Maho no Gaara or Gaara of Magic
The wind was blowing at a lazy pace, slowly swirling the sand in an ethereal way. A young boy, who looked to be five was swinging his legs back and forth on the roof top of a tall building. It was a peaceful night, and yet something was clearly amiss to the boy. He looked tense and strained, as if waiting for something to happen, and he kept glancing up at the full moon warily.
Fulfilling the clearly uneasy paranoia of the child, a figure smoothly walked up onto the roof, not even making a sound. As if on instinct, the small boy turned around to see a man slowly approaching him, kunai in hand. The man, the boy finally noticed, was an anbu, one of his father's soldiers. This thought stirred something in the boy, and he rose softly, with elegance and grace, using the sand to glide off the ledge. The child stared at the anbu with such sad intensity, and sighed deeply, sounding far to old and wise for his age.
'Another assassination attempt' the boy thought sorrowfully. 'Why won't they just leave me alone?' he thought, a pained aching finding it's way into his mental voice. 'Why do they hurt me so often? Why do they try to fight me, kill me?' his voice rose louder with the forceful words. 'Why do they alwaysRUN?' he thought. A malicious voice answered back, seemingly not even phasing the young boy.
'Because of ME! HAHAHAHHAHAH-'the voice cackled in his head for a moment, before the boy ignored it, shutting out his thoughts entirely. Again, a pained sigh escaped his lips. A sigh that could only come from years of heartache and pain. He just yearned for sleep, to be unconscious and free for a moment, but he couldn't sleep, his body wouldn't let him, and, in all honesty, sleepscared him. The moment he slipped into unconsciousness, a blissful oblivion, the demon residing in him, the monster taking a place in his mind, would take over his body. He would lose control and the demon would destroy everything, his father, his brother, his sister, the VILLAGE. He couldn't let himself be used as a puppet, and that scared him the most.
After a moment, that felt much longer in his mind, the child turned his attention back to the approaching anbu, observing the gait and stance of the man. Judging by his confident gait, but not quite perfected stance, the boy would guess the anbu was low jounin level to low anbu. Not that it really mattered to him anyways. Even now the child was used to killing to protect himself, even if he didn't enjoy it.
With barely a thought, the cork slipped smoothly out of the hollow gourd resting on the boy's back, the sand packed densly inside flowing out and around him like a long, waving arm. The anbu noticed the movement immediately and froze, turning to face the boy completely. Slowly, as if not to startle a frightened cat, the anbu soldier raised four kunai. The moonlight reflected sharply off the blades, shining a dim light on the boy, who had stopped moving and was standing in an almost bored, passive stance, his small arms crossed.
Without wasting a second, the anbu launched the knifes at such a speed, that the child could barely see them. The sand that, after it had come out of the gourd, just slithered like a frightening, strange snake, came to the child's aid, as if by it's own will. With lightening speed, the sand blocked each precisely thrown kunai, stopping them with a density and strength not normally seen in sand. For the first time during this exchange, the child moved, his arm shifting outwards, reaching towards the man. The sand followed his command and wrapped around the body of the still anbu man.
"Sand coffin" the boy whispered, his voice cold and even. And so, the child stood there silently, watching the sand compress slowly, squeezing the very life out of the anbu. With a sudden closing of the boy's hand into a fist, the sand contracted quickly, crushing the bones, organs and veins of the man. Dark, sticky, red liquid oozed from inside the coffin. It seeped through the sand and stained the sand red from the blood of the anbu. The boy slowly approached the fatally wounded man, who was holding on to life like a fly would cling to food. Without the boy moving, the sand retreated back into the gourd, sliding inside and replacing the cork. This exposed the body of the dying anbu to the boy. The man that had just tried to kill the child. Said boy was filled with rage for a moment, before studying the dying, yet somehow recognizable face. He choked slightly for a moment, not believing his eyes, before letting tears spill out of his eyes like dams. The child fell to his knees beside the man, crying.
"Ya-yashamaru? Uncle? Why?" he managed to choke out. It was indeed true, unfortunately, that the broken, bloody, traitorous man lying on the ground, was in fact the boy's uncle, his only true guardian and friend. Yashamaru managed to speak quietly.
"I was ordered to assassinate you by lord Kazekage" he answered, simply in a quiet, weak voice. Yashamaru spared no words, for he was slowly losing strength to just speak. Despite this, the words gave some semblance of hope to the young boy.
"S-so you were forced to do it, right u-uncle?" he asked, no he pleaded, quietly, hope lacing his tone and betraying his helpless feeling. Unfortunately, his pleas were not answered by whomever may have been listening.
"No" Yashamaru said simply, shattering the hopeful feeling that filled the boy. "I've never loved you, I'm sure deep down I despised you for being a monster, for killing my sister. She hated you too. My sister, your mother gave you your name. 'Gaara, meaning the demon who thinks only of himself' this name was not out of pity or love, but of horror and disgust." Yashamaru whispered his speech. The boy, Gaara, whimpered, then broke out into full on sobs, falling to his hands and knees, his head almost on the ground.
A change cane about Gaara in this moment. It was THIS moment that Subaku no Gaara, Gaara of the Sand Waterfall, decided, once and for all, to only serve and help himself. He lost all compassion or love for the human race in general, and even his siblings. Gaara now only cared for himself, and knew that the only way to prove his importance, his EXISTENCE, was to kill those around him.
He willed the sand to come up to his forehead above his left eye, carving the kanji 'ai' into his forehead, meaning 'love'. He screamed, an ear-piercing shriek of pure agony, not just from pain, but from the emotional trauma he had just experienced. He shrieked loudly, still crying and the demon within him was released, Shukaku, Ichibi, the one-tailed demon tanuki.
Three Years Later
Gaara, now a eight-year-old child, walked slowly down the streets of Sunagakure, his sand still flowing around him. The other children ran from him, but he payed them no heed, clearly lost in thought. 'Lord Kazekage has ordered 382 assassination attempts since Yashamaru-san. Evidently he is still troubled by ichibi's takeover that night. I suppose it is of no harm to me unless they can successfully complete their missions.' He thought passively. Passively was not quite the correct term though, a more proper term would be 'devoid of emotion'. In the past three years, Gaara had changed drastically. He no longer showed his emotions, if there were any to show. He did not just bottle up his emotions, he erased them. He thought rationally and logically, leaving no room for human weakness. The voice in his head had evolved as well. It constantly screamed for blood and death, so much that Gaara was barely able to resist the bloodlust. Not that killing bothered him anyway, he'd killed many villagers and shinobi alike.
Gaara was snapped out of his stupor when a rock came flying at him, only to be blocked by the sand wall. Next came more, dozens more, all being blocked by his sand. All but one. Clearly a shinobi was amongst the crowd of frightened villagers, one who had a certain level of speed. The sand protecting him, surprisingly, was not fast enough to block the dozens of rocks plus the speeding projectile at the same time, and so Gaara was knocked back by a rock hitting his stomach. He scrambled back up and backed into a wall, mortified at the fact that he had been injured for one of the first times in his life.
Gaara decided, that, while he could go on offense and kill most of the crowd instantly, that would leave him vulnerable to attacks and the shinobi would likely surrvive, so he decided that cocooning himself in sand while the villagers and shinobi attacked was the most logical option. Once again, Gaara missed one variable, the strength of the shinobi in the crowd, the one that had thrown the rock. The shinobi was evidently powerful if the strength and speed of the throw was anything to judge by, and at a moment's notice, a static sound could be heard, bolts of electricity.
The condensed ball of electricity, loosely based on chidori, grew closer to Gaara, and to his horror he could hear the terrifying sound of thousands of volts of electricity buzzing through the air. Gaara felt weak and sick from the noise, and tried to make his sand shield denser, before he could, however, a sharp blow jolted through his shield. As if in slow motion, Gaara watched as the sand surrounding the entrance point instantly melted into glass and shattered. Like the sand, Gaara felt his whole life shatter before him as agonizing pain spread through his body. It was like fire in his veins and he felt as if his very skin was magma. Gaara wanted to cry out, but his voice no longer worked, and all he could do was watch helplessly in agony, as his skin was burnt black before his eyes.
The blood came next, the rich, red liquid. It brought the few strands of Gaara's consciousness, that he had held on to, back to the electricity in front of him. Gaara tried to hold on to consciousness once more and a hand ripped through his stomach, but he felt his mind slip away like sand on the wind. And so, Subaku no Gaara, Gaara of the Sand Waterfall, let go of his life and his mind.
Fortunately for Gaara, someone was watching this occurrence, someone who felt pity for Gaara, someone who cared, and soon a strange distortion appeared below Gaara's limp body, sucking him in.
An Unknown Location, Moments Later
Gaara's head was pounding, and ... screaming at him? No, wait, that was just Shukaku screaming danger in every sense. That made Gaara extremely wary, and angry. If something made Shukaku worried, it really was something to worry about. Gaara also wanted the blood of the man who had forced him here. Wherever here was. Above all else, Gaara was paranoid. Hundreds of attempts at your life by trained professionals would probably force you to be on high alert at all times as well.
Gaara stood up carefully and immediately took in his surroundings. Not only did he visually glance over the large, white, breezy room, but, as a ninja always should, he also took in any and all exits and the most defensive point in the room. The most defensive point, he decided, was with his back against the wall near one of the three doors in the room. This way, if any enemies were to come through the biggest, and most likely main, door, Gaara could ambush them and run. At the same time, Gaara could see the other two doors, and hardly had a blind spot in the room.
As he predicted, a woman glided into the room, and Gaara was frozen for just a second. The woman had golden, almost white hair, that seemed to shift colors every second. It was not rainbow, but more like every color imaginable all at once. Not even every color, because Gaara was sure there were colors shifting in her hair, faster than even his eye could see, that seemed to not exist. The woman herself was tall, but not intimidating, and skinny, but not weak or underfed. She held an air of grace and elegance, but also power and strength, the kind of strength that could end your life in a blink of your eyes. This unnerving power was balanced by the the righteous, gentle air around her, almost tangible like a warm breeze sweeping through his village on a cold night. Her eyes, like her hair, had an ethereal glow surrounding them, gazing into your very soul with a cold, but soft intelligence. This woman, to Gaara, was an enigma, a familiar presence, a threat, a friend, an enemy, a mother, a sister, a ninja, a princess, a queen and a strategist all at the same time. It confused Gaara to no end that the woman was like everyone he had ever met, and will meet all at once, and, dare he say it, it scared him. But after this calculative moment, Gaara did what any self-respecting shinobi would do, he opened his gourd and treated this woman like a threat, that is, until the woman opened her mouth and his plans crumbled like wet sand in a breeze.
[A.N.: It's been a while since I've read these stories, and I've had a ball. Feel free to hate or w/e, as I literally cannot read these without cringing. I don't want to rain on anyone's parade, however, so, if you really like the premise of a story here, you can use the idea, continue the story, or even ask for a continuation/rewrite. I will be glad to oblige, and then subsequently link the new story. Anyways, thanks for putting up with/reading my prepubescent ramblings masquerading as stories.]