The air around Yugito warped with heat, blue fire spilling from her mouth in steady, rhythmic exhalations. The two tails flicked behind her like molten whips, scattering sparks across the ruined battlefield. Her eyes, bright gold and slitted, locked onto Ren with something that was halfway between rage and focus.
Then, she lunged.
Ren's body blurred before she even finished the movement. The fifth gate's heat shimmered faintly around him, green light mixing with the residual red glow of the battlefield's formation lines. Her claw tore through the air where his head had been a second ago, the pressure alone splitting a nearby boulder.
Ren slid sideways, the earth cracking beneath each step, his movements were now deliberate with precise micro-adjustments.
The next swipe came even faster. Blue fire trailed the claw's arc like a comet, but Ren ducked low and spun, his heel grazing the ground before he kicked upward in a tight motion that connected cleanly with her chin.
The impact cracked the air, her head snapping slightly to the side, but she barely budged. Yugito's tail slammed down a moment later, obliterating the ground where Ren had been.
He'd already vanished again.
The fifth gate's speed made him almost invisible. He reappeared on her flank, landing a three-punch combo into her ribs, the last one infused with chakra-enhanced strength that sent a deep vibration through her frame. Her body flinched, but the flames around her flared brighter, immediately burning away the shock.
She turned her head slowly, eyes narrowing.
Ren grinned faintly. "Guess that tickled."
Yugito roared.
The air distorted as raw blue chakra exploded outward, a circular shockwave of fire and heat that swallowed half the field. Ren barely crossed his arms in front of his face before the wave hit, his feet sliding back several meters. When the blaze cleared, his sleeves were torn, skin faintly singed but regenerating rapidly.
"So these are the control issues, huh," he muttered "If she was in full control, I'd have atleast lost half of my clothes."
Yugito snarled, tail lashing toward him like a whip. Ren moved before it landed, ducking, rolling under the motion, and sliding between her legs in a burst of speed. As he came up behind her, his fist drove into the back of her knee with a resounding crack.
The joint buckled slightly, but again, only for a moment. She twisted with inhuman agility and clawed downward, narrowly missing his torso as he sprang backward.
The battlefield was becoming more unstable by the second. Each step she took melted and reshaped the ground, while Ren's chakra-enhanced blows fractured whatever remained of Kitsuchi's earlier earthwork. Dust and heat rose together, creating a haze that flickered orange and blue under the shifting light.
Ren exhaled sharply, focus narrowing.
He slammed his fist into the ground, chakra roaring through his arm and into the soil. The resulting tremor split the terrain in a ripple pattern, throwing Yugito off balance for half a second but that was all he needed.
Ren sprinted in, body blurring again as his knee came up to her gut, followed by a spinning heel that collided with her jaw. The fifth gate made every strike land with concussive weight, but still, Yugito endured, sliding back with smoke rising from her body.
Her patience began to crack.
"Stop running!" she shouted, her voice half-roar, half-human.
Ren tilted his head, his grin widening. "If you could hit me, I would."
The taunt worked.
She lunged again, swinging both claws down like burning guillotines. Ren sidestepped one and narrowly avoided the other by ducking and rolling forward, immediately pivoting on one hand to launch a split kick into her side. The impact sounded like thunder, sending her stumbling a few steps.
Still, she came right back, spitting a wave of blue fire across the field. Ren moved through it, chakra shielding flaring green as he punched through the flame itself, the heat bending around him. He emerged through the blaze, eyes locked on her chest, and drove a straight kick that forced her backward again.
The rhythm of the fight had shifted. Ren no longer seemed pressured, every move, every breath was calculated. He was pushing her buttons, leading her movements, letting her power burn out faster with each uncontrolled attack.
The more she swung, the calmer he became.
She threw a claw forward, he bent just enough for it to graze his hair. She followed up with a tail strike but he ducked beneath it, letting it pass by his shoulder before landing a sharp counter punch. His strikes weren't meant to destroy, they were meant to provoke.
"You're strong," Ren said, sidestepping another swipe. "But strength without control is just a waste of chakra."
Her chakra flared again. "Keep talking," she hissed.
He smirked. "Gladly."
He vanished, reappearing above her. Using a burst of chakra from his soles, he performed a midair rotation before crashing down with a rolling kick that struck her shoulder. The shockwave cracked the ground below her and sent debris flying, but Yugito barely staggered, blue fire spilling from her mouth in anger.
Ren landed lightly, crouched, one knee brushing the dirt. "See?" he muttered. "All hiss, no bite."
That did it.
Yugito's patience snapped completely. She roared, the sound deep enough to shake the distant trees. Her chakra erupted like a volcano, forming a pillar of blue flame that reached the clouds. The temperature spiked instantly, the air shimmering with heat distortion.
Ren shielded his face slightly with one arm, the grin still on his lips.
"Finally serious, huh?"
Through the blinding light, Yugito's silhouette moved. Her tails expanded, wrapping around her as her form shifted, becoming larger, sharper, more defined. Her next step shattered the remains of the battlefield beneath her, and her golden eyes glowed brighter than ever.
Ren straightened, rolling his shoulders.
"You know, it's not that I don't respect tailed beasts," he said, voice calm. "I just don't like cats."
Yugito's voice rumbled, mixed now with Matatabi's growl. "Since you're behaving like a rat…"
She raised one clawed hand, blue fire coiling around it like liquid flame.
"…it's only right," she continued, her fanged grin widening, "that I bring the cat too."
The words hung in the air for just a moment before the chakra flared violently outward. The blue inferno swallowed her human form completely, reshaping into something far larger and far more terrifying.
The Two-Tails, Matatabi, let out a deep roar that made the cracked earth tremble again.
Ren narrowed his eyes as the shadow of the massive flaming beast loomed over him. The grin returned, slow and sharp.
"Finally," he whispered, muscles coiling as green chakra surged through his body again. "Now this might actually be fun."
The battlefield quaked as Matatabi's massive, flame-cloaked form towered over everything, the horizon itself shimmering beneath her searing blue fire. Her twin tails lashed out, each movement carrying enough force to uproot trees and melt stone. Even the ground seemed to scream beneath her weight.
Ren stood at the center of it all, his expression calm but his grin sharp, almost feral. The flickering blue reflection of the beast danced across his eyes.
One glance was enough.
Yugito was gone. The flicker of humanity that had guided her chakra earlier had vanished completely, Matatabi now moved on pure instinct, unrestrained and furious.
A slow, manic smile spread across Ren's face as he murmured. "No more holding back."
The fifth gate's green light dimmed around him, fading until the battlefield was bathed only in the eerie glow of blue fire. He stopped using the chakra-enhanced strength as well, letting his body settle into its base state. His aura quieted, but his gaze sharpened.
He rolled his neck, joints cracking faintly. "Let's see how far my base can go."
The Two-Tails didn't wait.
A wall of blue flame erupted from her mouth, rushing forward like a tidal wave. Ren's feet moved before his thoughts caught up, Hyperfocus locked in.
His body blurred through the flickering inferno, each dodge cutting within inches of death. The heat brushed against his skin, searing but survivable.
Matatabi swung her tail downward, cleaving through the air. Ren sidestepped the first impact, the force alone creating a crater where he'd been standing. The second tail followed instantly, and this time, he was too slow and its tip grazed him, launching him across the field.
He twisted midair, landing hard on his feet, but his right arm was bleeding from elbow to wrist. The pressure alone had split the skin.
He flexed his hand once and exhaled slowly.
Matatabi was already upon him again.
Her claw swept in a horizontal arc, and Ren ducked under it, sliding across scorched ground before flipping backward. A massive paw followed immediately, and he barely managed to brace his forearms against it, still, the blow sent him tumbling through a shattered boulder.
His body rolled twice before he skidded to a stop. For a moment, the world buzzed.
Ren coughed, spat blood, and muttered under his breath,
'Alright… noted.'
He tried countering next, by appearing under her arm to deliver a tight, upward punch but his blow barely shifted her balance. The impact barely cracked the outer layer of her chakra cloak before a backhand sent him flying again.
The sheer disparity in physical mass was impossible to ignore.
He landed, this time sliding backward on one knee, body trembling slightly.
A deep sigh escaped him. 'Looks like my base stats aren't enough to deal with a tailed beast just yet.'
He pressed a hand to his abdomen, focusing his chakra inward. A faint golden glow spread from his chest outward, his yang chakra flooding through his body in rapid pulses. The bleeding slowed, bruises vanished, and bone aches dulled to background noise. Within seconds, he was steady again, exhaling a sharp breath of mist.
When he raised his head again, Matatabi had turned her attention elsewhere.
Her golden eyes swept over the battlefield before locking onto the nearest group of Stone shinobi, survivors from Kitsuchi's earlier command.
Ren's brows furrowed. "Oops," he muttered dryly. "Can't have her killing all of them. They still have some use."
He vanished.
A flicker of green afterimage was all that remained as Ren reappeared high above the Two-Tails. His hands blurred through a rapid sequence of seals. The moisture from the humid air condensed instantly, swirling around his palms in dense spirals.
[Water Style: Water Drills!]
Giant spiraling torrents of water formed midair, each spinning at incredible velocity, sharp enough to pierce reinforced steel. He thrust both arms forward, launching them downward.
The drills screamed through the air, colliding into Matatabi's back from point-blank range. The beast tried twisting, chakra flaring in defense, but the water tore through the outer layer of her flames before piercing into her shoulder and flank.
Steam exploded violently, blanketing the battlefield.
Ren didn't even get time to get away.
Through the haze, one of Matatabi's tails shot upward with blinding speed. He raised his right arm, reinforcing it instantly with Earth-Yang hardening, but the tail still smashed into him with the force of an avalanche.
The world blurred. He felt the impact ripple through his entire body as he was flung across the field, crashing through dirt and stone before finally stopping, half-buried in debris.
"Damn," he muttered, shaking off the pain. His hardened arm was intact, but the shock had rattled his bones.
Then, a huge threatening pressure filled his body.
He looked up. Matatabi's chakra began condensing in front of her mouth, black and purple energy swirling in a small, ominous sphere.
The tailed beast bomb.
Ren's eyes narrowed. For a split second, an outrageous idea flickered through his head.
'Should I try taking this on?'
He almost grinned, but then shook his head.
'Nah. Might be too much for now.'
Instead, he made a hand seal and two shadow clones flickered into existence beside him, both immediately vanishing in a blur. They reappeared beneath Matatabi, hands moving in synchronized precision as they began weaving complex Fuinjutsu patterns into the air.
"Now, hold still, kitty."
As the tailed beast bomb grew, their hands slammed onto the ground. A surge of violet chakra erupted upward, forming a translucent barrier that enveloped the bomb and continued to rise higher and higher until it connected with the massive red dome Ren had established earlier.
A deep hum reverberated through the air as the purple barrier solidified, and after a brief second, the tailed beast bomb stopped growing.
Matatabi froze. Her golden eyes widened in confusion, then narrowed in rage. The beast's roar shook the sky.
"UZUMAKIIIIIIII!"
The roar tore through the barrier's vibration lines, scattering debris in all directions.
Ren appeared below her a heartbeat later, his entire body now covered in glowing sealing patterns that pulsed rhythmically with his heartbeat. His chakra condensed to the point of visibility, the dense green aura almost tangible.
He looked up, grin sharp and wild.
"Correct."
In a blur of motion, he twisted his body and launched upward. His knee drove straight into the Two-Tails' chin with explosive force, the shockwave rippling across the field.
Matatabi's massive head jerked back violently.
Ren followed immediately with another kick, then another. Each one faster than the last, each one amplified by the fifth gate bursting open mid-motion. The air crackled with kinetic bursts as he drove the beast upward, strike after strike hammering her toward the sky.
Chunks of molten rock flew upward from the sheer pressure of his hits.
Finally, with a massive burst of chakra from his legs, Ren shot above her in a streak of green light. His fists clenched, body twisting midair.
His veins pulsed, aura flaring into blinding intensity.
The atmosphere itself seemed to fold.
Then, he descended.
Each punch that followed blurred into invisibility. The air shattered under the continuous barrage, every strike leaving behind a visible distortion. It was no longer a flurry of movements, it was a storm.
[6th Gate : Ultimate Gatling!]
~~~~~
{I'll say this now, Yugito is down, no more fight now, also I'll explain the Fuinjutsu he used to stop the tailed beast bomb in the following chapter so don't worry.}