Chapter 172 - 170: What Do you Think Of...?

Azula didn't expect her talk about Tailed Beasts to provoke such a reaction from Akiko, but when she thought about it, it was actually pretty reasonable. Most people didn't react well to the sudden realization that the strongest country coveted their nuclear deterrent.

"What do you want to do with them, Azula-sama?" Akiko asked, still clinging to that respectful tone, but there was a little something extra underneath it now.

A hint of steel, maybe even a spine.

Azula frowned. Then, before Akiko could so much as blink, she activated her Sharingan and jumped straight to the Mangekyō level without any of the usual dramatic buildup.

Akiko's brain scrambled. 'No, what is happening? I just showed a little apprehension and she went directly to the Sharingan... wait, that's not a normal Sharingan!'

Before she could even finish panicking, Azula had already yanked them both into Akiko's mindscape. The decor was exactly what you'd expect for a unwilling prison: chains, bars, and one very large turtle glaring at them from behind the world's most passive-aggressive cage.

Akiko materialized beside her, looking deeply disoriented. "Hokage—"

But one look at Azula's eerie Mangekyō and the words died in her throat. Her mouth kept moving for a second, but nothing came out, like a fish that had just realized it was already on the cutting board.

"Don't think too much," Azula cut her off, voice casual. "I brought you here because what we're about to discuss concerns the Tailed Beasts. It's naturally better to do it in front of them. More efficient that way."

Akiko, who currently had no backup plan, no leverage, and was being actively intimidated by the legendary eyes that had earned Madara the title of Ninja World Shura, could do nothing except nod along and hope 'efficient' didn't mean 'lethal'.

Azula then asked her a question with the same flavor as the one she'd asked about Kiri earlier. "What do you think about Tailed Beasts?"

Behind the bars, Isobu was watching the two of them with his one open eye, doing his best impression of a very old, very tired statue.

He hadn't been personally baptized by Madara's Mangekyō back in the day, but it wasn't like he'd never met Uchiha with those eyes over the past thousand years.

What actually unsettled him was the sheer oppressive weight of her presence. He'd been captured by Hashirama, stared down by warriors who'd leveled mountains, and none of them had ever made him feel quite like this. Like a bug under a very patient magnifying glass.

But at the same time, the question she asked caught his attention. Most humans didn't think deeply about Tailed Beasts.

They just treated them as evil chakra wrapped in fur and claws, weapons to be aimed at enemies. He'd never heard anyone ask a Jinchuriki what they thought about their beast. He wanted to hear the answer. Even if it was probably going to be disappointing.

Akiko, for her part, was completely stumped.

From her perspective, what else could Tailed Beasts be other than masses of chakra that had to be contained but could be exploited for power? That was the established wisdom and what every scroll said. But she knew Azula's questions were never simple, so she forced herself to actually think about it.

'Now that I really consider it, I've never once wondered what Tailed Beasts actually are. Where they came from and why they even exist.' The realization hit her like a cold wave.

She sighed, collecting her thoughts. "Tailed Beasts are the foundations of every of the five villages. I understood that even more after becoming a Jinchuriki. With the chakra I can extract from the Three-Tails, I believe only a handful of people in the ninja world could face me. And if I ever master it completely, using its endless chakra while retaining full control of my techniques and my mind, I'll be at least five times stronger than I am now."

Azula listened to this entire speech and concluded that, to Akiko, the Three-Tails was indeed nothing more than a very fancy battery.

She shook her head. "Your reasoning isn't bad, but it's fundamentally flawed. Tailed Beasts aren't mindless creatures or tools. They're living beings who can think and have emotions. They hold grudges, which, honestly, is fair given their circumstances."

To someone who'd watched the anime, this was basic information. But at this point in history, every single village, including Konoha, treated Tailed Beasts as mindless engines of destruction, full of evil chakra and bad attitudes.

The idea that they might be people was genuinely revolutionary.

Akiko's worldview cracked slightly. "Tailed Beasts can think? With emotions? How is that possible?"

Behind the bars, Isobu had to physically restrain himself from blasting a Tailed Beast Ball at her face.

The disrespect. The audacity.

He'd been sitting right here the whole time, visibly intelligent, visibly aware, and she'd never once considered he might have thoughts? He wanted to snort. He wanted to roar.

But the seal made both options impractical, so he just sat there, radiating silent turtle fury.

Then Azula said something that completely shattered his composure.

"Isn't the Tailed Beast right here the best proof?" She turned to face him directly. "If you keep pretending to be a mindless animal, your Jinchuriki will keep treating you like one, Isobu."

That's right, Isobu thought, swelling with vindication. 'One only needs to look at me to see I am clearly wise and—'

He froze.

'Wait. How does she know my name?'

He replayed the word in his head. Isobu. She'd said it so casually, like she was addressing a neighbor. No one alive should know that name.

No one except the old man and the other beasts. He sniffed the air, metaphorically speaking, since he didn't exactly have nostrils. 'Is that Kurama's scent on her? Did that fox tell her? No, Kurama wouldn't. He's too stubborn, and we Tailed Beasts would never tell the names of other Tailed Beast even if we acknowledge them.'

"Little girl," he rumbled, his voice echoing through the mindscape, "where did you hear my name?"

Azula tilted her head. "I didn't catch that. Could you repeat it, please?"

She didn't raise her voice. She used her Mangekyō and Yin Chakra to the fullest, letting her Conqueror Yin, and Isobu felt something he hadn't felt in centuries: the distinct impression that he should probably be very, very polite right now.

"Ahem." He coughed, which was ridiculous because Bijuu didn't have throats and didn't need to clear them. "I asked where you learned my name. It is... not common knowledge."

At the same time, his mind was racing. He'd never met Madara, but he'd met countless shinobi over thousands of years. He could say with absolute certainty that only two beings in history had possessed more Yin chakra than the woman standing in front of him: the Sage of Six Paths himself, and his son Indra.

The closest comparison he could make was when Hashirama had captured him. If Hashirama was the walking embodiment of Yang and life force, then Azula was unquestionably the personification of Yin. The two were fundamentally built differently.

"It's a long story. I'll tell you another day." Azula waved a hand, clearly not in the mood to repeat the same explanation she'd already given to one grumpy fox.

She'd rather gather all the beasts at once and do a group presentation. PowerPoint optional.

Then she turned back to Akiko. "As you can see, he's clearly not a mindless beast."

Akiko stared at the giant turtle who had just asked a coherent question, expressed indignation, and fake-coughed for dramatic effect. Her brain needed a moment to reboot.

"So you can speak," she finally managed.

Isobu didn't bother responding. His attention remained fixed on Azula, because the mystery of his name was far more important than validating his negligent Jinchuriki's belated revelation.

'Did the old man make a mistake? I clearly remember him saying a blue-eyed boy would come. A blue-eyed boy, not a terrifying Uchiha woman with a Mangekyō and an...' He shut his thoughts when Azula stared at him with that 'Are you thinking about something impolite?'

Azula, then turned to Akiko, watching her crestfallen expression after being ignored by her own Tailed Beast, smiled.

"Don't take it personally. You imprisoned him in a jar for decades, unsealed him, and then without giving him a single moment to breathe, you shoved him inside your body. Did you expect him to greet you warmly?"

'Exactly!' Isobu nearly shouted, feeling as though he had finally, finally met the one human in the world who understood him.

Akiko reflected on this. If someone had done to her what had been done to the Three-Tails—trapped in a container, sealed away without consent, left conscious but paralyzed for years on end—she would have come out swinging. The fact that Isobu was just ignoring her was, in context, remarkably restrained.

"I understand," she said quietly, before moving to the critical question. "What exactly do you want from the Tailed Beasts?"

Azula answered without hesitation. "I want to collect their chakra."

"!!!" Isobu's one visible eye widened. "What do you intend to do with my chakra, Uchiha?"

He remembered a human from the past who had created a weapon using his chakra, a cursed tool that had caused nothing but suffering.

If she was after the same thing, then the Kurama scent on her made a terrifying sense. She'd already taken from the Nine-Tails. Now she was here for the Three-Tails. She was collecting them like cursed trading cards.

Azula was beginning to tire of explaining herself. 'Note to self: once I return to Konoha, visit Mito-sensei and that stinky fox and make him brief the other Tailed Beasts. They have a shared mental plane. They can do conference calls. There's no reason I should be doing customer service for every single Bijuu individually.'

"Relax," she said, waving off his concern like it was a fly. "I only need a small portion of your chakra. And by the way, you can contact Kurama, can't you? He'll explain everything. I assume you know how to reach him."

'Of course she knows about that too.' Isobu was no longer surprised, just resigned. A woman who knew his name, carried Kurama's scent, and wielded Yin chakra almost on par with Indra himself clearly had access to information she shouldn't have.

He gave a slow, deliberate nod of his large turtle head.

Akiko, who had been bracing herself for Azula to demand something outrageous like 'hand over your Tailed Beast,' felt a wave of relief wash over her.

A little chakra? That was nothing. Although the Third Kazekage had studied the One-Tail and developed Magnet Release from it. This was still better than 'Hand over your Tailed Beast'.

(END OF CHAPTER)