Chapter 111: Eight Points Broken, Steel Bars Shattered
There was a precious silence that reigned during Naruto's confusion of seeing his sensei appear and then swiftly disappear in mere moments. It was so confounding that he found his vision free from the red haze that he held when he fought against Kisame Hoshigaki and the same one that was turned on the masked man for a few short moments. He stared at the swirling orange mask with a driven need to kill him the same way Kisame bled out at his left for simply wearing a matching cloak. They shared short words that quickly drifted to action, the masked man charging out of the mound of dirt with an aggression that Naruto was prepared to match. His claws were bared, teeth snarling, but when the man's hand lashed out at Naruto and the Jinchuuriki's own hands began they're surge forward, everything shifted to the right. Suddenly, the burning red eyes of the Nine-Tailed Fox that replaced Naruto's own blue eyes was gifted with the sight of the side of the masked man's head and the disheveled appearance of Naruto's mentor and Hokage.
Then they were simply gone.
In a swirl of air, Naruto was left with emptiness that was occupied by Naruto and the limp body of his former adversary. Aggression bled from him, the cloak of Tailed-Beast chakra melted away, and Naruto's mind was freed from a cage of its own making as he swung his head around to try and find a glint or glimmer of the men in one place or another. He didn't leave, he didn't wander off for a far along search amongst the destroyed land around him. Something told Naruto that staying put and waiting for them to appear once again would serve better than losing himself in the rings of rolling hills around him. It was a strategy that served to be the proper choice when he heard another bout of swirling air. Cutting his body into a controlled spin around, Naruto only managed a brief blink of someone's visage before it was lost again, one unrecognizable in the few moments he caught sight of it, but below the appearance fell a small pile of fabrics that rested in the mud that slowly dried atop the mussed earth as the Sun beat down upon them. Blue eyes locked onto the pile that was left with a heavy weight in his stomach as he recognized what it was.
Laying atop of it all was a forehead protector of the Leaf Village: a Leaf Spiral atop a metal plate that was pinned to cloth that wrapped around one's head. It was a very specific forehead protector, one that was thicker and wider than the long band of thin fabric that most shinobi wore. Underneath the forehead protector was dark, wet fabric that bore tears and holes all about it. At first glance, it looked nothing more than a tattered rag that was discarded, but Naruto knew better. Few rags were tubed as it was. Both of these articles sat on top of a green flak jacket of a Leaf jounin, which, too, was stained with blood and bore its own share of holes all about it. It was all a simple pile of shinobi clothing, and yet Naruto was feeling hot tears run down his face immediately upon seeing it.
It hurt when Danzo was reported as dead by the ROOT members that met him in the forest that once stood where he stood. He was a man that took interest in him early in his shinobi career and took time to help develop him as much as he could. Naruto understood that Danzo Shimura wouldn't have cared about him or who he was without him being the Jinchuuriki of the nine-Tails. It wasn't something he blamed the old man for, but it was a simple fact. Naruto mounted the old man as much as he could within a war and he would surely mourn him further if he found himself returning to the Leaf Village. Kakashi's death, one that was told by the man's blood stained clothes left in mud, left Naruto lost. His mind drew completely blank as hot tears fell down his face with shuddering breaths that shook his entire form. Kakashi was the first instructor that cared about what he learned, the first person outside the Third Hokage that gave a damn about him, and a man that Naruto looked at as a guide. He told him of his father, his mother, shared photos of what could have been, shared stories of what once was, and gave Naruto a purpose to serve when he could find none for himself. Now, Naruto was gingerly picking up the bloody remains of the man's clothes, knowing that they will be all he will see of him ever again.
The pain wasn't describable. It was felt in his head, all throughout his body, and stabbing further in his stomach in a way he'd never known. Yet, no matter how much that pain mounted, not a single noise rose through his throat. None of that pain escaped his lips. It was all shielded as Naruto tightened his hold of the clothing to his chest as he felt the despair roll over him. His view went black from his eyes tightening closed until it pained his face to pinch so tightly, but only for a moment as the world shifted around him to carry the Jinchuuriki elsewhere. A weight dropped into his stomach in a familiar dragging down into the seal that marred it and soon it was shin deep water that he stood within as tall, thick bars of steel extended high into the blackness above him to separate Naruto from the Beast that remained hidden behind them.
This wasn't something he wanted to deal with. Or rather, it wasn't something he had the faculties to deal with. Not now. Yet, as a wide, jagged-toothed smile stretched through the darkness behind the bars appeared beneath bright red eyes that he so recently bore himself, Naruto knew that he wasn't given a choice in the matter. For years, the Nine-Tailed Fox had been silent. Ever since Jiraiya resolved to help Naruto utilize the chakra of the Beast stored within him, the Tailed-Beast gave him a simple challenge before falling into silence. "You want my chakra, Naruto Uzumaki? You think you have what it takes to wield even the smallest fraction of my power? Then prove it." It had told him and left him just as swiftly. Three years of waiting for the beast to do or say anything that went beyond the subtle swings of tails within the darkness of the seal. Now, of all times, Naruto was called within his seal to see the vile smile in the face of Kakashi's death.
Naruto saw the red chakra flow between the bars of the seal within the water, leaking through the degraded bottoms of the bars without any resistance. Jiraiya warned him that the more the Nine-Tails' chakra leaked from the seal, the wider the gaps would be. It was a strategy by his father that meant to see Naruto master the usage of the Tailed-Beast's power naturally. "Good call, dad," Naruto thought not for the first time with more bitterness than he truly felt for the man. Naruto knew there was trouble with the seal when it came to the future. The thickness of the bars at the bottom was half that of anywhere else, their surface crusted and red either from rust or the chakra that bubbled against the steel as it crept into his body. His body would only fill with more of that foul chakra as his despair turned into anger. He knew it would come and he didn't have the mind to fight it. Not now. Instead, he stood as the tendrils of crimson crawled into his body while he looked up to the Beast above him.
"Do you feel it, boy?" The Nine-Tails spoke with a voice as strong as he remembered it, the low timber thrumming through his chest and bouncing off the cage of ribs. "The wretched tendrils of despair and sorrow? You mourn for your masked caretaker. You mourn for the dead that will only grow in number. You feel fury at yourself and that masked man. You feel it and so I know it, I feel it all within these dark walls. Tell me, do you want to be free of it?" The smile only grew wider as the Fox continued to hide in the darkness. The sound of its voice seemed to surround Naruto as it echoed through the darkness, telling him how he felt with painful accuracy as he felt the tears continue to stream down his face and the tingle of his nose grow even more. Now that he was within his seal, within himself, Naruto could practically feel all of those feelings swallow him whole just as much as the blackness did.
Then, in a deafening clang against the metal bars before him, Naruto saw something more akin to a man's hand than a fox's paw slam into the bars of the seal. While his ears didn't appreciate the loud echo of the collision, Naruto was more worried by the creaking that sounded at the base of the bars. Weakened metal wanted nothing more than to cede to the might of the Tailed-Beast. "I will be free of these bars eventually, pissant! I will be FREE! You've failed to harness my strength as you've wished to, the few that care for you die around you, and you can spare yourself from more of that pain. Let me be free, brat, and you'll be better for it." Anger that came out so fast it almost sounded desperate roared through the seal that had been silent for so long. He'd forgotten how oppressive the voice of the Fox was. He'd forgotten how strong of a presence it boasted.
Naruto would have lied if he acted as if he didn't think about it. Blue eyes that slowly bled purple, and then red after that, lingered on the small tag on the meeting point of the bars that read "Seal" on it. In his hands, what remained of his sensei followed him into the seal and Naruto tightened his grip on them before pulling his gaze from the seal tag. Instead, his mind and body tugged on those tendrils of the Nine-Tails' chakra as the darkness bled away from him to reveal the world as he knew it once again, a violent roar echoing through his mind that followed him into the world. In a haze of vague recollection, Naruto stored the clothes of Kakashi in their own scroll of storing seals that was securely closed within a sturdy pocket of his flak jacket. His control only extended as far as the scroll being closed away. Once done, Naruto felt the world become a blur to him as his body was driven by the exploding energy of the Tailed-Beast within him. He stormed across the land toward the dense saturation of power that emanated from the heart of the crater he dwelled within. All he cared about was getting the anger and sorrow out of himself, which would only happen when he found the masked man.
Naruto wasn't sure how long it took to carve a path through the earth to the epicenter of the crater. He simply jumped to the top of the nearest mound of dirt, dug his feet into the mound's soft surface, and exploded in a leap to and on the top of the next mound. Only when he landed on flat ground with a grand statue standing above him did Naruto stop. A man in dark blue, a man in those damned Akatsuki robes, and an elderly man in draping heavy robes filled the clearing along with the scars of battle. Off to his left, Naruto vaguely acknowledged the heap of limp flesh that held a weak breath, but he paid it no mind. His attention and his chakra was unnaturally drawn to the wooden statue, it was a familiar feeling that was lost to any further inspection by the cloud of red that settled on his mind.
"And the last has finally arrived." The old man spoke through the distance between them, his age making it sound more gasping than grand. Suddenly, a different burn settled in his stomach. He remembered the same feeling when he first met Gaara, the call of violence that came from the Fox to free the One-Tail that his fellow Jinchuuriki stored. This was much more. The Fox within him growled and roared through the darkness. Naruto felt his chakra spike without so much as a touch of his own interference, crimson tendrils growing around him to match only a fraction of the fury felt within his seal. "Come to me, my old friend. Join me as the rest of your kind has and help me bring peace to this world."
"FRIEND!? HE DARES CALL ME A FRIEND!?" Naruto was no longer the driver of his own body. In an instant, the Jinchuuriki felt himself be pushed into a passenger's seat in his own mind while the Nine-Tailed Fox ranted and raved while its head, claws, and tails bashed violently against the bars that kept it restrained within Naruto's body. Seeing through his own eyes without agency over his body made Naruto's mind drift to a nightmare that he was cursed with years ago, before the Akatsuki took vigil over any nightly rest he wished to get. He remembered seeing the attack of the Nine-Tails on the Leaf Village through the eyes of the Tailed-Beast and feeling a passenger much the same as he did now. As waters churned from placid water reflecting the black floor of his seal to waves that splashed above his waist with the red taint of the Nine-Tails' chakra that reacted to such visceral fury.
Yet, even as froth pooled on the Fox's lips and dripped generously into the raging waters, Naruto hadn't seen the apex of the Beast's raw rage. Not until he realized what hand seals the old man was making. Naruto had an intimate relationship with those hand seals. It was the first technique that Jiraiya taught him and the first skill that Naruto learned to truly develop himself as a shinobi. He could perform the Summoning Jutsu with any ailment administered to him without so much as a hiccup. It confounded Naruto, at the beginning, to try and reason why the Nine-Tails howled so violently at the sight of those seals. Why the wave of chakra that slammed into steel bars was necessary to react to a man summoning an animal he was contracted with, Naruto hadn't a single idea. It didn't matter whether or not he understood for his body to strike forward in a burst of motion, nor did it matter what history he had with Itachi Uchiha before his body leapt over the man without so much as a second of thought. "You shall not call upon me, Madara Uchiha! You dare not assume me your servant any longer!".
Madara Uchiha. Naruto knew that name. Anybody who dared name themselves a shinobi knew Madara Uchiha. Standing as a bystander, standing with tears not yet dry in his eyes and found within a swirling torrent of water within his own seal, Naruto found it hard to equate the elderly man standing in heavy robes to be one of the most legendary shinobi to ever live. At the same time, the wrath of the Nine-Tails was hard to be skeptical of. The Fox's face was pressed against the steel bars as tightly as possible as it roared out its words. Naruto gazed up at his unwilling companion, silent as he experienced the Tailed-Beast's fury not directed at himself. He wouldn't claim to be even passable at understanding the Nine-Tails, it was far beyond him to try and determine anything the Fox didn't explicitly say to him. But, as his body burned a path to the elderly visage of Madara Uchiha and the old man's summoning hand fell to the ground, Naruto thought he saw an inkling of desperation on the Beast's face. An anger that was replaced by a heavy need for their body to halt the Uchiha's movements.
Yet, the word reached their ears all the same. It wasn't a loud declaration. In fact, it was hardly a declaration. The words of, "Summoning Jutsu," were simply spoken without even a hint of grandeur or boast. Still, those words echoed heavily within the seal. The call of the jutsu reverberated through the bars of steel that went as far as the eye could see in any direction, the vibrations felt in the water itself as it calmed into a halt, and replayed countless times within Naruto's own ears. It was so dense, the command of summoning, that Naruto hadn't been able to allow the sealing formula to sneak itself over the face of his seal. The tag mounted upon the bars of the Nine-Tails' prison was overlaid with the spiral that was commonly associated with the Uzumaki Sealing Arts, many points of characters with varying lengths extending out from the spiral like a web of ink.
One moment passed , then two more shortly after without Naruto fully understanding what was happening. He saw the red eyes of the Fox before him be surrounded by oceans of red veined white as its eyes widened impossibly. Three moments passed before Naruto understood the magnitude of what he saw, any longer and he would have simply been too slow to react. His feet sloshed in the water in an explosion of movement as the Jinchuuriki practically flashed into place directly in front of the seam of his seal that would open like a gate should he ever remove the tag far above him. His shoulder slammed itself into the hard steel before it even had a chance to move under the influence of the summoning.
He can summon the Nine-Tails, Naruto thought with no small amount of disbelief, that bastard can summon a Tailed-Beast. It all seemed to fall into place, but Naruto wished it hadn't been so late. As his shoulder slammed into the seam of joined steel, the current of water at his feet sucked in like a tide being pulled in by a mighty storm. For the first time ever, Naruto's legs weren't submerged in shin-deep water as he desperately pushed against the seal that began to creak under invisible pressure. Through squinted eyes, Naruto could see how decrepit the bottoms of the bars truly were, being worn and torn by the chakra that so easily flowed through the seal these days. When the heavy body of the Tailed-Beast on the other side of the bars violently slammed into the seal, Naruto winced at the groans those weakened foundations made.
"You will not let me be summoned by that creature, brat!" Despite Naruto's quick response to the summoning seal formula, when the pressure of the summoning was truly leveled on the seal there was little he could do to stop his feet from sliding against the opening gate. He didn't have the time to question the Beast's statement and how utterly opposite it was to the sentiment made minutes ago. "I would rather suffer an eternity imprisoned by the likes of you than be forced to heed a damned Uchiha!"
Naruto's mind jolted at the admission, not acknowledging the utter disgust the beast held within its intonations at either prospect in any significant way. Blue eyes looked up to meet red, a determined and furious red that was only slightly darker than the fur of the tails that were forced through the bars of the seal. It wasn't something that was normally allowed, any part of the Tailed-Beast would always be halted no matter how wide the gaps between the bars were. Now, as the Summoning Jutsu made to pry the gate open, nine tails of red fur shot through the gaps of the seal and into the empty ground to push their body back into the weakening gate.
His muscles strained, his stomach thrummed even while already dwelling within his seal, and heat wafted over him in mounting torrents as Naruto felt the chakra concealed within the seal seep through the growing space in the opening gate. It was suffocating. He's felt the refined chakra that was pushed through the seal from the Fox and into Naruto, he's felt immense spikes of Tailed-Beast chakra, but this raw exposure to the Fox was too much all at once. It was too much to feel the Summoning Seal try and swallow the Nine-Tails from him in its entirety. No matter how hard he pushed, no matter the straining of tails that now surrounded Naruto on either side, the heavy body of the Nine-Tailed Fox was being tugged and forced against the creaking bars of the gate with red fur filling Naruto's gaze as the gate began to widen beyond his means.
He knew it was a losing battle. The Summoning Seal thrummed with another violent tug to drag the Fox out of Naruto, making the ground slide under Naruto more and more until the Jinchuuriki had a hand on either side of the steel gate doing all he could to pull them together. His voice was raw from the ripping yells of exertion that ran through him. His skin burned from the mere presence of the Fox as it precariously hung upon its jammed tails, hot air from the chakra it was made from buried Naruto under its invisible pressure. He didn't have love for the Nine-Tailed Fox. They weren't friends, they didn't share fond memories, and they weren't on a path that told Naruto that it would ever change. Yet, he knew that he didn't want the beast to leave him. It wasn't out of a noble cause to stop the Akatsuki or save the Fox from servitude under Madara Uchiha and it wasn't solely because it was his life in the balance at the same time. No. The Nine-Tails was the only thing that has been with him since his birth, regardless of him knowing it or not. The Nine-Tails was as much part of him as he was him. He didn't have it in him to lose that, too. So much had been lost already, this wouldn't add to it. He refused.
"You can't stop this yourself, boy. You can hardly take care of yourself and you think you can hold together a seal I've been weakening for as long as I've been in it?" The Beast snorted to itself, but even in the depths of his exertion Naruto knew that he hadn't truly been disparaged. It was a fact. Both Naruto and Jiraiya knew that the more Tailed-Beast chakra that flowed through the seal, the looser it got. Naruto knew that the Fox was pushing its chakra through to him every chance he got. He was no genius, but Naruto knew what the Nine-Tails was doing. Eventually, the seal would weaken enough for him to throw himself at it and shatter his prison. Now, however, the Fox's machinations have shown to be perilously important. From his right, the Jinchuuriki heard more than own bar snap away only to be echoed by even more from his left. His shoulders felt like they were going to be yanked from his body as more of the Fox's chakra flowed toward the Summoning Seal. "So long as we are separate, Madara will grab me and use me like you use those toads as your playthings. I will not have it!"
Had he the ability to, Naruto wouldn't have allowed the Fox's remarks about the Toads of Mount Myoboku go so easily, but his mind and body were too occupied as another thrum of power came from the call of the Uchiha. Still, his eyes opened to try and discern what the Fox could possibly mean. So long as we are separate, his mind lingered on that as much as he could, but the Beast was speaking before he could dwell too long. "Let go, Naruto Uzumaki." His hands almost slipped at hearing the Tailed-Beast use his name, his whole name. Not pissant, not brat, or anything else that denoted how little he was to the Fox, but his name. Let go, and let him be free. It would be the same if I just let him go through the Summoning Seal. How many times had he been demanded to free the beast? How many times did he have to ignore the calls of the Fox's unrelenting calls of release? "Shut it. You know less than nothing. Even if you opened the seal, those cursed eyes of the Uchiha would still ensnare me all the same. As I said, let GO!"
Naruto's body and mind fought against the command for a few more moments, knuckles of his fingers burning under the pressure forced on by the gate's prying opening. Shoulders stabbed with his joints being ripped from their sockets, and the whole time Naruto's gaze was consumed by the burning pit of a Beast that he was forced into cooperation with. His lips fell into a deep scowl as he forced his fingers to relax with physical apprehension. Fingertips dragged stiffly across the smooth surface of steel, his grip releasing the fruitless grip on his own seal. The speed at which the gate opened carried a blast of wind that echoed through the seal. The Nine-Tailed Fox lost any grip it had from keeping its mountainous body away from the pulling force of the Summoning Seal, its body dragging through the air like a puppet suspended on strings.
For a precious moment, Naruto thought he made a fatal mistake. There looked to be no hindrance between the Fox and the Summoning Seal, not until nine tails began to spin themselves with the surprising nimbility of such a large beast. Man-like hands dragged across the ground as long, strong tails dragged themselves closely behind. Naruto watched exhaustively as he watched the snarling face of the Beast draw closer to him, hovering just above him. Had there been a light in the air, had there been light anywhere, Naruto was sure it would be drowned out by the Fox's impossibly massive frame. The entirety of the Fox's flight, blazing red eyes and sharp jagged teeth kept themselves focused on Naruto's hunched potion below it. Then, as the beast hovered above him, Naruto was introduced to the wide opening that separated the two rows of sharp teeth and the fleshy tongue that was positioned just within it. Soon enough, Naruto was more than introduced to that gap as the Fox's massive mouth closed around Naruto's still body, trapping him within its mouth in a cavern of darkness.
He felt like an utter fucking fool. Where did he get off believing the Nine-Tailed Fox? Desperation lowered his inhibitions for listening to the vile words that came from its mouth, and now he was locked in its mouth awaiting the moment the tongue lost in the darkness slapped him beneath teeth that would end him all too easily. His body rolled in switching momentum and transitioning gravity, not dissimilar to his brief sting in Gamakichi's mouth, but the skewering never came. He bumped into the tongue, it bumped back with ridiculous strength, and yet he never felt the bite of sharp teeth once. In fact, as a red haze filled the cavern of the Tailed-Beast's mouth, Naruto was gifted with the sight of the large tongue he rebounded back and forth on pushing him away from the lethal points of teeth and his body unharmed by the rolling.
Short seconds later saw even the teeth and tongue, both of which he became way too familiar with than he ever hoped to be, dissolve into the same red haze that lit up the Fox's mouth. It was the raw crimson chakra he'd become all too familiar with, the same chakra that made up and personified in the Nine-Tailed Fox sealed within him. All of that chakra soon surged into Naruto's body, swirling and spiraling in a cyclone of movement that seeped deeply into the boy's skin, delving far into muscles and bones as it became a part of him. It's so different, he idly thought as he allowed the chakra to fill him far further than he thought was possible. Teeth and muscled flesh of the mouth disappeared as Naruto felt more and more chakra fill him with a warm, comforting sensation. No longer was the chakra filled with raw fury that blurred his sight and tainted his thought. His mind needn't fight against his own body while he was filled with raw, dense power. Then he saw flashes fill his mind like lightning lighting up a stormy night sky: brief and powerful as he tried to make sense of it all.
At first it was existence, simply appearing amongst dense trees and low and long mounts as his body came to be. Then he remembered being drawn to surges of power, small bodies throwing small bursts of energy across fields and through trees before turning their gaze to him. Tails swiped, claws slashed, and red filled the space until all was brought to peace once next flash was on shackles that were snapped on his mind as red eyes with a ring of connected hollow tomoe swirled in his mind and he clashed against a thousand hands of wood without a single drop of control in his body. From then on, shackles were ever-present, only made of different materials. He was shoved in a body of wood, then trapped into one human that used to crawl around his feet like insects, then another. A gentle voice filled his head as he tried to calm the rage of his own captivity, the shallow whisper of Kurama echoing through his mind as he was forced into servitude once again with an eye of a three-bladed pinwheel just before he was sent to the darkness to watch a bundle of flesh with blonde hair from from infancy. It all overwhelmed Naruto until the oppressive call from the Summoning Jutsu fell away and he found himself again on solid ground, no water surrounding his feet or sloshing about him.
"Kurama," it fell from Naruto's lips as he stared above him at the beast that now stood tall above him. No longer was there a infinitely tall line of steel bars that separated them, only a small cage hanging loosely the Fox's neck as it stared down on him. There was a time, a time far closer than Naruto felt comfortable admitting, that he would say standing openly before the Nine-Tailed Fox was the worst place to find himself. He knew how bad the almighty beast wished to be free, even more so now, but there was no fear as blue eyes gazed into red. Large, glinting teeth were exposed to Naruto in an idle snarl, but he didn't feel threatened. Unflinchingly, the gaze was met as silence filled the space of Naruto's seal like it had for so long.
"No human has had the right to utter my name, boy. Yours is a race of bloodthirsty insects that think too much of themselves because of a gift granted by your better. Do not think yourself special, Naruto Uzumaki. You are fortunate that there is one that I loathe impossibly and would rather join myself to you than be forced to serve." Naruto knew Kurama's words to be the truth. Harsh, undoubtedly, but it was truth all the same. Flashes and streaming images made more sense as they emblazoned themselves upon the Jinchuuriki's mind more and more. Kurama was born and put an end to the conflicts of shinobi before those shinobi caught and stored him away in Jinchuuriki. What did Naruto do? Be around Madara while he tried to summon Kurama? Perhaps there was little he could do, but the Jinchuuriki felt an urge he hadn't felt since he saw the Third Hokage first approach him in front of the orphanage as a boy. He wanted to be worth the effort. He wanted to prove that he was worth Kurama's extended paw of cooperation. Somehow. "Forget it, boy. We are not companions. We are not allies. Both of us ail at the hands of Madara Uchiha and the both of us shall kill him. You still hold me prisoner by way of this collar on my neck and keep me from the lands I was made to rule."
Naruto didn't respond, though Kurama could likely make sense of the drive that filled Naruto. The pair were connected, be it temporarily or from now and through the future, and secrets were impossible to be kept. The Fox would know that Naruto meant to find something, somehow, that would make it up to the Tailed-Beast. Maybe not now, but he would find the way. No other word was spoken as the darkness of the seal melted away into an array of bright blue that was joined by a tall, imposing statue of wood. He didn't need to inspect the thing to know it was a statue of a thousand hands, one that was designed to imprison Kurama and the eight others. A simple movement, Naruto found his feet beneath him, a clarity finding its way in his mind and a strength previously unfelt was poorly concealed within the swimming cloak of Kurama's chakra that danced around him. Naruto heard Kurama's voice, "Behind you," he said as a blade directed itself toward Naruto's back but the warning was unnecessary. His feet left the ground in a leap that flipped him over the thrusting blade and its owner as Naruto cleared Itachi Uchiha easily. His feet met the ground and retreated in a burst of speed.
Naruto's eyes caught the hand of Madara Uchiha touching the ground again, another call of Summoning Jutsu being made with substantially less results to be seen from it. There was a tug on his seal, a small force attempting to prod the confines of Kurama once again, but it was a more sophisticated barricade that the Summoning Seal encountered. Kurama's chakra, his being, was intertwined with Naruto's own. No longer was it just Naruto with supplemented chakra of a Tailed-Beast, the boundaries between the two were too skewed to be differentiated. At the lack of response from the summoning, Madara quickly drifted up the side of the large statue with his legs dipping into the surface of the ground then the statue as he climbed. The man stopped at the crown of the wooden structure, but when Naruto's eyes came to rest at the top of the towering being, Naruto caught sight of the nine eyes scattered across the top of its face. Eyes that glowed an unnatural color, each unique to each other until his eyes drifted to the eye furthest to the statue's left in the corner of its forehead. It was an eye that had an idle discoloration of a subtle crimson, one that didn't nearly burn as brightly as the others did. Kurama's chakra, too thin and weak to glow as brightly.
However, that realization made his eyes drift over to the eye that was golden with subtle veins of indigo that Naruto knew all too well. Emotion burned in his chest, stinging shot up his nose and threatened his eyes as the three bodies still on the ground remained focused on the man at the top of the statue. "All of my kin are once again confined to mere lights on a face of this monstrosity. You grieve a Jinchuuriki as I grieve the beings that make you what you are." Kurama's voice was not subtle in its wrath at the statue above them, yet neither had time to dwell too thoroughly on the emotions the sight made them feel. Soon there were long, dense, and complex arrays of ink that glowed brightly across the statue's surface. Naruto's eyes widened impossibly, immediately recognizing bits and pieces of what covered its surface from Jiraiya's tutelage. He's sealing it. All at once he's sealing the statue and eight Tailed-Beasts. He thought with no lacking awe.
No sooner than he had thought did he feel the shockwave of force that accompanied the dissolving of the statue's physical body into a ghastly array of colors all across the rainbow as it was all enveloped into the stationary body at its top. The light emitted from the sealing blinded Naruto from the phenomenon for a moment, but the bright light quickly fell away to reveal the field again, but without the imposing presence of the statue. What replaced that presence was one that was far more oppressive as Naruto saw Madara once again standing on the ground, but he looked entirely different.
Gone was the elderly man that looked a shade of death already and in his place was a smooth skinned face divided into two halves. Black and white merged into a single line that bisected the man in half vertically, the right half black and the left white, that influenced the color of both skin and cloth. Heavy robes were replaced by a light, silky fabric that drifted with the wind. Red eyes showed in a sharp face as spikes of hair drifted behind the Uchiha like a far-reaching mane. Behind him, splaying broadly behind the Uchiha's back was a fan of countless hands that drifted in opposition to the wind. Hands of indigo veined sand, blue flames, spires of coral, dense blazes of lava, formed clouds of steam, viscous thick liquid as clear as water, armored plate of exoskeleton that ended in sharp joints as insect legs would, long wriggling tentacles that rippled in bizarre movement, and the faintest ghosting of crimson energy all mingled about each other.
The power he wielded wasn't seen, but it was surely felt. Naruto's lungs fought harder to breathe in the air that felt all too dense around him, Air seemed to exclusively flow toward the man, and an array of cracks grew from the soles of the man's feet in the earth without a single muscle moving.
What the hell am I supposed to do to that?
Kill it.
It's finally happened. Two became one at last. I don't have time to say more, but expect another chapter on the 17th