Naruto heard one note of the flute song and fell into a deep sleep. He was totally overcome by the genjutsu, dropping him to the floor of the spectator booth, Shikamaru collapsing with him.
Naruto was in the dark void with the glowing red eyes. He floated in the aether. The Nine-Tailed Fox stared down at him.
"What's going on?" said Naruto.
The demon fox didn't answer. Naruto could hear the faint sound of flute music, echoing in the empty void. The demon's eyes sharpened. "My favorite song."
"Huh?" said Naruto. "What's with the music?"
The demon lashed out with a front paw, black fur darker than the void itself. The claw was stopped by a golden chain, materializing in an instant. Naruto saw that the gold seemed to be melting, weakening, and as the demon pulled, the chains stretched. The music's volume gradually increased.
Naruto flinched back. What the hell!? The chains are breaking! Naruto thought of all his friends in the stands. He thought of all the innocent spectators. Is it going to break free? In Konoha? "Hey! Nine-Tails! What are you doing!?"
"Shut up, brat," said the demon. "I'm breaking out of here, and killing you on the way out."
"Are you serious!?" said Naruto.
"Say your last words, brat," said the demon. "But I can't promise that I'll listen."
"Hell no!" said Naruto. "You're not getting out of here, and you're definitely not killing me. The Fourth Hokage made that seal, no way it's breaking."
The demon laughed. "Just shut up already, would ya?"
Naruto felt the void around him seem to thicken, pressure building against his skin, suffocating him. He could feel the demon's corrupting chakra encompassing him. It was dripping through the cracks in the seal, like a river cutting stone one drop at a time. Naruto was engulfed. He began to panic, thrashing against the pull of the dark energy.
I need to control. Naruto calmed his mind and focused on his flow of chakra, knowing that he could not allow the fox to break free in the village. He focused on the distinctness of his own soul, fighting off the demon that threatened to absorb him. Naruto mentally placed himself in the glade of Numachi Swamp. He channeled the spirit of Gamatoshi. Naruto harmonized his own chakra with that of the demon, yin and yang spiraling in the void. The demon chakra was no longer stifling, now it was amplifying, boosting Naruto's power. He held a wisp of the demon's sensory abilities, like catching a falling leaf fluttering in the wind, and Naruto was suddenly aware of the battle that raged outside the void.
Konoha was under attack.
"Demon!" said Naruto. "I need some chakra! We're saving the village."
"Cheeky little ninja," said the demon. The golden chains were regaining their brilliance, tightening around its dark form. It was pulled back, the seal restrengthening. The demon could not force its way out of its shackles, so it altered its approach. It gave Naruto a glimpse of its full chakra. "Take it, brat, as much as you desire."
Naruto sensed the full extent of the demon's chakra, and the sheer magnitude conjured existentialist thoughts. It was as if Naruto was swimming in a vast ocean of chakra with depths unknown. Just as he dared not overdrink salty seawater, he dared not overindulge in the demon chakra, lest it consume him from the inside. Just enough to break free of the genjutsu. Naruto exercised his chakra control, carefully fusing the demon's chakra with his own.
He sensed Sasuke, paralyzed on the arena floor.
Gaara stood crookedly over Sasuke. His head rolled on his neck, and his eyes were half closed, as if lost in a hypnotic trance. The earth rumbled below them, the wind whipped around them, and the Gaara's sand slithered at his feet. Some of the sand had formed a hard shell over the wound inflicted by Sasuke's chidori.
Sasuke was prone on the arena floor, fighting to resist the flute genjutsu but failing to escape the dizzying mental vice. The world was not much more than a blur or color and sound, but with his Sharingan he could still sense Gaara's demonic chakra. Aside from Gaara, Sasuke was tangentially aware of the ongoing bouts surrounding him, recognizing the signature of Orochimaru's cursed chakra all around.
Gaara giggled. He allowed his demon chakra to seep deeper into his psyche, strengthened by the flute song, giving in to Shukaku's violent desires. He raised an arm, and a sand claw materialized in the air above him.
"Sasuke…" muttered Gaara. "You're going to die now, Sasuke."
Sasuke could only partially make out Gaara's words, though there was no question regarding his raging bloodlust. He couldn't move a centimeter, hopelessly aware of his paralysis with no ability to escape the mental prison. Tayuya's genjutsu was so powerful that most members of the audience were rendered completely unconscious, and even basic awareness of its illusory nature was not enough to break free. It was as if a heavy centripetal force kept Sasuke trapped in place at the center of some rotation.
Kakashi watched the two young shinobi from within Kimimaro's bone forest. He sensed the demonic chakra, and saw the sand claw hovering over Sasuke, threatening to slash him to ribbons. Kakashi was free from the flute genjutsu, but he had merely landed himself in a physical prison instead, just out of reach of his student. He was powerless to help Sasuke, Jiraiya, Lord Third, or the thousands of paralyzed audience members.
A shockwave of demonic chakra emanated from the spectator booth, along with a howling scream. With a flash of red chakra, Naruto exploded out of the booth and lunged down into the arena. His eyes were sharp slits, and he was cloaked in flamelike tongues of chakra. Naruto landed between Sasuke and Gaara as the sand claw swung down, repelling the attack with his own extending chakra claw. He crouched in front of Sasuke, knocking Gaara back with a fox tail of red chakra.
Naruto nearly lost his composure. One second of imbalance was all it would take for his demon to act. It was more chakra than Naruto had ever wielded, but now he was in control. On the other side of the arena he sensed Kakashi-sensei, and three other leaf jonin—they were facing a shinobi with a strange smelling chakra. The Third Hokage fought a powerful enemy on the rooftops of spectating booths up above. Then there was Jiraiya-sensei, paralyzed at the top of the arena opposite. Naruto sensed Orochimaru's chakra. He remembered it from the Forest of Death—not a memory in the mind so much as in the very fiber of his body, stored within the marrow of his bones. A lot of innocent people were paralyzed in the stands, suffering the harsh desert wind that had overtaken Konoha.
Gaara shrieked and summoned a wave of sand. Naruto threw Sasuke over his shoulder and evaded the wave, leaping up over it and perching on the arena wall. He conjured a shadow clone to hold Sasuke's paralyzed body away from danger, carrying him to the branch of a splintered arena tree and ducking behind the leaves. The genuine Naruto charged back into the arena, dodging sand bullets, and crashing through Gaara's defenses. Naruto barrelled through Gaara's sand shield and tackled him to the ground.
Naruto pinned Gaara to the arena floor. The two young jinchuriki shared a moment of reflection amidst the sandstorm, as if seeing each other on a separate plane, away from the chaos in Konoha. Naruto saw Gaara as just a boy, younger than himself, scared and alone. He saw Gaara for his vulnerability—he was little more than a weapon of war to his people. There were deep demonic roots in his psyche, roots that fed on fear and anger, poisoning Gaara's mind.
"I get it," said Naruto. "But you don't need to fight anymore."
"Die already," said Gaara. "You and everyone else."
Gaara let loose the demonic chakra, giving in to the flute song and taking the form of the One-Tailed Demon Shukaku. Naruto was sent flying back into the wall. The clone that had protected Sasuke vanished with a poof of smoke, and Sasuke was left alone on the tree branch. Shukaku appeared as a fifteen-meter tall sandy-brown tanuki with glowing tattoo-like seals covering its body. Sand sloughed off of its back as it shifted its weight, growing accustomed to its physical form. The towering demon opened its wide maw and belted out a thunderous roar. The one-tailed demon was free.
Orochimaru laughed from up above. "Rise, Shukaku. Unleash your rage!" He squinted down at Naruto. "Hmm, the nine-tails boy didn't fully transform, not yet at least. You'll want to watch this, Jiraiya."
The arena was crumbling. Between the raging sandstorm, the quaking and fissuring of the earth, and the shockwave of Shukaku's raw power, the arena foundations were bending and breaking. Naruto couldn't see far in the sandstorm, but with his newfound sensory abilities he could feel the presence of his friends and fellow villagers all around him, frozen by the piercing genjutsu song. Any moment they could be crushed and buried by rubble, and there were too many threats to keep track of.
"Fine, I'll fight you, damn it!" said Naruto into the wind. "But leave the villagers out of it! Naruto Uzumaki: One-Thousand-Man Evacuation Team!"
Naruto channeled his demon chakra, careful not to lose himself. With a poof of smoke, he conjured one thousand chakra-cloaked clones, each of which leapt up into the stands to carry paralyzed audience members to relative safety outside of the stadium. They moved quickly and efficiently, perfectly synchronized as they cleared out the stands, focusing first on areas that had suffered more structural damage, pulling innocents away from falling debris.
Two clones grabbed Sakura, Hinata, Kiba, Choji and Ino all at once, yanking their limp bodies out of their seats and tucking them under arms and over shoulders, evading holes forming in the collapsing floor and chunks of brick and wood falling from above. The clones carried them out into the streets of Konoha, away from the heart of the storm.
From within the bone forest, Kakashi witnessed Naruto's reappearance to save Sasuke, and Gaara's transformation. Naruto, you truly have the will of fire, saving the villagers before yourself, even in the face of a tailed beast. He could see how much Naruto had weakened himself by conjuring so many clones, and he could feel the massive concentration of chakra that Shukaku was forming for its attack. It was the first tailed-beast incident in the village since Lord Fourth's death, but Kakashi recognized the vileness of the demon chakra in an instant. Move, Naruto! Move or you'll be obliterated!
The act of conjuring and maintaining so many clones was an incredible drain on Naruto's chakra and mind. His legs felt like jelly. He steadied himself, dizzy from the exertion, and stood to face Shukaku as the sand demon prepared to unleash a dense chakra blast. The arena was collapsing around them. Damn, this is going to be a big one, I can feel it… but I don't think I can get out of the way in time. Is this what you meant, Jiraiya-sensei, when you said I should use the demon inside me to protect the village? Is this what you imagined, Lord Fourth? I hope I did good by you both.