Gengetsu's gravely wounded, dying body recovered completely in the blink of an eye, leaving the Fourth Raikage, Killer B, and Yugito Nii shocked.
But that surprise lasted only an instant.
"No matter what ninjutsu you just used!"
"If we could wound you once, we can severely wound you again!"
Fourth Raikage A roared. At the same time, lightning release chakra erupted from his entire body again, and the hair on his head stood on end.
"Yugito, don't give him a chance to catch his breath! Let's go!"
"You damned bastard, die! Bakayarō, baka...!"
Shouting in an extremely grating rap, Killer B controlled the Eight-Tails' power and attacked Gengetsu.
"Die, Hokage of Konoha!"
At those words, Yugito Nii let out a piercing roar of fury. She likewise controlled Matatabi, whose entire body burned with blue flames, and attacked Gengetsu.
The Fourth Raikage, meanwhile, pushed the lightning release chakra activating his entire body to its limit and shot toward Gengetsu like a cannonball.
Facing the three attackers once again, Gengetsu stood at the bottom of the deep crater without the slightest fear on his face. Instead, he smiled.
"Just what I wanted!"
"Since you're in such a hurry to die, it looks like I'll have to show some of my real ability and let you see what true despair means!"
The instant he finished speaking, Gengetsu clapped his hands together forcefully, and a terrifying surge of vitality erupted from his body.
"Wood Release: Deep Forest Emergence!"
Rumble! Rumble!
In an instant, the ground shook, then burst apart as countless enormous tree roots broke through the soil.
The trees began growing and shooting upward at a terrifying speed that completely defied the laws of nature.
In just a short time, thousands upon thousands of towering trees rose from the ground. Their thick branches intertwined and coiled together, their luxuriant foliage blotting out the sky.
Soon, the entire area had become a world of trees brimming with life, yet filled with deadly danger!
"What?! Th-this is Wood Release!"
"How is that possible? Isn't he from the Uchiha Clan?!"
"How can someone from the Uchiha Clan use Wood Release? That's absolutely impossible!"
Killer B and Yugito Nii, who had been charging forward aggressively, were forced to stop by the terrifying sea of trees rising from the ground. They stared in disbelief at the wildly growing forest before them.
Gengetsu was clearly a member of the Uchiha Clan. Wasn't their clan's kekkei genkai the Sharingan, renowned throughout the shinobi world?
Wasn't Wood Release an ability possessed only by Hashirama Senju, the legendary First Hokage who founded Konoha? Wasn't it an ability belonging only to the Senju Clan?!
How could Gengetsu of the Uchiha Clan use the kekkei genkai of their mortal enemies, the Senju Clan?!
It wasn't just Killer B and Yugito Nii who were utterly bewildered. Even the experienced and knowledgeable Fourth Raikage halted his charge, staring in horror at the sea of trees blotting out the sky around him.
Meanwhile, in the fortress nearby, the Konoha ninja who had already prepared to fight to the death were all completely dumbfounded.
"I-I'm not seeing things, am I? Did the Fifth Hokage just use Wood Release?!"
"Th-this really does look like the First Hokage's Wood Release! There's no mistaking this power to change the terrain!"
"But isn't the Fifth Hokage from the Uchiha Clan? How can he use Wood Release?!"
"Well, I don't know either! Could the Fifth Hokage have both Senju and Uchiha blood?"
Clearly, these Konoha ninja truly could not understand why Gengetsu, the head of the Uchiha Clan, could use Wood Release ninjutsu that existed only in legend.
The sight, which overturned the common knowledge of the shinobi world, shook their entire worldview.
But Gengetsu paid no attention to how surprised they were, much less gave his enemies any time to catch their breath.
Standing in the center of the sea of trees, Gengetsu clapped his hands together forcefully again. The ocean-like chakra within his body surged wildly as he unleashed another ninjutsu.
"Wood Release: Wood Forest Entanglement Technique!"
Under Gengetsu's control, the countless towering trees around him seemed to come alive in an instant.
Enormous vines and trunks rapidly gathered together, forming hundreds upon thousands of huge wooden tentacles. Like a swarm of frenzied pythons, they rushed toward the Eight-Tails and Two-Tails in midair.
Facing the terrifying wooden tentacles attacking from every direction, the Eight-Tails and Two-Tails let out earthshaking roars and launched ferocious counterattacks.
"Get away from me!"
Gyuki, the Eight-Tails, roared, swinging mountain-sized fists and eight thick tails to smash the trees rushing forward.
Every blow shattered more than a dozen towering trees.
Matatabi, the Two-Tails, let out piercing screeches. Blue flames burned all over her body as she used her razor-sharp feline claws to tear the incoming trunks into showers of wood chips.
Fourth Raikage A likewise pushed the lightning release chakra activating his entire body to its limit, using his unstoppable lightning hand chops and heavy punches to break the trees surging wildly toward him from all around.
The three of them were indeed immensely powerful. Every attack destroyed large numbers of trees with deafening crashes.
But there were simply too many trees around them, and they grew far too quickly!
Whenever they destroyed one large tree, two more instantly sprouted from underground.
When they destroyed two large trees, even more surged forward in an endless, densely packed tide.
Thus, after they had attacked frantically for so long and destroyed so many trees, the trees around them had not diminished at all. Instead, they had grown even more numerous and dense!
Countless thick vines and trunks clung like a persistent blight, coiling relentlessly around the enormous bodies of the Two-Tails and Eight-Tails.
What terrified them even more was that the instant these Wood Release tentacles touched their bodies, they began frantically absorbing the tailed beast chakra from both the Two-Tails and Eight-Tails!
This was the truly terrifying power of Wood Release: endless regeneration and the ability to forcibly absorb an enemy's chakra for its own use!
"Damn it! Yugito, we can't let this go on!"
Feeling the chakra rapidly draining from his body, Killer B finally realized something was wrong and immediately shouted to Yugito Nii on the other side.
"These strange trees are absorbing our chakra! Use Tailed Beast Bombs! Destroy all the trees in one shot! Flatten this entire place!"
"Understood!"
Hearing Killer B's words, Yugito Nii, who was thoroughly fed up with the countless vines entangling her, immediately answered.
The Tailed Beast Bomb was the most powerful ultimate attack a tailed beast could unleash.
By mixing and compressing yin and yang chakra in the mouth at a ratio of two to eight, every tailed beast could release a Tailed Beast Bomb with the terrifying power to devastate everything and easily destroy a mountain.
Now, faced with these strange trees that kept coming, endlessly regenerated, and could even absorb chakra, their only way to break the deadlock completely was to unleash Tailed Beast Bombs.
"Roar!"
"Roar!"
The two enormous tailed beasts, the Eight-Tails and Two-Tails, roared and opened their cavernous mouths at the same time.
Violent chakra surged frantically toward their mouths, and the surrounding air warped violently under that terrifying power.
Soon, two enormous black energy spheres finished forming.
"Tailed Beast Bomb! Die!"
"Die!"
With two earthshaking roars, the enormous Tailed Beast Bombs shot like cannonballs toward Gengetsu below, accompanied by terrifying howls.
"Just what I wanted!"
Facing the two incoming Tailed Beast Bombs capable of destroying everything, Gengetsu showed no panic at all. Instead, he clapped his hands together again.
"Wood Release: Hōbi Technique!"
Before Gengetsu, countless trees rapidly gathered and compressed into two enormous shields carved with fanged demonic faces, standing in front of him.
At that very moment, the two pitch-black Tailed Beast Bombs slammed into them.
Boom!
There was no earthshaking explosion, nor were the shields destroyed as expected.
The seemingly fragile giant shields actually displayed a defense strong enough to inspire despair.
The shields easily blocked the terrifying impact of the Tailed Beast Bombs. Then they rebounded, actually sending both enormous Tailed Beast Bombs flying away!
Whoosh! Whoosh!
Boom! Boom!
Immediately afterward, the two deflected Tailed Beast Bombs landed deep in the mountains.
With two earthshaking explosions, two enormous mushroom clouds rose, and two tall mountains were destroyed outright.
"What?! They were blocked?!"
"How is that possible? Those were Tailed Beast Bombs!"
Seeing that the tailed beasts' most powerful ultimate attacks, Tailed Beast Bombs that could easily flatten a mountain, had failed to harm Gengetsu in the slightest, Killer B's and Yugito Nii's enormous bodies jolted. Their faces showed utter horror and incomprehension.
But the things that would leave the two of them despairing and astonished were not over yet!
"Wood Release: Wood Dragon Technique!"
Gengetsu clapped his hands together again, and a deafening dragon's roar rang out from deep within the sea of trees.
Countless thick trees frantically gathered and intertwined, forming an enormous Wood Dragon no smaller than a tailed beast.
With its jaws open and claws outstretched, the Wood Dragon charged straight at the Two-Tails in midair with an incomparably terrifying presence.
Before Matatabi could make any move to dodge, the enormous Wood Dragon coiled tightly around her.
"Roar!"
Yugito Nii let out an enraged roar, controlling the Two-Tails as she struggled wildly, her sharp claws gouging deep marks into the Wood Dragon.
But unfortunately, no matter how she struggled, it was useless.
The vines on the Wood Dragon tightened further and further. More terrifying still, the Wood Dragon absorbed chakra over ten times faster than the trees had before!
The blue flames on the Two-Tails' body began dimming at a speed visible to the naked eye.
This was the terrifying ability Hashirama Senju had once used to easily suppress even the Nine-Tails at its peak, leaving it unable to escape. Subduing the mere Two-Tails with it was child's play.
"Damn it! Yugito! I'm coming to save you!"
Seeing the Two-Tails trapped tightly by the Wood Dragon and her chakra rapidly draining away, Killer B's eyes nearly split with fury. He immediately controlled the enormous Eight-Tails and charged forward, intending to swing his tentacles, sever the Wood Dragon, and rescue the Two-Tails.
But unfortunately, Gengetsu would not give him that chance.
Another violent rumble came from the ground. Countless thick trees sprang up like indestructible city walls, completely blocking the Eight-Tails' path.
No matter how frantically the Eight-Tails smashed them, these wooden walls kept regenerating, shutting him out completely.
"Damn it, let go! Let me go!"
"What the hell is this thing?! My chakra..."
Held tightly by the Wood Dragon, Yugito Nii felt the power rapidly draining from her body. She kept struggling and crying out in terror.
She wanted to break free of the Wood Dragon's restraints, but unfortunately, no matter how desperately she struggled, the Wood Dragon remained utterly motionless, as though cast from iron.
"It's useless!"
Gengetsu stood on a treetop below, looking down at the Two-Tails' desperate struggle as a cold smile curled his lips.
"With that level of power, you actually dream of dancing before an Uchiha?"
"Now, you're mine!"
"This also happens to be a perfect opportunity to see what controlling a tailed beast feels like!"
"Genjutsu!"
At that moment, Gengetsu moved directly in front of the enormous Two-Tails as leisurely as if he were strolling through a courtyard.
His scarlet Mangekyō Sharingan released immensely powerful dōjutsu power, which surged like a tide into the Two-Tails' mental world.
In an instant, the enormous body of the Two-Tails, who had still been struggling and roaring wildly, stiffened abruptly. She immediately fell completely silent.
Within the Two-Tails' feline eyes appeared a pattern identical to Gengetsu's Sharingan.
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