"G-Gaara!"
Kankuro had been all fire and bluster a second ago, but the moment he spotted the figure stepping up behind Sasuke, his whole demeanor crumbled. It was like he'd caught sight of a ghost, or something far worse.
"Don't make a fool of yourself here," Gaara said, his voice flat and cold. He had that massive gourd strapped to his back, towering almost as tall as he was. "Getting lost in a pointless argument like this? It's pathetic."
Kankuro stammered, "Gaara, listen , it was them who,"
"Shut up." Gaara's glare was sharp enough to cut. "If you say another word, I'll kill you."
Kankuro flinched, a tremor running through his entire body.
"That's some serious killing intent. You're strong," Sasuke said, looking Gaara over. He smirked and pointed a thumb at his own chest. "But I'm stronger."
Of course, Kankuro was the sort who backed down fast when it counted.
"Name," Sasuke added, slipping back into his attempt of acting cool.
"Gaara of the Sand," he answered, his arms crossed. "You?"
"Sasuke Uchiha."
Their gazes locked, and the air between them seemed to crackle with tension.
"Yo, been a while, Big Tanuki." Just then, Naruto appeared beside Gaara, casually resting an elbow on his shoulder with a roguish grin.
Kankuro thought, his eyes wide. 'Who the hell is this guy? Did he just touched Gaara?!'
'He's fast,' Temari noted, impressed by the blond's speed.
Gaara blinked, caught off guard. 'Why didn't the sand go after him?'
The Sand Siblings stared, completely stunned, but the rest of Team 7 didn't even blink. This was just Naruto being Naruto.
'Hang on... is that killing intent I feel?' Naruto turned toward the faint pulse of it, spotting Hinata lingering back there, looking small and unsure on her own. 'Must be my imagination.'
"Who are you?" Gaara's frowned as he willed his sand to surge forward and strike. But it wouldn't budge. The grains around him felt weighed down, sluggish, like they'd been doused in mud.
Naruto had slipped a thread of his ki into the sand earlier. No wonder it wasn't cooperating.
"Someone like you," Naruto said. Then, in a voice low enough for only Gaara to hear, he added, "Jinchuriki tend to recognize their own."
"Jinchuriki?" Gaara repeated the word, completely unfamiliar with it.
At this point in his life, Gaara only knew there was some kind of monster sealed inside him. He had no clue what it really was, or that eight others like it roamed the shinobi world. Sunagakure's seal on him was a mess from the start, leaving him prone to snapping and lashing out at anyone nearby.
The one person who'd ever tried to reach him, Yashamaru, was long gone, killed by Gaara's own hand. So a lot of the basics had passed him by entirely. No one else in the village would dare get close enough to tell him the truth.
"The big tanuki seems to be asleep," Naruto mused when he felt no response from within Gaara. "Well, do me a favor and pass on a message. Tell him Kurama and his jinchuriki send their regards."
'Bullshit!' Kurama huffed from within Naruto's seal. 'As if I would send regards to that mangy tanuki! He should be sending them to me and bowing to me!'
'Big Fox, you're full of energy today,' a younger, more cheerful voice piped up in the same space. 'Let's have a fight!'
Kurama shook his massive head frantically. 'I refuse!'
No way was he falling for that again.
Kid Goku pressed on. 'Come on, you can go all out today!'
'Wait, really? Alright, then,today you're gonna see what a proper Tailed Beast Bomb looks like.'
"Who is Kurama?" Gaara asked, his voice barely a whisper. "Who is the Big Tanuki? What is a jinchuriki?"
Gaara's questions piled up, but something about this blond kid was pulling at him. There was a strange power in his words, easing the constant churn of rage in Gaara's chest. Even the beast inside, always clawing for control, had fallen silent for once.
Naruto simply placed a finger to his lips, then pointed at Gaara's stomach.
"You too...?" Gaara whispered.
"You're not the only one who's different," Naruto said simply.
Gaara's life had been a string of shadows, harsh enough to match Naruto's own rough start. His father, the Fourth Kazekage Rasa, was still alive, unlike the Fourth Hokage, who hadn't made it. In theory, that should've meant something better for Gaara. But his mother had died bringing him into the world, and Rasa, desperate to keep Sunagakure strong and grieving his loss, had the One-Tail Shukaku sealed into the newborn boy.
Shukaku's fury rivaled that of Kurama's, and with the village's shaky seal, he kept trying to break free and take over. Gaara hadn't slept through a single night since he was born, not properly, anyway. Even grown shinobi would've cracked under that. His moods swung wild, the seal faltered, and as the One-Tail's vessel, he lashed out at villagers without warning. It earned him fear, isolation, and a label as the village's curse. His own father saw him as a broken tool, even making his uncle Yashamaru tell him that Gaara's mother hated him.
His siblings, Kankuro and Temari, could barely stand to be near him without trembling.
The shinobi world was full of stories like that, heavy with loss and regret. No enemy stepped into the light without scars dragging them there.
It stood in stark contrast to the Dragon Ball side of things, where villains often boiled down to pure malice, no backstory needed.
"Alright, we should get going." Naruto said suddenly. He blurred from Gaara's side and reappeared next to Hinata in a heartbeat.
"And as for you three lurking up there..." he called out calmly. "Aren't you going to come out and say hello?"
Perched on a nearby branch, three Otogakure shinobi had appeared without a sound.
The bandaged one among them thought, 'Damn, he picked us out easily.'
"Hmph. If you can spot us, you've got some skill," sneered the one with the kanji for "death" on his shirt.
In truth, every genin present had sensed them long ago, only the Oto ninja themselves seemed to think they were being stealthy.
Naruto didn't even glance their way properly. He shot a quick look at the Gaara's team instead. "See you all you all at the Chunin Exams, Sunagakure crew."
"Did he just ignore me?!" Zaku snarled, his face twisting.
Fresh off Orochimaru's experiments, Zaku brimmed with cocky strength, itching to put these genin in their place.
But Naruto just glanced at him.
Zaku froze as if he'd been struck by lightning, an uncontrollable tremor seizing his body. It felt like he was staring at some unimaginable monster. The Suna ninja watched, bewildered, but for the three from the Otogakure, that single look was pure torment.
"What a scary gaze," Dosu muttered. Even he, the leader of the trio, had to avert his eyes, not daring to meet Naruto's. The gap in their power was too vast, a single look was enough to shatter their will to fight.
Thankfully, Naruto's gaze shifted away a moment later, releasing them from the pressure.
'That feeling...' Dosu thought, a cold sweat on his brow. 'It was just like facing Orochimaru-sama.'
He looked at the group of Konoha ninja, a new kind of fear dawning on him.
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