Naruto: Cthulhu: Ch. 236

Across the ruined pit stood a man cloaked in darkness, his face shadowed but his eyes glinting a sinister crimson in the dim light. His lips curled upward into an unnaturally exaggerated smile, one that carried an unmistakable air of mockery.

It wasn't a smile of a human being!

Jiraiya shuddered as this thought flashed through his mind. There was something chillingly unnatural about that smirk, something infectious that made merely witnessing it feel like a violation of normalcy.

Yet just as his gaze lingered, the dark figure seemed to sense his scrutiny. The man raised his head, locking eyes with him for a brief moment before turning and walking away.

"Wait!" he called out instinctively, though he couldn't quite explain why.

For some reason, this mysterious man with his unnervingly dark complexion and unworldly presence piqued his interest in ways he hadn't felt before. Jiraiya, who had encountered countless people in his life, couldn't recall ever being gripped by such an overwhelming sense of curiosity—or dread.

The oppressive aura, the haunting grin, the towering figure that gleamed even while hidden in shadow—all of it exuded a mystique and pressure that sent chills down his spine.

Compared to Orochimaru, who was merely an insane seeker of forbidden knowledge and an obsessive madman, this man felt like something else entirely. Orochimaru was a freak among humans, but this man... this man was the essence of something primal, something transcendent.

Jiraiya's thoughts faltered momentarily, but the commotion from within the pit quickly snapped him back to reality.

Naruto was losing control again. He flailed wildly, smashing the ground with such force that debris flew dozens of meters into the air. Dust and rubble scattered everywhere, some of it landing on the monks' faces as they stared in shock at the scene unfolding before them.

"Demon fox!"

"It's the demon fox again!"

The cries of the monks filled the air. It wasn't their first time seeing this monstrous form. Three years ago, they had witnessed a similar scene when Sora lost control, his body shrouded in an orange chakra that closely resembled a fox's.

But this time, the fox before them was far more vivid, far more ferocious. The snarling beast bore no trace of its human host—Naruto was completely lost.

The terror of the demon fox's rampage still lingered in the hearts of the monks, and the sight of it now threw them into chaos. Panic swept through the group, leaving them paralyzed and fumbling for solutions.

"I'll handle this!"

Without hesitation, Jiraiya leapt from the towering ancient tree he had been perched on, descending into the depths of the pit.

Though the dark man who had mocked Naruto earlier weighed heavily on his mind, dealing with Naruto's out-of-control state took priority.

Even with only four tails unleashed, the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki was a force to be reckoned with. Jiraiya had prepared for this, having entered Sage Mode beforehand while dealing with the man-eating rats. The good news was that the explosion from Naruto's pseudo-Tailed Beast Bomb had created the pit, preventing him from rampaging too far beyond its confines.

"Jiraiya, weren't we supposed to be dealing with rats? How did it turn into fighting the Nine-Tails?"

"Yeah, this old body of ours isn't built for facing beasts of this magnitude," complained Fukasaku and Shima, the two elderly toads perched on Jiraiya's shoulders.

Jiraiya dismissed their grumbling with a single resolute sentence. "The situation's changed. Please, I need your help, big boss and ma'am!"

"Roof Tile Shuriken!"

Jiraiya wove a series of hand signs, summoning a massive, blade-wielding blue toad who descended from the sky and landed heavily on top of the rampaging Naruto. Jiraiya followed immediately, landing on Gamaken's head.

The toad's immense weight pulverized the ruins of the Fire Temple beneath it, sending clouds of dust billowing outward. But there was no guarantee Naruto had been subdued.

And indeed, before anyone could breathe a sigh of relief, Gamaken's massive form was suddenly thrown upward.

The beastly, chakra-cloaked figure of Naruto emerged from the debris, completely unscathed. With a ferocious roar, he used his four tails to lash out, grabbing Gamaken by one leg and hurling him back down to the ground with terrifying force.

BOOM!

The impact reverberated through the pit, accompanied by an explosion of smoke and dust. Gamaken lay sprawled on the ground, groaning in pain and utterly disoriented. He struggled to move, while Naruto's monstrous form loomed above, untouchable and unrelenting.

Poof!

The incapacitated Gamaken disappeared as Jiraiya dispelled the summoning technique. Now, only Jiraiya and the two great Toad Sages, Fukasaku and Shima, remained to face the berserk and out-of-control Naruto.

"Try not to use any powerful senjutsu techniques. If we do, we might harm the Jinchūriki inside," Jiraiya cautioned.

"That'll be difficult," Shima responded. "The Nine-Tails' power is no joke. Even you, little Jiraiya, can't afford to be careless. If you let your guard down, you'll die."

The battle seemed inevitable. While preparing for the fight, Jiraiya reminded Fukasaku and Shima to be cautious, but Shima, understanding the true terror of the Nine-Tails, offered a warning in return.

Fukasaku, however, squinted at the Nine-Tails' monstrous form standing in the center of the battlefield and noticed something odd.

"Jiraiya, look at the back of that beast. Doesn't it look... unusually raised?"

Prompted by Fukasaku's observation, Jiraiya finally noticed the mysterious bulge on Naruto's back, which was covered by the Nine-Tails' chakra. It looked as though he was carrying someone.

Naruto had earlier gone back to rescue Sora, so it wasn't hard to deduce—the person on his back was likely Sora.

This realization brought back a memory for Jiraiya. When he had first entered the Fire Temple and interacted with Sora, he had sensed a fleeting similarity between the chakra Sora unconsciously released in anger and the chakra Naruto emitted when he lost control.

Now it was clear. Sora was imbued with the Nine-Tails' chakra. Otherwise, a normal human exposed to such concentrated Nine-Tails chakra would have melted away long ago.

Sora... if it's you, then perhaps Naruto will be able to hear you, Jiraiya thought.

---

At this moment, on Naruto's back, Sora was desperately calling out to him with all his remaining strength.

"Naruto! Come back! I know you're in there!"

In Naruto's dark, sealed-off inner world, Sora's voice echoed faintly, as though coming from a great distance.

"Naruto, wake up! Your friends, your teachers, everyone back in the village is waiting for you to return! Don't lose yourself here, you idiot!"

Sora's relentless cries gradually reached the curled-up Naruto within that dark, desolate space. Slowly, Naruto lifted his head. In front of him, the oppressive darkness no longer seemed so impenetrable. Faintly, the silhouettes of his friends began to appear.

Iruka, Kakashi, Jiraiya, Sakura, Shikamaru, Kiba, Hinata… One by one, more and more familiar faces stood before the young, insecure version of Naruto, extending their hands to him.

A surge of warmth flowed through his heart.

As he regained his composure, the darkness in his inner world began to dissolve, replaced by a growing radiance. Light gradually filled his surroundings, and he was finally able to regain his senses and see the outside world clearly again.

On his back, Sora's body lay limp, draped over him. Sora's arms hung loosely down the sides of Naruto's neck, his grip too weak to hold on.

Sora's skin had been completely burned away by the corrosive chakra of the tailed beast, leaving only raw, blood-red muscle clinging to Naruto's clothing. Even though Sora no longer had the strength to hold onto Naruto's shoulders, the remnants of his body clung to him, refusing to fall.

Despite the gruesome burns and his terrible injuries, the final expression on Sora's barely recognizable face was not one of pain or struggle.

It was a bright, sunny smile—radiant as the sun.

"Sora!" Naruto cried out.

---

In front of a mountain of documents, Tsunade sat upright in her chair, diligently reviewing files.

After a long time, she finally put down her pen, feeling a slight soreness in her shoulders. Leaning back in her chair, she stretched, her impressive figure on full display as she indulged in a moment of relaxation.

Suddenly, a sharp and rapid tapping sound against the glass of the Hokage's office window interrupted her brief respite.

Turning her head, she saw a pigeon perched on the windowsill, pecking at the glass with its beak. She stood up, opened the window, and took the pigeon into her hands. She then untied the small letter strapped to its leg.

The message began with, "Tsunade, this letter greets you in person."

At those words, Tsunade immediately knew it was Jiraiya's routine correspondence.

Every so often, Jiraiya would send updates on recent events, primarily any important intelligence he had gathered.

Though labeled as "important intelligence," ever since he had left the village with Naruto, there hadn't been much of true significance—usually just scraps of news from tiny, insignificant nations or reports of dealing with rogues causing trouble in remote areas.

This time, however, the contents of Jiraiya's letter made Tsunade's expression turn serious.

In this report, Jiraiya mentioned the discovery of a potentially new type of otherworldly creature: man-eating rats.

Jiraiya and Naruto had encountered these creatures in an underground cavern beneath the Fire Temple. They had also found what appeared to be a pig herder, who, over hundreds of years, might have raised these rats using some form of summoning technique or other unknown methods.

In appearance, these man-eating rats were indistinguishable from ordinary large rodents, but they were ferociously aggressive, with an insatiable hunger for human flesh. They had even surfaced from the depths to devour a monk from the Fire Temple.

From the traces left behind at the scene, it was estimated that the number of these man-eating rats exceeded one million. It had taken the monks of the Fire Temple over half a month just to clear away the rats' corpses.

Jiraiya speculated that the existence of these rats might be connected to the Fire Temple's dark and infamous past. In the caverns beneath the temple, they had found numerous deep pits, their depths unfathomable, filled with countless human remains that appeared to have been deliberately processed.

In these pits, Jiraiya also reported hearing something he described as "roars from another world."

"Those roars, I will never forget. They were neither beastly nor human. They came from another space, another dimension, like the howls of some demonic entity from the depths of hell, or some unimaginable otherworldly existence.

It was indescribable, yet unforgettable. To this day, when I recall it, I still feel a deep, overwhelming dread. Sometimes in my dreams, I find myself confronting those fears again, only to awaken in cold sweat.

I cannot fathom what kind of being lurks within those pits. I can only hope that it has no connection to the apocalyptic prophecy spoken of by the Great Toad Sage, and that such an entity remains forever in the darkness below, a forbidden secret never to be unearthed by mankind.

With this in mind, I am disclosing the details of this incident only to you, Tsunade. The few others who know about it have been given the same instructions, so there is no need to send Konoha's shinobi to investigate further."

Jiraiya continued, "Additionally, during this incident, Naruto lost control and partially transformed into his tailed-beast state, reaching the form with four tails.

At that moment, I thought I saw… someone in the darkness.

Fortunately, Naruto regained his sanity despite having gone berserk. However, the boy who managed to bring Naruto back to his senses at that critical moment died from severe burns caused by the Nine-Tails' chakra.

Since then, Naruto has been plagued by guilt, falling into a deep gloom and losing interest in training. I only hope he can recover his spirit soon."

That was the entirety of Jiraiya's letter.

Tsunade set down the unusually long letter and let out a meaningful sigh.

She knew Jiraiya. On the surface, he seemed carefree and optimistic, but in reality, he was a man who rarely expressed his true emotions.

Whether it was love or hate, joy or fear, Jiraiya would never easily reveal his inner thoughts or feelings to others. He chose instead to shoulder everything alone.

In his words, there was no complaint, nor any sign of weakness.

Even Tsunade herself had rarely heard Jiraiya share his innermost thoughts. On the rare occasions he did, it was usually under the influence of alcohol and her charm, which momentarily disarmed him and allowed his guard to drop.

As for fear—a sentiment that might tarnish a man's pride—Jiraiya would never openly admit to it, let alone express.

But in this particular letter, Tsunade could sense an emotion that might be ordinary for most, but was extraordinarily out of place for someone like Jiraiya.

It was fear.

A profound fear of the unknown, an unnamable terror.

Although the letter was mostly filled with factual accounts, with only a few scattered phrases describing Jiraiya's feelings at the time, Tsunade could clearly feel it. Jiraiya was deeply afraid of those things—an intense and undeniable fear.

The truth was, ever since Jiraiya became a ninja, the life-or-death situations he faced were too many to count. Each was harrowing enough to leave a lasting impression.

For instance, during one mission, the three Sannin—then just an ordinary trio of Konoha ninjas—were cornered in a cave by Iwa ninjas. Jiraiya was already injured at the time, and Orochimaru had coldly suggested abandoning him.

Though Tsunade had outright rejected that idea, even in that desperate moment, Jiraiya's eyes had not shown any trace of fear in the face of death.

Another time, when the Sannin faced Hanzō, Jiraiya had not displayed even the slightest submission or fear in the presence of a death threat. It was clear: he had never feared death. This time, too, his fear wasn't about death itself.

What he feared were those unnamable, howling roars—sounds that shook him to his very soul.

Those terrifying voices, combined with inexplicable events and people, were the reason Jiraiya had been haunted by nightmares for days. Ultimately, it had driven him to put everything into writing, to confide in Tsunade through a letter.

It was clear just how immense the psychological burden Jiraiya was facing this time.

"Jiraiya..."

Looking at the handwriting on the letter, which struggled to maintain an air of composure, Tsunade couldn't help but feel worried.

But at that moment, a clumsy figure burst through the door.

"Tsunade-sama! There's a letter from the Fire Temple!"

"Oh? Bring it here."

Tsunade immediately composed herself. Since Jiraiya had chosen not to disclose these unsettling, fear-inducing events publicly, she decided to respect his wishes—even refraining from sharing it with her trusted assistant, Shizune.

Shizune quickly handed over the letter. As Tsunade read through it, her expression shifted from initial solemnity to sheer fury. Her facial muscles twitched, and her face darkened visibly, to the point that it looked like a storm cloud had descended upon her.

It read:

A Konoha ninja, Uzumaki Naruto, experienced a chakra rampage at the Fire Temple, causing extensive property damage. The Fire Temple requires significant repairs and hopes your village will compensate for the related costs.

The total damages and rebuilding expenses amount to—

One, ten, hundred, thousand, ten thousand…

"Ten million... a hundred million... a billion!?" Staring at the astronomical sum on the letter, Tsunade's roar echoed across the entire village.