Chapter 39


"Every great character has an equally great motivation, whether good or bad. Every action has a reason behind it, even if it's not always clear right away. Otherwise, their actions will just feel contrived and forced to move the story a certain direction, and that just irritates the audience.

But that begs the question: what counts as a 'great' motivation?"


"Uncle Yashamaru?"

"Yes?" The sandy-haired man paused in cleaning the dishes as he felt a small hand tug on his pants, looking down with a curious gleam. A tiny four-year-old boy with messy red hair stared up at him, his pale green eyes scrunched with concern and hesitation.

"I hear it again," he whispered, and Yashamaru tensed, his eyes widening ever so slightly before frowning.

"Don't listen to it," he told him calmly. "Just try to block it out, and whatever it tells you, don't trust it. Okay, Gaara?" Gaara frowned, shuffling uncomfortably, but then gave a small nod.

"...Okay."


Once upon a time, there was a little red-haired boy who heard a demon whispering in the back of his mind.

For as long as he could remember, Gaara heard the whispers.

Sleepless nights would pass by slowly with the voice tugging at the back of his mind, its words muffled and indistinct but the tone clearly angry and frustrated. At times Yashamaru would enter his room to find Gaara hunched over on his bed with his hands pressed against his ears and his eyes squeezed tightly shut, whimpering quietly as he silently pleaded for the voice to just stop.

Whenever he hurt someone, the voice got even worse.

Gaara never hurt people purpose. He just wanted to make friends, really. But his sand didn't always agree, and he couldn't control it completely. If someone acted hostile or defensive around him, the sand would rise with a mind of its own and attack them, inevitably drawing blood and leaving him paralyzed with fear and guilt.

Whenever that happened, the voice would give a muffled cheer, its words becoming just a little more clear as it jeered and mocked the victims. It would try to tell him more, hurt more people, make them bleed make them hurt make them suffer for what they didto him

Then Yashamaru would appear and his calm, steady voice would drown out the whispers, and Gaara could pretend that maybe there wasn't something horribly wrong with him and everything was fine.

Deep down, though, he knew there was. He realized early on that he was different from everyone else; he saw the fear in people's eyes when they saw him, the way even his own father looked at him so cold and distant and wary. Only Yashamaru treated him differently, and even then, some subconscious part of Gaara recognized he still acted just a little more cautious around him than with other children.

Then one day when he was four, he came home to find a calico kitten sitting on the kitchen table.

"Uncle Yashamaru, what's that?" he asked, and his uncle glanced at him in surprise before smiling as he set down an envelope he'd been holding.

"Oh, Gaara. This is Maota. He's a summoning who works for a friend of mine."

"Summoning?" Gaara repeated the unfamiliar word, blinking large, curious green eyes at the young feline. Yashamaru huffed a small sigh but smiled fondly, turning to face him more fully as he launched into his explanation.

"A summoning is a special type of animal who can mold chakra and are willing work with ninja. A ninja can summon them at any time they want and they'll help, whether it's in battle or other matters. My friend lives in Konoha, so she has Maota deliver letters for us."

"Oh." Gaara nodded in understanding, and then briefly fell silent. "Uncle Yashamaru, what's Konoha?"

Ten minutes later, Gaara had received a crash course on very basic geography and foreign politics. Maota had tried to rub against the small boy's leg halfway through the explanation, and when his sand tried to repel it the kitten just grew increasingly curious and tried to pounce on it. Yashamaru would wince each time it got repelled, but Gaara found the scene strangely amusing and endearing. Most animals tended to flee from his sand, so to see one trying to playfully attack it just made him smile giddily.

"Gaara, I have an idea," Yashamaru offered as he pulled the mewling kitten away for the sixth time. "Why don't we add a small note from you to my reply?"

Gaara enthusiastically agreed to the notion, his face lighting up with delight at the thought, and after nearly half an hour of rambling various messages for Yashamaru to transcribe, they finally settled on a brief message introducing him.

'Hello, my name is Gaara. I'm four years old and live with Uncle Yashamaru. He told me about Konoha and it sounds fun. Is it warm there? Do you have a lot of sand too? What other cats do you have? Please give Maota more treats!'

Yashamaru slipped it into the envelope and handed it to Maota, who gingerly took it with his teeth and disappeared in a puff of smoke.

Every day for the next week Gaara would ask Yashamaru if he'd received a response. His uncle had warned him that his friend was an adult and tended to be busy, and not to set his expectations too high about her response. Most likely she wouldn't send more than a brief note tacked on the end of the letter politely returning his greetings, and while that slightly disappointed Gaara, even that measly amount of acknowledgment would be thrilling.

So when Yashamaru announced Maota's arrival on the fifth day, both of them had been greatly surprised when the kitten presented them with two envelopes. Yashamaru had immediately ripped them open and read their contents with a strangely serious face, but soon he relaxed and turned to him with a smile.

"Well Gaara, looks like I was wrong," he declared cheerily.


'Dear Gaara,

Hi, my name is Akari! My mom said you sent her a letter and asked if we wanted to write back to you. Masaru said no but I said yes so now I get to write to you!

I'm four years old too. I live with my mom and my twin brother Masaru. Konoha is really hot in summers, but it gets cold in winter. We have sand in sandboxes but that's not much. I don't know all of mom's ninneko or Maota, but she has this old one named Masahige watch us. He's really cranky and funny.

Mom told me about Suna and she says it's really hot. Does it ever snow there? Do you have popsicles every day? What's your favorite type? Mine's orange!

Write back soon!'


For the first time in his life, Gaara had a friend.

No one could know about his friendship; according to Yashamaru, his father would not approve of him having a pen pal in a foreign village. For that same reason neither of them could send photos of themselves or include really telling information. The second part could be easily mitigated by the adults, since at the beginning the two young children couldn't actually read or write well enough to pen their own letters, but the potential friendship encouraged Gaara to focus even harder on his academic studies.

He had just turned five when he finally penned a letter to Akari with his own hand. It wasn't perfect, full of little mistakes and crossed-out hiragana that Yashamaru had to help correct, but just knowing he wrote it left him even more giddy and excited than usual. Another month of exchanging letters would pass before he'd receive a letter with similarly childish strokes instead of the refined and elegant script Ryoko used, and the burst of pride he felt on Akari's behalf almost rivaled the excitement he'd felt for himself.

They could not send photos, but they could send drawings. Akari drew herself and her brother as brown-haired twins with black eyes, giving her brother really big, spiky hair twice the size of his head. My hands get stuck in it whenever we fight, she confided in one letter that made him laugh. Besides them, she'd draw the few ninneko that her mom summoned, helpfully labeling each one. On occasion she drew some older boys, too, more distant family members she called "cousins".

Gaara sent her drawings of his own family. He drew Temari and Kankurou standing with their father, while he and Yashamaru stood apart from them holding hands. Even then he'd sensed the powerful rift between him and his family, but he never mentioned it when telling her about things his siblings did, always careful not to use their names at Yashamaru's behest.

He told her his mother died when he was born, she told him her dad died before she was born. He told her about training with Yashamaru (but never going into detail, Yashamaru wouldn't let him), she told him about how she felt too hot to train in summer sometimes. He vented about how other kids avoided him, she confessed she accidentally alienated all the girls in her class after getting annoyed by how they didn't take school seriously.

Most of their conversations tended to be superficial, talking about differences between Suna and Konoha and giggling at silly things they'd witnessed, but Gaara didn't care. He finally had someone to talk to, and that alone made him feel a sort of contentment he'd only dreamed of.


'Dear Gaara,

It's been a while. Are you okay? Maota says you're there every time he delivers my letters and you don't look like you're hurt, but you never write back. I'm getting worried and I really miss hearing from you. If you're in trouble and can't write, tell Maota and we'll rescue you!'


Yashamaru lied to him.

No one cared for Gaara. Everyone hated him. Yashamaru had secretly scorned him for stealing his sister, and his father wanted nothing more than his death. His mother died cursing him and Suna with her dying breath, naming him after the phrase "self-loving carnage" so he would become a curse upon the village using her as a sacrifice. The bloody kanji for "love" now adorned his forehead in an eternal reminder of his vow to love only himself, his heart closed off to all others.

Yet the letters still came.

Every week like clockwork, Maota would show up at his house to deliver them. On days when Gaara felt in a particularly bad mood, the kitten would stay just long enough to drop the letters and then disappear in a puff of smoke before Gaara could squash him with his sand. Other times Maota would sit on the windowsill placidly, just watching Gaara with a strange mixture of caution and sadness in his golden eyes as the young redhead went about his business before disappearing after an hour.

Gaara didn't know why he even bothered reading them. Yashamaru had introduced him to Akari; for all he knew, she might not exist and it could be a sick ploy by his father or the council to play with his heart even further. Yet for some reason, Gaara found himself reading them anyway. He never responded and he no longer felt the familiar surge of warmth they used to bring, but he still read them.

Every time he read the ever-familiar handwriting Gaara heard mother's voice at the back of his head, jeering at the girl for being so naive to believe they'd fall for such an obvious tactic. Without any responses to reply to, Akari had gradually developed an almost diary-like approach to her letters, telling him about major events which occurred in her life and ending them by asking mundane questions to provide an opening for a response.

Her friendship with one girl ended because of petty clan politics. How was his day? Masaru had a fangirl stalker he hadn't noticed yet who Akari needed to scare off. Did he really like salted tongue? The weather had gotten so hot lately, she didn't want to move. Had he ever gotten an ear infection?

Gaara read each one with a certain sense of detachment, the written words holding no meaning to him. One of the letters had particularly piqued his interest, though. Someone from her clan died, and she confided that her mother had started having horrible nightmares again. Something felt wrong, she wrote, there was a weird tension in their home they couldn't escape.

Gaara didn't know why that one stood out among all the rest, but for the first time in nearly two years, he took out a blank sheet and penned a simple question:

'Why do you still write to me?'

The next week, Maota delivered a letter with an equally simple response:

'Because we're friends and friends care about each other.'

A month later, Maota stopped showing up, and he never received another letter.


'Dear Gaara,

Today I felt really lonely at school. The guys I usually hang with were both out today because of clan stuff or something, and Masa-kun made a new friend too, this really loud blond kid, so I ended up eating alone. Nata-chan was alone at lunch too, but her family won't let her talk to me anymore and I don't want her to get in trouble. I don't know which one feels worse. Seeing Nata-chan every day but not talking to her, or seeing Maota show up without a letter from you.

Is it weird that I miss you just as much as Nata-chan even though we never actually met?'


Five years passed, and Gaara had largely forgotten about his former pen pal and their trivial exchanges. He'd long since accepted that if she did in fact exist, she had given up on him despite her claims to be his friend. It didn't bother him, it just validated his beliefs about humanity's capacity to actually care about him. No one loved Gaara; he could only depend on himself for love. Everyone else only saw a monster, a weapon to be used.

That belief became further validated by the newest mission his father assigned him: to go to Konoha under guise of participating in the Chuunin Exams, and then unleash mother on a rampage while Suna and Oto launched an invasion. Gaara would be nothing but a weapon, a tool to maximize their chances of victory, but that suited him fine. Mother craved blood, and an invasion guaranteed plenty of it.

He and his siblings set out for Konoha two weeks before the exams, meeting a group of Leaf ninja halfway there to escort them the remainder of the way. None of them merited any particular amount of attention, though his siblings had taken an interest in the youngest member, a boy Gaara's age who introduced himself as Uchiha Masaru.

Gaara took one look at the nervous boy, overly polite and clearly uncomfortable around strangers, and promptly dismissed him as unimportant. Weak people had no appeal to his blood lust; only the strong would prove his existence. Mother had voiced slight amusement at the other boy's anxious behavior and smile strained by nerves, something about "Indra must be rolling in his grave," but Gaara didn't think too much on it.

Only on the second day of traveling, when the boy mentioned a sister, did something click in Gaara's mind.

He looked at their guide with renewed interest as Kankurou asked if they'd meet her, not missing the flicker of pain in the Uchiha boy's eyes as his strained smile grew sad. "No. She died. When we were eight."

"How?" Gaara had demanded, and Masaru had jumped in surprise, his sad smile fading entirely.

"My clan's heir went crazy and killed almost everyone."

"And he spared you?"

"...Not untouched."

Masaru had essentially fled at that point, preventing further questioning, but Gaara had received the bulk of what he needed to know. He spent the rest of the trip to Konoha in contemplative silence, mulling over the implications of the information he'd just received.

I live with my mom and my twin brother Masaru, Akari had written in her first letter. Gaara had not made the connection right away, but now that he had, he could see a faint resemblance to the childish drawings of a little boy with super-spiky hair. From there, the rest of the pieces fell into place easily, leading to a single conclusion:

Akari didn't stop writing because she disliked him, she stopped because she died.

Why had she died? How had she died? Who killed her? Why did her brother Masaru live when no one else did?

'This is actually getting interesting,' Mother cackled, and Gaara took her tacit approval to begin probing Baki to attain more details.

The jounin had been reluctant at first and warned him that investigating could raise suspicions, but Gaara persisted. He had never wanted much from others, but this—this curiosity he could not deny himself. Eventually the man relented and agreed to try to find some information. He warned Gaara not to get his hopes up, but the jinchuuriki knew Baki would deliver. No one ever wanted to disappoint him, after all.

Days before the invasion his "teacher" finally came through, returning from a meeting bearing a thick folder with a copy of the official report on the death of Uchiha Akari. Whoever gathered the file included a hand-written note that there had been no photos of her corpse available, but Gaara didn't mind. The coroner had decided against performing an official, in-depth autopsy on her due to the deluge of corpses to process in the wake of the massacre, but they had left several notes voicing their thoughts on her corpse's state.

He read over them and reached a shocking revelation, one which would undoubtedly chill others and shake their faith in humanity. Gaara, who had grown up knowing nothing but hatred and a demon whispering in his ear, could only smile at the twisted truth laid bare on the paper in front of him, a strange sense of morbid amusement settling over him.

"Mother," he breathed. "Love is very twisted, isn't it..."


'Dear Gaara,

Yesterday was our dad's birthday, so Mom took us to the cemetery to have a picnic by his grave. She told us all kinds of stories about him, and it really makes me wish I got to meet him. Even though he died before we were born Mom says he'd already loved us more than anything else in the world. She said he's watching over us now and is probably really proud, and then she started crying and laughing. I kinda felt like he was there when she said that, even though I couldn't really feel him like I sometimes feel Uncle Obi watching us.

I bet your mom's looking after you too, just like my dad and Uncle Obi. I think that's just how Moms are.'


On the day of the invasion, Mother craved Uchiha Sasuke's blood, and Gaara wanted to satisfy her. But as he chased his prey across the village, he saw two figures break away from the group, one of them with a spiky mane of brown hair. The sight caused a burst of lucidity to flare in Gaara, his bloodlust fading for just a second as his gaze turned from his target to the fleeing figure with a red and white fan on his back.

A second of indecision seized him, and then his curiosity won out. As he touched down upon the rooftop they'd been standing, his feet swiveled and he leapt away from his original path to pursue a more enticing target.

He wanted to know.

How would Masaru react?

Would he feel sad? Would he feel angry? Would he feel the same betrayal Gaara felt all those years ago? Or would he feel something different, something Gaara couldn't even imagine?

Those questions surged in his mind as he raced along the streets, tracking his new prey more on instinct than sight. Plenty of blood would be shed today, but he may not get another chance to see how Masaru would react.

When Gaara finally caught up to his quarry, the boy had been in a forest with his hair tangled in the grip of a faceless Sound ninja as three others looked on, the smell of burning flesh tainting the air. Disposing of the aggressors took little effort on Gaara's part; he spared them little thought beyond their presence being obstacles to his curiosity. His casual disposal seemed to shock Masaru, who regarded him warily as Gaara began setting up the reveal by asking a simple question:

"Would you say your family loved you?"

Would he be in shock? Would he cry for his sister? Would he curse his mother's name for taking her away?

The longer he talked, the more funny it became. That boy... He still seemed so insistent his mother loved them, how would he react when he found out the truth? The thought was so funny Gaara began to laugh, a maniacal and jaded sound cultivated by years of isolation and alienation. He laughed so hard he couldn't breathe, doubling over to clutch his side, his mother's delighted cackling ringing in his ears.

"Love is so twisted," he whispered. "Love is so twisted, isn't it, Ma-sa-ru? My father tried to kill me because he hates me and fears me. And your mother—"

And here it was. He threw his head back with hysterical shrieks of glee as he raised his arms to sweep towards the sky as he screamed, "And your mother killed your sister in the name of love!"

The other boy suddenly stood stiff and paralyzed, his eyes burning bright red, but Gaara paid it no mind, too amused as he continued rambling. "She cut off her head," he hissed gleefully. "Stabbed out her eyes with a kunai."

"Isn't life marvelous?"

That look of shock, so priceless.

"Isn't love hiLarIoUS?"

Mother's laughter joined his own, echoing through the forest as their voices melded together to become one.

"It's all juSt a liE! No one can LOvEOthERs! YOu cAN oNlY LOvE YoURseLf!"

Then Masaru spoke, and all of Gaara's humor vanished in an instant.

"She didn't kill her."


'Dear Gaara,

It's been so long since the last time we wrote letters. I wonder if you even read them, or just threw them away. It makes me a little sad, I almost feel like maybe you never existed sometimes. I wish I could meet you in person. I have so much to tell you, and I'm sure you have a lot of stories to share too! I don't know when that will happen, but I'm sure we'll get to meet someday!'


Pain.

Agony unlike anything Gaara could imagine filled every single sense, leaving him alone in a dark void with only his screams to fill the silence. His throat felt raw and sore from the constant shrieking, his every nerve burning and tingling to the point he could hardly bear it

His eyes snapped open with a gasp, wincing at the rush of pain the intake of breath created. Grimacing, he slowly sat up, taking care to move slowly to avoid jostling his aching head too much. Stars danced and filled his vision, his surrounding blurred and swirling. Vaguely he registered the shapes of Temari and Kankurou crowding around him, but he couldn't hear them. Everything felt so silent, so muted, and—

He froze, a cold chill running down his spine.

Everything was quiet. Quieter than he'd ever heard before. Including...

"Mother?" he whispered, barely louder than a breath.

He heard no response, only resounding silence ringing in his head.

Once upon a time, there was a little red-haired boy who heard a demon whispering in the back of his mind.

Then one day the demon suddenly went silent, and he had no idea what to do anymore.


A/N: With this, the Invasion Arc is all wrapped up.

I wonder if any of you saw this coming. This twist has been planned for quite some time now, though the hints have been incredibly subtle. Ryoko had several pen pals, and used her ninneko as a mail delivery service; I think I've referenced before that she used them to track down Jiraiya on multiple occasions. She met Yashamaru when he was captured by Konoha during the last war, and they managed to establish a decent enough relationship to keep in touch afterwards. Given how much Yashamaru cared for Gaara, I think he'd be all for getting him a pen pal too since it would be the safest way for him to make a friend. (For the record, Rasa knew he wrote to Ryoko, but he didn't know about Gaara and Akari since Yashamaru thought he might stop it.)

Overall, I'd say Akari had both a small and a large impact on Gaara. Ultimately their friendship didn't radically change his life as he still got betrayed by Rasa, but those letters made his childhood a lot brighter than canon. While initially they left him more sour about human nature, I think he'll be more friendly and open than he was in canon once he heals a bit. Which is probably good, considering he didn't get Therapy no Jutsu from Naruto this time around.

My main issue with this chapter was figuring out where to place it in the story. Originally I wrote this as a precursor to the confrontation scene, but I decided I wanted to focus on Masaru's feelings instead. Then I thought about having him tell Masaru after the invasion, but getting them into a situation where they could talk would feel a bit forced, and I can't imagine Gaara telling anyone else about it. In the end, I decided to slide it here at the end of the arc, as a sort of interlude and transition to the aftermath. The alternative would be to wait who knows how long, and besides that, it also gave me a great opportunity to hint at just what types of impact Nine-Ro will have. This is one of the larger canon-shattering twists, and I'll explain more in the next chapter.

Anyways, that's all I have to say. As always, let me know what you think! And by the way, the contest for the predictions is over. The next couple of weeks are going to be VERY busy though and I'll need time to sort through all of the comments, so no guarantees on when I'll announce the winner. For now though, please enjoy this lovely little omake about Ryoko and Yashamaru's time together.

OMAKE: A Different Kind of Torture

When Yashamaru got captured by Konoha, he had felt shame and anger at himself for being so careless. He had foolishly let his guard down after a long battle and got surrounded by ANBU, and now he found himself with his wrists and ankles shackled at all times and his chakra sealed to the point he couldn't even feel it under his skin. He could at least take solace in the fact that he wouldn't be tortured for information, seeing as his brother-in-law happened to be the Kazekage, and that gave Konoha incentive to keep him physically unharmed. On the downside, that also meant he'd be used as a hostage to try to broker a peace agreement with his village. For that same reason he got to spend his captivity under constant guard at a jounin's house rather than rotting away in a dank prison cell, which seemed more comfortable even if that jounin happened to the infamous Bloody Sunburst, Uchiha Ryoko.

But at this particular moment, he thought he might prefer having his nails ripped off after all.

"Would you like more tea, Yashamaru-san?" Ryoko asked, smiling serenely at him. The Sand jounin shifted uncomfortably on the stool, the movement causing the chains binding his wrists to rattle.

"Er, yes, please?" he responded hesitantly, and Ryoko smiled pleasantly before proceeding to fill his teacup with a pretty porcelain teapot which had been hand-painted with an hourglass motif.

"How about you, Boar-san?" she asked, turning to the masked ANBU guard sitting directly to his right. The man remained silent and unreadable underneath the mask, but Yashamaru felt certain the man felt just as incredulous at being roped into the impromptu tea party as he did. ANBU operatives should remain in the shadows, not forced to sit at tiny tables and forced to wear colorful haori over their uniforms.

When he didn't reply, Ryoko's smile faded slightly. "Boar-san," she said calmly. "I just asked you." She set down the teapot and turned to face him. "Would you like." Her eyes exploded into blossoms of bright blood red, the tomoe of the Sharingan spinning wildly as a spike of killing intent washed over the room so thick Yashamaru almost choked. "Some tea?"

The boar-masked agent winced and shrunk back before bobbing his head in silent assent. Almost instantly the dangerous aura faded and she smiled pleasantly once more, her eyes still bright Sharingan red. "Wonderful. Allow me to fill your cup."

As she lifted the teapot and leaned forward to pour it into his cup, Yashamaru darted a disbelieving glance at the other two ANBU operatives seated at the table in similarly garish haori. He couldn't see their faces, but in that moment he felt like their eyes met anyway, and an unspoken sense of camaraderie passed between them. None of them wanted to be there, but they had no choice but to endure Ryoko's strange mood swings and demands for the good of their villages.

That, and turning down a freshly traumatized woman whose mental health balanced on the edge of "totally fine on the surface but not really" and "so broken they make Humpty Dumpty look like he just had a couple scratches" felt unusually cruel, even for hardened shinobi like them.

When he got back to Suna, Yashamaru resolved to do everything in his power to pass a drastic overhaul of their mental health system. He could only shudder at the thought of Karura somehow turning out like this.