Squelch! Slice!
Only a massive, gaping maw occupying most of its spherical torso remained as the demon roared on the ground.
Hikari hadn't just been playing "riding the big flaming cat" and neglecting her true purpose for coming here—harvesting chakra.
So, her Susanoo blade strikes had deliberately avoided Satori's central head and core, strictly cleanly severing the monster's limbs.
Severing limbs shouldn't be fatal for this kind of ancient demon, right?
Satori clearly wasn't dead.
Hikari didn't know that even if she had struck directly at Satori's head, she still couldn't have killed it.
In the original movie storyline, when Naruto activated Sage Mode and delivered the final, cinematic Rasengan to its face, it caused absolutely no substantial lethal damage.
He still had to rely on Talk-no-Jutsu to succeed.
When the Talk-no-Jutsu took effect, Muku "regained his human consciousness" and voluntarily returned to the Box of Ultimate Bliss, thus forcing the finale.
The Box of Ultimate Bliss has no subjective consciousness of its own.
To accomplish anything, it needs a conscious biological carrier—Muku is that carrier.
This situation somewhat resembled what Makoto and the others had analyzed regarding the Sage of Six Paths' lingering relationship to the ninja world.
So while Muku appears capable of returning to human form, he's essentially just a compressed aggregate of chakra.
Especially now.
As the living aggregate of all the historical chakra within the shattered Box, Satori will never die as long as that chakra remains.
Unless, of course, Onoki's Particle Style enveloped and vaporized it completely, in which case the chakra would instantly lose its atomic carrier with no way to recover.
"How... how did you hit it?!"
Even with a massive, bloody hole pierced straight through her abdomen, Yugito was burning with curiosity from inside the Susanoo cockpit.
Without understanding this, she couldn't rest in peace!
"Because you're afraid of it," Hikari replied calmly, her Mangekyo spinning.
"No, I'm not!" Yugito hissed defensively.
"Yes, you are."
"I'm not... alright, maybe a little. But does that matter?!"
Their strange, mid-battle conversation finally ended with Yugito's frustrated compromise.
"It matters because this monster cannot be physically touched as long as you harbor a trace of subconscious fear toward it," Uchiha Hikari explained directly.
Anyway, things were nearing the end now—revealing this boss mechanic wouldn't negatively affect anything.
While she was casually chatting with Yugito, her Eight Thousand Spears had already been covertly activated.
Satori convulsed on the ground, its severed limbs desperately trying to reattach to its torso, but each severed section had been secretly branded with a glowing Eight Thousand Spears mark.
Whenever the demon tried to use its chakra to heal, it was rapidly siphoned away into Hikari's reserves.
Even when it lay perfectly still, it was steadily being drained dry.
The outward manifestation of this invisible robbery was Satori roaring and thrashing in inexplicable agony.
"So that's how it is..." Yugito suddenly understood, as if waking from a dream.
At first, because of Satori's grotesque ugliness and unnatural movements, she had subconsciously felt a primal fear—so subtle she couldn't even perceive it herself.
Only now, with the cheat-sheet answer in hand and looking back, could Yugito barely sense that trace of dread.
But later, when her first, second, and subsequent Kage-level attacks missed completely, that underlying fear of the unknown had become quite apparent.
"What about you? Weren't you afraid at all?" Yugito looked puzzled.
Hikari seemed significantly younger than her and looked like a gentle soft-spoken girl.
How could she have absolutely zero psychological reaction to such an ugly, terrifying abomination?
"Because I had prior intelligence from Makoto. And I'm not afraid of this kind of thing," Hikari curled her lip in disdain, not elaborating further.
What Hikari truly feared most goes without saying, right?
Based on the lore she had learned from Makoto yesterday, Satori (or rather, Muku) and the Hidden Grass Anbu Ryuzetsu were childhood friends.
Although they hadn't officially confirmed their relationship yet, it was clear this was definitely a standard, tragic heterosexual pairing.
Heterosexual relationships aren't scary to Hikari at all!
As for Muku mutating into the hairy, black-furred, winged Satori?
Could there be some weird "furry" enthusiasts mixed in?
That was highly unlikely.
After all, Satori was just objectively ugly.
Since there were no twisted, same-sex brotherhood bonds (like Hashirama/Madara or Kakashi/Obito) involved, nor any weird perverts who liked furries, Hikari's highly specific phobias weren't triggered.
She had absolutely nothing to fear!
Of course, if there were any of those cursed elements involved, a deeply disgusted Hikari might have immediately gone all out, bypassing the Susanoo and dropping a meteor on the island to cleanse it with fire.
...
The Raikage, standing a safe distance away, listened to their exchange without acting rashly.
He silently noted Satori's "Fear Evasion" mechanic.
Simultaneously, he felt deeply ashamed and irritated that he, the supreme commander of Kumogakure, had actually felt subconscious fear earlier.
If not for fearing that acting on his own again might disrupt Hikari's chakra-draining attack, the Raikage would have loved to immediately unleash his full Lightning Release to redeem his pride.
Instead, The Raikage hesitated slightly, preparing to go back and find Tsunade.
Yugito's injuries were catastrophic and needed immediate medical attention after this ended; right now, she was just barely hanging on thanks to Matatabi's fading chakra.
The Cloud Village's intelligence division had some historical records about Uchiha Madara and the Sharingan.
The records were vague—not as obsessively detailed as the Stone Village's PTSD files—but the Raikage was certain of one thing: The Susanoo had absolutely no healing functions.
"Hmm?"
As soon as the Raikage turned around to locate the Hokage, he noticed Tsunade had somehow already walked up to stand beside Makoto.
And right next to her was his brother, Killer B.
B was leaning over, pretending to look at the shattered Box, but he was actually trying to sneak a peek at Tsunade's cleaveage with a highly lecherous, poorly hidden expression on his face.
"BEE YOU BASTARD!!!"
The Raikage instantly flew into a rage.
He moved like a thunderbolt, delivering a devastating Lariat directly to the back of Killer B's head, sending the Jinchuriki flying violently through the air.
BOOM!
Killer B spun like a skipping stone and crashed heavily into the reinforced stone wall of Hozuki Castle, creating a massive spider-webbing crater.
'If I can't hit Satori, I can damn well hit YOU!' Ay fumed.
He was already angry about missing his attacks, and turning back to see Killer B chatting and ogling women was the absolute last straw.
Most importantly, Yugito was critically injured and would soon need Tsunade's life-saving treatment.
For Killer B to be so incredibly disrespectful to the only medic who could save her life right now was just asking for political disaster!
Moreover, with Yugito bleeding out, as a fellow villager, a fellow Jinchuriki, and a comrade-in-arms, Killer B actually had the nerve to be thinking about such perverted nonsense? Utterly disgraceful.
What would Yugito think of their brotherhood if she found out about this?
Actually, it made much more narrative sense now for the Raikage to personally bring Killer B out of the safety of Cloud Thunder Valley to Hozuki Castle, compared to the original movie storyline.
After missing the opportunity to capture the Seven-Tails Jinchuriki during his battle with Makoto at the Waterfall village, the Raikage had returned home and reflected deeply on the geopolitical balance.
Carefully recalling Makoto's casual interaction with the Seven-Tails, and piecing it together with what Minato Namikaze had told him on the battlefield years ago, the Raikage had transformed into a master detective.
He successfully deciphered the core psychological requirement of a Jinchuriki.
During his fight with the Yellow Flash back then, the Raikage hadn't understood why Minato said those cryptic words about "finding something to fill the void."
But later, he figured it out.
Minato's partner was Kushina Uzumaki—the Nine-Tails Jinchuriki.
That explained everything.
What Minato meant was that to control a Tailed Beast, the human host needs something to fill the void of loneliness in their heart.
The Raikage realized that he himself (and their unbreakable brotherhood) was what filled the void in his younger brother Killer B's heart.
That's exactly why Killer B's power and control far surpassed all previous hosts, making him unprecedented in history.
This was the true secret to the "Perfect Jinchuriki."
As for Yugito? Although her raw willpower allowed her to forcefully control the Two-Tails' power, she hadn't yet found that emotional anchor to truly fill the void in her heart.
Naturally, the Raikage hoped their village could have two Perfect Jinchuriki.
If Yugito really couldn't find a single specific person to fill that void, Ay wanted her to consider the entire village—and her comrades—as the family that fills that emptiness.
He had brought B and Yugito on this mission specifically to build that familial, ride-or-die team bond.
But now Killer B was pulling this perverted stunt while she was dying!
If Yugito found out, the village and its "brotherhood" would never have a chance to become the anchor that fills her void!
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