Categorically speaking, there are sealing jutsu that exist purely to seal and can later be unsealed, such as the Four Symbols Seal. Simultaneously, there are sealing jutsu that exist purely to obliterate, yielding irreversible results, such as the Reverse Four Symbols Seal.
Before today, probably no one truly knew what the result would be when using this murder-for-hire sealing jutsu against a Tailed Beast. Thus, Hagoromo was preparing to take another step forward on the path of discovery.
After warning his teammates to watch out for a large-scale attack, Hagoromo pulled out the Reverse Four Symbols scroll and hurled it at the Two-Tails charging straight toward him. Immediately after, he rapidly retreated. By the time he had backed away to a sufficiently safe distance, outside the jutsu's area of effect, the scroll had simultaneously reached the designated strike zone. He estimated that during this time, his teammates had also booked it and vanished without a trace.
With everything set up in an instant, Hagoromo raised his hands, ready to weave signs.
However, while the word "discovery" has always been written as "discovery," there are many times when it can be pronounced as "courting death."
The problem was that activating the Reverse Four Symbols Seal required a specific process and sequence of steps, meaning it required a certain amount of time.
And although Tailed Beasts are called "beasts," they possess obvious differences from ordinary wild animals. These differences are evident not only in their power, but more importantly, in their intelligence.
The key point was that they could understand human speech and easily comprehend its meaning.
Regardless of to what degree, they at least possessed intelligence. This was quite a remarkable trait, considering that even among humans, there are many individuals who can't understand human speech and lack intelligence.
Since their creation, how many times had the Tailed Beasts been sealed? They probably couldn't even keep count themselves. Therefore, regarding the silhouette of the flying scroll, the Two-Tails felt a specific intuition. Coupled with Hagoromo's prior warning to his teammates, it immediately sensed that this object was a threat.
Consequently, the Two-Tails reacted with an unconscious instinct... It flicked its tail, batting the massive scroll that had been tossed over right back along its original trajectory.
Hagoromo's process for activating the Reverse Four Symbols Seal was generally divided into two steps. In reality, the hand signs he wove were also of two distinct types. First, the initial sign was extremely simple; it merely released the scroll's own restricting seal, restoring it from a palm-sized object back to its massive original size.
After that was done, the subsequent signs were for activating the sealing jutsu itself. During this sign-weaving process, the sealing formula on the scroll would draw a massive amount of chakra from Hagoromo to erect the sealing barrier.
For Hagoromo, the chakra consumption of the Reverse Four Symbols was immense. Once he used this move, as a ninja, his sustained combat capability was essentially gone.
Although Hagoromo's positioning was excellent, his hand speed was also incredibly fast. Therefore, by the time that massive scroll smashed back down right in front of his eyes, the activation sequence for the Reverse Four Symbols Seal was only one hand sign away from completion...
This was probably the first time in Hagoromo's life he was grateful his hand speed wasn't one step faster... Was this the feeling of breaking out in a cold sweat?
If he had been just a tiny bit faster, this wouldn't be an attack; it would be a literal act of suicide, simple and brutal.
Massive power, high risk of friendly fire, sealing carries risks, operate with extreme caution.
Fundamentally, sealing jutsu shouldn't be used in rapid, frontal assaults. Tossing scrolls around like this was probably a behavior unique to Hagoromo in the entire ninja world. The concept and theory of "offensive sealing jutsu" was likely his original creation, proposed here for the first time.
Holy crap, it actually threw the grenade back! Such a badass "jutsu reflection" was a first for Hagoromo.
Though the phrasing was a bit delicate, the Two-Tails truly had thrown Hagoromo's jutsu back at him.
However, he was a veteran of the battlefield. While this sudden turn of events—and the near-disastrous blunder that was narrowly avoided—left him stunned, it didn't leave him stupefied.
At this moment, the Two-Tails was already right in front of him, its massive front paw about to smash down.
Because both of them were now within the effective area of the Reverse Four Symbols Seal, Hagoromo temporarily couldn't use the jutsu unless he wanted mutual destruction. Therefore, advancing or retreating equated to the same thing, and retreating further held no meaning. So, instead of retreating, he charged straight at the Two-Tails.
Initially, the Tailed Beast's priority target was Hagoromo. But now it altered its priority. Its first target of attack was no longer Hagoromo personally, but the scroll lying on the ground.
With its intelligence, it understood that the object was still functioning, meaning the threat of being sealed still existed.
Thus, the Two-Tails slammed its paw down on the scroll!
Then, visibly, a cluster of blue flames resembling fox-fire ignited beneath the Two-Tails' paw. The massive Reverse Four Symbols Seal scroll quickly vanished within the flames... along with the jutsu formula that had drawn Hagoromo's chakra.
Not only did the seal fail to activate and deliver a fatal blow, but Hagoromo had also wasted an immense amount of chakra.
But battle is fraught with such uncertainty. If everything developed according to Hagoromo's plans, wouldn't he be invincible?
Hagoromo never harbored such shallow thoughts, believing every one of his attacks would yield its intended value. If one attack failed, he would simply wait for the next.
Therefore, under these circumstances, charging to the front, he didn't even care what exactly happened behind him. Instead, relying on the extreme speed brought by the Lightning Style's hyper-activation of his cellular activity, he shifted his body, flashing directly to the Two-Tails' underbelly. Immediately, a Chidori Sharp Spear ignited in his hand, thrusting deeply upward into the Two-Tails' abdomen. Simultaneously, as he moved at high speed, the Chidori Sharp Spear performed a linear slice.
In terms of sensation, slicing a Tailed Beast wasn't much harder than slicing through a Hidden Stone ninja's Earth Style.
Perhaps, somewhere within the Tailed Beast's body, the Jinchuriki was still present. There was a possibility that Hagoromo's attack might accidentally slice into Yugito Nii. In that case, given the Chidori Sharp Spear's attack power, theoretically, even without a spearhead, it could stab someone to death.
But the odds of that were truly slim. Hagoromo didn't have that kind of luck. His attack only elicited a roar of pain and anger from the Two-Tails; it didn't cause it to disappear.
Guessing according to a certain law, it was highly likely the Two-Tails hid its Jinchuriki at the nape of its neck. In that case, one actually only needed two oversized box cutters to perform a slicing operation on the specific location of its nape, which would very likely cause the simultaneous demise of both the Jinchuriki and the Tailed Beast...
Unfortunately, Hagoromo possessed no yearning for the Wings of Freedom.
From start to finish, Hagoromo passed by the Two-Tails, and before the Chidori Sharp Spear dissipated, it only inflicted external trauma on the enemy.
He then performed a lateral shift to the left, dodging a tail that smashed down toward him.
After Hagoromo dashed forward a bit further, his teammates, who realized what had happened, reappeared by his side.
What made Hagoromo embarrassed wasn't that he had just wasted a massive amount of chakra, nor was it that he had nearly killed himself. It was that his teammates were now looking at him with perfectly innocent expressions.
What happened to the ultimate move? Was it really just that attack that looked suspiciously like neutering the Two-Tails? We all hid, and that was all the commotion it made?
Ahem. Anyway, Gamabunta and the giant Choza Akimichi stepped forward once again to block the Two-Tails, attempting to draw aggro back.
Minato, naturally, was fully aware of what had just happened. The jutsu formula for the Reverse Four Symbols Seal had been destroyed by the Two-Tails, so he asked Hagoromo, "Hagoromo, can you prepare the seal a second time?"
Hagoromo decisively shook his head. To him, an ultra-chakra-consuming move like the Reverse Four Symbols Seal truly had a "cooldown," and the specialized versions he had previously prepared with stored chakra had all expired long ago.
If you don't look, you don't know just how bizarre the world can be. It's normal for a DPS not to have a health bar, but for them to be out of mana? What kind of situation is this?
In short, without being in a state of extreme burst, facing a boss-level monster like a Tailed Beast, Hagoromo genuinely couldn't grind it down anymore. But... were they really going to fight to the death with the Two-Tails right here?
The problem was that time simply didn't allow the Minato squad to engage in a leisurely battle.
"Minato, a large squad of Hidden Cloud ninjas has already begun moving."
Shibi Aburame, responsible for reconnaissance, issued a warning right on cue.
Samui, who was trying to deliver the news, was probably still en route. The reason the Hidden Cloud began moving was undoubtedly due to an attack as highly recognizable as the Tailed Beast Bomb.
Any Tailed Beast or Jinchuriki present on this battlefield could only belong to the Hidden Cloud, not Konoha. Therefore, their response was much more proactive.
And they held the advantage in distance.
So it seemed there was only one path left for the Minato squad.
"Can't we transfer the Tailed Beast... No, never mind." Hagoromo's suggestion almost slipped out, but he stopped himself.
Originally, he wanted to ask if Minato could teleport the Two-Tails along with them, so they could find a different spot to slowly grind it down. But the problem was, with something of the Tailed Beast's sheer mass, while the Flying Thunder God could indeed teleport it, the distance was absolutely limited. It was impossible to take it very far.
Space-Time Ninjutsu also has its limits.
Besides, if they were to transfer it to a convenient battlefield, where exactly would that be?
The Konoha camp? Have a massive group of ninjas gang up on the Tailed Beast? That was definitely a suggestion only a Hidden Cloud spy would make. Dropping a Tailed Beast into the middle of a bunch of ninjas wasn't ganging up on it; it was a reverse massacre.
Killing a Tailed Beast truly couldn't be accomplished overnight.
That was why, even against the AB Combo, the Minato squad's idea was solely to assassinate the Eight-Tails Jinchuriki, not to deal with the Eight-Tails itself.
Compared to directly fighting a Tailed Beast, instantly killing their shared-fate Jinchuriki before they transformed was far easier.
Regardless, for all intents and purposes, this battle ended here.
The Minato squad's gains were probably only in terms of intelligence. At the very least, they learned that the Hidden Cloud had a new Jinchuriki, and it was a young female ninja. The next time Konoha ninjas encountered her, they would definitely need to exercise extreme caution.
Let the incoming Hidden Cloud ninjas subdue their own Tailed Beast. Thinking about that scene... it actually seems pretty good.
------------------------------------------
Stones are appreciated if you can spare any.
Read 50 chapters ahead on patreon!
P(a)treon.com/GoatMama