Gaara stared fixedly into Sarada's eyes, the sand around him stirring restlessly. His voice was deadly serious.
"Who exactly are you?! What is your relationship with Sasuke Uchiha?!"
After the Uchiha Clan's massacre, Sasuke was the only surviving full-blooded Uchiha.
How could a second young person with the Three-Tomoe Sharingan suddenly appear out of nowhere?!
The Sharingan slowly faded from Sarada's eyes. Her voice was calm, yet carried immense weight.
"You don't need to investigate my identity or ask where I came from."
"You only need to remember one thing."
"These eyes are my trump card for keeping Sasuke Uchiha in check."
"As long as I'm here, I guarantee he won't act against our alliance."
"If he breaks the rules and attacks us, I'll be the first to stop him, and I won't forgive him."
As her words sank in, Gaara's mind raced, weighing the pros and cons over and over.
He understood the Uchiha Clan's bonds and the significance of the Sharingan.
They seemed cold-blooded, but they valued emotional ties more than anyone.
For this girl to possess the Uchiha's Sharingan, she had to share an extremely close blood relationship with Sasuke.
Perhaps this trump card really could work.
Gaara fell into a long, conflicted silence.
On one hand, he could continue enduring it, watching Konoha slowly swallow Sunagakure until it became nothing more than a vassal;
On the other, he could join the alliance, band together to counterbalance Konoha, and gamble on preserving Sunagakure's sovereignty, while accepting the risk of failure.
Sarada struck while the iron was hot, pressing her argument and touching his most vulnerable spot.
"You don't need to worry about the consequences of failure."
"Given your friendship with Naruto Uzumaki, even if we lose this power struggle and the alliance collapses..."
"He would never hurt