Chakra Fusion

Naruto stood before the Nine-Tails.

He raised his head and looked up at the colossal beast, which was taller than a building even while lying down, his gaze calm and resolute.

Then he raised his right hand, clenched it into a fist, and held it out toward the Nine-Tails.

"Kurama, trust me. I truly want to become your partner."

The Nine-Tails looked at the fist extended toward it.

It was tiny.

Compared to its massive body, Naruto's entire body was smaller than one of its claws. That fist was so small it was practically negligible.

But it knew what that fist represented.

That fist carried the most unbelievable promise a human could make to a Tailed Beast.

Not enslavement, not sealing, not exploitation, but an equal partnership.

"Uzumaki Naruto, do you mean to..."

The Nine-Tails' voice was low. It stopped halfway through, as though even it did not dare say the name of that gesture aloud.

A fist bump—the simplest gesture between humans for expressing trust and bonds.

"So, Kurama, you can call me Naruto. You don't always have to use my full name. It feels too distant."

Naruto maintained his extended fist, staring straight into the Nine-Tails' enormous vertical pupil without blinking. "That's right. What you're thinking is exactly what I want to do."

"Let me feel your Chakra, Kurama!"

The Nine-Tails fell silent for a long time.

The wind across the grasslands blew between them, making Naruto's golden hair sway slightly.

In its vertical pupil, Naruto's reflection was shrunk down to something tiny, yet the eyes in that reflection held a power that even a Tailed Beast that had lived for thousands of years could not ignore.

It was not the power of Chakra, nor the power of a Kekkei Genkai, but a power unique to humans.

The Nine-Tails slowly lifted its right forepaw. Moving with extreme gentleness and slowness, it passed through the gaps in the sealing cage's bars and carefully touched Naruto's fist.

The difference in size was immense.

One knuckle of the Nine-Tails was several times larger than Naruto's entire fist.

Yet the instant those two vastly different fists touched, two entirely different Chakras converged at the point of contact.

The Nine-Tails' Chakra carried accumulated hatred, resentment, rage, and the urge to destroy.

In an instant, all of it surged into Naruto's body.

This was not merely enormous energy. It was enormous malice.

The hatred was like countless red-hot iron spikes piercing every inch of Naruto's consciousness at once. The resentment flooded his veins like thick asphalt, while a savage urge for destruction exploded in his mind, roaring for Naruto to tear everything apart.

Then Naruto's Chakra flowed into the Nine-Tails' body as well.

Compared to the Nine-Tails' ocean-like reserves of Chakra, Naruto's Chakra was pitifully small, like pouring a cup of water into the sea.

But this cup of water was different from the Nine-Tails' Chakra.

It was clear and warm, without a trace of impurity—no fear, no wariness, no bargaining.

Chakra never lied. It carried the truest will buried in the depths of a person's heart.

Naruto's Chakra was telling the Nine-Tails one thing: I trust you, as an equal partner.

"Kid, you really..."

The Nine-Tails' voice caught.

It had lived for thousands of years, and this was not the first time it had been sealed inside a Jinchuriki.

Every time, the fusion between a Jinchuriki and its Chakra had been one-sided plundering and suppression.

The Jinchuriki extracted its power, while it used its hateful will to corrode the Jinchuriki. They were always struggling against each other, always tearing at each other.

Never had a human dared to let their Chakra flow toward its Chakra in both directions. Nor had any human dared let it read the thoughts hidden within their Chakra.

Because no one dared. No one dared let a Tailed Beast see into their heart, and no human heart could withstand being weighed by a Tailed Beast's measure of hatred.

But there was not a trace of guilt in Naruto's Chakra.

His promise, trust, and determination to fight side by side were all packed into that cup of water, without the slightest reservation.

The Nine-Tails remained silent for three seconds.

Then it suddenly raised its head, and an unprecedented light ignited in its scarlet vertical pupils.

It was excitement and disbelief, as though an ancient memory had been awakened.

"Naruto..."

The Nine-Tails did not call him Uzumaki Naruto or kid. It called him by his name. "Accept my Chakra!"

Naruto's consciousness opened its eyes sharply within the Sealing Space. Without the slightest hesitation, he rapidly formed hand seals.

He had memorized this sequence after seeing it once. It was the Sealing Key Minato Namikaze had given him, the hand seal sequence used to release the Eight Trigrams Sealing Style.

As his fingers flew, warm Chakra surged from his abdomen, and the Eight Trigrams Sealing Style binding the Nine-Tails began to loosen layer by layer.

Crack... crack crack... crack crack crack...

It was as though countless chains within his body were being unlocked at once. With every chain released, a vast, suffocating torrent of Chakra poured from the gaps in the seal.

The Nine-Tails' Chakra rushed into Naruto's body like floodwaters bursting through a dam.

This was completely different from the experiment in the forest of the Land of Waves.

Back then, the Nine-Tails had only given him scraps leaking through the eroded seal. This time, the Nine-Tails had voluntarily opened the gates to its Chakra and pushed its power toward him without reservation.

His Chakra reserves instantly soared to an appalling level. Naruto felt as though his body were a pipe forcibly stuffed with an entire river, ready to burst apart at any moment.

He did not dare relax for even a moment. Absolute Control activated at full power, precisely guiding the surging Nine-Tails Chakra through designated meridian pathways and mixing it with his own Chakra in an orderly fashion.

The hateful will within the Nine-Tails' Chakra was stripped away and purified layer by layer, leaving behind only the purest power.

Throughout the entire process, the Nine-Tails Chakra was strictly controlled within Naruto's body, with not a trace leaking out. The Perception Isolation Barrier also firmly concealed every disturbance, preventing even the slightest bit from escaping beyond its boundaries.

To outsiders, the waterfall area still roared beneath the moonlight, completely unchanged.

Inside the barrier, however, an entirely different and magnificent scene was unfolding.

The Shadow Clones training in the Flying Thunder God sensed something and opened their eyes.

Then they felt the Chakra fluctuations from the original body rising at an unbelievable speed. Its density and pressure had completely surpassed what an ordinary ninja should possess.

Meanwhile, a warm and dazzling layer of gold gradually spread across the original body's exterior.

"The original's Chakra reserves are skyrocketing?"

"This Chakra isn't just at the level of a Tailed Beast Cloak anymore. It's even more outrageous than the Four-Tails state!"

One clone's eyes widened.

"Did the original open the seal?"

"Is this Golden Body Mode?"

Before another clone could finish speaking, the original body's figure began flickering violently between light and darkness. Then golden light flashed, and the Chakra completely stabilized.

The Shadow Clones looked over and saw the original body enveloped in golden Chakra flames. These flames were utterly different from the previous violent dark-red Tailed Beast Cloak. They were warm and bright, like melted sunlight spun into threads and wrapped layer upon layer around the original body.