The night was dark as ink, the cold moon hanging like frost.
Fully dressed, Kyusei stood alone atop the Hokage Rock, overlooking the countless lights of Konoha below.
Even now, he still couldn't quite believe it.
The Nine-Tails… had really trusted him.
When he thought about it, he hadn't done anything particularly special—just chatting now and then, occasionally teasing the fox when he felt bored.
Is Little Nine secretly an M or something…?
That thought flashed through his mind, but he quickly dismissed it.
None of that mattered anymore.
The moment the Nine-Tails told him the name "Kurama," it meant one thing:
He had been acknowledged.
That name was something Kurama would only ever reveal to someone he truly trusted.
Kyusei placed his hand over his abdomen. Beneath his clothes, the Eight Trigrams Seal silently surfaced.
This was the powerful sealing formula personally arranged for him by Namikaze Minato—a double-layered seal formed from overlapping Four Symbols Seals.
But now—
It was no longer needed.
"Little Nine,"
Kyusei said softly as he gazed at Konoha's nightscape, his eyes blazing with an indescribable intensity.
"Are you ready?"
Keeping a low profile?
To hell with that.
Low-key had never been his style.
If he was going to do this—
He was doing it loud.
"Yeah!"
Kurama, bound to the sealing stone sphere, bore the same fierce light in his eyes—as if he and Kyusei were thinking the exact same thing.
The fox couldn't help recalling his creator.
The Sage of Six Paths, Ōtsutsuki Hagoromo.
Before his death, the old man had once prophesied that one day, a boy would frolic among the tailed beasts.
Kurama didn't know if that boy was Uzumaki Kyusei.
But at this moment—
That didn't matter anymore.
Whether Kyusei was that prophesied child or not, Kurama wanted to make his own choice.
For the first time—
To believe in a human.
Kurama had watched Kyusei grow up.
He knew what kind of person this brat was.
Usually carefree and absurd, yet never once harboring malice toward him.
The second human… who had ever shown him pure goodwill.
That alone—
Was enough.
Golden chakra surged from Kyusei's palm. As man and beast simultaneously poured their chakra forward, Kyusei slammed his hand against his own abdomen!
In an instant—
The Adamantine Sealing Chains wrapped around the sealing stone began to tremble violently!
Like a retreating tide, the golden chains rapidly dissolved, and the massive wooden stakes pinning Kurama in place started shaking violently as well!
With their combined effort—
Boom!
The first stake collapsed, crashing heavily onto the floor of the sealing space.
At some point, a red-haired woman had appeared, silently watching the scene unfold. Her beautiful eyes held an unreadable depth.
Perhaps she should have stopped this madness.
But she had seen the future too—through Kyusei's eyes.
Uchiha Madara was not dead.
That much, she knew.
After Senju Tobirama studied Madara's corpse for an entire day, the body mysteriously vanished.
Later, she had gathered every scrap of intelligence she could find on the Uchiha clan.
And there, she discovered a technique that made her blood run cold—
Izanagi.
A forbidden art that rewrote unfavorable reality into illusion.
As the head of the Uchiha clan, how could Madara not have mastered it?
Even now, he was surely lurking somewhere in the shinobi world.
Old, perhaps—
But still terrifying.
And judging by the future they had seen, he had gone even further—
Achieving the impossible: creating life through Yin–Yang Release, second only to the Sage of Six Paths himself.
That bastard… wearing my grandson's corpse.
Because of that—
Kurama's power was indispensable.
So she merely watched as the seal continued to collapse, making no move to interfere.
Kurama noticed Uzumaki Mito's presence as well and flashed her a provocative grin.
"Hmph."
Mito snorted softly, clearly displeased.
As the seal unraveled completely, an overwhelming torrent of chakra erupted from Kyusei's body!
He skipped past the so-called Nine-Tails Chakra Mode entirely—
And entered Kurama Mode directly.
The Nine-Tails Chakra Mode was merely the result of forcibly borrowing Kurama's power.
Now that they trusted each other completely—
That step was unnecessary.
Golden radiance enveloped Kyusei's twelve-year-old body. His originally clear gray-brown eyes transformed into warm, jade-like crimson slit pupils.
Nearly infinite chakra surged skyward, forming a colossal golden pillar that pierced the heavens!
The clouds were instantly blown apart, torn to shreds by sheer force, leaving behind a vast, brilliant full moon hanging alone in the sky.
Golden chakra dyed his clothes the color of light itself, while black, mysterious markings spread from his abdomen across his entire body.
Instinctively, Kyusei activated the Adamantine Sealing Chains.
Nine solid golden chains extended from his back, swaying gently like nine tails. At the same time, golden chains wrapped around his forearms.
In that moment—
He felt omnipotent.
As if a casual strike could shatter a mountain.
So this is the power Little Nine meant…
The power that can overturn everything.
Title Unlocked: Hearts in Mutual Accord
From now on—
Call me Admiral Kizaru.
Sarutobi Hiruzen stared at the scene before him, utterly dumbfounded.
In truth, he had arrived some time ago.
The Hokage Rock stood directly above the Hokage Tower, and while he was still buried in paperwork, he had been the first to sense that overwhelming chakra—chakra that seemed to declare its existence to all of Konoha.
He had witnessed the entire transformation.
From an ordinary boy—
To a being he no longer felt confident he could oppose.
Yet Kyusei paid him no mind at all.
His consciousness had already been pulled away by Uzumaki Mito, sinking deep into the sealing space.
There, Kyusei looked at Kurama—now standing freely upon the ground—and then at Mito.
The three of them stared at one another in silence.
Mito finally broke her standoff with Kurama. Rubbing her slightly tired eyes, she smiled gently at the boy.
"Kyusei,"
she said softly,
"you are far more outstanding than I ever imagined."
"Hmph. Didn't need you to tell him that,"
Kurama cut in immediately.
Ignoring the fox entirely, Mito continued,
"Now… I can finally be at ease about you and the Nine-Tails."
"Mito-grandma,"
Kyusei asked gently,
"are you leaving?"
"Yes."
She nodded.
"What you see before you is merely the chakra I left behind before death."
"Now that you and Kurama can truly coexist, this little bit of chakra serves no purpose anymore."
Soft white light began to emanate from Uzumaki Mito as she gazed at the boy she had placed such great hopes upon.
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