The Unagi Strait – Coast of the Land of Water – The Silent Vigil
Eighty-nine days after the calculated dispersal of the Three-Tails' chakra, the mist over the Unagi Strait was thicker than usual. It wasn't natural sea fog; it was a chakra-mist generated by Kirigakure's finest, a rolling, sensor-defying blanket that covered dozens of square miles of choppy grey water. Within this mist, silence reigned, broken only by the lap of waves against hulls and the occasional cry of a distant gull.
The flagship of the Kiri task force, the Mizukage's Resolve, was a sleek, predatory vessel of dark wood and black steel, its sails furled, moving on silent chakra-impeller drives. On its bridge, Mei Terumī, the Fifth Mizukage, stood with her arms crossed, her sharp eyes peering into the gloom. Beside her, Chōjūrō fidgeted with the bandages on his legendary sword Hiramekarei, while Ao, his Byakugan eye whirring softly, scanned the mist in a constant 360-degree arc.
Ao: "The mist is holding. No foreign chakra signatures within five kilometers. The Abyssal Buoys are reporting stable seabed tremors. The reformation is imminent. Within the hour."
Mei: "Excellent. And our guests?"
Chōjūrō, softly: "They are… very quiet. In position."
She nodded. The "guests" were the Kumo contingent. Per the Storm Coalition's integrated operations plan, a specialized squad was embedded with her forces for this precise moment. The Three-Tails, Isobu, was a unique case—a wild Biju without a Jinchuriki, reforming in nature. Capturing it was not about defense, but preemptive denial. They couldn't let it be born only for the Akatsuki to swoop in and steal it.
A hundred meters off the starboard bow, seemingly floating on a flat piece of dark, wave-etched stone that hadn't been there yesterday, stood three figures. Darui, Captain of the Kumo Guard, exuded his typical lazy authority, one hand resting on the hilt of his lightning-infused sword. Karui stood beside him, crackling with barely-contained energy, her eyes darting across the water. And between them, Yugito Nii, her stance calm, her eyes closed in concentration. On her shoulder, the small, blue-flame avatar of Matatabi perched, its twin tails flickering slowly, its ears twitching at frequencies no human could hear.
Darui: "Troublesome fog. Can't see a thing."
Karui: "That's the point, Captain. If we can't see out, they can't see in."
Yugito, eyes still closed: "Matatabi says the water is… grieving. And eager. There's a pain in the deep, a memory of being torn apart, and a hunger to be whole again. The beast is a creature of deep sadness and profound resilience. It's almost beautiful."
Matatabi's avatar, its voice a whisper in Yugito's mind and, through their bond, to the others: The sorrow has a shape now. It coils below. The shell is forming around the old pain. It will seek the surface soon. To breathe. To remember the sky.
Their mission was two-fold: assist Kiri in securing Isobu, and be the dedicated counter to an Akatsuki interception. The intelligence from Orochimaru and their own analysis pointed to this as the next logical target.
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Deep Below – The Birth of Sorrow
On the seafloor, in a trench lined with phosphorescent coral and the bones of leviathans, the world was changing. Ambient chakra, coalescing for nearly three months, was undergoing a violent, miraculous phase transition. Specks of blue-grey light, each a fragment of Isobu's consciousness, swirled like aquatic fireflies. They were drawn together by a gravitational pull of pure identity, gathering around a nucleus of ancient memory—the last place the beast had died.
A shell began to form first. Not of calcium, but of solidified chakra, dense as granite, patterned with swirling, tortoise-like markings. Then the bulk—massive, hulking, three tails forming from the swirling sediment. A single, large eye, filled with a lonely, intelligent anguish, flickered open in the darkness of the deep. Isobu was remembering itself.
A tremor shook the entire strait. On the surface, the water didn't just ripple; it bulged, a massive, slow-motion swell rising like a submerged island coming up for air.
Ao's Byakugan snapped to it. "There! Five hundred meters down, directly ahead! Chakra signature spiking exponentially! It's forming!"
Mei: "All ships, battle stations! Sealing teams, prepare the Storm Serpent Array! Do not let it fully breach! We capture it in its transitional state!"
Across the mist-shrouded fleet, Kiri shinobi moved. Giant scrolls were unfurled on designated ships, revealing complex sealing formulas that glowed with blue light. They were going to attempt a first in history: capturing a Tailed Beast at the moment of its rebirth, wrapping it in chains of water and chakra before it could even orient itself.
Darui watched the Kiri crews work with professional appreciation. "Ambitious. If it works, they'll have it contained before it can throw a single tail."
Karui: "And if it doesn't?"
Yugito opened her eyes, sharing a look with Matatabi's avatar. "Then we get to see a very angry, very confused turtle-god surface. Matatabi is ready. The moment anything… unnatural pierces this mist, she'll know."
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The Uninvited Guest – A Tear in the World
The sealing operation began. From the scrolls on six ships, torrents of water, shaped and empowered by fuinjutsu, shot into the sea. They weren't attacks; they were bindings, seeking to coil around the forming beast, to calm its turbulent chakra and guide it into a prepared containment vessel—a massive, enchanted lacquered pot held ready on the Mizukage's Resolve.
For a moment, it seemed to work. The massive bulge in the water calmed, the chakra spike plateaued. The sea glowed with a soft, internal blue light.
Then, Matatabi's avatar went rigid. Its blue flames flared brighter. A low growl, felt in the chest more than heard, emanated from it.
Matatabi: He is here. The ghost. The man who is a hole in the world. He is in the mist, but not of it. He walks through it like it isn't there.
Yugito's voice was a sharp blade of sound. "Incoming! Spatial intrusion! Bearing 270, same altitude!"
Everyone turned. The mist swirled, not from wind, but from a distortion. A vortex of concentric black rings spun into existence thirty feet above the water, just off the port side of the flagship. From it, as casually as stepping through a curtain, Obito Uchiha descended. He wasn't wearing his Tobi persona. He was in his full Akatsuki cloak, his orange spiral mask giving nothing away, his single visible eye a dark, pitiless void.
He landed lightly on the surface of the water, not causing a ripple. His presence was a cold sinkhole in the world.
Obito: "Mizukage Mei Terumī. How kind of you to gather the Three-Tails for me. Saves so much time hunting."
The reaction was instantaneous. A dozen Kiri ninja launched attacks—water dragons, volleys of senbon, explosive tags. They passed through Obito as if he were made of smoke. He continued walking calmly towards the ship, towards the glowing seal-pot holding the half-captured Isobu.
Mei's eyes blazed with fury and recognition. This was the man behind Yagura's tyranny, the source of the Bloody Mist. "Obito Uchiha. You will go no further."
Obito: "Or what? You'll melt me? Drown me? Your attacks are as substantial as dreams to me. Now, if you'll excuse me, I have an appointment with a turtle."
Darui's voice cut through the tension, calm but absolute. "Lightning Release: Laser Circus."
Not aimed at Obito. Darui fired a rapid, blinding series of thin, focused lightning bolts in a grid pattern, not where Obito was, but where he was walking towards, and crucially, through the space he occupied. The lightning didn't pass through. It forced Obito to momentarily solidify to avoid being hit, disrupting his phased state for a fraction of a second. It was a tactic born from studying Indra's brief encounter reports—attack the space, not the man.
Obito paused, his head tilting slightly towards Darui. "The Kumo strategist. How… tedious."
Karui didn't wait. With a battle cry, she erupted from the stone platform, her sword a blur of lightning. She didn't aim for a kill; she aimed to herd, to force a reaction. Obito phased again, letting her pass through him, but her lightning left a crackling after-image in the mist.
Yugito didn't move from the platform. Her hands formed seals. "Matatabi, if you please."
The small avatar on her shoulder dissipated. In the air above the water, a larger, more substantial projection of the Two-Tails formed—a semi-corporeal, blue-flamed lynx the size of a horse. It didn't attack Obito. It opened its mouth and unleashed a focused beam of Blue Flame—not fire, but purified chakra disruption—at the vortex still hanging in the air, Obito' point of entry and likely exit.
Matatabi's voice echoed: Your doorway, little ghost. Let's close it.
Obito's casual demeanor vanished. The vortex was a vulnerability, a fixed point in space. He had to solidfy to defend it, raising his arm. The blue flame splashed against an unseen barrier—the Uchiha Flame Formation—that sprang up around the vortex.
Obito: "The beasts have learned new tricks. How… inconvenient."
He was now tangible. Mei saw her chance. "Lava Release: Melting Apparition Jutsu!" She spewed a torrent of acidic, fast-hardening lava directly at his solidified form.
Obito was forced to abandon the vortex's defense to dodge, leaping backward across the water. The sealing teams below, seeing their Mizukage engaged, redoubled their efforts. The glowing bindings around the submerged Isobu tightened. The great pot began to glow, starting to draw the beast in.
Obito's visible eye narrowed. He couldn't play his phasing game indefinitely with coordinated area attacks and a tailed beast sniping his Kamui anchor. He needed to end this quickly.
He landed on the water and slammed his palm down. "You think you understand my power? You understand nothing. Kamui."
But he didn't target a person. He targeted the seal-pot itself.
The space around the massive, lacquered container twisted. The pot, along with a significant portion of the deck it was bolted to, was silently, cleanly, excised from reality, leaving a perfectly smooth, circular hole in the ship. The complex fuinjutsu bindings connected to it snapped violently, the backlash sending sealing teams flying.
The half-captured Isobu, suddenly freed, gave a psychic roar of confusion and pain that echoed in every chakra-sensitive mind present. The sea bulged violently.
Obito stood over the newly-created hole in the ship, looking down at the glowing, turbulent water. "Now, let's do this properly."
He formed a sequence of hand seals far more complex than any he'd used before. Black, receiver-like rods shot from his sleeves, embedding themselves in the water around the emergence site. They began to pulse with a rhythm that mirrored the Gedo Statue's hunger.
Darui's blood ran cold. "He's not here to capture it for transport… he's going to extract it right here and funnel it directly to the statue!"
Mei's face paled. "Impossible! That would take…"
Yugito answered, her voice grim. "The statue is already primed. It's tasted one Biju. It's faster now. Matatabi confirms it—a spatial link is forming. He's using those rods as a relay."
They had minutes, maybe less. The tactical situation had just catastrophically shifted. They weren't preventing a theft anymore. They were trying to stop a ritual extraction in the middle of their own fleet.
Obito looked up at them, his mask impassive. "The age of shinobi struggling in the mud is over. The age of divine judgment, delivered from a world of perfect dream, begins now. And this… is the first sacrifice on the new altar."
The black rods glowed brighter. Deep below, Isobu, the Three-Tails of sorrow, felt a pull far older and hungrier than the sealing ropes of Kiri. It began to rise, not towards the sun, but towards a different kind of mouth. The real battle for the Three-Tails had begun, and they were already on the back foot.
End of Chapter – 87.