"Impossible!"
A suddenly turned his head.
He saw the Ruin Greatsword roar past, sending large groups of shinobi flying.
In just a few seconds, the formation of the ninjutsu squad was shattered.
Those shinobi who specialized in ninjutsu but were average in taijutsu, in Ryosuke's eyes, so-called genin, chunin, jonin…
The difference wasn't much.
When you cut a cake, do you deliberately distinguish whether you cut into cream, bread, or fruit?
Ryosuke did not press the advantage, but only quietly looked at the Fourth Raikage, A.
Seeing his beloved subordinates blasted away like garbage, A's eyes almost burst with rage.
But bearing the responsibility of a Kage, he kept his reason and shouted, "Everyone, fall back!"
A didn't know how Ryosuke did it, how he could instantly close the distance. It felt a bit like the Fourth Hokage's Flying Thunder God jutsu.
Against someone with such an ability, throwing lives at him was too much of a waste.
As Raikage, he was the strongest shinobi of the village. He had long been prepared to fight Ryosuke head-on.
Next would be…
King versus king.
A clenched both fists. Azure lightning surged across his whole body as he entered Lightning Release Chakra Mode.
This was the signature ninjutsu of the Hidden Cloud.
By channeling Lightning Release chakra through his entire body, covering it with chakra and lightning, he could vitalize his body and use Lightning Body Flicker.
Defense, offense, nervous reaction speed… it was an all-around enhancement.
The more Lightning Release chakra one had, the greater the improvement.
The chakra level of the Fourth Raikage, A, rivaled a tailed beast. At full power, his hair stood straight on end, and his movements were swift as lightning.
Back in the Third Shinobi World War, A's bursts of speed had even rivaled Namikaze Minato's Flying Thunder God over short distances.
He stepped forward, the thunder in the air howling, the very concept of "distance" seeming to disappear.
"Your plan to intimidate us with the White Snake Sage's head was clever, but you made a fatal mistake!"
"The men of the Hidden Cloud have never known the word fear!"
Ryosuke frowned slightly, not really understanding A's train of thought.
'Intimidate?'
As he was pondering, the Raikage was already upon him, his huge right fist raised.
Ryosuke had to admit, purely in terms of speed, A was indeed faster than him.
But...
"Time, stop flowing."
Ryosuke pulled out an iron ball.
This iron ball had been touched by Killer Queen before the fight even began.
With an as-yet-unrefined Golden Spin, Ryosuke swung his arm round and threw it at A.
The iron ball flew in the frozen space of stopped time, coming to a halt less than five centimeters before A.
To preserve Killer Queen's ability, four seconds of stopped time remained.
In those four seconds, Ryosuke and Star Platinum struck A with hundreds of blows.
"Time, start flowing again."
BOOM!!
The Raikage, who one second earlier had been charging fiercely, fist raised to kill, suddenly had his Lightning Release Chakra Armor shatter.
Crack! Crack!
The sound of hundreds of bones fracturing echoed from his whole body. And then, a spinning iron ball was right before him.
The speed wasn't so great, but the rotation was strange.
A's eyes widened. The body he had forged over decades erupted with desperate survival instinct.
That thing, if it touched him… he would die.
He strained with all his might to dodge. No, even just tilting his head slightly would be enough.
But A couldn't move.
He didn't know what had happened in that "instant" just now. His Lightning Armor had shattered, which meant massive damage had already been blocked. Yet even the aftershocks had left his muscles and bones across his body devastated.
'As long as I avoid this blow, take a moment's rest… I can use Lightning Release chakra to reactivate my body…'
Yet just as a human cannot resist sulfuric acid's corrosion by willpower alone, A's injuries were already beyond what his will could overcome.
Killer Queen appeared behind Ryosuke, its thumb lightly raised.
As soon as the iron ball touched A, it would instantly detonate.
Suddenly, several octopus tails lashed out.
One grabbed A, yanking him backward.
The others layered themselves as shields in front of the iron ball.
Click!
Killer Queen pressed the trigger.
The octopus tails burst apart like popped balloons, starting from the point of contact with the iron ball, exploding outward.
The silent explosion spread rapidly backward.
"Sever! Quickly sever it!"
Killer B and the Eight-Tails, as a perfectly synchronized jinchuriki, reacted almost instinctively. Only at the very last moment, before the blast reached his rear, did they sever the connection with the tails.
Killer B broke out in a cold sweat.
'Just a little more!'
Just a little more and his butt would have been gone.
Even worse, if he'd been any slower, he would have vanished into ashes along with the disintegrating octopus tails.
["B! Absolutely do not touch anything he throws!"]
The Eight-Tails' voice sounded in B's mind, ["The tails made of chakra collapsed in an instant, gone without a trace."]
Touch = death.
:What kind of ability is this?!'
Hidden Cloud had already collected a thick drawer's worth of intel on Ryosuke.
But every time they thought they understood him enough, he revealed yet another new unknown power.
Zzzzt… zzzzt…
Lightning chakra once again spread through A's body, forcing his injured body to stand. He wiped the blood from his mouth, "Not bad at all."
Killer B licked his dry lips, wanting to say, "Big bro, stop pretending," but when his eyes met A's, he understood his brother's meaning.
"Enemy is troublesome. Go all out."
Killer B sheathed his blades.
The tailed beast chakra erupted, and in an instant he entered full tailed beast form.
A massive bull with octopus tentacles for a tail appeared.
Eight octopus tails swung in one sweep, flinging the surrounding Hidden Cloud shinobi far away.
The battlefield suddenly became empty, leaving only A and B, the two brothers, facing Ryosuke.
The Eight-Tails loomed high above Ryosuke, its chakra surging, wild, brutal, ferocious. The pressure was so overwhelming that the birds and beasts who had followed Ryosuke all the way lay flat, trembling. The oppressive might made it hard to even breathe.
Ryosuke caught the iron ball, which spun back to him.
After a moment of thought, he put it away.
Trying to rely on a half-baked technique, not even at Lesson 1 level, with this iron ball, against these enemies… was a bit too forced. And also… too impolite.
"Aerosmith."
A little plane appeared, hovering at Ryosuke's shoulder.
A stared at Ryosuke with vigilance. When he saw it was Aerosmith, his heart relaxed slightly.
Hidden Cloud's intel included information on this little plane.
It was mainly for high-altitude scouting, with some firepower intimidation. But against A and the Eight-Tails, that level of firepower was nothing to fear.
A snorted coldly, "Heh, so scared by the Eight-Tails' power that you're running blindly?"
"B, use continuous Tailed Beast Bombs. I'll wait for an opening in your bombardment to strike."
He didn't know why his Lightning Chakra Mode had collapsed earlier, or how Ryosuke had "swooshed" across hundreds of meters into the ninjutsu squad's formation.
But clearly, that kind of ability couldn't be used repeatedly in quick succession.
A would use continuous Tailed Beast Bombs to force Ryosuke into using that technique again. When the cooldown gap appeared, he'd launch a Body Flicker kill strike.
"Oh! Big bro, I got it!"
Killer B opened his mouth, gathering a Tailed Beast Bomb. In less than half a second of charging, dozens of small-scale Tailed Beast Bombs spewed out in succession, covering every possible direction Ryosuke could dodge.
But as he looked at that little plane, B still felt a trace of unease.
'Ryosuke… will he really panic and run blind?'
Suddenly, B saw Aerosmith's bomb bay open below.
Killer Queen's hand reached in, touching the bullet chains.
Da-da-da-da!
Dense bullets rained down.
Aerosmith was mounted with two machine guns.
The bullet rate was 1200–1500 rounds per minute, muzzle velocity 610 meters per second.
Ryosuke and the Eight-Tails were less than a hundred meters apart.
Even if Killer Queen could only set one bomb at a time, even if each one took about half a second, and even if with two stands Ryosuke could only maintain them for 3–4 seconds, it was enough.
The bullets tore through the blockade of Tailed Beast Bombs.
The following bullets, carrying bombs, continued forward, blasting into the enormous body of the Eight-Tails.
BOOM! BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!
A string of silent explosions resounded deep in the soul.
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