Sage Fox Mode!

In the Grand Line, Minato Namikaze spun through the air after clashing with the Red Hair, landing atop the mast of another warship.

"Exhilarating! Your swordsmanship is so exquisite; I am no match for you!"

Minato was clad in a dark red Nine-Tails Chakra Mode cloak, two chakra-formed horns crowning his head, his words radiating a sense of intense satisfaction.

In this Nine-Tails Chakra Mode, fully mastered after his exchange in the Main God Space, his taijutsu, speed, and chakra reserves had all seen a massive, comprehensive boost, and he possessed greater stamina than he did in Sage Mode.

After all, one was Sage Chakra converted from his own chakra mixed with natural energy, while the other was the chakra of the Nine-Tails; the Sage Chakra might have higher quality and potential, but the Nine-Tails' chakra was nearly infinite!

Shanks protected the treasure chest with one hand while gripping his sword, Gryphon, with the other, asking, "How is it that there are hidden powerhouses like you within the Navy?"

Minato curled his lip; he had watched the entire encounter between the Red Hair Pirates and the Navy from under the protection of the Main God's barrier.

The moment the two sides began to fight, he had initiated his mission, expecting to easily seize victory amidst the chaos and complete his task smoothly, but he hadn't expected the Navy to be so useless, getting wiped out in a few strikes and failing even to stall for time.

["Red Hair" Shanks, wielder of all three types of Haki, a great swordsman of the seas, one of the top powerhouses of the One Piece World, captain of the Red Hair Pirates, and one of the "Four Emperors" of the New World. Once a crewmate of the Pirate King Roger, he is a man shrouded in mystery, maintaining connections with the Five Elders, the supreme leaders of the World Government, despite being a pirate.]

Recalling the information he had spent points to query in the Main God Space before the mission, Minato Namikaze felt deeply grave. He spoke up:

"Shanks, one of the top powerhouses of this world. I apologize, but I am not with the Navy, nor can I reveal my identity. However, I will not back down from this battle!"

"Ahahaha!"

Shanks scratched his head in embarrassment. "A top powerhouse? Have I become that famous?"

Shanks wore a simple, harmless smile, appearing like a warm and genial young man.

"As expected of our captain, hahahaha!"

"Exactly! Even the enemy has to praise Shanks! Wow!"

Minato did not underestimate the grinning Shanks in the slightest, settling his mind to communicate with the Yin Nine-Tails within him.

"Let's go, Kurama!"

"Heh, Minato Namikaze, take my power! Let this person from another world witness the might of this great one!"

The golden Minato leaped up, and while in mid-air, the golden chakra cloak on his body expanded wildly. Endless chakra surged from the Yin Nine-Tails within him, and in a few breaths, he transformed into a hundred-meter-long, lean, and imposing Nine-Tailed Fox.

The golden fox was etched with mysterious black patterns, its body wreathed in a storm of golden, flame-like energy, its nine tails dancing to blot out the sky.

"ROAR!"

The Nine-Tailed Fox let out a furious bellow, unleashing its terrifying chakra to the fullest. The massive body of the Nine-Tails-transformed Minato landed lightly on the sea, treading upon the water as if it were solid ground.

"What kind of fierce beast is this?"

The surviving Navy soldiers trembled in fear.

The members of the Red Hair Pirates ceased their playful banter, yet they made no further moves, for they trusted their captain!

And Shanks, feeling the Nine-Tails Chakra Mode head-on, had to admit that this form indeed exerted immense pressure.

"A Mythical Zoan? Doesn't look like it! In that case, I can't let myself be looked down upon either!"

Shanks tucked the treasure box into his coat, crouched slightly, and unleashed his Conqueror's Haki to the limit!

An unreasonable, tyrannical aura exploded outward with the Red Hair at its center. Those already pressured by the Nine-Tails' presence began to foam at the mouth and collapse under the weight of this domineering Conqueror's Haki.

"What a terrifying conqueror!"

Even in his Nine-Tails form, Minato had to divert a portion of his focus to channel chakra to resist the impact of this aura.

Meanwhile, the Yin Nine-Tails within him seemed provoked, roaring madly, "Kill him for me, Minato Namikaze!"

In his Nine-Tails form, Minato crouched slightly, his nine wildly dancing tails gathering together. Terrifying chakra energy flowed along the nine tails, converging into a horrific sphere.

Then, with a powerful sweep of his nine tails, a terrifying energy ball roughly three meters in diameter parted the sea, rushing toward Shanks with the momentum to destroy everything in its path.

"Tailed Beast Bomb!"

Minato's voice reached the ears of the onlookers just then, while the Tailed Beast Bomb grew larger as it flew...

"Hahaha, that's quite the commotion!"

Shanks laughed heartily, his left hand moving to sheath his blade as he gathered his strength. He focused his Conqueror's Haki, imbuing it into his weapon, and spoke slowly:

"Conqueror's Slash!"

A terrifying crescent-shaped sword wave flew out with the speed of thunder, flashing like lightning across the massive Tailed Beast Bomb and slicing it directly in two!

"He actually split a Tailed Beast Bomb head-on!"

Minato's narrow fox pupils contracted violently, a sense of absurdity surging in his heart. Before he could react, the crescent sword wave cleaved toward him without obstruction.

The Nine-Tails-transformed Minato barely dodged the slash with a desperate roll, but one of his tails was severed clean off! Fortunately, it was formed of concentrated energy, so it caused no physical harm.

"BOOM!"

The split Tailed Beast Bomb fell into the nearby sea, kicking up massive waves that rained down upon everyone.

Shanks' slash, however, continued to fly toward the distant sky after severing the tail, remaining undissipated.

"A lot of noise, but your attack isn't much!"

Shanks made what he considered an objective assessment. He then immediately leaped with one foot, sword in his right hand, and slashed toward the Nine-Tailed Fox's head.

"Then I shall have the honor of experiencing your superior techniques!"

Minato controlled the Nine-Tailed Fox's massive energy claws, meeting the sword's momentum head-on.

"Clang."

The blade beneath the Nine-Tailed Fox's claws was as thin as a toothpick, yet it pressed down with such force that the claws could not help but retreat.

Red-Haired, his momentum spent from the strike, used the Nine-Tailed Fox's energy-clad body as a springboard to leap onto its head.

He gripped his sword hilt with one hand, reverse-handed, intending to plunge it straight into the beast's skull.

Minato would never allow such a thing; the nine tails whipped toward Shanks with a speed that defied their massive size.

Shanks's eyes narrowed, Conqueror's Haki once again coiling around his blade. Without needing to charge, he moved with lightning speed, severing all nine thick tails in quick succession.

Minato felt the Yin Nine-Tails within him growing frantic and hurried to soothe it before channeling chakra to regenerate the tails.

"Quite the impressive recovery!"

Red-Haired forced the nine demonic tails back, his sword momentum gathering for a downward strike.

The massive body of the Nine-Tailed Fox began to shake violently, as if entering a berserk state, intent on throwing off the man atop it.

The restless beast beneath his feet and the constant surges of energy forced Red-Haired to abandon the idea of fighting on the fox's head. He leaped away, returning to the original warship.

The Nine-Tailed Fox's frantic movements ceased. It crouched low, its nine tails lashing out even more wildly as dozens of energy spheres began to coalesce at their tips.

The immense energy gathered into spheres, causing the entire space to dim, as if one were a lone boat caught in the midst of a raging storm.

"Not good, this intensity! Everyone, gather round!"

Red-Haired's expression turned grave as he signaled his crew to gather behind him.

"Time to get serious!"

Shanks stepped back with one foot, sheathing Gryphon. He assumed an iaido stance, compressing the Conqueror's Haki overflowing from his body into a small area on his skin, then channeling it into his blade to unleash it all in one strike.

"Divine Departure!"

A swift, consecutive iaido slash sent dozens of white sword beams meeting the Tailed Beast Bombs, deflecting them one by one in other directions.

The onlookers felt as if they were in the eye of a hurricane, surrounded by torrential rain and a raging, endless energy storm.

With the Tailed Beast Bombs failing to achieve results once again, Minato's heart sank. He communicated with the Nine-Tailed Fox in his mind.

"Kurama, this opponent is absurdly strong. I need you to coordinate with my Sage power."

"Though I despise mixing my power with that of a toad, I despise being underestimated by an outsider even more. Do as you will, Minato Namikaze," the Nine-Tailed Fox roared.

Minato, positioned within the energy-formed head of the Nine-Tailed Fox, pressed his palms together to focus on gathering natural energy, while the nine demonic tails behind him continued to lash out, 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 intermediate level. Beyond the massive boosts to basic attributes like strength, speed, defense, and constitution, he also gained malice sensing and a vast reserve of Nine-Tails chakra.

Sage Mode, meanwhile, involved fusing one's own chakra with external natural energy to create senjutsu chakra. While superior in quality to Nine-Tails chakra, it was limited by the user's constitution and chakra reserves, making it unsustainable—usually lasting anywhere from a few minutes to an hour—with the effectiveness scaling to the user's own ability.

Compared to this, Sage Mode provided Minato with fewer raw gains than Nine-Tails Chakra Mode. However, Nine-Tails Chakra Mode had a high floor but a low ceiling, as it could only ever utilize half of the Nine-Tailed Fox's power.

Sage Mode had a low floor but a high ceiling; while common curse marks were merely semi-finished versions of Sage Mode, Hashirama Senju's use of it in battle proved that the two were worlds apart.

Activating Sage Mode while in Nine-Tails Chakra Mode allowed their advantages to complement one another. The Nine-Tailed Fox helped gather natural energy, and by fusing it with Nine-Tails chakra to create senjutsu chakra, the issues of sustainability and quality were resolved, resulting in a massive boost to the user's strength.

Minato, wrapped in the dark red Nine-Tails chakra cloak, kept his eyes tightly shut as the chakra on his skin boiled and gathered. Finally, the energy reached a critical point.

Minato Namikaze's eyes snapped open. His thin, beast-like pupils now featured a horizontal slit, his eyes forming a cross shape, with the orange-red senjutsu chakra markings unique to Sage Mode appearing around his eyes.

[System]

The chakra cloak on the Nine-Tailed Fox's body also gained black markings, constantly absorbing natural energy from the surroundings, causing the sea to grow increasingly violent, as if the battlefield were at the center of a storm.

Red-Haired appeared to be putting his all into blocking the relentless Tailed Beast Bombs, but in reality, he kept part of his focus on Minato. When he saw Minato complete the Nine-Tails Sage Mode, he immediately grew alert.

Red-Haired channeled his Haki, and Gryphon erupted with a majestic aura. A strike with more power than any previous slash flew from his blade, cutting through the incoming small Tailed Beast Bombs before growing even larger and heading straight for the fox's head.

Minato immediately ceased the output of Tailed Beast Bombs, instead diverting a portion of the gathered senjutsu chakra to cover his front claws.

The dozens-of-meters-tall Nine-Tailed Fox stood upright like a human, its front claws reaching out to catch the incoming slash head-on.

By this point, the slash had expanded to dozens of meters in length during its flight, yet when it struck the fox's claws, it was held firmly in place, unable to move.

Feeling the incomparably sharp slash vibrating in its palms, the giant fox face wore a human-like smile. As the claws tightened slightly, the massive slash was crushed to pieces. The overflowing energy seemed to encounter a counteracting force, dissipating into nothingness without causing a single ripple.

If one hadn't seen it with their own eyes, it would be hard to believe that such a massive slash could be "bare-handed" so easily, and without a sound or a ripple. The sheer contrast was unbelievable.

After unleashing this strike, Red-Haired did not continue his assault. Instead, he tossed the treasure box he had been carrying to Benn Beckman.

"Beckman, take the goods and the men and get away from the battlefield. I don't want to destroy the Red Force."

As his first mate, Beckman trusted Red-Haired unconditionally. He secured the treasure box containing the Devil Fruit and led the crew back to the Red Force, moving away from the battlefield.

The remaining Marines also fled the scene of the duel, retreating to the only other remaining warship to put distance between themselves and the fight.

Red-Haired now stood upon the wreckage of the warship, facing the Nine-Tailed Fox that radiated a violent aura across the sea. Despite their different power systems, Red-Haired's intuition as a top-tier powerhouse allowed him to sense the uniqueness of Minato's Sage Fox Mode, and he couldn't help but remark:

"Even without any Haki, you have perfectly integrated all your energy and achieved a balance with the world around you. Someone like you is qualified to vie for the title of the strongest on the seas!"

As the words fell, Shanks mobilized his Armament Haki, Observation Haki, and Conqueror's Haki, condensing them upon his skin without releasing them, controlling them as they slowly merged.

A wave of black energy spread rapidly from the center of the Red Hair's navel, and in a mere moment, his entire body seemed to transform into a humanoid black beast.

Streaks of red patterns were etched across his skin, and a mixture of Haki imbued with an unknown aura flowed incessantly, creating a dense protective layer. The longsword in his hand, Gryphon, had turned completely into a black blade, wrapped in thick, potent Haki.

"Hoo~"

Shanks exhaled a long breath. His red hair, now grown to his shoulders and back due to the surge of vitality within him, danced in the wind like living flames. As he exhaled, the warship beneath his feet groaned, and the second deck, already unable to bear the pressure, shattered instantly.

"Forgive me for showing you this form."

Shanks's voice sounded slightly rougher than before.

"I haven't fully mastered this state yet. After all, integrating and refining the three colors of Haki into one is a power only the top powerhouses of the sea can grasp!"

The Nine-Tails, manifested by Minato Namikaze, seemed to sense the threat and returned to a quadrupedal stance.

It lowered its upper body slightly, its massive jaws parting as a turbulent, violent mixture of Tailed Beast chakra and Sage chakra coalesced. A pitch-black Tailed Beast Bomb formed instantly, shot from the Nine-Tails' maw, and headed straight for Shanks.

In his new form, Shanks kicked off the air with a sonic boom. Moving like an arrow released from a bow, he dodged the Tailed Beast Bomb and lunged directly toward the Nine-Tails' head.

"BOOM!" The warship Shanks had been standing on was annihilated into fragments by the Tailed Beast Bomb, sending a massive spray of water surging across the sea.

Covered in Haki, Shanks's speed skyrocketed. He nimbly dodged the interception of the nine tails in mid-air and landed squarely on the Nine-Tails' head. Giving Minato no time to react, he raised his blade and drove it downward, piercing deep into the energy-constructed skull.

The Haki contained within the blade poured fiercely into the Nine-Tails' energy head. The violent, integrated Haki caused internal destruction, and the massive, energy-based skull exploded instantly.

Feeling his blade strike home, Shanks leaped away from the demon fox's head. Now hovering in mid-air by treading on the air with a technique similar to Moonwalk, he carefully sensed Minato Namikaze in his Nine-Tails form amidst the massive explosion.

As the smoke cleared, only half of the demon fox's head remained. Minato, inside the skull, appeared unharmed, though the chakra cloak covering his body had dimmed significantly.

That was dangerous! Minato thought to himself.

The internal destructive power of Shanks's integrated Haki was incredibly violent and swift. He had expected a domineering slash, but he hadn't anticipated that this so-called Haki possessed a special internal-destruction attribute, shattering the Nine-Tails' head directly.

Had he not used a vast amount of converted Nine-Tails Sage chakra to neutralize the blast, he would have been forced out of Nine-Tails Sage Mode entirely.

Even so, that internally detonated attack had consumed a significant portion of the Sage chakra the Nine-Tails had just converted.

I cannot let him get close!

Minato mobilized his remaining chakra to repair the Nine-Tails' body. Moments later, the energy-based head was as good as new.

Shanks frowned as he watched the Nine-Tails' body recover.

"You're certainly durable."

Realizing he had already achieved the purpose of his trip, he considered retreating. But before he could act, he felt a massive threat!

The Nine-Tails opened its massive jaws wide, and a black Tailed Beast Bomb, far larger than the previous one, began to coalesce frantically. It whipped up a storm across the sea, and dark clouds gathered in the sky as if thunder were about to strike.

Minato said to the Nine-Tails within him, "Kurama, release the Tailed Beast Bomb with everything you have! I will inject the Sage chakra!"

"Leave it to me, kid! Do it!"

As the Nine-Tails condensed the super-sized Tailed Beast Bomb, Minato poured massive amounts of Sage chakra into it. The Tailed Beast Bomb's color grew deeper and more chaotic due to the infusion of Sage energy, and the overflowing aura of power turned the entire space upside down.

Shanks did not sit idly by. Relying on the foresight of his Observation Haki, he clearly sensed the terror of the incoming attack and struck first.

Black light flowed rapidly over his skin, and the red patterns on his body pulsed with a scorching heat as if they had come to life.

The mixture of black and red energy surged into Gryphon. Shanks sheathed his blade, crouched slightly in mid-air, and assumed a drawing stance. His aura was as deep as an abyss, his face like that of an Asura. When his momentum and energy reached their peak, he drew his sword!

"Divine Departure? Acala!"

A dark red sword wave erupted violently. Fused with the Red Hair's domineering will, it manifested as a Bodhisattva figure—dark blue-black in color, with a perfect, wrathful expression, draped in black karmic fire, holding a sharp sword in its right hand and a rope in its left!

Though slightly smaller than the Nine-Tails, its presence was no less imposing!

Once manifested, Acala assumed a wrathful posture of subduing demons and charged straight at the Nine-Tails.

Faced with this, Minato immediately stopped injecting Sage chakra and released the half-finished Sage Tailed Beast Bomb toward the manifested Acala.

The two terrifying attacks collided, creating a scene akin to the center of a small nuclear explosion. The horrific shockwave of energy swept across the entire nearby sea, nearly capsizing the Red Force, which had stopped in the distance to watch the battle.

After stabilizing the ship, Yasopp, the sniper of the Red Hair Pirates, couldn't help but break into a cold sweat. "With intensity like that, the Captain should be able to win, right?"

Benn Beckman, the first mate, puffed on his cigar and said, "Shanks is capable of far more than this. Trust our Captain!"

"Damn the Red Hair Pirates! Fight, keep fighting—it would be best if you both end up crippled!"

On a fleeing warship in the distance, Who's-Who had regained consciousness with the help of his soldiers, the wounds left by the Red Hair still stinging his nerves.

Though he didn't know who had appeared to block the Red Hair, his mission had undoubtedly failed. The thought of the Celestial Dragons' fury upon his return filled him with deep despair.

As the nuclear-like storm of air currents dissipated, the two figures at the center of the clash gradually became clear.

Shanks had exited his integrated Haki state, and he appeared to have suffered no significant injuries.

On the other side, Minato had also exited Nine-Tails Sage Mode.

The close-range collision between the Red Hair's sword technique and the Sage Tailed Beast Bomb had consumed more than half of his chakra cloak and natural energy.

Yet, his opponent's stamina seemed as if he could continue fighting for three days and three nights.

Minato's heart sank as he thought to himself, The powerhouses of this One Piece World possess physiques far surpassing those of the Ninja World. Both Kizaru and this Red-Haired are monsters; their stamina, endurance, and recovery are not human. If this stalemate continues, it will be to my disadvantage!

In Sage Fox Mode, Minato's chakra was nearly infinite, but it still consumed physical strength! And in that regard, the powerhouses of the One Piece World held the advantage.

Minato pondered silently in his mind, Main Mission One is to seize the mysterious Devil Fruit, but it seemed Red-Haired handed it off to his companion earlier. If I were to retreat now, I wonder if that would count as a mission failure?

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

[Main Mission One completion deadline: 70:01:59!]

Seeing the countdown appear, Minato felt more assured. He steadied his slightly wavering focus and threw himself back into the fray with Red-Haired, plunging the entire sea once more into a tempest of wind and rain...