Epilogue 1.2- Gamer of the Desert

GAARA OF THE DESERT

I wish I could have honestly said that Kabuto’s death had marked some kind of turning point in Sunagakure’s future, or even in my reign as kazekage. But it hadn’t. Sure, If I’d fallen into the temptation of declaring myself God-king of all that existed under the Sun, then things would probably have changed a lot but in the end I felt at the time that it would not have been worth it and I was right. I had much bigger threats to think about. Thankfully, Black Zetsu was not one of them because the man that been Kabuto Yakushi had seen the prudence in removing the will of Kaguya Otsutsuki from the playing field before he ever even realised the game was being played around him. It was a wise decision. One of several that my counterpart had made. But at the end of the day, only one foolish decision had been enough to outweigh them all. His decision to bet everything on Edo Tensei. He knew I was coming. His memories confirmed that he expected me to rebel just like the others had. But he just trusted in the reanimation jutsu to be enough to deal with me and whatever I brought. A fool.

That was the lesson I learned from beating Kabuto. “Do not stop. Do not rest on your laurels”. It was why, after announcing my people’s independence to them, I moved on the next great thing. Not like beating Kabuto had changed that much about Suna in the first place. The 10% we kicked up to him meant little when added to the treasury and the lack of international cooperation actually saw our profits fall in the first quarter of his death, but just as predicted, they’d proceeded to rise well past Kabuto-levels once the other nations decided that they had to engage in a massive dick measuring contest to decide the new world order. Of course, the war would not last forever. Reports were already flowing in that Tsunade had sent Naruto in to face Kurotsuchi herself and as much confidence as I had in the girl I’d faced in my very first Chunin exams, I had little doubts that she’d lose against the reincarnation of Ninja-Jesus.

Ninja-Jesus. He and the Otsutsuki bullshit that was sure to be coming were part of the reason that I was yet to fully retire and still spent hours each day sharpening each and every one of my skills. At present, I rated myself to be just as strong as ten tails Madara before absorbing the god tree. An ambitious comparison, I knew, but the power of the Rinnegan and a full evolved Mangekyou sharingan were a combination that few could stand against. I’d perfected the power of all six paths to beyond Nagato’s level, and then figured out the inns and outs of long range kamui until just like Kakashi, I learned to turn long range Kamui into short range kamui. Shukaku failed to even be a useful sparring partner even when I closed both eyes and just used sage mode. Nothing in this world could push me anymore, but I kept training regardless.

Because the next threats would not be off this world, I knew.

“What is this?” Temari asked, walking into my office and meeting me staring at a high quality printed image of the moon.

“Our next frontier.” I replied.