Boom...
Rōshi moved.
He was more than twice as fast as before!
Those steel puppets could not react at all. In the blink of an eye, three were sent flying by a single claw strike!
Bang!
One puppet's chest caved in, and the Suna ninja inside screamed as both man and puppet were smashed into a rock wall.
Bang!
Another one.
Bang! Bang! Bang!
Rōshi was like a berserk beast, his clawed hands swinging wildly as he tore through everything in front of him.
Those steel constructs that had just been able to withstand his Yōton (Lava Release) attacks...
Now looked like toys beneath his trampling.
He was no longer using Yōton (Lava Release).
Instead, he was using pure, Tailed Beast-level strength!
"Hahaha... come on! Weren't there supposed to be a lot of you?"
Rōshi laughed madly.
With one swipe, he tore a puppet clean in half.
The Suna ninja inside tumbled out and passed out on the spot.
"Have that coward hiding in the back come out!"
Another swipe, and another puppet was ruined.
"Have your worthless Kazekage come out!"
Another swipe, and four more went down.
In barely a minute, half of the dozens of steel puppets had already fallen.
The rest started retreating.
But Rōshi was too fast. They could not escape him at all.
Far away, that chūnin who had been laughing and shouting "come on" moments ago could no longer laugh.
He looked at the puppet that had been torn apart, at the comrade who had fallen unconscious, and his face went deathly pale.
This...
This was the true power of a jinchūriki?
He had actually dared to provoke a monster like this just now?
"Hey..."
Rōshi suddenly turned his head, those scarlet eyes locking onto him.
"You were shouting pretty loudly a second ago, weren't you?"
He bared his teeth in a savage grin.
"Try shouting again."
The chūnin's legs went weak, and he collapsed straight to the ground.
...
Behind the sand dune.
Kankurō's hands were trembling.
Not from excitement.
From fear.
He looked at those steel puppets being torn to pieces.
Looked at that figure carrying out a frenzied slaughter.
Cold sweat drenched his back.
"So... so this is the real power of a jinchūriki?"
His voice shook.
Sasori said nothing.
He simply watched in silence.
A complicated light flickered through his eyes.
"Version 1 Tailed Beast cloak."
At last he spoke, his voice hoarse and calm.
"His chakra has undergone qualitative change. His physical abilities have skyrocketed. His defense and recovery have risen massively."
"The current him and the Rōshi from before... are not even the same species."
Kankurō's lips trembled.
"Then... then our puppets..."
"They can't withstand it."
Sasori's answer was clean and direct.
"We already saw the upper limit of the steel puppets' defense just now."
"The power of Tailed Beast transformation has exceeded the design limit."
Kankurō fell silent.
He looked at the puppets still being slaughtered, the muscles in his face twitching violently.
For the first time, he felt a little despair.
After all that effort...
All that time...
Was it still not enough?
"What? Giving up already?"
Teizawa suddenly spoke, a faint smile at the corner of his mouth.
"This is the power of a Tailed Beast. If he couldn't even do this, Tailed Beasts wouldn't be called weapons of war..."
Kankurō abruptly lifted his head.
Teizawa laughed.
"Don't you have a sword? Or is it that you've only got one big move left?"
Grinding his teeth, Kankurō turned and walked back with a resolute expression.
"I'll handle this one myself..."
Sasori's gaze also fell on Kankurō's retreating back.
As Kankurō put on a standard combat suit, he joined two other Suna ninja.
The three of them climbed into the pilot seat together.
Immediately after, a colossal object slowly began to activate.
...
"So this is all Sunagakure has?"
Rōshi stood atop the ruins.
Scarlet Tailed Beast chakra burned around him like flames.
He looked down at the Suna ninja sprawled on the ground, at the despair on their faces...
A cruel sneer rose on his lips.
"If this is all you've got..."
He raised the clawed hand he had transformed, and Tailed Beast chakra gathered in his palm into a scorching sphere of lava.
"Then you can all go to hell."
Those Suna ninja raised their heads.
They looked at that lava sphere growing larger and larger, looked at that figure like a demon god...
Some closed their eyes.
Some clenched their teeth.
Some trembled all over, yet still stood in front of their comrades.
But without exception...
What filled their eyes was despair.
Rōshi's gaze swept across their faces.
He let out a contemptuous snort.
These puppet armors really were interesting.
If the opponents had only been at jōnin level, they probably really would have had no way to deal with these things.
A chūnin wearing that kind of armor
had been able to last that long against him.
If these were equipped on a large scale,
Sunagakure's overall combat strength would rise by at least an entire tier.
Too bad.
The sneer on his face deepened.
Was a Kage-level powerhouse something a bunch of tools could overcome?
And he was not just Kage-level.
He was a jinchūriki...
How could a few slabs of metal possibly block true Tailed Beast power?
"Trash..."
Rōshi raised that lava sphere and aimed it at the Suna ninja sprawled on the ground.
"Die!"
He slammed it down!
Carrying destructive heat, the lava sphere roared toward those Suna ninja!
As they watched death drawing closer and closer,
some screamed in despair, while others shut their eyes and waited to die.
Boom!!!
A deafening explosion rang out!
But it was not the sound of the lava sphere detonating.
It was the sound of something heavier, more terrifying...
colliding.
Rōshi's body was blasted away as though struck by a mountain!
"What?"
He spun several times through the air.
Then he slammed violently into a rock wall dozens of meters away!
Boom!
A huge crater was smashed into the rock wall, and broken stones rained down.
Rōshi climbed out of the crater, covered in dust, with a trace of blood spilling from the corner of his mouth.
He lifted his head, and his pupils suddenly contracted.
Then he froze.
At the center of the battlefield, a colossal figure was slowly rising.
Sunlight shone from behind it, casting an enormous shadow that blanketed the entire battlefield.
That was...
A puppet.
No, that was not right.
It was not an ordinary puppet.
It was more than twice the size of the steel puppets from before.
Just its height alone was over five meters.
Standing there, it looked like a moving fortress.
Its black alloy shell reflected a hard, cold gleam beneath the sunlight.
Every plate of armor was unbelievably thick.
The structure of its joints was as thick and heavy as the branches of giant trees.
Most terrifying of all was its shape...
It still had the outline of a humanoid form, yet there was something subtly unnatural about it.
A pair of eyes made from special crystal were fixed unblinkingly on Rōshi.
That posture, that presence...
It was a steel giant through and through.
A monster ready to pounce and rip its prey apart at any moment.
Rōshi was already considered large among ninja.
But in front of this steel beast...
He looked like a child.
"What... what kind of thing is this?"
For the first time, Rōshi's voice carried genuine disbelief.
He had lived for many years and seen countless puppets.
From wooden ones to metal ones...
But he had never seen anything like this!
This was a puppet?
This was basically a mecha!
Far away, behind the earthwork.
Sasori's voice carried an unmistakable emotional tremor.
"A puppet controlled by three people... no, a mecha... it actually can be done..."
"What? Were you thinking the puppets of Sunagakure were finished?"
Teizawa looked at Sasori with a half-smile.
Sasori said nothing.
But in those eyes of his, complicated emotions were flashing just the same.
That steel giant was the result of the concept Teizawa had provided,
and then the effort Sasori and Kankurō had poured in over this period of time...
It was not an ordinary puppet.
It was a true weapon of war.
The thickest alloy armor formed its shell. The most complex mechanisms formed its core.
The most powerful chakra core served as its engine.
It had not been designed for single combat.
It had been designed to crush.
Now, it was about to enter real combat for the first time.
Truth be told, Sasori had looked down on this kind of massive, clumsy mecha from the bottom of his heart.
In his eyes, only human puppets were eternal...
And only puppets roughly the size of a person could truly adapt to the battlefield...
But now...
He suddenly found himself wavering.
"Rōshi..."
Teizawa did not look at Sasori. He only watched the battlefield and spoke softly,
his voice low and rough.
"Let me show you... what real power looks like."
On the battlefield, that giant slowly raised both arms.
Those crystal eyes locked onto Rōshi.
Then...
It moved.
All four limbs exerted force, and the entire body charged toward Rōshi like a moving hill, rolling over everything in its path!
Every step made the earth tremble!
Rōshi's pupils shrank, and chakra exploded from his body in an instant!
"Yōton (Lava Release): Shakugaryūgan no Jutsu (Scorching Stream Rock Technique)!"
Blazing magma gushed out, pouring toward the giant!
Boom!
The magma slammed into the giant and splashed in all directions!
But the giant...
Did not even slow down.
That magma, enough to melt steel, only left a few scorched black marks on its armor.
It could not halt its advance at all!
Rōshi's face changed completely.
"That's impossible!"
He roared, and Tailed Beast chakra exploded again!
Behind him, a second tail burst out!
Version 2 Tailed Beast cloak!
(End of Chapter)
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