Tsunade's Declaration of Rupture, the Senju Clan's Final Ultimatum

Violent waves of chakra swept through the room with splintered wood in tow. The heavy solid-wood door to the Hokage's office, a symbol of Hidden Leaf's highest authority, had been reduced to a miserable pile of debris.

Before the dust had settled, the crisp clatter of high heels struck heavily against everyone's hearts like war drums.

"Click, click, click."

Tsunade wore the green haori with the character for "gamble" emblazoned across its back, her golden twin ponytails whipping wildly in the gale. The bright eyes she usually possessed now burned with golden flames of fury fierce enough to set the entire building ablaze.

She strode over the broken wood on the floor, her gaze immediately locking onto Sosuke standing before the desk.

When Tsunade saw Sosuke's pale face and the blade mark on his neck still seeping blood, the chakra around her condensed directly into a pale blue storm visible to the naked eye. Faint explosions even crackled through the air.

The four Root elites in pale masks were forced back again and again beneath the terrifying pressure of someone at the peak of Kage level. Even the hands gripping their swords trembled uncontrollably. They had no doubt that if they so much as moved a finger, this woman would crush their skulls in an instant.

"Big Sister Tsunade..." Sosuke coughed twice at just the right moment, his body swaying slightly. With lowered eyelids, he perfectly concealed the icy darkness in his eyes, playing the part of a stubborn youth barely holding on beneath the oppression of power.

"Who did this?" Tsunade's voice was cold enough to freeze the air. She did not look at Hiruzen Sarutobi, nor did she look at Danzo. She simply glared at the Root shinobi.

Before anyone could answer, Tsunade caught sight of the items on the desk—the half-scroll of bloodstained parchment orders and the black vial of poison.

She shoved Uchiha Fugaku aside. Startled by the undisguised killing intent pouring off her, Fugaku stumbled back several steps and slammed hard into the wall. Tsunade strode to the desk and roughly snatched up the secret order.

After just one glance, Tsunade's stunning face twisted completely.

"Recover the corpse... execute on the spot... extract the eyes and spinal marrow..." Tsunade read the contents of the secret order one word at a time. With every word, the temperature in the office dropped several degrees. Images flashed through her mind of the uncles and brothers of the Senju Clan who had died inexplicably on the battlefield over the years. Those bloody scenes overlapped perfectly with the order in her hand.

Bang!

Without warning, Tsunade raised her right hand and slammed her fist, wrapped in monstrous strength, into the sturdy mahogany desk.

Amid a deafening boom, the expensive desk that had accompanied Hiruzen Sarutobi for over a decade exploded down the middle and split in two. Wood chips and countless classified documents flew everywhere. Hiruzen Sarutobi was even forced to lean back into his leather chair to barely avoid the sharp flying splinters.

"Teacher Sarutobi!" Tsunade whipped around, her eyes bloodshot with extreme fury as she addressed him directly. "Is this the Will of Fire you never stop preaching about?! Is this how Hidden Leaf treats the orphaned descendants of its heroes?!"

Hiruzen Sarutobi set down his pipe, embarrassment and anger flickering across his aged face. He slapped the armrest hard. "Tsunade, you are being far too insolent! This is the Hokage's office! The matter is still under investigation. Do not listen to one side alone..."

"Investigate my ass!" Tsunade rudely cut off the Third Hokage. In one step, she rushed before Danzo, seized the collar of his bandage-wrapped clothes, and forcibly lifted the sinister old man into the air.

"Tsunade! You dare lay hands on me?!" Danzo's eyes bulged as he waved his cane, trying to break free. Yet Tsunade's monstrous strength held him fast. His feet gradually left the floor, leaving him completely unable to move.

"Not only do I dare lay hands on you today, I dare kill you too!" Tsunade gritted her teeth, her voice filled with utter madness. "You two old bastards really think I'm blind? Why was the Senju Clan always sent to carry out suicidal rear-guard missions on the Land of Rain battlefield? Why did my clan's elites die one after another in unexplained ambushes? And now, you won't even spare the last male of the Senju family—you even want to drain his bone marrow!"

Tsunade violently flung her arm, smashing Danzo against the wall like a sack of trash. A dull impact rang out.

She turned and stood in front of Sosuke like a lioness protecting her cub. Her blade-sharp gaze swept over everyone present before finally settling on Hiruzen Sarutobi's shifting expression.

"Old man, let me make this clear today." Tsunade's tone suddenly calmed, but that calm before a dead volcano erupted made Hiruzen Sarutobi's heart pound as an extremely ominous premonition rose within him.

"If you dare touch a single hair on Sosuke's head today, if you dare take him into Root under any fabricated charge..."

Tsunade took a deep breath and uttered the declaration of rupture that made the entire Hidden Leaf leadership tremble in fear:

"I, Senju Tsunade, hereby resign as head of Hidden Leaf's medical corps! I will lead every remaining member of the Senju Clan, along with every medical shinobi in Hidden Leaf Hospital loyal to me, out of Hidden Leaf!"

The moment those words fell, the entire office froze in suffocating silence.

Fugaku sucked in a sharp breath, his legs going weak. He had never imagined that Tsunade would dare use Hidden Leaf's entire medical system as a bargaining chip over a useless cripple! She was flipping the table and walking away from the game altogether!

Hiruzen Sarutobi's face instantly turned deathly pale, and the fingers holding his pipe shook violently.

The medical corps was the core safeguard that allowed Hidden Leaf to maintain an extremely low casualty rate during wartime, and Tsunade was the soul and symbol of that system. If she left with the medical corps, casualties on the front lines would soar exponentially, and Hidden Leaf's defenses would collapse across the board within a month!

Even more terrifying was the political impact. The Senju were one of the founding clans of Hidden Leaf. If the Senju Clan were driven into betraying the village, his legitimacy as the Third Hokage would vanish entirely. Every other shinobi clan would feel endangered, and Hidden Leaf would inevitably fall apart.

"Tsunade! Do you know what you are saying? You want to betray the village?!" Danzo steadied himself against the wall and roared harshly, his single eye filled with venom.

"You betrayed the Senju first!" Tsunade shot back without giving an inch. Her chakra surged again, and even the floor beneath her feet began to crack. "Want to test it? Let's see whether I snap your neck first, or whether your Root deadmen can stop me!"

"Enough!!!"

Hiruzen Sarutobi abruptly rose to his feet, erupting with the formidable presence of the Shinobi Professor and forcibly suppressing the drawn swords in the room.

He breathed heavily, his gaze shifting back and forth between the enraged Tsunade and Sosuke behind her, whose eyes remained lowered. In the end, this calculating politician still lowered his proud head before absolute interests.

"This matter... does indeed contain many doubtful points. Danzo's Root made a grave error in verifying its intelligence, and its methods were excessively extreme." Hiruzen Sarutobi forced down his frustration and spoke one word at a time, trying to salvage the last shred of his dignity. "The accusation that Sosuke betrayed the village is hereby withdrawn."

He turned to Danzo, his gaze carrying a stern warning. "Danzo, Root's funding will be reduced by thirty percent effective immediately. You will also be confined for one month to reflect on your actions!"

"Hiruzen! You..." Danzo trembled with rage, his cane gouging deep dents into the floor.

"Silence! This is the Hokage's order!" Hiruzen Sarutobi barked.

Then he adopted the weary expression of an elder and looked toward Tsunade. "Tsunade, take Sosuke back to recover. I guarantee that nothing like this will happen again. You are a pillar of Hidden Leaf. Do not say such things in anger."

Tsunade snorted coldly, showing the Third Hokage no respect at all. She turned and carefully supported Sosuke's arm. Her violent aura instantly receded, and her voice became incomparably gentle. "Sosuke, we're going home."

"Mm, thank you, Big Sister." Sosuke nodded weakly and obediently leaned against Tsunade's soft shoulder.

As they passed Uchiha Fugaku, Sosuke tilted his head slightly. In those pitch-black eyes flashed a trace of contempt and mockery that only Fugaku could understand, as though he were looking at a homeless dog barking madly but incapable of biting anyone. Fugaku clenched his fists, yet forced himself not to say a single word.

Under everyone's watchful eyes, the two of them walked openly out of the ruined Hokage's office.

The instant they turned into the corridor, there was not the slightest relief at having survived a disaster on Sosuke's pale, gentle face. Deep within his half-lidded black eyes flashed an exceedingly dangerous glimmer of dark green light.

Reduced funding? Confinement?

Such painless punishment was nothing more than a political farce in which the higher-ups covered for one another.

Sosuke knew perfectly well that today's table-flipping had only temporarily driven back the enemy's probing. The bait he had thrown out had successfully forced Tsunade to reveal her bottom line, while thoroughly bringing the conflict between the Senju Clan and Hidden Leaf's leadership into the open. Danzo and the Third Hokage's greed for Wood Release would never fade because of this. It would only move deeper underground.

The true fight to the death had only just begun. And next time, he would never give those old dogs another chance to catch their breath.