Kakashi and Guy could only stare in shock, cold sweat soaking through their backs in an instant.
"So he still couldn't control it... that's the Nine-Tails' true form..."
And before that mountain-sized fox, there stood a single figure no bigger than an ant, quietly facing upward, meeting those enormous beast eyes without flinching.
Sakura clenched her fists so tightly her nails bit into her palms.
"Kakashi-sensei, what can we even do now? We can't just stand here and watch, can we? That's the Nine-Tails!"
Kakashi could only shake his head bitterly.
"The Fourth Hokage gave his life just to seal that thing away. If the rest of us charge in, we'll just be throwing our lives away. Most of us probably couldn't survive even one swipe from it. At this point, all we can do is place our hopes on Akira."
By now, Naruto had completely lost his mind. In his fully transformed Nine-Tails state, he could only throw back his head and roar madly at Akira.
"ROOOAR!"
Akira, however, wasn't intimidated in the slightest. If anything, he looked almost curious as he studied the giant beast in front of him.
"So this is the Nine-Tails, huh? I'll admit, it's got something. Even with only half its full chakra, the pressure coming off it is way beyond the other Tailed Beasts."
Even cut in half, both the quality and volume of its chakra still left the others in the dust. Akira could feel that clearly.
A faint, amused smile lifted his lips.
"Interesting. A full Nine-Tails. Didn't expect I'd get a workout in on the side today."
At this point Naruto's consciousness had completely gone dark. His body was under the Nine-Tails' control entirely.
"ROAR! Brat! I'm finally out! Today I'll show you what real despair looks like!"
Before the words had even finished, the Nine-Tails raised one massive claw, vast enough to blot out the sky, and slammed it down on Akira.
BOOOOM!
The impact was apocalyptic. The earth collapsed into a crater dozens of meters deep, and spiderweb cracks spread hundreds of meters across the ground.
When the dust cleared, Akira was already gone.
He had teleported far away.
Deliberately.
He was widening the gap between himself and Kakashi's group, drawing the battle in the opposite direction.
Fighting a monster like this would create destruction on an absurd scale. If even a little of it reached the others, Kakashi's side would be wiped out instantly.
Akira withdrew a full five to six hundred meters before finally stopping, once he had confirmed the battlefield was now far enough away from the spectators.
The Nine-Tails clearly saw what he was doing and let out a thunderous laugh.
"Brat, you're worried about those insects getting caught in the blast, aren't you? What a waste of effort. One Tailed Beast Bomb from me, and everyone here turns to ash!"
Akira clasped his hands behind his back, his tone completely flat.
"You can try. I'm betting you can't."
That dismissive tone instantly enraged the Nine-Tails.
"Insolent brat! My Tailed Beast Bomb isn't like the attacks of those worthless other beasts. Mine is instant, understand?!"
Akira still wore that infuriatingly calm expression.
"Worthless? They're still your own kind. You could at least show them a little respect. Honestly, from where I'm standing, you're all basically fifty steps mocking a hundred."
His taunting skill was maxed out.
The proud Nine-Tails had no way to swallow something like that. Its nine tails instantly twisted into nine crimson dragons and launched themselves at Akira in a wild barrage.
"Oh? That got under your skin that fast?"
Akira mocked it lightly, while his body turned into flashing streaks of lightning, weaving effortlessly through the dense rain of attacks.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
The earth screamed.
The place where Akira had just been standing turned into scorched wasteland in an instant.
The terrain across hundreds of meters was completely rewritten. Every crater left behind was dozens of meters wide.
In only a matter of seconds, the whole area had been blasted into something that looked like the surface of the moon.
And yet the Nine-Tails grew more uneasy the longer it fought.
Every strike missed.
It never felt the impact of hitting flesh.
That human slipped through everything like a fish through water.
"ROOOAR—!"
The Nine-Tails bellowed in fury at the ruined ground.
Then suddenly, a streak of lightning flashed.
Akira had teleported directly beside the Nine-Tails' enormous head, leaning close enough to speak almost into its ear.
"What exactly are you aiming at? Did a tortoise teach you speed?"
The Nine-Tails' eyes widened in alarm, and it swatted reflexively at the side of its own head.
Bang!
The blow landed solidly against its own face, kicking up another storm of dust.
But Akira had already vanished again in a burst of lightning, reappearing on the opposite side.
At this point, Akira had fully entered Lightning Style Armour. His speed was absurd, edging even past the Fourth Raikage's.
The Nine-Tails sensed the chakra fluctuations and attacked again and again in a frenzy, but every strike hit empty air.
One man and one beast ended up trapped in a ridiculous game of cat and mouse, dragging on for over ten minutes.
Eventually, Akira landed lightly atop one of the last surviving trees, not even breathing hard.
That scene shattered the worldview of the Suna shinobi watching from afar.
Using the Nine-Tails like a dog on a leash? What kind of person even did that?
That speed. That impossible prediction.
It was enough to make their scalps go numb.
At that moment, the Suna shinobi finally understood why Konoha was still the number one hidden village.
Just one Akira was enough to silence everyone else.
Baki exchanged a look with Gaara, and both of them saw the same thing in the other's eyes:
shock.
At this level of battle, they weren't even qualified to interfere.
The Nine-Tails might have been enormous, but it was frighteningly agile too, faster than most shinobi who specialized in Body Flicker.