scenario while still being able to perceive his own.

[-NA of a subject with certain visually appealing mutations to create an attachable mutation. It should be possible...]

Immediately, Gaara realized that he was peering through Chisaki's thoughts and everything he was perceiving.

Feeling a headache coming, Gaara abruptly cut off the connection, reverting back to the silence of his own room.

Taking a moment to rest, he began to think back to the experience and quickly tried to come up with ways on how to practice his control of this ability.

Atleast, now he had a basis of what it could do, which gave him several ideas on how it could prove to be useful to him. Although it didn't seem all that powerful right now, it might still have some abilities he had yet to explore.

For now, he had to practice what he knew. Starting by learning to separate each senses from each other until he could choose to receive only one at a time.

With that, he channelled his chakra to the other chain.

[-cerned. I should prepare them in case the government conducts investigations. It's not easy to whitewash decades of Yakuza work.]

...

During the next few days, with the snowstorm still refusing to let up, Gaara ended up being forced to stay at home due to the piled up snow outside.

Everyone in the neighborhood stayed indoors, sleeping the winter chill away or spending their days in solitary silence.

All except Lee, it seemed, as the boy still visited the Shie Hassaikai compound everyday to deliver a crate of steaming Xiaolongbao and to greet Gaara a 'Good morning!' before heading on to his daily training, sticking true to his promise.

Needless to say, everyone in the Shie Hassaikai who were there to witness it were amused, much to Gaara's chagrin.

Fortunately, by the time the New Year rolled in, the snow had already begun to slow down.