Nine-Tails Chakra

"What are you doing, running in here?!" Sasuke growled at Naruto as he dodged the ice needles shooting in from every direction, fine beads of sweat seeping across his forehead from tension and anger.

He had never expected Naruto to be this reckless. He had clearly been on the verge of finding a way to break Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals, but the moment this guy barged in, he completely threw off his rhythm instead.

Naruto froze for a second after Sasuke shouted at him, then realized he seemed to have made things worse. His cheeks flushed slightly, but he refused to admit defeat. "I-I just saw you couldn't beat him by yourself! How was I supposed to know it was this weird in here..."

As he spoke, he looked around at the ice-crystal mirrors constantly reflecting Haku's figure, only to feel dizzy and dazzled. He could not tell which direction was safe at all.

Haku looked at Naruto, who had suddenly barged in, and a hint of surprise flashed through his eyes, but the movements of his hands did not pause in the slightest.

His fingertips gathered force, and several ice needles shot toward Sasuke and Naruto separately, the attacks becoming even denser. Originally, Sasuke had still been able to barely maneuver between the ice crystals by relying on the insight of his Sharingan, but now that Naruto, who could not find his bearings at all, had been added into the mix, he immediately became somewhat flustered.

"Watch your left!" Sasuke shoved Naruto aside just as he was about to be hit by an ice needle, but because his movement was too wide, another ice needle grazed his shoulder, leaving behind a thin line of blood. Fresh blood instantly dyed his clothes red, and his gaze grew even sharper.

"Sasuke!" Naruto cried out in alarm. Looking at the wound on Sasuke's shoulder, guilt and fury surged in his heart. "Damn it! You bastard, if you've got the guts, come at me!" he roared, forming hand seals wildly. "Shadow Clone Technique!"

With several muffled poof, poof, poof sounds, more than a dozen Naruto clones appeared on the spot. They each swung their fists, smashing randomly at the surrounding ice-crystal mirrors. However, the strength of these clones was nothing worth mentioning against the sturdy ice crystals. Their fists only produced dull bang, bang sounds when they struck the mirrors, but the mirrors did not budge at all. Instead, the recoil left the clones in a complete mess.

Haku smiled lightly, his figure shuttling between the ice crystals as if taking a leisurely stroll through a courtyard.

Sasuke looked at those useless clones, then at Naruto's real body struggling desperately between the ice crystals, and anxiety filled his heart. He knew this could not go on. They had to find a way to break this ninjutsu, or sooner or later, Haku would wear them down to death here.

At that moment, outside, Duanmu, Kakashi, and the others had already been completely restricted by Zabuza's Hidden Mist Technique. They did not know Zabuza's position, so they did not dare carelessly divide their attention to support Sasuke and Naruto.

Although Kakashi's Sharingan could see through some of the illusions in the mist, Zabuza's Water Release ninjutsu had perfectly merged with the Hidden Mist Technique, constantly creating Water Clone Technique clones that were impossible to distinguish as true or false to interfere with his judgment. Every swing of the Executioner's Blade carried a fatal sense of pressure, forcing him to devote all his attention to dealing with it.

By now, Naruto had already been struck by several ice needles. New wounds had opened on his arms and calves, and blood flowed down his skin, dripping onto the ice-crystal fragments beneath his feet and blooming into a glaring red.

All he felt now was dizziness, and his body slowly collapsed downward.

Sasuke looked at Naruto falling to the ground, and his heart suddenly clenched. A sense of agitation he had never felt before seized him in an instant.

When he opened his eyes again, his Sharingan had already changed, another tomoe appearing in his eyes.

Two tomoe spun rapidly within his scarlet pupils, finally stabilizing into the form of the Three-Tomoe Sharingan. His field of vision instantly became incomparably clear, and every path of Haku's movements within Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals, every subtle change in the flow of chakra, was captured by him with precision.

He could clearly see that Haku's real body was hiding behind the third ice crystal on the left, the ice needles gathering at his fingertips about to take shape.

Sasuke hesitated no longer. He poured all the chakra in his body into his right foot and stomped hard against the ground, using the reactive force to charge toward the target like a cheetah. His ninja blade dragged a scorching current through the air, slashing toward that ice crystal with unprecedented speed and power.

"What a pity." Haku left behind a light, airy sentence. His figure melted into the ice crystal like snow and ice, and Sasuke's ninja blade cut through empty air, only shattering an illusory ice crystal.

Almost at the same time, in another ice crystal on the right, Haku's real body suddenly emerged. The ice needles at his fingertips had already finished forming, flashing with a deadly cold gleam as they shot toward Naruto, who lay on the ground.

When Sasuke saw that Naruto was in danger, his body reacted almost entirely on instinct. The Three-Tomoe Sharingan broke down Haku's movements to the utmost limit, and he spun around abruptly, using his own back to block in front of Naruto.

The sound of ice needles piercing flesh was faint yet grating. Several ice needles sank deep into Sasuke's back, and blood instantly soaked through his clothes.

Naruto slowly opened his eyes, only to see Sasuke's back blocking in front of him. Blood was continuously gushing from the wounds on his back, dripping along the folds of his clothes and spreading into a small patch of glaring red across the cold ice-crystal ground.

In that moment, time seemed to freeze. Naruto's mind went blank, and his throat felt as if something had blocked it. He could not make a single sound and could only watch helplessly as Sasuke's body swayed, then slowly fell toward him.

He reached out, wanting to grab hold of something, but only touched Sasuke's cold fingers.

A vast terror and fury seized him violently. His heart felt as if it had been clenched hard by an invisible hand, hurting so much he could barely breathe.

"Sasuke... Sasuke!" He finally screamed, his voice hoarse as sandpaper scraping together, tears uncontrollably blurring his vision.

He struggled to climb up, but his body would not obey because of blood loss and weakness. He could only watch helplessly as Haku's figure disappeared into the ice crystals again, leaving behind a suffocating dead silence.

"All right. Next is you," Haku said again, lightly and airily.

Just as he was about to continue attacking, he saw an enormous amount of chakra surge out around Naruto. That chakra was a dense red, rolling and swelling continuously like boiling magma. Powerful waves of energy spread outward with Naruto at the center, causing even the structure of Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals to begin trembling violently, fine cracks surfacing across its surface.

The calm on Haku's face shattered instantly, and shock appeared in his eyes for the first time. He could clearly sense that this chakra contained an unimaginable berserk power, far surpassing the intensity of anything he had perceived before.

The red chakra formed a blurry halo around Naruto like something tangible. His body began to tremble uncontrollably, his nails became sharp, and his gaze gradually lost focus, replaced by a nearly beastlike ferocity and confusion.

As the chakra continued to erupt, his body even began to swell slightly. The cuffs of his sleeves and pant legs were stretched taut, and the ice-crystal shards on the ground were ground into powder under the powerful air pressure.

Haku subconsciously took a step back. The ice needle gathered at his fingertip shattered the instant it came into contact with that golden chakra. He had never seen such a terrifying chakra rampage before. This had already gone beyond the category of an ordinary genin, or even a chunin.

The mirror surfaces of Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals kept letting out brittle cracks under the strain. Those originally indestructible diamond-shaped ice crystals began shattering in sheets, and the ninjutsu prison Haku had painstakingly built was rapidly disintegrating before this berserk power.

Haku's pupils suddenly shrank. He knew he had to stop this power from fully erupting, or not only would Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals completely collapse, even he himself might be swallowed by this force.

His hands formed seals rapidly, trying to summon an even stronger Ice Release ninjutsu to suppress Naruto, but his movements appeared so slow before absolute power.

Outside the field, Kakashi, Duanmu, and the others all sensed this chakra. Kakashi and Duanmu knew that this was the chakra of the Nine-Tails inside Naruto beginning to go out of control.

Kakashi's heart tightened. The wind from the Executioner's Blade was almost forcing its way to his face, yet he could not help being distracted and looking toward Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals—the evil aura mixed within that red chakra was like a red-hot branding iron searing his nerves.

"Damn it!" he cursed under his breath, suddenly pouring chakra into his left foot. His body flipped toward the right at an unbelievable angle, and the Executioner's Blade scraped past his forehead protector as it cleaved through empty air, the blade energy blasting a several-meter-deep pit into the ground.

Zabuza had clearly also noticed the abnormality inside Demonic Mirroring Ice Crystals. His offensive became even fiercer, and the waves rolled up by his blade almost formed a wall of water, suppressing Kakashi tightly and denying him any chance to provide support.

Kakashi no longer planned to continue getting tangled up with Zabuza. He took out a scroll, bit his finger, and slammed his hand hard onto the ground.

"Summoning Technique!"