In the center of the plaza, a gigantic tanuki made of sand let out unrestrained laughter.
The tanuki was extremely bloated, its entire body covered in purple markings. Its belly and head were both round spheres, and coupled with the foolish grin on its face, it looked almost adorable.
Of course, that was only if one ignored its enormous size, dozens of meters tall. Any cute creature enlarged to that scale would inspire immense terror!
The surrounding ninja all watched the chubby giant tanuki with grave expressions, because this creature was none other than Shukaku, the One-Tail, one of the Shinobi World's famed Nine Tailed Beasts!
As the One-Tail, Shukaku ranked near the bottom among the nine Tailed Beasts and was also the smallest. It stood several heads shorter than the largest of them, the Nine-Tails, but it was still dozens of meters tall, comparable in size to the Sannin's summoned beasts.
Such a colossal creature could crush ordinary ninja through sheer physical advantage alone. Moreover, the chakra within Shukaku far surpassed that of summoned beasts. The moment it appeared, it brought immense pressure upon the ninja present, and most of them remained silent.
Only Nawaki looked up at the One-Tail in the center of the plaza with an unconcerned expression and laughed loudly. "I didn't expect this fat cat to still have so much energy after being locked up for so long!"
It was as though Shukaku was nothing more than an adorable pet in his eyes.
The surrounding ninja were rendered speechless, and even Shukaku's laughter abruptly stopped. It was the first time anyone had called it a "fat cat." Unable to help wondering whether it had begun hallucinating from being sealed away for too long, it stared at the ninja before it in astonishment.
"Cough, cough... Lord