Chakra Thirst

Takara shook his head to quickly reorient himself. He had just expended a significant amount of chakra to traverse a third of the shinobi world map right after creating a small temporal stasis area. He needed the noxians to help him recover quickly so he could face Han as soon as possible, or he would lose too many puppets.

Several noxians with torsos full of glowing blue chakra piled on top of him, injecting their reserves to replenish the recent expenditure, falling inert to the ground once they were emptied.

"Takara-sama!" One of the many Katsuyu clones around him approached with a worried voice, seeing their sole contractor wobble.

"I'm fine, I just used up a lot of chakra at once."

He wasn't used to that level of fluctuation in his reserves, but he was feeling better by the moment as his chakra rapidly recovered.

"I have to go and finish an urgent matter," Takara told Katsuyu. "Don't worry about the inert puppets on the ground, I'll come back for them when I'm done."

"All right, call me if you need help," the slug sage clone nodded.

Katsuyu watched as Takara disappeared through the door and sighed, still impressed by this strange spatial ninjutsu. She turned her eyes to the noxians drained of energy, piled like a small mountain.

"They're a bit dirty, I'll wash them to pass the time."

Ignoring Katsuyu's intention to clean the noxians to kill time, Takara reappeared in the room where he had trapped Han. Looking at the puppet remains scattered everywhere, many of them irrecoverable due to the level of damage, he couldn't help but feel a pang in his heart.

So much work wasted!

"Finally, you deign to show up!" A bijudama was Han and Kokuo's greeting when they noticed Takara's presence, the very likely culprit of their ambush.

"I see you still have plenty of energy left, good. I hope you can last long enough to test all my ideas." He might not be able to send the bijudama outside without risking blowing up Katsuyu's home, but instead, he didn't hesitate to enter the Tenseigan chakra mode and use a Truth-Seeking Ball to enclose the attack, containing the explosion effortlessly inside it.

(I even forgot this mode had those balls too; Toneri seriously didn't know how to take advantage of them at all...)

"Huh?" Takara didn't know which of the two made the sound of surprise, perhaps both, but unless they kept using bijudamas against him, he had no intention of using the Truth-Seeking Balls against the jinchuriki.

The point of trapping him in a controlled environment was to test his new abilities in a real battle, not to go overboard.

For that reason, he also wouldn't use Tenseigan techniques like the Golden Wheel Reincarnation Explosion, Silver Wheel Reincarnation Explosion, or the Localized Reincarnation Explosion.

It would cause more damage than even the opponent's bijudama in such a confined space, no matter how large he made it.

And he would have to handle fixing everything later! Not to mention dimensional collapse, it was a complete headache.

Now that he thought about the technique names, Toneri seriously had an obsession with explosions...

"Who are you?" asked Kokuo's form, showing more caution after seeing the ball no one should have in these times.

"Huh? It seems your collaboration is better than I thought," Takara commented more to himself than providing a proper answer.

He didn't expect Han to share control in such a complete way.

Perhaps realizing he wasn't going to talk, Kokuo pawed the ground with his hooves and charged at Takara, intending to gore him with his horns.

"Useless," Takara raised his palm, and when Kokuo was about to impact, he repelled him using the Tenseigan's ability that mimics the Deva Path of the Rinnegan.

(Yes, it also has that. Recycling ideas or lack of inspiration?)

The repulsion sent the tailed beast flying dozens of meters, as it hadn't been able to gain enough momentum to reach its best speed in the first place.

"You know, you would have much better chances against me in the Tailed Beast Cloak form," Takara commented as he realized this wasn't the fight he sought.

The only advantage of this form was the physical blows (limited to tail whips, hoof impacts, or goring) and the bijudamas, for which he already had a countermeasure.

He would find it much more satisfying and practical for Han to assume the human form with the Tailed Beast Cloak, where in addition to being able to continue using the power of his biju, he could use various ninjutsus.

Who would have thought, it turns out there's an even more useless biju than Shukaku.

At least the sand raccoon could control sand, use wind techniques, and fuinjutsu.

"Do you think we'll fall for your provocations?!"

Han and Kokuo were unwilling to comply with Takara's request, sure it was just a trap to take advantage and play some dirty trick.

They were going to show why they became renowned during the war!

Takara frowned, dissatisfied with the jinchuriki's stubbornness, maintaining the Tenseigan chakra mode while also entering sage mode simultaneously, causing his eyes to take on a gear-like light blue shape.

"As you wish," he said in a cold voice before getting serious.

There are many things he can try against such a large body!

Han and Kokuo suddenly had a bad premonition...

Eight hours later.

Han returned to his human form with a missing left arm, a leg pointing in the wrong direction, and his head swollen like a pig. Multiple lacerations on his torso, two fingers missing from his right hand, and continuous tremors of pain as the lacerations seemed trapped in a loop where they were caused, reverted to their previous state, and reappeared.

"Tch, where's your drive now?" Takara clicked his tongue at the sight of the jinchuriki, on the brink of death despite having tested only a few dozen things.

Though he was dissatisfied at not being able to complete all his experiments, he wasn't going to kill Han lost in his research.

He would kill him while extracting the biju and sealing it in a Greed Jar.

Although it was irritating that the other side seemed to realize his intentions and tried to commit suicide at the six-hour mark, almost catching him off guard and forcing Takara to wait for Kokuo to reform in nature and search for him for an indeterminate time.

Even so, he was perplexed by the fact that Han became so well-known during the Third Shinobi World War if his strength and variety of techniques were just that.

The only minimally decent technique, ignoring those derived from the biju, was the Five Mountain Jump, and as long as the enemy kept their distance, Han's long-range capability was almost nil.

"No matter, let's seal it before any additional unforeseen events arise," Takara concluded while taking out a Greed Jar to seal the five-tailed beast.

Back in Shikkotsu Forest...

"Katsuyu, why do the noxians look half-melted?"

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