Chapter 48

XXXXXX- THE GENIUS HYUGA

He fought down the urge to scowl with the ease of long practice as he and his partner covered the ground between the forest and the walls of Kusagakure. Their goal was simple. They were to infiltrate the village and assassinate the Head Jounin of the Hidden Village. Cutting off the snake's head from the get-go, so to speak. The problem with that, the reason he was annoyed, was that it was a marked departure from what the plans had previously been. In fact, it was such a sharp departure that there could only be one reason for it.

This was a test. Danzo wanted to test them again for some reason. That irritated Neji. He'd believed that they were done with their Sensei's seemingly never-ending barrage of tests. And now here was another. It was also annoying because Neji knew that the reason they'd not been informed earlier was purely to include the element of surprise into the rest itself. He had no doubts that Danzo had planned this out well before. The man hated rash and sudden actions with all the dictate a cat held for a bath. There was no chance he'd not planned this in advance. And if Danzo had planned this, then it was very likely that the Commanding Officers were more than aware of this aspect of the plan.

"Follow my lead" His teammate signed at him in one of the dozen variants of the Konoha Sign language that Danzo had forced them to learn in the first weeks of their training. He watched him with sharp eyes, byakugan inactive, as even the lightest application of chakra had a good chance of getting them caught. Kusa wasn't one of the great five, but they were still a hidden village at the end of the day.

Sasuke ramped up his speed for a few seconds, and in a series of movements that would have confounded his genin self- Neji's teammate reached the wall, planted one foot on it and then used that as his boost to begin running across the wall. He wasn't making use of chakra, purely relying on the momentum from his run across the ground. He spun in the air with one final boost before landing on the top of the wall. The guard there had no chance of sounding the alarm as Sasuke's kunai lashed out in a flash of light. The man fell to the ground, dead. Neji took a deep breath before running at the wall himself.

He was not a fan of the directness of this approach, but there was little he could say to fault it. They were on a time crunch, and this approach might as well be the most efficient one with how things looked. Sasuke signed at him some more and then turned to the other side of the wall, sliding down the wall with his gloves and boots to slow down his descent until he was close enough to dismount safely. Neji followed his lead. The body would be discovered soon enough, but as night was just beginning to fall, Neji had a good amount of hope that it would be a while until they'd need to change shifts. Long enough for them to complete their mission, at the very least.

Now, within the village, they could begin to make minor uses of their chakra. First things first, he activated his byakugan to assure himself that the coast was clear, and they'd not been noticed. He felt his teammate do the same beside him. Once he was sure of their safety, his next action was aimed at locating the head Jounin.

'Follow me' He signed at his partner, maintaining their unspoken agreement not to speak. They melded into the shadows and leaned heavily on their training to make the journey from the village's outskirts to the very centre of it without being noticed. The byakugan and sharingan made it child's play for them to avoid notice. This was the power of Konoha's premier kekkei genkai, Neji told himself.

The centre of Kusa's government was nothing when compared to the Hokage tower. Not when it came to outer appearances, at least. Learned in the geography of all the other great hidden villages, it was easy for Neji to see where Kusa had diverted from the example set by their betters. Their 'kage building', instead of stretching to the sky in a show of dominance and strength, the Kusa building did the opposite. For anyone without eyes like his, the building would be nothing to write home about from the outside. It was a bungalow in a sea of bungalows. Nothing special. Only the Byakugan allowed him to see that beneath the building there extended a complex network of tunnels that ran through most of the entire village. Instead of having the heart of the village be a skyscraper that stood as a bastion of the village's strength, Kusa had done the opposite. The minor village hid their heart beneath the armour of the ground.

'Is that the only entrance' Sasuke signed back after Neji informed him of the situation. Both of them kept at least a fraction of their attention on the bungalow and its highly unusual amount of foot traffic.

'Yes. We can't burrow, either. Landmines everywhere' he replied to his partner, waiting for a reply.

He didn't need to wait for long as Sasuke stretched himself out of the shadows for a second. If Neji had not been watching him, he might have missed the way his partner moved. Silently and quickly, he grabbed a hold of one of the men who was making his way into the bungalow and returned to their alcove with no one being any the wiser. When he let go of the man's mouth, he moved to scream but aborted the movement as his eyes caught Sasuke's. Sharingan genjutsu allowed Sasuke rifle through the man's mind as he asked question after question that the man answered. When he finished, he took the man's appearance and gave Neji a significant look. Neji copied his teammates previous movements to get another man for their interrogation. Once they finished, he took the second man's appearance, and they made their way into the building.

XXXXX- GAARA OF THE DESERT

Hiruzen Sarutobi had been known as the professor, the God of Shinobi, for his famed knowledge of every jutsu within the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Gaara would have tried something similar with Suna earlier on, but never could find the time and the energy. Now, adding the knowledge of Iwa to that collection should have made the task much more daunting.

But now, it seemed possible. Why? The eyeball spinning languidly in his left eye socket, of course. Obito Uchiha's Sharingan in Gaara's hands made a world of difference. He already enjoyed a photographic memory from his high intelligence stat, but the Sharingan could do much more than that when it came to accelerating the learning of ninjutsu. The ability to see how the chakra in his body flowed at every instance allowed him to accelerate the speed at which he picked up new jutsu beyond every expectation.

With the sharingan, he wasn't even obliged to commit himself to only focusing on the combat useful ninjutsu as he strived to learn every single jutsu that both Iwa and Suna had to offer.

"Do it again" He commanded the man standing across from him and watched as the Iwa Shinobi's chakra moved to combine both the lightning and earth releases to form the famed explosion release. A puff of smoke flew out from his outstretched hand as he triggered the jutsu while under the grasp of Gaara's genjutsu. It was a shame that the conventional wisdom turned out to be right in the instance. Everyone knew that the Sharingan could not copy Kekkei Genkai, but Gaara had only gotten where he was by questioning those things that everyone thought they knew. In this case, they were accurate. He could see how the chakra natures merged, but attempting to repeat that phenomenon in himself was basically impossible. Over a week of continuous attempts with no progress meant that his time and energy would be better spent elsewhere.

His wristband vibrated twice and he took a step back from the Captive Iwa shinobi. "Hold Still" He commanded with his spinning sharingan focused on his captive. Gaara scowled as he reached down to his pocket and took out the bottle of pills he carried around before swallowing two of them. They burned as they went down his throat, but he took the terrible taste with naught but a slight grimace. He'd managed to tinker the perfect set of supplements and drugs for his purposes, but making them taste good was a whole different beast that he didn't even know how to tackle. Everything he'd tried or taught off was going to come with tradeoffs in the form of increased side effects or reduced efficacy. The present side effects were already reasonably close to the limits that Gaara would be able to accept in return for the present set of benefits.

"Now, show me what earth release jutsu you know" he ordered after he was sure the drug had gone down and would not be returning the same way it went.

XXXXXXX- JIRAIYA THE TOAD SAGE

He strolled from the hut that he'd built for himself to the one that Tsunade resided in. That was their chosen meeting point for the time they'd be spending on Mount Myoboku. The decision was made that they would seek out the help of the Kazekage brat, but they could only do that when they didn't have any obvious weaknesses for him to take advantage of.

He, Tsunade, and Orochimaru were the closest thing to a team of unbeatable ninja that existed in the world, but Naruto was far from that. Especially with Akatsuki on the prowl, taking the time to allow the young man acquire enough strength that the S-rank criminals wouldn't have an easy time of taking him, was a wise decision.

"Hyaaa" he heard the boy's voice echo from behind him. He didn't turn, knowing that both his apprentice and his familiar, Gamakichi, were being trained by Gamabunta in the toad taijutsu. Hopefully, a more formal taijutsu style would plug a lot of holes that he'd noticed in his godson's hand-to-hand combat.

He walked forwards, coming up with the plan that he knew they would need with their approach of the Kazekage brat. As the only one with any personal experience with the boy in the context of not trying to kill each other, he was given point in deciding what their preferred approach would be.

"Do you have something?" Tsunade asked as he walked into the room.

"Yes. Yes I do." He said, still unsure about what he was about to do. If his plan ended up being followed, Konoha would lose a lot. But it would be cutting off the arm to save the body. Not an easy trade. But one that was doable.

"Let's hear it then" The snake drawled from his position sprawled across the couch. He chuckled on seeing it. Tsunade bring a pair of toads to help her reverse summon some really nice furniture here had been just the kind of thing she would do. It was on the strength of the three of them being together again that he leaned on to make the decision he did.

"Before Sarutobi-Sensei died, he made a deal with the brat. He gave him some land and some cash as payment for his role in the invasion. I find it doubtful that Danzo has lived up to that. We could promise him that." He pitched first.

"Won't work" Tsunade said first. Of course she'd notice the flaw in this plan immediately.

"He probably views the payment Sensei promised him as something already owed to him. We won't get his support with taking Danzo out by promising to give him something that already belongs to him." She said.

"We'd be his only hope at getting it in the first place, though" Orochimaru posed, playing devil's advocate as he often did. Jiraiya missed this. Orochimaru playing devil's advocate instead of playing full scale devil was a welcome return to status quo.

"Not if he wages war against Konoha. The border towns between Wind and Fire have never been so tense" He said.

"Why do we need his help, then? We let him wage war against Danzo and then we swoop in to take down the old fool when he's distracted. We don't need to ally with him to use him" Orochimaru posed.

"Because we only want Danzo gone. If we let Wind and Fire go to war, then there's a very real chance that much of the Leaf's strength will be lost in that war effort. If we managed to take over the village in that time, then it wouldn't matter. We'd have to navigate forcibly seizing power in the middle of a war. We'd either lose to Suna or be so badly crippled after beating them that Kumo will have easy pickings of us." Tsunade said, proving why she was his Hokage once again.

" I see. So what else do we even have to offer?" Orochimaru asked, back to seeking the alliance with the young Kazekage.

"What would he want?" Tsunade asked, turning to him.

"Land and money, definitely. But I doubt that the Daimyo would be keen to turn even more land over to the land of wind. The original agreement with Sensei would be hard enough to get him to sanction. When it comes to money, I doubt we'd be able to pay him off enough without drying up the village's coffers in their entirety. The damage from Iwa's attack is bad enough, and there's also the damage he left behind on his way out. Those repairs won't be anything close to cheap." He said to them.

"You know something. Something else he wants, definitely. If you didn't, you wouldn't have brought this up in the first place, so spit it out."

"When he invaded Iwa, my spies say he made off with dozens of kekkei genkai shinobi and techniques. We can offer him some techniques from the scroll of seals" He said, almost cringing from the looks both his teammates sent at him.

"Definitely not" Orochimaru said first.

"The scroll of seals? The same one that has instructions for edo tensei? Or the Flying thundergod? That same scroll of seals?" Tsunade scoffed.

"He's got no chance of figuring out Hiriashin. Both Minato and Lord Second were peerless geniuses. The Kazekage brat isn't close." He assured them.

"Be that as it may, we will not be the ones to give out the scroll of hidden techniques that generations of Hokage have contributed to."

"Well, I don't see what else we have to offer" Jiraiya said, looking at them.

"You said the brat wants techniques, right? I have an idea" Orochimaru said with a smile on his face that did little to comfort anyone.

XXXXX- MANGETSU HOZUKI OF THE SEVEN SWORDS

For this mission, he'd chosen to wield the thunderswords. It was the most effective of the seven to use against the Tailed Beast they sought to capture, and being limited to only of them meant that he had to pick based on the prey he would be hunting. He almost scoffed at the thought. The bitch had the gall to suggest that he wasn't powerful enough to keep the swords safe. Like he hadn't wielded most of them all on his lonesome. Winning a single battle with some bullshit genjutsu made her look down on him. Made her order him around like he was one of her dogs to be summoned and directed at her will. It irritated him.

The fact that she'd sent her pet Hunter nin to summon him and then sent the mission assignment through a messenger instead of facing him herself had almost made him decide to damn the plan to the depths and kill the bitch right then and there. He'd wait though. If there was one thing he'd learned from his Sensei, it was that waiting before having your meal could make it taste a million times better. That was the goal here. He'd wait. And when the time came, he'd be the shark that got the last bite.

"Are you paying attention" The Hunter nin asked, getting nothing but a grunt from him.

"This is a highly dangerous mission, boy. Mizukage-sama has made it clear that we are to attempt to use diplomacy to return the traitor jinchuriki to the village. With the world going to the hells, we can't afford to not have a jinchuriki. That means you can't attack him, boy. No trying to kill him" The pretentious bastard spoke.

"And what then am I here for?" He asked, unsure of his role in all this madness. Mangetsu had never been a master of diplomacy. He'd honestly doubt that Kiri had anyone who could claim such a specialisation. But that was neither here nor there. If he wasn't being brought on this mission to fight, then what the fuck had he been called for.

"Your Uncle was the Jinchuriki's teammate for much of his time as a loyal Shinobi. Reports say that the two of them developed some form of friendship and camaraderie over their years together. Your presence here is out of the hope that he refrains from attacking us or running away immediately out of respect for your Uncle." The cyclops explained, making Mangetsu want to slam his head against a tree.

"What kind of retard came up with that bullshit?"…" Be careful how you speak of the Mizukage boy" Cyclops had lost the little warmth in his voice, turning to pin Mangetsu with a dead stare from his single eye. Mangetsu, uncaring of what threat the old washed up shinobi could present, marched on nonetheless.

"For one, my Uncle is long dead. Secondly, even if that wasn't the case, how is that going to matter here? That I'm related to a former teammate of his?"

"It is not your job to question your superiors, boy. Stay quiet and do as you are told" That was the end of the conversation and silence reigned. Just as Mangetsu would have preferred.

XXXXX

"Utakata, Jinchuriki of the Rokubi" Cyclops said in greeting. Mangetsu resisted the urge to facepalm again. Was he the only one with a thread of wisdom in this entire catastrophe? If Cyclops didn't want to have a fight, then confronting his target right in the middle of his ramshackle hut was a terrible way to go about it. The man had foregone wearing anything that could have identified him as hunter nin, but had forgotten to pick up a new personality where he got the new clothes.

Mangetsu could see the second that the Jinchuriki came to a decision. There was only one question that mattered in life, Mangetsu had learned in his decade as a shinobi of Kirigakure. _Fight or Flight?_ To no one's surprise and Mangetsu's eternal disappointment, the Jinchuriki made the wrong choice. It made as if to dive at them before jumping right through the window to the left. Neither he nor the Cyclops were foolish enough to jump through the same exit and made use of the open door.

Mangetsu, through the corner of his vision, could make out the bubbles that flew through the window before he was tossed off his feet from the shockwave of the explosion behind him. He used the momentum to throw himself forward and wasted no time to continue his purchase once he found his bearings.

Looking up told him that both Cyclops and the Jinchuriki had made good distance in his second of distraction. He wondered how the old man had managed to keep his feet considering Mangetsu had made it out of the house before him and he was closer to the explosion. Out of mind it went as he picked up speed to catch up to both of them while unsheathing the thunderswords from his back.

"Stop moving, Jinchuriki. I don't want to kill you" He lied with a bold face.

"Your voice sounds just like Singetsu's when you lie" The Jinchuriki tossed back at him with a laugh.

Drats. Mangetsu shrugged before pointing the swords at his fleeing prey. He flexed his chakra and then fed it to the sword. Out of nowhere, he felt his footing get disturbed as his legs were swept out from under him. The attack missed and he was forced to watch the lightning sail right past his quarry. "No killing shots, idiot boy" Cyclops said from above him with a harsh tone.

Mangetsu, however, was not paying much attention to him. Not when the lightning attack tore through several trees in the small forest they were running through before suddenly stopping. It stopped, and then it disappeared. With his vision no longer blinded by the light, he was assaulted by the vision of the strangest man he'd ever seen. Black stud jewellery pierced every visible opening on his face. Even the most ridiculous civilians had not gone so far into the craze. Mangetsu wondered how he could ever have missed the man. Even surrounded by tress, the man was the most imposing thing in the forest. He put down his hands and Mangetsu was forced to remember just how his attack had turned into nothingness. It was like the jutsu had been absorbed for some reason.

"Utakata, Jinchuriki of the Rokubi. Surrender" Another voice rang out. This time, it was a much slimmer man with hair long enough to belong a woman. He walked forwards, not a care in the world. Mangetsu noted the similarities between both men. More piercings than he'd thought reasonable along with the same black cloak spotted in red clouds. Was this some sort of entertainment troupe?

The two men walked closer as another one of their fellows showed from within the forest. Dressed much the same, it was until they'd completely emerged from the foliage cover that Mangetsu was able to make out their eyes. It was easily their most distinctive feature, even though they all shared the same eyes. Purple eyes with concentric rings. Obviously a doujutsu of some sort, but not one that Mangetsu had ever heard of before. That was enough to calm whatever tension he might have felt at the intrusion, however. The fact that there were more than one of them, sharing the same eyes but otherwise having distinctive features meant that this was a clan of some sort.

That was an assurance. There was no way a clan with a doujutsu would have managed to escape ape notice from the ninja world at large. Obviously, then the only reason he'd never been taught about them was because they were too weak to be worthy of a mention in any of his lessons at the academy. They clearly didn't belong to any major village. The headbands on their heads marked them as missing nin of the Village Hidden in the Rain and he doubted that if the village had produced any one of note apart from the Legendary Salamander they wouldn't have shouted it from the rooftops. Not knowing his opponent, instead of making Mangetsu wary as it did with the hunter nin by his side, only served to embolden him.

"I don't know who you are but this is private Kirigakure business. If you stay any longer, we'll have no choice but to disembowel the three of you as a matter of national security" he threatened them, desperately wishing for them to give him a reason. He'd missed the casual violence that came along with being a missing ninja. Even being a ninja of the old Kiri, under Yagura had been much more entertaining. Unlike now, with that Mei bitch trying to keep them on a tight leash. Making them behave like foolish tree huggers with all that bullshit about teamwork and camaraderie.

He blinked as the first of the men to appear let out a chuckle. It was a quick one. Barely even audible. "Your impertinence amuses me. Begone, fly. You stand in the presence of a God" The second one to appear said, and then a hand was lifted in he and Ao's direction. He prepared to move before whatever jutsu was being formulated got past its first seal, but against his every expectation, he was suddenly sent flying by an invisible force.

It was like he'd been swatted by an invisible, but gigantic hand. Both he, Ao, and all the trees around them sailed into the distance. It was only the activation of the hydrification technique that saved his life. Not for the first time or even last time, he thanked his father for the hours he was forced to spend working on the annoying jutsu. Even with his lack of talent with it, it had saved his life on several occasions. He reformed his body and searched for the Cyclops, unable to make out the man's appearance anywhere he could see. He'd probably been sent flying even further back as Mangetsu observed that whatever had hit them had not stopped until a good kilometre or two. The trees were just gone, blown away with nary a care. What sort of ninjutsu could do that? It put whatever he could do with any of the swords in his possession to shame.

Mangetsu was fine with consoling himself on the knowledge that he did not possess the Samehada yet. With that sword, he'd have had an easy time handling whatever ninjutsu got thrown at him. The sound of a series of explosions drew his attention to the fight that was building between the jinchuriki and the three men. Utakata blew into that pipe of his and a series of bubbles flew at his assailants. One of them lifted his hand, the same one that had sent him flying, and the bubbles, along with the jinchuriki who made them were sent flying. Both bubbles and their creator exploded into steam as the body proved to be a clone.

What Mangetsu suspected to be the original ran right at one of the Hidden Rain Missing nin from the edge of his vision. The Jinchuriki's attack was foiled as the blond man dodged without even looking while the fatso by his side unleashed a powerful punch right into the man's midsection. The body swelled up and began to detonate as another clone but this time, the fat man placed a hand on the body and it simply faded out of existence. Who were these guys? Mangetsu asked himself, unable to delude himself into believing that the men were of no consequence any longer. One with the power to just sends hit flying with a wave of his hand and another with the power to just touch shit and cancel it. Mangetsu hadn't failed to notice that the same man who'd gotten rid of his attack with the Kiba blades had been the one to stop that clone's detonation.

The blonde one, seemingly the leader with the way he spoke for them, suddenly stretched out one of his hands and said words that Mangetsu strained to hear. "Bansho Tenin". This time, the effects of the jutsu were not immediately apparent. It was not until the form of the Rokubi jinchuriki flew down from above at an angle that Mangetsu deduced that it was some form of jutsu to reel in a target. He then figured that the Jinchuriki had used the distraction of the attack that got rid of Mangetsu and Ao to create two clones and escape the battlefield. It was expertly done, but apparently too little to get away from the trio. The fact that the third one was yet to do anything but scowl and look pretty put a considerable amount of wariness in Mangetsu's body. He had no doubts that he'd have to intervene eventually. Kiri couldn't afford to lose its jinchuriki, and Mangetsu himself didn't have much interest in failing a mission because of some backwater bastards. Not knowing anything about one of them would be a pain to deal with, especially if he had a trick as amazing as the other two.

The Jinchuriki flipped in the air even as he was being pulled towards the man and then the world changed. Hatred, cold dark hatred, pushed down on Mangetsu's very being…

When did he fall to his knees? He coughed, staring at the blood on the floor with no small measure of shock. What?

A hand on his back was the next feeling he managed to isolate from what he roughly felt from in front of him.

"Calm down. It is the Bijuu's killing intent" He heard whispered into his ear as a rush of chakra filled his body and cloaked him, guarding him from the feeling. He managed to look up and noticed it was the cyclops who was next to him. The veins on his covered eye bulged more than they ever had, as Mangetsu knew the former hunter-nin was furiously making use of his byakugan to scan their surroundings and the ongoing battle. Finally able to look up at the fight, he did so, and it was something else.

Utakata's body was nearly impossible to make out in the mass of chakra that surrounded him as he tore through the ground at breakneck speed too assault the trio of men with the strange doujutsu. The Leader stepped forwards and pointed a hand at him. Utakata was sent flying right as he made it to his target. The other one, the larger one stretched out a hand that began to shift. It turned from a human hand into the barrel of some sort of weapon. Mangetsu was sure it was a weapon. The way the man wielded it, his posture. Everything pointed at it being a weapon and a powerful one at that. As the Jinchuriki ran back at his quarry, the weapon was levelled at him.

In a blink, Mangetsu's vision was covered by light as a beam of what looked to be pure Chakra tore right into the six tailed jinchuriki. "We will not let these men capture the Six-tails" Cyclops whispered at him, making him want to look at the more experienced shinobi and ask if he'd gone mad. What would they do in this kind of battle? If this group succeeded in their mad plan of taking down a jinchuriki who'd given in to the beast within, then they could keep it, as far as he was concerned. He said as much to the man who wasted no time in smacking him across the head. Before he could retaliate and start a fight between them, they were forced to turn their attention back to the fight.

The Six tails had reemerged from where the blast shoved him, and he looked pissed. Honest to gods apoplectic. Where the chakra that surrounded the jinchuriki had been slightly translucent, it was now a thick miasmic red. It was too deep to even make out the person beneath it. By sight at least. By sound, there was nothing as loud and haunting as Mangetsu had ever heard in his life as the screams that came from the Jinchuriki. Louder and more pained than the poor folks who got into the custody of the seven in their glory days had ever managed to get. It was something else. Bestial, primal, raw.

When he moved next, it wasn't a true movement. It looked like he willed himself from point A to point B and simply got there. Only the rents that his movement carved into the forest floor making it clear that he'd covered the distance. He began with a swipe that the leader actually managed to get out of the way of. The next slash was parried by the one with the canon arm as the hand morphed into a black rod with a sharp end, They exchanged blows in a furious dance of what could generously be referred to as taijutsu. Until one of the beasts' five tails reached out and slammed into its opponent with all the force of a train. He grunted, only forced back an inch where Mangetsu would have been sent flying off the continent entirely.

The one next to him, the long haired one moved to join the fight. As they double-teamed the jinchuriki while the leader looked on. Where before the fight had appeared evenly matched, now that there were two of them, they were slowly beginning to overwhelm the beast. Mangetsu noted that where the long haired one hit, the chakra shroud lightened a bit, but quickly dismissed it as a trick of the light. The Six tails shoved a tail at the large one that he caught and used as a grip to pick it up and begin swinging. Mangetsu was sure he had his mouth opened as he watched the man toss a jinchuriki in their tailed beast mode into the sunset. Not so far, it seemed as the Six tails went flying before stretching its tails as it got close to the trees.

It arrested its momentum and began to scream again. This time, the screams were much deeper, more savage. As balls of black and red began to gather near the creature's mouth as it lifted it to the sky. "Run" Cyclops said and legitimately left Mangetsu behind. Over a decade as a ninja told him nothing good would be coming from this, and he wasted no time in scrambling to his feet and joining Ao in hightailing it out of there.

"Why?" He asked as he caught up to the older man.

"That's a tailed beast bomb. The Six tails is going to destroy this whole forest" He said as he intensified his speed. Mangetsu, through what he was sure was no fault of his own, was unable to stop glancing backwards to watch the attack being charged. They'd make it out of the blast radius, he figured. If the intended targets were to be the trio in the cloaks then they'd put a ton of distance between them.

Mangetsu watched as the ball of energy became complete. Before the Jinchuriki opened its mouth further and swallowed the attack. What? The next second, he was tossed off his feet for the second time as a blast of energy from the Jinchuriki's mouth created a shockwave that spread across the forest. The beam of destructive chakra tore through everything in its way to make it to the trio. And then, like it was a bad dream, the beam made it into part of the forest and just began to disappear. "What?" He heard Ao say in shock from his position next to him on the floor.

"He's just standing there with his hands stretched out and the tailed beast blast is getting sucked in to something" Ao said, not sounding sure of describing what his lone byakugan eye saw.

"He absorbed the lightning from the Kiba blades, as well" Mangetsu commented, thoroughly awestruck. It was in this moment that he realised that he was much out of his pay grade. This was the stuff of gods and legends.

"Let's just get out of here" He said before he turned around only to come face to face with another man with the same eyes and same cloak.

"Fuck me"