Chapter 65: The Last Chains of Hope
"Nine-Tails," Uzumaki Kushina's voice cut through the beast's triumphant roar, cold and unwavering despite her pallor. "It's far too early for your celebration. Did you forget I am still here?"
A metallic shiver-shiver-shiver rang through the air. From the space behind her, chains of brilliant, shimmering gold materialized, not from any scroll or weapon, but from her very spirit. They were spectral, yet solid, clinking together with a sound of pure, binding authority.
The Adamantine Sealing Chains.
The Nine-Tails' laughter choked off. Seeing the dense net of golden links shooting toward it, it instinctively tried to bolt, its newly formed chakra-legs scrabbling for purchase on the broken ground.
"Too late!" Kushina snapped.
SHINK! SHINK! CLANK!
The chains moved with impossible speed and precision. They wrapped around ankles, coiled up legs, and lashed around the beast's torso. The Nine-Tails felt its forward momentum brutally arrested. Its balance vanished, and with a ground-quaking THUD, its mountainous form crashed onto its side once more.
In seconds, it was trussed up like a festival roast, a cocoon of glowing golden chains that pulsed with potent sealing energy.
"DAMN YOU! DAMN THE ADAMANTINE CHAINS! DAMN THE UZUMAKI BLOOD!" the fox shrieked, its voice a mixture of rage and deeply ingrained fear. "I WILL NOT BE BOUND AGAIN!"
It thrashed with insane force, muscles bulging against the ethereal metal. The chains groaned, and several links showed faint stress lines.
Kushina gasped, her face draining of its last vestiges of color. She was at her absolute limit. With a fierce concentration of will, she recalled the chains she had sent chasing the two smaller foxes. They retracted and whipped back, adding more and more layers to the main bindings, weaving a prison of light the beast could no longer budge.
The Nine-Tails' struggles became futile twitches, then ceased. It lay imprisoned, hate radiating from it in waves.
"Cough… cough…" Kushina doubled over, a wet, ragged cough tearing from her throat. She straightened with visible effort, her gaze finding Fugaku and Akira. "Fugaku… Jonin Akira… the two clones… are yours." Her voice was a threadbare whisper. "They're fragments… part of its consciousness poured into its own shed flesh and chakra. It can… split itself."
"Such a thing is possible?" Akira murmured, more to himself than anyone.
Kushina managed a weak, grim smile. "The Nine-Tails' chakra… is intensely vital. The tailed beasts are chakra given form. Dividing its will… reshaping its substance… it's within its ancient power." She turned her head, her eyes soft yet resolute as they landed on Minato. "The rest… is up to you. Minato… let's finish this. For Naruto."
Like Minato, her faith was absolute. Their son would be loved. Their friends would protect him. It was this faith that allowed her to make her choice.
Minato nodded, the movement slight and pained. He bent, every muscle screaming in protest, and gently lifted their sleeping son from the rock. Together, he and Kushina began their slow, final walk toward the bound titan.
Akira and Fugaku shared one last look, a world of understanding passing between them. Then they moved. In twin blurs of speed, they interposed themselves between the advancing parent and the two clone-beasts, which were already gnawing and slashing at the few remaining chains meant to deter them.
"Mangekyō Sharingan!"
Both Uchiha opened their eyes wide. The unique, hypnotic patterns of their Mangekyō spun to life, fixing the gaze of the two lesser foxes.
The effect was instant. The clones froze mid-snarl, their burning red pupils overwritten by the reflected kaleidoscope patterns. Controlling the full Nine-Tails was a monumental task, but these fragments, these split-off pieces of malice, lacked the original's overwhelming will. They stood docile, trapped in potent genjutsu.
At that moment, a section of the towering black fire wall at the battlefield's edge swirled. It didn't dissipate, but was instead drawn like water into a vortex, funneling into a large, specially prepared sealing scroll laid on the ground. An opening was cleared.
Through it stepped Sarutobi Hiruzen and Jiraiya, their expressions frantic. Seeing the scene within—the bound beast, the dying Minato, the fading Kushina—their faces crumpled in shock and grief. They rushed forward.
"Minato! I… the security… the secrecy… it was my failure!" Hiruzen's voice broke, thick with a regret that aged him decades in an instant. He stared at the ghastly wound in Minato's back.
Jiraiya looked as if his soul had been ripped out. "Minato… if I had been there… if I had guarded Kushina myself…" he mumbled, his usual boisterous energy utterly gone.
"Lord Third… Teacher Jiraiya…" Minato's voice was calm, accepting. "You did… all you could. The failure… was mine. I walked into 'Madara's' trap. He sacrificed his own body… to land this blow. He won… this exchange."
"You have done more than enough, Minato. More than anyone could ask…" Hiruzen said, his voice thick with emotion. To see the brilliant future of his village snuffed out like this was a physical pain.
Jiraiya turned desperately to the two toad sages on his shoulders. "Is there nothing? No other way?"
"There is not, little Jiraiya," Shima said softly, her large eyes sorrowful. "Not unless the Great Toad Sage himself were to intervene."
"The true Sage's Talisman… could we borrow it?" Jiraiya pleaded, clutching at straws.
Fukasaku shook his head. "The true talisman is the Great Sage's treasure. Only he can wield it. And… there are none left. They were exhausted in ancient times."
"Teacher… thank you. Both of you. And the sages," Minato said, offering them a final, gentle smile. "Please… do not trouble the Great Sage."
"Minato…" Jiraiya's shoulders slumped, all fight leaving him. The weight of losing both disciples—Nagato to darkness, Minato to death—was a burden that threatened to crush his spirit.
Minato nodded to them, then, with Kushina leaning against him, continued their slow procession toward the imprisoned fox.
Akira watched them go, a deep, helpless sigh escaping him. He knew. They all knew. If the Nine-Tails were sealed back into Kushina now, her potent Uzumaki vitality might let her survive its re-containment. But Minato was already dead on his feet, sustained only by a fading talisman. And Kushina's will to live was inextricably tied to his. To suggest otherwise was pointless, even cruel. Their path was chosen together.
Uzumaki Kushina stared down at the hate-filled eye of the bound beast. "Your struggle is pointless, Nine-Tails. You know you can never break my clan's chains."
"Kushina." Minato's voice was soft, yet it carried across the short distance. He looked at her, his blue eyes filled with a love so profound it seemed to push back the night. "I… don't have much time left. But you… you can live. You can watch Naruto grow."
"Minato…" Fresh tears spilled from Kushina's eyes, but they were no longer just tears of grief.
"Naruto needs you," he whispered, the words for her alone, yet heard by all. "He's already losing his father. He cannot be without his mother. A childhood without that light… is too dark. Kushina… promise me. Promise me you will live. For him."
He was not asking her to seal the beast within herself. He was asking her to endure the unimaginable pain of his loss, to find the strength to go on. It was a harder request, and a greater act of love.
Kushina met his gaze. She saw the certainty of his end, and the desperate hope for their son's beginning. She took a deep, shuddering breath, and her tears did not stop, but her chin lifted. The despair in her eyes was joined by a fierce, unbreakable determination.
"Minato…" she said, her voice trembling but clear. "I understand. I promise you. I will live. I will raise our son. I will make sure he knows… how wonderful his father was."
She gave him a solemn, tear-streaked nod.
It was the promise he needed. Together, they turned their full attention to the ritual ahead, and to their son, who slept peacefully, unaware that his parents were forging his destiny with their final breaths.
(End of Chapter)
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