Hearing that, Sakura's lips curved slightly into a relieved smile.
"Yeah. I'm only realizing it now, but over these last three years, you've left all of us far behind."
"The kind of strength that can pin even a Tailed Beast to the ground... it's unbelievable."
Akira let out a quiet laugh. To him, this had barely counted as anything unusual.
With his Rinnegan awakened now and his body already absurdly powerful, suppressing the Nine-Tails was almost routine.
Truthfully, even if he rolled things back three years, it still would not have been much of a challenge.
Back then, he had already stepped into the threshold of Kage level.
If he had wanted to deal with a Tailed Beast, then even without the Mangekyo Sharingan or Wood Style, the sealing jutsus and sage arts he had on hand would still have been more than enough to force one into submission.
So from his point of view, there really was nothing here worth bragging about.
By then, Temari, Gaara, and the gathered shinobi of Sunagakure had all made their way over as well, each of them staring at Akira as he treated Naruto with the same awed expression people reserved for miracles.
There was no helping it. What Akira had done just now had been too overwhelming.
The scene was the kind people would remember for the rest of their lives.
It was the sort of battle that deserved a place in textbooks.
A sixteen-year-old boy had single-handedly brought down the strongest of all the Tailed Beasts, the Nine-Tails.
Most ordinary ninja would go several lifetimes without ever witnessing a battle on that level.
Back in the day, the Third Raikage had fought the Eight-Tails to a standstill and earned a legend for it across the entire ninja world.
But Akira had done something even more outrageous.
His opponent had been the Nine-Tails, a beast far more terrifying than the Eight-Tails, and he had not only suppressed it by himself, but shoved it neatly back into its jinchuriki without suffering so much as a scratch.
If word of this spread, the entire ninja world would erupt.
Tea houses, taverns, gathering halls, every place where people swapped stories would be talking about it for months.
The name Akira would carry ten times more weight than it already did.
As for the men of Sunagakure, the look in their eyes when they watched him had changed completely.
There was nothing left there but awe.
At a certain point, when the gap in strength became too vast, jealousy disappeared.
All that remained was reverence.
Before long, under the combined treatment of Akira and Sakura, Naruto's battered body was finally pieced back together. Only then did Akira dust off his hands and stand.
He turned to Gaara with a faint smile.
"Kazekage-sama really is hard to kill. Looks like fortune favors you."
Gaara may have been the leader of an entire hidden village, but in front of Akira he didn't dare put on airs for even a second. His tone was completely sincere.
"Akira, thank you for this. If not for you, my life would have ended here. Sunagakure will remember this debt, and so will I. And thank Konoha as well for sending help."
Gaara understood the situation perfectly well.
If Akira called him "Kazekage-sama," that was courtesy.
If he actually started behaving as though he deserved pride in front of Akira, then he would only make himself look foolish.
That said, Gaara himself was the type who seemed cold on the outside but cared deeply underneath. He never had many words, but when it came to his village and its people, he meant every one of them.
Sakura, meanwhile, now looked at Akira with something new in her eyes, something difficult even for her to name.
After all these brutal fights, she was suddenly starting to realize that this former teammate of hers had a kind of magnetism she had never properly noticed before.
Maybe it was because of the recent tension between her and Naruto.
Or maybe it was because memories of the Land of Waves mission had resurfaced, of the things Akira had done back then that had stayed with her far longer than she had admitted.
But Akira himself had no time at all to think about the feelings of a teenage girl.
Konoha's frantic decision to send help this time had undeniably strengthened the alliance between the two villages.
Since they had to wait for Naruto to wake up, Akira's group ended up remaining in Sunagakure for several extra days.
During those days, Sakura came to see Akira almost every day under the excuse of discussing medical jutsu.
Akira didn't think much of it. After all, the two of them were, in a sense, both disciples of Tsunade. It was only natural for fellow students to exchange ideas now and then.
Kakashi didn't stay idle either. He often came by carrying that worn copy of Icha Icha Paradise, using it as a pretext to sit down and talk with Akira. The two of them had both been busy with their own burdens over the last three years, so chances like this to relax were rare.
After several conversations, Kakashi came away with a clear impression.
Akira hadn't just grown stronger over those three years.
The way he thought had grown deeper too.
The kid now carried himself with a kind of clarity and perspective that felt older than most elderly men.
A few days later, Naruto's roach-like resilience finally pulled him through. Full Tailed Beast transformation had placed a ridiculous strain on his body.
At last, the day of departure came.
At the massive stone gate of Sunagakure, Gaara came in person to see them off, accompanied by Temari, Kankuro, and the jonin Baki.
Naruto spent a long while muttering back and forth with Gaara. Then, at the end of it, Gaara turned to Akira and said with complete seriousness:
"I hope the two of us never stand on opposite sides in this lifetime."
Akira didn't answer too firmly. He only smiled faintly.
"Let's hope you're right."
He was nothing like Naruto, that hot-blooded fool who made promises to the future as if willpower alone could command fate.
When it came to a world as uncertain as this one, Akira never made absolute promises lightly.
Gaara understood that too, and simply nodded.
He knew Akira was unfathomable, a man whose mind ran deeper than the sea, not someone as easy to read as Naruto.
By the time the group finally returned to Konoha, they were worn down from travel and battle alike.
Kakashi had barely made it back through the village gates before he was hauled off to the hospital.
He had forced himself to use the Mangekyo Sharingan against Deidara, and now the backlash had come crashing down all at once.