Terror rolled over Konoha as the streets were flooded with killing intent, the projected ill will so dense it tinted the world red even to those with no ability to sense chakra.
The streets filled with screams as civilians, driven by memories of the past, fled from the source of this malice. They ran to preserve themselves and their loved ones.
I ran toward it to do much the same.
Himebuta clung to my back, my monkey familiar holding tight as I sprinted down the street.
"Izuku, is this the wisest course of action?" Lee asked, easily keeping stride with me. I wasn't the one to respond.
"Ko-chan is there," was all Kuro said, but it got the point across. Lee simply nodded and kept running.
Neji had left for the Hyūga compound as soon as this pall fell over the village. Tenten had gone to protect her family. Which left the three of us.
We arrived at the source of the killing intent: the Academy. Not a surprise. Naruko should be in class around this time. We reached it just as the last of the students evacuated the premises.
An ANBU agent flickered into our path as we closed in on the training ground from which the killing intent radiated.
"Halt. No one is allowed past this point," said the ANBU with a cat mask and long purple hair.
Behind her, explosions rang out and the earth shook. The tailed beast chakra in the air was getting thicker. I had no idea what that could mean for Naruko, but it couldn't be good.
"I'm her friend. I can help," I pleaded, not really sure if I could but willing to try anyway. Whoever she was, she wasn't moved—at least not outwardly. Her chakra swelled with empathy, but it did nothing to curb her sense of duty.
"I have my orders," was all she said.
Well, damn. That sucked, because nothing was keeping me away from whatever Naruko was going through.
Without breaking eye contact with the ANBU, I cast the Mind-Meld Jutsu with Kuro, my instructions traveling to her at the speed of thought.
"ANBU-san?" Kuro said, drawing the guard's attention away from me—only to lock eyes with her activated Sharingan.
Itsuwari no Genjutsu.
Kuro's voice echoed in my head as the ANBU in front of us was drawn into an illusion where we simply kept begging her to let us pass. I grabbed Lee and pulled him along, placing my index finger to my lips for silence. He looked confused at the ANBU, who stood menacingly at empty space, but he followed quietly.
The scene of combat was otherworldly. I had thought the feats of strength I'd pulled off were impressive—cratering the earth with my blows, reducing an enemy's chest to paste with my vortex missile. But the craters here? Naruko made them with every step of her lunge. The wind turbulence from the swipes of her chakra-coated hands could have diced Kabuto with a brush.
And standing against all that power was the toad sannin, looking a little bit hungover. The fight was very one-sided.
Against Naruko.
He met her head on.
Naruko rolled with the force of Jiraiya's blow, the chakra shroud around her head thinning under the strike. The Sannin himself winced at having to hit the blonde jinchūriki. She twisted midair to cancel her momentum, but Jiraiya interrupted with a palm strike to her torso, burying her in the ground. His glowing palms shielded him from the corrosive tailed beast chakra.
Naruko kept attacking, but couldn't so much as touch the hem of his clothes. I could feel her chakra bubbling with fury at his evasions.
"Stay still!" she screamed, her voice distorted into something demonic as she lunged, clawing at the Toad Sannin. Jiraiya stumbled away but easily slipped through her flurry of strikes. Her fury only grew. The clearing buzzed as a third tail began to poke out of the scarlet silhouette, her fox ears standing on end.
"Naruko! Please, I—"
"Shut up! Shut up! Shut up and die!" she cried, thrusting her arms outward. Her chakra shroud extended into a massive paw of corrosive energy that crashed down.
Lord Jiraiya's eyes went wide, his hands flashing through signs. He didn't need to finish. I felt a strange chakra gathering underground, and then a wooden wall erupted, blocking the chakra paw with a violent crash.
"Mokuton: Wood Wall!" yelled another cat-masked ANBU as he landed.
Kinoe.
And he was using Wood Style?
Then I felt a blade rest on my shoulder.
"Do not move. Keep your eyes forward or I will incapacitate you," came the voice of the purple-haired ANBU we had left in a genjutsu.
A glance left and right showed my companions with blades to their shoulders as well. She must have made clones.
In front of us, Kinoe attempted to catch Naruko in a wooden prison. He slammed his hands to the floor, roots surging up—but Naruko was too slippery. Her feral, unpredictable movements made her nearly impossible to contain.
The whirl of a staff announced the arrival of my sensei. Naruko heard it too—her ears perked—but she was too slow. The golden cap of my sensei's bō smashed into her and pinned her to the floor. Kinoe seized the chance and ensnared her in his roots.
That only enraged her further. She thrashed against the binds as her third tail fully grew.
"Naruko, calm yourself! This is unacceptable—" my sensei began, but her vitriolic scream cut him off.
"Fuck you, old man! What are you here to do?! Lie to me again?! Tell me you don't know why they hate me?! That you don't know why I'm alone?!"
Her voice dropped lower, the demonic baritone sinking further until it sounded like the Nine-Tails itself was speaking through her.
"That you don't know who my parents are?" she whispered, her words rumbling like a landslide.
"Naruko… I—" my sensei said, stricken.
"Fuck you!" she roared, her fury exploding, chakra boiling hotter than ever.
The roots that held her in place creaked as her skin began to peal away in flakes, exposing impossible darkness threaded through with red so dark it brought to mind the colour of dried blood.
This couldn't go on, I had to reach her.
I cast the mind-meld jutsu, the wakizashi on my shoulder pressed down hard enough to draw blood in response to my flaring chakra. I would have tried to be more subtle but I had to break the seal protecting my chakra system to do it. The resulting pain of pushing my strained chakra network was ignored in hopes of reaching Naruko.
The strand of yin chakra that carried my jutsu ran into the shroud of tail beast chakra around her and could go no further.
Naruko's screams grew pained and one of her eye sockets peeled away to reveal a dark void with a single point of light. She spasmed in the hold of her wood prison as though her body was rebelling against itself, screams ripping from her throat like bladed nails.
I felt steel flow into my spine as my resolve hardened.
I had to do something.
I silenced my mind, stilling the waters of my thoughts, discarding all extraneous emotions. No amount of strength would help me here, so no point in directing my emotions for a boost. Right now all I needed was control.
Yet as I ran over what I could do to get my jutsu to reach her, I realised what I needed was strength. I needed to somehow strengthen my chakra enough so it could in turn strengthen my jutsu enough to pierce her chakra cloak. I doubted flaring my emotions would be enough.
What other way did I have to strengthen my chakra?
The gates, The chakras, and senjutsu.
Even now my body aches from unsealing my recovering chakra system. I would worsen my condition in a heartbeat to help Naruko but the gates weren't my only option.
The chakras had the same problem, on top of the fact I wasn't sure of my ability to function under the mental stress of grasping one of my chakras.
That left senjutsu.
I had no practical experience with it beyond growing the wood for my focus. But the situation was worsening, not getting better. My chakra needed a boost and nothing like some quick and dirty senjutsu to boost it.
I had a great number of theories on how to use my focus to get around the physical needs of senjutsu. Now was not the time to test them.
Quick and dirty was the way to go.
My Bõ appeared in my hand with a puff of released fuinjutsu, just as I seallessly cast mage armour to prevent the resulting sword handle to the back of the head from knocking me out.
In the split second it took for the ANBU at my back to begin another attack, I had molded the mind-meld jutsu again but this time, I shoved the jutsu into my focus. It flowed through my staff and was bathed in my senjutsu chakra.
The opposite end of my staff flashed a rainbow of colors as a glowing white thread of yin chakra shot out the end across the battlefield and pierced through the nine tail's chakra. The jutsu succeeded.
Then suddenly I was elsewhere.
XXXXXXXXX
If Naruko's mindscape had once been unsettling, it was now a full-blown hellscape. The muddy water was gone, replaced by a glowing crimson that bubbled like molten magma. The air reeked of sulfur, thick and nauseating, heavy with fury and hate. The cavernous chamber that housed the bijuu was lit by wild, dancing flames.
At the center of the cavern those flames had coiled into a dome, a shell of burning heat that evaporated the waters of Naruko's thoughts and memories the instant they touched it. From that inferno, a single line of fire stretched across the chamber, cutting between the pillar-like bars of the Kyūbi's seal. It reached the fox himself who sat there with his chin resting on his hands, watching his jailer immolate herself. His expression was maddeningly neutral.
"Kyūbi-san!" I shouted as I ran up to the bars of the massive cage.
There were many ways to do this. Start simple.
"Please, stop this!" I begged, my voice nearly drowned by the roar of fire and boiling water.
The fox's eyes glimmered, amused.
"Why should I spare some brat when freedom is finally at hand?"
"Because she knows your pain!" I yelled, my voice cracking. "While you were trapped in here, suffering, she was out there suffering with you!"
His massive head tilted. Still unmoved.
"Because she is a beautiful person with beautiful dreams!" I shouted through clenched teeth.
The chamber shook with his laughter. Slow, mocking and cruel.
"Because you're not a monster!" I roared as I stepped past the bars, standing defiantly before the mountain-sized fox.
The laughter cut off.
"…Are you willing to die for that conviction?" Kurama rumbled, his hill-sized eyes glowing red as they bore down on me.
I gulped in trepidation, but I didn't back down. I remembered our last meeting. I know what I felt, what he felt.
I looked back at the raging dome of fire swallowing my best friend and felt clarity crystallize in my mind.
"You tell me," I whispered.
Then I slammed my fist into the fox's snout and cast the Mind-Meld Jutsu.
Something went wrong—or right, I wasn't sure which. The moment our minds touched, Kurama instinctively seized the connection, twisting it. Shock rippled from him, raw and clearly unintentional, but it changed the nature of my jutsu entirely.
Instead of simply linking our thoughts—suddenly, I was Kurama. And Kurama was me.
I remembered being born beneath the violet gaze of my father. I remembered my siblings, human and beast alike. I remembered roaming wild, free, beneath the skies and through the mountains.
Then my brother's descendants found me. Eyes pale imitations of his own. Weak in power, but skilled in sealing.
They put me in a stone, and displayed me to their families, like a trophy.
That was my first cage.
Centuries passed.
Silence. Isolation. Madness. Hatred burned itself into my core, warping me into something my father had never intended. A beast of calamity.
Those worms tried to bend me to their will, but their eyes were too weak. They perished. All of them.
Until him.
Madara Uchiha.
He pried open my mind, wore my soul like worn boots, and hurled me against—
"Out!"
I stumbled back, ripping free of the connection, my fist leaving the warmth of Kurama's snout.
The fox's furious growl rumbled through the cavern, but I couldn't help it—I laughed.
Because I knew.
"I'm right," I said, locking eyes with him. "I saw you. And you saw me. You're not a monster."
Kurama blinked down at me, utterly baffled.
"You see my essence… and that is your conclusion?" he growled.
"Yes."
"Fool," he spat, turning away to curl himself up like a dog settling for sleep.
I ran up to him and shoved his head to get his attention. I refused to let him dismiss me—not with Naruko's life burning away in that inferno.
"What about Naruko?" I demanded.
His glowing eyes slid back to me. "What about her?"
My glare was answer enough.
"What makes you think I control any of this?" he scoffed.
"…What?" I blinked, floored.
"The girl's father was a fool, like all who ruled before him. But I'll admit, he did good work."
…Naruko's father made the seal… that meant…
The casual way he dropped that bombshell made my head spin. I just stood there, reeling, as Kurama settled comfortably into his paws.
"Despite the girl's filth," he added with a foxy grin, "this is my most comfortable seal yet. And the most secure." He pointed a single claw—the gesture so human it unsettled me—toward the blazing inferno.
"That…" his eyes narrowed, "…is not my doing."
"The fact you'll go free is just a happy accident," I muttered, unable to keep the bite out of my voice.
His grin widened, sly and mischievous. "Exactly."
I clenched my jaw and turned toward the roaring dome of fire. The heat blistered the air, every snap and crack sounding like a gunshot in the dark. Naruko was there. Time passed differently in the mindscape, but she couldn't have much of it left.
There was no more time to think.
I broke into a sprint.
"What are you–stop!" Kurama's surprised voice thundered behind me.
But I didn't stop.
I dove headlong into the crimson inferno.
XXXXXXXXX
The panic that had gripped the village in response to the presence that descended upon it was more suffocating than Neji thought possible. The village's military complex was already on high alert after the incident a few months ago, nobody had forgotten explosive tags suddenly going off in the civilian district.
That alertness showed itself now as every shinobi prepared for active duty.
Including the Hyugga clan.
His uncle was a hard man. However much hatred Neji bore him, there was also respect—respect for his capabilities, his discipline, his stoicism. Beyond moments of stern anger, Neji had never witnessed an emotion from Hiashi Hyūga. His uncle had always been immovable, unshaken. The bearing of a true Hyūga.
And yet, when Neji returned to the compound, he saw fear in that immovable man's eyes. It did not stop Hiashi from barking orders, from mobilizing the clan with perfect precision—but the fear was there, rooted deep in his heart.
Shameful.
Not like Hinata-sama. Her eyes had held no more fear than usual, only that same overwhelming worry—for the clan, for the people she cared for. Some part of Neji still judged it as weakness, but facts did not lie. He had lost to that weakness. Did that make him weak? The thought infuriated him. Perhaps it did not—perhaps it simply made Hinata-sama strong. But that could not be. Love was not strength.
If it was, his father would not have died a slave's death.
"Hello, young Neji."
The voice slithered into the silence of his room—low, sibilant, like a whisper dragged across steel.
Neji spun, veins bulging at his temples as his eyes swept the space for intruders. Nothing. His room was as it had always been.
Nothing, except for a small garden snake coiled upon the windowsill. Harmless. Unremarkable. He might have ignored it—had he not only recently spoken with someone who commanded a beast that could speak.
"Who are you?" Neji's voice was sharp, his stance shifting just enough to drop into Jūken at a breath's notice.
"Tell me, Neji-kun." The snake's tongue flicked, its minute features twisting in a way his eyes alone could catch.
"Do you believe in fate?"
It was smiling.