"You need to spend time crawling alone through shadows to truly appreciate what it is to stand in the sun."

― Shaun Hick

When Gaara had decided to change, he was trapped in a swirling mass of emotion, with a blond shinobi inexorably pushing him forward… to what exactly, he was unsure of. Yet, an explosion of some sort was inevitable - all that pressure, building, bubbling… what does he want from me? - taking down with it all the built up perceptions of the world that he had taken as truth so far. At the time, he had felt his sense of self crumbling into dust finer than the sand armor that was chipping away from him, as some sort of physical demonstration of the cataclysmic effect that the Leaf shinobi's words had on his inner landscape. Razed to the ground – barren, a desert of his very own, right inside his skull.

But Naruto hadn't stopped there, he'd continued pushing straight past destruction, and into rebuilding - his words a catalyst, a form of rain for the parched ground of his mindscape, triggering a burst of life, blooming, like a fleeting sense of hope. There is another way seemed to whisper the tentative voice of a child, long buried inside with the tip of a knife that was meant to carve all emotion out, not in, where it could fester. Like all desert dwellers, Gaara had latched on to this cleansing torrent, absorbing and preserving every last bit of life giving moisture – like a cactus, shoring up for the bad times ahead, because for the first time, he had gotten the glimpse of a future – something better, something to look forward to. At that time, his gaze and resolve had sharpened – his goal was clear.

And yet, days after that confrontation, after the decision to change, when all the dust and emotions had settled, like a thick cloying blanket, he had felt numb – and a sliver of doubt had started working its way in. He had…he'd been trying to be different, but nothing seemed to change around him. After such a monumental shift – the world was still standing, and carrying on exactly like it had before, as if nothing had happened, as if he were not really there to leave any mark on it. "Invisible, invisible, invisible" had whispered the well worn feel of panic that had smothered his existence before. He had thought he was over it – this was supposed to be gone, all fixed and neat and tidy – because he'd made a decision to change, and that was supposed to stop the pain. But the pain was still there , fed by the rising swell of anger, that was enveloping him in an amorphous mass of stretching limbs and mouths that cried 'he lied to mejust like Yashamaru – it never stops'. He clearly remembers how he had been ready then to release all of it, all, into the world, when a memory had trickled into his mind – Naruto, having fought and not giving up, steady, determined, always moving forward. And his anger had fizzled out, like a doused fire. Maybe it was not a lie after all , he'd thought– perhaps he had just misunderstood the scope of this change – the fact that you didn't get to decide just once, but every single day, every time the doubt crept in. That sudden insight had drained him then, leaving him tired and weary – but the image of Naruto's resolve seemed to have somehow engraved itself in the back of his eyelids, spurring him on. And with that image, Gaara had understood – he would have to build himself from the ground up, layer by layer, faster than his corrosive past could strip it down again.