Shukaku

The Land of Wind had the largest territory in the Shinobi World. Deserts covered roughly eighty percent of its surface, and annual rainfall was less than fifty millimeters. Its inhabitants built special clusters of buildings from sandy materials in scattered oases, using towering earthen walls to keep out wind and sand and underground channels to draw precious water.

It was difficult to hide while racing across the desert. As far as the eye could see, there was no cover on the rolling dunes, and a figure moving at high speed stood out against the golden sand.

Baiye had to maintain Bakudō: Kyokkō the entire way—a transparent barrier of Reiatsu covered his body, refracting light to either side. Whenever a Sunagakure patrol passed, he also had to activate Transparent Release, turning his body completely transparent and suppressing even his presence to a minimum.

Fortunately, Sunagakure was not too far away. Baiye's Shunpo was hardly hindered by the terrain in the desert, and the soft sand actually made it easier to control the force of his footfalls. Before it had grown completely dark on the second day, he could already make out the outline of Sunagakure in the distance.

In the dusk, the towering earthen walls were a dull ocher, as though they had risen straight out of the depths of the desert. The circular wall enclosed the entire village, leaving only one road leading inside. Watchtowers stood at intervals along the wall, with patrolling ninja faintly visible on them. Even Baiye could not slip through such defenses unnoticed.

But he did not need to enter Sunagakure.

With the Third Kazekage, known as the strongest Kazekage, still alive, Sunagakure had always kept Shukaku at a respectful distance. They did not believe they needed the power of a Tailed Beast, and instead saw one as a nuisance.

Their attitude toward Tailed Beasts was clear from the time the First Hokage distributed them: Sunagakure had kept only the One-Tail they had captured within their own borders and had asked for no more.

Only after the Third Kazekage disappeared and Sunagakure lost the Third Shinobi World War did Rasa, as the Fourth Kazekage, think of putting the Tailed Beast to use.

That came later.

Back then, after sealing Shukaku inside a young monk, they had imprisoned him in a cell on the outskirts of the village. Fearing that Shukaku might rampage and damage the village, they had deliberately built the cell outside the earthen wall.

Baiye waited until it was completely dark, then began searching around the outskirts of Sunagakure.

There was no moonlight in the desert that night, and clouds obscured most of the stars, reducing visibility to a minimum. He moved along the backs of the dunes, spreading Reiatsu Detection ahead of him like an invisible net feeling its way through the darkness inch by inch. When he had made it about halfway around the outskirts of Sunagakure, his Zanpakuto suddenly gave a faint response at his waist—the long-dormant red energy inside its sheath trembled slightly.

Baiye stopped and headed in that direction.

Behind a stretch of low dunes, he found a building. It was less a building than a squat, rough stone box half buried in sand. There were no markings on its outer walls, only an iron door set into the stone. If the energy in his Zanpakuto had not pointed him in the right direction, he might have walked straight past without giving it a second glance.

Baiye found a sheltered hollow outside the building and lay down, tucking his Tachi back inside his clothes and half burying himself in sand, leaving only his eyes exposed. After waiting about as long as it took to eat a meal, he saw the iron door open from outside. A ninja wearing a Sunagakure Forehead Protector entered carrying a food box. Baiye slipped in after him in the moment the door was open.

The iron door closed behind him. The cell was smaller than it looked from outside, with four stone walls and no windows, only a palm-sized vent high up. A thin layer of dry grass lay in one corner, and an old monk sat on it. He was terribly old—wrinkles covered his scalp in layer upon layer, white eyebrows drooped past the corners of his eyes, and his withered body was wrapped in an old monk's robe whose original color could no longer be made out. Rusty Chakra-sealing chains were fastened around both wrists, their other ends anchored to the stone wall. They were just long enough for him to take three steps around the cell.

The ninja delivering the food set the tray on the ground, moving quickly as though avoiding something. Without so much as glancing at the old monk, he turned and hurried out. The iron door closed again, and the sound of the lock echoed dully through the cramped space.

Bunpuku was used to this. He slowly rose from the dry grass, walked hunched over to the wall, and bent down to pick up the tray. Then he returned to the grass mat, sat down, and began eating one bite at a time.

If anyone was the first Perfect Jinchuriki since the Sage of Six Paths, it was him.

An old monk who had lived his entire life without seeing the light of day, whose name had been forgotten, and who was remembered only by the name "Shukaku."

Under Reiatsu Detection, Shukaku's soul was unusually quiet.

Baiye dispelled his invisibility and emerged from the shadows in the corner.

As though sensing something, Bunpuku stopped eating and looked up at the person who had appeared in the middle of the room at some unknown point.

He studied Baiye's flak vest and the Tachi at his waist for a moment. His gaze remained peaceful, showing none of the wariness one would expect at the sight of a stranger.

"You don't seem to be from Sunagakure."

"Sorry for disturbing you unannounced."

"This should be the first time I've met someone from outside the village."

"How long have you been here?"

"I've forgotten."

Bunpuku's voice was soft, neither hurried nor slow. "I only remember that when I first came in, I was about half your height."

He held his hand in front of his knees to show the height, then looked down at his palm. His hand was thin as a stick, its skin covered in age spots.

Baiye walked forward a few steps and sat down opposite him. The Chakra-sealing chains swayed slightly between them, making faint metallic scraping sounds. He knew that sealed within the frail old monk before him was a power vast enough to shake Sunagakure. Even with Baiye's knowledge of sealing, he could tell that this seal—crude, loose, and riddled with cracks—could not begin to compare with Konoha's Four Symbols Seal.

What had kept Shukaku sealed was never these seals, but the old man himself.

"Don't you want to go outside for a walk?"

"Go? Where would I go?" Bunpuku picked up his bowl and took a sip of porridge.

Baiye did not answer. He looked at the hands holding Bunpuku's bowl. They had been bound for most of his life, and the signs of his struggle when the Tailed Beast had first been forcibly placed inside him were long gone. Now they calmly held the bowl as he brought the porridge to his mouth one bite at a time, unhurried and composed.

"I heard Shukaku has a violent temper. When he first appeared in the Land of Wind, he caused quite a commotion... I didn't expect you to have suppressed him so thoroughly."

Bunpuku put down his bowl and looked up at Baiye.

"I've never thought of suppressing him... People and Tailed Beasts aren't really different. As long as they treat each other sincerely, sooner or later they can understand each other."

"If anyone else said that, I might laugh out loud. After all, this is a world where even people can't understand one another... but you can."

He was a very pure person. Though imprisoned all his life, he had always held on to the goodwill in his heart, even toward a Tailed Beast.

Baiye could not be so pure, but he still felt respect when he met someone like this.

"Don't you hate them? They forced Shukaku into your body and locked you up here for a lifetime. You should have had a completely different life."

"No." Bunpuku's tone remained gentle, like the still water left at the bottom of a dry well. "Forming bonds with others is part of cultivation, so why wouldn't forming one with him be?"

He lightly touched his chest with the fingertips of his right hand and looked down at his heart, a genuine smile spreading across his face without the slightest trace of resentment.

Baiye watched the old man's calm smile without nodding or shaking his head. He reached out and rested a hand on Bunpuku's bony wrist. The pale green light of Medical Ninjutsu appeared, and beneath it was another light, cooler, fainter, and almost invisible—Responded.

"I'm a medical-nin. I can tell your body won't hold out much longer."

"I know."

Bunpuku's chakra pathways had long been eroded by years of exposure to Shukaku's Chakra, like an old vine repeatedly worn down by wind and sand. Baiye's Medical Ninjutsu could only brush over the surface of the pathways and ease the worst of the pain, while Responded could only soothe his terribly weakened soul.

Neither could reverse the damage at its source to organs that were already mostly ruined. The dim candlelight cast their shadows onto the stone wall, where they quietly overlapped.

"I can't cure you. I can only make you a little more comfortable for now."

"Thank you. That's enough."

Bunpuku drew back his arms and rested them on his knees again. "There's no need to spend too much effort on an old man who refuses to die. You came here for Shukaku, didn't you?"

"Yes."

"I see no hostility in you, nor any greed. You probably don't want to take Shukaku away, and you don't want to drive him into a frenzy..."

"You don't need to guess. I only came to have a look at Shukaku."

"A look?" Bunpuku tilted his head slightly. "But I'm too old to make him show you his true form."

"That's all right. I can go in and see him myself."

The mental world. A stretch of darkness.

There was no enormous cage like the one in Kushina's mental world, nor the intricate Chakra chains of the Four Symbols Seal. There was only endless darkness, dry and rough, like ruins filled with windblown sand. A thin layer of water covered the ground, biting cold and rippling ever so slightly underfoot. Bunpuku sat cross-legged on its surface, his gaunt figure looking particularly small in the darkness.

Shukaku was right behind him.

His enormous body loomed out of the darkness, his ocher fur covered in deep purple markings. A thick tail curled at his side, its tip tapping against the icy water again and again. The ripples spread until they reached Bunpuku's knees, then stopped. His vertical pupils glowed a dark gold in the darkness.

"Old man, who is he?"

"A guest," Bunpuku said.

"A guest?!" Shukaku grinned, exposing a row of uneven, sharp teeth. "Hah! When has this place ever had a guest? I say he's up to no good. Let me tear him apart—"

"Shukaku." Bunpuku's voice remained gentle, as though he were coaxing a child throwing a tantrum.

"Tch. You're about to die, old man, and you're still this boring."

"Nice to meet you, Shukaku."

Baiye walked over to Bunpuku and sat cross-legged on the surface of the icy, shallow water. Shukaku's vertical pupils looked down at him from above. Sitting there, Baiye was not even as tall as one of his pupils—but sitting down in front of a Tailed Beast was a statement in itself.

"Hmph, you might fool the old man, but you can't fool me." Shukaku's foreclaw gouged a deep mark through the water. "Whatever tricks you have, hurry up and use them!"

Baiye watched the number rising on the panel.

[Shikai progress: 31%... 34%...]

"Yes, I do have an ulterior motive."

"Hahaha! You admit it!" Shukaku's laughter shook the dark space. "Then hurry up and tell me—"

[Shikai progress: 35%]

The number stopped. Baiye waited another few seconds to make sure it did not change again.

"I was just curious what you looked like. Now I've seen you."

"..." Shukaku's laughter stopped abruptly. His tail froze in midair, and an indescribable expression flashed through his vertical pupils—as though something had caught in his throat.

He lowered his head and blew a heavy breath through his enormous nostrils, splashing water from the ground all over Bunpuku's back. Bunpuku reached up and wiped his soaked shoulder without saying anything.

"Farewell."

"...Is there something wrong with him?" Only after Baiye had returned to the outside world did Shukaku's muffled voice sound in Bunpuku's mental space.

Back from the mental world, Baiye had already opened his eyes, removed his hand from the old monk's wrist, and stood up. The cell was still the same cell, the dry grass was still the same pile, and Bunpuku was still sitting where he had been, watching him with the same peaceful expression.

"Truly remarkable." He looked up at Baiye, his cloudy eyes glistening faintly in the dim light. "I've lived a lifetime, and I never expected to see anyone else in that world."

Baiye lowered his gaze to the Zanpakuto at his waist. All was quiet inside the sheath, but the red energy was still flowing silently, now bearing an almost imperceptible layer of dark gold markings that had not been there before.

He had achieved his goal, much more smoothly than he had imagined.

But this was an exception. The other Jinchūriki would not be nearly so easy to deal with.

"Until we meet again, Senior Bunpuku... and you too, Shukaku."

The old monk's eyes widened a little. Bunpuku—it had been so long since anyone had called him that.

Baiye's figure began to fade. A breeze seeping in past the side of the stone wall stirred the hem of his clothes, which gradually became transparent from the bottom up. The slender dark marking on the blade glimmered faintly at the moment he vanished.

A low-frequency tremor, almost impossible for human ears to detect, passed through the air, as though something enormous had stirred deep within Bunpuku.

Shukaku lowered his great head and silently watched him leave through Bunpuku's mental world.