While Souma was laying down his setup, he briefly explained how he'd first run into the giant ants.
Of course, he "forgot" a few details in the middle.
Those were trade secrets.
No way he was sharing everything.
"Incredible. Just surviving out here is hard enough, let alone dealing with those ants."
Kabuto said, acting as usual.
Souma only smiled.
You research things way weirder than ants, buddy.
Most people still had their attention fixed on Gaara.
Only the ants clustered around Souma.
They had "smelled" the senjutsu chakra leaking off him.
After a strange round of silent communication—
Souma stuck eight talismans onto eight of the giant ants.
"Dig deeper. Make a tunnel that brings you right underneath him."
Antennae waved wildly.
A heartbeat later, the eight ants burrowed back underground, heading straight for the area beneath Gaara's feet.
"Uh…"
Neji's Byakugan flared. He narrowed his eyes.
"You might not need to bother. At about three kilometers out, I can see the Kazekage from Suna."
"That's their problem. What we need to do is still our problem."
Souma replied.
Sand control.
The power of Shukaku?
So this kid was Suna's One-Tail jinchūriki.
Kakashi hesitated.
Should he move?
Souma didn't tell the ants to stop.
No matter what, having an extra layer of insurance never hurts.
Kakashi and the others didn't know Gaara's full capabilities.
If he snapped, the jōnin would be fine—
But the genin might not be.
Souma kept his senses on the ants and Gaara.
Gaara was staring right at Kakashi.
The instant Kakashi moved, a tidal wave of sand rose up, forming solid walls in front of him.
Around Gaara himself, a thick sand sphere wrapped him completely.
At the same time—
Fine sand clouds quietly formed in the air above, drifting slowly toward the group.
Sandstone Rain.
Souma's gaze sharpened.
Gaara wasn't stupid.
He'd clearly realized Kakashi and the others weren't easy to kill, so his real target wasn't the jōnin.
It was everyone else.
He wanted revenge?
Souma glanced sideways at Neji.
"Can you move?"
"I can!"
Neji nodded.
"Let's go."
Souma grabbed Neji and moved them out of the main cluster of people.
"Eh?"
Tenzo, who was guarding everyone else, was instantly confused.
He had no idea what they were doing.
But then he saw it—
The falling sand in the sky began to shift, all drifting toward where Souma and Neji had gone.
"His targets are Neji and Souma!"
Tenten realized.
No wonder Souma had pulled Neji away.
If he hadn't, Gaara might have used some wide-area jutsu instead.
But just then—
The binding array.
Succeeded.
Gaara had just begun forming another technique to trap them, when suddenly—
He couldn't move.
What…?
Not only that, but he felt something was slowly draining his chakra.
His sand armor and the sand around him were gradually losing their rigidity.
What is this?
He raged, trying to break free, but it was futile.
A flash of lightning tore through the sand barrier.
Kakashi burst into view in front of him.
A second figure landed beside him.
"Senpai."
"You've bound him?"
"Yes."
Tenzo stepped forward and began using a sealing technique.
Only then did Souma walk up, lean close to Tenzo, and whisper a few lines.
Tenzo nodded again and again.
His Wood Release had some sealing potential, but in pure sealing arts, he wasn't that accomplished. If Souma was willing to help, that was the best-case scenario.
Souma placed his hand out, his senses sinking into Gaara's body.
Shukaku was thrashing.
The beast raged, lashing out and wrecking everything it could—
But as the array spread, both Gaara and Shukaku had their chakra steadily suppressed.
Brat, I won't forget you! Damn it!
Shukaku howled.
It had finally gotten a decent grip on Gaara—
And this kid had ruined everything.
Who knew how long it would be before the next chance?
"Heh."
Souma quietly withdrew his chakra and said to Tenzo,
"Leave the formulae at this level. If they figure out the full sealing jutsu from this, that'd be bad."
"You really are full of tricks."
Tenzo murmured in praise.
He could see clearly—
Souma wasn't using a complete sealing technique.
All he'd done was patch the flaws in Suna's existing seal.
Strictly speaking, it didn't even count as a proper seal on its own.
Which meant—
Even if Suna deciphered it, all they could use it for was to improve their own jinchūriki seals.
On a different host, whether it would even work was questionable.
This kid's… understanding of sealing is already on another level.
Tenzo sighed inwardly.
Looks like his biggest value in future missions would really just be the Four Pillars House Technique.
Faced with the compliment, Souma just smiled—
Then quietly wrapped a cluster of special chakra at the very center of the array.
In the distance—
"Kakashi, stop!!"
A shout echoed.
A figure sprinted toward them, kicking up sand behind him, the Kazekage cloak nowhere to be seen.
Rasa was a mess.
When he'd seen the sand suddenly collapse in the distance, he'd known Gaara had lost.
He'd rushed here as fast as he could.
"Don't worry, Lord Kazekage. We had no intention of harming your jinchūriki. We just added another seal."
Kakashi said calmly.
Rasa finally exhaled.
Good.
Konoha was still sane.
It didn't look like anyone was hurt either.
Otherwise, the consequences really would be unimaginable.
He took a heavy breath.
This Chūnin Exam has been nothing but one disaster after another.
He'd explicitly ordered that Gaara not leave the village, and yet he'd broken out anyway.
Even the guards had been attacked.
Rasa stepped forward and launched into a round of bitter complaints.
He'd seen the extra seal Konoha had added, but now was not the time to fuss over that.
Survive this mess first.
After some back-and-forth…
Kakashi expressed strong dissatisfaction with Suna's failures—
Too many problems had cropped up during this exam.
If he didn't squeeze some concessions out of them, he'd be ashamed of his old ANBU Captain title.
What concessions exactly?
That was between the two villages to discuss.
Soon after, they set out on the road back to Konoha.
Once they'd left the Land of Wind—
Tenzo quietly sidled up to Souma and asked in a low voice,
"Did you stash away a bit of Shukaku's chakra?"
"Heh, sharp eyes, senpai. You noticed?"
Souma didn't deny it.
He opened his palm.
Inside, a clump of bijū chakra was wrapped in Souma's own chakra layer.
A flicker of shock flashed through Tenzo's eyes.
To control it like this—
Too much, and the tailed-beast chakra would be ground down and wasted.
Too little, and it would burst through and destroy the outer layer.
And Souma had hit the exact balance.
Tenzo didn't even know how to describe it anymore.
It was just… unreal.
"Tenzo-senpai, do you have a sealing scroll?"
Souma asked.
"I do."
As ANBU, Tenzo almost always carried scrolls for sealing chakra.
Any tailed-beast chakra was worth studying.
It was just—
He had assumed Souma had only managed to take a tiny scrap.
…?
Tenzo opened the scroll—
And watched as one after another, perfectly wrapped spheres of bijū chakra rolled from Souma's sleeve.
In total, more than ten.
"All of this in one go?"
"Of course not. The absorption barrier below got some too. The ants went a little crazy after absorbing it, so I stripped the chakra back out."
Souma said casually.
"…"
Sphere after sphere of tailed-beast chakra was sealed away.
Tenzo's expression gradually calmed.
Clearly, for Souma this sort of thing was already routine.
Barely worth mentioning.
After all—
Tenzo himself was starting to feel numb to it.
"What are you planning to research with it?"
he asked.
"Haven't thought that far. But special chakra is always useful for something."
That—
Souma thought, watching the scroll close—
Is what it means to pluck a passing goose.
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