A Tyrant's Declaration: Senju Sosuke Faces the Tailed Beast's Oppression Head-On

The howling wind swept through the sky, carrying yellow sand everywhere.

Wind Canyon, once reshaped by Wood Release and brimming with the rich vitality of vegetation, was now suffering a catastrophe like the end of the world. Deep within the canyon, chakra so violent it had reached the extreme surged like a burst dam, brutally tearing apart part of the giant forest Sosuke had just created.

The trembling of the earth grew more intense. Thick tree trunks cracked under the strain of the gale. Then, a colossal creature over a hundred meters tall smashed through the rock strata, emerging completely before the world amid a sandstorm that blotted out the sky.

It was a gigantic tanuki as massive as a mountain, its entire body formed from condensed yellow sand and covered in strange blue-violet curse markings. Every heavy breath it took stirred up a visible chakra storm in the air. Coarse grains of sand mixed with the wind and lashed against the remaining tree trunks, producing a dense chorus of cutting sounds.

Hidden Sand Village's strongest weapon, the One-Tail Shukaku, had been completely unleashed.

"Roar—!"

Shukaku raised its enormous head and let out a roar that shattered the clouds. Visible sound waves, mixed with utterly evil and chaotic chakra, swept in every direction. The remaining cliff walls on both sides of the canyon collapsed with a thunderous crash beneath that roar, and countless boulders tumbled down into the muddy, blood-soaked ground.

Fugaku knelt on the ground, his hands digging desperately into the soil just to keep from being blown away by the gale. The bloody tears streaming from his eyes had already dried in the wind and sand, leaving two dark-red streaks behind.

As he looked at the terrifying beast that covered the sky, the Uchiha clan head felt an unprecedented despair and helplessness rise from the depths of his heart.

It was too enormous.

That absolute oppressive force, built purely from mass and chakra, was simply beyond human resistance. Before a natural-disaster-level war machine like a tailed beast, individual ninjutsu seemed laughably insignificant.

"That crazy old woman Chiyo... she actually released this monster..." Fugaku's teeth chattered, and his voice was so hoarse it was nearly inaudible. He knew full well that once a tailed beast went berserk, it could not distinguish friend from foe. Driven into a corner, Chiyo, Hidden Sand's frontline commander, had clearly chosen to take everyone down with her. She intended to use this monster to bury everyone in the canyon.

It was over.

The Uchiha were finished, and Hidden Leaf's western defensive line was finished too.

Just as Fugaku completely gave up resisting and prepared to close his eyes and await death, dozens of black figures braved the hurricane-force winds and leaped down from the treetops behind him like phantoms, landing steadily around Sosuke.

They were the fifty Senju Clan shadow guards who had been hiding in the dark all this time.

Toka, at their head, dropped to one knee. Letting the raging sand strike her black mask, she spoke with extreme urgency and absolute loyalty. "Lord Sosuke! This is Hidden Sand's One-Tail Shukaku! Its chakra reserves are far too vast, and it has completely lost its mind. Please retreat with us immediately, my lord! I am willing to lead the shadow guards in holding it back and buy time for you!"

In Toka's eyes, Sosuke had just used a godlike Wood Release technique capable of changing the terrain. His chakra must have been greatly depleted. Now that the Senju Clan had finally seen the dawn of revival, Sosuke, their sole king, absolutely could not fight a crazed beast to the death in a place like this.

As long as Sosuke returned to Hidden Leaf alive, the Senju Clan would possess confidence that stood above all else.

The surrounding shadow guards drew their ninja blades one after another, their gazes fixed resolutely on the mountain of sand rampaging in the distance. At a single command from Sosuke, they would charge forward without hesitation and use their flesh and blood to fill that monster's stomach.

The violent wind whipped Sosuke's pure-white haori through the air with a fierce rustle.

He stood where he was, neither panicked nor retreating. Even his breathing remained unchanged. His deep black eyes quietly watched Shukaku as it madly destroyed the forest in the distance, while an exceedingly amused curve rose at the corner of his lips.

Sosuke raised a hand and elegantly brushed a small clump of yellow sand from his shoulder.

"Retreat?"

Sosuke's voice was not loud, yet it entered everyone's ears clearly through the deafening sandstorm. His calm tone carried an ultimate arrogance, as if he trampled all things beneath his feet.

"There has never been a rule in the Senju Clan's dictionary about making way for beasts."

Toka abruptly raised her head, her eyes filled with astonishment. "But, my lord, that is a tailed beast..."

"So what if it is?" Sosuke cut her off and slowly took a step forward. The chakra of his perfected Sage Body surged within him.

The instant his foot came down, brilliant emerald light burst from the ground beneath him. The giant trees that had been bent by the gale seemed to hear a king's summons and instantly straightened their trunks. Countless thick vines burst from the earth, weaving together beneath Sosuke's feet into a wooden staircase leading into the air.

Sosuke climbed the steps, dressed in white like snow, facing the endless yellow sand as he walked alone toward the hundred-meter-tall beast of sand.

His figure seemed as insignificant as an ant before Shukaku, yet the sight carried a suffocating visual tension. All the sand in the sky, upon entering within ten meters of him, was forcibly pushed away by that tangible green vitality, forming an absolute vacuum zone.

Fugaku sprawled on the ground, staring blankly at that figure advancing against the current, his mind utterly empty.

Had he gone mad?

That was a tailed beast! The ultimate aggregation of chakra! He actually wanted to use a human body of flesh and blood to confront such a natural disaster head-on?

"Fugaku."

Sosuke did not turn around. He merely tilted his face slightly, his cold sidelong glance sweeping over the Uchiha clan head on the ground.

"Open those useless eyes of yours and look carefully. That monster your Uchiha clan fears like a tiger—what exactly is it before my Senju Clan?"

The instant his words fell, Sosuke flung both arms out to his sides.

Boom!

A wave of Yang Release chakra even more terrifying and purer than when he had used Deep Forest Emergence erupted from his body like a volcanic explosion, shooting into the sky! The emerald pillar of light pierced the heavens, forcibly tearing a massive opening through the sandstorm that blotted out the sky. Sunlight poured through the rift and fell directly upon Sosuke, coating him in a godlike radiance.

"You are nothing but a lump of condensed chakra. The First Hokage could distribute your kind around like pets back then. Today, I, Senju Sosuke, can also grind your dignity into the mud!"

Empowered by chakra, Sosuke's voice rolled like heavenly thunder, resounding throughout Wind Canyon.

As he looked at the enraged Shukaku in the distance, there was not the slightest reverence for a powerful enemy in his eyes. Instead, they were filled with undisguised greed. That gaze was like one cast upon an exceedingly rare, high-grade chakra battery.

Mikoto's child was about to be born, and he had been worrying over where to find sufficiently high-level energy to cleanse and strengthen the bodies of the future Senju army. This One-Tail that had delivered itself to his doorstep was simply the perfect "power bank."

"Since Hidden Sand can't control its own dog, I'll take it off their hands!"

Sosuke's tyrannical declaration echoed through the storm.

Shukaku in the distance seemed to sense the provocation. It suddenly turned its enormous head, its house-sized eyes locking tightly onto Sosuke in midair. It opened its abyssal maw lined with fangs as violent Wind Release chakra compressed frantically deep inside its throat, preparing to blast this foolhardy human into pulp.

However, just as Shukaku was about to unleash its devastating attack—

The pupils that had been filled with madness and murderous intent suddenly shrank to pinpoints.

Within the raging wind, that incomparably pure emerald chakra aura entered through its nostrils and drilled straight into the deepest core of its chakra-formed being.

It was a terrifying memory carved into the deepest depths of every tailed beast's soul, one that could not be erased even after decades.

It was the aura of the man who had once crushed the Nine-Tails with one hand and rubbed them into the ground like chicks!

Senju Hashirama's Wood Release! No, this vitality was even more tyrannical and aggressive than Hashirama's had been!

The Wind Release chakra compressing in Shukaku's throat instantly dispersed. Its mountain-sized body abruptly froze in place, and grains of sand fell from its entire body as it trembled violently.

Then, Hidden Sand's strongest weapon, which had been so arrogant only moments ago, actually took half a step back and let out a shrill howl mixed with extreme fear, disbelief, and overwhelming hatred.