Illusions and Mirages Hidden Within The Oasis

"Birth date?"

"The 19th day of the first month."

It was late evening and the two adopted sons of the Shie Hassaikai's oyabun sat around a traditional tea table with Chisaki asking occasional questions and Gaara answering them one by one whilst enjoying his tea.

At the end of the low table, Arima watched both boys with a satisfied expression, quietly caressing the handle of a ceramic tea pot.

"Alright. Last one." Chisaki said, his voice slightly muffled by his medical mask. "Name?"

Gaara paused for a moment before smiling, having made up his mind.

"Gaara... Sabakuno Gaara."

...

Bang!

For the third time today, a loud sound woke Gaara up from his sleep. It was not often that he could fall asleep after having gotten used to staying awake for too long. Years of self conditioning don't just go away like that.

So, now that he was free to rest without having to fear Shukaku taking over his body when he falls asleep, he treasured any chance of sleep he could get.

Unfortunately, the world seemed to destine him for a life with limited sleep as even now, things seemed to crop up which prevented him from resting.

The biggest problem being the extra accessory in the form of two wooden horns that now permanently inhabited the top of his head and frequently banged on the headboard of the bed whenever he was unaware.

Well... His bed now. He should start getting used to referring it as something which belonged to him. Like how this room was his room now, and the Shie Hassaikai compound was his home now.

It was a strange yet comforting feeling, knowing that he now had a home where people seemed to genuinely care for him instead of fearing him.

It was a nice change, though it didn't mean that he no longer thought about his past, because he did. Every night before he slept and every morning he woke up, he was subconsciously expecting to somehow return to his old home as the fifth Kazekage of Sunagakure, only to feel disappointed when he realized he was still in this strange new world.

That wasn't to say he was unsatisfied with this world and it's people, though! Far from it even. The way he was treated here was the most welcomed he felt in his entire life outside of Naruto's companionship.

If there was one thing he could complain about, though, it was the fact that Chisaki demanded him to take no less than two showers a day in order to clean himself thoroughly. This mildly annoyed him due to the fact that he was used to coating his body with two layers of sand armor. If he took a bath twice a day, he would have to remove and reapply his sand armor twice over.

Who even needed to be that clean anyways?

Despite that, he was still new to this world's culture so he had to follow the original native's requests no matter how strange. So, with that thought process, he removed the bone sand on his body and directed it towards his newly made bone sand gourd container. Though, when he finally finished his bath and exited the bathroom, he found his sand and his gourd missing.

This world is really dangerous. Someone would even steal sand!

Fortunately, the bone sand he produced was directly connected to his chakra due to it being the physical embodiment of his new jutsu.

So, with furrowed brows, he began to sense for his sand, only to end up shivering when the sensation of being submerged in cold water overcame him.

Gaara abruptly cut off the connection and began to stalk towards a certain direction with a dark expression.

...

"What are you doing?" Gaara asked Chisaki who was stirring a large, water-filled vat using a metal pole.

"I'm cleaning your bone sand." Chisaki answered, his voice more muffled than usual due to him wearing two layers of medical masks.

"Why?" Gaara was confused. What would Chisaki benefit in doing something so troublesome? They've never even gotten close enough for physical contact. He just couldn't see what was pushing Chisaki make sure everything around Gaara was clean.

Chisaki furrowed his brows in masked irritation. He really didn't know how Gaara could stand being covered from skin to toe with something so dirty. Just thinking about it was making him break out in hives. "Well, I figured that if you're going to cover your whole body with these, the least you could do is make sure they're clean. And if you don't plan on doing it, I might as well clean them myself."

Gaara nodded hesitantly, trying to understand Chisaki's logic. "Okay... But why does it smell like fruits?"

"Because the detergent is peach scented." Chisaki grunted. "You should be thankful that I haven't found a large enough supply of detergent to clean your regular sand yet."

With that marking the end of the conversation, Gaara promptly turned around and headed back to his room, refusing to deal with Chisaki any longer or he might commit a crime.

...

Sitting alone in the back garden, Gaara contemplated to himself in silence. He didn't know how to thank Arima and Chisaki properly without them just waving it away, saying it was nothing, so, he compiled all of his knowledge about chakra and jutsu in two separate notebooks and left it in front of their doorways.

It had already been a week since he started living in this world, and surprisingly, aside from thinking back to his past memories every once in a while, he found himself actually enjoying this world. He felt free here, strangely enough.

Even his strange interactions with Chisaki was something he secretly cherished. And now, during the course of seven days, he managed to die, got resurrected in an unfamiliar world, and ended up with a father who appreciated him, and a brother who didn't fear him.

Little by little, the void in his chest was being filled up with warmth.

It was so envigorating that he felt he could do anything. Even control the Rinne Sharingan.

And, just like that, he felt a dull itch on his forehead as the slit which hid his third eye abruptly opened.

Just like the previous time, it happened so suddenly and without any prior warning but, unlike that time, this time, nothing happened.

Gaara just sat there, frozen.

He was aware of what was happening but didn't know how to proceed. And, after several minutes passed with just him maintaining the same position without anything going wrong, he figured nothing would happen.

Probably.

Should he try something?

Arima did say that he should try to atleast control it.

Maybe he should start with something simple, like genjutsu. Once he mastered genjutsu, he could slowly start with the others. Though, it might end up more troublesome for him since both genjutsu and taijutsu weren't exactly things he excelled at.

Gaara sighed. Instead of just sitting and doing nothing, he might as well try it.

Concentrating on his flow of chakra, he directed it towards his third eye, aiming to create a small illusion that would make a small pebble on the ground to appear as a stone pillar.

Surprisingly, it was much easier than he thought. His chakra reserves didn't even seem to be disturbed with something of this scale.

In this case, it shouldn't be a problem to try something of a bigger scale.

Somehow, Gaara felt excited. He was never good at genjutsu so, suddenly possessing the ability to do something like this so easily filled him with wonder.

He began to smile under his bone sand armor.

That night, he stayed at the back garden, practicing his genjutsu until the sun rose to the horizon. If it weren't for Arima coming out for his morning tea and reminding him of the time, he wouldn't have stopped at all.

With a body covered in dew, Gaara headed back to his room, forcing his third eye to close. He had decided to seal it unless absolutely needed until he could make sure that he was able to completely control it.

Even with the powerful quirks in this world, the Rinne Sharingan was still far more dangerous after all.

Suddenly, Gaara froze.

He just remembered that he still had to come up with a name for his supposed 'quirk'.

...

"Desolation. It's subtle enough to pass in case he accidentally uses his bone sand by mistake in public or cause a rain of blood." Irinaka Joi said, leaning further into the couch and letting the soft cushions envelope his tiny body.

"Sand Demon. It could explain the sentient part of it." Nemoto Shin, Chisaki's much more cynical acquaintance, said, his gaze towards Gaara guarded with mild suspicion.

And he had a right to be suspicious considering they had just met barely ten minutes ago, yet Gaara already explained the entirety of his supposed 'not quirk - quirk' with no filter and why they needed to cover it up from the government. Anyone in that situation would feel suspicious.

Gaara was just blunt like that.

"Djinn." Chisaki sighed, looking visibly done with everything. "It's a desert dwelling spirit or demon depending on the source. The concept is confusing enough that it would be able to pass whatever last-minute nonsense you manage to pull off."

Gaara looked at the paper containing his quirk registry thoughtfully. All choices had their own good points but, between all of them, he just couldn't decide. If it were up to him, he'd just call it Jutsu. Plain and simple. But, modern society has no concept of jutsu and needed something they could easily understand from the name alone.

"Why not just combine all three?" An unfamiliar voice said from the doorway. "Djinn: Demon of Desolation. Sounds cool if you ask me."