As a Jinchuriki, she had been feared and hated, her presence aroused disgust and terror because of her accursed status but, there was one thing she could always take pride in . . .
Power.
She was powerful. No one could take that from her.
Shoka might not have been the strongest in the World, not even in her village but no one there would ever call her weak, not even those stronger than her.
Yet now . . .
To this little girl before her.
The degree to which she looked down upon Shoka, it would be selling it massively short if one said Id considered the Jinchuriki weak . . .
"Guess you won't be surrendering then." She concluded upon hearing her opponent's furious thoughts of outrage.
Just as before, the demonic looking little girl snapped her finger but this time, it was not the Blood Sea that moved.
The smaller, twisted, gray black trees grew and wove into each other, forming a small army of treemen complete with wooden demonic horns, jagged teeth and fiery red eyes.
By size, each of them was only about a third of Matatabi's, however, there was only one Two Tailed Cat while there were dozens upon dozens of treemen.
"Let's see how long you last!" Id exclaimed and, with her words, the army of treemen surged forth.
'Cat Flame Roaring Fire'
Matatabi spat out enormous fireballs at the advancing army.
The searing heat tore through the treemen as the rampaging flame set them all ablaze.
However, apart from a few blown up by direct impact, the rest of them just resumed their charge even with their entire bodies lit on fire.
Matabi leapt into the air with her maw facing below as red and blue orbs of chakra coalesced into a dark purple mass between her jaws.
'Tailed Beast Bomb'
The dark purple mass settled into a hyperdense sphere and lit up red before being fired below.
It was like an atomic explosion.
Without a colossal tree shielding her, Id could appreciate the full scale of the explosion.
The searing red done rapidly expanded, swallowing all the treeman and reducing them to nothing before reaching the little girl's position and then . . .
It devoured her two.
'Impossible!' X2
Shoka and Matabi simultaneously exclaimed in their shared mental space.
The massive Tailed Beast landed back on the Blood Sea still tensed up and ready for whatever came next.
"Awwww!" A voice suddenly resounded.
"And here I thought I could fool you into a bit of false hope." Id spoke once more.
Matabi's body froze.
The voice . . . it was coming from a very unexpected location . . .
A small figure sitting on top of the Tailed Beast's blue black, flaming head.
The scorching heat cladding Matabi's body that should have incinerated any human who approached her without the Tailed Beast's acknowledgement, seemed not to affect the tiny figure in the slightest.
"Well then! Since tricking you is becoming harder, from now on, I'll just up the difficulty of my challenges until you finally lose or, by some miracle, you manage to withstand all of them, in which case you get a special surprise." Id announced and without further ado, she vanished.
Then, much to the horror of the Tailed Beast/Jinchuriki pair, more treemen began to form except for one key difference from before.
The trees that transformed into them were not the small, twisted ones, but the colossal pillar-like ones that reached beyond the clouds.
Four such wooden giants formed, each of them so massive that Matabi would be just like a plush in their hands.
Not to mention, considering one of the trees that made up their form managed to tank a Tailed Beast Bomb with scarcely any damage, things were certainly not looking very good.
But Shoka and Matatabi had no intention of falling so easily.
With signature cat-like agility, the monstrous flaming cat leapt across the bodies of the giants, climbing their massive yet slow forms with speed unfitting for its bulk.
And then, when another giant attempted to strike at her, Matatabi bounced onto its body causing multiple cases of friendly fire.
Alas! The giants' toughness was higher than their attack power so, while not completely useless, it did not seem very effective.
But she was not yet done.
Leaping gracefully from giant to giant, the Tailed Beast toyed with her enemies making them repeatedly crash into each other, over and over again.
Until finally, she judged the time was right.
Running up the torso of one of the giants, Matatabi lured another into launching a devastating punch, avoiding it at the last second with a precise leap.
Landing on the head of a third giant, she looked at the position she just jumped from.
After repeated instances of forced friendly fire, certain parts of the giants were cracked and weakened.
And this gave Matabi her opening.
'Tailed Beast Bomb'
This time, the dark purple mass was compressed to the limit and fired without being lit up, punching into the chest of the first giant and digging in.
With another great leap, the Tailed Beast jumped at it and smashed her paw into the orb, pushing further into the giant.
Only then, did it finally light up red.
Glowing cracks spread through the wooden body of the first giant, originating from the hole in its chest and running through his whole body.
A large, chakra cannon-like blast was emitted from said hole and after that, the colossal treeman froze in place.
The cracks stopped glowing but began to spread further and further.
And so, with a thunderous crash, the titan crumbled into pieces, sinking into the Blood Sea.
. . .
An undetermined amount of time later, an exhausted Shoka laid on her knees and panted heavily.
All four wooden titans had been successfully destroyed but, even for a Tailed Beast, so long as you were not the Nine Tails, Kurama himself, such a high intensity battle while firing off multiple Tailed Beast Bombs tended to cause some wear and tear.
Not to mention that Shoka was only a Nigh-Perfect Jinchuriki, not a Perfect one, it was only a matter of time until she lost the ability to maintain her Full Tailed Beast Transformation, even with Matatabi's full cooperation.
"What an anticlimactic ending." A displeased Id commented, floating above the downed Kumo kunoichi by means of her devil wings.
"Managing to beat the first of the Big Three Trials but running out of chakra before even laying eyes upon the Second . . ." The demonic little girl shook her head.
"At least tough it out and get honorably thrashed in the next stage instead of crumpling in the between break!" She exclaimed.
Unfortunately, Shoka was completely drained, even her consciousness was turvy and Id's words were not even registering properly.
"Oh well. Mission cleared beyond even the best case scenario. I wonder what kind of reward Shiki-nii will prepare?"
*
Things had gone swimmingly for Maiko, Ego trapped the Two Tailed Jinchuriki and Id beat her down without much issue.
Shiki was naturally immune to the girl's jutsu so he ended up underestimating how powerful they were against others.
Trapping them was a big problem but, once they were trapped, so long as the nature of the jutsu was not seen through Id Illusion: Reality Marble, was practically invincible.
Unfortunately, while Maiko thrived, her allies did not.
+++++
Hey, Author here!
To promote the novel I will be releasing BONUS CHAPTERS on SUNDAYS based on the previous week's power stone count.
100 Power Stones = 1 Bonus Chapter
500 Power Stones = 2 Bonus Chapters
1000 Power Stones = 3 Bonus Chapters
Every earned BONUS CHAPTER on Webnovel will also be posted on Scribble.
Just a reminder that you can read up to a FULL MONTH ahead of this site on pa-treon.
I'm trying to become a full time Author now and I'm not going to be starting any new novels just so I can make sure this one is properly completed.
Find those sweet advanced chapters on pa-treon.com/lusoba without the -