"Hmph!"
Kakuzu snorted disdainfully, but gave Jiraiya face, immediately retracting the mask monsters formed by his two hearts.
Kakuzu turned his head, his eyes still hiding wariness towards the giant toad beneath Jiraiya's feet.
This kind of giant Summoned Beast, just standing there, was enough to make ordinary Shinobi lose their will to fight.
Even if Jiraiya didn't use Ninjutsu, just summoning the giant toads of Mount Myōboku could overwhelm and kill Kakuzu.
He had to admit that although his Forbidden Jutsu, Earth Grudge Fear, could steal others' hearts and give him multiple lives...
...it was simply not worth mentioning in the eyes of top-tier Shinobi.
With a belly full of frustration and nowhere to vent, Kakuzu focused his gaze on Konan.
One look at her and Kakuzu could hardly stand it.
Because Konan's features made her look like a spendthrift woman who didn't know how to manage a household.
He felt like she owed him a lot of money in a past life.
"Woman, give me your life!"
Kakuzu released even thicker black tentacles to grab the sealing jar, wanting to tear Konan's fragile paper to shreds and snatch the Seven-Tails.
But Konan's Paper Release suddenly emitted an astonishing devouring force; as soon as Kakuzu's black tentacles touched Konan's Shikigami paper, the chakra inside his body was rapidly devoured by her.
Kakuzu hurriedly retracted his black tentacles, and a flash of joy appeared in Konan's eyes as she was about to take the ritual vessel sealing the Seven-Tails.
But Kakuzu suddenly became enraged.
"Jiraiya is one thing, but for a little girl to be this troublesome too—is it that this old ship of mine can no longer keep up with the times?"
Kakuzu released the two mask monsters on his body, the ones he had previously released to fight his teammates.
One was a Wind-attribute mask, and the other was a Fire-attribute mask.
The two masks jointly released a combination Ninjutsu.
"Fire Release: Intelligent Hard Work!"
"Wind Release: Pressure Damage!"
Combined Ninjutsu: Strange Mask Exploding Flame!
With the wind fanning the flames, it instantly turned into a boundless, surging sea of fire, with a range several times more exaggerated than Nagato's Great Fire Annihilation from before.
Heat waves rolled down as the entire sea of fire pressed toward Konan's position like a crimson tsunami covering the sky and earth.
In the nearby Takigakure, a large cloud of white mist rose from the lake surrounded by the takigakure ancient tree due to the surging flames, and the lake water receded at a rate visible to the naked eye.
"Konan, get away!"
Nagato ignored the fight with the Takigakure Shinobi and ran toward Konan.
This combination-level Fire Release was already a Forbidden Jutsu-level Fire Release, capable of easily burning down an entire forest.
Its range was so vast, like a tide formed of flames, covering hundreds of meters.
Some Takigakure Shinobi were also caught within it.
"Oh no, the flames will burn the Great Tree!"
"Quick, release Water Release to protect the Great Tree!"
But the Takigakure Shinobi were more worried about the nearby takigakure ancient tree.
This was the sacred tree that could produce Hero Water, the most precious treasure of Takigakure.
If it weren't for the lack of manpower when Kakuzu defected back then, he would have definitely packed up and taken this Great Tree with him.
Hearing Nagato's words, Konan quickly retracted her Shikigami paper and flew far away from the range of Kakuzu's flames like a butterfly.
The medium of Paper Release is paper, which is naturally afraid of being burned, but Konan's Paper Release had undergone special treatment, using chakra to coat the paper and insulate it from the flames.
Konan's Paper Release wasn't afraid of ordinary flames, but a Fire Release as intense as Kakuzu's could destroy the chakra on her paper in an instant.
So, she couldn't face it head-on.
With Konan's retreat, the pottery jar sealing the Seven-Tails had to face Kakuzu's fierce flame strike directly.
"Father—!"
Shibuki, hiding in the woods behind to watch the battle, was soon affected by Kakuzu's flames and cried out for his father in terror.
"Shibuki—!"
The Takigakure Leader was stunned to see Shibuki, who hadn't evacuated to a safe place with the villagers; he was shocked and rushed forward, wanting to save his son.
But—
"Cough, cough, cough..."
The Takigakure Leader coughed up blood; the burst from the Hero Water had ended, and the intense side effects began to erode his body.
The Takigakure Leader collapsed, no longer having even the strength to stand up.
At the critical moment, a young Anbu carrying a Ninjatō used Body Flicker to rush into the sea of fire, quickly carrying Shibuki away from the flames' attack.
The pottery jar sealing the Seven-Tails was specially made by Takigakure; its internal seal was decent, and its external structure could withstand the Ninjutsu of a Jonin.
But it wasn't enough against the combination Ninjutsu of a Kage-level powerhouse like Kakuzu.
The sealing jar was burned open by Kakuzu's intense flames, and then a suffocating chakra exploded outward, shattering the ritual pottery vessel directly into a sky full of broken ceramics.
Buzz, buzz, buzz—
A low, raspy sound echoed beneath the takigakure ancient tree, like countless insect wings flapping at high speed.
Then, a massive giant beetle Tailed Beast soared into the sky from the sea of fire, whipping up a storm that easily blew away Kakuzu's sea of flames.
Jiraiya shielded himself from the violent wind with his hand, looking through the gaps between his fingers at the six-winged giant beast that blotted out the sun.
"The Seven-Tails—the seal is broken!"
Suddenly, everyone's eyes on the battlefield were focused on this beetle Tailed Beast.
From a distance, the Seven-Tails looked like a blue-gray rhinoceros beetle, with a large protrusion on its head as sharp as a blade.
It dragged a long tail behind it.
It had three pairs of giant orange-brown wings on its back, distributed like leaf veins.
When the six insect wings spread, they blotted out the sun, and every flap could whip up a gale.
"Hiss—!"
The Seven-Tails let out a sharp cry, like a cicada's chirp magnified a hundred times, or the ear-piercing screech of metal being forcibly distorted.
It shook the eardrums of the Shinobi below watching it, making many of them instinctively cover their ears with their hands.
Chomei the Seven-Tails' personality was considered optimistic and cheerful among the Nine Tailed Beasts; it often mentioned the number seven when introducing itself.
It called itself "Lucky Seven-Tails," as the number seven was a lucky number in its eyes.
Because it could fly, ordinary Shinobi found it hard to catch the Seven-Tails and wouldn't disturb its life.
If someone came to harass it, it would just flap its wings and run away; it was a gentle, optimistic, and cheerful Tailed Beast.
In the original work, it also became very good friends with its Jinchuriki, Fu.
However, no matter how cheerful a Tailed Beast was, being sealed by Takigakure for so many years would give it a temper; as soon as the Seven-Tails was liberated, it wanted to give the humans who had imprisoned it for so long a taste of their own medicine.
On a branch of the takigakure ancient tree, Black and White Zetsu emerged from within.
White Zetsu looked at the furious Seven-Tails flying in the sky, then glanced around at the powerful Shinobi on the ground who could still maintain their composure under the pressure of the Tailed Beast's chakra.
Jiraiya along with his Summoned Beast, Kakuzu, and a black-haired young man from the Konoha Anbu carrying a Ninjatō.
"Sannin Jiraiya, S-rank rogue Shinobi Kakuzu, and that Konoha Anbu—his chakra isn't blue, it's actually emerald green. It seems he's no simple character either."
Black Zetsu agreed: "And the unsealed Seven-Tails. Nagato and Konan will have a hard time dealing with them. Let's call Ryou!"
"Alright!"
White Zetsu then used the unique telepathy between White Zetsu to connect to Ryou's chakra source.