My Wife just got home and read the ending. This is our conversation while she was reading it:
Wife: "What the f*****g hell is this steaming pile of dogs***! This is not funny. Where is the real chapter?"
ME: "No joke, this is the real chapter ending"
Wife: "Did Kishi hire a bunch of monkeys to write the ending? Is this a troll? I don't get it. This is totally OOC."
Me: "I have no idea"
Wife: "This has SP written all over it."
Me: "Probably."
Wife: "OMFG, what the f*****g hell did they do to my Gaara!"
(oh yea she is a hardcore Gaara fan)
WIfe: "These pairings, who decided this was a good idea?"
Me: "SP maybe? Editors? Executives? Take your pick. I dunno"
Wife: "Did Ino and Sai adopt an alien child or something?"
Me: "Maybe, but I think the kid is biological"
Wife: "O.M.G."
Wife: "Yeah this a big FU from Kishi to the whole fandom"
Me: "That would not surprise me"
She is not convinced that this is a real ending, but I disagree. Sometimes it happens when editors and others who have no literary talent decide what is best for the story and not the author. Sad but true. What surprised me was that she was more upset than I was. I had followed the series for about 10 years longer than she had. However, she loves to read, and she doesn't like it when a series just flips like this.