Sage Fox Mode!

On the Grand Line, after clashing with Red-Haired in a single move, Minato spun backward through the air and landed atop the mast of another warship.

"Wonderful! Your swordsmanship is so exquisite—I'm no match for you!"

Minato wore a dark-red Chakra Cloak. Two curved horns formed from Chakra rose from his head, and his voice brimmed with exhilaration.

In this Nine-Tails Chakra Mode, which he had fully mastered after exchanging for it, his Taijutsu, speed, and Chakra reserves had all increased dramatically. He also had much greater staying power than in Sage Mode.

After all, one was Senjutsu Chakra, made by combining his own Chakra with Natural Energy, while the other was the Nine-Tails' Chakra. Senjutsu Chakra might be of higher quality and have greater potential, but the Nine-Tails' Chakra was practically inexhaustible!

Shanks shielded the treasure chest with one hand and gripped his sword, Gryphon, with the other. "How does the Navy have a hidden powerhouse like you?"

Minato's mouth twitched. He had watched the entire encounter between the Red Hair Pirates and the Navy from beneath the Main God's protective barrier.

As soon as the two sides began fighting, he had started his mission. He had expected to take advantage of the chaos and complete it with ease. He hadn't expected the Navy to be so useless—they'd been beaten in moments and hadn't even managed to buy him any time.

["Red-Haired" Shanks, wielder of the Three Types of Haki and a master swordsman of the seas, is one of the One Piece World's top fighters and captain of the Red Hair Pirates. He is one of the "Four Emperors" of the New World and was once a crew member of Pirate King Roger. Though a pirate, he is in contact with the Five Elders, the highest leaders of the World Government. He is a man shrouded in mystery.]

Recalling the information he had spent points to look up in the Main God Space before the mission, Minato Namikaze felt a heavy weight settle in his heart. He said, "Shanks, you're one of this world's top fighters. I'm sorry, but I'm not a Marine, and I can't reveal my identity. But I won't back down from this fight!"

"Ahahaha!"

Shanks scratched his head sheepishly. "A top fighter? Am I really that famous?"

Shanks flashed a guileless, harmless smile, looking like a warm and easygoing young man.

"As expected of our captain! Hahaha!"

"That's right! Even the enemy has to praise Shanks! Whoa!"

Minato paid no heed to Shanks's silly grin. He focused his mind and reached out to the Yin Nine-Tails within him.

"Here we go, Kurama!"

"Heh. Minato Namikaze, take my power. Let this outsider see what I can do!"

Golden Minato leaped into the air. As he rose, the golden Chakra Cloak around him rapidly expanded. Boundless Chakra surged from the Yin Nine-Tails within him, and in the space of a few breaths, he transformed into a lean, imposing Nine-Tailed Fox a hundred meters tall.

Black, mysterious patterns marked the golden fox's body. A golden, flame-like storm of energy blazed around him, while his nine tails waved across the sky, blotting it out.

"Roar!"

The Nine-Tailed Fox roared, unleashing its terrifying Chakra. Minato, transformed into the Nine-Tails, moved across the water as easily as solid ground and landed lightly on the sea.

"What kind of Ferocious Beast is that?"

The remaining Marines trembled in fear.

The Red Hair Pirates stopped joking around, but made no further move. They trusted their captain!

Even Shanks, facing the full force of Nine-Tails Chakra Mode, had to admit that the form was intimidating.

"A Mythical Zoan? It doesn't look like one. In that case, I can't let myself be underestimated either!"

Shanks tucked the treasure chest safely inside his clothes, bent his knees slightly, and unleashed his Conqueror's Haki at full force!

An unreasonable, overwhelming aura burst outward from Red-Haired. The people already pressured by the Nine-Tails' presence all foamed at the mouth and fainted beneath the domineering force of his Conqueror's Haki.

"What a terrifying conqueror!"

Even Minato, facing that Haki in Nine-Tails Chakra Mode, had to devote some of his attention to mobilizing Chakra against its effects.

The Yin Nine-Tails inside him, however, seemed to take it as a provocation and roared furiously.

"Kill him, Minato Namikaze!"

Minato's massive, transformed body crouched slightly. His nine freely swaying tails drew together as terrifying Chakra flowed along them, converging into a monstrous sphere.

Then the nine tails whipped forward, sending a terrifying energy sphere roughly three meters across tearing through the sea toward Shanks, carrying the force to destroy everything in its path.

"Tailed Beast Bomb!"

Only then did Minato's voice reach the others. As the Tailed Beast Bomb flew, it continued to grow...

"Hahaha! That's quite a spectacle!"

Shanks laughed heartily. He drew his left hand back as if preparing to unsheathe his sword. His Conqueror's Haki condensed and wrapped around the weapon in his hand. Then he said slowly,

"Conqueror's Slash!"

A terrifying crescent-shaped slash shot out like a bolt of lightning. It flashed across the enormous Tailed Beast Bomb and cleaved it cleanly in two!

"He can even break a Tailed Beast Bomb head-on!"

The Nine-Tailed Fox's narrow eyes contracted sharply. A powerful sense of disbelief welled up within Minato. Before he could react, the crescent-shaped slash continued on, unhindered, straight toward him.

Minato's Nine-Tails form barely dodged the slash with an awkward roll, but one of his tails was severed! Fortunately, it had been formed from energy, so there was no physical injury.

"Rumble!"

The two halves of the Tailed Beast Bomb hit the sea in the distance, raising a towering wave. Rain-like spray showered everyone.

Shanks's slash, however, kept flying after cutting off one of the Nine-Tails' tails, and eventually vanished into the distant sky.

"Quite a show, but the attack itself wasn't much," Shanks remarked, giving what he considered an objective assessment. Then he immediately sprang forward, sword in his right hand, and slashed at the Nine-Tails' head.

"Then I'll be glad to see your best!"

Minato controlled one of the Nine-Tails' enormous energy claws and met the sword head-on.

"Clang!"

The blade beneath the Nine-Tailed Fox's claw was as thin as a toothpick, yet it forced the claw to give ground.

Red-Haired's first attack had run its course. Using the Nine-Tails' body to propel himself, he leaped onto the fox's head.

He gripped his sword with one hand in a reverse hold, ready to drive it into the Nine-Tails' head.

Minato wouldn't let him have his way. The nine tails lashed toward Shanks at a speed that belied their size.

Shanks's eyes sharpened. Haki wrapped around his blade once more, and without needing to build up power, he sliced through the nine thick tails one after another with blinding speed.

Feeling the Yin Nine-Tails inside him on the verge of going berserk, Minato hurriedly calmed it down, then used Chakra to restore the tails.

"That's some impressive regeneration!"

Red-Haired pushed back the nine tails and gathered his strength to strike downward.

The enormous Nine-Tails began to thrash violently, as if entering a berserk state, trying to throw the man standing on its head.

With the Nine-Tails bucking beneath him and bursts of energy battering him from time to time, Red-Haired abandoned the idea of fighting on its head. He leaped away and landed back on the warship where the fight had begun.

The Nine-Tails stopped thrashing. It lowered its limbs slightly as its nine tails began whipping about even more wildly. Dozens of energy spheres started forming at their tips.

Vast amounts of energy gathered into one sphere after another, and the entire space dimmed, as if they were a lone boat in the midst of a raging storm.

"Not good! That's too much power! Everyone, get behind me!"

Red-Haired's expression grew serious as he called his crew to gather behind him.

"Guess I'll have to get serious!"

Shanks moved one foot half a step back and sheathed Gryphon, settling into an iaijutsu stance. He compressed his surging Conqueror's Haki into a small area around his body, then wrapped it around his sword and poured it all into his attack.

"Divine Departure!"

With a swift series of iaijutsu strikes, dozens of white sword beams shot toward the Tailed Beast Bombs, cutting them aside one after another and sending them flying in different directions.

Everyone felt as if they were in the eye of a hurricane. Rain fell everywhere, and endless energy storms raged around them.

Once again, the Tailed Beast Bombs failed to hit their mark. Minato's heart sank. He communicated with the Nine-Tails in his mind.

"Kurama, this opponent is absurdly strong. I need you to work with my Senjutsu."

"I don't like mixing my power with a Toad's, but I hate being underestimated by an outsider even more. Go ahead, Minato Namikaze!" the Nine-Tails roared.

Minato was inside the Nine-Tails' energy-formed head. He pressed his hands together and focused on gathering Natural Energy, while the nine tails behind him kept moving, creating Tailed Beast Bombs to keep Red-Haired and his crew at bay.

In Nine-Tails Chakra Mode, Minato Namikaze's strength had risen from the early third tier to the middle tier. In addition to major boosts to his strength, speed, defense, and constitution, he had also gained Malice Perception and the Nine-Tails' Chakra reserves.

Sage Mode, by contrast, fused the user's Chakra with Natural Energy from the outside world to produce Senjutsu Chakra. Its quality was higher than that of the Nine-Tails' Chakra, but the user's constitution and Chakra reserves limited its duration. It generally lasted anywhere from a few minutes to several dozen, and its boost depended on the user's abilities.

Compared to Nine-Tails Chakra Mode, Sage Mode didn't boost Minato as much. But Nine-Tails Chakra Mode had a high floor and a low ceiling: at most, he could bring out half of the Nine-Tails' power.

Sage Mode was the opposite, with a low floor and a high ceiling. Even the mass-produced Cursed Seal could be considered a crude, incomplete Sage Mode, yet Hashirama Senju also used Sage Mode in battle. The two were worlds apart!

Combining Sage Mode with Nine-Tails Chakra Mode brought out the strengths of both. The Nine-Tails could help gather Natural Energy, and using its Chakra to fuse with Natural Energy to create Senjutsu Chakra solved the problems of endurance and quality, greatly increasing the user's power!

Minato stood with his eyes shut, wrapped in a dark-red Nine-Tails Chakra Cloak. Chakra surged over his body, gathering until the energy finally reached a critical point!

Minato Namikaze suddenly opened his eyes. A horizontal pupil appeared within his long, narrow, bestial pupils, forming a cross. The distinctive orange-red Senjutsu Chakra markings of Sage Mode appeared around his eyes.

[ ]

The Chakra Cloak on the Nine-Tailed Fox also gained streaks of black, continuously fusing with the Natural Energy around it. The sea grew ever more violent, as if the battlefield had been engulfed by the eye of a storm...

Red-Haired appeared to be fighting at full strength, swinging his sword to fend off the Nine-Tails' relentless Tailed Beast Bombs. In truth, he was devoting part of his attention to watching Minato. The moment Minato completed Nine-Tails Sage Mode, he grew alert.

Red-Haired drew on his Haki. Gryphon in his hand released a tremendous force, and a surge of power far greater than any of his previous slashes burst from the blade. It cut through every small Tailed Beast Bomb that came its way, growing stronger as it flew straight toward the fox's head.

Minato immediately stopped firing Tailed Beast Bombs and instead directed some of the Senjutsu Chakra he had gathered into the fox's forepaws.

The several-dozen-meter-tall Nine-Tailed Fox rose onto its hind legs like a human. It thrust both forepaws forward and caught the incoming slash head-on.

By then, the slash had grown to dozens of meters in length as it flew. Yet when it struck the Nine-Tails' paws, it was caught firmly and held motionless.

Feeling the incomparably sharp slash struggle in its palms, the giant fox's face took on a distinctly human smile. Its paws closed slightly, and the enormous slash was crushed to pieces. The scattered energy seemed to meet a counteracting force and vanish into thin air, without causing the slightest disturbance!

It was hard to believe the enormous slash had been crushed so easily with "bare hands"—and that it had disappeared without a sound or a ripple. The stark contrast was almost unbelievable.

Red-Haired didn't follow up after delivering that slash. Instead, he tossed the treasure chest in his arms to Beckman.

"Beckman, take the chest and the others away from the battlefield. I don't want to wreck the Red Force."

Beckman, the vice-captain, trusted Red-Haired without question. He secured the treasure chest containing the Devil Fruit, then led the others back to the Red Force and away from the battle.

The remaining Marines also fled the battlefield and headed for the only other warship left, hoping to put more distance between themselves and the fight.

Red-Haired now stood atop the battered warship, facing the Nine-Tailed Fox, which radiated a berserk aura out on the sea. Though their power systems were different, his instincts as a top fighter still sensed how special Minato's Sage Fox Mode was. He couldn't help exclaiming,

"You don't have a trace of Haki, yet you've perfectly unified all your own energy and balanced it with the energy around you. Someone like you has what it takes to contend for the title of the sea's strongest fighter!"

As he spoke, Shanks brought his Armament, Observation, and Conqueror's Haki into play. He gathered them without releasing them, controlling them as they slowly merged...

Black energy rapidly spread from Red-Haired's navel. In moments, his whole body seemed to become that of a black, humanoid beast.

Red patterns marked his entire body. A strange Haki, unlike anything before, flowed over him as his three types of Haki merged, forming a dense layer of protection around his body. Gryphon had become a Black Blade, wreathed in potent Haki.

"Phew..."

Red-Haired let out a long breath. His red hair had grown to his shoulders and back, its sudden growth caused by the surge of life force inside him. It danced in the breeze like living flames. The warship beneath his feet shuddered, and the already-strained second deck broke apart under the force of his breath.

"This form of mine may make a spectacle of me, but please forgive me for it."

Red-Haired's voice was a little rougher than before.

"I still haven't mastered this form. After all, combining and refining all three types of Haki is a power only the sea's top fighters can wield!"

The Nine-Tails that Minato had become seemed to sense the threat. It had returned to a four-legged stance.

It lowered its upper body slightly and opened its jaws. A torrent of raging Tailed Beast Senjutsu Chakra mingled together, and a black Tailed Beast Bomb instantly took shape. The Nine-Tails spat it out, sending it straight toward Shanks.

Shanks's new form let him kick off the air with an explosive bang. His body shot forward like an arrow, dodging the Tailed Beast Bomb as he raced toward the Nine-Tails' head.

"Boom!" The warship where Shanks had stood a moment earlier was obliterated by the Tailed Beast Bomb, and a wave surged across the sea.

With his entire body covered in Haki, Shanks moved with explosive speed. He nimbly dodged the nine tails as they tried to block him, landed squarely on the Nine-Tails' head, and left Minato no time to react. His sword plunged into the energy-formed head in a single downward strike.

The Haki within the sword poured savagely into the Nine-Tails' energy-formed head. The violent, unified Haki wreaked havoc from within, and the enormous head exploded!

After feeling his sword strike its target, Shanks left the fox's head. He now stood in midair, using a technique resembling Geppo to tread on the air as he carefully sensed Minato's presence amid the enormous explosion.

As the smoke cleared, only half of the Nine-Tailed Fox's head remained. Minato inside it didn't appear injured, but the Chakra Cloak around his body had dimmed considerably.

"That was close!" Minato thought.

The destructive force of Shanks's unified Haki was incredibly violent and swift from within. Minato had thought he was facing a domineering slash, but he hadn't expected Haki to have a special internal-destruction property. It had blown apart the Nine-Tails' head from the inside.

If he hadn't used the large amount of converted Senjutsu Chakra to counter the explosion, he would have been knocked straight out of Nine-Tails Sage Mode.

Even so, the attack that had exploded from within had consumed a large amount of the Senjutsu Chakra the Nine-Tails had just converted.

I can't let him get close!

Minato used the Chakra he had left to repair the Nine-Tails' body. Moments later, its energy-formed head was whole again.

Shanks frowned at the restored Nine-Tails.

"That thing can really take a beating."

Thinking he had already accomplished the objective of his trip, Shanks had begun considering a retreat. But before he could act, he felt a tremendous threat!

The transformed fox opened its jaws wide. A black Tailed Beast Bomb, far larger than before, began to form at a furious rate. Storm winds whipped across the sea, dark clouds gathered overhead, and it seemed as if lightning were about to strike.

"Kurama, release the Tailed Beast Bomb at full power. I'll infuse it with Senjutsu Chakra!"

"Leave it to me. Do your thing!"

As the Nine-Tails formed the oversized Tailed Beast Bomb, Minato poured a large amount of Senjutsu Chakra into it. The Senjutsu made the bomb's color grow darker and more chaotic, while the energy it gave off churned the entire area into chaos...

Shanks didn't sit back and wait. Using Observation Haki to foresee the attack, he could clearly sense just how terrifying it was, so he struck first.

Black light flowed rapidly over his body, and the red patterns on him seemed to come alive, radiating a searing energy.

Black-and-red energy flowed into Gryphon. Shanks sheathed his sword, crouched slightly in midair, and took a drawing stance. His aura ran deep as an abyss; his face was as fierce as Asura's. When his power and energy reached their peak, he drew his sword in one smooth motion!

"Divine Departure: Immovable Wisdom King!"

A violent, dark-red slash burst forth. Wreathed in Red-Haired's domineering will, it took the form of a deity with a blue-black body and a perfectly proportioned, wrathful appearance. Black hellfire burned around it; it held a sharp sword in its right hand and a noose in its left!

The Immovable Wisdom King appeared in an immense form. Though it was slightly smaller than the Nine-Tails, its presence was no less imposing!

The Immovable Wisdom King took on a wrathful, demon-subduing stance and charged straight at the Nine-Tails.

Faced with this, Minato immediately stopped adding Senjutsu Chakra and fired the half-finished Senjutsu Tailed Beast Bomb at the manifested deity.

The two terrifying attacks collided, creating a scene like the center of a small nuclear blast. A dreadful shockwave swept across the surrounding sea. Even the Red Force, anchored in the distance, was nearly overturned by the towering waves.

Once the ship steadied, Yasopp, the Red Hair Pirates' sniper, couldn't help breaking into a cold sweat. "At this level, our captain should win, right?"

Vice-captain Beckman took a drag on his cigar and said,

"Shanks is capable of more than this. Trust our captain!"

"Damn you, Red Hair Pirates! Fight! Keep fighting—hopefully you'll both go down!"

On a warship fleeing in the distance, Who's-Who had woken up with the soldiers' help. The wound Red-Haired had left on him continued to torment him.

He didn't know where the person who had stopped Red-Haired had come from, but there was no doubt his mission had failed. Thinking of the Celestial Dragon's fury when he returned, he was filled with despair...

The shock waves of the nuclear-like blast spread in all directions. Two figures gradually emerged at the center of the battle.

Shanks had left his unified-Haki form and showed no obvious injuries.

Minato, meanwhile, had also left Nine-Tails Sage Mode.

The close-range collision between Red-Haired's sword technique and the Senjutsu Tailed Beast Bomb had consumed most of the Chakra Cloak and Natural Energy around him...

His opponent, by contrast, looked as if he could keep fighting for three more days and nights.

Minato's heart sank, and he thought to himself,

"This One Piece World's strong fighters are far tougher than people in the Ninja World. Kizaru and this Red-Haired man are both monsters. Their stamina, endurance, and recovery are inhuman. If this goes on, I'll be at a disadvantage!"

Although Minato's Chakra was practically infinite in Sage Fox Mode, using it still took a toll on his stamina! And stamina happened to be one of the sea's strongest fighters' greatest strengths.

Minato thought silently,

"The first main mission is to seize the mysterious Devil Fruit, but it seems Red-Haired gave it to his companion earlier. If I retreat for now, will that count as mission failure?"

The Reincarnator System in his mind seemed to sense his thoughts and replied:

[Time remaining to complete Main Mission One: 70:01:59!]

Seeing the countdown appear, Minato felt reassured. He steadied himself and continued fighting Red-Haired with all his might, and the entire sea was once again engulfed in raging winds and torrential rain...