Naruto: Reborn as Gaara!

"The Kazekage will see you now" The secretary said, as Yashamaru and I approached the desk. He'd woken me up today to tell me I had a meeting with the Kazekage for the afternoon. I guess, they'd probably explain why that quest had shown up as completed. I mean, it probably meant that I'd graduated from the academy already, but that was a bit ridiculous considering I hadn't done any practical tests or anything of the sort. You don't just graduate from the ninja academy like that. At least, that's what the books had said.

"Gaara." The Kazekage, my father, said in simple greeting as I walked in. I was no stranger to the man. He came visiting every year, and when I'd first shown off my control over the sand, he'd come into the house the next day and asked me to show him all that I could do, which had been a lot. After that, he'd left, and not mentioned it again or even come to see me. Considering that had been seven months ago, this was a bit too early for a visit. And calling me to his office was a bit too unusual.

"Kazekage-sama" I acknowledged without dropping to my knees as Yashamaru did beside me. The disrespect might have pissed off someone else, but the man across from me just cracked a smile. A thin one, but still a smile. I knew it. He liked me. He had to.

"You've done well, Gaara. Do you know why you're here?" He asked. Complimenting me and then asking a question in the same breath. I resisted the frown that threatened to break out across my face. Just like everyone else, he treated me like a wild animal. Instead of saying what was on my mind, I just tilted my head to the left, watching him.

"The test you took yesterday, you passed it. Perhaps with the best marks the academy has ever recorded." He said, leaning back from the upright position he'd maintained since I walked in. I was careful to relax my posture in mimicry of his own. I had to show myself to be easily managed. They kept me around because of that. They gave me freedom because I showed them I was predictable and open to manipulation. His beige robes caught in the wind as he moved and I watched as they moved in a distracting pattern. They were baggy, very baggy on him like most clothes in Suna tended to be. The heat was too bad for anything else, and just like every other building in this desert, this tower was designed to maximise shade, as well as manage access to the wind. During the day, the wind cooled us down. At night, when the desert chose to stir, it could flay the skin from your bones.

I left my thoughts behind as I noted everyone in the office staring at me. I just tilted my head further. Yashamaru, the one who understood me best, repeated what had just been said, "The Kazekage said you've graduated the academy completely, Gaara" He said, and I turned to my father, eyes wide.

"Yes. You passed all the academic requirements to graduate, and I have personally judged your ninja skills to be good enough to be recognised as a genin of the Village hidden in the Sand." He paused, waiting for some sort of reply and I nodded to show that I was listening. He just picked up a headband on the table and tossed it at me. My sand moved of its own accord and caught the band in its grip before moving it towards me.

I felt a cold sweat break out across my neck after that. Note to self; No letting the sand do its thing around trigger happy Anbu. It felt to me like I'd just narrowly escaped sudden death.

"That is your headband. Wear it with pride" He said grandiosely before pointing to the left and a man appeared in a blur of sand. "This will be your jounin instructor, Baki. He is an A-ranked ninja of Suna and will be in charge of helping you achieve your full potential as Suna's weapon" I just nodded at father's rant before giving my sensei (?) an appraising look. He didn't look very different from the guy in the anime. Same curtain covering half his face along with the incredibly tan skin and everything. Seeing him here actually made me relax a bit. It's possible that Gaara did actually graduate in a year in canon. Now, just to figure out when I'm actually supposed to be offing Yashamaru to keep things nice and steady.

From then, I'd quickly found myself in a training ground alone with my new instructor. Yashamaru had hovered like a hen until the jounin had told him in no uncertain terms that he was to leave.

"Gaara of the desert. Do you know what you are?" The man asked me the question and I just stared at him like he was an idiot. At least I stared at him until I felt something slam into my midsection. What the fuck? I couldn't see straight. My sand was everywhere. When I came to, in what might have been a minute or ten hours, still clutching my stomach in pain, I found myself in a dome of sand. Of course. Impenetrable defense, my ass.

"If you're done with your tantrum. Get out of there. We'll have words" The psychotic ninja's voice sounded out from outside the dome. I dispersed the dome, allowing the sand to fall to the ground and turning to the idiot with a snarl building on my face. "What the fuck was that?" I said, my voice coming out in barely more than a whisper.

"Good. You can talk. They told me you don't like to. That was your first lesson. When I ask a question, you answer" He said with a smug smile on his face. Sand took over my vision, a tendril of it heading straight for him and the rest of it moving to the left, where I felt he was most likely to dodge.

Once again, my midsection exploded in pain. Fuck. This time, I was barely able to keep the sand in control. "Good. You can learn. I asked you a question, but I'll give you the answer. You, Gaara of the Desert are nobody. Nothing but a weapon for Suna to wield against our enemies and discard when its usefulness expires. That is the answer to the question. I am here to turn you from a useless weapon into a useful one. I am not your friend, I am not your brother. I am not your teacher. I am your blacksmith. And I'm going to turn you into something useful or you'll die trying" I just stared at the psycho. What the fuck is this? Canon didn't mention anything about Baki being insane.

"Now, we move to the first lesson, taijutsu. You have no ability with the art, and without it, you have little utility as a weapon. Follow my movements exactly. If you fail, I will know and I will punish you" He threatened with some cruel mockery of a smile on his face.

Ok, I amend that. It wasn't a threat. It had been a promise. He showed me the basic katas for the Suna basic taijutsu, a series of punches and kicks and grapples. Whenever I fucked up, my midsection exploded in pain. I'd checked my HUD after the third punch and was shocked to find out that the punches weren't actually doing much damage to me, and what little damage they did was healed in seconds. I just had shit pain tolerance. Like zero. None of it. How do I know? After the fifth punch, I got a new skill. Pain resistance, at a beautiful level 1, and after a day of training with Baki the Psycho, as he'd forever be known in my head, it had gotten up to level 5.

"Good, you can learn. Practise those katas for the rest of the day. Tomorrow, we will spar, and when you disappoint me, you will know pain." He just said and disappeared in what I guessed to be a shunshin. Fuck. I slumped and just lay in the sand for a few minutes, watching my stamina bar refill. Speaking of, I'd received a few notifications. Let's see the stats. I'd gained two levels yesterday, so things were looking comfortable.

"Status" I said to myself in a whisper.

Name; Gaara of the Desert

Age; Six

Level; 3

Title; Genin of Sunagakure (10% increased growth when trained by Suna ninja); Jinchuriki of the Ichibi (+ 50 Sand Control; +20 Ninjutsu; 50% increased growth when training in the desert)

Chakra Capacity; 20,000/20,000 (Regeneration; 100 cp per minute)

Stamina; 102/120 (Regeneration; 1sp per minute)

Strength; 15

Dexterity; 12

Endurance; 59

Durability; 19

Intelligence; 42

Stat Points; 20

Perk Points 1

Skills;

Taijutsu; 11

Ninjutsu; 25

Genjutsu; 2

Sand Control; 50

Pain tolerance; 5

Chakra affinities;

Wind; 25

Earth; 25

Most of my skills were simple bonuses from being the Jinchiuriki to the one tails. Without that, I had shamefully little to boast about. Before today, at least. With a sensei at hand, even as much of a bastard as Baki was, I could see myself beginning to improve already. Taijutsu had gone from level 1 to level 11 in only a single day, and if my hunch that skills maxed out at level 100 proved itself to be true, I'd just gone 10% of the way in a single afternoon. Enough thinking though, my stamina bar showed it well. I wasn't really tired. I just felt like I should have been, and that was enough to make me want to rest. Contrary to what the name might make you think, Gamer's mind didn't actually give me the mind of a gamer. It only gave me a mind immune to foreign influence. Lovely for fighting against pesky Uchiha and their genjutsu fuckery. I only had the other half of a million hax abilities Kishimoto gave them to worry about. Thinking of the fucking Uchiha made me think about Akatsuki and that was enough to motivate me to get off my ass and continue the kata. I doubted the organization of 10 S-ranked ninja would be willing to just peacefully fuck off once I told them the Ichibi, or most of it, at least, was gone. Gamer's mind was thorough. All that remained of the once omnipotent tailed beast was the barest echo of an echo locked within my seal. I'd checked. My best theory was that once I arrived here, Shukaku had tried to completely overwhelm and break my mind with all its power, and Gamer's mind just turned it to nothing. There was no real way to verify one way or the other so all I had were assumptions and guesses.

Without Baki here, it was even easier to go through the Katas. I didn't make a single mistake the first time I tried it, and all the other times were just to burn them into muscle memory. Some part of me was beginning to suspect that the bastard Jounin wasn't only punishing me when I made mistakes.

At the end of the day, I was forced to return home by the darkness of the night. My HUD showed that it was getting to 11pm, and knowing that if I didn't get at least five hours of sleep, I'd end up with a sleep deprived debuff, so I decided to call it a day. Taijutsu had only gained two extra levels.

"Are you okay, Gaara?" Yashamaru asked, eyes searching over me as I walked into the house, probably looking for any signs of damage. I just waved him off, declining the offer to eat dinner and making my way to bed. I didn't really get hungry so I could just have a large breakfast tomorrow to get the nutrients I needed to keep growing. Gamer's body made things easier, but not automatic.

Of course, my statement about breakfast turned out to be tempting Murphy. I woke up by exactly 5am and found myself staring straight into my sensei's visible eye. The man's grim face was not a beautiful sight first thing in the morning, and I clamped down on the urge to drown the man in sand for the incursion. All my attempts, and they had been many, yesterday had done naught but land me in more pain.

"Good, you're learning" The bastard said like he could read my mind. "Follow me" I didn't even bother asking for permission to take a shower or change clothes. I could read people well. It was the one talent I'd been born with, and all the vibes I got from Baki told me he'd use even the slightest challenge to his authority as an excuse to punish me.

He just smiled, a long, cruel thing as I arrived at the training ground a few minutes after he'd woken me up. I'd jogged the entire way and was already working up a bit of a sweat. The Suna sun was beginning to rise, and in a few hours, it would be suicide for anyone to remain outside for any long period. The books I'd read and the little I'd witnessed from Suna genin showed that most teams did their training a few hours into the evening, when the weather was most favourable. In comparison, yesterday's training session had started in the middle of the afternoon.

"Show me what you learned yesterday" was all he said as he settled into a stance. I mirrored him and moved in with a one-two punch, kick combo that he knocked to the side with contempt. I didn't allow it to bother me. He was a jounin. I just started learning taijutsu yesterday. Of course he'd be much better than me.

He was content to remain on the defence so I went through all the katas I learned yesterday and then some. I tried improvising different combinations, and got to feel by myself what would work and what wouldn't against a real sparring partner.

An hour in, down to the minute, if my HUD was correct (it always was), The Bastard switched things up. He went on a total unrelenting attack, and it took all I had to survive the onslaught. The fucker was ruthless. Even holding back as I knew he was, his punches still hit like trains, and his blocks were solid as steel. After I tried blocking the first punch, I never made that particular mistake again. We kept at it until I suddenly clutched my midsection. The pain was every bit as terrible as the first time, as I struggled to see through the tears that had automatically flooded my eyes.

"That's enough. Now, we will focus on chakra control. I've been told that you have no training on the subject" He said, backing off from me and plopping down on the ground in the lotus position.

I followed his lead, doing my best to ignore the quickly vanishing pain. "Follow my lead and do what I do. Close your eyes. Feel within yourself. Don't search for it, let it find you" I did my best to follow his instructions, and I was welcomed by a completely new sensation. It felt wholesome, and complete. It felt like I'd been missing something my whole lie. Like everything before now had been monochrome and then suddenly, I could see color. Everything just became more. More colorful, more vibrant, more beautiful. Life just became life.

XXXXXX THE KAZEKAGE POV:

"Two months Baki. I have given you Gaara for two months and what have you achieved?" I was close to screaming at this point. The man was postrated on the ground before me, trying to explain what he had done for two whole months.

"His taijutsu is impressive, my lord. He learns at a speed I've never seen before. He learns, and he doesn't stop. He's well paced to become a taijutsu master beyond all in the village by the time he turns ten." The Jounin said, clearly trying to divert my attention.

"Gaara is the Ichibi Jinchuuriki. He is Suna's weapon. His taijutsu is meaningless. Teach him to use those chakra reserves for something beyond physical enhancement, or I'll find someone who can. Don't test me, Baki" I said, ending the conversation before rethinking things and adding one last bit.

"And Baki?" I asked, the ninja, not having gotten up from the floor, met my eyes with him and I flooded the room with all the killing intent I could safely muster within the village.

"Gaara is Suna's weapon, yes. He is also my son. Your training methods are not appreciated. Dismissed." I couldn't outright stop him from training his own genin how he wished. I'd have a rebellion on my hands nearly instantly if I tried to do something like that. The Ninja of this village cherished nothing more than their independence.

I turned away from my desk and looked out towards the village. We were still surviving for now, but definitely not thriving. The idiot of a Daimyo had begun sending out for foreign ninja for missions, and advising the rest of the court to do the same.

He thought this would bring us to heel, bind us closer to him after he starves us out. I'd never seen such stupidity in my life. But the Daimyo's foolishness was still beginning to hurt us. Clients were beginning to dry up. Not just the Daimyo and his nobility, but even the merchant class of the Land of Wind were beginning to reduce their requests for aid and rely more on foreign shinobi to complete their missions. I had to do something, and soon. Sure, we could survive a few more years before things truly become untenable but what kind of Kage would I be if I didn't solve the problem before me as it stood right now. Especially when the solution was so easily in sight.

"The next Chunin exams will take place in Kusa, yes?" I asked my secretary to make sure.

"Yes, my lord" She replied and I nodded, beginning to mull things over in my head already. The exams were four months away, and Gaara was already showing skills beyond the best of our Chunin. His taijutsu was something else. Excellent for his age and only held back by his body. His use of the Ichibi's gift was also spectacular. He could control the sand almost as well as I could control my gold dust. Four months was more than enough time to ensure he could dominate the exams. Total and complete victory on such a wide stage would neatly put our problems to rest for the short term, allowing me to come up with a longer term solution for the Daimyo's foolishness.