That night at the age of six became the blood-stained turning point in the script of fate.
Under the moonlight, his uncle Yashamaru, who had always cared for him, raised a blade against him.
'Gaara's' heart instantly sank into the abyss; recognizing the other man, he desperately wanted to suppress the violent power within his body—the monster known as the One-Tailed Shukaku.
However, his will was like a fragile levee, and the power burst forth like a flash flood, spiraling out of control.
Blood splattered as Yashamaru fell to the cold ground, his life rapidly fading away.
'Gaara' stood blankly in the pool of blood, the corpse of his kin reflected in his pupils. Beneath the grief, a sharper, colder confusion seized him.
Why? He hadn't lost control out of anger; at that moment, his heart could even be described as "calm." Why did the power still violently break free from his control?
In his final moments, Yashamaru's accusatory words blamed him for taking his mother's life and claimed he had never been loved...
He knew clearly that these were lies.
He remembered—vividly remembered—his mother's dying word: "Love."
But as the lie struck his eardrums again, that power erupted uncontrollably once more!
At this moment, a terrifying thought coiled around his heart like a venomous snake, and he became certain of one thing.
His life did not seem to be written by himself, but was being manipulated by an invisible giant hand, walking step by step toward the abyss according to a predetermined script.
Resist? When fate has already written the ending, what meaning is there in struggling?
After the age of seven, darkness completely swallowed the day.
Assassinations became daily "greetings," and stable sleep became an unreachable luxury.
Imprisoned in the cage of Shukaku, he had long since become numb to the fear of the so-called "Jinchūriki rampage harming the village," and he sneered even more at the ethereal "father-son bond."
The villagers viewed him as the source of calamity, and his father viewed him as a weapon that must discard emotion—why should he spare a thought for these people?
However, a deeper despair eroded him; all his pain, numbness, and hatred seemed to be plot points already arranged by the screenwriter named "Heaven."
He was forced to play this cursed role.
Clearly, he only wanted to indulge himself completely until death...
No, he didn't want to be a marionette of fate anymore!
A nearly insane thought sprouted: since everything was arranged, he would play the part even more thoroughly!
He would act more despondent, more cruel, and more hysterical than the script required. He would use extreme madness and constant self-destructive tendencies to challenge the screenwriter's bottom line and tear apart the predetermined trajectory!
Unfortunately, the web of fate was indestructible, and he remained deeply ensnared.
The Chunin Exams in Konoha felt like fate's cruelest mockery of him.
There, he saw another "Jinchūriki," Naruto.
That dazzling golden figure possessed a life he could only glimpse in his deepest dreams: the love poured out by parents, and the helplessness and tolerance shown by villagers even in the face of pranks...
This massive disparity was like a poisoned dagger, stabbing deep into 'Gaara's' heart.
Fake... all of this must be fake!
Since his life was a tragedy on a stage, then the warm scene across from him must be a hypocritical backdrop!
But... why?! Why did that "screenwriter" paint the other person with such bright colors, yet only deign to give him endless darkness and despair?
For the first time, a cold killing intent burned so purely and fiercely. He wanted to destroy that fake "happiness" and let Naruto taste the sensation of being crushed by fate!
However, fate mocked him again; he failed.
Even heavier blows followed in quick succession. His father Rasa, the man who had always tried to "arrange" his fate, was dead.
The moment he heard the news, 'Gaara' erupted into hysterical laughter.
Some invisible shackle that had long bound him seemed to snap suddenly amidst that crazed laughter!
In that case, let everything burn completely!
He no longer resisted, no longer doubted, and completely sacrificed his broken body and mind to the roaring Shukaku within.
The violent power soared into the sky, crushing the village the other had meticulously constructed, and crushing his own remaining shell and soul.
Sunagakure turned to ruins amidst the earth-shaking roar, and he finally broke free from the strings, completing the most thorough rewrite of the predetermined script at the cost of self-destruction.
Even though he broke free from the shackles at this moment, he could no longer escape the fate of disintegration.
He was still laughing at the very last moment, and in that instant, he seemed to understand something. His soul pointed directly toward the sky.
"You will fail, you... will definitely fail!"
......
In the laboratory, the cold air seemed frozen, with only the residual warmth on the machine's casing proving it had just ended an intense operation.
The flashing arrays of incantations engraved around the machine finally dimmed into silence.
Takuno slowly opened his eyes.
His vision was blurred at first, then focused, reflecting the cold metal ceiling.
A rare trace of vacancy flickered through his pupils—gone in an instant, yet enough to stir the peace in his heart.
At this moment, that hoarse, madness-soaked scream still seemed to stubbornly linger in his ears:
"You will fail! You... will definitely fail!"
An instinctive surge of emotion, mixed with contempt and displeasure, rose in his heart.
Whether he succeeded or not—how could that be decided by a mere illusion?
Even if the will roaring in that hallucination was, theoretically, a part of "Takuno."
He let out a sneer, forcibly suppressing this interference.
Compared to those words that made him sneer, a sliver of doubt, like a cold vine, quietly coiled around his thoughts.
Takuno's brow furrowed tightly, his fingertips instinctively pressing against his throbbing temples.
The memory sealing formulas were confirmed to be correctly engraved; he shouldn't remember this sentence—not a single word!
That violent declaration should have been completely erased as the hallucination collapsed, sinking into the abyss of oblivion.
Could it be... the machine itself had a flaw?
His gaze swept toward the Shadow Clone standing quietly to the side.
Without a word, the Shadow Clone turned into a wisp of smoke and dissipated the moment it received his look.
In an instant, the memories belonging to the Shadow Clone during the machine's operation flooded into the original body's sea of consciousness like a torrent.
"...Everything was normal?" Takuno whispered to himself, his voice sounding exceptionally clear in the empty lab, carrying a hint of confusion.
A portion of the memory chain was blank; he indeed did not remember the events that occurred in the hallucination, but that one crucial "roar"... the part that should have been sealed had permeated the blockade like leaking mercury.
He stood up again and began checking the precise and complex sealing symbols on the surface of the machine.
Fingertips brushed over the cold lines as his chakra minutely probed every node; it was identical to the pre-startup check—the seal was flawless.
Theoretically, under the memory seal, the memories of the hallucination should be like being locked in the sturdiest cage, with no possibility of escape.
"So..." Takuno's fingertips moved away from the symbols and pressed back to his aching temple, his voice low and carrying a dangerous sense of inquiry.
"Was it that heaven-shaking 'rage' that broke through the shackles of the sealing technique?" This thought gave even himself a start.
Amidst the murmur, his lowered eyelids suddenly lifted. His eyes, originally deep as the night, were suddenly ignited by crimson!
Three pitch-black tomoe slowly rotated within the blood-colored pupils, emitting a cold and powerful aura.
He held his breath and focused, carefully savoring the surging ocular power transmitted from this brand-new three-tomoe Sharingan.
How much more formidable was it than during the second eye-opening? The surging power was like an undercurrent churning beneath his eyes.
As expected, with that kind of 'rage,' the amplification of the Sharingan's ocular power was naturally superior.
However, this growth did not bring the expected joy.
The path ahead was still shrouded in mist so thick it wouldn't dissipate.
The threshold of the Mangekyō Sharingan remained unreachable; he couldn't even see a sliver of hope for opening it.
"...Barely acceptable, I suppose." Takuno closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, the crimson faded, and he regained his composure.
He forced down that sense of emptiness and tentatively accepted this substantial increase in strength.
As for that rage in the hallucination that was like a maggot in the bone? It was nothing more than a momentary storm of emotion.
Time is the best cleanser.
He had experienced this more than once; those intense emotions eventually returned to silence.
Though... never before had it been like this, actually managing to break through the cage of memory.
But he still firmly believed that he would never be defeated by the will of an illusion.
After all, the one roaring was essentially "himself" deprived of memory.
To climb to the peak of power, what was wrong with paying a price—even using his "past" self as a stepping stone to reach a higher place?
This wasn't a hypocritical act of being generous at someone else's expense, because "he" in that hallucination was essentially a resonance of a will stripped of the "present."
Thinking of this, Takuno stood up straight; nothing could shake his resolve.
The experiment was over; it was time to return to the Hidden Snow Village.
Over at Jūgo's side, the exploration of Sage Mode had likely reached the threshold of perfection.
Thinking of Jūgo, Takuno couldn't help but feel a complex ripple in his heart.
Being born with a Sage Body was a unique blessing; although not as stable and perfect a miracle as Hashirama's, it far surpassed ordinary people.
But even so, for Jūgo to find a perfect Sage path belonging to himself was actually so difficult and tortuous; as of today, it had taken a full three years.
This made him instinctively think of a dazzling reference point: Naruto!
The other person took only half a month... from being ignorant of natural energy to mastering the Mount Myōboku Sage Mode nearly perfectly... this fairy-tale-like speed was practically a mockery of Jūgo's Sage Body.
"Of course, Jūgo's progress is slightly slower also because he lacks a master like Fukasaku to guide him and can only grope through the darkness alone," Takuno analyzed rationally.
"If he were like Kabuto, directly accepting the 'shortcut' of the Ryūchi Cave's Snake Sage... the speed would perhaps be much faster."
But no matter how he deduced it, the figure of that blonde boy was as dazzling as the sun, casting other figures into an unreachable shadow.
"Protagonist's halo... heh, truly worthy of the name."
Takuno let out a sigh from the bottom of his heart—whether it was envy, reflection, or something else.
Before leaving, his footsteps paced through the empty laboratory.
When he inadvertently wandered to that specially isolated, heavy alloy door imprisoning the "Mini-Ten-Tails," an unpredicted impulse exploded from his heart without any warning!
Immediately! Make it devour all the collected Tailed Beast chakra right now!
Let it grow quickly and become powerful, even if it was still just a deformed, imperfect juvenile!
Containing six types of Tailed Beast chakra, once it took shape, it would inevitably erupt with terrifying power.
And then... seal it into his own body!
With the power of the Mini-Ten-Tails added to him, he could achieve a qualitative leap in a short time! Use this power to...
"Bang!" Takuno tapped his temple with his fist; the pain made him instantly clear-headed.
His brow was locked tight, his eyes revealing shock and suspicion.
This kind of crazy idea—killing the goose that lays the golden eggs or drinking poison to quench thirst—was something he wouldn't even have considered in the past!
This was fundamentally not Takuno's way of doing things!
What alarmed him even more was that, following that crazy thought to its conclusion, what exactly was he going to do with this power?
For what goal? There was only a restless blank in his mind!
A desire for destruction directed at some vague enemy? Or a pure impulse for havoc?
Takuno fell into silence.
The double-edged sword of the memory seal had revealed its worst side.
He had personally locked the door to the specific contents of the hallucination, so he had no way of knowing which heartstring this key had turned or what kind of collapse it had triggered.
Naturally, he couldn't tailor a remedy.
He changed his mind; returning to the Hidden Snow Village was not the most urgent task.
He needed to figure out where this impulse came from.
He turned and walked toward the core area of the lab, his gaze sweeping over those carefully preserved "materials" one by one.
As expected!
When he walked to that specially made, temperature-and-humidity-controlled vessel and saw the Hashirama cell tissue inside, pulsing slightly as if it possessed life;
When his gaze turned to the body of Kimimaro Kaguya—containing the Shikotsumyaku Kekkei Genkai—submerged in a nutrient solution in the adjacent container, sleeping...
The impulse to use them immediately, regardless of the consequences, surged from the deepest part of his heart once again!
Takuno frowned; suppressing this unfamiliar madness wasn't difficult for him, and he looked at these two materials.
The reason he had hesitated to act was clear as day: merging them carried risks! Fatal dangers!
The Yang Release power contained in Hashirama's cells was incomparably vast, and even more terrifying was its pervasive, highly invasive instinct for assimilation.
Without sufficiently strong Yin Release power to act as a levee, a reckless transplant was an embrace of death.
Even though he now possessed the three-tomoe Sharingan, this Yin Release power was still far from enough!
He had to endure until the day he opened the Mangekyō Sharingan; only then would Yin Release power undergo a qualitative leap and provide a sufficient margin of safety.
Or... like that long-decayed Danzō, forcibly stuffing ten Sharingans into an arm to neutralize it?