"ROOOOAR—!!!"
The very next second, a savage roar tore through Konoha's night sky—raw, violent, and full of offended fury.
Even with his mind shattered by rampage, the tailed-beast jinchūriki could still feel it.
He'd been provoked.
Naruto—who should've been unconscious—was suddenly swallowed again by crimson chakra. Four tails snapped into existence with a violent crackling pressure, the air popping and shattering around them.
And the fifth tail—previously stalled—began to sprout again, pushing out like a living thing.
It slammed outward—
and shattered the Vajra sealing chains on contact.
At this moment, the eyes in Four-Tails Naruto's face—once human blue—held only beastly, annihilating intent, locked on Uchiha Kai.
"Damn… brat… how dare you… threaten… me…"
The words came out distorted and broken, like something dragging itself through a throat that wasn't meant to speak.
Then he threw his head back—
FWOOOM—!
Another Tailed Beast Bomb formed in his mouth, compressing at insane speed.
More condensed than before.
If the earlier one was the size of a cartwheel—
this one was like an entire carriage.
Its center was so black it looked like it could swallow light.
Throb… throb…
The energy compressed so brutally that the air within a hundred meters was forced aside, rippling into visible distortions.
This was a kill shot.
A single strike meant to erase the annoying Uchiha brat—
and wipe that village behind him off the map.
"Kid, MOVE!"
Jiraiya's scalp went cold. He shouted hoarsely.
His hands flashed into seals, and his white hair exploded outward again, forming a thick, wall-like mass in front of the incoming bomb.
This wasn't like the earlier one.
Trying to block it head-on?
Gamaken's shield was proof of what would happen.
So Jiraiya's only choice was to try and bend the trajectory.
"Kai!"
Fugaku's Mangekyō spun so hard it bled. A faint purple ribcage—Susanoo's first shadow—flickered in the night, ready to surge forward.
But then Fugaku saw Kai's expression.
Saw that calm.
And he forced the Susanoo back down, standing still.
…Because unlike Jiraiya, Fugaku knew.
This was the same boy who had casually crushed the Third Hokage into submission.
Meanwhile—
Nara Shikaku spat out his toothpick, face tight.
This was bad.
If that thing detonated—
the entire outer ring of the village would be plowed flat.
The freshly raised earth walls looked laughably thin under that pressure, like mud stacked in front of artillery.
He turned to bark again—
"Where's the sealing team?! Hurry—"
But an alarmed gasp cut him off.
Shikaku snapped his head forward.
His pupils shrank.
Kai moved.
Faced with an apocalypse-grade sphere of red-black power—
he didn't retreat.
He stepped forward, straight into the violent shockwave.
One step.
Tap.
The wind died.
The sound vanished.
His right hand rose—not in defense, not in panic—
and his five fingers spread gently.
Then, with the casual precision of tapping Naruto's forehead earlier—
he touched the air toward the bomb.
Three feet in front of him.
Repulsion—and disintegration.
Shinra Tensei + a rule-level "peel apart."
HUM—!
A formless, absolute repulsion field erupted outward from Kai.
Not a barrier.
Not a wall.
A principle.
Within three feet—
everything was rejected.
Pop.
A strange, dull sound rang out.
The Tailed Beast Bomb—packed with the violent power of a near-Five-Tails rampage, enough to obliterate a hill—
hit the invisible field…
and began to melt.
Not explode.
Not detonate.
It collapsed.
Like a soap bubble stalling mid-air, sinking inward, folding into itself.
Its energy didn't burst outward—
it was forced to collide with itself, compressed and crushed until it had nowhere to exist.
Puh—
A silent ripple spread—air instantly vacuumed and snapping back—
and that was all.
No shockwave.
No crater.
No firestorm.
Nothing.
Just… gone.
Silence.
A dead, suffocating silence swallowed the battlefield.
Everyone stared, throats dry, unable to make a sound.
Jiraiya stood with his mouth open, his hair-wall suddenly looking ridiculous. The scroll he'd half-pulled out slipped from his hand.
Clack.
It hit the dirt, rolled twice, and stopped—dusty and forgotten.
Barehanded… erasing a Tailed Beast Bomb—
and doing it without an explosion?
Without hurting Naruto?
What kind of cursed power did that, quietly, like snuffing a candle?
For a second, Jiraiya's mind flashed to a tiny old man.
Short.
Always throwing his back out.
"Don't tell me… he can use Dust Release?"
But he immediately rejected the thought.
"No… Dust Release isn't this."
"This is… higher. Like some kind of rule."
He looked at Kai again—
and for the first time that night, he didn't see a child.
He saw a mystery wearing a child's skin.
Fugaku exhaled shakily.
"Tch… I knew it."
The faint Susanoo ribs vanished instantly.
But his face still twitched, betraying something deeper than relief—
shock…
and a feverish, unspoken exhilaration.
So this is Kai's power.
So this is what Uchiha "peak" really looks like.
And if one Uchiha could reach that height—
then maybe… they all could.
A dangerous, glittering ambition sparked inside Fugaku for the first time in his life.
Shikaku, too, stood frozen.
All his calculations, all his carefully stacked strategies—
felt like a joke under a single raised hand.
Behind them, Konoha shinobi stood as if petrified.
Eyes bulging.
Jaws hanging.
Like they'd all been hit with the same genjutsu.
Even Five-Tails Naruto seemed to pause.
"Roar…?"
For the first time, the beast met something it couldn't understand.
Where did my bomb go?
Kai lowered his hand, as casually as flicking dust off his fingers.
His gaze never wavered.
Still fixed—playful, almost amused—on Naruto's forehead.
"So you're really not coming out?"
Kai's lips curled slightly.
"Then I'll come in and drag you out myself."
His Mangekyō—those blood-red "666" tomoe—
began to spin like a grinder.
Fast.
Faster.
Like an opening door.
And in that moment—
every instinct in the Nine-Tails screamed the same thing:
This wasn't a bluff.
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