Naruto Uzumaki's Jinchūriki Forms

Naruto Uzumaki is the third jinchūriki of the Nine-Tailed Demon Fox. When Naruto taps into the Nine-Tails' chakra, it increases every physical aspect of his body. He is gifted with its massive amount of chakra and stamina, immense strength, increased speed, accelerated healing (recovering from minor injuries within a few seconds to major injuries within a day), and, at times, an almost impenetrable chakra shield. Naruto has unique access to the Nine-Tails' chakra, due to the seal that his father, Minato Namikaze, the Fourth Hokage, placed on him. Minato stated that he sealed half of the Nine-Tails' chakra within Naruto because he believed Naruto will someday control its power to battle Madara Uchiha.

Initial Jinchūriki Form
By simply tapping into the Nine-Tails' chakra, Naruto's body begins its initial transformation. The first signs to this are his eyes; his pupils become slitted, and his irides will change from blue to red. Following this, his nails and canine teeth grow longer and sharper and his blonde hair will grow longer and spikier, as it stands on end. Naruto's whisker marks will also widen and thicken, adding to his feral appearance. While he can still stand on his own two feet, Naruto can move at greater speeds by maneuvering on all fours in a manner similar to the Four Legs Technique used by the Inuzuka clan. Depending on how much of the Nine-Tails' chakra is unleashed, the red chakra is capable of glowing around his body in an untamed way.

Naruto first reached this form when it appeared that his comrade, Sasuke Uchiha, was killed by Haku. This overwhelmed Naruto with rage and allowed the Nine-Tails' chakra to leak out of the seal, giving him enough strength to destroy Haku's Demonic Ice Crystal Mirrors. Even though this is the weakest state of his jinchūriki forms, it still increases Naruto's physical strength, to the point of being able to stop a massive snake going at incredible speeds, and healing rates well above most shinobi, even able to regenerate a lung pierced by a Chidori.

This form also increases his speed to such levels that nothing short of a fully matured Sharingan is able to track his movements. He can also use the chakra as a shockwave, sometimes merely using a roar or thrusting his fist out to send a rush of energy at his opponent.

Until special training from Jiraiya, Naruto could only reach this state through sheer rage or if his life was in imminent danger. However, after training and having an inner talk with the Nine-Tails, Naruto is able to tap into part of its chakra at will without any transformation, or by simply telling the Nine-Tails to give him some power.

One-Tailed Form
During Naruto's battle with Sasuke at the Valley of the End, the Nine-Tails granted Naruto more of its usual chakra that it leaked out of his body in a much denser state. All the physical traits of the initial jinchūriki form were present and slightly altered, including black rings around the more berserk-looking eyes, longer nails, and canine-like features. This form also came with an additional bonus: the red chakra became a complete shield around his body, in the shape of a fox, complete with long ears and a tail, known as the demon fox cloak.

When he is in this form, Naruto fights more like a beast; instead of using his fists, he uses his elongated, sharpened claws. Like with his initial jinchūriki form, while he can stand on his own two feet, Naruto can move at greater speeds on all fours. Naruto's most powerful weapon in this state is the chakra itself, and it appears to have a mind of its own; when a strike that was meant for Sasuke missed, the chakra itself stretched off of Naruto's arm and hit Sasuke before he could react. Since the chakra is sentient, it is extremely difficult, if not impossible, to predict, as Naruto was easily followed with the Sharingan, but the chakra was not.

The chakra can also stretch far from the body, as when Naruto was shown using his 'arms' to attack Sasuke from great distances. Naruto was also seen as being able to use the demon fox cloak's chakra tail like an extra limb, while hanging upside down. The chakra around his body grants him some measure of protection, enough that ordinary attacks like Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique will have no effect. The chakra can also act as a shell to help Naruto create a Rasengan without the help of his shadow clones, which was called the Demon Fox Rasengan. However, the demon fox cloak is not without its drawbacks; after Naruto uses his left arm for a number of attacks against Sasuke, it is left numb from overuse and the constant damage of the Nine-Tails' chakra on his body.

Two-Tailed Form
After catching the Akatsuki member Deidara, only to discover it was a Clay Clone, Naruto's frustration and anger at Gaara's death caused him to slip into his two-tailed form. His physical characteristics matched the first two forms, but his red eyes and canines grew larger, and his lips acquired a black outline, similar to a fox's. The chakra shield's only difference between the one-tailed and the two-tailed form was the extra chakra tail that formed.

While in this state, Naruto is still in control of his body, though to what extent is unknown. In the anime, he punched a tree, destroying it and a long line of trees behind it. He later attempted to attack Kakashi Hatake, who placed a seal, given to him by Jiraiya, upon his forehead, bringing him back to his normal self. The amount of chakra produced by the two-tailed form was so powerful that even Naruto's shadow clones doubled over in pain.

Three-Tailed Form
After Orochimaru revealed himself to Team Yamato, and baited Naruto with news of Sasuke, Naruto went on a rampage, first attacking Orochimaru and progressing from a one-tailed to a three-tailed form in doing so. The three-tailed form looks similar to the two-tailed form, but with the Nine-Tails' features becoming more pronounced. His eyes later glow red, similar to the four-tailed form, but can return to normal.

The amount of chakra produced from this form is caustic, such that the air around Naruto begins to sting others. This is the strongest form Naruto can reach and control. With the standard chakra shield's protection and attack power, this form's roar has the power to create a powerful sphere of destruction, capable of destroying the Tenchi Bridge. In Naruto Shippūden 2: Bonds, while fighting the Zero-Tailed Masked Leech, Naruto was able to use the chakra shield to mimic arms and wings for semi-flight.

Four-Tailed Form
When Orochimaru further taunted Naruto about Sasuke, Naruto, in a fit of fury and anger, grew the fourth chakra tail, but in doing so, he had slipped into the Nine-Tails' grasp. The Nine-Tails' chakra began to burn its way through Naruto's entire body, completely destroying his skin while rapidly healing it at the same time. Naruto's body was eventually covered in a mix between the Nine-Tails' chakra and his own blood. Everything from his face to his chakra tails became completely solid and his eyes lose its characteristics and become empty glowing circles, surrounded by a black mask of chakra.

In this form, the Nine-Tails has complete control over Naruto's body, making him a mere endoskeleton for the Nine-Tails' chakra. The chakra's internal support becomes Naruto's physical mass, with every living thing in its way a target. The four-tailed form has all the benefits of the other tails, with upgrades. With a simple wave of his hand, it can create a shockwave of destruction. The chakra shield, while being solid, is so hot that it can burn the skin on contact and its defensive power is so great that not even Orochimaru's legendary Kusanagi could pierce it, only bending it slightly. If Naruto is hit, the chakra itself can form another body and strike back almost instantly. Finally, Naruto has the ability to charge a concentrated sphere of chakra, consume it, and fire it in the form of a massive blast of chakra with such force that it could destroy three Rashōmon gates. In the anime, it could generate numerous bodies, almost completely altering its own form into an amorphous blob, with which it was able to attack Pain from all directions. Also in the anime, just one slash from its claw made a tornado to attack the Deva Path.

In the end, the four-tailed form is Naruto's greatest downfall. Because the Nine-Tails' chakra is constantly destroying and creating new cells, it shortens Naruto's life, similar to Tsunade's Creation Rebirth. When the four-tailed form was finally repressed, Naruto needed immediate healing, as his skin was completely burned away. Naruto first slipped into this form when he was training with Jiraiya, who had used the key on the abdomen of the scroll toad, Gerotora, to weaken the Nine-Tails' seal for just a short time. And for that, it allowed enough of the Nine-Tails' chakra to leak out of the seal and produce the form, in turn almost killing Jiraiya.

Six-Tailed Form
During Pain's invasion of Konohagakure, and after Naruto's failed attempt to defeat the Deva Path, Naruto was left pinned to the ground when Hinata Hyūga challenged Pain in a desperate attempt to protect Naruto. Outmatched, Hinata was quickly dispatched, stabbed, and severely wounded by Pain's Chakra Disruption Blades. Infuriated, and believing Hinata to be dead, Naruto lost control of himself, and exploded into his four-tailed form, which quickly slipped into a six-tailed form, skipping the fifth tail altogether.

In this form, the Nine-Tails' bones begin to form out of the intense chakra around his body, attached to the body with several thick chakra ligaments. With its raw power, the Nine-Tails was able to withstand Pain's Shinra Tensei, and then reflect the attack back upon Pain himself. Unlike the four-tailed form, the six-tailed form is able to unleash a concentrated sphere of chakra without first ingesting it. Without even being fully charged, the attack had enough energy to create an enormous crater next to an already destroyed Konoha. In the anime, other abilities include rapid-fire smaller scale blasts of chakra, fireballs, and, like Naruto's other forms, several arms of chakra which it used to grapple with Deva Path. Curiously, it managed to move through a body of water and even direct it with its own movement without vaporising it.

Eight-Tailed Form
As the Nine-Tails fought Pain through the six-tailed form, Naruto, within his subconscious, thought of Pain's plans for peace, and pleaded for someone to help him with a response. Through his suffering, the Nine-Tails tempted Naruto to give his heart to it so that it could destroy everything that was causing Naruto pain, thus distorting the seal and allowed the seventh and eighth tails to grow.

The eight-tailed form, like the previous forms, brings Naruto's body closer to that of the Nine-Tails. This form is his largest so far, being about the same size as the Nine-Tails, with muscle tissue beginning to grow on the bones from the six-tailed form. The only things missing in the eight-tailed form from the Nine-Tails are the ninth tail, skin, and fur. This form is so powerful, that it was capable of breaking through Pain's Chibaku Tensei with brute force. In the anime, for the brief time it was unleashed, it unleashed a large amount of fire from its mouth, which burned through the debris of the Chibaku Tensei, making it look like a meteor shower was falling to earth.

Controlled Jinchūriki Form
After Naruto separated the Nine-Tails' chakra from its will and sectioned it off within himself, Naruto can access the chakra directly without the need to interact with the Nine-Tails at all. In doing so, the chakra cloak seamlessly blends with Naruto, and does not take on the fox-like appearance of the previous cloaks, instead resembling the Sage of the Six Paths, with his new seal clearly visible on the cloak, though unlike in its first appearance the seal does not extend down his right arm.

With the Nine-Tails' power under his control, Naruto's strength and speed are significantly increased. He also gained the Nine-Tails' ability to sense strong negative emotions, as he was able to sense Kisame Hoshigaki hiding within Samehada through his hate, while others were not able detect his chakra due to the fact that it was identical to Samehada's. Yamato's Wood Release techniques also reacts to the life energy given off by this form, turning wooden totems into whole trees in a matter of seconds.

Jinchūriki Chakra Control
A number of methods had been devised to break the Nine-Tails' influence over Naruto: a seal tag could be applied to Naruto's body; and Yamato could use the Hokage-Style Sixty-Year-Old Technique - Kakuan Entering Society with Bliss-Bringing Hands, which was facilitated by the First Hokage's Necklace Naruto wore before its destruction. Sasuke had also demonstrated the ability to enter Naruto's subconscious and suppress the Nine-Tails' chakra with his Sharingan. The most effective of measures, however, was Naruto simply limiting his use of the Nine-Tails' chakra and not allowing his anger to get the best of him.

When Naruto encountered Nagato face to face, he was shown to be able to simultaneously fuse his initial jinchūriki and Sage Mode forms together. His eyes take on the appearance of a mixture of them both. With this combined form, Naruto was able to resist being taken over by one of Nagato's Chakra Disruption Blades when it impaled him.

According to Gerotora, the Nine-Tails' power consists of two parts: its chakra and its will. He explained that whenever Naruto draws out the Nine-Tails' chakra, its will comes along with it, relentlessly trying to control Naruto whenever given the chance. To control its power, Naruto must have his own will and heart both very strong and free of hatred, in order to separate the Nine-Tails' will from its chakra completely. He finally managed to do this, merging with the Nine-Tails' chakra after receiving help from his mother, Kushina Uzumaki, through restricting the Nine Tails' movement with her special chakra a couple of times and with her words of encouragement.