A Tailed Beast Bomb was a tailed beast's ultimate technique.
Yin and Yang chakra, fused in a two-to-eight ratio into a single ultra-dense sphere.
Its destructive power was beyond anything an ordinary shinobi could hope to match. One shot could erase a town. Another could redraw the shape of a valley.
Jūzō Biwa had only ever read about it, buried in restricted scrolls.
He'd never expected, in this lifetime, to be on the receiving end of one.
Using that on me? That's like firing a cannon at a fly.
"Run! Jūzō!"
Raiga's voice tore across the ice, his chakra flaring as he sprinted.
Run?
Jūzō lowered his head, a wry smile tugging at the corner of his mouth.
Run where?
A Tailed Beast Bomb covered far too much ground. In his prime, maybe he could have slipped out of its kill zone with everything he had.
But now?
His bones were cracked in half a dozen places. The last slash had emptied most of his chakra. He was a candle burning its last stub of wick. There was nowhere left to go.
Either way, he was dead.
"So if I'm going out," he thought, drawing a long breath, "I might as well give Kirigakure one last favor."
Behind the ache in his lungs, something steeled.
He glanced over his shoulder. Raiga was still running toward him, face twisted, shouting himself raw.
Jūzō's lips trembled. He forced them into a smile and shaped words he didn't have the breath to say aloud.
Farewell, Raiga. The village is yours now.
"Jūzō… you…"
Raiga's steps faltered. His pupils spread in shock.
He saw it—the acceptance in Jūzō's eyes. The resolve of a man who had already decided he wasn't coming back.
"Come on, then!"
Jūzō lifted the Decapitating Blade. The thick edge leveled with Isobu's looming bulk. His gaze had gone almost serene.
Isobu needed no further provocation.
The Three-Tails' jaws snapped wider. The compressed mass of chakra in its mouth stabilized, then fired.
BOOM!!!
The Tailed Beast Bomb tore the air apart.
The sphere of mingled Yin–Yang chakra left warped ripples in its wake, space itself seeming to ripple around it.
At several times the speed of sound, wrapped in a shell of roaring wind, the black orb ripped across the lake. The sheer density of chakra gave it a "weight" that felt like it could crush mountains.
Just facing it, Jūzō felt every bone in his body groan.
Crack… crack…
The wind pressure alone hammered his already-broken frame. Bones creaked and threatened to give way entirely.
Blood burst from his nose, his ears, the corners of his eyes. Muscles and ribs strained under the invisible vice, hairline fractures spiderwebbing across them.
Even so, Jūzō did not bend.
He kept his back straight, eyes steady on the onrushing sphere, fingers tightening around the Decapitating Blade's hilt.
In. Out.
Two short breaths.
His lungs burned; his heart pounded hard enough to shake his vision.
Veins and tendons stood out under his skin. Chakra surged down both arms in a wild torrent, swelling the muscles until they felt ready to tear.
He squeezed the hilt until his knuckles went white.
Then he stepped forward to meet the bomb.
"I am Jūzō Biwa of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen!" he roared. "Executioner of the Mist!"
The heavy blade swung up into the path of the Tailed Beast Bomb.
GONG!!!
Compared to the several-meter-wide sphere, Jūzō was a speck—a grain of dust in the path of a falling star.
Like a mantis raising its arms against a charging cart.
Like an insect trying to halt the ultimate technique of a tailed beast.
Crack.
Crack.
Crack.
Sickening, sharp sounds rang out in rapid succession.
The moment steel met chakra, the ultra-dense sphere began chewing through the Decapitating Blade.
In the instant of contact, the legendary sword started fracturing, edge splintering, metal shattering segment by segment.
The unleashed chakra slammed into Jūzō like a tidal wave. His flesh tore; his body became a canvas of wounds and exposed bone. Blood sprayed in sheets.
He slid backward.
One step. Another.
The ice gave way under his feet, collapsing in slabs. The lake surged, whipped up into towering waves by the gale pouring off the bomb.
"GRAAAAHHH—!"
Jūzō's roar ripped from somewhere below thought.
He dragged up everything left in him—strength, stubbornness, the last scraps of life—and burned it all.
Call it miracle. Call it will.
Whatever it was, he managed to hold the bomb.
Only for a heartbeat.
Only for a few desperate seconds.
But he stopped it.
The price was both arms: bones powdered, muscles torn, nerves reduced to screaming threads.
The force drove his legs through the ice. His feet punched into the layers below; blood mist burst from joints and capillaries all across his body.
"Move…"
His teeth ground together.
"Move!"
He dragged his shattered arms, what remained of the Decapitating Blade's hilt, a few degrees to the side.
Just a fraction.
Just enough.
Like redirecting a river with a single, desperate shove, he forced the Tailed Beast Bomb's path to skew.
Its trajectory bent.
The black sphere tore free from his ruined weapon and shot off—not toward Kirigakure, not into the heart of the forest—
—but toward the lone Uchiha sitting in the distance.
That was his last task.
If he couldn't kill Uchiha Sogetsu with his own hands, he'd borrow the tailed beast's.
His vision blurred. The roaring faded to a distant hum.
Jūzō watched the dark streak arc away, eyes following it as far as they could.
Then his chin dipped.
The broken sword slid from limp fingers.
He stayed on his feet by habit more than strength, a burned-out husk that had spent everything, finally letting the last of his breath go.
"So… I was the target after all."
Sitting cross-legged on the ice, Sogetsu watched the incoming sphere with calm, almost detached eyes.
It didn't look like he was in danger. He looked like a man observing weather.
"Even on the edge of death, still searching for a way to flip the board."
A small, genuine note entered his tone.
"Jūzō Biwa," he said, "I acknowledge you as a true shinobi."
Backed into a corner, he hadn't despaired. He'd searched for any move, any sliver of advantage, even one bought with his own life.
Enemy or not, Sogetsu respected that.
"Unfortunately…"
He rose slowly to his feet.
"…your sacrifice won't change anything."
He lifted a hand and drew it across his eyes.
The tomoe in his irises spun, faster and faster, until they bled together into a new pattern—a four-bladed pinwheel of crimson and black.
Under the lake's surface, White Zetsu finally couldn't stand it anymore. It broke the water, staring up with wide eyes at Sogetsu's transformed gaze.
"It's happening…"
It didn't even blink, afraid to miss a single flicker.
"Lord Sogetsu's Mangekyō… finally!"
Ever since Sogetsu awakened that eye, not even Madara had seen the ability it held.
Any time anyone had asked, Sogetsu had deflected the question with a joke or a shrug.
But now—
The sky growled as the Tailed Beast Bomb closed in, tearing a tunnel through the air.
Sogetsu's face didn't shift.
He raised one hand.
Extended a single finger toward the oncoming sphere.
"Mangekyō Sharingan…"
Blood-red light glimmered in the pinwheel pattern.
"Yagokoro Omikane."
The black orb bore down on him like the end of the world—
—and his finger met it, lightly, as if tapping the surface of a pond.
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