"Damn brat, how dare you toy with me! Even if I did get out, I'd still be under your watchful eyes. You think I'm stupid?"
The Nine-Tails roared furiously.
Kyoichi dug at his ear.
This beast's voice was loud enough to rattle his skull, leaving him with a buzzing headache and a touch of tinnitus.
At least in this sealed space, there was no such thing as bad breath.
He glanced at the Nine-Tails and sighed helplessly.
"You… call you stupid, and you show flashes of wit. Say you're not stupid, and I'd be lying to myself."
"Damn it! Brat, if you've got the guts, release me! I'll crush you with my own claws!"
The Nine-Tails bellowed again.
Kyoichi sneered coldly.
"Use that brain of yours for once. If I wanted you dead, why would I bother with tricks? Even if you came out in full, I could still beat you back into the seal. You think I'd have the gall to provoke Uchiha Madara without power to back it up? If I didn't, I'd already be dead."
He narrowed his eyes.
"Don't flatter yourself. I don't need your power in battle—I just need to make sure Madara never gets his hands on you. Don't overestimate your worth."
"You—!"
The Nine-Tails fumed, but… it had to admit, Kyoichi had a point.
If this boy truly had no strength, Madara would have killed him long ago. The very fact that he still lived proved that Madara was in no condition to act openly.
It thought for several seconds.
"Besides," Kyoichi continued, "a contract seal doesn't require your consent…"
He formed hand seals, drawing on chakra.
Of course, this wasn't his own chakra.
Kyoichi was only a consciousness here—he had no physical chakra to wield. What he was using now was the Nine-Tails' own stamina and spirit, temporarily fused into chakra.
The Nine-Tails froze.
He was… sealing it, using its own chakra against it.
What the hell—?
Shameless. Utterly shameless!
"Wait—!"
The Nine-Tails howled, but Kyoichi ignored it. One way or another, the contract seal had to be placed, to cut off Madara's ability to use the beast again.
At the same time, it was for Kushina's safety.
So—
There was no room for discussion.
The Nine-Tails' struggles were pointless. With the Adamantine Sealing Chains binding it, resistance was impossible. That was the terrifying power of the Uzumaki as jinchūriki—their chains were a bane to all tailed beasts.
The seal took hold.
Only then did Kyoichi clap his hands together, saying lightly:
"There, all done. If there's nothing else, I'll take my leave. No point sticking around just to annoy you."
"Wait! Weren't you going to let me out?!"
"You didn't agree earlier."
"I'm agreeing now!"
"Too late. That was your chance, and you wasted it. If you still want out, the price isn't the same anymore. A beast like you roaming free is a massive risk—I'll have to think about it."
Kyoichi waved a hand casually as he turned away.
The Nine-Tails roared in rage.
This brat had played it for a fool. Talking about release, but never meaning it.
Kyoichi, of course, had never seriously considered letting it roam free.
A creature like this had no grasp of how dangerous the world outside had become. Releasing it now would be a disaster—for others and for itself.
Of course, splitting off a portion of it… that was a different matter. But Kyoichi hadn't yet mastered the ability to separate a tailed beast's chakra.
Minato had used the Dead Demon Consuming Seal to divide the Nine-Tails into Yin and Yang halves. The principle was simple, but execution was another story. Kyoichi would need time—and Kushina's cooperation—before even attempting it.
---
"How did it go?"
"Very well. I had an honest talk with the Nine-Tails. We reached a consensus about Madara…"
"Speak plainly."
Kushina cut him off before he could ramble further—she could already feel a lecture coming on.
Kyoichi shrugged.
He then explained what had transpired.
Minato and Kushina's faces turned grim.
"Releasing the Nine-Tails…?"
Far too risky.
Their first instinct was that Kyoichi was walking a tightrope over a pit. The Nine-Tails was the most dangerous of the tailed beasts. Even half its power could flatten a village. One wrong move and they'd be finished. Thankfully, Kyoichi seemed to be speaking hypothetically.
Otherwise, it would've been madness.
"In truth, it may not be impossible," Kyoichi said calmly. "There are ways to deal with a tailed beast if it goes rogue. But Madara being alive—that's the real threat to the entire shinobi world."
He added, "If I can keep communicating with the Nine-Tails, we might uncover secrets tied to the Sage of Six Paths himself."
"…I see."
Kushina was shaken by the beast's origins, but she knew the Nine-Tails had no reason to lie about that.
Her mind, however, turned to something else.
"That… 'Eye of the Moon Plan.' What exactly is it?"
"How should I know?"
Kyoichi spread his hands helplessly, then explained what Nagato had seen. Only three words had been deciphered: "Eye of the Moon Plan."
That was all.
"Still," he continued, "if I had to guess… that plan must be the true purpose behind the Uchiha Stone Tablet. Otherwise, why hide it so deeply that Nagato himself can't fully read it yet?"
Minato nodded quietly.
It seemed their days of peace were truly over.
Not that he had much free time to begin with. Even without field missions, he was still in charge of training the Flying Thunder God unit in the ANBU.
"By the way," Kyoichi added, "about cooperating with the Nine-Tails—once we master separation, we could try it with just a fragment."
With the Nine-Tails whole, cooperation was impossible. It simply wouldn't listen. But if they split off a clone-like portion, then perhaps a balance could be reached.
"…So the key is figuring out how to divide it. Makes sense. Worth trying, at least."
Minato and Kushina nodded.
For now, keeping the full beast sealed inside Kushina was the safest choice. But experimenting with a fragment carried little risk.
After agreeing, they decided to draft a plan to submit to Tsunade.
Kyoichi, however, slipped away before long. If he lingered, the couple would only complain about him again.
After all, with Madara active, their workload was already piling up.
Still—
If Madara doesn't survive… then Naruto and Sasuke can't even be born.
In a way, all this effort was for their sake as well.
The next step—
Was to bring Madara down.
Unfortunately, Kyoichi hadn't been able to fully track Black Zetsu this time.
Its stealth was simply too strong. If not for a surge of emotion betraying it, Kyoichi would never have noticed its presence at all. And once it slipped into the earth, there was no following it.
It seemed… the only way forward was through the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path.
Hopefully Nagato's ocular powers would grow quickly.
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