Tailed Beasts Gather

The Nine-Tails, Kurama, was the first to emerge from inside Naruto's body. Golden chakra enveloped the entire forest, and the once-proud demon fox's eyes were now filled with gentleness. He looked at the companions arriving one after another and remembered a thousand years of separation and hatred. He remembered the Fourth Great Ninja War, when Naruto had dissolved the barriers between all the Tailed Beasts with sincerity and let them understand, for the first time, the meaning of bonds.

"It's been a long time since we gathered like this." Kurama's voice echoed through the forest, stripped of its old arrogance and filled only with peace.

Shukaku flicked his tail, and yellow sand traced soft lines across the ground. "It's that power of acceptance. It's calling us." He had once been the loneliest Tailed Beast, feared and used by humans, until he met Gaara, until he met Naruto, and finally understood the beauty of accepting and being accepted. And now, the wave of acceptance coming from deep within the void was vaster than Naruto's sincerity. It could contain every difference among the Tailed Beasts, contain every past and every wound.

The Eight-Tails, Gyūki, nodded, his tentacles trembling softly. "Killer B felt it too. This power isn't a shackle. It's fulfillment." The bond between him and Killer B had been the earliest reconciliation between a Jinchuriki and a Tailed Beast in the ninja world, so now he could understand the true meaning of the tendency toward acceptance even more clearly.

The nine great Tailed Beasts slowly formed a circle, and each of their chakras rose. The One-Tail's sand chakra, the Two-Tails' fire chakra, the Three-Tails' water chakra... all the way to the Nine-Tails' golden chakra. Nine rays of different colors wove together without conflict or rejection, as though gently braided by an