Soul-Shattering Taming, Sosuke's Domineering Declaration

Sosuke's cool fingertips gripped Kushina's delicate chin, with such force that she could not move it even slightly. The distance between them was so close that Kushina could clearly see the slowly swirling, heart-palpitating emerald light deep within Sosuke's black pupils.

"From this day onward, you are no longer a ninja of the Hidden Leaf, much less a weapon Hiruzen Sarutobi keeps ready to throw away at any moment." Sosuke's voice was low and gentle, yet carried an unquestionable, dictatorial edge. "You, Kushina Uzumaki, belong only to me, Senju Sosuke. Your life, your body, even that beast in your belly, are all private property of the Senju clan."

Those words exploded in Kushina's mind like thunder.

She had imagined countless scenes after being rescued. Perhaps it would be the ANBU's belated rescue, or perhaps concerned questions from her companions. But she had never imagined that, amid a blood pool strewn with corpses, a man like an Asura would so bluntly and brutally declare ownership over her.

There was no gentle comfort, no greetings between comrades—only naked possession and deprivation.

"Y-You... what nonsense are you talking about?!" Kushina instinctively wanted to struggle and argue back. She had been brought to the Hidden Leaf as a child. Though she had endured countless cold stares and exclusion, deep down, she still longed for the village's recognition and dreamed of becoming a true Hidden Leaf ninja.

"Are you still lying to yourself?" Sosuke sneered, releasing her chin and slowly rising to his feet.

He looked down at the red-haired girl on the ground, his eyes filled with undisguised mockery and pity. "Do you think those Hidden Cloud trash could have infiltrated the heart of the Hidden Leaf without making a sound? Do you think the Hidden Leaf's barrier unit is full of blind fools, letting them swagger in and take you away from under layers of surveillance?"

Kushina's entire body stiffened, and her pupils trembled violently.

Sosuke gave her no chance to catch her breath. His gentle voice had become the sharpest scalpel, ruthlessly cutting apart the hypocritical facade the Hidden Leaf's higher-ups had draped over themselves.

"Danzo deliberately withdrew Root's hidden sentries, and Hiruzen Sarutobi tacitly allowed flaws to appear in the barrier." Sosuke stepped on bloodstained dead leaves and slowly circled Kushina. "They never cared whether you lived or died. In their eyes, you were merely an extremely unstable container, a problem that could lose control at any moment."

"Shut up... You're lying!" Kushina covered her ears, her voice turning shrill from overwhelming fear and resistance.

Sosuke stopped, his gaze utterly devoid of warmth. "Lying? Then think back. When the Hidden Cloud infiltrated tonight, where were the ANBU who usually watched you like flies, recording even your trips to the bathroom? Why, after you left so much red hair along the way, did not a single Hidden Leaf ninja catch up to you?"

Every question struck Kushina's heart like a heavy hammer.

The scene of her abduction flashed through her mind. It had gone too smoothly—far too smoothly. The Hidden Cloud ninjas had moved as though they possessed a map of the Hidden Leaf's defenses, precisely avoiding every patrol route. And the distress signals she had desperately left behind by tearing out her hair might have been nothing more than a laughable joke to those higher-ups.

"They used you as bait." Sosuke crouched again, meeting the eyes of the girl whose gaze had already lost focus, and spoke the cruelest truth. "They wanted to use the Hidden Cloud's blade to kill me, the last remaining seedling of the Senju clan. And you were the chunk of meat tied to the center of the trap, meant to lure in a big fish like me."

"The village whose recognition you longed for sold you to the enemy without hesitation for the sake of a power struggle."

At last, tears spilled uncontrollably from her eyes.

These were not tears of joy at being saved, but the ultimate agony born from having her faith completely collapse and her worldview ground into dust. Kushina clawed desperately at the earth, her nails splitting from the force and bleeding faintly.

She felt like a complete joke. To suppress the monster inside her, she had lived every day in fear and loneliness, desperately trying to prove her worth. Yet in the end, she did not even count as a person. She was merely a disposable commodity with a clearly marked price, something that could be abandoned at any time.

Sosuke silently watched Kushina break down and weep. He did not offer her a handkerchief, nor did he speak a single soft word of comfort.

He was well versed in the art of manipulating hearts and wielding power. For a lone wolf like Kushina, prickly on the outside yet desperately lacking security within, ordinary gentleness would only make her wary, perhaps even seem like charity.

Only dominance more extreme than that of the Hidden Leaf's higher-ups could directly crush her defenses. At the moment her soul was completely shattered, he would forcibly brand the mark of the Senju clan into her very bones.

"Have you cried enough?" Sosuke's voice remained steady, even carrying a trace of merciless coldness.

Kushina's slender shoulders shook violently. She raised her tear-streaked face, her eyes filled with confusion and despair. She had lost her village, lost her purpose, and did not even know where she should go next.

Sosuke reached out and gently tucked her red hair, soaked with cold sweat and tears, behind her ear. The gesture should have been tender, but the words that followed carried the arrogance of one who ruled all things.

"The Hidden Leaf does not want you, but I do. Hiruzen Sarutobi treats you as a monster to be guarded against. I regard you as the cornerstone of the Senju Revival."

"I will give you absolute protection. No one will ever use you as a bargaining chip again. I will give you the power to take revenge on those old fools. I can even give you a home."

Sosuke's gaze seemed tangible as it locked tightly onto Kushina's soul. "And the price you pay is absolute loyalty to me, and unconditional submission. From this day onward, your joys, anger, sorrows, pleasures, and even your life and death will all be decided by me."

"What do you say?"

Kushina stared blankly at the man in white before her.

He had just crushed a Hidden Cloud jonin's throat with his bare hand, and his body still radiated a chilling killing intent. Yet the terms he offered held a fatal allure for Kushina, who had fallen into the abyss.

She had lost every support she had, yet this man was dragging her into a domain that was even more domineering, but absolutely safe, with an incomparably overbearing attitude.

Not bait. Not a weapon. Senju Sosuke's private property.

That twisted sense of belonging filled the deepest void in Kushina's heart. Senju, the ancient surname once bound in friendship with the Uzumaki clan for generations, became an inescapable net at this moment, completely enveloping her.

"I..." Kushina's cracked lips trembled slightly. A thread of resigned determination seeped through her hoarse voice as she slowly lowered her head, ready to offer her loyalty.

Yet at the very instant her mental defenses completely crumbled, a sudden change erupted.

Boom!

An utterly evil and violent aura erupted without warning from Kushina's abdomen.

The extreme despair brought by the collapse of her faith, coupled with the violent emotional turmoil just now, caused a fatal crack to appear in the Eight Trigrams Seal, which had never been stable due to her young age. Within the sealing space, the Nine-Tails, which had been cowed by the aura of Sosuke's Wood Release, sensed its host's extreme mental weakness.

The instinct to survive and bone-deep hatred overwhelmed its fear. The most terrifying calamity beast in the ninja world launched a frenzied counterattack.

"Aah—!"

Kushina let out an agonizing scream. She threw back her head, and her once-clear eyes were instantly swallowed by scarlet bloodlust. Her pupils elongated into the cruel vertical slits of a beast.

Dark-red chakra erupted wildly from her pores like boiling lava. Carrying extreme heat and corrosive force, it instantly burned away her already damaged clothes and condensed into a tangible fox-shaped cloak around her body.

Sizzle, sizzle, sizzle—

The surrounding grass and trees did not even have time to burn upon touching that red chakra. They directly withered, carbonized, and turned into black ash. The air filled with nauseating malice and violence.

A huge fox tail formed entirely from pure chakra suddenly took shape behind Kushina. With a howl that tore through the air, it thrashed about wildly.

The Nine-Tails' chakra had gone berserk!

Faced with a tailed beast rampage that would make even ordinary Kage-level experts go pale and immediately retreat, Sosuke did not take even half a step back.

The raging red chakra storm made his white haori snap violently in the wind, but there was not the slightest hint of panic on his gentle face. Instead, as he watched Kushina howl in agony before him, her reason rapidly being consumed, the emerald light in his eyes became ever more brilliant, and an intensely fervent curve formed at his lips.

The Yang Release chakra of his perfected Sage Body roared excitedly within him—the natural arrogance of higher laws when facing inferior energy.

"Beast." Sosuke slowly raised his right hand. A green light brighter than the sun lit up in his palm, and his voice was as cold as the frigid wind of the far north. "Who allowed you to come out?"