Terrifying chakra rapidly gathered at the mouth of the Nine Tails, trembling the air and quaking space with its immense energy.
Naruto Uzumaki's eyes widened, his face filled with shock and fear. "What is that? The Nine Tails has that kind of power?"
In response, Uchiha Kei spoke calmly: "That is the Tailed Beast Ball. It's the strongest technique of the Tailed Beasts. All Tailed Beasts possess this ability—it compresses chakra to the extreme and releases it in one go. It can easily destroy a city or obliterate a mountain."
Hearing this, cold sweat dripped down Naruto's face. "H-Hey, Uncle Kei, don't say something that scary with such a calm tone!"
Undoubtedly, for Naruto at this moment, the Tailed Beast Ball was just too overpowered.
To that, Uchiha Kei didn't respond—because Minato Namikaze spoke up with a light smile: "Don't worry! The Tailed Beast Ball is strong, but it's not unbeatable. Dealing with it isn't exactly difficult."
"And besides..."
At that point, he looked toward the back of "Tamamo-no-Mae." She stood calmly, facing the Tailed Beast Ball with an indifferent expression—no fear in her eyes, only a faint trace of disdain.
"Now, for her, the Tailed Beast Ball is no longer the strongest power."
After all, this Nine Tails had already surpassed the level of a typical Tailed Beast.
At the same time, Tamamo-no-Mae silently watched as the alternate-universe Nine Tails formed the Tailed Beast Ball. She waited patiently for it to finish charging.
As a Tailed Beast—as the Nine Tails—Tamamo-no-Mae naturally understood how terrifying the Tailed Beast Ball was. She also knew the alternate-universe Nine Tails was pouring in all its strength—it was going for a massive blow.
Without a doubt, the longer the Tailed Beast Ball charges, the more destructive its power becomes. The one forming now had already exceeded thirty meters in diameter. Just by size alone, it seemed even larger than the Nine Tails itself.
If this kind of attack went off, it would be like a shinobi-world version of a nuclear explosion.
But...
"So slow... So brutish... and so stupid."
That was Tamamo-no-Mae's evaluation, and the scorn in her heart showed clearly in her beautiful eyes.
There was no question—the Tailed Beast Ball was powerful. But the method of using it was too crude, too slow. Worse still, the user couldn't move freely while charging it. In Ultimate Ninja Storm, a move like this would be nothing but a sitting duck—useless trash that would get killed dozens of times.
Tamamo-no-Mae had been killed many times in-game while trying to charge a finisher like that, so she remembered well.
Because of this, she had come to recognize the flaws of the Tailed Beast Ball and other charge-up ultimate moves. And with Ultimate Ninja Storm rolling out large-scale multiplayer battles, she became more aware of just how critical zero-start-frame moves were in real combat.
So now, seeing another version of herself using such an outdated method to fire a Tailed Beast Ball, Tamamo-no-Mae had only one thought:
So stupid.
After a while, the Tailed Beast Ball was finally fully charged by the alternate-universe Nine Tails, and it was ready to launch.
But at that exact moment, Tamamo-no-Mae made her move.
Golden energy surged at her fingertip, transforming into golden flames, which she immediately fired at the massive Tailed Beast Ball.
In a flash, the flame streaked forward, moving faster than the enemy's attack, plunging directly into the Tailed Beast Ball—and disappeared inside it.
It looked as though it had been completely swallowed by the massive sphere.
However, in the next instant, the Tailed Beast Ball appeared to ignite from within. Golden fire erupted inside, destabilizing it. It cracked and burned like a fractured eggshell, crumbling rapidly.
The alternate-universe Nine Tails shouted "Nani?!" in shock—it could feel that the Tailed Beast Ball it had been building up was completely out of control. Its power was fading fast, and no more chakra could be added.
In truth, the Nine Tails hadn't meant to go that far with this move. It had initially launched the Tailed Beast Ball just to force Tamamo-no-Mae to abandon her human form and fight in full beast form.
It already knew it couldn't defeat her, but it hoped to provoke her—so that, when she reverted to beast form and beat it down, it could mock her for mimicking humans, proving that only the beast form was worthy of a Tailed Beast.
But Tamamo-no-Mae refused to play by the rules. She just stood there, waiting for it to act.
This infuriated the alternate-universe Nine Tails—especially when he caught the disdain in her eyes. His mind snapped with frustration: "Fine! You're just going to stand there and let me charge up, huh? Then I'll give you the biggest one I've got!"
It even prepared to fire the Tailed Beast Ball directly at its own feet—creating a massive self-detonation.
With that kind of destructive force, the explosion would engulf five kilometers in every direction, and the shockwave would extend for dozens more. Even the Nine Tails itself would be caught in it—but it didn't care. It simply refused to lose to a "traitor" like Tamamo-no-Mae.
And yet... Tamamo-no-Mae countered with a method it never imagined, a move it had never seen before.
When the Tailed Beast Ball finally exploded under the golden flame's effect, it burst with a boom—but the blast merely singed the Nine Tails' face. It shut its eyes, flinched back, and looked thoroughly embarrassed.
Then it reopened its eyes—pupils trembling—staring dead-on at the still-elegant Tamamo-no-Mae.
"What did you just do?! Why did the Tailed Beast Ball break apart like that?!"
Tamamo-no-Mae replied coolly, "Nothing special. It's just a technique I developed based on my understanding of the Tailed Beast Ball. After all, when facing an enemy, you don't need to use the same ultimate move to counter theirs—you just need the right method to neutralize it."
"The Tailed Beast Ball is indeed powerful—it's our innate ability as Tailed Beasts. But when you break it down, it's just a crude compression of chakra released all at once."
"If you understand the principles behind it, and know the shared characteristics of Tailed Beast power, you can weaken a Tailed Beast Ball with disassembly, combustion, or neutralization methods until it's harmless."
"Just like..."
"Just like what I did earlier—ignite it from within with a bit of power, and neutralize it. The Tailed Beast Ball will disintegrate on its own."
Her tone was calm, as if she were describing something as mundane as eating or drinking—completely filled with the sort of contempt a straight-A student would have for basic exam questions.
The alternate-universe Nine Tails listened in stunned silence—until his face twisted into the iconic "confused grandpa on the subway staring at a phone" expression.
It was hard to imagine a giant fox could make such an abstract face—but he managed it.
Because what the alternate-universe Nine Tails felt now was an indescribable fury.
He felt his intelligence had been insulted. And he was starting to suspect Tamamo-no-Mae was completely messing with him.
I mean, they were both Nine Tails—so why was she so flashy?! What disassembly, combustion, and neutralization? What kind of nonsense was that? Was that even possible?
If it were that easy, wouldn't the Tailed Beasts—who've lived for millennia—have figured it out by now?
In fact, Tailed Beasts did fight each other, and many of them had studied countermeasures against their siblings. Naturally, the Tailed Beast Ball was a top priority.
But the attack's destructive power and uncontrollable nature always made that research stall. Even the slightest miscalculation would cause a premature detonation, sending the researcher flying.
Even if it didn't kill them, it hurt—and gave humans the perfect chance to seal them away.
So, in the end, that research was abandoned.
But now Tamamo-no-Mae claimed she had solved it—with a method so effective, it felt like the Sage of Six Paths himself had come down to suppress the technique.
How could the alternate-universe Nine Tails possibly believe that? How could he accept it?
Like this story Leave a review ; it would really help me out a lot.
Want to Read Ahead in Advance?
Join my Patreon!
+75 Chapters
Support me in
Patreon.com/BestElysium