One-Tails Shukaku

Sunagakure's night was dark as ink, like an enormous curtain draped over the arid land.

In the shadow of the village's tallest building, the Fourth Kazekage, Rasa, stood like a cold stone statue.

His sharp eyes pierced the darkness as he looked down without warmth at the cruel drama unfolding in the courtyard below.

The protagonist was his six-year-old son, Gaara.

And beside that familiar shock of red hair, the deepest betrayal was playing out. Gaara's uncle, Yashamaru—also the younger brother of Rasa's late wife—held a kunai, intending to assassinate his own nephew.

Rasa felt not the slightest ripple at the assassination before his eyes.

Because the cruel order had come from him.

As Kazekage, his will was the village's will. Yashamaru's loyalty was beyond question; he could only obey.

The purpose of this carefully planned assassination was cold and direct: to test Gaara's value. Could he still suppress the beast raging within him amid extreme pain and betrayal, perfectly controlling the calamitous power sealed inside his body—One-Tails Shukaku?

To drive this test into the deepest abyss of true despair, Rasa had given Yashamaru cruel lines to deliver.

He had to tell Gaara that all the warmth and care he had shown in the past had been a false facade;

that he had never loved this nephew, and that his only reason for approaching and raising him was to avenge his sister, whom Gaara had "killed."

More than that, Yashamaru had to personally crush the last comfort in Gaara's heart. He had to tell Gaara that his mother, Karura, who had died in childbirth, had also harbored deep hatred for him and had never possessed even a trace of motherly love.

This was the most complete destruction of a child's soul, meant to eradicate every emotional anchor.

In the fate