Haruto opened his mouth, just about to tell Kurama all about the earth-shattering events of the future, the Sage of Six Paths, the Ten-Tails, the Rinnegan, the Fourth Shinobi World War... all in one go.
Before he could say anything.
BOOM!
A blinding silver bolt of lightning struck down from the clear sky without warning, crashing less than three meters away from him.
Stone fragments flew everywhere, scorched earth rose into the air, and the lightning left a sinister crack in the ground.
Haruto was jolted so hard that he nearly rolled off the rock.
He suddenly looked up at the still cloudless blue sky above him, then at the smoking scorch mark on the ground, and couldn't help cursing, "What the hell!? The weather in this world is ridiculous. It can even thunder on a clear day!?"
After cursing, Haruto didn't think in the direction of a "warning" at all. He simply assumed the weather in this crappy place was abnormal.
He dusted off his sleeves, sat up straight again, and continued speaking to Kurama. "Where was I just now? Right, someone will want to gather all nine of you Tailed Beasts together in the future, and then..."
———
[In The Void]
Arisu's gaze turned completely cold.
The warning had failed.
This transmigrator actually dared to keep going.
Most of the transmigrators in the past had directly possessed key characters in the story. Killing them easily could affect everything else.
But this Haruto...
He was nothing more than an unknown nobody who had appeared out of nowhere.
If he killed him, then so be it.
Even if Kurama witnessed it with its own eyes, it didn't matter.
Thousands of years later, when the Nine-Tails remembered this incident, at most it would think, "There was once a little brat who wasn't afraid of me and told me a bunch of strange stories, then was inexplicably killed by someone who suddenly appeared."
It would simply laugh it off.
Perhaps after accumulating too many memories, it might even think it had merely had some absurd dream.
Arisu no longer hesitated.
The next second...
"Brat! How dare you!?"
A furious shout exploded like thunder, echoing throughout the entire valley.
Before the words had even finished, a figure had already appeared in midair.
Arisu stood with his hands behind his back, his clothes moving without any wind. Those calm eyes, filled with absolute pressure, coldly looked down at Haruto below.
Haruto froze completely.
He looked at the figure that had suddenly appeared in midair, and his mind instantly went blank.
That face... Was more handsome than his own by more than a thousand times.
Sharp features, a cold aura, his entire person seemingly like a perfect creation condensed out of the void.
Haruto subconsciously searched through his memories at lightning speed.
'Who is this person?'
'Was there a character like this in the original story?'
'The Sage of Six Paths? No, not him.'
'Someone from the Otsutsuki clan? Didn't look like it either.'
'...No!'
'There is no such person in the original story at all!!!'
Haruto's heart sank, and he instinctively took half a step backward, directly putting Kurama behind him and using it as a shield.
He spread his hands slightly, his voice tense.
"Ku... Kurama, protect me!"
Kurama's blood-red vertical pupils stared fixedly at Arisu in midair, and its brows instantly furrowed.
It was a Tailed Beast.
It feared neither Heaven nor Earth.
Its master was the Sage of Six Paths. Could there really be anyone in the world stronger than the Sage of Six Paths?
What was this guy who had suddenly appeared?
"Roar!!"
Kurama suddenly stood up, all nine tails flaring out at once. Enormous chakra swept through the valley like a red storm.
It let out a deafening roar at Arisu, baring its sharp teeth with undisguised killing intent.
Arisu looked calmly at the Nine-Tails. Sure enough, it was still in its uncivilized state.
Back when he had taught Kurama himself, it had been polite and well-mannered, a proper gentleman of a cat.
The Nine-Tails now, however, started hissing the moment it met someone.
However... Arisu didn't even raise an eyelid.
He didn't even spare Kurama an extra glance.
Right in front of Kurama, Arisu simply raised one hand.
An invisible force instantly spread out.
Haruto only felt his chest tighten, and his entire body was uncontrollably pulled toward that force.
"Nine-Tails! Save me!!"
Haruto shouted in panic, desperately grabbing at the air with both hands, but he couldn't catch anything.
The next second, Kurama's enormous body suddenly sank.
An invisible pressure descended like a mountain, pinning the entire Tailed Beast firmly to the ground.
Its nine tails struggled violently, chakra surged wildly, yet it couldn't even muster enough strength to raise the tip of a single tail.
Arisu slowly prepared to leave with Haruto, casually releasing the restraint on the Nine-Tails as he did so.
"Put my brother down!!!"
Just as Arisu was about to leave completely, the force pressing down on the Nine-Tails suddenly loosened.
Kurama's enormous body suddenly became light.
It had no time to think. All nine tails flared out at once, and red chakra surged out like a volcanic eruption.
"Tail-beast Bomb!!!"
The enormous figure charged directly toward Arisu with an aura capable of destroying Heaven and Earth.
"How dare you touch my person! Go to hell!"
Kurama roared.
"You didn't get beaten up, and now you're asking for it, huh!?"
Arisu frowned and didn't even give it a proper look.
He merely swept his eyes over it coldly, then casually swung a slap at the air.
Smack!!
There was no earth-shaking chakra fluctuation.
No dazzling ninjutsu effects.
There wasn't even much sound of wind.
The next second...
BOOM!!!!
Kurama's enormous body, powerful enough to crush a mountain, seemed to be struck hard by an invisible giant hand.
The entire Tailed Beast was instantly sent flying.
The red chakra protecting its body was torn apart in midair. Before it could even scream, it crashed into the distant mountains like a falling meteor.
Rumble! Rumble! Rumble!
Several small mountains collapsed and shattered instantly beneath the impact of its enormous body, sending rocks and dust soaring into the sky and blocking out the sun.
The valley shook violently, and the shockwaves even knocked down large patches of trees around it.
Haruto was completely frozen in midair, held in place by Arisu's invisible force, his eyes wide as if he had seen a ghost.
He looked at the mountains in the distance that had already been flattened, then slowly turned his head toward the man beside him who seemed to have merely waved his hand casually...
His face turned pale, his lips trembled, and his entire expression was filled with disbelief.
'This... this damn thing is a human?!'
'Kurama... the Nine-Tails... was sent flying with a single slap?!'
Arisu, however, didn't even raise an eyelid.
He couldn't even be bothered to look at the Nine-Tails that had been sent flying. He simply lowered his hand, and his figure disappeared into the void with Haruto.
The valley fell silent again.
In the distance, Kurama, which had been smashed deep into the mountainside, finally struggled to raise its head from the pile of rubble after a long while. Its eyes were blood-red, and for the first time, it showed genuine solemnity.
Kurama was so shocked that it could hardly put it into words. It was the first time it had ever seen someone so strong and so overbearing, someone who could slap it away like a stray dog by the roadside.
"How can this world have someone this strong?! Why didn't the old man tell me!?"
Kurama was shocked in its heart, unable to understand why the Sage of Six Paths had not told it about this during his later years.
But what it didn't know was that it wasn't that the Sage of Six Paths didn't want to tell it.
He simply couldn't tell it.