When new names lit up on the giant electronic board under the ceiling, the hall buzzed, exhaling the tension of the previous fights.
ROCK LEE vs GAARA
To most spectators, including Sakura, it looked like beating a baby. On one side—a strange guy in green spandex. On the other—a grim Genin from the Sand who had passed the second stage without a scratch, and whose reputation as a killer had already leaked into the ranks of participants.
But for Naruto, it was a battle of two extremes.
Lee descended into the arena with a jump full of energy. Gaara appeared there in a swirl of sand that flowed from his gourd and gently lowered its master to the floor. He stood with his arms crossed, his gaze empty and abrasive as a dead desert.
Hayate Gekkō coughed and waved his hand.
"Begin!"
Lee showed speed. Incredible speed for a Genin. He rushed forward, delivering a series of kicks. But his blows didn't reach the target. Gaara's sand moved on its own, a living wave creating shields faster than a fist could touch pale skin.
Lee jumped back, frowning. His attacks were useless.
"Take them off, Lee!" Guy shouted from the balcony, flashing a smile.
Lee smiled back, jumped onto the giant statue forming hand seals, and sat down to pull off his orange leg warmers.
"But Guy-sensei, you said only in extreme cases..." Lee began.
"This is an extreme case!"
Lee unbuckled the weights. Outwardly, they looked like ordinary cloth pads. He let them go.
Time seemed to slow down. The Jinchūriki, watching from the balcony, narrowed his eyes.
The weights touched the floor.
BOOM!!!
The sound wasn't just loud—it was tectonic.
The concrete floor of the arena exploded. Two clouds of dust shot upward, reaching the balcony level. The building shuddered as if in an earthquake. Spectators grabbed the railings to keep from falling.
When the dust settled, everyone saw two deep craters, in the center of which lay seemingly small weights.
"Whoa..." Naruto said quietly, but there was no amusement in his voice.
Qi Sensory instantly assessed the density of the metal. It wasn't steel. It was a super-dense alloy. Hundreds of kilograms on each leg.
He wore that constantly? the youth analyzed. That's a monstrous load on joints and ligaments. He turned his body into a compressed spring. And now he removed the stopper.
Lee vanished.
Literally.
Even a trained eye could barely track his movements. He moved faster than sound. Gaara's sand, previously seemingly impenetrable, simply couldn't keep up.
BAM!
The first kick landed on Gaara's jaw. The sand shield didn't have time to form fully. Gaara flew backward.
BAM-BAM!
Blows rained down from all sides. Lee was everywhere.
While the Konoha participants cheered, Uzumaki remained serious. He looked deeper. He switched his vision to the energy spectrum.
He saw that the sand protecting Gaara wasn't just a technique. It wasn't an automatic chakra reaction. In every grain of sand, a separate will pulsed. Alien, ancient.
"That's not human," the blonde whispered. "That sand... it's alive."
Lee, realizing that speed alone wasn't enough to pierce the absolute defense, decided on a desperate step. He jumped back and began unwinding the bandages on his arms.
The atmosphere changed. The air around Lee began to vibrate and heat up.
Gate of Opening. Gate of Healing. Gate of Life.
Lee's skin turned red, acquiring the hue of boiled meat. Veins on his temples and neck bulged, becoming like thick cords. Chakra exploded in green flame roaring around his body.
Everyone gasped in awe, looking at this power. Sakura covered her mouth with her hand. Guy clenched his fists in pride, whispering: "Go, Lee! Show the power of youth!"
Naruto watched this with the professional horror of a practitioner who understood the price of laying a Foundation.
To him, this wasn't "cool." It was a catastrophe.
Sensory perception showed a terrifying picture: Lee's chakra channels, not designed for such a flow, were expanding and tearing. Micro-tears in muscles occurred every millisecond. Blood was boiling.
He's burning himself, the cultivator realized, and his face turned to stone. It's a suicidal technique. He takes his Foundation—his life force, his future health—and throws it into the furnace for a few minutes of superior power. This isn't the path to cultivation. It's the path to disability or the grave.
Lee surged forward. The floor beneath him turned to rubble. The air exploded with vacuum pops from his every movement.
A series of monstrous blows launched the opponent into the air, after which he wrapped him in bandages. Hidden Lotus.
The final blow. Gaara slammed into the ground, raising a pillar of dust.
Victory seemed close. Silence hung in the hall. Lee, swaying, landed. His skin remained crimson; he could barely stand.
But when the dust settled...
Gaara lay in the crater. His face cracked. Pieces of "skin" fell off like broken ceramics, revealing real skin underneath, but the sand had withstood the impact force.
"Armor of Sand..." someone among the Jonin exhaled.
Gaara raised his hand. His eyes were wide open, but there was no pain in them. Only madness.
In that moment, the Jinchūriki felt it.
Cold. Sticky, ominous cold that was even stronger and more ancient than Orochimaru's. It wasn't a lust for murder for a goal. It was a lust for destruction for the process itself.
The sand surged, taking the form of an ugly, giant clawed paw looming over the exhausted Lee.
Deep in Naruto's subconscious, in the pitch darkness of the cage, two huge scarlet eyes with vertical pupils opened.
"Hmph..."
The Nine-Tails, who had been dozing until now, ignoring the petty scuffling of humans, raised his head. His giant tails moved lazily, raising waves of mental water.
"Shukaku. My insane little brother."
Uzumaki froze, listening to the voice in his head while his eyes tracked the sand paw.
You know this creature?
"One-Tailed Tanuki," the Nine-Tails' voice held not so much respect as squeamish, arrogant condescension. "The embodiment of sand, hysteria, and inferiority complexes. But look at that boy, jailer. Look closely at his stomach."
Naruto focused his sensory perception.
He saw the seal on Gaara's stomach. And what he saw only reinforced his impression.
It wasn't a complex, multi-layered, spiral cage like his, created by the genius of the Fourth Hokage.
It was a crude, primitive, leaky patch.
The Demon's chakra flooded the guy's system, mixing with his own, corroding his sanity like acid.
"A leaky vessel," the Fox stated with expert cruelty. "He doesn't hold the power. He drowns in it. Every second of his life, he hears the Tanuki's voice demanding blood. He doesn't sleep because he fears the Tanuki will eat his mind in his sleep. He is broken."
The blonde looked at Gaara. At the black circles under his eyes, speaking of years of insomnia. At his shaking hands. At his gaze, which held nothing human.
And he understood.
That's me, realization hit him harder than any blow. That's me if I didn't have Qi. If I didn't have bonds. If I didn't have Will. If my seal was weaker. I could have become the same. A monster who kills to prove his existence because the voice inside gives him no peace.
Instead of fear, the youth felt a strange, grim calm. Understanding. And pity mixed with the necessity to stop this.
Below, in the arena, the fight was nearing a bloody finale.
Lee was exhausted. The Gates closed, leaving his body broken, with torn muscles, absolutely defenseless. He tried to crawl away, but his body wouldn't obey.
Gaara, whose armor was already regenerating, clenched his hand into a fist.
"Sabaku Kyū! (Sand Coffin)."
The sand, like a living anaconda, wrapped around Lee's left arm and leg.
CRUNCH.
The sound was disgusting. Dry and wet simultaneously. The sound of bones crumbling into shards under monstrous pressure.
Lee screamed, but the scream cut off as he lost consciousness from shock. Naruto saw a flash of agony in Lee's aura before it faded to a glowing ember.
Gaara raised his hand again. The sand surged in a wave, gathering to crush Lee completely, turn him into a bloody smear.
BAM!
An explosion of air scattered the sand.
Might Guy appeared in the arena. He simply punched the sand wave, dispelling the technique with superior physical strength.
He stood in front of his student, shielding him.
The sand froze.
Gaara clutched his head. His face twisted in a grimace of pain and total, absolute confusion. His pupils constricted.
"Why?.." he whispered, and his voice trembled. "Why did you save him? He lost. He is weak. He is trash."
"Because he is..." Guy looked at Lee's broken body with such fatherly tenderness and pain that the spectators' hearts ached, "...my precious student."
Gaara's eyes widened.
This concept—protecting someone precious—was alien to his distorted mind. It went against Shukaku's voice. It caused him physical, mental pain.
"Love..." he hissed, and the sand around him trembled, reacting to the Jinchūriki's instability. "Family... Disgusting."
Medics ran onto the arena, carrying Lee away. Guy announced the forfeiture.
Gaara slowly turned around. The sand retracted back into his gourd, leaving a bloody trail behind.
He walked toward the exit, but stopped halfway.
His instincts, sharpened by the demon, howled. He felt a gaze on him.
Gaara slowly raised his head and looked at the balcony. Right at the other Jinchūriki.
Their eyes met.
Gaara's turquoise eyes, full of madness, loneliness, and bloodlust.
And Uzumaki's blue eyes, cold and calm as ice concealing a volcano.
In that gaze, there was no fear Gaara expected. There was recognition.
Gaara slowly raised his hand and drew a finger across his throat, mouthing silently:
You. Your blood... it smells tastier than the rest. I will kill you.
Naruto didn't blink. Didn't look away. He nodded slowly, barely perceptibly.
Try it if you can.
***
The tournament continued; soon the Hokage nodded to the proctor, and he pressed a button on the console. The electronic board hissed, shuffling the finalists' names.
"Attention to the screen," Hayate announced. "These are your opponents for the final stage in one month."
The names froze.
1st MATCH: Temari (Suna) vs Shikamaru Nara (Konoha)
2nd MATCH: Kankurō (Suna) vs Shino Aburame (Konoha)
3rd MATCH: Naruto Uzumaki (Konoha) vs Neji Hyuga (Konoha)
4th MATCH: Kiba Inuzuka (Konoha) vs Gaara (Suna)
"Third match..." the blonde murmured, crossing his arms. "So I have to wait."
Neji, standing a few meters from him, chuckled coldly.
"You will have more time to enjoy your last days as a shinobi," he threw out. "Fate gave you a reprieve, but the outcome of the third match is predetermined."
The cultivator didn't even turn his head.
"Get ready," he answered in an even tone. "In a month, I'll show you where your 'fate' belongs."
At the other end of the hall, Kiba, seeing his name next to Gaara's, swallowed nervously. Akamaru whined inside his jacket and hid his nose.
"Come on," Inuzuka blustered, though his voice shook. "That Sand guy... well, he's creepy, but we can take him, right, Akamaru?"
The dog didn't answer, trembling all over.
Gaara didn't even look at his opponent. His gaze was riveted to Naruto's back.