He Is a Jinchuriki

On the other side, Yeyu soon appeared on the small island where Naruto had landed.

A shadow suddenly shot out of the smoke and dust.

It turned into a red beam of light and hurtled toward Yeyu.

Yeyu frowned slightly. "Naruto can already form a fourth tail at this age?"

As it turned out, Naruto, whom Yeyu had just punched away, had formed a fourth tail.

His skin had completely turned into black Chakra, and it had all but disappeared.

West Tail Naruto radiated terrifying Chakra.

The extremely malicious Chakra caused the plants and flowers around him to wither instantly.

Yeyu muttered, "But right now, you're just a mindless beast."

He clenched his fist.

Invisible Armament Haki coiled around it.

Boom!

Naruto, transformed into a streak of light, was incredibly fast. In the blink of an eye, he crossed the hundreds of meters between them and appeared before Yeyu.

Yeyu threw a punch.

Naruto, who had already formed a fourth tail, was sent flying again.

He became a red streak of light and crashed into the sea thousands of meters away, sending up a spray of water hundreds of meters high.

Boom!

The deafening explosion was enormous.

Anko, who had already hauled Kakashi and Sakura ashore, looked toward the spray in the distance.

She saw a dark figure standing on the surface of the sea.

"He's already showing a fourth tail?"

"He only had three tails before."

"But even from this far away, I can still clearly feel that Chakra."

"It feels so sharp. My skin is tingling as if it's about to be cut."

Kakashi looked toward Naruto in the distance.

He was deeply worried. "Naruto was already that strong with just two tails. How are we supposed to deal with him now that he has four?"

"Yeyu, you can't die here."

Kakashi was more concerned about whether Yeyu would die than whether Naruto would lose control here.

If Yeyu died here, he could imagine how furious Hiruzen would be.

Kakashi also didn't want anything to happen to Yeyu.

Although Naruto was the son of the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, who had once been his teacher,

Yeyu mattered more to him than Naruto did.

If the Nine-Tails escaped, there would be a chance to capture it again. But if Yeyu died, where could Konoha find another genius with talent and strength like his?

In every respect, Kakashi was worried about Yeyu's safety.

Anko, sitting beside Kakashi, looked at Naruto and the water splashing around him. "Yeyu should be able to handle this."

"After all, even the West Tail Jinchuriki was sent flying all the way here by him."

"But Yeyu is ridiculously strong. Earlier, when Hiruzen told him to come with me on this mission, I had my doubts about his ability."

"No matter how talented or brilliant he is, he's only twelve."

"You were already exceptionally gifted back then, but since you became a Jonin, no one in Konoha has become one at twelve."

"But that was during wartime. You became a Jonin because it was easier to earn merit then, and because the village was short on people."

"But that guy really did just graduate from the Ninja Academy not long ago."

"He hasn't even been sent out on a single mission since."

"I didn't say anything to his face, but I'd always doubted his strength. I thought this mission would be a real headache, and that he'd just be dead weight."

"But after seeing Yeyu's strength just now, I feel like I'm the dead weight on this mission."

Anko spoke with self-deprecating humor.

Kakashi looked at Naruto in the distance, his expression grave. "But Naruto is already in his four-tailed state. Nobody knows whether more of the Nine-Tails Chakra leaking from him will make things worse."

"It's even possible that the Nine-Tails could break out of its seal completely."

"Could Yeyu really handle the Nine-Tails at full strength?"

"When the Nine-Tails was sealed again back then, the Fourth Hokage had to sacrifice himself."

"If Yeyu has to sacrifice his life to seal the Nine-Tails again this time—"

Kakashi couldn't bring himself to continue.

He didn't want that to happen.

The smile disappeared from Anko's face too.

She had realized the same thing.

She stood up and looked toward Naruto in the distance.

"I have to go help him."

Anko was going to help Yeyu.

But Kakashi stopped her. "What are you going to do?"

"This may hurt to hear, but if you go out there, you really will just become dead weight."

"Staying here and watching quietly is the best way to help him."

Anko clenched her fist, but Kakashi was right.

If she went out there now, she would only make things harder for Yeyu.

Naruto had been sent flying thousands of meters, kicking up a spray of water hundreds of meters high and nearly sinking to the bottom of the sea.

But the Tailed Beast Shroud protected him, and he wasn't hurt at all.

The fourth Chakra Tail behind him floated in the air, stretching more than twenty meters long.

Its blood-red color came from pure Nine-Tails Chakra.

Even from thousands of meters away, they could still clearly sense the extreme malice radiating from him.

"Roar!"

Naruto threw his head back and howled. His roar churned the sea for hundreds of meters around him.

The sound wave carried more than a thousand meters, nearly deafening Anko and the others on shore.

Covering her ears, Anko stared in shock. "That roar alone has so much power. The Nine-Tails is terrifying."

"I can't imagine the Fourth Hokage fighting a monster like that and managing to seal it."

Anko had been too young to take part in the battle against the Nine-Tails.

Kakashi's expression was grave.

Sakura, who had been lying silently nearby, spoke up. "Kakashi-sensei, what happened to Naruto?"

"How can he have such a terrifying power inside him?"

Sakura didn't know that Naruto was a Nine-Tails Jinchuriki.

The village children didn't know Naruto was a Nine-Tails Jinchuriki either.

They shunned Naruto simply because they had been influenced by the adults.

Sakura knew even less about it.

That much was clear from their time at the Ninja Academy.

She disliked Naruto because his grades were terrible, he was always skipping class and playing pranks, and most importantly, he was always provoking Sasuke.

It would have been stranger if she liked him.

But even though she disliked Naruto, she hadn't refused to talk to him. She was no different from the girls in class who disliked, or even hated, the students with poor grades.

So Sakura was completely bewildered now.

She couldn't understand why Naruto, who usually did so poorly in class and was so timid, could have such a terrifying power hidden inside him.

Kakashi was silent for a long time.

Anko spoke for him. "You're on the same team as him, right?"

"A Tailed Beast of Konoha is sealed inside him. People like him are called Jinchuriki."

"Now the Tailed Beast sealed inside him is trying to break free and wreak havoc."

"It's very dangerous."