Swallowed Whole

Naoki twisted and leaped through the ruined street, his sword flashing as he slashed again and again.

Shinno had completed his Tailed Beast transformation. Nothing human remained in his appearance. He was now an enormous monster with multiple dragon heads, wreathed in highly corrosive black chakra.

That chakra seemed alive, as though it could hunt on its own.

More than once, Naoki had seen it engulf an unsuspecting Konoha shinobi. Moments later, it spat out nothing but an unrecognizable mass of bloody, mangled flesh.

"Everyone, fall back!"

He shouted the warning as he dodged.

Chunin and genin could do almost nothing here. Charging fearlessly at Shinno would only add to the casualties.

The nearby Konoha shinobi hesitated, then withdrew. They knew this fight was beyond them.

Fortunately, the civilians in the surrounding blocks had already been evacuated. If all he had to do was keep the rampaging jinchuriki of Moryo occupied, Naoki was not afraid of Shinno.

Whoosh!

He used the Body Flicker Technique again, evading a dragon head's lunge, then landed atop a broken wall. Breathing lightly, he assessed the situation.

Whatever had detained the Third earlier, Shinno's complete transformation would force him to make this his priority. Naoki knew he only needed to hold out a little longer before he could leave the rest to someone else.

One of Shinno's dragon heads drew close and opened its maw. "Homura Uchiha! Do you see now? This is my power!" it boomed.

Naoki tensed. 'He's transformed this far, and his own mind is still in control? How did he manage that?'

For a jinchuriki, a complete Tailed Beast transformation usually meant losing oneself.

Apart from the rare perfect jinchuriki who reached an understanding with their Tailed Beasts, most exercised extreme restraint. They unleashed that power only when they had no other choice.

Once they lost control, the Tailed Beast would overwhelm their consciousness. The rampaging beast would then become an autonomous weapon capable of devastating the entire village.

"Oh, right. There's this, too!"

Shinno laughed, and the black chakra around him abruptly swelled.

Rubble clattered.

The surrounding earth and masonry seemed to come alive. Driven by the surging black chakra, they quickly assembled into ranks of armored soldiers.

Naoki reacted at once, his hands flying through seals. "Fire Release: Great Fire Annihilation!"

Flames roared.

A fierce wall of fire surged toward Shinno, casting a red glow across half the sky.

But when the flames reached him, the black chakra around his body canceled out much of their force. Within a few breaths, the fire was gone.

"Tch!"

Naoki clicked his tongue.

That exchange revealed another function of the black chakra. It could do more than hunt independently; it also formed a protective layer around Shinno's body.

Without the Dragon Vein nearby, Naoki was back to relying on his own chakra reserves. The Fire Release clone was also less developed than his Water Release clone. Its reserves were slightly smaller than those of either the Water Release body or his Yin Release true body.

Besides, ordinary ninjutsu had limited effect against a monster on the level of a Tailed Beast. Unless someone could turn a casual B-rank technique into an S-rank attack the way Madara Uchiha could, it took a whole squad working in close coordination with combined ninjutsu to have any chance of briefly suppressing such a creature.

'Even the Third and the others may not be able to deal with those stone soldiers!'

Naoki's expression darkened as he watched the puppets spread into the surrounding streets.

He had seen these stone soldiers in the Land of Demons. As long as Shinno, Moryo's jinchuriki, kept supplying them with chakra, they were practically indestructible. If he remained in Konoha much longer, the sheer number of puppets would put the civilians in terrible danger.

No, even ordinary shinobi might not survive them.

'Then I'll end this now.'

Having decided, Naoki sheathed his sword at his waist and walked slowly toward Shinno.

Shinno sounded surprised, then laughed. "Finally giving up now that you see how outmatched you are?"

"No," Naoki said flatly. "I've decided to finish you."

"You damned Uchiha!"

All of Shinno's heads roared in fury. Their booming voices carried so far that the Konoha shinobi holding the perimeter exchanged startled looks. Now they knew the lone fighter holding the monster back was an Uchiha.

Still roaring, Shinno sent a dragon head lunging recklessly at Naoki.

As the gaping maw bore down on him, the three tomoe in Naoki's Sharingan changed into an intricate pattern of interlocking diamonds and triangles.

Boom!

A heavy impact shook the ground.

Feeling Naoki pass into his stomach, Shinno laughed wildly. "So what if you're from one of the great shinobi clans? So what if you have an ocular Kekkei Genkai? I swallowed you just the same!"

But the moment he finished, he realized something was wrong.

Something seemed to be wreaking havoc inside his stomach. Without a Byakugan, he could not see inside his own body and had no idea what was happening.

Within him, a golden, spectral outline of a few ribs protected Naoki.

He had timed Susanoo's activation precisely, using it at the moment Shinno swallowed him. To conserve chakra, he had summoned only an incomplete form.

Surveying the flesh around him, Naoki smiled. "I'll teach you to be more careful about what you swallow."

He urged Susanoo's golden flames outward, setting Shinno's body alight from within.

Those flames could not match the black fire of Itachi's Amaterasu, which could easily subdue even the Three-Tails' jinchuriki, Yagura Karatachi, a shinobi who was virtually a perfect jinchuriki. But Naoki's golden fire had a special property of its own: it burned chakra. Even a Tailed Beast would suffer if it let those flames burn unchecked inside its belly.