“Um, big sis, I don’t think I could do much against the Kyuubi even if I wasn’t out of chakra,” she protested.
I silenced her with a kiss, and passed her all the memories I hadn’t had time to give her before in the process.
“Just back off and watch. Survive. Get Hinata out of the area if she’ll let you. And… take care of them for me, alright?”
She looked up at me with wide eyes, and nodded. “I promise.”
“Are you ready yet, kid? I’m getting bored.” The Kyuubi yawned.
I looked up at the towering inferno of hate, and shook my head. “You really sure you want to back me into a corner like this, Kyuubi? You do realize what those two souls you’re holding prisoner mean to me, right? There is nothing I won’t do to free them.”
“I’m not going to let you set up some elaborate sealing technique, Sakura,” he scoffed. “Now do something interesting, or I’ll start chewing on your girlfriend.”
“Then there’s no other way,” I said sadly. “Fine, then. I’ll tell you the flaw in this grand scheme of yours. There’s one other person who can command the full power of the Sharingan.”
I pulled yet another body out of my mindscape and aspected myself as I spoke. But the aspect I dropped into that new body was the demon who’d slept inside me for so many years, and the first thing she did was shift her eyes.
She was a very junior demon, without even a connection to the Nidhogg system, but her kind had created the Eyes of Misery. Her eyes were fully developed, and using them was as instinctive to her as breathing. Even as a beast of eleven tails, the Kyuubi wasn’t immune to her Tsukuyomi Bijuu Bind.
He froze, rooted in place by her technique, and roared in frustration. “How? You were never one of that cursed clan, and even if you were you haven’t the stomach to unlock those powers.”
“I told you, Kyuubi, there is nothing I wouldn’t do to protect my family,” my demon aspect reminded him. “But I’m not a mortal bargainer, so I don’t have to worry about those rules. I guess the real Naruto must have blocked your senses, or you would have heard about this when we told him.”
He snorted. “Whatever. Fine, you tricked me. It won’t do you any good. You can barely bind me in place, let alone command me. You can’t make me give up the souls you’re so attached to, and you can’t hold me for more than a few minutes.”
“We don’t have to,” I said. “You’re about four times more powerful than when Minato sealed you, but I’ve got a lot more chakra left than he had to work with.”
For the second time that day I threw open the floodgates holding back the vast lake of power hidden in my storage seal. What felt like a limitless sea of power surged through me, replenishing my reserves and banishing my fatigue in an instant. But I could see that I’d already spent more than half my reserve, and what I was about to attempt was unprecedented. Even as a nine-tailed beast the Kyuubi had been almost impossible to contain, and now he was four times stronger than that. But I’d noticed before that my own method of singing seals in the celestial tongue was much more effective than conventional hand seals, and I didn’t need to do anything near as elaborate as Minato’s masterpiece…
“Hah!” The Kyuubi barked. “That amount of power is nothing to me, girl. Besides, what could you possibly use as a container?”
“I won’t be needing one,” I said coldly. “Goodbye, Kyuubi.”
Then I mustered all the love and determination I could find, and raised my voice in the most painful song I’d ever sung.
Guardian Shinigami of this mortal world of woe, hear my call of desperation and make manifest your form. I am Sakura Haruno, born of mortal man and woman, faced with a foe I cannot defeat who threatens all I hold dear. But as the Celestial Emperor has commanded that no power may stand above all retribution, I offer now the bargain of sacrifice.
The air grew cold around me, and I heard Hinata’s startled gasp as the Shinigami materialized behind me. No matter how powerful the Kyuubi might be, he wasn’t stronger than death.
Who shall I take? The ghostly presence whispered in my ear.
“Whoa, wait, are you nuts?” The Kyuubi protested. “Kid, that thing will take you too. Do you want to be digested in his belly for a hundred years?”
The Kyuubi that stands before me is my foe, I sang. Take every trace of him, but touch not his prisoners, and my soul shall provide your rightful payment.
I accept your bargain.
The ghostly figure nodded, and its arms stretched out to fasten on the struggling demon fox as its mouth gaped wide. A river of seething red chakra was ripped out of the Kyuubi’s chest, streaming down into that endless black maw along with a steady stream of my own blue chakra. The bijuu thrashed and struggled wildly, desperately trying to break the technique that froze him in place. But my demon aspect stood firm, and the binding held.
“Sakura, you can’t mean this. You’re a goddess! All you have to do is say the right words, and you’ll be immortal. Let me go, and I’ll tell you what they are.”
My demon aspect shook her head. “We’re not afraid to die, dumbass.”
The fox shrank visibly, its eleventh tail vanishing into the maw of the Shinigami. But half my chakra was gone as well.
The Kyuubi tried another tack. “But if you do this, you won’t even have an afterlife! You won’t go to one of those Heaven realms, or reincarnate, or even get punished by the demons. The Shinigami will devour your soul!”
“Like you were going to do to Naruto?” I asked. “I understand exactly what I’m doing, Kyuubi. If this is the price I have to pay to protect my family from you, I’ll pay it.”
Another tail was sucked away, but my storage seal had already shrunk alarmingly. This was going to be close.
The Kyuubi howled in pain, and struggled vainly against its bindings. I could see my demon aspect was tiring fast, but she wouldn’t have to hold him much longer. Three-fourths of the Kyuubi’s chakra was already gone, and his ninth tail was sucked away as I watched. The eighth went, much faster than before, and then the seventh. But now my storage seal was empty, and my own chakra was fading fast.
“You can’t do this to me!” The demon fox howled. “You owe me! I call in your debt to me, little goddess!”
I blinked in surprise, my concentration wavering for a moment. Damn, he was right. I owed him for the hints he’d given me so many years ago, and I was bound to honor that obligation whether I wanted to or not.
But then again, it wasn’t an unlimited obligation.
His sixth tail was ripped away, and his howling began to sound more like whimpering.
“You’re right, Kyuubi,” I admitted, my voice tight from the strain of maintaining my technique. “You gave me a chance to survive, so I have to repay you in kind. But that’s all I have to give you. A chance.”
His fifth tail was sucked into the void.
“What? You bitch! What the hells does that even mean?”
His fourth tail went, and his third, faster and faster as his power faded. With each loss his power was halved, but so was mine. As the Shinigami claimed the Kyuubi’s second tail I realized that my own chakra was almost gone, but that was alright. My job was done.
The Kyuubi’s final tail was dragged into the mouth of the Shinigami, but I ended my technique before the last of it was taken. The Kyuubi had reverted to a humanoid form, his red aura of chakra barely stronger than any jounin’s.
“You have a chance to live,” I said. “But you aren’t taking over anyone in that state.”
Hinata glided up behind him while he was busy staring at me, and laid him out in a blur of precision jyuuken strikes. She caught him before he could fall, and looked up at me with tears running down her cheeks.