---Third POV---
Looking at the messy-looking creature in front of him, Ryouma couldn't shake off the strange feeling of familiarity.
"Uuuu~"
This creature, nearly the size of a tailed beast, probably had a brain smaller than a walnut. For some unknown reason, after coming ashore, it just kept squirming toward him as if something about him was attracting it.
In his vision, he could see chakra inside the creature. Though the amount wasn't large, the intensity wasn't weak, and its flow was extremely chaotic.
"Obito, try controlling it with genjutsu."
"Understood."
Following Ryouma's command, Obito's Mangekyō Sharingan began to slowly spin.
As expected, the illusion technique, which relied on disturbing chakra flow, failed to take effect. The failure of the genjutsu was within expectations. Ryouma mainly just wanted to confirm whether this sea monster was being controlled.
Based on what he observed, the creature had indeed fixated on them for no clear reason.
Since probing didn't yield any valuable information, he acted decisively and clapped his hands together.
Suddenly, a cluster of dark purple flaming arrows ignited in the air.
Whoosh!
A bright streak with a dark purple tail flame pierced through the air, the fire arrow accurately striking the sea monster awkwardly crawling on the beach.
"Aaaaah!"
The searing pain from the flames turned the monster's wails sharp and piercing, very different from the muffled growls from earlier.
Within seconds, the massive sea creature had been burned into a large chunk of charred black remains under the extreme heat of Blaze Release, emitting a nauseating stench of blood and rot.
Rin, a little overwhelmed by the smell, pinched her nose and asked, "What is this thing? Don't tell me it's really just a sea monster?"
Kushina, rubbing her chin with a furrowed brow, tried to search her memories.
She felt like she had heard of something similar when she was little, but the details were stuck in her mind, just out of reach.
Obito, being the impulsive type, took a few steps toward the smoldering remains, wanting a closer look to see what exactly this thing was.
Kakashi reached out, trying to grab Obito's clothes to stop him, but was a step too slow and missed.
So he simply warned aloud, "Hey, we don't even know for sure if that thing is really dead yet."
"Relax, Kakashi. Just a mere beast."
Ever since he had implanted White Zetsu cells, Obito's confidence had soared. With his Kamui phasing ability, he didn't believe anything could really pose a threat to him.
Ryouma's worry turned out to be justified, this kid was clearly getting too full of himself.
"That smell... it's very similar to those demons sealed by the Sage of Six Paths," Shukaku whispered to Ryouma.
"Yes! Demons!"
Kushina caught the key word in Shukaku's sentence, and long-buried memories came flooding back.
Just as she was about to continue, Ryouma raised an eyebrow and gently interrupted, "Wait a moment."
Even before the words had fully left his mouth, he suddenly lifted his right foot and lightly tapped the ground.
A massive amount of chakra surged into the earth, causing the entire coastline to tremble slightly.
Immediately after, the ground within a radius of several dozen meters was raised high, forming a huge stone pillar.
Almost at the same time, countless tentacles, like blood vessels, burst forth from beneath the ground, swarming and latching densely onto the base of the stone pillar, as if trying to completely consume it!
These tentacles twisted and squirmed, producing a nauseatingly sticky, squelching sound.
"Looks like this is the sea monster's real body," Ryouma said calmly.
While its surface body was being incinerated by the Flaming Annihilation Arrows, these blood vessel-like tentacles inside it had quickly abandoned the burning corpse, burrowed underground, and silently began moving toward Ryouma and the others.
But of course, none of this escaped him.
On top of the stone pillar, Obito stumbled due to the sudden violent shaking of the ground and nearly fell. After regaining his balance, he leaned over and looked down.
What he saw was a writhing mass of dense, pulsing tentacles, enough to trigger a severe case of trypophobia.
"Ugh… that's seriously disgusting. You guys better not look down."
Faced with this kind of demon, ordinary jutsu wouldn't be enough to fully eliminate it.
But Ryouma had his own specialty. He reached behind his waist, pulled out a large scroll from his ninja tools pouch, and unfurled it flat on the ground. At the same time, his hands formed a series of complex hand seals with incredible speed.
The tadpole-shaped sealing formula began rapidly spreading from the center of the scroll. In the blink of an eye, it had covered the entire stone pillar.
Then, the seal patterns began to twist like serpents, wrapping tightly around the tentacle monster.
A second later, the sealing technique suddenly constricted, capturing even the tentacles that had not yet emerged from the ground and sealing everything into the scroll.
The entire process was seamless. If this had taken place during the ancient times of the shinobi world when demons roamed freely, even ordinary witnesses would probably have honored Ryouma with the title "Sage Ryouma."
He teleported the sealed scroll to his private vault using the Flying Thunder God Technique. Then, forming a one-handed seal, he skillfully controlled the massive stone pillar to descend slowly back into the earth, sealing perfectly flush with the ground, deeply satisfying for anyone with OCD.
Kushina clapped her hands in approval after watching Ryouma execute the sealing so skillfully. "Not bad at all! Your sealing technique's speed keeps getting better."
"Thanks," Ryouma spoke. "Anyway, what were you about to say earlier?"
"Oh, right." Kushina's expression turned serious as she spoke. "I think I know where those things came from."
Ryouma waved Obito back to regroup.
The group began walking again toward the battlefield previously chosen for extracting the Nine-Tails, while Kushina explained the hidden truths about the Land of Whirlpools.
"You probably learned at the Ninja Academy that the Land of Whirlpools was the nation founded by our Uzumaki clan. But do you know why such a large island was inhabited only by our clan?"
"Yeah, why is that?" Obito played along enthusiastically.
Kushina was pleased with Obito's engagement and continued explaining, "It's because the magnetic field of the Land of Whirlpools is extremely unusual. A huge number of strange and dangerous demons gathered on the island."
"These demons feed on all living things. They're pure evil by nature. Their vitality is outrageously strong, even burning them with fire all night can't fully kill them."
"It wasn't long before the entire Land of Whirlpools became a kingdom of monsters."
"To suppress these evils, our ancestors inherited sealing techniques from the Sage of Six Paths. It took who knows how many generations, but eventually they managed to seal most of the demons into various temples scattered across the island."
"In fact, when I was little and attended my first Uzumaki clan festival, I personally saw the clan leader seal a demon that looked like a squid."
As she recalled that moment, a nostalgic smile appeared on her face.
But after a few moments, she didn't hear any comments or reactions from the group. Her cheeks puffed up slightly in mock annoyance, and she playfully scolded, "Hey! I have shared all this precious Uzumaki history with you, don't you guys have any reaction at all?"
Rin gave a dry laugh, stepped forward, and took Kushina's arm comfortingly. "Maybe it's just because the story you told sounds way too much like some kind of legend, it's kinda hard to believe right away."
Kakashi lowered his head and thought for a moment before asking, "So, are you saying that this demon escaped from the seal because the Land of Whirlpools was destroyed?"
"Not necessarily," Kushina replied. "It could also be a newly born demon from recent years."
She didn't believe the seals left by the Uzumaki clan would weaken so much in just a few decades that a demon could forcefully break through.
"Alright, let's put the demon issue aside for now, we need to focus on the task at hand."
Within Ryouma's Observation Haki range, aside from the tentacle monster that had just conveniently delivered itself, there were no other notable creatures detected nearby.
If they had to explore the island, they could do that after finishing the main task.
"Do I need to do anything?" Kushina asked.
"Nope."
Ryouma looked at Obito and instructed, "Once the Nine-Tails comes out, take Kushina-nesan and the others and move far away so you won't get caught in the crossfire."
"Got it! Leave it to me." Obito responded firmly, pounding his chest without hesitation.
"Huh? Ryouma, are you planning to take on the Nine-Tails by yourself?" Kushina finally caught on, and her face showed concern. "That's too dangerous. It's better to wait until I restrain the Nine-Tails before you try to seal it."
She had already made her plan, she was ready to use the Adamantine Sealing Chains to restrict the Nine-Tails' movements, making it safer for Ryouma to carry out the sealing.
She had even started thinking of how to persuade him to let her stay and help.
However, after a few seconds, she realized that Obito, Kakashi, and Rin were all looking at her with strange expressions.
"Um, I think you might be misunderstanding something," Obito scratched his head, unsure how to explain it to her. "Actually, for Ryouma, sealing the Nine-Tails really isn't that big of a deal."
"Ah… what?"
Since becoming the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki, Kushina had basically retired from the shinobi world. Minato rarely told her about battlefield affairs, so most of the time, the intel she got wasn't much different from that of an average villager in Konoha.
As for Ryouma, she had always assumed he was roughly on par with Minato.
"Alright, I don't do things I'm not confident in. Just leave the Nine-Tails to me," Ryouma said calmly.
Since he put it that way, and Kakashi and the others clearly trusted him, Kushina could only half-reluctantly agree. After all, Ryouma had the Flying Thunder God technique, so even if he couldn't beat the Nine-Tails, he wouldn't be in any real danger.
After making all the necessary preparations, Ryouma's gaze sharpened. He formed a hand sign, raising his fingers into a sword-like pose. At his fingertips, a faintly glowing chakra scalpel quickly condensed, and his eyes locked onto a critical point on Kushina's body, slicing cleanly through it.
Crack!
It sounded like glass shattering.
Kushina suddenly felt a great lightness wash over her, as if some binding force had vanished. She felt as though she were floating in a warm cloud.
The sensation was incredibly pleasant, almost like a dream of flying weightlessly.
"What was…?"
She was just about to ask Ryouma what he had just done, when, in the next moment, a torrent of violent red chakra erupted from the seal on her lower abdomen. The sheer force of it was like a surging tidal wave, instantly flooding the entire coastline.
"Well done!"
The Nine-Tails' voice suddenly boomed out, part mocking arrogance, part triumphant joy, and part long-awaited release.
It had known all along that as soon as that ninja saw its overwhelming chakra, he wouldn't be able to resist the temptation and would help break the seal. It just hadn't expected the chance to come so quickly.
Despite how dramatic the Nine-Tails' unsealing looked, it was more bark than bite.
Ryouma had already severed all connections between the Nine-Tails and Kushina. For her, the process of having the tailed beast extracted came with no pain, in fact, it felt like a long-awaited relief, like someone constipated for days finally taking a laxative.
He could clearly see the chakra of both the Nine-Tails and Kushina, like two separate rivers flowing apart. It was obvious, they had been fully separated.
The more he combined the Breath of All Things, Rikugan, and Observation Haki, the more the act of cutting through critical points reminded him of Kento's Ratio Technique, except his vision was vastly superior, allowing him to locate and strike far more precise targets.
Without hesitation, he swung his hand again. The blue chakra scalpel sliced precisely across the critical point on Kushina's seal.
With that cut, the final connection between her and the Nine-Tails was completely severed.
"All done. Obito, you guys get out of here," he said calmly.
"Got it!"
Obito responded immediately. His eyes morphed into Mangekyō Sharingan.
As his dōjutsu activated, ripples from the Kamui space spread rapidly like waves across water, swallowing up Kushina, Kakashi, and Rin.
A moment later, they reappeared on a distant cliff.
This cliff had already been carefully chosen by Obito in advance, it was the perfect vantage point for watching Ryouma handle the Nine-Tails.
However, seeing where they'd ended up, Ryouma couldn't help twitching at the corner of his mouth. Internally, he muttered, Doesn't he know that in a battle between Kage-level or higher opponents, cliffs are always the most dangerous places to be?
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