Chapter 532: The Last Jinchūriki (Patreon)

Unknown Fire Dimension

"WHAT THE FUCK—?!"

The Tailed Beast Ball detonated against Alaric's face.

KRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAA—BOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!!

For one impossible instant, the entire fire dimension turned black.

The sphere's compressed chakra expanded from point-blank range with nowhere to disperse gently, crushing the surrounding space before ripping it outward. White fire vanished beneath an expanding wall of red-black energy. Dimensional fractures shot away from the impact like cracks through glass, intersecting one another until pieces of the fire realm appeared to separate into enormous geometric sections.

The shockwave reached Madara.

His weakened body would have been reduced to fragments if the layered barrier surrounding him had not reacted first.

Fūinjutsu flared across every surface of the protective sphere.

DOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!

Madara was thrown backward inside it.

His shoulders struck the inner wall hard enough to reopen several wounds along his back, and his Rinnegan lost focus as the barrier spun through the inferno.

The Nine sealing rings scattered around him but remained intact.

Beyond them, the explosion continued expanding, and Alaric disappeared completely within it.

Madara stared into the incandescent destruction.

For perhaps two seconds, he was genuinely uncertain whether Alaric had survived.

Then another memory forced its way into his mind.

WHAT THE FUCK—?!

Madara's lips twitched.

He tried to suppress it, but the effort lasted less than a second before a low sound escaped him.

"Kh...!"

His injured ribs protested.

Madara pressed one hand against his abdomen and closed his eyes, but it did not help.

He had spent what felt like an eternity watching Alaric behave as though nothing in existence deserved more than mild concern.

Alaric had allowed Madara to become the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki because he wanted a better fight.

He had been nearly decapitated, only to somehow transform the outcome into Madara receiving the wounds instead.

He had placed Madara within a dimension of impossible fire and calmly watched him burn.

He had stood with his hands behind his back while the Ten-Tails rebuilt Madara's body into something capable of surviving heat beyond the sun.

He had fought the Gedo Mazō during Phoenix Sage Mode's cooldown while complaining about inconvenience rather than danger.

Then Phoenix Sage Mode returned, and Alaric had proceeded to throw the Ten-Tails around the dimension with the relaxed enthusiasm of a man finally permitted to stretch his legs.

Nothing had ruined the composure.

Not until the most powerful creature in the shinobi world waited for him to become distracted and fired a Tailed Beast Ball directly into his face.

Madara remembered the widening eyes.

He remembered the profanity.

A laugh slipped out.

"Hah…"

His shoulders began shaking.

That made the pain worse, but it also made the situation considerably funnier.

Madara bent forward, his long hair falling beside his face while he attempted to contain himself.

"Kh—hah…"

The barrier rotated again.

The distant explosion began collapsing inward.

Madara saw movement inside the smoke, and his composure finally failed.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

The laugh came from somewhere Madara had not accessed in decades.

It was not the exhilarated laughter he gave Hashirama during battle, nor the dark amusement that accompanied an enemy misunderstanding his power. There was no philosophy inside it and no grandiose pleasure in war.

It was simply funny.

Absurdly funny.

Madara wiped the corner of one eye.

His ribs screamed at him, but he ignored them.

"HAHAHAHA—GH—!"

Pain interrupted him.

He grabbed his side, grimaced, recovered enough air, then began laughing again because even the interruption somehow made the situation worse.

From inside the collapsing cloud of chakra, a human silhouette appeared.

Madara immediately recognized it, but that only intensified his laughter.

Alaric emerged slowly, and most of the left side of his coat was gone.

The surviving fabric hung from his shoulder in blackened strips, while the gold trim had partially melted and fused into hardened beads along the edges. His cravat had disappeared completely. One sleeve ended above his elbow, exposing a forearm that Eros was still finishing beneath lines of glowing red tissue.

His hair looked as though an explosion had attempted to comb it backward using violence.

Smoke rose from his shoulders as Phoenix Sage Mode remained active, the crimson tattoo beneath his left eye glowed beautifully while his Rinne-Sharingan looked murderous.

Madara stared at him.

Alaric stared back.

Madara's mouth trembled.

Alaric's expression hardened.

Madara lost whatever restraint he had recovered.

"HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Alaric's jaw tightened as he heard the laugh.

Madara pointed at him... a mistake because the movement aggravated his shoulder... but he refused to allow physical suffering to deprive him of this moment.

"You—"

He laughed again.

Alaric floated silently through the remaining smoke.

Madara tried twice before managing the sentence. "You should have seen your face."

Alaric stopped as the fire around them quieted.

Madara immediately recognized his own words.

Alaric had said almost precisely the same thing after touching Madara's forehead before he could react.

The symmetry made Madara throw his head backward.

"HAHAHAHAHAHA!"

Alaric's gaze shifted from the Ten-Tails to Madara, then down to the shredded remains of his coat.

His eyelid twitched. It was a small movement, but Madara noticed.

"Oh, that is extraordinary."

"Shut up, will ya?"

Madara's laughter became louder.

Alaric pointed toward him and was about to say something but just sighed instead.

"..."

"You transported me into a dimension hotter than the sun and burned my Truth-Seeking Orbs."

"I know what I did."

"You stood there with your hands behind your back while my flesh repeatedly disappeared."

"I remember."

Madara's grin widened.

"And that is what finally broke your composure?"

Alaric glanced down at himself.

A section of coat detached from his waist and drifted away as ash.

His expression darkened another degree.

Madara, on the other hand, pressed both hands against his stomach. His laughter had become physically painful, yet he could not stop.

"Your attention went away for a second, looked directly into a completed Tailed Beast Ball, and shouted—"

"..." Alaric just flatly looked at Madara. It was weird because they were just enemies trying to kill each other like an hour ago.

Madara imitated Alaric's expression of horrified realization with insulting accuracy.

"'What the fuck—?!'"

Alaric's Rinne-Sharingan twitched while Madara wheezed.

For a man who had spent much of his life convinced the world contained little worthy of genuine happiness, the sight of Alaric Jonathan Kenway being ambushed by the Ten-Tails had produced an unexpectedly compelling argument against that philosophy.

Alaric slowly rubbed his face.

"You know, five minutes ago I was keeping you alive."

"I remain grateful."

"You have a strange method of showing it."

Madara's laughter finally weakened into a rough chuckle.

"I have endured enough humiliation tonight. Allow me this."

Alaric looked at him.

Madara still wore the grin.

After several seconds, Alaric exhaled. "Fine."

Madara settled against the inner wall of the barrier. "I will remember it forever."

"Then maybe I should have let the statue eat you."

That earned another laugh.

Alaric turned away before Madara could see the small, reluctant curve threatening the corner of his mouth.

The humor vanished as his attention returned to the Ten-Tails.

The Gedo Mazō stood within the aftermath of its own attack, its enormous eye fixed on him. The creature's malformed body had deteriorated further after losing the remaining tailed-beast fragments. Several limbs no longer possessed equal proportions, while cracks ran through the pale shell surrounding its torso.

It had accomplished almost nothing with the ambush... almost.

Alaric could still feel the blast inside his chakra pathways.

He had reacted instinctively before impact.

Gakidō had opened across his body at the same instant Phoenix Sage chakra reinforced his tissues, while the Rinne-Sharingan twisted the closest layer of space to divert part of the explosion elsewhere.

There had not been enough time to absorb everything.

The remainder hit him directly, and Eros had handled the consequences.

Broken bones had already vanished. The damage to his organs had been repaired before the explosion finished expanding, and the burns across his body were now little more than fading lines beneath newly restored skin.

His coat had not possessed Eros.

Alaric looked down at the ruined uniform again, his eye narrowing.

"That was one of my good ones."

Madara made the mistake of laughing quietly behind him.

Alaric ignored him... mostly.

The Sun and Moon symbols remained present within his palms.

Their structure had survived the blast because Alaric had never released the chakra maintaining them. Hagoromo's warning remained fresh enough that the modifications had already begun forming inside his mind.

Alaric brought his hands together.

The Ten-Tails recoiled.

His expression changed... the irritation remained, though something colder settled beneath it. "You had your fun."

The beast roared.

GRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAARRR!!

Alaric's Phoenix wings unfolded.

Their span crossed the dimension.

The first wing moved behind the Gedo Mazō while the second curved around its front, enclosing the creature between walls of crimson-gold fire without touching it.

The Ten-Tails attempted to retreat.

Wood Release erupted around its legs.

Roots the size of mountain ranges coiled around its ankles and thighs, while Vulcan layered the living restraints in metal dense enough to resist the heat that continued saturating the dimension.

The beast pulled.

The restraints groaned.

Alaric's Rinne-Sharingan brightened.

Gravity descended upon the creature.

GDOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!

The Ten-Tails was driven downward, causing Madara to stop laughing, especially when he recognized the shift in Alaric immediately.

The absurdity had passed.

Now Alaric looked irritated enough to become efficient.

The Ten-Tails opened its mouth.

Alaric sighed and raised one finger. "Don't."

Gakidō appeared directly across its jaws.

The chakra gathering for another Tailed Beast Ball disappeared before the sphere could stabilize.

The Ten-Tails snapped its mouth shut and pulled backward.

Seeing that, Alaric began modifying the seal.

The Sun mark across his right palm changed first.

Its circular structure divided into concentric layers, with each ring carrying a separate sequence of fūinjutsu. The outermost layer retained Hagoromo's original authority over the Ten-Tails, while the second became a regulatory boundary designed to prevent the creature from treating Alaric's chakra as material for reconstruction.

The Moon mark changed next.

Black script traveled across Alaric's wrist, climbed his forearm, and disappeared beneath the remains of his sleeve. Instead of joining the Sun formula directly, it divided into branches that moved toward different parts of his chakra network.

One path surrounded his ordinary chakra, and another prepared a controlled exchange route.

The deepest route stopped before reaching Phoenix chakra.

Alaric closed his eyes briefly.

The Phoenix pathway required something stronger.

If the incomplete Ten-Tails recognized that energy as replacement material for the missing portions of Gyūki and Kurama, it could attempt to incorporate Emberis-derived power into its own structure.

Hagoromo had been correct when he said that sounded catastrophically stupid.

'Heh...' Alaric internally chuckled before he created another seal.

This one did not resemble conventional fūinjutsu.

Crimson lines appeared beneath his skin, beginning around the phoenix tattoo and traveling downward along his neck before branching across his chest. They formed a closed circuit around the channels carrying Phoenix Sage chakra.

The Ten-Tails would be permitted to sense that power, but it would not be permitted to consume it.

Not unless Alaric deliberately opened the boundary.

His then opened his eyes.

"Done."

Madara stared from inside his barrier.

"You redesigned the Rikudou Sennin's seal."

Alaric raised a brow and looked over one shoulder. "How do you know whose seal it is?"

"The symbols carry Six Paths chakra, " Madara's Rinnegan narrowed. "And the structure resembles neither Uzumaki fūinjutsu nor the sealing methods used by the Uchiha."

Alaric nodded approvingly. "Good eye."

Madara ignored the remark.

"What are you planning?"

Alaric turned back toward the Ten-Tails.

The answer became apparent before he spoke.

He placed the Sun-marked palm against his own abdomen, causing Madara's expression to change.

"You cannot be serious."

"That was approximately the Sage's reaction," Alaric smiled faintly.

"You..." Madara pushed himself more upright. "...you intend to become its jinchūriki."

"Final jinchūriki."

The distinction made Madara's Rinnegan sharpen.

Alaric began drawing the modified seal across his body.

Black and gold script spread from his abdomen, circling his waist before rising across his ribs. The formula remained invisible beneath clothing in several places, though the surviving portions of his ruined coat made much of the pattern visible.

It was vastly more complicated than the seal Madara had forced into himself.

His own method had depended upon domination... Alaric's depended upon separation.

Madara could see partitions nested within partitions. The Ten-Tails would exist in the deepest prison. Alaric's ordinary chakra network sat beyond another layer, connected through passages that opened only under conscious authorization. An entirely separate boundary surrounded the Phoenix pathways.

Beyond even those structures lay something Madara could not read.

The formula simply stopped.

Not because it was incomplete, but because Alaric had designed it to prevent the Ten-Tails from reaching farther.

The Ten-Tails roared again, finally understanding what's going on.

The fūinjutsu forming around Alaric was not intended to imprison it elsewhere.

The man standing before it intended to become the final prison.

Its enormous eye widened. And in rage, Chakra erupted from the Gedo Mazō.

VVVVRRRRRRROOOOOOOOOOOOM!!

The Wood Release restraints shattered along the outer layers and metal bent.

"Behave, will ya?" Alaric raised his left hand. "Shinra Tensei."

KRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAM!!

The Ten-Tails slammed backward into the wall of Phoenix fire, causing its shell to crack.

Before it could recover, Alaric opened his right palm.

"Banshō Ten'in."

Gravity reversed and the Gedo Mazō lurched forward.

The Sun and Moon formula responded.

Black and gold chains erupted from Alaric's abdomen.

They crossed the distance instantly.

The first chain wrapped around the Ten-Tails' throat.

The second caught an arm.

A third pierced through the creature's torso before splitting into dozens of branches inside it.

The beast screamed.

SKRRRRRRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGH!!

Alaric planted both feet against empty space.

The chains tightened.

The Ten-Tails slid toward him.

Madara's Rinnegan widened.

The scale made the sight almost ridiculous.

Alaric appeared tiny before the Gedo Mazō. The beast possessed enough mass to dwarf mountains, while the man dragging it toward himself could have stood within one of its teeth.

Yet the fūinjutsu ignored physical proportion.

The Ten-Tails shrank as it moved... not physically at first, but spatially.

The seal folded the distance and dimensions surrounding the beast, compressing its existence into a form capable of entering Alaric's internal prison without reducing the power contained within it.

The Gedo Mazō resisted, its arms clawing through the fire as the dimensions shook.

KRRRRRRAAAAAAACK!!

One chain snapped, but Alaric replaced it with five more.

The Ten-Tails attempted to launch another Tailed Beast Ball, but Gakidō swallowed the gathering chakra.

Wood Release coiled around the creature's mouth before Vulcan covered it in metal.

A Susanoo hand manifested and closed over its skull as Alaric pulled harder.

The Ten-Tails decreased in apparent size.

Thousands of meters became hundreds.

Hundreds became dozens.

The creature understood precisely what awaited it now.

A vessel that would not age.

A seal it could not manipulate through ordinary chakra exchange.

Phoenix energy it could sense but could not reach.

Something deeper inside Alaric's soul that its instincts already feared without understanding.

The Gedo Mazō panicked.

For the first time since tearing itself from Madara, the beast stopped trying to attack.

No… it tried to escape.

Its claws tore into dimensional space.

Alaric's grin widened as he tightened his grip on the chains, refusing to let the Ten-Tails slip free.

"Oh, no."

The Ten-Tails dragged itself backward.

Alaric leaned forward against the chains.

"You wanted me."

GRRROOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOAAAAAARRR!!

The beast roared.

"You spent this entire damn fight trying to get through me so you could eat Madara."

The Ten-Tails ripped through another Wood Dragon... Alaric replaced it instantly.

"You fired three Tailed Beast Balls at me."

Vulcan chains wrapped around its torso.

"You ruined my coat."

Madara's mouth twitched.

The Ten-Tails' eye darted toward the disappearing horizon behind it.

Alaric saw the fear, so his irritation finally transformed into enjoyment as the Sun and Moon markings blazed across his palms.

Then, he pulled.

The incomplete Ten-Tails lurched forward so violently that its enormous head crossed thousands of meters in an instant.

VVVVRRROOOOOOOOOOOOM!!

The beast screamed as the modified jinchūriki seal opened across Alaric's abdomen.

Inside him, a vast new space took shape.

The innermost prison formed first.

Black pillars rose around an endless chamber while golden chains crossed between them. A ceiling did not exist. Neither did an ordinary floor. The entire structure functioned as a contained dimensional domain anchored to Alaric's soul without touching the Phoenix boundary beneath it.

The Ten-Tails sensed the prison, and its struggle became frantic.

Alaric laughed under his breath.

Madara, on the other hand, watched from behind.

He had sealed this same creature into himself through force and believed the resulting power represented his ascent toward divinity.

Alaric was doing the same thing for almost the opposite reason.

He did not look reverent, nor did he look intoxicated by the promise of greater power.

He just looked personally offended.

The Ten-Tails pulled away again, and Alaric allowed one hand to leave the chains.

Madara raised an eyebrow.

Alaric looked directly into the Gedo Mazō's enormous Rinne-Sharingan.

Then, with the modified Sun and Moon Seal dragging the primordial creature inexorably toward his body, Alaric raised his free hand.

His middle finger extended.

The Ten-Tails stared at it.

Madara stared at it.

Alaric's grin became enormous.

"THIS IS FOR THE SURPRISE, MOTHERFUCKER!"