Gaara gasped and clutched his throbbing forehead. The scar pounded into his skull, so much so that he could barely see. His eyes were wide and bloodshot and beads of sweat were rolling down his face. Pain was literally consuming the boy.
There was blood everywhere, random clumps of sand scattered with it. He was in the village square of Suna, and he had been killing mercilessly. Yes, killing everything in sight. The bloodthirst within him had grown ten-fold in a single instant sending him on a murderous rampage. No one was spared in his act.
Not even Kankuro or Temari.
There were his siblings, dead and bleeding (from their hearts, he saw to that) on the ground. The Shukaku demanded blood. More blood. Precious blood. His blood. So Gaara gave him the equivalent...his family's blood.
Even after this senseless slaughter, Gaara felt no peace. There was no calm or resolve in this act. It simply enhanced his suffering, making it impossible for him to think or breathe properly.
But he could feel. Oh how he could feel! If his heart had broken before during the unforunate episode with his uncle, it was nothing like this. Gaara's hands had moved from his head to his chest. This was more than a wound of the heart. It was more like an annihilation. A brutal slaying of any soul or spirit he might have once possessed.
Tears rolled down the boy's face. They were not tears of sadness, remorse, or guilt. They were tears of anguish. If pain was liquid, it was in his tears. He felt the very salt of those drops of water was burning into his flesh. Everything hurt. Everything.
Falling to his knees, Gaara recalled how this horrid series of events had occured. He had killed a boy, Uchiha Sasuke, in the attempted Destruction of Konoha. Uchiha had died protecting a very special girl, Haruno Sakura. Gaara considered her a weakling and killed her as soon as her protector was dead.
Their teammate, a selfish boy named Uzumaki Naruto, showed up a few minutes after his comrades had been killed. He cared nothing for their deaths, but saw potential in the sand-nin as a strong opponent. His challenge was quickly ratified and the combatants began a long and bloody battle. Both allowed their respective demons to show their cruelest side in the fight and it was indeed a clash of the titans.
Naruto would defeat him, but spared Gaara's life, not out of any philanthropic motivation, but cruel pity telling Gaara to survive with the shame of having been defeated and mortally wounded. For during the battle, Naruto removed his left eye by pounding his strongest blow into the kanji sign of "love". The blow had shattered the eye socket lodging cartilage and bone into the brain. It was only a matter of days before Gaara would die.
Driven to madness, Gaara had rushed back to Suna. Konoha had been almost completely destroyed at that point and the area where the Kyubi and Shukaku had fought was utterly destroyed. He writhed and screamed, half-crazed with pain inflicted upon him by the Shukaku. The raccoon demon was insanely wrathful, it's rage taken out on Gaara.
I wasn't strong enough...that's why he's angry...that's why Mother's angry...I'm going to die...He's going to kill me!
When the sand-nin arrived home from their invasion, leaving Konoha in ruins and Uzumaki Naruto dead, Gaara had snapped. Everyone seemed so happy and pleased with themselves. None of them gave a darn about the freak with the dark circles around his eyes who was talking to himself constantly and near death.
In a matter of minutes, Shukaku had killed them all.
Now Gaara knew his time was drawing close. The pain in his head began to increase again, the skull seemed to be splitting under the constant pressure of it.
Loneliness...I was always alone...and I'm going to die alone.
Gaara saw in front of him, the body of his dead sister. And for an instant a stab of regret hit him in the pit of his stomach. She had been the only one who had actually cared about him somewhat. The second of guilt, however, was quickly covered by the immense pain and knowledge that he was about to die. Gaara's thoughts quickly turned back to himself. He would die as he had lived, loving only himself. Closing his eyes, he felt his steady pulse begin to slow.
I'm alone.