"I made the right choice!"
"I definitely made the right choice!"
At this moment, Mei Terumi was still kneeling on the ground.
As she looked up at that small figure standing before her...
The final trace of hesitation in her watery eyes completely disappeared.
In its place was overwhelming relief.
Her decision had been correct.
The little man before her was genuinely powerful.
Extremely powerful.
That man with the scythe had casually slaughtered guards who had once protected the Fourth Mizukage.
Yet even someone like that was utterly helpless before him.
"If that's the case..."
"Perhaps having Kirigakure follow him wouldn't be entirely a bad thing."
She murmured softly.
The way she looked at Kai became noticeably gentler.
A powerful young prodigy like this...
Just happened to be exactly her type.
"ROOOAAARRR!!!"
At that moment, the neglected Three-Tails suddenly raised its head and let out a hysterical roar.
It!
A Tailed Beast!
One of the strongest forces in the ninja world!
And yet now...
Those two insignificant ants were completely ignoring it and fighting each other right in front of its face?!
What was this supposed to mean?!
The Three-Tails was utterly enraged.
The remnants of its savage nature exploded forth once again.
ROAR! ROAR! ROAR!
"So noisy."
Listening to the deafening noise, Kai frowned unhappily.
Then he abruptly turned around.
The crimson Mangekyō Sharingan in his eyes instantly locked onto Isobu.
"Will you stop screaming already?"
"What, did your mother die or something?"
As soon as he finished speaking—
He casually swung a slap toward the massive body of the Three-Tails.
Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm!
BOOM!
A heavy slapping sound echoed across the battlefield.
The sound was low.
Yet impossibly loud.
The Three-Tails' roar stopped instantly.
Its enormous head, which had been lowered toward them, was slapped violently to one side.
The force was so overwhelming that the beast's nearly hundred-meter-tall body tilted with it.
RUMBLE!!!
RUMBLE!!!
Because of its colossal size, the collapse crushed countless ruins beneath it.
The resulting shockwave exploded outward like artillery shells.
CRACK!
CRACK!
Nearby buildings collapsed instantly.
Even structures farther away developed massive cracks under the pressure.
"Cough... cough..."
Mei Terumi tightened the black cloak around herself.
Even so, the shockwave forced her several steps backward.
When she looked up again, her face was filled with shock.
"Th-This is the Three-Tails?"
She had experienced previous Three-Tails incidents before.
But she had never witnessed a fully berserk Three-Tails.
Much less one this close to its true form.
The shockwave created merely by falling over...
Was already comparable to an ordinary A-Rank ninjutsu.
If this was only part of its true power...
How terrifying would the complete Three-Tails be?
And if that was the case...
Just how strong was Uchiha Kai, who had casually slapped it over?
She glanced toward him.
A new emotion quietly appeared in her beautiful eyes.
Powerful.
Decisive.
Other than his strange obsession with slapping people...
Everything else was perfect.
Then again...
The more Mei Terumi thought about it...
Perhaps slapping people wasn't such a bad habit after all.
Gulp.
In the middle of the battlefield, Hidan swallowed with difficulty.
His face remained deathly pale.
But no longer because of Jashin's ritual.
It was pale from pain.
The ritual he had been in the middle of performing had been literally slapped out of him by Kai.
Sure, he was immortal.
That didn't mean he couldn't feel pain!
After a few moments—
A trace of redness suddenly appeared on his face.
Then more.
And more.
Like blood surfacing from beneath the skin.
Whoosh!
Within seconds, his entire face turned bright red.
Not from embarrassment.
He had literally been slapped red.
"Y-You bastard..."
Hidan swallowed painfully and spoke through gritted teeth.
"When I get the chance..."
"I swear I'll—"
ROAR!!!
BOOM!!!
Before he could finish speaking, the Three-Tails suddenly let out another sky-shaking roar.
Its gigantic body rolled upright once more.
The earth trembled violently.
It turned its head.
Its lone eye filled with bloodthirst and brutality.
Locked directly onto Uchiha Kai.
It was him.
That was the one.
The bastard who had slapped it.
Driven only by destruction and rage, the Three-Tails finally found a target for its hatred.
Its jaws opened wide.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Blue chakra rapidly condensed inside its mouth.
In an instant—
A sphere the size of a carriage formed.
Three-Tails.
Tailed Beast Bomb!
The terrifying pressure instantly enveloped all of Kirigakure.
"This is bad!"
"Move!"
The moment Itachi saw it, he shouted toward the battlefield without hesitation.
Then he sprinted forward.
Over the past few days, they had already witnessed the power of Tailed Beast Bombs.
That was true destruction.
True overwhelming force.
Without exaggeration—
A graze meant severe injury.
A direct hit meant death.
And based on everything he knew about Kai...
The boy absolutely would not dodge.
Therefore—
"Haaa..."
Itachi took a deep breath.
The Mangekyō pattern instantly appeared in his eyes.
If his second younger brother wouldn't block it—
Then he, as the elder brother, would!
Hearing the commotion, Kisame glanced back.
Then he saw Uchiha Itachi charging toward the battlefield without the slightest hesitation.
At that moment, Kisame was deeply moved.
This...
This was Itachi-san.
His teammate.
Even at a moment like this...
For his sake...
Itachi was willing to activate the Mangekyō Sharingan and rush into danger.
The more Kisame thought about it, the more touched he became.
Without hesitation, he used the Body Flicker Technique and appeared beside Itachi.
Then—
He picked him up and started running.
"Don't worry, Itachi-san!"
"I won't let you suffer even the slightest danger!"
Itachi: ????
Because all of his attention had been focused on Kai, he hadn't even noticed when Kisame had arrived.
But—
That didn't stop him from wanting to curse.
Was this guy's brain made of water?!
Could he not tell who Itachi had been running toward?!
Who was trying to save whom here?!
At that moment, Itachi suddenly remembered a phrase his second younger brother often used.
A self-confident idiot.
No.
A hopelessly self-assured fool.
A true Pu-Xin Man.
And for the first time in his life—
He felt that the description fit Kisame perfectly.
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