"Gaara, stop!"
Temari snapped back to herself and lunged forward, ready to rush in.
Kankurō stared, dumbfounded. "Don't be ridiculous. Like that's going to do anything."
How could flesh and blood possibly withstand the crushing force of Sabaku Sōsō (Sand Tsunami Funeral)?
Everyone present felt their stomach drop.
In their hearts, they'd already decided Teizawa was dead.
And at the same time…
Several hundred meters away, on a rooftop somewhere.
The elderly Ebizō spoke with a hollow sort of calm. "Sister, that young man you like so much looks like he's kind of dead."
Chiyo's eyes, sunken behind a face full of wrinkles, stayed deep and unreadable. "That brat isn't so simple."
"Oh?"
Ebizō sounded intrigued. "Then I'd better take a good look at what kind of tricks he's got."
"…Sigh."
Chiyo thought of the sand iron she'd seen in the prison, black as ink, and let out a quiet breath. "A Kazekage with ambition and a heavy hand… I don't know if that's good or bad for Sunagakure."
"Hey, hey, hey, Lady Chiyo, do I need to head over there now? Shukaku's about to lose control."
The shout came from behind the two elders.
Chiyo glanced back and smiled. "Don't rush. We won't need you yet."
"How can you say that? That's a tailed beast."
Monk Hōichi, whom Chiyo had summoned early as a precaution, answered with a stern expression.
"In all of Sunagakure, only my fūinjutsu (Sealing Technique) and Magnet Release (Jiton) can suppress the One-Tail."
"Is that so…"
Chiyo smiled faintly, and didn't say anything else.
...
Boom.
Just as everyone had decided Teizawa was finished, the first person to sense something was wrong was the one performing the jutsu: Gaara himself.
Without hesitation, Gaara slammed both hands onto the ground.
A massive flood of chakra poured into the earth.
"Sabaku Daisō!!!" (Great Sand Burial)
Across an endless desert, the One-Tail Shukaku was the unquestioned tyrant of the soil.
And as the One-Tail's jinchūriki, Gaara moved through the Land of Wind like a fish through water.
Using Sabaku Daisō (Great Sand Burial) in the desert…
It was practically bullying.
Within dozens of meters, the sand collapsed like a sinking vortex, constantly caving in.
Then it rolled outward in every direction, surging and spreading—
A sand-manipulation technique that horrifying…
Once you were caught in it, even if the sand didn't grind you apart, the sheer pressure would smother you to death.
"Damn… is this what a Kage-level fighter looks like?!"
"Everyone, fall back!"
"But… Kazekage-sama?"
"All we can do now is trust Teizawa himself."
"If anything happens to Kazekage-sama, then we'll avenge him…"
"…"
Amid the chaos of shouted warnings, shinobi darted away, one after another.
They retreated beyond the range of the sand sea's assault.
Temari and Kankurō pulled back too, putting dozens of meters between themselves and the center.
"Damn it. Gaara's completely lost it," Temari said, sounding like she was forcing the words through.
Among everyone here, she understood Gaara best.
The moment Gaara stopped caring that so many shinobi were gathered and unleashed a wide-area killing move like this, she'd already made her judgment.
"There's no helping it," Kankurō said with a bitter laugh. "When he goes crazy, he'll kill anyone."
And now—
At the very center of that sand sea.
The figure being dragged and swallowed by the yellow torrent finally lifted his head slowly.
"Tch, tch, tch… that really is… spectacular."
Teizawa actually sounded impressed.
Then he raised a hand.
And strangely, the sand binding his body flowed like obedient water.
It didn't restrain his arm at all.
"But just this? This isn't moving me."
As he spoke, Teizawa lowered his hand slightly, pressing down.
"Magnet Release (Jiton)! Suna Ochiru!!!!" (Sandfall)
Rumble—!
In an instant, a harsh, grating wail echoed up from the ground.
Then, within the yellow sand sea, specks of inky black appeared.
In the next heartbeat—
The entire yellow sand sea was covered in black.
After that, the pitch-black sand sea expanded again, and again…
Growing to several times the size of Gaara's original sand sea.
Even shinobi who'd been in what they thought was the safe zone had to keep retreating, covering their ears as they moved.
All of them stared at that ink-black ocean of sand in disbelief.
"This is… sand iron?"
"The Third Kazekage-sama's sand iron… did the Third Kazekage-sama's spirit appear?!"
"Idiot. That's Kazekage-sama's sand iron. Kazekage-sama is a Magnet Release (Jiton) user."
"What, it's Teizawa?!"
"That sand iron is insane. It's completely suppressing Gaara's sand sea."
"Kazekage-sama actually has Magnet Release (Jiton)!"
"Hahaha! I knew it, Kazekage-sama would be fine…"
"…"
More and more cries rose up, spreading across the plaza.
"His sand iron? He can use Magnet Release (Jiton)?" Temari's lips parted slightly, her face full of shock.
"H-hey, is this for real?" Kankurō looked like he couldn't believe what he was seeing. "How does he have Magnet Release (Jiton)?"
No one answered him.
On the battlefield, the situation that had been completely one-sided flipped in an instant.
The black sand sea, packed with countless grains of sand iron, swallowed Gaara whole in a single sweep.
As Gaara's body disappeared little by little into the black sand sea, Teizawa's expression didn't relax in the slightest.
Because from the beginning, his target had never been Gaara.
Gaara had Kage-level power.
But that was all it was.
Teizawa's target, from the very start, had been the One-Tail Shukaku.
When the thunderous rumbling finally faded, the battlefield quieted.
Only the black sand iron spread across the ground like seawater, still sinking downward, unceasing.
As if it were obeying the name Teizawa had given it.
Falling.
Falling forever.
"Is it over?"
"Who won?"
"Kazekage-sama. Kazekage-sama won."
"Idiot, you should be saying Kazekage-sama."
"So Kazekage-sama was this strong… and I was actually thinking he should dodge."
"Don't joke. Kazekage-sama is obviously the strongest."
After a brief silence, shinobi who'd survived the terror began cheering, like they'd been pulled back from the edge.
Teizawa's strength gave them a kind of reassurance they couldn't put into words.
Kankurō was slack-jawed. "So… so strong!"
"…Sigh." Baki walked up beside the siblings and let out a low breath. "I misjudged him. Just the scale of the sand iron Teizawa's controlling now… it might already surpass the Third Kazekage-sama."
Kankurō's face turned pale with shock. "Don't mess with me."
That was the Third Kazekage, the one hailed as the strongest Kazekage!
And now you're telling me Teizawa has already surpassed him?
Then wouldn't that make Teizawa the strongest Magnet Release (Jiton) user of all?
Temari didn't speak.
Her full chest rose and fell hard.
Whether from tension, or something else, it was hard to tell.
But at that moment, Teizawa, standing at the center of the sand iron, suddenly spoke:
"Everyone, get out of a hundred-meter radius!"
"It… is coming out…"
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