Ahahaha, true. And I just want to slowly peel the living skin off his uncle (yes, it's an uncle. I totally thought he was an aunt/girl until someone was like "blah blah Gaara's uncle" and I was like "WHAT?"), who is a bastard. If he'd had a shred of human decency he would've just died trying to blow up Gaara without ever saying a word so Gaara could draw his own (inevitably kinder) conclusions about the attack, instead of going, "Not only I have I lied to you for your entire life about you being the most important and beloved person in the world to me and your mother, I've actually always hated you, and your mother hated you before you were born and died hating you and cursing the world with your presence as a symbol of how much she hated you and hated the world for making you exist, and your family hates you, and your father especially hates you and wants to kill you, and everyone in the world hates you and always has and always will, especially me, and this is entirely your fault because you are inherently an unlovable monster." And Gaara is what, five years old? Maybe six years? And a surprisingly sweet kid, despite already starting to crack under the strain, and who responded well to understanding and patience. Which are helpful to use when dealing with any five-year-old child.

Yes. Skin-peeling.

And that ties into the point that telophase made, that I agree with, that the people of Konoha owe Iruka their lives, because Naruto could've become Gaara and worse in the first chapter of the series if Iruka hadn't believed in him. Iruka is the ninja of love! (There is a lot of fanfic with Gaara randomly moving to Konoha so Iruka can informally adopt him too, to which I am like "...no", but I understand the sentiment, because Gaara so clearly needs someone to hug him and feed him ramen and tell him everything will be okay.)

I love that scene so much. He has to go brag to his daddy! And even now Naruto has more power than Iruka ever will, but Iruka's just so proud of him. I have a folder with chapter pages in it called "Iruka Is Naruto's Daddy" and the fact that it has a good number of pages in it makes me happy. Like the scene from the chuunin exams, when Iruka comes to tell the team they've passed the first run, and Sakura and Sasuke are exhausted while Naruto's bouncing around squeeing, and Iruka gives him the look of "You are such a dork and I love you so much. Do you want to keep your last name when I adopt you? The mongrammed towels will be the same if we spell them with romaji."