After Sailing with the Pirate King, I Returned to Konoha - 236

Chapter 236: Then I’ll Take Them Down Myself!

"Useless, don’t..."

Before "Gaara" could continue, Naruto’s fist was already on him.

For someone who did not like talking much mid-fight, he had no patience to sit through a speech before throwing a punch.

One rule of the strong on the sea:

Strike first, talk later.

If you do not even have the right to stand before me, there is no point wasting time on what comes after.

Naruto had wanted to lob a few Conqueror’s Haki blasts to see if the other could truly ignore ninjutsu, but with three people so close, he held back.

Bang!

Sand shaped by sage chakra wove into dense, tough walls before Gaara. Naruto’s fist struck them, and countless grains absorbed and bled off the terrifying force.

"Then it’s my turn."

At his words, more sand appeared out of thin air and coiled toward Naruto.

In a blink, he was wrapped in a sand sphere.

Kosei could not sit still. Ignoring Haku, she stamped the ground and shot toward Gaara in midair like a cannonball.

But she knew neither Super Light-Weight Rock Technique nor Moonwalk, so after that one leap, she could not control her trajectory.

If Gaara could react to Naruto’s punch, there was no way this untrained headbutt would land.

When it had been "hidden" inside Gaara, it had learned that this little girl had a naturally strong body but little polishing.

Good enough to handle a small-time ninja, not enough to meddle in a fight like this.

Fine sand became ropes, wrapped Kosei’s ankles, and, without mercy, flung her down.

"You are special too..."

As he spoke, countless sand senbon gathered in the air and stabbed at the girl’s limbs.

"...you could serve as a spare. I will let you live. Wait quietly on the side."

Seeing this, the two "nannies" moved. One dashed to catch Kosei where she would fall; the other formed seals and loosed a storm of Ice Senbon to intercept the attack midair.

Unfortunately, Haku’s Ice Release could not match Sage Arts. No matter how he fired, the ice needles could not break the sand, nor could they even make it veer off.

Even without systematic training, Kosei’s innate talent marked her as a born fighter.

In midair, she locked her gaze on the pursuing sand. The more dire it became, the calmer she grew.

She tried to twist in the air, but the sand senbon tracked like homing shots, adjusting with her.

No good. Then she would just have to break them head-on.

The girl’s fists clenched as she braced to clash with the sage chakra attack.

The next instant, a broad figure shielded her from above.

The Naruto wrapped in sand burst into smoke. The real Naruto appeared in front of Kosei, cradled her gently with one arm, and turned the other into a blade that swept through the air.

The slash, rimed with black lightning, met the sand senbon at speed.

The collision of chakra and Haki sent strange ripples through the sky.

Like wrinkles in space.

In the end, Naruto’s Haki proved stronger, shattering all the senbon.

"Little one, you okay?"

Naruto did not know why his voice softened on its own, like he feared startling the child in his arms.

He could not shake the sense that she was special.

"...Kosei is fine."

It was a face even the two "nannies" and Granny had never seen.

Like a deer in the woods, timid and frail.

Somehow, the little terror who ran wild on Amazon Lily, the Land of Vegetables, and everywhere else turned shy before Naruto.

In his arms, Kosei even felt like crying.

In the end, for all her gifts and grit, she was still not yet five.

Her mother was too busy to spend time with her often, and her father was a figure who existed only in stories.

How could Kosei not wish for parental care like other children?

Perhaps that was why she had boldly dug out the turtle device from "Father’s treasure,"

and come here without a "marker," not knowing whether she could return to her time.

Sensing her swirl of feelings, Naruto set her down with unprecedented care and ruffled her hair.

"Since this is between us, do not drag the innocent into it."

"Innocent? No one in this world is innocent."

Before "Gaara" could finish, a big hand seized his head and hurled him toward the distant forest.

But he was not like those Naruto had handled before; he did not go helplessly.

Sand formed a spiral "drill" and bored into Naruto.

At contact, Naruto felt the Haki coating his arm erode rapidly.

This was...

"Prepared just for you."

That kind of drain was abnormal. Naruto had to let go early and allow distance.

"A wondrous power, unlike chakra."

"This is why I chose you as my partner."

Gaara touched the spot Naruto had gripped, as if recalling the feel of Haki.

"A pity ‘he’ does not have the aptitude."

He meant the original Gaara.

Without the will of nature controlling him, Gaara’s overall ability was below Kosei’s, to say nothing of will.

If Gaara had Naruto’s will, this trickle of natural energy could never have taken his body.

Conscious, Naruto could reject it by will alone.

"Well? Join with me."

The words sounded very easy to misunderstand.

"Merge with me, and we can destroy all chakra in this world."

"Only then can we protect it."

The will of nature needed a vessel.

Without a strong enough body, it could only be a planet’s energy to be harvested.

"Protect it? From whom?"

That was new to Naruto.

Before, when it had occupied him, its words had always been vague.

Naruto’s question seemed to stir some instinctive fear in "Gaara."

"They... they are calamity. They feed on a planet’s life force."

"An entire planet is fertilizer for their ‘fruits’."

Naruto blinked at that description.

What fed on a planet? He had never heard of such a thing.

"What does this have to do with chakra?"

"Gaara" recovered from fear and turned to him with a distant look.

"Destroy all chakra, and they will not set their sights here."

"A planet that cannot produce chakra will not be prey."

In its view, all life on this world combined could not resist that dreadful race.

Even without the rest, a threat already "hung" in the nearby void beside this planet.

That creed of nonresistance struck a nerve. A face he did not like to recall surfaced and slowly overlapped with the one before him.

Whether because of it, or that person in his memory.

Either way, Naruto’s head filled with "so close yet so far" frustration.

"You have the guts to attack me and everyone else, but not the guts to fight those who truly hurt you?"

A vein throbbed on Naruto’s forehead.

"Are you that afraid of failure?!"

As his words fell, wind and cloud shifted. A terrifying surge of Conqueror’s Haki burst skyward.

"Whoever they are, if they dare come, let them try!"

"If something that devours worlds really shows up, then I, Uzumaki Naruto, will take them down!"