Roar~
The Six-Tails continued to struggle. However, its attempts were clearly feeble.
Two minutes later.
Seimei had absorbed 60,000 points of chakra from the Six-Tails, with a conversion efficiency of 90%, equating to 54,000 points. With this, combined with his remaining chakra reserves, his chakra nearly overflowed.
Without hesitation, Seimei temporarily halted the Chakra Absorption Technique and instead performed the Shadow Clone Technique!
Bang~
A cloud of chakra smoke dispersed, revealing four new figures in the scene.
As a result, Seimei's own chakra immediately dropped to less than 30,000 points.
However, Seimei didn't resume absorbing the Six-Tails' chakra right away. Instead, he signaled to his four shadow clones with a glance.
Being extensions of his will, the clones naturally understood his intent. They nodded and took off into the distance.
Their mission was to find a quiet place to train and digest the chakra within them, just like the four shadow clones he had dispatched earlier.
Once they were gone, Seimei shifted his focus back, ignoring Minato Namikaze's curious gaze. He raised his hands and formed seals, once again casting the Chakra Absorption Technique to drain the Six-Tails' chakra.
Initially, the Six-Tails seemed excited when Seimei stopped absorbing its chakra, thinking it could make one last desperate attempt to escape.
However, before it could muster enough chakra, Seimei started draining it again. This infuriated the Six-Tails, which felt utterly deceived.
Roar~
The beast let out an angry roar, struggling violently.
But two minutes passed, and the chakra chains summoned by Minato Namikaze had long been tightly bound to the Six-Tails. No matter how it struggled, it couldn't escape.
Seeing this, Seimei was finally reassured. While absorbing the Six-Tails' chakra, he began reviewing the battle to reflect on his performance.
First and foremost, his primary goal for joining this battle had been achieved.
He had preliminarily verified the effectiveness of the Chakra Absorption Technique on Tailed Beasts, ensuring that he wouldn't be left unable to exploit their potential in future situations.
Second, he tested several of his jutsu on a Tailed Beast to gauge their destructive power.
It became clear that even ordinary jutsu could inflict damage on a Tailed Beast as long as their chakra attributes were advantageous.
Moreover, higher-level jutsu and forbidden techniques like Water Release: Water Severing Wave and Wind Release: Rasenshuriken could cause severe or even fatal damage when used effectively.
This insight was crucial.
Finally, the battle highlighted his own shortcomings—namely, his lack of effective long-term control methods for Tailed Beasts.
With this thought, Seimei glanced at the eight chakra chains binding the Six-Tails.
As he had anticipated earlier, sealing techniques would ultimately be the most reliable solution.
However, he didn't plan to learn them from Minato Namikaze.
If all went well, once he dealt with the trouble posed by Danzo, he should be able to acquire a significant amount of resources.
With those, he could address many of his shortcomings, including mastering sealing techniques.
Thus, there was no need to incur unnecessary debts.
Everyone knows that debts of gratitude are the hardest to repay, and Seimei preferred to rely on himself rather than being indebted to others.
As these thoughts flickered through his mind, Seimei quickly refocused on his reflections.
Yet, there seemed to be little left to review.
The battle had concluded far more quickly than he had anticipated.
Initially, he had only intended to play a supporting role.
Unexpectedly, one thought and one experiment had abruptly ended the fight.
Not only was he somewhat bewildered by this outcome, but Minato Namikaze probably felt similarly.
As the main combatant, Minato's role in this fight was surprisingly minor. Aside from briefly distracting the Six-Tails at the beginning and using a sealing technique to suppress it at the end, he hadn't employed many tactics.
Ordinarily, Minato—a ninja with a combat style leaning towards assassination—relied heavily on his strategic intelligence and agility when facing Tailed Beasts. His Summoning Technique, which brought the toads from Mount Myoboku for assistance, was his most crucial asset.
Yet, in this battle, he hadn't even had time to summon them before it ended.
Of course, this didn't mean his contribution was insignificant.
At the very least, his decisive use of the Flying Thunder God Technique and sealing jutsu at the critical moment was vital in subduing the Six-Tails.
Indeed, Seimei's Wind Release: Rasenshuriken had severely wounded the Six-Tails.
However, a Tailed Beast's vitality differed vastly from that of humans.
While the initial blow had dealt significant damage, the Six-Tails could have recovered if given time, albeit with diminished power.
But even in such a state, it would have remained a considerable threat to both Seimei and Minato Namikaze.
Recognizing this, Minato seized the opportunity, suppressing the Six-Tails before it could recover. This decisive action brought the battle to an abrupt end.
Without it, the fight could have dragged on much longer.
In this sense, the victory belonged to both Seimei and Minato Namikaze.
While Seimei was lost in thought, the Six-Tails finally reached its limit.
"Seal!" ×4
As Minato Namikaze and his three shadow clones shouted in unison, the eight chakra chains glowed with intensified sealing patterns. They slithered onto the Six-Tails like living entities.
Roar~
With a final, reluctant roar, the Six-Tails vanished under the suppression of the sealing technique.
Seimei felt the resistance beneath his palm vanish. Looking down, he saw a delicate-featured child where the Six-Tails had once stood.
The child appeared to be about six or seven years old, with soft black hair and tattered clothing, worse than that of a beggar.
However, the most striking aspect was his skin, which bore numerous signs of corrosion from acid, a testament to his immense pain.
Even in a deep coma, the child's body trembled as if still enduring the agony.
Seimei didn't need to guess—the boy was undoubtedly Utakata, the Six-Tails' jinchuriki.
Seeing his wretched state, Seimei finally understood why most jinchuriki harbored resentment toward their villages. While the rejection from villagers was one reason, being used as mere weapons was another.
Minato Namikaze frowned at the scene and dispelled his shadow clones.
Walking up to Utakata, Minato hesitated, his usually firm gaze clouded with rare indecision.
Before departing, the Third Hokage, Hiruzen Sarutobi, had instructed him to capture the target alive if possible and bring him back to the village.
Doing so would allow the Hidden Leaf to use Utakata as leverage to pressure the Hidden Mist into negotiations, especially since the Hidden Mist had already lost the Three-Tails and couldn't afford to lose the Six-Tails as well.
However...
Looking at Utakata's trembling form, Minato couldn't help but think of Kushina Uzumaki. As fellow jinchuriki, their fates weren't so different.
Hadn't Kushina nearly been sent on a similar mission to the Hidden Mist recently?
Minato shuddered to imagine what might have happened if Kushina had fallen into the Hidden Mist's hands—the torture, the despair.
Considering this, he could only imagine how terrified and hopeless this child would feel if taken to the Hidden Leaf.
True, the boy would likely be exchanged back to the Hidden Mist eventually, but the psychological scars would linger for a lifetime.
Yet, on the other hand, capturing Utakata could bring an earlier end to the war, saving countless lives.
Sacrificing one for the many seemed like a clear choice.
But still, Minato hesitated.