I don't own Naruto or any of its characters, I'm just a fan I enjoyed the anime but I love the fanfics even more, they made me fall for the whole franchise.
Chapter 38
Why are all these people weak? Why can't they kill me, why can't they take me out of my loneliness? I got frustrated at the people around me, a voice whispering they liked me suffering that's why they don't try hard enough that frustration quickly got turned into pure unadulterated rage, making me angry at the world around me wishing they would all perish!
I caught myself quickly almost losing it, my older brother Kankuro walking beside me shivered in fear but quickly grits his teeth and continues marching on stiffer than before. Why don't you just kill me? I took your mother away from you! I thought in anger that only got added to the previous one.
"Just kill that guy there in blue sweety and I promise you will feel better." Mother's voice rang out in my head, her voice came to me in a such a melodic way that it had me listening like a good boy paying rapt attention. I looked at the man with my anger never having been resolved in the first place.
"Oh my." The man gasped dropping his popsicle when my precise killing intent tackled his form from different senses, All my bloodlust knocking the breath out of him physically.
"Good boy Gara, now prove I exist so one-day others will hear me too!" My mother spoke with what I thought was happiness telling me I was a good boy, I smiled at the prospect of having my mother return. I wanted to feel what it meant to be somebody's baby like Temari was once like Kankaru once was.
My determination soared and I glared at the man making him shake and quiver in fear, his head twitched in my direction he was quick to catch it and look straight he didn't want to make eye contact but his head kept involuntarily turning in my direction he repeated the process 4 times.
The sand in my skin stirred as small particles broke apart and moved toward my new victim. This was a gift from my mother, to protect me so I stayed alive to keep on fighting, to keep on existing even when I gave up. I don't know why I am still alive. I am clearly that villain who will make the world cry one day. I have that background that could only lean toward villainy.
I intensified my killing intent my eyes flying open widely in the process and the man's instinct won the battle, he swerved his head around to satisfy his curiosity at what the monster in the corner of his eyes could look like. His instincts forced him to look towards the danger and that is when we locked eyes.
I don't know how to make faces, and my hold on my emotions is as good as an open hand. If I could guess what the man saw on my face, I would think it was death with a stoic expression. He grasped his shirt above his heart trying to grasp the organ under it but when he looked down he was in for another shock.
My heart began to beat faster in excitement thinking I was about to make my mother proud. 'Snake, Monkey, Rat, Monkey, Bird, Monkey, Dragon, Monkey, Rat, Monkey' I grind looking over at Baki who was none the wiser as I performed hand seals with the sand in my gourd, my hair shadowing my eyes.
"Eye of Sand." I whispered calling out my jutsu. The man's eyes widened as I stared at him from below as well, the sand particles I had used earlier forming a replica of my eyeball with erratic green pupils the man couldn't help but stare at it. He swayed ready to sink into unconsciousness just when a blonde arrived and stood in front of the older man, glaring back at me.
I tilted my head to the side and wondered if the blonde had a death wish because if he did he would have to await his turn, mother said I had to kill the one wearing blue. I looked past the blonde to find my target but he wasn't there anymore so I tilted my head further to the side and found him at a distance with a girl with dark blue hair.
"You will not take my prey." I whispered out but because of how many days I can go without saying a word my voice had become deep, dry like the desert and grave. I growled a second later when the blonde stepped on my third eye technique forcefully canceling the jutsu.
"Gara." I growled again and looked over at the taller man addressing me, what was with everybody disturbing me? Baki looked back at me in anger narrowing his eyes, I guess the game was over then I looked over at my siblings seeing each of them cower in fear of me and making me angrier at the fact it wasn't even them I was trying to kill yet they feared me.
I turned around to face where the blonde was but I found him mere inches from my face eyes staring deep into mine In curiosity, like a very rare animal he knew of that he only now got the opportunity to see.
"So you are like me?" The blonde asked stepping back and walking around me hands behind his head in an uncaring manner but his eyes were narrowed examining me, he got back in front of me and frowned looking unimpressed.
"I'm not impressed, short, skinny, wimpy looking and what is that on your forehead." The blonde spoke, was this the stupidity Baki spoke of that the ninjas of the leaf village had in abundance? then I saw him raise a hand and offer it to me. What was I supposed to do, cut it off?
"What, you're too good for a handshake?" The blonde inquired of me I was about to answer but Baki beat me to it.
"You are that action figure kid." Ah, I remembered now, he did seem to look familiar. Was he a celebrity here in Konoha to have his own toys, was he some kind of strong Konoha prodigy the village makes every other year? He looked the same age as I and mother had become eerily quiet since the blonde had appeared.
"So what if I am?" The blonde asked retracting his offered hand, a shame to I had just decided to take an arm as punishment for stopping me from accomplishing my mother's wishes. I looked to the right and spotted my target scurrying away in the distance with the girl he was with making her way towards us in a walk my anger soared but she didn't stop her stride instead I saw a katana come down from under her sleeve like a mirage.
"There is nothing of it." Baki responded to the blonde and moved towards me placing a hand on my shoulder and applying pressure, actually denting my sand armor with his fingertips with the force he applied. Baki was head jonin of our village his prowess was second to only my father, I couldn't defeat him mother had told me, not yet.
"Let us go Gara." Baki instructed me just as the girl approached us, she had very black eyes like a never-ending pit of nothingness while the blonde had such bright eyes it shined with life and vitality like a sky under the sun. What did he mean I was just like him? These thoughts plagued my mind as I turned around and followed after my sensei and siblings my mind so quiet from the ruckus of the Ichibi sealed within me.
The Kyuubi Jinchuriki! The knowledge finally clicked in my head, those whisker marks and what he said, the Ichibi's sudden silence, and my anger that died down so quickly when he got close, as though compared to him, I was nothing more than a toddler. 'I'm not impressed, short, skinny, wimpy looking and what is that on your forehead?.' His words replayed in my head and I turned my head looking behind me to find him walking behind us heading in the same direction as he conversed with the girl.
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"How do you feel Naruto-Kun?" Hinata questioned her best friend whose eyes were locked on the auburn hair genin from Suna. She couldn't believe she was meeting another person like Naruto she felt sorry for him he looked around their age and she wondered if it was a coincidence or just very similar circumstances.
"I am fine Hinata-Hime just thinking." Naruto's voice came to her and she paid attention to his emotions feeling that he was just very curious of learning more about the person closest to him in circumstances.
"Can you please check him over with your dojutsu?" Naruto asked and Hinata smiled nodding in acceptance the corner of her eyes growing veiny an indication of her dojutsu being active with her charcoal-colored eyes getting even darker.
The first thing Hinata noticed was the brown color of Gara's chakra, Naruto had informed her his name, it was massive as well almost as big as Naruto's but it didn't come out in such abundance like a never-ending wave of solar waves like the blonde's chakra did. The brown chakra was erratic and violent, it was in a battle for supremacy that seemed consistent, she trailed it back to the little box with a dark brown chakra flame burning inside located above his head.
"His suffering Naruto-Kun." Hinata recounted to the blonde sadly, "He is between sanity and insanity. The beast sealed inside him is influencing his chakra's spiritual aspect, it is trying to break his spirit and overtake him." Hinata continued concentrating even further trying to see how the chakra influenced the host. She pushed herself harder wanting to give Naruto more details to be more useful pushing her emotional feeling ability further trying to peer into the chakra's intent.
"Ugh!" Hinata gasped when her vision tunneled and zoomed in to Gara's figure like a fright train she saw pass his pathways and into the light brown chakra flames in a box located above his forehead. Her vision abruptly stopped and her eyes widened in shock at what she saw.
The inner structure of the box was a watery world shrouded in darkness, surrounded by sand spikes, and in the middle was a giant sandy-brown-colored tanuki, with dark blue cursed seal markings all over its face, body, and tail. It had a jagged, concave mouth with no tongue, and the sclerae of its eyes were black, with yellow irises and pupils that each takes the shape of a black four-pointed star with four black dots around it.
The negative emotions that body tackled Hinata had no place being associated with a living creature. Hinata didn't believe even a being such as a tailed beast should carry such anger, hate, loneliness, and sadness. Tears ran down her eyes at the pain she felt from the beast but fear quickly overtook it when the tailed beast turned around and made eye contact, the madness in its eyes blasting her with the emotion. She did not notice she stopped walking or that Naruto had stopped as well looking at her in worry as she whimpered.
The blind Hyūga jumped at the sensation of touch and looked over to who could have done it with fear in her eyes but she was hit by bright golden chakra soothing away all her fears she sighed. She saw the red box of flames behind the chakra get closer, fear took Hinata Hyuga when her eyes peered through the gates of what she could only imagine was the gateway to hell with leaking pipes running around the walls of a dark sewage with murky waters.
She reached an open area and got scared as her vision got closer to the gates she tried pulling back and it slowed down she took a breath before a tug pulled her inside the darkness, she feared what was in there waiting for her she had heard stories of the greatest of all bijuu.
Giant Red silted eyes opened in front of her, she was so small compared to the creature that looked at her in glee she couldn't comprehend it. Hinata wanted to laugh at the thought she had earlier, Tanuki compared to the Kyuubi was like her chakra reserves compared to Naruto's its negative emotions were on a level that Hinata felt she would never forget it was pouring out of it like a busted pipe.
"WHEN I KILL YOU, I WILL BREAK HIM." A voice rumbled out deep and grave the voice alone carrying so much anger, hate, and conviction for what it said it sounded like one of Naruto's promises, it planned on making reality as soon as possible.
"BEGONE FILTHY HUMAN." The voice rumbled and Hinata was hit by a torrent of chakra that pushed her chakra back with force alone which had her dojutsu deactivating and she was blind again.
"Hinata hey Hinata are you okay what is it what's wrong." Hinata finally registered Naruto's voice and slowly reached out to him, he grabbed her hand in his a second later holding her tight.
"Are you okay, Hinata?" He asked slowly intertwining his fingers with hers. Hinata would have liked to answer with her words but she couldn't speak she was too scared so she nodded instead. She felt like she was still in there with the Kyuubi in the dark.
"Come let's go get you some water hime and forget about those guys for now." Naruto insisted on taking her to a stall selling bottled water, he had supplies in his scrolls but those were for emergencies and the process was longer. Naruto snatched a bottle from the store table making the cross seal and a clone appeared grabbing his wallet to pay the man already opening his mouth to complain.
"Here." Both the original and the clone said at the same time handing over their respective objectives. Hinata grabbed the opened bottle and drank its content greedily before sighing in relief just as the clone returned the original's wallet and dispelled.
"How do you feel?" He asked her with a frown on his face. Hinata feeling calmer took the time to breathe before replying with a meek 'I'm fine' that Naruto didn't believe for a second and his emotions told her that much so she reassured him.
"Really, I'm fine." She said giving him a big smile that she felt bad about faking, but she felt his relief at her reassurance and she felt it was worth it.
"That's good I was worried there for a second." He admitted with a nervous laugh and Hinata felt his fears. She raised her hand towards his face and he moved into the touch a second later with her rubbing his cheek and smiling.
"I'll always be here." She promised him sweetly and she felt his cheek stretch into a smile, she rubbed his cheek before trailing down his jaw, down his neck, and down his chest before falling to her side. Naruto saw the hand getting away and grabbed it taking it in his hand and bringing it up to kiss the back before intertwining his fingers with hers.
"Let's just head to the academy, no more detours." Naruto suggested with a smile on his face and Hinata smiled back until she felt two familiar signatures turning the corner towards them. Hinata slowly pulled her hand away from Naruto's before smiling sweetly and indicating behind her with her head.
Naruto looked over Hinata's shoulder to peer behind her and he swore in dismay at who came around the corner spotting him not a second later, she didn't smile. Ino walked with Sakura and Shino. She walked in front with the two members of team 8 flanking her.
A second later Kiba dropped down from the rooftop laughing nervously and explaining why he was late, Choji and Shikamaru chose that moment to come out of a barbecue restaurant with their sensei. Shikamaru looked bored and when he spotted the rest of the newly minted genin he looked up and shook his head in dismay.
Then Sasuke appeared on a light pole doing some cool squatting pose with his hands on the horizontal surface before jumping down throwing his hands in his pockets and approaching Naruto and Hinata not acknowledging the rest of the rookie 9.
Ino walked towards her team and stood next to them Asuma said a few things to them before leaving in a leaf Shuushine. The stand-off of the rookie 9 began with team 7, team 8, and team 10 members looking at their competition and studying them recounting all the strengths and weaknesses they learned back at the academy.
Ino glared forward at team 7 her anger for a certain blonde having escalated due to being in the third stage of grief. Naruto grimaced at the look and felt nervous about the talk they would have soon. Sakura glared at Sasuke in determination promising herself she would win his love in these competitions. Sasuke looked over at Sakura in confusion completely misreading the look she gave him as a challenge. Sasuke smirked back at the pink-haired girl in acceptance of the challenge and Sakura turned pink in surprise at the smirk.
Choji ate his chips, and Shikamaru blinked at the unnecessary tension in the air when things weren't that tense. Kiba looked over at his two rivals and wondered if he stood a chance. The gossip of team 7's first C-rand turned A-rank playing in his head and head butting his self-esteem to the ground.
Shino simply readjusts his shades and Hinata looked around seeing nothing but sensing the area around she was met by many types of determination from all the rookies except Shikamaru, of course, he was always an exception when talking about motivation.
'This is gonna be one tense walk to the academy.' Hinata thought sensing everybody's secondary emotions, pointed at certain individuals Hinata, of course, was not bulletproof to this as she has made enemies among her group too.
'Naruto-Kun would say shit about now.' She thought with a nervous chuckle escaping her lips.
"Shit." There it was.
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My team arrived at the Hokage tower but the blonde still plagued my mind, if it was up to me I would have forgotten him by now but the tanuki wouldn't stop screaming about him repeatedly telling me to kill him and if I won't do it he would. The Hokage's office reminded me of my bastard of a father. We were greeted by the man and told some rules we had to follow to not cause a political incident before being dismissed.
Here no one looked at me in fear, I would call it blissful ignorance but I wouldn't lie I liked it. A Chunin escorted us to the gates of the leaf ninja academy and instructed us to move to the third floor.
"Make your village proud." Baki told us all and I ignored his words not bothered by the thought of disappointing those scums of the world. I took the lead with my sister flanking my left and my brother my right always 5 steps behind. My anger rose at their unwarranted fears, did they see me low enough to kill them?
"Kankuro I will kill you." I told my older brother out of the blue surprising him but when my words registered he froze in fear and shivered. What kind of older brother fears his baby brother like a monster? "Useless." I grounded out stoically telling him what I thought of him.
Temari the oldest of us all looked the other way not willing to get involved, what kind of older sister lets her brothers fight and argue while she looked away, she's such a coward. I blasted her with my killing intent making her stop in her tracks and stare in my direction in horror expecting her death to come from the hands of her baby brother. Him? kill her who looked so much like their mother.
I was surrounded by a bunch of pussies as the people of Suna liked to call cowards not knowing they were the biggest of them all. Rasa being the biggest of them all, if he wanted a Jinchuriki so bad why didn't he seal the noisy beast into himself? I will kill that man for the life he has cursed me into I swear it.
Every step I took up the stairs had my anger rising at the thought of the decency the man had to seal a tailed beast into a baby still in its mother's womb, his very own wife and mother of two kids risked dying by the attempt but he went through with it anyway without a thought.
I reached the second floor and I was already releasing killing intent like a geyser, all the participants crowded up in front of a door stopped arguing, and stared my way like a shared danger sense.
"Move." I demanded and they separated in a heartbeat leaving me space to pass through and I did, my brother and sister jogging up to me to catch up to my retreating form.
"KILL THE BLONDE INSECT, KILL HIM KILL HIM, KIIIILE HIMMMMM!" The tanuki continued screaming in my head as I got to the other side of the hallway. The tranquility it had offered me with its silence at the shock of running into another demon having expired.
I controlled my face to not show my emotions but my emotions themselves were a different story the anger at my constant torment continuing increased my bloodlust and I heard Temari take a shuddering breath behind me, I took a breath and calmed down a little whatever that would do in the sea of rage I was still submerged in.
In these exams I will prove my existence to the world, then they will all acknowledge mothers existence through my existence. I made up my mind and pushed the door on the third floor open finding other genins inside staring in my direction but they were very quick to look away.
'For mother.'I thought moving forward and up the stairs to find a sit and take it. Temari and Kankuro joined me flanking my sides. A second later the door opened and a boy with a dog entered followed by others the blonde from earlier being among them.
AN
As I promised we have reached the chunin exams lol gave you guys a bunch of fillers but I really didn't want to just jump into that room, and as you can see lee and SASUKE DID NOT FIGHT EACH OTHER AND THAT IS BECAUSE HONESTLY SASUKE WOULD HAVE GIVEN THE BOY A RUN FOR HIS MONEY UNLESS HE OPENNED THE GATES.
Some Gara perspectives to find out his motivations in this exams and next chapter we have the first stage of the exams and the forest of death...
ENJOY