Chapter 238: Yomotsu Hirasaka
Within Qianyu's pocket dimension.
He hadn't appeared near the familiar wooden cabin. Instead, he'd found a wide, flat expanse, the faint glow of the distant miniature Shinju the only landmark.
The group stood in a row. In theory, this was the moment to start laying down binding seals and arrays.
But that step was unnecessary. Qianyu didn't even need to lift a finger. One Nine-Tails was more than enough to deal with… another Nine-Tails.
"Lord Qianyu… should I… release the Nine-Tails directly?" Mito Uzumaki asked.
Qianyu glanced sideways at the Ramen Chef. Seeing the Chef's slight nod, he replied, "Go ahead."
Mito hesitated for a moment longer, then couldn't help but voice her concern. "Shouldn't we at least prepare the Eight Trigrams Sealing Jutsu first?"
The Ramen Chef shook his head. "No need. Just let it out."
Truth be told, Mito's mind was a whirl of question marks. She didn't understand who this Ramen Chef was, or why Qianyu would involve him in such a critical Konoha matter. A hidden master? But from what she knew, the Chef wasn't even a master of his own trade.
"Don't mind him," Qianyu said, offering a brief explanation. "Treat him as… a helpful bystander. No malice, no hidden agenda. And don't worry. He can't beat me anymore."
It wasn't arrogance. Just confidence. Whether it was about raw power or not didn't matter. As long as Kurama was still a Tailed Beast, facing Qianyu meant being at a natural, fundamental disadvantage. A matter of life form. A Shinju-kin was just the hard counter to a Bijuu.
The Ramen Chef smiled. He didn't deny it. No point.
"So… I release the Nine-Tails?" Mito asked again.
"Yep. Begin."
Qianyu understood her trepidation. She knew better than anyone the terror the Nine-Tails could unleash. But this was just wasted emotional energy. A Nine-Tails was a Nine-Tails. No matter how strong, it couldn't rebel against its… zookeeper.
Mito glanced at Qianyu's profile. His expression remained utterly calm. Well then. She had to trust her ancestor.
She signaled for Kushina to step back. Her hands formed a rapid sequence of seals. Completing the last one, she curled the fingers of her right hand, pressed her palm flat against her abdomen, and gave a sharp twist—like turning a unique, hidden lock.
Click.
The Eight Trigrams Seal shattered.
Seeing it was undoubtedly for him, he sighed and raised his arm horizontally, a perch ready for the feathered courier.
"Again? So many messages? Should've stayed out of signal range…"
Just then, a distinctive cry echoed from above. Qianyu looked up. A bird of prey circled directly overhead.
Qianyu was, admittedly, a pragmatist with little patience for pure research.
The initial thrill of discovery cooled quickly. It still felt like a fancy toy. Where could this new insight be practically applied?
?"useful"Interesting. Extremely interesting… Hah. Interesting is interesting. Amazing is amazing. But… is it actually
it. Otherwise, how could Yomotsu Hirasaka be called the ultimate space-time Ninjutsu?invadeIf his guess was right, using the rule-sight of this technique, he wouldn't just see talent. Taking it further… if someone had a pocket dimension attached to them, he should be able to perceive it. Not just perceive it. Possibly
"My mistake. I underestimated Yomotsu Hirasaka. This does have the hallmarks of a Kekkei Mōra."
the type with the latent genius to master space-time Ninjutsu.exactlyQianyu let go. If his eyes weren't deceiving him, this particular yellow-haired kid was named Minato Namikaze. And Minato was
"Oh, that's alright."
"Ah, my apologies. Mistook you for someone else."
"Hm? Hello… can I help you, sir?"
He quickened his pace, catching up to a blonde boy ahead and placing a hand on his shoulder.
'Perhaps more' could wait. The first point needed testing.
Qianyu realized Yomotsu Hirasaka wasn't just a utility technique. It was a key, a lens. It could detect an individual's innate talent for space-time Ninjutsu. And perhaps more…
"Could it be…?"
But around some individuals, those rules seemed to… smooth out. Become more legible.
To put it simply, space-time rules were profound, esoteric things. To most shinobi, they were like advanced calculus—structured, yet appearing chaotic and unsolvable.
His gaze swept across the street. He'd just used Yomotsu Hirasaka. The unique, rule-based power of the technique hadn't fully faded from his eyes. And as his vision passed over the ordinary scene, he sensed… anomalies around certain shinobi.
Stopped.
He took a step.
The Chef headed for his ramen stall. Qianyu, finally back in Konoha proper, intended to check on the two 'ice lollies' in the underground space beneath The Fireflies' headquarters.
At the Chef's request, he activated Yomotsu Hirasaka again. A dark portal swirled open. They stepped through, leaving the pocket dimension behind.
Qianyu was, of course, a good person. Out of respect for the Chef, he hadn't even frozen the remaining half-beast—just put it into a deep sleep.
"Open the door. I want to leave. Being here too long is… uncomfortable."
"Aren't I?"
"…So you think you're a good guy?"
Feels a bit wrong, doing this to 'you' in front of 'you'. Gotta explain, or I'd seem like the bad guy."Ahem."
The Chef was philosophical. "I know what you're planning. It's fine. After all, the one getting short-changed… isn't me."
Getting no answer, Qianyu continued. "Relax. I'll replenish the energy you lost. Soon. With interest. You'll come out ahead."
The Ramen Chef just smiled, silent. To be fair, the Chef was hardcore. He'd watched himself get split in two, not only without intervening, but actively aiding the process.
"Which brings us to the question… Kurama. Which Nine-Tails are you?"
The remaining half-beast, he left slumbering in the pocket dimension. It would sleep until it was needed again.
With the Nine-Tails released and re-sealed, Qianyu sent Mito and Kushina back to the real world.
"Told you. Minor procedure."
"No, Lord Qianyu. I just… didn't expect the transfer to be so simple. And my life… is preserved."
"Yep. Any other questions?"
"That's… it? It's over?"
"Good." Qianyu turned back to Mito. "Until she's strong enough, my Chakra will act as a stabilizer. The Nine-Tails won't be able to cause trouble. Just keep an eye on her mental state."
"Eh? It's gone. Cool now."
"Now?"
But Qianyu wouldn't tolerate even minor discomfort in his 'patient'. He stepped forward, injecting a stream of his own Chakra directly into the fresh seal.
"Let me check."
If "a slight burning" was the only complaint, the "surgery" was a resounding success.
Mito: "…"
Kushina blinked. "Not… much, really. Just a little… like I ate a ghost pepper. There's a slight burning in my stomach."
"How do you feel?" Mito asked her young kinswoman.
Qianyu gestured for Kushina to come forward. He raised a hand in front of her, but the Ramen Chef was already moving. With clean, efficient motions, he guided the miniature Tailed Beast into Kushina's sealing space and slammed the Eight Trigrams gates shut.
"Begin the sealing."
Questions still swirled in Mito's mind, but when the ancestor spoke with such finality, what could she do? Accept it.
"Of course not."
"Won't it threaten Konoha? The Shinobi World?" Mito pressed.
"The other one? I'll banish it to a pocket dimension."
"I see… but Lord Qianyu, what about the other one?"
Mito understood the logic. But she was worried about the leftover beast.
Even a quarter of the Nine-Tails outmatched the other Bijuu. Reduced scale meant easier control. Theoretically, a win for both the Jinchūriki and Konoha.
He hadn't split the Chakra evenly. He'd deliberately taken a quarter. The big one had three-quarters of the original's power. The small one, a quarter.
A child-sized Jinchūriki gets a child-sized Tailed Beast. Sounded perfectly reasonable to Qianyu.
"Just split its consciousness and Chakra," Qianyu clarified. "How about we seal the smaller one? Compared to other villages' Bijuu, it's still plenty strong. Easier for a new Jinchūriki to control. Less risk of rampages. The kid suffers less."
She'd never seen anything like it. 'Pretty neat'? It was utterly miraculous.
"Y-Yin-Yang Release?" Mito stammered, eyes wide. "Lord Qianyu… did you just create a new Tailed Beast?"
His proficiency in Yin-Yang Release was decent. This was just copying the beast's consciousness. Not too difficult—akin to a Shadow Clone. A far cry from the Sage of Six Paths splitting the Ten-Tails' Chakra and imparting unique consciousness and personality to each fragment.
Qianyu glanced over at Mito. "Yin-Yang Release. Pretty neat, huh?"
The solo snore became a duet.
The Nine-Tails didn't die. It kept snoring. The two halves of its body, like a bisected earthworm, began to wriggle and reform. In moments, they reconstituted into two Nine-Tails—one large, one small.
What happened next stunned Mito even more.
The energy blade struck the Nine-Tails' flank. It parted the orange fur and flesh like a hot knife through butter, cleaving the massive beast clean in two.
the Nine-Tails?killingMito's heart seized. Wasn't this about transferring the Jinchūriki? Was her ancestor…
"Wha—?!"
A blade of energy—not quite a sword beam, not quite pure Chakra—slashed through the air.
Before she could finish, Qianyu's wrist flicked. A dark-red, curved blade appeared in his grip. He raised it one-handed and swung.
"Lord Qia—"
Then she saw Qianyu. He was holding up his thumb, squinting one eye, using it to aim at the slumbering Bijuu's colossal body. He looked like he was about to pull out an Italian cannon.
Regaining her strength, Mito moved to help re-seal the beast.
On the other side, the Nine-Tails lay like a Husky after a full day of chaos: dead to the world, snoring like a mudslide.
So when his palm touched Kushina, a new, flawless Eight Trigrams Seal manifested around her core almost instantly—a prison for his future self, built by his future self. The craftsmanship was, by definition, impeccable.
In this world, no one understood the Eight Trigrams Seal better than the Ramen Chef. Not even the Uzumaki clan who created it. A case of the patient becoming the world's leading expert on their own disease.
"Your turn. Hold still."
His hand then moved to Kushina's shoulder.
"Just a failed ramen chef," the Chef said with a light laugh, offering no real answer to his first Jinchūriki.
"Who… what are you?"
Mito focused inward. The new Chakra felt… familiar. Similar to the Nine-Tails' own, yet different. Her earlier weakness had vanished completely. She finally had to ask.
The Chef withdrew his hand.
"This Chakra is just a placeholder. Don't use it. Once the Tailed Beast is extracted, the danger is gone. Your life will be sustained."
The Chef placed a hand on Mito's shoulder. She instinctively tried to pull away, but then froze. A new energy was flowing into her, filling the void left by the Nine-Tails within her sealing space. The broken Eight Trigrams Seal repaired itself before her inner eye, the gates slowly swinging shut once more.
"Hold still."
By now, the Ramen Chef was beside Mito. Deprived of the Nine-Tails' Chakra, she was weak, leaning heavily on Kushina for support.
This wasn't animal cruelty. He had permission from the animal itself.
He channeled his ocular power. A powerful Genjutsu slammed into the Nine-Tails' consciousness, plunging it into a deep, artificial coma. Consider it a general anesthetic. Saves it from thrashing around and hurting itself.
He stepped up beside the Ramen Chef. His gaze met the Nine-Tails'—the beast's mouth still forcibly shut. Without Qianyu even noticing, his pupils had already shifted into the whorling pattern of the Mangekyō.
"You handle that side. I'll take care of this."
Seeing the Chef take action, Qianyu saw no need to hold back.
Well. A mature, thoughtful adult truly finds it difficult to face their own cringe-worthy past. If you can't delete the old QQ space logs, at the very least, you have to mute them.
The Ramen Chef was already in front of it, hand slamming onto its massive forehead.
It never got the chance.
Its crimson eyes immediately landed on Qianyu. A thousand questions bubbled up inside it, ready to be roared.
The Nine-Tails—free.
A violent, prickling Chakra erupted outwards. An enormous orange form burst from the broken seal.
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