"Tailed Beast Ball!"
Gyūki had been on guard from the start. The moment it realized Jie had no intention of explaining himself, it stopped wasting words and opened with its strongest attack.
A purple-black Tailed Beast Ball swelled rapidly in front of its mouth.
Jie only watched it take shape calmly.
Once, he might have needed to be careful against the Eight-Tails. But nearly ten years had passed since then. Now, even Kurama was no longer enough to make him cautious.
He raised one hand, and a blue Rasengan appeared in his palm.
Different chakra natures, refined through shape and nature transformation, merged inside the Rasengan one after another. In the next instant, the blue sphere turned pitch-black.
Then it expanded at terrifying speed.
Soon, even Gyūki looked small beneath it. The compressed chakra inside made the surrounding air tremble.
Gyūki's eyes narrowed.
The Tailed Beast Ball in its mouth faltered.
Was this guy really human?
That amount of chakra, that level of control, and that calm attitude made Gyūki feel a chill.
But fear alone was not enough to make Gyūki retreat.
It fired the Tailed Beast Ball.
The purple-black sphere shot out, swelling rapidly as it crossed the distance. But compared with Jie's Rasengan, it was still small.
Jie casually threw the black Rasengan toward Gyūki.
The enormous Rasengan looked slow, but it descended like a falling meteor.
The distance between them vanished in an instant.
The two spheres collided.
The explosion Gyūki expected never came.
Gyūki watched in disbelief as the Tailed Beast Ball it had formed with most of its chakra burst like a bubble.
It offered no resistance at all.
The larger Rasengan swallowed it whole and continued forward without even changing direction.
"This..."
"How is this possible?"
Gyūki stared at the scene in front of it.
It was the Eight-Tails, second only to Kurama among the tailed beasts. Even against Kurama, Gyūki had never felt this kind of pressure.
But there was no time to think.
The black Rasengan had already reached it.
Dodging was meaningless. The Rasengan covered too much space, and Gyūki was not built for speed.
If it could not dodge, it could only endure.
Gyūki roared and gathered its chakra into its eight tails. The tails crossed in front of it like a shield, and Gyūki leapt forward to meet the falling Rasengan head-on.
It did not last even a second.
The huge Rasengan smashed into it head-on and drove it toward the distant sea.
The moment Gyūki and the Rasengan crashed into the ocean, there was almost no sound. No great wave rose, and no blast spread.
For an instant, everything became strangely quiet.
Then the world seemed to lose its color.
A dark red glow spread across the sky.
The next moment, an explosion like a collapsing mountain tore through the sea. The shockwave rushed outward, and waves thousands of meters high surged up from the ocean.
Shukaku stuck its head out of the teapot and stared at the apocalyptic scene ahead, unable to speak.
Shukaku had already overestimated Jie as much as it could, but this still went beyond anything it had imagined.
Then it suddenly froze.
Wait.
Gyūki was not dead, right?
Tailed beasts did not truly die in the normal sense. Even if they were killed, they would revive after several decades, or perhaps a century.
But right now, time was exactly what mattered.
If Gyūki really died here, that might actually be a good thing.
Shukaku still did not know whether Jie truly wanted to revive the Ten-Tails, but it was better to be safe. If the Eight-Tails' chakra disappeared for the next few decades, the Ten-Tails could not be revived.
By the time Gyūki returned, Jie might already be an old man.
He might even be dead.
Thinking of that, Shukaku silently prayed.
Gyūki, for the sake of the ninja world, please die.
Jie looked at the destruction and regretted it a little.
He should have held back more.
Even he had not expected the Rasengan to reach this level after his recent transformations.
To confirm Gyūki's condition, Jie flew into the air and headed toward the point of impact.
The aftershock had not fully faded, and even his senses were affected. He had no choice but to check directly.
When Jie and Shukaku reached the sky above the battlefield, they finally saw what the attack had done.
At the center of the impact, the seawater within dozens of kilometers had been pushed away, exposing a dark seabed and the huge crater carved into it.
Seawater was pouring back from every direction, rushing madly into the pit.
And at the very center lay Gyūki.
Its eyes had rolled back, and its body was motionless. For a moment, it was impossible to tell whether it was alive or dead.
Jie relaxed slightly when he saw it.
Gyūki looked miserable. Both horns were broken, and steam rose from its battered body.
Gyūki's aura was faint, but it had not disappeared.
Tailed beasts were chakra beings. As long as Gyūki's chakra had not vanished completely, it would recover sooner or later.
That was enough for Jie.
Seeing the seawater begin to fill the crater and swallow Gyūki's body, Jie reached into the Kamui space and took out another sealing scroll.
But just as he was about to seal Gyūki, he suddenly paused.
Something was wrong.
The body below carried Gyūki's aura perfectly.
But Jie's instincts still told him this was not the real Gyūki.
His eyes narrowed.
"You still found a way to escape from that?"
Following the faint trace left behind, Jie soon found the real Gyūki's location.
He turned toward where the Eight-Tails was hiding.
"Cutting off a tail to survive."
"If my instincts were any duller, you really might have fooled me, Gyūki."
Up to 40 chapters ahead on patreon :-
patreon.com/Vristikk