The Two-Tails thrashed toward Hanekawa, its massive frame shaking the earth. He moved through the hand seals with practiced efficiency.
"Earth Style: Yellow Spring Marsh!"
The ground beneath Matatabi's feet transformed into dark, viscous swamp. The beast's weight worked against it—a third of its body sank before it could react. Matatabi's response was immediate and brutal. Chakra erupted around its form, igniting into roaring flames that evaporated the swamp in seconds, turning soil to scorched earth.
The Two-Tails launched itself free, its body wreathed in fire as it slammed into Hanekawa's wooden barrier. Branches and vines exploded into splinters, burning fiercely where the flames touched them.
Hanekawa didn't hesitate. His hands moved, chakra flooding into the ground.
Dead wood came alive. Burned branches sprouted new buds, vines erupting in wild growth.
"Water Style: Great Waterfall Surge!"
He clapped his hands together. Water spiraled upward, forming a tornado that detonated into a river—a roaring wall of water that extinguished flames and rushed toward the Two-Tails.
The beast gathered chakra in its throat. A massive fireball erupted outward.
Water met fire. Steam consumed the battlefield.
Through the mist, Matatabi's silhouette charged forward, relying on its thick hide to power through. Hanekawa was already moving.
"Water Style: Water Formation Wall!"
A barrier of water rose. The Two-Tails didn't dodge. It crashed through like a living battering ram, the wall shattering into spray.
Hanekawa leaned back, his mouth opening impossibly wide.
"Water Style: Water Severing Wave!"
A compressed stream of water shot forth like a spear, moving with lethal speed. Matatabi tried to retreat, but its massive body betrayed it. The water column cut through the flames on its flank like a blade, piercing deep into muscle and bone.
The Two-Tails screamed.
"Yugito!" Mabui's voice cracked with concern.
Samui's expression tightened. The Fourth Raikage's face darkened as he assessed the situation—Tsunade still blocked him, Killer Bee was pinned by Shisui, Sakumo, and the slug summon. Only Yugito faced Hanekawa alone, and her fire techniques were exactly what he countered.
"Don't get distracted!" Tsunade's fist drove the Fourth Raikage backward through the air.
Matatabi's chakra erupted again, focusing on the wound. The beast mobilized everything to repair the damage. But there was a critical difference between a tailed beast's endless chakra and a jinchuriki's finite reserves. Yugito was human. She had limits.
"Use the Tailed Beast Bomb," Matatabi's voice resonated through Yugito's mind.
A jinchuriki who achieved full transformation maintained consciousness and could communicate with their beast.
"But—" Yugito hesitated.
"You cannot win otherwise. More of our people will die if you don't."
Yugito's jaw clenched. "I hate this."
She raised her head skyward. Chakra compressed into a dark red sphere in her mouth—the unmistakable form of a Tailed Beast Bomb.
"Everyone, fall back!" Hyuga Hizashi's warning cut across the battlefield.
Both Leaf and Cloud ninja scrambled backward. A Tailed Beast Bomb didn't discriminate between allies and enemies.
Tsunade's eyes widened slightly. Can he handle that?
She wanted to trust him. She had to trust him.
The sphere detonated.
Light consumed everything. The air itself seemed to tear. Hanekawa's water barrier evaporated in an instant, leaving a crater so deep it looked like the earth had been carved away. Forests collapsed. The ground split open.
When the dust settled, there was nothing but devastation.
Matatabi stood breathing heavily, its massive chest heaving. "Did we... win?"
Yugito searched the wreckage. No body. No sign of movement.
"He's dead," Mabui said with absolute certainty. "No ninja survives a Tailed Beast Bomb."
The Fourth Raikage's expression shifted—relief flickering across his features before he could suppress it.
Konoha's forces went pale.
Then Tsunade laughed.
"What's so funny?" The Fourth Raikage's unease returned instantly.
"Look at the forest," Tsunade said simply.
The trees around them were still growing. Still moving. Still alive.
If Hanekawa were dead, they would have stopped.
The puddles scattered across the battlefield suddenly moved with purpose. Water flowed together, reforming into a human shape. Hanekawa emerged from the liquid, drawing a breath as if surfacing from deep water.
Water Transformation Technique.
"You..." The Fourth Raikage's jaw tightened.
Hanekawa didn't waste time on banter. He took a deep breath and exhaled into the ocean of water surrounding them.
The Two-Tails had no fire left to resist. Its flames extinguished in seconds.
Matatabi thrashed, but there was nowhere to go. Water surrounded it completely, pressing down from all sides. Layer after layer of waves crashed down, relentless and suffocating.
Yugito's consciousness flickered. The transformation was failing. She couldn't hold on.
Her body went limp, suspended in the water.
The battlefield fell silent.
"Yugito!" Cloud ninja rushed forward across the water's surface.
Konoha's forces moved to intercept them.
Hanekawa walked to Yugito's unconscious form and formed seals, his hands glowing with sealing chakra. He pressed them against her body, locking away her power completely.
A rock clone materialized beside him.
"Stay with her," Hanekawa ordered.
Three lines of text appeared in his vision:
[A-Rank Talent Entry: Cat Catcher]
[Trigger Condition: Defeat Two-Tails Jinchuriki Matatabi]
[Effect: Fire Style ninjutsu power increased by 150%]
Fire Style bonus. Not bad.
A sharp crack echoed across the battlefield.
Hanekawa's head snapped toward the sound. Shisui's Susanoo was fracturing under the Eight-Tails' assault. The skeleton warrior's structure was collapsing, its framework shattering like glass.
Shisui coughed blood.
The Eight-Tails was different. Stronger. More vicious.
An earth wall erupted in front of them, buying a crucial second.
"It's Hanekawa!" Relief flooded Shisui's face.
Yugito was already defeated. Captured.
"Uncle Sakumo, take Shisui and fall back," Hanekawa called out, his gaze fixed on the Eight-Tails.
The beast was enormous—even larger than Matatabi. Its eight tentacles moved with predatory grace.
"Master Slug, help with evacuation," Hanekawa added.
The slug split into countless fragments, scattering to rescue wounded ninja.
The Eight-Tails' eyes locked onto Hanekawa. Its voice was a low rumble that shook the earth.
"I hate Wood Style."
Hanekawa smiled coldly. "I think you're afraid."
"Shut your mouth!"
The beast remembered. Remembered Senju Hashirama. Remembered what it felt like to be dominated by that power.
Eight tentacles lashed out simultaneously, covering the sky like a tsunami of muscle and malice.
Hanekawa formed seals. Fire erupted around him in a roaring inferno.
The Eight-Tails retracted its tentacles at impossible speed, avoiding incineration.
But the beast had other weapons.
Black liquid sprayed from its mouth, transforming mid-air into a smaller octopus clone—the Eight-Tails' sealing technique. Contact meant paralysis. Meant loss of control.
Hanekawa moved.
The clone's tentacles stretched, grasping at empty air where he'd been a heartbeat before.
He clapped his hands.
"Wood Style: Tree Realm Descent!"
The forest exploded back into existence. Branches and vines erupted from the earth, binding the clone in an unbreakable net of wood.
"Melting Style: Melting Monster!"
Corrosive acid poured from Hanekawa's mouth, dissolving the clone into nothing.
The Eight-Tails roared—a sound of pure rage.
Its entire body surged with chakra. It launched itself skyward, then fell like a mountain, a meteor of muscle and fury aimed directly at Hanekawa.
Branches wove into a net above him. Thick. Dense. Reinforced.
It wasn't enough.
The Eight-Tails smashed through, cratering the earth beneath it.
"Where are you, boy?" The beast's eyes scanned the destruction, searching.
It knew better than to assume victory.
---