Experiment

"As long as it's something inside my body, I can exercise Absolute Control over it?"

At the thought, Naruto's heart began to race.

In his previous life, he had been an ordinary person living in a world without supernatural powers. Though his Absolute Control had been unbelievable, it had still fallen within the realm of biological miracles.

Developing his brain, controlling his body, accelerating healing—at most, those were simply the ultimate manipulation of the physical body.

Naruto had always believed that this ability could only go that far.

In the worldview of his previous life, an ability that could directly interfere with external objects through sheer will simply did not exist, so Naruto had never considered that possibility.

But after transmigrating to the ninja world, things were different.

There was chakra here, unconstrained by physics; bloodline limits that could distort space and time; Rinne Rebirth, which could revive the dead; and ancient ancestors who could fall from the moon.

In a world with chakra, he might have underestimated the true nature of Absolute Control from the very beginning.

"If it truly is conceptual-level Absolute Control..."

Naruto slowly lowered his hand. His brows tightened slightly before gradually relaxing.

"Then I need to reevaluate what path I should take in the future."

From the moment he awakened until now, Naruto's overall plans had been relatively conservative.

Keep a low profile, quietly develop his strength, secretly practice ninjutsu, avoid provoking Ōtsutsuki-level beings, and make full use of his foreknowledge of the original plot to avoid danger.

But if the essence of his ability was conceptual-level, then the ceiling of his entire development path had been redefined.

Before, he had considered accumulating combat power, combining ninjutsu, and building a team. Now, he needed to plan an entirely different path.

At that moment, countless ideas lit up in Naruto's mind like exploding fireworks, every single one worth taking the time to examine.

Then Naruto forcibly shoved all those swelling thoughts back down.

There was no use thinking too much. No matter how elegant a hypothesis was, it needed to be verified through experiments.

And right now, a ready-made test subject stood before him.

"Snap!"

Naruto turned toward the Nine-Tails and raised his hand, snapping his fingers.

The Nine-Tails' body instantly regained its freedom.

Its massive body staggered slightly at the sudden return of control. Its nine tails instinctively lashed out behind it, striking the iron cage bars and producing a series of dull crashes.

The Nine-Tails panted heavily. In a brief span of time, confusion, shock, fury, and a trace of terror it refused to acknowledge passed through its crimson eyes.

"Uzumaki Naruto, what did you just do to me?"

The Nine-Tails' voice remained deep and imposing, brimming with savage pressure, but Naruto could hear the faint instinctive unease in its tone when faced with the unknown.

"Kurama, calm down."

Naruto raised a hand in a soothing gesture, his tone becoming steadier. "I need you to cooperate with me on an experiment."

The Nine-Tails narrowed its eyes warily.

"What are you trying to do now?"

The Nine-Tails unconsciously drew its tails back, and its enormous fox-like body shrank backward by two inches.

The strongest tailed beast in the ninja world, the one whose name alone struck terror throughout the land, had just instinctively scooted its butt back?

What hadn't the Nine-Tails seen in its life?

It had been pinned to the ground and beaten by Hashirama Senju's Wood Release, walked like a dog by Madara Uchiha's Mangekyō Sharingan, sealed into one jinchūriki after another, and torn in half by the Reaper Death Seal before being locked in a cage for decades.

Not once had it accepted defeat after losing, nor had it ever truly felt fear from the depths of its heart.

But that sensation just now—its entire body no longer obeying its will, while it could not sense any external force invading it—had truly frightened the Nine-Tails.

Naruto smiled, his tone casual. "Don't be nervous. You just need to release all your chakra at me."

The Nine-Tails froze.

"That's it?"

Naruto nodded.

The Nine-Tails fell silent for a moment, the fierce expression on its face replaced by an indescribable confusion.

It had thought Naruto would make some even more excessive demand, such as forcing it to submit completely or hand over all its chakra for him to control permanently.

Yet the experiment he mentioned was merely releasing chakra.

"Fine."

The Nine-Tails agreed with barely any hesitation. "Then you'd better be ready to catch it."

"This is chakra accumulated over the years from eroding the seal. It's far more than that tiny bit you used before."

The Nine-Tails' reason for agreeing was simple: chakra was the one thing it lacked least.

From the first day it had been sealed within this blond brat, its chakra had continuously and slowly seeped into the seal, leaking bit by bit through the gaps in the bars and mixing with Naruto's own chakra.

It did not care about giving away a portion of it. If the brat could not withstand it and his will was devoured by the Nine-Tails' chakra, then breaking through the seal would only become easier.

Naruto took a deep breath and prepared himself.

The next second, a torrent of chakra far beyond anything before erupted from the Nine-Tails' body.

Dark red chakra surged through the gaps in the cage like floodwaters bursting through a dam, carrying an icy, bone-deep will of hatred as it instantly filled Naruto's entire body.

The quantity and density of this chakra were utterly incomparable to what he had experienced inside the Ice Crystal Magic Mirrors.

If last time had been a gentle stream, this time was a flash flood.

In the real world, Naruto's body was completely enveloped in deep crimson chakra flames.

The chakra was so dense that it formed a visible cloak around his body.

His clothes fluttered without wind beneath the impact of that tremendous power. His blond hair stood on end, while the ground beneath his feet cracked inch by inch under the pressure of the leaking chakra.

One tail condensed behind Naruto and slowly swayed. Every movement left a scorching afterimage in the air.

Then came the second.

The third.

The fourth.

In mere moments, four dark crimson chakra tails unfurled behind Naruto like four burning banners.

Broken stones on the ground were shaken into the air by the oppressive force, slowly revolving around his body.

Birds in the forest scattered in panic, while even the distant stream rippled with unnatural circles beneath the radiating power.

Tailed Beast Form

Four-Tails Mode

This was the form Naruto had repeatedly entered after losing control in rage in the original story. Its destructive power was immense, but the price was having his sanity eroded every second by the Nine-Tails' will of hatred.

Under normal circumstances, a jinchūriki remaining conscious in this state would already be considered extraordinarily gifted.

Naruto's eyes remained a clear blue.

He lowered his head and examined his body, sensing the hateful will frantically trying to erode him. Then he gave the four tails behind him a shake.

The tails obediently moved according to Naruto's will. The second tail on the left swung left, the first tail on the right tilted upward, and the four tails obeyed him even more readily than his own fingers.