"It's coming out?"
Who was "it"?
Most people looked completely lost.
Only a small number reacted immediately, yanking their companions back and retreating fast.
"Gaara!"
Temari stared into the depths of that black sea of sand, her face tight with worry.
Kankurō, on the other hand, had the good sense to keep backing away.
"Temari, pull back first. What comes next isn't something we can interfere with," Baki said grimly.
"I… I know!"
Temari gritted her teeth, took one last look at that peerlessly dominant figure in the sand sea, then turned and dashed away.
More and more people caught on as veteran shinobi barked explanations.
One after another, they bolted toward the outer edge like their lives depended on it.
Because they did.
Don't joke around. That was a tailed beast.
A war weapon that existed only in legends.
Almost every time it appeared, it meant death and destruction…
Whoooo—
A biting gale swept through the sand sea, whipping up sheets of yellow grit.
Yet inside the sand sea, it was unnaturally quiet.
"Still holding on?"
Teizawa finally showed a trace of admiration. "Gaara's grit is impressive."
It was obvious Gaara was trying, with the last scraps of his sanity, to keep himself from falling completely asleep.
But after everything that had happened in Sunagakure, he was exhausted in body and mind.
How could he possibly keep wrestling the One-Tail like this?
Just a few breaths later—
Thump. Thump. Thump…
The entire black sand sea seemed to boil.
More and more yellow bulges rose up from within it.
And then—
"Yagagagaga… I'm finally out…"
A piercing, uninhibited roar echoed across the ground of Sunagakure.
Teizawa stepped onto the sand iron beneath his feet and rose into the air.
Flight through the special properties of Magnet Release (Jiton) was one of the things he liked about the ability.
From above, looking down—
A fat tanuki, fifty or sixty meters long, was crawling up out of the sand sea.
The One-Tail Shukaku.
"Ah, ah, ah… you disgusting little ants again."
The familiar layout of Sunagakure stabbed at Shukaku's nerves almost instantly.
The joy and excitement on its face vanished, replaced by immediate violence.
Chakra poured off it in visible waves.
Like a living bomb with nothing but destruction in its heart.
And there was no avoiding that.
Ever since Sunagakure had been given a tailed beast from Senju Hashirama, the One-Tail had been sealed, extracted, and studied over and over in this desert.
Sometimes it was imprisoned for decades at a time.
So when the furious beast finally saw daylight again, its first instinct was to destroy the place that had tormented it.
To make the humans who had bound it pay.
"Ah, ah, ah… die. All of you die…"
Muttering incoherent nonsense, Shukaku crawled on all fours, smashing any houses it saw, stomping anything it didn't like into rubble…
"S-so big… that's a tailed beast? That's terrifying!"
"Gaara… Gaara should've been executed!"
"Damn it, it's destroying the village!"
"Who can stop it?!"
"What do we do now? Can Teizawa beat it?"
"How are we supposed to face a monster like that…"
"…"
For the first time, the One-Tail was appearing openly before the Sand shinobi.
And it sparked an uncontrollable fear in their hearts.
Panic, terror, despair—those emotions spread on their own, like rot.
"Gaara finally fell asleep."
Baki's face was dark. He knew enough of the details.
Back when the Fourth Kazekage could suppress the One-Tail with Magnet Release (Jiton), it was because Shukaku was still being held down by Gaara.
As long as Gaara didn't fall asleep, Shukaku wouldn't get the chance to fully emerge.
It was like Gaara and Shukaku were fighting over the same body.
Even if Shukaku gained the upper hand for a moment…
It still couldn't come out and rampage without restraint.
But now…
Gaara had sunk into deep sleep.
What had appeared was the One-Tail in full.
No matter how this ended, Sunagakure was going to be half-destroyed.
"Teizawa… can he stop it?" Temari asked, stricken.
"Hard." Baki's expression was rigid. "The reason tailed beasts are feared is that their destructive power isn't something you can match with individual strength."
"Uh…"
Beside them, Kankurō glanced at Baki and Temari talking, then turned back toward the center of the battlefield.
He looked utterly stunned.
He turned his head back and forth several times before finally speaking in a flat, baffled voice:
"You sure about that? Tailed beasts really can't be suppressed by one person?"
"Hm?"
Baki and Temari turned to look.
And both of them froze, eyes wide.
Like they'd just seen a ghost.
Shukaku, which had been rampaging through buildings a moment ago, was now raging helplessly.
And around it—
A supermassive iron cage made entirely of pitch-black sand iron had been constructed.
Shukaku was sealed inside it perfectly.
Like…
A dog inside a kennel.
What the hell just happened?
How was it that they only looked away for a second, and the unstoppable tailed beast was already locked in a cage?
It wasn't just Temari and Baki questioning reality.
Most of the shinobi were dumbfounded too.
"No way… am I seeing this right?"
"S-so strong… Kazekage-sama is insane."
"So sand iron can do this?"
"That's Kazekage-sama's Magnet Release (Jiton)… he really is Sunagakure's number one."
"It's just a tailed beast. It's not even worthy to clean Kazekage-sama's shoes."
Uh…
That last line was pure brainless glazing.
But Teizawa's hardcore loyalists still shouted it with full confidence.
"Magnet Release (Jiton): Dog Cage."
In midair, Teizawa snapped his fingers and mocked himself.
Truthfully, there was a bit of trickery to how he was controlling Shukaku like this.
In terms of raw standing among tailed beasts, the One-Tail was actually near the bottom.
Shukaku's strengths were sealing techniques, sand control, and defense that was only second to the Three-Tails.
In other words, it didn't have much in the way of pure offensive power.
Its enormous body was a doomsday weapon to ordinary shinobi.
But once your strength reached a certain level, you could find ways to counter it, one way or another.
So the question was—
If that was true, why did Sunagakure's shinobi fear the One-Tail so much?
That hit Sunagakure where it hurt.
Because the village was garbage…
They didn't have a single real powerhouse worth mentioning.
"Bastard! Let me out! Damn you, you're locking me up?!"
"Even that Sage of Six Paths old man never treated me like this!"
"Filthy human!"
"I'm going to eat you!"
Teizawa watched Shukaku howl and thought about something else instead.
How do you train a dog again?
If a dog bites people, locking it up doesn't solve the problem.
The correct method is… to beat it into submission.
Make it recognize its place.
Once that thought settled, Teizawa had a plan.
He was going to tame Shukaku in front of every shinobi in Sunagakure.
His body rose higher, until he was directly above Shukaku's head.
Then Teizawa turned toward the ground, toward the dense sea of eyes watching him, and shouted:
"Warriors of Sunagakure! Open your eyes and watch closely."
"The tailed beast that legends say represents destruction… is nothing special."
With that, Teizawa swung his arm.
The sand-iron prison collapsed instantly, crumbling apart.
"You damn ant! Die!"
Shukaku, packed with endless rage, charged straight at him, raising a massive claw and slamming it down.
The hurricane it carried made Teizawa's clothes whip and snap.
In a blink, the danger was right in front of him.
"Kazekage-sama, watch out!"
Someone shouted a warning without thinking.
No one understood why he would release the One-Tail when he already had it contained.
But everyone's heart shot up into their throat again.
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