Chapter 64: Double Cross and Bestial Gambit
Time seemed to slow. As Minato's Rasengan descended toward Nagato's unprotected back, a swirl of orange and black manifested beside the injured Rinnegan wielder. Uchiha Obito, materializing half-out of his own intangibility, reached out a hand to touch Nagato's shoulder—to pull him into the safety of the Kamui dimension.
He has to be solid to absorb. Minato's mind, operating at the speed of the Flying Thunder God, processed the fact instantly. This is the opening.
The yellow flash didn't thrust with the Rasengan. Instead, he vanished from the crow's back, the technique dissipating. He reappeared in mid-air beside one of his earlier, deflected kunai. In the same motion, he drew his arm back and threw—not the kunai itself, but his body became the weapon, teleporting along the kunai's path.
He materialized directly inside Obito's reaching arm, his body phasing into existence as Obito's solidified. Minato's hand, gripping a Flying Thunder God kunai sheathed in a screaming helix of wind-nature chakra, was already in a downward slash.
SCHLICK-THUD!
Vivid arterial blood sprayed across Nagato's vision. The chakra-enhanced blade cleaved through Obito's shoulder and torso, carving a horrific, diagonal wound that nearly severed the masked man in two.
"Urk—!"
"Ghah—!"
Two pained grunts erupted simultaneously—one from Obito, shock and agony ripping through him. The other came from Minato. For in the split-second his attack landed, in the moment he was physically present to deliver it, he was vulnerable.
From Obito's other side, the white, plant-like half of his body—A Fei—acted on a pre-programmed impulse. A thick, spear-like root of Wood Release burst from Obito's hip, driving forward with vicious speed.
PUNCH!
The wooden stake impaled Minato through his left side, just below the heart, bursting out his back in a shower of blood and splinters.
He… sacrificed himself to save me? The thought, absurd and staggering, was Nagato's last conscious impression as Obito's faltering Kamui finally engulfed him, sucking him into the swirling vortex and away from the battlefield.
What a ruthless plan… what nerve… Minato coughed, blood flecking his lips. He used Nagato as sacrificial bait to create this exchange. Even as his vision swam, he'd been watching. The enemy had not formed the seals for Izanagi. This injury was real. "Madara" had paid a horrific price, but he had landed a likely fatal blow.
With the last of his strength, Minato focused on the kunai he'd planted earlier near the Uchiha. Flash.
He vanished from the crow's back, leaving only a mist of his own blood hanging in the air.
Pfft—! In the Kamui dimension, Obito collapsed, vomiting a flood of blood onto the sterile stone floor. Half his body was hanging by threads of muscle and white Zetsu matter. The pain was blinding. I won this round, sensei… The thought was a mix of triumph and searing agony. He willed himself deeper into the dimension, his survival now a race against time and his own failing biology.
Minato reappeared beside Kushina, his legs buckling. He dropped to one knee, his face ashen. The wooden stake was gone, left in the other dimension, but the massive, ragged hole in his chest and lung remained. He could feel his life, vivid and warm, pouring out onto the cold ground.
"Minato! No!" Kushina's cry was a broken whisper, tears carving tracks through the dust on her face.
With trembling fingers, Minato reached into a sealed scroll at his belt. He pulled forth a single, intricate paper talisman covered in spiraling, esoteric script. The "Pseudo-Sage Talisman," a priceless treasure given to him by the Great Toad Sage. It was not the legendary, true revival talisman, but a powerful imitation. He slapped it against his own forehead.
It glowed with a soft, greenish-white light and dissolved into his skin. A surge of potent, natural energy flooded his system, not healing the catastrophic wound, but staunching the bleeding, fortifying his spirit, and granting him borrowed minutes where he should have had seconds. The pallor receded slightly, replaced by a feverish, unnatural vitality. He had time. A little time.
"Kushina… don't," he managed, forcing a smile for her. His eyes found their son, sleeping fitfully in her arms. "We… we still have a duty." He looked at the baby—Naruto. "I've entrusted the future… to him. Our son… will surpass us. He'll be great."
"Minato…" Kushina sobbed, her heart breaking anew.
Gritting his teeth against the torment, he gathered Kushina into his arms again, her weight nothing compared to the weight of what he had to do. Flash.
They appeared beside Uchiha Fugaku and Akira, near the periphery of the Amaterasu fires.
The two Uchiha took in Minato's condition—the ghastly wound, the blood-soaked clothes, the talisman's glow fighting a losing battle against death—and shock froze them.
"Minato, you—" Fugaku started, stepping forward.
"No time," Minato cut him off, his voice thin but commanding. "'Madara' is crippled. Now… help me. We seal the Nine-Tails… into Naruto."
From dozens of meters away, a low, rumbling laugh vibrated through the earth. The crippled Nine-Tails had lifted its head. A grotesque smile stretched its vulpine muzzle. "Reaping what you sow… how poetic."
The group ignored it. Akira gently took the infant Naruto from Kushina's trembling arms and placed him on a relatively flat, large piece of rubble. Kushina stood, swaying, her gaze lingering on her son, then shifting to her dying husband, her world collapsing into silent, tearful despair.
Suddenly, Akira's head snapped up. His Sharingan, though strained, caught a surge of aberrant chakra from the direction of the beast.
As he turned, the impossible happened.
The Nine-Tails, which had been lying prone, heaved itself upward. It stood, unsteadily but definitively, on four legs.
"What?!" Fugaku gasped, his exhausted eyes widening. "Its legs… it grew new ones?!"
It was true. The two severed limbs still lay some distance away, massive and inert. But from the stumps on the fox's body, dark red, pulsating chakra had coalesced into solid, functional constructs—crude but serviceable legs of pure tailed beast energy.
"ROOOAR!" The fox's roar was one of triumph, not pain.
Then, the true horror unfolded. The two actual, physical legs lying on the ground began to react. Torrents of dark crimson chakra erupted from them, shooting skyward in twin pillars. The vast lake of the beast's spilled blood, which had soaked the earth, suddenly writhed as if alive. It surged forward, engulfing the two severed limbs, wrapping them in massive, pulsating scarlet spheres.
A wave of potent, terrifying life force, sickly and alien, burst from the spheres.
"When did it…?!" Fugaku snarled, realization dawning too late. They had been outmaneuvered by the beast's ancient, instinctual cunning.
BOOM! BOOM!
The spheres detonated. A storm of malevolent red chakra blasted outward, flattening the already subdued Amaterasu flames. And from the epicenter of each explosion, a new form emerged.
Two smaller Nine-Tails. Each stood over twenty meters long, their fur blazing orange, nine tails lashing behind them, faces contorted in identical snarls of malice. They were clones, fragments of the whole, but each radiated the overwhelming, corrosive chakra signature of the real thing.
"The Nine-Tails can do that?!" Akira's mind reeled. This was beyond any canon knowledge he possessed. It was a primal, survival-based technique of the ultimate tailed beast.
"HAHAHAHA!" The original Nine-Tails threw its head back, its laughter shaking the ruins. "Uzumaki! Namikaze! Uchiha scum! Your plans are ash! Look upon my children and despair!"
It assessed the field. The seal-bearers were mortally wounded. The clan head was drained. The one with the dangerous eyes was weakened and would find targeting three moving, aware entities far harder. The tide, so recently turned, had surged back with vicious force.
"This time… this time, the advantage is mine, you hear?!" the fox bellowed, its voice thick with vengeful glee. "How can victory not be on my side?!"
Two clone-beasts stepped forward, flanking their progenitor, nine tails fanning out like a wall of doom. The one-legged original fox stood between them, its grin a gash of triumph in the firelit night.
(End of Chapter)
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