"The chakra is even darker and colder than that of a tailed beast," Shisui murmured, his Sharingan fixed on the massive entity looming over the ocean. The faint outline of a four-pronged pinwheel flickered in his eyes.
"Genjutsu using the Sharingan? Without specific means, the Zero-Tails cannot be controlled," Shinnō remarked, retreating a safe distance from the beast. His tone and actions betrayed a deep wariness toward the Zero-Tails.
Whoosh! Whoosh! Whoosh!
Invisible chakra tendrils shot out from the Zero-Tails' body, lashing out indiscriminately at every living thing around it.
Shinnō leaped deftly, evading several tendrils that came dangerously close to him. Although the Zero-Tails had only recently been resurrected, no one present understood its nature better than Shinnō.
The Zero-Tails was the embodiment of humanity's darkness—an amalgamation of all negative emotions, created as a chakra-based monstrosity akin to a tailed beast.
Like the tailed beasts, it possessed immortality. However, while a tailed beast's rebirth relied on chakra, the Zero-Tails was reborn through the darkness in human hearts. ɴᴇᴡ ɴᴏᴠᴇʟ ᴄʜᴀᴘᴛᴇʀs ᴀʀᴇ ᴘᴜʙʟɪsʜᴇᴅ ᴏɴ NoveI-Fire.ɴet
Its chaotic and destructive tendencies rivaled those of the tailed beasts, yet its nature as a manifestation of dark chakra made it even more uncontrollable and violent.
If he had a choice, Shinnō would not have awakened it so prematurely, nor summoned it from the energy-sealing chamber of Ancor Vantian.
The Zero-Tails, freshly revived, had not yet matured to a stage he found satisfactory. The ongoing ninja world war was the perfect crucible for its growth.
Prolonged conflict bred despair, rage, fear, sorrow, pain, and hopelessness—the very emotions that thrived in the hearts of the ninja world's people and provided sustenance for the Zero-Tails.
But now, with no guarantee of defeating Kagetsu and the others, Shinnō had no choice but to play his trump card and forcefully unleash the Zero-Tails.
The only regret was that he could not yet fully control its power.
Powerful sound waves rippled outward from the mouth of Ashisogi Jizō, sending violent gusts that crisscrossed in front of it. The force carved deep trenches into the ocean's surface before slamming into the Zero-Tails.
When the Wind Release technique, powerful enough to stir massive waves in the ocean, made contact with the Zero-Tails' body, it instantly dissipated into a gentle breeze, completely absorbed by the writhing mass of its form.
Fire Release: Flame Dragon Jutsu!
Anko quickly formed hand seals, and within a blaze of fiery light, several fire dragons emerged, lunging toward the Zero-Tails' extended and splitting appendages.
The fire dragons collided with the divided limbs, but instead of burning through, massive mouths suddenly appeared on the Zero-Tails' flesh. Like serpents, the mouths constricted tightly around the fire dragons, devouring them entirely.
The multitude of mouths on the tentacles even exhaled small puffs of smoke afterward, as if letting out a satisfied burp.
"It's absorbing the chakra from my jutsu!" Anko exclaimed, realizing that her connection to the fire dragons had been forcibly severed. Her chakra was drained completely, leaving her unable to detonate the flames and cause any damage to the Zero-Tails.
"Noticed it, have you? That's right—Zero-Tails doesn't just devour the darkness within human hearts. It can absorb jutsu and chakra too! It's a tailed beast specifically designed to counter ninjutsu!"
Dark chakra similar to the Zero-Tails began emanating from Shinnō's body, causing the Zero-Tails to perceive him as an ally and cease its attacks on him.
"So, jutsu are useless, then?" Kakuzu muttered, hardening his body to slice through the Zero-Tails' black, wriggling tentacles as they lashed toward him.
However, he quickly noticed a troubling pattern. The tentacles were slimy and extraordinarily resilient, and even his Earth Grudge Fear-hardened axe-like blades failed to inflict significant damage.
Only his Lava Release's intense heat managed to singe the tentacles slightly, forcing them to retract momentarily. But this was a mere temporary reprieve; the Zero-Tails seemed to grow more aggressive, spawning even more tentacles that sprouted hand-like ends, lunging to grab at Kakuzu.
The Zero-Tails resembled a mass of malleable clay, constantly splitting and reshaping its body to evade attacks and entangle its enemies like ropes.
Once it ensnared a target, it unleashed its devouring power, draining the victim's chakra completely.
As one of the largest combatants, the same size as Zero-Tail, Ashisogi Jizō (Ashisogi Jizō) became an immediate target of the Zero-Tails. Its massive body was quickly enveloped by numerous tentacles, engaging in a brutal close-quarters struggle.
{Note: For easier time reading, the bug or insect that Kagetsu raised will be called Ashisogi Jizō, the same name as Zanpakuto of Kurotsuchi Mayuri)
Even though the Zero-Tails' teeth couldn't pierce Ashisogi Jizō's tough exoskeleton, it shifted tactics, spawning even more tentacles to cocoon Ashisogi Jizō tightly, like a silken web.
The Zero-Tails' body shimmered with an eerie glow as it began voraciously siphoning the chakra from within Ashisogi Jizō.
Black spikes shot out from the gaps between the tentacles of Zero-Tails as it wrapped around Ashisogi Jizō. In the next moment, under Zero-Tails's confused expression, its body, pinned by the spikes, was spun violently as Ashisogi Jizō twisted its body in a rapid spiral.
Seawater from the ocean was siphoned upwards, spiraling along the massive bodies of the two beasts, forming a colossal waterspout that reached into the sky.
The sound of Zero-Tails's wailing seemed to echo all around.
In just a few moments, segments of Zero-Tails's body were shredded into pieces and flung outward. When the waterspout finally dispersed and the scene within became visible, the once-dominant Zero-Tails had been reduced to scattered, mangled limbs stubbornly clinging to Ashisogi Jizō.
Kakuzu, who had taken the opportunity to escape the clutches of Zero-Tails's tentacles, reappeared beside Kagetsu and the other two. He looked at the scene before him with a hint of surprise and spoke up.
"Is it already dealt with?"
Bearing the title "Zero-Tails," Kakuzu had assumed it would be just as tough and formidable as the other Tailed Beasts. Yet, the fearsome beast had been handled by an unknown summoned beast in a single fierce confrontation.
Was this some kind of disgrace to Tailed Beasts?
After all, Kakuzu had never heard of a Tailed Beast being defeated one-on-one by a summoning beast.
"Impossible! Zero-Tails is immortal! As long as darkness exists in people's hearts, it will keep reviving over and over again. Besides, these injuries mean nothing to Zero-Tails!"
The one answering Kakuzu's question was Shinnō. At that moment, Shinnō had already completed a hand seal and merged with Zero-Tails's severed head.
Under his control, Zero-Tails suddenly seemed to gain consciousness. Its scattered limbs and remains began to reintegrate into its main body.
"I should thank you for heavily injuring Zero-Tails. Otherwise, it wouldn't have been so easy for me to gain control of it. Now, round two begins!"
With those words, Shinnō's body sank, disappearing into the depths of the sea as he fully fused with Zero-Tails's forehead.
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