Killer Bee.
One of the jinchūriki of the Cloud, and he was here exactly when Sukuna had to train here. Sukuna wished to curse under his breath. Why today?
Sukuna stood in his complete curse state, so at least somewhat his real face was still not revealed. With Kamui and Flying Thunder God, getting out of here wouldn't be that hard.
However, when he thought about running away, it left a bitter taste in his mouth.
Why should he run away?
Hell, why was he even thinking about running away?
His four arms relaxed as his four eyes fixed on his opponent with a calm that did not match the violence about to unfold.
'I killed his brother, I can kill him too. He might not recognize me in the future even if I get away from here, due to my transformation; however, he has seen the Konoha headband on my forehead.
Reason or not, proof or not, it was inevitable that a Kage of a hidden village had gone missing, and that happened in the Land of Fire. The biggest suspect had to be Konoha. And now I was here with this headband.
Even if Konoha wasn't the real culprit, the Hidden Cloud would definitely put the blame on the Hidden Leaf.
'Nah, killing him here is the most efficient route.'
So with that in mind, he decided to kill the jinchūriki of the Hidden Cloud after killing their Kage.
While across from him, Killer Bee lowered his stance, his grip firm on his remaining blades, his focus sharpened to a level far beyond his usual carefree demeanor.
He knew that the four-armed man in front of him wasn't going to come along with him politely; taking him by force was the only way. So, why bother trying to ask nicely? Just immediately focus on combat.
It saves time.
Sukuna was the one who moved first. Besides the necessity of killing Killer Bee here and now to avoid future trouble, as his motto suggested,
he still planned to test out his new power on him. After all, it's not always he gets a live jinchūriki as his personal lab rat.
He closed the distance in an instant, his speed cutting through the air with unnatural precision as one of his fists drove toward Bee's guard, followed immediately by a second strike from another arm. There were benefits to having more than two hands after all, why not use them?
'Heavy...'
That was the only thing Bee thought when he blocked the first hit from Sukuna. Those attacks were incredibly heavy; even after being passively boosted by Gyūki's chakra, he was knocked three steps back on the very first move.
Even his brother didn't hit this hard, and Bee knew there was no one who hit harder than his brother in the Cloud Village.
And this was because sage chakra gave a physical boost to its user, that and Sukuna's own body was incredibly strong to begin with.
Unfortunately, he was still inefficient with the curse mark to use his full leverage and had to hold back until he wished to burn out the limited cursed energy his seal could supply on demand.
He still didn't let it go though; he chained his attacks with multiple hands into a seamless assault that forced Bee to react rather than think.
Bee met him head-on, multiple blades flashing as he deflected the incoming blows. While he was clearly inferior in raw strength, he had his very own swordsmanship, which hardly anyone could cope with.
It was an incredibly random and complex swordsmanship with multiple blades which left opponents confused and disoriented, unable to figure out which blade would strike them next.
Not Sukuna though.
At least not until he had a Mangekyō in his eye sockets.
Sukuna infused his hands with cursed energy, and they became as hard as steel with how much better his reinforcement had developed since he started putting effort into it.
Not to mention natural energy had made his body even more durable, so he deflected all of Bee's strikes with bare hands before they landed with extreme precision.
Sparks flew as steel met reinforced flesh, his movements fluid and controlled despite the sheer force behind Sukuna's attacks.
"Damn, you hit hard, yo," Bee muttered, sliding back slightly before stepping in again, his swords shifting angles in a rapid, unpredictable rhythm. "But I've handled worse."
Sukuna's smirk widened at that. "I somehow doubt that claim."
He adjusted, allowing Bee's blade to graze past one arm while another intercepted the follow-up strike, his body moving with unnatural coordination, with Mangekyō guiding his movement as he tested the limits of his strength and speed without relying on anything else.
Bee shifted tactics quickly, weaving lightning through his blades as chakra surged along their edges, the crackling energy enhancing each strike as he pressed forward.
Sukuna didn't care. If anything, he was a bit more curious to see the extent of his reinforcement with the curse mark active.
He still clashed with bare fists, though this time around he took damage; his flesh started to burn off, and the lightning also caused shock damage to him.
"Got ya!" Bee smiled and got ready to deliver a strong attack to restrain the enemy.
And that was when Sukuna decided to stop holding back.
Bee was ready to take down Sukuna with one of his and his brother's signature techniques, a combo move which both of them performed together.
And even when the Raikage wasn't here, he could still use the technique. It was Lariat.
There was no warning before Bee was already charging toward Sukuna, one hand extended to tackle him.
Sukuna didn't move much; just a small flicker of his finger was enough.
One second everything was alright, Bee was already near Sukuna to tackle him, and the next he went past Sukuna; however, he never felt the contact of the tackle from his Lariat.
"BEE... YOUR HAND."
The Eight-Tails, or Gyūki's hurried shout, made Bee finally realize what had happened.
His arm was gone. The entire hand was gone.
Even for someone like Killer Bee, this blow came out of nowhere, so suddenly that he felt dazed.
He felt no pain or pressure in his hand; it was just there a second ago, and now it was gone.
It simply separated cleanly, falling to the ground a moment before the pain fully registered.
Bee staggered back, his breath catching as his eyes widened in shock, blood spraying from the severed limb as his body reacted instinctively rather than logically.
'How? I didn't even see anything. When did he attack?' Bee's eyes were widened; for the first time during the fight, he was on his complete guard.
Inside him, Gyūki roared.
"Bee! Something cut you! I didn't see anything! But I felt it."
"I know that!" Bee snapped back mentally, already forcing chakra outward as a red cloak began to form around his body, the bubbling energy wrapping around him in a protective layer just as another unseen attack struck.
"But when the hell did he attack?" he asked with both panic and confusion.
"I—I can't say. It was an extremely fast attack, unseen by the eyes. I could barely feel its negative energy," Gyūki answered.
However, they didn't have the leisure to figure out how, because the next second Gyūki's tailed beast cloak rippled violently.
It flickered and split.
Multiple thin, shallow wounds opened across Bee's body beneath the cloak, lines appearing without cause, without direction, as if space itself had turned against him.
Bee couldn't do anything; he just had to endure it. Gyūki poured more of his chakra to make the cloak stronger, but it didn't do much since Sukuna himself was increasing his output slowly as he got the hang of the curse mark and sage energy.
"What kind of attack is this!?" Bee demanded, his stance tightening as he tried to read Sukuna, but there was nothing to follow, no chakra flow, no trajectory, nothing he could predict or counter.
Sukuna just watched him quietly, as if instead of fighting he was analyzing. Which, in fact, was the case. Instead of immediately going for a kill, he was figuring out the nuance of natural energy when mixed with his cursed energy and technique.
"Besides bad efficiency, it kind of trades precision and focus for raw power..." he muttered to himself with a grumble. He had to figure out how to condense the attacks to improve their slashing damage.
Then, as if launching another round of tests, he sent a barrage of strikes at Bee.
The air did not move, yet Bee felt them hit, his cloak distorting under the pressure as more shallow cuts spread across his body, and he could feel it, this time it was far more dangerous, the cuts were suddenly getting deeper. More lethal!
"Damn it—!" Bee gritted his teeth, forcing more chakra into the cloak, thickening it, reinforcing it, but the attacks still slipped through in fragments, carving into him piece by piece.
"Bee, this isn't normal!" Gyūki warned. "That power—it's not chakra!"
"No kidding!" Bee replied, already shifting his stance as he swung what remained of his strength forward, releasing a tail from the cloak in a wide arc.
"Tail Beast Transformation!"
xXx
A/N : What you guys think, did I balance the power scaling right, as we go up in the scale of power, its gets harder to figure out who might prevail over whom. So if you think I'm wrong in power scaling here, do let me know.
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