Chapter 572: Haunted
"Ughhh... what am I supposed to do..."
The One-Tail Shukaku crouched in its boundless desert, enormous body curled in on itself, both paws pressed tightly over its own head -- as though it was genuinely afraid something might come flying at it from behind at any moment.
The whole creature looked nothing like a Tailed Beast that had lived for thousands of years. It looked like a wild cat that had been suddenly shoved into a cage, every single hair on its body standing straight up.
"Gaara, you absolute idiot! Why won't you listen to me!"
Its voice rang across the empty desert. It could not understand. It was trying to help him. It was trying to protect that infuriating little brat. All he had to do was throw the thing away and the problem would be gone -- so why wouldn't he listen?
Why did he shut Shukaku out completely every single time the subject came up?
"Ghosts... actually exist?!"
Its paws dropped from its head and covered its face instead, leaving two terrified, completely at-a-loss eyes staring out through the gaps in its claws.
"What am I supposed to do?! What does that thing even want?!"
Every creature fears the unknown. No matter how powerful the being, when everything it believes it knows gets overturned at once -- when every piece of experience it has accumulated becomes useless -- the body reacts faster than the mind.
That reaction is called fear.
Shukaku had lived for thousands of years. It had long since concluded that nothing in this world could genuinely surprise it anymore.
Then this happened. For the first time in its existence, it had encountered something it had no framework for. For the first time, within the boundaries of what Shukaku understood, it had seen a genuine ghost.
Not a metaphor. Not an exaggeration. A real, undeniable, completely literal ghost.
The reason came down to the puppet -- the one Shukaku had always considered just a toy, but that Gaara treated as though it were worth more than anything.
A puppet. Made of wood. Joints on strings. A coat of lacquer. Two gemstone beads for eyes.
Things like this were everywhere in the shinobi world. Dead material was dead material. Wood was wood. Something without life was something without life.
But this puppet was different.
The puppet Gaara kept beside him like a treasure -- the one called "Uzumaki Naruko" -- it looked convincingly like a real person, but to Shukaku, it was still just a toy. No matter how realistic a toy looked, it was still a toy.
And that was precisely what made this so frightening.
On an ordinary day, Shukaku had woken up in its comfortable desert exactly as usual. Warm sand. A reasonable breeze. It had stretched, released a yawn that could have sent sand flying several hundred meters, and was just settling in to find some way to amuse itself -- then it glanced at Gaara in the real world.
The boy had clearly received some kind of major blow. He looked like a stray cat caught in the rain, misery radiating from every inch of him.
Shukaku had been gearing up to lean into that, to deliver a pointed "what a pathetic sight" with full commitment.
Then it froze completely.
The words stuck in its throat. Its eyes locked onto something, and its pupils contracted down to two narrow lines. It had seen something. Something completely alien and unknown to it.
Tailed Beasts have an innate ability: they can sense the feelings and intentions of others.
It is the instinct by which they distinguish allies from threats. This ability has never once been wrong. Nothing has ever successfully hidden its true nature from a Tailed Beast.
Until that day.
That was a puppet. That was a toy made from dead materials. Wood, adhesive, lacquer -- not a single component of it was alive. Not a single component of it was supposed to have emotions.
Its joints should have strings inside them. The skin underneath should be hollow -- it's hollow! It was supposed to be hollow! This is impossible!
That puppet -- that thing called "Uzumaki Naruko" -- Shukaku was detecting emotions from it. Emotions that only real living things were supposed to have.
Not simulated. Not puppeteer-controlled. Not an illusion.
Genuine, living feeling. Soft and warm and gentle, like a blanket laid over someone in the cold of the night.
The feelings Shukaku sensed from the thing were positive ones -- warm, inviting, the kind that made you want to be near them.
But it was a ghost.
Shukaku had never seen Toy Story.
As far as it was concerned, a dead object suddenly becoming something alive -- what else could you call that?
"Idiot... why won't you ever listen to me..."
Shukaku muttered, its paws dropping limply to its sides. "Why won't you throw that ghost away... if you want to get yourself killed, at least don't drag me into it..."
It had raised the subject with Gaara more than once. It had tried gentle persuasion. It had tried shouting. It had tried throwing itself around its inner world in full tantrum mode until it ran out of energy.
Every time, Gaara would listen quietly to the end, and then cut Shukaku's voice off entirely.
The voice couldn't get through. The fear couldn't get through. Shukaku sat trapped in its desert, watching the ghost live alongside Gaara day after day, completely powerless to do anything about it.
"Hey, dumb tanuki. Long time no see. Still not dead yet, I see."
"Who's there?!"
A familiar shape appeared in Shukaku's field of vision.
The fox.
That detestable, insufferable, despicable, orange-red fox.
Nine-Tails materialized in the desert, mouth pulled back into the expression that made Shukaku's blood pressure spike the moment it saw it -- that infuriating, self-satisfied smirk.
But this Nine-Tails looked different from usual. Its body was much smaller than normal, barely the size of one of Shukaku's paws. This wasn't the full Nine-Tails -- just a fragment of chakra, a manifestation of intent.
Nine-Tails looked at the terror and wariness written all over Shukaku's face, and felt slightly puzzled.
It had been a while since it had visited, true -- it had been in a sulk with Naruto and hadn't made the trip -- but surely things hadn't gotten this bad? When had Shukaku become this twitchy? It hadn't even recognized Nine-Tails' voice. It had gone stiff with fright before turning around to see who it was.
In the past, for all its faults, Shukaku at least had the reflex of hearing Nine-Tails' voice and immediately jumping to insults. Not this frozen, flinching business.
"You rotten fox?!"
The moment Shukaku's eyes confirmed who it was looking at, the terror on its face shifted -- replaced by an emotion that was equal parts hatred and excitement.
"You absolute-- I thought you'd finally got scared of coming here!" Its voice shot upward. "This time I'm going to settle things!"
I can't take on your full power -- but can't I at least handle you in this form?!
Not that Shukaku had ever actually beaten Nine-Tails. Not once. But Shukaku had the sincere conviction that if it just kept fighting, kept trying, the day would eventually come when it got its revenge.
"Since you've finally delivered yourself to me, just go ahead and die!"
Deep in Shukaku's throat, a massive Wind Release began to gather. The wind ball grew larger and more unstable. The desert winds began to howl in spinning columns. Sand tore upward into the sky.
...
What happened next was the same as every time before.
"Hey, stupid tanuki."
The small Nine-Tails' voice drifted down from above Shukaku's head. "I've always wanted to ask -- why do you love sitting in a desert so much? Dry, hot, not even anything to look at."
It looked down at Shukaku, who had been beaten to the point of complete incapacitation and was now lying face-down on the ground without the strength to move.
"Though I suppose I don't need to go digging around in your inner life. I have zero interest in whatever is going on inside that sand-colored, sand-filled head of yours."
The miniature Nine-Tails walked back and forth across Shukaku's enormous body. After a few laps, it found the most comfortable spot between Shukaku's shoulder blades, sat down, and curled itself into a small, fluffy, orange-red ball.
"But seriously -- what's wrong with you? I haven't visited in a while, but how have you gotten even weaker? You didn't even recognize my voice."
"You were already pitifully weak to begin with. So weak that I'm embarrassed to tell anyone I know you. Bad for my image."
"Answer me. Did you go mute? What's wrong with you, you idiot."
Shukaku lay on the ground, its entire body shaking.
Not from fear. Not from cold.
From pure, absolute rage.