The moment Sakura heard that Akira was holding the line up front alone, panic hit her immediately. This was a rampaging Tailed Beast. How could one person possibly be enough?
Kakashi's face remained grim. There was no helping it. On that battlefield, Akira was the only one with both the experience and the power to suppress a Tailed Beast.
The second he said that, the shinobi of Sunagakure finally realized something.
So the legendary fighter who could go toe-to-toe with a Tailed Beast was standing right in front of them.
Sakura clenched her fists unwillingly. Every time it really mattered, she could only stand there and watch. That kind of helplessness was unbearable.
Only then did Temari notice Gaara's body lying on the ground. Her entire world collapsed in an instant.
Chiyo let out a weary sigh and spoke the brutal truth aloud. Once the Tailed Beast was extracted, the jinchuriki died. That was the rule.
Temari broke down completely, sobbing so hard she could barely breathe. But Gaara was already gone, and the last thing she wanted was for Akira to die here too.
She had heard Akira was strong.
But that was the Nine-Tails in a berserk state.
Neji activated his Byakugan and fixed his gaze on the lone figure at the center of the battlefield, silently praying.
You idiot, don't you dare die. If you do, Hinata-hime will cry herself apart.
And the man everyone was worrying about was now standing alone in front of the monster that had already grown a sixth tail.
At this point, Naruto's own consciousness had long since vanished. All that remained was pure murderous instinct.
White skeletal structures had begun forming over the dark red chakra cloak. On all fours, he looked like a miniature Nine-Tailed Fox brought to life in flesh and hate.
The sheer evil radiating off him was so oppressive it made the air itself feel thick.
Akira stood before the already unrecognizable Naruto, his brows drawn together hard, disappointment plain in his eyes.
"You really are pathetic. You've only reached six tails and your mind's already collapsed. Compared to the two women who came before you, your control is worlds apart."
It was true that Uzumaki Mito and Uzumaki Kushina had never completely tamed the beast either.
But at the very least, when they entered full Tailed Beast states, they remained fully conscious.
In other words, neither of those two women had ever truly let the fox run wild.
Inside their bodies, the Nine-Tails had been little more than a punching bag, suppressed so thoroughly it was no wonder the beast hated the mere mention of them.
Inside Naruto, at least the fox still got its own little barred room, and every now and then it could still roar.
But if it had been sealed inside either of those two Uzumaki women, the Nine-Tails' life would have been closer to being nailed onto a bed of molten rock and tortured there.
And on top of that, both women had mastered sealing jutsu to a terrifying degree. They could pull however much of the Nine-Tails' chakra they wanted, whenever they wanted. The fox wouldn't even have had the right to complain.
Compared to them, Naruto might have carried the Uzumaki name, but his bloodline was diluted enough that it barely helped him. He didn't possess those ocean-like chakra reserves, and when it came to sealing jutsu, he understood next to nothing.
No wonder he couldn't control the Nine-Tails, let alone truly make its power his own.
Yes, Naruto had been born lucky enough to carry Asura's chakra inside him, but his body was still far too fragile compared to monsters like Hashirama Senju. Frankly, he wasn't even on his mother's level.
It wasn't until the Fourth Great Ninja War, when the Sage of Six Paths essentially handed him a miracle and his Asura chakra fully awakened, that he truly rose.
As if sensing the mockery in Akira's voice, Naruto let out a beastlike growl, and the dark red chakra around him bubbled more violently.
Akira didn't even blink.
Instead, the edge of his gaze flicked toward Gaara's lifeless body at Naruto's feet.
A flash of violet lit up his Rinnegan, and the space around them twisted.
In the blink of an eye, Gaara's bloodied body vanished.
Then Akira's own figure dissolved from sight as well, as suddenly and eerily as a ghost.
Every blade of grass and every tree within a hundred kilometers lay inside the range of his sensory network. With a single thought, the Rinnegan's spatial power could let him appear anywhere within it.
At the edge of the forest, a whole group stood straining their eyes toward the battle, sick with worry.
Without warning, the air rippled.
Akira stepped out of empty space as though he had simply walked through a hidden doorway in the world.
He gently laid Gaara's body down on the sand, then turned to look at Temari's panic-stricken face.
"I'm sorry. I got there too late. I couldn't save his life."
Kakashi stared at Akira, his one visible eye widening so much it practically turned round, his mind filled with questions.
This was ridiculous.
Akira had never placed a Flying Raijin mark on any of them, so how exactly had he just teleported here?
That had absolutely not been ordinary Lightning Flicker. The texture of that movement, the way it tore through space, was unmistakable.
Sakura, however, suddenly covered her mouth, a memory flashing through her mind.
It was then... he marked me with Flying Raijin back then!
And the instant that memory surfaced, her cheeks went burning hot. That had been the first time in her life someone had seen her so completely.
Akira had no time to explain anything.
His job here was only to pull Gaara out.
He still had to go back and deal with the disaster he had left behind.
Kakashi had just opened his mouth, about to ask about Naruto's condition, when a world-shaking roar exploded from deep within the forest.
"ROOOOAR—!"
The sound carried endless savagery and killing intent. A horrifying wave of chakra swept outward, sending every bird in the forest bursting into the sky in chaos.
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