"You seem awfully pleased with yourself."
The voice slithered past Shukaku's ear, laced with killing intent sharp enough to slice through stone. The tailed beast's triumphant laughter was severed mid-breath, the sound dying in its throat.
Its colossal head jerked around. In its grainy pupils reflected the figure of the golden-haired boy the same brat who had whisked away its Tailed Beast Bomb with that irritating space-jutsu.
But now, he was different.
A strange, oppressive aura swirled around him. His eyes had shifted, pupils widened into the amphibian-like shape of a sage's gaze, golden irises glowing with cold detachment. That pressure it wasn't just chakra. It was something heavier, primal, threaded with nature's own energy. Like a blade drawn fresh from its sheath, the aura pierced straight into Shukaku's instincts.
"No way..." Shukaku muttered, its throat clicking nervously as it swallowed hard. It shook its massive head and growled, trying to dismiss the unease clawing at its chest.
Impossible, it thought. He was just a trickster, a child dabbling in teleportation. The real threat had been the Uchiha boy with the Sharingan, but that one was already drained dry, his chakra barely enough to keep those spinning tomoe alive. He was finished.
Three against one? Hah. It didn't matter.
Because it was a tailed beast an ancient monster that had lived for centuries, the One-Tail of the Sand!
Yet in the very next heartbeat, Shukaku's pupils shrank to pinpricks.
The boy wasn't bluffing.
He stood unmoving, golden sage chakra coiling around him, mingling with raw fire-nature energy that spun faster and faster in his palm. The orb in his hand shrieked with violent rotation, flames licking its edges like a living beast gnashing its teeth.
Every vibration of that sphere made the air whimper and warp, as though even the fabric of space itself would soon tear apart.
"Sage Art: Fire Style Rasenshuriken!" Naruto roared, and the jutsu ripped from his hand.
The blazing projectile screamed across the battlefield, leaving a streak of searing orange-red light in its wake.
Shukaku wanted to dodge.
But its sheer bulk betrayed it. That mountain-sized body was too slow, too heavy. Sand swirled in a desperate attempt to harden into a shield, but the fiery shuriken had already reached him.
"Boom!"
The Rasenshuriken smashed into Shukaku's abdomen with cataclysmic force. The explosion sent the monster tumbling back, its titanic form flung through the air like a broken toy. The earth beneath cracked in spiderweb patterns as the shockwave rippled outward.
Shukaku barely had a breath to register the pain before horror bloomed in its gaze. The spinning shuriken lodged in its belly began to expand, swelling like a burning sun about to go supernova.
And then it erupted.
A storm of fire and slicing wind detonated outward, swallowing the battlefield whole.
Shukaku's scream rattled the heavens, an animal howl laced with agony. Sand hardened into glass beneath the heat, fragments shattering and falling away as its body began to crumble. The chakra that sustained its form was buckling, unraveling, slipping away like sand through clenched fingers.
One thought carved itself through the beast's torment:
That brat had been hiding his true strength.
All this time, pretending, letting the Uchiha boy take the spotlight, while he himself prepared for this one decisive blow.
Cunning little fox.
When the inferno finally calmed, the battlefield was unrecognizable. The dunes of sand had been burned into smoldering craters, the air thick with ash and smoke. Shukaku was gone. In its place lay Gaara, his human host, unconscious and burned, chest still rising faintly with shallow breaths.
Naruto cast him a glance. Seeing that Gaara was alive, he turned away without hesitation. He had no interest in finishing him off.
"Come out!" Naruto's voice cracked through the smoky forest edge.
Two figures emerged hesitantly from the trees Temari and Kankuro.
They didn't bother to resist. Before someone like this, resistance was suicide.
Naruto's gaze was hard, stripped of warmth.
He remembered how he'd treated the Sand shinobi as allies, welcomed them, even invited them to Ichiraku Ramen. And in return? They had marched into his home, invaded his village, and tried to burn everything he loved to the ground.
He could have slaughtered them where they stood. The only mercy was that he didn't.
In a blur, he was upon them. His hands clamped down on their heads before they could even gasp.
Dark sealing runes writhed across their bodies, searing into their chakra pathways until, one by one, their power went silent.
"I've sealed your chakra," Naruto said coldly, his voice devoid of pity. "Stay put. Once I deal with the invaders, I'll decide what to do with you."
The siblings exchanged a glance, despair clouding their eyes. They hadn't expected it. Besides the Third Hokage, Konoha hid another monster within its walls and his name was Naruto.
A single strike had undone Shukaku itself. With such power on Konoha's side, what chance did their Sand and Sound forces have?
Meanwhile, Sasuke collapsed into a seated position, shutting his eyes to meditate and recover. Hinata stationed herself by the siblings, her pale Byakugan eyes sharp with watchfulness, killing intent simmering beneath her calm expression.
If they so much as twitched, she would cut them down without hesitation.
Naruto's job, however, was not done.
He reappeared atop a rooftop, where a purple barrier shimmered ominously. A squad of masked ANBU stood vigil, tense and powerless.
"Why aren't you inside helping the Third?" Naruto asked, his sudden presence making them stiffen.
"Lord Naruto?" the captain faltered, surprised. "Didn't you send Shukaku outside the village?"
"That was my shadow clone," Naruto replied flatly. "I just returned from Mount Myoboku." His gaze sharpened on the glowing walls of the barrier. "Four Violet Flames Formation?"
The captain hesitated, but nodded. "Yes. We tried breaching it, but anyone who touches the walls is burned alive. Only Kage-level strength could break through and even then, they've layered another barrier inside. The Third Hokage is trapped, fighting Orochimaru. We can't reach him."
"I see."
Naruto closed his eyes briefly, then opened them, golden irises blazing with renewed focus.
"Stand back."
The weight of his sage chakra poured outward, suffocating as storm clouds before a downpour. The ANBU captain's heart raced violently, as though squeezed by invisible hands. In a panic, he signaled retreat, and the squad leapt away, retreating to a safe distance.
Naruto lifted his hand.
Sage chakra boiled in his palm, brown and earthen, condensed into a whirling orb. He whispered the name of the technique, and the ground itself seemed to quake in anticipation.
"Sage Art: Earth Style Rasenshuriken."
The sound was not a battle cry. It was a death sentence.
The swirling construct expanded, layered with heavy bands of earthen energy, radiating a crushing gravity that warped the air. Tiles ripped from the roof, floating upward before pulverizing into dust.
The barrier trembled.
And in Naruto's hands, destruction was about to be unleashed.
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