Various thoughts flashed through Seimei's mind.
Before him, the Four-Tails looked at the reappearing tall figure, feeling the strength of its grip on its body. Its mind, which had been clouded by rage, gradually began to clear.
In the next moment, a hint of fear arose within it.
This wasn't entirely fear directed at Seimei; it also stemmed from past memories.
It vividly remembered decades ago, when it was peacefully minding its own business in the wild, and then one day, someone suddenly descended from the sky and grabbed it, just like now.
Although that person hadn't used this kind of Yin Release body, the massive, sky-covering wooden figure was just as imposing as the tall figure before it.
No, it might have even been more so.
In the hands of that wooden figure, it was even more powerless to resist.
Since then, it, along with its fellow tailed beasts, had become tools in the hands of humans. They had not only lost their freedom but were also forced to participate in human conflicts.
Sometimes, they even had to helplessly watch as their power was stolen by humans.
This filled its heart with anger and an intense hatred for humanity.
Wait a minute…
Fellow tailed beasts!
Suddenly, the Four-Tails' eyes darted towards the sealing formation in front.
There, it vaguely saw a semi-transparent figure bound in mid-air by eight chains.
It was very familiar with this figure – it was the Seven-Tails, Chōmei!
At this moment, Chōmei also seemed to notice the Four-Tails' observation. It slightly opened its eyes, glanced at it, and then quickly closed them again, not saying a single word to the Four-Tails the entire time.
This wasn't because it was aloof, but because in the Seven-Tails' opinion, the Four-Tails was already doomed and would inevitably become its neighbor.
In other words, they would have plenty of time to communicate in the future, and there was no need to risk attracting Seimei's attention by starting a conversation now.
Seimei wasn't aware of the Seven-Tails' thoughts.
However, even if he were, he wouldn't care.
While the tailed beasts might think he didn't know their origins, the truth was that his understanding of them was even clearer than their own.
Seimei knew that because the tailed beasts all originated from the same source, they could establish a consciousness space through their chakra and communicate with each other even when sealed, as long as they were within a certain distance.
During this process, without their permission, even he, in his current state, most likely couldn't interfere.
But did it matter?
Not at all!
From beginning to end, he had no intention of reaching a reconciliation with the nine tailed beasts like Naruto Uzumaki, forming bonds with them. He simply wanted to use their chakra.
So, what the tailed beasts thought in their hearts really didn't matter to him.
The only thing he needed to do was ensure that the tailed beasts he caught wouldn't escape.
With this thought in mind, Seimei stopped wasting time, immediately collected his thoughts, and tossed the weakened Four-Tails onto the already unfolded All Creation Sealing Jutsu.
During this, the Four-Tails still tried to resist, but Seimei easily subdued it with a single glance.
Subsequently, the Four-Tails' body continued to shrink, quickly landing on the sealing formation alongside the Seven-Tails.
Sensing the abnormality, the Seven-Tails opened its eyes again, its gaze sweeping over the Four-Tails before secretly glancing at Seimei standing within his Susanoo, thinking to itself, "As expected!"
Just as it had guessed, the Four-Tails had no power to resist and was easily captured by Seimei.
'Not communicating with it just now was definitely the right choice!'
The Seven-Tails thought to itself.
Then, it saw Seimei form hand seals.
In the next moment, accompanied by a series of 'clanging' sounds, eight chakra chains shot out from the eight nodes in the sealing formation, writhing like snakes and flexibly coiling around the Four-Tails.
Four of them wrapped around its tails, suppressing its chakra and preventing it from easily unleashing its power again.
Another four wrapped around its limbs, restricting its mobility.
Finally, the chakra chains tightened, completely binding the Four-Tails in mid-air.
At this point, the Four-Tails had completely lost its ability to resist.
Seeing this, Seimei nodded in satisfaction.
Then, his hand seals changed, and the sealing formation rapidly contracted, eventually gathering entirely onto the metal sphere in the center.
Seimei dispelled his Susanoo, reappearing in his true form. He reached out, picked up the metal sphere covered in sealing formulas from the ground, and a smile filled his face.
No, it wasn't over yet.
With a thought, Seimei's mental energy delved into the sphere. He began to fine-tune the formulas of the All Creation Sealing Jutsu based on the current situation inside, aiming to maximize the restriction on both tailed beasts.
Time passed minute by minute.
About half an hour later, Seimei reopened his eyes.
At this time, the metal sphere in his hand had returned to its usual unremarkable appearance, with no more dense sealing formulas visible on its surface.
This indicated that Seimei's adjustments were complete.
Now, the Four-Tails, just like the Seven-Tails, had been perfectly sealed within it.
However, as he had predicted, the Four-Tails' current condition was somewhat poor and would require at least a week to recover.
During this time, he couldn't extract even a bit of its chakra.
Otherwise, it would delay its recovery time.
In that case, there would be no way to test the benefits it could bring him.
Fortunately, it was already in his hands, so even if the testing was delayed for a few days, it wasn't a big deal.
Coincidentally, he needed to pay attention to Iwagakure's movements these few days and also deal with the traces he had left behind while capturing the Four-Tails.
He had already instructed his shadow clone to deal with the city where Rōshi had appeared before he left.
Next, he needed to secretly handle the traces in other cities.
With this thought in mind, Seimei didn't rest.
He immediately packed his things and then mobilized the chakra within the subspace in his forehead, causing the chakra in his body to become full again.
Then, he locked onto a Flying Thunder God seal within the Land of Earth and activated the Flying Thunder God Technique.
The scenery before his eyes instantly shifted.
Several hours later, near dusk, Seimei arrived at the border of the Land of Earth once again.
Then, he performed the Shadow Clone Technique, creating several shadow clones. He instructed them to each use the Flying Thunder God Technique to rush to nearby cities and clear the traces on those large nets.
Once one area was cleaned up, he would immediately move to the next.
In this way, Seimei took advantage of the fact that Iwagakure hadn't discovered these individuals and quickly cleaned up the hidden agents he had planted in the Land of Earth earlier.
While he was dealing with the aftermath, Iwagakure wasn't idle either.
After Kurotsuchi and the others sent out their distress signal, Iwagakure immediately took action.
Ōnoki didn't think too much and immediately dispatched several of his most capable Anbu squads, ordering them to rush to Kurotsuchi's team's location.
But before he even received news of their rendezvous, another secret department specifically responsible for monitoring the movements of jinchūriki sent him bad news, reporting that the Four-Tails had been taken out of the Land of Earth.
This time, Ōnoki couldn't sit still any longer.
On one hand, he notified the Anbu squads that had gone to meet Kurotsuchi's team to immediately change direction and pursue the approximate location of the Four-Tails provided by the surveillance department.
On the other hand, he mobilized even more manpower, including ninjas from that secret department, forming a support detachment to rush to meet up with those Anbu squads.
Not only that, but he also ordered the border troops to strengthen their vigilance and even recalled some ninjas who were on missions or leave, ordering them to head to the border in batches to further strengthen the border defenses.
It was no wonder Ōnoki was making such a fuss. The existence of tailed beasts was akin to nuclear weapons. Now that the village's nuclear weapon was lost, they naturally had to prepare for the worst.
And Iwagakure's movements were quickly noticed by the other villages.
They couldn't figure out what Iwagakure was trying to do.
But just in case, they could only send troops to their own borders to defend while also dispatching Anbu ninjas to infiltrate the Land of Earth or activating their hidden agents within Iwagakure to investigate what exactly had happened.
In an instant, the entire ninja world was filled with a sense of imminent crisis. Everyone nervously watched the movements of the other ninja villages, preventing themselves from being caught off guard.
This sudden change caused the entire ninja world to once again fall under the shadow of war.
Everyone couldn't help but recall the Third Great Ninja War, secretly thinking, "Could the Fourth Great Ninja War be about to break out?"
And by the time Seimei learned of all this, two days had already passed.
He had just finished dealing with the aftermath of this operation and returned to the village to rest when his shadow clone told him the news.
At first, Seimei was a bit confused.
But soon, he guessed the reason behind it.
Following that, he was completely dumbfounded.
He really hadn't expected that his one action would lead to such tension between the villages, with everyone on high alert.
(End of this chapter)