Ch42. Monster

Kaito jumped away while Ren spat a wind bullet at Yagura, causing him to dodge. This brought Ren a few seconds, just enough for him to unseal six special sealing tags and scatter them in the wind.

Abruptly, shadow clones appeared in the place of every single sealing tag and Ren almost keeled over from using so much chakra at once. He didn't have the chakra reserves for six shadow clones. But fortunately, he did have a full Chakra Storage Seal that covered the cost of four clones.

One clone grabbed the still recovering Ren around his waist as all of them scattered in different directions, just barely before Yagura appeared at their previous position, and brutally slammed his hands onto the ground, creating another small crater and sending a shockwave through the air.

Fortunately, Ren's clones were the variant with durability seals in them so they did not dispel from a minor hit even when the shockwave had blown them away from each other.

Yagura stopped and leaned forward, opening his mouth slightly and Ren instantly felt chills go up his spine when he recognized he was going to fire another bijuudama in his general direction. 

Thankfully, in a desperate move, one of his clones reacted in time and shunshined close to Yagura and loudly smacked a paper tag with the Yin Containment Seal right onto Yagura's forehead. This unbalanced his chakra enough to make the small blue balls of chakra dissipate before they could merge with the red ones and the small core of forming bijuudama just fizzled out of existence before it could fully form.

"Huh? That work-ugh." Ren's clone spoke but in the middle of it, he was speared by Yagura's outstretched arm right through his chest.

Glaring at Yagura, the clone let out a painful whine as he grasped Yagura's arm, and instantly gravity seals started spreading from his hands all along the arm.

It was a difficult endeavor because he also had to keep his existence intact while the chakra that formed him was leaking out like crazy due to his injury. Realizing he didn't have long, the clone redoubled his efforts and tried to make the gravity seal as restricting as his limited time allowed.

Yagura, even in his mad state, quickly realized he was in danger and his other arm moved in a blur, smashing the head of Ren's clone into a pulp, and dispelling it.

Ren and his other clones winced, happy that they wouldn't be getting memory feedback from each other thanks to the sealing tag within them having a Yin Containment Seal of its own.

But Ren and his clones were not idle. Just as Yagura disposed of the first clone, several wind-natured kunai instantly hit him, most of them sinking handle-deep into his flesh and making him roar in pain.

Sadly, the most important ones aiming at Yagura's vital points were repelled by his coral armor, only managing to make shallow cuts on his skin that healed almost instantly.

It didn't matter.

Ren vindictively smirked.

The kunai in and around Yagura exploded into a hail of fiery metal shrapnel while most of them were still within his body.

But Ren's smirk fell when he heard Yagura still roaring in pain even after the explosion.

"How tough is he?" Ren whispered the question under his nose, his face twisted in horrified disbelief that the jinchuuriki was still alive despite being basically exploded from within. "Come on! This is blatant cheating."

Both he and the clone near him had to jump away as Yagura appeared near them and almost managed to hit them with a swipe.

The man was in a very bad shape. Ruptured organs and cracked bones were visible in the numerous holes of ripped flesh all along the man's torso. Yet, he was still kicking and screaming. Literally.

Worse yet, he was healing at a visible rate.

Suddenly, one of Ren's clones' hands burst from under Yagura and grabbed his ankles, pulling him to the ground with a Headhunter technique while also applying additional gravity seals during the contact.

But Yagura was not done yet. Not by a long shot.

The ground cracked from the sheer force of his struggle and Ren felt his clone in the ground dispel just as Yagura pushed himself from the ground and crouched, ready to pounce despite his feet sinking into the ground from the added weight of the gravity seals as the violent and bloodthirsty red chakra was blasting the surroundings, making Ren's hair stand from muted fear.

Another clone appeared right behind Yagura in that instant, slapping yet another Yin Containment Seal on his back and unbalanced Yagura's chakra enough that his pounce failed. He tripped, tumbling through the ground.

Two other clones of Ren instantly joined the fray, intending to put more gravity seals on Yagura but he was ready and before they could even touch him, Yagura's two red tails smacked them away with enough force to dispel them despite the durability seals.

Ren grimaced. He only had two more clones and Yagura was once again standing up.

'Sixteen.'

'Seventeen.'

'Eightee- whoa!'

He had to interrupt the channeling of the transportation seal once again because he had to jump away from Yagura who despite being totally unbalanced and leaning too much to the right due to the gravity seals all around his right arm, was still fast enough that Ren was barely evading him.

'The jinchuuriki are really monsters in combat.' Ren sourly complained as he dodged one of Yagura's tails. 

Fortunately, one of his two remaining clones jumped in and distracted Yagura enough that Ren could create more distance between them. But he didn't forget to spew another wind bullet just as Yagura turned toward his clone. The bullet managed to hit his back, making him puff out his chest as the razor-sharp wind ragged across his back, creating many cuts.

But that's all it did and the cuts closed almost instantly. Yagura did not even look at Ren despite the attack, fully focused on his clone.

Ren cursed, wondering where the hell was Kaito. It was why he started channeling his transportation seal again. He was half sure that Kaito ditched him.

He was proven wrong when the second remaining clone of Ren suddenly appeared from the devastated treeline alongside Kaito, both flaring their chakra high. The clone engaging Yagura widened his eyes and realized they were about to unleash a cooperation technique.

He quickly disengaged, just in time to prevent himself from being engulfed in a massive torrent of flames courtesy of Kaito and empowered by a wind technique from Ren's other clone.

Yagura who stood with his back to them didn't manage to react in time and was bathed in flames. Once again, he let out a scream of pure agony and Ren winced when he saw some of the kunai shrapnel still within his body melting...

He really wanted to look away but he knew how costly such an action could be in a fight. Especially against jinchuuriki.

It was still a grizzly sight. On the outside, Yagura was being cooked by the dense flames while on the inside the molten metal was burning through his flesh, organs, and bones.

Ren barely managed to keep his lunch from evacuating his stomach through his mouth.

Yagura swung his left arm and the shockwave pushed the flames away. His two tails and his right hand grabbed the ground and tore chunks of earth, hurling them at Ren and his two remaining clones with shocking speed.

Ren threw himself onto the ground and rolled underneath the flying chunk of hardened earth when he heard Kaito shout.

Ren's eyes snapped toward Yagura as his roll stopped and he pushed himself back on his feet. Only to see Yagura attempting to form another bijuudama in his direction. Again! 

The jinchuuriki was already halfway done too, his injuries thankfully slowing the process somewhat.

Realizing he didn't have enough time to evade nor interrupt Yagura, Ren gulped, primal fear for his life rising within him... when he was abruptly pulled away from his position via substitution thanks to one of his clones who intended to sacrifice himself.

But it was not needed.

"Oh, no you don't!" Kaito suddenly appeared in front of Yagura, kicking him in the chin and making his head snap upward just a split second before he released the bijuudama, causing it to fly into the sky before it detonated far above them.

The ensuing shockwave still pushed Ren and his clones to the ground as the whole area violently rattled due to the loud booming explosion that colored the horizon fiery orange.

Unfortunately for Kaito, he felt as if the heavens suddenly fell onto his shoulders while Yagura was not bothered by it almost at all. With wide eyes, Kaito could only watch in rising horror as Yagura grabbed his shoulders with his hands.

Ren subconsciously whimpered as Kaito was ripped into two pieces and Yagura roared in victory.

Just then one of Ren's clones substituted with one piece of Kaito's corpse that lay directly to Yagura's left and slammed another two Yin Containment Seals onto him. Then he used shunshin to disengage before Yagura could retaliate.

Surprisingly, the red chakra around Yagura somewhat retracted into his body, leaving the man silently standing in his spot, swaying slightly in the violent air current caused by the bijuudama explosion while bleeding all over the ground from his considerable wounds.

Ren hesitated a bit before speaking in a hopeful tone, "Are you... in the mood for a reasonable conversation?"

He really prayed that...

Yagura suddenly ripped off one of the Yin Containment Seal tags and the red chakra came back, enveloping his body with a renewed force.

"Grrr." Yagura's red eyes looked at Ren with ferocious hostility within them as he flared the full weight of his killing intent at him.

"You gotta be freaking kidding me." Ren whispered in resignation with a grimace on his face.