She was buried alive.

She was fucking buried alive.

Haruno Sakura took a deep breath only to feel a flutter of panic when she realized it was a bit hard to breath. She took another calming breath and moved; ok it wasn’t as bad as she had originally thought.

She was in a coffin.

Holy Shit, she was in coffin.

Sakura tried to remain calm as she shifted, she was laying on something.

She did a few hand signs and her hand glowed with chakra, that was a good sign, she could use chakra, she looked around at her… coffin.

There were finger nail trails in the wood, she frowned, she had just woken up, they weren’t hers. She glanced to her left and almost screamed, but realized somewhere in the back of her mind that it’d use up to much air so she just let her chakra infused hand stop glowing.

She was lying on a corpse.

She was lying with a fucking corpse.

And she was getting really tired of her inner conscience repeating her thoughts with a few more choice words than she had been originally using.

Sakura, with a calm that only came from being scared shitless to many times in too short of an amount of time calmly started thinking of a plan.

Yes she needed a plan, a brilliant plan, one that would get her out of the coffin and onto the ground above.

What did she know? Well, she had been on a mission, something or another about something or another with someone… no she had been alone. She shifted, she wasn’t anymore, she thought with a grim satisfaction in the fact that she wasn’t panicking.

She would have used up what little air she had left in a manner of a few seconds.

The air was getting thinner.

Sakura quickly did some calculating in her head.

She had left Konoha at three thirty in the morning and after traveling for four hours she had reached the half way spot between her destinations.

She had taken off again and traveled for three more hours, she had been on the edge of wind country when she had been ambushed by something or another, she was losing air and brain functioning power.

Considering she still had x amount of air left and she was air tight below the surface in something that obviously wasn’t she could assume she was buried in sand. The wood used was a wood that couldn’t dry out from sand and was heavy enough it didn’t shift much when in sand.

So with a few variables missing she estimated she had about 45 seconds worth of air left, was preciously 30 to 40 feet under ground in a sandy, slightly muddy soil probably by a source of water, and judging by the temperature in the box she had been in it for three or so hours. Which also meant… no one would be looking for her yet.

Sakura nodded her head, well at least she had a time frame.

Now she could get out of the box and figure out what the hell happened.

--------------------Somewhere in the Suna Desert; five miles outside Suna…-------------------

Sabaku no Gaara, Kazekage of the sand sat under a palm tree by a small body of water that was in, all actuality, a spring that ran under the desert and was one of the three springs that feed Suna.

He sat there for one reason. His duties where driving him crazy, he was three seconds from burying the entire city in a wave of Sand, he’d be nice though, he’d give everyone there three seconds to evacuate.

He let out a deep breath that could have passed as a sigh and rubbed his temples, and he thought that he was cured of the voices, hell as soon as he got the one out of his head, thirty more attacked him from the outside trying to wiggle their way into influence him.

He hated it, he hated when they tried to tell him what to do, did he look stupid? He never listened to the old idiots that wanted the old ways followed. He did it his way and his way only.

He scowled, his jade green eyes narrowing, he didn’t need anyone and no one needed him, he should just leave and take an extended vacation.

Almost convinced he needed to disappear for a while he stood up and turned to leave.

When a sudden explosion of sand about 300 hundred yards away from him caught his attention.

He was instantly on alert as he made his way in a flurry of sand to the explosion.

He stopped at the uneven sand and frowned, was that a chakra signature under the sand?

His frown deepened, someone wasn’t…

His question was answered when a hand shot out of the middle of the disheveled sand.

Gaara’s first reaction was to crush the person, sand immediately started squeezing whoever it was pulling them to the top.

But something stopped him, he recognized that signature.

He frowned as he released the person, the sand falling off of the person as they started coughing. Gaara’s eyes widened ever so slightly at the coughing girl kneeling in the sand, trying to catch her breath, covered in sand from head to toe.

Her knuckles were bleeding and her fingers looked raw, her eyes were shut and tears where running down her cheeks, he assumed from sand probably getting into her eyes.

He walked over to the sand covered figure and knelt down, holding himself off the ground, balancing on his heels, he brought his hand out and dusted her hair.

Then he knew without a doubt…

“Sakura-san?”

She was still coughing and crying a bit, she kept brushing sand off her almost like she couldn’t hear him.

He frowned, his hand came up and he flicked his wrist, the sand on her immediately fell off and onto the desert floor to join the other grains that made up the desert.

Sakura’s hands still shook and brushed flinchingly at invisible pieces of sand.

Gaara’s frown deepened slightly and he stood up hooking his hands underneath her arms pulling her to her feet.

She looked slightly pale but besides the rawness on her body; mostly on her hands she looked unharmed. She finally seemed to see him when she was pulled up.

She stared at him for a second and Gaara looked up away from her cuts and other injuries. He froze, he found him self looking into wild green eyes, fear ran rampant in them, a look he was used to.

But another was over whelming the fear, it was relief.

Gaara’s frown that had begun as a slight dip of his lips was a full blown frown now, something that didn’t often grace his usually stoic features. Gaara pulled his hands away from her arms.

Sakura let out a shaky breath and started to fall, his hands shot out, out of reflex and caught the falling pink haired disheveled maiden again, but what he wasn’t prepared for was being fallen into.

He stood there stiff as a board, his arms having wrapped around her to keep her from falling and tried to figure out wither he should step away and let her fall or help her.

She was Naruto’s friend, and… before he had left last time hadn’t she called him her friend? Saying any one Naruto liked that much couldn’t be half bad, something about Naruto’s friends, in good taste, she considered to be friends too.

He guessed that was compliment, Naruto had said it was.

The 19 year old Kazekage made a decision then that he supposed was the right thing to do.

He would help her out; but only because she had helped him.

In flurry of sand the two found themselves the 300 yards to the little oasis, but Gaara found something was very wrong.

As soon as the Sand had started swirling around them incasing them Sakura had immediately started clawing at his chest, screaming.

As soon as the sand let them he let her go and fell back away from her.

So they where both on the ground, one slightly hysterical and the other confused as to what the hell was going on.

Then it clicked, and he hadn’t realized why it hadn’t earlier when it had been obvious.

She had been under the sand; she had been buried alive under the sand.

He knew what it was like to try and climb up through sand, it was nearly impossible. She had to have been pretty far down there for him not to have sensed her too. So when he had incased them in sand to get her over to the oasis she had immediately panicked, her mind going back into panic mode, thinking she was still buried, or about to be again.

He shifted and stood walking over to the distraught girl. He had no idea what he was doing, or how to do it, he had no idea how to get her to calm down. But he didn’t like what was happening now. She was crying and shivering and clawing at the sand.

His hands shot out and pulled her bloodied fingers from the sand. She was still shaking and crying pulling at her hands.

“Sakura?” He called her name, she didn’t tug as hard as she had been, “Sakura,” he paused, “It’s alright, your fine now.” She looked up at him through tear filled eyes, fear clouding them.

He shifted on his feet, “I’m…sorry, I won’t use my sand like that any more, it’s alright I’ll keep you safe.” He didn’t know why he was saying it, he didn’t know what the hell he was thinking. Maybe dieing really had affected him and it was just now catching up with him, but the relief that was clearing the fog of fear in her eyes made him a little glad that he had.

He had just said the first thing that he could think off, he remembered Naruto saying something along the lines when he had bumped a kid to the ground and it had started wailing.

The kid had quieted when Naruto promised ice cream, so was Gaara substituting ice cream with safety?

Gaara frowned at the petit female watching him with teary eyes.

He immediately released her hands, “You can clean up in the spring a bit, Suna’s close by, I’ll take you there after I look into this.”

Gaara had no clue why he was explaining himself. He had no clue why until he stood up and started walking away before he used his sand to go back to the place Sakura had been buried.

He saw the look in her eyes; it was fear that you felt just before you died. It had happened to him when he had made the tattoo on his forehead. He had felt that killing fear, his was for love, she had felt that fear before, he had seen it first hand when the Uchiha had left and they where all sent to bring him back. All but her, and he had seen that pain in her eyes.

But she had survived it, but this was a phobia, someone had buried her alive, this was a physical and mental fear that could do some real damage. If she had given up even a few feet below the surface she would have died.

But even through her fear she had continued.

That kind of fear didn’t belong in people like her, someone who the world shouldn’t have hurt to begin with.

He had no idea where all these strange thoughts where coming from but he did know he felt bad for Sakura, and he did know he told her he’d keep her safe.

He would. He wouldn’t lie or break a promise to someone that he considered was a friend. He supposed, that was the best thing to call her. She was a fairly good friend.

His sand was pulling the remains of whatever was below the surface of the sand, the dark, thick wood held gashes in it from finger nails digging into it, but judging from the depth and aging around the wood, it obviously wasn’t a ninja, and wasn’t Sakura. What his sand pulled up next had him returning back to Sakura in a flurry of sand.

He pulled up a body with the embalm of sand, he pulled up the body of his dead mother.

--------

Sakura had scrubbed everything she could in the fading light, her cloths that she had tried to clean where rung out and pulled back on, the cooling desert evening starting to chill her.

Sakura shook slightly as she tried to get chakra to flow to her finger to heal some of the rawness.

Sand shot up somewhere near her and she jumped back landing with a splash in the spring, her hair clinging to her face, as she shook with a fear she couldn’t fight. It was to gripping and demanding to be ignored and too sudden to allow her to think straight.

The spring water was freezing and her lips started turning blue, the water getting more chilled by the second as the sun went down.

The Sand cleared and Gaara stood there, his fists clenched, his eyes dark and narrowed, and Sakura felt her body shiver, from neither the cold or that panicking grip of being buried. Gaara could control the sand, the panic started to return. He used desert coffin to kill people, her body continued to shake with renewed vigor at the panic clawing at her sides.

Gaara frowned at her and sand started too lift to help her out of the water, but Sakura clenched her eyes shut and lashed at the shallow water around her waist.

Gaara immediately dropped the sand and reached out with his hand, “It’s alright, Sakura, Sakura look at me, it’s okay.” Sakura did, she looked up and a bit of the panic left her; but it still kept her weary and weak. She reached up with an icy wet hand and took Gaara’s much warmer grip.

She felt surprise ripple through her, momentarily taking the edge off her, he was much warmer than she thought. He had gotten a slight tan over the years but nothing close to what she thought someone in the desert should have.

She felt a warmth settle around her and realized his maroon tunic had settled around her shoulders. He turned around and kneeled on one knee his hand coming back. Sakura stared at his back for a second, “B-but I’m wet.” He glanced back at her, “It’s this or sand.”

He felt a stab of guilt go through him when he saw the fear in her eyes. She leaned down against his back wrapping her arms around his neck as he stood, slipping his hands under her bare legs. He shrugged his shoulders causing her to bounce a bit so he could adjust her in his arms.

He was thankful he didn’t need his gourd when he was surrounded by sand through out the desert.

While his sand was special and chakra infused, he could still use the sand around him in the same extension of himself, just to a lesser extent.

The long sleeves of his tunic covered Sakura’s hand as she laid her head on his shoulder, her shivering stopping for the most part.

He’d have to walk if he didn’t want her to freeze with her wet cloths.

He started walking his grip unconsciously tight around her thighs.

In saving Haruno Sakura he found out something that had been buried with the past.

His mother hadn’t died in child birth like they wanted him to believe.

She had been buried alive, Sakura knew the person she was with had been buried alive and that panic had driven her into an extreme fear of sand surrounding her.

She had seen people with phobia’s that where both odd and for the most part unexplainable except for some small, seemingly insignificant event that happened when they where young.

Being buried alive was a real enough phobia in her line of work with the sicko’s out there. But to this extent it became an almost crippling fear that sand would swallow her.

She could fell where her throat was scratched from swallowing some of the sand, her hands curled in Gaara’s black sleeveless under tunic that was all that remained of his cloths on his upper body.

The person in the coffin with her… the person that didn’t make it… Sakura had a sickening feeling that whatever happened to her would be connected somehow.

--------------

It was sick.

It was disgusting.

It was Temari’s cooking.

Kankuro tried his best not gag as he crawled as casually as possible to the other end of the couch, eyeing the door as he did so.

Could he make it without his wind using sister trapping him? No, he couldn’t, he knew he couldn’t and it’d just piss her off if he ran. But God Dammit Gaara wasn’t even there yet and it looked like the red head would get out of eating the god forsaken gruel his sister called chicken.

He sighed, he didn’t know why he was complaining, he couldn’t cook either, he had learned to breath through his mouth and shut down his nose while eating Temari’s cooking, it was starting to kill his taste buds.

“Dinner’s ready!”

Kankuro felt a wave of panic ripple through him, then he had an evil thought, a brilliant plan to get the hell away from Temari’s cooking.

“When’s Gaara getting here Temari?”

She popped her head out of the kitchen to shrug, “Don’t know.”

Kankuro frowned, and looked towards the window into the dark night, “I’m a little worried he may have disappeared again…” Kankuro heard Temari step fully into the living room.

“How so?”

He grinned towards the wall, oh hell yeah. He pulled a frown and a semi concerned look, “I overheard one of the elders complaining about him not being able to find Gaara,” Lie, he’d been out of the village all day, “And when I came back to check in, his office was closed and empty.” Lie, he’d come straight home, deciding to finish up his duties tomorrow.

He didn’t know how accurate his little lies were. He just hoped Temari hadn’t been to Gaara’s office today. She frowned, “You too, I just figured he was out on a lunch break.”

Kankuro grinned again then pulled the ‘face’, “I think we should go look for him. It’s not good for him to be gone this long.”

Temari nodded, “Let me cover the food up.”

As soon as Temari walked from the room Kankuro jumped up and threw up his hands jumping on the couch and praising every god he knew.

Temari came in the room to find Kankuro standing by the door, a very serious look on his face.

“I’ll start on the east side of Suna, you start on the left, we’ll work our way in.”

Temari nodded, a smile forming on her lips, she couldn’t believe how good of a brother Kankuro was being. She grinned, he made her proud.

Off somewhere getting dinner Kankuro cackled evilly.

:Desert Coffin: