Note: I don't know about you, but I've wondered about Kankuro's way of dress on more than one occasion.
Warnings: Some gore
Pairings: None
Characters: Kankuro, Gaara, Fourth Kazekage
When Gaara was seven years old, his father, the Kazekage, determined that the little boy was more likely to be a danger to the village than its savior. From the moment Gaara learned how to crawl, the Yondaime had been training him to be the ultimate weapon, a nearly all-powerful wielder of sand that would defend Suna in times of war. Unfortunately, the child sometimes had difficulty controlling the beast that lurked in his mind, and this mental instability, coupled with his inept social skills, meant that he was prone to attacking and maiming villagers with his sand.
It was after yet another report that Gaara had injured a young boy (the sand had scraped half the skin off the child's leg), that the Kazekage decided that Gaara was more trouble than he was worth. With a heavy heart, the Kazekage called in the child's caretaker and uncle, Yashamaru, to dispatch the boy.
The assassination attempt failed, and Yashamaru died in the attempt.
When the Kazekage next saw his third son, Gaara sent a cold glare and a crushing tide of sand after him, and the Kazekage, most respected and elite of Suna's ninja, barely escaped with his life.
The next day, the Kazekage sent off a slew of well-trained ninja to take Gaara's life.
Chunks of the ninja's flesh had to be scraped off the walls of a certain alleyway the next morning in order to be buried. Blood darkened the sand, drying in brown, crumbling clods in the heat of the desert. Everything and everyone that the Kazekage sent to kill Gaara came back in pieces or not at all, and the leader began to despair at the futility of his attacks. He began to wonder if it was even worth it to sacrifice life after life in the pursuit of death.
Time passed, and the Kazekage stopped sending ninja to kill Gaara. He also stopped trying to meet up with his son; Gaara would simply go into rages at the sight of him and would tear through everything to get a shot at the Kazekage's head.
And then it became apparent that the Kazekage's assassination attempts had an unanticipated side-effect.
It should be noted that Temari and Kankuro, Gaara's two siblings, had a striking resemblance to their mother and father, respectively.
Thus, it came to be that when Gaara caught sight of his older brother - who for all purposes looked like a miniature version of his father - he went into one of his fits of rage and promptly began slinging his deadly sand around, trying to crush him.
Kankuro got away alive from the experience only because a passing jonin had recognized him as the son of the Kazekage, and had thrown herself in Gaara's line of fire. Kankuro escaped, but the jonin was crushed into oblivion by Gaara's sand. When the Kazekage heard of this incident, he immediately sent off another team of assassins.
They were also crushed to death.
From then on, the Kazekage ordered a group of personal guards to defend his eldest son.
But one day, Kankuro wore purple face paint and a black jumpsuit complete with a hood to school, as a part of a class assignment about disguises. Whoever was least recognizable would win a new set of throwing knives. Kankuro insisted that his guards defend him from the shadows, so that his classmates wouldn't be able to identify him by his entourage.
As luck would have it, Kankuro met his younger brother in the street on his way to school. Gaara walked through the crowds, and people parted in front of him as he went, eager to get out of the child's way.
Kankuro had been following a tall man with a white turban, and when the man suddenly stepped aside, Kankuro came face-to-face with his brother. Just as Kankuro was expecting his guards to swoop down and haul him away to safety, Gaara simply shot Kankuro a dismissive glance and shoved his way past. Kankuro stood frozen with relief in the middle of the road for a good five minutes after that, before he remembered that he should be on his way to school.
One of the guards immediately alerted the Kazekage of the occurrence.
Not half an hour later, when Kankuro was sitting in his classroom, his father stomped in the door, ordered his son to wear that outfit for the rest of his life, and presented him with the prize set of throwing knives.
Note: If you have any wonderings that I could write a shot for, go ahead and request it. :)