Gaara's gaze was fixed on the unconscious Rock Lee in the dim hospital room. His face was twisted, as if he were reliving a childhood saturated with agony.
His lips were pulled tight, and a flicker of resentment and internal struggle flashed in his eyes. Behind him, sand rose silently from his gourd. Facing the defenseless Lee, Gaara's mouth curled into a cruel, manic smile.
"Anyone who stands in my way must die!" he hissed. Just as he was about to strike, the sand suddenly veered off course, snapping back to form a defensive wall around him.
A split second later, an ear-splitting explosion tore through the room as the hospital wall was blasted open. The sand that had been hovering over Lee's head scattered like rain. Gaara's body slammed into the opposite wall, cracks spider-webbing across his sand armor, telltale marks of the impact from Kanon's Rasengan.
"Just what do you think you're doing?!" Shikamaru and Naruto burst into the room. They found Kanon standing to the side, her expression unreadable, though she clearly knew exactly what had just transpired.
Shikamaru demanded, "What happened?!"
But Naruto's eyes were locked onto Gaara, who was currently embedded in the wall. Naruto's face was twisted with fury.
"You bastard!" Naruto growled. Shikamaru quickly stepped in, trying to control the situation.
"Why...?" Shikamaru's voice was low as he performed the Shadow Possession Jutsu, pinning Gaara against the wall to get the full story.
Gaara's answer was dismissive: "I wanted to kill him."
That cold, nonchalant response sent a shockwave through Naruto and Shikamaru.
"Why would you do that?!"
"You already won the match!"
"Do you have some personal grudge against him?" Shikamaru asked icily.
"Nothing like that. I simply felt like killing him, so I came to kill him." Gaara's words brought a palpable chill into the room.
"Killing for the sake of killing?"
Kanon, however, remained eerily calm. "In that case, I feel like killing you. Will you let me?"
Gaara looked at her flatly. "You're welcome to try."
"You jerk! Your face is literally falling apart and you're still talking trash!" Naruto was at his breaking point.
"Your family clearly didn't raise you right. You're incredibly self-centered!" Shikamaru muttered, though he was frowning. Even in a three-on-one, he wasn't sure he and Naruto could win against this monster. If Kanon fought, their chances were high, but she had just woken up. Had she truly recovered her strength?
"If you dare block me, I'll kill all of you together," Gaara stated.
"What did you say?! Try it if you think you've got the guts!" Naruto shot back.
"Hey, knock it off, Naruto!" Shikamaru tried to interject, but Kanon had already stepped forward.
"Let me handle this," she said, her voice hard as steel.
Shikamaru grabbed her arm. "Wait..."
Kanon looked back, her eyes asking a silent question: Is there any other way besides fighting?
Shikamaru put his hands in his pockets and stepped out with a confident smirk, addressing Gaara. "I know you were strong in the preliminaries, but the three of us aren't weak either. Plus, we have trump cards we haven't used yet."
"It's three against one. You have no chance of winning. If you do as we say, it's not impossible that we'll let you walk away."
Before Shikamaru could even finish, Gaara spoke again with total indifference. "I'll say it one more time. Get in my way, and I will kill you."
Shikamaru frowned, a sense of dread pooling in his gut. But Naruto continued to bark provocations.
"Hmph! Someone like you couldn't kill me!"
"Hey, stop egging him on! This guy is as strong as a monster!" Shikamaru whispered to Naruto.
"I've got a real monster inside me! We won't lose to this guy, right, Kanon?"
"Right." Kanon stepped in front of the two boys, her Three-Tomoe Sharingan swirling into existence.
At that moment, Gaara seemed to actually hear Naruto's words.
"Monster?"
"In that case... so am I."
"You're right. I was never taught well. I was born by taking the life of the woman I should have called my mother."
"To make me the strongest shinobi, my father used ninjutsu to bind sand to my body. I have been a monster since the moment I was born."
Naruto's eyes widened at the revelation.
"I am the living ghost of the old monk of the Sand, sealed within the kettle called Shukaku."
Kanon's mind raced through the knowledge Konin had taught her. She frowned. The One-Tail Jinchuriki... Shukaku?
"Is that what a father should do? That's some twisted love," Shikamaru muttered, cold sweat beading on his brow. Being out of his depth made him uneasy.
"You call it love? Don't use your standards to measure me!"
"Family? I'll tell you exactly what my relationship with them is."
"I am nothing more than a lump of flesh held together by hatred and murderous intent. I was created as the village's 'masterpiece,' built upon my mother's life. As the Kazekage's child, my father constantly taught me the secrets of the shinobi. I was overprotected, left to my own devices. I used to think that was love... until that happened."
"That?" Shikamaru narrowed his eyes.
"What happened?!" Naruto demanded.
Gaara broke into a manic grin, his eyes bloodshot and a ghastly expression taking hold of his features.
"From the age of six until now, for six years, I have been targeted for assassination by my own biological father, multiple times!"
"An existence that is too powerful eventually becomes an existence to be feared. Born through ninjutsu, my mental state was unstable. It seems the people of the village finally realized my temperament."
"To my father, the Kazekage, I was the village's trump card, but also a terrifyingly dangerous individual. Around the age of six, I was officially judged as a danger. Since then, I've been handled carefully as nothing more than a dangerous tool for the village. To them, I am a relic of the past they wish to erase."
"So, for what purpose do I exist? Why do I go on living?!"
"Every time I think about it, I find no answer. But as long as I am alive, I need a reason! Otherwise, it's no different from being dead!"
Shikamaru was floored. "What is this guy talking about...?"
But Naruto and Kanon could feel Gaara's pain. Because in this regard, he was exactly like Naruto.
"Finally, I found the answer. I exist to kill everyone other than myself!"
"Within the fear of never knowing when I might be assassinated, I finally found stability. By constantly killing those sent to assassinate me, I found my reason. I fight only for myself. I love only myself. I view all others as existing solely to make me realize that!"
Hearing Gaara's distorted logic, Kanon let out a sharp cry.
"Enough!"
"Oh? You don't want to hear any more?" Gaara laughed hideously.
"A hollow heart needs comrades to fill it! Your childhood tragedies have already happened, they cannot be changed! Do you really think that getting a sense of 'living' through murder makes you anything more than a walking corpse?!" Kanon raised a kunai, shouting at him.
"Comrades?! Hahaha! Those things were killed by me a long time ago."
Looking into Gaara's ice-cold eyes, Naruto actually took a step back. Seeing Naruto's terrified expression, Kanon frowned. This was a clash of wills, had Naruto actually flinched?!
"Naruto, what's wrong?!" Shikamaru shouted.
The sand around Gaara rose up, surging toward Kanon, Shikamaru, and Naruto. Kanon's hands blurred through seals, and almost instantly, a massive fireball roared toward the incoming sand.
BOOM!
The explosion snapped Naruto back to his senses.
While Kanon used a Fire Release: Fireball Jutsu to block the sand, a gruff voice from a distance called out, ending the confrontation.
"That's enough. The final matches are tomorrow. There's no need to be in such a hurry."
"Unless you'd rather start your stay in the hospital today."
Gaara seemed to be in an unstable state, likely triggered by his painful memories. The sand began to recede back into his gourd. Regaining a shred of composure, a trembling Gaara walked out of the room.
"I... I will definitely kill you all. Just you wait."
After leaving them with that chilling threat, Gaara vanished.