The yellow sand swirling across the sky finally began to settle.
The towering black wooden giant stood in the air.
Crack.
A soft snap rang out.
It broke into countless withered branches and black wood shavings, falling like a black rain.
The rain carried the dry, scorched smell of wood.
Sen moved in a blur.
He landed beside Gaara with effortless lightness.
His wooden sandals made faint rustling sounds as they touched the warm, soft mound of sand.
He looked at Sunagakure's ultimate weapon, lying unconscious in the sandy crater.
With some irritation, he scratched his messy black hair.
"What a fucking hassle."
Sen sighed.
Gaara's body was covered in bloody wounds torn open by the force of those punches.
The sand had shredded his clothes.
But the evil, violent purple chakra inside him, belonging to Shukaku the One-Tail...
Still...
Within his ruptured chakra pathways...
Raged wildly like a swarm of headless flies.
"Hh... hh..."
Unconscious, Gaara kept letting out dry, bestial growls.
His skin swelled and contracted as his chakra ran wild, as though countless tiny black worms were writhing frantically beneath it.
Gamabunta's massive body huddled nearby.
His bucket-sized toad eyes remained fixed on Sen, sticky green saliva still dripping from the corner of his mouth.
"Hey, Naruto, kid."
Gamabunta reached out with a large, wart-covered hand and picked his broken pipe out of the muddy water.
He wiped the mud off with his sleeve.
"Where the hell did Konoha dig up this monster you call your big brother?"
"Why does his Wood Release look even more sinister than that damn eunuch Orochimaru's snakes?"
Naruto lay atop Gamabunta's head.
He spat out mouthfuls of saliva mixed with grit and streaks of blood.
Pressing a filthy hand firmly against his badly bruised chest, he grinned like an idiot.
"Cough...