Minato fell silent at Tatsuma's "heartless" command. But as he looked at his friend, his eyes widened in realization. He could see that Tatsuma's current state was deeply wrong—unstable and dangerously volatile.
Staying would only make him a liability. Taking a deep breath, Minato nodded firmly. "Tatsuma, just hold on. I'm going to get help."
"Go," Tatsuma grunted.
As Minato turned to flee, Sajin's voice cut through the air, sharp and mocking. "Leave? Did we give you permission?"
With a subtle tilt of his head, Sajin signaled two Suna ninjas. They moved instantly, lunging toward Minato's path. Minato tightened his grip on his kunai, preparing to force a breakthrough, but Tatsuma's voice rang out again.
"I said go. No one is stopping you."
Minato didn't hesitate a second longer. He vanished in a Body Flicker, bolting for the forest's edge. The two Suna ninjas tried to pivot to intercept him, but a flurry of white senbon suddenly erupted from the earth beneath them, skewering their feet to the ground.
"When did he—?!"
Even Sajin was caught off guard. Without anyone noticing, a lock of Tatsuma's hair had grown unnaturally long, snaking through the soil like a burrowing serpent.
The two ninjas reacted with the desperate speed of veterans. They reached down, yanked the hair out of their soles, and gave the strand a violent tug, trying to jerk Tatsuma off-balance. Tatsuma was faster; he instantly cut the flow of chakra to the lock and, with a swift flick of his short sword, severed the hair entirely.
The Suna ninjas dropped the dead strands and glanced at the distant blur of Minato's golden hair. They didn't bother to pursue.
Honestly, they had no personal grudge against the other kid. Truth be told, they weren't even particularly enthusiastic about this siege on Tatsuma anymore.
The injuries Tatsuma had sustained would have killed an ordinary shinobi three times over, yet he was still standing—even growing stronger. The burst of power he'd used to kill their comrade moments ago was terrifying. If not for the orders of their "superior," Sajin, they could have spent this time wiping out multiple Konoha squads and racking up actual merits.
Initially, this squad should have been easy pickings. But Sajin had insisted on "teaching the brat a lesson about the cruelty of the shinobi world." Because of his petty games, they had failed to kill the boy and had instead lost several of their own men. The Suna ninjas were beginning to feel a cold, simmering resentment toward their leader.
In fact, when Minato appeared, no one had wanted to step up. They only moved because Sajin demanded it. Now, with one man dead and two wounded in a matter of seconds, their motivation had bottomed out.
They just wanted to kill Tatsuma and move on before Konoha reinforcements arrived. They had even intentionally let Minato go; the boy had made it clear he was getting help, which meant Sajin was now under time pressure.
Sajin felt the shift in the atmosphere. A flash of irritation crossed his face as he realized his subordinates were losing patience. "Fine," he snapped. "It's time to end this."
He looked at Tatsuma, a seed of unease taking root in his mind. The power Tatsuma had just displayed was... wrong.
Having clashed with Tatsuma twice before, Sajin had pegged him as a high-tier Chunin talent. But that counter-attack just now? That was a threat on an entirely different level. It wasn't the threat of a clever jutsu like that "spinning ball" or a hidden explosive tag—it was the raw, oppressive pressure of an equal.
He tried to dismiss it as a fluke, or perhaps the final, desperate surge of a dying animal.
"Hey, kid," Sajin taunted. "Don't you love 'praising' people? I'll give you one last chance to open your mouth."
Tatsuma used the pommel of his short sword to lift a lock of blood-matted hair from his forehead. "I do enjoy acknowledging others," he said, his voice cold and hollow. "I believe everyone has something worthy of respect. But not you."
Tatsuma scanned the clearing, his gaze lingering on the bodies of his comrades before settling back on Sajin. "Those who desecrate life don't deserve the title of 'shinobi.' They aren't even human."
"Whether it's my teammates or the Suna ninjas who died here... how many lives were wasted because of your arrogance? If your goal was just to kill me, you didn't need to sacrifice so many people. But you chose the most disgusting path possible. You thought watching my friends die one by one would break me. You were willing to throw away your own men's lives just to watch me suffer."
Tatsuma's voice began to tremble with a dark, guttural resonance. "If you had faced me yourself, like you did last time, I would have at least respected your strength. But you're a coward. You're so afraid of me that you won't even step into the circle."
Tatsuma felt the Nine-Tails' chakra-induced rage threatening to dissolve his sanity. He stopped fighting it. He let the dark emotions flood his system. Looking at the surrounding Suna ninjas, he snarled, "Your loyalty to this man is impressive. It's a shame I have to end it here."
"You talk big for a dead man!" one Suna ninja barked. Despite their secret agreement with Tatsuma's assessment of Sajin, the boy's arrogance was still an insult. Surely a dying Genin couldn't have anything left to give?
Tatsuma didn't answer.
A suffocating aura of hatred, resentment, and primal rage erupted from him. His eyes bled into a deep, predatory red with slitted pupils. A layer of boiling, translucent red chakra began to shroud his body, forming the shape of a spectral fox.
He dropped his short sword, his body hunching low to the ground. He looked less like a boy and more like a beast coiled to spring.
"What is that?! How can a child have that much chakra?!"
The Suna ninjas recoiled in terror. Sajin's face went pale. As a descendant of the Second Kazekage and a disciple of the Third, he knew exactly what a Tailed Beast looked like.
Tatsuma's current state was the unmistakable Nine-Tails Shroud.
No, that's impossible! Sajin thought, his mind racing. The identity of Konoha's Jinchuriki wasn't a secret—everyone knew it was Uzumaki Mito, the wife of the First Hokage. A Jinchuriki only changed upon the death of the predecessor, and there had been no news of Lady Mito's passing.
Besides, if this brat were truly the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki, they'd all be dust by now. The power of the Nine-Tails was on a different scale entirely compared to the other beasts.
Sajin convinced himself it was a trick—some experimental medical jutsu or a forbidden kinjutsu. He pointed a trembling finger at Tatsuma. "Kill him! He's just putting on a show!"
Spurred by the command, the Suna ninjas suppressed their fear and lunged forward.
Tatsuma's head snapped up. His red, slitted eyes locked onto the first attacker.
In the next heartbeat, he vanished.
"AAAAGH!"
"GURK—!"
A chorus of agonizing screams began to echo through the forest, a grim mass of suffering played out in the shadows of the trees.
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