Chapter 129: Hiruzen Sarutobi, Are You Going to Betray the Village? (Bonus Chapter)
Deep within the dense forest on the outskirts of Konoha, Danzo Shimura tore through the canopy. His sandals slammed against the thick branches, propelling him toward the designated sealing grounds of the Nine-Tails. Despite his rapid pace, a cold knot of apprehension twisted in his gut. This was the Nine-Tails. A calamity of chakra that dwarfed the One-Tail in sheer, unadulterated destructive power.
Memories of his last encounter at the Land of Wind border surfaced unbidden. The One-Tail had sent him scrambling like a cornered rat, dodging Vacuum Spheres that shredded the landscape. That had only been a brief skirmish, yet it had left him battered and humiliated. Now, he was expected to face an even greater nightmare head-on, tasked with pinning the Nine-Tails inside the forest to prevent it from breaching the village walls. His jaw locked. A vein pulsed at his temple.
Breaking through a clearing along a narrow dirt path, Danzo nearly collided with a familiar figure. Hiruzen Sarutobi. Seeing his old rival clad in battle gear eased the tension in Danzo's shoulders. If the two of them combined their strength, supported by the elite Jonin Squad trailing behind them, they might just survive long enough for Stelle or Kagami to arrive as reinforcements.
"Danzo, where is she?" Hiruzen demanded, his voice tight. "Where is Stelle? The Nine-Tails shattered its seal without warning. The intruders must have triggered a secondary barrier. We do not have the firepower to suppress the beast on our own. We need the Fourth Hokage on the field immediately."
Danzo recalled the encrypted intelligence scroll he had received moments ago. His expression darkened into a scowl. "The moment the Nine-Tails broke free, a separate squad ambushed Stelle. She is currently trapped inside a high-level isolation barrier, engaged in combat with an unknown number of assailants. She cannot assist us with the beast."
"A coordinated strike, then. They came prepared." Hiruzen's grip tightened on his staff. A heavy silence stretched between them as a bitter internal struggle played out across Hiruzen's face. Should he divert their forces to rescue their Hokage, or hold the line against the walking natural disaster threatening their home? Duty won out over loyalty. He could not allow a Tailed Beast to reduce Konoha to ash.
"We move forward," Hiruzen ordered, his tone leaving no room for argument. "You and I will stall the Nine-Tails. We absolutely cannot let it take a single step into the village proper. Kagami and Sakumo are already mobilizing. They will handle the infiltration forces. With those two on the hunt, the enemies will be dealt with."
The remainder of their sprint was suffocated by a grim, oppressive silence. Hiruzen swallowed hard, his mind flashing with classified reports from other hidden villages. Every recorded attempt to subdue a Tailed Beast read like a slaughterhouse ledger, painted in the blood of countless shinobi. Danzo, nursing his own bruised ego from his clash with the One-Tail, shared the exact same dread. Usually, these two veterans would spend every waking moment bickering, exchanging thinly veiled insults and political jabs. Today, neither uttered a single syllable. The sheer terror of failing and watching Konoha burn kept their mouths firmly shut.
They finally burst through the treeline, fully prepared to lay down their lives in a desperate bid to buy time. Instead of a raging inferno of demonic chakra, they were met with a scene that brought their momentum to a screeching halt. Several elite shinobi from the Uzumaki Clan stood rigidly beneath a massive oak tree. Their jaws hung slack. Their eyes were glazed over, staring blankly ahead as if their brains had completely short-circuited.
A short distance away stood the terrifying Nine-Tails. Except, the legendary demon fox looked suspiciously round, sporting a massive, almost spherical belly. It currently held a limp, heavily bruised humanoid figure between its colossal claws. With horrifying kinetic force, the great beast slammed the intruder into the dirt. Left. Right. Up. Down. The ground quaked with every brutal impact, kicking up massive craters of mud.
"I told you not to break my rain shield!" the ancient demon roared, punctuating every word with another devastating slam. "Go ahead! Break it! Break it again, you absolute trash!"
The intruder bounced off the crater floor like a broken ragdoll.
"You damned human, wake up!" the Nine-Tails bellowed, shaking the unconscious ninja violently. "Pay me back for my storybooks! Pay me back for my premium snacks!"
Hiruzen and Danzo stood frozen. The wind howled through the silent clearing.
They slowly turned their heads, exchanging a deeply disturbed look. Cautiously, they approached the catatonic Uzumaki guards.
"Report," Hiruzen whispered, his voice cracking slightly. "What exactly is the situation with the Nine-Tails?"
The Uzumaki captain blinked, pulling himself out of his stupor. He looked even more traumatized than the elders.
"We... we are usually only stationed here to perform routine maintenance on the perimeter seals," the captain muttered, his tone airy and detached, like a man sleepwalking through a fever dream. "We do not know the details. But the beast seems to have an incredibly amicable relationship with the Fourth Hokage. It has never shown aggression toward us."
The captain pointed a trembling finger at the ruined seal. "It appears the Nine-Tails learned how to toggle the barrier on its own. It has been using the high-level containment seal as a personal umbrella. But just a few minutes ago, that infiltration squad destroyed the array. The rain soaked the Nine-Tails' fur, and it... it went into an absolute frenzy."
Hiruzen and Danzo stared at the captain. They understood every single word the man had just spoken. Yet, when strung together into a sentence, the information completely failed to process in their veteran minds.
After tenderizing the intruder for another solid minute, the Nine-Tails paused. It squinted at the mangled body in its claws, realized the human had stopped breathing, and casually tossed the corpse aside like a discarded wrapper.
The giant fox suddenly pivoted. Its slitted red eyes locked onto the group of shinobi standing idly by the treeline. Stomping over with earth-shaking steps, it leaned down and bared its fangs in pure indignation.
"What are you idiots just standing around for?" the demon fox barked, spitting droplets of rainwater. "Are you blind? Can you not see that Lord Nine-Tails' private estate has been vandalized? Hurry up and drag Stelle over here to cast a new shield! My flat-screen is about to short-circuit in this damn drizzle!"
Hiruzen pinched the bridge of his nose. He had to be hallucinating. The most malevolent entity in elemental history had just referred to its maximum-security prison as its private estate.
Following the beast's frantic pointing, the group peered past the massive oak tree. Normally, the thick barrier and the fox's intimidating, albeit incredibly rotund, figure kept anyone from looking too closely at the containment zone. Now, with the seal shattered and the area exposed, the truth was laid bare.
Holy crap. The setup looked outrageously comfortable.
Spread across the clearing was a colossal, custom-made fluffy blanket, dyed to perfectly match the fox's orange fur. Though currently a soggy, matted mess from the downpour, it was clearly designed for maximum lounging. Beside the ruined bed lay an overturned, oversized wooden cabinet. Hundreds of premium, limited-edition snacks from Konoha's commercial district spilled out into the mud. A reinforced shelving unit stood nearby, stocked to the brim with chilled beverages.
Nestled safely beneath the thickest branches of the oak tree, a heavy-duty power cable ran directly into the back of a massive, top-of-the-line television set. It was a prototype model fresh from the village's research department, completely unavailable to the public market.
Plush bedding. Unlimited junk food. High-end entertainment. If this was a prison, then the entire Shinobi world was living in squalor.
Hiruzen felt a migraine building behind his eyes. How in the name of the Sage of Six Paths had their Fourth Hokage managed to bribe the embodiment of hatred into becoming a willing, domesticated shut-in?
While the Konoha elites suffered a collective existential crisis, the Nine-Tails lost its patience. A massive orange tail whipped out, coiling securely around the waist of an Uzumaki guard and hoisting him directly into the air.
"Why are you spacing out?!" the fox roared, its hot breath washing over the terrified ninja. "Do you not usually handle the maintenance? Fix it! Fix it right now! I want my rain shield back! I want my luxury suite! I want my television! I want my limited-edition manga!"
The beast puffed out its chest, looking deeply offended. "I am the undisputed king of the Tailed Beasts! The grand and majestic Lord Nine-Tails! And you lowly mortals are forcing me to stand out here in the freezing rain!"
Suspended inches away from teeth the size of broadswords, the Uzumaki guard's legs turned to jelly.
"But my Lord!" the guard stammered, frantically waving his hands. "That specific barrier matrix was personally designed by the Fourth Hokage! We only know how to patch minor chakra leaks! We cannot rebuild it from scratch! And the Fourth Hokage is currently engaged in combat with enemy forces!"
The moment the fox heard Stelle was in a fight, its anger evaporated, replaced by a deep, booming laugh that shook the leaves from the trees.
"Someone is fighting her?" The Nine-Tails threw its head back, cackling with malicious glee. "What astronomically unlucky bastard dared to provoke that menace? Truly audacious! I, the great Nine-Tails, salute that poor fool as a true man of courage! Cackle, cackle, cackle!"
Still chuckling, the beast casually expanded its massive sensory net across the village to enjoy the show.
Instantly, the laughter died in its throat. Every single damp hair on its massive body stood on end.
"Wait... what is going on?" The fox dropped the Uzumaki guard, its slitted eyes widening in genuine panic. "Why is Stelle's chakra signature dropping so fast? No, no, no! Could something have actually happened to her?!"
The demon fox gripped its head with both claws, looking utterly devastated. "I haven't even received my allowance for this month! I need that paycheck to pre-order the new seasonal snacks!"
Driven by the terrifying prospect of losing its sugar mommy and junk food supply, the massive beast spun on its heels. Its powerful hind legs coiled, preparing to launch its mountainous body directly toward the village center.
Hiruzen and Danzo, snapping back to their tactical training, moved in a blur. They landed squarely in the beast's path, weapons drawn, their chakra flaring in a desperate blockade.
"Stand down, Nine-Tails!" Hiruzen commanded, slamming his staff into the mud. "We will not allow you to take a single step into the village!"
The Nine-Tails bared its fangs, furious at the sudden obstruction.
"Where the hell did you two geezers pop out from?!" the fox snarled, its tails lashing violently through the air and whipping up a localized hurricane. "Did you not hear what I just said?! Something is happening to Stelle! My paycheck is in danger! How dare you block my path and stop me from rescuing her!"
Red, corrosive chakra began to bubble around the beast's paws. It glared down at the two elders, its voice booming with absolute righteous indignation.
"Are you two trying to betray the village?!"
Betray what?
What village?
Hiruzen and Danzo stumbled, their knees buckling so hard they nearly faceplanted straight into the mud.
What a completely absurd, mind-bending accusation.
It sounded like the punchline to a terrible tavern joke: The legendary Nine-Tailed Demon Fox, standing right on Konoha soil, sternly accuses the Hokage's Assistant and the Chief Advisor of committing high treason. Why didn't the beast just go all the way and accuse them of being deep-cover spies for the Hidden Cloud Village?
What right did the Nine-Tails have to lecture them? The monster was acting as if Konoha was its own personal property, speaking with the tone of a deeply offended patriot.
It was completely normal for them to block its path! If they just stepped aside and let a walking natural disaster roam free, who knew what it might do on a whim? If it tripped, got annoyed, and casually fired off a Tailed Beast Ball, the entire village would be wiped off the map.
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