Following Ao's command, the Kiri ninja he had called out immediately broke away from the formation. They rushed toward Shisui from different directions while rapidly forming hand seals, attempting to restrain him with a sealing technique before he could make another move.
But—
Shisui merely turned his head and glanced at them.
The red, pinwheel-like Mangekyō patterns in his eyes rotated gently.
Two of the Kiri ninja instantly froze.
Their eyes lost focus at the same time, and with two soft thuds, they collapsed onto the ground and fell asleep.
"?"
Seeing that the barrier formation had lost one of its corners before it could even take shape,
Ao immediately lowered his head and shouted to the others nearby,
"Watch his eyes! Don't look directly at him! Use the Hidden Mist Technique to interfere with his vision!"
"Right!"
The Kiri ninja immediately changed tactics.
However, Shisui had already anticipated this.
The instant he saw the mist beginning to spread, Susanoo's chest armor opened once again.
"Yasaka Magatama!"
Emerald-green magatama poured outward, bombarding every direction behind the mist where chakra fluctuations could be sensed.
The suppressive power of Susanoo against ordinary jōnin was unquestionable.
Especially the two Kiri ninja who had just fallen under genjutsu.
Still groggy and barely conscious, they were struck directly through the chest by several magatama.
Blood sprayed everywhere.
They died on the spot.
Ao and several other jōnin were forced to stop and desperately swing their kunai to defend themselves.
The only problem was…
Shisui had only awakened his Mangekyō recently.
It was merely an ordinary Mangekyō Sharingan, not an Eternal Mangekyō.
And he was only around twelve years old.
Whether in ocular power or physical development, he was still far from his peak.
Under these circumstances, forcing Susanoo into existence placed an enormous burden on him.
He had only maintained it for a short while, yet his eyes and even the bones throughout his body were already suffering waves of needle-like pain.
Warm trails of blood ran down his cheeks from his eyes.
"Am I already reaching my limit…?"
But there were still plenty of enemies in front of him.
And…
Yuu's situation didn't seem particularly good either.
The Six-Tails alone was already an enormous threat.
And there were still Kirigakure elites such as Yagura watching from the side, waiting for an opportunity to attack.
Shisui had originally intended to charge over with Susanoo and help.
But he had overestimated himself—
or rather, underestimated Susanoo's side effects.
Just as Shisui was preparing to force himself to use Yasaka Magatama one more time,
Kakashi rushed out from inside the stronghold with a Lightning Blade spinning in one hand.
Obito and two other Konoha jōnin followed beside him.
"Hey, Shisui! Don't think you can leave us behind…"
Kakashi's gaze sharpened.
"Together!"
As he spoke, Obito's entire body blurred into a mosaic-like distortion and charged into Kirigakure's formation.
He dodged the Kiri ninja's counterattacks while continuously releasing various Fire Release techniques.
After all his hard training recently, Obito's Transparent Escape had finally reached the point where it could be used in real combat.
Kakashi, meanwhile, swung the Lightning Blade forward and transformed it into a scattered Chidori Current.
Combined with the Water Release jointly unleashed by the other two Konoha ninja, it surged forward and immediately engulfed a large group of Kiri ninja.
"Retreat! Retreat! Retreat!"
Ao saw everything through his Byakugan and immediately shouted.
Using Kakashi's attack as cover, Shisui dispelled Susanoo.
Then, forcing himself through the pain, he released a Phantom Clone Technique and charged alongside the other Konoha ninja.
In the blink of an eye, the two sides became entangled in close combat once again.
Amid the dense clang of colliding metal,
Shisui glanced toward Yuu's direction from the corner of his eye and silently apologized.
Sorry, Captain Yuu.
I'm still too weak to help you any more than this…
But if it's you, you should be alright, right?
…
On the other side,
Yuu had naturally noticed Yagura's arrival.
He had also seen the half-body Susanoo Shisui released in the distance.
But he ignored both.
He had neither the time nor the need to interfere.
The Three Kamaitachi Brothers clinging to his shoulders transformed into gusts of wind and leapt down from midair, sweeping toward Yagura and intercepting him.
Their average strength was far below Kazekirimaru's.
They probably couldn't hold Yagura back for long.
But Yuu hadn't expected them to accomplish anything major.
As long as they could keep Yagura from interfering for a short while, that was enough.
Taking advantage of the opportunity,
Yuu lightly stepped against the Six-Tails' body, used it as leverage, and delivered another slash.
Then his figure flickered twice in succession and landed on the ground not far away.
He immediately jumped backward again, narrowly avoiding a wave of acid pouring down over his head.
Hiss—
The acid struck the place where Yuu had just been standing.
A deep pit was instantly corroded into the ground, foul-smelling white smoke rising from it.
"Haa…"
Yuu exhaled.
A thin layer of sweat had appeared on his forehead.
The battle hadn't lasted particularly long,
but it had consumed a considerable amount of his strength.
Especially Overload Pulse: Stage Two and the enormous Thunder-Fire Swords.
Both were chakra-hungry ultimate techniques.
Although Samehada had replenished some of his reserves earlier, Yuu had still consumed more than half of his chakra by now, and his breathing had become noticeably heavier.
He immediately canceled Overload Pulse.
While maintaining Transparent Escape and dodging the Six-Tails' wild attacks, Yuu quickly pulled a small porcelain bottle from his ninja pouch.
He poured several specially made military ration pills into his mouth, chewed them a few times, and swallowed.
Then—
Yuu stared coldly at the enormous Six-Tails before him.
Clap!
He pressed his palms together.
"Now…"
"Binding Seal Formula: Thousand-Thread Ensnarement—
"Activate!"
During the previous exchange, under the effects of Overload Pulse, Yuu had moved like lightning and slashed the Six-Tails no fewer than a hundred times.
Sword wounds covered nearly every part of its body—
from its head,
to its abdomen and back,
and even its tails.
Those slashes hadn't been random.
Every single one of them…
carried a sealing formula.
That was right.
In the past, Yuu had only just begun studying sealing arts and lacked sufficient understanding.
So he had needed Kushina's help, engraving sealing formulas onto the White Fang blade in advance in order to combine swordsmanship with sealing techniques.
But now…
his Binding Seal Formula had become extremely proficient.
Its affection was already approaching seventy-five.
At this level, even when using the incorporeal Sword of the Thunder God, Yuu could send sealing formulas out along with his slashes and attach them directly to the Six-Tails.
And now, activating all of those formulas at once through the Trait: Thousand-Thread Ensnarement further amplified the restraining effect.
If there was any flaw in this method…
[Binding Seal Formula: …Hey, little white-haired brat. If you bring those vulgar floozies along again the next time you use me, I might refuse to help you.]
Mm.
Yes.
The Binding Seal Formula's personality was that of a gloomy, landmine-type girl with a slight yandere streak.
Because of that, one of her traits had a side effect that absolutely had to be mentioned—
if Yuu used other ninjutsu simultaneously while releasing her sealing techniques, the chakra consumption of the sealing technique increased by five percent for each additional technique.
And just now, Yuu had been simultaneously using—
the Substitution Technique,
Hatake Swordsmanship,
and Transparent Escape.
An additional fifteen-percent chakra cost was still something he could afford.
But…
this kind of multitasking—
effectively "four-timing" at once—
had clearly made the Binding Seal Formula rather unhappy.
Her words were already beginning to drip with sarcasm.
[Transparent Escape: ?]
[Transparent Escape: When you say "vulgar floozy," are you talking about me?]
[Binding Seal Formula: →_→ Who else?]
[Transparent Escape: Hehe, thank you for the compliment~ So you acknowledge my looks and figure too? Don't tell me you're jealous? Unfortunately, Little Mikami is always so dense. Even when he does those embarrassing things together with me, he refuses to take off his clothes and makes me help him… Honestly.]
[Binding Seal Formula, Clone Technique, Substitution Technique: ?]
[Hatake Swordsmanship: …Hmph. Boring.]
"…"
Yuu, who was currently maintaining a sealing technique in the middle of a battlefield, felt the corner of his mouth twitch as he read the messages.
He didn't even know where to begin complaining.
Fine.
Transparent Escape's manner of speaking was perfectly consistent with her character.
After all, her personality had inherited heavily from Jiraiya.
She was a standard perverted older sister and had never tried hiding it from the beginning.
This wasn't even the first time Yuu had seen her say things that could be wildly misunderstood.
Only the Clone Technique, whose own speech was equally unreliable and who loved deliberately creating misunderstandings among the other techniques, could compete with her in that regard.
Seeing that the group of ninjutsu seemed ready to continue arguing,
Yuu exhaled softly.
He forcibly blocked out their messages and focused most of his attention on the Six-Tails in front of him.
At this moment,
dense black-red symbols began emerging from the more than one hundred wounds scattered across the Six-Tails' enormous body.
The symbols rapidly multiplied.
Spread.
Expanded.
Then began extending toward one another, gradually interlocking.
In only a dozen seconds,
an enormous "fishing net" had formed across the Six-Tails' body.
"Haaah!"
Yuu shouted.
Chakra surged within him once again.
Black-red light erupted across Saiken's entire body.
Countless thin yet incredibly resilient chains of sealing symbols crossed over one another.
Together, they formed a gigantic net that tightly restrained the Six-Tails' nearly thirty-meter-tall body!
"MOOOOOO—!!!"
The Six-Tails roared in shock and fury.
It struggled violently, desperately trying to regain its freedom.
But once a sealing technique had fully taken shape, brute physical strength alone was extremely difficult to use against it.
Even the strength of a tailed beast.
However,
the acid secreted across Saiken's skin did have some corrosive effect on the sealing symbols.
The corrosion was simply too slow to produce results in a short period.
Yuu had already prepared for this.
The military ration pills he swallowed earlier were beginning to take effect.
The chakra they produced was continuously injected into the damaged sealing formulas, slowly repairing them.
Destruction and restoration reached a delicate balance.
For a time,
the Six-Tails' struggles became nothing more than the thrashing of a trapped beast.
Its movements gradually became slower and heavier.
Eventually, it couldn't even spit acid properly.
"What a shame…"
"When I went back to the village last time, I should've asked Kushina for more sealing techniques.
"The Binding Seal Formula still doesn't have enough skins. It's missing a few high-end, elegant, top-tier ones…"
"If the Uzumaki clan's Adamantine Sealing Chains could also be gifted as a skin, this wouldn't need to be so troublesome…"
Yuu silently complained to himself.
He wasn't particularly satisfied with the effectiveness of this strategy.
However, from an outside observer's perspective,
what he was doing was already astonishing.
Normally, only the Kage of a major village could suppress a tailed beast through sealing techniques and similar methods.
And such suppression was usually the first step toward actually sealing the beast away…
"Wait…"
Yagura, who was still fighting the Three Kamaitachi Brothers, suddenly felt his eyelid twitch.
A terrifying possibility flashed through his mind.
"That Konoha brat…"
After going to all this trouble—
could he possibly be trying to capture the Six-Tails right here?
In front of hundreds of Kiri ninja?!
This…
theoretically, it really wasn't impossible.
But Yagura absolutely could not accept that outcome.
Deploying a tailed beast weapon against the enemy and failing to end the battle quickly was already humiliating enough.
If that same tailed beast weapon was then captured by the enemy…
Kirigakure would lose every shred of face it had left.
The Third Mizukage would certainly fly into a rage.
Yagura had to prevent that possibility at all costs!
…
To be fair,
Yuu really did have some thoughts about cutting Yagura down and taking the Six-Tails for himself.
After all, it was still a tailed beast.
Its combat strength might not compare with the Eight-Tails or Nine-Tails, but among the remaining tailed beasts, it was quite respectable.
And jinchūriki and tailed beasts were two completely different systems.
Used properly, they could produce all sorts of interesting tricks.
However,
sealing techniques specifically designed for tailed beasts were considered advanced technology and were strictly protected by every major ninja village.
Although Yuu had gradually learned several sealing techniques through Tsunade, Namikaze Minato, Kushina, and others,
he still hadn't learned high-level techniques such as the Four Symbols Seal or Eight Trigrams Sealing Style.
So for now, he couldn't actually seal the Six-Tails away.
Moreover,
he had no idea whether Kirigakure had placed any hidden countermeasures inside Saiken.
Attempting to seal it directly into his own body without preparation could create a mountain of unnecessary problems.
"Later, I'll call Fugaku or Shisui over and have them glare at it a little.
"Let's see if we can steal control of this thing away from Kirigakure.
"As for what to do with it afterward… we'll decide later."
As for what he should do right now…
naturally—
collect some interest first.
"Hey, Samehada.
"Your turn."
Yuu glanced toward the enormous sword beside him.
Samehada grunted a few times.
Then it hopped over by itself, moved close to the Six-Tails, opened its mouth, and bit directly into Saiken's body.
It began devouring huge mouthfuls of chakra.
Its own body gradually swelled larger and larger.
At the same time, Samehada's hilt extended outward and wrapped around Yuu's arm like a snake.
Rather reluctantly, it transferred part of the chakra it had just absorbed into Yuu's body.
With this oversized "power bank" continuously supplying him,
the chakra Yuu had consumed activating Thousand-Thread Ensnarement was rapidly replenished.
His previously hollow and exhausted body quickly began feeling full of strength again.