"That bastard..."
Mei Terumi and Ao watched the figure radiating golden chakra crush the signal flare beneath his foot, their expressions turning grim.
As ninja, they had long since prepared themselves, and neither feared death.
The only thing they found difficult to accept now was that they seemed unlikely to get the intelligence back.
Having learned something so incredible, something that would cause such tremendous upheaval in the Shinobi World, they no longer cared whether they lived or died.
What they needed to do was pass this information to their village, to people they could trust.
But the arrogant man before them possessed strength that truly exceeded their imagination.
His speed, strength, reflexes, and even the potency of his chakra were all terrifying.
No matter how they considered it, they could not imagine someone like him coming to their village with good intentions.
After all, that was the power of the Nine-Tails. It was truly not something ordinary ninja could handle.
To deal with someone like him, they would probably need the Kage and the village's strongest ninja to come together before they could even claim to be able to suppress him!
It had to be said that the two of them were fairly clearheaded.
Even after such a brief exchange, they had already formed a reasonably accurate assessment.
In truth, Xia Yan using the Nine-Tails' power against his current opponents was rather like using a sledgehammer to crack a nut.
If he had not been trying to familiarize himself with this combat state while achieving the greatest possible intimidation and deterrence, he would have felt rather embarrassed to use it.
Judging by the original story, although Naruto and Sasuke developed at different rates at different times, there was always a point of balance to be found.
From their initial