"What about a sealing jutsu like the Four Symbols Seal? I should be able to pull it off right now," Kamishiro suggested.
Chakra was like toothpaste. If you squeezed hard enough, you could always get a little more out.
Of course, to cast something like the Four Symbols Seal, Kamishiro would have to squeeze himself to the brink of death. He was already running on empty. Casting a high-level sealing jutsu right now would easily drain him into a dried husk.
"Do you think sealing a Tailed Beast is that simple?" Kushina asked, shooting him a side-glance.
Kamishiro blinked. Honestly? Yes, he did.
He essentially viewed creating a Jinchuriki as the equivalent of shoving an elephant into a refrigerator.
His thought process went something like this: First, grab a random Konoha ninja. Second, cast the Four Symbols Seal. Third, congratulations, a brand-new Jinchuriki is born!
In reality, obviously, it wasn't that simple. Selecting a Jinchuriki was an incredibly complex process.
An ordinary ninja simply couldn't withstand the sheer volume and toxicity of a Tailed Beast's chakra. You couldn't just yank someone off the street and shove a demon into them.
Kamishiro quickly realized this. Still, according to his own calculations, he figured he had about a fifty percent chance of successfully becoming a Jinchuriki himself...
Three seconds later, he completely abandoned the idea.
First, using his own body as a cage to stuff a giant monster inside sounded incredibly painful.
Second, a man needed his privacy.
Third, even if the sealing process was easy, it was entirely irreversible. Once a Jinchuriki, always a Jinchuriki. Want a refund? Sorry, the warranty doesn't cover demonic possession.
It must be said, this was an incredibly wise decision.
Having only a surface-level understanding of Naruto lore, Kamishiro assumed Gaara's dark circles were just a cool character design choice.
In reality, it was a very serious medical condition.
The problem was that Shukaku was a massive chatterbox.
Yes, the awe-inspiring, terrifying One-Tails was a giant gossip who never shut up. It literally refused to let its host sleep.
But getting back on track: casually sealing the beast here was impossible.
What about using the Reverse Four Symbols Sealing to kill it? That was highly feasible.
The problem was that they were in a densely populated battlefield. Using a massive suicide-seal here would accidentally wipe out their own allies.
Dealing with Shukaku was genuinely a massive headache. If it were easy, Kushina would have already done something instead of just playing bondage with it.
"Kushina-sensei, if you don't have any ideas, I have a method. It's not a real solution, but it's something."
For some reason, Kushina felt like her ears were playing tricks on her. Her student's tone sounded just a little bit... vulgar?
"What method?" she asked, deciding she had just misheard him.
Instead of answering, Kamishiro reached into the ninja pouch on his lower back.
As far as archaeological records go, no one has ever found a modern coin in the Naruto world.
So, Kamishiro pulled out a handful of steel ball bearings instead.
That's right, folks. He was about to give Shukaku a few good shots while it was hot... quite literally.
The words "few good shots" were quickly followed by a proper noun: Railgun.
A certain famous Railgun used standardized arcade tokens measuring 1.7 centimeters in diameter and 0.3 centimeters thick.
Kamishiro didn't have arcade tokens, but for the sake of portability, he had chosen steel ball bearings of a similar weight.
Shukaku was currently immobilized by Kushina's Adamantine Sealing Chains. Hitting a target this massive from fifty meters away meant Kamishiro didn't even need to aim.
"Maximum voltage discharge. I've actually never tried this before," Kamishiro muttered.
He gently snapped the fingers of his left hand.
Through this physical trigger, he unlocked a specific limiter within his own brain.
"Please enjoy my next performance. It's titled: How to Properly Artillery-Strike a Tailed Beast!"
Kamishiro took a deep breath and held it.
In an instant, a chaotic, crisscrossing web of electricity erupted across his entire body. Within a fraction of a second, he was entirely encased in a sphere of raging lightning.
He extended his arm straight out in front of him. The electrical arcs on his body visibly intensified.
An upward electromagnetic repulsion force caused stray metal weapons on the ground to defy gravity and float into the air.
Energy surged down his arm and pooled into his palm, glowing with an increasingly blinding light.
"Not good! Stop him!"
Because Kamishiro had wasted too much time talking, the second wave of Sand ninja had already surrounded them.
They didn't know exactly what he was doing, but they had all witnessed his terrifying lethality just moments ago.
Now he was pointing his hand directly at their Tailed Beast. That gathering lightning triggered a primal sense of dread in their guts.
The Sand ninja surged forward, charging at Kamishiro.
But it was already too late!
BOOM!
A thunderous explosion threatened to rupture everyone's eardrums. Only a split second later did anyone notice the beam of orange light piercing the night sky.
Following the deafening roar, Shukaku's endless shrieking was abruptly silenced.
In a display of rather dark humor, Kamishiro's first shot had completely blown off Shukaku's head.
The beast had been screaming all night, and it was getting on his nerves.
Finally, the world was quiet.
Across the battlefield, the fighting abruptly halted. Every ninja, friend and foe alike, stared wide-eyed at where Shukaku stood.
One Sand ninja after another rubbed their eyes. Were they seeing things? Did Shukaku just get a massive hole blown through It's head?
What was going on here? Were they hunting birds? That was a majestic Tailed Beast! How could its head just pop like a balloon?!
But Kamishiro wasn't done yet.
BOOM!
Another beam of light obliterated Shukaku's right arm.
BOOM!
Left arm.
BOOM!
Left torso.
BOOM!
Tail.
BOOM!
Abdomen.
BOOM!
Left leg.
BOOM!
Right leg.
The thunderous booms echoed like a battlefield metronome, tolling a death knell for the Sand.
When the beat finally ended, Shukaku had been reduced to nothing but a massive pile of loose sand.
The scene was so surreal that absolutely no one could look away.
It was... well, it was deeply shocking.
During the entire minute Kamishiro spent rapid-firing into Shukaku, not a single person moved to stop him. Even the ninja who had been charging him stopped dead in their tracks, staring blankly at the spectacle.
Could someone please explain what was happening to the world?
Why did an overwhelmingly powerful Tailed Beast pop like popcorn? Weren't they supposed to be sweeping the battlefield? First it gets tied up, then it gets blown to pieces! Director, this script is all wrong!
So, did Kamishiro actually kill Shukaku? Of course not.
A chakra monster like that wouldn't die from taking a few artillery shells.
With her target reduced to dust, Kushina retracted her Adamantine Sealing Chains.
Freed from the Uzumaki chakra's suppression, the massive pile of sand on the ground immediately began shifting, slowly reforming into Shukaku's shape.
By now, the massive wave of Konoha reinforcements from the vanguard had finally arrived.
One of Shukaku's severed arms had been blasted all the way across the field, landing right next to Elder Chiyo.
This was where the phrase "the older the ginger, the spicier it is" truly applied.
In the dead silence of the battlefield, Chiyo's voice rang clearly in the ears of every Sand ninja. She issued two absolute commands:
"Recover Shukaku! And then..."
"...Annihilate the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki!!!"
Her voice was laced with pure, grinding fury.