The Eight-Tails roared with a fury that shook the mountains. Its massive frame trembled as fresh oceans of red-black chakra flooded the clearing. The wound on its flank was healing, but the humiliation had driven it into a berserk rage.
Gyuki pivoted its massive bulk, its crimson eyes locking onto Saiki. Its jaw unhinged, and it began to charge a rapid-fire sequence of small Tailed Beast Bombs. With a sound like an autocannon, it launched a continuous barrage of destruction.
A "small" Tailed Beast Bomb was still a nuke.
Each one was an S-rank threat, creating explosions dozens of meters wide. Saiki had no intention of tanking the hits; he wasn't about to waste his chakra on a defensive struggle.
POOF!
A cloud of white smoke erupted as a nuke slammed into Saiki's position. All that remained was a charred log.
The forest behind him was not so lucky.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
A series of deafening explosions turned the woods into a landscape of fire and ash. Soil and splintered wood were launched into the sky like shrapnel.
Saiki materialized a hundred meters away. He spared a single, clinical glance at the carnage. The beast was powerful, but it was too slow to hit him.
He took a breath, his resolve hardening. It was time for a counter-offensive.
Before the debris from the bombs had even hit the ground, Saiki manifested a new, denser wind blade. It shimmered with a ghostly blue light—the mark of his Senjutsu Qi.
He swung his arm. The wind blade became a streak of lightning, tearing through the air with a high-pitched scream.
Gyuki roared and tried to dodge, but the blade seemed to possess a sentient homing instinct, predicting the beast's lumbering movement perfectly. It slammed into the Eight-Tails' left shoulder, carving through the muscle and bone.
The blade punched through the other side and continued its flight into the night sky, a crescent of destruction.
In two exchanges, the Eight-Tails had been crippled twice. This was the fundamental weakness of a Tailed Beast.
Massive size granted absolute power and defense, but against a high-speed specialist with the AP (Armor Penetration) to bypass their hide, they were just massive, slow-moving targets.
Against a mountain-sized bull-octopus, Saiki literally couldn't miss.
Inside the consciousness of the host, Killer Bee was panicking. "Bakayaro! Konoyaro! Fool, ya fool! Gyuki, you okay? Let me take the wheel!"
Bee was a hopeless case; even in the middle of a slaughter, he couldn't stop his rhythmic rap. Saiki's own humming was a symphony compared to Bee's tone-deaf lyrics.
Perhaps it was that shared "idiot" energy that allowed him to bond so well with a monster like Gyuki.
The Eight-Tails didn't argue. "Careful, Bee. This brat is bizarre... he feels like the Old Man Hagoromo."
Gyuki kept that last thought to himself, but the gravity of the threat was clear.
Bee had watched the attacks from the inside. He knew Saiki was a freak, but he barked back, "Don't you worry! Bakayaro! I'll teach this brat a lesson he won't forget!"
The mental exchange happened in a heartbeat. As the Eight-Tails collapsed from the shoulder wound, Saiki was already sending a third wind blade at its chest.
POOF!
The massive beast vanished in a cloud of smoke. When it cleared, the human-sized Killer Bee had manifested, narrowly avoiding the blade that would have bisected the giant's heart.
"SHIT!" Saiki cursed. He'd just missed. Every one of those Senjutsu-infused slashes was an expensive drain on his core, and he'd just used one to chop down a few trees behind Bee.
The appearance of the Eight-Tails had shattered the Leaf's morale, but the sounds of the beast's agony had given the defenders a moment of confused hope.
A, currently brawling with a group of Leaf ninja, looked over in shock as the Eight-Tails' chakra signature abruptly diminished.
He pulverized a Fireball with his fist and scanned the field. Seeing the giant beast vanish, his heart tightened. Who the hell has the power to force B into a retreat?
In the center of the clearing, a giant and a boy stood in a tense standoff.
They were only six years apart. Saiki was nearly ten; Bee was sixteen. But both had "matured" early.
Saiki had developed into a breathtakingly handsome youth, while Bee had moved straight into the "Cloud standard" of a dark, muscular middle-aged man in a teenager's body.
Their eyes locked, sparks practically flying through the air. Saiki's gaze was cold and analytical; Bee's was wild and unrestrained.
The air between them went static. The only sound was the synchronized rhythm of their breathing.
Flash!
Blue-white lightning erupted from both of them simultaneously. Saiki held his blade with a two-handed grip; Bee drew two short swords from his back. They became twin streaks of electricity as they collided in the center of the clearing.
CLANG!
Steel met steel. Fire was traded for fire. They moved with a velocity that turned their blades into a blur of afterimages.
They were perfectly matched. Every feint was caught, every strike was parried. Each impact carried enough force to shatter stone, a desperate struggle to find a single opening to end the duel.
No one had taught Saiki Kenjutsu. He had built his style from Tobirama's scrolls and thousands of hours of sparring with his own clones. His strikes were efficient, his angles perfect, and his power was absolute.
In a world like this, "Sword-play" was just a function of reflexes and physical leverage. Without a "Sword-heart" system, it all came down to speed and control.
Killer Bee was the legendary "Seven-Sword" master, though currently he was only wielding two. His movements were as fluid and unpredictable as an octopus, a lethal "whirlwind of steel." Even with only two blades, he was a nightmare to track.
Beyond the steel, they were engaged in a high-stakes Lightning Style duel. Electricity danced across their blades, discharging in blinding sparks with every contact.
Saiki had crippled the Eight-Tails in two hits. Bee was taking him very seriously, but the moment they crossed blades, he realized the boy was even more dangerous than he looked.
As a Jinchuriki, Bee possessed the highest chakra reserves in the world outside of Kushina, Hashirama, and Madara.
And at sixteen, in a world where children save the planet, Bee had already reached his physical prime.
He had been raised as the village's ultimate weapon, trained in every art the Cloud possessed. Yet he found himself unable to gain an inch against a child half his size. Saiki's slender frame contained a terrifying, dense power that made Bee's hands throb with every parry.
Saiki didn't share Bee's internal monologue. He was a machine, analyzing every twitch of Bee's muscles and responding with surgical violence.
Every swing of his blade was a calculated attempt to sever Bee's carotid or pierce his heart.
After several exchanges, Bee realized his Kenjutsu wasn't going to be enough. He cheated. A fleshy, sucker-covered pink tentacle erupted from his lower back, lunging like a whip to ensnare Saiki's ankle.
Saiki hadn't blinked. He saw the "fifth limb" the moment it manifested. He used a Body Flicker to phase through the grab and delivered a reverse-slash to the base of the tentacle.
SHRED!
The blade, wreathed in high-frequency lightning, sliced through the limb like a hot wire through wax. Bee let out a grunt of pain as his offensive was broken.
Saiki didn't stop. He lunged for Bee's throat.
The failed sneak attack had left Bee off-balance. He scrambled back, crossing his blades in a desperate block. The impact launched him through the air.
Saiki didn't pursue. His own blade was reaching its limit; the Lightning Style duel was pushing the metal to its melting point. He needed a decisive end, and he needed it now.