Chapter 50: "Sandstorm Hearts and Sky High Sighs"
(In which Gaara stares, Conis stares back, and love forgets there's a fistfight happening ten feet away.)
The cafe was in chaos.
Cloud chairs flipped. Tourists screamed. A table full of Skypiean elders toppled like dominoes. In one corner, Shino and Smoker were locked in a clash of wills and smoke, their powers colliding in sparks and swarms.
In another corner, Shikamaru was holding Tashigi in place with a lazy sigh while sipping juice through a straw. Naruto was placing bets with Kiba on who'd win the Shino-Smoker fight ("My bugs are cooler than your lungs, believe it.").
But all of that?
Didn't exist in the eyes of Gaara and Conis.
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Gaara's Perspective:
He stared at her.
Her golden hair was almost glowing under the sunlight pouring through the translucent ceiling. She wasn't holding the bazooka anymore. She had gently, reverently set it down like it was a sacred offering to peace.
And now she stood there with a hand over her heart, eyes wide, lips parted ever so slightly.
Gaara didn't move.
His heartbeat thundered in his ears like a war drum. But his face—stoic, unreadable, blank as ever.
What is happening to my organs? he thought.
Is this… cardiac arrest? No. Something else. Something gentler. But also terrifying.
She's like the opposite of sand. She's… warm.
Do I need to protect her? From whom? Myself? The world?
I don't know. But I will.
I will.
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Conis's Perspective:
She stared at him.
He didn't say a word, but his silence was louder than any poetry she'd heard. His hair was the color of fire, and his eyes—oh skies, those eyes—looked like they held every storm that had ever passed over Skypiea.
Who is this beautiful storm boy?
Why does my heart sound like a dial engine?
Did he just control sand? What kind of majestic earth sorcerer is this??
He looks like the kind of guy who never smiles, but if he did, I'd combust.
Oh no. I think I'm in love.
He's glaring at me like I'm a threat. Am I blushing?? I'm blushing. Oh Skies, help me.
Outside, Shino was locked in a rapidly escalating battle with Smoker, whose smoke tendrils twisted through the air like enraged eels. Shino, expressionless as always, countered with a swarm of insects so dense it made the air hum with menace.
"I don't have time for your teenage illusions!" Smoker roared, trying to break through the bug barrier.
"And I don't have time for your lack of deductive reasoning," Shino replied coolly, deflecting another strike with his reinforced bug armor.
A group of terrified tourists fled out the back, one of them screaming something about a "sand demon vs. smoke dragon." It would make headlines later.
And somewhere near the ceiling, Shikamaru and Tashigi were still arguing about etiquette in the middle of a shadow paralysis jutsu.
But inside the eye of the hurricane, Gaara and Conis stood still.
Unblinking.
Unmoving.
Breathing quietly in tandem, hearts thumping to the same beat.
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Conis felt her fingers twitch and reached—automatically—for a napkin. Why? She had no idea. Perhaps if she didn't do something soon, she'd combust.
Gaara's sand stirred gently at his feet, unsure if it needed to protect him from this dangerous new emotion or simply hug her.
What is this madness? Gaara thought.
Why do I want to smile? I don't smile.
Kazekages don't smile… do they?
Maybe just a small one?
Conis, meanwhile, had fully stopped thinking. Her brain had abandoned words. All she could process was the presence of the boy with the sky in his eyes who was looking at her like she mattered.
Naruto, who had snuck back inside with the grace of a nosy cat, was squatting behind the counter beside Kankuro, watching the scene unfold with the wide-eyed delight of a soap opera addict.
"They're literally making eye babies with zero dialogue," Naruto whispered. "I knew he had it in him."
"You owe me 50000 ryo," Kankuro muttered, "I said he'd fall first."
"I'm not paying till they kiss."
"Deal."
Back to Gaara and Conis:
The air between them shimmered, almost buzzing with unspoken feeling.
Around them, Shino launched a massive insect construct to block Smoker's smoke fist. Chairs exploded. A Marine crashed into the counter.
Neither of them flinched.
They just… stood there.
Eyes locked.
Hearts unguarded.
"My name is Gaara," he finally said, voice so low and soft it barely reached her.
"I'm Conis," she replied, blinking. "You… have beautiful eyes."
Gaara blinked.
Once.
Slowly.
"You have… interesting weaponry," he said after a long pause.
"Thank you," she said, smiling. "It's dial-based."
"I would like to learn more… about dials," he said, as seriously as if he'd just declared war.
Conis tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, practically glowing. "I'd like that."
And that was that.
The smoke battle continued in the background. Marines panicked. Clouds popped. Someone threw a pie.
But Gaara and Conis?
They were in their own world now.
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Kankuro:
To say Kankuro Sabaku was stunned would be like saying Lee occasionally does push-ups—a gross understatement of reality.
He stood there, near the edge of a floating cloud patio, arms crossed, jaw unhinged, and heart doing backflips. But not because of a battle, or some puppet-breaking disaster, or Naruto trying to bench press an island again.
Nope.
This time, it was because his terrifying little brother, the red-haired gourd-carrying sandstorm of a human being known as Gaara, was—get this—
Flirting.
Well, Gaara-style flirting, which involved staring intensely and speaking exactly three sentences with the emotional weight of a Shakespearean tragedy. But still. That was basically a romantic serenade by Gaara standards.
Kankuro's Thoughts:
Okay. Okay. Stay calm. Don't cry. You're a big brother. Big brothers don't cry.
Oh my sand gourd, is Gaara blushing?
Is that a—what do they call it in chick flicks? A soft smile?? Oh gods, it is.
I thought he'd marry a diplomat or maybe a cactus.
But no. He's gone full Romeo. Gaara of the Desert has been conquered… by a cafe girl with a bazooka and warm eyes.
Kankuro's heart swelled with pride. The same little brother who once crushed people with sand coffins and made children cry by blinking—was now completely entranced by a blonde cloud barista with enough charm to melt his emotional desert.
He sniffed. Audibly.
Naruto, hovering nearby on his puffy cloud like a tourist watching a soap opera, nudged Kiba. "Yo, Kankuro's crying. Mark the date."
"I'm not crying," Kankuro snapped, wiping his face quickly with his sleeve. "It's just cloud dust. Allergies. Altitude. Shut up."
Kankuro slumped against the wall and let out a low whistle.
"Well, I'll be…" he murmured. "The sand has a sweetheart."
For a moment, he just stood there, the usual tension in his shoulders—always half-expecting to play mediator, protector, bodyguard to his brother—melting away.
Gaara had always carried the weight of a thousand expectations, of entire villages and nightmares and redemption arcs.
He was the kind of person people respected, yes. Even admired. But very few truly approached him. He was loved, but from a distance—like a wild phoenix no one wanted to startle.
So Kankuro had made peace long ago with the idea that Gaara would never have this. That one day, he'd probably marry for politics or diplomacy, wearing his usual composed expression while his heart stayed tucked somewhere far beneath the desert sands.
But now… here he is, Kankuro thought. Looking like a flustered teenager who just got caught staring at the sun.
There he was—standing awkwardly, asking questions about dials, giving little half-nods of approval, making a whole human connection that didn't involve sand-based trauma or political tension.
"You go, little brother," Kankuro whispered to himself, smiling.
"You go and get your cloud princess."
Naruto appeared at his side like a nosy poltergeist.
"Not bad, huh?" he whispered, grinning like he'd just caught Gaara picking daisies and humming love songs.
Kankuro glanced sideways, chuckling. "You know… I really thought this wouldn't happen for him."
Naruto nodded solemnly. "Me too. I always figured he'd just become some mysterious immortal monk who occasionally advised my future Hokage self."
They both watched as Conis nervously tucked a strand of hair behind her ear, while Gaara tilted his head, clearly unsure what to do with his hands. The sand around him gently spun like it was dancing instead of defending.
"D'you think I should give him advice?" Naruto asked.
"Absolutely not," Kankuro said. "Let the poor guy have his own awkward moment. He's earned it."
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Shikamaru:
The chaos of the cafe had finally settled. Chairs were upright. Marines were restrained. Tashigi was quietly threatening Shikamaru with her sword while being held down by shadow threads.
But in the eye of the storm stood Gaara and Conis, still staring at each other like they were in the middle of a romance movie directed by Kami-sama himself.
And in the corner—sipping a cold lemon soda like it was sake at a wedding—stood Shikamaru, arms crossed, a soft smirk on his face that could only be described as relieved.
"You okay, man?" Naruto slid up beside him, sipping his fourth cloud-sugar smoothie like he was born on Skypiea.
Shikamaru didn't look away from Gaara and Conis. "You ever spend years thinking your little brother's never gonna find happiness because the world keeps putting him on pedestals and battlefields?"
Naruto blinked. "Uhh… sure?"
"I mean, Gaara's a living legend," Shikamaru continued. "Kazekage. World-saving hero. The kind of guy everyone looks up to but never dares to get close to. You know what Temari once told me?"
Naruto raised an eyebrow. "Let me guess—'If anyone breaks Gaara's heart, I'll break their spine'?"
Shikamaru chuckled. "Well, yes. But also that Gaara scares people even when he's nice. And that maybe, someday, he'd just… settle for a political marriage. Duty, not love. That was the plan."
Naruto looked back at Gaara, who was now helping Conis refill her cloud-cake tray while very, very obviously pretending to understand how dials worked.
"Bro's trying," Naruto whispered. "He just smiled at her. Did you see that? That wasn't a 'Kazekage smirk of desert domination,' that was a full-on blushy smile."
"I saw," Shikamaru said softly. And for once, he wasn't sarcastic or tired. He just… smiled too. "And it's like… the desert just bloomed."
It hit Shikamaru then. A weight he didn't know he'd been carrying rolled off his chest like one of Choji's snack barrels. He hadn't realized how much it hurt watching Gaara be respected, admired, feared, but never held. Never loved for just being… Gaara.
But now?
He was watching his brother fall in love over cloud cake and bazooka talk.
And it was glorious.
Meanwhile, back at the lovebird table:
Conis giggled. "You really don't know how dials work, huh?"
Gaara looked dead serious. "I will learn. Thoroughly."
Conis's cheeks pinked. "Well… I could give you some private lessons."
Naruto made a loud choking noise in the back. Kankuro was filming.
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In the middle of the bustling cloud cafe—tables overturned, cappuccinos flying, and a startled squirrel fox yelping as it leapt into the whipped cream dispenser—two men stared each other down.
Shino Aburame stood as still as a marble statue, glasses glowing slightly beneath the shadow of his hood. Bugs chittered quietly under his cloak, like an entire orchestra tuning up.
Across from him stood Smoker, his coat billowing, a scowl carved into his face, his jitte crackling faintly as smoke swirled around his body like a living serpent.
"Oh no," whispered Ino from somewhere behind a cotton candy cloud stand. "It's the polite psychopath versus the grumpy smokestack."
Without a word—because Shino was allergic to speaking more than absolutely necessary—the fight exploded into motion.
Smoker vanished into a thick blast of grey mist, charging forward with a swift jitte swipe that carved through a standing chalkboard that read "Today's Special: Pumpkin Cloud Pie."
But Shino had already split into a cloud of insects—a dark swarm of chakra-hungry beetles and whisper-thin moths that scattered through the air like shattered glass in a tornado.
From above, a pair of golden centipedes the size of broomsticks came spinning down like twin buzzsaws. Smoker barely dodged, earning a nasty cut along his side as one clipped through his shoulder epaulette.
"Creepy little beetle guy," Smoker growled, rematerializing behind a cloud umbrella stand, "you think bugs scare me?"
The umbrella exploded into a cloud of poison dust, courtesy of one of Shino's venomous hornets nesting inside it. Smoker coughed and turned intangible just in time to avoid being shredded by a swarm of beetles aiming for his face.
Shino reassembled across the courtyard with the eerie smoothness of someone building themselves out of Lego. He raised his hand slightly.
From within his sleeves erupted dozens of golden hornets—their wings humming like an electric current. They swooped and spiraled toward Smoker, fanning out like missiles.
Smoker met them head-on, blasting forward in a spiral of smoke, dissipating their coordinated pattern. He swung his jitte and slammed the ground, sending a shockwave of air and smoke that knocked the swarm back.
But—
Bad move.
The moment Smoker reformed his body, Shino was already behind him.
"Your body is not chakra-based," Shino said calmly, "but it still emits biological signals."
He tapped his sleeve—and a parasite beetle the size of a knut skittered out and bit into Smoker's back.
Smoker roared in pain.
Now it was getting ugly.
Smoke and beetles clashed midair like storm clouds and lightning. Shino vanished and reappeared in shifting waves of bug-form, while Smoker tried to lock down his opponent with plumes of condensed smoke and jitte strikes that knocked over parasol tables and startled tourists.
At one point, a cloud-flavored éclair flew into the air and hit a child. The child cried. Naruto caught the éclair and ate it.
"Ten outta ten," he mumbled. "Needs more bug."
Gaara didn't blink.
Both men were panting now. Smoker's jacket was in tatters, a hornet clinging to his collar like an angry brooch. Shino's glasses were cracked. One centipede was doing victory laps around the coffee machine.
Finally, Smoker held up a hand. "Enough. I didn't come here to get turned into an ant hill."
Shino blinked. "I only defended myself."
"You unleashed twelve varieties of biological terror."
"I consider that mild."
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If chaos were a currency, then yes—Conis's café was richer than the Celestial Dragons, the Black Market, and Buggy the Clown's ego combined.
By the time the fourth table flipped and the smoke cloud swallowed a family of screaming tourists, it was safe to say "normal" had filed for early retirement. Even the jukebox had given up, skipping every track until it somehow looped to "Careless Whisper"—which, ironically, was the only thing not happening in the chaos.
Smoker was still doing his best impression of an angry volcano trying to vape the entire café, and Shino, ever the emotionless insect conductor, looked like he was halfway through summoning a beetle-based end-of-days.
Tourists fled in clusters—some tripping over cloud-plants, others protectively guarding their rainbow macarons like sacred treasure. One woman fainted. A child rode a rogue cupcake cart into the sunset.
From behind a whipped cream cannon, Tashigi groaned, still bound by Shikamaru's shadows.
"Smoker-san!" she barked. "You're going to knock over the cake cart again!"
"Collateral," Smoker grunted through clenched teeth, swinging his jitte.
And then—a sigh.
That telltale, Shikamaru-has-had-enough-of-this-unpaid-internship sigh.
"Alright. Time out."
The shadows snapped tighter around Tashigi—just enough to make her pause. The same shadows reached into the battlefield, stretching carefully around Shino's legs like a velvet rope at a VIP lounge. Smoker's jitte froze mid-swing.
Shikamaru stepped into the middle of the fight like a disappointed chuunin instructor on parent-teacher night.
"You've all had your fun," he said flatly. "But unless you want to be on a Sky Island wanted poster next to Crocodile and Enel—yes, that's a real thing now—you need to stop breaking furniture and listen."
Smoker narrowed his eyes. "He's Crocodile."
"No," Shikamaru said slowly, pointing at Gaara—who, incidentally, was still staring dreamily at Conis from the patio like he was composing her a haiku in his head. "That is Gaara of the Sand. Yes, sand. No, not Crocodile. Gaara bleeds. Crocodile turns into sand. There's a very important difference."
"I don't—"
"He has eyebrows," Shikamaru snapped.
Tashigi's eyes narrowed behind her glasses. "Wait… that makes sense."
"Exactly."
"And they act like teenagers," she added, eyeing Naruto as he blew bubbles into his drink while whispering gossip to Kankuro.
Shikamaru nodded. "You really think any of them would work for Crocodile?"
Tashigi looked back at Shino, who had just been politely asking a hornet to sit still so he could clean its stinger.
"…No," she admitted.
Smoker sighed a long, tired sigh that said, 'I haven't had coffee in ten minutes and I regret waking up today.'
He deactivated his smoke form and dropped the jitte, finally letting the last of the tension fade into the hot sky.
"…I hate politics."
Shikamaru raised a brow. "You started a mid-cafe battle with a bug warlord because you were stressed."
"I didn't say I was good at politics."
Tashigi glanced around, at the wreckage of pastries, confused tourists, one slightly traumatized barista, and a golden hornet trying to reclaim its cupcake throne.
"Well," she said, brushing off her coat. "Maybe next time, we should start with coffee and then throw tables."
Naruto appeared next to them with two smoothies. "Way ahead of you. Anyone want mango cloud?"
Gaara finally blinked and turned to the group. "I will take two. And one for her."
Conis flushed.
Smoker blinked. "...Did he just fall in love during a fight?"