Smacking her cheeks a bit, she managed to force herself into Version Two.

"Ready or not... here I come."

In the blink of an eye, she was gone. Seijuro unsheathed his blade and blocked a strike aimed at his neck in one swift motion.

Stopping the Nine-Tail clash from reaching him.

Kushina smiled before jumping away, using her tails to attack him—giving him no time to rest at all.

Seijuro used Shunpo around her, avoiding her tails like they were the plague.

Hm.

'The Nine-Tail chakra is truly dense,' he thought to himself. The Bijū chakra was the densest he'd felt in a while. None of the other Tailed Beasts he'd fought even came close to this amount of raw chakra.

Truly, this was power.

Drawing his blade—

"Sha—" Before he could finish his sentence, her tail wrapped around his sword, and she launched herself at him.

"I won't let you!" she declared, her claws barely scratching him as he ducked out of the way.

Hm. She was smarter than he gave her credit for.

He used Shunpo again, but she slammed her hand into the ground, and three of her tails rushed toward him, giving him not even an ounce of time to think.

Kushina opened her mouth as a Bijūdama began to form.

She swallowed it.

The explosion happened inside her own mouth.

Smoke puffed out between her lips.

"Not good," Seijuro muttered, quickly forming numerous hand seals.

She opened her mouth again and fired off a condensed Bijūdama Beam.

"Earth Style: Earth Wall," he said, slamming his palm into the ground.

As for why he was using such a jutsu—

It blocked her line of sight from him.

A shadow clone was about to take his place while he went underground.

His Earth Walls were hella durable.

A smooth, even ripple spread outward, and a wall of perfectly uniform, compacted earth rose effortlessly. It was thicker, denser, and had a subtle, almost crystalline sheen.

Using Nature Chakra, he resonated with the earth itself. While this required deeper understanding of Earth release, it was possible. To be more precise, what he did could be described as tuning a string rather than just strumming it as hard as you can.

With this level of detail, his rock had been compacted at a molecular level—like turning sand into sandstone or even granite. This involved not just raising the earth, but then applying a secondary, subtle chakra pulse to compress and solidify it. A quick, internal pressure cooker for the terrain. He could even imbue it with a slight elemental resistance—water chakra to resist fire, lightning to make it harder to shatter. In this case, given it was a Bijūdama, the wall had a light flavor from each element.

KABOOM

As the explosion rang out, Kushina—still in her Bijū Cloak—scanned the battlefield. She hadn't gone all-in with that blast. She knew he was still around.

Seijuro's wall had crumbled a bit, but a good chunk of it remained.

Suddenly, he rushed toward her, seemingly aiming to clash head-on.

She wore a big, shit-eating grin.

In terms of pure physical strength, she was going to win. She was an Uzumaki, after all. Dattebane.

Oh well. Time to win.

As she was about to reach him, she felt something press against her stomach.

Kushina froze, confused. Looking down, she saw a hand place a seal directly over her gut.

Kurama's chakra was immediately locked off. The seal constricted tightly around the Bijū, and she was forced out of her Bijū Cloak, returning to her base form.

A wooden kunai was pressed against her throat.

"You lost," Seijuro said calmly.

She looked quite defeated. Aw come on—she was so close to winning. If only the battle had dragged on a little longer... she would've had it. She knew she would.

Seijuro tended to win short fights, but if a battle dragged on, problems started to pile up for him. Unlike her, he didn't have that much chakra... well, at least compared to her.(bs)

Sure, he had five Kakashi-worth of chakra. But she had about 100—maybe even 200. She was a pure-blooded Uzumaki and the Nine-Tail Jinchūriki. Running out of chakra wasn't something she worried about in her line of work.

"I was so close... I almost had you," she muttered, sounding defeated.

"You're improving. At least this time, you didn't go insane—and that's progress," he said softly.

Truly great progress.

He wondered just how strong she would get in the future.

If she mastered the Bijū's chakra, she could get really strong.

Hm.

He'd like to see that.

If she learned sage mode, she could really be a threat, with her mind eyes of Kagura, and sage mode training, no one could evade her senses.

And if she learn to be able to make adamantine weopon, she would truly be strong, he would be there to teach her, everystep of the way, maybe not as himself but as Aizen, this should prove to be a worthy gamble.