WARNING: This chapter contains self-injury. You have been warned.

A/N: Thank you again to all my reviewers. I hope you enjoy the last installment of the story.

EDIT: a note on Gaara's age: I decided to make him fourteen during the Chuunin exam. There seems to be a lot of debat within the fandom over his age. Since I can't seem to find it in any reliable sources (and I am NOT about to re-watch EVERY. SINGLE. EPISODE. in which he is featured in that arc, in order to scan for any mentions of it), and I seem to recall Liam O'Brien (-worships-) mentioning him being fourteen, that's what I decided to go with.

Epilogue

I was fifteen the day I discovered a way around my own sand shield. Ever since I can remember, I had made attempts to bleed myself, and when I was six I tried it with the intent to kill myself. I attempted suicide twice that year, once before the death of my uncle, and once after. The first time, I snuck into my uncle’s room and took the longest knife I could find. Yashamaru was very fond of knives, so there were a lot to choose from. I went back out into the room that served as our living room on our side of the house; I went to the picture of my dead mother and tried to bring the knife down and across my wrist. The sand blocked the attack against my life, like it always does.

I was fourteen when I discovered what physical pain was, what it meant to bleed, at the hands of an opponent. It was a sensation that overran my senses, and for a brief instant distracted me from the mess within me. It also marked the day that I lost a fight for the first time in my life. My existence depended upon winning, upon beating down and conquering all those who wished to take away my existence, and extinguishing their existence instead. And yet that day I lost and survived.

After that, I lost the meaning to my existence. If my purpose wasn’t to kill, than what could I possibly be good for? I was a monster, a weapon; it had never occurred to me that I could be a person.

It came to me that the intent to harm, more than anything else, was what triggered the shield of sand. I sat on my bed, emptying my mind of all thought, and let the coldness of the blade rest against my forearm, peaceful and harmless. In a instant, I slashed the blade across my skin, the sand wasn’t fast enough, blood and relief rose to the surface and spilled over my skin.

I was thirteen when the sight of blood first made my own blood feel warmer in my veins, made the ends of my nerves tingle. Seeing my own blood, feeling it on my skin, felt even better.

“Gaara!”

This is what I knew: the blade wasn’t in my hand any longer, my sister was screaming over her shoulder for my brother to bring a med kit, and there was blood everywhere.

I could remember sitting outside my brother’s door, fingernails desperately scratching at my skin. Yashamaru always made sure my nails were too short to cause damage, even the sand knew it was useless, but I kept scraping and crying. All I wanted was to snuggle up next to someone and lie there until the night was over, and the sun pushed back the horrible cackling that rang inside my head. All I wanted was for someone to hold me and lie that it would be okay.

“Gaara…I’m so sorry…”

I came back to myself, my room. My arm was bandaged, and I felt someone else’s arms around me. All I could see was blonde hair over the shoulder my chin was leaning on.

“It’s alright…everything’s gonna be alright now.”

End.