Perhaps the battle Yagura truly wanted to fight was never the vengeful pursuit of Akatsuki members, but the defense of his own village.
His eyes were firm now; the change in his mindset and resolve made him a different person than before.
As Gusion and the Mizukage fought up to Kirigakure's gates, Hoshigaki Kisame, sensing the crisis, abandoned his pursuit of the heavily wounded Jūzō Biwa and hurried back to help defend the village.
While Gusion and the Mizukage exchanged words, Terumi Mei and Black Tech arrived from behind, sealing off Gusion's escape routes. Kisame came in from the flank, ready to support the Mizukage at any time.
In the distance, the already injured Jūzō Biwa was both stunned and worried. He didn't know why Calamity would say he was going to destroy Kirigakure—this wasn't in their plan.
Confused, he also fretted for Calamity. He felt Gusion was pushing it too far: one man against the Fourth Mizukage, Terumi Mei, Hoshigaki Kisame, and the Mist's new generation of Seven Ninja Swordsmen—how could he possibly win?
Even if Gusion had traded blows evenly with the Mizukage before, he didn't think Gusion could still be at ease with a human-tailed-beast like Kisame joining the fight.
Not to mention, they were at Kirigakure's doorstep. The village's other elite jōnin wouldn't sit on their hands.
At this moment, Gusion stood atop Garaga's head. The serpent raised its proud crown, lifting Gusion to the highest point to look down on the Mist's elites who were surrounding him.
Gusion's gaze swept the crowd without a hint of panic. Beneath him, Garaga—hot-tempered by nature—was brimming with fighting spirit.
The instant Gusion declared he would destroy Kirigakure, there was no need for more words. The Fourth Mizukage charged first. With Black Tech's aid, his condition was even better than before; his rush forced Garaga back step after step.
Garaga braced its massive body into a bow to hold off Isobu's charge.
But Yagura's low voice rumbled from Isobu's mouth, and the Three-Tails shifted.
In the next moment, Isobu hunched its whole body, the huge, heavy carapace on its back wrapping it tight. Like a wheel, it rolled forward at high speed, using its enormous size and weight to crush Garaga.
Gusion knew this tactic: Yagura wanted to force the giant summon away from the village first, to prevent Garaga's bulk from damaging Kirigakure.
Seeing Garaga couldn't withstand the assault, Gusion leapt from the serpent's head. He coated Mazuko with Ryuō and brought down a ground-cleaving slash.
A dark-crimson blade-light flashed and vanished across the sky. The Three-Tails' hard armor cracked under Gusion's strike, and blood sprayed into the air.
Reeling in pain, Yagura lost his balance. Garaga seized the chance, planted itself, and knocked the tailed-beast Yagura aside, sending him rolling off to one side.
No sooner had the clash of titans paused than another strong foe arrived. As the gale dispersed the ever-present fog, a blue-skinned, shark-faced man lunged from behind: "Water Release: Great Exploding Water Colliding Wave!"
Hoshigaki Kisame exploded with chakra, spewing oceanic waves from his mouth. In an instant he formed a massive ellipsoidal water prison, wrapping it around Gusion.
He knew Gusion was a lightning-style ninja, so he used this move only to trap, keeping himself outside to avoid Gusion using lightning's conductivity through the water to counter him as the caster.
In a normal fight he wouldn't waste chakra like this, treating Great Exploding Water Colliding Wave as a super water prison. But Gusion's performance had been outrageous; he'd suppressed the Mizukage earlier. Kisame didn't dare hold back and opened at full power.
He didn't expect this move to defeat Gusion outright—but at least it needed to pin him down. And he wasn't fighting alone!
Sure enough, the powerful recoil from Gusion's slash to halt Yagura was something even Gusion couldn't instantly nullify. Kisame's judgment proved correct. The Great Exploding Water Colliding Wave couldn't be evaded at top speed; it engulfed Gusion and became a suspended water mass the size of a lake at the center of the battlefield.
Before the water closed over him, Gusion took a deep breath and was about to Shunpo out when Terumi Mei and Black Tech's attacks arrived.
"Lava Release: Melting Apparition Technique!"
Terumi Mei fired Lava Release into the water mass to cooperate with Kisame, trying to transform the giant water prison into a lava-water prison to directly corrode Gusion's body. She believed that as long as he couldn't break out, within two seconds he'd be nothing but bones—if even bones remained.
Black Tech, as a Tier-4 Explorer, wasn't slacking either. He mimed hand seals: "Sealing Technique: Heaven-Binding Chains!"
Glowing white chains burst from Gusion's body mid-surge, binding his limbs in a strange pattern, restricting his movement.
Terumi Mei's lava had already entered Kisame's water mass. Seeing his control technique land, Black Tech finally exhaled a little.
This Explorer called Calamity was indeed strong—but he was underestimating ninja teamwork too much. They were elite, battle-hardened, Kage-level comrades from the same village.
"Brat!"
Seeing Gusion trapped, Garaga roared.
But it had just been sent spinning by Yagura and was still rolling outward under inertia; it had no way to assist in time.
The experienced Yagura, on the other hand, gritted through the pain in his back. He aimed at the airborne water mass. A pitch-black Tailed Beast Ball formed rapidly and fired!
Boom—
The gigantic lava-infused water sphere exploded instantly under the Tailed Beast Ball, turning into a deluge of acid rain. The residents of Kirigakure scrambled into buildings, terrified of being melted to sludge by Terumi Mei's lava.
Because of the intense chemical reaction, flames also bloomed at the blast's center. After the acid rain came a rain of fire—a doomsday scene.
"Damn you! How dare you kill my contract holder!"
Garaga bellowed in fury. It was the first time it had been summoned; it wanted to prove itself as the strongest summoning beast in the shinobi world. But how could the strongest summoning beast have its summoner killed the moment it appeared?
"Calamity!"
In the distance, Jūzō Biwa cried out at the sight. Ignoring his own severe injuries, he rushed back to see if Gusion still lived. If he did, Jūzō would try to get him out.
"Did we get him? What a terrifying opponent…"
Terumi Mei let out a breath as she watched the rain of fire. She actively dispelled some of the acid rain still under her chakra control to avoid large-scale damage to the Mist.
"Hah—hah—hah—"
Yagura released his tailed-beast form and landed beside the others. A huge wound carved across his back still bled freely. He was breathing hard.
Clearly, the intense battle just now—and the physical injuries—had drained him.
He stared solemnly at the center of the flaming rain, a bad feeling gnawing at him—one he hoped wouldn't come true.
With his rich combat experience, the Mizukage felt something was off. He glanced around, and his heart clenched. "His summoning beast hasn't disappeared!"
As if to confirm his words, the mass of fire in midair underwent a secondary explosion. A scorching blast wave ripped outward. The superheated acid rain left Kirigakure's walls pitted and scarred.
Driven by the blast, the flaming rain scattered widely. In the center, the strange suction of a wind-eye pulled everything inward, forming a towering fire twister.
As the storm raged, the surrounding fog and smoke were blown away, revealing the scene at the eye.
Within the tornado of flame, dark-red lightning interwove and crackled with a chilling sizzle. At the very center of the eye, a man stood, aura farming.
His Akatsuki cloak had several new holes. Every button along the front had come undone, the garment whipping backward in the gale.
The clothes beneath his upper body were mostly corroded away, revealing a sculpted torso whose musculature looked god-wrought. Plates of crimson scales clung to his skin.
They weren't like common fish or snake scales, but gleamed with a metallic luster. With each breath, they opened and shut, clinking like steel upon steel—like a living suit of armor.
The scales climbed up to the side of Gusion's face and stopped. Together with dark violet demonic markings, that face resembled the masterpiece of a maddest painter—seething with boundless frenzy and a disturbing beauty.
Dark-red lightning rose from him while purple-black miasma slowly sank. He looked like he stood at the source of creation itself, looking down upon all beings.
Sage Mode: Dragonform.
"Don't make such a fuss. Worried about me that much?"
Gusion's voice was teasing.
Garaga's serpentine face flushed. It turned aside quickly. "I was only worried you'd die too fast and unsummon me before I'd had a chance to show off."
Gusion didn't keep teasing Garaga. He looked at the Mizukage's group, sweat beading on their foreheads. "Come at me with everything you've got…"
Yagura had re-entered a partial tailed-beast state. His expression was grave as he issued orders. "Mei, help evacuate the villagers to the rear. I'll defeat him."
He held a black rod tipped with a flower—but the blossom looked withered, as if about to fall.
Terumi Mei didn't argue. She knew her abilities were too prone to friendly fire on such a battlefield and could be turned by Gusion to harm allies. She immediately withdrew toward the village to direct evacuation.
"This is ridiculous…"
Black Tech stared at Gusion in the sky. He didn't know what technique this was, but Gusion's aura had surged by a whole tier—he looked like a different person than the one they'd fought moments before.
He also couldn't comprehend how Gusion had survived their coordinated strike.
Gusion in midair, however, could have answered him. He had to admit he'd nearly overplayed his hand. Because he was orchestrating things so Zabuza could cooperate with his performance, he'd been analyzing the battlefield too much and slipped for a moment—giving Kisame the opening.
These ninjas really knew how to capitalize. A silky-smooth little combo, and they'd almost killed him.
Fortunately he had the Clearheart bloodline, and decent resistance to physical control. Their crowd-control only stiffened him for a heartbeat before he shook free.
Right then, Yagura's Tailed Beast Ball arrived. Gusion couldn't take that head-on. In the nick of time he Flash-Stepped, narrowly avoiding a direct hit.
Even so, the Tailed Beast Ball's blast wasn't something he could shrug off, and Terumi Mei's corrosive lava inside the water mass was closing in fast.
Gusion didn't dare delay. He decisively activated Sage Mode. His composite stats spiked to 75—numbers exploding.
Bear in mind, his base Strength was only 56. With various temporary modes stacking, it was a complete metamorphosis.
With the explosive stat boost, Gusion sheathed himself in Ryuō, tanked the indirect shockwave from the Tailed Beast Ball, and came out mostly unscathed.
As for Terumi Mei's lava, it hadn't yet broken through his defenses before the Tailed Beast Ball blew the water mass apart. That didn't make Yagura a bad teammate—no one could guarantee Gusion wouldn't break out; a Tailed Beast Ball as a finisher was reasonable.
Now that he'd opened Sage Mode, Gusion had no intention of prolonging the fight. He would sweep the opponents before him at once.