Chapter 327: Stopping the Berserk Beast! Gaara's Exhaustion
The violent tremor traveling up Gaara's arm sent a shockwave of disbelief through his mind. What terrifying physical strength. After violently repelling Gaara with a single, brutal swipe, the Three-Tails cloaked Naruto did not pause. The beast pivoted, its hollow, glowing eyes locking dead onto Temari and Hinata standing nearby.
"Not good!" Gaara's teal pupils constricted to pinpricks. He barked out a stern command, his usual calm shattering. "Temari! Hinata! Retreat immediately! You cannot handle him!"
"But, Naruto-kun..." Hinata whispered. She stared at that familiar face, now twisted into a terrifyingly feral grimace. Her pale eyes swam with deep anxiety, her feet rooted to the earth as if paralyzed by the sheer malice radiating from the boy she cared for.
"Hinata! Listen to Gaara! Move!" Temari grabbed the Hyuga girl's arm, forcefully shoving her backward to break her paralysis.
Temari then stepped forward, placing herself directly in the line of fire. Her eyes narrowed with absolute solemnity as she blocked the path. With a sharp flick of her wrist, her massive Three-Star Fan unfurled, the heavy iron joints clicking into place. "Naruto has completely lost his mind! You staying here will only make you a liability!"
Before the last syllable even left her lips, the ground shattered. A blinding red afterimage materialized right in front of her.
"Wind Release: Great Breakthrough!"
In that split second between life and death, Temari surged her chakra into her weapon and swung the giant fan forward with a ferocious, sweeping arc. A furious, howling tempest erupted from the iron ribs.
The charging figure of the Three-Tails Naruto took the sudden, concentrated gale head-on. The sheer kinetic force of the wind slammed into the dense red chakra cloak, sending the feral jinchuriki skidding backward across the torn earth.
But the beast merely dug its claws into the dirt. Three-Tails Naruto let out a guttural, ear-piercing roar. Defying the laws of physics, he leaned into the violent wind pressure, his muscles bulging beneath the bubbling red chakra as he forced his way forward, step by agonizing step.
"Damn it!" Temari cursed, her face draining of color. She swung her fan again and again, sending wave after wave of slicing gales at the monster, but the relentless advance could not be halted.
"Stand back!" Gaara's cold voice echoed from behind her. He dropped to his knees, slamming both palms flat against the shattered earth. "Desert Waterfall Imperial Funeral!"
The ground groaned. Endless torrents of yellow sand erupted from beneath the bedrock, transforming the solid training field into a churning, turbulent sea of crushing grit. The tidal wave of sand crashed forward, instantly submerging the Three-Tails Naruto up to his knees.
"Now! Temari, fall back!" Gaara roared over the rushing sand.
Temari instantly grasped his tactical intent. She cut off her ninjutsu, using the residual recoil of her Wind Release to launch herself backward in a rapid tactical retreat, landing smoothly beside the trembling Hinata.
Freed from the oppressive headwind, the feral Naruto lunged forward to break free. However, the earth beneath his clawed feet was no longer solid ground. It had become a treacherous, constantly flowing quicksand ocean.
His dense, chakra-heavy body immediately sank. His terrifying mobility was instantly crippled. The vicious beast let out an enraged, bubbling shriek. The three dense chakra tails whipping behind him acted like giant, thrashing pythons, violently lashing against the shifting sand surface in a desperate bid to launch himself out of the trap.
But Gaara was a master of his element; he would never offer his prey such an opening.
"Shield of Sand!" Gaara abruptly clapped his hands together, the sound sharp over the roaring earth.
The churning sea of sand directly in front of Naruto erupted skyward. The loose grains rapidly compressed and condensed in mid-air, hardening into an impossibly thick, towering wall of absolute defense, completely sealing off Naruto's forward path.
"Temari! Hinata! Get further away!" Gaara shouted again, not daring to take his eyes off the barricade.
"Gaara..." Temari looked at her younger brother's pale, sweat-beaded face, her chest tightening with dread.
"Hinata, we have to listen to him. Let's fall back to a safe distance!" She grabbed the still-hesitant Hyuga heiress by the shoulders, physically dragging her toward the far edge of the training grounds.
Back in the center of the battlefield.
The Three-Tails Naruto, bogged down in the suffocating sea of sand, suddenly hunched his spine. Bubbling red chakra flared as he channeled explosive force into all four of his limbs.
The compressed sand beneath his feet instantly detonated, blasting open a massive crater. Launching himself like a fired cannonball, the jinchuriki transformed into a blinding red streak of light, slamming head-on into the towering Shield of Sand.
It was pure, unadulterated physical strength. A savage, apocalyptic impact. A deafening boom echoed throughout the entire training ground, shaking the very air.
Gaara's fully reinforced Shield of Sand trembled violently under the terrifying kinetic strike.
Crack... crack...
Ugly, jagged fissures, resembling a massive spiderweb, spread wildly across the supposedly impenetrable barricade.
This monster's raw power... Gaara's expression warped, a flicker of genuine horror bleeding into his teal eyes. Even the absolute defense of the Shield of Sand cannot stop him?!
With a final, ear-splitting detonation, the supposedly unbreakable wall of compressed minerals was violently breached. The Three-Tails Naruto smashed a massive, jagged hole straight through the center of the barrier.
Bursting free from the debris, the feral Naruto did not pause for a fraction of a second. The red beast hit the ground running, charging madly toward Gaara with murderous intent.
"It is not over yet!" A sharp, dangerous glint flashed in Gaara's eyes. His hands blurred, weaving signs at an astonishing speed. "Sand Coffin!"
The turbulent sea of sand beneath them truly came alive.
Whoosh!
Endless waves of yellow grit surged upward from all directions, twisting and braiding together to form two colossal, muscular arms of sand. Moving with lightning speed, the giant hands slammed inward, grabbing at the charging Naruto from both flanks.
Simultaneously, a terrifying tidal wave of sand, cresting dozens of meters into the air, blotted out the sun as it descended from the sky, crashing down directly onto the beast's head.
"ROAR!!!"
The Three-Tails Naruto let out a furious, unwilling shriek. The three dense tails of chakra thrashed wildly, slicing through the air in a desperate attempt to shatter the incoming avalanche of yellow sand.
But this time, the sheer volume of the earth was simply too massive. It was overwhelming. Endless.
Thud! Thud!
The beast's clawed arms were the first to be immobilized, firmly seized and pinned to his sides by the colossal sand hands attacking from the left and right.
A split second later, the sky-obscuring wave of sand crashed down upon him like a collapsing mountain. The entire battlefield shook violently under the immense weight.
Endless tons of yellow sand, centered entirely on Naruto's trapped form, frantically converged. The grains enveloped him, layering over one another, compressing with bone-crushing density.
In the span of a few shallow breaths, a gargantuan sphere of compressed sand—over twenty meters in diameter and etched with complex, glowing sealing formulas—dominated the center of the ruined training grounds.
It firmly and absolutely sealed the rampaging Three-Tails Naruto within its dark, crushing core.
"Hah... hah..." Gaara dropped to one knee, his chest heaving as he panted heavily. His usually stoic face was now as pale as a sheet of paper.
The intense skirmish prior to this, compounded by the rapid-fire execution of such massive, terrain-altering ninjutsu, had drained his chakra reserves to dangerously low levels.
"Did he... succeed?" Hinata asked softly from her distant vantage point, her pale eyes locked nervously onto the floating, monolithic sphere of sand.
Temari, however, did not relax. Her brow remained tightly furrowed, her grip on her iron fan white-knuckled. "No... it is not over yet!"
No sooner had the words left her mouth than the gargantuan sand sphere violently shuddered. A sharp, distinct crack echoed across the field as a fissure split the smooth surface of the prison.
"ROAR—!!!"
A muffled, demonic howl, suppressed to the absolute extreme by the dense layers of earth, rumbled dully from the very core of the sphere.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The massive construct began to vibrate at a terrifying frequency. With every muffled impact from within, more and more jagged fissures spiderwebbed across its surface, growing wider and deeper by the second.
The feral jinchuriki trapped inside was tearing his way out.
"Gaara!" Temari screamed. If the berserk Naruto breached that seal now, while Gaara was running on fumes, the consequences would be nothing short of a massacre.
"Damn it..." Gaara ground his teeth together so hard his jaw ached. A thin trail of crimson blood oozed from the corner of his lips.
He remained anchored on one knee, his entire body trembling violently from the severe chakra depletion. But he refused to fall. He absolutely could not allow the beast to break free.
Hold... together!!! Gaara roared wildly in his mind, forcing every last drop of latent energy through his coils.
Accompanied by a hoarse, desperate shout, Gaara slammed his bloodied palms together once more.
The remaining yellow sand scattered across the field surged upward, twisting into thick, heavy chains of compressed earth. They lashed out like serpents, wrapping frantically around the fractured sphere from all directions, binding it tight.
The sheer volume of the floating prison rapidly expanded before their eyes. The jagged cracks threatening to burst open were forcefully sealed, repaired, and heavily reinforced under the crushing weight of the fresh sand layers.
Yet, the reprieve lasted mere seconds. Fresh fissures began to splinter across the newly reinforced surface.
Bang! Bang! Bang! Bang!
The relentless, savage impacts from within the core continued to hammer against the walls. Every single strike caused the giant sphere to shudder violently in mid-air. The cracks multiplied, spreading like a disease across the glowing sealing formulas.
Time bled away, second by agonizing second.
Slowly, almost imperceptibly, the frantic struggling inside the earthen prison began to lose its rhythm. The impacts grew weaker, the muffled roars fading into exhausted growls, until finally... the sphere fell completely, eerily silent.
Phew...
Gaara let out a long, ragged exhale. His vision swam. The Kazekage swayed dangerously on his feet before his knees buckled, sending him collapsing onto the ruined earth.
His chakra was utterly, completely drained.
With the last ounce of his conscious will, he weakly waved his hand. High above, the gargantuan sphere of sand slowly lost its cohesion, crumbling away like dust in the wind. The heavy grains rained down upon the battlefield, finally revealing the figure suspended within.
[Inorin's Note:
Enjoying the story? Dropping a quick review, comment, or Power Stone means the world to me and keeps these daily updates flowing!
Want to read 50 chapters ahead or just want to help keep a shameless translator alive? (My livelihood actually depends on this, haha 😭). You can support me directly here:
(P.S. Just remove the brackets and replace the [.] with a regular dot . to use the links!)
✨ Patreon (50 Advanced Chapters): patreon[.]com/InorinTL
☕ Ko-fi (Support / Sponsor): ko-fi[.]com/InorinTL
Thank you so much for reading and keeping this project alive!]