In only a moment, Gaara had completely wrapped Kimimaro in sand.
"He did it!"
Rock Lee cheered.
"Not yet."
Gaara immediately shook his head.
"Sabaku Soso!"
In an instant, Gaara clenched his hand, as if he meant to crush Kimimaro alive right in front of him.
Without question, everyone could imagine it. That closing hand, that move called Sabaku Soso, clearly was not some soft, weightless sand. It was probably enough to crush a person into a bloody pulp in an instant.
This was the true killing move.
The blood seeping out from within the sand proved that much.
"Whenever I see that guy, I think of that man."
Gaara lowered his hand and spoke coldly.
"Uchiha Sasuke! He has the same eyes as that guy, eyes that want to confirm the value of his own existence."
"This has something to do with me too? The value of existence?"
Uchiha Sasuke looked at Gaara mentioning him in the diary and could not help smiling faintly.
He had to admit, Gaara had seen through him with frightening accuracy. Ever since his entire family had been wiped out, only one task had remained in his life. Revenge.
That was his entire value.
Killing Uchiha Itachi was his way of proving the value of his existence.
That had been everything he had thought about for the past several years. More accurately, before he obtained the diary, he had always thought that way.
Only after he obtained the diary did things change. Although he still wanted revenge, and still wanted to question Uchiha Itachi clearly, his view had suddenly widened. His perspective had been forced open, and he learned that there would be many dangers in the future.
The crises he would face in the future were far greater than the massacre crisis he had experienced as a child.
He had once believed he would never walk out from the shadow of that clan massacre for the rest of his life. But Kaede Kitahara's diary had told him that he would live well in the future and completely walk out from that shadow.
That meant his future still held many possibilities. It absolutely was not only revenge.
The old him might have been satisfied with becoming a vengeful ghost, willing to pay any price for revenge.
But to the current him, revenge was only one part of the path. He still had many things to do. He had to train and become stronger, take revenge, protect the world, restore the glory of the Uchiha Clan, pass down the Uchiha Clan's bloodline, and much more.
So he understood what Gaara meant by those eyes. However, he was already different now. He had found the meaning of his own life again. He no longer needed someone else's existence to prove his value.
The situation was completely different now.
At this moment, Kaguya Kimimaro, trapped inside the sand, had not been crushed to death instantly. His Shikotsumyaku / Dead Bone Pulse Kekkei Genkai had protected him at the critical moment.
"Yes. Fighting. This is the only thing I can do now."
In an instant, Kaguya Kimimaro directly activated his Cursed Seal state.
Uchiha Sasuke was very familiar with this state, because his own self in the video had also released the Cursed Seal state before. It was just somewhat different.
After releasing the Cursed Seal state, Kaguya Kimimaro's strength was clearly much greater. He actually forced his way out of the pile of sand with brute strength.
"What incredible force. If I hadn't created a layer of bone membrane beneath my skin, I might have been crushed flat in an instant."
At this moment, Kimimaro also revealed the fundamental reason he had survived until now. Black lines crawled all over his body. In several places, his skin had vanished, exposing flesh and bone underneath.
"Bones. That guy really is a monster."
At this moment, even Gaara could not help saying it.
"I underestimated you too much. But I won't be trapped by sand again."
Kimimaro spoke calmly.
Facing this situation, Gaara merely spread his feet and prepared for battle. He quickly formed hand signs.
"Ryusa Bakuryu!"
Before him, a massive wave formed from countless grains of sand and dust rose straight up, blotting out the sky.
The fierce gusts whipped up Gaara's red hair, making the word for love on his forehead appear even more distinct.
Watching Gaara in the footage summon a sand wave right from the start, Hatake Kakashi could not help commenting, "For a Genin, this level of Chakra and the scale of this Ninjutsu are kind of ridiculous. I can only say, as expected of a Jinchuriki?"
He knew that a Jinchuriki's strength often could not be judged according to their ninja rank. Many Jinchuriki had never attended the Ninja Academy in the first place, and as adults, they did not participate in ninja rank evaluations either. Because of that, their strength often could not be measured by ninja rank.
Even so, for a Genin to release this level of Ninjutsu was honestly a little absurd.
Even among Jonin, there were not many who could reach this level.
At this age, Gaara was absolutely no weaker than Kakashi had been at the same age.
But considering the enormous Chakra possessed by a Jinchuriki, it also seemed rather reasonable.
In the footage, facing the towering sand wave, Kimimaro seemed a little stunned too. A moment later, he frantically retreated. Even so, he was quickly overtaken by the sand wave, and within moments, he was swept inside.
"Amazing. He actually escaped the sand. This isn't just about trapping someone anymore."
Rock Lee stared at everything before him in shock. Why did he feel like the earlier Gaara had not been able to do this?
After the Chunin Exams ended, Gaara's strength seemed to have received an epic boost as well.
"He can even change the terrain itself."
Rock Lee stared at the scene in disbelief. This was something he had never seen before.
Changing the terrain through Ninjutsu was undoubtedly something only Kage Level fighters could accomplish, and the Chakra inside Gaara's body had clearly gone far beyond the norm. This was the power of a Jinchuriki activating.
At this moment, everyone saw the entire forest from above, completely swallowed by a sea of sand. Calling it terrain alteration was not an exaggeration at all.
If an ordinary Jonin became entangled in that, there really would be only one path left. Death.
How could the fragile body of an ordinary ninja endure an attack like that?
"It's over."
Rock Lee spoke in shock. That terrifying opponent who had seemed impossible for him to resist had actually lost just like this?
"Not yet."
Through the sand, Gaara could sense that although the monster inside had been trapped by the heavy sand, he was not dead at all.
This Kekkei Genkai was far too abnormal.
He came to the front of the sand and placed both hands down.
"Sabaku Taiso!"
In an instant, terrifying power seeped directly through the sand and into everything beneath it. The entire ground shook violently.
"How can someone like this exist? He's even stronger than when he fought me."
Rock Lee could clearly feel that Gaara, who had not yet received psychological treatment during that earlier period, had been far worse at bringing out his power than the Gaara now.
"Sabaku Taiso. What a Sabaku Taiso. This level of strength has already touched the edge of Kage Level." Namikaze Minato sensed the power contained within that move. It truly was terrifying.
No wonder he would become the Fifth Kazekage in the future.
At the same age, Gaara's strength was far above that son of his. Aside from Chakra volume, where he could not compare to Uzumaki Naruto, the variety of his Ninjutsu, the quality of his Ninjutsu, and the richness of his combat experience were all things Uzumaki Naruto at the same age could not touch.
Having this level of strength at this age meant that no matter where he was placed, reaching Kage Level in the future was already practically guaranteed.
Minato himself had experienced this stage before, so he knew very clearly that Gaara was probably not far from breaking through.
Everyone else was also shocked by Gaara's strength at this stage. This was especially obvious with the previous video of his fight against Uchiha Sasuke as comparison.
Was it because his mind had been unstable and strange back then, so he had been unable to fully display his strength?
Gaara's current performance was practically like an awakening. He had jumped directly to another level.
"But this time, definitely…"
Rock Lee had just spoken when Gaara continued with a grave expression, "What a troublesome guy."
Within the endless sand, Kimimaro also remembered the night the Kaguya Clan was destroyed. Back then, he had obeyed the orders of the Kaguya Clan's clan head and launched an attack, preparing to kill everyone he saw.
"Was that the night the Kaguya Clan rebelled?"
Tsunade saw this scene and thought of the intelligence records that had once mentioned the Kaguya Clan suddenly staging a rebellion against Kirigakure.
Seeing how unstable they looked, as if they had already lost their minds, she could not help sighing.
That clan really had gone completely mad.
But she had also heard about Kirigakure's policies back then. Their treatment of Kekkei Genkai clans had already become completely insane. The once-famous Yuki Clan had vanished without a trace, and the Kaguya Clan had also been wiped out overnight.
She could only describe Kirigakure as mad.
But now, she had no way to say much more, because the pot had no right to call the kettle black.
Kirigakure had gone mad targeting its own Kekkei Genkai clans. But was Konoha really any better?
Under what circumstances had the Uchiha Clan moved toward rebellion? Under what circumstances had Uchiha Itachi ultimately acted and slaughtered the Uchiha Clan?
In truth, it was no different from the Kaguya Clan.
The village gave them no way to live, so they fought desperately with everything they had.
They were all major shinobi villages. They were all clans that had once rendered great service in establishing those villages. One could only say that this moment was exactly like that one.
It was almost identical.
And on that path, Kimimaro encountered Orochimaru and was taken in by him.
Only then did everyone understand why the last descendant of the Kaguya Clan would serve Orochimaru. A person who had been imprisoned since childhood and treated as a biological weapon simply because he had awakened a Kekkei Genkai would think he had met the best person in the world the moment he encountered someone who seemed to treat him gently on the surface.
"It's nothing more than a kind of illusion. Orochimaru has always loved creating illusions like that for people."
Jiraiya watched the entire process of the Kaguya Clan being wiped out, then watched Kimimaro being accepted by Orochimaru as one of his followers, and could not help speaking.