Naruto's body was wrapped in a layer of pale golden chakra, dense yet calm, flowing over his skin like a living mantle.
It wasn't the violent, corrosive aura Kakashi remembered from before. There was no suffocating malice, no pressure that clawed at the nerves. Instead, the chakra radiated a quiet dominance—controlled, restrained, and frightening precisely because of how stable it was.
Sakura was not being held in Naruto's arms.
She was gripped by the back of her collar, lifted off the ground like an object.
That detail alone erased any remaining doubt.
Kakashi and Sasuke exchanged a glance. The tension that had seized their chests loosened at once, replaced by a long, quiet exhale of relief.
"…So it's you," Kakashi said slowly. "Lock."
The figure before them tilted his head slightly, acknowledging the name without interest.
Lock glanced down at Sakura, who was still frozen in shock, and gave her a perfunctory shake—more a confirmation that she was alive than any gesture of concern. Then, without ceremony, he released his grip.
Sakura tumbled to the ground, landing awkwardly on her side.
There was no gentleness in the motion. No attempt to soften the fall.
Yet she scrambled to her feet immediately, heart pounding, and bowed deeply.
"Th-thank you!" she blurted out. "Thank you for saving me!"
Her voice shook—not from pain, but from the lingering terror that hadn't yet faded from her bones.
Only moments ago, when the Root operative had seized her and the paper bombs had flared to life, she had been certain she was about to die. She had felt the heat, the pressure, the certainty of annihilation—and then, impossibly, she had been torn free.
Pulled out of death's grasp by a hand she hadn't even seen move.
Now, standing before Lock, Sakura didn't dare complain about being thrown aside like discarded baggage. Compared to what would have happened, it was nothing.
She kept her head bowed, cheeks burning.
The golden chakra, the altered presence, the sheer speed—it was all overwhelming. Lock looked like Naruto, but everything that made Naruto familiar was gone. His posture was relaxed, almost lazy, yet it carried a sense of absolute readiness, like a blade resting in its sheath.
He's… different, Sakura thought, pulse racing.
Stronger. Colder. Scarier.
And—against her will—part of her mind whispered another thought.
Cool.
She flushed harder and clenched her fists, silently scolding herself.
Behind Kakashi, Sasuke stepped forward, eyes fixed on the chakra cloak surrounding Lock.
"That chakra…" he muttered. "It's not like before."
He narrowed his eyes, Sharingan not yet active, but his perceptionwas sharp all the same.
"It doesn't feel violent. There's no hatred in it. It's… almost gentle."
Sasuke looked genuinely confused.
"If that's the Nine-Tails' chakra, then why does it feel so different?"
Lock glanced at him, eyes flicking over Sasuke with a brief, assessing interest.
"Good instincts," he said flatly.
Sasuke stiffened.
Being acknowledged by this presence was not reassuring.
Kakashi studied Lock in silence, his visible eye shadowed with complicated emotion.
"Thank you," he said at last. "If you hadn't intervened, my hesitation would've cost us a teammate."
The admission tasted bitter on his tongue.
He had underestimated Danzo's willingness to escalate. He had assumed the old hawk would limit himself to Naruto and, perhaps, Kakashi himself.
He was wrong.
Danzo didn't care who died, as long as the chaos served his purpose.
Kakashi's gaze sharpened.
"And your control over the Nine-Tails' chakra… this level of refinement shouldn't be possible in such a short time."
He paused, choosing his words carefully.
"My Sharingan barely tracked your movement just now. You were faster than when I used Lightning Blade."
That was not praise. It was a statement of fact.
"If we fought," Kakashi continued quietly, "I wouldn't be confident of winning."
Inside the mindscape, Naruto's voice burst out in stunned excitement.
"Whoa—Lock! Did you hear that?! Kakashi-sensei said you're amazing!"
Naruto's mental gaze flickered over the golden chakra coating his body.
"And what's with this chakra?! It's completely different! It's not scary at all—it looks awesome!"
He leaned closer in curiosity.
"Can you teach me how to do this? If I could use chakra like this, Sakura would definitely stop liking Sasuke and—"
"Shut up."
Lock's response was immediate and merciless.
Naruto recoiled mentally, pouting.
Outwardly, Lock didn't even react. He simply answered coldly, voice steady.
"When fighting enemies, I don't bother stripping away the Nine-Tails' residual aura."
"That's all this is."
It wasn't a lie.
The Nine-Tails' chakra was inherently red, saturated with its will. Once that will was suppressed and filtered, what remained was pure, potent chakra—golden, stable, and vastly more efficient.
Why did it look like this? Lock didn't care. The aesthetic was irrelevant.
Though if he were being honest, he preferred the original form. The raw, vicious edge suited him better.
He sensed Kakashi and Sasuke preparing to ask more questions and cut them off with a sharp gesture toward the treeline.
"Enough."
His tone hardened.
"I'm in a bad mood."
Danzo's interference had crossed the line. Again.
Lock's patience was thinning rapidly.
Across the clearing, the surviving Root operatives had already begun to retreat, taking advantage of the momentary lull. They moved silently, scattering into the forest in multiple directions.
Five shadows. Five escape routes.
Kakashi noticed and stepped forward instinctively.
"I'll pursue—"
Lock raised a hand.
"Stay."
The command was quiet, but it carried weight.
Kakashi hesitated—and stopped.
"What I enjoy most," Lock continued, eyes fixed on the forest, "is hunting."
"Don't ruin it."
A chill ran down Kakashi's spine.
He stayed where he was.
Inside the mindscape, Naruto felt a surge of unease.
"Lock… you're not planning to kill them, are you?"
"They're just following orders! You don't have to—"
Lock didn't answer.
Instead, his body blurred.
The golden chakra flared—and he vanished.
Naruto's thoughts faltered mid-sentence.
He could feel it—the shift, the sudden loss of balance within their shared body. Control slipping, forcibly seized.
He could have fought it.
If he truly wanted to stop this, he could have taken the body back.
But somewhere deep down, beneath the fear and the moral outrage, Naruto felt something else.
A dark, guilty desire.
They almost killed Sakura.
That thought burned quietly.
And Lock felt it.
If Naruto truly wanted to stop him, he would have. The resistance simply wasn't there.
In less than a heartbeat—
Five impacts echoed through the forest.
One after another.
The Root operatives were flung back into the clearing like broken dolls.
Four of them hit the ground first.
Their limbs were gone.
Cleanly severed at the joints, cauterized instantly by chakra so precise it left no bleeding—only twitching torsos writhing in agony.
The fifth landed last, skidding across the dirt, intact but shaking.
Lock descended from the trees at an unhurried pace.
Behind him, three golden fox tails swayed slowly, their tips darkened with fresh blood.
The intact Root operative stared at him in pure horror.
"Monster…!"
"Demon Fox!"
"Kill us if you dare!"
Lock frowned.
"So loud."
He flexed his fingers once.
The fox tails behind him sharpened, elongating into blade-like constructs of chakra.
They struck.
A blur of motion.
The operative screamed as both shoulders were pierced clean through, his arms torn uselessly apart—yet no blood flowed.
Lock stepped closer.
"To report," he said calmly, "you only need legs."
A thin strand of chakra separated from his cloak, shifting color from gold to a deep, ominous red.
It lashed out, binding the mutilated torsos and the remaining operative together in a grotesque chain.
With a single sweep of his tail, Lock sent them flying back into the forest.
"Go."
His voice was cold.
"Tell Danzo to wash himself."
"I don't like dirtying my feet."
The forest swallowed the screaming remnants whole.
Silence fell over the clearing.
Slow. Heavy.
Kakashi didn't move.
Neither did Sasuke.
Sakura stood frozen, heart pounding, staring at Lock's back as the golden chakra slowly began to fade.
Inside, Naruto trembled.
He knew what would come next.
The moment the last enemy disappeared, control snapped back.
The golden chakra vanished.
Naruto collapsed to one knee, breathing hard—alive, safe, shaken.
And Lock receded into the darkness of his mind once more.
Waiting.
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