Fic - Demon Spawn - 2/?

[evandar]

Title: Demon Spawn
Author: Evandar (yamievandar / hikarievandar)
Fandom: Naruto
Rating: T
Warnings: Some swearing, very mild violence, MPreg, crack, rampant Kankuro abuse
Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto and I am making no profit from this story.
Summary: A diplomatic visit to Konoha have bizarre and permanent consequences for the Sand Sibs. Poor, poor Kankuro...
Notes: There's an omake for this chapter posted at the end. Nyurgh...now I can work on chapter three.



Chapter 2
The Birth of a Demon


Gaara’s pregnancy resulted in the longest nine months of Kankuro’s life. Tsunade and Temari – malicious bitches that they were – had not allowed him to escape by staying in Konoha. Apparently, he wasn’t suitable for the job as Suna’s envoy to Konoha. Temari was. So instead, Kankuro had been forcibly dragged back to Suna.

And he hadn’t even been allowed to kick and scream along the way.

The first obstacle they had to face was the Suna council. Their reactions on finding out that their Kazekage had fallen pregnant to some unknown father – Gaara didn’t care and Iruka wasn’t saying anything thanks to a broken jaw – were nothing short of comical. They had objected, loudly, until Gaara had pointed out that the child was his and that he would be having it. This, accompanied by a glare that could have defrosted Snow Country in seconds and the ominous rustling of sand, had the council collectively cowering in their seats.

Then there was the pregnancy itself.

The first couple of months weren’t too bad, and Kankuro began to think that maybe, just maybe, they would have an easy time of things. After all, morning sickness served only to make Gaara crankier than usual, and Kankuro - and Temari when she was around – was used to dealing with a cranky Gaara.

But then, somewhere around the fourth month, the cravings hit. They were…relatively normal at first, with Gaara suddenly developing a taste for dango, but they got stranger fairly quickly.

Kankuro started to avoid eating breakfast with Gaara in the mornings after Gaara greeted him one day with the phrase “The baby needs blood.”

Next time she saw him, Temari told him to stop being such a baby. But then again, Temari wasn’t the one who was dragged out of bed at three in the morning by ropes of sand around her ankles and ordered to go and get their little brother some fresh fish. Kankuro was.

“But Gaara,” he protested, his survival instincts dulled by his need for sleep. “We live in a land locked country. We live in a bloody desert! There is no fresh fish in Suna.”

Gaara had glared at him, one hand resting protectively on his rounded stomach. “The baby wants fresh fish,” he said slowly, as if he was talking to a small and particularly stupid child. “I am your brother and your Kazekage. You will go and get me some fresh fish, and you will go now.”

As killing intent began to seep into the room, and the sand in Gaara’s gourd began to pour out, Kankuro cried out an oddly high pitched “Yes Gaara!” and fled.

He didn’t dare take his time on the journey. Instead he made it to Wave Country and back at a speed that Rock Lee would have been proud of.

But all things considered, the food cravings were nothing compared to the mood swings that followed soon after. There were days when an oddly – creepily, in Kankuro’s opinion – friendly Gaara would take time out of his busy schedule as Kazekage to go and visit the Shinobi Academy. These visits made the children even more in awe of their Kazekage, made the teachers panicked and twitchy, and made Kankuro cringe as he couldn’t help but think of the last Academy teacher Gaara had been involved with, and the consequences that came with that involvement.

Thankfully, in Kankuro’s opinion, Gaara wasn’t creepily pleasant all the time. There were days when Gaara was as normal as he’d ever been, days when he would barricade his office in a wall of sand and start screaming – always worrying – and days when he was irrationally angry. The latter days had ended up sending several people to the hospital, and there was still an ominous looking bloodstain on the floor in front of the office door.

But even the mood swings had an advantage. For starters, members of the village council had started avoiding the Kazekage building – and their home compound – like the plague. Things were a lot quieter without them around.

The other advantage involved the Akatsuki. They had – rather stupidly – decided to take on the Ichibi Jinchuuriki when he was ‘indisposed’ during the seventh month of Gaara’s pregnancy. They hadn’t taken Gaara’s mood swings, or the fact that Shukaku was suffering from hormone fluctuations as well, into their plans. The battle was incredibly short, and resulted in what appeared to be the entire desert rising up against the two terrified Akatsuki members.

They vanished, and Kankuro had expected that they had been buried under the huge wave of sand that had made the worst sandstorms look insignificant. But then, the next time Temari had briefly returned to give her report on the goings on in Konoha, she had mentioned them.

Apparently, they had been found thirty miles over the border into Fire Country, exhausted of their chakra, and muttering incoherently about “The sand. Oh Kami-sama, not the sand.” Upon making sure that Konoha and Suna were allied, they had apparently begged for asylum, betrayed the Akatsuki – providing lots of useful information at the same time – and had joined the ranks of Konoha’s Jounin.

The most disturbing part of the whole report was Gaara’s smile when he had heard about the condition they had been found in. It was a smile that had haunted Kankuro’s nightmares for weeks, and that he prayed never to see ever again.

Exactly two months after Akasuna no Sasori and Deidara had been soundly defeated, Kankuro was woken up in the middle of the night by a wave of sand shoving him out of his bed and onto the floor. It had then dragged him by the foot to Gaara’s room, uncaring of Kankuro’s sleep pattern and the fact that there were stairs on the way.

The reason behind the sudden, needlessly violent attack was made clear as soon as Kankuro – rubbing his head and muttering about “Evil sand” – had spotted his brother.

Gaara was sitting in a pool of blood, his eyes wide and crazed looking, his hands – coated in blood up to the wrists – digging into his hair, with his sand swishing around him in a worried sort of way.

“Gaara?” Kankuro said in a soothing tone of voice that did not reflect his own emotional state in the slightest. “Gaara, you need to calm down. It’s okay.”

Gaara appeared to be listening to him, as a hoarse whisper escaped his throat. “The baby…”

“I know,” Kankuro said, still in that falsely calm voice. “It’s okay. You’re just going into labour. The baby wants to come out now, so we’re going to have to call for a medic.”

If possible, Gaara looked even more panicked. In response his sand reached out, wrapped Kankuro in a large, sandy cocoon and dragged him closer. “You are not leaving,” Gaara hissed.

Kankuro tried not to cringe. “Okay,” he said. “I won’t. But, uh, let me send a puppet to the hospital with a message.”

Gaara glared at him.

“Just one puppet!” Kankuro told him. “You need a medic now Gaara. I don’t know how to deliver a baby!”

The sand released him, and Kankuro summoned Karasu, scrawled a message on a spare piece of paper he found lying on Gaara’s desk, and sent it to the hospital. He then tried to stop Gaara from hyperventilating.

The medic arrived with Lady Chiyo and a professional midwife in tow about five minutes later. All of them were panting, obviously having hurried to their Kazekage’s side, but Kankuro could have killed them for taking so long. He might have even done it, if it weren’t for the fact that the situation was so dire and that Lady Chiyo could kick his ass to Konoha and back without breaking a sweat.

He got even more uncomfortable when the midwife asked him to leave. The discomfort wasn’t at the thought of leaving – if he’d had a choice he would have been out of the door in seconds – but rather it was because of the sand that wrapped itself around his ankles, dragged him to the floor and kept him at Gaara’s side.

It was an experience Kankuro was not likely to ever forget. Gaara’s grip on his hand crushed his fingers, cut off his circulation and fractured two metatarsals. He tried desperately to calm his panicking younger brother down, and inwardly swore further retribution against Iruka.

His attempts didn’t work, and instead of calming Gaara, they almost resulted in Kankuro being crushed by the Sabaku Kyuu. Twice. In fact, Gaara didn’t calm down in the slightest until the baby had been safely delivered. The midwife had taken it away to be cleaned and measured and weighed and whatever else midwives did to newborn babies, Chiyo was helping Shukaku heal Gaara, and Kankuro – finally released from Gaara’s iron grip – had presented his mangled and bleeding hand to the medic.

“That’s it,” he muttered as the medic got to work. “Next time I see Temari, I’m going to carve out her uterus with a fucking spoon.”

The medic looked horrified. “Temari-sama? Why would you wish to do that to your sister, Kankuro-sama?”

Kankuro glared at him. “Because there is no way in hell that I’m going through this a second time,” he growled.

The medic gave a nervous laugh, and stepped back as he finished with Kankuro’s hand. “I’m sure Temari-sama would be far more reason…” he trailed off and actually thought about what he was saying. “I see your point, Kankuro-sama,” he murmured. “Perhaps preventative measures would be wise.”

Kankuro smirked at him, and then went to check on Gaara, who was looking far more calm and dignified now that his ordeal was over. The trails of blood smeared on his face and sticking his hair into clumps kind of betrayed the placid expression he was wearing. Kankuro decided not to mention it.

“How are you doing?” he asked.

Gaara didn’t tear his gaze away from the midwife, who was still doing midwifey things to the baby. “Fine,” he said. Then, in a softer voice, he admitted, “It hurt.”

Sarcasm, Kankuro thought, would probably not be appreciated under the circumstances. “You’re okay now, though, right?” he said instead.

Gaara nodded. “What’s she doing?” he asked, narrowing his eyes at the midwife’s back.

“Just checking to see if the baby’s normal and healthy,” Kankuro replied, sincerely doubting that the baby would be anywhere near the realms of normality. “It happens to every baby.”

Inwardly, he worried for the midwife’s continued existence if she took much longer.

He needn’t have worried though. The medic had apparently noticed Gaara’s concern – or rather the glare that represented his concern – and dragged the midwife back over to Gaara’s futon, which had been set up especially for the occasion.

The expression on the midwife’s face made Kankuro twitch. She looked like something was bothering her, which meant that his assumption about the baby and its whole new and very individual levels of weirdness had actually been right. He hadn’t expected to be wrong. After all, a combination of Shukaku, Gaara and that Iruka guy – who was going to die the next time Kankuro was given leave to Konoha – never really had much of a chance.

“Congratulations Kazekage-sama,” the midwife said quietly. “You have a son.”

Then the baby was laid in Gaara’s arms, wrapped in a blue blanket. He was tiny – smaller than Gaara had been when he was born – and red, with black markings around its eyes. And he was breathing.

“Is he healthy?” Gaara asked.

Kankuro blinked. Gaara’s monotonous voice sounded…softer than usual. Gentler. It was weird to listen to.

“Yes, Kazekage-sama,” the midwife replied. She was eyeing Gaara nervously as he unwrapped the blankets, hoping to get a closer look at his newborn son. When the baby was unwrapped, Kankuro couldn’t help but stare.

The baby had a tail. The baby had a great, fucking raccoon tail about the same length as its body, and little, fuzzy raccoon ears on the top of its head.

Even Gaara looked surprised. But then, balancing the baby on one arm, he raised a hand to gently stroke one of the baby’s tiny ears, which was flopped over and lying against his head. Then, Gaara’s lips twitched. He was smiling.

After quickly checking for signs of the impending apocalypse, Kankuro relaxed. “He’s beautiful Gaara,” he said quietly.

And he was telling the truth too. Once you got over the fact that Gaara Junior had a freaking tail, he was pretty cute.

Gaara nodded. “There will be no repetition of the…incident with Yashamaru,” he stated. His tone broached no arguments.

Kankuro winced. “Never,” he promised.

Gaara nodded again, looking satisfied. He wrapped the baby back up and continued to hold him close to his chest.

‘Cute,’ Kankuro thought. He didn’t say it. Instead he cleared his throat and asked a question that had been praying on his mind for a couple of weeks. “So, Gaara…what are you going to call him?”

Gaara paused, thought about it and nodded to himself before replying. “His name will be Sunamaru.”

Kankurp supposed he shouldn’t have expected something imaginative. It was Gaara, after all.








Deidara shuddered violently as he tried to get the sand out of his clothing. He never wanted to see sand again. He never wanted to see sand, a desert, a beach or anything that involved sand in any way, shape or form.

He hated sand.

And if he ever saw a raccoon ever again, then he didn’t think he’d know whether to kill it or run screaming. Doing both sounded like a good plan.

He glanced over at Sasori to find him staring blankly at Hiruko’s tattered remains. The puppet had borne the brunt of the wall of sand that had descended on them, and looked pretty much beyond repair.

Sasori’s blank look was disturbing. Normally Sasori would be bitching about the amount of repair work he’d have to do. He wasn’t, and that silence was even more worrying than the memory of the desert rising up to fight them.

Yeah, the raccoon population of the Shinobi Nations had something to worry about.

The eerie silence that had fallen over their share of the forest was broken by a kunai landing inches away from Deidara’s left foot. He jumped at the sudden movement and gave a very undignified squeak. Sasori didn’t even twitch. Deidara wondered if he had had some sort of heart attack.

A glance up at the tree opposite found him staring into the single eye of Sharingan Kakashi.

“Fuck,” he muttered. As impossible as it had seemed just moments ago, his day had managed to get worse. Apparently experiencing sheer blind terror at the hands – paws – of the Shukaku jinchuuriki wasn’t quite enough; he had to deal with Sharingan fucking Kakashi as well.

“I quit, un,” he said. He pulled the Akatsuki ring off his finger and chucked it into the undergrowth. “I quit. You guys are allied with Suna, yeah?”

“Um…yes?” Kakashi replied. He looked a little…stunned. Deidara might have found it amusing if he wasn’t preoccupied with cursing his shitty karma.

“Good,” he said. “Take me in.”

“What?”

“I don’t ever want to see the bad side of that fucking raccoon ever again, un,” he said. “Ever. Take me in.”

He held his hands out, wrists together, and made his hands smile pleadingly at the Konoha jounin. Sasori joined him.
He was mumbling something that sounded like “The sand. Please no, not the sand.” Apparently Deidara’s heart attack theory had been wrong.

“Raccoon?”

“Shukaku, un.”

Kakashi looked confused. “You went to kidnap the Kazekage?” he asked. "What happened?"

“We forgot about the mood swings.”