Ren was halfway through his chakra reserves, had only two shadow clones left, and Yagura was in front of him, angrier than ever and desiring nothing more than to rip him into shreds.

Admittedly, he was not a very happy camper currently.

In the same straightforward fashion, Yagura once more rushed at Ren who started throwing kunai not at him, but at the ground in front of him, forcing him to run in a zig-zag pattern to avoid the explosions.

Three seconds later, Yagura finally reached Ren and was about to deliver a devastating punch on his midsection when the clone next to him flickered through a few hand seals, summoning a wall of wind around them and bludgeoning Yagura away with it.

Or at least, he tried. Yagura, however, pushed his two tails into the ground to anchor himself and unexpectedly withstood the force of the technique without minding that it reopened his injuries and made him spill enough blood onto the ground that Ren felt a bit sick from its overpowering smell.

Any normal person would have been dead thrice over due tof blood loss.

The wind wall ceased but Yagura did not pull his tails out of the ground and Ren’s eyes widened as he realized he was pulling the same trick that managed to kill several of his teammates. But his clone was faster and realized it sooner.

Ren found himself grabbed and thrown away from the spot, watching the clone be absolutely slaughtered by the chakra tails that suddenly burst from the ground as he flew through the air.

Just like that, he only had one more clone left and he was starting to feel really nervous about it.

Landing on the ground in a roll, Ren rolled onto his feet and instantly had to guard against Yagura’s punch because the jinchuuriki somehow managed to catch up to him.

The burning chakra cloak smashed into Ren’s forearm alongside his fist and Ren felt his forearm pushed back enough to press against his chest before he was lifted from the ground. Confusion filled his mind… before he smashed into a nearby felled tree trunk with a loud, “Gah!” and the pain of multiple cracked bones filled his mind.

Yagura hit like a truck and Ren now understood why his clones went down so easily. Only because of the chakra reinforcement did he survive the punch without breaking anything.

Ren slid down the felled tree trunk until his posterior landed on the ground and then shook his head… before he abruptly threw himself to the side out of sheer survival instinct, barely evading Yagura’s fist. He still gained a new cut alongside his right biceps but it was preferable to having his right arm turned to a paste.

As he landed on the ground and rolled onto his feet, Ren unsealed a scroll. He pushed himself a bit away from Yagura and unrolled the scroll around himself in a similar manner to Tenten during her preliminary match.

This was his trump card and he did not exactly want to use it because it was not nearly finished. Plus, he could not use it with teammates near him. But since they were all dead, that was no longer an issue.

From the corner of his eyes, Ren noticed his clone already sprinting away, trying to make more distance between him and Ren.

Then, the scroll activated and hundreds of exploding tags danced around the surrounding area for over a hundred meters while Ren was shielded by a chakra barrier forming around him.

Yagura blinked as he was fully covered in exploding tags. Ren glared at him, hoping this would work. And the exploding tags went off.

All happening in the same second.

A massive booming serenade of numerous explosions engulfed the area, devastating it even more than it previously had been.

It lasted for twenty seconds, and when it was finally over and the dust settled, Ren appeared standing in the epicenter of it as the chakra barrier covering him flickered out of existence when it ran out of chakra.

Yagura… was much worse off.

His chakra cloak was gone and the left side of his face looked burned off. Ren could see the skinless muscles of his chest, some of his ribs peeking through them. In one particular hole on his chest, his beating heart was slightly visible too.

Yagura was also missing his right hand straight from the elbow down. And his right thigh had a chunk of it missing, making him limp and put more weight on his left leg as his shoulders slumped in exhaustion.

Ren released a sigh of relief upon seeing his opponent. Finally something worke-

Suddenly, Ren was smacked away as he barely managed to raise his arms in a lackluster guard as Yagura, who flickered near him, punched him with his remaining hand, the red chakra around him reigniting.

Ren’s body painfully plowed into the ground twenty meters away, his left arm definitely broken at the elbow from the haphazard block.

But the worst part was that Yagura did not regain just two tails. No. He started growing his third tail and his skin became grey as he started shifting…

Ren’s remaining clone suddenly appeared in front of Yagura, starting to hurl his hands at him in fast-paced motions, and with every strike he fastened one Yin Containment Seal on Yagura.

“Muda! Muda! Muda!” The clone repeatedly shouted.

And Ren involuntarily snorted, all tension leaving him.

It didn’t last long. One of Yagura’s three tails that were halfway shifted into Sanbi’s smashed the clone into bits, dispelling it. But that fortunately didn’t matter. Yagura had over ten Yin Containment Seals on him by that point and they managed to disrupt the bijuu transformation enough that he shifted back to his base human form.

With no red chakra cloak to boot.

‘This is just not fair at all.’ Ren inwardly grumbled when he saw the exhausted Yagura stumble a bit. He was still missing his right hand and his left eye was not restored but most of his other very serious injuries were already healed from the two seconds he was almost fully transformed into a bijuu.

“So… up for that conversation now?” Ren asked the Mizukage as he wobbly raised himself onto his feet, his broken arm dangling next to his body. He truly did not have much chakra left. If he could disengage by talking, he would take that option despite Yagure being responsible for his team’s death. It burned his pride but it was also the smart thing to do in his current state.

At least, Yagura still seemed to have problems with the gravity seals covering him. He still leaned to the right due to the weight of the seals on his right arm.

The man silently looked at Ren but he didn’t give him a verbal answer. He just unsealed his staff and ripped almost every Yin Containment Seal off of his body, causing Ren to release a frustrated sigh.

“I take that as no.” He muttered as he got into a fighting stance in preparation for Yagura’s attack.

Honestly, he had no idea if fighting Yagura in the two-tailed mode was worse than fighting him as an S-rank ninja with all his mental faculties intact.

Thank the sugar daddy sage that Yagura was injured and exhausted. Otherwise, Ren wouldn’t like his chances at survival very much.

Their match was however interrupted when a gleeful voice resounded from the side and Ren felt a chill go up his spine when he recognized that voice.

He thought his situation was already bad enough. Having barely thirty percent of his chakra reserves available while facing S-rank jinchuuriki, albeit an exhausted and injured one. But apparently, fate was not yet done with its bullshit.

“Oh~, would you look at that, Itachi-kun? I see two easy targets. Samehada is going to eat well today!”

Source: Webnovel.com, updated by NovelKeep