'You mean... he absorbed the chakra of other Tailed Beasts?'
Gyuki was quiet for a moment.
'No,' it said at last. 'That only made him grow faster.'
Killer B did not answer. Through his senses, Gyuki watched the black-haired boy standing in the middle of the battlefield.
He had fought the Raikage head-on, stopped the Double Lariat, and suppressed the Two-Tails with Wood Release, yet his breathing had not changed at all.
'Even without the Tailed Beast chakra, he would have reached this height sooner or later. That chakra only turned years into months.'
For once, Killer B had no rhyme ready. The figure in front of him no longer felt like someone who had risen because of borrowed power.
Then Gyuki's voice sharpened.
'B, he's getting serious.'
At the center of the valley, Shinichi brought his hands together and entered Sage Mode.
The pressure around him changed.
A pushed himself out of the broken rock wall, blood still at the corner of his mouth. Around him, the Cloud ninja had already stopped moving.
Shinichi looked at them calmly.
"Playtime is over."
He kept his palms together.
"Next, I will end this in my strongest form."
His chakra surged again, spreading across the valley like a heavy tide. The loose stones around his feet trembled, and cracks began to crawl through the ground.
"Sage Art: Wood Release: True Several Thousand Hands!"
For a second, nothing else happened.
Then the entire valley shook.
A's expression changed the moment he felt the ground move. He had studied the reports from Iwagakure more than once, and he knew what was coming.
"Retreat!"
His roar cut through the battlefield.
"Everyone, get out of the valley!"
The Cloud ninja moved at once. Formation, pride, battle intent; none of that mattered now. They turned and fled from the center of the battlefield as the earth behind them split open.
A massive wooden Buddha rose from underground, pushing through stone and soil as it straightened beneath the thunderclouds.
A few Cloud ninja who moved too slowly were caught at the edge of its rise and vanished beneath the collapsing ground before anyone could help them.
The rest kept running.
The tremor finally stopped only when they had retreated far from the valley. Dust rolled across the broken battlefield, and for a few seconds, no one spoke.
Then they looked back and saw that the valley was gone.
In its place stood the giant Buddha they had only seen in reports. Its body towered above the mountains, and countless wooden arms spread behind it, covering half the sky beneath the clouds.
The intelligence had not been wrong.
It had simply become outdated.
At Iwagakure, Shinichi's giant Buddha had already been terrifying. But the one standing before Kumogakure now was larger, heavier, and far beyond the number Mabui had repeated in every battle meeting.
More than one Cloud commander remembered that number clearly.
Around four hundred and fifty meters.
But the Buddha before them had already gone far beyond that. Its head nearly touched the thunderclouds, and its countless arms spread so wide that even the retreat line they had prepared suddenly looked too close.
A stared up at it, the lightning around his body fading for a moment.
"So this is your full strength..."
No one answered.
At the top of the giant Buddha, Shinichi stood with his hands lowered, looking down at them from above.
A shook his head hard, forcing himself out of that brief daze.
"No. There is still a chance."
Lightning crackled around him again as he reached into his chest and took out a small metal device. His fingers closed around it tightly, as if he were holding Kumogakure's last answer in his palm.
"As long as we withstand one strike," A said, his voice low but firm. "The moment he attacks, we use it."
Killer B looked at the device in A's hand and understood what he meant.
They had prepared it for this exact situation. The problem was that they would only get one chance. If they missed it, Shinichi would not give them a second.
The others quickly gathered around him. Even under the shadow of the giant Buddha, none of them questioned the order.
Killer B entered his full Tailed Beast form, the Eight-Tails rising with a roar as its tentacles slammed into the ground.
Not far away, Yugito also forced the Two-Tails back to its full form. Blue-black flames rose again, and Matatabi dug its claws into the broken earth.
Against any normal army, the sight of two Tailed Beasts standing side by side would have been enough to crush their courage.
But beneath the giant Buddha, even they looked small.
A looked up at Shinichi standing above them.
"Kumogakure will never become someone else's subordinate."
His grip tightened around the metal device.
"Never."
From atop the giant Buddha, Shinichi looked down at the battlefield.
A stood below with the Eight-Tails and Two-Tails, gripping a small metal device as lightning crackled around him.
Shinichi's eyes paused on the device.
"So that's your answer."
A faint layer of scale powder drifted around Shinichi as wood rose silently from his shoulder and formed a perfect Wood Clone beside him. In the next breath, his real body vanished beneath the thin veil of scales, leaving the clone alone on top of the Buddha.
The Wood Clone stepped forward and brought its hands together.
Clap.
The sound was light, but it carried clearly through the valley. Sage chakra surged through the giant Buddha.
"Sage Art: Top Transformed Buddha!"
Behind the Buddha, countless wooden arms moved at once, and the sky above the valley darkened as they blocked out the light.
The fists had not hit the ground yet, but the strong wind reached first. Trees bent over, loose stones were pushed into the ground, and the Cloud ninja below felt like the sky was falling on them.
A looked up at the giant fists falling toward them and crushed the metal device in his hand.
"Hold the line!"
His roar tore through the valley.
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