At night, Gaara was about to go to bed when he suddenly heard a call from the depths of his consciousness, reminding Gaara of what Nagase had said, that he should chat with Ichibi and make friends with him.
Gaara thought about it and did not resist. Instead, he took the initiative to welcome it and cooperated consciously.
Just like that, Gaara closed his eyes, and when he opened them again, he had arrived in a mysterious space.
The first thing Gaara saw when he opened his eyes was a huge raccoon cat with mysterious blue and purple patterns on its body, which was Shukaku, the One-Tailed Cat.
Seeing that Gaara didn't resist the fear like before, Ikbi was a little surprised and grinned, which looked particularly eerie and terrifying in combination with the dark tone of the space.
"Haha, you actually dare to greet me actively. It seems that you have become braver." Yiwei said sinisterly.
"Huh." Looking at the huge and terrifying body of the One-Tail, Gaara took a deep breath and forced himself to calm down.
It was not the first time he had seen Shukaku. Although he lost consciousness when Shukaku transformed, Gaara had seen the One-Tail before because he was affected by the chakra of the tailed beast.
That was why he was affected before and couldn't sleep.
Anyone who knew that there was an ugly monster as big as a mountain in his body would be scared, let alone Gaara who was still so young.
"Brother Nagase said that the One-Tail is not a monster that only cares about killing. It can communicate. We should make friends with it and understand it." Gaara thought of Nagase's words and finally controlled his legs that had been shaking all the time.
"Shukaku, I want to be friends with you!" Gaara looked at the One-Tail with firm eyes, and then spoke clearly word by word.
Shukaku didn't expect that Gaara would actually ask to be friends with him. He was stunned for a moment, and then Shukaku burst into loud laughter.
"Hahaha, it really makes me laugh that a little kid who was scared by me and couldn't sleep wants to be friends with me. Boy, do you know who you are facing? Be careful or I will eat you." Shukaku laughed and opened his bloody mouth to try to scare Gaara.
Of course, the tailed beasts don’t like to eat people, or rather, they don’t need to eat.
Because they are a special kind of life, chakra life, and they can be resurrected even if they are killed, but the time of resurrection is unknown.
"Brother Nagase said that if you threaten me, let me tell him about this and let him take action." Gaara was not afraid of Shukaku's words and said calmly.
Shukaku fell silent and started cursing in his heart.
But now it really doesn't dare to threaten Gaara casually. After all, Nagase's strength is too terrifying, and it is no match for him at all.
"Ichibi, do you have any friends?" Gaara asked.
"Who do you think I am? I am Shukaku, the One-Tailed Monster. I'm so strong, what's the use of having friends?" Shukaku answered proudly.
"Tailed beasts don't need friends!"
Gaara ignored Shukaku's boasting. If Shukaku was really that powerful, he wouldn't have been sealed into his body, and he wouldn't have been so afraid of Nagase.
"That means you have no friends." Gaara grasped the point.
"You human cub, don't you understand what I say? I said that strong people don't need friends!" Shukaku said loudly in anger.
"Well, it seems that you really have no friends." Gaara said affirmatively.
"Don't you have anything else to say? Although it is true now, I don't need it, do you understand?" Shukaku couldn't help but say.
In fact, Shukaku strictly speaking does have friends, and the previous Jinchūriki Bonfuku is one of them.
Fenfuku truly equated the tailed beasts with humans instead of just saying it casually. His pure heart even reminded the One-Tail of the Six Paths Sage.
But Fenfu is dead, so I have no friends now.
"Then let me be your first friend, how about it?" Gaara spoke again.
"Haha, you weren't the first person to become my friend." The One-Tail suddenly let out a deep laugh, "However, being friends with the tailed beasts, red-haired boy, take back what I said before about you being timid, you are really brave enough."
"When I was conscious, you were in my body. You should understand my situation." Gaara recalled what happened before.
“It is because I have never had friends and have always been rejected that I understand the pain of having no friends.
People who have no friends see others playing together in groups with happy smiles on their faces, while they themselves are alone. Although the distance between them is not far, it seems like two different worlds.
When you are happy, you find that there is no one to share it with, and when you are sad, you have no one to talk to. "
"You guy." Shukaku put away his frivolous and sarcastic smile. He felt that Gaara seemed to be really determined and not just saying it casually.
It has been staying in Gaara's body, and of course it knows what kind of treatment Gaara has suffered.
But in Shukaku's opinion, this is quite normal. Not only the tailed beasts, but people also regard the jinchūriki with tailed beasts in their bodies as monsters.
Because of this reason, Fubuku was imprisoned by Sunagakure for his entire life, staying in a dark prison until his death.
"Shukaku, let me be your friend." Gaara said firmly.
"It's not easy to become friends, but I recognize your boldness." Shukaku grinned.
Suddenly, Gaara found that a large amount of chakra like yellow sand emerged from the ground and surrounded him.
"Congratulations, this is a reward for your courage, but you are still a long way from being my friend."
Only then did Gaara realize that it was the tailed beast that was giving him its chakra.
Gaara closed his eyes and fell asleep completely this time, and his body disappeared in the space of consciousness.
"This kid is quite interesting." Ichibi said with a smile as he watched Gaara disappear.
If Gaara really shows the qualities of Bonfuku, then there would be no harm in becoming its friend.
By that time, maybe Ikbi will try his best to help Gaara fight.
In advance, Gaara can really show the qualities and mentality of Fubukuro.
…
When Gaara woke up the next day, he suddenly felt as if he could summon more sand.
"Is it because of the power Shukaku gave me?" Gaara stared at his hands for a while.
While eating breakfast, Yashamaru suddenly discovered that Gaara looked refreshed today, and couldn't help but feel a little surprised.
In the past, Gaara always felt groggy in the mornings, as if he had been up all night.
"Did you sleep well last night?" Yashamaru couldn't help but ask.
Gaara swallowed the food in his mouth, then nodded and said, "Yeah, I slept well, better than ever before."
"That's great." Yashamaru smiled, happy for Gaara.
He had a hunch that someone from Konoha must have done something.
Otherwise, how could it be possible that if he couldn't sleep in Sunagakure, he could fall asleep in a strange place.
But this is a good thing after all.
At noon, someone Gaara didn't expect came to see him.
It's Naruto.
Gaara didn't expect that Naruto would come to him on his own initiative, even though he didn't tell Naruto where his home was yesterday.
"Hehe, I didn't expect that your house, Gaara, is so close to Uncle Nagasawa's house." Naruto scratched his head and laughed.
He got Gaara's address from Nagasawa, but he didn't expect that Gaara actually lived next to Nagasawa's house.
"Today, Sasuke, some other friends and I are going to the west forest to play. Do you want to go with us?" Naruto asked.
He was still interested in Gaara and wanted to become good friends with this kid who was also a Jinchūriki like himself.
This belief became even stronger after learning about Gaara's past experiences from Nagase.
"They are all very good people." Naruto added.
"I'll go." Gaara nodded without thinking too much. This was the first time someone invited him to go out and play, and it was Naruto, so how could he refuse.
"Then let's go quickly and don't make them wait anxiously." Zuo Zhu urged.
So Gaara followed Naruto and Zuosuke to the agreed meeting place.
When Gaara, Naruto and the others arrived, Shikamaru and the others had already arrived and were sitting there waiting.
As Choji tore open the bag of potato chips, he complained, "Naruto, you're a little slow."
"Haha, sorry." Naruto apologized, scratching his head.
"Hey, who's next to you?" Ino, who was sitting next to Yurika, noticed that Naruto had brought someone else with him this time.
"His name is Gaara. He is a new friend I made yesterday. He is very awesome." Naruto introduced Gaara to everyone with a smile.
"Hello, I'm Gaara." Gaara said with a slightly blushing face. He was a little shy when introducing himself in front of several people at once.
"Hello, my name is Yamanaka Ino." Ino introduced herself confidently.
Then with the help of Naruto, Gaara successfully got to know everyone present.
"Naruto, you said Gaara is very powerful. Does he know anything unique?" Ino asked curiously.
"It is indeed unique. There are only nine of them in the whole world. But it may not be convenient to display them." Naruto said after thinking for a while.
Although he himself was not very afraid of Ikko, the aura of that big raccoon was too strong, and he might scare his friends soon.
"Unique..." Gaara muttered to himself, then raised his hand, and a strand of sand as thick as his arm appeared beside him, circling around Gaara like a flexible snake.
"Does this count?" Gaara felt that this should be considered relatively rare, at least he had never seen anyone of his age do this.
"It's really impressive." Ino applauded.
"You can actually control the sand." Choji looked at Gaara in surprise and grabbed a handful of potato chips and stuffed them into his mouth.
"Some secret technique?" Shikamaru had a thoughtful expression. This Gaara seemed to be very extraordinary.
"This person is very dangerous." Yurihua, who had been throwing kunai upwards for fun, suddenly said.
In her perception, Gaara's small body hides enormous power and is particularly dangerous.
"Hey, even Yurihua said it's dangerous." Ino didn't expect Yurihua to suddenly say that Gaara is dangerous.
Although Yurika is the youngest among them, she is very strong and has a very sharp perception, giving Ino the feeling of a powerful and cold ninja in a TV drama.
In short, it is very reliable.
Ino hugged Yurika's neck from behind and said, "If there is any danger, I will definitely protect Yurika."
Yurihua took Ino's hand away expressionlessly. She felt insecure with someone hugging her neck.
And she was still protecting her. With Ino's slack appearance, she could easily find a dozen flaws in her and kill her with one blow.
Although Naruto didn't know that Gaara also had the ability to control the sand, he laughed and said, "See, I told you it was amazing."
"Why hasn't Hinata arrived yet?" Naruto looked and found a problem, Hinata didn't come.
As soon as Naruto finished speaking, Hinata ran in front of everyone, panting.
"No... sorry, I'm late." Hinata said with a red face.
As the eldest daughter of the main family and the future heir of Hyuga, she has a lot of courses and was still in class just now, so she was late.
"It's okay. We haven't been here long actually." Naruto said with a smile, "We have a new friend this time."
Although Hinata was late, her usual image played a role. Everyone knew that she was an honest person and she definitely was not late on purpose, so no one said anything.
A group of people started playing in the forest.
First we played hide-and-seek, setting a fairly large area within which we could hide anywhere, with two people catching six others.
I don't know whether to say that Yurihua was unlucky or that Naruto and the others were unlucky. Yurihua was the one who was responsible for catching people at the beginning.
With Yurika's excellent perception, no one could escape. She captured everyone quickly by herself, shocking her teammate Hinata.
"It's too easy." Lily Hua said calmly.
"Damn it, I didn't expect that my perfect disguise would be discovered!" Naruto was a little depressed. He hid in a place with thick leaves and covered himself with the leaves, but he didn't expect that it would be discovered.
"Naruto, that's what you call a perfect disguise. I could see your golden hair even when I was hiding. It was too conspicuous." Choji laughed. Although he lost, he was very happy.
"Tsk, Choji, you're not that good. I saw you fall down when you were climbing a tree." Naruto retorted.
Looking at so many people laughing and chatting around him, and feeling that he was one of them, Gaara felt a little dazed.
It's not that he hasn't fantasized about this scenario, on the contrary, he always fantasizes about it.
But he didn't expect that happiness would come so quickly.
It was clear that not long ago, he was harshly rejected when he reached out his hand, but now he suddenly has so many friends to play with.
These people didn't mind the dark circles under his eyes, nor were they afraid of his ability to control sand.
"If you ask me, Gaara, you should use the sand to take yourself to the sky. No one will think of it." Naruto helped Gaara to come up with ideas.
"Yeah." Gaara smiled and nodded.
He thought this was great.