The lake exploded with light.
A black sphere the size of a house swallowed itself inward, then fired straight at me like a laser from hell.
"Tailed Beast Bomb. Great," I muttered, because reincarnation apparently came with the deluxe suffering package.
Cold prickled down my spine. My body moved before my brain caught up. I yanked a marked kunai from my pouch and slammed it into the ground.
"Flying Thunder God: guiding strike!"
The seal snapped awake. Space twisted around the kunai like it had just rolled out of bed on the wrong morning. A barrier shimmered to life and swallowed the incoming blast whole.
A heartbeat later, a mountain in the distance vomited out a mushroom cloud.
Nice. Somewhere out there, a family of deer is having a bad day.
A roar shook the water. The thing beneath me surged upward, dragging half the lake with it.
The Three Tails broke the surface like a nightmare given shell and flesh. Its carapace was a fortress, every scale sharp enough to ruin someone's week. Three tails lashed behind it, each ending in a spear-like tip that gleamed like wet steel.
"Yep. You're definitely the Three Tails," I whispered. And honestly? Part of me felt a spark of greed.
Konoha Alliance was newborn, fragile as rice paper. A Tailed Beast would be one hell of a power-up.
"Oi! Sanbi! Kneel already!" I shouted, because taunting ancient monsters is apparently part of my job description.
The beast's response was… enthusiastic.
"Filthy human!" it roared, and the lake erupted. A waterspout shot up like a living whip. I dove aside, but Sanbi wasn't in a charitable mood. The entire lake twisted with it, tossing a column of water straight through my perch. The giant bird of chakra I'd been standing on exploded into spray.
The next moment, a jet of water caught me in the ribs and punted me across the sky.
Pain lit every nerve. "Right. Shouldn't underestimate a walking natural disaster."
Mid-air, I threw another marked kunai downward and vanished in a blur of Flying Thunder God.
My boots hit solid ground. The Three Tails towered over the lake, waves breaking against its shell. This wasn't going to be easy. Or dignified.
Time to stop playing nice.
My vision bled red. The tomoe spun, then stretched into the curved pattern I'd come to rely on. Chakra surged around me, building and building until it formed a massive skeletal frame.
"Susanoo."
The giant roared into being around me, armor knitting across its bones, a crimson blade forming in its hand.
Sanbi charged.
Susanoo met it head-on. The sword crashed down. Water exploded outward in a wall of spray. The beast howled.
And then, because the world hates me, it didn't stop. It rammed straight into Susanoo's chest, hard enough to crack the armor.
"Yeah, yeah, you're impressive," I muttered. "Hold still."
Black fire burst to life on Susanoo's blade, climbing upward like hungry wolves.
Amaterasu.
Sanbi sensed the danger instantly. Its jaws opened and another Tailed Beast Bomb screeched out.
The impact knocked Susanoo's sword clean from its grip. It spiraled away and stabbed into the ground behind us, black fire spreading across the lakeside like a plague.
Even Susanoo staggered.
"Fine. Try this instead."
Susanoo lunged, grabbed the Three Tails by the shell and flipped the whole damn beast onto its back. The lake churned with the impact.
Sanbi thrashed, trying to right itself. I planted Susanoo's foot on its underbelly, shoving it deeper underwater.
The beast roared and blasted another Tailed Beast Bomb upward.
"Kamui shuriken!"
Susanoo's hands blurred, pulling twin spiraling shuriken from its waist. One collided with the bomb and swallowed it into a distortion of space. The other drilled straight toward the beast's face.
It struck.
Sanbi shrieked as the shuriken ripped through one of its eyes. Blood clouded the water like spilled ink.
The next second, it vanished beneath the lake in a panicked retreat, tails cutting deep trenches in the water above.
I scanned the churning surface. Nothing.
"Ran away," I muttered. Honestly, I didn't blame it.
Even if I beat the thing down today, what then? The Amamiya Clan didn't have a sealing corps. The whole Konoha Alliance didn't. Catching a Tailed Beast without seals was like catching lightning in a bowl.
Pointless.
My Susanoo dissolved, leaving only the crackling air and the burnt scent of Amaterasu licking at the shore.
One day.
But not today.
...
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