The spherical vortex of fire expanded rapidly, its rising currents pushing the clouds to the horizon. The thousand-meter-wide swirling fireball was embedded into the ground like a sun that had fallen to the earth.
This was a ninjutsu he had created himself, inspired by the Rasengan and the Magic Emperor Makiya. During his time as an Asura, Magic Emperor Makiya had learned the classic skill of the blind man: Ghost Orb.
With the Wave Manifestation Brand as the center, a massive amount of Wave energy spiraled around it at high speeds. As long as the Brand remained, the Ghost Orb could persist for a long time.
The neutral Rasengan lacked such a core and required constant maintenance in the hand. Makiya had combined the two concepts with his fire clones to create this new technique.
Golden flames illuminated the earth, warping the air around them. As the sea of fire rotated at high speed, scorching gusts whipped up a hurricane that circled the massive spiraling sun.
At a certain point, a violent tremor radiated from the center of the flames. A terrifying aura spread outward, and a beast's roar pierced through the fire, echoing into the sky.
"Is he finally going for the full Tailed Beast transformation?"
Killer B's reaction was exactly as Makiya had anticipated. He stopped channeling chakra into the vortex below and instead began to condense massive flaming swords.
Standing high in the sky, Makiya was soon surrounded by blades of golden fire, each spanning a hundred meters. A dozen of these giant swords hovered around him, looking like divine blades of punishment descending from the heavens.
The number of swords continued to increase, and it was unclear just how many he could manifest.
"I told you Lord Makiya would be fine," Hamaki Mimura said, letting out a long breath and slowly relaxing his clenched fists.
"Those flames are so hot... we're this far away, yet the leaves on the trees are being scorched," one ninja remarked.
Others nodded in agreement. Because the fire was radiating such intense heat, the onlookers had been forced to take cover behind a mountain, using the thick rock to shield themselves from the temperature.
The surrounding forest had suffered a disaster. Leaves further away curled and changed color, while those closer to the flames simply spontaneously combusted and turned to carbon.
"Seriously, what's even the point of us being here?" one ninja in the crowd asked, his face full of despair. "We can't even dream of fighting back against Lord Makiya or that Cloud ninja. If we run into people like them, we might as well just wait for death."
The crowd fell silent. He was right. Facing a disaster-level ninja made any thought of resistance feel utterly futile.
Shinobi of that caliber could easily breach any defensive line and cause massive casualties.
Just as morale reached its lowest point, a world-shaking roar came from the distance. The sea of golden flames was blown apart by deep-red Tailed Beast chakra, revealing a massive monster.
"Ugh, how ugly. So this is the Eight-Tails' true face?" Makiya's voice drifted down from the sky. The Eight-Tails looked up only to find twenty flaming swords, each a hundred meters long, suspended in the air and ready to strike.
Gyuki: "..."
"..."
Killer B: "..."
"..."
'When did the Leaf get such a terrifying Fire Style user?' Gyuki grumbled internally. 'With that much chakra, I almost thought he was a Tailed Beast himself.'
'I think big bro mentioned something to me about being careful of a golden-flame-using Uchiha from the Leaf,' Killer B said, shaking his head to hide his embarrassment.
'Oh? I don't recall you ever looking at that intel file. Did you read it while I was asleep?' Gyuki asked, searching his memories and finding nothing on Makiya.
'Actually...' B's eyes darted around. 'Big bro did send the intel over, but I was practicing my rap at the time, so I just tossed it aside. I was planning to read it after I finished my set...'
"..."
Gyuki let out a long sigh and said nothing more.
Killer B could be reliable at times, but he was also incredibly flighty. But what could he do? This was his Jinchuriki. He just had to deal with it and make the best of it.
"Hey, Leaf Uchiha! State your name!" Gyuki's massive body stepped out of the pool of magma as he shouted up at Makiya.
Makiya was slightly surprised. He had been active on the battlefield for a while now; did the Cloud really have no intel on him?
"Makiya Uchiha," Makiya said slowly. "Stop stalling, you big octopus. Bring it on."
Gyuki's appearance was even uglier than it had looked in the anime. Standing sixty meters tall, he was incredibly imposing, but to Makiya, it wasn't much.
The beast's body was a mass of knotted muscle, his skin a dark, bloody red that looked as though he had no hide at all.
Gyuki's upper half was a powerful bull, while his lower half consisted of eight thick octopus tentacles covered in suction cups that writhed and pulsed in the air.
Two sharp bull horns pointed straight ahead, gleaming with a lethal edge. The left horn was snapped off in the middle, leaving a clean, smooth cut as if it had been sliced off by a blade.
"Who are you calling a big octopus, you jerk!" Gyuki roared. Countless tiny spheres of chakra condensed in front of him before merging into a single point, rapidly compressing.
"Tailed Beast Bomb!"
A massive purple sphere, packed with an immense amount of Tailed Beast chakra, formed in an instant and went flying toward Makiya under Gyuki's control.
The air grew heavy as the purple sphere radiated a light of destruction. It grew brighter as it flew, its surface shimmering like a flowing film of liquid light.
The glow wasn't purely bright; it had a quality that seemed to warp time and space, as if the light itself was being pulled and bent within it.
The Eight-Tails' Tailed Beast Bomb was far superior to that of the Five-Tails; the two couldn't even be compared.
"Rising Sun Blade: Sonic Impact!"
Under Makiya's control, a hundred-meter fire sword accelerated, slicing through the air toward the incoming Tailed Beast Bomb. The air seemed to ripple as the sword trailed a magnificent tail of fire.
The world fell into an eerie silence for a split second. Then, upon impact, a blinding light erupted, as brilliant as the sun.
Golden flames lit up the sky, washing out all other color. A deafening roar spread outward like ten thousand claps of thunder, making the earth tremble violently. After a moment of stalemate, the flaming sword shattered into a million pieces.
The Tailed Beast Bomb continued forward with unabated momentum, racing toward Makiya like an out-of-control meteor, vibrating violently as if it were on the verge of exploding.
Makiya stood high in the frosty sky as the flaming swords around him shot forward one by one, intercepting the Tailed Beast Bomb.
Finally, after enduring five more swords, the Tailed Beast Bomb lost its stability and exploded. A brilliant light filled the sky, enveloping Makiya.
'Is he finished?' Gyuki asked internally.
'I don't think that's likely.' In their mental world, Killer B sat cross-legged on Gyuki's head. He was about to start a performance when he felt his head grow heavy.
In the real world, a flaming sword fell from the sky, grazing Gyuki's head and stabbing into the earth. The blade swept past his remaining intact horn, the scorching golden flames cutting right through his defenses and slicing the horn halfway off.
Thud!
A massive skeletal frame descended from the heavens. A hundred-meter-tall giant stood before Gyuki, pulling out a flaming sword and swinging it. The bull horn went flying into the air.
"Damn it, that hurts!" Gyuki screamed. The intense pain stimulated his ferocity, and he grabbed the flaming skeleton's arms with his powerful hands. His eight massive tentacles flailed wildly behind him, striking at Makiya like a barrage of meteor hammers.
Bones snapped and fire scattered. Makiya manipulated the golden flames to form smaller daggers that stabbed deep into Gyuki's body, causing black smoke to billow from the wounds.
'B, this isn't working,' Gyuki cried out internally. 'We need to find a way to get out of here. We can't beat him—this guy is a monster!'
Killer B realized the gravity of the situation and nodded. "Got it. We'll go with the plan we practiced."
"Fine! This is going to cost me a lot. I'll have to hide and recover for a long time."
"Better than being dead."
Their discussion finished, Gyuki suddenly used his eight tails to wrap himself into a ball, spraying a massive amount of Tailed Beast chakra from his suction cups.
"Tailed Beast Eight Twirls!"
His massive body began to spin at high speed, creating a chakra storm that swept across the landscape.
Makiya took two steps back, causing his skeletal giant to shrink in size to increase its agility. The fire giant reached out, and countless swords condensed in the air, whistling down toward the sixty-meter-tall top.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
Explosions rang out continuously as the earth cracked, sending massive fissures spreading into the distance. The scent of roasted meat drifted into Makiya's nose.
Suddenly, a gap appeared in Gyuki's tails. His ugly bull face squeezed through, spitting out a massive amount of pitch-black ink that spread across the plain like a dark tsunami.
The spinning beast sprayed ink everywhere. Makiya couldn't dodge in time and was drenched, immediately sensing that something was wrong.
'This is... a sealing jutsu?'
The ink wasn't a normal ninjutsu; it contained a sealing power that Makiya was very familiar with. He immediately abandoned the skeletal giant and flew into the sky. Three seconds later, the fire of the giant was gradually suppressed by the ink.
A sea of ink covered the entire plain. Gyuki's massive body actually transformed into countless small tentacles that desperately burrowed into the ground, fleeing in every direction through the earth.
Makiya expanded his soul perception, but under the influence of the ink's sealing power, the soul signatures underground were blurry and distorted. It felt as if Gyuki's soul was in every direction at once.
"Trying to run? You'll have to leave something behind first." Makiya pressed his hands together, and countless shadow clones appeared in the sky, each clad in a cloak of golden flames.
The shadow clones dived toward the ground. From the sea of ink, countless ink-clones of Killer B rose up, throwing themselves at Makiya to buy time for the escape.
Half an hour later.
A large pile of octopus tentacles lay before Makiya, radiating intense waves of Tailed Beast chakra.
Makiya pieced them together and found that he had managed to collect exactly seven tails. Gyuki had been severely weakened; it was a literal case of shedding his tails to survive.
With only one tail left, the beast might actually be able to pass himself off as the One-Tail.
Behind him, a stone coffin stood silently, containing the unconscious Jinchuriki of the Two-Tails: Yugito Nii.
Makiya looked at the mountain of octopus tentacles and felt a bit troubled. He had only brought one sealing scroll capable of holding Tailed Beast chakra. How was he supposed to handle all of this?
As he was thinking, a large group of figures approached from the distance. Makiya squinted and realized they looked familiar.
Before they could get close, Makiya silently buttoned his trench coat, covering his naked body.
Gotta maintain the image.
As the group drew near, Makiya looked on in surprise. "Tekka, Inabi, and Senior Yashiro? What are you all doing here?"
The newcomers were members of the Uchiha clan, led by Tekka Uchiha and his two companions.
"Lord... Makiya, just call me Tekka." Tekka Uchiha looked at the remains of the Eight-Tails behind Makiya, his voice filled with reverence.
The Uchiha had always worshipped the strong. Makiya's exploits had already spread through the clan, but seeing him in person was far more impressive than the rumors. Their respect for him only grew.
"We heard you came here alone as reinforcements and were worried you might fall into an enemy trap, so we rushed over together," Inabi Uchiha explained from the side.
"I see," Makiya said understandingly. "Things are finished here. By the way, does anyone here know how to make takoyaki?"
The takoyaki comment was, of course, a joke. Makiya asked the Uchiha to handle the remains of the Eight-Tails while he took the stone coffin back to camp ahead of them.
He didn't want to make a scene about capturing Yugito Nii. He planned to find a secret base to hide her and... study the Two-Tails.
He would use the Two-Tails for practice. Sooner or later, he would reach the point where he could control both a Tailed Beast and its Jinchuriki with just a glance.
The group of Uchiha looked at the writhing tentacles that were still putting out terrifying chakra, then looked at Makiya's departing back with worshipping eyes, whispering among themselves.
"I think Lord Makiya is even more powerful than the Clan Head."
"I feel the same."
"Of course he is! I've read the clan archives—that's the Eight-Tails Gyuki! Only a Mangekyo can stand against it. Lord Makiya's eyes must be the Mangekyo Sharingan!"
"Hiss... Then why isn't Lord Makiya the Clan Head?"
"You're right. I think Lord Makiya should be the one leading us!"
"Dethrone Fugaku! Take Mikoto!"
"Shut up, someone's coming." Tekka Uchiha looked warily at the approaching group led by Hamaki Mimura and whispered, "Watch over these beast remains. These are the Uchiha's trophies."
"Yes, sir!"
Watching the clansmen pull out scrolls and get to work, Tekka pulled Inabi and Yashiro aside to plot in low voices. "I'm going to report today's events to the Great Elder. With Lord Makiya's strength, he can definitely defeat Clan Head Fugaku, become the new leader, and lead us to the status we deserve."
"I think so too!"
"Fugaku is weak, Makiya shall rise!"
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