Chapter 326: The First Berserk Awakening, Terror of the Nine-Tails' Chakra
Shortly after Uchiha Akira departed from the Tianyu Space, the remaining genin decided to catch their breath before resuming their grueling training regimen.
Naruto sat cross-legged on the scarred, rocky ground of the training field. He squeezed his eyes shut, deliberately blocking out the whistling wind and the quiet murmurs of his companions. He regulated his breathing, letting his consciousness sink heavily into the absolute deepest recesses of his own mind.
The familiar, damp darkness greeted him. Cold water dripped steadily from the rusted pipes overhead, echoing through the desolate, flooded corridors. The atmosphere here was always suffocating, heavy with an ancient, lingering malice.
Naruto splashed forward, his sandals kicking up ripples in the shallow water, until he finally came to a halt before the towering iron bars of the seal.
Behind that massive cage, the colossal beast lay resting. Its mountainous body rose and fell with each slow breath, while nine massive tails swayed lazily in the shadows behind it. Kurama appeared to be feigning sleep, not even bothering to crack open an eye at the boy's arrival.
Naruto shoved his hands into his pockets and called out with casual arrogance. "Hey! Stop pretending to be asleep! It is time to collect the rent!"
One of Kurama's massive, rabbit-like ears twitched in the gloom, but the great fox refused to acknowledge him.
"I said, are you listening to me!" Naruto shouted, his voice bouncing off the damp walls. "You have been squatting inside my body for years, and you have not paid a single ryo in rent. Do you think that is fair?"
"Today, the landlord is here to collect!"
Slowly, a massive slit of crimson light pierced the darkness. Kurama opened a single, terrifying eye. The gaze that fell upon the blonde boy was dripping with contempt, disdain, and the raw irritation of a predator being pestered by an insect.
"Get lost, brat." The deep, rumbling voice vibrated through the water, shaking the very foundations of the mindscape.
"Hey! Watch your attitude!" Naruto yanked his hands out of his pockets and planted them firmly on his hips, entirely unfazed by the demonic pressure. "Paying your debts is common sense! I do not even want your money. Just hand over some of that chakra to settle the tab!"
"Hurry it up! Stop stalling!"
A suffocating wave of killing intent erupted from behind the iron bars, crashing over Naruto like a physical tsunami of blood and rage. The water around Naruto's ankles began to boil.
Kurama suddenly hoisted its enormous head, baring teeth the size of greatswords.
"A mere human..." the fox growled, the sound grinding like tectonic plates.
"Dares to make demands of me?"
"Do you wish to die?"
In the past, that monstrous aura would have left Naruto paralyzed with terror, his knees knocking together.
But now, he merely pouted, his expression entirely unimpressed.
"Save the scary act. That trick does not work on me anymore." Naruto stuck a pinky finger into his ear and dug around casually. "So, you are refusing to pay up?"
"Fine. I will just have to find someone else to act as the debt collector."
He turned on his heel, making a grand show of walking away.
"I think Akira-sensei would be absolutely thrilled to come in here and discuss this rent dispute with you."
"After all, he is the Hokage now. Helping a citizen resolve a difficult housing issue is just part of the job!"
"Uchiha... Akira..."
The instant that name echoed through the damp cavern, Kurama's colossal body went rigidly stiff. The apocalyptic killing intent that had been suffocating the space evaporated by more than half in the blink of an eye.
Sensing the shift in pressure, Naruto cheered inwardly. He had him on the ropes.
He spun back around, plastering a bright, entirely fake smile across his face.
"So? What do you say? Will you hand over the rent peacefully, or should I wait for my teacher to drop by and collect it in person?"
Deep within the cage, Kurama ground its massive teeth. To think that it, the great and terrible Nine-Tails, was being extorted by a snot-nosed brat. It was the ultimate humiliation.
But... Uchiha Akira was truly a monster wrapped in human skin. The fox had no desire to look into those cursed eyes ever again.
After a long, agonizing silence, Kurama snorted two violent streams of hot steam from its snout and wrenched its head away in disgust.
"I am merely taking pity on a weakling!" the beast roared defensively.
"Take it! Take your pathetic rent!"
"It is just a fraction of my chakra! Now cease this annoying buzzing and do not bother me again!"
The moment the words left the beast's maw, the water beneath Naruto's feet began to bubble violently.
A viscous, violently dense chakra heavy with centuries of destruction and unadulterated hatred oozed through the gaps in the iron bars like boiling lava.
Naruto stared at the creeping red tide. So this was the true chakra of the Nine-Tails?
For the very first time, he was touching the absolute essence of the demon's power without any filters. There was no warmth to it. Not a single trace of life or vitality.
There was only pure, concentrated malice.
The dark, damp walls of his spiritual world were instantly illuminated in a horrific, blood-red glow. The sheer toxicity of the hatred slammed into Naruto's mind, and he felt his sanity begin to rapidly corrode under the pressure.
A split second later, a horrifying realization dawned on him. The sheer volume of this chakra... it was entirely wrong.
How was this supposed to be 'just a fraction'?
The red sludge was rising like a tidal wave, threatening to drown the entire corridor. It was an absolute ocean of demonic energy. Kurama was furious about the extortion and was deliberately flooding the seal to make the boy suffer.
"Hey! Wait! That is too much! That is way too much!" Naruto's consciousness screamed in panic, scrambling backward as the red wave crested over him.
But Kurama had already clamped its eyes shut, playing the part of a stubborn merchant refusing a refund.
The boiling crimson tide crashed down, instantly and completely swallowing Naruto's mind into an abyss of rage.
Back in the physical world, the quiet peace of the training field shattered.
Naruto, who had been sitting perfectly still, suddenly went rigid. A violent tremor wracked his spine.
The very next second, a blinding pillar of visible, blood-red energy erupted from his physical body like a volcanic geyser.
The demonic chakra expanded wildly in all directions, generating a concussive shockwave that tore the topsoil from the earth.
"Guaaahhhhh!!!"
Naruto threw his head back and unleashed an agonizing, inhuman roar. His muscles contorted as he was forced onto his hands and knees. His fingers dug into the solid bedrock, clawing at the earth in blind agony.
Under his bare fingertips, the dense stone crumbled and gave way as easily as wet paper.
"Naruto-kun!" Hinata shrieked, her Byakugan flaring to life in sheer panic.
"Naruto!" Temari and Gaara shouted in unison.
Their expressions warped into masks of alarm as they immediately abandoned their rest and sprinted toward their teammate.
But before any of them could close the distance, a secondary pulse of that vile, blistering chakra exploded outward, physically blasting the three of them backward.
"What... what in the world is happening to him?!" Temari gasped, digging her heels into the dirt and shielding her face against the scorching wind. Her eyes were wide with mounting horror.
In the epicenter of the crater, Naruto was undergoing a grotesque and terrifying metamorphosis.
The six faint whisker marks on his cheeks thickened, turning pitch-black and jagged like feral war paint.
His lips curled back as his canines elongated into vicious, predatory fangs.
His fingernails darkened and sharpened, extending into lethal claws that gouged deep trenches into the stone.
But the most horrifying change was the chakra itself. The boiling red mist rapidly condensed, clinging to his skin and forming a dense, translucent shroud of energy that bubbled like molten glass.
One... two... three.
Three distinct, massive tails formed from high-density chakra whipped out from the base of his spine. They lashed the earth with devastating force.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The ground cratered under the impacts, sending jagged shrapnel of rock flying in every direction.
Slowly, the boy raised his head.
When Naruto opened his eyes, the familiar bright blue was entirely gone. His sclera were stained a dark, bloody crimson, and his pupils had contracted into razor-thin, vertical slits.
There was not a single shred of human rationality left within that gaze.
It was a stare of pure, unadulterated slaughter the absolute embodiment of destructive madness.
"Naruto...-kun?" Hinata whispered, her voice trembling as she backed away.
The beast wearing Naruto's face slowly swept its gaze over the three genin. It darted past the girls, instantly locking onto the closest target.
Gaara.
The bedrock beneath Naruto's feet exploded into dust. His physical form vanished, blurring into a streak of crimson light. He launched himself at Gaara with a violent velocity that defied the limits of the naked eye.
He was too fast.
It was a speed that offered absolutely no window for a normal human to react.
But Gaara of the Sand was no ordinary shinobi. His deeply ingrained survival instincts flared the exact millisecond the red blur moved.
The cork on the massive gourd strapped to his back popped off on its own. A torrential wave of pale yellow sand surged outward, instantly hardening into a massive, densely packed wall of grit between him and the incoming predator.
The Shield of Sand. His Absolute Defense.
Demonic claws slammed into the compacted earth.
A deafening boom echoed across the training field, sending a shockwave of displaced air tearing through the surrounding trees.
The Shield of Sand, renowned across the nations as an impenetrable barrier, held its ground against the sheer kinetic violence for less than a fraction of a second. Deep, jagged spiderweb cracks instantly fractured across its surface.
The very next heartbeat, the entire wall detonated outward with a thunderous roar, reduced to a shower of useless dust.
Gaara's teal eyes shrank to pinpricks. The immense kinetic blowback slammed into his chest, forcing him to skid backward across the dirt, his heels carving twin trenches into the earth just to stay upright.
He had survived the initial strike.
But against the terrifying might of the Nine-Tails, surviving was all he could manage.
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