The month-long break began. Konoha was buzzing with excitement for the final tournament, but for the members of Team 7, it was a race against time. The fights in the preliminaries had shown them just how big the gap was between them and the true monsters of their generation. Their shared vow to get stronger was a silent, driving force.
The team split up, each member walking their own path. Kakashi, true to his word, began Sasuke's intense training. They vanished to a remote location where Sasuke could master his speed and learn the Chidori without interruption. Naruto, after a frustrating start with Ebisu, had a chance encounter with a powerful, white-haired man who Deva had briefly sensed near the Hokage's office. Deva didn't know who he was, only that his chakra was immense, and that he had taken Naruto under his wing.
Deva was on his own. The two days of demonstrations with Kakashi had been incredibly productive. He now had a mental library filled with dozens of new jutsu, covering all five basic nature transformations. He had the knowledge, the control, and the massive chakra reserves to use them. But the fight with Gaara haunted him.
He had hit the partially transformed Sand-nin with everything he had, and it had resulted in a draw where he was knocked unconscious. He had felt the raw, hateful power radiating from Gaara. It was a power that dwarfed his own, a power that made his A-rank jutsu feel like children's toys. It was a power that felt terrifyingly similar to the one he had copied from Naruto in the Land of Waves.
He had walled that frequency off in his mind, but it was also undeniably strong. His own strength, his logic, his copied jutsu—they had all failed to secure a clear victory against Gaara. He needed more. He needed an overwhelming advantage.
He was scared of that frequency. He remembered the feeling of it washing over him, the pure malevolence. But his fear was now secondary to his desperate need for the strength to protect his team, to never again be in a position where they were helpless, like they had been against Orochimaru.
He made his decision.
He found the most secluded training ground he could, a deep, forgotten corner of the forest far from any patrol routes. He needed absolute privacy for what he was about to attempt. He sat in the center of the clearing, took a deep breath, and closed his eyes.
He reached into the back of his mind, to the mental box where he had locked away the memory. He cautiously opened it. It was the frequency of the Nine-Tails.
His first instinct was to recoil, to shut it away again. It felt wrong, like touching something poisonous. But he forced himself to hold on, to analyze it. He had copied Naruto's base frequency, the Uzumaki blueprint, years ago. That frequency was calm, resilient, and full of life. This was the complete opposite. It was a separate, alien entity that was merely coexisting with Naruto's.
This isn't Naruto's power, he realized with sudden, chilling clarity. It's something else. Something inside him.
He steeled his resolve. His plan was to mimic this frequency with a small portion of his own chakra, to see if he could create a jutsu with its properties. But he knew, from his first attempt to overwrite his own frequency with Naruto's, that a partial change was inefficient. To truly understand it, he had to become it. It was a terrifying gamble.
Slowly, carefully, he began the process. He didn't just listen to the Nine-Tails' frequency; he started to tune his own chakra to it. It was like trying to tune a finely crafted instrument to the sound of a landslide. His own calm, controlled energy fought against the change, resisting the violent, hateful vibration. The process was physically painful. A sharp, burning sensation spread through his chakra network.
He pushed through the pain, focusing his will. He started with his hands, forcing their chakra to match the chaotic, red-hot frequency. The burning intensified. He moved to his arms, then his torso, and his legs. With each part of his body he converted, the pain grew, and the monstrous energy felt closer, like a beast whispering in his ear.
Finally, he converted the chakra in his head. The moment his entire system was aligned with the Nine-Tails' frequency, a profound and terrifying change occurred.
It wasn't a simple power-up. It was a shattering.
The vast "lake" of his own chakra, already equal to Naruto's, suddenly felt like a single drop of water. The ground beneath that lake vanished, opening up into a new container, an ocean basin so impossibly vast and deep that he couldn't even sense its bottom. A resonance had occurred. He had tuned his system to the frequency of a Tailed Beast, and in doing so, his body's capacity for chakra had shattered its mortal limits and reformed into a vessel capable of holding that same monstrous power.
The backlash was immense. The sudden, violent expansion of his potential was too much. His world went black as he collapsed, unconscious.
When he woke, hours later, the sun was setting. He felt... empty. He was lying in a small crater his own body had made. He sat up, his head pounding. He felt weak, drained. He focused inward, and his breath hitched.
His chakra was still there, his original "lake," but it was now just a small puddle at the bottom of the new, colossal container. But it wasn't just sitting there. He could feel it actively, rapidly generating new energy, expanding at an incredible rate, trying to fill the impossible emptiness that now defined him. It was a passive, constant process. He was no longer just a reservoir of chakra; he was a living, breathing chakra generator, and his new limit was hundreds of times greater than what it had been before.
He stood up, his mind reeling as he began to connect the dots with a terrifying, logical certainty.
The frequency was not human. It felt ancient, bestial, and full of rage. It was the frequency of a living, powerful creature.
He thought of the stories. The Nine-Tailed Fox that had attacked Konoha twelve years ago. The greatest of the Tailed Beasts.
He had copied this frequency from Naruto. But it wasn't Naruto's frequency. This monstrous energy and Naruto's own life-giving Uzumaki energy were two separate things, existing in the same body.
The conclusion was simple, unavoidable, and world-shattering.
The Nine-Tails was not dead. It was sealed. And it was sealed inside his teammate, Naruto Uzumaki.
Deva looked at his own hands, feeling the new, immense power slowly but surely filling him. He had been afraid of the monster. Now, he had stolen its very nature, its potential for limitless power, for himself. A month ago, he would have been terrified. Now, as he thought of Orochimaru, of Gaara, of the final tournament that was fast approaching, he felt only a grim, cold resolve. This was the power he needed. This was the strength that would ensure his team would never be helpless again.