The fierce battle between Terumi Mei, Hatake Kakashi, and Kakuzu raged on, locked in a deadlock. Suddenly, a violent tremor shook the ground beneath their feet, forcing their gazes upward toward the distant battlefield.
What was that?
Even from such a great distance, the tremors were unmistakable.
Not just Kakashi and Mei, but even Kakuzu turned to look.
In the next instant, all three of their expressions shifted dramatically.
A curtain of yellowish-brown surged toward them!
It was… sand!
Dizziness, heaviness, and a blurring of consciousness…
Gaara clutched his head, staggering as he slowly rose from a pit over ten meters deep.
The pit was so deep that groundwater had begun to seep in, soaking his calves.
"Hey, hey, hey! If you don't want to die, you'd better run!"
"That pink-haired girl… even I might not be able to take her on!"
"She's a monster!"
Shukaku, the beast sealed within him, was as talkative as ever, its voice grating in his mind.
Whenever Gaara borrowed Shukaku's power, the tailed beast could see the battlefield through his eyes.
That fist hurtling toward him was something even Shukaku didn't want to face.
The roaring tiger had torn through the sand-formed body of the One-Tail in an instant. If it hadn't been for…
If it hadn't been for a layer of golden sand shielding Gaara…
Golden sand…
Golden sand!
Gaara's eyes widened in shock.
Instinctively, he scanned his surroundings, searching for the source of that golden sand.
A strange sensation brushed against his back. Gaara tried to turn, but his body felt rigid, as if it no longer obeyed him. His breathing grew heavy, and he hesitated to look behind him.
Slowly, his gaze shifted backward…
A figure, all too familiar, appeared in Gaara's line of sight.
A brown-haired, one-armed man dressed in black floated silently on the water's surface. A gruesome, gaping hole marred his chest.
Blood poured from the wound, staining the groundwater a vivid crimson…
Dad…
Father…
Gaara stared in disbelief at his father's corpse.
Why…?
Why…?
Wasn't his father supposed to hate him?
Hadn't he killed his mother before he was even born…?
But…
Why would his father protect him?
Even at the cost of his own life?
Gaara couldn't comprehend it, couldn't understand.
He had always thought he hated his father just as much.
But now…
Tears welled in Gaara's eyes, glistening as they fell.
Shukaku's howls echoed in his mind, but Gaara ignored them. Trembling, he reached out to touch his father's body.
At that moment, a shadow loomed over him, freezing him in place.
He turned, trembling, to look behind.
A pink-haired figure stood at the edge of the pit, silhouetted against the light.
Her emerald eyes stared down at him, devoid of emotion.
"Saku—"
Before Gaara could finish, a glint of black streaked toward him.
The sand around him, though dampened by the water, instinctively rose to shield him.
Gaara's pupils quivered as he watched.
With his tailed beast transformation forcibly disrupted, Shukaku shouldn't have been able to interfere anymore. So why… why was the sand moving on its own?
Wasn't this autonomous defense the power of Shukaku?
If it wasn't Shukaku's power, then what was it…?
Before Gaara could dwell on it, a kunai shot from Haruno Sakura's hand, piercing through the sand's defense in an instant.
Gaara looked down at his chest.
The kunai hadn't just pierced the sand—it had pierced him.
Is this… my blood?
In his final moments, Gaara's mind drifted back to the incomprehensible scene from moments ago…
One Minute Earlier
"Yang Release: Mountain Monarch!"
As the tailed beast-transformed Gaara was sent flying by a fifty-meter-long pillar, he witnessed a moment he would never forget.
A ferocious, otherworldly tiger lunged toward him!
Unstoppable, unstoppable, unstoppable!
What could he do now?
His ultimate defense, the Armor of Sand, had been shattered, and his body was hurtling through the air, leaving him no chance to counter.
At that moment, a familiar figure appeared before him.
Gaara stared in disbelief at the man standing in his path.
The man, both stranger and kin, glanced back at him.
What was that look?
It was an expression Gaara had never seen on this man's face.
Gaara didn't understand what "love" was.
The man's lips moved, but Gaara, thrown backward at breakneck speed, couldn't hear the words. Still, he could make out the shape of them…
Gaara, live on. Carry Karura's share…
Karura?
Mother?
Before Gaara could speak, a wave of golden sand obscured his vision…
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