"Lord Raikage! Lord Killer Bee!"
The remaining Cloud Shinobi on the battlefield were frantic.
"Damn it! Can anyone still go help Lord Raikage over there?!"
"What's with those two giants?! Will they ever run out of chakra?!"
They stared in disbelief at the battlefield, where two massive figures—Uchiha Fugaku's crimson Susanoo and Uchiha Shisui's emerald behemoth—continued rampaging through their ranks, seemingly invincible.
"Wait—look!"
A sharp-eyed shinobi pointed, voice trembling.
"Fugaku's Susanoo... it's dimming!"
"The green one too! They're weakening!"
Tears of relief welled in the Cloud Shinobi's eyes.
They had been slaughtered.
Of the three thousand strong they'd marched in with, less than a thousand remained. The rest were annihilated—some at the very beginning by the sea of exploding tags, and most by the relentless barrage of Susanoo attacks. Fugaku's Yasaka Magatama flew like divine artillery, each one tearing through Cloud ranks like paper. Shisui's Chakra Arrows of Ninety-Nine had punched clean holes in entire squads.
"They're nearly out of power! Divide a unit—go support Lord Raikage!"
But the shouting shinobi suddenly froze.
A dark purple-black discoloration crawled up his throat. He choked—then collapsed.
"While you're watching your lord," came a calm voice, "don't forget to watch your own back."
A shinobi from the Aburame Clan, cloaked in a swarm of poisonous insects, gave a small nod.
Konoha's reinforcements—more than 2,000 strong—and the remaining 300 Uchiha shinobi had all entered the fray. The battlefield had flipped. The feared Cloud Shinobi assault force, once holding overwhelming superiority, was being decimated.
Hyuga Naraku—the man who had thrown both Killer Bee and Fourth Raikage like rag dolls—stood tall amidst the wreckage, voice cold and devoid of mercy:
"Show no restraint. Kill them all."
"YES, LORD NARAKU!"
The Konoha forces roared in unison. Their morale, once fragile, now surged with fury and pride.
At first, they'd doubted. Could they hold against Cloud's elite, the terrifying AB combo, and two perfect Jinchūriki?
But when they had arrived on the backs of giant black eagles, they'd seen:
Susanoo. Two of them.
And at the center, Hyuga Naraku—unfazed, unstoppable, single-handedly suppressing the Raikage and Killer Bee.
Now, it wasn't about holding the line. Cloud Shinobi were praying they could escape with their lives.
On the battlefield's edge, Fourth Raikage staggered to his feet, blood dribbling from his lips as he pushed Killer Bee aside. His Lightning Release Armor flickered, dim and broken. Internally, he was battered—Naraku's strikes had done damage that chakra-enhanced muscles couldn't simply shake off.
Killer Bee, though bruised, was in better shape. The chakra cloak of Eight Tails was healing him, wrapping him in layered protection.
"Bee… go full beast mode," the Raikage growled, hate burning in his bloodshot eyes. "Otherwise, no one's leaving here alive!"
"OK! Let me show you the invincible Killer Bee! Gonna slice that punk and drop some heat, yo!"
With a rhyming shout, tentacles burst from Bee's body. In seconds, a mountain-sized mass of muscle and fury took shape—Gyūki, the Eight Tails.
"You're strong, I admit," Raikage spat at Naraku, hatred boiling. "But also stupid."
"You've got no Susanoo, no shield. All brawn, no brains."
"You should've kept one of those Uchiha giants by your side. Now, let's see how you handle this—"
Bee didn't waste time.
From Gyūki's maw, a dark sphere began forming—chakra spiraling into perfect balance. The deadly Tailed Beast Bomb condensed rapidly.
"Destroy him!!" Raikage screamed. "Too bad we can't take his eyes…"
The bomb howled through the sky.
Naraku raised a single hand.
"Return to sender."
A massive pulse of repulsive force blasted outward.
Tenseigan: Almighty Repulsion!
The Tailed Beast Bomb halted midair—as if it had struck an invisible wall—and then, impossibly, reversed.
"What?!"
Killer Bee and Raikage's eyes bulged in horror.
Too late.
BOOM!!
The explosion rocked the battlefield. Dirt and flame erupted like a volcano. Smoke billowed. For a moment, the Eight Tails vanished from sight.
Then—a battered, wheezing Gyūki stumbled from the smoke, half its face scorched, tentacles twitching. Killer Bee coughed inside, barely holding consciousness.
Raikage, hidden behind the beast's bulk, trembled—not from fear, but from disbelief.
"This… this isn't Byakugan," he muttered.
What he had witnessed—the reversed Tailed Beast Bomb, the precision, the control—wasn't something the traditional Hyuga bloodline should be capable of.
He looked to the Uchiha: Fugaku and Shisui, each wielding monstrous Susanoo. In the past, they'd told legends of Uchiha Madara clashing with the First Hokage. He had thought them exaggerated.
Now he wondered if they had been understated.
And then… there was Naraku.
"Is this… the future of the Hyuga?" Raikage whispered.
"No," he corrected himself grimly. "This must have limits. No one can wield such power indefinitely."
He shouted again:
"Bee! Keep firing Tailed Beast Bombs! Burn him out!"
"You got it!" Bee growled, no longer rapping, his tone serious and heavy.
A barrage of Tailed Beast Bombs lit up the sky—black spheres screaming toward Naraku like comets.
Naraku responded by floating upward, arms outstretched.
Tiny orbs of utter blackness shimmered around him.
Truth-Seeking Balls.
They expanded, wrapped in shimmering light-blue chakra.
"Truth-Seeking Ball: Light Cannon."
A storm of brilliant chakra blasts erupted from his palms, intercepting every Tailed Beast Bomb. One by one, each explosion was snuffed out in mid-air.
The few that passed through were met with even more devastating counterfire.
"HOW?!"
Killer Bee screamed, forced to shield himself as the Truth-Seeking Balls rained down like divine judgment.
"I can't dodge—can't block—there's too many!"
"Eight-Tail Revolving Wall!"
Gyūki curled its tentacles tightly around itself and began spinning, generating a violent whirlwind that crushed the forest beneath.
Even so—Naraku's barrage didn't stop.
The battlefield trembled as each impact cratered the earth and shook the skies.
Konoha shinobi nearby stopped fighting altogether, stunned silent by the scale of destruction. Many abandoned the ground entirely, fleeing to the sky on summoned eagles.
"Is… is he human?" someone whispered.
"He's suppressing a full Tailed Beast Barrage! Alone!"
Eventually… silence.
The last of the Truth-Seeking Ball blasts faded.
Gyūki, swaying, uncurled from its spinning shield. Its massive body bore wounds from head to tail, steam rising from its burned skin.
Raikage, barely breathing, looked around—and found no reinforcements, no backup, no army.
His forces—nearly 3,000 Cloud Shinobi—were gone.
Even in the bloody days of the Third Shinobi World War, Cloud hadn't taken a loss this devastating in one battle.
"Kill him, Bee…" he growled. "Kill all of them!"
Killer Bee, silent for once, began forming a massive Tailed Beast Bomb.
It expanded to a size dwarfing even Gyūki's head.
"I'm being treated like the Ten Tails now?" Naraku said quietly, raising his arm once more.
Three Truth-Seeking Balls floated forward—then began to spin, glowing fiercely.
A massive circular aperture opened in the air around them, distorting space.
"Silver Wheel Reincarnation Explosion."
A divine gale surged forth.
It didn't just hit the Tailed Beast Bomb.
It swallowed it whole.
And then—
It sent it screaming back toward its source.