"Akamaru, I'm telling you, don't wander around on your own!"

Woof!

"I don't care whether it's a bad guy or a good guy! No means no!"

Woof~

"You-! Aaargh! Acting cute won't help you this time!"

It took just a lick on the cheek before Kiba finally melted under his partner's coaxing and dropped the topic. The boy slouched down on the ground, tired and defeated, while the puppy snickered mischievously.

"Losing to a mere dog... have you no shame as a member of the dominant species?" Temari shook her head.

"Shut up, you pigtails girl! He's no 'mere dog'! He's my partner, Akamaru!"

"Still a dog, no?"

Well... true...

Now that he was defeated by a dog and a foreign woman, he slipped down further into depression.

The central tower was a huge structure with multiple entrance at the bottom. The two teams had separated to take the entrance assigned from their gates, but found nobody waiting inside their respective hall. There was only a large plaque filled with riddles written on it.

There was no examiner around, so they didn't know whether they had indeed passed the test or not. Considering how tricky the first test was, one could never be too sure.

In the end, they decided to try opening the doors around the hall.

After spending some time walking around the bottom floor, they ended up meeting with Gaara and his team once again. It seemed that each halls were actually connected by a maze of corridors. There was also a deeper area further inside with a set of staircase leading to the floors above.

Upon reaching that point, it was decided that Shino, Hinata, and Kankuro would go up to check, leaving Kiba and Temari below in case any examiner appeared.

Meanwhile, Gaara had went off by his own without saying anything. Typical.

"Say, pigtails girl-"

"Stop calling me that, dog boy! I'm Temari!"

"Fine, Temari," Kiba huffed. "What's wrong with that brow-less kid of yours? He looks... off. You know what I'm saying? Something's going bad in his head."

Temari scowled at him.

"Watch your mouth, brat, that's my little brother."

Oops. Kiba quickly clammed up.

She let out a sigh.

"Well... I guess you're not exactly wrong..."

Their father, the Fourth Kazekage, had ordered her and Kankuro to keep watch of Gaara. Truthfully, she would had declined if only the mission didn't require three Genin to be a part of the team.

After all, that little brother of hers... she was actually scared of him. She felt as if he could easily kill her without the slightest of hesitation if she ever got him in a bad mood.

Despite that, Kankuro...

Somehow, she had grown jealous of his other brother's sudden improvement, which had allowed him to basically interact with Gaara in an equal footing.

"Hmm? You guys are already close, I see. That's good."

A carefree voice came from the staircase, to which both Kiba and Temari retorted at the same time.

""We're not!""

"..."

'That was a good sync though...' Kankuro was about to say that, but he noticed that the fan behind Temari was this close to be unleashed and get intimate with his head, so he swallowed the thought immediately.

On the side, Akamaru was rolling on his stomach, trying to suppress his giggle.

"Well, Shino? Hinata? What did you get?" Kiba coughed.

"Nobody's here," Shino replied. "Uppermost floor is blocked. Only examiners could enter."

"You know, maybe we came too early...?" Kankuro muttered.

"..."

There was actually a good possibility of that being the case. After all, the exam was supposed to last for five days, but they had finished it in two hours...

"What now?" Kiba groaned.

"Let's just stay here for now. The examiners will arrive sooner or later. There's enough supply here as well."

Everyone agreed to Shino's suggestion. However, since they were still two opposing teams, they decided to split up to find their own resting place.

By the time that peace and quiet had settled down once again in the tower, night had finally arrived. Without any lights, the place was absurdly dark save for the trace of moonlight coming from the windows.

"Where are you going?" Temari asked when she noticed Kankuro walking off with a cloth bundle on his hand.

"I'm going to find the brat."

He replied promptly before disappearing into the darkness.

"...They really didn't care about their sister... hmph!"

She devoured lunch boxes one after another while sulking by herself...

---

Gaara was perched on the roof of the uppermost floor, wasting his time by staring dazedly at the moon.

He was currently in a bad mood. His thirst for blood hadn't been satiated yet, and now that blasted raccoon inside him was edging him on, telling him to slaughter the kids that had come along with them.

Of course he would had done so, if only that annoying fly wasn't there to stop him...

"Oi. I finally found you!"

God damn it. Speak of the Devil and he doth appear!

Kankuro leaped up from a roof to the next one above it until he finally reached Gaara's position. The kid was narrowing his eyes toward him. Is he had a brow, it would had most likely been locked in an epic frown.

"What do you want? Just fu*k off!"

"Don't be like that, don't you want this?"

He threw the bundle to Gaara. When it landed on the boy's side, the cloth opened to reveal a stack of wooden boxes.

"...What is that."

"Food. Aren't you hungry?"

"..."

He didn't reply. Shrugging off the cold treatment, Kankuro took a box for himself, and then began chowing down on the content.

"Eating good food under the moonlight is great. It'll be even better with a companion. Why don't you try it out?"

Gaara gritted his teeth as he continued to glare at the happy-go-lucky Kankuro sitting cross-legged beside him without a care in the world.

Back then, he was alone. That was enough for him. It wasn't until later that the Kazekage suddenly introduced Temari and Kankuro as his siblings.

He never acknowledged them as such.

He could see the disdain hidden in their eyes. They tried to hide it with smiles and flowery words, Temari more so than Kankuro, but he wasn't so easily deceived.

They were afraid of him, just like the rest of the village. What siblings? What blood relation? In the end, they just saw him as a monster.

It was fine. He'd never expected anything different in the first place.

That was, until half a year ago.

This 'brother' of his had suddenly woken up in the middle of the night, and then ran around the entire village while yelling out random babbles. When he had finally calmed down, the village medic immediately tested him for genjutsu influence but found nothing of sort. They concluded that he was just stressed out.

From then on, his personality seemed to change.

He was supposed to be a puppet jutsu user, so he'd always focusing his training in chakra manipulation. Ever since that night, it was all changed into physical training. Weird physical trainings, even.

Ever seen a man wiggling their naked bodies at the break of dawn? Gaara had. It was deeply unsettling...

Not only that, his brother seemed to lose any sense of fear around him. The annoying fly would bother him again and again, telling him to loosen up a bit more.

The worst part was that it felt so genuine, so real, that it had wavered his conviction of being alone.

He hated it. He hated this new him so much.

His dwindling patience finally blew up at the conclusion of one particular mission not too long ago. Kankuro had distracted him from landing a killing blow on a surrendering enemy ninja, allowing said enemy to retreat.

Although killing the enemies wasn't part of the mission, Temari and Kankuro had been notified multiple times by their father to let Gaara do whatever he want. If he wanted to kill, so be it, let him kill.

Stopping him from relieving his stress was a big no.

Gaara changed his target to Kankuro, covering him with Binding Sand Coffin technique.

Not too far from there, Temari had broken down in tears. The thing that she had feared the most had finally happened. She forced her feet to move, rushing with all her might back to Sunagakure. If she could get their father to help, then maybe Kankuro could still be saved.

Of course, that was just an excuse. Gaara's Desert Funeral killed in an instant. Perhaps, she had just wanted to save herself.

Nevertheless, Gaara's only focus at that moment was Kankuro. He clenched his fist, expecting to crush the puppeteer in an instant.

The blood rain, however, never fell down.

"Cheeky brat, you've done it this time."

Gaara had lost control of his bundle of sand, which had melted into a puddle of blazing-hot liquid. As for Kankuro, starting from the tip of his fingers, licks of translucent flame were covering his entire body, their white glow comparable to the brightness of the summer sun itself.

Those were chakra-infused sand, which was ridiculously resistant to even the strongest Flame Release technique. To be able to melt those sand, how hot would that flame had to be?!

"What... did you do? What is that?!"

With a yell, he shot out numerous bullets made out of sand toward Kankuro. The latter increased the intensity of the flames, burning every sand bullets that managed to get near.

And then, he lunged toward Gaara.

A brilliant red light glowed on his right palm, which stretched out to form a three-pronged spear as tall as Kankuro's own body with blades made out of those translucent flames.

It was the absolute enigma of this world, the thing that should not exist. The weapon of the Guardian of the Underworld, the Honorable Ox-Head: Karma Trishula.

Gaara's sand defense quickly formed a shield around him. At the same time, the tip of the trishula stabbed into the sand. The flame burned even brighter, melting the sand and scattering it off. It kept pushing forward closer and closer toward the boy.

For the first time in his life, Gaara was forced to abandon his living sand shield.

The trishula only hit a sand clone while the real body had emerged elsewhere after slipping through the sand below their feet.

"Guh... gwaah!"

He was angry. Really angry. Shukaku was slowly winning over him. His body was merging up with the sand, reshaping itself into a form resembling a gigantic raccoon with claws and fangs.

"So that's the 'monster' that they fussed about so much... Fine! If you're so intent to become a wild beast, then I'll knock you down to submission!"

The translucent flame burned. Brighter, brighter, blazing up uncontrollably as it grew to gargantuan size, turning the entire desert into a puddle of hot, glowing mess. Although faint, the flame grew more and more to resemble a raging bull's head.

The sand and the flame clashed at the middle as both sides struck with all their might. One bent on extinguishing the other, while another threaten to burn everything to oblivion.

A combination of loud roar and explosion reverberated in the sky before slowly dying down.

And then, it was quiet.

A huge crater was left after that fight. The surface was covered in a thick layer of rough, glassy substance, the result of liquid sand cooling off rapidly. At the center lied two boys covered in scars and burn marks, their clothes broken and tattered.

"Why... why won't you leave me alone..."

A soft murmur came from Gaara, prompting Kankuro to stir awake.

"Why... indeed..."

Ox-Head had always been fond of children. They were still pure, the sign of brighter future, a future where everyone would be able to smile. In his previous world, the mortals and immortals had achieved it through the formation of Yang Dynasty.

This world, however, was still far from it.

He had noticed this boy's darkness from the start, but he also knew that it would be impossible to heal that wound in one sitting. The only thing that he could do was to stay by his side, to show him that he would never be alone.

That was a handful to say, so in the end he summed it up in one sentence.

"Because I'm your brother. That's why..."

According to this body's memory, that was the setting, so it should be appropriate, right?

"..."

Gaara went silent. It took a while before he asked once again,

"Aren't you afraid of this monster inside of me?"

To which Kankuro let out a loud, mocking laughter.

"Monster? That puny critter just now?!"

Inside Gaara, veins were popping up on Shukaku's temple.

"...Not funny."

"Haha... sorry, sorry."

He finally stopped laughing.

"Listen, kid. I've seen powers beyond your imagination. I've seen someone turning a big country into ice. I've seen someone spreading madness throughout the entire Dynasty. I've even seen someone creating a literal sun with his own strength! Compared to that, what does your 'monster' amount to?

Just a small grain of sand!

Now, tell me, why should I feel afraid?"

At that moment, Gaara felt as if he had regained something. It was still small and unnoticeable, but it was definitely there.

After remembering those memories, he took a lunch box out of the bundle, only to notice that it was already the last remaining box.

Didn't Kankuro bring a lot just now...? He turned his gaze toward the black-clothed boy, only to see five empty boxes scattered all over the roof. The culprit himself was emptying the sixth one.

"Uh... sorry, I thought you're not eating..."

"..."

Gaara decided to just ignore this stress source and eat up his lunch box. At one point, the movement of his chopsticks stopped.

"Kankuro..." He muttered.

"Hmm?"

"That person who can create a sun... is he here?"

To be able to have that kind of power... Gaara's blood was boiling, itching to have a go at that ridiculous-sounding person.

"Well..." Kankuro burped. "He's indeed here, but I don't think you can fight him at his peak condition. He's got... issues to deal with at the moment."

"...Fine."

Gaara's eyes turned cold once again.

"When he's finally back to shape... tell me immediately. I want to fight him..."

So that he could prove his own reason of existence.

---

"Ah-choo!"

A muffled sneeze came out from beneath the dolphin-faced porcelain mask.

"Big brother, did you catch a cold?"

Not too far from there, a person in a porcelain mask fashioning slit-eyes and elongated beak, a shape resembling the face of a bird, called out.

"No, I'm perfectly healthy. Strange... is someone gossiping about me?"

The dolphin mask was worn by a brown-haired girl in dark robe, while the bird mask was worn by a handsome young man in light-blue robe. Under the moonlight, the two were leisurely lounging around while chatting aimlessly-

-on top of a pile of corpses.

The swords on their sides were still dripping with freshly-drawn blood. The simple wooden huts around them were burning brightly, the swaying flames emitting an eerie glow.

They had been attacked by a group of bandits when dusk had fallen. Unfortunately for the bandits, not only did they fend off the attack, they had also followed the retreating bandits to their village and slaughtered the entire troupe, sparing only a few women and children in their ranks who had since fled the area.

What was left after their rampage was a wrecked village and the thick stench of death.

"Bandits, huh... no matter the world, they always spring up one after another. How annoying," Hikari grunted.

"It can't be helped," Youen sighed. "The southern area wasn't as prosperous as the north. Desperate people always choose desperate actions, especially if they could get away with it."

"It's such a bother," the girl stretched out her arms.

"By the way, big brother, since when did you make this mask for me..."

"Daji commissioned one a while ago. She'd also made one for Honorable Ox-Head. See?"

Hikari pulled out a bull-faced mask out of her sleeve.

"..."

In his heart, Youen lamented that his big sister had too much free time...

"Anyway, we should be close to that kid you've mentioned before, right?"

"Ah, yeah."

The young man pulled out their map, and then pointed at a marked spot not far from their current position.

"There's a clue about reincarnator there, or so I hope."

"Having any clue is better than running aimlessly, I guess. Though, It's just the first day and it's already this hectic..."

Hikari jumped off the pile of corpse, and then walked off toward the main road.

"Let's go."

"In the middle of the night?"

"What about it. We usually cultivate without sleeping for years anyway. Don't tell me you're getting soft after reincarnating?"

Youen replied with a smirk.

"Definitely not. Let's go, big brother!"

The duo set off once again in their journey.