The giant turtle's spiked shell glinted menacingly in the moonlight as it lumbered toward its aggressor, its eyes gleaming with primal fury.
Enkai's heart raced in fear, but his determination burned brighter. There was no time to hesitate, Enkai blinked to the side, narrowly avoiding its snapping jaw.
Even though he had fought Hanzo's giant salamander multiple times and had even managed to return alive from a three-way fight between him, raikage and the ultimate summon, fighting the three tails was a very different experience.
It had a different presence than the rest of the giants he has faced up till now. And needless to say...
It was very liberating.
Truth be told, Enkai needs one full-powered sniper shot towards its head from inside its mouth to puncture its brain and kill it. Except he can't do that, he needs to capture him alive.
And he had no way of doing that, none at all. All of his techniques were maximised to kill their target as quickly and effectively as possible; forcing him in quite the pinch to be honest.
Enkai blinked up and started circling the beast like a moth to a candle. Even after calming down, he saw his hands trembling,
"What an existence." He said, narrowly avoiding one of its tail swipes.
It appears that he will have to use the oldest trick in the book – Trial & Error.
He first decided to use his sharingan; stopping in front of it and running some chakra through his eyes. The corners of his lips turned up when he saw the beast slowing down, except it hadn't slowed down for what he thought it did; it had slowed down for a tail slap instead.
Enkai couldn't avoid it and was sent across the battlefield like a ragdoll, crash-landing on some destroyed infrastructure. He felt his head spinning as his vision turned red, dyed in his own blood. Even though for anybody else it was a fatal wound, that wasn't the case with him because Kurama's chakra kicked in and healed everything.
Enkai looked around his surroundings only to find himself sitting in a pile of rubble. Even though Kirigakure, as a whole, was unscathed by the damage caused by the sanbi; the centre of the village now featured a giant wasteland filled with nothing but debris.
Enkai lamented and looked forward. The sanbi was making a bijuu dama that was aimed at him. 'I can dodge that.' Enkai thought as he looked behind himself. The villagers were still evacuating.
'Change of plans.' Enkai let out a tired growl as he stood up, whiskers forming on his cheeks. The copy wheels faded from his eyes and were replaced with an orange hue.
Enkai felt the familiar sensation of having a nigh-infinite amount of chakra before it started bottoming out, all gone in the creation of the rasengan he was making.
In a matter of seconds a rasengan rivalling the size of a bijuu dama formed in front of Enkai, which he thrusted forward.
A deafening explosion followed the collision of the two orbs.
The bijuu thought that the explosion was enough to kill its enemy, but when the dust settled its enlarged pupil reflected the sight of another giant rasengan that was coming its way.
Croaaa!!!
Enkai thought his surprise attack worked, but then he saw something that gave him goosebumps.
The three tails lifted its front legs and slammed them on the ground, the moment its feet touched the ground a wall of water formed in front of it. Then from inside the water wall, an exact replica of Enkai's rasengan ejected out and threatened to collide with his rasengan.
Enkai slowly started backing away when he saw both rasengans were about to clash. The first rasengan he made was just enough to suppress the sanbi's tailed beast bomb, the second one was a lot stronger than that.
Add that to the fact that, sanbi's rasengan was also at the same frequency as his own, both bombs will likely fuse together and cause an even bigger explosion.
Enkai's face paled with each passing second and eventually, he blinked up towards the air, but even that couldn't save him from the aftereffects of the explosion as he was blown away like a leaf stuck in a storm.
When Enkai stabilised himself he started descending down, he was pleasantly surprised when he saw that the sanbi was slightly injured. It looks like the reflection technique wasn't as impervious to damage as he previously thought.
As Enkai descended downwards he noticed how a white mist was replacing the dust that was settling down, but decided to ignore it thinking it was an environmental feature of the hidden mist village.
However, as he got closer to the turtle he started hearing voices in his head; the voices were nothing but faint whispers yet somehow he found them entrancing and euphoric.
As if an angel was whispering in his ear as if he was in paradise...
Enkai blinked upwards with a startling jerk when he remembered that Isobu had the power to make a mist that made people hallucinate. Alas, he was a moment too late.
The beast had turned itself into a ball of spikes and was already dangerously close to hitting Enkai.
'That's it. I am going to die here.' His eyes, once vibrant with life, now held a shadow of sadness that seemed to extend to the depths of his soul.
'Is this how The Raikage, Haku, Zabuza and every one of my victims felt?' Enkai looked like a slow-approaching ball of death.
'It only took one late moment of realisation, one error, one misjudgement for me to end up like my victims, huh.' Enkai lamented with tear-filled eyes.
Enkai saw how the spiky ball of doom was destroying everything that came in front of it, and soon he himself would join those broken things.
He looked at one of the spikes that was bigger than his entire body mere metres away from his face, and wondered out loud with a cracked, fragile voice, "Is… this karma?"
His life flashed before his eyes.
He remembered his previous life when he was cripple, then he remembered the years he spent in Hanzo's care, and finally, he remembered everything that had happened till now.
That's when an epiphany hit him, 'Did I ever get out of the mist?' with that single thought passing through his nerves, he immediately bit his nails and broke them into pieces.
"Ahh!" A heavy surge of pain washed over him, causing his forced dark thoughts to fade away. In a split second, Enkai activated his sharingan.
When all the sensory input entered his brain, his hands reflexively grabbed the tip of the spike and his body followed his hands; manoeuvring itself and hugging the spike.
But the sanbi wasn't moving forward, it was rolling forward.
The moment Enkai grabbed the spike he felt a heavy pressure descending down; the ground was quickly approaching.
Even with his blink, he wasn't sure if he could out-manoeuvre the sanbi's rotation. He also wasn't sure if he was fast enough to outspeed its rolling speed and move forward if he let go. There was also this bloody mist that made people hallucinate and forced their minds into thinking about dark thoughts.
There was only one thing he could do – 'Endure This,' with that thought he stopped using his sharingan and started drawing Kurama's chakra and then, it happened.
The Sanbi or more precisely Yagura, stopped rolling once he passed through Enkai. As the perfect jinchuriki, Yagura is capable of transforming himself into the sanbi as long as the sanbi is allowing it.
If this was the Sanbi that was fighting this battle then he was sure that Enkai would have won a long time ago; this is because sanbi is too timid and innocent to fight properly and it doesn't even use most of the incredible powers it possesses.
Regardless, it was thanks to this childish innocence that Yagura managed to befriend it and became its perfect jinchuriki. Yagura thought as he uncurled himself from his ball position and looked towards the direction where he rolled over Enkai.
Yagura let out a weary sigh as he looked at all the rubble from their fight. Yagura thought he had won, but to be perfectly sure of it he would have to remove all this rubble to find out Enkai's body.
Exhaling a deep sigh that resonated like a distant thunderclap, the colossal turtle hesitated mid-stride, its massive foot suspended above the earth. It halted as it discerned a shadowy figure emerging gracefully from the debris-strewn ruins.
The sonic boom of an omni-directional wave of wind followed the turtle's revelation; originating from the silhouette, causing the mist that was surrounding the battlefield to disappear along with that raging wind.
'Vāyu's Push' was the name of this blank technique. Inspired by Nagato's Almighty Push, Enkai had created his own version of it using wind nature. Although the result of this technique was less than satisfactory and not at all usable for offense, it was still a great technique in his arsenal.
Enkai let out an exasperated breath as the hallucinatory haze left his sight. One Bijuu dama-sized rasengan and another one that was three times bigger than that. Constant healing, and now Vāyu's push.
Enkai had used too much chakra, even from the nine tails.
The amount of chakra he had sucked out of Kurama in this fight was easily enough for him to morph into four tails by now.
The reason he hadn't transformed yet is simply because every time he used a certain amount of chakra he would cut off his link with Kurama and let the seal stabilise a bit before drawing in his chakra again.
While Enkai can theoretically draw in as much chakra as possible out of him without ever needing to risk him transforming.
Drawing in too much chakra in a short period of time doesn't give enough time for the seal to stabilise, and that's what is happening right now; for a short period of time, he can no longer use Kurama's chakra.
Enkai looked at the sanbi with a pensive stare, there was no possible way that the real three tails was smart enough to fight so meticulously when he literally couldn't take a few hits from Deidara's explosives.
"So, this is what it means to be a perfect jinchuriki." A maniacal grin twisted his lips as he whispered, "Someday, I will have it," the obsession gleaming in his eyes.
Being able to fully control the power of the beast sealed inside of them, the ultimate state of a jinchuriki – The perfect jinchuriki.
Enkai looked towards the sanbi while activating his Sharingan, the beast didn't seem to be producing any more of that foul mist. Which was a relief, but at the same time he was cornered.
If he used rasengan or any other offensive jutsu, sanbi will reflect it. If he tried to fight this thing head-on, he would likely die because, with Kurama's chakra temporarily out of the picture, he could no longer endure and live through any of its attacks if he fought it head-on.
He can't even stop using his sharingan for long periods of time because who knows when sanbi might try to produce that mist again. On top of that, with his sharingan, external reflexes and external senses active he was burning through his own chakra reserves at an alarming rate.
He was trapped from all sides.
He truly was cornered from all three sides, and the best thing he could do now was run away.
Forced by circumstances, Enkai decided that he would stay away from this turtle's neck and jaw areas and fly across its back to try to damage it with all the weapons he had.
He blinked up and then moved forward towards the tailed beast, he even managed to stay around his back, but in the act of focusing on the sanbi's head, Enkai forgot about its tails.
Swoosh! Swoosh! Swoosh!
His external reflexes activated as he felt himself lumbered down, he looked up to see a tail swiped on top of him at breathtaking speeds, and immediately looking back he saw sanbi's other two tails whiplashing towards him.
He blinked once and evaded those tails but by now the third tail was threatening to hit him. Enkai realised that floating on top of the sanbi's back was probably the worst idea, but he was a moment too late.
In the midst of the quiet night, he remained surrounded, helpless against the relentless onslaught of tails converging from all directions. Every attempt to escape proved futile, forcing him to remain trapped at the heart of the merciless assault; a lone figure engulfed in the eye of the storm.
Amidst the dance of death, a minute passed, then another passed away, followed by another minute. Soon, the minutes piled up along with the fatigue and weapons that had lost their edge after clashing with the beast's tails multiple times.
Enkai's mind raced, desperately seeking a strategy to overcome this seemingly inescapable prison that trapped hin. His eyes darted across the surroundings, searching for anything of advantage.
The head of the sanbi, the struggling Ao in the distance, the base of the beast's tails. No, all of them will kill him. Flickering his eyes, a sudden suicidal thought popped up in his mind.
'The Sanbi's Tail'
He will grab the sanbi's tail, stay attached to it and when the tail extends outwards the sanbi's back he will blink out of there.
Despite the benefits, there were problems; if he is too slow then he will actually get hit and likely die, if he is too fast then he will miss the tail he wants to grab and will likely crash onto the other two tails and likely die.
High above the ground, Enkai, with his extraordinary perception, soared through the air. His eyes were fixed on the massive creature below him, his formidable adversary with three tails that swung like a scorpion's stinger.
As one of them descended with a deadly arc, Enkai's sharingan calculated its trajectory. With nerves of steel, he adjusted his flight pattern, aligning his body with the downward swing of the tail, and started falling.
The wind rushed past him, and his heart pounded in his chest as he timed his move with utmost precision. In a split second, the tail sliced through the air, and Enkai seized the moment.
With a swift and agile manoeuvre, he deftly angled his trajectory, his fingers outstretched toward the descending tail. His hand made contact, fingers closing around the spiky, scaly appendage just as it began its upward motion.
For a heart-stopping moment, Enkai dangled in mid-air, gripping the tail tightly. The sanbi roared in frustration, trying to shake him off. But with sheer determination, Enkai held on, his muscles straining against the powerful forces at play.
With a burst of strength, Enkai pulled himself upward, using the momentum of the tail's swing to launch himself out of the creature's back. There, he smiled while remaining airborne, he knew he was out of sanbi's grasp now.
Enkai's eyes glinted with firm resolve as he prepared to face the colossal giant again while activating his Jinchuriki mode. His seal has stabilised now.
He squinted his eyes at the giant monster while racking his brains on how he could defeat it. Even though Enkai came up with multiple ways to defeat it, 'All of them are theories.'
He didn't want to risk himself getting trapped or at worst dying because of his stupid theories again.
A solid, surefire way is needed to take down this thing. If he had fought humans of this level he was sure he could have taken them down by now but this monster was different than a human.
He had never fought a monster like this and thus had no idea about how to formulate plans to defeat it; this is why tactics becomes useless against common-sense defying beings like this, and the only way to effectively defeat it is by overwhelming it with raw strength. Something only a certain wood-style user can do.
''No, my thinking is wrong!'' Enkai reprimanded himself. So far he had been thinking about how to defeat it as a 'strong person' but instead he should be thinking about how to defeat it as a 'weak person'.
"What would a mouse do if it had fight a cat?" He wondered out loud and then the answer clicked in.
Yagura, the three-tailed turtle, now stood upon the rubbles of its own domain, weariness etched into the grooves of his massive shell. His eyes, usually gleaming with arrogance, were now heavy with fatigue, and a smug air surrounding him.
The turtle had faced Enkai multiple times by now and he was sure that Enkai was out of tricks. Made more evident by the fact that, at this moment, Enkai was just running through the debris of Yagura's building in a frenzy.
But as the sun peeked up from the horizon, casting an otherworldly glow upon the sea, the colossal turtle's gaze fell upon a still shadow.
Enkai had stopped running around and had finally stopped. His hands firmly gripped onto a sword that was bigger than his entire body.
'That's the executioner's blade, what is he going to do with that?' The Transformed jinchuriki wondered and glanced at his eyes.
The turtle, once dismissive of its adversary, felt a twinge of surprise as it locked eyes with Enkai. There was something different about him this time, something that set him apart from before. The arrogance that had clouded the turtle's perception began to waver, replaced by a sense of caution.
Enkai's body now burned in a fierce fire dyed in orange, his every movement exuding purpose and skill. With a subtle shift of his stance, he signalled his readiness for the impending battle.
'Kenjutsu?'
Yagura, for the first time in this fight, felt a seed of doubt creeping into its heart; he wasn't sure what would happen next.
Then the battle commenced, Enkai blinked in front of him but instead of aiming for his face, shell or upper body he ducked downwards and swung his sword forward in a horizontal arc towards one of his front legs.
Yagura finally understood what it was that had changed about it, 'He adapted to my fighting style.'
If before Enkai's attacks were inaccurate, shallow and focused on using sheer strength to overcome his adversary, now his strikes were swift and precise, each blow calculated to exploit the turtle's weaknesses.
Yagura's weariness transformed into genuine concern as it struggled to defend against Enkai's relentless assault.
At that moment, as the clash of monsters reverberated through the night, Yagura realised that he was facing more than just another shinobi or assassin or anything of that sort – He was facing a hunter who observed his prey before hunting it down, he was being hunted.
He wanted to resist this fate but physically couldn't do it because of the burden he had received from all the time Isobu had been injured. Yet he still mustered up the strength to resist.
Bathed in the ethereal glow of the sun and moon, Enkai leapt with astonishing agility, narrowly evading the creature's colossal tails and jaws – its only means of fighting in close quarters.
As Kurama's chakra enhanced his physique his blade sang through the air, its gleaming edge aimed at the titan's leg joints.
With a deafening clash, the sword met its mark, slicing through the titan's thick skin, tendons, and ligaments. The titan roared in agony as its massive leg buckled under its own weight. Enkai, fueled by Kurama's chakra, continued his assault, targeting the creature's other leg joints with calculated precision.
Each swing of Enkai's sword was a masterstroke, severing sinew and bone with repeated assault. Yagura, no- Isobu the three tails, the very symbol of an immovable object, now stood crippled, its movements slowed to a mere tremor.
Enkai's blade danced with the grace of a seasoned warrior, carving a path of destruction through the titan's defences. He had turned the tide of the battle, all thanks to his quick thinking, precise timing, and unyielding determination.
The victor of this bout has been decided.