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In the Land of Lightning, a certain flexible, very confident man was rapping his way down a forest road pausing every few steps to flash a pose like he was on stage.
"Yo, yo, check the flow—
Kumo's quiet, so I go!
Drop a beat, steal the show—
Bee's in motion, now you know!"
Killer B lived for this cadence. He'd picked up the pattern somewhere and loved the rhythm so much he'd made it his signature.
"Village crowd ain't loud enough—
So I'm out to rock it tough!
Mic check one, two, hey!
Find a master, learn the way!"
High on a nearby ridge, Neji watched the Eight-Tails' jinchūriki with a look that hovered between amused and exasperated. Without turning, he addressed the kunoichi at his back.
"Akatsuki's been active. How did Kumo let him wander out?"
Since returning Yugito Nii to the village after the last incident, Kumo had been on edge. The Fourth Raikage's fury had ramped patrols and lockdowns several notches.
By all logic, B shouldn't be strolling around unsupervised.
Yugito, standing a respectful step behind, explained calmly. "He slips out. A lot. Honestly, his staying put this long is the unusual part."
"Figures," Neji said. He remembered B as the eccentric with the rap fixation odd, but not hateful. "Fine. The sooner we're done, the sooner we go. I don't need the Eight-Tails itself."
What he needed was inside it.
The man in the tailored suit and mask simply vanished from the ridge. Yugito disappeared with him.
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Deeper in the trees, Gyūki muttered from within B's mindscape: [Bee, are you sure about this little stroll?]
"My bro doesn't get me too much heat, no chill," B sang back. "I gotta perform, gotta learn—find the flow master and earn the burn, yeah!"
Gyūki sighed. Ever since B had heard that catchy cadence from the Fire Country, he'd been obsessed with tracking down a mythic "rap master." He'd been dragged home and scolded by the Raikage more times than either of them could count.
As Gyūki shook his horned head, a prickle ran through him.
[Bee.]
B's feet stopped mid-shuffle. His stance shifted well, it tried to shift. The pose still looked like he was about to drop a verse.
A voice slid out of the greenery. "Sharp senses… Eight-Tails jinchūriki."
The masked man in the pale suit stepped into view, brim tipped low. The air tightened.
"You're 'D,' right?" B blinked. "The Blue Phantom? Yo—"
Neji lifted his head slightly. His sight pierced flesh and chakra both, landing not on B but on the immense octopus-ox coiled inside him.
Gyūki's hackles rose. [Bee strong. Very strong.]
B's grin faded. The mic-check swagger slipped into real focus.
"Apologies," Neji said. "I need to borrow your tenant. It won't hurt. I'll just… take a piece."
He raised his hand. The world seemed to tilt as a [Gravitic Pull] wrapped around B, tugging at him and at what lay within.
[Bee!] Gyūki roared.
A crimson cloak splashed across B's body. Octopus limbs burst from his back, lashing trees and stone as anchors against the invisible force. The ground spider-webbed under his feet.
[This is bad.]
Power surged as B pushed for full transformation—
—and the pull vanished.
The cloak winked out. Anchors snapped back. B dropped to a knee, suddenly hollowed out. Tiny motes of light were drifting from his chest into the stranger's palm.
"You—"
Neji's arm slid, gentle as a whisper, through B's torso. A luminous, translucent bull-octopus silhouette peeled free, drawn out by the [Tenseigan]'s sovereign gravity.
In one smooth motion, Neji swallowed the chakra construct like breath returning to lungs.
B slumped into unconsciousness.
Neji glanced toward Kumogakure and let the faintest smile touch his mouth. "So it was a controlled outing. You hoped he'd stall me until help arrived?"
He turned his hand. The scattered lights of Gyūki's chakra coalesced in his grasp like a page rebuilt from glittering dust.
"I'm taking half. The rest is yours, Killer B."
[Tenseigan] light flared in his irises. Chakra parted and rejoined Gyūki split cleanly, just as the Nine-Tails once had been divided. No yin-yang partition, just a measured halving of power. One portion nestled back into B, steady and intact. The other merged into Neji, the fragment he'd come for.
"Time to go. I've already provoked the Raikage twice."
He vanished.
An instant later, a thunderbolt carved a tunnel through the forest, detonating into the clearing. The Fourth Raikage hit the ground in a corona of sparks, eyes hunting, breath a growl.
He saw B. Saw the stillness. The fist that struck the nearest trunk turned it into a falling pillar.
"I'll never let you get away with this!"
Kumo jōnin flooded in, surrounding the jinchūriki, hands already glowing as they checked for damage.
"Status?" the Raikage snapped.
"Lord Raikage Killer B is unconscious. The Eight-Tails is still inside him, but…"
"But?" The Raikage's gaze sharpened.
"His condition looks like chakra depletion. Severe."
The Raikage's scowl deepened. Chakra exhaustion? He'd sprinted the instant he'd felt B tap the beast. There were no battle scars, no craters beyond his own landing. It was the second time he'd seen this shinobi simply drained.
If it happened once, that was a chance. Twice, and to a jinchūriki… that was a pattern.
And he knew the culprit. The same phantom as last time.
"We're returning," he said, voice iron. "When B wakes up, I want every detail. I need to confirm something."
For all his muscle and impulse, the Raikage's strength was precisely why he could afford not to be reckless. This had already stepped beyond force alone.
He paused. "Report on Yugito?"
A new jōnin sprinted in, face tight. "Bad news, Lord Raikage Yugito Nii is gone."
The Raikage's fist clenched. He'd felt it was a wrong note he hadn't been able to place. Now the chord resolved, ugly and undeniable.
They'd been outmaneuvered.
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~Support with 200 PowerStones = 1 Bonus Chapter
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