Chapter 465: Sunagakure Friendship
"Gaara! Gaara! Open the door!"
Sunagakure, the Kazekage's residence. The usually solemn corridor was now broken by urgent knocking sounds and anxious calls.
Kankuro's brows were tightly knitted, his hand heavily pounding on the wooden door. Temari stood at his side with arms crossed, her face equally filled with worry.
Ever since returning from attending Uzumaki Naruto's wedding in Konoha, after a period of calm, Gaara had suddenly announced that due to "physical discomfort," he needed to take leave for several days.
Fortunately, the ninja world had welcomed unprecedented peace in recent years. Sunagakure had also become increasingly prosperous through deep cooperation with Konoha, promotion of new crops, and a stable trade environment. As the village's Kage, taking a brief rest for a few days wouldn't impact village operations—most affairs could temporarily be handled cooperatively by the council of elders and elite jonin.
However, for Kankuro and Temari, they could not simply view their brother's sudden "seclusion" as ordinary recuperation.
Something was wrong. Very wrong.
Two days! Two full days, Gaara had completely locked himself inside this bedroom, not stepping foot outside. Even daily meals were left untouched outside the door.
Behind that tightly closed door was only a heart-panicking dead silence, as if it isolated a small world completely cut off from the outside.
What worried them even more were those extremely abnormal, absurd things that had nearly become reality before Gaara announced his leave.
First was a series of "bewildering" diplomatic actions directed at Konoha.
In the name of the Kazekage, Gaara had continuously sent delegations of varying formality to Konoha for several days, with all sorts of reasons. Initially it was "in-depth discussion of border trade agreement details and future cooperation framework."
Then it changed to "dispatching an agricultural inspection team to study Konoha's advanced vegetation maintenance and soil conservation techniques." Finally it even evolved into "dispatching a horticultural envoy specifically to consult on how to make Sunagakure's specialty cacti, which are extremely difficult to bloom, flower under non-natural conditions"...
These reasons all seemed like they could barely be related to "official business," but the frequency was so high and the reasons so trivial and bizarre that anyone could smell something wrong.
Combined with the drunken words Kankuro had heard at that Konoha tavern that night, he could conclude that Gaara's inner impulse to see Uzumaki Naruto was probably almost impossible to suppress.
But suffering from being unable to find a reasonable, natural yet not awkward excuse, he could only, like a clumsy child, try to use various lame reasons to head toward Konoha.
The second matter was even more absurd and dangerous—a formal challenge letter bearing the Fifth Kazekage's personal seal that had nearly been sent out.
The challenge letter's content was clear and brief. In the name of the Kazekage, it specifically challenged Uchiha Satsuki of Konohagakure to a one-on-one, formal, no-holds-barred ninja duel.
No explanation of reasons, no specified location. The wording was cold and hard, full of decisive meaning.
When Kankuro discovered this challenge letter draft in the wastepaper basket in Gaara's study—crumpled then attempted to be smoothed out, the ink even somewhat trembling—he was scared out of his wits.
He immediately rushed before Gaara and used every argument at his disposal, from village stability, diplomatic impact, personal reputation, to "this might make Naruto completely disappointed in you"...
Persuading and threatening, almost talking himself dry, staying up an entire night, he finally made rational struggle return to Gaara's eyes. Ultimately, extremely unwillingly, Gaara burned that challenge letter that could have triggered a diplomatic earthquake into ash.
Even so, the suppressed unwillingness, jealousy, and certain powerless aura emanating from Gaara kept Kankuro and Temari's hearts suspended in midair.
At this moment, hearing Gaara's response from inside the door that was obviously lacking vigor, carrying heavy nasal congestion and deep fatigue.
"I'm fine... don't worry about me..."
Kankuro and Temari's hearts sank even lower. How did this voice sound like "fine"?
Continuing like this would definitely cause problems! Not just physically, but mentally!
The two exchanged a glance. They needed no words to understand each other's thoughts—they couldn't let this continue!
Kankuro took a deep breath and nodded to Temari. Both simultaneously slowly retreated two steps, pulling back some distance, adjusting their force-exertion postures.
The next second—
BANG!!!
CRASH—!!!
Kankuro dropped his shoulder and exerted force, ramming toward the door with all his might! At the same time, Temari coordinated perfectly with a fierce kick at the weak point below the door lock!
Both door bolts let out groans under the unbearable load. The door shaft broke, and the entire heavy wooden door burst inward with the sound, heavily slapping against the wall with a deafening crash!
"Gaara! Are you alri—"
Kankuro immediately rushed into the room. His anxious words had just begun when they were as if gripped by an invisible hand, choking hard in his throat.
His eyes widened to the max, his face written full of incredulous shock.
Temari, following close behind, the instant she crossed the threshold, was also completely stunned by what she saw, even unconsciously holding her breath.
She swept her gaze over the room's interior with dull eyes. "What... what is all this..."
Gaara's room... was stuffed full.
Literally, thoroughly, without leaving a single gap, stuffed full.
In the dim light, the originally spacious and tidy Kazekage's bedroom had now become unrecognizable. Everywhere the eye could see, none of the original furniture or furnishings could maintain their normal function and form—they were all covered by layer upon layer of sand, either piled, hung, or densely arranged.
Gaara himself sat at the center of this sand "ocean," his back against the bed's edge, sitting on the carpet.
Behind him, the giant sand gourd continuously flowed out fine yellow sand.
And his hands were extremely focused, with reverent gentleness, holding a mass of newly emerged sand.
Chakra flowed at his fingertips, precisely controlling the sand particles' aggregation and shaping. The sand mass slowly writhed in his palms... ultimately solidifying into a lifelike, roughly palm-sized humanoid sand sculpture.
That sand sculpture had a distinctive hairstyle outline, with a deliberately sculpted, brilliantly sunny grinning smile posture—it was a sand model of Uzumaki Naruto.
However, this was definitely not just a solitary work.
When Kankuro and Temari's gazes moved from the new work in Gaara's hands and swept across the entire room, they didn't know what expression would be best.
On the bed, the original pillows and bedding had long vanished. In their place were densely packed Naruto sand sculptures in various poses.
Some sat cross-legged, some in running postures, some forming hand seals with one hand, some with brilliant smiles... They crowded together in stacks, almost overflowing onto the floor.
On the floor, from the doorway to the bedside, was spread a thick layer of sand. And on this sandy ground, like bamboo shoots after rain, "grew" even more sand sculptures.
They varied in size—some only fist-sized, some nearly half-human height—but without exception, all were images of Naruto.
They stood or sat, crouched or lay, filling every inch of space where one could stand. Kankuro and Temari's intrusion even accidentally crushed several small statues at the edges, producing faint sounds of sand particles breaking.
On the cabinets, bookshelves, window sills, all horizontal surfaces were occupied by these sand sculptures. They were arranged somewhat messily, yet followed a logic only Gaara understood.
Because these sand sculptures all "looked" toward Gaara in the room's center.
The entire room had become a space constructed of countless "Naruto" sand sculptures.
Gaara paid no attention to his siblings' door-breaking commotion or their shocked gazes. His entire mind was concentrated on the newly formed sand sculpture in his palms.
He gazed at the sand sculpture's featureless face, then picked up a pen from the scattered items beside him.
Then, with incomparable gentleness, on that sand Naruto's cheeks on both sides, he respectively drew three short, parallel whisker marks.
Finishing the last stroke, he stopped his movements and brought the sand sculpture before his eyes, carefully "examining" it.
After a long while, his cracked lips slightly moved, uttering a few words with a hoarse breath.
"This way... it looks even more like him..."
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