Chapter 53

Genma offered a lopsided, mischievous grin. "Well, looks like our future chunin is here. You did pretty great, Ryuu."

Ryuu merely nodded, too tired for extensive pleasantries. He noted the proctors had evidently allowed his former teammates to wait for him.

"You two," Genma said, his gaze shifting to Izumi and Renji, his tone losing some of its casualness but none of its underlying support. "You fought well. Both of you."

Izumi met his gaze. "We failed, Sensei." Her voice was flat, devoid of self-pity, but heavy with the acknowledgment of failure.

Renji snorted, "That Crimson team got lucky Ryuu was on their side. His traps on those Kumo flankers bought them all the damn time they needed." There was no malice in his tone towards Ryuu, just a raw, honest assessment of the battle's turning point.

"Luck is part of it, Renji," Genma conceded, pushing himself off the wall. "But skill creates more opportunities for luck to strike. Ryuu's tactical play was sound. Izumi, your leadership under pressure and the way you neutralized threats was far beyond needed of a chunin. Renji, your aggression was focused, your strikes effective. You both showcased what I needed you to."

He paced the small space. "Let me be clear. This exam, for Team Twelve, wasn't primarily about immediate promotion. It was about forcing you to adapt, to fight against unfamiliar odds, to see firsthand what shinobi from other villages are capable of, and to understand your own limits when pushed." He stopped before them. "The goal here was experience. The kind you don't get on D-rank milk runs, or even most C-ranks. Honestly," he added, his senbon bobbing, "any of you making Chunin this round wouldn't have shocked me. Your individual strength is there. But the exams are about more than just raw power. They're about timing, circumstance, and sometimes, just who you get lumped with."

A comfortable silence settled for a moment, the weight of the past days pressing down. Ryuu accepted the offered water skin from Izumi, taking a deep, grateful swallow.

Just as the tension began to ease, a palpable shift occurred in the very air of the tower. It started as a subtle thrum, a discordant vibration that Ryuu's heightened senses picked up before the others. 

Then, it erupted.

A colossal, overwhelming wave of chakra slammed into the tower like a physical blow. Raw, primal, and utterly terrifying. Dust sifted from the stone ceiling.

Genma was instantly alert, his relaxed posture vanishing. The senbon dropped from his lips. "Chakra… immense. Unstable. And close. Too close." His eyes, usually half-lidded and casual, were now wide and sharp as flint.

Ryuu gasped, a cold dread gripping his chest. 

The chakra was far too strong for him, overloading his senses. He had felt such an overwhelming chakra before, it was during the night of nine-tails attack. This was exactly the same feeling.

The only thing able to release such chakra was a tailed beast and the only tailed beast here was...

"Ichibi," Ryuu breathed, the name a chilling whisper. 

Shukaku, the one-tailed beast of Sunagakure, the beast sealed inside the Jinchuriki, Garaa.

Izumi's eyes, even without her Sharingan active, widened in alarm at the sheer oppressive weight of the chakra. Renji shot to his feet, trench knives flashing into his hands, his face pale. "What in the pure land…?"

"Down! Now!" Genma barked, his voice a low, urgent command that brooked no argument. He shoved them bodily towards the narrow doorway of the maintenance corridor he'd clearly identified as an escape route or observation post earlier. "This is Suna's nightmare, not ours to deal with. We observe, we gather intel, and we survive."

They scrambled into the cramped, dusty corridor, pressing themselves against the cool stone. Genma swiftly kicked a loose board aside from a grime-streaked window slit, creating a narrow, precarious view of the moonless Suna cityscape.

The sounds hit them next, a cacophony of destruction that seemed to tear the night apart. A guttural, inhuman roar, deeper and more resonant than any earthly beast, vibrated through their very bones. It was followed by the sickening, grinding crunch of collapsing buildings and the distant, sharp cries of terror from Suna's populace. 

Geysers of sand, vast and violent, erupted into the night sky, illuminated by sporadic, desperate flashes of ninjutsu – Suna defenders, attempting to counter the overwhelming beast. Even from their vantage point within the fortified tower, the sheer scale of the destruction was horrifying. Buildings that had stood for centuries seemed to crumple like parchment.

Ryuu stared, his breath catching in his throat. This wasn't warfare as he understood it, not the controlled clash of shinobi against shinobi. This was akin to a natural disaster, a cataclysm given sentient, malicious form. 

A monstrous, ill-defined silhouette composed of roiling, animate sand, larger than any summoning creature he had ever witnessed was methodically tearing through a section of the village. That had to be Shukaku, the Ichibi. Its chakra was a vortex, a seething, uncontrolled maelstrom of hatred and raw power that made even the most powerful Jonin signatures he'd encountered feel like flickering embers in comparison.

He had not witnessed Kurama's attack on the hidden Leaf at that time, as his mother had made sure he was somewhere extremely secure during that time.

He was a Genin on the cusp of Chunin. He possessed a sharp intellect, a burgeoning mastery of Water and Wind Release, and most importantly, Ice Release Kekkei Genaki. But against that? Against that elemental fury, he was less than insignificant. A gnat facing a hurricane. 

The chilling realization of his own powerlessness washed over him, cold and absolute.

The manga and anime didn't portray the actual horror about the Bijuu, they couldn't capture the visceral, primal dread, the crushing sense of insignificance that came from witnessing one in its unbound wrath. This was why they were feared. This was why Jinchuriki were both weapons and terrible burdens.

Genma remained still beside him, his typical nonchalance utterly gone, replaced by the razor-sharp focus of a veteran Jonin facing an existential threat. 

Ryuu could feel the tension coiled in his sensei's frame, a subtle hum of restrained power. Genma's gaze was fixed on the distant devastation, his mind clearly processing tactical implications and potential threats to their Konoha contingent. 

"The One-Tail going berserk here means that the Jinchuriki must have gotten into some sort of altercation. From what I can sense, it seems the beast hasn't fully overtaken the host though."

Hearing his words Izumi couldn't help but frown. "Sensei, isn't the Jinchuriki supposed to be trained and treated with great care? After all they are great weapons of war in human skin."

"Normally, yes. But Rasa is a cruel bastard who treats scarring his own son as nothing more than hardening. He sees his own son as nothing but a tool."

Ryuu nodded. This was exactly the case at this point in time.

The next three hours were an eternity etched in fear and the acrid taste of dust. Distant, inhuman roars punctuated by the sickening crunch of stone and the sharp, desperate cries of Suna's populace painted a horrifying soundscape. Ryuu, Izumi, and Renji, pressed into the cramped maintenance corridor, watched through the grimy slit window as Shukaku carved a path of destruction through a distant quarter of Sunagakure.

The rampages, while devastating, seemed to have periods of relative quiescence before erupting anew, suggesting an internal struggle rather than complete, mindless annihilation. 

He could see pinpricks of light moving with desperate courage around the periphery of the chaos. They weren't attempting direct confrontation, which Ryuu instinctively knew would be suicidal. Instead, their movements suggested the coordinated laying of vast, powerful sealing arrays, a slow, methodical attempt to contain and drain the rampaging Bijuu's power, or to force the Jinchuriki, Gaara, back into some semblance of control. This was Suna's internal catastrophe, their village's burden, and one they would bear with the fierce, isolated pride typical of the Hidden Sand.

Izumi, usually so composed, had a pallor to her skin that the dim light couldn't hide. "The level of destruction… Sensei, if a Bijuu can do this, even partially uncontrolled, how does any village survive an all-out assault?"

"They usually don't, Izumi, not without devastating losses or another Bijuu to counter it," Genma stated, his voice grim, his eyes never leaving the distant chaos. "That's why the balance of Jinchuriki among the great nations is so critical. It's mutual deterrence. One going truly rogue without its village's control can destabilize entire regions. 

Sunagakure… they've always had a more brutal approach to their Jinchuriki compared to Konoha's more… contained methods. Rasa likely pushed the boy too hard, or something went catastrophically wrong with one of his 'tests'."

Renji, uncharacteristically silent, watched with wide, almost haunted eyes. The sheer, unmaking power was beyond anything his practical, combat-focused mind could easily process. This wasn't a fight you could win with sharper knives or faster taijutsu.

Slowly, agonizingly, the monstrous chakra signature of Shukaku began to recede. It didn't vanish, but was clearly being fought, contracted, wrestled back into submission by the relentless efforts of the Suna shinobi. The guttural roars faded, replaced by the crackle of widespread fires and the muffled, distant sounds of lamentation. The oppressive weight in the air lessened, leaving a cloying silence permeated by the smell of burnt sand and the unmistakable metallic tang of blood.

An hour later, strained, official announcements crackled through the Suna PA systems, echoing within the tower. The voice was devoid of emotion, purely functional.

"Attention all Chūnin Exam participants and visiting dignitaries. Due to unforeseen and critical internal security events, the final stage of the Chūnin Examinations, the individual tournament, is hereby postponed indefinitely. All participants are ordered to remain within the designated secure perimeter of the central tower. Further directives regarding the status of the examinations will be disseminated as the situation develops. The leadership of Sunagakure extends its deepest apologies for this unavoidable disruption and the profound distress inflicted."

Genma let out a slow, measured breath. "Indefinitely. That's Suna-speak for 'we have a massive mess, and don't expect anything back to normal anytime soon'." He turned, his gaze sweeping over his students in the cramped, dusty corridor. "Well, kids. That puts a rather large question mark on your Chunin prospects, Ryuu. As for you two," he looked at Izumi and Renji, "this chaos might ironically present an opportunity. If the exams are restructured or if there's a significant delay, you might get another shot, depending on how the Kazekage and the Suna Council decide to proceed. Or," he shrugged with a flash of his old nonchalance, "the Hokage decides this desert vacation is over, and we're all on the next caravan back to Konoha."

The Suna bureaucracy, even in crisis, moved with a certain ponderous efficiency. Within the hour, a visibly exhausted Suna Chunin, his uniform smeared with soot and his eyes red-rimmed, delivered formal summons. All foreign shinobi, regardless of rank, were to assemble at the Suna Central Administrative Complex for an urgent security briefing and an official statement from the Suna Council.

The gathering of Konoha shinobi was a somber affair. Ryuu, Izumi, and Renji, led by Genma, joined the rest of the Jonin teams and ASC genin and Chunin. The air was thick with tension, a mixture of professional concern and unspoken apprehension. Stern-faced Suna shinobi, their expressions hard as the desert stone, lined the walls, their vigilance palpable.

Kakashi Hatake, his expression inscrutable as ever beneath his mask, approached Genma. They conferred in low tones, slightly apart from the clusters of Genin.

"Your team weathered the… fireworks, Genma?" Kakashi's single visible eye was sharper than usual, betraying none of his customary languor.

"Present and accounted for, Kakashi-san," Genma confirmed. "Shaken, naturally." He inclined his head slightly towards Ryuu, Izumi, and Renji, who stood observing the proceedings with a newfound gravity.

"The One-Tail is a uniquely volatile entity," Kakashi observed, his gaze distant, as if replaying memories. "Rasa's conditioning methods were always high-risk, high-reward. Tonight, the risk materialized."

"The tournament's postponed indefinitely, by the official announcement," Genma relayed. "Could be they reschedule after they've… re-secured their asset. Or this entire Chunin Exam iteration might be scrubbed."

"Rasa is politically astute, if ruthless," Kakashi mused. "He'll project strength, minimize the damage narrative. But this, in front of the Wind Daimyo and foreign delegations… it's a severe blow to Suna's image of stability. Minato-sensei will counsel caution. We maintain our posture, offer no direct intervention unless explicitly requested for humanitarian reasons, and prepare our people for either a protracted stay or a swift departure, depending on how Sunagakure stabilizes and what Konoha deems prudent."

Ryuu listened, his earlier personal investment in the exams feeling distant, almost trivial. The primal terror of Shukaku's uncontrolled rampage, the sheer unmaking force of a Bijuu, had recalibrated his perspective. 

It was a world of immense, unpredictable power, where entire villages teetered on the brink due to forces barely understood and barely contained, and where the lives of individuals were often just pieces in a much larger, far more dangerous political game.

And the tailed beasts weren't even the worst threat.

Just thinking about the impossibly strong planet plundering Otsutsuki clan, a shiver couldn't help but run down his spine. He had to increase his strength considerably before then.

'First, I need the shadow clone technique. But Genma-sensei has been keeping it as a goal for me to earn after I become a chunin, using it like a carrot on a stick.' 

He couldn't help but think, frowning slightly at the games the man was playing.