"Damn it… I won't… accept this!"
Gritting their teeth against the blinding, soul-scorching agony, Tayuya, Jirobō, Kidōmaru, and Sakon & Ukon exchanged a single, desperate glance. A silent agreement passed between them. In unison, dark, jagged markings erupted across their skin—the Cursed Seal of Heaven. A wave of sickly, potent chakra burst forth, shocking Naruto and Sasuke with its violent intensity.
Empowered by the seal's forced evolution, their physical capabilities surged. With roars of pain and fury, they tore themselves free from Sasuke's lingering, barbed lightning. The price was horrific; the retracting barbs left their rears in a state of catastrophic, bloody bloom.
"Jirobō! I told you to watch our backs!" Tayuya shrieked, clutching her ruined posterior, her face a mask of pain and furious accusation.
"I… I didn't think Konoha genin fought so… specifically!" Jirobō groaned, the shame almost as acute as the physical torment. He had dismissed Tayuya's caution. It was a fatal error in judgment.
"Ooh~ Getting tattoos? Trying to look tough?" Sasuke taunted, his Sharingan calmly analyzing their enhanced but frenzied chakra flows. He felt nothing but contempt for Orochimaru's cursed seal now. It was a crutch, a blight that ruined one's aesthetic. His teacher's methods were far more… refined.
"Aniki! Your turn!" Sasuke stepped back beside Naruto, his own chakra reserves critically low. He'd proven his technique's effectiveness. Now it was time to see Naruto's 'improvements' in action.
"Leave it to me, lil bro! Just cheer your Senpai on!" Naruto cracked his neck, a feral grin spreading across his face. Sakura Haruno stood by, a complex mix of anxiety and resignation on her features. In a direct fight of this caliber, she was undeniably outclassed. Her role was support, not frontline assault. Despite training alongside the monsters, her progress was that of a normal kunoichi—solid, but utterly eclipsed.
As Naruto stepped forward, the aura around him shifted. The Sound Four, even in their cursed seal states, felt it—a deep, oceanic, and terrifyingly vast reservoir of chakra swirling within the blond boy. This was no ordinary genin.
"The name of the man who'll beat you is Uzumaki Naruto! Remember it!" Naruto declared, striking a pose he thought looked intimidating.
Hearing the surname 'Uzumaki' and not 'Namikaze', the four let out a collective, subconscious sigh of relief. 'Blond hair is bad, but as long as it's not that blond, we might have a chance…'
"You loudmouthed brat! Let's see you back that up!" Jirobō, stung by his earlier failure and the searing pain in his backside, acted first. He formed a series of seals and slammed his palms to the ground. "Doton: Doryōheki!" (Earth Release: Earth-Style Wall!)
But he didn't stop there. The walls curved and connected overhead with shocking speed, encasing Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura within a massive, hemispherical earthen dome. "Doton: Doryō Dōmu!" (Earth Release: Earth-Style Dome Prison!)
"Heh! So what if you have a lot of chakra?" Jirobō sneered, placing one hand on the dome's exterior to maintain it. With his other hand, he tried vainly to stem the fresh bleeding from his wounds. "This barrier absorbs chakra! The more you use, the more I drain! You'll be dried husks in minutes!"
Inside the dome, Sakura immediately tried to break out, but her kunai and shuriken merely chipped the unnaturally hard earth. Worse, she felt a draining sensation, a slow siphon pulling at her energy. She slumped to her knees, panting. "Sasuke-kun… this wall… it's draining us…"
Sasuke, already low on chakra, felt the last dregs being pulled away. His vision swam.
"Sasuke! Here!" Sakura fumbled in her pouch, pulling out a handful of Soldier Pills. She shoved three into Sasuke's hand. "Quickly!"
Sasuke didn't hesitate, swallowing the bitter pills dry. One pill to clear the mind, two to banish fatigue, three to fight until dawn! A surge of artificial energy temporarily countered the drain.
Naruto, meanwhile, just stood there, scratching his head. "Draining? I don't feel anything."
Sasuke shot him an exasperated look. "Of course you wouldn't. You're a bottomless pit. The rest of us are human."
"Since he wants to absorb chakra…" Naruto's eyes gleamed with a simple, brutal idea. "Let's give him all he can handle!"
He focused inward, addressing the grumpy tenant in his gut. 'Hey, foxy! Rent's due! And we need the premium package!'
Inside the seal, the Kyuubi didn't even bother opening an eye. With a disdainful flick of a mental claw, a torrent of crimson-tinged chakra flooded through the seal's cracks into Naruto's system. It was like turning a firehose on a sippy cup.
Naruto placed both palms flat against the inner wall of the dome. "Here! Have a feast!"
Outside, Jirobō's smug expression vanished, replaced by shock, then panic. "Wha—?! This volume…! It's too much! STOP! I'm—I'm full! I CAN'T HOLD ANY MORE!"
The dome, designed to absorb manageable amounts of chakra, was being force-fed a bijuu-level buffet. Cracks spiderwebbed across its surface. Jirobō's control shattered; his hand was violently thrown off the structure as the technique backlashed.
Inside, the draining sensation ceased instantly.
"Now, Naruto!" Sasuke yelled.
"RAAAAH!" With a combined effort, Naruto and Sasuke punched forward. The over-saturated, unstable dome couldn't withstand the physical impact and exploded outward in a shower of dirt and rock.
Jirobō was sent flying, collapsing in a heap, his chakra pathways scorched and his body bloated with unprocessed energy.
"Aniki! Go! Let them taste your 'Three Thousand Ways to Die'!" Sasuke cheered, stepping back to play the role of enthusiastic spectator. Sakura, recovering, quickly pulled out a small Konoha flag she kept for morale and began waving it frantically. In this battle, cheerleading was her highest and best use.
"Kage Bunshin no Jutsu!"
POOMF! POOMF! POOMF! POOMF—!
The forest clearing vanished under a sea of orange and blond. Three thousand Naruto clones appeared, a staggering display of chakra and willpower that made the battered Sound Four's blood run cold. Even Orochimaru-sama couldn't maintain this many fully functional clones!
"Fūton: Rasen Ōgi – Rasen Uni, Zenhōi Mushi Mashin, Sanzen Giri no Shi!" (Wind Release: Spiral Secret Technique – Spiral Sea Urchin, Omni-Directional Blind-Spot Assault, Death by Three Thousand Cuts!)
Three thousand soccer-ball-sized spheres of swirling wind, each bristling with rotating drill-like spikes, materialized in three thousand hands.
Tayuya's eyes widened in dawning, horrified recognition. 'That shape… that spinning… it's a decentralized version of—!'
There was no time for coherent thought. The human tsunami charged.
The Sound Four fought desperately, destroying clones by the dozen. But against three thousand, it was meaningless. The clones were relentless, swarming from every angle. All it took was a single moment of distraction, a single opening in their guard…
THWACK! CRUNCH! BOOM!
The sound of impacts—of sea urchins finding their intended, soft targets—became a continuous, sickening percussion. Explosions of wind chakra and pained screams echoed for a solid half-hour.
When the last clone dispelled and the dust settled, the Otogakure Four lay in ruined heaps on the torn earth. Their cursed seal markings had receded, leaving them pale and broken. Their backsides were… unrecognizable.
Mission accomplished, indeed.
Naruto dusted off his hands, a satisfied smirk on his face as he turned back to his teammates.
Just then, a new figure emerged slowly from the shadowed entrance of Otogakure. He was tall, pale, with green hair and red markings around his eyes, but he moved with a frail, almost consumptive grace, a faint cough escaping his lips. Kimimaro, the sole survivor of the Kaguya clan, regarded the scene with cold, empty eyes.
"Sasuke," Naruto said, sizing up the newcomer. "This guy looks like a strong breeze would knock him over. You want him?"
Sasuke glanced at Kimimaro, noting the deadly stillness beneath the sickly exterior, but shook his head. "I don't bully the weak."
Their eyes then turned to the only member of their team who hadn't actively participated in the carnage yet.
Naruto grinned, giving her two enthusiastic thumbs-up. "Sakura-chan! Your chance to shine! Go on!"
"Beat up this sickly guy!"