Sasuke opened his eyes and stared at the ceiling, his mind going over and over his loss to Gaara in the finals.
Sakura had been hoping for something romantic to happen, but nothing did. She took all her frustration out on Naruto beside her.
Naruto paid no attention to any of that, too busy showing off his Chunin status. After all, the genius Sasuke, who had always outshone him, had failed to pass even the Chunin Ninja Exams this time.
Everyone present except Sasuke himself knew just how ridiculously lucky Naruto had been to win his match.
Those words only fanned Sasuke's desire for power.
Gaara and Naruto were both Jinchūriki. Whenever they ran short of chakra, they could borrow some directly from their tailed beasts. Ordinary people simply could not withstand a Jinchūriki's tailed beast transformation.
There was an unbridgeable gulf between humans and demonic beasts to begin with. Otherwise, why would the world be turned upside down every time a tailed beast appeared? Put simply, ordinary Shinobi could not compare to demonic beasts in ability.
A noisy commotion filled the ward next door.
Every time a tailed beast appeared, someone had to be found to serve as a vessel and have it sealed inside them. There was no way to erase the thing from the world entirely. Clearly, no one capable of that had been found yet.
Seeing how listless Sasuke looked, Sakura told Naruto beside her to stop making a fuss.
But Naruto failed to notice anything wrong with the atmosphere and kept insisting that he was much stronger than Sasuke.
Sasuke was already seething because his abilities were nowhere near enough to beat Itachi.
Now Sakura and Naruto were hovering in front of him without the slightest tact, and he finally lost his patience and shouted,