I. The Target Acquisition
The sterile air of the high-tech city was polluted by the metallic scent of fear. Ren stood cornered, the sleek, black-armored figures of Konoha Security facing him from the adjacent rooftop. Their chakra-suppression cannons were locked on, humming with lethal intent.
"Subject 001," the lead officer repeated, the voice synthetic, colder than the altitude wind. "Drop the object and surrender the arm seal. You are designated a Level Alpha Bio-Hazard."
Ren's mind was short-circuiting. Bio-hazard. That's what they called unstable, unknown ancient threats. He looked at his left arm. The black spiral seal was no longer just hot; it was throbbing, glowing with a desperate, chaotic red light. It felt like a wild beast was clawing its way out of his bone.
He knew he couldn't fight them physically. He was a student. But the Naruto spirit had shown him the way: Draw. He had to tap into the controlled protection of the Seventh, the Sage of Hope essence he'd absorbed.
I need a defense. A shield. Naruto's shield! Ren closed his eyes, filtering out the panic, focusing his entire desperate will on the memory of the golden-robed man.
He pointed his glowing arm outward, shouted through his dry throat, "Draw! Protection!"
II. Catastrophic Misfire
The seal responded instantly, but with agonizing instability.
Instead of the controlled, warm gold he visualized, Ren felt a violent surge of blood-red chakra rip through his gut, tearing outward. The energy didn't flow from him; it erupted through him, shattering the air and blasting chunks of the rooftop's reinforced polymer tiles away. Ren screamed, the sound lost in the explosion.
He hadn't drawn hope. He had drawn a nightmare.
Ren collapsed, gasping, his consciousness hijacked. The red chakra manifested behind him as a towering, roiling silhouette. It wasn't human-shaped; it was a demonic, snarling apparition, defined by massive, tattered ears and a cyclopean, slitted red eye. It was the Kurama Chakra Fragment, a Beast Card.
The spirit projection didn't speak with words. It communicated with pure, overwhelming emotion: a primal, bottomless rage that targeted the city, the peace, and every uniformed figure in sight.
—They hate you. They imprisoned you. This peace is a lie. Burn it all!—
The rage was so absolute, so complete, that Ren's own identity dissolved within it. He was drowning in hatred that wasn't his, feeling the crushing weight of a monster's centuries of resentment.
III. The Beast's Fury
"Tailed Beast Signature confirmed! Initiate full lethal countermeasure! Target the Hostile Summon only!" the lead Shinobi screamed into his comms, panic finally cracking his voice.
The security officers opened fire with concentrated suppression blasts. The blue beams, designed to neutralize any known chakra signature, struck the massive red shadow. But the Kurama essence didn't dissipate; it absorbed the foreign energy, growing denser, angrier, its power fueled by resistance.
The monstrous projection retaliated. It didn't use a learned Jutsu; it lashed out with a wild, instinctual claw of solidified chakra. The claw struck the adjacent tower, not with a precise blow, but with a brute, chaotic swipe that carved a deep fissure into the reinforced concrete and shattered entire floors of windows. The sound was deafening, the destruction immediate.
Ren felt every destructive impulse as if it were his own, the raw power nearly tearing his body apart. I have to stop this! I can't—I can't become this!
Fighting against the overwhelming mental domination, Ren clawed his way toward his only anchor: the spiral on his arm. He focused on the seal's function—Containment. He mentally screamed at the spirit, at the energy, at himself.
"Get out! This is my vault! SEAL!"
With a final, desperate act of will, Ren forced the chaotic power inward. The red chakra projection imploded with a violent sucking sound, retracting back into the black spiral seal. Ren lay on the ground, gasping, dizzy, physically sickened by the taste of pure rage he had briefly consumed. The beast was gone, but the seal still throbbed, a terrifying, silent threat.
IV. The Shadow's Arrival
The officers, shocked into temporary immobility by the sheer, unbridled destruction, stood paralyzed. The chaos had lasted only seconds, but it had undone decades of perceived security.
A figure landed silently between Ren and the security team, a ghost in the smoke.
He was dressed in practical black, minimalist and efficient. This was Toru Uchiha. His movements were fluid, precise, and utterly cold. His right eye was closed, but his left flared open: a mesmerizing, crimson Sharingan with three perfect tomoe, spinning slowly as it calculated the lingering energy of the Tailed Beast.
He didn't acknowledge the officers. He looked only at Ren, his judgment absolute.
"Your chakra signature is a beacon," Toru's voice was low, controlled, and deeply condemning. "You are reckless and uncontrollable. The power you hold is a curse."
The security officers finally reacted, their systems identifying the illegal Uchiha eye technique. "Unauthorized asset! Surrender the Sharingan!"
Toru ignored them, his gaze locked on the Core Vault Seal. "That deck, Uzumaki. It was meant to be buried. Every draw feeds the true cycle of power. It doesn't liberate the spirits; it collects their darkest failures."
V. The Choice of the Keeper
Toru took a calculated step toward Ren. He wasn't aggressive, but his certainty was suffocating.
"I am the last of my clan," Toru stated, his voice carrying the deep weight of history. "My ancestors—my entire lineage—was driven to madness and self-destruction by this hunger for ultimate power. You just unleashed the same hatred they struggled to contain."
He pointed to the scar of the Tailed Beast's chakra on the rooftop. "The peace the Seventh died for is brittle. You are not its guardian; you are its undoing. Hand over the Deck. I will destroy it and every fragment of its ancient, destructive promise."
Ren slowly climbed to his feet, adrenaline mixing with a flicker of defiance. He clutched the physical Naruto: Sage of Hope card in his hand. Toru's logic was terrifyingly sound, but giving up meant giving up the only warning he'd received.
"I don't know who you are, or what you plan," Ren finally managed, finding a core of Uzumaki stubbornness. "But this power is mine now. And if it's the only thing that can stop the next threat, then I have to learn how to use it. I won't let you destroy my only chance at defending this peace!"
The Konoha officers, recovering their composure, moved simultaneously, launching a barrage of specialized containment nets and tranquilizer darts at the two unauthorized genetic assets. Toru and Ren were enemies, but in the eyes of the system, they were both targets.