"I see."
Kakashi looks enlightened, quickly leaping forward between the trees.
Just now, he learned the details of this mission from Takumi.
"I didn't expect the Akatsuki to capture Gaara."
Kakashi's expression is grave. "Their target must be the Tailed Beast inside Gaara."
"But what exactly do they want to do?"
Kakashi cannot understand the reason for their actions.
Because he lacks enough intelligence to support his analysis.
In his view, Tailed Beasts serve as a village's deterrent power.
A village with a Tailed Beast can naturally avoid the covetous glances of other villages.
Especially for small countries' villages, a Tailed Beast alone can completely obliterate them.
This shows how terrifying a Tailed Beast's power is.
But the Akatsuki is just an underground organization.
'Are they capturing Tailed Beasts intending to establish their own village?'
'But the entire organization only has a few people.'
'This is clearly unrealistic.'
But aside from that, Kakashi can't think of any other reason for them to capture Tailed Beasts.
"Who knows what they're thinking. A bunch of incomprehensible lunatics."
Temari's eyes are full of hatred, along with worry.
She wishes she could return to the Land of Wind immediately, find Gaara, and rescue him.
But unfortunately, she cannot.
She doesn't have that kind of strength.
"Calm down."
Chiyo's expression is somewhat dejected, her complexion not very good.
After all, she is a grandmother over 70 years old.
In the Shinobi World, this is already very long-lived.
The average lifespan of a Shinobi is only fifty.
And this is during peacetime.
If it were wartime, the average lifespan would be thirty.
Back then, it was completely fighting with human lives.
Even the God of Shinobi, Senju Hashirama, lost two younger brothers to war when he was young.
Someone as strong as him had such an experience.
Other clans are even harder to imagine.
War is never something to be revered.
"Since they captured Gaara instead of releasing Shukaku on the spot, they must have some purpose."
Chiyo says slowly. "In that case, they will definitely not kill Gaara. However..."
"However?"
Temari anxiously looks at Chiyo, waiting for her to continue.
"Just as Takumi-kun said earlier, if the Tailed Beast is forcibly extracted from Gaara's body, he, as the Jinchuriki, will inevitably die."
Chiyo slightly opens her eyes, her expression becoming grave. "This is unavoidable."
'Perhaps, I really will have to use that technique.'
'The purpose of creating this technique back then was to protect someone important who could lead Sunagakure, wasn't it?'
'Although Gaara is still young, he has enough sense of responsibility.'
'What happened that night, although his response was slightly immature, showed how much he values Sunagakure.'
'The previous Kazekage would never have made such a response.'
Chiyo ponders in her heart, and her hesitation quickly firms up.
But deep in her heart, there is actually another scenario.
If possible, she actually wants to exchange her life for Sasori's.
Life for life, to protect her only grandson.
But at this moment, she does not know that Sasori, in his pursuit of eternal art, has already transformed his own body into a puppet.
Her plan was doomed from the start.
"Regardless of their purpose, we must stop them."
Takumi leads the way. To accommodate the others' speed and preserve their stamina, they can only advance at this leisurely pace.
"Gaara is a responsible person. He was able to sacrifice himself to protect the village. This spirit is worth learning from."
Takumi already knows the entire process of the capture.
Even if there are some discrepancies, they are generally the same.
But if he remains indifferent after hearing about Gaara's actions from Temari and the others, it would somewhat betray his persona.
So he has to put on an admiring look.
In fact, regardless of whether Gaara's choice was foolish, his actions were not wrong.
At most, he should have had a better way to handle it, rather than so crudely blocking the enemy's explosion.
But the fact that he protected Sunagakure is undeniable.
As a village leader, Gaara is undoubtedly qualified.
His path to becoming Kazekage is completely unobstructed.
The only thing blocking him is strength.
Although he is currently a Jinchuriki, he cannot control it well.
So, the Tailed Beast cannot simply be counted as part of his strength.
Looking at it this way, his strength seems somewhat lacking.
Not yet worthy of the title of Kage.
Especially now.
The Tailed Beast inside him is about to be extracted.
Takumi knows this is an inevitable process.
The Akatsuki definitely already know they are coming.
After all, Black Zetsu's intel is very strong.
Knowing that he is about to arrive, Pain will definitely not slowly absorb it over several days.
He will definitely use the fastest speed to extract it immediately.
So, the time they have is not much.
Or rather, by the time they arrive, they will most likely see Gaara's cold corpse.
It's even possible the Akatsuki have already left.
Whether Gaara lives or dies doesn't matter much to Takumi.
Although his Medical Ninjutsu is useless against this kind of death,
Chiyo is there.
Her life-for-life technique is very powerful.
If a weak person learns this technique and then revives a strong person who has just died,
It's a classic exchange of weak for strong.
It's just that this method is slightly cruel.
Takumi believes this technique will definitely become a forbidden art in the future.
Currently, the only person who knows this technique is its developer, Chiyo.
After she dies, this technique will completely disappear.
Takumi doesn't feel sorry about this.
If this technique fell into Orochimaru's hands, with his research abilities, it might become another technique like Edo Tensei.
Then Orochimaru would probably become even more difficult to deal with.
Not in terms of combat power, but in his ability to survive.
Killing him completely would probably become hopeless.
The reason Itachi was able to seal Orochimaru back then was relying on the unreasonable sealing power of the Totsuka Blade.
He doesn't have such a convenient ability.
To completely kill Orochimaru, he would have to kill everyone on whom Orochimaru placed a Cursed Seal.
Otherwise, Orochimaru would eventually be revived from one of them.
Shaking his head, he disperses the complicated thoughts.
The speed of advance is too slow.
He can't help but start thinking about this and that.
"What's wrong?"
Kakashi notices him shaking his head and immediately looks at him. "Did you find something?"
"Nothing."
Takumi says. "Just thinking about why they are capturing the Tailed Beasts."
"Any ideas?"
Kakashi asks, and everyone else's eyes also fall on Takumi.
"..."
Takumi hesitates for a moment, then says, "I happened to learn some information, but I can't confirm its accuracy."