5 Sand Archives and a Strange Girl

I wasn't sure if time was moving or not as I stood there shocked. The strange girl still was sprawled out on the ground groaning. What had caused her to do such a thing? Was I really that repulsive? I hadn't ever heard of people being so scared of me that they literally passed out, I guess it was possible though. A loud moan from the girl snapped me out of my thoughts. I rushed forward and kneeled to check her over for injuries. I gently lifted her up once again with my sand but left her in the laying down position this time. I only saw a few bruises on her arms. I looked at the back of her head to see a large lump forming where it had hit the ground. Thankfully nothing more than these small injuries were the result of her fall. I should've anticipated something like this and caught her with my sand. Just like before, the girl's eyes slowly opened with confusion. I sighed, hoping we wouldn't be repeating her falling act yet again. That would just be ridiculous, she would probably be better off if I left her alone at that rate. Though I might get in trouble if she told anyone since leaving someone unconscious on the floor wasn't very noble. Maybe they wouldn't care since it was me who did it, but that wasn't really the image I was trying to portray.

"Are you alright?" I decided to speak before she started making assumptions. The girl looked at me very dazedly. Then once again her eyes widened along with her going to back up, but she couldn't since I was holding her with my sand. She looked very surprised to find herself laying on a bed of sand about two feet off the ground. Then again anyone would probably be surprised in that situation. She still hadn't answered my question which annoyed me. What was so shocking about me anyways?

"Are you even listening? I'm starting to get annoyed," I told her in as gravelly a tone I could manage. I hoped that would get her out of her daze. She flinched and looked back at me.

"I'm very sorry Lord Gaara, I didn't mean to bother you. I'll leave once you let me down and get out of your way." From the way this girl spoke, it sounded like someone had beaten the words she had just spoken out of her. She was really reminding me of a squeaky little mouse with her movements along with her quiet voice. Instead of letting her down, I picked up one of the books she had been carrying. The title read "Clothe Fighting Techniques, Volume 1". I looked at her in surprise that she was a shinobi. She seemed far too nervous and easily terrified to be a shinobi, more like a friendly villager. Now that I looked closer she seemed vaguely familiar. Had I seen her somewhere?

"You look familiar, have I seen you somewhere? Or am I imagining things?" Once again the girl nearly jumped out of her skin when I talked to her, which was annoying yet amusing at the same time.

"I'm Kohara Ruchi, we trained together at the academy Lord Gaara. I understand if you don't remember someone like me."

Kohara's answer was oddly depressing like she was used to being forgotten or ignored. I now remembered her from the academy just like she said. Kohara had been just as nervous as she was now, resulting in a tough time learning in the academy. She wasn't a bad shinobi, far from it actually. It was just that her ability to perform while others watched was exceedingly low. Even when it was just the instructor and a few other students she couldn't handle the eyes on her. Nevertheless, she still persisted in becoming a shinobi. I had a little respect for such a determined attitude. Looking at Kohara's stack of books again, I decided that I would help her. I doubted that she had many friends or anyone to help her train. This was my chance to get to know more people outside of my team. Lifting the rest of her books up with sand, I gently released her from my sand bed. After that, I used my sand to hand Kohara her books. She sheepishly accepted the books before heading to get as far away from me as possible.

"Kohara, if you wish to get better at the Clothe Techniques, come and find me sometime." She stopped and was still as a statue for several moments. I really hoped that if I spent more time with her she would stop acting like that. It was as if every time I said something was like saying I was gonna murder her. Just when I thought she would pass out for the second time she turned and looked at me. She looked oddly determined for some reason. It was nice to know she had a very redeeming personality trait.

"Thank you very much Lord Gaara for offering, I will take you up on that sometime in the future." With that, she quickly scurried away from me, probably worried she would lose composure again. I guess I couldn't say she didn't have any backbone when she had actually responded in a tone that wasn't shaky. Glancing back at her, I thought there might be some potential to her, even though I barely knew anything about her. Moving forward with my plan, I finally entered the Sand Archives. It was a massive room with towering shelves that seemed to never end. The archives mainly held the history of the Hidden Sand, along with the history of the Land of Wind. In the middle of the room towards the front, however, were four large statues. They all had their back to each other while they faced outwards. The pedestal the statues stood on all had dedicated sections to that person. These four statues of course were the Kazekages. Rasa stood in the back with the Second Kazekage, while in the front the First Kazekage stood to the left and the Third Kazekage on the right. Rasa was behind the Third Kazekage while the Second Kazekage was behind the First Kazekage. When the next Kazekage would be appointed, a new group of statues would be started farther back in the archives. I felt unsure about if I actually wanted to become Kazekage as Gaara had in the original series. Walking toward the statues felt like I was walking toward a king. They were definitely made to look intimidating, no doubt about it. Aside from my father, I held the utmost respect for the Kazekages. They had helped preserve the Hidden Sand Village each in their own right. Stories of their exploits were told even now at the academy, which brought excitement to the soon to become genin.

I looked first to the First Kazekage, who had the fewest books under his statue. His name was Reto, he had founded the Village Hidden in the Sand or Sunagakure as it was actually named. He had been undeniably powerful which was how he united all the desert-dwelling shinobi under him. He attended the first Five Kage Summit with his successor Shamon the Second Kazekage. He was then assassinated by shinobi who didn't like how much power he held in his position as Kazekage. I flicked through a few of his books but was quickly bored by the lack of anything interesting. Since nobody really wrote anything down at the unstable time, much less the Jutsu that a founding Kage used, no one really remembered what jutsu Lord First used when fighting. Which was why his shelf was so small and empty, as disappointing as that was. I moved over to the shelf under the Lord Second, deciding to go in order. His bookshelf was only slightly larger than Lord First's, which was at least a small improvement. I grabbed one of the books off the shelf and hoped that they all wouldn't just be more history lessons. Shamon was Lord Seconds name, who was bald and had a dragon tattoo around his eye. He came into power after the assassination of Lord First and spent a lot of time researching jinchuriki and weaponizing them along with the Tailed Beasts. Shamon was the one who introduced puppets to use in battle in order to strengthen Sunagakure's military might. He developed the chakra threads method as well as other methods to control multiple puppets at once. I really should send Kankuro down here sometime to read some of these. If he hadn't already read them, he's definitely be fascinated with the techniques and puppets it talked about. Moving on, Shamon met the same fate as his predecessor which was death by assassins.

I sighed with annoyance as I put the books I had read back on the shelf. So far I had wasted about an hour reading books on history and puppets, both of which were pretty useless to me. I would tell Kankuro to come to check these out though, they could certainly help him out. I decided that if the Third Kazekage didn't have anything to offer, I'd just go back to my room and practice Jutsu in private. I quickly realized though that I wasn't going back to my room. Not only was Lord Third a user of the Iron Sand technique, but he had created that technique by using his kekkei genkai. His kekkei genkai was the same as mine, Magnet Release. Lord Third has extensively researched Shukaku's sand manipulation which he then paired with his Magnet Release. This in turn created his Iron Sand manipulation technique. I read over the treasure trove of handwritten notes on his research, gleefully turning each page. If I could even copy an eighth of his power I would double my strength. Lord Third was regarded as the strongest Kazekage for this very reason, his Iron Sand was far stronger than any normal sand or my father's golden sand. The real downside to this was that I would need to talk to Shukaku if I wanted to better understand the Iron Sand. There wasn't enough in his notes to master it just off writing. I groaned and felt myself shifting into a bad mood. Even entering my mind to look at Shukaku could trigger his anger and bloodthirst to come back in full swing. Devolving back into a deranged psychopath wasn't something I was gonna let happen. Yet I needed to in order to obtain the Iron Sand. I really wasn't sure if it was worth the risk at the moment since I didn't really need it that bad. If I went up against Sasuke in the chunin exam finals like the book, it wouldn't help me anyway since he would use lightning style Chidori which was the Iron Sand's weakness. I realized it was inevitable, that I'd eventually need to talk to him if I ever wanted to achieve something similar to Nine-Tails Chakra Form. Naruto had unlocked it in the anime while the Fourth Great Ninja War was going on. At the very least I'd want to achieve a cloaked form that I would have control over.

So many things I wanted to do to get stronger in so little time. These things weren't gonna be done in a matter of days, it could take years. I'd most likely have to travel to Genbu if I couldn't get Shukaku to willingly help me achieve a Chakra Form. It was what Naruto did in order to get the proud Nine-Tails chakra from Kurama. Shukaku and the Nine-Tails were very similar in that nature, stubborn and prideful. Shukaku had far too high of standing for himself to just do what was convenient for me. I needed to find something to power myself up without relying on Shukaku. I began walking around the archives without a clue what I was looking for. I made my way to the very back where things were in much greater disarray than upfront. This part was the artifacts section, full of relics that signified the Land of Winds' past. Summoning scrolls were used to store anything from valuables, weapons, attacks, and anything you had the skill to put in there. People of course very rarely bothered to look back here since most artifacts were boring trinkets. I yanked one off the shelf and unwrapped it. Gaara never used the summoning technique in the anime because he was much more focused on using his powerful sand attacks. I decided maybe I could find a way to use it in my attacks or something else that would be beneficial. I used the scroll and with a poof, iron sand appeared from the scroll. It pooled onto the ground which caused me to sigh. How ironic that the iron sand manipulation which was out of my reach just had to go and wave the fact right in my face. I angrily de summoned the iron sand back into its scroll. Someone must've put some of Lord Third's iron sand in here to preserve it. I decided to take it with me to experiment with, I doubt anyone would notice one scroll disappear out of thousands.

Walking out of the storage section of the Sand Archives, I was glad I just had to carry a light scroll instead of a gourd of iron sand. It would be even more burdensome than lugging normal sand around. I froze in place as a realization hit me. I looked at the scroll in my hand while my brain thought hard about the idea I just had. I quickly rushed to the front of the archive where they kept empty summoning scrolls. They were used when another artifact was submitted that needed to be preserved. I grabbed serval of them with my sand which I then shoved in my gourd with my sand. I hurriedly walked back to my room, eager to test my theory. I paused to walk normally once I made it to the hallway that lead to my room. I didn't want to be seen walking like this in front of Kankuro, who I saw walking toward me as I rounded the corner. Kankuro didn't immediately see me since he was working on some kind of puppet mechanism while slowly walking. As I got closer however he heard my footsteps and glanced up to look at me. His expression froze for a split second before becoming wary. It was a bit of improvement since earlier which I was glad to see. The puppet mechanism he was working on was most likely a work-in-progress idea he was constructing in preparation for our rematch. It was good to see he was taking it seriously and not coming in with a losing attitude. Of course, I had little doubt in my mind that I would win against Kankuro but it was still nice to see him working on it. Especially if I learned how to manipulate iron sand, it was a massive weakness to puppets. The iron particles would get into the puppets' mechanisms which would jam them, making it a useless hunk of wood and metal.

"Kankuro it's nice to see you taking our rematch seriously. Do not think I'll go easy on you again."

"I'll be ready this time Gaara, just you wait" I'm not even sure he believed the words he was saying but I admired his fake swagger.

"If you want more help, go to the Sand Archives and look at the books under the Second Kazekage." With that, I continued walking forward while Kankuro stood there and contemplated what I had just told him. A part of him probably thinks it's a trap I thought, which made me laugh internally. I'd love to see Kankuro walk into the archives all shaky and worried about getting ambushed. The only thing in there that could ambush him was dusty old scrolls and books.

I walked to my door and opened it quickly, eager to get to work. If I was right about this, it would give me a serious edge when I would normally be at a disadvantage. I rushed to my enormous sand gourd in the corner of my room. Time to get to work.