--I do not own anything in this fanfiction except the fanfiction scenario / plot, and the fanfiction writing itself. “Naruto”, and all related characters and characteristics, remain the property and rights of Kishimoto Masashi.--

--Another Gaara-centric post-time-skip life revelation story...considerably better written than the last. Reviews are highly appreciated!--

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. . : IMPAIRED VISION : . .

The only thing he ever saw were their eyes.

Everything else that happened within that moment was a blur.

Their facial expressions, the symbol on their hitai-ate, the reason ‘why’; wiped from his memory as if the details never even existed. Their struggles of insubmission were to no avail. Their pleas and bargains, nothing but pointless noise cried to indifferency. When his chosen enemy reached the instant of their death, their ‘finer points’ were no longer worth paying attention to. Those trivialities didn’t matter to him...he only noticed one thing.

Yes, eyes were the most fascinating things to Gaara.

They were the only things he ever needed to see.

Observing what his enemy chose to wear that day didn’t allow him to read into their past. Their deepest thoughts and innermost desires weren’t revealed through the words they spoke, or the threats they made. True intentions couldn’t be deciphered simply by counting how many techniques they knew. Contrary to the Shinobi’s Belief, there was more to defeating a person than by properly countering their physical attributes. He knew this. And yet, to Gaara, the people who dared challenge him were no different from the rest.

To Gaara, everyone looked the same.

He sometimes wondered what ran through his opponent’s mind the first time they laid eyes on him. He wondered how such a simple underestimation could give them that familiar expression of disdainful conceit; the very glare of arrogance which filled him with the impassionate loathing required for his next kill. He wondered why the seemingly-unbreakable confidence in their eyes waned upon witnessing the sand’s protection, or why it dwindled to nihility when their counterattacks were rendered useless. He wondered why his own eyes lacked the range of emotions his enemy’s displayed; the same expression of irrepressible fear when they saw him approach, the same radiance that fades away when he stains the ground red with their blood.

He wondered why his eyes were different from theirs.

Maintaining an extreme disregard towards human life was enough to excuse the flaws in his personality as the mere traits of a true Shinobi...it was enough to deter them from looking in too far. No one was given the chance to look into his eyes, then. No one had the chance to see the emptiness of certainty, the blank expression of indestruction, the void of which is self-assurance. No one had to realize the appearance of invulnerability, the very feature one must lack to make them human. His was the very gaze that sent chills down the spines of others. His brother and sister, they knew this.

They looked into his eyes and saw nothing.

Why did he lack it?

If he was, in fact, human...

Why wasn’t it there?

Throughout his childhood, Gaara struggled time and time again to prove that his attitude didn’t match his demon’s. He wanted people to see him for who he was, rather than what it was he contained. He tried to communicate with others, to help others, to appreciate others, in the mere hopes that his tireless efforts would one day be reciprocated. And yet, when the unmitigated entirety of the obstinate world you live in holds firm to the belief that something about you is true, you tend to begin believing it yourself...even when it contradicts the very nature of your intentions.

In a final act of desperation, you become what they expect you to be.

But Gaara wanted to change himself once more.

This time, for the better.

‘Learn from example. Improve the faults.’

They were the example.

Their existence was the fault.

‘Improve the example...learn from the faults.’

He was their example.

His existence was their fault.

No...

Not anymore.

He wished he could make it so that none of it was true.

He wished he could find some way to make it stop.

He wished...

He wished his hands held the same warmth his sister’s had when her fingers touched his skin...when her palm tapped gently against his cheek, to try and wake him from his self-induced state of unconsciousness. He wished his voice wavered the same way his brother’s did when he spoke; his intonations swaying as naturally as the emotions he so easily expressed. He wished he had the need to fight with the same level of determination the Uzumaki did; without restraint, without fear, without the slightest trace of self-doubt...

He looked into the blonde boy’s eyes, and saw nothing short of a man staring back at him.

Gaara realized it was something he needed to see in his own.

A person’s eyes were different in the absence of empathy.

As Kazekage, he would look into his eyes and see someone.