Tatsuma materialized in front of a Suna ninja. The man's face twisted into a mask of pure terror, mirrored by the raw, distorted snarl on Tatsuma's own face—a byproduct of his spiraling emotional instability.
Yet, deep within that storm of rage, Tatsuma's mind remained unnervingly lucid. He hadn't lost his sanity; rather, it was the lucidity of a man consumed by a singular, uninhibited purpose. It was like the peak of a blinding fury—the soul remains the same, but the restraints of social decorum and mercy have been burned away.
This state was far more volatile than ordinary anger, however. He couldn't simply take a deep breath and center himself. The Nine-Tails' influence wouldn't allow it.
But his consciousness was still the pilot. As he watched the emotions flicker across the Suna ninja's face, everything seemed to move in slow motion—the world reduced to a series of frame-by-frame updates.
The ninja's hands rose in a frantic, panicked attempt to guard. Tatsuma's hands moved first. He was several orders of magnitude faster. By the time his fingers clamped around the ninja's wrists, the man hadn't even processed that his guard had been bypassed.
Staring at the hands trapped in his grasp, a thousand combinations of martial sequences flashed through Tatsuma's mind. His simmering rage and absolute hatred waited for his remaining logic to issue the final command.
Grasp the Bird's Tail.
The thought manifested into action. Tatsuma twisted the ninja's wrist, and the man—driven by the sheer torque of the move—unconsciously pivoted into a half-turn to relieve the pressure on his joints.
In that instant, Tatsuma's hands snapped downward. He shattered the ninja's center of gravity and destroyed his balance entirely, before sweeping his hands in a violent arc to the right.
BAM!
Tatsuma didn't feel like he had exerted much effort at all. Yet the Suna ninja was launched through the air like he'd been hit by a freight train. He slammed into a massive tree, the trunk snapping under the impact. The man slumped to the roots, his breathing coming in ragged, shallow gasps—halfway to the grave.
The surrounding Suna ninjas recoiled, their faces pale. Even Tatsuma felt a flicker of disbelief. Grasp the Bird's Tail wasn't a finishing move; in Tai Chi, it was a sequence used to break a stalemate.
In a typical duel, both combatants are hyper-focused, guarding their center of gravity and refusing to overextend. Grasp the Bird's Tail—the application of the four primary energies: Ward Off (Peng), Roll Back (Lu), Press (Ji), and Push (An)—is designed to bait, unbalance, and create an opening.
But just now, the mere momentum of the Roll Back and Press had been enough to inflict terminal damage. It was the ultimate proof of a simple combat truth: if you are strong and fast enough, the "how" matters far less than the "hit."
At 10,000 points of raw power, every movement was a death sentence.
The Suna ninjas were veterans. After the initial shock, they regained their footing and launched a coordinated assault. Volleys of kunai and shuriken whistled through the air, and several ninjas began weaving seals for long-range jutsu.
No one dared to get close. They had watched Tatsuma fight all week; he had been battered, bled, and broken, yet his speed and power never waned. He was a monster that grew more terrifying the more it was wounded.
Tatsuma sensed the air around him thickening with dense pockets of chakra. Seeing the incoming projectile rain, he didn't hesitate. He launched into a series of Butterfly Twists and aerial rotations, his body a blur of red-shrouded motion.
Thud-thud-thud!Spurt—!
He evaded the majority of the strike, but the sheer volume of the volley found its mark. Several streaks of blood erupted from his left arm as a kunai and two shuriken buried themselves in his muscle.
Gritng his teeth, Tatsuma ripped the steel from his flesh and hurled it back with lethal accuracy. He scrambled for cover behind a massive boulder, the boiling red chakra already beginning to knit his new wounds shut.
He huddled there for a heartbeat, hissing as the pain flared, waiting for the briefest lull in the barrage. The moment the frequency of the attacks dipped, he bolted from his cover, lunging toward the nearest Suna ninja.
The ninja, who had been maintaining a wary distance, lunged forward with a kunai. He was too slow.
Tatsuma's left hand swatted the ninja's weapon-arm aside while his right hand snaked past the man's guard. Using a Horizontal Back-fist Strike, he hammered his fist directly into the ninja's cheek.
CRACK-CRACK!
The sound of shattering bone echoed clearly. When Tatsuma vanished in a Body Flicker, the onlookers saw the result: the right side of the ninja's face was completely caved in. His head was slumped to the left at a sickening, impossible angle.
Tatsuma reappeared instantly in front of another target. This wasn't a Chunin—it was the Suna Jonin who had been battling Inuzuka Shin before Sajin arrived.
The Jonin's face flushed with fury. To him, Tatsuma's talent was impressive for a child, but the boy's arrogance in challenging a Jonin head-on was an insult. He was a taijutsu specialist in his own right, and he met Tatsuma's charge with a powerful straight punch.
Tatsuma met the strike with a Ward Off (Peng) block. He didn't just stop the punch; he redirected the momentum, sliding into the Jonin's inner circle. His left hand snared the Jonin's wrist while his right elbow slammed into the man's extended joint.
SNAP! "AAAAUGH!"
The Jonin's left arm bent the wrong way—a perfect application of Splitting (Lie) energy used to destroy a joint.
Horrified and enraged, the Jonin clutched his ruined arm and swung his right fist in a desperate downward hammer-fist. Because of Tatsuma's height, a downward strike was the most natural counter.
But in doing so, he left his entire midsection wide open. Tatsuma stepped in, driving his elbow squarely into the Jonin's liver.
At the same time, the Jonin's hammer-fist slammed into Tatsuma's back. Under normal circumstances, that blow would have shattered Tatsuma's spine or left him paralyzed.
But now? Tatsuma felt a sharp jolt of pain, but it didn't slow him down. He ignored it, straightening his posture as the Jonin's balance crumbled from the internal trauma of the liver blow. Tatsuma hooked his leg behind the man's heel to "bury the root."
With a Slant Flying (Xiefei Shi) throw, he sent the Jonin crashing into the dirt.
If Tatsuma had been an adult, he might have used Parting the Wild Horse's Mane, but his current height made that awkward. Slant Flying allowed him to use a longer lever against the taller man, generating more power with less effort.
The Jonin hit the ground hard, his senses reeling. Just as Tatsuma leaned in to deliver the killing blow, he sensed a massive surge of chakra from Sajin's direction.
Dropping low, Tatsuma grabbed the Jonin by the collar and belt and heaved the man toward Sajin.
Puff-puff-puff!
A rain of poisoned senbon, intended for Tatsuma, buried themselves deep into the Jonin's back instead. Tatsuma didn't stay to watch; he used the distraction to bolt toward the next Suna Chunin.
Sajin, seeing that he had just "executed" his own comrade, let out a scream of impotent, murderous rage.
"YOU BASTARD!!!"