Standing on the shattered rooftop, Senmei Asahi stared up at the colossal Nine-Tails and, for the first time in a very long while, felt a jolt of raw shock.
Compared to this monster, the Three-Tails was a kitten. Size, presence, and destructive force weren't even in the same category. If the Nine-Tails was a raging war mastiff, the Three-Tails was a house pet that had wandered onto a battlefield by mistake.
He remembered the original arc of history: even with only half of its chakra, when Naruto entered a true tailed-beast state, fighting the other Tailed Beasts looked like an adult swatting stubborn children. Seeing the complete Nine-Tails here, in the flesh, Asahi finally understood why every generation whispered the same thing: of the nine, this one was king.
'So, those theories of Eight-Tails being able to fight this to a draw? That's a fairy tale someone told to sleep at night.'
Earth Style ∙ Swamp of the Underworld.
He vaulted from the roof, dropping into the smoke and cinders. Fingers flashed through seals; his palm slammed the ground. The earth responded like a living thing, darkening, softening, then sucking down with terrifying force. Beneath the Nine-Tails, stone turned to mire. The beast's titanic weight sank one-third of the way in almost instantly.
Asahi's hand flicked; a special three-pronged kunai cut a clean arc through the air toward the Nine-Tails' massive brow.
Flying Thunder God Jutsu.
Space pinched. He reappeared above the fox's head.
Heavenly Foot of Pain.
His heel crashed down. The impact detonated like a cannon.
Boom!
The already-unstable beast lost its balance and toppled, slamming backward into the district. Dozens of homes vaporized beneath the impact; a rolling shockwave blew tiles and timbers down the streets like angry confetti.
Roar! Roar!
The Nine-Tails planted its forepaws and heaved, eyes locking on him with murderous focus. Controlled by the Sharingan, its natural malice had been distilled into something colder, emptier. Provoked, it inhaled deeply, the air around its jaws warping as chakra condensed.
A swirling orb of violent black-red began to coalesce in its maw.
Asahi's eyes tightened. He could feel the numb ache in his leg from the heel drop. In Sage Mode, Heavenly Foot of Pain should have broken bones on the Third Raikage's armor if taken straight on; the Nine-Tails hadn't even flinched. No fractures, no cuts, not even a bruise.
'How monstrous. If this is the Nine-Tails' baseline, then the power needed to suppress it, the power possessed by Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara, what kind of definition should describe them? They were natural disasters in human shape.'
He imagined living in that era, growing up under skies split by those two. However brilliant you were, you'd be a footnote against gods born to the same century.
The forming sphere snapped to full density; the fox's throat flexed.
The Tailed Beast Bomb fired.
Flying Thunder God Guiding Thunder!
Asahi braced, both hands snapping the marked kunai horizontal across his chest. A white barrier traced with black formulae bloomed open like a paper screen. The bomb pressed against it, deforming the space, then began to sink—drawn, swallowed, and shunted along prepared coordinates.
BOOOOM!
Far beyond Konoha's walls, more than ten miles away at one of Asahi's dead-drop anchors, the night tore open in a blossom of fire. A mountain shoulder disintegrated; the forest flashed white, then black, then white again as shockwaves rippled out across empty land.
On Konoha's broken streets, the thunder faded to a hollow echo. Smoke blew past. For a beat, the stunned silence held.
Then the cheers hit like a wave.
"Asahi-sama, banzai!"
"Konoha, banzai!"
The roar of grateful voices rolled up from the lines of shinobi who'd rallied at the perimeter. But Asahi didn't react, and neither did Sarutobi Hiruzen beside him. They wore the same expression, grave, measuring.
Because beneath the noise, the truth was simple.
He had gone all out, and the Nine-Tails was unhurt.
Even worse, its chakra was endless. Even if he cut it, it would scab over in moments. He had no large-scale suppressive technique to pin it decisively; he could entangle, divert, and redirect. He could not end. In a contest of attrition, the fox would outlast him, and once his chakra wavered, one swipe would plow him into paste.
This was a battle he could not win by force.
Only sealing would save the village now.
The mire still clutched at the Nine-Tails' limbs, earth gurgling as it tried to re-solidify them.
Asahi flickered, appearing at Sarutobi's shoulder. "Sandaime-sama, we can't fight it within the walls. The damage will destroy the village."
"I understand." The old Hokage's eyes were iron. He bit into his finger and flew through hand signs.
Summoning Jutsu.
A familiar burst of chakra, then the Monkey King landed in a crouch, black fur bristling, eyes taking in the carnage. "Sarutobi, what happened?!"
"No time. Enma, Adamantine Staff!"
"Understood!"
Enma spun, body elongating and densifying into a staff thick as a beam. Hiruzen seized one end; the other hammered against the Nine-Tails' shoulder with a boom, then began to drive. Tiles shattered under the grinding push; walls burst; the beast skidded, shoved along like an avalanche being deflected by a dam.
Seeing the motion, Asahi moved, out through the gap, keeping pace in bursts of light. Behind them, thousands of shinobi followed, squads breaking into formation as training took over.
Earth Style ∙ Swamp of the Underworld.
Asahi's palm slammed the dirt again outside the walls. In Sage Mode, the jutsu bloomed gigantic, the terrain liquefying into a sucking plain that rolled forward to meet the Nine-Tails like a brown ocean. The fox's forelimbs plunged; the mire wrapped higher, swallowing belly and ribs.
A cluster of masked Anbu sprinted up the flanks.
Earth Style ∙ Descending Clay.
The air above the fox rippled. A deep blue vortex opened, and sheets of ruddy clay rained downward, slapping over fur. The volume wasn't enough; the beast was too vast. Patches coated; patches missed.
A second wave surged in.
Fire Style ∙ Fire Dragon Jutsu.
Streams of flame roared from several directions, spiral tongues baking the clay into armor-plates that seized across shoulders and hips. Cracks hissed shut; hardpan formed.
"I'll go seal it!" Hiruzen shouted, pivoting forward, staff in hand.
Perhaps the fox understood. Perhaps the one behind those spinning tomoe felt the threat through the puppet strings. The Nine-Tails shrieked — ROOOOAR! — and heaved. The baked clay exploded outward in slabs; a paw the size of a cottage scythed down toward Hiruzen's head.
"Ngh—!" gasped a dozen shinobi, throwing themselves forward too late.
Hiruzen didn't flinch. He slammed Enma into the ground; the Adamantine Staff telescoped up in a blur — dong! — catching the descending paw and holding it. The earth buckled; the old man's knees bent; the staff groaned but did not break.
Asahi streaked in, planted a foot on the staff, and kicked outward. His heel blasted the Nine-Tails' paw aside, jolting the limb off its axis. He landed, eyes already closing to a razor slit.
Sage Art ∙ Inorganic Reanimation.
The world answered. The ground woke.
Stone softened, then flowed like wax; pebbles slid, grew tendrils, and climbed. The plain became a crawling thing, reaching in a hundred creeping tongues for the fox's legs and flanks. The living earth crawled up the ribs, across the spine, over the tails in writhing bands, swallowing fur under tightening layers as if the land itself intended to drag the beast back into its womb.
*****
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✓ Killed For 100 Years in Hueco Mundo, Aizen Invited Me To Soul Society!
✓ Naruto: Senmei Asahi
✓ Naruto: Uchiha's Intelligence Dealer
✓ Naruto: The Fifth Hokage Is Naruto's Uncle
✓ Naruto: Who Made Him a Ninja?
✓ Bleach: In My Second Reincarnation, I Became The Ninth Kenpachi
✓ To Love-Ru: Spoiler Route [R-18]
✓ Naruto: The Accidental Incubus [R-18]