The atmosphere over the Sacred Forest of Shinra was glittering with condensed life. Naruto Son was suspended there in that golden haze, with legs crossed, his figure forming the still centre of a storm which made no sound. His Super Sage Mode aura was not merely a glow, but a breathing animate being. Flame-like golden energy poured out of him in a lovely buzzing, and faint cross-patterned sage lines were left under his eyes that glowed with power and antiquity.
He was not merely feeling the wood it was the wood. He could perceive the throb of Prana in the vibrations of the tiny creatures, the slow heavy pull of it out of the old trees, the flashy swift bursts of it out of the birds in the overhead. It was a symphony, he was the conductor and the audience.
Ok, Kurama, he said with a smile pulling up his lips. "Let's try that new combo."
The Nine Tailed Saiyan, Kuraroku, snorted in his eye. Get out of the mountain, this time, kid; try not to blow it up.
Naruto jerked his eyes open and their sage-blue and Saiyan-gold eyes came into focus. With the one continuous movement he stood up. He didn't run; he flowed. His Shadow Burst Movement was more of a series of improbably fast, Pana-phased steps, which left behind after-images of golden light. He moved round, and an energy-tornado was accumulating in his palm--not chakra, not ki, but chakra-ki. The Spirit Rasengan was humming a spinning point of pure energy, a rotating pinpoint that devoured space, leaves and light.
With a shriek he threw it away. "Spirit Rasengan!"
The energy sphere flew through the air not directly straight but in a corkscrew form, cutting a deep groove into the ground and exploding itself on a solid-looking training monolith, reinforced in a magical way, at a great distance. It was not bang, but deep THRUM and felt in the bones. The monolith did not break; it unwove and the substance of it condensed into floats of golden light.
Naruto dropped, his breath coming out in a puff of relief, and his smile was glorious. "Heh. Nailed it."
And then, it happened.
It wasn't a sound. It was a sensation. A wrongness. Similar to one, dissonant chord struck in heart of the symphony. That great Prana about him did not even vibrate; it trembled. His aura flashed the golden spiral, the light faded away in a heart-stopping moment. The nausea of a kind of spiritual sickness swept him, so strong that his knees were weak.
"What was that?" It was no longer a playful voice of Kuraroku, but a low growl in his mind. "That... didn't feel right."
The giddy face of Naruto had disappeared and in its place was a keen eye-pulse. His Prana Sense, which was (soul) a comforter of awareness, now was a raw nerve. I do not know, he said, and his hand touched his breast. "But it felt... sick."
Soon there was a figure, miles away, on the jagged peak of the Forsaken Crags, owning the golden detonation with detached indifference. Sasuke Vegeta did not even have to sharpen his eyes, the explosion of Prana was a flare in his spiritual vision.
Predictable, said he to the cold and thin air. His black-and-indigo armor was worn out by a thousand fights, his ragged cloak was shaking in the cold wind of the high altitude. His single strand of hair, which was pitch-black in hue, was glinting in the twin suns.
The energy signature was dismantled passively by his eyes, his legendary Sharingan Ki Vision. He perceived not only the power, but the flow--the harmonious and almost childish unity that Naruto had attained between Inner and Outer Prana. It was grandiose, brute-force type of grandiose. Reckless.
Then the discord struck him, as well.
His eyes narrowed. The crimson irises were in motion, the black crown emblem in them in turn appearing to narrow. His Ultra Sharingan Instinct started to work and broke down the corruption not as a feeling, but as data. He caught a glimpse of the Prana channels of the world as a whole curling and fading in an instant, as a webbing caught by a clumsy hand.
Ripple in the Source, he thought, in a low and calm baritone. The crowing of the inaccurate, in an attempt to right itself. He dispensed with it as an ugly, but natural cosmic balancing. The world always was in flux, always struggling, with its weak energies. It was beneath his concern.
But... the accuracy of the disturbance was queer. It wasn't chaotic. It was surgical. A calculated impurity.
There was something--but it was not concern--that was causing him intellectual curiosity. He kept his place on the perch, and stayed a silent sentinel and waited. It would take the Fallen Flame of Pride trembling. But he would remember it.
Naruto in the forest straightened up with his senses on high alert. The maliciousness was wearing away, yet the sound lingered.
Then came a voice which filled the stillness. It was not a thing that comes in the air as it is but comes right into the head, the same polished glass but cold as nothingness. It was calm, lyrical, and completely chilling.
"The old skin must be shed."
Naruto heard himself echoed by the voice and Kuraroku snarled with rage to protect himself.
"Prepare for the Molting."
The words were hanging in the mental space, promise and a threat united in one. The golden light of the aura of Naruto appeared to be fading before our eyes, in the face of the sudden and immeasurable shadow that the words had thrown across it. The Shinra symphony had died away, and only a storm on its approach was audible.