By now, Shion was scared half out of her wits. The sight of those countless tendrils writhing above the magma was so overwhelming it felt like something from a nightmare.
Mōryō had already sensed the threat Akira posed. With a furious roar, every tendril in sight surged toward him like a tidal wave, determined to tear apart the human who had seen through its secrets.
It suspected that, like the priestess, Akira had grasped some fatal truth about it.
In reality, sealing Mōryō by force required at least the kind of raw power Senju Hashirama had once possessed, enough to sever its connection to the other world outright.
The reason the priestesses could do it was because of their unique nature. Just as the Sharingan naturally countered Tailed Beasts, the priestess's power was born to suppress Mōryō.
That also created a vicious cycle. The priestess could only seal it, never erase it completely. Given enough time, the seal would weaken, and Mōryō would return.
Once Akira understood that, he turned and lightly patted Shion on the shoulder with a smile.
"Maybe starting today, you won't have to worry about dying just to seal this thing anymore."
Shion pointed past him in terror and cried out, "Mr. Akira! Behind you!"
Hundreds of tendrils stabbed toward him like a storm of spears.
Then a blue figure shot forward.
"Matatabi! Let's move!"
Yugito leapt high into the air as the chakra of her Tailed Beast exploded out of her.
"ROAR!"
With a thunderous cry, a gigantic cat demon wreathed in blue fire appeared out of nowhere, planting itself directly in front of Akira.
In an instant, ghostly blue flames erupted into the air, distorting it with their heat.
That fearsome beast now stood behind Akira like a living wall.
"Try this. Tailed Beast Bomb!"
The Two-Tails did not waste a second on anything unnecessary. Its temperament was as fierce as ever.
Dark red chakra compressed violently in its mouth, forming a destructive sphere that it hurled straight into the swarm of disgusting tendrils.
"BOOM!"
The deafening explosion shook the heavens.
That seemingly compact Tailed Beast Bomb released world-breaking power the instant it struck.
The hundreds of tendrils whipping through the air were torn apart in a heartbeat, reduced to scattered scraps and ash.
The shockwave that followed swept through the volcano, and the whole mountain groaned as if in pain.
A violent tremor rose from deep beneath the earth. The magma lake churned in madness. This long-dormant volcano now looked ready to erupt at any second.
Akira slowly turned, his gaze settling on Yugito in her fully transformed Tailed Beast state.
Looking at that huge body wrapped in blue fire, he smiled in open admiration.
"So that's what the Two-Tails really looks like. I've got to admit, in the nine-beast ranking for pure looks, this one's definitely near the top."
Before the words had fully left his mouth, Akira vanished from where he stood.
The next second, he was floating at the very center of the crater like a ghost.
His hands blurred into afterimages as he formed one complicated seal after another.
"Sage Art: Spatial Seal!"
The instant he spoke, Akira's entire presence changed.
He entered Sage Mode at once.
Wild lightning exploded around him like silver serpents. Mysterious markings appeared across his face, stern and divine. A pure blue chakra cloak formed around his body and whipped in the rising heat.
Then Akira slammed his hands together, and the vast senjutsu chakra inside him surged like an endless sea.
The ocular power of the Rinnegan erupted in full. Combined with his space-time jutsu, it allowed him to cross the distance in an instant.
He flashed straight to the center of the magma lake, stopping in front of the ominous black void that radiated wrongness itself.
A sharp light flashed in his eyes as he smiled.
"So this is the spatial rift connecting to the other world? Since you opened a door, don't expect to walk away with it still open. Let's seal it shut for good."
He raised one hand, palm outward, golden light bursting from it as he slammed it toward the black hole in space.
The power behind that strike was so immense that even the space around it seemed unable to bear the pressure, trembling with a shrill hum.
Bang.
With a deep, heavy impact, the sealing formula in Akira's palm turned into golden chains and plunged deep into the black void.
On the other side, Mōryō sensed disaster descending and let out a shriek of rage and panic.
"ROAR!"
The howl sounded like it rose from the deepest hell. The entire volcano shook wildly, loose stone crashing down all around them.
At that moment, Akira was wrapped in a suffocating amount of senjutsu chakra.
Under the relentless spread and repair of the golden symbols, the black opening began to close, slowly and with obvious resistance.
Akira poured chakra into it as though it were limitless.
Even the energy leaking from his body as a mere aftereffect was enough to stun Matatabi into speechlessness.
"This... this kid's chakra... he's a monster!"
The Two-Tails stared with enormous eyes full of disbelief.
"This is insane. Just the chakra he's wasting as overflow is on the same level as my total reserves."
"At this point, his strength might really not be any less than the Sage of Six Paths himself."
Akira hung in midair, locked in a struggle against that stubborn spatial rift for more than a full minute.
Below him, the magma lake had completely boiled over, dark red lava splashing high into the air. The eruption was already inevitable.
But he remained like an anchor driven into the world itself, unmoving, pouring wave after wave of senjutsu chakra into the closing breach.
On the far side, Mōryō was still slamming itself against the opening in a frenzy, trying to force one final escape.
But in front of Akira's boundless senjutsu chakra and fortress-like sealing jutsu, every bit of resistance was useless.
It triggered violent bursts of energy again and again, yet still could not stop the rift from being erased bit by bit.
"BOOM!"
At last, the volcano reached its limit.
After enduring more than a minute of abuse, it finally unleashed all its fury.
By then, Yugito had already canceled her full transformation. She grabbed Shion onto her back and cast one long look toward the figure wrapped in gold at the center of the magma lake.
Then she gritted her teeth, turned, and sprinted for the crater's edge without looking back.
At the same time, outside the mountain, the guards of the Land of Swamps who were trying to seal Mōryō's physical body stared up in horror.
The sky above the giant volcano, towering nearly a thousand meters high, was swallowed by smoke.
Then the mountain began spewing blazing magma and ash into the air in violent bursts.
The earth trembled for dozens of miles around, as if a localized earthquake had just struck.
Yugito carried Shion at top speed and did not stop until she had put more than ten miles between them and the volcano.