In front of Haru, Susanoo stood tall, a blue blade forming in its hand as it looked down on Mito.
Haru could feel the power flowing through Susanoo, the kind of force that could overturn mountains and seas with a single movement.
Once you experienced this kind of strength, it became addictive.
"Damn it, come clash with me head-on!"
Haru swung the blue blade over and over, sending giant slashes tearing toward Mito.
"Come on!!!"
Inside her chakra cloak, Mito wore a savage grin.
This was exactly the kind of battle she had been waiting for.
She had spent twenty years cultivating herself and keeping calm, but back on the battlefield she had once been the kind of woman who could punch a genin to death with one blow. What she had always believed in was raw violence.
When she married into the Senju, one reason had been to preserve the friendship between the Uzumaki and the Senju, but another very big reason was that there simply had not been a single young man in the Uzumaki Clan who could beat her.
If a man could not even win a fight against a woman, what kind of man was he?
A very simple moral view.
At first, when she heard that Hashirama of the Senju was very strong, Mito had not cared much.
Then one day she saw Wood Release that blotted out the sky.
A political marriage was a political marriage.
It did not matter if she did not know him yet. As long as the man was strong, feelings could be built later.
In the Warring States Era, the folkways were truly simple.
The chakra around Mito grew increasingly violent. Two more tails sprouted behind her, and her posture lowered until all four limbs touched the ground. Her roar shook the loose stones on the earth into powder.
"Tailed Beast Bomb!"
One good move could carry you a long way.
A black Tailed Beast Bomb appeared once more, only this one was much larger than before.
The sword wave and the Tailed Beast Bomb crashed together, and the collision exploded into blinding white light followed by a huge cloud of black smoke.
When there was smoke, there were no injuries.
Haru kept swinging his blade, refusing to give Mito even a moment to catch her breath. Tailed Beast Bombs needed cooldown, after all.
"Keep going!!!"
"Didn't you enjoy blasting me just now?"
Haru's tone turned manic.
Being pressed down and blasted by a woman had made him extremely unhappy.
Mito forced herself through the heavy sword waves, running wildly through the forest while Haru chased her from behind, cutting again and again like a towering hunter pursuing a fox marked for slaughter.
As she fled, Mito continued forcing more and more of the Nine-Tails' chakra out of her body, making the beast suffer miserably.
The Nine-Tails was a creature made of condensed chakra. Drawing out its chakra felt almost the same as drawing out its life.
After about a minute, Mito finally felt that the gauge for her big move was full.
A fox's howl rang out, and the true form of the Nine-Tails appeared. A monstrous fox almost as large as Haru's Susanoo emerged onto the battlefield.
Haru lunged forward at once. Chasing and slashing at Mito until now had been satisfying, but it had not done any real damage.
Now there was a giant fox right in front of him to cut down.
There was no way he was missing this.
Haru's next blow came down with overwhelming force. Mito raised both claws and barely managed to block it, but the tails behind her lashed out as well, each one smashing toward Haru like a giant fist and nearly knocking the sense out of him.
Using that brief moment while Haru was stunned, Mito pounced and bit into Susanoo's shoulder. Pain was connected through the construct to its user.
Haru grimaced, then kicked the Nine-Tails hard in the stomach. He no longer cared about the blade in his hand and simply threw it away.
One hand grabbed the fox's head while the other shoved directly into its mouth.
Straight for the throat!
Mito instantly felt a foreign object jam into her throat, and a surge of nausea rose up at once.
She had not felt that since Hashirama died.
Mito leapt away from Susanoo, set herself back into a fighting stance, and charged in again.
The two giant beings began brawling directly. One punched, the other kicked. Their methods became more and more shameless as well, eye gouges, dirty low kicks, everything came out, like two street thugs fighting beside a bridge.
It did not look particularly impressive at first glance, but try throwing a genin into the middle of it and see what happened. They would probably melt instantly, like an ADC foolish enough to run between two top-lane monsters trading blows.
The shockwaves from their fight had already destroyed the forest for miles around.
The spectators had learned their lesson long ago and stayed far away, all of them wearing complicated expressions as they watched. The battle between two monsters dozens of meters tall was enough to shake the soul.
This was no longer ordinary Kage level.
This was something beyond it.
Haru slammed a punch into the Nine-Tails' face, but after taking the hit the beast bit down hard on Susanoo's fist. Their strength was close enough that it would be difficult to decide the battle quickly.
This won't work.
Mito had the Nine-Tails inside her. In terms of endurance, she clearly had the advantage.
He needed another approach.
Haru turned his thoughts toward the Nine-Tails itself.
The Mangekyo Sharingan had a very unusual level of restraint over wild tailed beasts. Once a tailed beast was sealed, it was like being shut inside a dark room, with control placed in the jinchuriki's hands.
The Mangekyo's power to directly dominate tailed beasts was heavily weakened by that, but using his eye power to establish contact with the beast should still be possible.
Probably.
Haru was not certain, but it was worth trying.
He charged straight at the Nine-Tails, pinned it with both hands, and brought his face close to its own. The Mangekyo's eye power passed through the tailed beast cloak and into Mito's eyes.
A thread of Haru's will entered the sealed space.
The sealing space looked nothing like the one Haru remembered from anime.
It was not some gloomy underground prison, and there was not even a cage gate. Instead, it was a vast crimson world.
This was the deeper layer of the Nine-Tails' consciousness.
"An evil Uchiha brat?"
The Nine-Tails' voice rang out as its massive body looked down on Haru from above, its face twisted with hatred.
That familiar Mangekyo Sharingan eye power made it feel instinctive disgust.
A seal could only draw upon a tailed beast's power.
This Mangekyo eye power, however, could directly control a tailed beast's consciousness. Back then, Madara had used that same monstrous eye power to forcibly enter this space, beat the Nine-Tails into submission, and dominate every part of its will.
Now another Uchiha had come here, and another Mangekyo user at that.
The memory of being treated like livestock returned to the Nine-Tails at once.
Madara had always treated tailed beasts equally. They were all beasts, all work animals, all things meant to be enslaved.
Hashirama had not necessarily been much better later on, but at least Hashirama said nice things once in a while and even complimented people.
Kurama, your power is truly incredible!
At that thought, the Nine-Tails decided it was better to stop remembering. The later parts of those memories were not very pleasant either.
Now the Nine-Tails glared at Haru with obvious fury. It wanted nothing more than to slap him dead, but in the end it held itself back. Madara's intimidation had left too deep a mark.
Against the eye power of the Mangekyo Sharingan, tailed beasts were suppressed too hard. The Nine-Tails did not dare make any reckless move against Haru.
Haru frowned slightly when he heard the fox speak.
Why start with "evil Uchiha brat"? Had it learned that from Tobirama?
Faced with such an ill-mannered giant fox, Haru decided not to hold it against him for now.
After all, he needed the Nine-Tails' help.
"Hello, Kurama."
The moment Haru said that name, the Nine-Tails' pupils suddenly widened.
(End of Chapter)
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