When the Village of Sand felt that it was rapidly losing power among the Great Ninja Villages, it decided to take drastic actions. It managed to secure one of the Tail-demons, the One-tail Racoon, Shukaku, and using a ritual that required the sacrifice of the mother of the vessel, bound it into the child of the Kazekage himself. What they created was Gaara, a Jinchuuriki whose ability to control sand made him nearly invincible. Everyone in the village was terrified of him, granting him a lonely and miserable childhood, except for his uncle who cared for him. Gaara thought his uncle loved him, until his sixth birthday, when his own father tried to have him killed, because the village felt he had grown too powerful to control. Gaara's uncle was the would-be assassin, and as he lay dying at Gaara's feet, he declared that he had volunteered for the job, and that he had always hated Gaara because of the death of his sister, Gaara's mother.
This betrayal of the only person he thought he could trust shattered Gaara's sanity. He decided that he could only trust himself and no other. He had the kanji for 'love' tattooed on his own forehead as a reminder to love only himself. He became a killer, claiming that since no one would acknowledge him, he could only prove his existence by taking other people's away. He became more and more unstable as he grew older, because the Shukaku also prevents the one it possesses from sleeping, for if he should fall asleep the Shukaku would take over his body and slowly eat away his personality. |
