Malice

"Gold Dust?"

Temari and Kankuro unconsciously swallowed.

The only person who could make them instinctively avoid trusting their own judgment was the former Kazekage, who had been ambushed and killed by Orochimaru—and who was also Temari, Kankuro, and Gaara's biological father.

If the formerly unrestrained Gaara had felt nothing for this distant father, then what Rasa had given Temari and Kankuro, beyond his stern and unsmiling authority, was the domineering and obstinate willfulness of a Kazekage. Having grown up beneath their father's shadow, Temari and Kankuro's fear of him was an instinct etched into their bones, difficult to erase.

The fear of one's father, formed over more than a decade of upbringing, was not something that could simply be dispelled.

Sure enough, the rolling Gold Dust below formed a circular barrier, protecting Kabuto Yakushi and Deidara's reincarnated bodies within it and blocking the surging waves of sand rushing in from the outside.

Not long afterward, a blank-eyed middle-aged man appeared before the three Sand Shinobi. His light brown short hair and sharply defined face all radiated the air of someone who had long held power.

"Father... became a target of the Impure World Reincarnation too?"

Kankuro and Temari truly could not describe what they were feeling. Their once unattainable father had now become a puppet in someone else's hands. Thinking of their past reverence and obedience, a complicated mix of shame and indignation welled up within them.

"The Sand Shinobi's dignity has been utterly trampled!"

First, they had been deceived by the ill-intentioned Orochimaru. The leader of an entire village—the Kazekage—had been assassinated without anyone realizing it. Then, under the enemy's manipulation, they had rashly launched a war and turned against powerful allies. They had thought all that was in the past, yet unexpectedly, their old humiliation had been dragged