Thank you so much @sandglass-art for this amazing commission.❤❤ I am sooo happy of it ! Everything about it is so perfect I have no words ! The thorns look so alive ! The flowers beautiful and it’s so expressive sad and sweet ❤❤❤ @sandglass-art is an amazing artist that I totally recommend ! They draw with passion and are really invested in what they’re doing ! I am more than happy of the outcome ! The final piece is outstanding ! ❤❤❤
To give a little explanations to it I’m gonna write here the context of this scene the way I told @sandglass-art
Gaara just went back to Yukiko after a few years of separation. Yukiko stayed in Iron, to lead her clan as the first female daimyo, and she bottled up a lot of anger, sadness and distress during these years of loneliness, after the loss of their first child :
Gaara and Yuki were together for years and they lived very happy together, despite their difference of culture and the distance of each one being a political figure in their country. They tried to have children for years but didn’t really managed until a miracle happened. But sadly it din’t last. The poor child only lived a few hours, he was born with a heart malformation, so they only had time to say good bye.
Gaara mourned him and moved on with life, stayed in control. He still believes in his futur with Yukiko and the possibility of having another children. This didn’t impact his love for her and he didn’t blame her for the loss of their child. But she did blame herself. She inherited a very dark kekkai gelai from the secondary branch of her clan, that could allow her to bring life to someone with a toll of plants and animals. But the person brought back is only an empty shell and depends on their necromancer. Which is why it wasn’t even an option for Yukiko to bring her son back. She didn’t want him to suffer more, and she knew this technic is forbidden. It’s a taboo and she learnt from previous experiences already that what is dead must never stand again.
But Yukiko couldn’t let go of this baby. She couldn’t help thinking « What if he had opened his eyes ? What if he had lived ? What if I brought him back to life ? Would he be happy ? Did he suffer ? Did he love us like we did ? » She bottled up her sadness because the head of Land of Iron must be stone cold and never show weakness. « My people needs me to be this strong female leader they always wanted me to be. I am a pillar, remember ? If I start falling … what can they hold on to ? » So she couldn’t mourn her son correctly, which is why she fell in a silent depression.
When Gaara adopted Shinki, things started to get better, she was finding hope and happiness again. Shinki learnt to trust her and quickly got attached to her as a new maternal figure. They were spending some good time together when Yukiko was coming in Suna. Shinki was feeling like he was having a « family » with this new father he wanted to make proud, and this new mother who was giving him so much love and comfort.
Yutsuki, Gaara and Yuki’s first baby was buried in the yard of the Nakamura fort, in Land of Iron. She very regularly goes to his grave, to light a candle, burn incent, put some flowers, shed a discrete tear and pray. But she never really got the pain off her chest like she would have liked, and that’s the problem. She cumulated sadness, frustration, anger and this ended up being the downfall of their relationship. Gaara was unable to communicate properly with his fiance, unable to reassure and appease her as he would like and the distance, most of the time, being a real burden they ended up breaking up, and Shinki, was caught right in the middle of this mess, not knowing who was this dreadful presence upon him, this name they dare not speak, this kind of ghost he could feel between these two. So one day Yukiko left Sunagakure to not return, and Shinki was left feeling abandoned again, betrayed at first, with so many questions in mind.
This arc in Boruto is also about Shinki seeking for the answer to these questions, not only to try to re build this broken family seeing them both unhappy apart from each other. So after he came to realise how unhappy they really are, despite their abilities to hide their feelings and always look like strong unbendable leaders, Shinki decides to take things under control. He convinced his father to go to Iron to talk to Yukiko. A terrorist group in Land of Iron was actually plotting something against her for some time, and he learnt about it. So he used thie dismissal of this group as a pretext to get in Iron with his father—
When Gaara arrived, and stopped this terrorist group, Yukiko secretly was really relieved to see him, and even … happy to be saved. Because, deep inside, she really needs someone to save her. She needs someone someone she can lean on and let herself be carried by, show her weakness and insecurities and most importantly love and be loved by. And this someone she always knew it was him. But at first she was really distant, and fled him because she didn’t want to show her emotions. She got raised not to show her emotion because she had to be the pillar of the family and always smile. So naturally, she went to their son’s grave to cry without being seen. Gaara knows its the place where she would be hiding, and in a way, maybe she even wanted him to find her.
They started by arguing. Yukiko reproaching him to have forgotten their son and moved on too fast. Gaara replied that he never forgot their son, and did suffer his death too but explained to her how unhealthy it was to keep living that way : « I’m not really the type to cry over a block of cold stone when the livings are still out there. » He knows she is bottling up much anger and sorrows so he tells her : « Stop holding your tears and allow yourself to cry as much as you need. Allow yourself to be miserable today to be happier tomorrow. It’s time you let him go. » She finally accepts to let go of her pride and literally get in his arms. And as she reaches his comforting embrace the red flowers started to blossom again among the thorns that releases her as she let go of the pain. She looked at the flowers smiling. Gaara wiped a tear out of her cheek in a very tender move. He was smiling to her, finally.
« This grave doesn’t have to be all what’s left of us. » He promised to help her heal, that they will overcome this together, that with Shinki they can be a family again. Eventhough first they had to tell each other all the unpleasant and unspoken things they both have been bottling up all these years. They love each other and that’s all that matters at the moment. No matter the distance, no matter how hard it’s gonna be. They just want to be together.
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commissioned art by @sandglass-art, please don’t steal, copy, or trace
Yukiko and text by @itskuchinashii_
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