Mukade gazed at the shattered remains of Crow strewn across the ground, his heart aching. To acquire this puppet, he had shed countless tears and an immeasurable amount of sweat. Splitting one steamed bun into two meals, breaking a single coin in half to use as two—that was a vivid depiction of his life during that period. But now… it was just gone! His heart, for reasons he couldn't quite pinpoint, ached with an extraordinary pain!
Naruto, wielding Kusabimaru, lunged forward, about to deliver a clean horizontal slash to Salamander. Seeing this, Mukade directly triggered all of Salamander's internal mechanisms. Though it pained him greatly, he understood that if he didn't use these tools now, he would never get another chance. Nurture a weapon for a thousand days, all for this one moment! Dark poisonous mist, envenomed senbon, deadly piercing blades… anything that could kill the enemy was launched wholesale towards his foe.
Naruto's expression remained unchanged, the heavy horizontal slash not altering its trajectory in the slightest. In an instant, crimson Nine-Tails chakra enveloped his entire body.
Pff, pff, pff…
The defensive power of the Nine-Tails' chakra was undeniable. Not even a Tailed Beast Bomb had managed to kill him; blocking a few hidden weapons was child's play. Enveloped in Wind-natured chakra, Kusabimaru cleanly sliced the Salamander puppet into eight pieces.
"Let's talk about your little enterprise, shall we?" Naruto said, looking towards the Sand ninja hidden behind the stone statue.
Mukade trembled as he looked at Naruto, appearing as pitifully endearing as a young maiden about to be bullied. Though he knew he had provoked a monster, this monster was far too monstrous! Hearing Naruto's inquiry, he nodded his head like a chicken pecking rice.
"Come here." Naruto beckoned to him. Little did he know how terrifying this simple gesture appeared to Mukade. In the dim subterranean space, a demonic figure wreathed in red flames spoke to him in the most ordinary tone, yet uttered the most terrifying words.
"Hm?"
"Coming right up!" With a shiver, Mukade quickly scurried forward. A ninja is one who can endure all hardships. In Mukade's mind, as long as he could survive, forget losing a bit of face; he would even kneel if required. Besides, apart from the two of them, there were no outsiders here. Rounding things up, it meant that Lord Mukade's face had not been lost!
"Undo the seal again!" Naruto pointed to the protrusion where the Flying Thunder God Kunai was embedded. Though puzzled by why this Sand ninja was so afraid of him, seeing him obediently follow his instructions, he extinguished any thought of asking.
"Um, I… I can't undo it." Mukade crouched on the ground, his hands pressed against the sealing formula, looking up at Naruto, his voice trembling slightly. He seriously suspected he had run into a ghost; this violent, tyrannical chakra was simply not something a human could possess. Up close, the terrifying chakra pressed down on his nerves even more intensely. Mukade seriously doubted that a genin, under such terrifying pressure, wouldn't directly lose the ability to move.
"Just do as you're told." Naruto retracted the Nine-Tails chakra into his body, sheathed his sword, and placed his right hand on Mukade's back.
"Yes!" Now that he was completely at the other's mercy, Mukade could only comply.
The assimilation ritual recommenced. The pale purple Dragon Vein chakra reappeared. Mukade looked at it with utter helplessness. If he had been able to control this chakra earlier, he wouldn't have suffered such humiliation.
"Hm?" Feeling the chakra continuously surging into his body, Mukade's pupils contracted. In just this short while, the chakra within his body had already been restored to its initial state, even overflowing slightly. [Hey, hey, hey! This amount of chakra… is he really not human?] Gazing at Naruto's calm face, Mukade felt only a dim future ahead; he didn't think he could possibly escape from the clutches of such a monster.
Naruto was unaware of the Sand ninja's rich inner turmoil. He curiously examined the sealing formula below. Although it was a seal set by his 'father,' the Fourth Hokage, unfortunately, he didn't know how to undo it either. What on earth could it be, that would make such a powerful ninja—the one who had sealed Kurama within him—expend the effort to set up a seal for it?
Supported by Naruto's chakra, Mukade felt the process of undoing the seal this time was exceptionally smooth, completely lacking the unsmooth and stagnation of his first attempt. Feeling the Dragon Vein chakra continuously merging with his body, Mukade's eyes were filled with elation. He hadn't expected such an accidental boon. He was already beginning to contemplate how he would deal with the monster behind him.
"Kurama, do you know where this chakra comes from?" In his mental space, Naruto inquired. The quality of this pale purple chakra, in his perception, wasn't much inferior to Kurama's own.
"I'm not sure either. Perhaps it's a product from before we were born," Kurama said uncertainly. Truthfully, he too was astonished by the quality and quantity of this chakra.
Naruto nodded slightly. Kurama had once said that he was born in the later years of the Sage of Six Paths. What had happened in the eras even further back, he didn't know. Which meant that this chakra could possibly be a product of the Sage of Six Paths' younger days, or even from an era predating him. He was growing increasingly curious about what exactly had transpired in those lost ages. The moon created by the Sage of Six Paths, the Dragon Vein chakra before him, the Ten-Tails from which the nine Tailed Beasts were divided… All of it served as evidence of just how glorious and brilliant that lost era must have been.
"It's undone!" Mukade cried out internally. On his emaciated face, a smile he had almost forgotten how to make reappeared. But before he could make any move—in that instant! A vast surge of chakra erupted from the abyss beneath them. Before either of them could react, they were swallowed by it.
"The light rising from Rouran's heights, a mind of mixed emotions, the Dragon Vein that must be protected…"
A song he had never heard before echoed by his ear. He didn't quite grasp the meaning of the lyrics, but it sounded beautiful.
"Kurama, what's the situation?" In his mental space, Naruto asked.
"I don't know either." Kurama spread his paws helplessly; he also hadn't figured out what had happened. "After being hit by that chakra, I also lost consciousness. By the time I regained awareness of the outside world, you had inexplicably appeared on an empty plot of land. I didn't sense any malice from that woman, so I didn't interfere."
"That woman?" Naruto's brow twitched. He opened his eyes.
He saw a mother and daughter, both of top-notch appearance and figure, also looking at him curiously.
"Mother, he's awake!" the little girl said, pulling her mother's hand in surprise.
"Sara, Mommy sees," the woman said, patting her daughter's head.
"Excuse me, who are you?" Naruto asked, rubbing his faintly throbbing head.
"I am Seramu, Queen of Rouran," Seramu introduced herself. "Traveler from afar, why did you appear in Rouran's forbidden grounds?"
Queen of Rouran? Naruto was taken aback. He looked at her closely. Her attire, a combination of purple and lavender, was full of ethnic character; she possessed the aura of someone long accustomed to high status, and her fair hands looked as if they had never touched a day of manual labor… But hadn't Rouran fallen into decline? Looking at the surrounding buildings, there wasn't the slightest trace of decline in Rouran.
"Excuse me, has the Third Great Ninja War ended yet?" Naruto asked, as if a thought had struck him. He remembered, according to what Temari had said, Rouran had declined during the Third Great Ninja War…