Naruto's Uchiha girlfriend is too Tsundere Chapter 521 - 522: Light

Gaara looked at Satsuki. At that cold face, carrying the weight of a verdict already reached.

He understood. There was no concealing any of it anymore. Whatever he said, whatever he did, however he might try to appeal to her -- this Uchiha woman was not going to let it go.

And then, from sowhere unexpected, anger rose.

If it was already inevitable. If the secret was going to co out regardless. If Naruto was going to know sooner or later --

Then what exactly was he still hiding from?

What was he afraid of? What was he still pretending for?

Gaara took a slow breath, turned, and walked toward his own room.

Kankuro followed a step behind with the expression of a man heading to his own sentencing, footsteps heavy as if each one required individual effort. He knew they had reached the worst possible outco. He had run out of ways to stop it.

Temari followed behind him, still visibly trying to piece together what was happening. What partner? What secret? What puppet? Why did everyone in this room seem to know sothing she did not?

Satsuki walked last, face unreadable. The anger had not left her -- but she wanted to see what this red-haired man was going to do next.

And Naruto simply followed along, genuinely curious.

That was the full extent of it. Pure curiosity.

He wanted to see Gaara's partner. Wanted to know what kind of person had managed to reach soone who, in the version of the future Naruto rembered, had remained alone his entire life. He had already quietly put together a few sincere words of congratulation in his head, ready to deliver when the mont ca.

The bedroom door was pushed open.

Soft light spilled out from inside, reaching each of them in turn.

And then everyone saw her.

Sitting at the edge of the bed.

Long golden hair arranged carefully into two lively pigtails, resting softly against her shoulders. Three faint whisker marks along pale cheeks. Eyes closed. A bright orange tracksuit, the exact style and color of the one Naruto wore almost every day.

She sat perfectly still, like a girl asleep, nothing about her suggesting she was anything other than a person.

Except for that face.

That face was too recognizable. Too specific. There was no angle from which you could look at it and mistake it for soone else.

Naruto stood very still for a mont. Then he raised his hand and rubbed his eyes firmly.

Right. He had clearly been working too hard lately. Overwork produced strange things. Visual distortions. Hallucinations.

Because the alternative -- that his closest friend, the Fifth Kazekage of Sand Village, had constructed a female version of him, and that she had been sitting on his bed -- that was not sothing that could be real.

Absolutely not.

He rubbed his eyes again and looked.

The golden-haired girl was still there.

"Gaara, you..." Temari's voice ca from beside him, the voice of soone whose ntal load had reached its absolute ceiling.

Her eyes moved across the figure in slow sequence. The twin pigtails. The three whisker marks. The orange tracksuit. The face that was, without any room for ambiguity, identical to the person currently standing in the doorway.

The situation had exceeded anything she had been prepared to understand by a factor of roughly ten thousand.

Her brother had found soone he liked, and that person was beautiful -- this part was technically true. Golden pigtails, a pretty face, what were probably blue eyes underneath those closed lids. All of those things were fine.

The problem was that the person her brother liked happened to look exactly like the golden-haired young man standing right next to her.

"Exactly as I expected." Satsuki's voice.

She looked at Gaara with a fire in her eyes she was not trying to hide. "I was too careless, Gaara. I made the mistake of thinking of you as simply Naruto's friend."

"Seeing that Naruto has this kind of effect -- that even a Kazekage would lose himself over him -- I don't find it flattering at all."

Each word arrived precisely.

"It seems you've been very comfortable with Naruto around. Comfortable enough to start fantasizing about soone else's husband. To turn him into this image. And to do those kinds of things."

"Are you really that starved for affection? That desperate? Do you want a Naruto of your own that badly?"

"What a sha -- he will never be yours. He is my husband. Legally, permanently, every part of him, mine."

"And you -- all you can do is hold this lifeless machine in your room and lie to yourself. That is genuinely pitiful."

These words, by any reasonable standard, should have broken Gaara open. Should have sent him into the floor with sha. Every sentence was a blade and all of them landed true.

But they did not produce the expected result.

Gaara's hands curled into fists. His eyes ca up. The thing burning in them was not sha.

It was anger.

Sothing that had been compressed far too long finally pushed past the point where it could be held.

"Do you think everyone is like you?!"

Gaara's head ca up sharply and he fired back at Satsuki at full volu.

Kankuro's head snapped up in disbelief. Gaara was actually fighting back? Right now?

They were the ones in the wrong here. They had built the puppet. They had violated soone's likeness without permission. They were the ones who had been caught. They should be apologizing. They should be working to defuse Satsuki's fury. That was the only rational response to this situation.

What was Gaara doing?!

"You ungrateful person who doesn't even appreciate what you have!" Gaara's voice rang through the room with the particular energy of soone who had run out of things to lose. "What do you know about ?! What gives you the right to stand there and say any of that?!"

Satsuki blinked.

She had not expected this. Not from soone who had been caught red-handed, with evidence that did not leave room for interpretation. That this person would turn around and co at her with this kind of directness --

She was just about to respond. Just gathering herself to say sothing considerably sharper. Just preparing to let this presumptuous red-haired man understand precisely what it ant to provoke an Uchiha --

And then Gaara's next words stopped everything.

"I'm nothing like you!"

His voice shook, carrying sothing underneath the anger -- the raw sound of soone who had been holding too much for too long.

"You have everything, and all it did was make you want more..."

Sothing was happening to his eyes. The edges reddened faintly, a thin brightness gathering that had nothing to do with rage.

"I... I... even with Naruko..."

He drew a breath.

"I never once touched her."

The room went silent the way a room goes silent when sothing is said that takes a mont to fully land.

Kankuro's mouth fell open. Temari's eyes went so wide they seed in danger of leaving her face. Satsuki's expression moved from fury to stunned incomprehension, then from that to sothing more complicated and harder to na.

Naruto stood where he was, blinked once, and let his brain work through what he had just heard.

"You... what are you saying..." Temari's voice ca out sowhere between words, dry and halting. She was fairly certain she was not going to sleep tonight.

Gaara did not look at her.

He lowered his head, and everything that had been locked behind pressure for too long finally broke loose.

"Naruko is... she is sothing precious."

"From the very first mont I saw her, I knew. She has Naruto's face. Naruto's hair. Naruto's markings. Naruto's smile. She looks so much like him -- so much like the person who reached into the dark and pulled out of it."

"Every ti I look at her, I rember that day. I rember the way Naruto stood in front of and the way he looked at . I rember every word he said. I rember the first ti I understood that being needed by soone felt like this -- that living was sothing you could actually look forward to."

"So... I couldn't bring myself to touch her. I couldn't bring myself to let that kind of thing touch what she represents. I couldn't connect Naruto's face to sothing like that."

He lifted his head. His eyes, faintly bright at the edges, found Naruto's face. What lived in them was sothing close to reverence.

"Just being held by her while I sleep -- that is enough."

"Just hearing her voice. Hearing her speak to in his way. That makes the day feel like it had a reason."

"Even just seeing her face. Even just sitting beside her. Even just knowing she is there -- that makes happy."

"She is not sothing I would use to satisfy a craving."

"She is... the only comfort Naruto ever left within reach of . She is my light."

Every word was true.

He was not rationalizing. Not constructing a defense. Not reaching for sympathy with language chosen for effect. He ant each sentence exactly as he said it.

From the day Naruko was placed in his hands, Gaara had not touched her. Not once.

Not because he had not wanted to.

Precisely because he wanted to so much that he did not dare.

Naruko was too much like Naruto. That face, those marks, that hair, that voice -- every detail was a reflection of the person who occupied the center of everything Gaara had. Every ti he looked at her, it called back to every mont Naruto had ever stood in front of him and said sothing that mattered.

And so he could not. Could not let sothing that ant this much beco associated with sothing as base as wanting. Could not let himself beco the kind of person he would be ashad to look at.

So he had kept her beside him. Held her while he slept. Listened to her speak. Let her presence fill the quiet. And nothing more. The line existed and he had not crossed it.

Not once.

Until tonight.

Until Naruto pressed that Sand Crystal into his hands. Until he channeled Naruto's chakra into Naruko's body with his own hands. Until Naruko's eyes opened again, and sothing in those eyes had changed.

Before, those eyes had been sapphire -- beautiful, precise, the work of Kankuro and Lady Chiyo at their finest. Beautiful, refined, and empty.

Just eyes. No presence behind them. No temperature. No trace of Naruto.

But when Naruto's chakra flowed in -- when that warm and familiar energy moved through the puppet's fra from within -- those eyes had felt like they ca alive.

No longer just beautiful stones. Sothing behind them now. A quality of attention, of warmth, of a gentleness that looked at him without condition.

Too much like Naruto.

Far too much.

In that mont, Gaara had almost forgotten it was a puppet. Almost believed, for one impossible second, that Naruto was actually there.

And so when Naruko opened her eyes and looked at him with those blue eyes carrying Naruto's warmth and said softly, "Gaara, I'm here" --

He broke.

Everything he had been holding down for too long. Every accumulated night of missing soone he could not have. Every feeling he had sealed away and sealed again --

In that mont it all ca through at once.

He kissed her.

For the first ti, desire won.

In that mont, he was not the Kazekage. He was not the composed, steady leader. He was just a person who missed soone he could never truly have, and who had finally co undone.

Kankuro sat with his head low, shoulders shaking faintly. Whether it was crying or sothing else, it was not entirely clear.

"That... can't be right." Temari's voice broke the silence.

She looked at Gaara with eyes that could not accept what they were hearing.

A young man in his pri. A beautiful puppet he could have done anything with, that had been with him every day, held against him, treated gently --

And he had done nothing?

Temari opened her mouth, feeling her way through the words carefully, her voice tentative.

"It's not that... Gaara, is your body... having so kind of problem in that area...?"

The mont the sentence finished, the air in the room crystallized.

The color that rushed into Gaara's face was visible from across the room.

"It reacts every single ti I even see her face!!"

He was shouting. Loud enough to rattle the ceiling.

"It hasn't cald down even now!!"

"AAAAAH --!!" Temari shrieked, both hands clamping over her ears. "Don't announce these things at that volu!!"

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the OG author is just trolling at this point... second hand embarrassnt, aaugghhhhhh