Naruto: Reborn with the Template System

"Ohhh!"

Looking at the massive waterfall rushing forward, enough to carve out a lake, Guts let out a low chuckle filled with an inexplicable meaning.

The coral that had crawled up his leg to his knee was instantly shattered with a stomp.

And this time, he didn't even use Armament Haki, just pure, brute physical strength.

"Rankyaku!"

Lifting his leg and bringing it down in a reverse motion, a vibrant blue blade of compressed air burst upwards, at least ten meters high.

It slashed clean through the Great Waterfall Technique, splitting it in two. The massive rush of water veered off to both sides, avoiding Guts entirely.

Boom!!!

Suddenly, Guts lightly stomped down with his other leg. The impact caused the ground within a hundred-meter radius to rupture violently.

An irregular sphere made of dense coral reefs emerged from the shattered earth.

Click. Click. Click.

Cracks rapidly formed in the coral mass. In an instant, a short-statured young man, no older than fifteen, burst out wielding a massive club.

Fourth Mizukage—Yagura.

Despite the youthful appearance, rough estimates placed Yagura in his thirties. Maintaining such a boyish look was unsettling in itself.

"The outcome of this battle is already decided. You came out to stop me... just to test my strength?" Guts mused with a smirk.

Spreading his arms out wide and then clenching his fists, he grinned. "Good. But you'd better not hold back. If you're not serious from the start, it'll be over too quickly."

Yagura, though expressionless from Obito's Mangekyō control, clearly understood what Guts meant.

In the next moment, red bubbles erupted over his body, morphing into a chakra cloak complete with tails and ears, the cloak of the Three-Tails.

"Tailed Beast Mode, huh?" Guts muttered.

"Water Style: Great Waterfall Technique!"

Empowered by the Three-Tails' chakra, the cascading tsunami erupted with enough force to drown out the landscape.

Even the famed Second Mizukage, renowned for his aquatic dominance, might be hard-pressed to match it.

But Guts simply looked up, unfazed.

"Beautiful. But I'm not really the type to rely on flashy tricks."

With that, he threw a single punch.

BOOM!!!

The tsunami parted like glass struck by a cannonball. A gaping hole pierced the wave dome, destroyed purely by the force of Guts's fist.

In the distance, Obito, controlling Yagura through his Mangekyō Sharingan, narrowed his eye.

Under the mask, his visible Sharingan flickered faintly.

No one could guess what was running through his mind.

After a few seconds, Obito raised both his index and middle fingers, crossing them in front of his chest. In the hoarse voice of Uchiha Madara, he muttered:

"Let's see how strong you've really become."

Currently, he stood at the Kage-level threshold.

With Kamui's hax-tier abilities, he was confident enough to rival even the strongest.

He wanted to test whether Guts had truly surpassed what he displayed during the Nine-Tails incident. If so, it could alter his entire strategy.

Back on the battlefield.

Having written off the Kirigakure front lines, Obito had already given up on maintaining control of the village—his real goal had always been Guts.

This was evident by his decision to allow Kisame to leave and join the Akatsuki.

As a result, Terumi Mei and the allied Konoha forces encountered less resistance than expected.

They quickly overwhelmed Yagura's men and pushed through the outer defenses of the Hidden Mist Village.

A blinding burst of red light suddenly soared into the sky. Any veteran ninja instantly recognized what it meant.

Yagura was about to undergo full Tailed Beast transformation.

Before he had even taken office as Mizukage, he had mastered the Three-Tails. Ao and the others had seen it with their own eyes in the past.

ROAR!!!

A monstrous cry echoed across the land. In a flash, the massive crustacean-like body of the Three-Tails emerged, churning the battlefield into a lake with its sheer presence.

Facing the massive beast, Guts simply grinned.

"Even if I'm not at full power without Advanced Conqueror's Haki... you're still just a beast."

Then, he vanished.

In an instant, he reappeared mid-air, fists clenched, his eyes flashing red. His arms were coated in advanced Armament Haki.

"Galaxy Impact!"

With a thunderous roar, Guts struck the Three-Tails with a scaled-down version of his signature technique.

"Everyone below Jōnin, fall back!" Terumi Mei shouted.

Kakashi, arriving a moment later, repeated the order.

But it was already too late.

A dark shadow loomed overhead, blanketing the battlefield.

Kakashi and the others looked up, and their jaws dropped.

The massive body of the Three-Tails was soaring through the sky.

Guts had launched it with a single punch.

He didn't stop there. Using Geppo, he shot up after it in a blur.

Grabbing the beast's enormous head with a single hand, his fingers comically small compared to its size.

Guts's body erupted with crackling red lightning, his Conqueror's Haki igniting alongside advanced Armament.

"Blue Hole!"

He bellowed and slammed the Three-Tails back to the earth.

The earlier awe in Kakashi and the others turned into dread.

"Retreat! Everyone fall back! Now!!!" Kakashi roared.

Though the Three-Tails wasn't as large as Madara's meteorite from the Fourth Great Ninja War, the effect was terrifying all the same.

BOOM!!!

The impact echoed for miles.

Even veteran Chūnin and Genin staggered from the shockwaves. The ground cracked, forming a massive crater around the Three-Tails' landing point.

ROOOAR!!

The beast howled in pain, thrashing wildly but unable to rise.

"What strength... to toss the Three-Tails like that," whispered Chōjūrō, only twelve at the time, standing behind Terumi Mei.

Moments later, a surge of powerful chakra erupted from the crater, transforming the surrounding land into a river.

The Three-Tails had broken free by filling the hole with water.

"Secret Technique—Water Style: Coral Sea!!!"

Massive coral spikes erupted from the earth like Kimimaro's Dance of the Seedling Fern, racing toward Guts with no room to dodge.

But dodging wasn't on his mind.

His fists, now coated in black Armament Haki layered with red, a sign of advanced internal damage capabilities—moved so fast they blurred.

"Iron Fist Impact!"

Even the hardest corals, said to rival diamonds in durability, were reduced to dust by Guts's relentless assault.

The Three-Tails stared at Guts charging straight at him.

In a cave miles away, Obito's face twisted into a grimace behind his mask.

His Sharingan prowess had never matched Madara's. The reason he'd controlled the Nine-Tails so flawlessly before was because of the contract Madara left behind.

Yagura, however, was a different story. As soon as the full transformation began, his willpower surged, resisting Obito's hold.

Obito clenched his fingers.

"Fine. Let's test the limits of your strength... with that technique."

--------------------------------------

Support me at patreon.com/Arthorain and read upto 50 Advanced Chapters and Exclusive R-18 Content!

--------------------------------------

Update schedule: 7 chapters/week

Every 100 power stones = 1 Extra Chapter

By voting with [power stones], you can easily get double the number of chapters.