Gaara

- Gaara at the start of Part I. - Gaara at the end of Part I. - Gaara in Part II. - Gaara during the Fourth Shinobi World War. 1/4 Gaara has fair skin, green eyes, and short auburn hair; for most of his life, his hair was spiky and set in a messy style, but by adulthood it is combed and parted to the right. He lacks distinctive pupils or eyebrows, the latter of which others sometimes make fun of. He's had tanuki-like black rings around his eyes his whole life, which Gamabunta attributes to insomnia. As a child, he carved the kanji for "love" (愛, ai) on the left side of his forehead, which his hair is parted in order for it to be kept visible. In Part II, many girls in Sunagakure start to consider Gaara handsome. - Gaara during the Blank Period. - Gaara during the New Era. 1/2 At the start of Part I, Gaara wore a black body suit with an open neck, t-shirt-like sleeves, and almost full-length leggings. With this, he wore a white cloth over his right shoulder and the left side of his hips. He had a wide leather band from his left shoulder to his right hip with which he carried his sand gourd and around which he wraped his forehead protector. In early chapters of the Naruto manga, he was also shown having several earrings. His appearance is mostly the same at the end of Part I, though he switches his previous black body suit to a reddish-brownish one with longer sleeves and an upright collar, and wears mesh armour on his wrists and ankles. In Part II, Gaara wore a long-sleeved crimson coat and full-length dark trousers with a pair. Over the coat he wore two buckled belts, a grey vest held in place by a single strap over his left shoulder, and two buckled belts which he also used to carry his gourd. On certain occasions he wears the typical Kazekage garb and during the Fourth Shinobi World War he wears Suna's typical flak jacket. In The Last: Naruto the Movie, Gaara dons a crimson long-sleeve shirt with several buttons and pants that match the colour of his shirt. He also wears a brown belt and now has a smaller sand gourd which is strapped to his left side. By adulthood, Gaara starts wearing a trench coat.

Because of heavy cuts to Sunagakure's budget by the Wind Daimyō, the Fourth Kazekage wanted to make one of his children the jinchūriki of the tailed beast Shukaku to serve as a weapon for the village. His first two children, Temari and then Kankurō, had not been compatible with Shukaku. Rasa's third child, however, Gaara, was compatible with Shukaku. For that reason, Shukaku was sealed inside of Gaara by Chiyo before he was even born, when Gaara was still a fetus inside of his mother Karura's womb. Gaara ended up being born prematurely and tiny. From the ordeals of childbirth, his mother, Karura, died. Before dying, Karura looked lovingly at Gaara's small form and vowed to always protect him. Gaara was raised in isolation during his early life, taught ninjutsu by his father and cared for by his maternal uncle, Yashamaru. When he was allowed to roam around the village, Gaara would try to connect with the villagers, being kind to them and offering them any assistance he could. However, being a jinchūriki made the villagers frightened of Gaara; adults avoided him and, when they couldn't, treated him delicately while children would run from him on sight. Gaara would try to assure them he meant no harm, but in the process would inadvertently injure or even kill them with his sand. Gaara did not understand this pain he caused others because his sand protected him from all injury. When he was six years old, Gaara asked Yashamaru to explain pain to him. From Yashamaru's explanation, Gaara believed he did know pain: the unbearable agony in his heart. From this, Yashamaru elaborated that physical pain, what causes one to bleed, could be cured with medicine and time, whereas pain of the heart, like Gaara experienced, could only be cured with love. Gaara, said Yashamaru, received love everyday, from both his mother - whose spirit controlled the sand that protected him - and from Yashamaru himself. Gaara was pleased by this and went out into the village to show some love to those he'd harmed, but his efforts were met only with more fear and hate. Gaara was dismayed and went off to try and understand why he was treated as such a monster. While doing so, he was attacked by one of Suna's Anbu, whom he fatally wounded with his sand. When he unmasked the Anbu, Gaara discovered it was Yashamaru. Gaara was devastated that Yashamaru, the only living person to love him, would try to kill him and asked for an explanation. Yashamaru replied that it was a mission given to him by Rasa, Gaara's father, it having been decided by the Suna Council that Gaara was a failed experiment that, if allowed to live, would only continue to do harm to the village and its people. Gaara tried to find solace in the fact that Yashamaru had been ordered to kill him, but Yashamaru insisted, lying to Gaara that he volunteered and that he'd always hated Gaara for causing Karura's death. Karura had not loved Gaara either, and named him after the phrase "a self-loving carnage" (我を愛する修羅, Ware o aisuru shura) so that he would be a curse upon Suna for what it had done to her. With his explanation done, Yashamaru asked Gaara to "please die" before blowing himself up with explosive tags. Gaara's sand - a product of Shukaku rather than Karura if Yashamaru's words were to be believed - shielded Gaara from the blast. Having lost everything he cared for, Gaara decided that he would from that point forward live up to his namesake by loving only himself; to that end, he used his sand to etch the kanji for "love" (愛, ai) onto the left side of his forehead. Overwhelmed with grief, Gaara transformed into Shukaku and attacked Suna, which Rasa stopped with his gold dust. Rasa would arrange five other assassination attempts on Gaara over the following years, all of which Gaara evidently survived. Due to his singular focus on himself, Gaara eventually learned to reign in his powers and became the lethal weapon of destruction Suna wanted him to be, prompting Rasa to stop trying to kill him and instead find a use for him.