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[— Manga Scene —]
On the roof of an abandoned building, Shikamaru grabbed Naruto's arm as he shouted at him.
"I told you to stop this!! He's as strong as a monster, you know that, right?"
"You can't kill me!!"
Naruto screamed into Gaara's face, a savage grin spreading across his own.
"I've got a real monster inside me too… I won't lose to a guy like this!"
"Don't challenge him, you idiot!!"
Shikamaru tried again to stop him.
But Gaara did not move. He stood in silence, the word "love" carved above his brow.
"…"
Then he finally spoke, in a cold voice devoid of any emotion.
"Like I said, I grew up in a bad environment."
"?"
"!"
"So I'm just like you."
"Monster? Heh?"
Shikamaru muttered, unable to believe it.
And behind Gaara rose a massive shadow — a one-eyed sand demon with a wicked grin, filling the entire page.
"It took my mother's life at birth…"
said Gaara, his voice still as calm as if reading a report that did not concern him.
"So that I would become the strongest ninja, my father used a ninjutsu technique to cover my body in sand…"
"I was a monster at birth."
"It's called Shukaku, the 'Sand Spirit.' And Tikatli sealed it as a 'vessel.'"
Gaara continued.
"It is a spirit that lives inside an old priest of the Sand Village."
"An embodiment of sand?!"
Shikamaru's eyes widened.
"It's one of the 'Binding Techniques' — for binding a spirit before birth."
said Gaara coldly.
"You people resort to these things — you're all insane."
"…"
Naruto fell silent.
"Does he have something inside him too…?"
asked Gaara.
"…"
"Heh… is this how a father shows his love — in some twisted way?"
Shikamaru asked with bitter sarcasm.
"Love?"
Gaara repeated the word as if it belonged to a language he did not know.
"What a strange kind of love."
Then Gaara took a step closer, his eyes carrying no mercy at all.
"Don't lecture me with your values… family? Let me tell you what that connection means to me."
"!?"
"It's nothing but a mass of flesh, bound together… by hatred and the desire to kill."
[— End Scene —]
…
Sunagakure:
There was no laughter in the reading hall this time.
Old Chiyo sat frozen, the volume in her hands, her lips moving silently as she reread a single line.
"Binding Techniques… for binding a spirit before birth."
She looked at her brother Ebizo, then returned to the page.
"I know the foundation of this technique."
"What do you mean?"
Ebizo asked warily.
"Not this exact technique. But its principle exists in the clan's old archive, from the days of a war the books barely remember anymore. I read it once, years ago, and closed the file that same day, and marked it as one of the techniques that should never be revived."
The old woman paused, her fingers trembling slightly over the page.
"I never imagined anyone would dare bring it back to life."
Ebizo looked at his sister for a long moment, then at the hall around them, and lowered his voice further.
"That boy in the pages hasn't been born yet in our time. When do you think he'll be born — and who do you think his parents are?"
"I don't know. But I have a feeling Gaara is the son of Rasa and Karura."
"…"
Ebizo fell silent for a moment, looking in the direction of the engaged couple.
"I suspected that too. Rasa resembles Gaara a great deal."
"Well — setting that aside — as you can see, if Rasa is Gaara's father, does that mean he's the one who'll do this?"
Chiyo shook her head slowly, her eyes on the page.
"I don't know what degree of cruelty a father would need to have, to do this to his own infant son."
"He did it for the village…"
Ebizo looked deeply toward Rasa.
…
And in his corner, young Sasori stared long at the image of the human vessel, and there was no trace in his eyes of the horror that filled the faces around him.
"Fascinating."
He said it quietly, to himself.
"Binding a soul to a body before it's born… this is rather like making a puppet out of a living child."
"Sasori?"
his mother called, worried.
"Nothing."
But the boy could not stop himself from wondering: what material makes a puppet that never breaks? And could a human body, if bound tightly enough, become the perfect puppet itself?
His mother looked at him a moment too long, as though she had heard something in his silence he had not said.
Then she reached out, and gently pulled the volume from between his hands.
"Enough reading for tonight."
"I was going to finish the page anyway."
"Sasori."
No one said anything. But his eyes stayed on the spot where the picture had been, even after the volume had disappeared.
…
And by the back wall, Baki stood — the young genin the whole village had known since the chapter of the examiner's murder — reading the pages over a comrade's shoulder.
No one commented on his presence there. Everyone had avoided looking at him for weeks now.
The young genin read about the father who had turned his son into a weapon, then left him alone to carry all the hatred by himself…
and felt something like nausea.
'My future counterpart obeys orders without question.'
'And this father in the pages… gave an order that no one questioned either.'
'So what's the difference between us? I obey other orders, and he gave this one.'
'But either way, we both leave a child to carry the price alone.'
Baki closed the volume quietly, and did not ask to read further.
'Wait…! Could he become the Fourth Kazekage?'
Baki wondered deeply, looking toward Rasa. After all, it was obvious he was the current Third's student — and who else would be qualified to succeed him?
…
As for Karura, she said nothing at all.
Her hand had settled once again, unconsciously, over her stomach, while her eyes could not leave a single sentence.
It took my mother's life at birth.
She did not understand why she felt that cold rising in her arms. This story was not hers. The child on the page was not her child.
But she found herself thinking, against her will, of mothers she had never known — one of them dying while giving birth to a son who would grow up carrying the word "love" on his forehead and hatred in his heart. A love he apparently had never once tasted…
Rasa reached out his hand and placed it over hers.
He, too, said nothing.
…
Rasa read the pages on the technique with the eye of a jonin assessing a weapon, not a reader moved by a story.
'A seal that binds before birth… the mother as a temporary vessel, the fetus as a permanent future.'
'Whoever designed this knew the price would be a woman's life.'
'And approved it anyway.'
His eyes narrowed.
'What kind of father does this to his own son?'
He found no answer. And he did not want to find one. So he pushed the thought from his head faster than he should have.
But the image his mind had rejected returned from another angle: a shadow seated beneath a hat, no face showing, issuing orders that no one questioned.
'Why am I thinking about him now?'
Rasa shook his head, and closed the volume with more force than necessary.
…
At the head of the hall, the Third Kazekage himself had read the pages with a face that hid nothing, because he had nothing to hide.
This father, whoever he was, was not him. The arithmetic was clear: this boy carrying Shukaku had not yet been born, and would not grow to become what he now was, in his own time.
And yet, the man found himself rereading the line twice.
He knew the details of a binding technique that no one in this hall knew, save himself and Chiyo…
'And whoever succeeds me on this chair…'
'…will have sat with me in this very hall, reading this very lesson, before using it one day on his own son.'
The Kazekage closed the volume, and made no comment.
For some silences are heavier than any question.
…
Konohagakure:
Back at the Art Store in Konoha, Maito Dai had placed his hand on his small son's shoulder with an unusual steadiness.
He did not cry this time.
The man read the lines twice, then looked at little Gai, who was staring at Gaara's picture with clenched fists and confused eyes.
"Why did he come back to threaten Lee's safety, after everything that happened??"
Little Gai could not understand why Gaara would want to hurt Rock Lee even while the latter lay motionless on a hospital bed.
"That's because he hit him so hard — it wounded the beast's pride."
Dai gave Gai a thumbs-up, a gleam flashing at the end of his white teeth — a dazzling smile.
Around them, the hall had also grown quiet. Even the children who had filled the previous pages with laughter and shouting now sat in a strange silence, as if a single word in those pages — family — had pulled every eye toward the parents sitting beside them.
"Dad… he said love is strange."
"Well, maybe he doesn't know what love means. That might be why he's searching for it…"
"But love isn't strange!"
Gai suddenly burst out.
"You love me, and I know it, and there's nothing twisted or strange about it!"
Dai smiled a sad smile — the first of its kind in this chapter.
"No, Gai. Love isn't strange."
"What's strange is a man using the word love… to justify something that has nothing to do with love at all."
Then he added, in a lower voice, his eyes on the page:
"That child has never once seen love. That's why he doesn't know what it looks like."
Gai thought about that for a long time, then asked, in a quieter voice than usual:
"Will he stay like that? The boy in the pages?"
"I don't know."
"But you hope not?"
Dai paused, and looked at his son.
"I hope that one day he finds someone who reaches out a hand to him for no reason at all. Not because he's strong, not because he's dangerous, not because he's a tool worth investing in."
"Just because he exists."
Dai suddenly hugged his son tightly, with no preamble and no speech about the flames of youth.
"That's why I'll make sure you see it, every single day."
The tears of youth overflowed in that moment, while Sakumo and Kakashi both stared at this "touching" scene, unable to say a word.
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Upcoming chapter titles (spoilers):
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Chapter 216: The Resemblance Between Naruto and Gaara!
Chapter 217: This Is My Ninja Way!
Chapter 218: The Main Event Begins!
Chapter 219: Neji vs. Naruto! (End of Volume 11)
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