Gaara walked alone.
The tide washed over the sand like the memories that refused to leave him—memories of a boy lost in silence, haunted by a voice that never slept… until Naruto tore that voice out of him.
The wind tugged at his robes. The sea birds circled above.
He remembered the Chūnin Exams. Naruto had every right to end him—but chose to save him. He had seen his pain, understood it, and reached out a hand when all Gaara had known was rejection.
That hand had changed everything.
"I will create a world where people like us can live in peace."
Naruto had said that once. And Gaara, the boy who had never known peace, had silently sworn to make it real.
But now?
He was falling behind.
Naruto had Sage Mode, tail transformations, and a growing legend. Lee was breaking nature's limits. Hinata was turning pressure points into weapons of mass destruction. Even Shikamaru was becoming a battlefield commander whose brain you couldn't outwit.
And Gaara? He was still… sand.
No. He was more than sand.
He raised his hand slowly, letting the grains coil and dance between his fingers.
"I control this… not with chakra alone," he murmured. "But with magnetism. The Earth's force itself obeys me."
And with that realization, the next step became clear.
Railgun Principle.
He could already hurl sand faster than most could see—but what if he accelerated a single grain using magnetic repulsion, like a railgun? A fleck of iron sand at supersonic speed… could pierce a mountain. It would give him ranged sniping power, the kind that could reach an enemy before they even heard the battle start.
Internal Sandstorm.
He stared at the windblown sands. What if his sand… was breathable? Microscopic particles entering the lungs, slipping into the bloodstream, undetected. Then, with a mere thought, he could twist the iron-rich grains inside his enemy. Burst arteries. Sever spinal cords. Silence hearts.
It would be cruel. Silent. Efficient.
Just like the world had been to him once.
Magnetic Shield.
He glanced toward the training camp. In this world, metal was everywhere. Spears. Cannons. Blades. Unlike back home, this wasn't a world of jutsu—it was one of iron and steel.
Then that would be his wall.
Gaara raised both arms. The sand around him responded like loyal wolves. But this time, he focused not on its shape… but its field. He infused it with magnetic polarity—repelling every foreign metal object like an invisible storm. It wouldn't just block weapons. It would send them flying.
A magnetic forcefield.
A living fortress.
As he lowered his hands, the beach around him settled—but the air felt heavier, denser, like the moment before a desert storm hits.
I don't need more tails. I don't need sages. I need only what I already have… perfected.
He turned to walk back.
Behind him, the sand shimmered with unnatural precision—coiled and sharp as glass, quiet as smoke.
-------------------
If you'd told Gaara two years ago that he'd be walking on a beach talking to himself, trying not to miss the homicidal raccoon that used to live in his head, he would've crushed you with a sand tsunami.
Now? It was just Tuesday.
"I mean," he muttered, watching a grain of sand hover above his palm, "at least you never left my messages on read."
No response. Obviously.
Shukaku wasn't there anymore. Not really. But sometimes, Gaara found himself waiting for that snide little growl in the back of his mind. The sarcasm. The screaming. The homicidal commentary. The company.
Now, it was just his own thoughts echoing around up there. Which, frankly, was way creepier.
He sighed and flicked his hand.
A spear of sand spiraled into the air, long and sharp, like the tip of a ballista bolt carved by an angry desert god.
This wasn't just a normal sand spear, though. No, this was science. Magnetism. Something his bloodline gave him, like a cheat code for physics.
"Alright. Sand Lance… Railgun Mode. Test one," he said to no one. "Try not to explode."
He focused, compressing magnetic polarity along the shaft of the lance. One flick forward. That was it.
KRACK.
The spear blurred. The air around it rippled, and then there was a boom that echoed across the coastline as if someone had fired a cannon. The sand lance blew through a palm tree, shattered a rock behind it, and kept going.
"Oh," he muttered. "That… works."
Still. Needed control. He hadn't meant to break physics and the ecosystem at the same time.
Next test: Inhalable Doom Sand.
He conjured a fine mist of gold-and-black iron dust, almost too fine to see. His chakra spread it out in a cloud. Perfect for hiding in, sneaking attacks, or you know—turning someone's lungs into popcorn.
A dino—a massive carnivore with ugly fangs and even uglier breath—wandered too close. The cloud drifted in.
The dino sniffed. Blinked. Wobbled.
And then started convulsing like it had just done the cinnamon challenge. Blood sprayed from its mouth, and it hit the ground like a collapsing building.
"…Note to self. Very effective. Also, mildly horrifying," Gaara mumbled. "Definitely not for kids."
He knelt by the carcass. "That's one way to bypass chakra defenses. Go inside the body and break it from there."
Still, it was messy. Unpredictable. What if he hit an ally by accident? No, he needed a cleaner way.
Spinal strike.
Cut the body from the brain. Instant vegetable. No blood, no mess, just a reset button on their nervous system.
That would be his go-to.
"Shukaku would've loved this. You were into body horror, right?" he said aloud. Still nothing. Just the wind.
For the final test—he needed something big. And that meant giants.
Luckily, they had two onboard.
Meanwhile, with Brogy and Dorry...
"YOU WANT US TO HIT YOU?" Brogy asked, voice booming like thunderclouds with a caffeine addiction.
Gaara nodded. "Yes."
Dorry scratched his beard. "Kid, you're either very brave… or completely bonkers."
"Both," Gaara said without blinking. "Please use real weapons."
The two giants exchanged a glance like, Is this guy serious?
"ALRIGHT!" Brogy yelled. "BUT DON'T BLAME US IF YOU GO SPLAT!"
They raised their axes and shields. Both made of heavy, enchanted metal. Perfect.
Gaara floated in the air, completely calm. Around him, a storm of sand formed a barrier. But not just any barrier—this one crackled with unseen magnetic force, tuned specifically to repel iron, steel, and every weapon forged in blood and heat.
Brogy's axe came down.
It stopped. Mid-air. Like someone had pressed the pause button on physics.
Dorry's shield swung in from the side. Repelled. Flung backward like it'd hit an invisible wall.
Their jaws dropped.
"WHAT—WHAT IS THAT?" Brogy bellowed.
Gaara floated down, brushing some imaginary dust from his shoulder. "Magnetic barrier. Good against people with too much metal."
The giants blinked. "We like you, red sand boy."
He gave a rare, dry smirk. "Likewise."
As the sun began to set behind the island, Gaara stood on a cliff overlooking the jungle and ocean.
He wasn't Naruto. He wasn't going to shout his dreams from rooftops or punch the moon if it got in his way.
But he would build a world Naruto could smile in.
One grain of sand at a time.
----------------------
Asuma leaned on the railing of the training field, a cigarette dangling from his lip and a heavy dose of existential dread in his eyes. Beside him stood Kakashi—cool as ever, nose buried in his book—and Kurenai, arms crossed and looking slightly too dignified for someone eavesdropping on teenage sparring sessions.
"I miss the days when we were the terrifying ones," Asuma muttered.
Kakashi turned a page. "You were terrifying?"
"Ha ha," Asuma said flatly. "No, really. Back then, we were the prodigies. The next generation. I remember thinking we'd be legends before we hit thirty."
"Technically," Kakashi said, not looking up, "I was."
Kurenai gave him a look so dry it could dehydrate a cactus.
Asuma sighed and gestured toward the training field, where Naruto had just bodyslammed a boulder-sized dino while in base form. Gaara was floating beside him like some desert demigod, while Lee was somehow doing pushups with his eyelids and Neji was meditating so hard the wind refused to blow near him.
"They're already above us," Asuma said. "Naruto and Gaara for sure. Neji's creeping up. Lee—don't even get me started. And we're just… stuck. I thought we were geniuses. So why does it feel like we're background characters in their story?"
For a moment, no one replied.
Then Kurenai, in the gentlest non-gentle voice ever, said, "Asuma, you've been coasting since the war. You still use the same trench knives, the same jutsu, the same moves you had at eighteen."
"Ouch," Asuma said, wincing. "That was honest."
"Fourteen years of copy-pasting yourself. What did you think would happen?"
"Don't look so smug, Kakashi," she added, turning to the Copy Ninja. "That goes for you too. You were supposed to surpass the Sannin by twenty. Then you let your trauma derail your whole arc."
Kakashi actually looked up. "Excuse me? I'm still strong enough to knock both of you out without blinking."
Asuma raised an eyebrow. "Great. That's your defense? Still being barely stronger than two people who apparently wasted fourteen years?"
Kurenai narrowed her eyes. "You want to know my excuse? Fine. Most of the genjutsu masters were Uchiha. Secretive, brilliant, and now dead. I can't exactly level up without high-resistance targets to practice on. I don't get to train in the middle of a warzone."
She jabbed a finger in Kakashi's direction. "And you? You had me. But I never asked because I knew you weren't ready. Still grieving. You don't just throw a broken friend into illusions for fun."
Kakashi blinked. Something flickered behind that single visible eye. Obito's face. Rin's voice. Minato's smile. Kushina's laughter. Like ghosts on rewind, just beyond his grasp.
"Sorry," he said, voice low. "For making you worry. You were right. I wasn't ready."
There was a pause.
Then: "But I'm in now. I'll help you get stronger. Even if it gives me brain damage."
Asuma grinned. "Didn't you already have brain damage?"
"Self-inflicted, mostly."
"Alright then," Kurenai said, smirking for real now. "One test. One genjutsu. If you scream, we call off the whole thing."
Kakashi tilted his head. "If I don't scream?"
"Then you buy us dinner. For a week."
"Deal," he said, flipping his book closed. "Just don't go soft on me."
Asuma took a step back. "I want no part in this. I like having a functioning brain."
"Too late," Kurenai said sweetly, already weaving signs. "You're my second test subject."
"Wait, what—?!"
-------------
Kurenai Yuhi had long accepted one truth: If she wanted to become the undisputed queen of genjutsu, she'd have to trick the one guy in the village whose eyeball was basically a sentient cheat code.
Kakashi Hatake. The Copy Ninja. The Walking Plot Twist. The guy who could read your movements, your mind, your chakra—and probably your shopping list—just by blinking once with his Sharingan.
And that was the problem.
Normal genjutsu? Easy. Against civilians? A cakewalk. Against average shinobi? Still manageable. Kurenai could lock them into entire worlds of illusion—forests that turned into cages, rivers that flowed backward, clones that whispered their deepest fears. She could rewrite reality with her chakra.
But the Sharingan didn't care.
It saw through layers of illusion like peeling onions. It didn't get tricked—it took notes and rated your performance out of ten.
"You realize," Kakashi said casually as he stood in the middle of the training field, "that this is pointless, right?"
Kurenai didn't answer. She was already working.
There was no flashy jutsu. No swirl of chakra. Just a small shift in the air. A tiny twitch in the edge of the breeze. A hummingbird changed flight path. The rock near Kakashi's foot rolled left instead of right.
He didn't notice.
Good.
Kurenai wasn't trying to drop him into a blood-red nightmare or force him into an illusionary forest filled with screaming crows. No, that didn't work on high-resistance targets. They felt the surge of chakra. They knew when something was off.
So this time, she was going subtle. Surgical.
She copied the exact field around him—every tree, every shadow, every speck of dirt—and then adjusted one thing.
His location.
To him, it still looked like he was standing in the same spot. But in reality, he'd moved a few meters sideways—just enough that when he took a step forward, he'd trip over a slightly raised root.
"You moved something," he said.
Dang it. That was fast.
"You think I moved something," Kurenai replied smoothly.
Kakashi narrowed his eye. "You rotated the treeline."
"Did I?"
He bent down to touch the ground. "The moss is growing in a different direction."
Seriously? Who notices moss growth?
"You're annoying," she muttered.
"Thank you," he said, politely. "You're getting better, though. That felt real. Almost too real."
Kurenai took that as a win. Barely. A single bead of sweat slid down her temple. She'd kept the chakra output minimal, hiding the genjutsu in the most mundane aspects—angles of sunlight, wind movement, shadow placement. To an untrained eye, nothing had changed.
But to Kakashi's Sharingan? It was still hard mode.
She sighed. "If I'm ever going to surpass Itachi's level, I need to consistently fool people like you."
"Ambitious," Kakashi said, leaning against a tree that was real… probably. "But doable. You're already Konoha's best genjutsu user."
Kurenai narrowed her eyes. "Flattery won't stop me from putting you in a genjutsu where you keep reliving your most awkward teen years."
He blinked. "You wouldn't."
"I would," she said sweetly. "Especially the time you tried to write poetry."
He turned slightly pale. "I was emotionally exploring new vocabulary."
"You rhymed 'fire jutsu' with 'tissue.'"
A silence passed.
Then: "Okay. That's evil. You're definitely getting stronger."
-------------
The moment Kakashi flinched at the word poetry, Kurenai knew she had struck gold.
That twitch? That barely-there flicker of panic? That was the kind of opening genjutsu masters lived for. She didn't even need chakra for that—just weaponized memory and a perfectly timed jab.
What if I didn't stop at moss and sunlight, she thought. What if I didn't just trick the senses… but twisted the heart a little?
The idea was beautiful. Terrifying. Morally questionable. So naturally, she had to try it.
"I'm going to test something new," she said innocently, stepping into a loose stance.
Kakashi raised an eyebrow. "Define 'new.'"
Kurenai smiled. "Well, have you ever heard of emotional sabotage jutsu?"
He blinked. "That's not real."
"It is now."
Before he could react, her chakra flared—not dramatically, not with a bang, but like a whisper behind the ear. The genjutsu slipped around him like silk, and the world didn't change—at first.
Then he blinked, and the trees were… off.
The sky darkened slightly. Not a full night, just a vague twilight—like the kind before a storm.
And then…
"Oh no," Kakashi muttered.
There, standing under a flickering lamppost, was a fifteen-year-old Kakashi—awkward, lanky, and wearing an extremely tragic scarf. Beside him stood a girl named Ai. She was blushing. Holding flowers.
And a second later, teen Kakashi opened his mouth and—
"Oh no no no—Kurenai—don't—"
"'Your smile is like a summoning jutsu, bringing joy straight to my soul,'" the illusion recited.
Kakashi groaned.
Then teen-Kakashi kept going.
"'Like kunai to my heart, you pierce my lonely day—'"
"STOP," present-day Kakashi snapped, actually waving his arms like he could physically slap the illusion away.
Kurenai chuckled, chakra humming behind her eyes. "Distraction successful. Mental stability: compromised."
Kakashi squinted. "This is psychological warfare."
"It's called creativity."
He exhaled deeply, then muttered, "That was a phase. Everyone has phases."
"I know," Kurenai said with mock sympathy. "But you had poetry and eyeliner."
"…How do you know about the eyeliner?"
"I have sources."
He crossed his arms. "Fine. But what if I counter with one of your moments?"
"Impossible," Kurenai said smoothly. "I erase mine."
At that, Kakashi chuckled. "You're dangerous, Kurenai."
She smiled sweetly. "I know. And this is only the beginning."
She hadn't even used fear yet. That was her next card. Not every opponent was easily thrown by illusions of monsters or blood—but show them their greatest regret, their worst failure, or their deepest shame?
Even if they knew it wasn't real… the fear still gripped their heart. It didn't matter if their mind resisted. The body always flinched.
Fear disrupted flow.
And embarrassment? That was death by a thousand cringe cuts.
-----------------
Obito stood at the balcony of his shadowy, overly dramatic lair—which was regulation for all major villains—and stared into the night like it had personally wronged him.
Which, to be fair, it kind of had.
The stars offered no comfort.
"Why does everything go wrong with me?" he muttered to himself, hands clasped behind his back like a moody philosopher. "Was it so unreasonable to want a dream world? Just one little perfect illusion where everyone's happy, nobody dies, and I don't end up alone in a cave talking to plant-men?"
From behind, a faint sigh cut through the gloom.
"Obito…"
"No," he snapped, without turning. "Madara, remember?"
Black Zetsu's vine-like head cocked sideways. "You're literally half a potato and the other half is trauma. You're not Madara. You're just dramatic."
Obito didn't even flinch. "You don't understand the burden of true vision."
"I do," Zetsu deadpanned. "You never shut up about it."
Obito took a slow breath. "You know what? Fine. Let's actually be useful for once. I gave Kakashi my Sharingan. Maybe I should take a peek and see where the idiot went."
"Brilliant idea," Zetsu muttered, arms crossed like a long-suffering coworker at a cursed office.
Obito closed his one visible eye, reached through the connection to his other one—the one resting peacefully inside the skull of a former best friend.
Focus… find him… what is he…
The vision clicked in.
And Obito immediately wished it hadn't.
Kakashi—Copy Ninja of the Leaf, legendary shinobi, the cool, calm storm of a man—was currently being verbally bludgeoned by Kurenai. Not in combat. Not in any way that made sense to normal people. No.
She had summoned an illusion of young Kakashi reciting the worst love poem Obito had ever heard.
"Your smile is like a summoning jutsu… bringing joy to my soul…"
Obito blinked.
"What the fuck is he doing?" he said aloud, voice sharp with genuine disbelief.
"He's reliving his poetry phase," Zetsu supplied helpfully.
"Poetry phase?"
"You were dead at the time. It was rough. Very Shakespearean."
"Who taught him that?"
"Maybe Jiraiya."
"Jiraiya wrote porn, not tragic love haikus!"
Back in the vision, Kakashi was practically choking on his own shame while Kurenai watched like a cat toying with a crippled mouse.
Obito shut the eye connection instantly, swaying slightly.
"That… wasn't worth the chakra," he whispered.
"Should've watched Netflix instead," Zetsu muttered.
"I have to kill them all," Obito groaned. "Not just for the Moon Eye Plan. For dignity."
Zetsu chuckled darkly. "Sure, boss. Want to destroy the world now, or after you lie down a bit and cry?"