"Catch the Nine Tails!"
Raizen's roar cut through the chaos, echoing across the shattered field. His Susanoo surged forward, black flames burning along its spectral armor as it clashed against the crimson monstrosity of the Kyūbi.
The battlefield looked like hell itself had cracked open. One tailed beast against another—Three Tails charging from behind, claws glowing with chakra—and two colossal Susanoo closing in from the flanks.
Even the Nine Tails, feral and arrogant, couldn't ignore that. The beast's golden eyes narrowed. Then, with a guttural growl, it condensed a Tailed Beast Bomb—dense, black chakra spinning into existence—and hurled it straight at Raizen.
"—Sword of Amaterasu!"
Raizen raised his blade, black flames coiling along its length. He swung.
The sword bit into the air with a sound like tearing thunder, striking the Beast Bomb mid-flight. The sphere was sent hurtling upward, bursting in a blinding bloom above the clouds. The shockwave split the heavens, scattering the storm.
Before the echo faded, his clone's voice shouted through the chakra link.
"Kamui Shuriken!"
A massive, spectral shuriken formed within the left Susanoo's grasp. When it spun toward the Nine Tails, space itself twisted around it.
The beast barely had time to react before pain ripped through its waist—a gaping vortex devouring fur and flesh alike.
"Grr—RAAAAH!!"
Its roar shook the air. Its fury was primal now—no longer playful, no longer toying. Chakra burst from its body like a crimson storm.
Pillars of energy erupted around it, forming gigantic arms that clawed at the ground and sky alike. The battlefield cracked. Stones the size of towers broke free of gravity, whirling into the air as the Nine Tails screamed its hatred at the heavens.
"Come on then…" Raizen muttered, his Sharingan blazing with red light. "Let's see how much of a demon you really are."
His Amaterasu sword howled as it descended, cleaving one of the airborne boulders clean in two. The explosion rained molten shards across the plain.
But the Nine Tails was already moving. One of its chakra arms slammed into the nearest Susanoo, sending the armored titan crashing into the ground. The other Susanoo leapt in, its blade blazing, cutting through those arms like fire through silk.
Each strike shattered the air. Each roar of the beast shook the ground.
"Kamui!"
Raizen's eternal Mangekyō spun, distorting space just as a chakra fist was about to crush his Susanoo. The giant vanished in a blink, reappearing beside him in a swirl of smoke and fire.
The Kyūbi's eyes locked on him, full of bloodlust. "ROAR!"
Then it moved. Faster than sight.
"So fast—!"
Raizen barely registered the blur before the beast's tails slammed into Three Tails, sending the entire mass of chakra and scales flying. The impact shattered the ridge behind them.
The ground convulsed. Boulders lifted again—then came raining down, hurled by the Nine Tails' rage.
"Cross me first!"
Raizen's two Susanoo moved as one, bracing their blades. The flaming swords met the oncoming avalanche head-on. Stone exploded in waves of black fire.
Dozens of chakra arms burst from the Nine Tails' back, each one burning like a comet, hammering the titans.
"Fall!" Raizen's clone roared. Both Susanoo hacked through the assault, but the beast's power was overwhelming. In seconds, one Susanoo's armor cracked apart, and the clone faded in a burst of light.
"Five minutes…" Raizen panted, feeling the weight through his chakra veins. "That's all they lasted?"
His jaw tightened. "Damn monster."
The Kyūbi crouched, panting, eyes glowing with primal hatred. Even through the fury, it radiated ancient power.
Raizen stood atop his last Susanoo, hair whipping in the wind, Mangekyō glowing like coals.
"Nine Tails…" he said quietly. "If I don't stop you here, Konoha—no, the entire Land of Fire—will burn."
He exhaled once. The eternal Sharingan spun faster, pulling his chakra into alignment.
Susanoo unfurled its wings.
"Then let's end this properly."
The Amaterasu sword in its hand morphed—flames twisting into a massive longbow. Black fire ignited the string, and a single arrow of pure destruction formed in its grasp.
"Amaterasu—Yumi no Ya!"
He released.
The flaming arrow tore through the air, splitting the storm apart as it flew.
The Nine Tails roared back, claws digging into the earth as it launched a volley of Tailed Beast Bombs skyward like artillery.
Raizen raised his shield. "Shield of Amaterasu!"
The black flames solidified into an obsidian wall. Explosions bloomed across its surface, shaking the heavens.
When the smoke cleared, Raizen's voice echoed one last time—calm, low, unyielding.
"The real fight starts now."