The Ten-Tails raised one of its massive hands.
Even the motion alone caused the earth below to quake. Its palm was so enormous it could flatten mountain ranges with a casual swing.
Muscles tensed beneath its monstrous white flesh, then it swatted downward at Kurama.
The hand came like a falling continent.
A hurricane of wind blasted outward ahead of it, tearing up trees, hurling boulders skyward, and carving trenches through the ground before the strike had even landed.
Naruto narrowed his eyes. "Kurama!"
Kurama roared and thrust up one gigantic clawed hand.
BOOOM!
The two titanic limbs collided, sending a shockwave across the battlefield that split hillsides and shattered distant cliffs. Kurama's feet dug deep into the earth as he held the strike back.
Then he countered instantly. With his free fist, Kurama drove a brutal punch toward the Ten-Tails' face.
But one of the beast's tails moved faster than expected.
It whipped forward like a living pillar, intercepting the punch before it landed. The tail wrapped tightly around Kurama's arm, coiling again and again until it locked in place.
Naruto's eyes widened.
The Ten-Tails yanked upward.
Kurama was ripped off the ground entirely. Massive chunks of earth came with him as he was dragged screaming into the sky.
They soared higher and higher, breaking through storm clouds in seconds.
Then the Ten-Tails hurled him away.
Kurama spun violently through the heavens like a thrown mountain.
Before he could recover, the monster opened its mouth.
A dark sphere of chakra began gathering instantly. Larger… denser… more violent than before. Lightning crackled around it. The clouds bent inward from the pressure.
Naruto cursed.
"It doesn't waste time, huh?"
The Ten-Tails fired. A beam of annihilation tore through the sky straight toward them.
Kurama curled inward immediately, tucking limbs and tails around himself into a defensive sphere.
The blast hit directly.
B O O O M!
A blinding explosion swallowed the clouds. Fire spread across the heavens. The shockwave punched holes through the atmosphere itself.
Kurama came crashing out of the smoke in a spiraling skydive, a bit scorched, smoke trailing from his body.
Naruto steadied himself inside Kurama.
"At the last second!"
Kurama snarled and spread his jaws wide. A Tailed Beast Bomb formed instantly and fired upward like a meteor.
It streaked straight for the Ten-Tails' giant crimson eye. At the final moment, the Ten-Tails closed its eye.
The bomb struck the lid directly.
B O O O O M!
Purple fire and chakra exploded across its face, lighting the clouds above.
Kurama slammed into the ground below, landing hard enough to create a crater, then immediately leaped backward several kilometers to create distance.
Dust rolled across the battlefield. Smoke from the eye strike slowly cleared.
Naruto stared upward. Waiting there… was another Tailed Beast Bomb.
But this one was even bigger.
Far bigger. It hovered in front of the Ten-Tails like a second moon, unstable and vibrating with enough power to erase landscapes.
Naruto grimaced. 'It's like punching a wall,' he thought.
Kurama growled low in agreement. Then he opened his own jaws. A second sphere of chakra began forming.
Both monsters stood facing one another across the ruined land, charging in silence.
The sky darkened. The ground cracked. Rivers changed course from the pressure alone. Seconds felt like minutes.
Then—
They both fired.
BOOM!
BOOOOM!
Twin beams of catastrophic energy tore across the battlefield. Gale-force winds burst outward from each side, flattening forests and blasting away mountains in opposite directions. The earth between them was peeled apart layer by layer.
The two attacks met at the center. For one heartbeat, everything froze.
B O O O O O O O M!
The collision birthed a sun.
White light consumed the horizon. A dome of destruction expanded in every direction, vaporizing stone, blasting clouds apart, and shaking the entire continent.
Even from kilometers away… it felt like the world was ending.
Kurama was pushed back hard by the explosion, his massive body sent flying through the air. He crashed into a nearby mountain with tremendous force, completely crumbling it on impact. Rock shattered in every direction as dust and debris swallowed the area.
When the smoke settled, Kurama lay buried in the ruins.
Naruto sighed.
'When will he absorb his chakra again? He'll be easier to hit then,' he thought.
'I'm wondering that myself,' Kurama replied.
The next moment, Kurama's chakra vanished completely.
His giant form dispersed into red particles, leaving Naruto, Kakashi, and Gai dropping onto the broken peak of the ruined mountain.
'Fuck… we ran out of chakra!' Naruto thought.
'Stall him. You're not strong only with my chakra, you know. I'll have to build it back,' Kurama said.
Naruto nodded once.
"Alright… let's see," he muttered.
He raised both hands, counting quickly on his fingers.
'I can summon ten full-powered Rasenshuriken with the chakra I've got left… but of course, I have Nature Energy,' he thought.
He closed his eyes for only a moment.
The natural energy around him flowed inward immediately, merging with his own chakra. In seconds, the emptiness in his reserves filled again, fresh power surging through his body.
His eyes opened with a smirk.
'Genuinely a cheat.'
Naruto stepped forward and placed one foot on the ledge of the broken mountain, wind tugging at his clothes as he stared at the Ten-Tails regaining its footing in the distance.
The beast looked around for Kurama.
Finding nothing, it simply shrugged and began charging another Tailed Beast Bomb. Dark red and blue chakra swirled into its mouth, the growing sphere humming with catastrophic force.
Naruto followed the direction of its aim.
His eyes narrowed.
One of the allied squads was approaching from that side, sprinting across the battlefield without realizing what was about to happen.
'I need to change the direction,' he thought.
"Let's go."
He grabbed both his senseis by the shoulders and leaped high into the air.
The next moment, he came crashing down onto the battlefield below.
BANG.
The ground split open beneath his landing, forming a crater as Kakashi and Gai steadied themselves beside him.
Naruto rose slowly from the center of it.
He could already feel the wind building from the Ten-Tails' charge, violent currents whipping across the field as the massive sphere in its mouth continued to grow.
As he quickly pulled out a kunai.
Naruto flicked his wrist and threw it straight at the Ten-Tails. The blade spun through the air, cutting through the violent wind before striking and lodging into the beast's massive body.
At that same moment—
The Ten-Tails fired.
The Tailed Beast Bomb roared forward, tearing across the battlefield with enough force to erase everything in its path.
Naruto moved.
He blasted forward at incredible speed, vanishing from where he stood and reaching the beast in a second.
Then—
The Ten-Tails disappeared from sight.
And—
BOOOOM
Its own Tailed Beast Bomb detonated point-blank against its body.
The explosion swallowed the area in fire and smoke, sending the massive beast flying backward. Its colossal frame crashed through the earth before slamming into the huge pond Naruto had created earlier while fighting the other Tailed Beasts.
Water exploded skyward like a tidal wave.
Waves rolled violently in every direction as the Ten-Tails sank into the shattered basin.
Naruto landed back on the ground, boots skidding slightly through the dirt.
He was breathing heavily now.
'That took a lot of chakra,' he thought.
Pain pulsed through his chakra pathways, the strain making his veins feel like they were burning from the inside. Sweat rolled down the side of his face despite the rain.
But he stayed standing. Straight-backed, and unshaken.
TO BE CONTINUED