The Fire Style: Chakra Mode had once undergone an unexpected mutation in Ren Uchiha's hands.
It happened during his battle against the three hundred Sunagakure shinobi. Pushed into a corner after swinging two massive strikes, Ren had severed his own arm and detonated the Fire Style: Chakra Mode within it. That single "grenade" had resulted in an explosion even more terrifying than the previous sword strikes, effectively wiping out the remaining Suna forces.
Ren had later analyzed the event. The explosive power of a standard Fire Style: Chakra Mode focused at a single point should have been comparable to his strikes against Kakuzu or Togo—peaking at the level of his "Flame Fist" that shattered Suigetsu's chakra blade.
For it to produce such an apocalyptic blast, another factor had to be at play.
That factor was the very root of why Fire Style: Chakra Mode was deemed a forbidden jutsu: It burns chakra.
Whether it was his own violent Dark Chakra or the Nine-Tails' chakra he had siphoned, once the combustion began, it was nearly impossible to stop. Like a chain reaction, it pathologically replicated and surged, demanding everything be burned to ash so that a mere mortal could swing with the divine might of a Susanoo.
Normally, such a forbidden art is a tool of internal destruction. But given Ren's array of "unkillable" secret techniques and his absurd constitution...
Perhaps he could replicate that explosion—by igniting the Eight-Tails?
Ren aimed for Killer Bee's chest. The Cloud Jinchūriki used the "Iron Armor Seal," passed down through generations, which was etched right over the heart. In the vision of the Sharingan, the chakra overflowing from the Eight-Tails leaked from that exact spot with crystal clarity.
He only needed to transfer the full power of his Fire Style: Chakra Mode into his arm, sever it, and detonate the "grenade." A Bee caught in that blast might react like a lit powder keg.
What kind of scene would it be to use the Eight-Tails as a firework?
This mad idea flooded Ren's mind, drowning out all other thoughts. He didn't care if the blast killed him too. He didn't care if Bee's hand-blade drove through his eye sockets and into his brain before the detonator clicked. He didn't even stop to consider if he could actually ignite the Eight-Tails through the seal.
If it didn't ignite, the close-range "grenade" would kill Bee while Ren's body healed. If it did ignite, they would go down together. To win in a desperate situation, the math is simple: You have to put yourself on the betting table.
Ren's gaze turned savage. He manipulated the Earth Grudge Fear threads to generate rapidly at his shoulder! They pierced veins, hacked through muscle, sawed through bone, and severed the arm!
"HAAAAAAGH!"
The pain was a physical roar. Sweat and bloody tears fell in unison. Ren tilted his head back, his manic, crimson snake-pupils staring directly at Bee as he bellowed:
"Come on! Meet me in the afterlife!!"
In that heartbeat, Killer Bee looked up in sheer shock. He saw the severed arm beginning to glow, turning into a miniature sun against the night sky. Sensing the apocalyptic energy gathering within it, his scalp crawled with dread.
"You... you..."
Lunatic!
This Uchiha brat was an absolute madman! Bee's eighth strike would have blinded Ren, but he knew Ren's data—such a move would wound him but not kill him. It was a play for the lead, not the game.
But... why?!
This was like a card game where both sides had just put down their first low pairs. Bee had thrown out a pair of sixes, and Ren responded by slamming a Royal Flush onto the table and setting the deck on fire. What are you even trying to achieve?!
Inside the seal, Gyūki could no longer remain a spectator. It stood up within the sealing space, staring at that arm that was about to blind its octopus eyes with its impending detonation.
The scale of the explosion might not match a Tailed Beast Bomb, but Gyūki felt a horrifying premonition that this thing could actually kill it. If it died here, it wouldn't just lose a Jinchūriki it actually liked; it would eventually respawn only to face a "father-son tag team" beating from the Cloud's top brass for its failure.
"Sorry, Bee! I can't let you play around anymore!"
Gyūki reared up, its massive fists hammering its chest as it let out a roar that made the entire mental world tremble:
"—ROOOOAR!!"
The next instant, Bee, who was mid-air and about to elbow Ren, froze. The clarity in his eyes was washed away by the surging, berserk chakra of the Eight-Tails, replaced by a dark-red, destructive light.
The chakra cloak retracted, and suddenly, eight massive octopus tentacles—each dozens of meters long—erupted and coiled around Bee. With a roar that echoed in the physical world, the tentacles grew taller and wider, ballooning to over seventy meters.
They unfurled to reveal the Eight-Tails' true form: a colossus with the upper body of a bull and the lower half of an octopus.
"—ROOOOAR!!"
The roar shook the earth. Gyūki's body was as tall as a skyscraper, its hand capable of plucking clouds from the night sky. The true Tailed Beast—a sight that inspired despair in any shinobi—had descended!
Yet, upon its arrival, Gyūki flinched. It glanced warily at the tiny point of light flying toward its massive form. Instinct told it: Do not let that thing touch you.
A windstorm far more terrifying than Ren's "Fire-Wind Dragon Dance" erupted. Using its "Power Technique," Gyūki wrapped itself in its tentacles and began to spin at a violent speed, creating a hurricane capable of reshaping the landscape.
"Tailed Beast Eight Twists!!"
Like a seventy-meter-wide brown top, it began to whirl! The earth, the trees, the rocks, the forest Ren had set ablaze, the heavy clouds in the sky, and the blue lightning within them—all were caught in the storm and flung away!
Under Gyūki's deliberate focus, Ren's severed arm was first pushed away by the initial chakra surge and then blown high into the sky by the Eight Twists, far away from the Eight-Tails.
It flew until it was a burning star at the edge of vision, where it finally detonated in a brilliant sphere of light.
BOOM!
The light seemed to collapse something in the distance before vanishing.
However, at that moment, Ren Uchiha—who was currently using the Kusanagi Sword as an anchor in the ground to keep himself from being blown away—felt a sudden, inexplicable chill run down his spine.
Despite the 360-degree awareness of his Cursed Seal form, the sense of dread wasn't coming from the spinning Eight-Tails in front of him.
It felt as if, in the place where his "grenade" had gone off, some terrifying entity had just... glanced at him.
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