"That's as far as you go. You shouldn't enter any further."
Inside the slowly closing stone chamber door, Biwako Sarutobi turned around with a stern expression. She stretched out a hand to stop Chiba, whose face was clearly filled with worry and anxiety, and spoke seriously.
"Y-Yes! I understand."
Seeing Biwako Sarutobi stopping him, Chiba froze at first, then seemed to realize something. He immediately halted the steps that had been about to carry him into the stone chamber and hurriedly replied.
"I'll leave the outside to you."
Biwako Sarutobi nodded gravely at that and spoke.
Then, she lowered the hand she had raised to stop him. At that moment, amid the grinding rumble of the stone door and Kushina's faint cries of pain, the door slowly shut. With a heavy thud, it sealed tightly and blended into the color of the stone wall, as if it had never existed.
"Y-Yes..."
As the stone door closed, that was all Chiba could say.
Then, as he watched the stone door shut and cut off every cry and sound, the cave suddenly fell quiet. Chiba gently pressed his lips together, but the anxiety and tension he could not suppress remained plainly written across his face.
Instinctively, he turned to look at the sky outside the cave.
Beneath the scattered starlight, it was already night.
It was nighttime already. The entire afternoon had slipped away without them noticing. If not for the labor pains signaling that childbirth was imminent, the three of them might not even have realized that darkness had fallen.
I didn't expect it to be night already... So soon...
The Night of the Nine-Tails has begun!
Looking at the sky outside, Chiba could not help swallowing.
For Chiba, this night had arrived far too suddenly. Even now, he had yet