Those Less Fortunate
Summary: Naruto and Gaara, after Sasuke's' defection, discuss those who have suffered more than you, and whether it is possible to truly understand someone else's pain.
Gaara waited near the gates of the Hidden Leaf Village. Kankuro was doing some last-minute maintenance on his puppets, while Temari was talking with Shikamaru.
"Hey, Gaara!" Naruto said, walking up. He had recently gotten out of the hospital, and he had hoped to see Gaara off before meeting with Jiraiya to begin his three-year training journey.
"Hello, Naruto," Gaara said.
"I was hoping I could catch you before you left," Naruto. "Thanks for helping Bushy-brows against that bone guy."
"It was the least I could do," Gaara said. "Your friend had recovered a surprising amount and handled himself decently considering the circumstances, but he was in no condition to fight his opponent."
Naruto nodded. He had heard that like Lee, Kiba and Shikamaru had been on the ropes by the time their reinforcements from the Sand Village had arrived. As he considered that at best, they would have won while at the brink of death, like Chouji and Neji had, and at worst, they would have been killed by the Sound ninja, he realized he owed Gaara a great deal, even if Gaara was largely responsible for the injuries that nearly ended Lee's career as a ninja.
Gaara did not doubt the sincerity of Naruto's thanks, but realized it was not the only reason he had come to talk to him, and glanced at him expectantly.
"Oh, and Gaara?" Naruto said, "I heard about what happened during the invasion, how your father got killed. I'm not sure if you want to hear it, but I'd like to offer my condolences."
"I appreciate the thought, but that will not be necessary," Gaara said flatly. "My father was obsessed with what was in the best interests of the Sand Village, putting them over those of the individual people in it, even his own family. I was conceived as a living weapon, and even Temari and Kankuro were judged only by their abilities as ninjas. He foolishly decided to throw in his lot with Orochimaru out of the vain hope of starting a war that would bring more funding to the village, and paid for it with his life."
Naruto could not help but feel saddened. He had heard nothing good about the Fourth Kazekage, from his ill treatment of Gaara to his conspiring with Orochimaru to attack the Leaf Village. But it was depressing to hear that Gaara felt no sadness over the death of his father. Did Gaara have no fond memories of his father? Was there nothing about the Fourth Kazekage that Gaara could find admirable?
"Still, I never knew what it was like to lose a parent," Naruto said. "I don't know anything about my parents, apart from that they, like many other Leaf ninjas, were killed on the night the fox attacked- the night I was born. I can only imagine that they must have died as heroes, rather than being senselessly murdered in the night. When I faced Sasuke, he told me that he and I were orphans, but that I hadn't known the pain of losing someone close to me."
"And you, perhaps, hoped I would understand, and could tell you?" Gaara said.
"Well, yeah," Naruto said, predicting how Gaara would respond but deciding to give an honest answer.
Gaara sighed. Naruto had clearly hit on a difficult subject for him- not intending to put him on the spot, but not entirely unwittingly. But Gaara had some idea of why Naruto was asking, and decided to do his best to answer.
"For a long time, I had no people I could consider precious to me," he said. "When I was young, my uncle, who had been my caretaker, tried to kill me. With his last breaths, he revealed that his older sister- my mother- hated me for being born, as did he. That was when my father started trying to have me killed, which went on for six years- half of my life."
Naruto was left at a loss for words. Iruka had been strict with Naruto, but he had also cared for him, although it had taken Naruto some time to fully understand how much he did. And now that he thought about it, most of his classmates at the academy often found him annoying, but none of them truly hated him. They judged him as an annoying troublemaker, not quite as the future Hokage he aspired to be, but not as a monster.
"And you survived all that?" Naruto said. "Not only being targeted by adult ninjas at a young age, but also being all by yourself with seemingly no one who cared about you?"
"I did, inasmuch as I am still alive today," Gaara said. "But it was a hollow sort of existence, and in the process, I closed myself off from even my own brother and sister, who cared for me despite how I gave them little reason to feel anything other than fear toward me."
Naruto had to concede Gaara's point, although he was hesitant to admit it completely bluntly. But there was another reason behind Naruto's initial fear of Gaara, one that he felt compelled to share with him.
"I was scared of you at first, not just because of your power and ruthlessness, but because you looked like you'd been through so much more than I had," Naruto said. "The villagers shunned me, treated me coldly, and often only reluctantly interacted with me, but they never actually tried to kill me. Now that I think about it, it seems that they thought I was a troublemaker and a loser, albeit one they could tolerate, rather than a menace that had to be stamped out lest the kids they cared about came to harm. It honestly made me think everything I'd been through up until then was trivial. And if what I had to survive paled in comparison to what you survived, what chance did I have of defeating you?"
"To be honest, Naruto," Gaara said. "Pain does not necessarily make you stronger. If you become stronger after enduring suffering, it's more often despite, rather than because you suffered. And if you emerge from having endured great suffering with your psyche intact, it is more likely because you were a strong person, rather than because you became one."
"It took me a while to realize that," Naruto said. "But if we, people who haven't experienced quite the same sense of loss that Sasuke did, say that to him, our words would most likely ring hollow to him."
Naruto had never heard about how Kakashi had spoken with Sasuke after his fight with Naruto on the hospital roof, or how in the course of that conversation, Kakashi had left Sasuke at a loss for words by saying that Sasuke could not kill one of his family or loved ones to test how much he was committed to not seeking vengeance- all of them had been killed already. That had given Sasuke pause, even if it had not convinced him to forsake his desire for revenge.
"Well, what did you say to Sasuke, then?" Gaara said. "You're not the type to simply let someone's argument go without a rebuttal. I saw it back then- even if you were afraid, you were still fighting me, rather than giving up or running away."
"I told him that I considered him like a brother," Naruto said, "as well as that while I hadn't lost anyone in my lifetime, I was at risk of losing him, and determined not to let that happen. Maybe not all of us know the full extent of others' suffering. But we can imagine what it's like to feel pain. If we can imagine that, we can understand what others feel. And once we do, we can avoid acting in a way that causes suffering to others, bringing about a better world in the process."
"That's a noble ideal, but it may prove difficult to make reality," Gaara said. "People tend to be self-absorbed, thinking of themselves before others. If, for example, your father is killed by a man seeking to avenge his own father, logically, you might understand that the other person's desire for revenge was the same as what you feel in response, but emotionally, you would most likely seek to kill the man and make him pay for what he did to your father."
Gaara's statement was said with a note of ambivalence, signifying how he was trying to imagine what it would be like to lose someone close to him.
"Maybe so, but I think Sasuke can potentially understand, since there's a part of him that cares about others," Naruto said. "He was determined to hold you off in order to allow me a chance to save Sakura-chan. I heard from Sakura-chan that he'd fought against Orochimaru- whom, at the time, we thought was just an exceptionally powerful examinee- in order to protect others. He even called me his friend, even if he was willing to sacrifice that bond for the sake of his revenge. He said he needed to kill me to get the power I needed, but here I am, still alive. All I need to do is to, somehow, get him to remember our friendship and how much those bonds mean to him."
Gaara simply nodded and smiled slightly. Naruto's task was by no means easy, but he could not help but hope that he would succeed, all the same. Gaara realized how similar he and Sasuke were, and that Naruto's life was similar to both of theirs in some ways. If Gaara could change, might Sasuke be able to do so as well?
"I wish you the best of luck, then," Gaara said.
At that moment, Kankuro walked up, his puppets on his back. He and his siblings had only brought the essentials due to the nature of their mission, and partly as ninjas tended to do when traveling.
"Looks like you're here already, Gaara," Kankuro said. "Does that mean we're here early or is Temari just slow?"
"We have a few minutes until we depart," Gaara said. "She should be on time."
"Well, I'll see you around, Gaara," Naruto said, excusing himself to let the brothers talk.
Naruto realized Gaara had been through a great deal in the past. And while he was walking a road that would ultimately prove better than the one he had been on, no shortage of hardship would await him on the path toward securing his happiness. To Naruto, it was upsetting to realize that Sasuke had forsaken a road that would have allowed him to live a good life, one that he could very plausibly have taken. But Naruto believed that one's choices were never irrevocable, and that whatever one might have suffered in the past or what decisions they made in the present, their future was not set in stone, and could be changed for the better if they made the right decisions.
Author's Notes
Thank you for reading this fic.
This was largely written in response to some people often making the argument that "Character X has a worse past than Character Y, and didn't turn out as much of a jerk," or "Character Y should get over his/her past given that so many others such as Character X had it worse," with character Y often being Sasuke. Interestingly enough, this line of thinking is brought up in a few cases; 1)Naruto thinks that Gaara is stronger than he is because he had to get by alone, whereas Naruto had Iruka and Team 7. 2)Sasuke tells Naruto that he doesn't understand what he feels because his parents were dead from the get-go. 3)Sasuke challenges Kakashi to
I also chose Gaara because he believes he and Sasuke are similar, first to taunt him as an enemy before the finals, and later to try to get him to reconsider at the Summit of the Five Kages. In the latter case, his reluctance to kill Sasuke can be seen as a result of knowing that they're similar, and that if he began working toward redemption, Sasuke can do the same.
Some notice that Naruto hangs around with Shikamaru, Choji and Kiba despite being ostracized by the village. I'd say the villagers are divided into a few groups; 1)Those who hate him because of the fox; Ebisu is not the only one, but he seems to be a good barometer of how the village as a whole feels about Naruto. 2)Those who find him annoying, but don't hate him; Sakura is a good example, and I think the same applies to Choji, Shikamaru and Kiba. 3)Those who actually care for him, like Iruka, Hinata and those at Ichiraku Ramen. The fact that most people viewed Gaara as Type 1 if not worse while he was a young child indicates that he had a harder time than Naruto did, and one reason why Naruto thinks he's stronger based on the fact that he endured more.