Chapter 207: This Eye is Useless
"Take your hands off me, you mongrel!"
The deep, powerful voice echoed, and Sakumo instinctively recoiled.
A torrent of red chakra erupted, pushing him and Might Duy back.
"That's... the Nine-Tails' consciousness! The seal has broken?! Dammit!" Shielding his eyes from the blinding wind, his heart sank.
The chakra flames, after blooming, coalesced into a single entity. The red chakra, now a tangible substance, completely concealed Kushina's form and transformed into a slender, red, demon-faced fox.
The Nine-Tails, now in complete control, roared, "I'm finally out!"
Its massive chakra stirred up a fierce wind.
But then, it looked at its own fox paws. "Red," it said, its voice a complex mix of emotions.
It shook its head, clearing its thoughts, and then looked at the grim-faced Sakumo and the other Konoha ninja. "You Konoha bastards," it snarled. "I've been wanting to get my hands on you for a long time. Here's a little welcome gift."
It opened its mouth, and a watermelon-sized Tailed Beast Ball instantly formed and shot towards the Hokage Rock.
Its target was the face of the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju.
"You won't! Gate of Joy, open!"
A figure wreathed in green chakra swung a staff, and the Tailed Beast Ball was deflected, its trajectory changed, and it flew into the sky.
The Adamantine Staff trembled in his hands.
"Using me to block a Tailed Beast Ball is a bit much, Duy," Enma's voice came from within.
"Sorry, Enma. It was a reflex."
The Nine-Tails stood on all fours, its nine tails dancing behind it.
"No Hashirama, no Madara, and no Mito," it cackled. "Hahaha! Let's see how Konoha can stop me now! Hahaha!"
After nearly forty years of imprisonment, it was ecstatic to be free.
Sakumo charged forward, but the Nine-Tails was no longer the same as when Kushina had been in control. It leaped back, dodging his attack, and fired a barrage of small Tailed Beast Balls from its mouth.
"Continuous Tailed Beast Balls!"
Might Duy did his best to block, his staff a blur of motion, but a few of them still got through and slammed into the village, a series of explosions echoing through the night.
Some of the Konoha ninja were reminded of that terrible night, years ago, when they had been bombarded by the Cloud's Tailed Beast Balls. Those who were able immediately began to try and stop the Tailed Beast Balls from landing.
The Nine-Tails was also retreating towards the outskirts of the village.
Though it was acting with a wild abandon, it was also planning its escape.
It wanted to wreak havoc on Konoha, but in this state, every second it existed, it was permanently eroding Kushina's life force. And the more power it used, the more it eroded. She had been a test subject in that underground lab for nearly a year, and her body was already in a very bad state.
In its current state, it didn't even have a tenth... no, a hundredth of its full power.
For her sake, it was best to retreat as soon as possible.
But even so, it had never doubted that it could get her out of here. It was the Nine-Tails.
Sakumo could not let it continue to fire at will. He used his Body Flicker, his white short sword a flash of lightning.
The Nine-Tails had no weapons. Its body was its weapon. It swung its paw to block, but the short sword cut into it.
Just as its paw was about to be cut, it quickly pulled back.
As a being of pure chakra, it didn't care about such a small injury. But it was afraid of cutting off Kushina's hand.
A tailed beast's power could heal external wounds, but it could not regenerate a lost limb.
"Dammit! Why is it red?! I can't fight properly! Kushina! You have to be a little more serious!"
The completely submerged Kushina's consciousness could not answer it. It didn't know who it was talking to.
The chakra flames around its body grew even higher, and its body grew a little larger. It charged forward on all fours, the force of its movement shattering the houses beneath it.
The explosive speed of a tailed beast was not about refined chakra control or the Body Flicker. It was about raw power.
And its speed, born of pure power, had an aura that was far beyond that of a normal Body Flicker.
But Sakumo and Might Duy were also fast. They were in hot pursuit. In an instant, they had reached the edge of the village.
But a cloud of insects, a shadow, a giant hand, and a ninja hound all appeared at the same time, blocking the Nine-Tails.
"Well then, let's try this!"
In its eye sockets, the pupils trembled and then, a pair of three-tomoe Sharingan appeared.
"Let's see... genjutsu... hmm! I don't know how to use it! Well then, this will have to do!"
The Nine-Tails, which did not know how to use genjutsu, just channeled its own Yin Release chakra into the Sharingan. The massive amount of Yin Release chakra gathered in the eyes, but with no outlet in the form of a "jutsu," it was just released as a pure, raw mental shockwave.
The invisible mental shockwave shot from its eyes, and the Konoha ninja who had surrounded it all froze, then clutched their heads in pain and collapsed.
This was a tailed beast's version of a genjutsu, simple and brutal.
"This eye is useless! It's so troublesome!"
The three-tomoe Sharingan, under the immense pressure of the tailed beast's Yin Release chakra, were spinning so fast they were a blur.
The main pursuing force, Sakumo and Might Duy, quickly looked down. As taijutsu masters, fighting with their heads down, or even with their eyes closed, was second nature to them.
Just as the Nine-Tails was about to leap over the wooden wall, a purple curtain fell from the sky, or rather, a previously colorless barrier had become visible.
After the "Night of the Purple Moon," Konoha had spared no expense in strengthening its village barrier, to prevent a repeat of that tragedy.
The Nine-Tails, still running, opened its mouth, and an even larger Tailed Beast Ball appeared.
Dispel? Find a loophole?
Just blow it up.
There's nothing a single ball can't solve.
If there is, then use a bigger one.
And don't talk to me about chakra.
I'm not a ninja.
Hidden Cloud Village
The Third Raikage handed a letter to Dana. "This is from Hanzo," he said.
He took the letter. After the usual pleasantries, Hanzo mentioned that a Sand envoy had arrived in the Hidden Rain and had proposed to hold the next Joint Chunin Exam in their village next year. He said that he was still in negotiations, and that the Sand had offered a good deal. He was hoping that his "big brother" in the Cloud would cooperate and not give a definite answer just yet.
"The Sand must have offered him something he's interested in," he said. "But to have a different village host it would certainly increase the influence of the 'Joint Chunin Exams'."
Just like the international sporting events of his previous life, besides the cost, rotating the host country could also better motivate the participating countries. To always have it in the same place would not be sustainable.
"It doesn't matter," the Third Raikage said. "Let's just stall them for a while."
For the Cloud, the hosting of the Joint Chunin Exams had little to do with their own interests. The Third Raikage had no desire to host one himself. For one, the Cloud didn't need to prove anything. For another, no matter who hosted it, he was confident that the Cloud would get a good result.
In that case, he might as well do Hanzo a favor. The Rain was a closer ally than the Sand.
"You can deal with those three brats," the Third Raikage said after a moment of thought.
He nodded.
The three of them had come as envoys of the Sand. Though the Sand was weak and their relationship with the Cloud was not very good, they still had to be treated with a certain degree of courtesy. But they were just brats. If it had been Chiyo or Ebizo, someone of his own generation, he might have been interested in entertaining them. But he was not going to waste his time on three brats.
In this situation, for Dana to be the one to deal with them was very appropriate.
Just as they were about to say something else, the door to the office was thrown open.
"Lord Raikage! Urgent intelligence! A commotion in Konoha! The walls have been breached! There are traces of a Tailed Beast Ball explosion! It is suspected that the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki has defected!"
The Third Raikage and Dana exchanged a look, both of them surprised.
This Konoha was full of surprises.
A Jinchuriki... could defect?