Watching Minato Namikaze solemnly take out a tube of unknown liquid from his ninja tool pouch and apply it to his specialized Flying Thunder God kunai, Rei Kaguya narrowed his eyes and took a defensive stance with an even more serious attitude.
Applying poison to ninja tools in order to increase lethality was hardly anything new in the current shinobi world.
Sunagakure's puppeteers, for example, loved coating the various weapons installed in their puppets with deadly poison.
Hanzo of the Salamander, leader of Amegakure and known as the Demigod, was also an expert in poison.
During Rei Kaguya's brief career as a genin, he had once used a poisoned kunai to kill a special jonin who had chosen to defect after failing a mission.
He had a very clear understanding of how much poison could help the weak defeat the strong when one's strength was still low.
But poison's upper limit was only so high.
Trying to rely on poison to defeat an enemy whose vitality had already approached the level of a Tailed Beast was no longer something that could be described as wishful thinking. It was stupidity.
But looking at Minato Namikaze's serious expression, Rei Kaguya felt that the other party really did seem to have such an idea.
Minato Namikaze was no fool.
Nor would he take meaningless actions when facing an enemy as troublesome to him as Rei.
In that case, Rei had a rough idea of where that unknown liquid had come from.
Was it you, Orochimaru?
Clang!
Without turning his head, Rei Kaguya swung backward.
The sharp bone blade collided with the Flying Thunder God kunai, producing a crisp and bright metallic sound.
But before Rei Kaguya's strength could fully extend, the kunai blocking his bone blade vanished without warning, intending to use that method to make Rei temporarily lose control over his body's balance.
Clang!
The black-haired boy leaped into the air and once again blocked Minato Namikaze's kunai with a bone spike protruding from his ankle.
"It is useless, Minato Namikaze… You cannot beat me with taijutsu alone."
"You always have to try."
"Ninja Art: Shuriken Shadow Clone Technique!"
Minato Namikaze suddenly threw out a large number of shuriken, then used the Shadow Clone Technique on them, transforming them into a dense black rain of blades that shot toward Rei Kaguya like a thick black wall.
Does he want to mix the poisoned kunai into them?
Or does he want to take advantage of the moment I block the frontal attack to use Body Flicker behind me and launch a sneak attack?
No matter which it was, Rei Kaguya did not want to give his opponent a chance to control him because of carelessness.
He clapped his hands together and activated Dance of the Seedling Fern, creating a white forest of bones. He hid behind it to avoid the continuous bombardment of shuriken rain.
Then, according to the subtle changes in the surrounding wind direction, he swung his blade faster than he could turn his head, intending to knock away the kunai Minato Namikaze had thrown after transferring close to him with the Flying Thunder God Technique.
"Hiss!"
But what Rei Kaguya never expected was that the kunai Minato Namikaze had thrown would transform into a nimble little white snake the moment his blade struck it.
Its soft body twisted, then climbed up along his bone blade.
This sudden change caused Rei Kaguya's attack to miss while also briefly exposing him within the little snake's attack range.
"Damn—"
The thought had only just appeared when Minato Namikaze rushed through the bone spikes on Rei Kaguya's body and entered within one meter of him.
With a swing prepared in advance, he used the Flying Thunder God kunai, whose edge shimmered with a deep blue hue, to slash Rei's shoulder.
Pffft.
The kunai's edge cut through Rei Kaguya's skin and sent the lethal poison taken from Ryuchi Cave's Manda into his body.
Rei Kaguya's body stiffened violently.
Almost instantly, he lost all control over his limbs and chakra.
Although that stiffness was quickly dissolved by his enormous vitality after only one second, for the little snake serving as the killing move, that one second of paralysis was already enough to complete its mission.
"Hiss!"
The little white snake suddenly stretched its neck in midair and bit viciously into Rei Kaguya's neck.
"Guaaahhh—!"
The little snake's mouth was not large, and the wound it left could not be called deep by any means.
But after it sucked a mouthful of Rei Kaguya's blood and disappeared in a puff of smoke, the bitten wound swiftly transformed into a three-tomoe shape surrounded by a black outer ring and began burning with incomparable heat.
"It worked!"
Seeing Rei Kaguya bitten by the little snake Orochimaru had given him and hearing him let out a rare cry of pain, Minato Namikaze quickly teleported back to Kushina Uzumaki's side.
Looking at the Four Symbols Seal already prepared in his wife's hand, he nodded, then brought Kushina back to Rei Kaguya's side.
The two simultaneously struck Rei Kaguya's body with the sealing techniques in their hands.
The formula of the Four Symbols Seal quickly formed on Rei Kaguya's chest and back.
While sealing away the enormous chakra inside his body, it also caused the cursed mark wound on his neck, which had been red as if burning, to darken.
After letting out a long breath, Kushina summoned the chains of Adamantine Sealing Chains and began binding Rei Kaguya's body now that he had lost the ability to resist.
"Phew. Finally… we dealt with him…"
"Yes. Thanks to the method Lord Orochimaru prepared. Otherwise, I would probably have had to trouble you, Kushina."
Minato Namikaze sighed and took out the scroll from his sleeve where the little white snake had been sealed.
Looking at the scroll that had already turned blank, he said thoughtfully, "But how exactly did that little snake make Rei Kaguya lose the ability to resist all at once? If it was just venom, it should not have been able to do that, right?"
"Of course not. Didn't you see that after he was injured by the poisoned kunai, he recovered his ability to move after only being stunned for one second?"
Kushina pointed at the wound on Rei Kaguya's shoulder, which had already fully healed, and shook her head emotionally.
"This should be some kind of secret technique with a sealing effect, right? Lord Orochimaru is the most talented genius among the Sannin. It is only natural for him to have a few unrevealed secret techniques he developed himself…"
"Please do not casually describe a dangerous forbidden technique with a fatality rate of nearly ninety percent as if it were some secret technique that can be used normally, all right?"
"So it is actually that dangerous a technique… huh?"
Kushina subconsciously followed up on the speaker's words.
But she immediately realized that the person speaking was not Minato Namikaze.
Her expression changed, and she used Body Flicker to retreat from Rei Kaguya, who had already reopened his eyes.
She questioned him in shock and disbelief.
"You… why do you still have the energy to speak? We clearly already sealed your chakra…"
"Having my chakra sealed makes me so weak that I cannot even speak? Since when was the Dead Bone Pulse so inconvenient?"
Rei Kaguya took a deep breath, then suddenly shouted.
The muscles across his entire body bulged with full force.
Using nothing but the power of his flesh, he forcefully snapped three of the chains binding him.
During this process, Minato Namikaze, who had not retreated far yet, noticed that around Rei Kaguya's eyes, a ring of red eyeshadow was quietly appearing.
"Hiss. I really did not intend to use this move now… Orochimaru truly gave me one troublesome gift."
At the same time, inside Rei Kaguya's residence in Kannabeyama Stronghold, a Rei Kaguya seated in meditation vanished into smoke with a bang.
Inside the room, there was still one other Shadow Clone maintaining the same posture.