"Gah—!"
Han slid across the ground for several meters before finally coming to a stop.
Just as he tried to push himself back up, a suffocating heaviness suddenly rose in his chest. His face twisted, and he immediately coughed up a mouthful of blood.
The armor covering his arm had already been completely shattered.
Worse, both of his arms were swelling at a rate visible to the naked eye.
In order to avoid Yagami's slash, Han had thrown himself forward at the last second.
And then Yagami's kick had come straight from the front.
It was practically a head-on collision between two forces.
If his armor had not been tough enough to absorb part of the impact, then forget his arms—he would have died the instant he smashed through those two massive rocks.
"Ahh, my my…"
Yagami looked at Han, who was still forcing himself to stand even after coughing up blood, and raised his brows slightly.
"You're surprisingly sturdy, aren't you? Are you really alright?"
Han's mouth twitched.
Alright?
Was this bastard serious?
I'm coughing blood, both my arms are half crippled, and he's asking if I'm alright?
Even someone as steady-personality as Han nearly cursed out loud.
The sharp pain in his arms was getting worse by the second. He could already tell at least some of the bones were cracked.
Still, he forcibly endured it and showed nothing on his face.
"Han! You okay?!"
Only now did Rōshi break through the aftermath of Yagami's previous slash and rush over.
He and Han were completely different types of fighters.
Han's greatest strengths were explosive speed and raw physical power.
Rōshi, on the other hand, specialized more in offense and defense. Speed was never his strong point.
That was why, during the brief clash between Han and Yagami just now, he had been unable to keep up at all.
He could only watch as Han got sent flying.
"I'm fine!"
Seeing Rōshi charging over, Han shouted back through the pain.
Then, gritting his teeth, he brought his hands together.
"Bang!"
A crimson beam of chakra shot into the sky.
Violent chakra erupted from Han's body all at once.
"Oh?"
Yagami tilted his head slightly as he watched the black-and-red chakra cloak wrap around Han's body, with a tail forming behind him.
"So this is partial Tailed Beast transformation, hm? How scary."
If he had wanted to stop Han just now, he could have flashed over and kicked him away again without giving him the chance.
But Yagami had not done that.
After all, even after spending so many years in this world, he still had not seen many jinchūriki enter this kind of state with his own eyes.
Naturally, he was curious.
So he simply let Han do it.
"Lava Style: Subterranean Needle!"
Just as Yagami stood there with interest written all over his face, Rōshi had already closed in.
With a sharp shout, lava rapidly gathered around his right fist before he drove it forward at Yagami.
The temperature around that fist was so intense that even the air itself warped from the heat.
Yagami's body blurred.
With a flash of golden light, he shifted one meter to the side.
Then he pivoted smoothly on the spot and swung his leg toward Rōshi's back.
"Lava Style: Granite Armor!!"
Rōshi's expression changed. The lava coating his body instantly spread and hardened, darkening into a dense, rock-like armor in the blink of an eye.
And at that exact moment—
Yagami's kick landed.
Boom!
Rōshi's body bent under the impact before he was blasted sideways like a cannonball.
At the same time, Han—who had just rushed in under his Tailed Beast cloak—was also hit by the force of the collision.
The two of them slammed into each other and were sent rolling across the ground together, plowing a long trail through the earth as smoke and dust exploded behind them.
"My, my… you're all awfully hard."
Yagami frowned slightly as he slowly lowered his leg.
The moment his kick connected with Rōshi, it had felt like he had struck a block of iron harder than steel.
That level of hardness was on an entirely different level from Han's armor.
No wonder this man could take heavy attacks head-on.
"Rumble—!!"
Just as Yagami finished lowering his foot, Han and Rōshi smashed straight into a gigantic boulder in the distance.
The rock exploded on impact, blowing open a massive crater.
The two men were driven straight into the center of it.
Chunks of broken stone rained down from above and buried them in an instant.
"Lord Yagami!!!"
"Lord Yagami is incredible!!!"
"That's insane…!"
"Those are two Kage-level opponents!"
"Yeah… and he sent both of them flying by himself!"
Shock and disbelief spread through the Konoha trenches one after another.
They could not clearly follow every detail of the battle between the three Kage-level fighters.
But that last exchange had been obvious even to them.
Yagami had kicked both enemy powerhouses away on his own.
As they stared at the dust-choked battlefield and the shattered boulders in the distance, the Konoha shinobi could not hide the awe in their eyes.
Without even realizing it, many of them had started addressing him with honorifics.
That was the instinctive reverence people felt when looking at a monster on their own side.
Boom!!!
The collapsed boulder exploded apart once more.
Broken rock scattered in every direction.
Han and Rōshi emerged again from the rubble.
"Ahh, how terrifying…"
Yagami drawled, sounding almost impressed.
"The two of you are absurdly tough."
Once the dust cleared, even he had to admit it.
Aside from looking a little battered and embarrassed, the two of them had not suffered truly serious damage.
It was clear now that simple strikes alone were not enough to break through their defenses.
Especially Rōshi's hardened lava armor.
That thing was ridiculously solid.
"Han… what now?" Rōshi asked in a low voice, his gaze locked onto Yagami. "This is getting bad."
The problem was obvious.
The enemy was too fast.
So fast that it made direct confrontation feel almost hopeless.
"Grrr…"
Han let out a low, beast-like growl.
Now that he had entered partial Tailed Beast transformation, he could no longer speak properly.
Only that deep, rumbling snarl came from his throat.
Rōshi glanced at him, silent for a moment, then slowly nodded.
"I see… so that's our only option."
Yagami looked at him with a faint smirk.
"Oh? And what exactly did you understand?"
His body suddenly dissolved into countless particles of light and shot into the sky.
"But before that… you'll have to survive this first."
Golden light gathered between his hands.
Then, in an instant—
"Yasakani no Magatama."
He spread his hands apart.
Countless light bullets poured down from the sky like a divine storm, swallowing Han and Rōshi beneath a dense rain of destruction.
Even with all that defense, Shiki wanted to see just how long they could endure being bombarded without pause.
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