Hiruzen Sarutobi stared at the two sealed cardboard boxes of expired milk Naruto had proudly presented, his facial muscles twitching in a continuous, involuntary spasm.
Is this a joke? I'm an old man! Two whole boxes of this swill would shave a decade off my life!
"N-Naruto, my boy," Hiruzen began, forcing his kindest, most grandfatherly smile onto his ashen face. "Grandpa is so touched, but… I really couldn't possibly drink all of this!"
"Oh?" Namikaze Raimon's voice cut through the air, smooth as a honed kunai. He was now lounging on Naruto's worn-out sofa, legs casually crossed. "Are you disrespecting the Namikaze clan? Refusing a gift from the heir?"
Hiruzen's smile became a pained rictus. "I wouldn't dare! Of course not! It's just… my constitution…"
He wasn't a Jinchuriki with the Nine-Tails' regenerative powers, nor did he possess the legendary vitality of the Uzumaki. He was just an old man who wanted to hold onto the Hokage seat—and his life—for a few more years.
"Can't drink it?" Raimon's tone was deceptively light. "Fine. Take it back and give it to your precious grandson, Konohamaru. Consider it a gift from his 'big brother' Naruto."
Seeing the absolute horror dawn on Hiruzen's face, Raimon's expression turned icy. "What? Is that also disrespecting my clan?"
Naruto, completely missing the deadly subtext, bounced on his heels with excitement. "Yeah! Give it to Konohamaru! He's my little bro! Good stuff should be shared! I bet he'll be super happy to drink it all, dattebayo!"
Hiruzen's face cycled through a kaleidoscope of colors. He wanted to refuse, to shout, to burn the cursed boxes, but he didn't dare. What if this demon decided to pay a personal visit to Konohamaru to ensure the 'gift' was properly delivered? The entire Sarutobi clan, all three thousand of them, wouldn't be enough to stop him.
Before he could formulate a response, Namikaze Raimon clapped his hands together. "Excellent! It's settled then. These two boxes are Konohamaru's."
His voice dropped to a menacing, frigid whisper that seemed to freeze the very air in the small apartment. "Kakashi. Sarutobi. You two will personally supervise this. Ensure every last drop is… appreciated."
Hiruzen felt the blood drain from his face. He would have rather chugged both boxes himself and spent a week in the hospital than put his grandson through this. He had walked right into this trap.
"Y-yes, Raimon-sama," Hiruzen and Kakashi stammered in unison, cold sweat beading on their brows. They had no doubt that a refusal would result in Raimon delivering the milk personally, with a side of his signature 'blooming' technique.
"Good," Raimon said, his cheerful demeanor returning as if a switch had been flipped. "Now that the pleasantries are over, let's get down to business."
The atmosphere in the room instantly tightened. Kakashi and Hiruzen exchanged a look of pure dread. This was the moment they had been fearing.
"Well? Speak! Cat got your tongues? If you had the guts to do it, have the guts to admit it!" Raimon's voice was a low growl. As he spoke, a familiar, high-pitched whirring filled the room. A drill of crackling wind and lightning chakra materialized in his right hand, its blue light casting sinister shadows across his face. He stared directly at Hiruzen's backside, his intent unmistakable. "Don't make me ask twice."
Hiruzen looked at the spinning drill, then at Kakashi's pale face, and finally at Naruto's confused one. He felt a profound, soul-deep throbbing in a very specific part of his anatomy. He knew, with absolute certainty, that hesitation would be met with immediate and catastrophic posterior rearrangement.
With a soul-weary sigh, the Third Hokage began to talk. He spoke of the Kyuubi's attack, of Minato and Kushina's sacrifice, of the decision to hide Naruto's parentage and make him the village's Jinchuriki scapegoat for the sake of 'stability'.
As the story unfolded, Naruto's initial confusion melted away, replaced by a dawning, earth-shattering realization.
"I… I have a father?" he whispered, his voice trembling. "And… my father was… the Yondaime? The Fourth Hokage?"
Tears, long held back by years of loneliness and confusion, began to stream down his face. The dam broke. "I HAVE A FATHER! HE WAS THE HOKAGE! SO WHY… WHY DOES EVERYONE STILL CALL ME A MONSTER?! WHY?!"
A dark, malevolent red chakra began to boil out of him, coating his skin in a faint aura. The air grew heavy and hot. Hiruzen's eyes widened, his hands moving instinctively to form seals to reinforce the Eight Trigrams Seal.
"Leave it," Namikaze Raimon commanded, his voice calm but firm, stopping the Hokage in his tracks. "A little fox throwing a tantrum isn't going to cause any trouble."
Closing his eyes, Raimon's consciousness dove inward, following the torrent of negative emotions straight into the deep, sewer-like space where the Nine-Tails was imprisoned.
....
Within the seal, the great Kyuubi no Kitsune sensed Naruto's emotional turmoil and let out a vicious, internal grin. Good! Let the brat break! His pain is my freedom! It began to gather its immense chakra, ready to burst through the weakening seal.
Suddenly, it sensed another presence. A blond man now stood casually outside the massive, paper-adorned iron gate. The fox's single, slitted eye narrowed. It recognized that chakra flavor, that infuriatingly bright hair.
"You…" the Nine-Tails' voice was a low, rumbling earthquake of hatred. "It's you! The other one!"
A roar of pure, undiluted rage erupted from its throat, shaking the very foundation of the mental space. A torrent of corrosive red chakra blasted through the bars of the gate, intent on obliterating the intruder.
"Tch. A pet should know its place," Raimon scoffed, utterly unimpressed.
In a flicker of yellow light, he didn't just stand there—he vanished from outside the gate and reappeared inside the cage, right in front of the gargantuan fox.
"You! How did you—?!" the Nine-Tails recoiled in shock, its massive head pulling back. No one, not even the Yondaime, should have been able to bypass the Uzumaki sealing barrier so effortlessly.
Its shock turned to a familiar, deeply unsettling dread as it saw the blond man's right hand. A sphere of chakra swirled to life, morphing rapidly into a long, shrieking drill crackling with wind and lightning. The Kyuubi felt an instinctual, primal clenching in its nether regions that it hadn't felt since… well, since the last time it had seen this man on a battlefield.
No… it can't be… The Nine-Tails shook its massive head, trying to dispel the phantom pain. I am a being of pure chakra! I am immortal! What can this pathetic human do to me? At worst, I'll just dissipate and reform later, free from this cage!
"Insignificant human! This is not a place for you to trespass!" it bellowed, putting on a show of bravado. Nine massive, chakra-formed tails shot forward like spears, aiming to impale the tiny figure before it.
The fox already envisioned the satisfying squish.
"Huh?"
The tails slammed into the ground where Raimon had been standing, hitting nothing but empty space.
"O-O-O-O-OOWWWWOOOOOOOO!!!"
The Nine-Tails' body shot into the air, its eyes bulging out of their sockets as if they were about to launch across the room. Tears of pure, concentrated agony, formed from its own chakra, streamed down its fox face.
"Now, now, little fox. Mind your aim," a calm, teasing voice came from directly behind it.
Namikaze Raimon was there, the drill already retracted. "Wind Release, Lightning Release Secret Ultimate Taijutsu Technique! Thousand-Year Fire Dragon Thunder-Light Spiral Drill!!"
An enhanced, Tailed Beast-scale version of the Thousand Years of Death had been delivered with pinpoint accuracy.
"B-BLOND! YOU DARE!?" the Kyuubi shrieked, its fur standing on end. It spun around, fangs bared, glaring at the infuriatingly calm man. The damaged area on its rear swirled with chakra, repairing itself in moments. But the pain… the soul-deep, humiliating memory of the pain remained, fresh and vivid.
It was beyond furious. It opened its maw, and a swirling sphere of black and red chakra began to form, compressing into a Tailed Beast Bomb. "DIE!"
Raimon just sighed. "So predictable."
BZOOOM!
The Tailed Beast Bomb fired, a miniature sun of annihilation hurtling towards him, capable of vaporizing a small mountain.
The Nine-Tails smirked. Got him.
Its smirk vanished an instant later as it felt a familiar, terrifying presence materialize behind it once more. The same spot. The same technique.
"Flying Thunder God: Drill!"
"GYAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
This cycle repeated. Again. And again. And again.
After the tenth consecutive 'blossoming', the Nine-Tails had finally had enough. It curled its nine massive tails around its backside, forming a protective, fluffy barrier, its body trembling with a mixture of rage and sheer, unadulterated trauma.
"YOU COWARD! FIGHT ME HEAD-ON! WHAT KIND OF SHINOBI RELIES SOLELY ON… ON THAT!?" it screamed, its voice cracking.
In that moment of ultimate humiliation, it found itself thinking of its two greatest captors with a strange sense of nostalgia. Hashirama… you just pinned me down with your wood and talked about peace… I miss you! Madara… you just controlled me with your Sharingan… it was dehumanizing, but quick! I miss you too!
This… this was psychological warfare of the most brutal kind.
"Alright, little fox," Raimon said, the electric drill once again humming menacingly in his palm. "Are you ready to have a civilized conversation now?"
The Nine-Tails felt its spirit break. It couldn't win. It couldn't escape. It was utterly, hopelessly outmaneuvered.
Swallowing its immeasurable pride, it gave a sullen, barely perceptible nod.
"Good," Raimon said. Then he looked up, way up, at the colossal fox. "But you know… I really don't like having to look up when I talk."