In the pitch-black night, the burning campfire gave off light and warmth.
Having not seen each other for a long time, Shihōin Naraku and Jiraiya talked for quite a while. By then, Naruto Uzumaki had fallen asleep nearby.
As they talked, Naraku glanced at Naruto, who was sleeping soundly beside them, and asked, "Master Jiraiya, are you teaching Naruto how to control the Nine-Tails' power?"
"Yes. You noticed?"
Jiraiya nodded. Of course, he could not tell anyone else, but Naraku was another matter.
"If Naruto can master the Nine-Tails' power, both his strength and his safety will have some assurance. Besides, this is a path every tailed beast jinchūriki has to take. Even if he can't master the Nine-Tails, being able to keep the tailed beast's power from running wild would still be a good thing."
That was what he said, but Jiraiya felt it was rather troublesome.
A tailed beast's power was difficult to master to begin with. With the strongest of them, the Nine-Tails, sealed inside Naruto, the difficulty was even more extreme.
It was not as though Jiraiya had never met Kushina Uzumaki. Even with Kushina's strength and talent, the Nine-Tails' rampages had caused trouble from time to time, let alone with Naruto as he was now.
Of course, Jiraiya did not know that the Nine-Tails sealed inside Naruto was only half of what he had once been.
The Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, had used the Reaper Death Seal to divide Kurama's chakra in two, sealing the yin release chakra inside himself and the Yang Release half inside Naruto.
Thus, the Nine-Tails Naruto faced did not possess his full strength. Controlling him should at least be somewhat easier than it had been for Kushina Uzumaki.
Even so, the Nine-Tails' power was not so easily controlled.
Still, Naraku