WARNING! SEMI-YURI, KINDA NTR? STOP BEFORE YOU READ THIS CHAPTER!
ok...so I honestly don't like this chapter, in a sense that it's kinda unnecessary, so spoiler, so Satsuki kisses female Naruto infront of Gaara, yes infront of Gaara, it's Hella weird, like in lesbian, gay, cuckold kinda mixed into the chapter. So you can skip this chapter if your not into that.
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Chapter 525: Killing Blows
Gaara's dream was briefly made real.
The scene he had replayed quietly in his head through countless sleepless nights -- the one he had assumed would only ever exist as an imagining -- was standing in front of him now, without any distance between them. The most important person in his world had actually become a girl.
Kankuro stared at his brother's face and went very still.
He had seen Gaara's eyes take on that quality before. The first time the Naruko puppet was placed in his hands. The first time he heard her voice. Those moments had each produced a brightness in Gaara's eyes that was striking and a little alarming.
But what was in them right now surpassed all of those.
This was the kind of intensity that made people feel unsafe.
Kankuro felt a very specific bad feeling take shape somewhere in his chest.
Temari's expression had become complicated in a different way. She looked at the girl who had been Naruto a moment ago, then at her brother, whose composure was visibly in the process of failing, and something unsettled moved through her.
This situation had gone in a direction nothing had prepared her for.
And Naruto -- Naruko now, standing in the middle of all of it -- gave a sudden shiver.
She had felt it. That gaze.
It was hot enough to feel like something physical, pressing against her from across the room. Those green eyes were locked onto her and not moving, and the thing inside them triggered something purely instinctive that told her to step back.
What kind of look was that?
Not how someone looked at a friend. Not how someone looked at a person they were grateful to. Not even how someone looked at a person they had strong feelings for.
It was how a person looked at a feast after a very long time without food.
The cold sweat was starting along Naruko's back. She was beginning to regret this.
"Oh, that's right, Naruto." A thoughtful voice came from behind her.
Satsuki was standing there wearing an expression of considerate warmth. "Don't forget why we came here in the first place. You should take that out -- we don't want the Kazekage going hungry."
Naruko blinked.
Right. The ramen. They had come here to deliver ramen.
"Ah -- right, then let me just change back first --"
"No."
Satsuki's voice cut in, light as anything. "Stay like that. You're not allowed to change back before we leave."
"What -- why?"
"Does Naruto not have enough chakra for that?" Satsuki tilted her head, her eyes carrying absolute innocence.
Naruko opened her mouth, looked at those eyes, and quietly swallowed everything she had been about to say.
"I... understood..."
She had no idea what Satsuki was doing. No idea what the purpose of any of this was. No idea what was about to happen.
But she steeled herself anyway, slowly retrieved the container that had been hanging at her back this whole time, and walked step by step toward Gaara.
The intensity of that gaze got stronger with every step. When she finally stopped in front of him, she kept her eyes aimed at the floor.
"Um... Gaara." She held the container out with both hands. "This is for you."
"This is..." Gaara's voice had taken on a roughness that had not been there before.
"It's nothing special. Just ramen." Naruto kept her eyes down, very deliberately not looking at his face.
She did not understand.
She did not understand how things had arrived at this point, what Satsuki was thinking, or why nothing was going in the direction she would have expected.
"Naruto was really worried about you."
Satsuki's voice joined in again, still carrying that same perfectly warm, perfectly considerate quality -- the ideal wife relaying her husband's feelings on his behalf.
"You didn't really eat anything tonight, did you? Not the food I made, not anything. You left the table hungry."
"So Naruto couldn't settle down after we got home. He went straight to the kitchen and made this for you specifically, then came all the way back out here in the middle of the night just to bring it over."
"Specifically?!"
Gaara's voice came out sharper than intended, his eyes going wide. "You mean..."
"I'm sorry, Gaara."
Naruto's voice arrived with a thread of genuine apology. "I only wanted to give you a surprise... I didn't mean to stumble into evqerything I stumbled into..."
The words got quieter as they went, trailing off into something barely audible.
And there she was -- head lowered with embarrassment, voice soft with apology, standing right in front of him and speaking words of concern in a voice that was Naruko's voice.
Who had specifically made ramen for him.
Who had come back in the middle of the night because she was worried he had not eaten.
Naruto was very much not enjoying this situation.
She had only said ordinary things. She had only done what she had done on every previous visit. But the way Gaara was looking at her -- it was not the surprise she might have expected, not the warmth of being cared for, not the simple uncomplicated feeling of having a good friend.
It was something that made her want to take a step back.
Gaara accepted the container with both hands, holding it the way you held something fragile and irreplaceable.
The gratitude was real. But in his chest, that gratitude was converting rapidly into something else. Something he was having a much harder time managing.
One thought. Only one thought, repeating.
Just one embrace.
Just that.
Just to feel what it was actually like -- the real Naruko/Naruto, in his arms. Not the puppet. Not the substitute. This.
The thought spread through him like something catching fire, and the heat of it reached every part of him.
He pressed down on it. He held it back. He used everything he had to keep himself from moving. Don't frighten her. Don't push her away. Don't.
But he had no control over his eyes.
Naruto felt the weight of that look and her whole body became uncomfortable. Her face was heating up. Her eyes had nowhere to go. She became stiff and awkward in a way she did not know how to stop.
And that reaction -- the flustered quality of it, the shy disarray -- hit Gaara harder than calm would have.
"I... could I..."
Gaara's voice came out with a roughness that surprised even him.
He was looking at the flush across Naruto's face, at those evasive blue eyes, while his own face had gone a shade that it had rarely reached. He wanted to say it. The one request. Just one. Just an embrace.
He opened his mouth, preparing to get the words out --
A hand reached from behind, closed around Naruto's arm, and pulled.
Before Naruto could react, she stumbled backward, off-balance, momentum carrying her before she could ask what was happening --
Satsuki's face appeared very close to hers.
Those dark eyes, right there.
Then warm lips pressed against her own.
Naruto's eyes snapped open as wide as they could go.
Satsuki was kissing her.
Right here. In front of everyone in this room.
She wanted to push away, wanted to move, but Satsuki's hands cupped her face and the grip was not negotiable. The kiss stayed exactly where it was, pressing in with the possessive certainty of someone making a declaration that did not require an audience's agreement.
The red in Naruto's face traveled from cheeks to ears to neck, and kept going. Every part of her felt like it had been submerged in something very hot.
There were people watching this happen.
Temari and Kankuro, however, were not experiencing anything like embarrassment.
They stood where they were with their eyes at maximum width. Their faces held not awkwardness, not discomfort, but something closer to alarm.
The bad feeling that had taken shape earlier. It had been right.
Crack.
A faint sound came from the direction of Gaara.
Something had broken.