Gaara of the Desert
The 5th Kazekage
History
"I will work hard, because I want to become acknowledged by others. That's what I thought when I looked at Naruto"
Gaara is the third and youngest child of the Fourth Kazekage of Sunagakure (Hidden Sand Village). The weakest of the nine Tailed Beasts, the Shukaku, was sealed in him shortly after his birth in a process that led to the death of his dearly beloved mother, by order of his father in hopes that he would become the ultimate weapon of Sunagakure. However, this only brought pain and suffering to Gaara, causing his childhood to be filled with hatred and spite because of the demon inside him, and him literally never sleeping as the Shukaku's seal would be broken and unleashed upon the world should Gaara ever sleep. Eventually, Gaara eventually becomes a silent, murderous, insane individual due to his uncle trying to kill him and telling Gaara that no one loved him on his father's orders, and only managed to change his ways after being defeated and encouraged by Naruto, who had been through nearly the same ordeal.
In Part II of Naruto, Gaara's immense talent and power has allowed him to become the new Kazekage, the head of his village. However, A group of some of the most dangerous and powerful ninja on the planet, The Akatsuki, had plans for all of the Jinchuuriki and theiir Bijuu (People with Tailed Beasts wiithin them and the Beasts respectively). Eventually, Two members of the Akatsuki came to capture Gaara, and despite him successfully holding off the member he was fighting, Gaara was forced into using all of his remaining power and fell unconcious allowing his capture. The Shukaku was extracted from Gaara, killing him. After defeating The Akatsuki members that attacked Sunagakure, Gaara was revived in exchange for the life of Lady Chiyo, his caretaker. Since then, Gaara has been a major ally of Naruto and the Hidden Leaf Village.
Equipment
Sand Gourd
A large gourd that Gaara carries on his back at all times containing sand that Gaara uses for his ninjutsu. The gourd carries a surprisingly large amount of sand based on the scale of some of the jutsu he uses in non sandy areas. The gourd itself is also made up of sand.
Sand
Gaara's main method of combat and travel. Gaara can use his sand in dozens of ways for offense, defense, mobility, trapping and deception. Gaara's Sand has shown itself to be capable of Catching huge meteorites (albeit the weight was halved), block explosions with enough power to topple islands and nuke cities and play tug of war with Madara who was dragging Tailed Beasts around with chains (Tailed Beasts are massive).
Oh right. His dead mom's soul possesses the sand. And if it gets wet it's almost completely useless as it's too heavy for him to control. No biggie.
Sealing Tags
Slips of paper imbued with powerful sealing jutsu that Gaara typically uses in conjunction with trapping type jutsu to seal the abilities and movements of enemies that are either too strong for him to kill or cannot be brought down through normal means.
Chakra & Usage
Chakra is the physical and spiritual energy located in every cell of the body and gained through exercise and experience. It's basically a cross between chi and stamina as the two are directly linked. Though other methods exist, Hand Seals are the main way to channel Chakra through 361 different points over the body so it can be manipulated to perform a variety of acts like walking on water or sheer cliffs, creating elemental attacks, creating illusions etc.
While anything capable of using Chakra can use non-elemental Chakra, they also have an affinity to a certain element that let's them give elemental properties to their techniques boosting their power and efficiency.
Gaara in particular uses Wind-Type Chakra, which is weak to Fire based attacks and strong against Lightning based attacks.
Jutsu
Air Sand Protective Wall
Gaara summons a massive shield of sand in the sky that can cover and protect a large village from bombs more or less equivalent to small nukes in power. Needless to say, this technique uses a huge amount of Chakra.
Desert Layered Imperial Funeral
For this technique, Gaara uses a large amount of sand to incase the enemy in several layers of sand and then compresses the sand into the shape or a pyramid. This technique is used for Imprisoning.
Although there is a stronger version of this technique, Desert Layered Imperial Funeral Seal, It can only be used with the help of the Shukaku whom Gaara no longer has possession of.
Desert Suspension
Gaara uses Chakra enhanced sand to form a platform and float in mid-air, aiding him in both travel and aerial combat. He has shown to be capable of creating, controlling and maintaining larger platforms than shown above as well as creating several platforms at once.
Desert Wave
Gaara creates a huge wall of sand which serves to separate people from each other or block incoming attacks.
Desert Hand
Gaara creates multiple large hands of sand that he can use to restrain or attack others with or even catch and hold objects.
Playing Possum Jutsu
A technique that forces the user into a state of sleep thereby leaving them totally helpless. Any ordinary attack can wake the user up from their nap.
Gaara originally used this technique so that the Shukaku would be able to rampage freely after it was unleashed, but seeing as Gaara no longer has the Shukaku sealed within him, he probably wouldn't want to try this shit in a DEATH BATTLE.
Prison Sand Burial
One of Gaara's offensive techniques and one of my personal favorites. Gaara creates an extremely deep hole in the ground that can be up to about 200 metres long and let's the enemy sink to the bottom while they are unable to move. After they hit the bottom, the sand covering their bodies holds them down firmly enough so that they can't move even a finger due to the pressure. This tends to result in people having every bone in their body crushed due to being buried at this depth, unless of course they suffocate first.
Quicksand Waterfall Flow
Another offensive technique. Gaara uses the sand from his gourd to grind underground rocks and minerals into an obscene amount of sand. Gaara then uses what is described as a "sea of sand" to form a massive tsunami of sand that wipes out everything in his line of sight.
Gaara can add a second or third wave to the attack and can also control it to attack foes while they attempt to outrun the sea of sand. Additionally, the sand tends to change the landscape into a desert like state and the technique is often finished with massive area wide attack such as the Sand Waterfall Imperial Funeral.
Sand Coffin
Alternatively called "Sand Binding Coffin", Sand Coffin is one of Gaara's signature techniques. For this jutsu, Gaara encases his target in a large amount of sand from the gourd on his back, immobilizing them. The sand can be used to completely crush others (Sand Waterfall Funeral) or to simply suffocate them.
Sand Drizzle
Sand Drizzle is a technique in which Gaara forms an insane number of clumps of sand and makes them rain down over the enemy from every direction, and can allow Gaara to make an attack with zero blind spots. This technique is typically used to distract an opponent forcing them to look up while Gaara attacks from below or traps them with another jutsu. There are several variations of this jutsu: Sand Bullet, Sand Hail and Successive Shots: Sand Drizzle, although the last can presumably no longer be done as it needed the Shukaku's power.
Sand Bullet is a lesser version of this technique where Gaara compresses a ball of sand in the palm of his hand and fires it at high speed.
Sand Hail is a more offensively oriented version of Sand Drizzle in which Gaara creates huge, boulder shaped clumps of sand rain down from the sky over a very large range making it a devastating and hard to avoid attack. It also performs Sand Drizzle's main strategy of distracting enemies leaving them open for attack.
Sand Clone
Gaara creates one or more identical clones of him (or others) made of sand. He often uses them in his substitution Jutsu so they take hits for him. Since they're made of sand, they take physical hits quite (but getting wet is a really big no no) well and can even trap another person's limbs in their body, trapping them, leaving Gaara to do what he pleases or even let the clone beat up on them at close range.
Sand Pillar
For this jutsu, Gaara erects a pillar from his lower body (get your mind out of the gutter) to maneuver himself in mid-air at high speed. He can also create the pillar from the ground rather than his lower body if the ground is suitable.
Sand Sensing
Gaara releases special sand into an area that will reveal invisible bodies or objects when it comes into contact with them and then wrap around them. It also spreads into the air so Gaara can detect airborne foes.
Sand Waterfall Funeral
This jutsu is a finishing move used after an enemy has been rapped in sand due to Sand Coffin or Sand Drizzle. This pleasant little jutsu kills a person so quickly that they don't even have time to feel pain and Gaara can do anywhere from breaking a few bones to completely "liquefying" an opponent since he controls the amount of pressure the jutsu does when it crushes people. Oh, right. There's always a massive fountain of blood following the attack.
Shield of Sand
A technique solely used by Gaara, or should I say, Gaara's mother. The soul of Gaara's deceased mother controls Gaara's sand at will and will protect Gaara from any attack, if possible. Needles to say, even if Gaara doesn't notice the attack the Shield of Sand will still activate due to his mother's will.
The Shield of Sand is extremely durable, praised by Naruto even after seeing the Third Raikage's defences (he's one of the bulkiest characters in the series noted for battling the second strongest Tailed-Beast alone and not sustaining much damage and only being damaged by his most powerful attack redirected at him). Gaara can also change the shape of the shield to increase speed or defence.
Third Eye
Gaara creates a perfectly operating eye out of sand and connects it to his optic nerve. The eye is remote controlled and can fly, making it a great surveillance device.
Wind Release: Great Breakthrough
A jutsu used to create a strong, sudden burst of wind. While it is a very simple jutsu, if the user is extremely strong, such as Gaara, It can have a great range and easily blow down large trees.
Skill & Abilities
Keen Leadership Skills
Gaara has clear leadership skills bing the leader of his squad (albeit he was in charge in no small part due to fear), the leader of his entire village and a general in the Allied Shinobi Forces with hundreds of troops under his command. This shows That Gaara has good decision making and keen insight.
Extremely Tactical Fighter
Despite being mostly a mindless fighter in Part I, relying on his near unbreakable defence and overwhelming power of the Shukaku with his own natural talent, Gaara proves himself to be quite the thinker in part II both in and out of combat. He's comes up with ways to deal with many situations such as calming the other Kage, revealing hidden enemies and using the earth and rocks around him to replenish or increase the sand under his control.
Superhuman Stamina & Endurance
Gaara obviously has massive amounts of stamina being one of the Kages, some of the strongest people in the series. He's literally lived without ever once sleeping for the duration that he had the Shukaku sealed in him (16 years), mustered enough chakraaka life force) to shield his entire village from essentially a mini nuke after fighting an Akatsuki member and being able to survive prolongued fights such as the Fourth Great Shinobi War which involved fighting tireless enemies for two days straight as well as Madara and the Ten Tails, two of the strongest forces in the series expending his chakra near endlessly.
Superhuman Strength & Durability
Although Gaara almost never engages in Taijutsu (Hand-to-Hand Combat), he has the strength to deal good damage to stronger characters in the series with physical blows and take just as much punishment back even without his sand defences (keep in mind the stronger characters in the series can all casually shatter large boulders with casualy punches and kicks and decimate large buildings or areas with their Jutsu).
Superhuman Speed & Reactions
In a series where even the weakest, least skilled fighters can move waaay faster than the normal human eye can percieve, it's fair to say that Gaara has fantastic speed and reactions. Although his movement speed isn't anywhere near the level of the likes of Naruto (who's movement speed has been confused for teleporting) or The Fourth Raikage (who's known as one of the fastest people in the world). Additionally, Gaara has kept up with Sharingan users (Sasuke and Madara) on multiple occasions, who can read and predict a person's movements essentially allowing them to act before you do.
Weaknesses
Like most characters Gaara has his share of issues to deal with. The one that would come up in the majority of fights is the fact that Gaara has a finite amount of chakra at his disposal. Granted Gaara should have more chakra reserves than the average joe considering he formerly held a Tailed Beast inside of him but that still doesn't change the fact that in prolonged fights Gaara is gonna sufferas nearly all of his Ninjutsu and basic techniques require the use of chakra.
The second Weakness of Gaara is that his Taijutsu skills are a bit lacking for someone of his level. Now sure, he can give and take hits no problem, but Gaara almost never engages in close combat due to his superior defences and mid-long range fighting style. This leaves him lacking against enemies who excel in close combat and are capable of getting in close, easily seen when Rock Lee was able to overwhelm him during the Chuunin Exams.
Lastly, If his sand get's wet it's damn near useless. No way around it. The only thing Gaara would be able to do at that point would be to create more sand by grinding the earth and rocks around him which expends his chakra or wait for the sand to dry out.
