"This chakra signature... it can't be..."
Staring at the dark golden radiance slowly emanating from Minato's form, the masked man felt his entire body tremble with a mixture of recognition and disbelief.
"The Nine-Tails?!"
The memory struck him like a physical blow. Years ago, he had attempted to extract Kurama from Kushina during Naruto's birth, only to be thwarted by the Fourth Hokage's intervention. More recently, during his assault on Konoha, he had clearly sensed the distinctive chakra fluctuations when Kushina had tapped into the Nine-Tails' power.
While the energy patterns radiating from Minato weren't identical to what he remembered, the fundamental similarities were unmistakable—and utterly impossible.
Buzz!
As the dark golden light intensified, Minato's brown-yellow eyes—already transformed by Sage Mode—began undergoing an even more dramatic metamorphosis. The natural energy that had given them their distinctive sage coloration was being overwhelmed by something far more ancient and powerful.
The golden radiance gradually concentrated within his pupils, reshaping them from their normal round form into something distinctly inhuman. Slowly, unmistakably, Minato's eyes were taking on the characteristic vertical slits of a fox.
The horizontal pupils of Sage Mode were evolving into the crossed form that marked the apex predator of the Tailed Beasts.
"There's no hiding it anymore," Minato thought grimly as he felt the transformation spreading through his entire being.
Although Kurama's chakra had been integrated into his very soul during their final battle against the masked man years ago, releasing his full power inevitably revealed traces of the fox's influence. When pushed to his absolute limits, the boundaries between human and Tailed Beast became dangerously thin.
Facing an opponent of this caliber, Minato could afford no deception, no hidden reserves, no tactical restraint. He was deeply concerned about what might be happening to his village and his family during his absence. This battle had to end now, with the next exchange.
Even if it meant exposing secrets that could change everything the ninja world thought they knew about him.
The dark golden chakra aura surged outward from Minato's body like liquid fire, its energy so dense it became visible to the naked eye. As the power reached its peak, the formless energy began to coalesce and take shape—the distinctive outline of a massive fox head materializing around the Fourth Hokage's human form.
The transformation defied everything the masked man thought he understood about Jinchūriki and Tailed Beasts. With his enhanced visual prowess, he could clearly perceive that no Tailed Beast was sealed within Minato's body. There was no foreign chakra system, no separate consciousness, no traditional container-and-prisoner relationship.
Yet the power manifesting before him was undeniably that of the Nine-Tails—raw, primal, and terrifyingly authentic.
Feeling the tremendous chakra concentration building within his opponent, the masked man's hands began to shake involuntarily. Every instinct screamed that he was witnessing something that should have been impossible, something that threatened to rewrite the fundamental rules of ninja combat.
At the same time, he recognized that Minato was no longer engaging in a prolonged battle of attrition. The energy patterns, the deliberate positioning, the careful chakra control—everything pointed to one conclusion.
The next attack would be Minato's ultimate technique, delivered with every ounce of power at his disposal.
He couldn't simply stand by and allow the Fourth Hokage to complete whatever devastating jutsu he was preparing.
Summoning every remaining ounce of strength, the masked man controlled his perfect Susanoo and brought both ethereal chains crashing downward with mountain-splitting force.
Sensing the incoming assault, Minato's transformed senses reacted with inhuman speed and precision.
Splash!
The ocean around Minato erupted as nine distinct streams of chakra burst upward from the water—each one tinged with that same dark golden radiance and moving with the fluid grace of massive tails. The manifestations weren't mere energy constructs; they possessed the weight, power, and presence of the real thing.
CRASH!
The nine tails intercepted Susanoo's attack head-on, their combined strength managing to halt the descent of the colossal weapons. The collision sent shockwaves rippling across the ocean surface, creating waves that would have capsized any vessel caught in their path.
Hum...
Behind this defensive barrier, the dark golden fox head continued its formation, its massive jaws slowly opening to reveal an empty maw that seemed to pull at the very fabric of reality. Different colored chakra particles—blue, red, purple, and others representing the full spectrum of Tailed Beast energy—began converging in front of those spectral fangs.
"Can a human being achieve this level of mastery without my conscious cooperation?"
Deep within Minato's soul, the remnant consciousness of the Nine-Tails watched with a mixture of grudging respect and genuine amazement. Despite their antagonistic relationship, even Kurama had to acknowledge the incredible feat taking place.
Minato was attempting to manifest a Tailed Beast Ball using purely human willpower and chakra control—a technique that should have been absolutely impossible without the physical framework of an actual Tailed Beast to support it.
The so-called Tailed Beast Ball was the ultimate expression of Bijuu combat prowess, a technique that only the great beasts themselves could naturally perform. Even the most powerful Jinchūriki required their Tailed Beast's active participation and physical transformation to access such devastating power.
Kushina, for all her mastery of the Nine-Tails' golden chakra mode, still couldn't manifest a true Tailed Beast Ball without Kurama's direct involvement.
Yet here was Minato Namikaze not only forming the technique in his base human form but actually attempting to temporarily recreate the Nine-Tails' physical presence to maximize the attack's potential. He was trying to become the fox without surrendering his human consciousness or identity.
The spiritual energy differential between humans and Tailed Beasts was supposed to make such a feat impossible. The sheer scale of power required should have torn a human apart from the inside.
But somehow, impossibly, Minato was succeeding.
Even the Nine-Tails couldn't help but feel a grudging admiration for this unprecedented display of will and skill. In some ways, this man's determination and raw power exceeded even that of the First Hokage, who had subdued Kurama through overwhelming Wood Release techniques rather than pure spiritual dominance.
The perfect Susanoo's weapons remained locked in combat with the nine defensive tails, both sides straining against each other in a stalemate that sent continuous shockwaves across the battlefield.
The masked man's expression grew increasingly desperate as his sensory abilities detected Minato's chakra rapidly compressing and condensing toward a single focal point. The energy density was approaching levels that defied measurement.
If he didn't stop this technique immediately, the consequences would be beyond catastrophic.
"Kamui!" he roared with desperate fury.
His visible eye became a window into madness as he directed his space-time manipulation toward the nine tails blocking his Susanoo's advance. Every remaining trace of ocular power was poured into this final gambit.
Whoosh!
Space itself began to warp and twist around the defensive chakra constructs, the dimensional distortion slowly consuming the barrier that stood between him and Minato.
BANG!
But just as victory seemed within reach, the masked man's eye suddenly bulged with excruciating pain, and the weapons in his perfect Susanoo's hands dissolved into scattered particles of light.
Even with his enhanced ocular abilities, maintaining the perfect Susanoo while simultaneously executing multiple large-scale spatial transfers in rapid succession had finally pushed him beyond his absolute limits.
At this critical moment, the accumulated strain of overusing his Mangekyō Sharingan struck him with devastating backlash.
"Your ocular power has finally reached its breaking point," Minato observed, his voice carrying an edge of cold satisfaction.
The reason he had expended significant energy on that oversized Rasengan Shuriken earlier hadn't been mere tactical experimentation—it had been a calculated gambit to force his opponent into overextending his most dangerous abilities.
Minato understood better than most that borrowed power always came with a price. He had been patiently waiting for the exact moment when the masked man's supernatural abilities would fail him.
Now, with his opponent's ocular powers compromised, there would be no deflecting what came next.
The masked man felt as though molten metal was being poured directly into his brain, but his iron will refused to accept defeat. If he couldn't maintain the perfect Susanoo now, everything would be lost.
Drawing upon reserves of determination he didn't know he possessed, he bit down on his tongue with enough force to draw blood.
The coppery taste filled his mouth as bright red droplets seeped through his mask, but the self-inflicted pain helped focus his scattered consciousness.
Through sheer force of will, he managed to stabilize the wavering chakra construct of his ultimate defense.
With tremendous effort, he raised his gaze to observe the nightmare taking shape below.
Suspended before the massive jaws of the spectral fox head was a sphere of absolute darkness—a Tailed Beast Ball with a diameter exceeding thirty meters. The technique possessed such gravitational influence that it had carved a perfectly circular abyss more than a hundred meters wide in the ocean's surface.
Seawater from the surrounding area was being pulled toward the sphere's event horizon, creating a maelstrom of biblical proportions. Yet somehow, the small section of ocean where Minato stood remained completely untouched, as if protected by his will alone.
"Huff... huff..."
Having concentrated the majority of his chakra into this ultimate attack, Minato felt his Sage Mode beginning to destabilize. His cross-shaped pupils trembled with the strain of maintaining such an unprecedented technique.
The dark golden fox head opened its massive jaws wider, seeming to take a breath that pulled at the very atmosphere around them.
"Tailed Beast Ball!"
The spectral fox's roar shook the heavens themselves as the colossal sphere of destruction launched toward the perfect Susanoo with the force of a falling star.
The Tailed Beast Ball crossed the distance between them in an instant, its presence warping the air and sea around it as it approached the ethereal giant.
Seeing the inevitable collision approaching, the masked man controlled his Susanoo to cross both arms in front of its torso, attempting to create the strongest possible defensive posture.
BOOM!
When the two ultimate techniques met, the initial contact produced a blinding flash of light that could be seen from hundreds of miles away. Then came the sound—a thunderclap so powerful it seemed to shake the very foundations of the world itself.
The explosion that followed transformed the ocean battlefield into something resembling the birth of a new star, unleashing devastation that would be felt across multiple nations and remembered for generations to come.
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