Chapter 461: Purple Lightning Slash Breaks the Turtle Shell
"When a jinchuriki deliberately sinks into deep sleep and lets the tailed beast fully awaken, it has a major flaw compared to true Full Tailed Beast Transformation," Orochimaru said, his eyes sweeping across the Three Tails' enormous body as he searched for the host. "The jinchuriki's body cannot merge into the tailed beast. It remains exposed on the surface."
He narrowed his gaze, voice steady and clinical.
"As long as the jinchuriki is killed or forced awake, the tailed beast will vanish."
A shortcut was still a shortcut. It could never match a true full transformation. The holes were obvious, and plentiful.
At last, Orochimaru's eyes locked onto the rear end of the Three Tails' head. Behind a thick, razor sharp spike, a corner of cloth fluttered in the wind.
Mugetsu activated his Byakugan and confirmed the position in an instant.
"So what do we do," Mugetsu asked quietly, "kill him, or wake him up and capture him alive?"
Right now, the difficulty was almost the same. To wake the jinchuriki, they still had to strike him. The difference between killing and capturing came down to control, how much force was used at the moment of impact.
The real difference came after.
A living enemy jinchuriki was a bomb with a fuse you could not see.
Advanced sealing could suppress a tailed beast's chakra influence, but if the host chose to give up and invited the beast to take the wheel, that was another matter entirely.
And beyond the danger of the jinchuriki himself, capturing one alive carried an even uglier meaning. It created a blood feud with that village, and made every other nation wary.
Extort and release him, fine.
Extract the tailed beast and seal it into one of their own, and the hatred would be deeper than killing a Kage.
A Kage served for a few decades at most.
A tailed beast could be passed down forever.
Lose one, and a village lost a top tier war weapon permanently. No village would tolerate that.
"Kill him if you can," Orochimaru answered without hesitation.
Konoha was already fighting multiple fronts. If they stole another village's tailed beast, the Hidden Mist, the Hidden Cloud, and the Hidden Stone might set aside their differences long enough to crush Konoha together.
Killing the jinchuriki would still earn the Hidden Mist's hatred, but it would be far less than the hatred that came from stealing the beast.
And with one less jinchuriki, the Hidden Mist might choose to lay low and wait for the Three Tails to be reborn.
Roar!
The Three Tails threw its head back and bellowed. An enormous amount of chakra gathered in its mouth, black dots condensing rapidly, fusing into a tight, ominous sphere.
Thanks to Orochimaru's warning, the jonin had already withdrawn to a safe distance. Only Orochimaru and Mugetsu's disciples remained close to Mugetsu.
Orochimaru did not retreat like the others. He knew how refined Mugetsu's Flying Thunder God was.
The instant the Three Tails spat out the enormous black orb, Mugetsu flicked a Flying Thunder God kunai toward the Three Tails' flank and vanished.
Boom!!
The explosion rolled across the battlefield like a calamity. The ground collapsed. The camp's structures, tents and supplies alike, were reduced to ash. Smoke and dust erupted skyward, forming a mushroom shaped cloud that swallowed the night.
When the smoke finally thinned, the Three Tails stared at the empty battlefield and gave a satisfied rumble.
The annoying ninja were gone at last.
Whoosh!
Just as it relaxed, Mugetsu reappeared beside it, bringing Orochimaru and the disciples with him.
"Wind Release: Wind Cutter Technique!"
Orochimaru formed signs in a blur and thrust his palm forward. A violent gale erupted, countless wind blades shredding into the Three Tails at close range.
Bang, bang, bang!!
Even that massive body was forced back a step. Marks and shallow cuts spread across its hard shell.
Whoosh!
Mugetsu used the opening, snapping a Flying Thunder God kunai toward the Three Tails' head.
The Three Tails ignored everyone else and whipped its three tails at Orochimaru in fury. That Wind Release had been the most painful thing it had felt since the rampage began.
Guy pushed his breathing to the limit and entered Rock Breathing Chakra Mode.
The chakra inside him burned down at a frightening rate, but the boost stacked with the Fifth Gate and drove his physical power into a terrifying realm.
With the Mist ninja already retreated, Guy no longer had to hold back.
To support Mugetsu, he was willing to endure the damage from combining the Fifth Gate with Rock Breathing Chakra Mode.
"Leaf Strong Whirlwind!"
Guy concentrated chakra into his feet, tightened his leg muscles, and launched himself with a spinning kick. One of the tails was blasted away and slammed into the ground with a heavy crash.
"Eight Gates," Orochimaru murmured, watching with open interest. "And it seems there is more to it than that."
He had rarely seen a taijutsu specialist like Guy.
Most taijutsu ninja still trained some ninjutsu on the side. Even Teacher Chen, though he relied on taijutsu in combat, still possessed multiple nature transformations.
In Orochimaru's experience, those who depended primarily on taijutsu were rarely truly dangerous, and none reached the top tier.
Teacher Chen was respectable, but still far from someone like Orochimaru.
Guy, though, was different.
Orochimaru calmly formed more signs and raised a thick earth wall, tall and dense, blocking two tails at once.
Though he was known for snake jutsu, Orochimaru had mastered a vast number of techniques across all five elements. Hiruzen had once believed Orochimaru was the most likely to inherit his mantle. Orochimaru simply chose his own path. He used whatever worked.
Shisui and Obito entered Flame Breathing Chakra Mode and released Fire Release together, drawing the Three Tails' attention.
"Fire Release: Fire Dragon Flame Bullet Jutsu!"
Using Flame Breathing's properties, they condensed chakra instantly and expelled roaring flames that wrapped around the Three Tails' limbs.
For a creature this large, the wider range Flame Emperor would have been more suitable, but Flame Emperor consumed too much chakra. It could also interfere with Mugetsu's Flying Thunder God timing if they flooded the area. So they chose Fire Dragon Flame Bullet instead.
Roar!
The Three Tails snapped in irritation. Its entire body was armored in shell. Their fire could not truly injure it.
But for a beast that preferred the water, heat and flame were infuriating even when they did not hurt.
Whoosh!
As the kunai cut through the air toward the head, Mugetsu activated Flying Thunder God again and appeared atop the Three Tails.
Sensing a small presence on its head, the beast shook violently, trying to fling him away.
A ninja was not that easy to throw off.
Mugetsu poured chakra into his feet, ran steadily across the spiked head, and charged straight toward the jinchuriki's exposed position.
"Do not think you can seal me again so easily," the Three Tails snarled, sensing his intent.
It gathered chakra once more, then lowered its head toward the ground, preparing to drag Mugetsu into a smaller tailed beast ball with it.
Its logic was simple.
Its shell was thick. Taking the blast would sting, nothing more.
But a human sized ninja caught in that detonation would be erased.
Seeing the tailed beast ball forming again, Orochimaru, Kakashi, and the others withdrew at full speed.
With Flying Thunder God, Mugetsu did not need them to worry. They needed to make sure they did not die to the blast themselves.
Boom!!
Another massive explosion thundered out. Smoke swallowed the Three Tails' enormous body.
Mugetsu reappeared at a safe distance, using the many Flying Thunder God kunai he had left around the battlefield.
When the dust finally cleared, the Three Tails had pulled its head fully into its shell.
"Why is it a shrinking turtle," Obito could not help complaining.
At first he had not noticed. The spikes and three tails had fooled the eye.
From this distance, it was obvious.
This was not some mythical monster. It was a gigantic turtle.
"And a very hard turtle," Kakashi added.
So many jonin had attacked it, and it barely looked damaged. Its defense was ridiculous.
The jonin who had avoided the previous tailed beast ball rushed back in.
"Focus your attacks on the legs that are still exposed," Orochimaru ordered.
The shell was already tough enough. With its head retracted, it effectively had layered defense. Damaging it there would be far too slow.
At Orochimaru's command, the jonin concentrated their attacks on the limbs. Orochimaru himself used Body Flicker and struck the same spot he had targeted earlier.
Swish, swish!
A storm of wind blades converged on a single point. Orochimaru pushed his wind nature transformation to the limit, pouring a huge amount of chakra into Wind Cutter Technique.
Bang!
Cracks spread across the shell. The blades bit into the exposed flesh beneath.
The Three Tails, which had been whipping ninja with its tails, let out a pained howl. Even its tail strike stuttered.
Its anger peaked.
It believed the ninja could not reach its head again so quickly.
So it extended its head, opened its massive mouth, and began condensing a tailed beast ball.
This time it was not the smaller one.
The earlier one had been reduced for speed. This one was meant to obliterate.
The jonin stopped attacking instantly and scattered, Body Flicker carrying them away from the center.
They had already seen what that blast did. Even being grazed meant death. Taking it head on was suicide.
Whoosh!
The moment the Three Tails exposed its head, Mugetsu appeared atop it again, Enma in hand.
Before he left earlier, Mugetsu had placed a Flying Thunder God mark on the Three Tails' head.
He had been waiting for this.
Sensing danger above, the Three Tails reacted on instinct and retracted into its shell at an unbelievable speed.
Revenge could wait.
If it got sealed again, what was the point of revenge?
The ninja watching were momentarily dumbfounded.
It had been fearless while swinging tails at them, yet the instant Mugetsu appeared, it panicked.
"What a shame," a Konoha jonin sighed, shaking his head. "They say tailed beasts are all savage, but this one feels too cautious."
Its retraction was truly too fast. One heartbeat it was forming a tailed beast ball, the next it was already vanishing into its shell so quickly it left afterimages.
With that speed, striking the jinchuriki behind its head seemed nearly impossible.
"The jinchuriki really earns the title of ultimate weapon," another ninja murmured. "I wonder what our Nine Tails jinchuriki is like."
Obito stared at Mugetsu with bright eyes, excitement rising in his chest.
After this, Teacher Mugetsu's reputation would explode.
When he heard villagers praising Kakashi as a genius, Obito would scoff and call them blind.
But when someone praised Mugetsu, Obito immediately decided they had excellent judgment.
Personal bias aside, he truly believed Mugetsu deserved a name as famous as the Sannin across the ninja world.
Mugetsu was qualified.
Obito did not think Mugetsu was weaker than Orochimaru or Tsunade in raw combat ability, and in other aspects, Mugetsu was far ahead.
"It is about to end," Kakashi thought, a quiet relief in his chest.
Mugetsu's reaction speed was monstrous. In Kakashi's mind, the moment the Three Tails extended its head, the outcome had already been decided.
The Three Tails had huge chakra and brute power, but it was clumsy. Up close it could only roll and whip. At range it had only tailed beast ball, and it did not understand ninjutsu the way humans did.
For someone with Flying Thunder God, a rampaging Three Tails was easier to handle than Yagura.
Orochimaru stopped moving. He watched silently, Mugetsu poised above the beast, the turtle shrinking into its shell.
Across the battlefield, every gaze locked onto one man and one monster.
Mugetsu had already activated Rock Breathing Chakra Mode. In the instant he raised Enma, he converted a huge amount of chakra into Lightning Release chakra and poured it into the blade.
Gorgeous purple lightning wrapped around the sword, turning it into a lightning edge that seemed to hum with destruction.
"No Thought Strike!"
Lightning Release Chakra Mode drove Mugetsu's speed to an extreme.
When the Three Tails had only pulled two thirds of its head into the shell, Enma was already coming down.
Boom!
Crack!
Purple lightning flashed. The massive spikes in Mugetsu's path shattered with a roar.
One spike after another exploded apart, as if they were nothing but brittle wood.
The slash surged straight toward the sleeping jinchuriki.
Perhaps it was the sheer killing intent in No Thought Strike, or some instinctive sense of death.
At the last moment, the jinchuriki's eyes snapped open.
But the blade was too fast.
Too heavy.
Too absolute.
The moment after his eyes opened, the purple lightning slash struck his head.
He did not speak. He did not even form an expression.
He vanished, erased into nothing.
The relationship between a tailed beast and its host was strange.
If the tailed beast was extracted, the jinchuriki would die, even an Uzumaki could only last a little longer.
But if the tailed beast remained inside and the host died, the tailed beast would die as well.
Death, however, was not the end for tailed beasts. After dying, they would eventually revive. Their existence was almost endless.
"No!" the Three Tails roared, its voice filled with unwilling fury.
It had been captured, sealed into a human, imprisoned.
Now it was being killed by a ninja.
It was enraged beyond words.
But anger could not change reality.
The instant Mugetsu's No Thought Strike killed the jinchuriki, the Three Tails' body began to break apart, its form dissolving. Under the stunned eyes of everyone present, it scattered into countless particles of light and vanished into the air.
In its final moments, its massive eyes fixed on Mugetsu, as if carving that face into its memory.
The instant the Three Tails disappeared, the blazing sun overhead vanished as well.
Darkness swallowed the battlefield again.
"He actually did it," a Konoha jonin blurted out, unable to hide his shock.
He had expected Mugetsu's surprise attack to fail. The Three Tails' retraction was too fast.
Yet Mugetsu still killed the jinchuriki with a single strike.
"A terrifying blade," Hizashi murmured, recalling that slash, his heart still pounding.
With Byakugan, he had seen every detail. Those insanely hard spikes had shattered like nothing before that lightning.
"I underestimated Mugetsu's strength," Shikaku admitted to himself, quietly stunned.
He could not see the details like Hizashi, but he had personally felt the Three Tails' defense while trying to restrain it. The power of that slash reminded him of the Third Raikage's strongest spear.
"This is the pinnacle of Lightning Release kenjutsu," Kakashi thought, a trace of longing flashing through him.
That blade was what he would chase for the next ten years.
If he could wield power like that, then even if he faced the Raikage candidate again, he could protect his comrades with his own strength.
"As expected of Teacher Mugetsu," Guy said, exiting Rock Breathing Chakra Mode and closing the gates, then giving Mugetsu a thumbs up. "Truly youthful!"
In Guy's mind, this was a complete victory.
"It is finally over," Rin breathed out, shoulders loosening. "Is everyone alright?"
It was her first time experiencing a battle on this scale, and she had been tense from start to finish.
"I am fine, Rin," Obito replied immediately, stepping closer. "Are you hurt?"
"Mugetsu, you always manage to surprise people," Orochimaru said, eyes gleaming with satisfaction.
Given the potential Mugetsu had shown, even if Mugetsu despised his human experiments, Orochimaru would still have to find a way to pull him to his side.
A subordinate like Mugetsu made everything effortless. Convenient. Almost unfair.
And what Orochimaru valued most was something even more frightening.
Mugetsu was only twenty.
There was still an enormous amount of room for growth.
Even if Mugetsu was not yet stronger than Orochimaru as a whole, the fact that he was this powerful at this age was monstrous.
At the same age, Orochimaru had no confidence he could have beaten Mugetsu.
.....
[Check Out My Patreon For Advance Chapters On All My Fanfics!]
[[email protected]/FanficLord03]
[Join Our Discord Community For Updates & Events]
[https://discord.gg/MntqcdpRZ9]