The boy's head slowly emerged from the teakettle.
Familiar red hair, familiar features.
The moment Guy saw the little boy's face, his pupils abruptly contracted!
"Gaara?! It really is him!"
What had been sealed inside this teakettle was actually Gaara!
Guy's gaze met the small eyes peering out from within the teakettle.
Those eyes held none of the innocence expected of a child his age.
There was only lifeless numbness.
A coldness and hollowness buried deep beneath, so intense it was almost tangible.
As well as a loneliness and gloom utterly at odds with the surroundings.
At that moment, all of Guy's previous doubts connected.
They pointed to a clear and cruel answer.
"So that's how it is..."
"Rasa, you really are a beast..."
Guy's expression turned rather grim.
The little boy in the teakettle was Rasa's own son.
Gaara!
The evil, cold, sticky aura emanating from Gaara was extremely familiar to Guy.
It was the power of a tailed beast!
And specifically, the chakra fluctuations of Shukaku, the One-Tail.
Gaara had become a Jinchuriki?
No, that wasn't it!
Shukaku was clearly inside Pakura right now; there was no possibility that he had been split in two.
Gaara's current condition instead closely resembled another situation.
The son of Kazuma from the Twelve Guardian Ninja.
Sora.
In the original story, on the night of the Nine-Tails Attack.
Kazuma of the Twelve Guardian Ninja had stolen chakra left behind by the Nine-Tails.
He had injected it into his son Sora, creating a state of False Jinchuriki.
It was somewhat similar to how Kinkaku and Ginkaku had gained chakra by devouring the Nine-Tails' flesh and blood.
All of them possessed tailed beast chakra within their bodies without being Jinchuriki through a proper seal.
That was precisely Gaara's current state.
The Bunpuku Teakettle had