Gaara

[sunshinehistory]

Country/Village: Wind, Sunagakure
Rank: Jounin
Age at Game Start: 15
Birthday: January 19th

Appearance

Gaara's two primary identifying features are the dark rings around his eyes, similar to the chakra marks triggered by an ongoing Magnet Release, and the kanji for love scarred onto the left side of his forehead. His left, that is. His hair is short, messy and dark red, whilst his eyes are a very pale, dull blueish green and his skin an equally pale shade. He's still in the gangly stage of his growth spurt, so whilst he is no longer the shortest of his age group, he's average at best at 5'4" and growing.

Abilities/Powers

Sand.
Gaara is a top-rank ninja with a speciality in telekinetically manipulating sand, that is, tiny grains of rock and minerals, on any scale. His control of the stuff is so complete as to create the so-called Ultimate Defence - a mineral layer that protects him without any conscious decision on his part thanks to his mother infusing her will into him on her deathbed. He is covered by a very thin, very chakra-infused mask layer of sand at all times which acts as both a back-up shield and an excuse for the fact that he makes about one expression every three years. Obviously, this ability is limited to the availability of sand/earth and his chakra/energy reserves, but both are pre damn substantial. Other weaknesses for this technique include the adulteration of the sand by liquids or heavier substances to slow it down, though it should be noted that unlike most chakra-infused materials, Gaara's sand cannot be absorbed by other techniques. Furthermore, his constant use of the Ultimate Defense means that he's unnaturally heavy and slow for his size, and must restrict movement to a minimum in combat. Rather than walk, he'll kawarimi via sand, or float on a platform.

Jutsu
Gaara can do pretty much all of the standard ninja tricks - walking on walls and ceilings and water, using essentially any weapon available to a ranking ninja in the Hidden Sand, creating temporary clones of himself (generally out of sand, since you might have noticed he has a theme), teleportation, and possessing some kind of bizarre danger sense that applies only to incoming knives. Not that a danger sense is particularly necessary given aforementioned automatic defenses, but it's nice to have options.

Even though his sand makes him a Mighty Glacier - top-notch defense, implacable, with speed as a dump stat - he can actually move quickly when necessary. It just isn't necessary very often.

He's also a top-notch vessel for the One-Tailed Beast Shukaku, a brash, bitter tanuki whose power is near deific and whose entire being is intent on wrecking the day, week or year of any human that crosses its path. Although Gaara spends most of his waking hours suppressing the creature - and given that Shukaku uses its host's sleep periods to take over his body and wreak havoc, his waking hours are all the time - their aims overlap enough that Shukaku will donate chakra towards Gaara's more destructive whims. Given that Gaara's own chakra reserves are huge, this tends to work out badly. In the more recent years, Shukaku has subsided as Gaara's control - and his motivation to stay in control - has grown.

In terms of mechanics, Gaara is compatible with three elemental branches of ninjutsu: Wind, Earth and Lightning. Shukaku supplements this with the Magnet Release.

Personality

Without a fellow jinchuuriki to model himself on, Gaara never received the same heavy dose of hope for his own future that he did then. Thoughts like 'there are other people like me' never occurred to him - he is, as far as he knows, the only monster vessel who went through a childhood like his. Still, he saw for himself the benefits of comrades, and although his relationship with his own village is near-irreparable, his relationships within the Hidden Leaf have salvaged something of the hopeful child and charismatic leader in him, and he's mellowed out rather a lot under that attention. Think more a slow and painstaking acclimatisation process towards friendly human contact.

He dislikes his own village, having never had an example of a village's hatred subsiding to motivate him into working to gain their respect, and focuses his efforts on the other countries instead. As such, his leadership abilities are in no way as developed as they would be, whilst his teamwork has improved immeasurably. Whilst he never had that meteoric trigger to re-evaluate his life and worldview that he should have had, there have been enough incidents and subtle shifts that he has become able to connect with others regardless. He'd given up, let them see him as a monster, become that monster... But still, there were those who would reach out to him, and with their behaviour as a model, he opened up bit by bit to those willing to give him a chance. To those who don't, to those who still expect a monster? That's what they get, and there's still a heavy thread of that muttering, desperate child beneath his veneer of solemnity. The rumours are that the demon of the sand has been tamed, not that he isn't a demon after all, and therein lies the difference.

In matters of socialising, Gaara initially finds himself at a serious disadvantage from lack of experience. He comes off as sullen and morose, rarely smiling. Well, rarely giving any kind of expression as a response, really. His sand armour meant that his real expression is usually hidden behind a shell of sand, and he never particularly learned to accentuate his speech with facial expressions or excessive emotion even after he 'came out of his shell', so to speak. This coupled with his quirk of having no eyebrows means that he's a tough person to read. Despite this problem, Gaara has started to work to earn the respect and acceptance of those he meets; he just does it in his own quiet way, emulating his Konoha friends. When under control, he is polite, well-spoken and calm, all traits he has crafted onto himself with as much care as his sand armour. When confident and secure, he's capable of sudden bursts of awkward kindness. When he snaps he's equally quiet, which only makes him more terrifying.

History

The Gaara of six years ago was as much a doomed child as he was in the original timeline. Shunned and hated by everyone, kept alive only because of the potential use for his extraordinarily deadly abilities, he hated the world right back. He lashed out at anyone who crossed him, finding meaning for his existence only when he was killing. He was a child utterly without love, whose only belief was that he would always be alone, supported by selfish desires. When his despair alienated his siblings, he let the rift grow, and soon the only contact he had with other people was his lessons with a distant, dismissive father, and the occasional stilted conversations with a bizarrely friendly Konoha-nin who breezed through Gaara's childhood like the only fresh air in a stagnant cell called Suna. His existence was one of tolerance and survival; they tolerated, he survived.

Six years ago, he was entered into the Chunin exam hosted by the Hidden Sand the same month he graduated from the academy, and was exposed for the first time to the genin of other villages. Bit by bit, the words and actions of the shinobi of Konoha began to erode the shell. Whilst nothing was directed at him beyond fear or challenge, it was enough to see others giving and receiving affection, just as Obito had tried to explain to him two years before. Paired off with Konoha's Rock Lee in the elimination round, he was outmatched in terms of speed and taijutsu, and in retaliation crushed Lee's arm and leg in a Sand Coffin. Before he could actually kill Lee, Might Gai stepped between them to save his student. Gai's love for his student was obvious enough that it sent Gaara reeling. Jealous and bewildered by the revelation that it was indeed possible to be treated with kindness, Gaara's bonds with Suna shattered further.

And then in the third round Sasuke Uchiha pierced his Defense and triggered the most powerful of Shukaku's outbursts for years. Unlike canon, the Kazekage was alive and entirely able to suppress the One-Tail. In the aftermath of that effort and the aborted fight, Gaara was left in pain and fury in his rooms back at the village centre with Shukaku so exhausted that the monster had gone completely silent. This was fortunate, as Hinata had taken the opportunity to seek the jinchuuriki out to offer some of her salve, having noticed his reaction had specifically been to the injury. This unexpected kindness, aimed directly at him, was in a way more destructive than anything Sasuke could have done. Although he was from then confined to his rooms, in an attempt to understand them, Gaara began to evade the Kazekage's watchful eye and take trips to the other village to watch both his new rival and his first friend, who were conveniently in the same place most times. Diplomatic incidents ensued, but for some reason best known only to Gaara, very few of those incidents ended in bloodshed. That brief period where he had lost the constant jibing of Shukaku had given him an edge in controlling the beast.

Out of options, the Kazekage agreed to foster Gaara out to Konoha in an attempt to encourage whatever it was that was making his youngest son malleable. After the disaster of the first exams and now securely away from bad memories, Gaara sought Obito's advice and went back to the status of an ordinary ninja, to make his way up through the ranks properly and prove his father wrong. 'They were wrong about me' combined with 'would my friends approve' makes for a good template, and eventually he obtained permission to travel with his siblings from the Kazekage and an unwilling council. That journey, with its numerous incidents, stresses, and moments of being treated like a normal teenager had an incremental effect on Gaara, and he began to make tentative overtures towards both his brother and sister. He joined Temari on her missions, and eventually rose to Jounin status on his own merits after returning to Suna.