The sudden absence of the blood-red barrier hit Killer Bee not as a victory, but as a sensory void.
"Yo! Konoha bubble, red and mean," he began, the rhythm forced, laced with a rising tide of anger that threatened to drown his usual flow. "Poofed away like it's never been! Playing tricks? Hiding your face? Thinkin' you can escape the Bee's embrace?" He glared towards the now-exposed Konoha forces beyond the shattered Rashomon gates, his orange chakra cloak flaring violently, tails lashing like angry serpents.
The image of those three horrific craters, the vaporized comrades, and Renjiro's crimson figure high above – it burned hotter than any Katon. "Crimson hair, sky-high perch, think you're slick, left my boys in the lurch! Droppin' bombs from your fancy bird, makin' silence where shouts were heard! Yeah! That disrespect? That ain't cool, gonna make you pay, gonna break every rule! Word up!"
His rap was sharper, harsher, the cringe replaced by a jagged edge of fury. The objective remained: crush the exposed Konoha shinobi. He took a powerful step forward, chakra gathering in his legs for a devastating leap into their midst.
"SCHLINK-K-CHUNK!"
The sound was metallic, heavy, and utterly unexpected. Adamantine chains, shining with a cold, blue-white light, whipped around his torso and legs with impossible speed and precision before he could react, biting deep into the orange chakra cloak. They didn't feel like energy; they felt like mountains made of steel cable.
"Wha–?!" Bee grunted, the air driven from his lungs as the chains yanked with terrifying, irresistible force. Not upwards, but horizontally, eastward, parallel to the shattered barrier line. The world became a blur of motion and deafening wind roar.
He was a ragdoll in the grip of a titan. The ground streaked beneath him – shattered Rashomon fragments, churned earth, the stunned faces of Kumo shinobi near the breach whipping past in an instant. The chains didn't drag; they hurled. He crossed miles in heartbeats, the landscape blurring into streaks of grey and brown, the sounds of the distant battlefield instantly muffled and left behind.
"CRUNCH-THUD!"
He slammed feet-first into a rocky hillside east of the main conflict zone, miles from the Konoha position. The impact cratered the stone, sending spiderweb cracks radiating outwards, dust pluming into the air. The Adamantine chains dissolved into shimmering motes as soon as his momentum halted, their purpose served.
Bee skidded backwards several yards, sandals carving trenches in the rock, his chakra cloak flaring defensively to absorb the impact. He came to a stop, crouched low, breathing hard, not from exertion, but from sheer, disorienting surprise and mounting rage. Dust settled around him, revealing a desolate landscape of jagged rock formations and sparse, wind-stunted trees.
'I need him far… far from the others. To give Shiba his window,' Renjiro thought.
"WHOOM-WHOOM-WHOOM"
Tenjin banked sharply, powerful wings beating the air with sounds that echoed like war drums in the sudden isolation. The giant eagle descended rapidly towards the isolated Jinchuriki, Renjiro standing tall on its back, Sharingan fixed on the orange beacon below. His right hand was already forming hand signs.
Bee barely had time to register the shadow falling over him before the assault began. "Konoha flyboy, think you're hot?!" he yelled, looking up, his voice thick with anger, the usual rap cadence fractured. "Hurlin' Bee around? That hits the spot... of pure rage! Yeah!"
Renjiro didn't speak. His hands flashed through the final hand signs: Ox → Rabbit, Monkey, Boar, Snake, Tiger.
"Katon: Karyū Endan!" (Fire Release: Majestic Flame Formation)
A torrent of searing, crimson fire erupted from Renjiro's mouth, not a focused stream, but a vast, roaring wave of incineration aimed to engulf the hillside where Bee stood. Simultaneously, Tenjin threw his head back and unleashed a gale-force wind from his cavernous beak – "WHOOOOOOSH-ROAR!" – not as an attack, but as a bellows. The hurricane-force winds tore into the fire wave, amplifying it exponentially. The flames didn't just spread; they exploded.
"FWOOOOM-BLAAAAAAM!"
The hillside vanished beneath an expanding ocean of superheated fire. The rocks didn't melt; it vaporized. The air itself screamed as it was consumed, creating a vacuum that sucked debris inward before blasting it outwards in a scalding shockwave. The heat was so intense it distorted vision for miles, painting the sky in hellish shades of orange and red. Trees a hundred yards away spontaneously burst into flames.
Killer Bee reacted with the preternatural speed granted by the Hachibi's chakra. He didn't try to block. He moved. A burst of chakra propelled him sideways in a blur of orange, just as the amplified inferno consumed the spot where he'd crouched.
The ground there ceased to exist, replaced by a bubbling lake of molten rock. He landed on a higher rock outcrop, the heat radiating from the inferno below making his chakra cloak shimmer violently. "Whoa! Fire and wind, a nasty brew! Gotta hand it to you, that much is true! But catchin' Bee? That ain't your fate!" He formed his own seals rapidly.
"Raiton: Gian!" (Lightning Release: False Darkness)
"CRACK-ZZZT!"
A thick, crackling spear of blue-white lightning, thicker than a tree trunk, lanced upwards from his outstretched palm with a deafening crack. It tore through the superheated air, aiming directly for Tenjin's broad chest.
Renjiro saw the threat. His Sharingan predicted the trajectory instantly. "Tenjin! Evade port-side roll!" The eagle banked hard, wings tucking in. The lightning spear sizzled past, close enough for Renjiro to feel the static raising his hair, striking a distant peak with a BOOM-CRACKLE that shattered rock.
Before Bee could follow up, Renjiro's hands were moving again. Adamantine chains erupted once more from Renjiro, whistling down like striking vipers.
"SHINK-SHINK-SHINK!"
They didn't aim for Bee's body this time but for the swirling cloak of orange chakra surrounding him. Where the gleaming chains touched the corrosive Eight-Tails chakra, a violent reaction occurred.
"HISSSS-SPITTER!"
Sparks of blue and orange erupted, not like electricity, but like acid meeting metal. The chains burned into the chakra cloak, not piercing it completely, but disrupting its flow, creating localized weak points, tearing rents in the protective energy field.
"Tch! Annoying chains!" Bee snarled, abandoning rhyme momentarily as he contorted his body with impossible agility. He flipped backwards over a sweeping chain, twisted mid-air to avoid another that sought to entangle his legs, and slammed a chakra-enhanced fist into a third chain that got too close, sending it recoiling with a metallic shriek.
He landed lightly on another rock spire, his eyes narrowed, studying Renjiro. The playful taunt was gone, replaced by focused intensity. "Not bad, Red. Not bad at all. Better than that Two-Tails pushover you tangled with last year. Heard she barely scratched your paint." A feral grin touched his lips, devoid of humour. "But Bee ain't her. Bee's the real deal. The Hachibi's thrill!"
Renjiro didn't rise to the bait, his expression coldly focused behind the Sharingan's spin. He sent another wave of chains, interspersed with precise bursts of Katon: Gōkakyū no Jutsu (Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique) forcing Bee into constant, dazzling evasion. Bee countered with pinpoint Raiton needles and sweeping chakra tail strikes that cracked the rock spires they struck.
The battle became a deadly ballet across the ravaged hillside: the aerial predator and the earthbound beast, fire and lightning clashing, gleaming chains snapping against corrosive chakra, rock shattering underfoot.
But Renjiro's strategy was clear: evasion, disruption, containment. Keep moving. Keep the chains biting. Keep the fire raining down. Never engage directly. Never let Bee close the distance. Every manoeuvre was designed to keep the Jinchuriki occupied, frustrated, and most importantly, away from the main battle miles west.
And the frustration was building. Bee dodged another chain and vaporized a fireball with a burst of chakra, but the rhythm was broken. The constant evasion, the inability to land a decisive blow on the infuriatingly mobile target, the sting of those disruptive chains biting into his precious chakra cloak – it was grinding him down.
The playful rapper persona, his shield against the world, was cracking under the weight of genuine fury and strategic impotence. He launched himself at Tenjin again, only for the giant eagle to bank away with infuriating grace, Renjiro sending a fresh volley of chains to hurry his landing.
"Enough!" Bee roared, the word raw, stripped of any rhythm. He landed hard, skidding to a stop, breathing heavily, not from exertion, but from pure, boiling rage. His orange chakra flared erratically, the tails lashing like whips. He glared up at the circling eagle, at the impassive crimson-haired figure. The taunts, the boasts, the rhymes – they felt hollow now. Pointless. This wasn't a battle for fun or flow; this was a cage he couldn't break out of, orchestrated by a man who refused to fight him head-on. The cheerful facade vanished, replaced by the grim visage of the weapon Kumogakure had forged.
He closed his eyes for a split second, his knuckles white where he clenched his fists. Deep within his mindscape, amidst the swirling darkness and the immense, coiled presence of the Eight-Tails, Killer Bee's mental voice cut through the static, sharp and devoid of its usual bravado. It was a plea, an admission of need, a soldier reporting to his most powerful asset.
"Yo, Gyuki... Big guy... You seein' this? This flyin' Uzumaki pest... He's got chains that bite the chakra, fire that melts the rest. Dodgin', weavin', keepin' me pinned like a bug... Playin' keep-away, wearin' me down, draggin' this slug. I can't close the gap, can't make him bleed... This ain't workin'. Need somethin'... somethin' to make him heed. You got a play? A trick? A way to ground that bird? 'Cause right now... Red's makin' my frustration the only word."
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