"ROOOAR!!"
The blood-red monster threw back its head and roared. The crushing pressure of its terrifying chakra could be felt even more than a dozen miles away.
Sora, the closest to it and the prey the Tailed Beast had set its sights on, bore the full brunt of that pressure!
"A Jinchuriki, huh."
Feeling that chakra, Sora clenched his fists. Suffocatingly cold killing intent flickered in his feral eyes.
More than ten years ago, it had been this same presence, this same chakra.
It had taken everything from him.
"I really, really, really..."
BOOM!!
A raging gale swept toward him. The ground beneath Sora shattered under that energy, countless broken rocks shooting into the sky before crashing down like hail.
Han, in his Half-Tailed-Beast Transformation, appeared before Sora in an instant, slashing his razor-sharp claws straight at Sora's face.
But before those bestial claws could fall, the space around him abruptly warped.
An irresistible force burst from Sora's palm, wrenching Han's body out of shape, dragging him in, and pulling him into Sora's hand.
"I really want every last one of you animals to die!"
Surging pride swelled Sora's muscles. His already enormous hand grew larger still as he clamped it around the half-transformed Han's head.
The humanoid beast leaped high with the half-transformed Han in his grip, leaving a blood-red trail through the air.
Han instinctively tried to struggle.
But Sora's hand was like an iron vise. He could neither break free nor budge it.
Pride even more violent than that behind his earlier punch coursed through Sora.
And then.
He slammed him down!
BOOOM!!!
It was a blow of unparalleled force, the explosive impact of a meteor crashing down from the heavens.
Terrifying shock waves and cracks spread outward from Sora's landing point. Rock Town Village, already largely ruined, was completely destroyed in that instant!
Countless rocks rose into the sky under the recoil as though gravity had vanished. The entire earth seemed to come apart.
"Aah!!"
The instant Sora leaped into the air, Samui ducked behind Kitsuchi and cast a defensive ninjutsu in front of herself.
Even though the impact struck ahead of her rather than where she stood, the surging shock wave still shattered her defensive ninjutsu. Kitsuchi, her human shield, passed out on the spot, barely breathing.
Sensing the impending eruption of the Tailed Beast's power, the Iwagakure shinobi all retreated, putting several miles between themselves and the battle as quickly as possible.
But they did not lower their guard. A force that possessed a Tailed Beast knew exactly how much destruction these living natural disasters could wreak. Every Hidden Stone shinobi present stood ready, their expressions grim.
"What are you doing here?"
Suddenly, dozens of figures appeared beside them.
Their leader had a lean face and spiky hair. He frowned at the Hidden Stone shinobi standing on alert.
"Lord Hunt! Lord Han is fighting Yotsuki Sora, and he's already entered his Half-Tailed-Beast Transformation. He told us to retreat..."
BOOM!!
Before the Hidden Stone shinobi could finish, a terrifying crash thundered in the distance. The residual shock wave reached them a moment later.
The monstrous wave swept up countless clouds of dust and broken rocks, shaking the ground like an earthquake as it spread in every direction. Everyone present froze.
"This...!"
"Has the fight really gotten that intense?!"
"The power of a Tailed Beast really is terrifying."
"It is Lord Han, after all. That bastard must be as good as dead now."
"Of course!"
The Hidden Stone shinobi spoke up one after another, faint smiles appearing on their faces.
In their eyes, powerful as that man was, he was no match for a Tailed Beast, a living natural disaster.
But some of the elite shinobi, along with Hunt, who had just arrived at the battlefield, wore grave expressions.
Unless they had sensed it wrong, the source of that chakra... was not Tailed Beast chakra.
Which meant...
Hunt's heart sank as an unsettling suspicion arose.
But even he did not dare casually step onto a battlefield where a Tailed Beast was unleashing its full power.
For now, all they could do was wait.
Rock Town Village had vanished completely. At the center of the ruins, a figure lay crumpled on the ground.
"Cough, cough..."
Han coughed up blood, barely clinging to life.
Not even his Tailed Beast Cloak could withstand that devastating slam. At the instant of impact, he had clearly felt the force punch straight through his Tailed Beast Cloak and spread throughout his body.
His muscles, his blood vessels, his organs.
That force had seemed to penetrate straight through him, striking directly at the most vulnerable parts inside his body.
He wanted to keep drawing on the Tailed Beast's power, but his body had already reached its limit. It could no longer support him.
"You bastard..."
A shadow fell across Han's vision. He tried desperately to lift his head, only for a large foot to pin it down.
Sora looked down at Han without expression. His gaze seemed to pierce Han's body and see the pure-white beast sealed within him.
"What do you think would happen if I undid the seal right here and let that animal out?"
"No. You can't."
Han spoke weakly.
Tailed Beasts were born of nature, once the freest and most powerful beings in this world.
But humans, hungry for power, had sealed them away and used them in war.
A life sealed away without a glimpse of daylight was utter torment for any creature. From the moment they were sealed, the Tailed Beasts' greatest wish was to break free.
Once the seal was broken, even the Five-Tails, one of the more docile Tailed Beasts, would unleash every last bit of its pent-up emotion!
Rock Town Village lay deep within the Land of Earth. Though it stood beside the uninhabited Heavenly White Mountains, an important town in the Land of Earth lay just a little farther beyond.
If the Tailed Beast were released...
Feeling the Steam Ninja struggle beneath his foot, Sora curled his lips into a mocking smile.
"So you people want to control this power, yet you're afraid of it yourselves."
How ridiculous.
Greedy fools always liked to tamper with a box of destruction.
Iwagakure or the Hidden Cloud—it made no difference.
For power, for victory in war, they would unhesitatingly meddle with and create things they could never control, things that could easily destroy them!
"..."
Sora took out a scroll and formed a release seal with one hand.
The Amber Purifying Pot appeared.
"Th-this is..."
"A ninja tool of the Six Paths! That's a ninja tool of the Six Paths, Han!"
Inside Han, the white dolphin-horse grew frantic, ramming wildly against the shackles of its seal. "Let me out! Let me out, you bastard!"
Before you continue