[Answer… incorrect.]
"Yura!"
"Jonin Yura!!"
"Damn it!!"
"You bastard!!"
Inside the domain barrier, right before everyone's eyes, a Sunagakure ninja was twisted by spatial distortion and reduced to a pile of mangled flesh.
Red blood mist spread through the invisible barrier.
Another person was dead.
And another chance to answer was gone.
Only one chance remained—the Third Kazekage's human puppet…
"Damn it! This is Konoha's conspiracy, isn't it?!"
Chiyo said coldly, "Calm down. If Konoha were really capable of something like this…"That would be far more terrifying than the situation they were in now.
"Gaara is wrong. Shukaku is wrong too! Then what is the correct answer?!"
Another death weighed heavily on everyone's minds.
There was only one chance left, yet the only answers they could think of were those two.
If they had more chances—and if the rules weren't answer wrong and you die—they could have tested possibilities one by one.
But now…
A suffocating gloom hung over Sunagakure.
The Fourth Kazekage was missing.
The jinchuriki was not in the village.
A sudden, inexplicable horror quiz.
Two powerful jonin dead in succession…
"Th-then… um…"
"What is it, chunin?"Many jonin carried an air of arrogance toward those below them. Toward unfamiliar ninjas, they often referred to them only by rank—Hey, that genin.You there, chunin, come help.
The one speaking hesitantly was the chunin with a daughter.
"Um, I just wanted to say… when I bought that teddy bear, I happened to see—"
"Are you out of your mind?! This is the time to talk about your daughter?!"
"I-I'm sorry."The courage he had just managed to gather was instantly crushed.
At that moment, Granny Chiyo's voice cut in. "Let him speak."
Then Chiyo shot the jonin a sharp look. The man immediately broke into a cold sweat, lowered his head, muttered an apology, and fell silent.
The chunin continued, "I remember that when I bought that teddy bear… Lady Karura hadn't given birth yet."
He recalled the memory.
At the time, Lord Gaara hadn't been born. He had taken his daughter to the shopping street in Sunagakure. Because of the climate, there weren't many kinds of toys, and most were brownish in color.
Lady Karura and Lord Yashamaru were both gentle, outstanding ninja. They were very polite even to a chunin like him.
So during idle conversation, he learned that Lady Karura was picking out a gift for her unborn child…
Back then, it seemed Karura already had a premonition—that she wouldn't be able to restrain herself from protecting her youngest child.
When the topic of parental love came up, she casually said that even if she were no longer in this world, she would protect her children in another form, absolutely never allowing them to be harmed.
When the chunin saw that teddy bear, Karura's words—absolutely—suddenly resurfaced in his mind.
"I'll protect them in another form—absolutely never letting them come to harm."
[Whose power is 'Absolute Defense'?]
In his mind, Lady Karura's absolute overlapped with the absolute in the horror quiz, sparking an impulse—that power had to be the power of Gaara's mother, Lady Karura!
…
"S-so… I was thinking… could 'Absolute Defense' be Lady Karura's power?"
The chunin shared his thoughts with Chiyo and the elder.
They exchanged a glance. Chiyo lowered her head in thought. It did seem that this might be the only possibility left.
"Hey! You chunin!" Another jonin couldn't help speaking up. "If that power isn't Lady Karura's, can a mere chunin bear the consequences of a wrong answer?!"
Chiyo snapped back, "Then can you, a jonin, bear the consequences for him?"She despised this obsession with rank.
The jonin, scolded by Granny Chiyo, didn't dare argue. He only shot the chunin an irritated glare, clearly unconvinced.
The chunin didn't dare meet his eyes. He told himself he was only following orders.
Chiyo let out a sigh. The reason she had stepped away from village administration back then was precisely because, after Gaara was deemed a failure, the council and Sunagakure's ninja had repeatedly pressured Rasa, the Kazekage…
They had completely lost sight of what mattered.
"Karura…"A trace of sorrow crossed Chiyo's face.
"Is it really you? Are you still by Gaara's side, protecting him?"
Today, Granny Chiyo felt more sentimental than usual. She was human too—thinking of her son and daughter-in-law, thinking of her grandson who became a missing-nin and killed the Third Kazekage. As a ninja, she carried far too many regrets.
Having made their decision, Sunagakure chose to gamble everything…
The elder nodded to the ninjas inside the domain barrier who had been too afraid to speak for hours.
One ninja immediately stepped forward to take the task.
Succeed—or die.
The Sunagakure ninja who accepted the role swallowed hard.
No one was unafraid of death. No one was born to be a tool.
But perhaps this was the fate of a ninja.
Not daring to look at the corpses of Runa and Yura, the third answerer shut his eyes and shouted the answer at the top of his lungs—
"It's Lady Karura's power!! 'Absolute Defense' is the power of the Fourth Kazekage's wife, Lady Karura!!"
After his voice echoed for a moment, the cold, mechanical voice responded slowly—
[Answer…]
…