Chapter 103

Minato Namikaze had seen a lot of people die during his twenty short years. He himself had been responsible for no fewer than half of them, and both together meant that the concept of the thing was something he was desensitized to. It was something he could handle at any given moment and control, it was, in many ways, just a fact of life for him. People died, people would likely die in front of him, and people would likely die by his hand.

But all of that was predicated on him being prepared for the act. If he was on a mission, out on the battlefields, or even if his blood was pumping when he was training - be it with his clones, the Toads, or his team - he could witness death and be ready for it. In any other situation, if he was sitting at home, out eating with his wife, or anything the like, he would certainly be able to react as instantaneously as would be expected of him, but he would still be surprised, nonetheless.

Today, he had been expecting a marathon of sub-friendly grudge matches with the strongest men and women alive. Death was certainly a possibility, but with the way Teague Hast and his cabal of nations had set things up, this entire world tournament was as much a political function as it was a front in the war - it was meant, in their words, to end the current war and the cycle it had continued as bloodlessly as possible. Death and killing here was possible and wouldn't be outlawed, but the act of doing so would be recorded, made public, and would thus have consequences in the peace to follow. Minato liked that idea - the idea of both holding people accountable for their actions, and having them hold themselves all the same. This honor system enthralled the young Namikaze, as it appealed to good will and the basest of human nature - yes, anyone one may come across would without hesitation fight and kill to protect their loved ones from harm, but in no way did that imply that the person in question wanted to. Even people like Hibiki - and, in many ways, he himself - who just loved fighting in general didn't want or look forward to ending lives, and Minato genuinely felt that, barring some exceptions, this extended to everyone - Shinobi and civilian alike.

So while the prospect of seeing someone die today was something he had recognized, Minato hadn't necessarily thought he would actually see it happen. Even the Iwagakure shinobi, who were in all likelihood out for Hibiki's blood, wouldn't get to see it - although that wasn't for lack of trying as much as it was that Hibiki had long since perfected the art of not dying. Minato attributed it more to Hibiki not wanting to go through the process again than his skill, but he digressed - he hadn't expected anyone to be killed today.

So when Ken, the bleached giant wearing Yuga's hitai ate, pulled some sort of chakra-forged weapon out of thin air and used it to cleave one of Iwa's Jonin in two almost effortlessly, it had caught him by complete surprise.

The same could apparently be said for his best friend, as, next to him, Hibiki jumped with a start and called out, "Jesus!" As Mara's two halves fell to the ground, and Ken's weapon vanished in a flurry of vibrant red embers.

Minato leaned forward, steepling his hands in front of his face and stilling his body until it was like a statue, eyes wide and brow furrowed, senses pushing outwards as he watched Ken then summon a similarly vibrant, glowing red spear, and promptly shove it into the back of Mara's head to confirm the kill. Focusing his burgeoning sensory skills on the weapon in Ken's hands left Minato with a strange feeling. The weapon in Ken's hands felt like food that had been left in the oven for too long tasted. It was burnt and ashen, but beneath that it was also vibrant, thrumming and alight with energy - and this latter bit was what was the most familiar to Minato, having spent years working with something similar. Were these weapons made from raw chakra? How could they have done such a thing? Making them so solid, using shape transformation to turn them into full-blown melee instruments, it spoke of chakra control that even he and Hibiki would pale in comparison to.

Meanwhile, on Minato's other side, Noboru leaned forward, a deep frown settling on his face as he placed all of his focus and attention on the Yuga-nin, either at such a loss for words that he had fallen to his instinct and let his silence speak for him, or having been the one among them to not only be prepared for bloodshed, but expecting of it. The three Konoha Jonin watched as Ken let go of the spear and it faded away in another flurry of embers, and the giant Jonin, without making a sound, turned and marched back towards Yugakure's seating section, unflinchingly leaping up from the ground to the seats, and then turning and dropping with a thud and a creak of wood and plastic that was audible even from across the stadium. As he did this, a disappointed-looking Teague sighed, and with a motion of his hand, dispatched two of Ame's Anbu, one to acquire Mara's body, and the other to speak with the last of Iwa's fighters, in what Minato hoped were the efforts of coordinating what they would do with the body.

Looking at Han, Minato could tell that the armored Iwa-nin was livid almost beyond reason. The air around him seemed to be waving with a very literal heat, as the only exposed portion of his face, his eyes, leered over at Yuga's section. If looks could kill, all three of Yuga's shinobi would have been set ablaze instantly, and this, alongside the mere act of Ken killing Mara, perplexed Minato. Had they been wrong? Were the Yuga-nin even on Kumo and Iwa's side? If they were, then why would Ken just kill Mara like that? If they weren't, then that part at least made the slightest bit more sense, but it still left so many questions in Minato's head.

The most important of which Hibiki unwittingly weighed in on, as he brought his hand up and covered his mouth, saying, "I don't think they're from Kumo." After eyeing down the Yuga trio while the arena had been cleaned up.

Minato and Noboru both nodded, but for different reasons. The Yellow Flash said, "look at, uh..." And after a brief peak at the roster, he snapped back up, "Han... He's furious, and not the kind of 'what the hell, man' anger. I can't see recognition in his eyes." He said, as Hibiki turned to him, and tilted his head curiously - red eyes running over Minato, seeing details only one with a Sharingan could divine, but Minato, with a grin that took a great amount of discipline to kill before it would even trigger a micro-expression, was pretty sure he could predict.

Noboru, however, stole his friend's attention and attracted his own as he covered his mouth as well, having seen Hibiki do so with his Byakugan, and determined the reason why. "And over in Kumo's stands... Not Ay, nor Bee, nor even their third fighter, Yugito, none of them seem to recognize Yuga's fighters. They are viewing them with the same detestation as Han of Iwa."

"Could be they're surviving Yuga-nin?" Hibiki opined. "It's not impossible that not all of them were fighting me at the border or turning their village into a gore field."

"A troubling prospect, from what I have read of what is available to me of those missions." Noboru responded, leaning back in his seat as the next fighters entered the arena and began their bout.

"Weren't they literally immortal?" Asked Minato, otherwise still as a statue, as he shifted his eyes from the Kumo-allied shinobi to the battle below, between a Takigakure and Ishigakure Jonin.

Hibiki nodded, "but their powers were fueled by literal blood sacrifice... Long as you don't let them break skin, you may be good."

Noboru's frown deepened, "if that is the case, then why did Ken use the technique he did? It cauterized the wounds it left behind."

This gave Hibiki pause, but after a moment's thought, the best answer he could come up with was a shrug. "That fucking village has issues."

The three of them silently agreed and soon let the subject rest as the battle before them played out. Hours went by as they watched battle after battle, swapping idle banter and analyses of the men and women throwing down in the arena below. Most were unremarkable, either being parings consisting solely of fighters from minor villages or, in the case of Ay fighting a Suna Jonin, one opponent being so majorly outclassed by another that the battle was over before it could even really begin. By the time the next of Konoha had been called to fight, more than half of the roster had had their first fights and had moved on to the next round, and now it was Minato's turn, and in an interesting turn of events -

"What kind of name is 'Bringer?'..." Minato asked, as he slowly stood up and stretched his stiffened limbs, looking from the roster, to the Yuga-nin cloaked in his kimono, whose own chakra gave him an oily, tarry feeling, almost as though it were so old that its body had decomposed so far that it had turned into what Hibiki had once described as 'black gold'. Strangely though, he could also sense something beneath that - but it was nebulous, as though the tarry oil was covering something and keeping it caged. All Minato could get from it was that whatever was beneath that outer layer was big, bigger than Hibiki - even bigger than Kushina on her bad days.

"Bringer of light?" Noboru posited, reading the fighter's full name as the Yellow Flash got to his feet and stretched his muscles. "Perhaps it is some cultural -"

Then, from the other end of the arena, came a deep, raspy voice, "I forfeit!"

The eyes of the entire arena were on Bringer, whose own expression, and subsequently how he must be thinking, were masked by his outfit.

Teague, speaking for the first time for anything but the announcement and commencement of the next fight, leaned forward in his chair, his voice amplified by the speakers around the arena, "Bringer-san, please confirm you understand what you are saying. You are giving up your chance to fight in this tournament?"

"Against him?" Bringer lifted one of his arms, hidden completely by a deceptively large and baggy sleeve, indicating Minato. "I won't win... There is no point in trying."

All eyes shifted toward Minato, who had paused mid-stretch, his eyes wide and his jaw slack. "Uh..." He blinked. "Oh... Kay then." He uncertainly sat down, and soon after, Teague, after confirming again Bringer's intent, moved onto the next battle - Noboru versus a Grass shinobi. That didn't really make much sense, with what little Minato could get off of the guy, he very well could have been a powerful match for him, so why did he think otherwise?

As Noboru left, Minato turned to Hibiki, a raised eyebrow framing a confused frown, and an unspoken question passing between them.

Hibiki appeared to be as lost as he was, completely unable to parse Bringer's intent until he looked down to the roster as Noboru and his opponent reached the arena and bowed. "Oh... He's playing the long game."

"What?" Minato looked to his own roster, and then grunted, "oh... Oh."

By surrendering before the fight could even occur, Bringer had ensured that two fights were guaranteed to happen: When his turn next rolled around, Minato would fight Killer Bee, the winner of Noboru's battle would fight the victor between Yuga's third, Moshi, and one of Kiri's fighters, a Kunoichi by the name of Mei, and Hibiki would fight the victor between Han and a young swordsman from Kiri. By surrendering himself, he was ensuring that two Yuga-nin wouldn't fight each other and effectively derail their purpose for fighting here in the first place. He was stacking the deck.

"But..." Minato hummed, his senses dulled just the slightest by his movement, as Noboru and the Grass shinobi clashed. "Wouldn't fighting me, even if he knew he'd lose, at least give his friends a chance to study me?" He asked, "even if it somehow took me no effort, just seeing how I react to certain things would be useful."

Hibiki nodded, his red eyes flitting between Noboru's battle, and Yuga's stands. "Maybe the deal was less that he didn't think he could beat you, and more that he just thought there was no possible way for him to draw even a drop of your blood to fuel his techniques." He posited, "or he's hiding something." He was silent for a few moments, before: "Who's Ken going to fight next?" He asked, turning down to his roster, as Minato did the same.

"Kumo's third. Yugito." Minato spoke, "if the point is for them -" He blinked, "wait, maybe that's it?" He asked, attracting a curious glance from Hibiki. "If they're surviving Jashinists, and they're all out for just... Blood in general, like you said they were in Yuga, do you think they're just going to try and wait everything out?" He asked.

This drew a frown from Hibiki, as he turned to idly stare down at Noboru's fight, thinking as he watched the Hyuga noble break a few of his enemy's ribs with a single palm strike. "If they can... Store whatever it is they draw from blood, it might explain why Ken didn't use any of his techniques." He surmised, "they're just holding it all, waiting for the tournament to be done so they can go on a slaughter spree." He was then struck by an epiphany, "holy shit, that may explain who Bringer is to them."

Minato, his earlier feelings about Bringer validated, started to nod, "he's the one storing it all!" He looked over to the Yuga-nin, who were watching the battle with rapt attention. This explained why there seemed to be something huge underneath the surface, there - he was holding all of the energy and power they had taken from all of the people they had killed. "You said they all looked jet-black when they were using their techniques... Maybe Noboru just misunderstood what he saw? He didn't see nothing, he just saw whatever Bringer must look like, storing all the..." He hesitated, searching for a word. "Blood... Energy? I don't know - the energy they need for their techniques, and thought he just couldn't see anything."

"Might even explain why they look bleached." Hibiki posed, "Bringer's draining it all from them. Storing whatever 'it' is in him, so they can use it later." He shuddered, "he's going to be a battery for whenever they can't otherwise generate Blood Energy themselves... Jesus, those crazy bastards are going to go on a killing spree when all this is over, we're going to be their first targets - a few dozen shinobi, exhausted from having fought the strongest men and women alive."

"We need to plant Hiraishin on them." Minato declared, blood beginning to boil and heart beginning to race as he tried to trace out the many ways a battle against three immortals could go terribly bad, and the few ways they may be able to turn it around without a lot of people dying and peace dying with them. "That way we can get to them fast when they start something, and then get them out of here."

"Might not need to." Hibiki murmured, "I dealt with the last ones by throwing them out into orbit... And even if they somehow know, I dealt with you-know-who by manually flying him as close to the sun as I could before my clone popped. They can be as ready and immortal as they want halfway between here and Venus."

But Minato shook his head, "Ken could teleport." He said, "that wasn't a body flicker, I can recognize those. It was like the Hiraishin, but different... Didn't need anchors. If all three of them can do that, just throwing them away won't work."

"Call it 'Plan A' then." Hibiki acquiesced, while Minato could see that something was eating him in the back of his mind - and it didn't take him long to realize what it could be: He was hoping that it was just Ken who could teleport, because if it was a skill all of the Yuga-nin shared, then potentially all of the ones he'd thought he'd dealt with could be back, angry, and ready to go on a slaughter spree.

They could be at the precipice of something much worse than Iwa - that, at least, had been an accident, and everyone who had died had died instantly.

The Yuga-nin would be doing what they would do on purpose, and as befitting of their vulgar beliefs, would drag it out.

Pulling Minato out of his thought, Hibiki spoke, "Dust Release would be a decent Plan B, but we'd have to get them out of here, first."

"Thus the Hiraishin" Minato nodded, as Noboru's opponent hit the ground, chakra barely flowing at all through his clogged tenketsu, and Noboru was declared the winner. "If we need to, there's... Well..." He made eye contact with Hibiki, "a lot of room, out there." And Hibiki nodded, sharing his thoughts - they had an entire planet devoid of human life that they could bring them to and disintegrate with perhaps the most deadly of Hibiki's bloodlines; and even if Hibiki was reluctant to destroy the ruins of his old home, there was likely even more room out there with no such ruins, which Hibiki could probably rattle off immediately.

When Noboru returned to their seats, as befitting of someone who could see everything around them, he was aware of everything they had said, having read their lips, and volunteered his services for if the Yuga-nin did as they were worried they would. The next battle began as soon as the Grass shinobi was moved from the arena by a stretcher, and Moshi of Yuga, and Mei of Kiri, entered the arena. The Konoha trio all leaned forward, paying rapt attention in their own unique ways as Moshi stood in place, one arm outstretched in front of him while the scarlet-haired kunoichi leaned back, mouth ballooning outwards as something gathered inside of her mouth.

She then thrust forward, and a stream of boiling hot acidic mud shot out in a tight line right at the Yuga-nin, Mei appearing to want to end the fight quickly to preserve her stamina for the battles to come. Moshi, however, simply grinned, and when the stream of mud hit his hand, it had no effect, and without so much as a sizzle, it flowed into his hand, being absorbed into him. With his senses, Minato was able to feel what Moshi was doing - the chakra was flowing through his arm and his chest, the whole process feeling to Minato not dissimilar to what Hibiki could do with his Darkness release, but appearing to either skip or lack entirely the part where the user absorbed the chakra entirely and made it their own, as with Moshi, the chakra flowed to his other arm and then to his hand, which he lifted lazily, rolling his eyes and saying something Minato couldn't make out.

Noboru, however, spoke for him, narrating, "if you're the strongest your village has, I'd hate to see its weakest."

Then the same technique Mei had thrown at him, was thrown back at her - but almost excessively larger. If hers was a tight stream, like a water-jet cutter, his was a guided typhoon, spraying excess mud in all directions and radiating way more chakra than Mei had put into it. The kunoichi tried to match him, taking in another breath and spitting out a geyser of acidic mud of equal size, but in comparison to his it was found far lacking in strength. It resisted for a few seconds before being overtaken entirely, and she had to either evade or be enveloped in the molten acid. Taking the former option, she leapt out of the way as fast as her chakra-enhanced legs could take her, but in the single, solitary second in which she was mid-air, in the helpless moment right before she hit the ground, Moshi did just as his compatriot did - blinking out of existence and appearing right in front of her instantly.

Moshi caught her by the throat and hauled her up one handed, squeezing her throat shut and preventing her from spitting more mud. Mei responded fast enough - balling up her fist and slamming it first into Moshi's face and then his throat, and when that did little but bounce off of his face, she got creative - using the little air in the dead space between her throat and her lips and charging it with chakra, and then pushing out a thin mist whose heat was so intense that it warped the air between her and Moshi. This managed to get a reaction out of him, as he dropped the kunoichi and brought one of his hands to his face, groaning in unexpected pain, and then doubling over when she kicked off of him and, as she soared back, flew through several handsigns that, at their conclusion, filled the arena with thick mist, obscuring both her and her opponent to all but the best sensors, and those with Dojutsu.

Moshi appeared to be the former, as despite the mist obscuring his eyes, he still turned his head right in the direction of the Kiri Kunoichi, and then snapped his head down when she started spraying the ground with more of the mud from earlier, eating away at it and causing the barriers erected around the arena to flare up, protecting the audience from whatever side effects were raging the arena inside.

Moshi's response was to start lazily levitating above the now treacherous grounds. He then launched himself at her like a bullet, but Mei had already been partway through her next attack - and just as he made it halfway to her, the mist in the arena cleared up, coalescing behind her, taking the form of a great dragon, and then roaring its way to the flying Yuga-nin. Moshi didn't even slow down - instead bringing up his hand and absorbing the technique as easily as he had at the beginning of their bout, and once he'd passed all the way through it, then used his lifted hand to grab Mei by the throat and hoist her into the air again, before presenting her his off-hand, and without another word, blasting her in the face with the same water technique, again amplified beyond the power she had initially shown.

Mei fell to the ground in a heap, water lazily trickling out of her throat, and blood leaking from injuries to her face and head, but Minato noticed something more - Moshi's attack had been a diversion. Mei was drained of her chakra, he could barely sense anything coming off of her, and though he could see her chest still rising and falling, it was shallow, and each exhalation pushed more water out. Even more though, was what he sensed from Moshi himself - he could only describe the sensation as weight. It felt as though there was something massive and heavy right next to Moshi - and with just a little focus, Minato noticed that the wight specifically appeared to be in his hand, which was cupped, holding something.

"Hibiki, there are... Pills in his hand." Noboru murmured.

"Can you feel that?" Minato asked, leaning back and eyeing Moshi, aghast. "Is that what that is?" He asked, focusing harder on Moshi's hand and able to discern something else - the same vibrancy and energy that had become so familiar to him over the previous few years: Human chakra.

"What what is?" Hibiki asked, turning his eyes down to Moshi's cupped hand, as he walked up the wall and medics retrieved the half-drowned kunoichi.

"I - it's her chakra, it's in the pills!" Minato gasped, nothing he had ever seen matching what was in front of him now. Even Hibiki's ninth gate seal was alien to this.

Hibiki frowned, giving Minato a look, "what, are you a sensor now?"

"Eh..." Minato waved his hand in a 'so-so' fashion. "Kind of? I've been working on it." He didn't really want to spoil that surprise if he didn't have to, although with every passing moment he was realizing that it may be necessary - if the Yuga-nin were going to become hostile, Hibiki and Noboru would have to be fully aware of his capabilities in order to effectively plan and utilize them.

"Hm..." Hibiki grunted, turning back to the arena. "Must be the power they take, how they're storing it." The trio watched as Moshi indeed handed something to Ken and Bringer, which Noboru confirmed were the pills, while adding that Moshi was keeping the majority of them for himself. "Don't let him touch you." Hibiki said, glancing at Noboru.

"I fear that will be unavoidable." Noboru murmured. "Especially as I suspect we haven't seen but a fraction of his power." He nodded to the medics vacating with Mei. "I know her. Have fought with her on the border, up north. The only kunoichi stronger than her is your mother, and he just threw her aside as though it were nothing." He frowned, "if I am unable to defeat him myself, my best contribution may simply be to injure him... To block as many tenketsu as I can and hope his next opponents can keep up the trend."

"You may have a chance yet." Minato spoke up, as the next fighters took the stage, Han of Iwa, and a swordsman from Kiri, who looked pissed off at his comrade's defeat and ready to throw down. "I didn't see him throw a single punch in that fight... Could be he's a ninjutsu specialist, versus -" He nodded to the Yuga stands as the armored Iwa Jonin and the Kiri swordsman threw themselves at each other. "The other guy's taijutsu?"

"May-" And as Hibiki spoke, Han's fist met the swordsman's face, and in an explosion of red chakra and steam, the swordsman was violently sent to the other side of the arena. "-be... Oh hell." Han was definitely Iwa's tank, alright - with that red chakra, there was only one thing he could be. "That's two in one place." He thought aloud, as Han leapt over to the other side of the arena, grabbed and heaved the strange blade wielded by the shinobi clear to the other side of the arena, and started savagely stomping on the swordsman's chest, hard enough that he began fracturing the ground beneath them and even bouncing the poor guy off of it.

Then the shoe dropped.

"Oh fuck." Hibiki breathed, eyes growing wide as he leaned forward, hands tented in front of him, "we're in deep shit."

This time it was Noboru who gave a confused frown, whereas Minato quickly locked onto Hibiki's train of thought, and echoed it with a, "oh no." as he swiped his hand through his hair. "Han's a -"

"Powerful shinobi." Hibiki cut in, giving Minato a look.

Now Noboru realized what was going on, head snapping back to Han, and then to Bee, and then to the Yuga-nin, as Moshi specifically pointed Han out to Ken and Bringer. "If they take energy from them, as Moshi did Mei, the implications would be dire." Specifically, they'd be able to draw their power from a fuel source that would be effectively limitless. Add on the fact that they would be literally immortal, and, if the display from Mei and the sensations from Bringer were any indication, that they may even be able to add on the power of their source to themselves, once the Yuga-nin started their killing spree, even Katsuo would have difficulty reigning them in. And just to make things worse: They didn't know how much power Bringer was already holding in check for them, only that he was, and that through the nebulousness of the technique he was using to do it, Minato could tell that it was a lot, and since Hibiki's solution of tossing them into the sun was looking less and less likely to work, they may be dealing with a threat whose danger was second to none, save maybe the Sage of Six Path's mother.

Hibiki was already scanning the fighting roster, and Minato knew why - he was trying to see if the two Yuga-nin still in the fight would imminently fight the two present Jinchuriki, and then sighing of relief when he realized that they wouldn't, but the relief vanished when Minato morosely added a wrinkle he knew Hibiki would rather he hadn't: "Are we sure that they're the only ones?" He asked, as Han was declared the victor.

"I sure as hell hope not." Hibiki grunted, as Teague announced the next phase of the tournament would begin, and summoning the Senju Head to the arena. "Noboru, while I'm gone, scan the remaining fighters. It's a long shot, but if we can find demon container seals, we may be able to come up with a plan." Noboru nodded, as Hibiki walked to the edge and ambled over it, before dropping himself to the ground, while Han, on the other side of the arena, turned to face him, expression mostly masked by the red armor covering his face, but the loathing and anger in his light brown eyes was unmistakable.

Okay... Let's list off the Jinchuriki I know. Minato thought, stretching his arms and falling into a defensive stance. There's the one we brought in from Iwa, Hibiki said she has the Yonbi... Kushina has the Kyuubi... Killer Bee is one, Hibiki said he's the Hachibi... The Ichibi's been MIA since Iwa... Hibiki fought Nanabi and said he's in an old man... I vaguely remember the Sanbi is somewhere in Kiri... So Han could either be Two, five, or six... Minato honestly wasn't sure if it mattered - not in the sense that Hibiki would win or lose, there was a great chance of both happening due to the raw power Han held, combined with his years of experience on Hibiki, but rather that he wasn't sure if the tail count mattered with regards to Ken, Moshi, and Bringer. Minato could scarcely imagine the amount of chakra and power they would acquire if they took from even the supposedly 'weakest' tailed beast, as they were supposed to be beings made purely from chakra. Even the Ichibi, the one-tailed beast, could give them an endless fuel source for their abilities.

If Hibiki couldn't defeat Han, and if Minato couldn't defeat Bee, they may very well be doomed.

Minato briefly looked up at Kumo's stands, eyes locking onto Killer Bee, who, alongside his adoptive brother and their third, was paying the battle below them undivided attention. As powerful as he was, with the skills and techniques he had at his disposal, Minato wasn't sure he could defeat Killer Bee.

But... Minato frowned, bringing to mind Hibiki's recounted encounters with the Kumo Jinchuriki, and how open he - and, it seemed, his brother - was to new ways of thinking. Maybe I won't have to? If he could convince Bee of Yuga's threat and get him to stand down, Bee may actually be receptive to the idea.

Just how would he do it?

As he considered ideas, the battle between Han and Hibiki began. The Iwa Jinchuriki gave the Thunder God only a second of peace before he launched himself at the Senju, fast enough that without the Sharingan blazing, Hibiki wouldn't have been able to react. As it stood, only his dojutsu and the instinctual reaction to cloak himself in lightning was what prevented Han's punch from blindsiding him and breaking his sternum and several of his ribs - because befitting of his status, Han was fast, and he was strong. Even through the lightning cloak, Hibiki felt the impact of Han's armored fist on his chest. What caught Hibiki by surprise, however, was the heat of the impact - it looked like Han was boiling hot, and the moment his fist hit Hibiki's chest, it released a torrent of steam so hot that it distorted the air around them and turned Hibiki's skin red with just the barest passing glance.

Minato watched as Hibiki was thrown back several meters, only his own strength and jets of chakra pouring out from his back keeping him from slamming into the wall, but Han didn't give him a reprieve and was immediately back on him, using his advantages in raw strength and size to keep Hibiki on the back foot and defending. The man was gigantic, bigger than Bee, and in the armor he was almost as wide as Ken, and when he threw down with Hibiki, it almost looked like a giant taking on a dwarf. Each punch rattled bone and pushed Hibiki back, and each blow he avoided left the air in its wake scalding hot - and to further complicate matters, whatever technique he was using to create this heat and generate this steam, he was actively using it to fill the arena with steam so hot that in just a minute it had caused a noticeable increase in temperature, and it was only climbing higher with every passing second.

While this in and of itself wasn't a hazard to Hibiki, as Minato knew he could use use his ice bloodline to counteract the effects, what it did mean was that Hibiki was practically hemorrhaging chakra to keep himself from buckling underneath Han's strength and boiling under Han's heat. True to his role in Iwa's 'Kill Hibiki' squad, Han's tactic appeared to be to use raw, overwhelming force, and the practically endless fuel of his tenant to kill Hibiki. Under normal circumstances, Minato wouldn't have been terribly worried over his friend's chances, but the fact that he was dealing with a jinchuriki that wanted him dead, that likely had hard counters for most of his common tactics, and there was a trio of immortal death cultists who were studying his every move, Minato knew that Hibiki's knee-jerk reaction, his general instinct to just kick things up a notch wouldn't be the correct course of action. He needed to end the fight before it got so wild that dumping out his entire bag of tricks became unavoidable, and he had to do it fast enough that both any potential observers wouldn't be able to suss out how he did it, and that Han wouldn't be able to call on his tenant's chakra and escalate the battle.

But the question Minato couldn't answer was how would Hibiki accomplish that? Would he just start crashing through the Eight Gates until he could take Han down? Would that even work, when the stories Hibiki had told of his fight against Iwa's other Jinchuriki when they were younger had implied it hadn't, and that Hibiki had needed more than the Eight Gates to even match the Undead? Did Hibiki even have a solution for this, or was his only course of action to just get into a grudge match and slug it out?

As Minato tried to predict how and where this battle would go, Hibiki's struggle against Han continued. With a kick to the gut hard enough to penetrate steel, Han sent Hibiki flying to the other side of the arena, while he leapt further back and built some room between them. In the second between Hibiki being kicked and him hitting the wall, Han was enveloped in an unfortunately familiar blood red cloak of chakra, his eyes bleeding away to white and one tail forming behind him. When Hibiki bounced off of the wall, Han braced his legs behind him, and all the chakra he'd enveloped in began swirling, coalescing right in front of his gaping, armored mouth, some chakra darkening to a jet black hue, some brightening until it was a pure white.

Minato knew exactly what Han was doing, and even with this fact, he was still amazed at the level of chakra he was feeling in that ball. Even from this far away it was crushing, so Minato could only imagine what it must feel like to be not just in the arena with it, but also to be its active target. Minato turned his eyes to Hibiki, who stood up straight and, with slumped shoulders, was regarding the Jinchuriki, face scrunched up in a thoughtful frown.

Then, in a blink of an eye, everything happened at once.

One moment, Hibiki was standing there, facing down the Jinchuriki preparing his strongest attack, the next, there was an explosion of energy - not from Han, but from Hibiki - and Hibiki was in front of Han, his fist buried in the Iwa Jonin's stomach, Han's armor was shattered, falling to pieces around him, steam washed over them both, hot enough to distort the air, a shadow clone of Hibiki was suddenly just there, physically grabbing ahold of Han's bijuu-dama and vanishing in a ripple of light, Han's eyes were glazing over, and a shockwave like a bomb blast was surging out from Hibiki's fist, sounding for a moment like a tornado as it blasted out, hit the barrier protecting the spectators, and then reflected back inwards, and finally, the insane energy Minato felt coming off of Hibiki, vanished just like his clone. It all happened in less than a second, so fast and so many details to take in that once it was over, Minato briefly had trouble even coming to terms with the fact that it had happened at all.

"What the... Hell?" Minato murmured, eyes wide as he watched Han drop to his knees, and then to his side, unmoving, but alive. "Did - he just one-shot Han!" Minato knew Hibiki was strong, but that strong? Without any of the techniques he used to enhance his strength, to boot? What had he just seen?

Noboru, however, leaned back, a thoughtful expression on his face, and a small grin, as he hummed, "ah... Interesting." He said, "almost fifteen years and he surprises me still... We may not have as much to worry about as I had thought."

Minato looked to Noboru, an eyebrow arced, as below them, Hibiki checked Han over with a green-cloaked hand, and a pair of medics rushed in to do the same. "Do you know what he did?"

Noboru hummed again, byakugan-enhanced eyes going from Hibiki below them, to Yuga, across from them, to Minato, next to him, the expression in his eyes telling Minato that he was wrestling with the merits of spoiling Hibiki's surprise versus the utility of Minato being able to know and plan with the information - the exact conundrum Minato himself had just wrestled with.

After a moment, Noboru nodded to the side, "a bit." He said, "Hibiki has taken lately to using his Swift release beyond the initial utility of being able to completely outpace his opponents. He has begun using it to break down moments in time, and give him more time to think... I think we just witnessed him doing just that, to determine how best to handle the problem in front of him." He explained, "and in addition, over the last year he has used me to assist him in the creation of a new technique, one he alone is uniquely capable of. While he has certainly not mastered it, even what little of it he does grasp grants him access to power the likes of which even he has never possessed before." He looked back down to Hibiki, a fond smile, like that of an older brother, playing on his face, as Hibiki stepped back from the medics and began retreating back to Konoha's section. "He calls it the Eight Gates Perfected... And I believe he just used that, and his Swift Release, to end this battle so quickly that no one could know how he did it, so thoroughly that it would take Han out of the tournament... And indeed, so boldly, that it would disabuse any others of Iwa of the idea, and their chances, of killing him." He said, as Hibiki walked up the wall, and gave the two of them a nod.

"I can only hope he thought out the consequences of this card he played." Noboru finished, as the Senju Head fell into his seat, appearing short of breath, with how heavily he was breathing.

"Oh - oh yeah." Hibiki gasped, as Minato turned to look at him, surprised at the chill to the air around his friend, as though he'd just spent hours outside in the dead of winter. "I've -" He patted his chest, "whew, yeah I -" He cleared his throat, "- yeah, I thought it through, don't worry."

"Please tell me you're a..." Minato paused, trying to think of the best word that wouldn't let anyone watching know what they were talking about. "Party trick." He settled on.

Hibiki just grinned, and Noboru spoke for him, "you know him well enough, Minato-san, that he only ever isn't when in his wife's direct company." He shrugged his head, and admitted, "and even then, I sometimes wonder." Which only got Hibiki to grin harder.

"A lot of the lady love's party tricks I'm able to figure out, my friend - but that particular one escapes me to this day. Better to avoid her wrath than to piss her off."

Feeling the serious mood vanish, Minato just rolled his eyes and jabbed at his friend, "and... Spending time with her."

Hibiki blinked, "uh - of course!" He said, looking away with an exaggeratedly nervous expression.

Minato let the good mood last well into the next fight, until, once it was finished and his bout with Bee came closer, he turned to Hibiki again. "Hibiki... I have an idea that might keep Killer Bee out of Yuga's hands, but I need your help." He said, attracting the Senju and the Hyuga's attentions.

"Oh yeah?" Hibiki grunted.

"Can you think of a way for me to talk to him, while we're down there?" Minato asked quietly, ensuring his lips couldn't be read by Yuga. "I really think he might throw the fight if we tell him what's going on."

Hibiki frowned, appearing as though the thought hadn't occurred to him, which surprised Minato as much as it amused him - on the one hand, Hibiki hadn't thought of the obvious, but on the other, it implied to Minato that Hibiki genuinely thought might have a chance of fighting off the Jinchuriki directly below Kushina on their tail number.

After a few minutes of thought, as this battle finished, and Ay stepped up to bat for his next fight, Hibiki came up with, "I have one idea... But it'll cost you."

More battles came and went until finally, Minato's next bout arrived, and the Yellow Flash stood up to face the rapping Jinchuriki. The latter seemed to be some strange mixture of overjoyed to fight one of Konoha's best, but also reluctant to do the same, knowing the power that would be on display here - this fight perhaps more than any other to precede it would be big. The absolute cream of the crop had arrived to do battle in Teague's tournament, but for as powerful as so many of the assembled shinobi were, a vast majority of them were representatives of minor villages, so in most scenarios the battles that played out, while spectacular, weren't nearly on the scale of what some of the kage-level Jonin, the ones with S-ranked Bingo Book entries, had grown used to - or, in contrast to that, these god-like men and women would be in battles in which they severely outclassed their opponents. Battles like Moshi fighting Mei, Hibiki fighting Don, Ay fighting an unfortunate Tanigakure shinobi, or Noboru fighting his Grass opponent. There seemed to be a full understanding that many of the minor villages were having a contest inside Teague's tournament - fighting not for first overall, but instead to be the highest among their own collective, while the Greater villages dueled for the bronze, gold, and silver medals.

Minato slated to duel Killer Bee was, to the spectators at large, the first true battle of the tournament.

Minato had to admit he felt no small amount of trepidation at the prospect, a few butterflies in his stomach and a tremble in his heart, as he stood to his feet and hopped over the wall. He pushed these thoughts aside with a grunt as he landed on the ground and stood up straight, shoulders squared and fists clenched, big blue eyes filled with determination and locked onto Bee's shades, the Jinchuriki matching his small frown with a wide grin.

The man had taken to wielding a surprising number of swords since Minato had last seen him, when he'd held Hibiki captive, and it was one of these swords that Bee drew surprisingly quickly once Teague fired the metaphorical starting pistol. Minato drew one of his Hiraishin Kunai and dove out of the way when Bee charged him, throwing the Kunai at Bee's back and flying through several handseals - and at the completion of his technique, the one kunai became twenty, but not a single one touched the Jinchuriki, who whipped around and either deflected or completely cut apart several with lightning-fast swings of his sword. Minato, however, hadn't been intending on hitting Bee - and the Jinchuriki seemed to realize this once his body stopped acting on instinct, and he saw the kunai paint the walls and floor behind and around him.

Minato teleported behind Bee, prompting the larger shinobi to whip around and chop at Minato's head, but Minato, the faster of the two, vanished in a yellow flash, appearing this time next to Bee and burying a fist into his flank, before following it up with a palm-strike to his throat. The second attack didn't affect Bee nearly as much as the first, but it did succeed in planting a Hiraishin anchor, which drew a grin out of Minato before he vanished when Bee, suddenly producing a second sword, this one in his off hand, stabbed at Minato's flak jacket.

The Jinchuriki tried to predict where Minato would appear next - choosing his back again, but a flash of yellow light to his right caused him to spin like a top, one of his swords extended and ready to cut his opponent apart, but he realized a moment too late that this second flash hadn't been Minato arriving, but him leaving - and when Minato appeared next, it was in the very spot he'd begun his brief teleport spam - right in front of Bee's now exposed chest, which the Yellow Flash pounded into with a side-kick.

Bee stumbled back a step, and then fell into it - backing up as his cheeks ballooned outwards, and a second later jet black ink shot out of his mouth at high pressure, shooting right towards Minato. It didn't hit the Yellow Flash, but did did cover the ground in slick, which almost stole Minato's balance when he appeared again - the fact of which Bee was all too eager to take advantage of, as two more blades found their places on his person, cradled tightly in his muscular elbows. Minato wasn't sure if this was meant to be an extension of his offense, a defensive response to ensure Minato couldn't try that trick again, or both, but he didn't have enough time to decide, as Bee was right in front of him in a second, his left-hand sword screaming with lightning as it surged towards Minato's flak jacket.

The Yellow Flash vanished again in the wake of his namesake, but this time Bee correctly guessed where he would appear, and his spinning slice carved into Minato's flak jacket. This caused one of Minato's kunai to spill out - but he took advantage of this instantly, and with a flick of his fingers, he activated the body-flicker technique he'd spent so long training and mastering. With a full, solid second moving at relativistic speeds, and with Bee frozen in place, appearing almost like a dancer caught mid-spin, a wild, toothy smile on his dark face, Minato tossed the kunai to the other side of the arena, leaving it to freeze in mid-air once it ran out of the swift chakra he had charged it with. Instead of stabbing at Bee, Minato threw his fist at his face - specifically, the bridge of his opponent's nose, smashing into it with a loud crunch, and shattering his opponent's glasses as a result.

When the world sped up, Bee reacted almost cartoonishly to the physics of the speed and power with which Minato had hit him - curving upwards into the air like someone had missed a kick to a football. He reacted instantly, spinning in mid-air like a top, two more blades now settled into his armpits and ensuring Minato couldn't attack him without risking being shredded apart like beef.

When the multi-bladed Jinchuriki landed, he found to his surprise that Minato had not only given him the time to, but he'd fallen into a defensive stance. For a moment, he took advantage of the chance his opponent appeared to be offering him and leapt back a second step, falling onto his backfoot and producing a final blade that found its place in his grinning mouth. Just as he made to charge, however, that was when he noticed why Minato had given him this pause in the action - he'd wanted him to see something.

Two red eyes, with deep black tomoe spinning about a dark center, both of which locked onto his own dark brown orbs.

I see... He thought, crouching down low. Hibiki wants to speak to me... Me and the Hachibi. Suddenly he felt a spike of excitement surge through his body, as he pulled the slightest bit of his tenant's chakra to the surface, just enough to allow Hibiki Senju's eyes to do their thing, rationalizing that whatever it was, it had to be important.

Konoha's Thunder God wouldn't be putting forth this much effort to take the place of his friend, only to let such a sloppy mistake undo the whole ruse. Senju needed to talk to him, and the fun of this fight no longer testing his mettle against Konoha's Yellow Flash, but rather putting on a good show until he, the Hachibi, and Konoha's Thunder God were finished speaking - A challenge he was more than willing to accept, even as he had to force his senses to divide themselves - half of his mind remaining on the outside to keep up appearances, and half falling into the demon container seal on his shoulder.