Chapter 260: Taking the Three-Tails by Force
Releasing the Three-Tails was not something to be handled carelessly. It required the right method, the right timing, and every effort to come out of it with maximum advantage.
On Nara Shikaku's recommendation, Konoha opened negotiations with the Mist ninja and struck a deal. The Mist would pay in goods and resources in exchange for recovering the Three-Tails — the same Tailed Beast they had lost during the Third Shinobi World War.
Konoha didn't deceive them about the circumstances. They told the Fourth Mizukage plainly why they were choosing to make this exchange now: Uchiha Madara was almost certainly in the process of collecting all nine Tailed Beasts, which meant accepting the Three-Tails at this moment carried a real risk of a direct confrontation with him.
But a Tailed Beast was a Tailed Beast.
Madara was a serious problem, and a surprise attack could do genuine damage to Kirigakure. But they were receiving advance warning this time, which was more than most villages got. Fully mobilized, the Mist's leadership was confident they could meet the threat.
Beyond that, the logic was simple. They still had the Six-Tails jinchuriki regardless. According to Konoha's intelligence, Madara was collecting all nine Tailed Beasts to execute the Moon's Eye Plan — which meant Kirigakure was going to be targeted either way. The only question was timing. Whether they took the Three-Tails back or not, Madara was coming for them eventually.
One problem or two problems — if the outcome was the same, they might as well take the exchange.
If they could bring a new jinchuriki online using the Three-Tails, it would only increase their overall strength.
There was also the matter of Konoha's commitment: the Fifth Hokage, who had mastered the Heavenly Transfer Technique and could transport himself anywhere in the ninja world, had personally guaranteed to provide support in any confrontation with Madara and Orochimaru.
The terms were finalized quickly.
The exchange location was set at an obscure port on the eastern coast of the Land of Fire called Shiya Harbor. The date was agreed as early May. After several rounds of negotiation, Konoha accepted payment in goods rather than coin, with a ten percent premium added to the total value in compensation.
Inside the Hyuga clan grounds.
Hyuga Ritsu no longer lived in the house he had grown up in. When the circumstances of his marriage had moved somewhat ahead of schedule four years ago, he had built a new house nearby. The Hyuga clan grounds were spacious enough that even if the population doubled, every family would still have room to build.
In the courtyard, he was training his five-year-old son.
The subject was Gentle Fist.
Hyuga children began learning the form from around age three or four. In the old days the Main Family practiced the full Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms while the Branch Family trained on a reduced and deliberately simplified Eight Trigrams Thirty-Two Palms. The Thirty-Two Palms had been consigned to the archives long since — every clan member now practiced the complete version.
"Ryuchi. You're too slow."
"Your feet. How are your feet that sloppy? The moment your footwork breaks down, the whole thing turns into a brawl."
"Focus. Losing concentration mid-fight is how you get killed."
Ritsu's voice was sharp, not gentle. He looked entirely like what he was — a strict father with clear ideas about discipline. His philosophy was simple: children needed correction when correction was needed, and softening on that point produced nothing good.
Five-year-old Hyuga Ryuchi caught a glimpse of his mother walking across the courtyard and lost concentration for one moment. That was enough. His father's palm connected with his forehead and he was airborne, landing somewhere in the bushes behind him.
The next moment:
"Mom!"
He popped out of the shrubbery without a scratch, completely unbothered, and sprinted to Uchiha Aika with his eyes fixed on the snack in her hand.
Aika ran a hand over her son's head, tilted it and checked him over briefly, satisfied herself that nothing was hurt, and smiled. "Ryuchi, take it inside. There's milk on the table — pour it yourself."
"Okay!"
Hyuga Ryuchi accepted the snack with great enthusiasm and disappeared into the house, apparently having already forgotten that his father had just launched him into the garden.
"Could you maybe not use your own child as a punching bag?"
Once the boy was inside, Aika turned and gave Ritsu a flat look.
Ritsu glanced back at her without particular interest.
If he hadn't been precise with his force, the boy wouldn't have flown that far and been completely unharmed at the end of it. No one else in the village could calibrate a strike that exactly. That was the point.
Aika knew this perfectly well, and she knew it every time. It didn't stop the expression from appearing on her face whenever she watched it happen.
"How confident are you about Rin?"
She changed the subject.
"What specifically?"
Ritsu walked over and settled his arm around her waist the way he usually did.
"A jinchuriki who has their Tailed Beast extracted dies. You said you have a way to keep Rin alive. How confident?"
"A hundred percent."
"A hundred percent. You're sure — stop that, we're outside." She removed the wandering hand firmly.
Ritsu withdrew his reddened left hand without any particular change in expression. "Rin isn't just your friend. She's my friend too. I'm not a good person, but I've never harmed my friends."
"Not a good person is right, behaving like this in broad daylight."
"I set up a barrier."
"The child is still home."
"I sent him to visit his grandparents."
"You're serious right now."
"Ryuchi did mention he wanted a little sister."
Hyuga Ryuchi set off happily on the short walk to his grandparents' house. The sounds that followed from the courtyard were not ones meant for other ears.
Inside a hollowed-out mountain somewhere in the Land of Lightning — a base that Uchiha Madara and Orochimaru had built six years ago and occupied ever since.
Cloud ninja had conducted several large-scale searches of their territory over those years, but their detection capabilities fell short of Konoha's. The base had never been found.
Deep inside the mountain, the towering Demonic Statue of the Outer Path stood in silence. Of its nine eyes, seven were closed. The remaining two were fully open, rolling slowly.
At the base of the statue lay a body. The woman had clearly been a remarkable beauty in life — golden-haired, with striking features and a figure that commanded attention. None of that mattered now. Her pupils were still. Flies had settled on them.
"Put her away."
Reanimated Uchiha Madara gave the order.
Black Zetsu glanced down. A White Zetsu stepped forward and collected the corpse of Cloud Village's Two-Tails jinchuriki, Yugito Nii.
"Black Zetsu. Any new intelligence?"
The past ten-plus days had been entirely consumed by the work of sealing the One-Tail and Two-Tails. Six years of recruiting had filled out the Akatsuki's ranks considerably, and this time there had been helpers for the sealing ritual. The catastrophic mistake that Nagato and Tatsuhata had made — nearly draining themselves dry sealing a single Tailed Beast — had not been repeated.
"New intelligence on what, specifically?"
"Start with Orochimaru. How much longer for the final calibration?"
"I checked yesterday. About fifty days."
"Still a bit slow. But acceptable."
Reanimated Madara nodded. He had sustained himself for six years by continuously swapping sacrificial vessels. Fifty more days was nothing.
He turned his attention back to the broader picture. "What's the situation with the five great villages? Word of losing the One-Tail and Two-Tails must have spread. What's Konoha's reaction?"
"Konoha is planning to trade the Three-Tails to the Mist."
"What?"
Reanimated Madara's brow creased. He looked at Black Zetsu with open surprise. "Konoha is planning to trade the Three-Tails to Mist ninja... you're certain this isn't deliberate misdirection?"
"Confirmed."
Black Zetsu nodded.
"But why would Konoha do that? Trading the Three-Tails to the Mist... unless I'm mistaken, the Three-Tails is currently inside a woman named Nohara Rin. Is Konoha planning to kill their own jinchuriki?"
The frown deepened.
"The details are still being investigated. But the likelihood is that it's genuine. The Mist side has already mobilized. Both parties arranged the exchange for early May at Shiya Harbor on the eastern coast of the Land of Fire. It doesn't look fabricated."
"Could it be a trap set for me?"
Reanimated Madara did not dismiss the possibility out of hand. He considered it with genuine care, turning over the different angles with deliberate patience. He was nothing like Tatsuhata in that respect — no youthful impulsiveness, no need to assert himself.
"That... can't be ruled out."
Black Zetsu gave him the honest answer.
Gathering intelligence on Konoha had become significantly harder. The village's barrier team had spent six years continuously upgrading and reinforcing their detection systems. The barriers still couldn't neutralize the Mayfly Technique entirely, but their sensitivity had reached a level where any unusual disturbance was flagged almost immediately. White Zetsu operatives inside the village couldn't move freely anymore, particularly around high-value locations like the Hokage Building, Konoha Hospital, and the prison. The density and strength of the barriers around those areas were formidable. Getting reliable intelligence out of them was genuinely difficult.
"A trap..."
Reanimated Madara sat with the thought for roughly half a minute. Then he reached a decision.
"Make preparations. We'll go to Shiya Harbor and see if there's an opportunity to take the Three-Tails."
His reasoning was clear.
The Three-Tails was non-negotiable. It was an essential piece of the Moon's Eye Plan. Even if this was a trap, that didn't change the calculation — you took the bait, then returned the hook to whoever was holding the fishing line. And if it turned out to be beyond his ability to take the bait and return the hook, he could simply walk away. He had said himself that they were going to see if there was an opportunity. If there was, good. If there wasn't, it changed nothing.
Uchiha Madara was not Uchiha Tatsuhata.
Besides — in fifty days, the Rinnegan vessel would complete its final calibration. At that point he could have the vessel use the Outer Path: Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique and achieve a true resurrection, not this half-existence he was currently stuck in.
When that day came, the Moon's Eye Plan could begin in earnest.
"Understood."
Black Zetsu agreed without objection.
He privately doubted that taking the Three-Tails would be possible with the White Yaksha standing in the way, but if Madara wanted to try, he would try. As a manifestation of Madara's will, Black Zetsu needed to remain closely aligned with his thinking. Small divergences could be tolerated. Anything beyond a certain threshold might invite suspicion.
"Should we contact Orochimaru?"
"Tell him what's happening. If he's interested, he can join. If not, tell him to keep his focus on finishing the calibration."
A hungry gleam appeared in the depths of those crimson eyes.
He still hadn't been truly resurrected.
But Orochimaru's talent was genuine. The sacrificial vessel quality that Orochimaru had specially prepared for him was exceptionally high — high enough that he could draw on considerably more power than any ordinary reanimated subject. That was the real reason he had been patient for six years, holding back from settling scores with Konoha's White Yaksha. He had been waiting for Orochimaru to finish the Rinnegan vessel.
The original estimate had been ten years without suitable reference material. That had been cut to six. The reason was straightforward: reanimated Madara had provided Orochimaru with captured members of the Kaguya clan and the Ōtsutsuki horn branch as research subjects. The choice hadn't been arbitrary. Hyuga Ritsu had used the Chimera Technique on members of both clans, and everything about how Ritsu had grown in power afterward pointed to those bloodlines holding secrets that Hiruko's results hadn't revealed. There was something in those lineages that Ritsu had found.
Subsequent research confirmed it. After deep investigation, Orochimaru had identified a profound underlying connection linking the Uzumaki, Senju, Uchiha, Kaguya, and Ōtsutsuki horn branch bloodlines — five families that were far more deeply intertwined than the ninja world had previously understood. That discovery had accelerated the research dramatically, shaving four years off the original timeline.
Six years of patience.
The vessel was fifty days from completion.
While the five great villages had enjoyed those six years of peace, the figures hidden in the darkness had spent them growing stronger and preparing. The reckoning was coming.
"White Yaksha."
"This time, I want to see exactly how high you've climbed."
As he spoke, the black tomoe in his crimson eyes began to shift and blur, merging together, tracing out a pattern of extraordinary complexity. From within it radiated a power that pressed against the senses.