CHAPTER 345: CHAPTER 345 – THE TEN-TAILS CHAKRA: A COMPLETE KNOCKOFF

"I think," Orochimaru said, licking his lips with an eerie glint in his eyes, "we can try synthesizing the chakra inside the Gedo Statue first — see what happens."

The connection between the Gedo Staue and the tailed beasts’ chakra had long been suspected, but no one actually knew the truth.

Theory was one thing; only experiments brought real understanding.

Why guess when you could test it?

"Orochimaru, you snake!" Tsunade snapped. "You’re itching for trouble the first chance you get! Believe it or not, I’ll smash your face in with one punch!"

That was exactly why she’d come today — to keep Kyoichi and Orochimaru under control. When those two got together, disaster was inevitable.

And, as it turned out, her instincts were right again.

If she hadn’t been here, who knew what kind of catastrophe they would’ve unleashed by now?

Kyoichi quickly raised his hands in defense.

"Hey, this has nothing to do with me! I haven’t agreed to anything — and I’m definitely not agreeing to that!"

"...Fine."

Orochimaru could only sigh. One against two — and both were monsters.

He’d have to let it go. For now.

Still, without the Gedo Statue, synthesizing the nine tailed beasts’ chakra was a challenge. Even Tsunade had to admit, the task seemed impossible without that strange link between the statue and the beasts.

She rubbed her temples and glanced toward the Nine-Tails.

"Don’t look at me," the fox said lazily. "The fact that I was created proves the original was already divided. How would I know how to put it back together?"

Kurama sat there, feigning innocence — though his tone carried the dry irritation of an ancient being.

Yes, he was the eldest of the tailed beasts, practically immortal by human standards, but that didn’t mean he knew everything.

As for this whole "tailed beasts merging" business — he was just as clueless.

"The Sage of Six Paths never mentioned it?" Kyoichi muttered, frowning. "Irresponsible, isn’t it? Though I suppose if he had been responsible, the shinobi world wouldn’t have ended up in this mess. Took him, what, centuries to finally show up and hand Naruto and Sasuke cheat codes?"

Kurama didn’t respond. He just stared up at the ceiling of the cavern, choosing silence over argument.

Kyoichi’s ranting was one thing — but what could he say?

Better to pretend he hadn’t heard it at all.

Tsunade finally waved her hand, tired of the bickering. "Then let’s bring in Nagato. Maybe he’ll have an idea."

"Nagato? That could work," Kyoichi said thoughtfully. "In any case, any sealing technique will need someone with the Rinnegan involved. If a new kind of chakra really is produced, it’ll probably end up under his control anyway."

He nodded once, and with a flash of Flying Thunder God, vanished.

Moments later, he reappeared with Nagato.

Orochimaru sighed internally. Of course. Kyoichi had planned this from the start — he’d just waited for Tsunade to say it first so he wouldn’t get scolded for suggesting it himself.

What a schemer.

Meanwhile, he — the ever "straightforward" one — always took the blame.

The eternal tool man.

Still, curiosity burned in him. He wanted to know what the Gedo Statue truly was — what would happen if it absorbed the tailed beasts’ chakra, how it would transform.

But without Kyoichi, Tsunade, and Konoha’s resources, he could never gather all nine chakras on his own.

Every jinchūriki was a state secret, heavily guarded by their respective villages.

And even if he did obtain all the chakra, without Kyoichi’s mastery of Wood Release and chakra control, he couldn’t possibly cultivate another God Tree.

So he could only sigh and watch.

------

Nagato’s eyes widened the moment he arrived.

Before him stood an enormous tree — vast, towering, pulsing faintly with power.

And unmistakably, there was a trace of the Gedo Statue’s presence within it.

"This is..." he breathed.

"Our imitation of the Gedo Statue," Kyoichi explained. "A cultivated plant, grown from Hashirama’s cells. Our idea is to seal the tailed beasts’ chakra into it — but since it might be connected to the Rinnegan, we need your help."

"Phantom Dragons Nine Consuming Seals!" Nagato said immediately.

The others turned to him.

He began to explain — the Phantom Dragons Nine Consuming Seals was a sealing technique designed to bind and draw chakra from multiple beasts simultaneously.

Orochimaru glanced sideways at Kyoichi, surprised.

That sounded... oddly familiar.

He remembered Kyoichi had his own sealing method that allowed multiple users to direct chakra toward a single target.

Wasn’t that almost identical in principle?

So this brat had already planned the method?

All this talk about "trying things out" — complete nonsense. He’d mapped everything from the start.

And who got yelled at every time?

Orochimaru, the reliable tool.

He sighed inwardly.

Truly, the fate of an honest man was tragic.

"I’m not completely proficient in that jutsu," Nagato admitted.

"That’s fine," Tsunade said. "We know a variation of it. Since both rely on the Rinnegan, the principle should be the same. Let’s use it to seal the tailed beasts’ chakra into the tree."

There was no time to waste.

Now wasn’t the moment to debate the details — sealing came first.

To seal an entire tailed beast usually took days. But this time, they were only sealing fragments of chakra. That simplified things — the hard part would be the fusion.

Tsunade suggested calling in reinforcements — shinobi from the ANBU trained in this sealing method — to work together, in hopes of accelerating the process and improving chakra integration.

Coincidentally, Kyoichi had already taught a modified version of Phantom Dragons Nine Consuming Seals for his own projects.

Now, that "experiment" was finally paying off.

The process went smoothly.

Within a single day, they managed to seal all nine chakras into the Hashirama-cell-grown tree.

At first, there was no change.

Then the tree began to stir.

Its roots trembled, its bark shimmered faintly with chakra light — and soon, Kyoichi had to step in.

He couldn’t join the sealing anymore; all his focus went into suppressing the tree’s growth.

Without control, the energy of the tailed beasts would cause it to expand uncontrollably — enough to collapse the entire mountain. Worse, that overflowed chakra wouldn’t even convert into Ten-Tails chakra.

It would all be wasted.

By suppressing it, Kyoichi could ensure maximum preservation and transformation efficiency.

After all, the tree wasn’t meant to become a God Tree. It was just a converter — a "bootleg" version to synthesize chakra.

As the nine chakras mingled, they began to merge deep within the tree.

Had this been the real Gedo Statue, the process would’ve been complete by now — all energies blending seamlessly into one. But in this imitation, the conversion was painfully slow.

That was expected.

Even when the fusion began to stabilize, the resulting energy didn’t feel quite right. It resembled the Ten-Tails’ chakra... but not completely. Something vital was missing.

Still —

It was Ten-Tails chakra enough.

Don’t underestimate knockoffs — they can still get the job done.

And there was one silver lining.

Kyoichi could sense the energy’s connection to the original Gedo Statue weakening — replaced instead by a faint trace of the Sage of Six Paths’ natural energy.

A true imitation to the very end.

"How is it?"

Orochimaru’s voice trembled with curiosity. He wanted so badly to inspect it himself, but he was still maintaining his part of the seal.

"It’s complicated," Kyoichi replied, eyes narrowing. "Too much to explain for now. Let’s finish the sealing and prevent the tree from drawing more power. I’ll leave a clone to monitor the internal conversion. Once it’s complete... then we’ll see what we’ve made."

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