"Mere gravel, you are not even my equal."
Uchiha Nagi's Susanoo raised its longsword. Although the Breathing Styles enhanced his physical body, not the Susanoo, that didn't mean the Susanoo couldn't use his swordsmanship. Under Nagi's control, the massive construct moved like an extension of his own body, its swordsmanship no different from his own.
He had completely manifested the Sword of Totsuka, the spiritual weapon of the Uchiha clan. While the Susanoo could form its own weapons, that required the third form, which consumed a far greater amount of chakra. The third form of the Susanoo, complete with weapons and armor, offered enhanced power and defense at the cost of significantly increased chakra drain.
For now, Uchiha Nagi had no intention of releasing the Yin Seal right from the start. The Ryumyaku's energy, once used, was gone. Unlike a tailed beast, it wouldn't regenerate after a few days; he would have to manually recharge it. Therefore, maintaining the second-form Susanoo was sufficient to battle Shukaku.
The Sword of Totsuka unleashed the Sixth Form: Twisting Whirlpool, deflecting Shukaku's air bullets one after another. Seeing this, Shukaku increased its output. In response, Nagi elevated his swordsmanship to the Sixth Form: Twisting Whirlpool—Flow.
"Is that all you've got, Shukaku? You can't beat me like this," Uchiha Nagi said.
"Annoying! I hate arrogant little bugs! I'll crush you!"
Seeing that its air bullets were ineffective, Shukaku narrowed its eyes and switched to what it did best: sand.
With a wave of its hands, a massive amount of sand rose into the air, driven by its innate talent, and swept towards the Susanoo in an overwhelming tide. Compared to Gaara's Sand Waterfall Funeral, this attack, launched by Shukaku's own body, was a true Sandstorm Great Funeral. With the natural advantage of the desert, it was even more effortless.
"Exciting! This is the kind of battle that gets the blood pumping. I acknowledge you, Shukaku," Uchiha Nagi said with a fierce grin.
"Sun Breathing, First Form: Waltz!"
"Sun Breathing, Second Form: Blue Heaven!"
"Sun Breathing, Third Form: Raging Sun, Crimson Mirror!"
"Sun Breathing, Fourth Form: Parhelion Rainbow!"
Uchiha Nagi switched to the strongest Breathing Style, Sun Breathing, and began to continuously use the Hinokami Kagura dance to break through Shukaku's Sandstorm Great Funeral.
However, the desert was Shukaku's home turf, giving it a natural advantage. Eventually, Shukaku controlled tens of thousands of tons of sand, trapping Uchiha Nagi inside a pyramid.
"Haha! I'll seal you! Seal you! I'll turn you into a pyramid!"
Shukaku cackled and clapped its hands together. The violet patterns on its body extended from its hands and spread across the pyramid, preparing to seal Uchiha Nagi inside.
"Sun Breathing, Twelfth Form: Flame Dance!"
Uchiha Nagi's voice echoed from within the pyramid. The strongest move of the Sun Breathing style shattered the structure from the inside. "Flame Dance" had the same pronunciation as "Waltz", symbolizing that the progression from the first form to the twelfth was a complete cycle. Therefore, the twelfth form was a single move that encompassed the entire Breathing Style. The even more powerful thirteenth form was simply the continuous, cyclical execution of the first eleven forms into the twelfth. To put it plainly, it was a continuous loop, but even unleashing the twelfth form once was incredibly difficult, let alone sustaining the thirteenth.
BOOM!
CRASH!
A brilliant light erupted from within the massive pyramid. The next second, a giant, like the rising sun itself, burst forth from the sealed structure. The pyramid exploded, shattering into countless pieces that scattered in all directions.
"Ah! My sealing jutsu?!"
The stupefied Shukaku, which would have looked quite cute in a smaller size, now looked utterly ferocious in its giant form.
"Shukaku, it seems your sealing jutsu isn't all that great," Uchiha Nagi teased.
"Aaargh! I'll bite you to death!"
Shukaku was frantic. The last time it had been looked down upon like this was by that damn fox. It had taught itself sealing jutsu specifically to deal with that stinking fox, and now it couldn't even defeat a single human bug. When it faced the other Tailed Beasts, it would be laughed to death.
However, a Tailed Beast was still a Tailed Beast. Apart from their innate talents, they had very little actual combat experience. In terms of physical combat, they had no equal among humans; it was a complete mismatch. Shukaku, being the most unique of them, had only managed to learn ninjutsu and sealing jutsu.
As for taijutsu...
Watching the clumsy Shukaku lunge forward to bite him, Uchiha Nagi's Susanoo moved with the same agility as its master. It easily dodged the attack and then sliced off one of Shukaku's arms.
"Aaargh! My arm! You bug! You cut off my arm!"
Shukaku was enraged. Unlike the other Tailed Beasts, its body was made of sand. As long as it was in the desert, any part of its body that was cut off could be easily reattached or regrown. The other Tailed Beasts... the Eight-Tails' horn hadn't grown back for over a decade after being cut off, though its octopus tentacles could regrow freely. Each Tailed Beast had different abilities.
"Aaargh! You're making me so mad! I'm going to bite you to death!" Shukaku charged at Uchiha Nagi, gnashing its teeth.
However, what little close-combat experience they had was from fighting humans. They hadn't fought their fellow Tailed Beasts more than a few times in hundreds of years, so their hand-to-hand combat skills were pitiful.
Uchiha Nagi easily dodged Shukaku's mouth and swung his sword at its remaining arm.
Swoosh!
Another arm went flying into the air before crashing heavily to the ground.
Now, Shukaku was armless. It went completely berserk, losing all reason. It didn't even care about its missing arms and just kept attacking like a common thug. Uchiha Nagi jumped onto Shukaku's back, intending to swing his sword and cut off its massive tail. But in its frenzy, Shukaku threw its entire body backward, trying to crush him against the ground. The result was—
Splat!
A Thousand Years of Death.
"Uh... I didn't do that on purpose. Would you believe me?"
"RAAAWR! I... I'm going to kill you!"
Shukaku didn't care anymore. This was the last straw. Its most important back door had been stabbed. Now, even if it meant mutual destruction, it had to kill Uchiha Nagi.
It opened its gaping maw, and two types of yin and yang chakra began to gather frantically. It was a Tailed Beast Ball.
While Shukaku rarely used the Tailed Beast Ball, that didn't mean it couldn't. It was an innate ability that all Tailed Beasts possessed.
"Hey, hey! At this range, are you trying to blow yourself up too?" Uchiha Nagi pulled out the Sword of Totsuka. He looked at it. No blood, just some sand. Good, at least it wasn't disgusting. Not that a Tailed Beast needed to eat or drink, so he didn't have to worry about getting any... crap on his sword.
At this moment, Shukaku began to look smug.
"Haha! Scared now? It's too late to get on your knees and beg for mercy! I'm taking you down with me! I'll die, but I'll be revived in a few years! Gahaha! Now you die!"
Uchiha Nagi just stood there, quietly watching Shukaku form its Tailed Beast Ball. Triple Rashomon? That could probably only block Naruto's smaller Tailed Beast Ball. He didn't know if Naruto's small one was as powerful as a full-sized one from a complete Tailed Beast.
"Die!"
Shukaku happily launched the Tailed Beast Ball at Uchiha Nagi, laughing maniacally in its mind. What an idiot. He didn't even try to interrupt me while I was forming it. Now it's too late. He would die, but he'd be back in a few years. At this range, his opponent was 100% dead.
But in the next second, Uchiha Nagi simply extended the Susanoo's hand. If one looked closely, one could see a kunai in its palm, marked with the Flying Thunder God formula.
As the massive Tailed Beast Ball struck the Susanoo's palm, it was as if it were drawn into a black hole. The entire Tailed Beast Ball vanished into an unseen space without a sound.
BOOM!
In the distance, a massive mushroom cloud began to slowly rise, its light and shockwave turning the night sky into day.
"Ah! The Tailed Beast Ball is gone?! No, you moved it! A space-time ninjutsu?!"
Shukaku didn't know about the Flying Thunder God, but it knew about space-time ninjutsu. The old Sage of Six Paths could use it.
Now, Shukaku was dumbfounded.
POW!
Uchiha Nagi leaped onto Shukaku and punched it. Then he punched it again. Without its arms, Shukaku was defenseless. The enraged Tailed Beast had just regrown its arms when Nagi casually lopped them off again with a single slash.
From a distance, it looked like a giant riding on a helpless lamb.
"Waaah! Stop! Stop hitting me! I give up!"
Shukaku started crying like a beaten child, sobbing and whimpering. It had lost its nerve.
Then, the sand that made up Shukaku's body began to disperse. Gaara's Feigning Sleep Technique was being released. This was the first time Shukaku had ever voluntarily ended the technique and fled back into its jinchuriki's body.
The massive Susanoo extended a hand and caught the troubled boy, Gaara, as he fell from the sky. He seemed to be sleeping soundly. After the beating it had just taken, Shukaku was probably in no mood to disturb his sleep.
Meanwhile, on the other side of the battlefield, a spectacular duel between Kimimaro and Kankuro was well underway.
Kankuro had tried to capture Kimimaro to use as a hostage against Uchiha Nagi. As a puppet master, nine-tenths of Kankuro's skills were in puppetry. The stronger his puppets, the stronger he was.
Don't underestimate puppet masters. What if you gave one two human puppets made from jonin? Two jonin against one, the odds would be pretty good, right? What if you gave him ten? Then the odds would be ten to one, even better. And what if you gave a puppet master a human puppet made from the Third Kazekage? Heh...
However, the founder of the human puppet technique in Sunagakure felt that it was an affront to nature, as it used living people. So, the technique was forbidden, just as the First Hokage had forbidden the Second Hokage's Edo Tensei. It wasn't that the Second Hokage couldn't perfect his Edo Tensei, but his older brother had banned it on the grounds that it was unnatural.
Therefore, Kankuro was using pure puppets, not ones made from human bodies. A human puppet retained the strength of the deceased; if not 100%, then at least 80%.
But he had run into the troublesome Kimimaro, a user of a kekkei genkai with maxed-out physical defense.