Chapter 316: The Fist of the Golden Buddha
Among the Tailed Beasts, there existed a technique of last resort—swallowing one's own Tailed Beast Bomb to amplify its destructive potential before releasing it in a cataclysmic blast. It was dangerous. It was reckless. It was the kind of maneuver only a beast with a truly indestructible constitution would even contemplate. Among the nine siblings, the one most likely to attempt such a thing was the one with the hardest head.
The Nine-Tails, naturally, considered itself above such crude tactics. It had used the technique before, yes. It had swallowed its own bombs in battles long past. But that did not mean it enjoyed the experience. The margin for error was razor-thin. A miscalculation in energy distribution, a single moment of imbalance, and the bomb would detonate prematurely—tearing the fox apart from the inside out. The technique was a gamble. And the Nine-Tails, for all its arrogance, did not like to gamble with its own hide.
Now it had no choice.
The Tailed Beast Bomb—the high-yield variant, the village-killer, the attack it had prepared to wipe this insolent human and his golden monstrosity from existence—was being shoved back down its throat.
The Five-Tails, watching through the spiritual link, laughed so hard its dolphin-like body convulsed. The last time this happened to me, I nearly lost half my life. My stomach still burns when I think about it. Now it's your turn, brother. Now it's your turn.
The Nine-Tails hit the ground. Its body convulsed. A muffled boom echoed from somewhere deep in its gut, and its torso swelled outward like a balloon being inflated from within. The fox's cheeks bulged. Its eyes bugged out. A sound escaped its throat—something between a belch and a scream—and then the Tailed Beast Bomb detonated.
BOOM.
With the Nine-Tails as ground zero, a mushroom cloud erupted into the night sky. The shockwave flattened what remained of the forest. The earth cracked. Boulders the size of houses were tossed into the air like pebbles. A hurricane of superheated air and dust swept outward in all directions, and the very mountains seemed to shudder at the impact.
"Earth Style: Earth Flow Wall!" Sarutobi Hiruzen slammed his palms against the ground. A barrier of chakra-reinforced stone erupted before them, absorbing the brunt of the blast wave. Even so, the Hokage felt the heat wash over him, felt the ground tremble beneath his feet, felt the sheer, apocalyptic scale of the power that had just been unleashed.
When the dust finally settled, the Nine-Tails lay sprawled on its back. Its nine tails twitched feebly. Its massive chest rose and fell in ragged, labored breaths. Hot white steam billowed from its mouth, and its eyes—those terrible, blazing eyes—were unfocused. Dazed. The expression of a creature that had just been hit by a truck, then had the truck back up and hit it again.
History repeats, Hiruzen thought, and the thought was almost giddy. Hashirama-sama's Wood Golem did the same thing. Caught the bomb. Stuffed it back. The fox never learns.
But even Hashirama had not been this thorough. Hashirama had detonated the bomb next to the fox's head. Ragnar had shoved it down the Nine-Tails' throat and punched it into its stomach.
"ROAR! HUMAN! I WILL EAT YOU! I WILL—"
The Nine-Tails' roar was cut short as it scrambled to its feet. Its claws, each one longer than a man was tall, gleamed with killing intent. Even through the Buddha's golden aura, Ragnar could feel the murderous pressure radiating from those talons. A mountain would part like tofu under their edge.
But Ragnar's Golden Buddha was not a mountain.
"It seems you haven't been beaten enough."
The Buddha's palm came down like divine judgment.
CLANG.
The Nine-Tails' claws raked across the Buddha's golden surface. Sparks flew. The sound of the impact echoed across the valley like a struck bell. But the claws did not pierce. They did not even scratch. The golden hide of the Daibutsu—the condensed essence of the Mythical Zoan's power—was harder than diamond, more resilient than any metal known to man. If Wood Release was the Senju's answer to the Tailed Beasts, then this was something else entirely. Something that belonged to a different order of power.
The Buddha's other palm caught the Nine-Tails across the side of the head. The fox saw stars. Its ears rang like temple bells.
Gold Release, Ragnar thought clinically. Stronger than Wood. Sharper. More absolute.
"JINTON: BUDDHA'S WRATH DIVINE FIST!"
The Golden Buddha had only two arms. But it did not need more.
The fists descended like a thunderstorm. Left, right, left, right—a relentless, mechanical barrage that gave the Nine-Tails no room to breathe, no space to counter, no moment to gather its wits. Each punch carried enough force to shatter a cliff face. Each impact sent shockwaves rippling through the fox's massive body. The golden fists moved with a speed that defied the Buddha's size—no sluggish giant, this, but a titan with the agility of a striking serpent. The Nine-Tails, for all its power, was still a beast. It fought on instinct. It knew no martial arts. It had no technique. Against the disciplined, relentless assault of the Golden Buddha, it was outmatched in every conceivable way.
Where have I felt this before? the Nine-Tails thought dimly, between punches. This pain. This helplessness. This—
Hashirama.
"ENOUGH!"
The fox's jaws opened wide. Not a Tailed Beast Bomb this time—there was no time to gather the energy—but a volley of smaller energy projectiles, rapid-fire, a machine-gun spray of concentrated malice. Dozens of the glowing orbs shot toward the Buddha's face in the span of a heartbeat.
The Buddha raised one palm. Swung it sideways like a man swatting flies. The energy projectiles detonated harmlessly against the golden barrier, their combined force insufficient to even singe the Buddha's skin.
Then the Buddha's other hand seized the Nine-Tails by the head. It drove the fox's face into the earth. Held it there. And the golden fist continued to fall. Methodically. Relentlessly. Without mercy.
"Is young Ye Chen really this strong now?" On the ground below, Sarutobi Hiruzen watched the one-sided beatdown with an expression that hovered somewhere between awe and existential crisis. If not for the dignity of his office, he might have pulled up a chair, lit his pipe, and simply enjoyed the show. This was the most relaxed he had felt since the sealing ceremony began. The Nine-Tails—the legendary monster that had haunted Konoha's nightmares for generations—was being used as a punching bag by a teenager.
"He grows faster than we can measure," Hatake Sakumo replied. His hand, which had been white-knuckled on his blade, had finally relaxed. "Our generation can only watch and wonder."
"Konoha has found its successor." Uzumaki Mito's voice was barely a whisper, but it carried the weight of absolute conviction. "Even if I leave this world now... I can rest."
Kushina said nothing. Her eyes were fixed on the golden titan, on the figure at its heart, on the boy who had once been a lonely orphan training in the rain. He came for me. He's fighting a Tailed Beast. For me. The thought was too large to hold. It spilled out of her chest and filled her entire body with a warmth that had nothing to do with the battle's heat.
Sarutobi Hiruzen's expression was complicated. Gratitude. Relief. And beneath both, a thread of unease that he could not quite suppress. Ragnar's power had grown beyond anything he had anticipated. Beyond anything he could control. If the boy ever turned against Konoha... but no. That was a worry for another day. Today, that power was the only thing standing between the village and annihilation.
The truth was simple: ordinary shinobi could not fight the Nine-Tails. The scale was wrong. A Kage-level ninja could harass the fox, could distract it, could perhaps wound it with a sufficiently powerful technique—but they could not fight it. Not in the way Ragnar was fighting it. Because Ragnar had met the Nine-Tails on its own terms. He had matched its size. Surpassed its speed. Overwhelmed its strength. The Golden Buddha was a weapon of the same order as the Tailed Beast itself, and in the hands of a skilled combatant, it made the fox look like exactly what it was: an overgrown animal picking a fight with something beyond its comprehension.
The Nine-Tails' chakra contains Yin and Yang attributes, Ragnar thought, even as his fists continued their relentless assault. This is an opportunity.
His blows were not random. They were precise. Calculated. While the Nine-Tails was pinned and helpless, Ragnar's attacks were secretly extracting small portions of the fox's substance. A fragment of tail here. A few drops of blood there. The flesh and blood of the Nine-Tails were precious beyond measure. In the original timeline, the Gold and Silver Brothers—Kinkaku and Ginkaku—had gained access to the Nine-Tails' chakra by eating pieces of its flesh. They had survived being consumed and had emerged with Tailed Beast abilities. That alone proved the unique properties of the fox's physical form.
Ragnar did not need the Nine-Tails' chakra. He needed something deeper. Something more fundamental. The seed of Yin and Yang chakra—the primordial duality that lay at the heart of all creation. With those seeds, he would be one step closer to completing the Bloodline Snare. One step closer to mastering all seven chakra natures. One step closer to true invincibility.
Now. Seize it.
The Nine-Tails, battered and bruised, its body a canvas of wounds, thrashed weakly beneath the Buddha's grip. It had tried to struggle. Each attempt had been met with more pain. More punishment. It was learning, slowly, that resistance was futile.
Ragnar's voice echoed through the spiritual link, reaching Uzumaki Mito and Kushina simultaneously.
"Now. Seal the Nine-Tails."
The fox's eyes widened. It understood what was coming. But pinned beneath the Golden Buddha, its body broken and its chakra spent, there was nothing it could do to stop it.
Kushina rose. Her grandmother's hand found hers. The golden chains of the Adamantine Sealing Technique blazed to life once more.
The sealing would proceed. And this time, the Nine-Tails would not escape.
(End of Chapter)
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