Looking at the man ahead of them, with his harmless face and even a gentle smile, they simply couldn't connect that image with the phrase strongest shinobi in the world.
Weren't legendary powerhouses supposed to look fierce, thick-necked, or at least radiate killing intent? The contrast was way too extreme.
In the memories of Sunagakure's shinobi, their Kazekage always looked like his face had been carved from ice. No smile, no warmth, no softness.
But that had never hurt his popularity in the village. If anything, the younger generation thought it was the coolest thing imaginable.
That cold, untouchable aura only made more of the younger shinobi idolize him.
And yet now, watching Akira walk shoulder to shoulder with Temari, chatting and laughing openly, sometimes even throwing his head back with an easy laugh, their entire worldview was cracking.
The Suna ninja simply couldn't process the sight in front of them. It was hard to believe that this guy, who smiled like the friendly older brother next door, was supposedly even stronger than their own ice-cold Kazekage.
They had heard he could pin down a Tailed Beast with one hand, and that he might very well be the current ceiling of the entire shinobi world.
The two chunin assigned to receive them stared at Akira so hard their eyes nearly bugged out.
Still, on second thought, now that Akira himself had arrived, Matsuri quietly let out a breath of relief. In her heart, she felt that Gaara really might have a chance now.
"Konoha really went all in this time. They sent a monster powerful enough to anchor a whole village. That's sincerity on another level. If he steps in, the odds of bringing Gaara-sensei back have to go way up."
Those two chunin still had no real grasp of Akira's true combat ability, but after hearing Matsuri's almost mythic description, hope flared up in both of them.
"Let's hope so. If he really brings Kazekage-sama back in one piece, then he'll be a savior to all of Sunagakure."
The moment Akira entered Sunagakure's gates with Temari at his side, the news spread through the upper levels of the village like wildfire.
The already tense leadership of Sunagakure instantly exploded into chaos. The whole administrative tower was in uproar.
Emergency orders flew out one after another. The village's defense forces were ordered to assemble at once and enter top-level combat readiness.
In the eyes of these old officials, Akira's threat level was several times more terrifying than the Akatsuki, the very group that had kidnapped Gaara.
Even though the intelligence suggested that Akira had been relatively restrained in recent years and hadn't gone on any major killing sprees, this was still an extremely volatile moment. Konoha suddenly dropping its own walking nuclear weapon into Sunagakure was enough to make everyone's nerves scream.
After all, this was the man who could reportedly tame a Tailed Beast like it was a household pet. Who in their right mind would gamble their village's survival on the hope that he simply wouldn't feel like attacking?
Even Chiyo-hime, who had only recently come out of retirement, stiffened slightly when she heard Akira's name.
For years she had lived in near-isolation, avoiding the world as much as possible. Yes, she still sent spies to gather information on the Akatsuki, but that was purely for one reason: to track down her grandson, Sasori.
As for who Akira even was, she truly had no idea. Which wasn't surprising. She couldn't even keep up with all the names of the shinobi already famous throughout the world, let alone someone from the newer generation like Akira.
But once the village elders, stammering the whole way through, finished explaining Akira's terrifying resume, disbelief filled Chiyo's old, clouded eyes. Konoha had actually produced another monster like this?
Surprised or not, experience still spoke loudest. With a single wave of her hand, Chiyo shut down the unrest among the defense troops.
Against someone on Akira's level, sending out the defense corps would be nothing but a public humiliation. If he didn't intend to make trouble, then fine, peace held. But if he did decide to move, Sunagakure in its current half-dead state simply had no one who could stop him.
So Chiyo decisively ordered the defense forces to stand down and return to their positions instead of making fools of themselves. She then led the village's senior leadership to the conference room in the Kazekage building, where they waited in grim silence.
Meanwhile, Kakashi, Naruto, and Sakura, who had already arrived, broke into grins the moment they heard that Akira himself had come as reinforcements.
Up until now, they had all felt uneasy deep down. None of them had been fully confident about taking Gaara back from the Akatsuki. But now that Akira had arrived, they suddenly felt like they had a mountain at their backs.
Kakashi especially had a complicated look in his one exposed dead-fish eye.
Over the past three years, he'd been so busy he barely had time to breathe, let alone properly catch up with Akira.
Officially, Akira was his student, but the truth was that he knew almost nothing about how much the boy had grown over those three years. It really did make him feel like a failure of a teacher.
He even mocked himself inwardly for it. Calling what he'd done "teaching" was generous. He had basically just let Akira raise himself.
But he couldn't take all the blame.
Mostly, this came down to Tsunade working Kakashi like a draft animal. Every high-risk S-rank assignment in the village somehow landed on his desk.
And really, there was no choice.
Looking across all of Konoha, the only people who could endure that level of punishing mission pressure were Akira and Kakashi, these two lone saplings.
Among the village's active jonin, in both overall skill and solo combat ability, this teacher-student pair were miles ahead of everyone else.
To be fair, Akira's own life wasn't exactly easy either. His mission list was outrageous. In only three years, he had torn through four or five S-rank missions and over a dozen A-rank ones. That was not the kind of workload a newly promoted jonin should have been carrying.
You could say teacher and student were Konoha's twin workhorses, both equally overworked.
Akira had it slightly better. Now and then, he could still steal half a day of peace for himself. Kakashi, on the other hand, was truly miserable. He barely got a moment to breathe and spent most of the year running missions outside the village.
Fortunately, things had started improving recently. As Konoha's younger generation gradually matured, the village wasn't quite so desperately short-handed anymore, and Kakashi's workload had finally begun to ease.
That was why he now had the rare luxury of standing here and waiting without being pulled in five different directions.
By seniority, Sakura was technically Akira's junior. She was Tsunade's direct student, and Tsunade, in a sense, had also been half a teacher to Akira, since she'd passed on all her most guarded medical jutsus to him.
There was simply no other way to explain a choice that openly defied old traditions.
After all, Tsunade's medical ninjutsu was one of the ninja world's true treasures. Countless people would have killed just to learn a single fragment of it.
Sakura had been accepted as a student because Tsunade saw the girl's fine chakra control and stubborn resilience and decided she had promise.
Akira's case, though, was completely different, far beyond Sakura's understanding. Tsunade had not taught him because of teacher-student duty. She had taught him because he was the one closest to her heart, and that meant she was willing to give him everything without reservation.
Even though, to be fair, Akira had figured out most of it by experimentation and self-study anyway.
Still, there was no denying it. In both breadth and depth of knowledge, Akira's medical ninjutsu was leagues beyond Sakura's by now.
Which led to a rather awkward truth: Akira had already surpassed Tsunade herself in medical skill, while Sakura was still fighting just to catch up to her teacher's shadow.
Hearing that Akira had come to help, Sakura felt both happy and strangely nervous.
Naruto, on the other hand, was just plain thrilled. In his mind, once Akira showed up, getting Gaara back was practically guaranteed.
At that moment, outside the Kazekage building, the wind howled through the streets, carrying curtains of sand with it.
Kakashi, Sakura, and Naruto stood at the entrance like three statues, gazing into the distance and waiting.
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