Chapter 5: Evaluation

'I should get moving.' - (Gaara) said to himself and ran towards the entrance where he will meet someone at the exact time the test ends, to show that he's alive and that he finished the test.

….

–12:00am Midnight, inside the conference room–

On the chairs around the huge round table in the center of the wide room sat different personalities. They are the council members of Suna and one of them is the Kazekage, Rasa.

In the back of the room is a huge monitor, showing different screens for the different parts of the training field where Gaara's test took place. Some of those screens show Suna's elite shinobis laying on the ground and some screens show the corpses of different powerful creatures laying dead.

Since this marks the end of the test, they decided to have a meeting and see the outcome for themselves, which is jaw dropping.

"Unbelievable! That training field is several times more dangerous than the one we use in the chunin exam and he survived in that for 30 days without even a scratch!" - (Member 1) exclaimed in astonishment.

"Two of the giant centipedes we've been cultivating for summoning were easily killed! Even our most talented jounin wouldn't be able to replicate these feats!" - (Member 2)

"Kazekage-sama! What do you think?!" - (Member 3) said in panic.

"Calm down, all of you. This just shows how powerful he had become over the years." - (Rasa)

"But Kazekage-sama! Do you not think it's too dangerous?" - (Member 4)

"He's right, Kazekage-sama! We should-" - (Member 5)

"No. Like Kazekage-sama said, I believe this is good for us. Isn't the purpose of this test to see how much we can trust him, not only to measure his strength? Look." - (Member 7) interrupted and pointed towards the monitor.

"The elite team we sent to assassinate him are still alive. If he's in his right mind, he wouldn't try to kill those valuable assets, which he didn't. Kazekage-sama has been monitoring him these past years and has been instilling in him the concept and importance of shinobi to our village. It's been two years since the last time we sent assassins to him and all of them were ruthlessly killed, but this time, during the whole test he consistently just knocked them out." - (Member 7) continued.

"That's the point! What if the one-tail Shukaku has taken control of that child since his last appearance and just acted this whole time to make us believe that he's trustworthy. You should know how cruel he is!" - (Member 4)

"I believe that these past years that we didn't try to kill him, it really helped in recuperating and stabilizing his mental health, he's just a child after all. Like you said, Shukaku is ruthless and cruel. But as we know from the previous jinjurikis, once Shukaku had taken control over their body, he didn't even think twice and just started killing everyone. He also didn't stop releasing killing intent and just leaked out tailed-beast chakra everywhere once he's in control of somebody. As you know, Kazekage-sama is a great sensory ninja. He's been training that child since he's a toddler and he didn't sense anything amiss till now." - (Member 7) reasoned and looked at Rasa, to which he nodded.

"Hmm, I agree. That's why we placed our best sensors in this test and they didn't sense any leakage of tailed-beast chakra. The seal used in sealing Shukaku has also improved over the years and the Honored Siblings have reinforced it after the last appearance of Shukaku." - (Member 8) said.

The room got quiet and everyone began to whisper to each other. Feeling that it's time to explain his proposal, Rasa began to talk.

"Does anyone have anything else in their mind? Speak up if you have." - (Rasa) said authoritatively.

Everyone looked at each other and it seemed like they had nothing else to say.

"Good. Now, I assume that everyone here knows the current affairs of our village. If big clients continue to ignore us when it comes to expensive and high ranking missions, we wouldn't be able to sustain our village for much longer by only relying on my gold dust. Even the daimyo doesn't trust us with their missions anymore." - (Rasa) said seriously and paused.

"I'm sure all of you know where this is going. Although the chunin exam is a great opportunity for us to show our power to the clients, it is still not enough. Right now, Konoha is the village with the highest received missions every year, starting from low to high ranks. This is because they won all the wars and remain the strongest village till this day. This is where Gaara comes in. If we can manage to make him a perfect jinjuriki and lead a war, we can turn the table around." - (Rasa)

"Sorry for my rudeness, Kazekage-sama. B-but how are you so confident that we will be able to take down the other villages? Some of them have more than one jinjuriki and are able to control the power of their tailed-beast." - (Member 3) inquired.

"All the tailed-beasts are not equal. Some of them are stronger than the others but they usually don't have any terrain advantages or kekkei genkai. Take the 9 and 8-tails, they are undoubtedly stronger than the others but that's all they have. In a war where countless comrades are in their vicinity, they wouldn't risk transforming to their full power in normal situations. But those tailed-beasts that can grant unique abilities and kekkei genkai to their jinjuriki can use advantages that others don't have, combined with their partial transformations." - (Rasa)

"In addition, we're not declaring war on all the nations. We will use the grudge of other villages against Konoha to our advantage. They're not as powerful as they used to be. The only jinjuriki who can control the 9-tails is dead, their most powerful allied nation was long burned to ashes, and their most talented shinobis were either buried or left Konoha long ago. This is the sole reason I've been training Gaara this whole time, in preparation for the upcoming war." - (Rasa)

"Assuming that we all agreed on this, when will the war start?" - (Member 2)

"Once Gaara can take a whole army by himself without using any transformation. Maybe at most 5 years from now." - (Rasa)

"A-ah. I-I think that would be too much even for him. Right now, his progress is undeniable but it will begin to decline at some point. Even with your strength, Kazekage-sama, I-I doubt you could take on half an army of shinobi by yourself. There's only two people who could do that and their strength was almost unreachable. Even for perfect jinjurikis, there's not been someone who could rival their feats. A-and for such a small amount of time." - (Member 2) said as sweat slid on his forehead because of the ridiculousness he just heard.

"No, he's different even for geniuses. I can feel it. Someday, he will surpass even The God of Shinobi, Senju Hashirama and create huge changes in this world" - (Rasa) said with a deep voice as he stared on his blank palm with an excited look on his face and then formed a fist.

….