Chapter 524: An Unexpected Request
Satsuki watched the scene in front of her.
Watched was not quite the right word. Studied was closer. She stood without moving, her expression flat, but her eyes had gone to a place that was strange -- not angry, not jealous, not showing any particular feeling at all. Just empty.
That emptiness was more unsettling than any emotion would have been.
Her mind was working quickly.
She had already accepted that the Naruko puppet was not hers to take.
When she first saw the unfinished male Naruto puppet in the basement, the anger had been immediate and instinctive. The straightforward reaction of someone who had just seen her husband's image used without permission. That half-assembled thing had since been handled -- Naruto had used the Yomotsu Hirasaka to deposit it on Mars, which she found satisfying.
But this one -- the Naruko in front of her --
Satsuki's gaze rested on the puppet. On the golden twin pigtails. On the three whisker marks that matched Naruto's exactly. On the face that was simultaneously like him and entirely its own thing.
She was not going to admit what she felt in that moment. She barely admitted it to herself.
Another version of Naruto.
A female version.
If she had one of these herself -- the thought lasted less than a second before she crushed it back down. But the feeling that accompanied it had been real.
That was also why she had been so furious when she first understood what Gaara had done with this puppet. Because this was something that could have been hers. Something she could have kept. Something she could have treasured.
And instead --
But Naruto had given his consent. He had told Gaara to keep it, to use it as a comfort, to take whatever he needed from it.
Something turned over in Satsuki's head.
Wait. She did not actually need a puppet.
She had Naruto himself.
All of him. From the inside to the outside, from the first thought in the morning to the last before sleep. Completely and entirely hers. So why would she want a substitute? Why would she need a second version? Why would she want anything less than the original?
She had the real thing. The most genuine, most complete, most irreplaceable version that existed.
The emptiness in her eyes gradually cleared, replaced by the particular quality of light that was specifically hers.
But this did not mean she had forgiven Gaara.
She looked at the red-haired man. At the expression on his face -- that mixture of sadness and being moved by something, the way he was holding back tears over what Naruto had said. She looked at him, and a thought arrived.
She reached forward and tugged lightly at Naruto's sleeve.
"Sa... Satsuki?"
Naruto turned, mildly bewildered. He had still been in the middle of that last moment and had not fully come back from it.
"Ah, sorry, I got carried away again." He was already pivoting toward the practical. "There's been a lot tonight that none of us expected, so let's head back and --"
"Wait."
Satsuki's voice cut across him. She raised her eyes to his, and something moved through them that was hard to put a name to.
Then, in front of Naruto's puzzled expression, she slowly raised one hand.
She pointed at Naruko, sitting at the edge of the bed.
"Come on, Naruto." Her voice was perfectly even. Perfectly unruffled.
"Show me what that looks like."
"...Huh?!"
Naruto's jaw dropped. He stared at her with his eyes wide open, every part of his expression saying he had not heard that correctly.
Show me what that looks like?
"What's the matter?" Satsuki tilted her head. Her eyes held the particular quality of innocent confusion that appears when someone is asking for something they consider entirely reasonable.
"You already agreed to let that thing keep existing. So why can't you become that yourself?"
"You just said I was your most important person. Didn't you."
Naruto froze. He had said that. Standing right in front of Gaara two minutes ago, he had said those exact words. They were completely true, but this particular application of them was something he had not accounted for.
The cold sweat was already starting.
He glanced over his shoulder. Gaara was standing completely still, staring, having turned to stone mid-motion, his eyes wide with an expression that mixed shock and something that could only be described as hope so intense it had stopped looking like hope.
Satsuki followed Naruto's glance, and the corner of her mouth curved slightly. Exactly as she had expected.
"Can we maybe do this at home first --" Naruto's voice came out with very little confidence behind it.
"No." Satsuki shook her head. Her eyes curved into a warm shape that contradicted the absolute firmness of her tone entirely. "Right now."
She let a beat pass, then added, with the particular inflection of someone asking for something and knowing they will receive it: "What's wrong? Is this really something Naruto can't do for me?"
Naruto looked at her. Looked back at Gaara. The sweat was coming faster.
Was she sulking?
He turned it over. Was this because of what he had said to Gaara? Some form of reaction to that, expressed in a direction nobody would have predicted?
The logic of the sulking was completely impossible to follow. But the intent behind those eyes was not open to argument.
"..."
Everything Naruto felt was visible on his face: the conflict, the embarrassment, the cornered quality of someone who can see exactly where this is going and cannot stop it. He looked at Satsuki's expression, which was not going to change. He looked back at Gaara, whose face had ceased to function as a face and become something more like a sculpture of overwhelming feeling. He looked at Naruko, sitting quietly to one side.
Then, with enormous effort, he raised his hands.
He formed a seal.
"Poof."
The white smoke of a Transformation Technique bloomed around him and dissipated quickly.
Where Naruto had been standing, there was now a girl.
Golden hair in two loose pigtails falling past her shoulders. The same blue eyes, but lowered, avoiding everything, carrying a visible embarrassment that did not know where to rest. The same face -- and on it, those three distinctive whisker marks, which somehow, on a face that had suddenly become considerably softer in every line, looked --
Actually quite endearing.
And the expression that came with it -- the burning embarrassment, the inability to decide where to look, the color rising in her cheeks -- added something to all of it that made it difficult not to feel something.
"..."
Gaara moved one hand sharply and pressed it flat against his own chest.
His heart was doing something that had moved well past what his ribs could comfortably contain.
Moments ago -- just moments ago -- he had been grieving over "Satsuki is my most important person." He had been sitting with the knowledge that he would never stand in that place. He had been carrying the weight of a feeling that would never be answered.
But none of that mattered right now.
Because Naruto had become a girl.
Not the puppet. Not a replacement. Not a shell with the right face. The actual person. The one who had pulled him out of the dark. The one who had shown him what it meant to have bonds. The one he had spent his whole life wanting to be closer to.
A girl.
The thought entered his head and his head stopped working.
Every piece of steadiness he had managed, every wall of composure, every ounce of self-restraint he had spent years carefully constructing -- all of it collapsed in the same instant.
He watched Naruto -- Naruko now, it seemed -- standing there, the orange tracksuit having adjusted itself automatically to match the transformation.
Gaara felt his posture change without deciding to change it, bending slightly forward before he caught himself, trying very hard not to completely lose his composure in front of an audience.
Satsuki watched all of it.
This was exactly what she had expected.
****
80+advance chapters at patreon.com/Eatinpieces