Then, abruptly, the clinging green flames flickered and vanished. Not extinguished, but simply… gone. As if dismissed by an unseen will. Simultaneously, the violent chakra mass surrounding Bee began to contract rapidly. The monstrous horns dissolved, the burning crimson eyes faded, the lashing tails retracted.
The blood-black chakra receded like a tide pulling back, revealing the battered, unconscious form of Killer Bee lying curled on the scorched ground.
He was breathing raggedly, his skin pale beneath the grime, his chakra reserves utterly spent, the strain of near-transformation and the burning agony evident even in unconsciousness.
Relief flooded Ayy, momentarily eclipsing the pain in his hand and the lingering terror of the green fire. His brother was back, alive, though broken.
He knelt, carefully lifting Bee's limp form. The younger man was heavy, a dead weight. Ayy cradled him protectively, his mind racing even as his body screamed for rest.
The implications crashed down.
Renjiro Uzumaki had not only contained the Eight-Tails' rampage, he had bested it. He had inflicted pain powerful enough to force the transformation to recede.
He had wielded that terrifying green fire. The sheer, diabolical power displayed… it wasn't just S-Class. It was something else. Something monstrous.
'This Uzumaki… he's a calamity waiting to happen,' Ayy thought, a chill unrelated to the wind creeping down his spine.
'He contained Gyuki's rage. He burned Bee. The two-tails jinchuriki was debatable since she was a new jinchuriki, but Bee had begun learning about the eight-tails and he still ended up like this…' The thought was unthinkable. Renjiro needed to be eliminated. Now. But after this, could they do it? Could he even manage to do it?
Just as Ayy adjusted his grip on Bee, preparing to flicker away and regroup, the settling dust ahead of him parted.
Renjiro stood there. He hadn't appeared in a flicker; he had simply materialized from the haze, like an avenging spirit conjured by the smoke itself.
His face was a mask of cold, terrifying fury. Blood streamed from both eyes, twin crimson trails cutting through the grime on his cheeks like grotesque tears.
His chakra, visibly depleted moments ago, felt thin, frayed at the edges – the immense drain of the chains, the barrier, the crash, had taken its toll. His Mangekyō Sharingan had involuntarily deactivated, leaving only the crimson backdrop and the three spinning tomoe of the standard Sharingan.
Yet, the power radiating from him wasn't diminished; it felt sharper, more dangerous, honed by pure, unadulterated rage. He looked utterly spent, yet paradoxically, more lethal than ever.
"Where," Renjiro's voice was low, flat, devoid of its usual controlled tone, vibrating with a barely contained storm, "do you think you're going?"
Ayy froze. Every instinct, every nerve ending, screamed DANGER. He tried to move, to flicker away, but his muscles locked. Panic, cold and sharp, stabbed through him. The limp form of his brother slid partially from his grasp, hitting the ground with a soft thud.
'Genjutsu?! Did he cast it the moment he appeared?!' He poured chakra into breaking it, focusing his will, but the paralysis held. As he struggled, his senses, hyper-alert, picked up something else. Renjiro's chakra… it wasn't just rage. There was a subtle, terrifying shift.
It grew. Both in volume and in intensity, becoming denser, sharper, and more suffocating. And his eyes… for a fleeting, impossible moment, Ayy swore he saw a fourth tomoe flicker into existence alongside the three. It was so fast, so unnatural, that Ayy doubted his own senses, adding another layer of disorienting terror.
'What… what was that? Am I hallucinating? Is this part of the genjutsu?'
"You attacked my summon?!" Renjiro's voice cracked like a whip, the flat tone giving way to raw, snarling fury.
"Fuck the future! You need to die! Right here! Right now!" The words, laced with venom and a terrifying finality, shattered Ayy's internal struggle.
Ayy stared, bewildered, adrenaline crashing. 'Fuck the future? What did he mean? What future?' The cryptic phrase echoed ominously, adding another layer of unsettling mystery to the crimson-haired demon before him.
"And I'm going to enjoy it!" Renjiro hissed, taking a deliberate step forward. His Sharingan eyes, still weeping blood, were fixed on Ayy with the predatory focus of a hawk sighting wounded prey.
There was no mercy there, only the promise of slow, painful retribution. He took another step, the dust stirring around his boots. The air thickened with killing intent, a physical pressure pushing against Ayy.
Then, Renjiro stopped. Dead still. The murderous advance halted. His head tilted slightly as if listening to something only he could hear. The rage on his face didn't vanish, but it was overlaid by a flicker of… something else.
Confusion? Reluctance? A silent command? Ayy braced, expecting another devastating attack, anything.
Nothing happened. The suffocating pressure of the killing intent… lessened.
The genjutsu… broke. Not because Ayy overpowered it, but because Renjiro 'released' it. The paralysis vanished instantly. Ayy stumbled back a step, the sudden return of control almost making him drop Bee.
The genjutsu holding Ayy was already gone. Renjiro simply stood there, staring at him, his blood-streaked face an unreadable mask. The silence stretched, taut and bewildering.
Why stop? Why release the hold? Was this some sick, twisted game? A cruel display of power before the final blow?
Ayy's mind raced, muscles coiled, ready to grab Bee and flee, yet paralyzed by the sheer unpredictability of the moment. He met Renjiro's bloody gaze, searching for an answer, finding only an abyss of cold fury and something… shadowed.
Renjiro's lips moved. The words that emerged were flat, final, and utterly chilling: "Go. The next time we meet, I will kill you."
Disbelief warred with desperate survival instinct in Ayy.
It was a trick. It had to be. A trap.
But Renjiro made no move. He just stood there, a statue of wrath carved from smoke and blood. Skepticism screamed in Ayy's mind, but the opportunity was too stark to ignore. Hesitation could mean death for both him and Bee.
With a grunt born of equal parts fear and fury, Ayy scooped up his brother's limp form, throwing a final, searching, deeply wary look at the motionless Renjiro. Then, with a burst of chakra that tore at his already strained reserves, he flickered away, a blue-white streak vanishing westward towards the remnants of his forces.
Renjiro remained. Alone in the vast crater, surrounded by settling dust, the smell of blood, burnt earth, and the lingering ozone of Ayy's departure. The silence rushed back in, profound and heavy.
He didn't move for several long seconds. The cold fury that had sustained him began to ebb, replaced by a hollow ache, the burning pain in his eyes, the throbbing agony of his injuries, and a profound, unsettling confusion. His gaze dropped from the empty space where Ayy had vanished to the shattered ground at his feet.
"Why?" The word escaped his lips, barely a whisper, raw and lost.
It hung in the air, unanswered. No voice replied from the smoke or the rocks. But as the dust settled fully, revealing the sharp shadows cast, Renjiro's own shadow, stretching long and distorted before him, seemed… different.
Not just a passive silhouette. From its depths, near his feet, a single, impossibly thin, perfectly straight thread of purest darkness extended. It didn't touch anything; it simply hung there, taut and purposeful, pointing back towards the distant Konoha position, like a compass needle forged from the void.