The Gaze of the Sharingan, the Brutality of the Three-Tails

Nine-Tails Chakra rampaged through the woods, and the violent wind it kicked up made the clothes of the Root and ANBU operatives snap and rattle.

The squad leader's brain buzzed with a bad feeling. The Nine-Tails had gone berserk.

He flashed back to the mission years ago to capture Naruto, when an entire squad of Root operatives had been wiped out, leaving only him.

Back then it was only the Two-Tails state, and hardly anyone had escaped from beneath that fox's jaws.

The shadow clone chuckled and shouted, "Here, have this back!"

He tossed Naruto right at the group of Root and ANBU operatives.

He had already gripped a smoke grenade in his hand and smashed it onto the ground; the moment the mist exploded, he directly released the Shadow Clone Technique.

The woods were left with only the enraged Nine-Tails Naruto and that cluster of shinobi.

Naruto raised a hand, gripped the handle of the kunai exposed outside his eye socket, and yanked it out.

Blood poured straight from the empty eye socket, streaming down his face.

By this time, his left eye had turned into the red, slit pupil unique to beasts, locking dead onto everyone present.

"I'll leave it to you, Kurama."

Naruto dropped these words to the Nine-Tails in his mind, and his body went limp, losing consciousness.

Damn it, it hurts like hell.

This was the last thought that popped up in Naruto's mind before he blacked out.

No matter how steely the kid's heart was or how meticulously he planned, the sensation of having an eye pierced through by a kunai still almost made him pass out on the spot.

To put it bluntly, the Naruto before his time-travel was just a failed webnovel author; even though his mental fortitude was stronger than average, he couldn't stand this kind of torture that could torture a person to death.

He gritted his teeth, surrendered his body to Kurama, and couldn't hold on any longer, passing out from the pain.

The Nine-Tails took over control of the body at that moment.

Tch, you really know how to inflict heavy wounds on yourself.

Savoring the injuries on this body, the Nine-Tails clicked his tongue inwardly for Naruto.

He had seen it clearly: Naruto had forced himself to keep his eyelids open to take that hit.

Then he made himself stop the momentum right before the kunai pierced his nerves.

According to Naruto's own words, leaving a scar on his eyelid looked too tacky, like some kind of bandit.

The Nine-Tails raised his head, his gaze sweeping over this crowd of Root and ANBU operatives, and he licked his lips with his tongue before his body suddenly exploded outward.

"Fall back!"

The squad leader's face turned green.

A Naruto in the One-Tail state could fight a three-tomoe Sasuke in his Curse Mark state to a draw, at the four-tail stage even Jiraiya had to suffer, and Deva Path Pain in the Eight-Tails state was even pinned to the ground and beaten.

Right now, Naruto in the Three-Tails state was hardly something these Root and ANBU operatives could handle.

There was simply no need to use any ninjutsu.

The chakra cloak wrapped around his body, combined with the speed and force infused by chakra, was more than enough.

With a loud boom, a figure blasted through the woods, Naruto moving so fast he was left as nothing more than a blur, and in the blink of an eye, he materialized right in front of a Root operative.

"Bad—"

That Root operative's face changed drastically. The moment he raised his arm to block his chest, his entire body went flying.

That sheer force smashed his arm and caved right into his chest.

The squad leader's face was as dark as the bottom of a pot; this strength was far too terrifying.

"Use the sealing jutsu!"

Three Root operatives flashed out, forming hand seals so fast they kicked up wind: Three-Way Seal.

A greenish, translucent pyramid-shaped barrier enveloped Naruto inside.

This jutsu was used by Konohamaru in Boruto: Naruto Next Generations, where it had trapped Soma for a while.

Watching Naruto locked inside the barrier, the squad leader let out a slight breath of relief, preparing to check where that shadow-stealing dark figure had actually run off to.

The Nine-Tails inside the barrier curved the corners of his mouth—that mocking aura was obvious to everyone—and the chakra on the three tails behind him suddenly swelled outward.

With a rip, the barrier was pierced right through by the tails like a piece of tattered cloth.

The elongated chakra tails were like three iron spears, plunging straight into the chests of the three spell-casting Root operatives.

The squad leader understood everything by this point; his team simply wasn't enough to serve as a snack between the teeth of this berserk Nine-Tails.

He bellowed at the top of his lungs, "Fall back quickly!"

But it was already too late. In the blink of an eye, those elite Chunin-level Root operatives were pierced straight through by the Nine-Tails' tails.

Of the eight Root operatives who had pursued them, only the squad leader, a Jonin, was still breathing.

The two ANBU operatives monitoring Naruto on the sidelines turned pale. They couldn't intervene at all and didn't even dare to move, terrified that the Nine-Tails would shift its attention onto them.

Using Naruto's face, the Nine-Tails made a playful expression, using all fours to pounce back toward the Root squad leader.

Despair filled the squad leader's eyes, as the rampage of the Nine-Tails could no longer be contained.

The longer this dragged on, the more tails would appear.

At that moment, the figures of Shikamaru and the others flashed out from the forest.

The few of them looked at the changed Naruto, too terrified to speak.

This was the demon fox the villagers kept muttering about.

Why was one of Naruto's eyes blind?

The squad leader was just about to fire a signal flare to notify the Konoha higher-ups.

Fire Release: Great Fireball Jutsu.

A terrifyingly large fireball smashed over from the side, directly blasting Naruto flying.

The ANBU and the squad leader were stunned, turning their heads to look in the direction the ninjutsu came from.

Beneath an ANBU mask, a pair of blood-red Three-Tomoe Sharingan were revealed.

It was Itachi Uchiha, who had been sent to monitor the gathering of the Uchiha Clan.