The ground shuddered as if struck by a giant hammer.
Gamabunta drew his tantō, preparing to take Orochimaru's head, but the Sannin was faster. He bit his finger—blood splattered onto the tattoo on his arm.
"Summoning Jutsu!"
An explosion of purple smoke covered the castle ruins. From it, coiling in rings, rose Manda—a colossal purple snake whose size was no less than the Hokage Tower.
"Orochimaru..." the snake hissed. "You disturb me again? I hope you have a hundred human sacrifices ready."
"Kill them, and you'll get two hundred," the Sannin promised, pointing at Jiraiya.
While the giants clashed in a battle shaking the landscape, a small black figure jumped from the toad's head.
Naruto landed in front of Tsunade. The princess still stood in a stupor, her hands trembling, her gaze riveted to the blood on the ground. Hemophobia paralyzed her will.
"Hey, Tsunade!" Naruto barked without turning around. "Stop shaking! Help the Old Man with Orochimaru when you come to your senses. Jiraiya-sensei is strong, but Orochimaru is slippery. He could use the support."
"And you?.." she exhaled.
"And I," Naruto cracked his neck, looking ahead, "will take on four-eyes for now."
***
Kabuto Yakushi stood ten meters away, adjusting his glasses with his middle finger. He was absolutely calm. A battle of Monsters raged around, but his attention was focused on the youth before him.
"Naruto-kun," he smiled his polite, fake smile. "So, you survived the encounter with Itachi? Impressive. But trying to get into adult fights... is reckless."
Naruto stepped forward.
"I realized who you were back at the exam," he said calmly. "Your chakra... cold and slippery. You reeked of snakes even before I saw Orochimaru."
Kabuto's smile grew slightly wider.
"Sharp senses. You were the only one who didn't buy my 'kind older brother' act. A pity. Such talent... and given to a monster."
His hands were enveloped in a blue, razor-sharp glow.
"Chakra Scalpel," he explained, as if at a lecture. "I will cut your muscles and tendons without damaging the skin. You won't be able to move. And you will watch as we kill her."
He disappeared.
Kabuto's speed was at the level of an elite Jonin. He was faster than Kakashi in his prime.
Naruto reacted instantly. Qi Sensory picked up the dash, and Body Tempering immediately shifted him to the side.
But it wasn't enough.
WHOOSH!
The blue chakra blade grazed him.
Naruto jumped back, clutching his right shoulder. The arm hung limply. The muscle was severed, although the skin remained intact.
"See?" Kabuto stopped, shaking off invisible dust. "You're too clumsy. Brute force is useless if you can't hit."
Naruto looked at his dangling arm. There was no pain—the nerves were cut too.
"You're right," he said quietly. "There is a monster inside me. And it has claws."
He closed his eyes.
Inside, in the center of his stomach, the Pseudo-Core began to spin, gaining momentum.
Fox. Level two. Let's go.
Show him the difference, the Kyūbi responded briefly.
Explosion.
The ground beneath Naruto's feet sank.
Red chakra, thick as lava, erupted from his pores. It didn't just envelop him—it formed armor. Two long tails of pure energy whipped up behind his back. Naruto's eyes opened—now they were scarlet slits with a vertical pupil. His skin darkened, canines lengthened.
He didn't growl or rush into a mindless attack.
The blonde looked at Kabuto with cold, bestial calculation. The Pseudo-Core helped keep his sanity in a steel grip.
Kabuto frowned.
"A Cloak? Think that will protect your body? I'll cut through chakra too if needed."
The medic lunged forward. He absolutely believed in his technique. The Chakra Scalpel was capable of cutting anything.
He aimed for the heart. A fatal blow.
The Jinchūriki didn't dodge.
He stepped forward.
Kabuto plunged his hand, enveloped in the scalpel, straight into Naruto's chest, covered in the dense, red aura.
HISSSSS!
The sound was like a piece of meat being thrown onto a hot skillet.
"AAAGH!" Kabuto screamed, jerking his hand back.
His palm was smoking. The skin was burned down to the meat. The Scalpel technique dissipated upon contact.
The Kyūbi's chakra in this form was so dense and caustic that it worked like concentrated acid. Kabuto's fine, surgical chakra simply evaporated upon collision with this raw power.
Kabuto jumped back, cradling his burned hand. Abnormal regeneration had already begun to work, but the pain was hellish.
"What is this?!" he hissed, looking at Naruto with horror. "This chakra... it's dense as lava! It can't be touched! How can you be inside it!?"
The price of this power was a constant companion—Pain.
Naruto's skin under the Two-Tailed Cloak was corroded and immediately restored, as if he were standing in acid. But the cultivator didn't even wince. After the hellish torment of Body Tempering, when he had to break his own bones and rebuild organs, this burning was merely annoying background noise that a disciplined mind simply ignored.
"You wanted to cut my muscles?" the Uzumaki's voice sounded with a double echo, vibrating in his chest. "You can try again."
A red tail of concentrated Bijū Chakra lashed forward.
It elongated several meters in a split second.
Kabuto tried to dodge, but the second tail struck from the other side, cutting off his escape route.
GRAB.
The chakra limb seized Kabuto across the torso.
Naruto clenched his fist.
The tail increased pressure.
CRUNCH.
The sound of breaking ribs was distinct. Kabuto spat blood, his eyes bulging from their sockets.
Naruto pulled him closer. The spy hung in the air, helpless, clamped in the vice of demonic energy.
"You know a lot about medicine, Kabuto," the Uzumaki growled. "But you know little about pain yourself."
Cross seal.
Next to Naruto, a Clone appeared. Hybrid, with a dense but unstable Qi structure inside and an outer layer of chakra. For now, it was a rough, unfinished, forced prototype. A normal shadow clone would have instantly dissipated from the mere pressure of the Nine-Tails' poisonous aura. This one held on. Its outlines trembled, its skin smoked, resisting the corrosive power of the Cloak, but it stood.
The Clone extended a hand. In its palm, with a little help from the Original, a perfect blue sphere formed.
Rasengan.
Standard. Stable. Spun to the limit.
The real Naruto looked Kabuto straight in the eye.
"This is for the Third. And for daring to threaten my friends."
The Clone slammed the Rasengan into the immobilized Kabuto's stomach with a swing.
BAM!
The sphere of energy screwed into the medic's body.
The tail unclenched at the last moment.
Kabuto flew off like a projectile fired from a cannon. He flew twenty meters, spinning in the air, and smashed into the remains of the castle's stone wall.
The wall collapsed, burying him underneath.
Naruto exhaled.
The red chakra was slowly pulled back into the seal by an effort of will. The Pseudo-Core slowed its rotation. The tissues of the shoulder cut by the scalpel had already begun to fuse, emitting caustic steam. The sensation was akin to cauterization with a hot iron, but not a single muscle on the Jinchūriki's face twitched.
Something stirred in the pile of stones.
Kabuto, covered in blood, with a mangled chest, tried to stand. His unique regeneration attempted to stitch the organs anew, but the damage from the Rasengan was too massive. The insides were turned to mush.
He rose to all fours; his glasses cracked and fell off his nose.
"Monster..." he rasped and collapsed face down in the mud.
The Uzumaki turned away.
Kabuto was finished. He shifted his gaze to the giant beasts fighting in the distance.
"Now—for the bigger snake," he said, heading toward them.