The Ten Puppets of Chikamatsu's Encirclement, Sosuke's Overwhelming Taijutsu Dominance

Ten pale afterimages tore through the raging sand above Wind Canyon like evil ghosts breaking free of hell's shackles, carrying an utterly chilling chakra with them.

Chiyo's withered ten fingers danced wildly. Blood seeping from her fingertips intertwined with blue chakra threads, tightly linking her to the ten eerie puppets draped in white robes. These were the ultimate masterpieces of the first-generation puppeteer, Monzaemon—the Ten Puppets of Chikamatsu. Each one contained terrifying mechanisms capable of killing an elite jonin alone. Together, they had once earned the fearsome reputation of conquering a small fortress in a single stroke.

"Senju Sosuke! Give Hidden Sand's future back!"

Chiyo's roar carried the madness of someone at the end of her road. She squeezed out every last drop of chakra in her body. In midair, three puppets instantly formed a strange triangular formation. Their mechanisms sprang open, revealing pitch-black cannon muzzles.

Boom!

Violent Wind Release, scorching Fire Release, and razor-sharp Lightning Release were driven jointly by the three puppets, merging into a beam of destruction over five meters wide that shot straight at Sosuke's face as he stood atop the Wood Dragon. This was one of the Ten Puppets of Chikamatsu's killing moves—the reverse release of Three Buddhist Treasures Suction Crushing!

In the distance, Uchiha Fugaku, sprawled in the mud, suddenly widened his eyes. That chakra fluctuation was far too powerful. Even with his three-tomoe Sharingan activated, he could never withstand it head-on.

Faced with a beam of destruction capable of instantly vaporizing stone, not the slightest ripple appeared on Sosuke's jade-like face. Unhurriedly, he tucked the amber-colored tailed beast crystal into his robes. His eyelids lowered slightly, and the curve of his lips held undisguised mockery.

"A bunch of rotten wood thinks it can show off in front of me?"

Before the words had faded, the enormous Wood Dragon beneath Sosuke's feet collapsed with a crash, turning into splinters that filled the sky. He had actually abandoned Wood Release's absolute defense. Like a weightless feather, he plummeted from the air and charged directly toward the destructive beam.

Wild delight flashed through Chiyo's cloudy eyes. This brat was too arrogant! No matter how powerful Wood Release was, without forming hand seals to defend himself, trying to withstand a composite ninjutsu of this level with his bare body would surely blast him into scraps!

Yet the next second, the elation on Chiyo's face froze completely.

Suspended in midair, Sosuke casually extended his right hand. Yang Release chakra from his perfected Sage Body gathered in his palm. Without forming a single seal, he simply spread his five fingers and fiercely clenched them at the roaring beam.

Bang!

A deafening muffled boom erupted. The composite ninjutsu beam, powerful enough to destroy a fortress, was crushed apart by Sosuke's bare hand! Violent streams of energy poured wildly in every direction, whipping his white haori until it snapped loudly in the wind, yet they could not even sever a single strand of his hair.

Pure physical defense!

"How is that possible..." Chiyo's voice trembled.

Sosuke gave her no chance to catch her breath. His feet landed firmly on the ground, his boots crushing the rocks beneath them. Then his figure vanished from the spot in an instant.

Bang! A sonic boom cloud exploded where Sosuke had been standing.

Too fast! So fast that even Fugaku's Sharingan could only catch a streak of white afterimage.

When Sosuke appeared again, he had already cut directly into the center of the Ten Puppets of Chikamatsu's formation. Two puppets wielding poisoned twin blades reacted quickly, slashing viciously at Sosuke's neck and waist from either side. Their blades sliced through the air with piercing shrieks.

Sosuke neither dodged nor evaded. His left hand formed a blade, and he chopped directly into the poisoned blade descending from his left.

Crack!

The puppet blade, forged from refined steel and sharp enough to cut iron like mud, shattered inch by inch like fragile glass the instant it touched Sosuke's palm. His hand did not slow in the slightest as it precisely struck the puppet's neck.

Boom!

The head of that incomparably sturdy, extravagantly crafted puppet was slapped clean off. As terrifying brute force surged through it, its wooden body exploded from within, mechanisms and springs scattering through the air.

At the same time, the poisoned blade of the puppet on the right had already struck Sosuke's waist.

Before Chiyo could show any joy, she discovered in horror that the toxin-coated blade had failed to even cut through Sosuke's thin white haori. The Yang Release aura naturally possessed by his perfected Sage Body was more indestructible than any Earth Release hardening technique.

"That's all the strength you've got?"

Sosuke turned his head, his cold gaze sweeping over the puppet. His right hand shot out and seized the puppet's arm.

"Break."

With that quiet word, the muscles in Sosuke's arm suddenly tensed. Emerald-green chakra flowed around his fist. He swung the puppet like a broken sledgehammer and smashed it viciously into the other three puppets rushing at him from ahead.

Rumble!

The enormous collision echoed through the canyon. Four puppets crashed together. Before Sosuke's absolute monstrous strength, which surpassed even Tsunade's, those lumps of wood were pitifully fragile. Broken wooden limbs and twisted gears littered the ground.

"Puh!"

The backlash from her chakra threads being forcibly torn apart made Chiyo spit out a mouthful of blood. The flesh on all ten of her fingers was mangled, and the agonizing pain made her body tremble uncontrollably.

But Sosuke's one-sided slaughter had only just begun.

He moved through the remaining puppets as though taking a leisurely stroll. There were no flashy ninjutsu clashes, no complicated tactical exchanges—only the rawest, purest aesthetics of violence.

With one punch, the air visibly caved in. A puppet attempting to ambush him from behind was punched straight through the chest, its core formation instantly crushed.

With one sweeping kick, like a battle-axe splitting a mountain, he kicked a puppet leaping through the air cleanly in two.

Even the two puppets equipped with absolute defense mechanisms were gripped at their edges by Sosuke's hands and torn alive into fragments that filled the sky amid a teeth-grating screech of twisting metal.

In barely a few dozen seconds,

Wind Canyon returned to silence. Only the wooden wreckage strewn across the ground and the parts still smoking faintly proved that the first-generation puppeteer's masterpieces had ever existed.

Sosuke stood amid the ruins, his white haori spotless. He casually brushed a bit of wood dust from his cuff, his breathing not even slightly disturbed.

"The stereotype of Wood Release mages really should be changed." Sosuke chuckled, seemingly quite satisfied with that warm-up. His perfected Sage Body had granted him not only chakra as vast as the sea, but also this flawless, terrifying body comparable to a tailed beast.

In the mud not far away, Fugaku had been completely stunned senseless.

He had always believed that the Senju Clan's most terrifying ability was Wood Release. As long as one guarded against Wood Release, Uchiha genjutsu and taijutsu might still stand a chance. But now, Sosuke had smashed his pride to pieces with the most primitive of weapons—his fists. Even the Ten Puppets of Chikamatsu could not break through his defense. Even if Fugaku awakened the Mangekyo, how many punches from such a monster could Susanoo withstand?

"Cough, cough... Monster... You monster wearing human skin..."

Chiyo slumped beside a rock, vomiting blood in great mouthfuls. Her ten fingers hung limp, utterly ruined. Her proud trump card had been torn apart with bare hands, Shukaku's essence had been forcibly stolen, and Hidden Sand Village's future had at this moment fallen completely into eternal night.

She closed her clouded eyes and waited for death to descend.

Tap, tap, tap.

Steady footsteps sounded beside Chiyo's ears. Sosuke walked before her and looked down at the aged crone from above.

"Kill me." Chiyo's voice was as hoarse as sandpaper scraping stone. "Hidden Leaf's demon... You won."

Yet the fatal blow she expected never came.

Sosuke slowly crouched down. His slender fingers gently pinched Chiyo's chin, forcing her to open her eyes. Within those deep black eyes was no killing intent, only a teasing amusement that sent chills down Chiyo's spine.

"Kill you? How dull."

A cruel curve touched Sosuke's lips. His fingertips lightly stroked the carotid artery in Chiyo's neck. In that brief contact, an exceedingly faint emerald gleam, invisible to the naked eye, silently slipped through Chiyo's pores and into her blood.

It was a "Wood Release spore" condensed from his perfected Sage Body. It would not take effect immediately. Instead, like a parasite, it would lurk deep within Chiyo's heart, slowly drawing on her chakra until the day Sosuke gave the command.

"Get back to Hidden Sand Village, old woman."

Sosuke released her and rose to his feet, his tone carrying the arrogance of someone handing out charity. "Go tell your Fourth Kazekage that from today onward, I want seventy percent of the chakra-conducting ore produced annually in the Land of Wind. If he refuses even half a word..."

Sosuke paused, his gaze sweeping over the puppet wreckage covering the ground. His voice suddenly turned cold. "I will personally pay Hidden Sand Village a visit and plant your shabby village, along with that desert you're so proud of, full of trees."

Chiyo was struck as if by lightning, her entire body shuddering violently. Looking at the young man dressed in pure white before her, she felt she was not facing a shinobi, but a tyrant standing above all others, one who regarded all living things as ants.

She did not dare linger for even a moment. Enduring the agonizing pain of ruptured chakra pathways, she scrambled and crawled toward the depths of the Land of Wind. Her wretched retreating figure looked like that of a stray dog driven from its home.

At the canyon's edge, Fugaku forced his badly injured body upright. Watching Chiyo flee, confusion flashed in his eyes.

"Lord Sosuke..." Fugaku's form of address had unconsciously gained a note of reverence. "Chiyo is one of Hidden Sand's higher-ups. Letting the tiger return to the mountain may leave future trouble. Why not kill her directly and completely destroy Hidden Sand's command structure?"

Sosuke turned around and gave Fugaku a cold glance. That single look made Fugaku feel as if he had fallen into an ice cave. He immediately lowered his head and did not dare speak again.

"What tangible benefit would killing a half-dead old woman bring the Senju Clan?" Sosuke walked to Fugaku's side, his voice carrying the deep calculation of a warlord. "The dead cannot speak. Only by letting her return alive, carrying an extreme terror of the Senju Clan and spreading that fear through all of Hidden Sand Village, can she be of greatest value."

Sosuke raised his head and looked toward Hidden Leaf Village. Ambition burned in his eyes like raging flames.

The board on the Land of Wind's side had been set. Next, it was time to see what wonderful expressions those lofty old fools in Hidden Leaf Village would wear when they received this earth-shattering battle report.

Especially that old dog in the dark underground chamber, still dreaming of becoming Hokage. He wondered whether, upon hearing this news, the old man's hand would still be steady enough to grip his cane.