"Are you ready, Kushina?" Uchiha Ling's voice was not loud, yet it echoed clearly through the Hokage Office. "Relax your mind. No matter what you hear or feel, keep trusting me. Leave it to me."
Kushina took a deep breath and nodded firmly. "Yeah! I trust you, Ling!"
Uchiha Ling said no more. Forming hand seals, he bypassed the Eight Trigrams Seal and slowly reached deep into Kushina's consciousness with an irresistible yet strangely soothing presence, touching the region saturated with immense, violent chakra.
The mental realm.
This place was not a concrete sewer-like space as it would later be for Naruto. Instead, it resembled a boundless sea of chaos, filled with dark crimson mist and boiling negative emotions. Hatred, rage, loneliness, the desire to kill... all manner of dark emotions crashed against the boundaries of consciousness like tangible waves.
At the center of that chaotic sea lay a colossal creature.
It possessed a mountain-sized body covered in dense orange fur like bloody flames. Its nine enormous tails swayed slowly behind it like tentacles from a nightmare, each movement stirring up raging tides in the mental realm.
This was the Nine-Tails, the strongest of the nine tailed beasts—and the one that hated humans most.
"ROAR—!!!"
The roar shook the entire mental realm.
The Nine-Tails suddenly opened its enormous scarlet slit-pupiled eyes, filled with pure malice and brutality.
It stared fixedly at the tiny human spiritual body before it, one that nevertheless emitted an aura that made even it feel a trace of wariness.
"Uchiha... brat!" The Nine-Tails' voice was low and hoarse, like countless grains of sand grinding together, carrying bone-deep hatred. "Those damned eyes again! Get out! Or I'll tear your soul apart!"
Terrifying chakra surged forth with its voice, seeking to crush the uninvited intruder.
Yet Uchiha Ling's