Tailed Beasts

The tailed beasts, sometimes referred to as "Chakra Monsters," are the nine titanic living forms of chakra created by Hagoromo out of the chakra from the Ten Tails. They are differentiated by the number of tails they have, ranging from one to nine.

Long before the founding of the hidden villages, the Sage of Six Paths saved the world by sealing the Ten-Tails into his body, becoming its jinchuuriki. Some time later, the Sage was inspired by his youngest son, Asura, to use his Creation of All Things ability to divide the Ten-Tails' into ten living entities, what would become the tailed beasts. The tenth one was kept secret amongst the branch part of the Senju clan. The Sage named the nine and explained to them that a link existed between them despite their separation. The tenth, the Eleven Tails, was a mutation and mix of all of the Tailed Beasts. He also foretold of a day when they would be brought together again — though not as they were — and that at that time someone would emerge to show them what true power is. Because of that, it was Asura's goal to keep the Eleven Tails secret. In the anime, it was shown that before his death, the Sage and his followers built temples in nine different regions of the world where the tailed beasts could live and be protected. The tailed beasts were originally created not only to prevent the Ten-Tails' resurrection, but also to maintain and balance peace. The first person to come close to their original usage was Hashirama Senju, who had captured several of the tailed beasts with his Wood Release, distributed the beasts amongst the new villages in order to stabilize the balance of power between them. However, Hashirama's usage of the tailed beasts were forceful rather than earning their willful cooperation. This method would be realized in Hashirama's successor as Asura's reincarnation, Naruto Uzumaki.

Over the centuries, humanity failed to recognize the tailed beasts as sapient individuals, instead seeing them only as monsters, demons, or mindless beasts worthy of fear and disdain. Because of their immense power, the tailed beasts were sought out by humans to be used as weapons in times of war. The beasts resented this treatment and came to hate humans, at times willingly becoming the monsters they were viewed as. In order to harness the beasts' power, the villages began sealing them into humans, creating their own jinchūriki.

Decades later, after the Third Shinobi World War, an organization known as Akatsuki begins capturing the villages' jinchūriki in order to extract their tailed beasts and seal them into the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path for the purposes of reviving the Ten-Tails. By the time of the Fourth Shinobi World War, Akatsuki has captured the first seven tailed beasts. In order to capture the last two, the Eight and Nine-Tails, Tobi seals the beasts back into their jinchūriki and forces them to fight the Eight-Tails' and Nine-Tails' jinchūriki: Killer Bee and Naruto Uzumaki, respectively. From Naruto's determination to free them from Tobi and his desire to learn their names, the tailed beasts collectively decide that Naruto is the person the Sage of Six Paths foretold of. They give him portions of their chakra, enabling him to release them from Tobi's control.

Tobi is able to reclaim the freed tailed beasts and, using fragments of the Eight-Tails and Nine-Tails' chakra, to prematurely revive the Ten-Tails. Tobi then becomes the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki, but he is defeated by the Allied Shinobi Forces and the tailed beasts are removed from his body. The nine tailed beasts join forces against Tobi's co-conspirator, Madara Uchiha, but he quickly defeats them all and seals them, including the Eight-Tails and Nine-Tails, into the Demonic Statue and reforms the Ten-Tails yet again. Madara becomes the Ten-Tails' jinchūriki and attempts to use Infinite Tsukuyomi on the world. Naruto uses the tailed beasts' earlier donations of chakra to try and defeat him, but is unable to do so in time. Madara is afterwards unwittingly used to restore Kaguya Ootsutsuki, who tries to take what portions of the tailed beasts' chakra Naruto still has.

In one of Kaguya's dimensions, Naruto and Sasuke seal Kaguya away and the tailed beasts are extracted from her body, ending the war. Sasuke, however, realizing that the struggle for the tailed beasts started the war in the first place, imprisons them with Chibaku Tensei and intends to kill them so the world can't fight over them any longer. Naruto convinces him not to in the end and the tailed beasts are finally released for good. The tailed beasts spread out through the world, free to live as they want; both Gyūki and Kurama decide to return and stay with Bee and Naruto. However, though they are apart, the tailed beasts' chakra fragments remain within Naruto, allowing his body to act as their "meeting ground".

Tailed beasts are widely believed to be bestial in nature, incapable of the intelligence needed to fully utilize their immense strength. It is thought that only when sealed within humans are they able to benefit from the knowledge of their jinchūriki to use their powers effectively. This is not actually true. However, the Ten-Tails does tend to make wanton use of its powers, not focusing its abilities towards whatever end would be most advantageous to it until sealed into a jinchūriki.

Each of the tailed beasts have their own unique abilities, but they all share the same attributes: they have massive quantities of powerful chakra — colored red — far greater than what most shinobi have, can easily transfer their chakra to whomever they choose, and can use the Tailed Beast Ball. Because the tailed beasts are pure chakra, they cannot actually be killed; if they or their jinchūriki die, their chakra will re-coalesce in time. In addition, if a large portion of a tailed beast's chakra is separated from it, that chakra becomes a separate, sentient copy of the tailed beast. It is also pointed out that consuming the flesh of a tailed beast is usually deadly for anyone, unless the person is somehow descended from the Sage of Six Paths; in this case, the person will gain abilities similar to a jinchuuriki.

Tailed beasts can communicate with one another and their jinchūriki, and possess several levels of consciousness. In the initial level, the beast appears to be in a habitat of sorts, typically imprisoned in some way by whatever fuuinjutsu was used to seal them. The second level is where all the tailed beasts can convene and communicate with one another, free of any restrictions. Jinchūriki are also able to enter this level, but in order to do so, they must be completely linked with their tailed beasts. A freed tailed beast can continue communication with their former jinchūriki, even years after separating.

Although only shown with Kurama, a tailed beast will become unconscious if they have lost all of their chakra, by either using it, or having it drained from them.

Here are the tailed beasts listed from one tail to eleven tails:

 * 1) Shukaku
 * 2) Matatabi
 * 3) Isobu
 * 4) Son Goku
 * 5) Kokuo
 * 6) Saiken
 * 7) Choumei
 * 8) Gyuuki
 * 9) Kurama
 * 10) Ten Tails
 * 11) Raiontora