"Mm..."
A burst of bright light made Gaara groan in discomfort.
He instinctively raised a hand to shield his eyes.
"Oh no!"
As though he had suddenly remembered something, Gaara shot upright.
He looked around.
There were no signs of widespread destruction, and he had not been moved from where he had been.
Aside from a slight ache in his head, nothing seemed different from before he fell asleep.
Gaara was so sensitive about this because the tailed beast inside him would come out and cause trouble whenever he fell asleep.
That was precisely why everyone in his village had come to despise him.
After all, to ordinary people, a tailed beast was a monster.
And a jinchūriki with a tailed beast inside him was a monster among monsters.
Whether out of fear or because of Gaara's status, it made no difference.
They dared not confront Gaara directly and could only scorn and resent him in secret.
But...
"You're awake?"
"Eat something. We'll need to move a little faster today, or we might miss the final show."
Suddenly, a familiar voice reached him.
Right. Yesterday, that man who called himself Konoha's Hokage had taken him away.
Why hadn't Shukaku gone on a rampage?
He had fallen asleep!
"You..."
"Did anything unusual happen last night?"
Gaara looked up at Uchiha Kazama, who was holding out a grilled fish to him, and asked anxiously.
For some reason, his desire to meet Konoha's jinchūriki, the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki-Naruto Uzumaki-was growing stronger.
They were both jinchūriki, so why could that boy become the Hokage's student, have companions, and laugh without a care?
Those were things he had never possessed... no, things he had never even dared hope for...
That was why he cared so much.
"Unusual?"
"I suppose so. The little cutie inside you came