He looked down.
He stared blankly at his hands.
Before his eyes, they were swelling at a terrifying rate.
His knuckles thickened and twisted, one by one, as a coarse, sandy texture spread across his skin.
Pitch-black, bloodthirsty beast eyes swallowed the last clarity in his gaze. His human consciousness was being devoured bit by bit.
The figures around him, the village, the earth and sky—all were shrinking rapidly.
The world was not receding.
He was growing without end.
"No... don't!"
He screamed deep within his mind, desperate to pull back his hands, but his arms no longer obeyed him.
He tried to shout, but all that burst from his throat was the low, savage roar of a colossal beast.
Shukaku was swallowing him whole. He was losing all control of his body.
A massive sand claw crashed down.
A crowd of living villagers was crushed into pulp in an instant, their lives snuffed out without a sound.
Above them, a giant sphere of black-and-white Chakra slowly took shape.
The Tailed Beast Bomb came crashing down.
The entire district vanished. Dust billowed over a wasteland where nothing remained alive.
Agonized wails, hopeless sobs, and the clamor of people fleeing echoed throughout Sunagakure.
"Stop... stop it!!"
He screamed inside his own body.
But Shukaku's claws would not obey him.
Amid the panicked crowds, a figure he knew by heart fought against the tide of fleeing people and rushed toward him with utter disregard for herself.
It was Karura.
Tears streamed down her face. She spread her arms wide, her slight body trying to stand before the towering beast. Her choked plea broke apart in the wind.
"Gaara! Come back... come back to your mother..."
A claw came crashing down.
The mother who had protected him with such tenderness all