On the other side of the battlefield, the Cloud shinobi had not actually been standing idle. They weren't fools, they knew the kind of monster they were up against. They could see the sheer violence that rippled every time Ren and Yugito clashed. The ground would crack, shockwaves would tear through the soil, and even at their distance, many of them could feel the pressure squeezing their lungs.
So instead of throwing themselves pointlessly into that chaos, they had set traps, lots of them.
Dozens of shinobi spread out in coordinated layers, forming concentric zones of defense around their command position. The outermost circle was riddled with exploding tag fields, thousands of tags buried in the dirt, placed beneath overlapping chakra tripwires that would ignite on contact or when activated.
The inner layers were trickier as they were filled with paralysis seals, chakra-draining seals and kunai suspension nets held by chakra strings hidden in the canopy. Every inch of terrain within a hundred meters had been rigged to either detonate or immobilize.
Their leader, a broad-shouldered jonin with a missing ear and a calm stare, barked orders as he crouched beside a complex seal array.
"Spread the signal to all units. The moment he comes, we trigger everything while keeping distance. No one engages hand-to-hand, you'll die before you even see him move."
No one argued.
They all had seen what happened to their dead comrades and the Stone forces, what kind of carnage a single man had unleashed on an entire platoon.
Though they were also angry for the deaths of their comrades, they also knew he would come for them next.
~
The moment Ren vanished from the center of the main battlefield, the Cloud shinobi's instincts screamed in unison. Their chakra sensors flared, something impossibly fast was cutting through the terrain.
A voice cracked through the air.
"THE DEMON IS HERE! ACTIVATE THE TRAPS!"
Ren landed in their midst a heartbeat later. His boots crushed the soft soil, then a flash of light erupted beneath him.
A hundred explosive tags went off simultaneously.
The world disappeared into fire and smoke. The few remaining trees snapped apart, the air turned white-hot, and shockwaves tore across the camp. Several Cloud shinobi were thrown backward from their own blast radius.
And yet, when the smoke cleared, he was still standing.
Ren's figure emerged from the haze, shoulders squared, a faint bluish glow of chakra rippling over his skin like armor. Bits of charred tag paper slid off him harmlessly, and his expression didn't change.
One of the Cloud Chunin froze mid-hand seal, eyes wide.
"He… he tanked that?"
Ren raised a hand and brushed dust off his shoulder.
Just then dozens of kunai launchers triggered at once causing blades flying from every direction in overlapping arcs, each laced with secondary tags that exploded midair but Ren barely moved.
His body twisted and flowed through the barrage like water, every movement deliberate and minimal. The few that did graze him sparked against his hardened skin and dropped harmlessly.
A kunai exploded point-blank near his ribs but he didn't even flinch.
The shockwave pushed him back a step, but his eyes never wavered from the next wave of enemies.
"Paralysis seals, now!" someone shouted.
Ren's eyes flicked to the ground as a bright circle of inked seals glowed beneath his feet. Chakra surged through the earth, snapping like static. For a second, the lines pulsed, then he twisted his foot once.
The ground split open in a single shockwave, tearing through the seals and collapsing the formation that held them. The entire section detonated prematurely, throwing the trap users off their feet.
Ren blurred forward, cracking the air, but even as he closed in, the Cloud nin scattered like lightning themselves, by now they knew well enough that what they can do was keep distance.
They never tried to meet him head-on. Every time he moved closer, they moved back. Every step triggered another explosion, another trap, another hidden seal buried in the soil or strung through the trees.
He slipped through them like a shadow, but no matter how fast he moved, the traps didn't stop.
Everywhere he landed, an explosion would happen. Everytime he dodged another kunai would come. Everywhere he paused, chakra strings triggered another volley.
The whole formation was designed for exactly this, to stall a monster.
However even as Ren's movements became sharper, he started getting more annoyed. Smoke and light flashed constantly around him, and yet, despite the endless detonations, his body barely bore a scratch. The seals burned away, explosions rolled across his chest, but his Earth-Yang reinforcement and hardened skin absorbed most of it.
He could kill them all easily if he just pushed harder, however he couldn't use his full strength just yet, in case the people in the shadows appeared he needed to have some time to get away.
He was about to make his next move when the temperature shifted and a blue light began to fill the air.
Ren's head turned slightly, and his eyes narrowed.
Through the wall of smoke, a massive paw of burning chakra smashed down, crushing the terrain flat. The pressure hit him like a storm.
Yugito had returned.
Her full Two-Tails form loomed over the battlefield, her flames roaring like an ocean of blue fire. The Cloud shinobi who had been retreating moments ago now stopped and rallied, their morale igniting at the sight of their Jinchuriki.
Ren exhaled once, rolling his shoulders. The Fifth Gate's glow pulsed around him like a heartbeat.
"Round two, huh?" he muttered.
Yugito's tails whipped forward and the air ignited but Ren dashed into the blaze head-on.
The battlefield once again erupted into chaos, flames, debris, and smoke devouring the traps that moments ago had blanketed the field.
The ground fractured under another clash between Yugito and Ren. Her claws tore through the air like burning blades while Ren pivoted past them with a twist of his wrist, redirecting her momentum. Every time she swung, the air screamed. Every time he struck, the shock rippled through her chakra cloak. It was an endless rhythm, Yugito's wild precision versus Ren's calm violence.
But even calm had its limits.
He exhaled slowly as another pillar of earth erupted from below. Kitsuchi was still at it, reshaping the battlefield from afar, one jagged wall after another, one trap after the next. Each time Ren found a clean opening, the ground split or shifted to cover it.
He had to admit, it wasn't a bad strategy. Kitsuchi wasn't fighting to kill him, he was fighting to exhaust him and to give Yugito more chances to attack.
Ren's gaze flicked toward the old man in the distance, surrounded by his chakra-linked support unit. The faint tremor underfoot told him that the jutsu's network stretched wide, every grain of soil on this field was part of Kitsuchi's control system however compared to the beginning some of the stone shinobi had fallen, due to their chakra getting exhausted.
But Kitsuchi wasn't letting up and the earth shifted again.
A row of sharp, conical spears shot upward, their timing synced perfectly with Yugito's next charge. Ren didn't even blink. His heel slid back, pivoting his weight into a fluid twist as he ducked under the first swipe and let the spear graze past his shoulder.
With a quick step sideways, he planted his foot on the next spike, launched himself off it, and landed squarely on Yugito's arm as she swung.
Her eyes, feline, glowing, feral locked onto his.
Then the world blurred.
Yugito roared, a surge of blue fire exploding outward from her form. The wave slammed into Ren midair, throwing him back across the field. He crashed through a wall of jagged rock, one that Kitsuchi had raised moments ago and rolled once before halting, sliding in a crouch.
The earth hissed beneath his soles from the heat still clinging to him.
Ren straightened, brushing dust off his shoulder. His expression didn't change, but his patience was beginning to wear thin.
'This is getting irritating,' he thought, eyes narrowing.
Every time he tried to close in, the ground moved. Every time he tried to disengage, Yugito was already there, claws dripping with blue fire, tearing through the air like razors. For all her ferocity, she wasn't careless, she was controlled.
A perfect jinchūriki indeed.
Kitsuchi had the terrain and Yugito had the reach.
But Ren had the overwhelming strength.
And now, he decided, it was time to use it.
He inhaled deeply, chakra flooding through his body like compressed lightning. His skin rippled faintly as chakra-enhanced strength gathered across every muscle fiber. The air around him began to distort, tiny ripples forming from the density of energy being contained.
[Heavenly Fracture.]
The next instant, the air shattered.
Ren stepped forward and struck, a single, full-bodied uppercut that released all the stored CES chakra at once, that too enhanced by the fifth gate.
Even the sound of the attack was monstrous, a deep, concussive crack that rolled like thunder. For a heartbeat, there was silence. Then the shockwave erupted outward, tearing the battlefield apart.
The force slammed into Yugito's giant form head-on.
Even in her two-tailed cloak, she couldn't brace in time. The impact blasted her off the ground, her massive body sent spiraling upward, scattering chunks of molten rock and chakra flame into the air. The vacuum left behind devoured everything near Ren before the pressure rebounded and exploded outward again.
The earth cratered beneath him.
For a moment, only the howl of wind filled the silence.
Ren tilted his head upward, eyes tracking Yugito as she soared higher and higher, her massive figure cutting through the clouds. The light of her chakra cloak flickered erratically.
Then he moved again.
He kicked once, chakra blasting from his soles like detonating mines. The ground shattered beneath his feet as he shot upward, faster than any wind jutsu, climbing through the sky in a blur. He fired bursts of chakra through his legs midair, each one launching him higher, the pressure rippling behind him like concentric waves.
The world shrank below, the wind screamed past his ears and all of Kitsuchi's raised Earth Pillars had no use whatsoever.
Yugito who was midair, had her massive form beginning to fall back down under gravity. Her eyes flickered, dazed but not defeated. Her tails writhed, trying to stabilize her descent.
Ren twisted mid-flight, a small smirk forming on his face.
"You wanna play kitty?"
He blasted chakra from one side of his body, spinning himself like a drill. The wind coiled around him, compressing with the rotation. His legs glowed faintly green, the dense chakra of the Fifth Gate flickering for just an instant.
Then gravity took hold.
He dropped fast, spinning, all momentum and compressed chakra converging into one devastating strike.
[Heavenly Foot of Pain.]
The impact was apocalyptic.
The air screamed, the sky bent, and the world below exploded. Yugito was about to hit the ground first, but the force Ren brought down behind her multiplied the devastation tenfold. The shockwave tore through the earth, creating a ripple that spread miles outward. The clouds overhead twisted, lightning flickering briefly in their wake.
The crater left behind was massive, its edges still glowing faintly red from the sheer kinetic heat.
Ren stood on Yugito's back, breathing slowly, steam rising off his body. His entire form glowed faintly from the residual chakra discharge. The Fifth Gate had closed the moment of impact, leaving his veins pulsing but intact.
This was one of the most powerful technique he had in his Taijutsu arsenal and one of the few he was the proudest of, because this single technique took him more than 2 months just to get a brief start.
He looked down at the two-tails' giant body. Yugito's chakra cloak flickered erratically, tails twitching weakly before going limp.
However her body hadn't directly hit the ground as Kitsuchi's earth technique had saved her from complete destruction.
Ren's eyes flicked sideways.
The ground beneath Yugito was different, softer, fluid-like, it was mud. Kitsuchi had transmuted the terrain in the last instant, turning the stone to thick mud, cushioning her fall.
'Clever old man.'
Without that, Yugito would've been paste.
A faint rumble spread through the earth again as Kitsuchi was already reshaping the battlefield to pull Yugito's massive body underground for protection.
Ren exhaled through his nose, lowering his stance.
Steam curled off his knuckles. His muscles were still buzzing from the aftershock of releasing that much power at once. For a moment, he simply looked around, the wrecked terrain, the faint blue flames still smoldering across the crater, the smell of burnt chakra thick in the air.
Then he sighed. "The Jinchuriki's have unbelievable vitality, even I would be out for a few seconds if I took that hit."
He glanced down and saw Yugito's giant body had already begun twitching, as if she would wake up any moment, however this single moment would be enough for him to deal with Kitsuchi, then he could play as much as the kitty wanted.
He glanced at Kitsuchi and asked loudly.
"Old man, do you know what the greatest threat a mountain faces is?"
~~~~~
{We're about to be finished with this arc, so if you got sugegstions for the rewards do tell me, I can take them into consideration.}