A massive hand of sand, ten meters across, smashed toward Miki Yūya.
An attack covering such a wide area was almost impossible to dodge. He could only take it head-on.
Kidomaru and Tayuya, gravely wounded and sprawled on the ground, were still struggling to get away. They had to hurry, at least reach the edge of the battlefield, even if they had to crawl.
Insane. Two complete lunatics.
Faced with the enormous sand hand blotting out the sky, Miki Yūya did not retreat an inch. Run? Not a chance. If fear of death kept me from bullying people, what kind of villager would I be? I might as well become a ninja.
As a Konoha villager, I'm not one of those ninjas who runs at the first sign of danger.
"Is that all?"
Miki Yūya neither dodged nor evaded. He pushed his physical strength to its limit and clenched his right fist again. He could feel it: wind flowing between his fingers, wind flowing over his hand. Even the wind has acknowledged my dominance?
The next instant, his hand clenched tight, crushing the air until it burst!
Boom!
A simple, pure punch blasted straight ahead!
BANG!!!
With that single punch, the surrounding air exploded. White wind pressure erupted from his fist, enveloping Miki Yūya in its currents.
The enormous sand hand before him buckled under the force, crumbling inch by inch.
Sand exploded and scattered as Miki Yūya punched a massive hole clean through the center of its palm.
Amid the flying sand, Miki Yūya shot forward like an arrow, charging through the opening toward Gaara behind it!
"An underdeveloped placenta dares attack me?"
"Your brain's been warped since childhood. A monster with nobody to raise you or teach you."
"Do you really think I'm some nice guy who respects the elderly and cherishes children? You think being young gives you the right to bare your teeth at me? Forget being a placenta-even if you weren't born yet?"
"I'd still beat your ass!!"
[Ding! Conqueror's Haki +18] [Ding! Conqueror's Haki +16]
By now, Gaara's reason had vanished completely. He had only one thought: kill Miki Yūya.
The yellow sand covering him writhed and gathered wildly.
A vicious tanuki head emerged fully from the sand, enveloping Gaara's body. This was not the form he had taken when facing Naruto. This was not his power slipping out of control, but power Gaara had deliberately drawn upon.
Shukaku's crimson slit pupils locked onto the charging Miki Yūya, and he opened his mouth.
The surrounding air followed the flowing sand, gathering frantically in Shukaku's mouth.
White currents compressed and condensed at tremendous speed, becoming an intensely concentrated sphere of Wind Release chakra.
Tailed Beast Bomb precursor-Great Sphere Wind Release!
The next second!
BOOM!!!
A devastating pillar of white wind erupted from Shukaku!
It tore through the air, sweeping up all the sand on the ground and drawing it into the wind column.
The extreme wind speed carried countless lethal wind blades and grains of sand, covering the entire battlefield.
Miki Yūya had pushed his Observation Haki to its limit!
Countless warnings of mortal danger hammered frantically at his mind.
But he could not dodge!
There was simply no way!
This was a tailed beast-level, wide-area killing move. Its reach was too vast, shutting off every possible escape route.
Miki Yūya's weaknesses were laid completely bare.
His foundation in Armament Haki was weak, his body's defensive limits were low, and his speed was limited. Wide-area ninjutsu was his greatest nemesis. He could neither evade it nor defend against it.
A suffocating sense of death gripped him!
"Am I going to die?"
Looking at the white wind column streaked with yellow, Miki Yūya thought of the public toilets he had built at the village gate. He had never imagined the shinobi world contained ninjutsu this vile.
If I die to a technique that looks like explosive diarrhea, won't I become the most humiliating death in the shinobi world?
At that moment, countless thoughts flashed wildly through Miki Yūya's mind. In a haze, his life flashed before his eyes, but this time, something seemed different.
He saw Sato, Yamamoto, and Kawada, who had dug the public toilets with him at the Konoha Village Gate.
He remembered Konohamaru, who bickered and played with him every day-meaning one-sided humiliation and bullying.
He remembered the shopkeepers running stalls in the village, the ordinary villagers passing by, all those familiar faces.
"So... I have bonds in Konoha too. Companions, and a place where I belong."
"Everyone!!!"
At that moment, tears welled in Miki Yūya's eyes.
But the very next second!
Countless noisy voices filled the scene.
"That bastard's finally going to die! What a relief!"
"He should've died ages ago. An orphan with no mom or dad-what's he even alive for? To pollute Konoha's air?"
"He dared insult my grandpa and humiliate the Hokage. He deserves to die. Grandpa never should've protected villagers like him."
"He's just a little handsome. Apart from his face, he's completely worthless. Good riddance. Now I've climbed another spot in the looks rankings."
"Hurry up and burn the corpse completely. Check it carefully. We absolutely cannot leave him any chance of Impure World Reincarnation!"
"From now on, I'll have to carry Konoha's good looks all by myself!"
"Oh, right. How about we celebrate with a big meal later?"
"Who's paying?"
"Let's have Miki Yūya pay. You only die once in your life. On such an important day, he ought to treat us..."
"Then let's hurry and get his money."
[Ding! Observation Haki +19] [Ding! Observation Haki +15]
Miki Yūya froze in midair, utterly dumbfounded!
Fuck your mother!!!
Whose life flashes before their eyes with nothing but enemies sending them off?! If you're going to give me a life review, do it properly! Can't you make it a little touching?
I'm about to die, and you dumbasses are still stabbing me in the back?!
A bunch of fucking dogs!! How can you be so selfish?
"Fuck it! Even if I die, I'm taking this placenta down with me!"
Miki Yūya's eyes turned bloodshot, and all his vicious fury erupted as he faced the devastating Wind Release head-on.
SHRRRK!!!
The sharp wind blades instantly tore through his flesh, shredding his clothes as well.
Countless bloody cuts of varying depths spread across his body, and blood gushed out.
Caught in this wide-area attack, Miki Yūya could barely keep his vital points out of harm's way.
Yet the pain cut to the bone, and his flesh was still being torn open!
Like a kite with its string severed, he was blasted away by the terrifying impact and hurled straight into the sky.
High in the air, wind whistled past his ears as the blood-drenched Miki Yūya looked down.
The entire forest had been completely covered in yellow sand. Gaara's power, Shukaku's power, had already surpassed the realm of ordinary ninjas.
"Placenta really does cover every hill and valley!"
Miki Yūya tossed out the quip. Gaara really was spread across the entire landscape.
Just then, Gaara below looked up at Miki Yūya.
He frantically drew on Shukaku's chakra within him, and his Tailed Beast Transformation swelled again, shooting up to dozens of meters tall!
Shukaku had fully taken shape. Gaara roared at the sky and suddenly leaped upward.
He lunged at the gravely wounded Miki Yūya in midair, pure malice and killing intent locking onto him.
"Die!! Disappear completely!!"
Gaara's furious voice rang out.
"You think you can?!"
In midair, Miki Yūya braced himself.
He unleashed his Conqueror's Haki at full power.
Unlike his earlier omnidirectional, indiscriminate mental crushing, this time Miki Yūya poured almost everything he had into a targeted strike.
Pure, domineering mental intimidation pierced the air, pierced the layers of sand, and finally pierced the seal!
It slammed straight into Shukaku, the One-Tail inside Gaara.
Throughout the shinobi world, it was common knowledge that mental techniques were what tailed beasts feared most.
Even the Nine-Tails could not resist a three-tomoe Sharingan, let alone Shukaku, the One-Tail who ranked at the bottom in fighting power.
Miki Yūya's Conqueror's Haki might not surpass every kind of genjutsu, but its pure suppression and mental impact were far more domineering than illusions.
"A worthless little One-Tail, an underdeveloped placenta just like your host, dares bare your fangs at me?!"
"Get lost!!!"
A soundless mental explosion suddenly erupted within Shukaku's inner world!
THOOM!!!
Deep within the seal, Shukaku's head instantly rang!
His formerly rampaging chakra stalled, and his entire body seemed to freeze.
The chakra connection between him and Gaara was severed outright.
The insult of "placenta" pierced straight through every shred of Shukaku's pride, leaving him stunned.
He had never imagined that someone would not only humiliate a Jinchūriki, but humiliate the tailed beast too.
But he was stunned for only an instant. The Conqueror's Haki aimed at him was so overwhelming that Shukaku toppled straight into sleep.
At that moment, Shukaku, the One-Tail, was also struck into a tailed beast version of a life review by Conqueror's Haki.
Unconscious, Shukaku began revisiting his memories.
He remembered the warm days inside the Sage of Six Paths' body.
He remembered the years after leaving the Sage of Six Paths' body, when the Nine-Tails excluded him and mocked his weakness.
He remembered the endless darkness of being sealed, exploited, and tormented by humans for centuries.
His already insecure, sensitive heart was utterly shattered by a single word: "placenta."
It was not that Shukaku truly was insecure and sensitive. Rather, tailed beasts had simply never experienced anything like this.
Their experiences amounted to being treated as disasters, being called too dangerous and needing to be controlled, and being used as weapons of war.
But from birth until now, nobody had ever launched a personal attack against a tailed beast.
So Shukaku really did crack.
Rumble.
On the battlefield outside, all the suspended, raging, flowing yellow sand stopped.
The lingering Wind Release abruptly ceased, as though someone had pressed pause on the entire world.
Deprived of tailed beast chakra and struck by powerful mental backlash, Gaara's body suddenly stiffened.
A metallic taste rose in his throat, and he spewed a great mouthful of crimson blood.
His Tailed Beast Transformation was forcibly undone.
All his strength was drained in an instant!
His body went limp and his consciousness blurred as he hung frozen in midair, face-to-face with Miki Yūya.
At this point, Gaara had lost every means of fighting back.
Now!
In midair, Miki Yūya, his flesh torn open and his blood-soaked figure savage, endured the agonizing pain throughout his body and suddenly dove.
Using the momentum of his fall, he gathered every last scrap of strength into his right fist.
BANG!!!
One precise, brutal, clean punch!
It slammed viciously into Gaara's head.
The sand armor carrying his mother's "love" was powerless to defend Gaara, barely managing to weaken the blow a fraction.
The two figures, one above the other, plunged with the whistling wind and crashed heavily into the thick sea of sand below.
Thud!
Sand sprayed everywhere.
Both figures fell to the ground.
Miki Yūya was covered in wounds, blood constantly seeping from them?
His wounds were hideous, and his stamina was completely exhausted, yet he stubbornly clung to consciousness and did not pass out.
Gaara lay on his back in a sand crater, his head ringing, his vision blurry and dark. His chakra was in total disarray, agonizing pain wracked his chakra pathways, and even his mind had suffered a blow.
That last strike had inflicted even worse damage than the Land of Snow's Chakra Absorption Device. The backlash from such a forcible severing was far too severe.
Now, deathly silence enveloped the battlefield.
A short while passed.
Rustle...
Covered in blood and grime, Miki Yūya braced his battered body, gritted his teeth, and painstakingly pushed himself up inch by inch until he staggered upright.
Dragging his ruined body, his mouth spread in a grin, he slowly walked toward the collapsed Gaara, one step at a time.
Through his blurred vision, Gaara watched the figure walking toward him.
Am I going to die...?
This time... I'm really going to die, Mother...
But the killing blow he expected never came.
Miki Yūya slowly raised his hand and flipped off the fallen Gaara!
"Feeling cocky, huh?"
"You thought that lump of underdeveloped placenta inside you would let you walk all over me?"
"So what if you both have tattoos? You in the mob or something?"
With that, Miki Yūya raised his foot and viciously stomped on Gaara's face, again and again.
He ground Sunagakure's prodigy, the One-Tail Jinchuriki, into the yellow sand, brutalizing him at will!
[Ding! Armament Haki +15] [Ding! Armament Haki +17]
Yes!! That felt so damn good!
Villagers should bully the hell out of shinobi.
But what Miki Yūya didn't know was-
Shukaku, the One-Tail who had been stunned senseless by Conqueror's Haki, was rapidly regaining consciousness deep within the seal.
The utter humiliation hadn't broken him. Instead, it was helping him tear down the barriers between himself and Gaara!
The hatred, suspicion, and estrangement between human and Tailed Beast quietly melted away beneath their shared, overwhelming humiliation.
Shukaku slowly regained consciousness, and his mind no longer opposed Gaara's.
His will began rapidly aligning, merging, and synchronizing with Gaara's!
The human and the One-Tail put aside their old grudges, their minds and wills slowly melding together under the humiliation.
No one could have imagined it!
With this bout of indiscriminate bullying, Miki Yūya had-
Forced a human and a One-Tail who had spent over a decade trying to kill and torment each other onto the path toward becoming a perfect jinchuriki!
Meanwhile.
On the other side of the forest, Naruto had also caught up with Jirobo and Sakon and Ukon.
Rock Lee, fresh out of surgery, was also racing toward the battlefield.
At a distant Otogakure outpost, inside a dark, cavernous research facility.
Orochimaru had just completed another reincarnation ritual, reshaping his body.
Kabuto stood beside him with a bow, presenting the intelligence relayed by Kidomaru's summoned creature.
"Lord Orochimaru, Kidomaru reports that Neji Hyuga has successfully left Konoha and is preparing to join us."
"Neji? Hizashi's son?"
Orochimaru's narrow eyes narrowed slightly, a flicker of surprise passing through them before he slowly understood. If it was someone from the branch family, that made sense. He chuckled softly.
"It seems things are a little more troublesome than I imagined. Still, not all that troublesome."
Orochimaru slowly rose. He had chosen Sasuke because he had witnessed Itachi's power.
But the Hyuga Clan's bloodline was no ordinary one, either.
"Kabuto, stay and guard the base."
"I'm going to take a look myself."
Before you continue