Naruto: Cthulhu: Ch. 235

Naruto hoisted Sora onto his back, though his own condition was far from ideal.

The moment they landed, several man-eating rats leapt onto Naruto's legs, biting him before he had any time to defend himself.

Gritting his teeth and enduring the pain, Naruto quickly formed hand seals and used what little chakra he had left to create five shadow clones. He hoped to use them to fend off the swarm of rats and make it to the exit.

But the rats' ferocious bites overwhelmed the clones in mere seconds. Within the pitch-black swarm, all five clones vanished almost instantly.

More rats swarmed onto Naruto's arms, legs, and even Sora's back, ripping into them savagely. In moments, Naruto's body was a mess of blood and torn flesh, riddled with countless wounds inflicted by the rats' relentless bites.

If things continued like this, even if Naruto managed to escape, the sheer blood loss from his injuries would kill him. Not even Tsunade could save him if she were there.

---

Meanwhile, deep within Naruto's subconscious, behind a massive iron gate sealed with talismans, a pair of crimson eyes glimmered faintly in the darkness.

From that darkness, the owner of those eyes spoke in a low, sinister voice, seemingly to itself.

"If you die, it'll be a real bother for me. What are these creatures? I need to borrow your eyes to see for myself. And this brat carries a fragment of my power… I'm taking it back."

As the voice trailed off, a powerful surge of orange-red energy rippled and spread outward from the darkness behind the iron gate.

---

Back in the real world, the same orange-red chakra began seeping out of Naruto's body, enveloping both him and Sora in its protective glow.

Inside this chakra cloak, Sora felt an overwhelming warmth as the wounds on his body started healing at an incredible speed, visible to the naked eye.

Naruto's own wounds healed even faster—within just two breaths, the bite marks and tears on his body were completely gone, leaving no scars behind.

The man-eating rats clinging to the pair were scorched by the chakra. With agonized squeals, they fell off, their fur burned away in patches as though singed by intense flames.

Roar!

Naruto let out a feral roar, one no ordinary human could produce, and from his waist, massive tails began to emerge.

One.

Two.

Three.

The three tails swayed ominously in the air. Nearby rats leapt at Naruto but were instantly swept away mid-air by the tails.

In an instant, countless rat carcasses exploded in all directions, raining down in pieces with sickening thuds.

On the ground, more rats surged forward, attacking Naruto's legs, but the chakra cloak in his half-tailed beast transformation perfectly shielded him. The rats' teeth couldn't penetrate it to reach his flesh.

Roar!

Another furious howl echoed—whether it was Naruto or the Nine-Tails controlling him was unclear.

What was clear, however, was that Naruto had been pushed beyond his limits. Enraged, he abandoned any thought of escaping and instead began ruthlessly attacking. Using claws formed from the tailed beast chakra extending from his hands, he swung wildly at the swarming rats on both sides.

With a single swing, large swathes of the ground and dozens of rats were uprooted and hurled away.

Naruto leapt into the air, his chakra tails slashing through the rats like scythes, cutting down every one of them mid-leap.

He rampaged through the swarm, each movement killing dozens of rats. Though their numbers seemed endless, not a single rat could get close to him. They were flung and scattered like debris, both in the air and on the ground, by the sheer force of his attacks.

Under Naruto's half-tailed beast form, the rats were crushed into grotesque pulps of fur, skin, and bone—a nauseating sight.

Amid this frenzied extermination, Naruto appeared to completely forget about Sora on his back.

Fortunately, within the protective warmth of the orange-red chakra, Sora gradually regained some strength. He managed to wrap his arms tightly around Naruto's neck, preventing himself from falling.

This was, however, merely Sora's psychological perception. In reality, Sora wasn't actively holding onto Naruto's back—rather, Naruto's chakra was "pulling" Sora's body toward it.

At this moment, Sora's body was also covered by a thin layer of orange-red chakra. This, too, was Nine-Tails chakra.

His father, Kazuma, had previously transplanted a small portion of the Nine-Tails chakra into Sora's body, making Sora a pseudo-jinchūriki of the Nine-Tails.

Under the pull of the Nine-Tails' main body, the small portion of chakra within Sora was drawn out, creating a mutual attraction between the two sources of chakra. This was the only reason Sora wasn't flung away.

Additionally, this faint chakra membrane served to protect Sora's body, shielding him from being burned by the Nine-Tails' volatile chakra.

However, this membrane was gradually thinning and weakening as the Nine-Tails continued absorbing the chakra from Sora.

Once all of the Nine-Tails chakra was completely drained from Sora, it would be impossible for him to remain safely within Naruto's tailed beast chakra cloak.

While the Nine-Tails had no intention of killing Naruto, it didn't concern itself with the survival of others. The Nine-Tails lacked any moral compunctions about such matters.

As the two chakras, originating from the same source, began to merge, Sora saw flashes of Naruto's memories.

Naruto, scorned from a young age and treated as a monster by the villagers, endured the loneliness of being surrounded by people yet feeling entirely alone. Even their shared penchant for mischief was eerily similar.

So, you're just like me…

Yet, despite this, hr eventually met people who cared for him. Friends slowly began to gather around him.

Hiruzen, Iruka, Kakashi, Sakura, Sasuke, Jiraiya…

Naruto's experiences made Sora think of his own life.

Sora had lived in the Fire Temple for as long as he could remember, but the young boy received little care from the monks there.

Because of the monks' rumors and gossip, no one, aside from Chiriku and Sora, willingly interacted with Sora.

This rejection deepened when, at the age of ten, Sora's chakra suddenly went berserk, even shattering the Fire Temple's so-called "unbreakable" Sealed Iron Wall.

The monks ostracized Sora even further after that incident.

But despite all of this, Chiriku never stopped trying to communicate with Sora and continued to care for him like a parent would for a child.

Naruto…

You and I are so alike.

---

Countless man-eating rats once again surged out from the deep pits and ancient structures.

This time, the scale of the rats was tens of times greater than before. The sheer number of over a million rats could no longer be described as a dense black wave. It was a massive tsunami—a tsunami composed of man-eating rats—that defied all logic as it swept toward Naruto.

On the ground, Naruto, in his semi-tailed beast form, was still furiously slaughtering the rats.

But just as Kurama thought that this "rat extermination operation" was finally yielding results, a distant "black cloud" stunned him.

The tsunami of rats was rushing toward them with overwhelming momentum.

At this scale, the damage caused by the rats was no longer from biting but from an overwhelming force of crushing weight. Even Naruto, protected by his chakra cloak, would be compressed into pulp if caught in the swarm.

Unnoticed until now, Kurama realized that the ground and the cave ceiling were covered with pools of resentful, cursed swamp matter made from foul substances.

Although the chakra cloak's burning effect prevented these cursed swamps from completely restraining Naruto's movements, they caused some stickiness that hampered his mobility.

Emerging from these swamps were grotesque, human-animal hybrids with blurred facial features, writhing like seaweed as they crawled out of the bloody filth, screaming in agony.

The tens of thousands of agonized screams mingled together, making even the roars of the Nine-Tails seem faint and insignificant.

In that instant, the underground cavern had become a living hell!

The scene was no different from what one might imagine upon descending into Avīci, the lowest level of hell.

Everything before him was beyond imagination. Even Kurama, a being of immense power, could not comprehend the situation. Such a grotesque and hate-filled display only further provoked the emotions of hatred that the Nine-Tails embodied.

Kurama roared through Naruto's body, unleashing a thunderous cry toward the heavens. The orange-red chakra around Naruto grew even denser. Behind him, another tail of chakra slowly emerged.

Four tails!

In this state, the tailed beast chakra within Naruto surged to its peak, so much so that his original skin began to disintegrate, turning into a caramelized hue.

As Naruto's skin completely split apart, his eyes and mouth lost all traces of humanity, transforming into hollow voids that emitted pure white light.

He had now fully transformed into a miniature version of the Nine-Tails. However, this smaller Nine-Tails had a peculiar bulge on its back, as Kong still clung there.

At this moment, Naruto's mind had been completely consumed by the raging Kurama. In his four-tailed, semi-transformed state, Naruto's aura reached its zenith. Even the cursed swamps on the ground disintegrated before they could approach, and the rats were incinerated into ashes by the intense chakra.

Naruto crouched like a beast, supporting himself on his hands, feet, and four tails. Opening his massive maw, an increasingly intense glow began to gather within.

When the light in his mouth reached its peak, a glowing red orb was launched from his mouth, hurtling toward the tsunami of a million rats.

When the orb made contact with the rat swarm, a massive white explosion surged upward. Countless rats were vaporized instantly in the radiant blast.

Moreover, the shockwave from the explosion erupted alongside the blinding light, shattering the stone walls of the cave ceiling into fragments.

The powerful force pierced through the thick rock layers and even reached the surface.

---

At the training ground in front of the Fire Temple, Chiriku was assembling all the temple's ninja monks, armed with staffs and fully prepared to descend back into the underground to resume their extermination mission.

The plan was for Jiraiya, in Sage Mode, to first enter the tunnels and use senjutsu to eliminate the majority of the man-eating rats. The monks would then follow to wipe out any remaining ones.

However, just as the preparations were underway, everyone on the surface felt a faint tremor beneath their feet.

"What's going on?"

"Another earthquake?"

Before the monks could finish voicing their surprise, the tremors intensified sharply.

Suddenly, a deafening rumble erupted from below. The sound, no longer the dull echo from deep underground, became an ear-splitting roar.

A massive shockwave burst forth from the depths of the earth beneath the Fire Temple, erupting onto the surface. The once-majestic temple was instantly consumed by a blinding light that surged up from underground.

Before anyone could process what had just happened, the ground began to shake violently.

The enormous training field of the Fire Temple started to collapse. Bricks and stones shattered instantly, and the once-serene temple grounds were swallowed in a chaotic upheaval of earth.

"Jump to higher ground!"

Chiriku maintained his composure and issued a swift command. The ninja monks obeyed without hesitation, leaping onto the surrounding towering trees.

Once they reached safety and turned back, they were met with a shocking sight: the entire Fire Temple had collapsed into a massive pit.

As the dust began to settle, a bright orange figure stood resolutely at the bottom of the crater.

Amid the rubble and debris, countless rat corpses and remnants of blood and flesh emerged from the collapsed earth, partially buried by the landslide.

The monks were all stunned, their eyes fixed on the orange beast-like figure in the crater. Only Jiraiya had a faint idea of what it was.

Naruto...

This was his first time witnessing Naruto's partial transformation into a tailed beast with his own eyes—and this time, it was a four-tailed transformation. There was not a single trace of Naruto's human form left.

Damn it. Has that power been triggered after all?

He hadn't intervened to rescue Naruto earlier because he knew about the powerful force sealed within Naruto.

As long as Naruto could tap into the immense chakra of the Nine-Tails in such extreme circumstances, the man-eating rats wouldn't stand a chance against him.

Jiraiya had hoped that this incident would help Naruto learn to harness that power, something Minato had also wished for.

But he hadn't anticipated that Naruto would completely lose control, transforming into a four-tailed state in one go.

Why? What angered the Nine-Tails inside Naruto so much?

It was then that Jiraiya's eyes caught sight of something on the opposite edge of the crater—a tall, dark-skinned man wearing an ornate, colorful robe. He was silently observing Naruto with great interest.