The air up here was thin. Good for lungs. Bad for haters.
Killer B stood on the edge of the Stone Pillar, one foot propped on a rock, notebook in hand. He wasn't wearing his sunglasses yet—it was morning, and the sun was just hitting the white stone of Kumogakure.
"Yo, Gyūki! Wake up, ya fool, ya sea-fool!" B shouted, tapping his pencil against his temple. "I got a verse, but the flow is cursed! I need a beat that can handle the heat!"
Inside the seal, deep in the Ink-Black Grotto, the Eight-Tails stirred. One massive tentacle curled around a stone pillar, and a deep, rumbling beatboxing rhythm started to echo in B's skull.
Boom-bap. Boom-bap. Boom-tchk-bap.
"You call that a flow?" Gyūki's voice rumbled over the beat, smooth as old vinyl. "You sound like a genin trippin' on a stone. Let me show you how the ancients set the tone."
B grinned. "Oh, it's like that? The Tailed Beast wanna feast? Alright, big guy! Let's see if you can fly!"
(Killer B)
"I'm the Jinchūriki, the Kumo prodigy!
My swords dance wild, defying biology!
Cut you up, break you down, leave you in the dirt!
Check the rhyme, check the time, gonna leave you hurt!
Bakayarō! Konoyarō!"
(Gyūki)
Boom-bap.
"Cute rhyme, little Bee, but you missin' the soul.
You rappin' 'bout swords, but you losin' control.
Back in the day, before the Raikage's chair,
We didn't just fight, we breathed in the air.
The First War was heavy, the blood was so deep,
We rapped to stay wake when the world went to sleep."
(Killer B)
"Sleep is for the weak! I'm the monster in the mist!
Eight swords spinning, cross 'em off the list!
I don't need history, I need a new track!
World on my shoulders, carrying the pack!"
(Gyūki)
"Carrying the pack? Boy, you carrying a feather.
Let me tell you 'bout a man who held it together.
Before the rhymes, before the flash and the style,
There was a man named Roku, who walked the extra mile."
B paused. The beat kept going—boom-tchk-bap—but he lowered his pencil.
"Roku?" B asked. "Who's this Roku? Never heard of no Roku!"
"Of course you haven't," Gyūki rapped, the flow switching to something slower, heavier. "He didn't rap for fame. He didn't rap for gold. He rapped because the nights were too damn cold."
(Gyūki's Verse)
"Second War era, the mountains were red.
Ninjas droppin' like flies, wishin' they were dead.
But in the camp, when the fire burned low,
Roku stood up and he started the flow.
He didn't have swords. He didn't have a beast.
He just had a voice that was calm in the east.
He talked to the rhythm of the soldiers' heartbeats.
Spittin' truth to the youth in the blood-soaked streets.
He said: 'You alive? Then you shout. You alive? Then you stand.'
First MC of the Cloud. The man with the plan."
Killer B blinked. The image formed in his head—a soldier in simple armor, standing over a campfire, not shouting, just talking in rhythm to keep his squad from freezing to death. The first MC. Roku.
(Killer B - Sweating)
"Okay... okay... big respect to the ghost.
But I'm here now! I'm the host with the most!
I'll take his flow and I'll make it explode!
Killer B, Eight-Tails, overload!"
He took a breath, trying to channel that "Roku" energy—not just bragging, but leading.
"Listen up, Kumo! Listen to the sound!
We ain't just soldiers, we own the ground!
From the peaks to the sea, we standin' tall!
Roku started the fire, but I'm burnin' the wall!
Yeah!"
He finished with a spin, throwing his notebook into the air and catching it.
Silence.
Then, deep in his mind, Gyūki chuckled. It was a warm sound, like a bass guitar humming.
"Better," the Eight-Tails said. "A little sloppy on the third bar. But Roku would've nodded."
B wiped sweat from his forehead. "Damn, Gyūki. You go deep. Roku, huh? The First MC?"
"The first to realize," Gyūki said, his presence fading back into the grotto, "that words can cut deeper than a kunai if you sharpen 'em right. Now pick up your pen. We got work to do."
B picked up his notebook. He looked at his scribbled verses about "cutting" and "maiming." He crossed them out.
He wrote one word at the top of the fresh page.
RHYTHM.
"Bakayarō," B whispered, smiling. "Konoyarō."