Whoosh!
With a casual flick of his hand, Naruto's forty-meter-long lightning-style light sword burst forth with a sizzle!
The sword flashed!
The laser-like greatsword, its elemental nature honed to the extreme, sliced through the tailed beast's giant claw as smoothly as a hot knife through butter.
Boom!
The severed claw, with Sasuke still on it, slammed heavily into the ground, kicking up a cloud of dust that resembled a mushroom cloud!
"Sasuke!!"
Sakura, who had been waiting, cried out in alarm. The light of a medical ninjutsu instantly appeared on her fingertips, and she rushed into the center of the smoke to rescue him from the battlefield.
"Cough! Cough!"
Sasuke coughed violently, spitting out two mouthfuls of dark red blood. The moment his consciousness returned, he trembled as he fumbled for a red pill, stuffing it into his mouth with a crunch!
As the "Carefree Pill" took effect, his health bar surged. His face, which had been ashen white, instantly regained its color. His severely damaged bones and internal organs were healing at an incredible speed!
As soon as he caught his breath, the stubborn donkey "flung" himself to his feet, his Sharingan locked onto the center of the battlefield. This time, he had to understand what was happening!
Seeing this, Shikamaru bumped his head against a tree trunk. Would it kill him to just lie down and watch? He couldn't understand these people's way of thinking.
Ugh, don't think about it. It's too much of a hassle!
At this moment, in the center of the battlefield, a cold wind, created by the melting ice, drifted by. But no matter how cold the wind was, it was nothing compared to the chill in Shukaku's heart.
I was tricked! This stinky brat and Gaara played me! The whole world is lying to me!
Screw freedom. I'm never coming out again!
His name was Shukaku the Great, and he didn't want to be beaten up anymore.
Those fist-sized-as-sandbags… hiss... it hurt! It hurt so much!
Every punch felt like a searing brand on his defenseless, fragile soul. That pain was a pain that pierced his very core!
A single thought abruptly appeared in his mind: Run!!!
In an instant, Shukaku's mountain-like body became motionless, ready to flee. This was the first time in his life he so desperately wanted to return to his prison!
Before leaving, he glanced triumphantly at the spiky-haired brat.
Heh heh, I can't beat you, but can't I at least run?
But…
Naruto's lazy eyelids flickered open. The great door behind Shukaku, the one that led to freedom (prison), suddenly went click! Was it locked?
No! It had vanished completely!
Shukaku couldn't find his way home!
"Spiky-hair!!! What did you do to my private space?!" Shukaku's sharp shriek was filled with the sound of cracking sand. He was beyond furious!
"Genjutsu," Naruto said, a small smirk on his lips as his blue eyes watched the giant tailed beast's furious and flustered reaction with amusement.
"Genjutsu my butt?!" Shukaku instantly bristled, his sandy face contorted into a meme of shock and rage. "I'm a tailed beast! I have enough chakra to drown ten of you! You don't have the Sharingan, so how can you control me?!"
"This isn't ninjutsu! It's not tailed-beast jutsu!"
Naruto just shrugged.
Forget a One-Tails, if the Ten-Tails came, one look from me and it would be standing at attention! It's pure power, kid!
"Hey, Sasuke!"
Naruto didn't even bother to turn his head. "Watch closely, that's not how you use Fire Style!"
Naruto clapped his hands together casually, this time not even bothering to pretend to form hand signs.
"Fire Style: Blazing Emperor!"
Whoosh—
Crystallized, scorching white flames poured from his mouth, expanding with the wind! The terrifying heat radiating from it alone was enough to warp and shimmer the air hundreds of meters away!
In a flash!
A hundred-meter-wide, brilliant white orb of pure destructive energy tore through the sky, rolling with a cataclysmic force toward the stunned Shukaku. Even from a great distance, Sasuke and the others felt their breath burn and their vision distort from the suffocating heat.
The main target, Shukaku, whose fifty-meter-tall sand body looked insignificant before the hundred-meter "Blazing Emperor." The reflection of the giant golden eye was consumed by the fireball, growing bigger and bigger and bigger!
Run!!!
Luckily, this was a "teaching session," and Naruto had deliberately controlled the fireball's speed. Shukaku barely managed to escape the fireball's area of effect in the very last second.
But…
Rumble, rumble, rumble—
A dazzling, brilliant white mushroom cloud, its diameter far exceeding the surrounding mountains, erupted from the ground!
For a moment, it was more radiant than the sun!
A terrifying explosion swept outward! Even though Shukaku had narrowly dodged it, it was still sent flying by the destructive heatwave! The massive sand body tumbled like a kite with a broken string, crashing into a distant forest!
"Ugh, aah—"
A hoarse cry of pain was forced from its throat! Its back had been instantly melted by the extreme heat! When the sand cooled and solidified, it formed a hideous, dark red crystal! The pain! The deep, soul-piercing agony erupted once more!
Shukaku's face, made of sand, shrunk and twisted into an abstract mess of a face because of the intense pain!
The humiliation!! I! Shukaku the Great! A majestic tailed beast! Almost got turned into a "roasted raccoon dog" by a human?!
Ignoring the pain, it frantically checked its head. Gaara was still passed out, hanging on like a corpse.
This guy… was he also trapped? He couldn't wake up?
A strange feeling of "misery loves company" arose.
However!
The voice, like a whisper from a demon in hell, rang out once more.
"Tsk, the Fire Style demonstration is over… Next is—Lightning Style instruction!"
"Lightning Style: Sparkly-Sparkly Beam!"
Whoosh!
The familiar forty-meter-long lightning sword instantly condensed into a finger-sized, deadly beam of light that pierced the air!
Sizzle!
The beam flashed by, leaving only a small, inconspicuous charred hole on Shukaku's massive sand body!
"?"
Shukaku's giant sand face was confused. This mosquito-bite attack? What's the point?!
Before it could understand…
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
The high-energy lightning beam at Naruto's fingertip had transformed into an endless pulse!
In an instant, a hundred key joints on Shukaku's massive body were precisely pierced! Leaving behind a hundred tiny, smoking, agonizing, pinpoint-sized burn holes! The damage wasn't great, but the humiliation was maxed out!
"He's not attacking..."
Shukaku's soul trembled as it suddenly realized. "He's 'taking attendance'! He's using the lightning beam as a pointer to play with me! He's trying to slowly 'torture' me into a pile of useless sand, aaaaaah!!!"
Boom!!!
The pent-up fear, the physical searing pain, and the spiritual humiliation were finally crushed by this wave of unbridled beastly rage! Its sanity shattered!
"Roaaaaar—I'll kill you, you spiky-haired brat!!!"
The mountain-like sand body, imbued with a suicidal frenzy, roared as it crushed trees and rocks and charged toward Naruto like a wild boar!
"Oh? An impromptu lesson! The Taijutsu portion of the class begins now! Sakura, are your notes ready?" Naruto even had time to shout to the spectators.
Before the words were even out of his mouth, he pushed off with his feet. Crunch! The ground beneath him instantly cracked into a spiderweb!
Using the force, his phantom-like figure instantly appeared beneath Shukaku... right under its round, rolling belly!
"Super Strength Taijutsu: Homerun!"
Naruto's right leg muscles tensed like steel springs, and his entire body stretched like a giant bow, filled with stored power!
Bang—
A muffled sound, like an explosion, echoed through the forest!
"Aooo!!"
Shukaku's massive body was sent flying!
Then—
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Naruto's body transformed into a golden blur, circling the helplessly tumbling "giant sandbag" in mid-air, beginning a brutal Taijutsu combo! His fists and feet moved so fast they were mere blurs! The Hokage's elbow strike! Knee strikes! Mega-Ton Flying Kicks! Everything was used again and again!
Every time Shukaku tried to retaliate or escape, a forceful, unreasonable punch shattered its illusion! Every so often, Naruto would even intersperse his Taijutsu with a Sparkly-Sparkly Beam.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
The humiliation was complete.
Ten minutes later…
Shukaku lay on the ground, a look of despair on its face. Sand life is not worth living!!!
Naruto contentedly cracked his knuckles, which made a pop sound, and glanced at his stats panel. Muscle Burst and Stamina had each increased by a full five points.
Shukaku is a great sandbag for training. I'll definitely come back to you next time!
Swoosh!
A golden flash, and he was standing beside the three wide-eyed spectators and the dog.
"So? Did you learn anything?"
Sasuke: I've learned to be useless!