"Hōichi, what you said isn't wrong. I really was an obsessive madman once, but now I understand what love means.
I hope you can become like me and help protect the Land of Wind. I believe your master's spirit would want to see you do the same."
Gaara slowly spoke as he approached.
He was not exaggerating.
The changes he had undergone went far beyond his personality and beliefs.
The old Gaara had been the silent type.
Aside from his occasional bouts of insanity, he was genuinely terrible at expressing himself.
Yet after his personality changed, the Gaara of the original story eventually became one of the leaders of the Allied Shinobi Forces, capable of delivering a speech before battle that rallied the entire army.
Since the original story focused mostly on Konoha, nobody really knew what Gaara had experienced during those intervening years beyond a handful of anime-original episodes.
A lunatic whose usual dialogue once consisted of murderous rambling and drooling did not suddenly become a master of wartime speeches overnight.
In the current timeline, Gaara had accumulated even more practical experience.
His speaking ability might actually surpass the Gaara who fought in the Fourth Shinobi World War.
For example, after the Land of Wind's daimyo died and Gaara began assuming the authority that had once belonged to him, Gaara had addressed the population directly.
He spoke about how much labor an ordinary person had to perform just to earn a single rice ball.
Why not use the classic example of "a rice ball costing five hundred thousand ryō"?
That had already been explained before.
The shinobi world was bizarre.
Every country somehow spoke the same language and even used the same currency.
Nobody knew who had originally issued and regulated the shinobi world's money.
Surely it had not been Black Zetsu.
Either way, because everyone used the same currency, there was no situation where hyperinflation suddenly made a rice ball cost five hundred thousand ryō.
Of course, stable currency did not mean ordinary people lived well.
If the currency did not depreciate, then just pay workers less.
Or simply do not pay them money at all.
Give them grain.
Give them vouchers.
Give them coins.
So Gaara's speech still worked perfectly well.
The point was that after his "redemption," Gaara seemed to have suddenly unlocked a new talent.
He could identify the heart of a problem with frightening accuracy.
Trying to talk Hōichi down was no different.
He immediately targeted the true source of everything Hōichi believed:
The previous One-Tail jinchūriki, Bunpuku.
Sure enough, the moment Gaara mentioned his master, Hōichi broke down crying again.
His trembling hands rose in front of him.
"The technique Master taught me was created from the beginning to separate Tailed Beasts from their jinchūriki!
"Without it, I'm useless!
"I can't do anything else!
"What am I supposed to do? What else can I do?!
"Master? Master! What do you want me to do?!"
The longer Hōichi spoke, the more unstable his voice became.
It was obvious now that his desire to overthrow Gaara had never really been about money, status, or political interests.
It came from something much more important.
And much more abstract.
The meaning of his own existence.
The extraction technique he had inherited only worked especially well against jinchūriki.
Surely that meant Bunpuku had entrusted him with a mission.
Was he supposed to believe his master had been wrong?
Impossible.
Bunpuku had clearly been a kind man who had suffered persecution at Sunagakure's hands!
While the two halves of Hōichi's brain were busy fighting a civil war, Gaara placed one hand on his shoulder.
"Hōichi, your master Bunpuku was a senior worthy of respect…
Though honestly, I don't know much about him. My own birth only became possible because his life ended.
So if you want to know what your master truly thought, I believe another friend understands him far better than I do.
If you're lost, you should ask him."
Another friend?
Hōichi was still wondering who Gaara meant when Shukaku's sharp voice suddenly sounded inside his head.
Sh-Shukaku?!
Shukaku began telling Hōichi the story of his life with Bunpuku.
The Fourth Databook described Bunpuku as a monk who "accepted with his heart, understood love, and shared his feelings with the One-Tail."
Even so, Bunpuku could not truly be called a perfect jinchūriki.
A perfect jinchūriki was not a description of a relationship.
It was a state.
Mutual understanding between the jinchūriki and Tailed Beast was necessary, but simply getting along did not automatically make someone a perfect jinchūriki.
The truly important part was being able to fight alongside each other while sharing that mutual understanding.
Bunpuku had spent his entire life imprisoned.
At first, he merely suppressed Shukaku's power.
Later, Shukaku came to acknowledge him.
But Shukaku had only respected Bunpuku's personal character.
He still had absolutely no desire to fight for Sunagakure.
So Bunpuku never once used Shukaku's power during his lifetime.
And even if he had tried, Shukaku would never have lent him strength for Sunagakure's sake.
If Bunpuku were fighting for himself, Shukaku might have agreed.
But if Bunpuku started fighting selfishly for his own sake, then he would no longer possess the very character that had earned Shukaku's respect in the first place.
It was a perfect deadlock.
That was simply what Shukaku was like.
His strength was nothing special among the Tailed Beasts, yet his temper was every bit as foul as Kurama's.
One of the worst value-for-money Tailed Beasts in existence.
Shukaku then described something that happened late in Bunpuku's life.
He had once told the old monk that his heart reminded him of the Sage of Six Paths.
That single compliment immediately shattered the composure of a man who had spent decades cultivating a mind as still as water.
Bunpuku burst into tears.
Honestly, it was not difficult to understand.
After spending his entire life imprisoned, Bunpuku had become rather like the people on the internet.
Practically an undead creature.
Insults and contempt no longer affected him.
He had heard them so often that he had simply learned to let them go.
But give someone like that unexpected kindness or sincere praise?
Instant critical hit.
"Kid, Bunpuku didn't teach you that technique because he wanted you to end some supposedly miserable relationship between Tailed Beasts and jinchūriki!
"When he was with me, he never thought our relationship was painful!"
Shukaku continued.
"That technique was meant for protection.
"You humans used Tailed Beasts as weapons of war. That meant jinchūriki were inevitably sent onto battlefields.
"I heard from the Nine-Tails that Konoha's Fourth Hokage didn't want the previous Nine-Tails jinchūriki sent to war, so he personally took her place on the battlefield.
"He fought Kumogakure's jinchūriki, Iwagakure's jinchūriki, and everyone else who got in his way, eventually earning a terrifying reputation.
"So if a nation doesn't want to deploy its jinchūriki, it needs another fighter capable of filling the same role.
"Bunpuku hated war.
"But he hated the idea of Sunagakure being invaded by other villages even more.
"That was why he developed a technique specifically effective against jinchūriki and Tailed Beasts.
"If another village ever deployed its jinchūriki in battle, you could take my place.
"You could remove that jinchūriki from the battlefield in a relatively peaceful way and neutralize their role without forcing Sunagakure to deploy its own Tailed Beast."
"How could that be…"
After hearing the entire explanation, Hōichi felt as though everything suddenly made sense.
The only problem was that he had understood far too late.
"Then why didn't Master just tell me all of this himself…?"
"He spent so long locked away that he could barely hold a proper conversation anymore. How exactly was he supposed to explain all that?"
Shukaku snapped.
"Besides, how many opportunities did you even have to meet him?"
Hōichi had no answer.
Now that he understood the truth, his mental state finally returned to normal.
Unfortunately, he had immediately developed another problem.
His purpose in life was gone.
His technique had been meant to preserve peace and prevent wars between jinchūriki.
But the shinobi world had already reached that point.
So…
What was he supposed to do now?
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