Kenji's head snapped toward the sound. The explosive tags should have detonated by now. Had A survived? He didn't have time to investigate further.
"ROOOAAAAR!"
The bellow was deafening. Dark red chakra exploded outward in a massive surge, blasting away the smoke and dust that had been obscuring the battlefield. When the air cleared, the Eight-Tails stood fully manifested.
Gyūki.
The creature was enormous. Its head was that of a massive bull with twisted horns, eyes burning with rage. Eight thick octopus tentacles writhed behind it like living weapons. Its body radiated tailed beast chakra so densely that the air itself seemed to warp.
The ground beneath Gyūki's feet cracked and collapsed, unable to support the weight of its chakra-infused form. Fissures spread outward in all directions. Rocks and broken branches were caught in the violent currents of energy and sent flying through the air.
Minato, Dōtō, Gaku, and Enma immediately fell back to stand beside Kenji inside the External Armor. They all braced themselves against the gale-force winds created by the tailed beast's chakra.
"Kenji," Gaku said, his hand trembling slightly where it gripped his ninja blade. "The Eight-Tails has fully transformed. Should we retreat now?"
Fighting a partial transformation had been manageable. Fighting a fully manifested tailed beast was a different matter. The intimidation factor alone was enough to break most ninjas' resolve.
Kenji said through the External Armor's voice projection. "No rush. I've still got options. Besides, if it really comes down to it, Minato and I can each grab one of you and teleport out with Flying Thunder God."
Before anyone could respond, Gyūki roared again. This time, black chakra began gathering in its massive bull mouth. The energy condensed rapidly into a sphere, growing larger with each passing second. The air around it trembled from the sheer concentration of chakra.
The sphere continued to grow, pulling in ambient light until the area around Gyūki's mouth seemed darker than it should be. The chakra swelled to enormous proportions.
"That's a Tailed Beast Ball!" Dōtō's face went pale.
That kind of terrifying technique, capable of annihilating everything for several kilometers, could never be blocked by any ordinary defense.
Even Minato's usual composure showed cracks. "Kenji, we need to move. Even with Flying Thunder God, we need distance before that detonates."
The threat assessment was accurate. A Tailed Beast Ball wasn't something you blocked. It was something you ran from.
"No need," Kenji said as he shook his head. "Just hold your ground."
The Wood Release puppet beside him moved, its hands flowing through seals.
"Wood Release: Hōbi Technique!"
Wood chakra erupted from the ground with great force. The earth shook violently as countless thick trees burst up from underground, twisting and interweaving with each other. Within seconds, they had formed a dome-like structure in the form of a dragon's face.
The wooden construct positioned itself between them and the Eight-Tails, its protective shell enclosing all of them safely within.
Gyūki's roar split the air as it fired the Tailed Beast Ball.
The black sphere tore through the atmosphere. It crossed the distance in an instant and struck the dome.
BOOOOM!
Dark red and black chakra shockwaves erupted outward. Everything within hundreds of meters was instantly obliterated. Trees that had stood for decades were vaporized. Boulders exploded into dust. The ground itself caved inward, forming a crater deep enough to swallow buildings.
A mushroom cloud rose slowly from the epicenter, climbing high into the sky. Smoke and dust obscured everything, covering the entire area in a choking haze.
Gyūki panted heavily, its massive chest heaving. Firing a Tailed Beast Ball that quickly had drained significant chakra. But if it had eliminated the enemies, the cost was acceptable. The beast's burning eyes stared at the center of the smoke cloud, waiting to confirm the kills.
Gradually, the smoke began to clear.
At the center of the explosion, the dome still stood. Its surface was scorched black in places and fine cracks spiderwebbed across parts of it, but the structure remained intact.
Crack... crack...
The dome slowly opened.
Inside, Kenji controlled the Wood Release puppet to step forward protectively while Minato, Dōtō, Gaku and Enma emerged behind it. None of them showed any injuries. Even their clothes were undamaged.
The beast's eight tentacles suddenly lashed out in fury, stretching like massive whips. They cut through the air with sharp cracking sounds as they came down toward the group.
The Wood Release puppet moved again. Wood chakra surged from its body in a visible wave of energy. The ground beneath it split open with massive fissures. Countless trees erupted upward. They merged and intertwined, climbing higher and higher until they formed something truly massive.
A wooden golem.
The construct stood dozens of meters tall, broad-shouldered and powerfully built. The wooded golem's hand shot out and caught the incoming tentacles. Wooden fingers closed around the appendages and held them firm.
Then it pulled.
With a display of impossible strength, the wooded golem swung the entire massive body of the Eight-Tails overhead like a toy and slammed it into the ground.
CRASH!
The earth collapsed again, creating a new crater. Gyūki's bull head smashed into rocks, and the beast let out a cry that echoed across the forest. Before it could recover, the wooded golem strode forward. One hand grabbed one of Gyūki's horns while the other formed a fist that came down on the tailed beast's face.
THUD!
Gyūki's head snapped upward from the blow, then crashed back down into the ground. Blood sprayed from the beast's nostrils.
"RAAAGH!"
Pain and rage drove Gyūki into a frenzy. All eight tentacles wrapped around the wooded golem's body, coiling tight as they tried to crush or tear the construct apart. The beast poured chakra into the effort, muscles bulging as it attempted to destroy its opponent. But the wooded golem barely reacted. Not only did it possess great physical strength, but its Wood Release chakra naturally suppressed tailed beasts. The tentacles couldn't deal significant damage. Worse, the wooded golem was slowly absorbing Gyūki's chakra through the points of contact, draining the beast's power even as it struggled.
Ignoring the tentacles wrapped around its torso, the wooded golem continued its assault. Fist after fist rained down on Gyūki's head. Each blow shook the ground. The Eight-Tails' anguished roars grew weaker with each strike.
Minato, Dōtō, Gaku, Enma and Kenji stood near the wooded golem, watching in silence.
"The Eight-Tails can't even fight back. It's just getting destroyed..." Gaku whispered, his eyes wide.
He'd never imagined that any technique could suppress a tailed beast so completely. This wasn't a battle. It was a one-sided beating.
Kenji wasn't surprised at all.
Hashirama had fought the Nine-Tails and treated it like a parent disciplining a misbehaving child. Of course dealing with the Eight-Tails would be straightforward by comparison. The only real limitation was that Kenji was channeling the technique through a puppet rather than using it directly, which reduced its overall power.
If I had Sage Mode, he thought, I could use Top Transformed Buddha and Gyūki wouldn't even get the chance to scream.
He remembered how Hashirama had used that exact technique against both the Nine-Tails and Madara's Perfect Susanoo simultaneously, leaving both helpless. That was the true peak of Wood Release combat ability.
I need to find a way to learn Sage Mode Wood Release without it just isn't complete.
Suddenly, Gyūki let out another roar, this one piercing and high-pitched, like a screech that vibrated through the air at an unnatural frequency. The sound drilled into their heads, forcing them to clap their hands over their ears, wincing as the world seemed to tilt for a moment.
The disorienting pitch reminded Kenji of that miserable voyage on the ship during his last mission overseas, when relentless waves had thrown his inner ear into chaos, leaving him seasick. Balance disrupted, senses thrown off... just like now.
If sound waves could mess with equilibrium like that, imagine weaponizing it in a puppet. A design with hidden sonic emitters, maybe vibrating chakra strings or amplified frequencies to disorient foes, induce nausea, or even shatter barriers. But he'd need to study anatomy more deeply first, maybe dissect some sound-based beasts or experiment with frequencies in a controlled setting. No rushing it; puppets like that demand precision, or they'd backfire.
While the wooded golem continued its destruction of the Eight-Tails, Kenji's second puppet stepped forward. This one was slightly different from the Wood Release construct.
The puppet's frame incorporated iron sand particles suspended throughout its structure. It was one of his newer creations.
The Magnet Release puppet approached the struggling Eight-Tails, its hands moving through a different sequence of seals.
"Wood Release: Smothering Binding Technique!"
Despite being mainly a Magnet Release construct, the puppet could still channel Wood Release chakra through specialized pathways he had designed into its structure. It was less efficient than the dedicated Wood Release puppet, but enough for binding targets.
Thick roots erupted from the ground beneath Gyūki. Unlike the massive trees of the wooded golem, these were more vine-like, flexible and fast-moving. They shot up and wrapped around the Eight-Tails' body in multiple layers, coiling around its limbs, torso, and tentacles. More roots emerged from different angles, creating a complex web of binding.
The roots constricted, pulling tighter and tighter. Gyūki struggled against them, its chakra flaring as it tried to break free, but the Wood Release chakra naturally suppressed tailed beast energy. The more it fought, the more roots grew to restrain it. Within moments, it was completely immobilized, barely able to move at all.
The combination of the wooded golem's physical assault and the binding roots left Gyūki helpless.
Minato stared at the second puppet. First, a Wood Release puppet that could use Wood Release techniques. That alone had been shocking enough. And now, a second one appeared?
He turned to look at Kenji, who remained encased in the External Armor puppet.
"Is it really that surprising?" Kenji's voice came from the puppet. "I've got multiple puppets that can use Wood Release."
His tone was completely unbothered. At this point, he no longer cared about revealing the bloodline abilities his puppets possessed, he even wanted to show them off to the Third Hokage!
Want to accuse him of stealing clan secrets? Go ahead and try. His puppets weren't human puppet constructions made from corpses. They were artificial creations built from cells and chakra-conductive materials. As long as he hadn't killed anyone specifically to harvest their bloodline limits, he had nothing to worry about.
And with his current strength, he honestly welcomed anyone who wanted to cause trouble. It would just give him an excuse to add more samples to his collection.