Yashamaru

Yashamaru looked almost like a mirror of his sister, sharing her sandy blond hair, fair complexion, and violet eyes, features soft enough to read as somewhat feminine. In everyday wear he chose a plain dark blue shirt cut like a kimono with white trim, closed by a white sash over grey trousers, and he often added a beige apron bearing the Sand village symbol along with bandages wound around his head. On Anbu duty he took on that corps' Sunagakure uniform, a turban, the village forehead protector, a flak jacket, and a cloth drawn over the lower half of his face that left only his eyes showing.

At heart Yashamaru was tender and devoted, treasuring his sister Karura above anyone. He was the one villager who grasped why Gaara lashed out by accident, and he worked to make others see it too while teaching the boy about love and about pain. Yet he could never fully release his grief over Karura's death in childbirth. The person he genuinely despised was his brother-in-law, the Fourth Kazekage, who had sealed Shukaku inside Gaara while the child was still in the womb and so cost Karura her life. Even so, as an Anbu and the Kazekage's right hand, Yashamaru carried out his orders, willing to play the part of a hateful, murderous uncle, and that obedience helped push Gaara past the breaking point.

Yashamaru served as an Anbu of Sunagakure and the trusted right hand of the Fourth Kazekage. After his sister Karura died soon after Gaara's birth, with the One-Tailed Shukaku sealed inside the infant, the Kazekage named Yashamaru the boy's guardian. He looked after his nephew with real care and told him that the sand rushing to shield him was Karura's will watching over her son. He was also a medical ninja whose precise chakra control let him steer and hurl kunai at his enemies.

Trouble came when Gaara could not master Shukaku, and the Kazekage ordered Yashamaru to assault the boy in body and mind to gauge his control. He took the assignment unwillingly, meaning to teach Gaara about hurt and about affection, but Gaara's Sand Binding Coffin left him gravely wounded and turned the mission into a final act. He told Gaara he had always hated him, twisted the meaning of the boy's name into a curse rather than a gift of love, insisted that no one would ever care for him, and detonated explosive tags hidden in his vest hoping to die together. The betrayal and the suicide shattered what stability Gaara had left. Only much later, during the Fourth Shinobi World War, did Gaara discover that every cruel word had been a lie forced on Yashamaru by the Fourth Kazekage's command.