Specific information about this chapter:
This chapter might be somewhat boring. In fact, It would have been easy to go on and on with this but I decided to keep it short and sweet because the story doesn't progress much in it. Its goal is only to explain what happened after Gaara's birth and before any action actually took place. It was still necessary though and I think it came out pretty well.
In the Shadows ; Thoughts and Feelings
The serene atmosphere of the hidden village of the Sand became more tensed than ever during the few weeks following the event. The young mother's death greatly affected the inhabitants but it was not their main torment. Gaara's birth was. Rumors soon spread throughout the whole village. Some whispered that the Kazekage's son was some kind of monster while others said that he was not even a human being. Even though the words the people used differed slightly, everybody agreed to say that he was not normal.
For that reason, the Kazekage's house soon turned into a museum. He had the annoying feeling that, as soon as someone came to visit, they were in fact checking out the latest "beast exhibition". While most people were polite enough to pretend to "only be passing by" or "to be bringing good luck gifts for the child", the most curious ones simply stared at the baby whenever they had the chance to do so.
After a while, the leader couldn't bear the villagers' attitude anymore. He eventually had to forbid the mention of Gaara's name in any conversation. The Kazekage also told everyone to consider his son as the village's ultimate weapon, not as a human being if that was needed for him to be accepted.
People lost their interest in the whole affair over time and everything seemingly went back to normal. Yashamaru's life didn't follow the same pattern though. He had no interest in his nephew at all. In fact, he wished to forget about his existence but that was impossible ; the image of his deceased sister lingering in his mind was a constant reminder of the cursed child. Besides the painful daydreaming sessions, horrible nightmares haunted his sleep. Nightmares that he did not even think his mind capable of coming up with. They even increased after his sibling's autopsy. Indeed, the autopsy proved the medical specialist's theory ; the baby's claw had shredded his mother's womb. As if that was not enough, another odd fact was discovered. A normal human body usually contains approximately 5 liters of blood. However, the quantity of blood found in her body was abnormally low as if it had been drained out by something. Where was the lacking scarlet fluid of life? The only hypothesis proposed to answer this question was : Gaara. After further examinations of the child, it proved to be right.
Somehow, towards the end of the gestation period, young Gaara figured out a way to imprison his genitor's blood within his own organism. He, then, stocked it inside the weird-shaped lump on his back. It was only much later that this abnormally of his body was properly identified as some kind of gourd containing a mix of blood and sand.
Nothing else happened the first year following Gaara's birth. It took Yashamaru that long to finally accept his sister's fate and the events that had occurred.
When Gaara turned two, the Kazekage noticed that his son was beginning to develop a violent attitude. He knew that if this was not stopped immediately, his future perfect shinobi could turn out to be synonym for destruction for the hidden village. Since he always had business to take care of and he wanted to get rid of his monstrous son, Gaara's father tried to find someone else to do the work for him. Naturally, nobody wanted to adopt him ; some from fear and others from disgust. Finally, Yashamaru decided to do so even though he deeply hated his nephew as he was responsible for his sister's death. He accepted after considering that Gaara was still his sibling's only child and that he just couldn't let him be treated that way.
After that particular moment, Yashamaru slowly began to forgive Gaara. He still didn't feel himself able to love him but at least he succeeded in bearing the kid which was already a great improvement.
Gaara grew up not knowing much about his real father, the Kazekage, even though he constantly watched him from afar, hidden in the shadows. As soon as he was able to understand some of the things going on around him, Yashamaru told Gaara that he was not his dad but his uncle. The child never questioned that fact in the first few years of his life. He most likely thought that living with his uncle was a normal thing since children have a distorted vision of reality. He couldn't have a glimpse of normality anyway as he was kept away from other kids. That was until the age of 5. It was at that time, with the beginning of his attendance to the ninja academy of the Sand village, that his true discovery of life and the problems related to it began.