The shockwave from the Tailed Beast Bomb's back-blast threw Ren eight hundred meters across the landscape! Soil, rocks, grass, tree stumps, and embers... everything in the ruins was torn upward, tracing meaningless parabolas into the sky.
Only a high-pitched, monotonous ringing remained in his ears.
Nnn—
Everything seemed to fall into a vacuum of silence, only for an extremely sharp, crowded noise to flood back into a single point a moment later. Then—
—BOOM!!
Exploding from the point of impact, the heatwave instantaneously expanded into a brilliant sphere nearly fifty meters in diameter.
Radiant, pale, clamorous, silent... all adjectives failed here.
Within the tragic light, Ren Uchiha's eyes bulged as he watched his body being continuously pulverized, only to be forcibly reassembled by a network of forbidden and secret arts.
"ARGHHHH!!!"
Inch by inch, his flesh was annihilated, only to grow back again. The pain was so intense it transcended the threshold of human endurance! He wanted to give up, to simply die right there, but the will at the deepest part of his soul—more brilliant than anything else—stubbornly took control of his body, mounting a desperate resistance!
[Talent: Combat Instinct (S+) activated.]
A soul-piercing agony, the kind that made one want to throw themselves onto a bed of nails just to feel something else, crawled through every corner of his body! These long, yet brief, few dozen seconds felt like several centuries to Ren.
And when the curtain finally fell, heaven and earth returned to silence.
Thud!
A creature so mangled it could barely be recognized as human fell from the sky, slamming into the massive crater carved out of the ruins, kicking up a plume of dust. But in just moments, this unrecognizable being began to restore its original form at a speed visible to the naked eye.
Flesh reconnected, bones grew, and charred skin sloughed off like bloody scabs to reveal healthy skin beneath. It continued until it had drained every drop of the Zero-Tails' chakra, and all of Ren's own.
"Heh... heh..."
Ren finally gasped for air, crawling out from the bottom of the deep pit. He was covered in burn marks, blood, and dust. His Konoha ANBU uniform had long since turned to ash under the attack; only the mesh undershirt Ryoma Aburame had given him—one with incredible elasticity and heat resistance—remained, hanging off him in scorched tatters.
This thing might look like a fishnet outfit... but the defense is truly top-tier.
Ren used the Kusanagi Sword to anchor himself against the curved wall of the pit, struggling to climb out. He looked around.
The once-dense mountain forest was now a wasteland of smoldering fires. The giant moss-covered trees, the bubbling springs, the lively chirping of cicadas and frogs, the sweet scent of greenery in the air... all of it was gone.
Not far away, the sounds of clashing steel and whistling ninjutsu rang out. It was the rest of the Konoha squad. While Ren had been fighting Killer Bee, they had been locked in a bitter struggle of their own. They were currently facing off against Kakuzu, who had deployed his four masked monsters alongside his main body, various ninjutsu primed and ready.
Further away, the skyscraper-sized form of the full Eight-Tails stood amidst a desert of debris created by the Tailed Beast Eight Twists.
Ren's eyes grew vacant as he took it all in.
Why were Kakuzu and Killer Bee—two S-rank powerhouses who shouldn't have any connection—teaming up against him? Why couldn't the Zero-Tails absorb the Eight-Tails' chakra? Why had the situation devolved to this point?
Questions swirled around him, but he had no time to answer them.
In the distance, the Eight-Tails, having just fired a Tailed Beast Bomb, turned its head with a savage twist. Its round, hollow white eyes locked onto the battered Ren crawling out of the pit. Its mouth curled into a hideous grin.
"You evil Uchiha brat!"
"DIE!"
—ROOOOAR!!
The moonlit beast reared its head once more. In its maw, a second pitch-black, profound sphere of Tailed Beast chakra was rapidly taking shape!
Seeing this, Ren gripped the hilt of the Kusanagi Sword, his heart thumping wildly! His palms began to sweat. In his current state, resisting another attack of that scale was pure fantasy.
But if this Tailed Beast Bomb hit, everyone here would be buried! His new subordinate Yamato, his eccentric boss Ryoma, Old Man Chen who had taught him precious taijutsu... they would all die!
Ren gritted his teeth until they bled, his fists trembling with a humiliating sense of helplessness. A weakness more painful than having his vitals torn out—the deep frustration of being unable to grasp his own destiny!
The two tomoe in his crimson eyes spun rapidly around his black pupils. Intense emotions echoed in his heart, only to be swallowed by the Zero-Tails in his gut, converting into a pitiful amount of chakra. A pittance that couldn't even form a Rasengan.
What do I do? How do I do it? What CAN I do?
In the face of this overwhelming power gap, how could he block the second Tailed Beast Bomb that sounded like a funeral knell? Was everything going to end here?
However—just then—a gravelly, aged shout exploded from the distance!
"Fire Style: Great Fire Annihilation!"
The voice was incredibly familiar to Ren. He snapped his head up. At the edge of his vision, a figure that looked like an ant in front of the Eight-Tails leaped into the air, wielding a blade trailing fire. In mid-air, the figure formed a single-handed seal, index finger hooked—and vomited a massive sea of flames that engulfed the head of the Eight-Tails!
Gyūki was startled. It instinctively swung a four-fingered giant palm, the resulting gale shredding the sea of fire! It lifted its head and peered through the smoke.
There stood an old man with long, grey-white hair and a cold, arrogant expression. He had a single crimson eye and wore a partial face-mask. He brandished a long sword, tearing through the fire and wind as he lunged toward the beast!
Seeing that single Three-Tomoe Sharingan drawing a streak of scarlet through the night sky, the Eight-Tails sensed something was wrong. It immediately averted its gaze, refusing to look into the eye—only to see the old man's blade.
The sword, like Ren's, was flowing with flames! The Ryūjin Jakka reflected the lonely, crimson Sharingan! Their gazes met through the reflection of the blade.
"This ocular power?! How can... NO!"
The Eight-Tails' expression changed drastically. Currently, it was forcibly suppressing Killer Bee's consciousness with its own violent chakra to maintain the Full Tailed Beast Transformation. Consequently, there was no Jinchūriki present to snap it out of a Genjutsu!
If it fell under an illusion now, it was finished!
With its last shred of consciousness, Gyūki vibrated its spirit world, desperately trying to wake Bee.
Below, Ren's eyes lit up as he watched the old man charge and instantly subdue the Eight-Tails.
"That's... the Great Elder!"
The man flying toward the Eight-Tails was indeed the last remaining Great Elder of the Uchiha clan: Setsuna Uchiha!
After meeting Setsuna's gaze, Gyūki's eyes glazed over. As if being puppeted, it suddenly reared back, lifting its massive frame, and swallowed the Tailed Beast Bomb it was about to fire!
The bomb detonated inside the Tailed Beast's stomach. The blast expanded Gyūki's body from within, bloating it like a grotesque balloon!
—PONG!!
With a muffled internal explosion, the giant beast collapsed helplessly into the ruins, kicking up a massive dust storm.
Setsuna Uchiha spun through the air and landed firmly on the Eight-Tails' head. Ignoring the explosion and wind at his back, he slowly sheathed his blade.
"According to the ancestral records... in the Full Tailed Beast form, the Jinchūriki's position should be..."
He squinted his single eye coldly at the dazed beast. After a moment of thought, his gaze landed on the center of the Eight-Tails' forehead.
"There!"
A moon-arc of blade-light flashed through the night! The Eight-Tails' forehead split open, revealing layers of muscle and, protected deep within the "safe" zone of the beast, the eyes-closed figure of Killer Bee!
"I see. No wonder this beast was so 'obedient'?" Setsuna sneered. "It went berserk..."
Looking at the unconscious Jinchūriki, Setsuna stepped onto Bee's chest. He drew his blade once more, the steel dancing with reflected moonlight. With a flick of his wrist, he reversed his grip on the hilt, pointing the tip directly at Bee's throat.
Without a second of hesitation, he thrust downward!
But in that instant, Killer Bee—who had been unconscious—snapped awake thanks to the Eight-Tails' final desperate mental surge before it was suppressed!
His eyes flew open!
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