Chapter 67
Black Kurama is currently sprinting with haste toward the Ten-Tails, Menma holds on to his tailed beast’s fur just behind its large ears. Jin, Ayanami, and Rito are gaining on them with their kaiju. Mecha-Kurama fires his eye beams, but Black Kurama side steps to the left. Rito erects a giant pillar of crystal burst out of the ground right in front of Black Kurama; the fox doppelganger charges forward and rams the crystalline structure, shattering it completely.
“Get back here and fight us, you damn coward!” A frustrated Jin shouts before firing a Vacuum Bullet from his mouth.
“Heh… Like I’m gonna stop just because you tell me to. Digital Shrapnel!” Menma turns back and points at Jin, shooting a finger bone.
The projectiles fired by Jin and Menma travel in each other's paths. They collide with a loud clang; Jin’s Vacuum Bullet is dispelled while Menma’s finger bone ricochets and flies off into the ether.
Ayanami urgently weaves the snake hand sign. “Wood Style: Wood Dragon Barrage!”
The kunoichi’s wooden kaiju opens its massive jaws and four serpentine dragons fly out of the golem’s maw, the wood dragons race toward the tailed beast doppelganger. After catching up to Black Kurama’s rear, the first dragon quickly slithers around all of its tails, coiling around them and binding them all tightly. The second dragon dives into the ground and swiftly resurfaces under the fox, narrowly coiling around one of the fox’s hind legs. The third dragon darts for the doppelganger’s left arm and binds it while the final wood dragon reaches for Black Kurama’s neck and tightly coils around it. Due to being chained in an awkward manner, Menma’s tailed beast collapses onto the rocky ground.
All four wood dragons begin to constrict their chosen body part, their grip growing tighter and tighter. Black Kurama struggles to break free, but to no avail; he feels his great strength leaving him. With his remaining strength, Black Kurama reaches for Menma with his one free hand and grabs him. The fox winds his arm back and with one mighty swing, throws his jinchuriki at the Ten-Tails. And with that, a satisfied Black Kurama disappears in an explosion of smoke.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
They’re so annoying, I’ll make sure to kill them all before the day is over…! A furious Menma laments as he hurdles towards the Ten-Tails.
Noticing that he’s nearing his destination, Menma performs a series of flips to maneuver himself and slightly alter his course; these flips cause the evil doppelganger to descend faster. Menma braces himself as he brashly lands on the massive tailed beast’s head at the exact same time as Obito and Madara. Menma coldly glares daggers at his heroic doppelganger down below while he stands to the right of the Akatsuki leader.
Madara glances over at the young man at his and Obito’s side with suspicion. “And just who the hell are you?”
“Hmph. You can just think of me as an ally… For now, old man.” Menma coldly dismisses the Ghost of the Uchiha with brazen assurance.
As the two Rinnegan wielders size each other up, tendrils shoot out of the Ten-Tails and attach themselves to Madara, Menma, and Obito; the tendrils attach themselves specifically to the nape of the ninjas’ necks. Arms folded, the reanimated Uchiha turns his attention back to the motley crew before them due to Mecha-Kurama and the Wood Kaiju regrouping with Naruto and company.
“I had planned to capture those two before the Ten-Tails fully revived, but… they’re surprisingly good.”
Menma smiles maniacally. “So what? That just means we can have a little more fun with them before they die.”
“I want to start the Infinite Tsukuyomi ritual now.” Obito exclaims.
“That massive genjutsu requires time to summon the moon. They’ll interfere with the jutsu, it’ll go more smoothly if we use the statue’s power to get rid of them first. Don’t you agree?” Madara suggests.
“Heh. As long as the other me dies, I don’t really care.” Menma adds.
“You two just want to test out the Ten-Tails’ power don’t you? You’re just like children.” Obito snickers.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Disgusting! The Ten-Tails looks like some weird unholy fusion of plant and flesh in real life. Jin is put off by the very sight of the one-eyed beast’s grotesque skin texture.
The Ten-Tails is brown in color and titanic in size; one of its hands is larger than any of the tailed beasts. It has a single eye, which takes up most of its head, and spiky protrusions growing out of its back in a shape reminiscent of a conch shell. The Ten-Tails possesses a malformed bulb-like body with long arms and clawed hands, but no visible hind legs, as well as a wide mouth with multiple rows of pointed teeth and a single spike on its chin. Dark veins similar to those of a plant ran along its body, and the endings of its tails resembled leaf buds.
“Listen up! First, we keep our distance and see what move he makes.” Kurama speaks, using Naruto’s chakra avatar as a medium. “We’ll counter it with a big blow as close as we can get. Like I said earlier.”
Annoyed, Mecha-Kurama snarls, “HMPH. WHILE I HATE THE IDEA OF TAKING ORDERS FROM MY LOATHSOME COPY… I’LL MAKE AN EXCEPTION GIVEN THE CURRENT CIRCUMSTANCES.”
“RAAAAAAAWWWWRRR!!” The Ten-Tails roars again, reaching out its right arm.
The giant beast digs into the ground and pulls itself forward; due to its massive size the Ten-Tails creates a colossal smokescreen just from crawling. All of the Ninja Alliance kaiju quickly turn tail and run as fast as they can with a giant dust cloud right behind them.
The Ten-Tails’ left arm blasts out of the smoke to catch one of the kaiju, but they all manage to leap some distance away. Upon landing the Kurama avatar doubles back and runs toward the Ten-Tails; the translucent golden fox jumps up to claw at the Ten-Tails’ eye, but the behemoth swats Kurama away as if he were a mere fly.
“Go now, Eight-O!” Gyuki builds up chakra in his mouth.
Kurama and Mecha-Kurama begin to build up chakra in their mouths as well. All three kaiju have spheres of chakra in their mouths with a 8:2 ratio of positive black chakra and negative white chakra. The kaiju consume the balls and fire it from their mouths as a flurry of projectiles at the behemoth.
“””TAILED BEAST BOMB BARRAGE!!!”””
The Ten-Tails’ immediately puckers its lips before its entire face quickly implodes into its own mouth, various parts of the monsters’ body bulge. The Ten-Tails opens its mouth wide with a Tailed Beast Bomb of its own hovering inside, it fires as a powerful condensed beam. The beam overwhelms the three kaiju’s Tailed Beast Bombs and dissipates them like their nothing; the beam continues on and is swung around by the behemoth.
Hmm… I wonder if Kishimoto was inspired by Bardock and Frieza when he wrote this scene? Jin ponders as he is holding his out, aiming for Ayanami. “Universal Pull.”
“Whoooaa?!” Ayanami yelps as she is yanked away from her Godzilla statue.
The wooden reptile is the first to be engulfed by the Ten-Tails’ Tailed Beast Bomb beam and is completely disintegrated in a matter of seconds. Mecha-Kurama, Kurama, and Gyuki all tightly coil their tails around themselves to somewhat protect themselves. Everything begins to shake as the beam engulfs the mechanized fox; Ayanami, Jin, and Rito all brace themselves, shielding their eyes from the intense bright light.
“Please hold, please hold, please hold…” Rito mutters while having his fingers crossed.
“WOW… that thing could still kill us if we’re not careful…” A dejected Ayanami stares at what are probably her golem’s ashes.
“Where were you when Kurama said that that thing is pure nature energy?” Jin asks, keeping his head down. “And why are you so upset over that statue? You can just make another one.”
Ayanami gives Jin the puppy-dog pout. “But that one was my first one, it was awesome…”
“Yeah, that thing was pretty cool.” Jin agrees.
Appalled by their conversation, Rito interjects, “How are you both not worried about this? WE ARE IN THE LITERAL MOTHER OF ALL MONSTER’S BEAM OF DEATH!!”
“Hmm? Oh. Mecha, how ya doing?”
“IF I HAD PAIN RECEPTORS, I’D PROBABLY BE IN AGONY. I’M GRATEFUL YOU AND ECHO MADE ME AS POWERFUL AS THE FULL NINE-TAILS...” Mecha-Kurama replies in a strained tone. “THOUGH AFTER MY BATTLE WITH THE BLACK NINE-TAILS AND THIS BEAM, I’LL STILL HAVE TO REVERT BACK TO MY NORMAL FORM SOON.”
The Ten-tails’ beam finally dissipates, leaving behind scorched earth; Jin notices that some of Mecha’s tails have been destroyed. Sensing chakra coming from above, Ayanami and Jin look up and see Gyuki diving at the Ten-Tails with a Tailed Beast Bomb in his mouth.
“I’m smashing this right into his eyeball!”
“Now! Mecha! DO IT!!” Jin furiously shouts at the top of his lungs.
The Eight-Tails fires its Tailed Beast Bomb at the Ten-Tails. However, the mindless behemoth raises its right hand and casually flicks the jutsu away as if it were nothing, but a mere ant. The Ten-Tails watches the Eight-Tails get hit by his own attack and fly off when it feels something unusual; something sharp has grabbed onto its face. The behemoth looks down with its massive eye as sees Mecha-Kurama on its mouth, it can feel the machine dig is cold claws in between its lips.
“UGH… NGH…! J-JUST OPEN DAAAMMIT!” Mecha-Kurama grunts, struggling to pry the beast’s mouth open.
Sparks begin to fly off of Mecha’s joints. The gear mechanisms in Mecha-Kurama’s body become audible as the robot fox strains itself to open the Ten-Tails mouth; growing concerned, Jin claps his hands together.
Please don’t give, please, don’t give… Jin quietly prays.
“HRAAAAGH!!”
Pushing past his own limits, Mecha-Kurama heaves with everything he’s got and lifts with his legs. Slowly, but surely the Ten-Tails’ lips open wider and wider until both Jin and Mecha-Kurama can peer down the giant, deep, dark tunnel that is the behemoth’s throat; Mecha-Kurama proceeds to amass chakra in his mouth.
Taking a deep breath, Jin roars, “Fire EVERYTHING you’ve got down the bastard’s gullet!”
The mechanical fox shoots a Tailed Beast Bomb into the Ten-Tails’ mouth, it makes contact with the walls of the esophagus and detonates into a massive explosion. Mecha fires more and more bombs down the behemoth’s throat; Mecha-Kurama shoots faster and faster with each passing second. To Jin, the barrage of Tailed Beast Bombs being fired sounds like the fusion of a cannon and a minigun.
The continuous explosions cause the Ten-Tails’ to stretch and bulge all over with light being emitted from the numerous growths. The Ten-Tails begins to inflate like a giant balloon due to all the Tailed Beast Bombs Mecha is unleashing.
Realizing what’s about to happen, Jin starts banging furiously on Mecha from the back of his head.
“Okay, that’s enough! GET CLEAR!”