The forest flashed before Sasuke's eyes as a blurred green-and-brown smear.
He wasn't running—he was flying. Lightning Chakra concentrated in his legs accelerated his body to limits that seemed impossible just a month ago. Branches whipped his face, but he felt no pain. Adrenaline and rage drove him forward.
Ahead, three hundred meters away, figures flickered.
The Sand Team.
They were moving fast, but Sasuke was faster. He was lightning itself.
"You won't escape!" he snarled. His Sharingan spun, predicting the trajectory of every enemy movement.
Temari and Kankurō stopped, turning to cover their brother. Kankurō raised his puppet "Crow," and Temari unfurled her fan to three moons.
"Pathetic attempts," Sasuke spat.
He didn't even slow down.
"Fire Style: Phoenix Flower Jutsu!"
A dozen fireballs erupted from his mouth, concealing his maneuver.
While Kankurō's puppet clicked its jaws catching the fire, and Temari blew the flames away with wind, Sasuke slipped beneath them. He moved so fast they saw only a fleeting shadow.
"Stop!" Temari shouted, but it was too late.
Sasuke was already behind them.
His target was ahead.
Gaara.
The Sand Jinchūriki ran clutching his head. His sand armor was unstable; it pulsed, thickening and then crumbling like rotting flesh. The right half of his body had already transformed, covered in an ugly crust of sand with blue markings.
"You!" Sasuke shouted, landing on a branch in front of him. "Stop and fight!"
Gaara froze. He slowly raised his head. His right eye had turned yellow, with a pupil shaped like a four-pointed star. The left remained human, but full of madness.
"Uchiha..." he rasped. The voice sounded dual: a child's whisper overlaid with the low, vibrating growl of a beast. "Blood... give me your blood... Mother is thirsty..."
Sand surged, trying to grab the pursuer.
But Sasuke was ready.
Dodge. Jump. Spinning kick.
Sasuke struck Gaara in the chest.
A dull thud. Like hitting a sack of cement. The sand sprang back, absorbing the kinetic energy. Gaara didn't even stagger.
"Useless," the monster hissed.
A sand claw shot from his back, knocking Sasuke off the branch.
The Uchiha regrouped in mid-air, landing on a tree trunk.
Taijutsu doesn't work. He blocks fire with sand. I need something that will punch right through that armor.
He knew only one such technique. The thing Kakashi had taught him all month.
Sasuke leaped back to a safe distance and took a stance.
His left hand gripped his right wrist.
Concentration.
All the chakra he had rushed to a single point.
The air around his hand trembled. The first sparks appeared.
CHIRP-CHIRP-CHIRP...
The sound grew. First like the chirping of a single bird, then ten, a hundred... A thousand.
Sasuke's palm was enveloped in a blinding blue-white glow. Electricity howled, demanding release. The pain in his arm was hellish—skin burning, muscles cramping—but Sasuke just gritted his teeth.
This was power. Real, destructive power, worthy of an Uchiha.
"Chidori!" he exhaled.
Gaara looked at him with interest. The sand around him began to thicken, forming a dense cocoon. The Absolute Defense.
Sasuke took off.
He turned into a beam of light. The ground beneath his feet exploded with every step.
He flew at the enemy, thrusting his sparking hand forward.
"Die!"
CRACK-BZZZT!
Impact.
Sasuke's hand entered the sand shield like a hot knife through butter. The lightning burned through the defense, vaporizing silicon, turning sand into glass.
Sasuke felt resistance, then a jerk, and finally...
A wet, hot squelch.
His hand plunged into flesh.
Sasuke froze, breathing heavily. The sparks of Chidori faded.
He stood right up against the sand cocoon, his arm inside up to the elbow. On his fingers, he felt the warmth of blood.
"I... got you," he exhaled, feeling intoxicating triumph. He, Sasuke Uchiha, had pierced the monster's defense. Proved that he was elite.
Silence.
And then came the scream.
It wasn't a human cry of pain. It was the howl of a creature that had never known what it was to be wounded, and suddenly felt its invulnerability crumble.
"BLOOD?!" Gaara's voice broke into a shriek that was deafening. "IS THIS MY BLOOD?! YOU... YOU DARED?! YOU HURT ME?!"
The sand cocoon exploded from the inside.
Sasuke was thrown back by the shockwave. He flew ten meters, slammed his back against a tree, and slid to the ground, clutching a dislocated shoulder.
He looked up and froze. The triumph in his soul was replaced by icy, paralyzing horror.
Gaara was gone.
In his place, something was growing.
Sand churned, compacted, consuming trees, rocks, earth. It formed a gigantic body. A huge tail swept away ancient trees like matchsticks. Paws as thick as houses struck the ground, causing a local earthquake.
Before Sasuke towered Shukaku. The One-Tailed Demon of the Sand.
He was the size of a small mountain. His body consisted of sand painted with purple cursed markings. His eyes, yellow with black stars, burned with madness.
"FINALLY! I AM FREE!" the demon's voice was like a hurricane. Trees bent to the ground from the sound alone. "I WILL KILL YOU! I WILL KILL ALL OF YOU!"
Sakura, who had just run into the clearing, froze upon seeing this. Her knees gave way, and she fell into the grass, unable to make a sound. The scale of the threat was beyond comprehension.
Sasuke looked up, craning his neck. His body seemed insignificant compared to this mountain.
"What is... that?" he whispered with white lips.
He had tried to kill an enemy Genin. And awakened a deity.
The monster looked down at the tiny figure of the Uchiha.
"YOU! THE WORM WHO HURT ME! I WILL CRUSH YOU!"
A giant sand paw raised for a strike.
A shadow covered the clearing.
Sasuke tried to stand. Tried to create another Chidori.
But his arm was numb. His chakra was exhausted. The Cursed Seal on his neck, reacting to the presence of monstrous, evil Tailed Beast chakra, suddenly activated. But it didn't give strength. It resonated with fear. It paralyzed him with pain, twisting his body in a spasm.
"Argh..." Sasuke fell to his knees, unable to move.
"No..." he rasped. "I can't... die like this..."
He was elite. He was an avenger.
But in the face of a Bijū, all his titles, all his training, all his genius seemed like a sick joke. He had tried to stop an avalanche by throwing a stone at it.
The paw began to fall.
Sakura screamed.
Sasuke closed his eyes, waiting for the end.
BOOM!
The earth shook so hard Sasuke was tossed half a meter into the air.
But the blow didn't follow. Death didn't come.
Sasuke slowly opened his eyes.
In front of him, between him and Shukaku's giant paw, stood a figure.
It was small, insignificant compared to the demon. But it had stopped the strike.
Naruto Uzumaki stood there, feet planted in the ground which had cracked and sunk beneath him in a five-meter radius. His arms were raised, holding up the demon's giant sand finger.
An aura raged around Naruto. Not blue. And not just white.
It was a mixture.
His body was enveloped in a dense, almost solid layer of White Qi, which served as an internal frame, keeping his bones from crumbling to dust under the pressure of hundreds of tons. And over the Qi, like a second skin, burned the Red Chakra of the Kyūbi, creating an external force barrier.
Naruto was holding the weight of a mountain.
The sleeve of his clothes was torn to shreds. There was soot and blood on his face from breaking the Barrier. Muscles on his arms and back bulged; veins seemed about to burst. He growled through clenched teeth, his knees shaking but not bending.
"You..." Sasuke exhaled.
Naruto slowly turned his head. His neck cracked.
Blue eyes, in which a vertical pupil now coexisted with absolute, icy calm, looked at his teammate.
"I told you," Naruto rasped, his voice trembling from the monstrous strain. Every syllable came with difficulty. "You don't know what real monsters are, Sasuke."
He shifted his gaze upward, to the muzzle of Shukaku, who was pressing down harder, squealing with rage that some insect had stopped him.
Suddenly, a Naruto clone appeared next to the Uchiha.
He roughly grabbed him by the collar. With the other hand, he scooped up the paralyzed Sakura.
"Get up, Sasuke!" the clone barked. "If you want to live—move! This fight is out of your league!"
The clone threw them to the side, away from the kill zone.
The real Naruto let out a wild roar.
Qi Control: Maximum Reinforcement!
He shoved the paw upward, freeing himself from the pressure for a split second, and jumped back, landing on all fours like a beast.
Naruto straightened up, shaking off his hands.
He looked at the giant before him.
Fox, he called mentally. We're going to have to sweat for this.
"Finally, a worthy battle," the Kyūbi responded, and his chakra flooded Naruto's channels like a river. "Let's show this bag of sand who the real King of Beasts is."
Naruto formed a seal.
"Tajū Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
The forest filled with a thousand clones.
The battle of monsters had begun.