Objectively speaking, Hagoromo was still several times larger than the Three-Tails' eyeball—but he didn't bother correcting that point. After all, there was no reason to expect telepathic understanding with a giant turtle.
Besides, the comparison itself was meaningless.
Battles weren't decided by whose eyeball was bigger.
Even comparing whose eyes were redder made more sense than that.
For a brief moment, the lake surface fell into an eerie silence.
Hagoromo was considering where to start dismantling such a massive creature.
Meanwhile, the Three-Tails was wondering whether this tiny thing was the one that had been knocking on its heart in the middle of its nap.
While the two stared each other down, the children began whispering among themselves.
"Um… what is that thing?" Haku asked nervously.
Looking at the Three-Tails' ferocious appearance, she felt deeply uneasy. Could a single person really stop something like that? If it charged at them, she had absolutely no way to protect Mirai.
Kimimaro, on the other hand, looked thoughtful.
"It's a tailed beast… probably the Three-Tails," he said.
He wasn't completely certain. He had only heard vague descriptions from clan members—but according to those stories, the Three-Tails should indeed be somewhere around here.
Still…
Would anyone actually provoke a tailed beast on purpose?
Yes.
The person standing on the ice was doing exactly that.
A tailed beast wasn't something anyone could simply ignore. The Kaguya clan might even have once considered using it against Kirigakure—but unfortunately, although the weapon of mass destruction was sitting right there in the open, they had no way to control it.
Controlling a tailed beast was far harder than controlling Kimimaro.
"It is the Three-Tails," Mirai confirmed, her tone filled with curiosity.
"Hagoromo and I came here specifically to observe a tailed beast."
Observe?
Was this some kind of elementary school nature journal?
My First Tailed Beast Observation?
Haku and Kimimaro exchanged glances.
First—since when were tailed beasts rare animals you could casually observe?
Second—Hagoromo didn't look like he planned to leave after just looking.
"Mir—Mirai," Haku asked carefully,
"what exactly is Lord Hagoromo doing right now?"
At the moment, Hagoromo was clearly locked in a staring contest with the tailed beast.
But Mirai offered a much deeper explanation.
"He's communicating with it."
"…Communicating?" Even Kimimaro sounded intrigued.
"Yes," Mirai nodded solemnly.
"Visual communication."
She looked utterly convinced—as though she could read both sides' thoughts through their eyes.
And in her own way, she had read them.
"First, the Three-Tails says: What are you staring at?"
"Then Hagoromo says: What do you think I'm staring at?"
"Then the Three-Tails says: Try staring again."
"So Hagoromo says: Fine, I'll stare. What about it?"
"And finally, the Three-Tails says: Don't think just because I'm a turtle that I won't snap."
Mirai's live psychological interpretation was surprisingly accurate.
She instantly earned looks of awe from her companions.
So profound… yet somehow incomprehensible.
Because just as she finished speaking, one of the Three-Tails' massive tails shot downward—like a scorpion's venomous stinger—aimed straight at Hagoromo with terrifying speed and force.
From an outside perspective, this attack was absolutely lethal.
But to Hagoromo, it was another matter entirely.
Everyone had a different definition of fast.
To the children, this was lightning-fast.
To Hagoromo—
It was slow.
At the instant the tail was about to strike, Hagoromo shifted backward slightly. The tail stabbed into the water right in front of him.
Not even a splash touched his body.
Then he stepped forward.
The Three-Tails' tail arched like a massive bridge, and Hagoromo sprinted straight to its highest point.
He was just about to unleash a point-blank barrage—
When the other two tails closed in from both sides.
Dodging was unavoidable. No matter how strong he was, taking a direct hit like that with his body would be suicidal.
Otherwise, he'd be starring in Sandwich Maid—and unfortunately, there was no Branch 177 for him to join.
He sidestepped sharply, slipping through the gap between the three tails.
Head-first, Hagoromo began a rapid vertical descent.
Midair, lightning crackled wildly around him. As he approached the Three-Tails' body, he rotated half a turn, corrected his posture, and drew the Iron Sand Sword from his waist.
Lightning danced across the blade, engraved sealing patterns glowing as the sword instantly extended to ten meters in length.
This was Hagoromo's own refined iron sand—far more compatible than the old Third Kazekage model.
The roar of water drowned out the iron sand's hum, but visually, it was impossible to miss.
The iron sand blade swept downward, slicing cleanly across the base of one of the Three-Tails' tails.
Blinding lightning and a crimson mist exploded outward!
The sensation was like cutting into steel.
The Three-Tails was tougher than the Eight-Tails—but only tougher.
Not uncuttable.
In less than a second of contact, amid a deafening roar of agony, an entire turtle tail was severed and sent flying.
At that moment, the Three-Tails ceased to be the Three-Tails.
What remained was—
The Two-Tails, Matatabi…
and the Two-Tails, Isobu.
But losing one tail didn't subdue a tailed beast.
It only made it more violent.
Ignoring the severed limb entirely, Isobu thrashed its massive body, the surging water forcing Hagoromo back slightly. Then it reoriented itself, its head locking once more onto the tiny insect before it.
Its enormous mouth opened.
Dark, compressed chakra gathered.
A pitch-black sphere began to form.
One disagreement—and it went straight to an ultimate move?
The Tailed Beast Ball was indeed a finishing move.
But if it couldn't be fired, it meant nothing.
Every ultimate technique required charging time. When trading finishing moves, victory often depended on who activated theirs faster.
A difference of a fraction of a second could decide everything.
So Hagoromo even had time to glance back at Mirai—who was hopping anxiously on the shore, clearly warning him that the enemy was charging a big attack.
He might have even given her a reassuring smile.
Then—
The Lightning Release technique fired first.
A blazing orange beam pierced straight through the Tailed Beast Ball, then punched through Isobu's comparatively weaker throat area, detonating violently inside its body.
A perfect combination of interrupt and overwhelming damage.
After that single strike, Hagoromo didn't give the tailed beast another chance.
Two full minutes of fully loaded bombardment—
That was more than enough to neutralize the Three-Tails.
Explosion after explosion.
Wave after wave of blood mist.
Isobu went from roaring…
to howling…
to complete silence—
All within a very short span of time.
It was absolutely not a child-friendly scene.
Even Haku had trouble watching.
Wasn't this bullying a tailed beast just a bit too much?
Still, Hagoromo deliberately avoided destroying Isobu's head.
After all, his goal wasn't to kill it with a Lightning Release technique.
He only needed the Three-Tails to lose all ability to resist—
to become a salted fish.
Killing a tailed beast this way was meaningless.
What he needed to test—
Was a different method entirely.
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