Faced with the isolation barrier, Saiki didn't slow down.
He lunged forward like a projectile, drawing his fist back like a coiled spring before slamming it into the invisible wall of energy.
HUMMM!
SHATTER!
A deafening screech filled the air as the barrier buckled and broke like fragile glass under the impact of his raw physical force.
Translucent shards of energy exploded outward like shrapnel, accompanied by a violent shockwave.
The residual force hammered against the ancient stone walls and pillars of the hall, making the entire subterranean space groan and tremble.
The candles flickered and died. The Uchiha elders, caught off guard, stumbled as their delicate extraction ritual was violently interrupted.
"What is happening?!"
One elder looked up, his face a mask of shock and fury. What were the guards outside doing?
BOOM!
Before they could recover, a second explosion rocked the room. The ceiling of the hall shattered.
Amidst a rain of debris and dust, a silhouette slammed into the floor like a falling meteor.
The impact caused the stone floor to crack, fissures snaking all the way to the edge of the altar.
As the dust settled, Saiki stood up slowly, his eyes like twin shards of ice scanning the room.
His gaze locked onto the stone altar—Kushina's pale, agonized face, her shivering frame, and the squirming black runes greedily drinking her life force and the fox's chakra.
The extracted energy had grown so dense within the local barrier that the silhouette of a fox's head was already beginning to form.
The Uchiha had never expected anyone to arrive this quickly.
The ritual was at the point of no return. If it failed now, the Nine-Tails would be released without a master, and the Uchiha would be the first to be erased.
"KILL HIM!" the lead elder shrieked, his eyes bulging with madness.
"DON'T LET HIM INTERFERE!"
The two elders closest to Saiki reacted with the speed of veterans.
Their three-tomoe Sharingan spun wildly, assisting their chakra control as their hands blurred through signs.
"Fire Style: Great Fireball!"
"Fire Style: Great Dragon Fire!"
From both sides, two torrents of infernal flame roared toward Saiki, carrying the scent of absolute annihilation.
Using Fire Style in a confined underground space was a testament to their desperation.
The heat instantly vaporized the moisture in the air, distorting the atmosphere of the hall.
Faced with flames hot enough to melt stone, Saiki didn't even blink. He didn't bother to dodge.
He allowed the firestorm to swallow him whole.
"AGH—!"
The scream didn't come from Saiki. It came from the elder on the left.
The moment the fire enveloped Saiki, his silhouette passed through the inferno like a ghost.
The temperatures that should have turned him to ash were meaningless before the rain of his Auspicious Cloud; he didn't even have a singe mark on his clothes.
He tanked the kinetic force of the blast and appeared directly in front of the elder before the man could even finish his follow-through.
BOOM—!!!
A fist backed by apocalyptic strength slammed into the elder's face.
There were no fancy jutsu, only the terrifying sound of raw power shattering the sound barrier.
CRACK.
The sickening sound of a skull collapsing was deafening.
The elder's head was snapped back at an impossible angle. His entire body was launched like a broken sack of flour hit by a truck.
Accompanied by a mist of blood and shattered teeth, he was hammered into the stone wall of the shrine.
The reinforced rock buckled and shattered. The man's body slid to the floor, his head a shapeless ruin of red gore and white brain matter splattered across the masonry.
The entire sequence happened in a heartbeat. The Great Dragon Fire from the other side hadn't even finished dissipating.
"ROAR—!!!"
In that exact second, the situation turned from a fight into a nightmare.
A terrifying, incomprehensible volume of energy exploded from the altar.
The massive fox-head of chakra, having been partially stripped from Kushina, combined with the will of the beast still inside her to shatter the remaining barriers.
The Nine-Tails had completely rampaged.
BOOM!
Like a volcanic eruption, hyper-condensed dark red chakra flooded the room like molten lava.
It carried the raw weight of ancient malice, hatred, and insanity.
The small containment field on the altar was vaporized instantly.
The squirming black runes met their match as the crimson tide dissolved them in an instant.
The remaining elders maintaining the array were the first to pay.
"Gah—!"
"No—!"
The screams were cut short. The elders closest to the altar didn't even have time to register the change before their bodies were shredded and vaporized by the shockwave of the beast's chakra.
Only a few charred limbs remained to be tossed through the air by the expanding pressure.
The elder who had given the order to kill Saiki, along with the one who had just finished his Fire Style, were hurled across the room.
They tried to shield themselves with chakra, but against the absolute power of a rampaging Kurama, their defenses were as useless as wet paper.
CRASH!
They were slammed into the far walls, coughing up lungs full of blood as their bones shattered.
They struggled to stand, their eyes wide with a terror that surpassed their fear of Saiki. They were staring at the monster they had unthinkingly unleashed—a beast far beyond their ability to chain.
ROAR—!!!
The deafening, primal howl of a god echoed through the shrine and shook the very foundation of the Uchiha District.
The dark red chakra, thick as oil, spread from the altar. Everywhere it touched, the stone bubbled and hissed, and the air became heavy enough to choke a man.
A pillar of crimson light erupted from the shrine, piercing the clouds.
Tsunade, leading her relief force toward the district, skidded to a halt.
"No... it can't be!"
That chaotic, hateful aura was unmistakable. Even from a distance, it made her skin crawl and her heart hammer with dread.
This wasn't a leak. This was the signal of a total release.
"DAMN IT! What have those Uchiha maniacs done?!" Tsunade's face went pale. She didn't hesitate. She slammed her foot into the ground, shattering the street as she launched herself like an arrow toward the crimson light—the heart of the Uchiha ancestral shrine.
Deep beneath the ruins, the hall had become a literal hell.
The Nine-Tails' chakra was expanding like sentient magma.
The solid stone floor was melting away under the "hissing" corrosion of the beast's malice.
Kurama had emerged. Even Saiki could no longer suppress the release.
He could only wait for the manifestation to complete, beat the beast into submission, and shove it back in.