Naruto then puts an explosive chant on his dagger and uses shadow replication to attack. All the replicas were defeated but Naruto was able to get behind to stick the dagger on the base of Gaara’s tail which blows up. Sasuke then tells Naruto to rescue Sakura and escape while he’ll try to hold Gaara. At this, Naruto regains his fighting power and summons his chakra. He then uses Shadow Replication to create 2000 replicas, then attacked and beat up Gaara. Gaara transforms into Shukaku and binds Naruto with sand. But Naruto then successfully summons Oyabin who was a good match for Shukaku. Gaara then uses a technique to make himself sleep allowing Shukaku to take over. Naruto and Oyabin retaliates by transforming into the 9 tailed fox.

Gaara then faces Naruto but was distracted again by the thought of Sakura which reminded him of Yashamaru. Before Yashamaru died, he revealed to Gaara that he never did love him, and his mother didn’t want to give birth to him either. She gave him the name Gaara, which means someone who loves himself and exists only for himself to tell everyone that he wasn’t love and so the monster was born. Gaara hits Naruto with his tail then transforms more into the monster except for his legs. But Naruto was still able to hold against his attacks and stand up again and again. Meanwhile, the Hokage was also feeling stronger and he was able to pull out more of Orochimaru’s soul.

Gaara got angry from Naruto hitting him. But his target was still Sasuke so he then proceeds to attack him past Naruto. Sakura then gets in front of him to defend Sasuke, while Naruto takes Sasuke to safety. The look of Sakura made Gaara feel pain in his chest, and he remembers Yashamaru, his friend and mentor. He remembers that everyone in the village was afraid of him and only Yashamaru treated him like a person. He teaches him that outside wounds can be cured by medicine, but the wounds of the heart cannot. He also tells him that the medicine for the wound of the heart is love. Gaara has always been in pain because Yashamaru tried to kill him too, but he got angry and killed him instead.