Sage Mode: Gamamaru's Shock

The black cloak with red clouds, the Spiral Mask—as soon as the Great Toad Sage made out the outfit, he sensed the bottomless, icy chakra within the stranger.

Something was wrong!

That chakra—there was a Tailed Beast in it!

The Great Toad Sage could not understand how the one who would bring destruction could be a Jinchuriki.

Which one? He had checked every Jinchuriki with the Telescope Technique. None of them had shown anything unusual.

Before he could work out what he had missed, Toji spoke first. "A pleasure to meet you, Great Toad Sage of Mount Myōboku."

"Or should I call you Gamamaru?"

Gamamaru's pupils contracted. The shinobi who knew that name should have vanished into the long river of time. Only Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki, whom he met in dreams, still called him that.

The man before him was a Jinchuriki, yet he knew secrets from the Ancient Era.

Those two utterly incompatible traits should not have existed in the same shinobi in this age.

Gamamaru did not fear death. But this bizarre situation filled him with dread and unease, as though he had witnessed a sage's unfathomable power.

"Who are you?"

"The man who's come to take your life."

Toji breathed a silent sigh of relief.

He had not been sure whether Gamamaru's prophecy contained information about him, or, if it did, how much the old toad knew about his identity.

But that brief exchange told him what he needed to know.

Gamamaru did not know who he really was.

That put his mind at ease.

Toji silently released his Yin Seal and activated Body Activation and Flesh Regeneration, bringing himself to full strength from the outset.

"You really are underestimating me."

The Great Toad Sage sighed.

He knew he was unlikely to survive today, but he would struggle