Chapter 111: The Nine-Tails Unleashed
"This—! That chakra signature is absolutely massive. I've got a very bad feeling about this. Something went wrong inside?!"
Hatake Kakashi—ANBU captain and one of the jinchūriki's designated protectors—was deadly serious, and more than a little tense.
The chakra blast radiating out of the loft had blown past anything he'd imagined. It felt… boundless. Off the scale.
Kakashi's assignment to jinchūriki protection duty hadn't been random. Minato knew exactly what Kakashi had been through on the battlefield—and had given him this post as a chance to heal, to give him time to recover from the wounds carved into him by war.
* * *
"That's a Tailed Beast's chakra signature… The seal has been released—it's like someone broke it from the outside. We placed barriers around the entire perimeter. By all logic, no one should have been able to get through. Kakashi, maintain your sentry position."
Minato's voice cut through Kakashi's spiraling thoughts. By the time Kakashi turned his head, the Fourth Hokage had already vanished—and the loft's door had been violently smashed inward. Minato had charged straight inside.
Of course he had. The Nine-Tails jinchūriki was Kushina Uzumaki.
His wife.
Of course he's panicking.
* * *
The instant Minato's foot crossed the threshold, his expression contorted—and in that same breath, the entire loft house collapsed.
A tidal wave of chakra energy erupted in every direction. Timber shattered. Debris launched skyward.
Several figures burst from the wreckage, each looking considerably worse for wear.
One of them was shielding a wailing newborn in her arms. Two others flanked a pale, visibly weakened woman.
The one holding the baby was Sarutobi Biwako—the Third Hokage's wife. A jōnin in her own right, and no slouch in combat. In the original Naruto timeline, she'd been one of the birth attendants as well. Apparently, some things held constant even across divergent timelines.
Biwako glanced down at the unharmed infant cradled against her and exhaled.
She still couldn't understand how a five-or-six-month pregnancy had produced a perfectly healthy baby. But right now, survival was all that mattered.
Except "the baby is fine" didn't mean everything was fine. Biwako's expression was grim.
She lifted her gaze toward the colossal figure now towering above them.
The Nine-Tails… it's actually free. Damn it all. Nothing went wrong on our end. How did this happen?
* * *
"Biwako-senpai! Please take Kushina and the baby somewhere far from here!"
Minato's voice—taut, urgent—came from behind her.
A thousand questions boiled in Biwako's mind, but she knew this was not the time. She had to secure the jinchūriki and the child.
She turned to the other two ninja: "You two, take Kushina and go. She's far too weak to stay here. And the Nine-Tails… will almost certainly try to kill her."
The words had barely left her mouth when the sky overhead went dark.
Biwako's face twisted. She moved with speed she hadn't summoned in years—barely—managing to fling herself to one side.
An instant later, a massive orange claw slammed down on the exact spot she'd been standing.
The impact was cataclysmic. The ground shattered outward, fissures racing in every direction. An avalanche of dust and debris fountained into the air. The thunderous boom left every ear ringing.
* * *
From a distance, the sight was apocalyptic: an enormous beast—its shape unmistakably vulpine—bared its fangs at the tiny figures below. It had nine long tails. Its entire body blazed a deep burnt orange. Its eyes seethed with primal fury.
A crushing aura of malice radiated outward, heavy enough to sink the heart of everyone who felt it.
The creature's body was the size of a small mountain. A twitch of its limbs would flatten several buildings at once.
A body composed entirely of concentrated chakra energy, emanating an overwhelming, visceral sense of dread.
Like some primordial titan from the dawn of the world.
No—that's exactly what it was. A primordial titan.
* * *
"I'm… free?! Hah. Looks like your sealing skills have slipped, Kushina! You wretched humans, locking me away for all those years—I'll give you credit for the audacity!"
A voice like a cathedral bell—huge, resonant, and furious. Surprise warred with rage in every syllable.
Spend a few decades sealed inside a human being, and anyone would come out angry. Let alone a Tailed Beast, a species whose temper was collectively terrible on a good day.
That the Nine-Tails could speak at all proved it possessed intelligence rivaling any human's. Speech was trivial for a being of its caliber.
Of course, high intelligence didn't necessarily mean high IQ. Tailed Beasts as a group were pretty easy to dupe. Going by the canon manga, every single one of them could be talked into bad decisions without much effort.
* * *
Minato let out a rueful half-laugh, his face hard: "Well. This is going to be a problem."
The Nine-Tails' combat power was absolutely not to be underestimated. Minato didn't fear it—not exactly. But the issue was that the Nine-Tails couldn't be killed.
Every Tailed Beast was functionally immortal. The only option was to seal them. Even if you managed to "destroy" one, it would simply reconstitute somewhere in the wild after a period of time.
To this moment, neither Minato, nor Kushina, nor Biwako—nor even the Nine-Tails itself—understood why the seal had broken. Everything had been proceeding smoothly. And then the seal had simply… ceased to exist.
Not that the Nine-Tails cared about the reason. All that mattered was that it was finally free of those filthy humans.
The decades of captivity flashed through Kurama's mind, and its fury spiked.
Its expression turned savage. Monstrous. Unhinged.
* * *
"Minato… you can't seal the Nine-Tails alone. I was its jinchūriki. I know exactly how strong it is. Give it enough time, and it will reduce all of Konoha to rubble."
Kushina—ashen, barely upright—spoke to Minato through her exhaustion.
Before Minato could respond, a spike of danger slammed into his awareness.
Inside the Nine-Tails' gaping maw, chakra was condensing—compressing into a dense sphere of blackness.
A Tailed Beast Bomb?! Come on, seriously? This thing's actually going nuclear. We've shared a bed for years, you know!
Minato muttered under his breath. Then his expression hardened into absolute focus.
No choice. I'm doing this.
* * *
And at the same time, the Nine-Tails' colossal form had drawn the attention of every living soul in Konoha.
Ryū. Hiruzen. Orochimaru. Shimura Danzō. Every shinobi, every civilian—
—and the three people who had caused all of it: the Rogue Reincarnators.
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