Chakra Fusion

Naruto stopped in front of 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 was calm and resolute.

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

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

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

It was tiny.

Compared to its immense 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.

It carried the most incredible promise a human could make to a tailed beast.

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

"Naruto Uzumaki, could it be that you want 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 have to keep using my full name. It makes us seem too distant."

Naruto maintained his outstretched fist. His eyes stared unblinkingly into the Nine-Tails' enormous vertical pupil. "That's right. What you're thinking is exactly what I'm going to do."

"Let me feel your chakra, Kurama!"

The Nine-Tails was silent for a long time.

The wind swept across the grassland between them, gently stirring Naruto's golden hair.

Within its vertical pupil, Naruto's reflection was tiny, tiny indeed. Yet the eyes in that reflection held a power that even a tailed beast that had lived for over a thousand years could not ignore.

It was not the power of chakra, nor the power of a bloodline limit. It was a power unique to humans.

The Nine-Tails slowly raised its right forepaw. Moving with extreme care and slowness, it passed through the gaps between the bars of the sealing cage and gently 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 fists—one large and one small—met, two utterly different chakras converged at the point of contact.

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

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

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

Hatred pierced every inch of Naruto's consciousness like countless red-hot iron spikes. Resentment poured into his veins like thick tar. A violent 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 any impurities—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 told the Nine-Tails one thing: I trust you, as an equal partner.

"Kid, you really..."

The Nine-Tails' voice caught.

It had lived for over a thousand 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 plunder and suppression.

The jinchuriki extracted its power, while it used its will of hatred to corrode the jinchuriki. The two were always struggling against one another, always biting and tearing at each other.

Never had a human dared to actively let their chakra flow toward its chakra in both directions. Never had a human dared to 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 standard 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 fell silent for three seconds.

Then it abruptly raised its head. An unprecedented light burned in its scarlet vertical pupils.

It was the excitement and disbelief of ancient memories being awakened.

"Naruto..."

The Nine-Tails did not call him Naruto Uzumaki, nor did it call him kid. It called him by his name. "Accept my chakra!"

Naruto's consciousness suddenly opened its eyes in the sealing space. Without the slightest hesitation, his hands rapidly formed seals.

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

As his fingers flew, a warm current of chakra rose from his abdomen. The Eight Trigrams Sealing Style holding the Nine-Tails began to loosen layer by layer.

Crack... crack-crack... crack-crack-crack...

It was as if countless chains within his body were unlocking at once. With each chain released, a vast, suffocating surge of chakra poured through the gaps in the seal.

The Nine-Tails' chakra flooded into Naruto's body like water bursting through a broken dam.

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

That time, the Nine-Tails had only given him a tiny scrap that had seeped out while corroding the seal. But this time, the Nine-Tails had voluntarily opened the gates of its chakra and pushed its power toward him without reservation.

His chakra reserves instantly surged to an unimaginable level. Naruto felt as if his body were a pipe forcibly stuffed with an entire river, ready to burst apart at any moment.

He did not dare let down his guard for even an instant. Absolute Control activated at full power, precisely guiding the Nine-Tails' chakra flooding into him along designated chakra pathways, where it mixed with his own chakra in an orderly manner.

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

Throughout the process, the Nine-Tails' chakra was strictly contained within Naruto's body, without a single trace leaking out. The entire disturbance was tightly enveloped by the Perception Isolation Barrier, and not even a wisp escaped beyond it.

To outsiders, the waterfall area continued roaring beneath the moonlight, without anything unusual happening.

Inside the barrier, however, the scene was entirely different and utterly spectacular.

The Shadow Clones training in Flying Raijin sensed something and opened their eyes.

Then they sensed the chakra fluctuations of the original body rising at an incredible speed. Its density and pressure had completely surpassed the level an ordinary ninja should possess.

Meanwhile, a warm, dazzling golden glow gradually spread over the original body.

"The original's chakra reserves are skyrocketing?"

"This amount of chakra is beyond even a tailed beast cloak. It's more outrageous than the Four-Tails state!"

One clone's eyes widened.

"The original opened 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 wrapped in golden chakra flames. Unlike the violent dark-red tailed beast cloak from before, these flames were warm and brilliant, like melted sunlight spun into threads and wrapped layer upon layer around the original body.