A channelled beast bomb to the face was an orb of cold heat. Even cloaked under the thick dressing of the [Demon Cloak] I could still feel the distortion of space and chakra, the manifested beast bomb affected from simply being a dense construct of chakra. This was not the searing heat of fire; it was the cold certainty of obliteration.
I glared up past it to the fox eyes behind it all, malice and loathsome was all I found in Kurama’s eyes as he charged the beast bomb, my thoughts raced in desperation, searching for anything—anything—to stop what felt inevitable.
Isobu, isn’t there anything I can say? Anything you can say?
“Say to calm Kurama? Hmm…”
I gulped, my fear doubling at Isobu’s very unenthusiastic response. Do you really have to think so hard about it? He’s your brother!
“We haven’t seen each other in decades but I suppose he always liked listening to stories about Father.”
Well, do you have any?
“Hahaha, I’ve got enough to keep him still all day.”
I didn’t waste another second, I let my consciousness slip from the forefront of my mind and let it settle in the remnants of the Three Pillar Seal where I manifested before Isobu, “Let’s switch, you tell the story.”
His waters were freer now without the Three Pillar Seal, the giant turtle was no longer bound in chains in the depths of an ocean born of his own chakra. Instead Isobu coasted across a bright blue sea and a warm, ethereal glow suffused all around us with no clear source.
“Very well but do not expect success, Kurama is…has always been…well, you will see.”
Again, Isobu’s testimony didn’t inspire faith in his story reaching the furious Kurama, but if it at least distracted him enough so I could think of how to respond to a point-blank beast bomb.
When my eyes opened Isobu was the one looking through them. I felt him narrow a hardy stare at Kurama who keenly noticed and responded by starting to unhinge his jaw. “Stop it, Kurama, remember the last time you played too rough with me?”
The fox’s gaze burned hotter. There was no flicker of recognition, no hesitation. His claws twitched, and his focus sharpened on Isobu. I clenched inwardly, recalling the fragmented tales Jason had told me. It was plausible—Kurama, the fierce and untamed, once playing too rough with his siblings.
But this isn’t the same Kurama.
This wasn’t the playful brother of Isobu’s memories. This was a creature of wrath and anguish, standing in the ruins of burning homes and broken dreams.
As if confirming my thoughts Kurama raised his head higher and completely slackened his jaw to swallow the hovering ball of doom in one gulp. Isobu, I don’t think he’s going to stop to listen.
“Hrrn, I could have told you that.” Isobu groaned, already recalling the extra arms I’d created to spread coral while buckling our knees against Kurama.
The furious orange fox had his cheeks bulged with steaming fury, his baleful eyes never left us for a second and not a word was spoken, not even in reaction to his true name being used. Kurama didn’t care whether his brother Isobu was truly the one, all he wanted at the moment was to destroy whoever stood in the way of his freedom. I realized that important part far too late.
It’s always been about freedom, been about fear and tolerance. I think I know what to say to him, Isobu!
“It’s too late to talk now, Yagura!” And it was. Isobu made this particular point clear with a sideways glance over our shoulder while he leaped into the air. The village was right behind us and right in front of Kurama still. “But maybe I did get through to him, he’s doing a cannon blast instead of a bomb!”
That made a world of difference when it came to the potential destruction Kurama could unleash and it put Isobu’s quick actions into perspective. We soared high above Konoha, far above its highest monuments and forests with the moon as our only companion in the night sky. Below Kurama’s puffed and fuming cheeks followed our ascent closely and then, his jaws opened wide, releasing a condensed blast of seething chakra.
Isobu swiftly wrapped us in a ball of our three tails, each of them manifesting a thick layer of corals as fast as possible. But it wasn’t nearly enough. Kurama’s [Beast Bomb: Cannon] surged around us, an intense burning of hatred directed right at us and no one else. No one else, no one else. That was the only positive thing.
The [Demon Cloak] was stripped layer by layer like skin off my back. Scalding red, vengeful purple lights blinded us and the heat boiled away our corals. I didn’t feel a thing even as Kurama’s wrath launched us out higher in the sky and then faster in a descending arc of immobility.
My entire body was aflame, literally soaring across the sky in a flickering red fire. With Isobu in the driver’s seat, my experience of the agony was muted but I could hear its hum and expected the worse once I regained my senses. For now, the lingering curse of Kurama’s chakra burned Isobu alone even as he fixed the rest of my scorched and sore body.
As the ground grew closer and larger, Isobu summoned chakra from within and in a showing surgically precise chakra control, he weaved Yang Chakra into his own and blossomed a sphere of coral that encased us as we plummeted.
We landed with a cratering crash, Kurama’s fires didn’t leave us and burned the very soil our descent buried us in. The sphere cracked open and a haze of light found its way to my eyes. Through the crack I saw Kurama was already clawing away the remnants of the coral binding him to the earth. His tails lashed out as he noticed the shinobi hordes still headed his way. As my eyes closed I felt I could understand him, that I could see the weariness of this battle drawn on him, the ignoble exhaustion and the fury that came with it.
This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
He just wants to be free…
***
I woke on my feet, my arm braced against the jagged coral wall for support. It felt as though I had stood the instant we fell—like I had merely blinked and resumed the fight. Foxfire consumed the outskirts, its ferocious heat blazing along the cratered path and igniting the fractured remnants of my [Coral Shell].
My throat was a desert, my skull a landslide, but I summoned the strength to weave a single hand seal. A narrow spout of water surged forth, dousing the gulf of flames in my way. I vaulted over the smoldering wreckage, ignoring the pain that clawed at every nerve.
My ears continued the hum and whine, the ache and static drowned out any thing I could pass for true sound. But my eyes—those adjusted just fine. The battlefield came into focus, revealing the sheer scale of Konoha’s response. Shinobi swarmed in disciplined formations, their collective strength barely holding the line against Kurama’s relentless assault.
But thanks to their presence I could tell Kurama’s Cannon Bomb had blasted me far enough that I was closer to the village than I was to him. The forest lay flattened, a graveyard of burning trees forming the battlefield’s charred floor. Kurama loomed in the distance, his massive frame alight with malevolence. Even from here, the intensity of his chakra was suffocating. I clenched my fist, my shredded nerves screaming in protest.
Isobu…what can I do? I wondered. There was only one way this could end well, and I needed to reach Kurama to ensure it. He wouldn’t understand my words now—perhaps he wouldn’t care—but I had to try.
“He will. I know it,” Isobu replied, though his voice was laced with melancholy. “But, Yagura… there may be better times for this. Times where fewer lives hang in the balance.”
With no choice but the sharp sting of burnt air, I breathed the pain, torture and chaos my body was. I felt it all the moment I woke up but I hadn’t dared to look. My left side was charred raw, stripped of flesh and armor alike. Isobu’s chakra cloak clung to me like a second skin, working tirelessly to mend what it could. Yet nothing hurt more than the chasm in my lower torso.
Red, wet and raw I was. My armour was obliterated along with a fair chunk of my abs, all that was left was a red squelch. I couldn’t tell what organ I’d given up but I quickly trusted I would be well, if regrettably sour in the morning once this was over.
Tis a flesh wound.
“No, Yagura, you will die.” Isobu’s somber sincerity struck me as quickly as the manifested [Stage 0 Chakra Cloak]. I soaked in his chakra and murmured. He answered, “If you summon up to two tails of my chakra, your pathways will crumble from overexposure.”
I gave my friend a dry laugh, snorting, “All I hear is I’ve got up to One Tails and maybe Two because you’re soft. I can do it. There’s not much left to do!” I heaved from where I stood, bounding over the Leaf-nin like a hulk.
I smashed the ground and began reaching for Yang Chakra. Kurama had levelled the forest sufficiently so that the fallen, burning trees became the floor. A few dozen Leaf-nin and ANBU moved parallel to me, I ignored their war cries and focused inward on my pathways.
It was true what Isobu said. In just three days I’d abused the [Demon Cloak] enough times to flush out my own chakra reserves ten times over. And therein was the problem as even now my chakra reserves were dangerously low in comparison to the ocean I was tapping into and was also a vessel for.
There would be consequences but that none of it could be helped without a mastery of a full Jinchuriki transformation, something Isobu and I hadn’t thought about working on yet as the [Demon Cloak] was still new and difficult to master.
As my wrung left arm snapped back into place with an audible and satisfying pop, I weaved three hand seals and summoned a wind to my feet, “Wind Release: Propelling Winds!” Rather than my hands, gusts of wind propelled from my feet, dashing me across a range of fallen and burning timber until I could see Hiruzen swinging a twenty foot [Adamantine Staff ] at Kurama.
I grimaced as it landed smack in his jaw, rattling the great fox enough for a plethora of projectile Elemental Jutsu to be unleashed into his hide. Kurama bared his fangs down at Hiruzen, his mouth fuming as all other pathetic displays of Ninjutsu were numbed by his focused hatred. His tails rose in sync over his head and an oppressive crack of chakra was pumped out and into the atmosphere.
A gale wind from the explosion threw dozens of Leaf-nin away from the furious tailed beast. Kurama locked eyes with the unflinching Third Hokage but unlike me, Kurama knew where his destruction would hit its mark the most. He raised the ball at the village beyond.
“Enma!!” Hiruzen roared, his voice choked with desperation as he drew the [Adamantine Staff] for another swing, begging not to be too late.
I cursed, fleetingly considering exploding into full [Demon Cloak] or at least [Stage 3 Chakra Cloak] so I could power a heavily adapted [Water Mirror]. I can’t repulse an attack I can’t match!
“Kuchiyose no Jutsu!”
Summoned out of the sky, a giant toad crashed onto Kurama with earth-shattering force. His mouth snapped shut as they were pinned by an amphibian foot. The beast bomb in Kurama’s maw detonated prematurely, carving a jagged trench into the ground. Dust and debris filled the air, shrouding the chaos as Gamabunta continued to restrain and fall into the new crater with him.
The quake of the sundered earth continued, a landslide worth of dust plumes obscured the view but the magnificent sizes of a Class-A summon allowed all to see who stood atop it.
“It’s the Fourth Hokage!”
“Look! He’s here! Yondaime-sama!”
Now’s the time! I leapt past the flood of shinobi scrambling away from the edge of the crater, embracing my dive into it as I landed, sprinting towards Kurama’s growling jowls, the light of his fury burned from his throat and illuminated through the dust.
With practiced carelessness, I willed my [Stage 0 Chakra Cloak] to extend around my feet, I used the extra length in my ethereal knees to jump higher than I would’ve and within seconds I cleared the dust cloud and soared above Gamabunta. The giant toad did a double take as I soared underneath his notice, but his focus couldn’t be spared away from Kurama tussling and thrashing beneath him.
Minato Namikaze, standing atop Gamabunta’s rusty red head, turned to me with a perplexed look. Even as his hands moved through intricate seals, his sharp eyes tracked my approach, the winds billowed around his cloak.
I grinned through the pain, extending a chakra arm to grip his shoulder. “I’m here to help!” I shouted, my voice hoarse but determined. “Don’t stop now—let’s finish this!”