Chapter 361: The Shock Brought by Tenma Naruto
The deafening echoes of the erupting battle reverberated through the cavernous underground space, reaching the upper levels where Mukade lay in wait. High above the chaotic fray, heavy iron chains groaned and shrieked against their rusted pulleys. A massive lifting platform began its slow, grinding descent into the dimly lit subterranean expanse. Standing at the edge of the platform was a middle-aged man draped in the opulent, flowing robes of a high minister. This was Anrokuzan—the trusted advisor to the throne. Or rather, his true identity: the rogue shinobi of Sunagakure, Mukade.
"Who is it?" Mukade's voice boomed, amplified by the enclosed stone walls, carrying a sickeningly arrogant weight. "Who dares to disturb my kingdom?"
His murky eyes swept over the chaotic battlefield below, taking in the scattered debris and the defiant intruders. Finally, his gaze locked onto the striking figure of Sara, her crimson hair and red royal garments standing out amidst the dust. A sinister, mocking smile twisted his lips.
"Well, well. If it isn't our beloved Queen?" The platform settled with a heavy thud.
"Anrokuzan!" Sara screamed, her voice trembling with a volatile mix of rage and heartbreak. She stared up at the man she had implicitly trusted since childhood, her fists clenched so tightly her knuckles turned white. "Why are you doing this?! Mother trusted you with her life! I trusted you! Why would you betray Roran?!"
"Betrayal?" Mukade blinked, momentarily feigning surprise.
Then, his shoulders began to shake. A low chuckle bubbled up from his throat, quickly escalating into a grating, maniacal roar of laughter that echoed off the cavern walls.
"Hahahahaha!"
"Betrayal? You foolish, naive little girl!" He abruptly cut off his laughter, his small, murky eyes narrowing with undisguised greed. "I never pledged allegiance to any of you pathetic royals. How can there be betrayal when there was never any loyalty to begin with? From the very beginning, I only came to this wretched, sand-choked wasteland for one thing: the infinite power of the Dragon Veins!"
He spread his arms wide, relishing the despair painting the young queen's face.
"As for you and your mother? You were merely convenient tools. Stepping stones for me to acquire absolute power. But since the veil is already lifted, I might as well share a little secret with you."
A violent shudder wracked Sara's body. An icy, suffocating dread clawed at her chest.
Mukade's smile stretched wider, splitting his face into a grotesque mask of cruelty. "Your mother, that meddlesome, foolish woman, actually managed to discover my grand design. She tried to stop me."
He raised a single finger, slowly drawing it across his own neck in a mockingly deliberate gesture. He clicked his tongue, producing a sickening sound.
"So, I personally opened her throat."
Sara's mind shattered. The chaotic sounds of the battlefield faded into a high-pitched, agonizing ringing in her ears. Her breath hitched. Mother... was murdered? The man she had respectfully called 'Minister' for six long years, the man who had guided her... was a butcher.
"No..." she whispered, her legs giving out. She staggered backward, clutching her head as if trying to physically hold her fracturing reality together. "Impossible..."
"You sick bastard!" A furious, raw roar tore through the cavern.
Uzumaki Naruto's azure eyes blazed with unadulterated fury. A violent surge of blue chakra erupted from his body, kicking up a localized storm of dust and loose pebbles. He might have been dense, loud, and chronically carefree, but there was one line no one was allowed to cross in his presence: trampling on the sacred bonds of family.
"Unforgivable!" he bellowed. "I'm going to smash you to pieces!"
The stone floor beneath his sandals spider-webbed with cracks as he launched himself into the air like a fired cannonball, rocketing straight toward Mukade. He had no plan. He didn't even bother forming the hand seals for his signature Shadow Clones. It was pure, unfiltered rage.
"Hmph. What a brainless brute," Tenma Naruto muttered from the sidelines.
Despite his cold critique, his instincts reacted instantly. A dense, bubbling cloak of crimson chakra erupted around his frame, searing the air itself. Though he moved a fraction of a second later, his speed was terrifyingly superior. He vanished in a blur of red light.
Mid-air, just as Mukade unleashed a deadly volley of purplish-black poisoned needles, Tenma materialized. His hand clamped down on the canon Naruto's ankle like a vice. Using the idiot's own forward momentum, Tenma violently swung him out of the lethal trajectory, letting the toxic barrage whistle harmlessly past them.
"Hey! What the hell are you doing?!" Uzumaki Naruto yelped as he tumbled through the air. He hit the ground rolling, popping up to bare his teeth fiercely at his alternate self.
"Idiot. That's a Puppet Master," Tenma Naruto sneered, his voice dripping with icy condescension. "Did you want to turn yourself into a human pincushion?"
The momentary irritation vanished from Tenma's face, replaced by a suffocating, predatory aura that made the very air feel heavy.
"Even if he is a complete moron, he's still technically me," Tenma murmured under his breath. He brought his hands together, fingers locking into a rigid seal.
A terrifying shockwave of sheer atmospheric pressure exploded outward. The crimson chakra cloaking his body stopped venting like mist. Instead, it thickened, boiling and churning until it resembled tangible, superheated lava. The sheer force of the expanding chakra current caught Uzumaki Naruto off guard, throwing him several meters backward until he landed hard on his backside.
"So... so hot!" the blonde genin gasped, staring at Tenma's back in absolute horror. The ambient temperature had skyrocketed. Was this the Nine-Tails' chakra? Why did it feel completely different from the monster inside him? It was so focused... so controlled.
The bubbling crimson mass shifted. One, two, three... in the blink of an eye, six thick, dark red tails of pure, condensed malice lashed out from behind Tenma Naruto, scoring deep gouges into the stone floor with every twitch.
Standing a short distance away, Minato Namikaze's blue eyes widened, his pupils constricting to pinpricks.
'A Six-Tails transformation...'the future Hokage calculated rapidly, his mind racing.'And he is still perfectly maintaining his sanity? Has the sealing jutsu of the future truly evolved to such an astonishing level?'Or... Minato's gaze drifted unconsciously toward the elevated ridge where Uchiha Akira stood. The dark-haired Uchiha was merely watching the spectacle with his arms casually crossed over his chest, his expression utterly unbothered.'Is this the true result of his training? What kind of monster did he forge this boy into?'
High above, the previously arrogant Mukade was gripped by sudden, paralyzing panic. As a high-level Puppet Master, his sensory perception of chakra was incredibly acute. The monstrous, suffocating heat radiating from the boy below was not something any human vessel should be able to contain.
"Mon... monster!" Mukade shrieked, his composure shattering completely. His fingers danced in a frantic, desperate blur of chakra threads. "Kill him! Die!"
Crack! Clack! Clack!
The massive wooden arms of his giant puppet violently reconfigured. Hidden compartments sprang open, revealing dozens of purplish-black, venom-laced missiles. With a deafening hiss, the projectiles ignited, trailing long, blinding plumes of fire as they rained down upon Tenma Naruto like a localized meteor shower.
"Die!" Mukade roared.
The missiles struck the ground, detonating in a chain of devastating explosions. A raging inferno instantly engulfed the area where the boy stood, sending thick, choking columns of black smoke billowing toward the ceiling.
But before Mukade could even exhale a breath of relief, the smoke parted.
A dark red flash tore through the inferno without a single warning sound. It was impossibly fast—a kinetic blur that completely bypassed the limits of the human retina.
"What?" Mukade gasped, his vision blurring as the sheer wind pressure of the boy's ascent hit him.
Suspended in mid-air directly above the puppet, a massive, skeletal hand forged of dense red chakra materialized from Tenma's cloak. Cradled within that demonic construct was a sphere of wildly spinning blue chakra. But it didn't stop there. The boiling red chakra of the Nine-Tails was violently injected into the blue vortex. The sphere shrieked like a dying animal as it rapidly expanded, growing larger and larger until it blotted out the artificial light of the cavern.
"Great Ball Rasengan!" Tenma Naruto roared, his voice layered with a deep, demonic resonance.
He plummeted downward like a falling star. The colossal, crimson-infused Rasengan, vibrating with world-destroying kinetic energy, slammed mercilessly into the heavy armor of Mukade's prized giant puppet.
"No!" Mukade unleashed a desperate, blood-curdling shriek.
His impenetrable puppet armor crumpled like wet paper under the sheer rotational force of the attack. A deafening, cataclysmic explosion ruptured the underground space. A violent shockwave of wind pressure and shattered wood instantly swept across the entire cavern, tearing up the stone floor.
Down below, Uzumaki Naruto was forced to drop to his stomach, desperately clinging to a jagged protrusion of rock just to avoid being blown away by the gale. His mouth hung wide open, catching a mouthful of bitter dust, but he was too utterly paralyzed by shock to care.
'This... Is this also... the Rasengan?'A bitter, never-before-felt wave of frustration washed over him, immediately swallowed by an overwhelmingly fierce longing.'He's so strong! He's truly, unbelievably strong!'
Above the abyss, Mukade's colossal puppet groaned before violently splitting straight down the middle. Countless gears, wooden limbs, and shattered armor plates scattered into the void.
"Ahhhhhhh!" Mukade screamed, his voice fading into the dark as he fell helplessly alongside the burning wreckage of his ambitions, plummeting into the bottomless depths below.
Tenma Naruto executed a flawless mid-air flip, his boots touching down silently on a surviving stone pillar. The boiling red chakra cloak hissed, rapidly receding into his skin until only his standard shinobi attire remained.
He turned his head, his cold blue eyes locking onto Uzumaki Naruto. The canon idiot was staring up at him, his eyes practically glowing with undisguised awe and adoration.
Tenma Naruto paused, blinking once. Then, the corners of his mouth twitched, curving upward into a sharp, challenging smirk.
"How about it, Dead Last?" he drawled, his tone dripping with arrogant amusement. "Have you finally seen the difference between us?"
The spell was broken. Uzumaki Naruto snapped back to reality, his face instantly flushing a furious, indignant crimson.
"You bastard!" he yelled, leaping to his feet and pointing an accusing finger at his alternate self. "Who are you calling a Dead Last?! I'll learn that move in no time! And once I do, I swear I'll make it ten times bigger than yours!"
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