In the distance, a massive iron gate stood deep in the darkness.
Behind it, a pair of crimson beast eyes snapped open.
"Madara Uchiha!"
Boom!
The Nine-Tails' enormous body slammed into the gate, rattling the chains.
Its fangs pressed against the bars as a growl of suppressed rage rumbled from its throat.
"How dare you show your face before me again!"
"Damn Uchiha!"
The humiliation of being controlled by the Sharingan back then was seared into its memory like a brand.
It was the Nine-Tails.
The strongest of all Tailed Beasts.
Yet Madara Uchiha had used it as a weapon, dragging it into battle against Hashirama Senju.
It had never forgotten that hatred.
Madara looked at the furious Nine-Tails without the slightest change in expression.
"Still as noisy as ever."
The Nine-Tails grew even angrier.
"Madara!"
"One day, I'll tear you apart!"
It was about to continue roaring when its gaze swept past Madara and landed on the tall figure behind him.
Hashirama Senju.
The Nine-Tails fell abruptly silent.
Its enormous body stiffened as if struck by lightning, every hair standing on end.
"Ha... Hashirama Senju?!"
If Madara Uchiha filled it with rage, Hashirama Senju cast a shadow over it.
A true shadow.
On the battlefield back then, Madara had at least needed the Sharingan to control it.
But Hashirama was different.
That man had used Wood Release to pin it down, leaving it unable to move.
A Wood Dragon had wrapped around its body, a Wood Golem had pinned its head down, and its immense Chakra had been forcibly pressed back inside it.
That hadn't been a fight.
It had been a crushing defeat.
Even now, the Nine-Tails remembered the humiliation and fear of being pinned to the ground.
It was a Tailed Beast.
Yet before this man, it was like a fox seized by the scruff of its neck.
The Nine-Tails instinctively backed away.
Its massive paws splashed through the pooled water.
For the first time, it felt that the iron gate trapping it was actually quite safe.
This gate wasn't a prison.
It was protection.
At least Hashirama couldn't reach in and pin it down.
Hashirama looked a little awkward at the sight of the Nine-Tails with its fur standing on end.
"Nine-Tails, it's been a long time."
"Don't be so nervous."
"We're not here to hurt you."
The Nine-Tails immediately growled.
"Stay back!"
Hashirama stopped and raised both hands.
"All right, all right, I won't come any closer."
"I just want to say a few things to you."
The Nine-Tails stared at him, then glanced at Madara beside him, its whole body huddled behind the iron gate.
"I have nothing to say to either of you!"
"One of you controlled me with Dojutsu!"
"The other suppressed me with Wood Release!"
"Neither of you is any good!"
Hashirama felt even more helpless.
"What happened back then really was complicated."
"But things are different now."
"We just came to take a look."
The Nine-Tails gritted its teeth.
"Stop pretending to be a good guy!"
"Hashirama Senju, I don't need your fake kindness!"
"Stay away from me!"
Hashirama froze for a moment.
Madara's expression instantly turned cold.
He took a step forward.
The water rippled around his feet.
"Nine-Tails."
The Nine-Tails' enormous body visibly stiffened.
Madara raised his head, and the Sharingan pattern in his eyes rapidly transformed into the cold, sinister Mangekyō.
"I don't like the way you're speaking to Hashirama."
A low whimper escaped the Nine-Tails' throat, and its tails curled up against its will.
Madara Uchiha took another step forward, the patterns of his Mangekyō Sharingan spinning in his eyes. His voice was so cold that the Nine-Tails' whole body stiffened:
"Looks like it's time I taught you a proper lesson."
As Madara's words fell, the Nine-Tails froze from head to tail in Naruto's mindscape.
Its huge beast eyes stared fixedly at Madara Uchiha's Mangekyō. Most of the fierceness that had made it want to smash through the iron gate moments ago vanished on the spot.
It wanted to roar.
It wanted to curse.
It even wanted to blast out all the grievances it had suffered over the years with a Tailed Beast Bomb.
But the problem was, who was standing in front of it?
Madara Uchiha.
And Hashirama Senju was standing beside him.
Either one of those two on his own was enough to give it nightmares.
Now they had appeared together outside its cage.
The more the Nine-Tails thought about it, the more frustrated it felt.
The more it thought about it, the more aggrieved it felt.
Finally, its once-fierce beast eyes slowly reddened.
Madara was just about to take another step forward.
The next second.
"Waaah!"
An earth-shattering wail exploded through the mindscape.
Madara stopped in his tracks.
Hashirama froze too.
Behind the iron gate, the Nine-Tails lay in the water, its nine tails thrashing wildly as tears streamed down its face and snot nearly dripped onto its fangs.
"You're bullying a fox!"
"All you two ever do is bully a fox!"
"What did I ever do to anyone?!"
The Nine-Tails slapped the ground with its paws as it wailed, sending the shallow water splashing everywhere.
"Madara Uchiha! Back then, you controlled me with the Sharingan without a word!"
"I'm a Tailed Beast! The Nine-Tails! The strongest Tailed Beast!"
"And you treated me like a weapon and dragged me off to fight Hashirama!"
"Did I agree? Did I say yes? Did you even ask me?"
Madara fell silent.
The corner of Hashirama's mouth twitched.
The more the Nine-Tails spoke, the more upset it became, and the louder it cried.
"And you! Hashirama Senju!"
"You're no better!"
"You came right in with a Wood Golem pinning my head down and a Wood Dragon wrapping around me, then grabbed me and slammed me into the ground!"
"I'm such a big fox, but you pinned me down so hard I couldn't even move!"
"Then you put on a serious face and said the Nine-Tails was too dangerous and had to be sealed away!"
"If I'm so dangerous, then don't mess with me!"
"I was minding my own business, but first Madara controlled me, then you suppressed me, and finally I was stuffed into a Jinchūriki's body!"
The Nine-Tails cried more and more miserably.
It wiped its face with a huge paw, smearing snot and tears together.
Where was the dignity of the foremost Tailed Beast now?
It looked just like a big fox whose den had been stolen and who had been beaten up on top of it.
"From Mito to Kushina, and now this brat!"
"How many years have I been locked up?"
"Living in a sewer every day!"
"I can't eat well, can't sleep well, and can't even turn over comfortably!"
"And look at you two! One died, and then the other died too, but after dying you still had to come back and scare me!"
"What did I ever do to deserve this?!"
Hashirama's face was full of embarrassment as he listened.
He raised a hand to scratch his head, wanting to offer some comfort, but he didn't know how to begin.
After all, it seemed there really was no arguing with what the Nine-Tails had said.
Madara's expression grew even uglier.
He had come to warn the Nine-Tails to behave, only for the fox to burst into tears on the spot.
If word got out, his fearsome reputation as Madara Uchiha would take on a different meaning.
At the Undead Tavern.
Zhang Yu sat behind the bar, watching the scene through a third-person viewing perspective, nearly slapping the table with laughter.
"No way?"
"Nine-Tails, you're the strongest Tailed Beast!"
"You're crying way too miserably, aren't you?"
Watching the big fox on the screen bawling with snot and tears all over its face, he couldn't hold it together.
"That's it."
"The Nine-Tails has completely lost face as the strongest Tailed Beast this time."
"If anyone ever says the Nine-Tails is vicious again, I'll be the first to disbelieve them."
Zhang Yu's shoulders shook with laughter.
He really hadn't expected things to turn out like this.
One moment, Madara Uchiha had been threatening the Nine-Tails.
The next, the Nine-Tails had broken down and burst into tears.
The key was that its complaints were perfectly logical.
Controlled, beaten up, sealed away, and locked inside a Jinchūriki.
Put it all together, and the Nine-Tails really had it rough.