As he drifted through the shadows, his mind reflected on what had happened earlier that day.
It had been like any other day, going over to the training ground to watch his siblings, Temari and Kankurou instruct some of the village children conduct ninja training. Since Matsuri was now a chuunin and carried out missions, he only had the opportunity to meet with her every so often. She was the only one so far who had sought his teaching. Everyone else was too scared of him.
That was expected. Aside from his brother and sister, Baki, and Matsuri, no one else had made an effort to be his friend. Wait, that wasn’t true, he thought somewhat hopefully. There was Naruto and all the other genin from Konoha. During the incident with the Shitenshounin, Naruto had even called him a precious comrade.
Gaara still couldn’t understand that. During the uncompleted chuunin exam he had almost killed Naruto and his comrades. Yet, he thought of him as precious, and risked his life for him. His thoughts had drifted to that foreign and strange word, love. He still couldn’t fully understand it, but he was closer to comprehending even a small fraction.
It was becoming apparent that Temari and Kankurou loved him. Why else would they have stayed with him for so long? True, they had been mainly scared of him until the chuunin exams, but everything had changed when he apologized as they carried him home.
It had been awkward the couple minutes that followed, with Temari and Kankurou alternatively glancing at each other, Gaara, and then each other, fearing for his sanity. Unable to bear them looking at him that much, Gaara muttered that he was sorry for saying he would have killed them during the second part of the exam.
His siblings were apparently overcome with emotion, but he didn’t remember much about what happened after that because he fainted due to the injuries he sustained, coupled with the fact that it was the first time he had ever experienced physical pain before.
Gaara still shuddered at the memory of first feeling his own blood seeping into his clothes when Sasuke had penetrated his ultimate defense with that blue ball of chakra. Yashamaru was right, pain was something to be avoided at all costs.
After spending about half an hour wandering aimlessly through the village alleys, muffled cries sliced through the air. There was a lot of shouting and screaming, like someone was in pain. Feeling slightly alarmed, Gaara sprinted from housetop to housetop, searching for the source.
“Filthy little rat!”
“That’ll teach you to steal from us!”
There was the sound of a small scuffle, ended by soft whimpering.
Gaara jumped one more housetop to his left and the people in question slowly came into focus. Hidden in the shadows was a curled up girl, obviously nursing wounds, and at the entrance of the alley were two tall men, pointing their fingers and laughing. One had half a loaf of bread in his right hand.
“Might as well keep it. This has already been soiled by your putrid hands wench!” Then the man proceeded to throw the bread into the dirt a few feet in front of the girl, and walked away cackling with his cohort.
Gaara just stood there for a while, then turned his attention to the girl. He couldn’t see her very well, but she began to sob as she grabbed the half-loaf of bread, wiping away tears in the process. Despite how far away she was, he could instantly tell she had taken quite a beating.
Her cries brought Gaara back to his past, where he was just a small boy, trying to make friends. No one would come near him and they called him “monster” and “freak.” Anger boiled inside of him and he jumped into view of the two retreating men, exposing himself to the crisp, blue moonlight.
The two men had been laughing and playfully punching each other, yet they instantly froze when they noticed Gaara suddenly appear in front of them, arms folded and a calm expression on his face, yet it was a dangerous calm that almost sent them to their knees.
“It—it’s Gaara!”
“Please,” his friend begged, sweat starting to form on his brow. “Please, don’t kill us. We’re—”
“Don’t worry,” Gaara began calmly. “You’re not worth the effort.” He held out his hands, fingers extended. Sand began crawling up their legs in the form of a long arm. His victims were too frightened to speak or move, they could only watch. When it came halfway up their body, Gaara threw his opened hands off the right, forcing his sand to violently hurl them into a wall, where they fell unconscious to the ground.
Although it was tempting, Gaara wasn’t about to kill them. He didn’t want another unnecessary death on his hands, or sand. He was trying to change. Anyway, he wanted to earn his fellow villagers’ respect, and become Kazekage someday and maybe seen as more than a monster and the Sand Village’s Ultimate Weapon in their eyes. The ambition was partially influenced by Naruto’s determination to earn respect and recognition as Hokage.
He might as well start with that poor beggar girl. A sense of protection swept over him, one that he had never experienced before. Those men had brutally abused her, and now it was his duty to help her recover from her injuries, because apparently, she had no one.
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Chapter notes: Disclaimer: Once again, I do not own any characters affiliated with the Naruto series.