(NEW ICHIRAKU RAMEN) CHAPTER THIRTEEN

Mahito stood at the center of the domain like a mismatched conductor before an orchestra of dismembered hands, his laughter reverberating through the void.

“Right now,” he said, voice almost reverent as he smiled, “I’m just… grateful to you.”

Naruto did not miss the obvious self-satisfaction within his words, and that alone was enough to set every instinct on edge. More so than the strange weight pressing against his senses. 

So this was a Domain Expansion.

Gojo had mentioned during their conversation, almost casually, as if discussing the weather. The pinnacle of jujutsu sorcery. A manifestation of the curse user’s innate domain, within which their ultimate technique became one guaranteed to hit.

Naruto’s eyes swept the space.

The massive gray hands forming the grotesque floral structure were no longer simply decoration. Some were frozen in mudra-like seals while others hovered inches away from him and Hinata, intentionally kept still, as though waiting for a cue. Each was connected through multiple arms that grabbed one another to form a net pattern that surrounded them. 

Sure-hit.

That was the part that mattered.

In terms of raw physical speed and reaction time, Naruto was faster than nearly anyone alive bar maybe Sasuke. But could he outrun certainty? And could he do it while protecting Hinata?

He didn’t know, but he had to be. He wouldn't let anything happen to his wife and child, especially since it was obvious Mahito literally had them in the palm of his hand.

But speaking of…

Was that a clue to Mahito’s techniques? Maybe it was a touch-based technique or something. 

Naruto’s gaze narrowed.

Mahito’s ability back in the shop had required contact, and Naruto was sure of this because the curse had reached for the civilian’s shoulder. He’d also tried to grab Naruto’s wrist, and now his domain was built entirely from hands.

Yeah.

That wasn’t exactly subtle.

“Still thinking?” Mahito asked lightly. His head remained slightly bowed, but his eyes gleamed with feverish delight. “It won’t help. Inside my domain, there’s no escaping me. Every soul here is… exposed.”

Hinata stepped slightly closer to Naruto, veins rising at her temples as she scanned the barrier with her Byakugan.

Her voice remained calm, though her pulse had quickened.

“Naruto-kun. The energy here…”

She didn't need to finish her sentence.

She didn’t have to.

“Yeah...”

Naruto could feel it too. Mahito’s cursed energy didn’t press against his skin, but seemed to go beyond his skin to touch his very soul. It was exploratory now, but Naruto knew that wouldn't last long. 

Jujutsu sorcerers were turning out to be more bullshit than he had thought.

Mahito’s smile widened.

“You understand now, don’t you?” he whispered, lifting one hand with his palm facing them. The surrounding hands mirrored him in eerie synchrony. “You can’t dodge an attack on your own soul.”

Hinata’s breath hitched, and Naruto exhaled slowly, even as annoyance momentarily flared across his face.

“Idle...”

As the words rolled through the space like a verdict, Naruto’s thoughts accelerated. Shadow clones to intercept? Rasengan to burst through the barrier? A direct blitz before the technique completed?

None of it mattered if the technique truly guaranteed contact.

Then what could he do? 

The answer came to him immediately, and a grin tugged at his lips despite the situation.

“Okay, buddy,” he said. “Time to show this bastard what we’re made of.”

He didn’t flare his chakra.

He didn’t transform.

He didn't even fight the contact. He simply allowed it to happen.

. . . . .

Mahito’s grin widened as the hands around them completed their seals.

“…Transfiguration.”

The domain obeyed, the sure-hit effect activated, and Mahito touched Naruto’s soul.

For a fraction of a second, there was resistance of unknown origin. And as a result, the pressure brushing against Naruto’s soul pressed just a bit too far, deeper than flesh and bone. It touched something that did not belong to him. Something vast that stirred. 

As such, one moment he stood within his domain, absolute ruler of the enclosed space. The next, the world simply replaced itself, becoming a vast corridor stretching into shadow.

He stood ankle-deep in cold, endless water beneath a crimson sky, and the air was heavy with something far denser than cursed energy, something that didn't obey the same laws.

He blinked once, failing to understand what just happened. Then as it dawned on him, he smiled.

So this was Naruto’s inner world. How curious. 

He reached outward with his perception, expecting to feel the structure of a single soul. Instead, he found two presences intertwined so completely that distinguishing them required effort.

One was bright and distinctly human, albeit more. 

The other—

The water rippled, his reflection distorting, and a sound rolled through the space.

It was less of a roar and more of a breath. Yet, the corridor trembled and the water below him withdrew as a crushing and immense pressure descended on him without warning.

Mahito looked up.

The space before him was dark as his own domain, but unlike his hands, two red-colored, slit-pupiled eyes opened here. They were neither human nor curse, and they burned with an intensity Mahito had never felt before. Then, nine immense shapes unfurled behind the eyes, moving slowly and with grace, each one vast enough to blot out whatever horizon existed in this space.

Tails.

And as if that was its cue, the foreign energy flooded the space, so much so that Mahito’s perception struggled to measure it.

His smile dimmed.

The darkness leaned forward.

Fur the color of burning amber emerged from the darkness, each breath from the creature stirring waves across the flooded floor. Its presence filled the mindscape in a way Mahito had never experienced, and almost impossibly, the pressure seemingly doubled. 

“You.”

The voice was not loud or trying to be threatening.

It simply was.

Mahito understood then.

He had not touched a mere human but a vessel.

One that contained something positively ancient.

Something that remembered hatred long before curses were given names.

Mahito straightened slowly, fascination returning even as instinct whispered danger.

“So you’re the other one,” he said softly. “How delightful. Two souls in one body…”

The fox’s lip curled, revealing teeth the size of pillars.

“You dare,” it said.

There was no rise in volume or dramatic emphasis. Just a statement of fact. And yet, it felt like a declaration as the water around Mahito began to boil.

He glanced down, feeling something for the first time since his birth.

Scale.

He had touched countless souls, pulled them apart, studied them, and discarded them aside after they had exhausted their use. 

This was beyond all of them. 

He instinctively reached outward with his technique, attempting to establish control, to analyze the soul of what he was perceiving.

His cursed energy dissolved on contact, simply overwhelmed immediately. 

The fox lowered its massive head slightly, massive muzzle nearing his body, breath scorching the air between them.

“You think you can touch what is mine?”

Mahito’s pupils contracted as he realized then that he might have made a mistake by attacking Naruto and Hinata. This was no mere being.

This was danger personified. 

“Now endure the price of your hubris.”

. . . . .

In the real world, the domain trembled.

The gray hands surrounding Naruto and Hinata spasmed violently, seals breaking formation as golden light began to leak through the seams of Mahito’s barrier.

Naruto’s eyes opened.

They were no longer blue.

They burned gold.

Chakra erupted around him in a blinding explosion, tearing through the invasive pressure that had begun to close in on his soul. The black floor fractured beneath his feet as incandescent patterns appeared on him, forming the blazing cloak of the Six Paths Sage. The nearest hands disintegrated into ash-like fragments, unable to withstand the force flooding a space never meant to contain it.

Hinata shielded her eyes as wind howled outward from Naruto’s body, but she was no longer uncertain about the situation. Mahito’s physical form jerked violently, eyes wide, blood trickling from the corner of his mouth as the backlash ripped through his physical body.

His pupils shrank.

“What… are you?”

Naruto lifted his head, and behind him, for a split second, the outline of the fox-shaped being appeared, nine vast tails curling around. 

Across the city, sorcerers and curses alike felt it.

A presence that did not belong to their world.

And back on that street, Naruto met Mahito’s stare.

“I’m Naruto Uzumaki.”