The Eye of Sand opened on Shukaku's forehead.
Through that eye, Gaara saw the scene below-Baki and Temari were desperately evacuating their Sunagakure subordinates, but the black spores had infected them too, slowing their movements more and more.
Kankuro's puppets lay shattered across the ground, while he himself lay fallen, his body crawling with black filaments.
"Brother... Sister..."
Guilt and despair gnawed at Gaara's heart like venomous snakes. If not for him, if not for the monster inside him, Sunagakure would never have been dragged into this conspiracy, and everyone would never have-
"Don't lose focus!" The monk Bunpuku's voice rang out in the mental realm. "Control your emotions! Negative emotions feed that black creature!"
But it was already too late.
The instant Gaara's emotions wavered, Black Zetsu's corruption intensified sharply.
Shukaku's eyes turned completely black. Black markings spread rapidly across his sandy torso, finally converging on his chest into a twisted black core that looked like tangled tree roots.
"Perfect." A sinister voice emerged from the core-the consciousness of Black Zetsu himself. "Shukaku, the One-Tail. From this moment on, you're mine."
Shukaku's roar cut off abruptly.
An eerie silence took its place. The enormous sand tanuki stopped his senseless destruction and slowly lowered his head, looking toward Konoha.
There was no madness in those pitch-black eyes, only cold, pure calculation.
"Target: Nine-Tails Jinchuriki."
"Route: shortest breakthrough path."
"Obstacles: Konoha ninja, Four Red Yang Formation."
"Solution: break through at full power."
Shukaku opened his mouth.
But this time, what he spat out was not an Air Training Bullet, but a contaminated, oversized Tailed Beast Bomb mixed with black slime.
The moment the Tailed Beast Bomb left Shukaku's mouth, it split into dozens of smaller projectiles. They arced through the air as though alive, striking precisely at the various nodes of