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The link-conference burst into chaos before anyone could finish a sentence.
A blast of red light tore through the shared consciousness space, and Kurama's voice arrived ahead of the rest of him.
"SHUKAKU, YOU PIECE OF— IT'S THE MIDDLE OF THE NIGHT! WHAT IS WRONG WITH YOU??"
Despite the fury, he'd still picked up the call. Kurama's bristling golden form manifested in the link, fur raised, looking as if it were three seconds away from committing fratricide.
One by one, the others sparkled into view. Gyūki. Chōmei. Saiken. Kokuō. Son Gokū. Each one is wearing some variation of "I'm going to kill Shukaku" across their faces.
Then a ninth figure walked into the link.
Matatabi.
Her fur was covered with blood. Deep gashes crisscrossed her body, several of them cut to the bone. Earth-chakra chains still bit into her torso, and her breathing came in short, wet gasps. She looked like she'd been dragged through a rock crusher.
All sound died at once.
"Matatabi?? What HAPPENED??"
Gyūki's steady rumble cracked with alarm.
Matatabi vomited blood, forced her eyes open, and looked at the ring of horrified faces encircling her.
"I was ambushed. Uchiha clan head Senichi and Senju clan head Shūichi. Working together. They… they want to use me as bait to force Master into the open."
Silence. Then detonation.
"WHAT?? Someone in this era knows Master exists??" Shukaku launched off the ground, sand spraying everywhere.
"You idiot. Master is the Sage of Six Paths. Everyone in the shinobi world knows the Sage's name."
Kurama rolled his eyes so hard it was practically audible.
"But how did those two connect us to him? They shouldn't know we have anything to do with him."
Gyūki's brow knitted, genuinely baffled.
Son Gokū grumbled from the back of the group. "Probably started with the Kurama incident. Master showed up as an old man, humiliated Senichi in front of his whole clan, and then the Tailed Beast protection orders dropped a few days later. Senichi put two and two together."
"If Senichi knew the old man was actually the Sage of Six Paths, he wouldn't have the guts to sneeze in Master's direction."
The group nodded in agreement.
"THOSE BASTARDS! IF THEY KNEW WHO MASTER REALLY WAS, THEY WOULDN'T DARE!"
Saiken's mucus membranes bubbled with indignation.
"Tch! I thought Asura's reincarnation was supposed to be the decent one. Turns out they're both the same. A matching pair of wolves in sheep's clothing!"
Kurama bared every fang he had.
"Enough." Gyūki's voice burst through the noise. "Arguing doesn't help Matatabi. Who's closest to her location?"
"I have wings. I can fly. Fastest beast here by a mile. Just point me in the right direction." Chōmei's glittering wings spread wide, already buzzing with readiness.
But before anyone could coordinate further, the center of the link-space rippled.
A presence covered the conference like a blanket of deep snow.
Manji appeared...
He'd been listening the entire time. Tapped into the link from wherever he was wandering, catching every word without announcing himself.
"Stand down. All of you." That voice was quiet. The sort of quiet that fills a room more completely than shouting ever could.
"I'll handle this myself."
One sentence. And then he was gone. The space where he'd been standing simply emptied, leaving nine Tailed Beasts staring at each other in complete silence.
Nobody said a word. Nobody needed to.
Manji was on his way.
..............
The mountain valley. Deep in the crater.
Chains dug into Matatabi's body. Blood still seeping from a dozen wounds, staining her dark fur in uneven patches. But the panic was gone from her eyes and replaced by something colder.
She knew what was coming.
"Talk! What's the connection between you beasts and that old man??"
Senichi stood over her, Sharingan blazing, voice sounding like a cracking whip.
Shūichi rubbed his temples and sighed. "Senichi, listen. We should be going after the Nine-Tails. That's the one with the confirmed link to the old man. Sitting here interrogating the Two-Tails is a waste of—"
"Shut UP, Shūichi!"
Senichi rounded on him, eyes flashing.
"The Tailed Beasts all came from the same source. If the Nine-Tails is connected to that old man, then every beast is. This one knows something, and I intend to get it out of her."
He turned back to Matatabi. Drew his katana. Let the blade catch the light.
And then Matatabi opened her eyes.
Not the dazed, weakened eyes of a beaten creature. Something more acute. Something that had no business being there, given her condition.
"Go ahead. Keep cutting." Her sound rang through the valley—clear, nearly amused. "But if I were you? I'd start apologizing now. While you still have the chance."
A smile formed across her muzzle.
Senichi and Shūichi both stiffened.
That wasn't the voice of a cornered animal. That was the voice of someone who'd just received very, very good news and was enjoying the moment before the other shoe dropped.
Senichi recovered first. A sharp, dismissive laugh.
"HA! You're chained up, bleeding, completely helpless, and you're threatening ME?"
He raised the katana. Angled the edge toward Matatabi's throat.
Shūichi frowned. Something about the swift shift in the Two-Tails' demeanor made the hair on his arms lift up. He considered intervening. Decided against it. Not yet.
Senichi's hand was already in motion—
And stopped.
The blade remained in the air, six inches from Matatabi's neck, and would not descend further.
Not because of any technique. Not because of any jutsu or genjutsu or physical barrier.
Because Uchiha Senichi's heart had begun hammering so brutally against his ribcage that his entire body locked up in response. A flood of primal, irrational dread crashed over him from nowhere, flooding every limb, every nerve, all instinct he possessed.
"THIS FEELING…"
His Sharingan trembled. His sword arm shook. His conscious mind was screaming at his body to move, and his body was screaming back that moving would be the last thing it ever did.
Then the wind stopped.
Not slowed. Stopped. Every current of air in the valley seized in place, as if the atmosphere itself had been grabbed by a fist.
Pressure descended...
A force so vast and so fundamentally above human experience that it didn't register as chakra, or killing intent, or any category Senichi's mind could file it under. Rocks cracked. Trees curved double. The earth-chakra chains wrapped around Matatabi began to shiver, hairline fractures racing across their surfaces.
"WHAT THE HELL IS THIS WIND??"
Senichi's Mangekyō spun at maximum speed, desperately scanning for a source, an origin point, anything his eyes could lock onto and analyze.
They found nothing.
The pressure wasn't coming from a direction. It was coming from everywhere. As if the sky alone had decided to lean down and press its weight against this single valley.
And in the deepest, most honest part of his mind, Uchiha Senichi understood something with perfect, terrible clarity.
Whatever was arriving was beyond the Sharingan's sight. Not something ninjutsu could fight. Not something that operated within the rules of the world as he knew it.
This was quite different...
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