Moving was an extremely annoying affair for the Nine-Tailed—especially moving from an old house where it had lived for decades into a cramped, suffocating new apartment.
That old woman named Mito was already at the end of her rope. Her Chakra was like a leaking lantern, so weak it could go out at any moment. The Nine-Tailed could tell she would die soon.
It was a shame… and yet, also inevitable.
Just like the First Hokage, Senju Hashirama, who once dominated an entire era, even the strongest people would eventually grow old and die. If even Senju Hashirama had not escaped that fate, how could such a fragile woman hope to do so?
The Nine-Tailed yawned lazily.
At present, it was being forcibly stuffed into another, younger and far more vigorous Uzumaki, dragged along by those damned golden chains like an unwilling beast. To it, this was nothing more than trading one childish cage for another.
The scent of the new cage wafted through the chains.
A red-haired little girl named Kushina.
The Nine-Tailed remembered her clearly. When she had come earlier to "inspect the property," she had shouted at it across the Seal barrier, ignorantly yelling things like, "Stupid fox, Hiroki will definitely help me subdue you."
The thought made the fox snort in amusement.
Subdue it? With these fragile humans who lived and died in the blink of an eye?
—Wait.
Tree?
The Nine-Tailed's mountain-sized eyes shifted slightly.
Its gaze pierced through the false forest unconsciously constructed from Uzumaki Mito's memories and quickly locked onto the uninvited guest who had suddenly entered its territory.
A black-haired human brat.
So this was Hiroki?
He looked ordinary enough—two eyes, one nose, two hands. Nothing special. No horns, no third eye, and certainly nothing resembling the Six Paths Old Man.
Still, since the new "tenant" had mentioned him by name, the Nine-Tailed decided it should give this brat a proper "welcome gift" before officially moving in.
The fox bared its teeth, forming a vicious grin it believed would terrify any human.
"Hello~ brat."
It gathered the purest malice it had accumulated over hundreds of years and spat it out without restraint, like a wad of thick phlegm hurled straight at him.
Ah—tui!
This was the malice born from being brutally crushed by Senju Hashirama, from being controlled like a tool by that trash Uchiha Madara, and from being beaten by the two of them together.
Ah—tui!
The clump of malice shot directly toward Hiroki's face.
This was its proudest weapon—at least while sealed and unable to do anything else. If an ordinary ninja touched even a trace of it, their soul would be drowned by overwhelming negative emotion, leaving behind nothing but terror and despair. Being frightened into suicide was hardly impossible.
The Nine-Tailed wanted to see what this boy, in whom the little girl placed such high hopes, was truly capable of.
"Let me witness your capacity."
The torrent of malice surged forward like a tangible tsunami.
And yet—
Something strange happened.
The brat merely swayed… and still held on.
The Nine-Tailed sensed an invisible barrier surrounding him. It creaked violently under the pressure, as though on the verge of collapse, yet stubbornly refused to break.
Interesting.
Had he experienced a similar shock before? Or was his mind truly strong enough to withstand malice accumulated over decades and centuries?
The fox's interest was piqued. If one welcome gift wasn't enough, then it would simply add more.
After all, these emotions were never truly its own. They were "trash" it had been forced to accumulate due to its extreme sensitivity to malice.
The arrogance of Uchiha Madara, the cold scheming of Senju Tobirama, and the curses, hatred, jealousy, madness, and killing intent of countless souls that had died beneath its claws—
Resentment, negativity, wailing, distortion, lust, rage—
Years of accumulation had mixed all of it into its Chakra, almost making them inseparable from its existence. They cluttered its mental world, ugly and suffocating. Previously, restrained by the Seal, it had nowhere to vent or discard them.
Now, during this transfer, it could finally package all this garbage and dump it onto this brat.
You're welcome, kid.
The Nine-Tailed sneered as it increased the output of its malice. Even more chaotic negative emotions poured out like a tidal wave of refuse, rushing toward Hiroki all at once.
It watched eagerly, waiting for him to burst under the pressure and turn into a drooling idiot.
But—
Something even stranger happened.
Not only did the brat fail to collapse, he actually began to do something.
The Nine-Tailed watched in disbelief as Hiroki seemed to conjure a square box out of thin air within his mental world. Changes occurred instantly, following his thoughts.
Then, Hiroki gestured toward those emotions—even the Nine-Tailed found them repulsive—and made a motion as if "grouping them together."
They were swept into something that looked suspiciously like a garbage bin.
What!?
He could actually treat its malicious Chakra as trash and throw it away?
In the next instant, the Nine-Tailed felt as though a filthy, tattered cotton coat it had worn for decades had been violently stripped from its body.
The hatred, rage, and curses that had plagued it for countless years were gone—not erased, but packed away into that strange box.
Its entire mental world became clean and refreshed.
The sensation was like living in a damp, lightless cave for centuries, only for someone to suddenly open a window and let warm sunlight flood in.
…Comfortable.
The Nine-Tailed flicked its tail unconsciously. For the first time in hundreds of years, it felt relaxed. Even the golden chains wrapped around its body no longer felt quite as oppressive.
Still, confusion crept in.
"Where is my… hatred?"
Before it could think further, the Nine-Tailed suddenly realized it seemed to possess two perspectives—much like when it had been sealed inside Uzumaki Mito and could still observe the outside world through the Seal.
It saw another place.
A deep-blue space, flat and expansive, covered in countless charts. Beneath its feet was a strange frame-like structure.
Huh? Where is this?
—Huh!?
Why did I shrink!?
The Nine-Tailed stared in shock at its body within this other mental world. It was tiny, no larger than one of the squares on the surface beneath it.
And worse—
Its body had become a flat, diagram-like image, as though it were nothing more than a drawing.
This was the brat's mental world!?
What kind of bizarre place was this!?
At the same time, Hiroki was equally stunned.
"Wait… why did a moving desktop icon just appear on my screen?"
And why was it shaped like the Nine-Tailed!?
"Damn it—did my computer get a virus!?"
That despicable fox—how the hell did it get past his firewall!?