The chaotic battle raged on.
"Hold the line! Their target is Gaara... we can't let them succeed!" Baki's roar cut through the tumult.
The elite Sunagakure jonin had lost his earlier composure; only anxiety and ferocity remained on his face. He whirled his kunai, parrying a tanto from a Konoha special jonin while kicking away a chunin attempting to flank him. But Konoha's numbers were overwhelming. Every enemy squad had a clear objective: split, encircle, eliminate Sunagakure's viable forces, and break through to seize or kill the red-haired boy they were protecting with their lives.
'Damn it! How could Konoha be this prepared?!' Baki cursed inwardly, cold sweat beading at his temple.
The plan had been completely exposed. Sunagakure had slipped over a hundred elite shinobi into the Land of Fire in small cells—the absolute limit they could move without raising alarms. Yet now they were trapped.
'We have to create even greater chaos... or we'll all die here, mission or no mission!' Baki's eyes sharpened, snapping toward the boy behind him. Gaara... only he could turn the tide now. Only the terror of Shukaku fully unleashed could flip this battlefield, shatter Konoha's defensive line, and give them a slim chance of survival. As for what would happen to Gaara afterward, or whether the One-Tail would run completely rampant... at this moment, Baki no longer cared.
"Gaara!" Baki barked, deflecting another blade. "Release the seal! Now! Unleash Shukaku completely! Or every last one of us—including you—dies in Konoha today!" His voice carried a hint of madness.
"Do it—NOW!"
Those words were the final spark that detonated Gaara's fragile restraint. Already eager, his face twisted in savage glee.
"Yes!" Gaara hissed. "Break the seal! Release the tailed beast!"
'Let these accursed Konoha ninja... let this cursed village... all feel pain. Feel terror. Feel my love.'
"Heh... heheh..." Gaara gave a low laugh. He straightened unsteadily, raised his hands, and began weaving the hand seals. Chakra rampaged inside him, stirring the being at the seal's depths.
"Seal—" Gaara threw his head back and shrieked, the piercing cry slicing across the battlefield. "—OPEN!"
"Come forth, Shukaku!" he roared. "Rampage! Let every one of them... feel my LOVE!"
The malevolent aura echoed; even the fierce clashes faltered for a heartbeat.
"No!" A Konoha jonin's face paled. "That jinchuriki... he's releasing the tailed beast completely!"
"Stop him! Stop him now! Shukaku mustn't emerge here!" an Anbu captain barked, a rare urgency in his voice.
"Damn... are we too late?!" a Konoha chunin despaired.
On Sunagakure's side, Baki's eyes blazed with savage hope. 'Yes! That's it! You can do it, Gaara!'
Temari and Kankuro went white, instinctively taking a half-step back. A suffocating dread seized the battlefield as everyone braced for the apocalyptic monster.
Yet—
One second.
Two seconds.
Three seconds.
The expected sandstorm, the titanic roar, the quaking earth... none came. Gaara remained frozen, his hands pressed to his stomach in the final seal.
"What's going on?" a Konoha chunin blurted. "The tailed beast... didn't emerge?!"
"Is the seal too strong? Does it need more time?"
"No idea... but it's a good thing!"
On Sunagakure's side, Baki spun toward Gaara. "Gaara! What's wrong?! Why haven't you released the seal?!"
His roar made Gaara flinch. Gaara slowly lowered his head, staring at his trembling hands. The crazed grin on his face crumbled like weathered sandstone. His lips moved, and from his throat came words that turned Baki's blood to ice.
"...The tailed beast..." Gaara whispered. "It's scared. It... doesn't dare come out?!"
The instant those words fell, a dead silence rippled outward. Baki froze. Kankuro froze. Temari froze. Every nearby Suna and Konoha shinobi who caught the words froze.
What did they just hear? The tailed beast was scared? It didn't dare emerge?
That was a tailed beast! A walking calamity! A massive construct of chakra! The very symbol of savagery and destruction! They could rage, rampage, and go mad... but 'scared'? 'Dare not'? Did those words have anything to do with a tailed beast?!
"W-what did you say?!" Kankuro snapped back to reality first, stumbling two steps closer and staring at his brother. "Gaara, get a grip! That's a tailed beast! How could it be scared?! It itches to destroy everything!"
Yet Gaara gave no response. His face was the picture of despair.
At the same time—
Inside Gaara's mindscape, Shukaku sensed the opened seal and let out an earth-shattering roar. Its colossal body slammed against the iron bars. Kankuro's muffled words filtering in from the outside only made the beast's ferocious eyes blaze brighter.
"Bastard! Bastard! BASTARD!" Shukaku's voice shook the entire cavernous space. "What do you mean, 'how could it be scared'?! A Tailed Beast is still a living creature! And... I'm NOT scared! I'm simply trusting my instincts!"
Glaring through the cracks in the seal, the giant tanuki raged at the puny human outside, its howls echoing uselessly within the mindscape. "And what do YOU know?!" Shukaku snarled. "Do you have any idea that damned brat is out there?! Right now! Somewhere watching!"
Beneath the fury in Shukaku's voice lurked a dread it would never admit. The fight in the Forest of Death had clearly left deep scars. The innate suppression of Wood Release, the sensation of being bound completely while its chakra was violently drained—that utter helplessness—it remembered every agonizing second. Shukaku felt thoroughly humiliated.
"Besides..." The tanuki halted its futile ramming and crouched low, sensing that terrifying presence far beyond the seal. Its voice dropped to a low growl through clenched fangs. "That damned brat... he's definitely grown stronger. I can feel it... that life-charged chakra... it's even vaster, even more dangerous than before!"
Shukaku lashed its tail in irritation, whipping up miniature sandstorms within the mindscape. "So... go out now? Go out and die?! I'm the One-Tail! The clever Shukaku! You think I'm that brainless Nine-Tailed Fox?!"
The proud tanuki scoffed at the mere thought of that idiot fox. "Hmph!"
The last of its bluster faded, leaving only a thick, suffocating unease. "I'm not going out... at least, not now." It curled up tightly—a defensive posture that looked almost comical on such a colossal body. "Unless... unless that brat leaves... or..."
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