In the heart of the forest, three figures clashed in a chaotic melee. The surrounding trees were either shattered into splinters or incinerated, as none of the three combatants were ordinary individuals. Even a glancing blow would obliterate the giant trees. The forest's animals, sensing the aura of the Eight-Tails, were frozen in terror. Tailed Beasts were the rulers of the natural world, and insects and animals feared them far more than they feared humans.
One of the fighters, a burly man in sunglasses, wielded seven or eight swords at once, from his neck to his feet. From time to time, several octopus tentacles would sprout from his body to help control the blades. This was Killer B's unique sword style, Acrobat. Only he could pull it off. What normal person would try to use seven swords at once? It was just awkward. Humans were born with two hands; to go against the natural state of your own evolution and fight with seven swords was absurd.
But with the addition of his octopus tentacles, Killer B made his seven-sword style flow with incredible smoothness.
On the other side was the Fourth Raikage, A, serving as the main attacker.
That's right. Currently, the Fourth Raikage was on offense, with Killer B providing support. This was because his octopus tentacles could extend and retract, and his defense was no less than A's. Killer B's tentacles could regenerate if severed, and with his Tailed Beast Chakra Cloak activated, his defensive power was comparable to A's Lightning Release Chakra Mode.
Two incredibly powerful men, both encased in nigh-impenetrable defenses. A normal person would be utterly helpless against them. But for Uchiha Nagi, who had just fused his Sun Breathing into the Thirteenth Form, this was exactly the kind of exhilarating, life-or-death battle he craved.
Sun Breathing, the strongest swordsmanship; the Mangekyo Sharingan, the fastest dynamic vision, coupled with predictive abilities; and finally, the divine Blade, Raikiri. The combination of these three allowed Nagi to barely hold his own against the Hidden Cloud's A-B Combo.
To say he was "holding his own" might be an overstatement, but with the power of these three things combined, Nagi simply refused to die under the relentless, stormy assault of the A-B Combo. Every move of his Sun Breathing was a combination of the twelve forms, a single strike containing twelve variations. This was the essence of the Thirteenth Form.
And beyond that, it could be infinitely stacked—thirteen, one hundred and thirty, one thousand and three hundred... Of course, Nagi couldn't do that now. He could only execute one Thirteenth Form at a time. Only after finishing the first could he unleash a second.
But Nagi's physical constitution, in the end, was no match for the tempered body of the Fourth Raikage or Killer B, who was empowered by the Eight-Tails. He was gradually falling behind. Killer B had the Eight-Tails constantly supplying him with chakra and stamina. Nagi did not.
Finally, after one last strike that pushed A back, Nagi unleashed a Monstrous Strength Fist, sending Killer B flying.
"Hah... hah... I think I've reached my limit..." Nagi panted, using his sword, plunged into the ground, to support his weary body.
Ever since returning to the ninja world, he had been constantly pushing himself—doing research, stealing ninjutsu, developing his swordsmanship. His physical enhancement had been slow. Unlike the Senju clan, the Uchiha were not blessed with the Sage's body. This was why Obito, even with his Mangekyo, had been severely injured by Minato's small Rasengan and had his arm blown off by Konan's paper bombs.
That was why Nagi had sought out the deal with Orochimaru for the original Hashirama cells. He hoped that through them, he could enhance his own constitution, as the chemical reaction between White Zetsu cells and Uchiha cells seemed to have reached its peak. But it all took time. It wasn't a simple injection that would instantly boost his physique. It required time for the chemical reactions to occur, for a qualitative change to take place. And each injection of Hashirama cells had to be carefully researched and calculated to avoid turning himself into a tree.
"Hm?!" Nagi suddenly noticed that the Eight-Tails and A had stopped their attack. What conspiracy were the brothers cooking up now?
Suddenly—
A black sphere, radiating a terrifyingly violent chakra, shot towards him at high speed. It was a Tailed Beast Bomb.
Nagi's pupils contracted. That bastard Killer B had actually fired a Tailed Beast Bomb?
In less than a thousandth of a second, within the frame of his Mangekyo's vision, the Tailed Beast Bomb seemed to slowly drift towards him. He had already decided on a countermeasure: the Flying Thunder God.
Damn it, don't blame me for this.
Nagi quickly took out a kunai and held it in front of him. He was going to teleport the Tailed Beast Bomb right into the Hidden Cloud Village and let them have a taste of their own jinchuriki's medicine.
But in the instant he tried to sense his markers, he realized that the dozen or so Flying Thunder God kunai he had placed earlier were all gone. Had they been destroyed? A Flying Thunder God formula carved onto a person's body was tricky, because you couldn't just cut off a piece of your own flesh. A level-two formula wasn't just skin-deep. But if it was carved onto an object, all you had to do was destroy the object.
In that instant, Nagi understood. These two had been stalling him while the Hidden Cloud's Anbu conducted a massive search and sweep for his Flying Thunder God markers.
But that alone wouldn't be enough to stop him. So what if it was a Tailed Beast Bomb?
In the distance, A saw the small, Tailed-Beast-Transformed Killer B fire a Tailed Beast Bomb at Nagi. A had known what his brother planned to do, so he hadn't rushed in.
However, as the small Tailed Beast Bomb flew towards Nagi, black chakra runes seemed to flicker in the space around him. The Tailed Beast Bomb vanished into a spatial distortion, only to reappear right next to Nagi and shoot back towards Killer B.
"BEE!" A cried out, his eyes nearly popping out of his skull. A Tailed Beast could dish out a devastating Tailed Beast Bomb, but that didn't mean it could swallow it back down.
BOOM!
A small mushroom cloud rose in the forest. In the end, Killer B tasted his own bitter fruit, hit by the very Tailed Beast Bomb he had just launched.
Nagi, however, stood his ground, his face a little pale, a Flying Thunder God kunai in each hand. Just now, it had been in through the portal in his left hand and out through the one in his right. He'd returned the Tailed Beast Bomb to sender, with interest. Hehe...
"Heh heh. Killer B, how does it taste, swallowing your own spit?" Nagi laughed.
However, using the Flying Thunder God to transfer a Tailed Beast Bomb consumed a massive amount of chakra. No wonder even the Kage-level Minato Namikaze, who could teleport all over the battlefield, had nearly exhausted his chakra after transferring a Tailed Beast Bomb just once. The energy required to move a person was nothing compared to moving a high-density Tailed Beast Bomb.
"A miscalculation. Even using the Susanoo to block the Tailed Beast Bomb wouldn't have used this much chakra," Nagi said, shaking his head. He'd made a mistake.
"BEE!" A furious, burly figure charged forward. It was A. Seeing his little brother get hit had sent him into an uncontrollable rage. He was allowed to beat up on B; no one else was.
Nagi narrowed his eyes. A single Thirteenth Form still couldn't break through the Raikage's Lightning Armor. If he could unleash a thousand and five hundred strikes in a single form like the founder of Sun Breathing, stacking the Thirteenth Form over a hundred times—no, even just half that—he could break through the Raikage's armor and cut him down. A single Sun Breathing Thirteenth Form was twelve strikes. Ten fused together would be one hundred and twenty. One hundred would be one thousand and two hundred. But for now, Nagi could only manage one at a time.
His body was already reaching its limits, but his chakra reserves weren't empty yet. So, Nagi chose another method of fighting. It was time for his Gundam.
"Susanoo!"
His giant Susanoo avatar—his Gundam—activated. Nagi's chakra was on the level of a Tailed Beast, at least more than the One-Tail's. The Fourth Raikage, A, while a powerful individual fighter, had the same weakness as the Third Hokage: he lacked ninjutsu effective against such a colossal opponent.
Don't be fooled by the fact that the Raikage could go toe-to-toe with the Eight-Tails. He had few jutsu that could actually subdue it. He could make the Eight-Tails howl in pain, but his body was simply too small. In the entire ninja world, from the Third Kage generation onwards, only Onoki's Dust Release was an absolute, one-shot kill against a Tailed Beast.
Faced with the giant, skeletal, muscle-clad Susanoo, the Raikage charged forward ferociously and landed a heavy blow. It was useless.
Crack, crack~
A few fissures appeared on the Susanoo's surface, but they were insignificant compared to its massive frame. Nagi, hidden inside, quickly repaired them.
Seeing Nagi looking down at him with a taunting smile, Raikage A snarled, "You bastard! You bastard!"
"If you've got the guts, come out of that turtle shell! Come on out, you bastard! If you're a man, fight me fist to fist!"
Nagi rolled his eyes. He wasn't sure who was hiding in a turtle shell first. Wasn't his Lightning Armor a turtle shell? Without that shell, he would have been sliced to bits by Nagi's divine Raikiri long ago. It was the same in the final war. Raikage A's attacks were too one-dimensional against Madara's Gundam. He couldn't break through the Susanoo until Onoki gave him a boost.
Just then, a mountain-like figure extended eight tentacles, attempting to grab Nagi.
The Eight-Tails.
Killer B was a perfect jinchuriki. He had transformed into his complete Tailed Beast form. That was how he had survived his own small Tailed Beast Bomb.
Faced with the giant tentacles, Nagi quickly summoned the Sword of Totsuka. In the hands of the Susanoo, it was just as effective as in his own. He used his Breathing Style, blocking the Eight-Tails' tentacles one by one. Nagi tried to sever the tentacles, but he found them to be slippery and incredibly resilient. The Sword of Totsuka, unlike Raikiri, didn't have a burning attribute; its power lay in sealing. It couldn't cut through Killer B's tentacles.
BOOM!
Two behemoths battled outside the Hidden Cloud Village. Every strike shook the heavens and the earth.
At this moment, the Raikage's Anbu finally arrived. A hundred of them. But at this point, all they could do was watch helplessly. Against these Gundams, paper bombs were useless. A-rank ninjutsu might do some damage, but B-rank jutsu would be nothing more than a tickle.