The air atop the smouldering ridge tasted of ash and endings. It was a flavour Ayy knew well—the acrid residue of a battle fought to its brutal, inconclusive limit.
Killer Bee, usually a whirlwind of motion and sound, was now still. His eyes were closed, his head tilted as if listening to a distant song as he sensed something. The air around him hummed with a deep, ancient frequency as he tapped into his bond with Gyūki.
"Yo bro," he said, his voice uncharacteristically quiet, devoid of its usual rhythm. "Matatabi's loose, ain't no zoo. She's rampaging and is tearing through everything."
Ayy gave a grim nod, his jaw tight. He could feel it too, a discordant, blazing signature on the edge of his senses.
"Then we move," he stated. They soon became blurs of motion. Bee led, his internal compass locked onto Matatabi's raging chakra signature, a lighthouse in a sea of chaos.
The plan, once so clear in the war before the war started, now felt like ash in their mouths.
'Matatabi was their weapon…' a decisive blade to be unleashed on the Konoha front later as they progressed. But the host, a young woman from a minor clan, had been a rushed, desperate choice after Renjiro 'Killed' the last Jinchuriki.
The trail was not hard to follow. It was a path of absolute obliteration. Forests were not just burned; they were vaporised, leaving behind fields of blackened stumps and earth baked into ceramic.
And there were bodies—Iwa shinobi caught in a surprise flanking manoeuvre, Kumo shinobi who had tried to contain the uncontainable—all seared into grotesque, carbonised statues, their final poses frozen in a scream the blue fire had stolen from their lungs.
Bee's usual bravado was gone, "She's angry, bro," he murmured, his eyes tracing the path of destruction. "Real angry. Not just fighting angry. This is… heart-anger."
Ayy's expression was granite. "Then we calm her," he replied, his voice cutting through the mournful wind. "Or we cage her."
They found her in a valley that had once been a lush river basin. Now, it was a bowl of ghostly blue fire. Ayy raised a hand, and a gust of wind chakra, sharp and precise, parted the flames like a curtain. He did not even hear the shouts of relief from the Kumo shinobi in the scene.
Matatabi, the Two-Tails. She was larger than Bee's partial transformation, a creature of sleek, terrifying beauty. Her chakra radiated from her in visible waves, a blue sun of pure malice that made the air itself feel heavy and thin.
For a single, suspended moment, the rage seemed to falter. Her massive head turned, and her gaze fell upon Killer Bee. There was a flicker—a hesitation, a spark of recognition.
Bee saw the opening.
He took a step forward, "Matatabi!" his voice firm yet carrying an unexpected empathy.
"You ain't gotta fight! I don't know the pain they caused you, I don't know why you're doing this, but you still can choose not to! This rage… it only burns you, too!"
The plea hung in the superheated air.
For a heartbeat, it seemed it might work. Then, the moment shattered. The recognition in her eyes was swallowed by a fresh, overwhelming wave of betrayal and fury.
Her response was a deafening, "SKREEEEE-ROAR!"
Chakra erupted from her in an expanding dome of blue fire, incinerating the ground in a circle a hundred meters wide. The shockwave hit the brothers like a physical wall, forcing them to dig their heels in, chakra flaring to avoid being blasted away.
Empathy was off the table. Necessity had arrived.
"Lightning Armour: Full Output!" Ayy barked. The faint blue around him exploded into a brilliant, sun-bright aura, arcs of electricity snapping and cracking like whips. Across from him, Bee grunted, a crimson chakra cloak erupting around him. Version 2. Two of Gyūki's horns curled from his brow, his features sharpening.
The clash was cataclysmic. Matatabi launched volleys of Blue Cat Fireballs, spheres of condensed flame that melted through the landscape and forced the brothers into constant, high-speed evasions.
Her tails swept through the valley with the force of tectonic shifts, carving new canyons into the earth. The very terrain was a weapon; the blue flames devoured the oxygen, making each breath a searing agony, threatening to swallow them whole.
Ayy became a distraction of pure, golden force.
"BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!"
He used his raw speed and impossible durability to slam into her flanks, his fists and feet creating localised shockwaves that diverted her aim and broke her concentration.
Bee was the precision. Moving in a rhythmic, deadly dance, he formed chakra blades, weaving between her attacks. His partnership with Gyūki provided a perfect counterbalance, the Eight-Tails' experience allowing him to predict the flows and ebbs of her berserk energy.
Inside Bee's mind, Gyūki's voice resonated. "She's lost to the rage, Bee. You can't talk her down now. You'll have to wrestle her spirit down."
Bee grimaced, ducking under a sweep of a flaming tail. He knew what that meant.
They adapted. Ayy redoubled his efforts, a blue blur drawing her fire, wearing down her movements through relentless, jarring impacts. Bee synchronised deeper with Gyūki, and from his hands erupted not physical chains, but constructs of pure chakra, Tailed Beast Chakra Chains. They lashed out, attempting to bind her limbs.
In her fury, Matatabi adapted. She feinted a fireball at Bee, then pivoted with shocking speed, catching Ayy mid-sprint with a solid, full-force tail swipe.
"CRACK!"
The impact was sickening. Ayy was hurled across the valley like a discarded toy, smashing through a cliff face in an explosion of rock and dust.
"BRO!" Bee yelled, his focus breaking for a critical second.
Enraged, Bee retaliated. He slammed his palms onto the ground.
"Ink Style: Binding Seal of the Silent Word!"
Black ink, infused with Gyūki's potent chakra, spread across the terrain in a complex, sealing array. It surged up Matatabi's legs, hardening instantly, and for the first time, her movements halted.
She was trapped.
But a Bijuu's rage cannot be caged so easily. With a roar of pure defiance, her chakra flared, burning the ink, distorting the seals. The bindings shattered.
As she broke free, Bee screamed, "You're like I was… lost, lonely, angry at the world that made you a weapon. But I found a way out! You can too!"
She paused. For one more, fleeting second, the rage cleared, and something ancient and lonely looked out from her eyes. But the fury overtook her once more.
It was then that Ayy reappeared. He shot from the dust of the shattered cliff face, having used the moment to charge his chakra to its absolute maximum. He was a meteor of blue light, diving straight down onto Matatabi's chest.
"Hell Stab: One Finger!" he roared.
A single finger, sheathed in a vortex of concentrated lightning, struck her core. It was not a killing blow, but a neurological overload. A stunning, precise shock that locked her muscles and silenced her roar for a critical three seconds.
It was all the opening Bee and Gyūki needed.
"Now, Bee!" Gyūki's voice boomed.
In a torrent of crimson chakra, Bee swelled into the full, magnificent, and terrifying form of the Eight-Tails. The giant ox-octopus let out a challenging bellow and surged forward, his massive tentacles wrapping around Matatabi's form in a crushing, inescapable embrace.
Pinned by Gyūki's immense strength and Ayy's lightning-augmented grip on her neck, Matatabi was driven into the valley floor.
"CRUUUNCH"
Bee, from within Gyūki, formed the seals. A massive, intricate pattern—the [Binding Seal of Eight Tides] glowed to life beneath her, a specialised barrier of Gyūki's own design that targeted and stabilised the flow of Bijuu chakra.
Matatabi roared one last time before the seal pulsed with calming energy. Her struggles weakened, her fiery form dimmed, and her colossal body slumped into unconsciousness.
The silence that followed was heavy, almost peaceful. Ayy and Bee, back in their human forms, stood panting over the sleeping form of the Two-Tails.
Ayy looked at his brother, "You've grown stronger, Bee."
Bee chuckled weakly, "Strong enough to cry for her, bro."
For a moment, the war was forgotten. There was only the quiet aftermath of a hunt, the shared burden of power, and the bond between brothers.
'It never ends, does it?' Gyūki's voice murmured in their shared consciousness.
Bee sighed, "No. But we can make it quieter."
It was then that the silence was broken. Not by a roar, but by a faint, almost imperceptible rustle from the ridge above them.
Bee's head snapped up, his instincts screaming. Ayy was already turning, his body tensing.
"THUNK!"
It was a kunai whose handle bore a clear, unmistakable Konoha insignia.
Three figures stood revealed, their silhouettes etched against the gloom.
Ayy's face hardened into a mask of cold fury. Bee let out a soft, weary sigh, his shoulders slumping for just a second before he straightened, ready for the next fight.
"Guess peace don't last long, huh, bro?" he muttered.
=====
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