A Feeling of Dread: Orochimaru's Near Presence!

A hospital interlude with knives under it. Naruto visits Lee's ward and finds Gaara already there, sand crawling toward the sleeping patient to finish the preliminary's interrupted kill. Naruto and Shikamaru pile on to restrain him, and Gaara, unmoved, explains himself with his autobiography: loved by no one, raised as a weapon, certain since six years old that he exists to kill. Murder as identity, delivered in a monotone. Guy's arrival ends the attempt, not the argument. Naruto recognizes the description — it is his own childhood with a different ending.