A/N Well, ahem...finally got that one out. Time to move on to a more serious matter, with Menma trying to find the Rokubi...and its Jinchuuriki.
Jutsu Translations at bottom
Chapter 12 - The Four Faces of the Devil
"I've found him."
Menma's eyes opened slowly as he felt the soothing feeling of sleep gradually fade away, allowing him to start to wake up. He blinked and started to push himself up, finding out he was under the covers of a bed, and that there was a still sleeping form resting beside him.
"What the…?" he thought to himself before he saw the red hair peeking out from the covers and he smiled, remembering the events of last night.
"Oh yeah…"
"I've found him."
He blinked as the voice entered his mind again, and he instantly recognized it as his clone's.
"What?"
"I've found the Rokubi's hiding spot. It's in an underwater cave off the coast of the main island. It took me longer to detect the Bijuu's chakra because of its location underwater and that there are multiple barriers preventing any chakra signatures from being sensed placed around it." explained his clone from where it stood, at the edge of a large cliff overlooking the churning sea off the coast of the main island.
Menma's mood instantly went from one of happiness and relaxation to one of emotionless, cold hearted seriousness.
"Got it. I'll be there shortly." he said before he got out of the bed, being sure not to disturb the sleeping Amari, and got dressed, reforming his cloak as well, and walking towards the door leading out of the apartment.
He looked back and his gaze dropped as he returned his mask to its spot at covering his face.
"I'm sorry Amari, but I must accomplish the Eye of the Moon Plan. I must." he thought sadly before he vanished in a flash, using the Shadow Step Technique to instantly teleport to where his clone was.
"So...he's down there, eh?" asked Menma as his clone started to fuse back into his being, the real him receiving all of the info the clone had gathered on its own.
"Several other chakra signatures are down there...probably ANBU...easy enough." he thought before he took one step off the cliff and fell several hundred feet before plunging deep into the ocean with an explosion of water, a cloud of bubbles surrounding him as he sunk deeper and deeper into the briny depths of the sea.
His feet finally touched the bottom and he began to swim towards a large subterranean mountain before him, a large cave gaping from its surface. He let go of a breath and saw the air bubbles escape out from under his mask as he swam into the large cave, delving deep into the bowels of the earth until he entered an underground lake, seeing some light above him and more importantly, the surface.
He slowly swam up to the surface and peeked above the water without disturbing its tranquility, seeing another cave near the shore of the underwater lake, along with two Kiri ANBU guarding it on either side.
He watched them for a few seconds before he disappeared under the surface of the water again while from his body formed multiple wooden stakes.
Then he shot out of the water like a rocket, the ANBU to slow to react before he spun in the air whilst the wooden stakes coaked him like a porcupine, ready to burst. He then fired them out in a huge cluster that impaled the four ANBU many times over, spraying their blood all over the caves wall like some horrific painting.
He landed in a large pool of blood coming from the slumped over corpses of the dead ANBU and entered the large cave entrance lit by torches with…
"Blue fire?" questioned Menma as he walked down the dimly lit tunnel, puzzled by the blue fire since he had never seen the strange anomaly before.
The tunnel seemed to go on forever, and to Menma...it was going down deeper and deeper into the earth, since it had become increasingly colder and his breath now being visible. His footsteps echoing off the ancient stone walls of the tunnel became monotonous, just the sound of it able to drive any normal person insane in the silence.
"How long does this tunnel go on for? And how deep am I under the surface of the earth…?" he thought before he stopped as something on the wall caught his eye.
He examined it and found it to be an ancient cave drawing of a single person, one with flailing hair and what seems to be a mask on its face. The mask though was devilish in nature, with a wicked smile and hollow eyes. He recognized however the Kirigakure symbol etched into its surface and came to the conclusion that this was a Kiri shinobi, and from the look of the armor that the man wore, it was during the First Shinobi World War.
From the man's back however were multiple black tendrils of some sort, and gave him the look of a demonic tentacle monster.
Menma continued down the tunnel and saw more cave drawings of the man, only on the second one, he saw a second figure with him, one made entirely of the black stuff and with its own mask as well. The third had a second black creature joining the already present one, then another until at the last one, there were four black creatures with the man, who still wore the devilish mask.
Then Menma abruptly came to a stop when he ran right into a massive stone door that blocked his way. He stepped back and took in the image that was carved into it. It was of the cave drawing, with the man's mask in the center, then around him were the faces of the black creatures with him. There was a set of kanji forcibly engraved below the masks and Menma got a chill in his spine when he red them aloud.
"Welcome to hell...the lair of the Four Faces of the Devil." he recited before he looked back up a the faces and shivered again at the chilled feeling he was getting from being so far underground.
He shook off the feeling and became his cold, emotionless self again.
"Knock, knock." he said to himself before he broke the stone door down with a forceful kick that made it crumble.
He walked in and was immediately creeped the fuck out when he saw the walls lighted with the same blue torches, and painted with a florescent light blue chalk that reflected the glow of the blue fire. In the center of the larger room was a massive pool of boiling hot magma, the temperature surrounding it drastically different than the cold tunnel outside. The room itself was hexagonal in shape, with a raised platform behind the pit of magma and sitting on it was a darkened form.
"You shouldn't have come here..." spoke the figure before he stood up to his full height, Menma narrowing his eyes as he saw the familiar red cloud adorned Akatsuki cloak the man was wearing, as well as the Rokubi's chakra radiating out from his skin.
"They don't call me the Four Faces of the Devil for a reason..." said the man again before he turned to face him, Menma's eyes widened in realization.
The man talking to him was the man depicted in the cave drawing, and he was none other than the former Jinchuuriki of the Sanbi, Yahiko.
"Why do they call you that I wonder?" asked Menma, Yahiko smirking behind his face mask.
"I've been around for quite some time...I was one of the first to be admitted as a shinobi here in Kirigakure when it was first founded. When I was twenty two, I was sent on my first mission to help retrieve a package from Takigakure, but as a precautionary measure, I had a team of four with me. They were my closest friends and allies, all of them I could trust my life with." explained Yahiko before his mood became sour and cold, his dark eyes narrowing in rage.
"But when we went to retrieve the package, it was a trap. We were attacked ruthlessly, and I as the only one left alive in...in a pool of my friends blood. The man who did it was a user of the forbidden technique known as the Earth Grudge Fear, a gruesome Jutsu that allows the user to transform his body into a ragdoll, his very limbs held together by black threads..."
Menma slowly started to feel the air get colder as Yahiko continued his story.
"In blind fury, I ripped out his heart and absorbed his Jutsu, becoming a carrier of the Earth Grudge Fear myself, and brutally murdered his teammates, ripping their bodies to shreds as I skewered them with the multitude of black threads I now had in my body. Afterwards, I became a gruesome fighter among the ranks of Kirigakure. All of my faces would strike fear into any who would oppose me..."
"Faces...?" questioned Menma before Yahiko leaped down from his perch to stand right across from him on the other side of the magma pit.
"All four hearts I posses were of my wrongfully murdered teammates. They are my faces, and each mask they wear is the same as the ones they wore that day, so that they would never be forgotten. I became the Devil that day...killing for the fun of it for almost a hundred years."
Menma gulped a little when Yahiko began to unbutton his Akatsuki cloak, taking it off to reveal he wore nothing under it, allowing Menma to see the various threads and stitches that held his tattooed body together. The creepiest part was that the masks he tallied about were stitched onto his back.
"What kinda fucked up Jutsu is this?!" he thought as he began to growl while he hunched over and clenched his fists, his back starting to deform and stretch apart.
The masks on his back started to pull away from him, the skin connected to the mask starting to stretch thin while the stitches began to split apart, revealing a mass of black threads trying to break free. Menma gagged in disgust Yahiko grunted as his back split apart and exploded, the giant mass of black threads swarming out and forming into four individual grotesque creatures.
One was a demonic biped with a Kiri mask that possessed three yellow triangles across the left cheek area. The one closest to him had a red line from the top of the mask down the center of it until it reached the bottom, and looked like a demonic tiger. The one standing to his right had a unique mask, one where the usual slits that allowed an ANBU to see, were normal eyeholes, and underneath one was a single blue circle, while the beast itself took the form of a deformed biped with both of its arms on the right side of its body. The last monster had a ANBU mask that possessed a single green triangle on the bottom part of the mask, and it looked like a strange, disfigured four legged monster with thin wings.
"These are the Four Faces of the Devil...they are the basis of nightmares that could make even the strongest man fall." said Yahiko before his back restitched itself back together and he stood back up his full height of 6ft 2in.
Menma was left speechless when the thread monster with the ANBU mask with the blue circle roared, an inhumane screech sounding out from the beast before its mask split down the middle and opened like a mouth with a crack.
"Meiton - Kirai no ōuzumaki!" yelled Yahiko before from the mouth of the beast fired a swirling vortex of purple fire that ran straight at Menma.
He rolled out of the way to avoid the swirling inferno and instantly felt the insane heat arising from the purple fire striking the wall, and melting the stone.
"Holy hell! It's melting the wall!" he thought before all of a sudden the winged masked creature appeared right beside him and opened its mask with a crack.
"Shakuton - Kajōsatsu!"
"Fuck!" cursed Menma as he was blasted at point blank range with a red ball of intense flames that upon impact started to evaporate all the water in his body.
Acting on instinct, he used Hashirama's cells coursing through his veins to grow a tree from himself that caught the flames and saved himself while the tree was instantly sucked dry of all moisture and turned to dust.
He hit the ground and rolled a few feet, grunting a little as he got up off the stone ground to see the two other masked creatures surround him, their masks snapping open.
"Jinton - Dōka genshi hosoku-bako! Kesshouton - Yokozure!"
"Kesshouton?!" thought Menma in bewilderment before the beast with the two arms on the right side fired off a translucent white cube that enveloped Menma and trapped him within it, limiting his movement.
Then his eyes widened as he turned around and gasped as a white hot bolt of pure plasma shot out from the second beast's mask at the speed of light, piercing through the cube and straight through his chest, then back out through the other side of the cube and dissipating.
Menma gasped as he fell to his knees, the blackened hole in his chest located right over his left lung and was making it incredibly difficult to breath, the rate at which he was regenerating his flesh being too slow and leaving him open to attack.
"Plasma Release...damn that hurt…" thought Menma as he gasped for breath, then all of a sudden Yahiko's fist smashed into his jaw, sending him flying across the cave and into one of the walls, creating a plume of dust and debris upon impact.
"Fuck…! The Dust Release, Plasma Release, Scorch Release, and Dark Release?! Fuckin' hell..." thought Menma annoyingly as he pulled himself out from the wall and took in a deep breath as his lung was finally repaired.
"Not playing around eh? I can play that way!" smirked Menma as he got back up and popped his dislocated arm back into his shoulder and rolled it around while Yahiko observed him as his masks maneuvered to surround him again.
"Go ahead and try to beat me." said Yahiko before Menma pressed his hands to the ground, the cavern starting to shake with tremendous force.
"Mokuton Hijutsu - Jukai Kōtan." said Menma calmly before the ground erupted with massive tree roots that sent tore the room up and sent the both of them smashing through the earth towards the surface at great speeds until finally they burst through the seafloor and up into the ocean above, forming a large island of trees off the coast of the man island were Kirigakure was located.
"Now I can move around…" said Menma to himself before the tree leaves behind him rustled and instantly the winged mask beast shot through the leaves and opened its mask.
"Shakuton - Kajōsatsu!" yelled Yahiko as he appeared on the top of the trees while the beast launched several red balls of fire at Menma, the latter dodging each one as they struck the tree and dried up parts of it until they turned to dust.
In his fleeing, Menma hit another beast and it knocked him forward, a third beast appeared right in front of him and firing another blast of the purple fire that sent him spiralling up into the air.
"Kesshouton - Yokozure!"
The beast fired another beam of hot plasma up at Menma, only he swept it across his body horizontally and completely bisected him into two halfs. Yahiko smirked behind his mask before he gasped as a hand burst out from his chest, spraying blood outward while the hand itself held his still beating heart.
"Good job, you killed my Wood Clone. But I win." said Menma with a sneer before Yahiko's eyes became cloudy and he pushed him off his arm, allowing his dead body to collapse onto the tree branch they were standing on.
His masks looked at him for a second before the Plasma affinity mask fired another beam at him to make him retreat while the Dust affinity mask ran up to Yahiko and jumped back into his body, the black threads that formed it being sucked back through his skin. The mask it wore shattered into tiny pieces and Menma watched as Yahiko's body suddenly jerked, his eyes widening as he was brought back to life with the heart the mask contained.
Menma shivered a little as Yahiko pulled himself up from the ground while he stitched up the hole in his chest caused by Menma, then became surrounded by the three surviving masked beasts he still had. To his surprise the Scorch and Dark affinity masks morphed together to form a larger thread creature that stood at least seven feet tall and possessed four arms, two on each side, and the small wings the Scorch affinity mask possessed, while the two masks were side by side in the center of the mass.
"Bring it." challenged Yahiko darkly as he hunched down and let his arms hang limp while the beasts charged him again.
"Rasenringu!" said Menma as he launched a spiralling ring at the two masked creature, but cursed when it dodged it easily then opened both of its masks, a single ball of red fire and purple fire forming in the mouth of each.
"Oh shit."
The two mask's fired a combined inferno of red and blue fire that snaked through the air and zoomed right at Menma, forcing him to make a split second decision and throw himself to the left while the attack totally decimated the tree he stood on, sucking it dry of water while simultaneously incinerating it.
"Great! He can combine the attacks of two of the masks to make them even more powerful!" thought Menma sarcastically before at the last second, the third mask leaped into the air and opened its mouth to fire another beam of plasma that luckily only pierced his right shoulder, rendering it completely useless for the moment since the nerves and muscles in that area had been completely burned away.
"Keep it up, he's wearing down!" said Saiken from within Yahiko, the two in perfect sync as they laid waste to Menma.
"Have you been able to identify who he is by his chakra?" asked Yahiko, Saiken becoming silent for a few seconds.
"No...but I do sense something inside of him...much like myself...the chakra of a Bijuu."
"Did he take one of the Bijuu he stole and seal it within himself?"
"No...this chakra's different from Gyuki's and Shukaku's...it's like Naruto's...only darker…" said Saiken ominously, Yahiko becoming confused a little at how this man could possess Naruto's chakra.
"Wait a minute...the only person I can think of off the top of my head that could have Naruto's chakra is…"
"You're not thinking it's...Menma? That's impossible!" objected Saiken.
"We can't rule out everything Saiken. We have to assume that it might be Menma under Indra's influence or something. He was kidnapped, remember?"
"Yeah."
Yahiko was driven out from his thoughts when his Plasma affinity heart was launched backwards with a stake through its body from a quickly growing cloud of dark red colored chakra. He flinched when multiple wooden branches extended out from the black threads and he felt the heart inside it become impaled by one of the branches, killing it. The beast dissolved and the mask shattered, leaving him with only three hearts left, his own, and the two that were combined together.
Yahiko narrowed his eyes at the dark red chakra and his eyes widened when a chakra covered hand grasped the edge of the branch he was standing on, then eventually pulled up the Masked Man slowly transforming into the Version 2 state of a fox. His cloak and skin was peeling away and his mask was crumbling, first revealing his red, rage filled eyes and then his whisker-like birthmarks, and finally his bared fangs.
"Menma?!" he stuttered before Menma got down on all fours and emitted a low growl from the back of his throat.
"That's it...you've pissed me off...now I'm going to murder you before I take your beast!" roared Menma before a wave of chakra exploded outward from him, making Yahiko brace himself from the wind as well with his two remaining hearts, the conjoined beast joining him at his side.
"This is bad! He does have a Bijuu inside him, or at least has the chakra of one!" said Saiken.
"Menma?! What the hell are you doing stealing Bijuu? What did Indra do to you?!" yelled Yahiko as he absorbed his three other hearts and stood motionless as half of Menma's face became covered by the dark red chakra of a Bijuu.
"Nothing at all, mr dear former friend! All he did was show me the right path to restore peace, and give me what I have inside of me!" laughed Menma as the chakra bones of the Version 2 state formed, the skull starting to encase his head while the spine formed down his back, six tails swishing behind him.
"Gave you what?!" yelled Yahiko before Menma's red slit eye was replaced by a dark orange eye, filled with evil and mal-intent.
"Me, the opposite of the Kyuubi...the Kuro Kyuubi! I am the embodiment of all that is dark and evil...I am Menma, and he is me!" spoke the Bijuu within Menma through him, his dark and ominous tone making Yahiko's skin crawl.
"A Kuro Kyuubi?! Indra was able to create a Bijuu?!" sputtered Saiken before Yahiko clenched his teeth.
"Saiken, we have to go into Version 2, now!"
"Right."
Yahiko hunched over and he began to growl slightly as his Version 2 mode instantly roared to life, covering his body with a still dark red colored chakra, but in a lighter tone then Menma's chakra, and that he did not form chakra bones.
"Menma, listen to me! Indra is controlling you somehow! Just stop fighting and this won't have to get out of hand!" yelled Yahiko again over the raging winds produced from the two Jinchuuriki entering their Version 2 states, but his plea fell on deaf ears.
"Enough talking. Let's see how our power compares to that of the Rokubi, hm?" asked the Kuro Kyuubi, with Menma responding with a full frontal charge at Yahiko.
- Kirigakure, Kage Building -
"Lady Mizukage!"
"What is it?" asked Mei as a terrified Kiri shinobi ran into her office with sweat dripping from his brow.
"Yahiko's fighting the Masked Man off the coast of the island above where he was being hidden, and...and.."
"And what?!"
"The Masked Man is a Jinchuuriki! They're fighting in Version 2 states!" sputtered the man, Mei's eyes widening before she shrugged off the shock and instantly went into action.
"Stay away from the fight. I'm sure Yahiko can handle this. When the Masked Man takes a fatal blow, we go in as back-up, got that?"
"Yes ma'am!"
"What's going on?!" asked Amari as she ran into the office past the shinobi as he exited to relay orders.
"Yahiko is currently engaged in a fight with the Masked Man. Stay away from there until the fight is over!" said Mei, Amari taken aback by the shock of hearing the news.
"Menma wasn't there this morning when I woke up...it couldn't be...I have to know." she thought before she ran out the door, leaving the stressing Mei Terumi to herself.
- Island of Trees -
"Sansan!" yelled Yahiko as he opened his mouth and released a huge cloud of pink colored gas that when making contact with the trees they stood on, its disintegrated it and anything in its path.
Menma leaped up into the air and opened his mouth wide while starting to gather up Yin and Yang chakra.
"Bijuu-Dama!" he roared as he formed a small scale Tailed Beast Ball and fired it down at Yahiko and the island of trees, forcing him to think fast as he covered himself with his tails.
The ball exploded in a huge red dome of chakra that incinerated the island of trees and sent Yahiko plummeting into the depths of the ocean.
"Damn!" he cursed as he sank to the bottom of the sea while his chakra cloak began to reform, the explosion having ripped away some of the chakra cloaking him.
"Naruto's not going to be happy when he finds out his son has been stealing the Bijuu."
"No shit! We need to go full on, balls to the wall."
"Let's do it, you and me!" agreed Saiken before the two synched their chakras and his Version 2 form began to expand and become white.
"Where are you…" said Menma as he stood on the surface of the water, steam rising from where he stood while he scanned the surface for any sign of Yahiko.
Suddenly the water churned all around him and his eyes widened before an intense beam of chakra exploded out from the water, completely overwhelming him and sending him rocketing up into the sky while Yahiko, fully transformed as Saiken, emerged from the ocean after firing off the Tailed Beast Ball he formed as a laser.
Luckily he was large enough to stand on the ocean floor and still be above the surface of the water, which was a relief for him.
Menma however was still in the air, his Version 2 cloak nearly destroyed while his body was heavily bruised.
"Allow me." said the Kuro Kyuubi before his black-red chakra began to encase Menma's comatose form and began to grow bigger, forming appendages and tails.
"Go right ahead...Shuka…" said Menma before he became fully unconscious and allowed his Bijuu to take full control of his body.
"Here he comes!" said Saiken when Yahiko looked up and saw a giant mass fall back down and crash into the water, the resulting plume of liquid obscuring the figure for a few seconds before it was revealed to be a full sized version of a Kyuubi, only its fur was a very dark shade of orange.
"Menma?!"
"He's taking a break, now it's just me." said Shuka before he bared his fangs and hunkered down while looking at Yahiko.
"So that's the Kuro Kyuubi...I can feel the evil swirling around inside of him. We cannot lose, Yahiko."
"Right." he replied before readied himself for an attack from the fox.
He narrowed his eyes when he saw Menma phase out from Shuka's skin and stand upon his head with a wide smile.
Meanwhile on the edge of the cliff, Amari's was shocked to see the giant fox and slug in the water about to duke it out, but even more heartbreaking is that on top of the fox's head was Menma himself.
In that moment she realized that he was the Masked Man, the one who had attacked Sunagakure and Kumogakure.
"No..."
"Let's go Shuka!" said Menma before the Kuro Kyuubi roared as he charged Yahiko, bringing its clawed hand back for a swipe at him.
He brought his hand down and surprisingly, for being a giant slug, Yahiko was very agile and managed to avoid the swipe with ease, then prepare another Tailed Beast Ball.
"Bijuu-Dama!" he roared before firing the massive ball at Menma and Shuka, the two pausing for a moment before he blocked it with three of his tails.
"Right back at you!" said Shuka before he pushed back the Tailed Beast Ball and smashed it into Yahiko, nothing happening at first until the ball detonated in a massive explosion that shook the sea and the ground, lighting up the sky with the brilliant colors of red and orange.
The steam from the superheated water produced a layer of smoke that hid the two titans from one another, only Yabiko had the advantage here. Even in the humongous form of Saiken, he was as silent as a mouse thanks to the Hiding in Mist Technique.
"Where did he go ...?" wondered Menma as they waited silently for their opponent, waiting for him to strike.
Suddenly Yahiko charged from the steam and rammed his head into Shuka's side, knocking the wind out of him while making him crash into the waters below and nearly throw Menma off of his perch.
"Enough of this! Mokuton - Mokuryū no Jutsu!" growled Menma before the large body of the hook nosed wooden dragon emerged from his body and snaked through the water and up to Yahiko, wrapping tightly around him and draining his chakra.
"Hiruma...!" grunted Yabiko before his slimy skin started to secrete a highly horrid ice substance that started to eat away at the dragon and allow him to escape from its bonds.
"That won't get you out this!" roared Shuka as he finished ingesting a Tailed beast Ball and regurgitated back out in a compact laser that struck Yahiko right in the chest.
"This is not going too well...!" said Saiken as Yahiko fell to the waves with steam rolling off his body from the laser's impact.
"You think...?" said Yahiko before he got himself back up and eyed Menma from where he stood on his Bijuu's head. "*We can't fight him forever...we'll run out of chakra eventually, and I can't hold this form for long... We havn't perfected our synch yet." said Yahiko through deep breaths while Saiken analyzed the situation.
"I'm at a loss at what to do." he said finally after a few seconds of silence before Shuka grinned, showing off his fangs and his cocky smile.
Yahiko noticed Menma was whispering something into his ear and he became suspicious, wondering what the two could have been discussing together.
"Be careful Yahiko, these two are unpredictable." cautioned Saiken before all of a sudden, Shuka and Menma vanished in the blink of an eye.
"What the...?" thought Yahiko before all of a sudden, he was punched in the jaw by Shuka, then launched back several hundred yards when he brought his other hand around for a second punch.
Yahiko grunted as Shuka immediately assaulted him again, bringing all nine of his tails around to bash into his body and send him careening into the water, causing massive waves to pound into the rock face of the cliff where several other Kiri shinobi watched helplessly.
"Hurry! He's charging us again!" warned Saiken as Yahiko groaned in pain as he got himself up out of the water, only to be smashed back down into it by Shuka's foot, the fox sneering down at him.
"He's just about finished, isn't he?" said Menma as he squatted down on his head and looked down at the battered Yahiko.
"Saiken...Saiken listen to me..." breathed Yahiko before grunting a little from another wave of pain.
"What?"
"Give some of your chakra to...to Menma. Secretly hide it in him...the time will come and he'll have it when he does."
Saiken didn't utter a word in sadness for him, but silently agreed before he sent some of his chakra through to Menma, unbeknownst to him, then returned attention to him.
"It is done."
"Saiken...seems this is the end for us..."
"Let's go out with a bang, hm?" suggested Saiken, Yahiko smiling before he gathered his chakra for probably the last Jutsu of his life.
Shuka was about to reach down and grab the giant slug by the throat before he was thrown off of him, Yahiko getting back to his feet and hunching over a bit.
"Hah...hah...Bijuu...Dama!" he said through heavy breaths before he started to build up the massive ball, Menma grinning a little in response.
"Meet 'em halfway!" he yelled as Shuka stretched his mouth open and started to form his own Tailed Beast Ball.
"Oh shit! Two Tailed Beast Balls! We've got to get back! Everyone, get away!" yelled one shinobi before the entirety of the Kiri-nin watching the fight began to run from the cliff face, not wanting to be there when they exploded.
"Come on...bigger...!" yelled Yahiko as he poured more yin and yang chakra into the giant ball, making grow exponentially two sizes larger than Menma and Shuka's.
In response, Shuka made his grow larger as well, the Two Tailed Beast Balls now enormous enough to be counted as planetoids.
"If I'm going down...I'M TAKING YOU WITH ME!" roared Yahiko when in a split second, his Tailed Beast Ball grew three times the size of Shuka's, and he immediately launched it at Menma and Shuka.
Their Tailed Beast Ball raced out and collided with the Yahiko's, the two grinding up against one another before in a flash of light, the two dense balls of chakra detonated in a gigantic sphere of chakra and fire that rapidly expanded the scrape the cliff side while the shockwave from the explosion swept away the water underneath it, forming massive tidal waves that struck the cliff face with such force it broke away some of the rock.
The two Jinchuuriki were caught in the explosion and disappeared from view within the massive ball of fire that lot the sky up and shook the earth. After a minute, the light began to fade away and the fire dissipated, letting a massive cloud of steam overtake the ocean while the cliff was repopulated by the Kiri-nin.
"Is it over?"
"Did Yahiko win?"
They all waited in utter anxiousness for what would be revealed behind the steam as it began to clear away, albeit very slowly.
Within the barrier of steam, Menma stood upon the heavily beaten and battered Shuka, the blast having wounded him severely.
"Agh...all the bones in my body...broken..." he grunted through gritted teeth while Menma stood up from his head.
"Can you stand up?"
"No...and I don't think I can be revived when I die like the other Bijuu...since Indra created me..."
"Shit..." cursed Menma as he looked around for a second before coming back to looking at Shuka.
"Hehe, guess we'll have to go to plan B..."
"Which is?" asked Menma.
"You absorb me and become the new Kuro Kyuubi...it's simple kid..." said Shuka, Menma blinking a few times before nodding and placing his palms onto his skin.
"Good luck kid..." said Shuka as a last goodbye before Menma began to suck up his chakra and eventually, Shuka has fully disappeared and Menma was standing on the surface of the water with his new chakra coursing through his veins, now a full fledged Bijuu.
"Now...where is the Rokubi..." he said before he walked into the steam around him and after a few seconds of searching, he found Yahiko unconscious while floating on the surface of the water, having passed out from chakra exhaustion.
"Kuchiyose no Jutsu - Kohaku no Jōhei." said Menma with a single hand sign before the amber pot appeared beside him with puff of smoke.
Like when he had defeated Gaara, he unsealed Saiken, unknowingly giving the Kiri-nin looking into the steam some hope when they saw his gigantic outline through the gas.
"There he is! He did it!" shouted one, and before long, the rest were cheering and whooping while Mei just let out a huge sigh of relief.
Amari meanwhile was heartbroken, torn between finding out Menma was the man who was stealing Bijuu, and that he was dead.
Suddenly the thunderous cheers of all of Kirigakure went dead silent as they saw Saiken's form disappear and when the smoke cleared, they were horrified to see Menma, with a new mask covering his face, seal Saiken within the Kohaku no Jōhei.
"No!" yelled Mei before Menma looked up at them and spotted Amari, seeing the horror in her eyes, and instantly felt a pain in his heart, ripping it to pieces.
"I'm sorry..." he said silently before he disappeared, several ANBU landing on the water beside Yahiko's body and swiping with their swords at nothing.
There were only four Bijuu left now.
Matatabi, Kokuo, Chomei...and Naruto.
A/N Jutsu Translations
Meiton - Kirai no ōuzumaki!(Dark Release - Maelstrom of Hate)
Shakuton - Kajōsatsu / Scorch Release - Extremely Steaming Murder
Jinton - Dōka genshi hosoku-bako / Dust Release - Atom Trapping Box of Assimilation
Kesshouton - Yokozure / Plasma Release - Lateral Strike
Mokuton Hijutsu - Jukai Kōtan / Wood Release Secret Technique - Nativity of a World of Trees
Rasenringu / Spiralling Fear Wheel
Bijuu-Dama / Tailed Beast Ball
Mokuton - Mokuryū no Jutsu / Wood Release - Wood Dragon Technique
Sansan / Acid Scattering
Hiruma / Leech Gap
Kuchiyose no Jutsu - Kohaku no Jōhei / Summoning Technique - Kohaku no Jōhei