Chapter 40 (Patreon)

Naturally, the Nine-Tails had no intention of admitting that he had secretly copied one of Roy’s techniques.

Roy did not question it. He simply assumed the Nine-Tails was able to hide from the Two-Tails because he was the stronger of the two.

Whatever the reason, Yugito had no idea that the person standing before her was also a jinchūriki.

She was only following the Raikage’s orders and testing the unknown Konoha shinobi who had appeared on the front line.

The Fire Style: Rodent Fireball she had used to probe the enemy could track its target, yet Kushina had blocked it without trouble.

Yugito immediately decided that Kushina was the shinobi she had been sent to investigate.

She did not bother exchanging words.

The moment Kushina appeared before her, sharp claws extended from Yugito’s fingers and toes.

Aside from Fire Style ninjutsu, close combat was Yugito’s greatest strength.

Her movements were fast, and every strike was aimed with deadly precision.

Unfortunately, taijutsu had never been Kushina’s strongest area.

She could have waited until Yugito came close before using the Adamantine Sealing Chains to capture her in a single move.

However, Kushina was not satisfied with catching only the Two-Tails’ jinchūriki.

Since Kumogakure had not realised who she was yet, she wanted to keep her identity hidden and use Yugito to draw out the Eight-Tails as well.

She could not use her sealing techniques, and she was unable to match Yugito in taijutsu.

That left Kushina with only one choice.

Yugito quickly grew frustrated.

She had already realised that her opponent was not particularly skilled in close combat and could barely follow her speed.

Yet every time one of her attacks was about to land, an unseen force suddenly bound her body and gave Kushina enough time to move out of the way.

The restraint itself was not especially strong.

Yugito could break it with a small burst of strength.

The problem was its timing.

It appeared again and again, always at the exact moment she committed herself to an attack, forcing her arms behind her back and interrupting her movements.

It was Bakudō #1: Sai.

Roy was the one casting it.

Hidden from the other shinobi’s sight, he remained close behind Kushina and watched Yugito’s every move.

Whenever Kushina failed to evade an attack in time, Roy cast Sai without its incantation and briefly restrained Yugito.

Using Kidō without reciting the incantation reduced its strength and placed a greater burden on Roy’s own spiritual power.

However, Sai required very little energy to begin with.

Its weakened form also made Yugito believe that the technique itself was easy to overcome.

Had Roy recited the full incantation and powered the spell with the Nine-Tails’ chakra, Yugito would not have been able to break free so easily while remaining in her normal state.

“Are you going to keep hiding behind that technique?”

Yugito leapt backward and opened some distance between them.

Blue chakra erupted around her body like flames.

A single tail of dense chakra formed behind her.

Within Roy’s senses, Yugito’s spiritual pressure rose sharply, becoming almost twice as strong as before.

“Watch carefully,” Roy said to Kushina. “She’s beginning to draw on the Two-Tails’ chakra.”

Roy used Yugito’s transformation to explain how a jinchūriki could borrow a tailed beast’s power.

At this level, the amount of chakra being drawn out was still limited enough that the tailed beast’s negative emotions would not overwhelm the jinchūriki’s mind.

Even so, the increase in strength was considerable.

It was very different from Kushina’s usual method of forcing herself to endure the Nine-Tails’ hatred while taking his chakra.

If Kushina could learn to draw out the Nine-Tails’ power with the same level of control, her use of tailed beast chakra would improve greatly.

Inside Kushina’s inner world, the Nine-Tails gave a dismissive snort when he heard Roy’s explanation.

Even if the amount of chakra was the same, borrowing it from him would place far more pressure on a jinchūriki’s mind than borrowing it from the Two-Tails.

The difference between tailed beasts was not determined by the number of tails alone.

Whenever a tailed beast recovered its chakra, it also absorbed the negative emotions created by humans.

Once enough hatred and resentment accumulated over the years, the chakra itself began to change.

If all the negative emotions gathered by the tailed beasts were divided into ten parts, the Nine-Tails alone would possess at least half of them.

However, the amount carried by the other eight could not simply be measured by counting their tails.

The Eight-Tails was a good example.

By ordinary reasoning, he should carry less hatred than the Nine-Tails but more than the remaining tailed beasts.

However, the Eight-Tails had been fortunate enough to meet Killer B.

Over more than ten years together, the Eight-Tails and Killer B had come to understand one another, each filling something that had been missing in the other.

Under Killer B’s influence, the hatred contained within the Eight-Tails’ chakra had gradually weakened.

That was one of the reasons a perfect jinchūriki could control a tailed beast’s chakra so freely.

The Nine-Tails’ own life had been nothing like that.

At times, he had been controlled by the Sharingan, his will completely suppressed.

At others, he had been sealed inside a jinchūriki and left unable to move.

The resentment gathered within him had become so strong that it almost seemed to have a physical form.

Although he would never admit it openly, the Nine-Tails had always envied the Two-Tails and Eight-Tails for finding jinchūriki willing to understand them.

Fortunately, his relationship with Kushina had slowly begun to change.

He no longer needed to envy the other tailed beasts as much as before.

After drawing on the Two-Tails’ chakra, Yugito was able to ignore Roy’s weakened Sai.

However, once Roy began reciting the incantation, she found herself restrained just as easily as before.

Kushina did not waste the opening.

A spinning sphere of chakra formed in her raised hand.

Although her Rasengan was still far from complete, she drove it directly into Yugito’s chest.

The protection of the Two-Tails’ chakra prevented Yugito from suffering a serious injury, and the force of the Rasengan was not enough to twist or crush her body.

Even so, her clothing was torn apart, and the skin beneath it was scraped and burned.

Kushina did not escape unharmed either.

The flames within Yugito’s tailed beast chakra scorched the hand she had used to strike.

Both kunoichi suffered light injuries during the exchange.

They immediately separated once more, putting distance between them.