Interlude: Gaara
Gaara was having doubts. Baki had told them that Sunagakure would crush Konoha during the chunnin exams to establish the village's superior power in the Elemental nations. The redhead did not really care for either for his village or his father the kazekage, but any opportunity to prove his existence through bloodshed would be accepted and taken advantage of.
However he was no longer sure Konoha would grant him such an opportunity. The jinchuuriki of the Kyuubi had recognised him almost instantly and pronounced the village's inhabitants under his protection, which made Mother nervous. The demon fox was far, far more powerful than he was and completely outclassed Mother as well; crossing the whiskered blond boy would be a death sentence. Especially since the other boy had taken the time to lay out the conditions of his stay in the village. Mother had explained that violating accepted terms meant his life -and hers- would be forfeit by law. That the nine-tailed fox had educated the boy meant he was a favoured vessel rather than a mere prison; a true avatar.
Gaara carefully ignored the fact that -until very recently- Mother had never taught him anything.
Even more confusingly, Gaara wasn't even sure if he wanted to feed the people of the Leaf village to Mother. The blond fox-vessel's team-mates had been both polite and friendly and the Kami-blessed Seer they had taken him to see had been confusingly kind to him. The Yogensha had examined his seal with her head cocked on one side, tut-tutted and then done something to it. What that something was Gaara wasn't sure, but Mother had been calmer afterwards and had stopped insisting he feed her blood. In fact she had ceased shouting altogether in favour of quiet and largely incoherent mumbling punctuated by the occasional explanation or suggestion.
This abrupt and unexpected 'hands-off' attitude was completely unprecedented and rather fightening, so Gaara had firmly set about going on much the same as always while sticking to the rules Uzumaki Naruto had laid out: Only main or kill if your opponent is a ninja and challenges you to a fight or attacks you directly. The racoon-eyed redhead had killed a Rain ninja in the forest of death and badly maimed the dead boy's other team-mates when they hesitated to surrender. Gaara had also stopped threatening his siblings since their voices no longer made his head ache, a side effect of Mother no longer shouting at him all the time.
Now he was waiting for his turn in the preliminary tournament round. The nine-tails jinchuuriki had crushed his opponent without using a single jutsu and his two team-mates had shown similar skill and finesse. Temari had had an easy fight against a weapons user and Kankurou had won his fight as well. Baki looked rather pleased by their performance.
Then Gaara's name came up against a Rock Lee, who turned out to be loud, green and energetic. The redhead shunshined down to the arena in a swirl of sand. He knew he would win this fight: Only the blond container was more powerful than he.
Gaara soon realised he had underestimated his opponent: Lee was very fast and could hit surprisingly hard. Then the green boy had dropped a set of weights at the behest of his equally green sensei and the redhead was suddenly struggling to keep up: the strange boy was now moving faster than his sand could follow and he even managed to scratch Gaara's face. Deeply irritated, Gaara set about calling up more sand, switching with a Suna bunshin as the green boy tried a stronger move.
Seeing his attempt had failed, Lee proceeded with an even stronger move that Gaara had never even heard of before, a technique that flooded the odd genin's body with chakra and made him even faster. This time Gaara was caught and slammed into the arena floor.
The impact roused Mother from her introspection, healing his injuries and lashing out at his aggressor. Gaara wanted to destroy the incomprehensibly cheery genin that threatened his existence and Mother obliged him, wrapping her sand around the green boy's arm and leag so tightly she crushed his bones. Gaara was about to put his opponent out of his misery when the boy's jounin-sensei intervened, causing the redhead to win the match by forfeit. He didn't understand why such strong people as the green jounin and Yogensha-sama would want to preserve the lives od weak beings such as Lee or the white-eyed girl from earlier, though.
"Eh, Gaara," came Yogensha-sama's voice from behind him as he walked back up to the balcony, "Doesn't Tanuki-san protect you?"
Gaara blinked, never having considered it quite that way before. Mother had protected and healed him when Lee hurt him, then the green jounin had protected the green boy from Gara and Mother.
"Your protector travels with you wherever you go, Gaara-kun;" the starry-eyed woman said mildly, glancing down at the arena where medics were carrying Lee off on a stretcher, "others are not so fortunate."
The redhead did not respond, mind abuzz. Konoha was proving difficult to deal with in ways he had not previously realised existed and he was having trouble understanding what was going on.
A/N: Because everyone needs a little bit of Gaara in their life.