"Do I... really have to do this?"
Gaara hesitated, his hand trembling slightly.
If this were the old Gaara, when he watch the Daimyo throwing a tantrum, he would simply slaughtered the man's entire bloodline without blinking.
Ninja regulations be damned!
But the current Gaara, having experienced the divine intervention of Uzumaki Naruto's "Talk-No-Jutsu," had evolved.
He was softer.
He was even beginning to empathize with his terrible father, Rasa.
Even though Makoto had explicitly told him that Rasa was objectively incompetent at public policy, Gaara believed his father's heart was in the right place, even if his methods were trash.
"Do you want to change Sunagakure's current situation?" Makoto asked, his voice cutting through Gaara's internal monologue.
"Does change necessarily require killing? Can't we achieve mutual understanding, like Naruto and I did..."
Gaara looked at the army of mercenary ninjas charging from afar, his resolve wavering.
"Listen to me. If you want to change Sunagakure, you must distinguish between enemies and friends. Who are irreconcilable enemies, and who are potential allies you can win over?"
Makoto stepped closer, his tone serious.
"When facing irreconcilable enemies, if you retreat one step, they will advance ten. What you sacrifice isn't just your personal dignity, it's the lives of everyone standing behind you."
"Didn't you just say you're beginning to understand Rasa? He did dirty deeds for the village. He sacrificed his family and let himself be hated, all for the sake of Sunagakure"
"What about you?"
"If you lack the capacity and decisiveness to make the hard calls, my suggestion is to let Temari take the Kazekage hat instead. She can complete the 'All-Female Kage' set."
"I won't take it!"
Temari, who was gripping her fan tightly while watching the enemy approach, immediately shouted her refusal.
She didn't want that trouble!
"You want me to stand against everyone... becoming the center that bears all hatred..."
Pressed by Makoto's words, Gaara suddenly had an epiphany.
Though, his interpretation made Makoto somewhat speechless.
'Is that really how you understood it? Why does everyone in this universe have a martyr complex?'
"Why would I want you to stand against everyone? Right now, it's the Daimyo who stands against the people," Makoto corrected helplessly. "We are the good guys here, theoretically."
Many figures in the Shinobi World wanted to instigate change—Hanzo of the Salamander, Uchiha Madara, Sasuke during his emo revolution phase.
They all wanted to fix the system.
Their methods weren't necessarily wrong, but they overlooked one thing: Public relations.
To bring about change, you need popular support.
The "I will become the villain to save the world" trope is dramatic, but inefficient.
The transformation they understood, and the transformation Gaara now comprehended, were both inexplicable setups like "standing against everyone" and "bearing hatred."
It's as abstract and stupid as making the Uchiha clan the police force, which naturally led to everyone hating them.
"I understand." Gaara's eyes grew resolute.
He raised both hands, and the desert floor began to rumble as a massive sandstorm surged violently.
However, Gaara's current strength was at most mid-Jonin level without using Shukaku power.
The rogue ninjas hired by the Daimyo weren't just scrubs, there were seasoned Jonin among them.
Faced with the onslaught of the sandstorm, many of the elites simply dodged or used Earth Style to burrow underground.
This wasn't the Chunin Exams, where the opponents were mostly Genin with the occasional standout genius.
Temari was about to swing her giant fan to provide backup when Makoto placed a hand on her shoulder and pulled her behind him.
"What are you doing?" Temari asked, puzzled.
"Relax. Leave it to me."
Makoto patted Temari on the head (earning a glare from her) and walked up to Gaara's side, placing a hand firmly on the boy's shoulder.
"Huh?"
Gaara instantly felt a tremendous power flooding into his chakra network.
However, he couldn't control it.
In fact, the moment this power entered his system, he lost control of his own sand entirely.
'What is this?'
This was the ability Makoto gained after Uchiha Hikari used Tsukuyomi on him.
It wasn't based on the genjutsu itself, but on Hikari's true Mangekyo ability: Eight thousand spears.
This time, however, Makoto couldn't find a suitable name to map it to.
If he had to describe it, this ability turned him into a human-shaped "Stand Arrow" for the Shinobi World.
Similar to how Eight Thousand Spears amplifies ocular techniques and shares chakra, Makoto mastered the ability to inject Natural Energy into others to produce massive amplification.
Injecting natural energy wasn't something new, Jugo could do it.
During the war, Jugo attached his cursed seal to Sasuke's Susanoo because only Senjutsu could damage Obito.
But Jugo's injection barely amplified Sasuke's stats; it just added the 'True Damage' attribute.
Makoto was different.
From the White Snake Sage, he learned that his body condition bore a suspicious resemblance to the Ten-Tails.
This explained why Kabuto in the future refused to teach him Sage Mode, Kabuto knew that unleashing a human-shaped Ten-Tails without knowing its moral alignment was a bad idea.
So, Makoto had to innovate.
He thought of the Otsutsuki Clan.
They travel to planets, plant trees, suck up natural energy, and refine it into pills.
Essentially, they convert a planet's raw natural energy into edible chakra. This aligned perfectly with the concept of "External Alchemy" from Taoism.
So, if there's an External Alchemy method... what about Internal Alchemy?
Makoto began compressing natural energy inside his own body until the concentration reached a terrifying density.
Combined with his new Eight thousand spear-based delivery system, injecting this supercharged energy into someone else was equivalent to forcibly activating a Super Sage Mode for anyone he touched.
The only drawback? The power was too immense for a normal human to handle.
The only drawback was that this power was too immense and had to be entirely controlled by Makoto himself.
This was why Gaara found himself unable to control his sand.
Makoto's current enhancement of Gaara's abilities wasn't just to test the effects of his new power.
Aside from his special abilities, Makoto had always relied solely on physical attacks.
So, was there any way to master elemental techniques like wind, fire, lightning, and earth?
He thought of Sasuke's Kirin.
Kirin didn't use chakra to create lightning; it used chakra to guide natural lightning.
Since Makoto was a living battery of natural energy, he could theoretically do the same thing with other elements.
By using natural energy to pilot Gaara, Makoto could use Gaara's affinity for sand (Wind/Earth) to learn how it felt to control the elements directly.
"Don't be afraid." Makoto stepped up beside Gaara, his grip firm.
Rumble.
Frenzied sand surged and converged before them, but it didn't form a wave or a shield. It began to construct something geometric.
Something architectural.
"What... what is that?!"
The mercenary ninjas halted in their tracks, staring in fear at the magnificent structure rising from the desert floor.
A golden Sun disc altar, glowing brilliantly, hovered above the sands.
Under the blazing desert sun, the disc hummed.
VWOOM.
A fierce beam of concentrated solar fire shot from the disc, slicing through the ground like a laser cutter.
The mercenary squad didn't even have time to scream.
They were instantly vaporized, turning into glass statues before crumbling into dust!
"Hiss... huh?"
While sensing the raw power of the natural elements, Makoto suddenly thought of something and look up at the sun.