"Me? What can I do?"
Matatabi felt a strange, malicious chill creep up her spine.
"Matatabi, your mission is to expand the battlefield. Try hitting this from another angle and see if we can suppress fate's attraction," Kurama said.
"Can you speak like a normal Tailed Beast?" Matatabi's face darkened.
"Our mission is to restrict Naruto physically. Yours is to restrict him psychologically." Kurama continued acting like a damn riddle master.
"Physical and psychological restriction? That sounds reasonable, so what exactly am I supposed to do?" Matatabi felt something was off, but she could not quite pinpoint the bullshit.
"It's simple. Use your specialty as a cat and go find yourself a new owner. Someone Naruto wouldn't dare to mess with. Someone who would make him hesitate before trying to touch you.
Then we'll see whether fate and prophecy still make Naruto lose his mind. If they don't, it means this method works. And if we're ever in danger, we can use the exact same method to avoid getting 'enjoyed' by Naruto." Kurama revealed its twisted plan.
What Kurama actually meant was this: they needed to test whether Naruto would be eroded by the 'will of heaven', and whether at the critical node—the prophecy—the world line would forcibly snap back into place.
Makoto's side already knew the answer to this.
The shinobi world's 'will of heaven', at least during the Shippuden timeline, was not as terrifying as that newer one.
It was only during the Boruto era that the will of heaven descended like some creepy rule-based horror story.
Besides, no matter what, as long as Makoto existed as an abnormal node, prophecy and fate could be changed however they wanted.
But the Tailed Beasts didn't know that.
Kurama needed Matatabi to act as a guinea pig first before jumping to conclusions.
That was what Kurama meant by attacking the problem from both physical and psychological angles.
"You want me to swap jinchūriki?" Matatabi hesitated.
Her relationship with her current meat-suit, Yugito, was pretty solid.
"Why the hell would you change jinchūriki?"
"Then..."
"Aren't you on good terms with your vessel? Just tell her the prophecy straight up. She'll understand you. If she doesn't get it, that means she doesn't give a shit about you. In that case, you can just swap jinchūriki and let her die. No big deal, right?"
"..."
Kurama's logic was honestly genius.
'So Yugito had no choice and could only nod along, huh?' Matatabi was left speechless.
But Kurama's bullshit made sense, so she had no solid argument to refuse.
"Wait. Naruto is coming in. Shut up! We can't let him notice! Also, it looks like Sasuke's genjutsu wore off. From now on, do not breathe a word of what we just talked about in here! Keep it locked in your heads! All Tailed Beast missions will follow the assignments I just handed out. No changes!"
Kurama's expression shifted, shutting down the other Tailed Beasts.
Gyūki looked a little disappointed.
It thought it might catch a mission like Matatabi's and go find a master alongside Killer B for shits and giggles.
It wasn't that Gyūki tossed away the dignity of a Tailed Beast and became so shameless that it actually wanted an owner.
It just wanted to see how funny Killer B would look calling someone else his master!
What a pity.
Its current mission was just to assist Kurama and drain Naruto's physical durability.
'Ding'
The second Naruto entered the mental space, all the Tailed Beasts shrank as if they had rehearsed it beforehand, shifting into their child forms and hiding behind the enormous Kurama.
Kurama noticed this spectacular betrayal and wanted nothing more than to sit on the cowards and crush them into paste.
But then it calculated the outcome.
These Tailed Beasts were only fragments of their chakra. If it sat on them until they died, that would just let them escape the cage.
No way. Absolutely not!
"Kurama, so you're here? ...Kurama! Why didn't you help me when Sasuke trapped me in that genjutsu?!" Naruto greeted Kurama warmly at first, then remembered his recent miserable situation and started complaining at the fox.
"Because I got controlled too, idiot."
Kurama lied without blushing or skipping a heartbeat.
In any case, Naruto had nowhere to verify the lie.
Even if he went and asked Sasuke, Sasuke couldn't explain the mechanics clearly either.
After all, if their physical senses could synchronize now, why couldn't genjutsu synchronize too?
"Huh? Is that how it works? Then what kind of dream did you have, Kurama?"
"...Did you come in here for something?" Seeing Naruto forget his actual business, Kurama swallowed its annoyance and asked.
"Oh, right! Pervy Sage said there are a bunch of Tailed Beast powers inside me like yours, Kurama, and told me to try mastering them. Kurama, where are they? Hurry up and call them out! I wanna be friends with them, ya know~"
Naruto slapped his forehead, stretching his neck and looking around, searching for traces of the other beasts.
"..."
Naruto's energetic tone made the Tailed Beasts hiding behind Kurama shiver.
Friends, huh? If they hadn't already heard the Great Toad Sage's sick prophecy from Kurama, they might have been fooled by this naturally shameless Asura reincarnation.
By the time Naruto actually 'enjoyed' them, it would be way too late to regret a thing!
"Naruto, you need to understand something. Jiraiya asked you to come in and master our power for one reason: so you can run Sage Mode better. Only taijutsu and senjutsu can damage the Ōtsutsuki clan. So, Naruto, the more Tailed Beast power you master, the more equivalent natural energy you'll need to balance it out. Only then can you condense enough senjutsu chakra."
Kurama spoke in an earnest-serious tone.
"Is that how it works? I get it. Then..."
Thud.
Before Naruto could finish, the Tailed Beasts hiding behind Kurama—all operating on the principle of 'better you die than me'—kicked Shukaku at the exact same time to launch it out into the open.
After all, Shukaku needed to cooperate with its vessel, Gaara, to drain Naruto's durability anyway.
Besides, it wasn't Shukaku's first time meeting the blond brat.
But... nobody expected little Shukaku to be so damn fat and round.
After getting punted, it turned into a living Rasengan and bounced around the mental space like a billiard ball, knocking Isobu, the Three-Tails, out of hiding too.
Isobu already possessed a technique similar to the Human Bullet Tank called Shadow Stroke.
With that, the two round bastards started spinning like tops, bouncing and crashing everywhere until they knocked every single Tailed Beast out into the open.
"You guys are seriously toxic." Matatabi, who had been knocked flying by the two demon bowling balls, flipped in midair and landed gracefully on the ground with perfect feline instinct.
But because her landing was so flawless, it instantly caught Naruto's eye.
"What a cute little cat! Way cuter than Akamaru from the inuzuka's family. I really don't get why Kiba and Kakashi-sensei like dogs so much."
"..."
Naruto's perfectly normal compliment sounded like a demonic death sentence in Matatabi's ears, making the flaming fur all over her body stand on end.
'This sick bastard really is plotting against us!'
Originally, Matatabi thought she could delay her mission for a while.
But now, she realized there was no time to waste.
She had to hurry up and warn Yugito!