Shinobi Isekai!

Inside Job

((The Image is a piece of fanart done for this story! Isn't it lovely?))

Gaara kept his eyes trained on the door. The Anbu guards had escorted him and his siblings into the meeting room at the same time they always did, saying nothing as they lead them from their cells in the bowels of Konoha's Intelligence department. It was...strange, to say the least. When the masked shinobi had arrived after Killer Bee beat the Ichibi into submission, he had fully expected to die. His siblings, too, if their grim expressions were anything to go by. Suna certainly wouldn't have spared any lives, had Konoha invaded them. So, naturally, he was confused when, instead of having his bijuu ripped from him as spoils of war, he was taken to a cell and treated by a medic nin. Sure, he was still a prisoner, but he was alive. He was fed, watered, and clothed. His siblings, too. He was even allowed to see the very people he'd tried to kill, his fellow jinchuriki treating him kindly as though they had always been friends.

Friends.

Yes, they were his friends, weren't they? Well, Naruto was. Killer Bee was more of a...senpai? Yes, a senpai, better versed in navigating life as a host for a demon and more than willing to pass on his wisdom. That, too, was strange. Knowing others like him made him feel both less and more alone. They could understand him, to a certain degree, but Killer Bee was on good terms with the hachibi and Naruto had only ever spoken with the kyuubi once. Neither of them knew what it was like to be tortured by their beasts as he was.

It didn't help that mother—Shukaku, not mother, never mother—insisted on continuing to torture him.

There's a reason they only send the jinchuriki, the bijuu hissed, words caressing Gaara's mind in all the wrong ways. They don't trust you. They're tricking you into thinking they care, that they think you're human, but the only ones who visit are the ones who can subdue you. Where's that little girlfriend of yours, hmm? Why hasn't she come by?

Because he was a potentially hostile jinchuriki who could very easily kill her. It was such an obvious answer, and the fact that it came to him so easily made it hurt all the more. There were a million reasons why Hanako wouldn't come to see him—couldn't, even. He had no idea what had happened to her after he left her at the arena. Naruto had looked rather green when he asked after her, but ultimately didn't answer, leaving the older genin to think up all manner of horrible fates which might have befallen his friend. He knew Orochimaru was targeting her, for whatever reason, and that snake was foul enough to deter even the ichibi. He didn't even want to imagine what he might have done to her, if he managed to find her.

The door opened, revealing the tall, heavily muscled frame of Killer Bee. The Kumo nin was...an interesting person. Gaara had never met anyone like him before, and he doubted he ever would again. He still wasn't quite over the shock of being punched back into his human form.

"Yo, my cute little kouhai," the large man said with rhythm, moving his hands in strange gestures. "I've come to chill and say 'hi'!"

Kankuro snorted, amused as he always was by the older shinobi's rhymes. Temari only watched him with nervous green eyes, her mouth set in a grim line as her hands fidgeted with her belt, where her kunai pouch would have been.

"Hello," Gaara said softly, glad for the silence in his head. Shukaku seemed rather cowed by his siblings. "It's good to see you again, Killer Bee-san."

Killer Bee waved a hand in dismissal, the motion as large and over the top as he was. "No, no, no! That's gotta go! Call me senpai or you'll make me cry!" His face warped into a caricature of sadness, the expression horrifying in its exaggeration.

Ah. No.

Before Gaara could muster the courage to reject the older jinchuriki's unwelcome overture, the door opened again.