Wood Release: Hotei Technique

The Seven-Tails, the only one of the nine tailed beasts capable of flight, resembled a gigantic beetle with its insect-like appearance. At this moment, the beast sealed within Fū was stirring with violent energy. Unlike the dark, malevolent chakra of the Nine-Tails or the rage-filled chakra of the One-Tail, the Seven-Tails' chakra emitted an aura of impatience and restlessness, making anyone in its presence feel inexplicably irritated.

Furen, observing the Seven-Tails in its second form, now fully cloaked in a black-and-red chakra shroud, pointed to its insect-like wings with curiosity.

"Little bug, can you fly?" he asked, almost playfully.

In this second form, the Seven-Tails, unlike the other tailed beasts, stood on two legs, with its hands free and not crouched like a typical beast. Its insect-like wings were the most obvious distinction from the other forms of tailed beasts.

"Gurrr..."

The Seven-Tails growled in its beastly form. Though Fū's consciousness was now lost within the beast's chakra, the full will of the Seven-Tails hadn't yet awakened. It didn't fully comprehend Furen's words, but it felt as though it had been provoked. With an empty, hollow roar, the beast charged at Furen.

In its berserk state, a tailed beast's sole objective was simple: to destroy every living thing in its path. This was the manifestation of the tailed beasts' long-standing desire for revenge against the shinobi who had sought to exploit them for centuries.

Seeing yet another tailed beast coming at him in a blind rage, Furen shrugged casually. He activated the cells of the First Hokage within his body and began weaving hand signs.

"Wood Release: Deep Forest Emergence!"

From the ground behind the waterfall, massive wooden tendrils sprouted, reaching out to grab the rampaging Seven-Tails and restrain it. Wood Release had a natural suppressive effect on tailed beasts. Once caught by Furen's wood-style technique, the Seven-Tails would suffer the same fate as the One-Tail and Nine-Tails during the previous exams—reduced to nothing more than a chakra battery.

The trees grew swiftly, entangling the Seven-Tails and closing in to capture it. But just as the wooden tendrils were about to seize the beast, the Seven-Tails leaped into the air, as if anticipating the attack, evading the wooden grasp entirely.

The beast soared into the sky, bursting out from behind the waterfall and taking flight.

"Heh, little bug, you really can fly!" Furen remarked with a grin.

He stood up, following the Seven-Tails outside the cave. As soon as he emerged from behind the waterfall, the beast immediately attacked him, its sharp claws slashing toward his head.

"You sure are mischievous..." Furen chuckled, forming hand seals once again. From his body, numerous wooden tendrils grew, attempting to catch the airborne beast.

However, once more, the Seven-Tails utilized its flight advantage, easily dodging the wooden tendrils that reached out to grab it.

"You're quite the handful," Furen mused as he stood atop the roaring waterfall, watching the flying Seven-Tails. Realizing the beast was no longer attempting physical attacks, he noticed its mouth beginning to gather a dense, black sphere of chakra—a tailed beast bomb.

"Hmm, not the best place for Deep Forest Emergence... all this water is slowing the wood down," Furen muttered, glancing at the waterfall and the flowing river below. The water was a major hindrance, limiting the effectiveness of his wood-style technique and preventing him from catching the nimble Seven-Tails.

If even Deep Forest Emergence couldn't match the beast's speed, let alone the massive Wood Golem Jutsu, then he needed something else.

"I guess there's one more technique," Furen whispered to himself. Just as he prepared to activate this technique, the Seven-Tails launched its tailed beast bomb, hurling it straight toward Furen.

With calm precision, Furen clapped his hands together and shouted, "Wood Release: Hotei Technique!"

The moment he completed the jutsu, massive wooden hands emerged from the surrounding rocks, shooting toward the tailed beast bomb. These wooden hands were far faster and sturdier than those from the Wood Golem or Deep Forest Emergence. This was the same technique that the First Hokage, Hashirama Senju, had once used to catch Madara Uchiha's full-powered Susanoo sword and restrain the Nine-Tails wrapped in Susanoo armor.

One of the wooden hands stretched out and, just in time, caught the incoming tailed beast bomb, then flung it right back at the Seven-Tails.

Suspended in mid-air, the Seven-Tails, which had relied on its flight to evade previous attacks, was now completely surrounded by the wooden hands. Unable to escape, it could only watch in horror as its own tailed beast bomb hurtled back toward it.

Boom!

The explosion shook the landscape, the resulting shockwave even temporarily parting the waterfall, creating a brief moment of stillness in the cascading water. As the dust and smoke cleared, Furen looked toward the airborne beast.

To his surprise, the Seven-Tails had managed to break free from the All-Encompassing Bags technique. Its tails were growing back, and its black-and-red chakra cloak was shifting, morphing into black armor-like plates as its body expanded.

"This is... a full transformation... it's going berserk?" Furen said, his expression growing more serious. The Seven-Tails was beginning to move beyond its second form, heading toward its complete form—a fully awakened tailed beast, no longer bound by any human consciousness.

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T/N:

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