"You think I'd believe any of you humans?"
After so many years of imprisonment and exploitation, the Nine-Tails had lost all faith in humanity. At this moment, it wanted nothing more than to tear the man before it into pieces.
Shirakumaru raised his head, his Mangekyō Sharingan glowing as he focused his gaze upon the massive fox.
Just one glance.
The overwhelming beast instantly fell under genjutsu. The colossal fox's eyes shifted to display the same Sharingan pattern, its feral rage vanishing in an instant.
The tailed beasts were manifestations of vast chakra masses given form. In essence, they were pure energy.
And the most effective way to restrain energy wasn't through physical means—energy could always escape confinement. The same applied to chakra.
To restrict energy within a limited space, what was needed was a force field—something akin to a containment ring for an artificial sun.
However, such a structure had one major flaw: it could not restrain someone like Shirakumaru, who entered from the outside.
Approaching the enormous iron cage, Shirakumaru's form flashed like lightning. In moments, he had moved in circles around the entire structure, removing every sealing talisman affixed to it.
Without the support of those seals, the cage's ability to suppress a being like the Nine-Tails diminished significantly.
Yet even so, the cage itself was not easily opened. The Nine-Tails was usually summoned through the Summoning Technique, not physically restrained and released by hand.
Thus, the iron cage had been designed almost completely sealed, with no locks or openings to manipulate.
Placing both hands on the bars, black markings—the telltale sign of Sage Art activation—spread across Shirakumaru's body.
Black lightning burst from him, the fusion of natural energy and Lightning Release amplifying his strength to an extraordinary level.
He grasped one of the iron bars tightly.
"Haaah!"
With a roar, his power surged—rivaling even Hashirama Senju's Sage Mode in later eras.
A thunderous impact followed as he struck the bars.
Creak… creak…
Under the crushing force, the massive cage that confined the Nine-Tails warped and bent. The front section deformed completely under the strain.
In truth, what was called "monstrous strength" was not brute power—it was a technique.
By controlling chakra precisely, the user concentrated it throughout the body, enveloping every muscle with chakra, then releasing it in a single explosive surge powerful enough to shatter stone walls.
This fine chakra control was something Satsuki valued deeply. Throughout her puppet training program, chakra precision had always been the top priority.
As a result, all under Satsuki's tutelage, including Shirakumaru, had mastered exceptional chakra control.
Thus, using the same principle, the iron cage binding the Nine-Tails was finally broken.
Gazing upon the now-subdued beast, still under the Sharingan's genjutsu, Shirakumaru leapt lightly onto its back and began dismantling the sealing stones and chains binding its tails.
"With this, all restraints and suppressions on the Nine-Tails are removed. The rest will be simple."
With that thought, Shirakumaru released the genjutsu. In the next instant, his body turned into a streak of lightning and vanished.
The Sharingan tomoe that had lingered at the edges of the Nine-Tails' eyes retracted toward the center, then disappeared completely.
A moment later, a thunderous roar shattered the silence of the Uchiha compound.
ROOOOOOOOOOAR!!!
The ground shook violently as the monstrous sound reverberated across the land.
In the next second, the fiery form of the Nine-Tails rose—its immense head emerging above the rooftops of the Uchiha stronghold. In its eyes blazed wrath, malice, and murderous hate.
Nine blazing tails unfurled behind it, whipping like raging serpents.
The strongest of the tailed beasts—the Nine-Tails.
Now that it had regained its freedom, vengeance was inevitable.
Its mountainous claws descended from the sky, crashing down with devastating force. The impact, imbued with overwhelming chakra, tore through the air and smashed upon the defensive barrier surrounding the compound.
With a single strike, the entire Uchiha defense system collapsed utterly.
Like a nightmare born from the darkest depths of despair, the most fearsome of all nightmares unleashed a power beyond human comprehension—its terrifying might plunging the once-mighty Uchiha clan, hailed as the strongest in the shinobi world, into the brink of annihilation in an instant.
Yet even that devastating strike was but a fraction—a mere whisper—of the Nine-Tails' unbridled rage.
Its colossal claws smashed down again, the immense force spreading outward in a violent wave.
The shockwave swept across the ground, tearing through layers of earth. The walls, houses, and towers nearby crumbled like paper toys, erased completely and leaving behind only deep, jagged scars carved into the land like the wounds of the earth itself.
Those unfortunate enough to be nearby didn't even have time to scream—within a blink, they were obliterated.
ROAAAAAAAR!!!
The Nine-Tails raised its head high and bellowed into the sky. The ominous crimson light of its chakra painted the night in blood, and the heavens trembled as waves of immense energy surged across its titanic body.
Only now did the remaining Uchiha within the compound begin to grasp what had happened.
One Uchiha jonin, eyes wide with horror, shouted to the messenger ninja beside him: "Someone's broken the Nine-Tails' seal! Go—inform the clan head, now!"
Meanwhile, from all directions, Uchiha shinobi converged on the scene, the sharp whoosh of Body Flicker techniques echoing again and again.
"Before the clan head arrives, we have to stop it!"
In an instant, the remaining Uchiha defenders activated their Sharingan in unison.
Fire Release, Lightning Release, Wind Release—jutsu of every element, along with explosive tags, shuriken, and sealing talismans, rained down upon the colossal beast without restraint.
But their combined assault achieved nothing—except to further enrage it.
"Uchiha clan! Uchiha clan! Uchiha clan!"
Roaring the name with pure hatred, the Nine-Tails' reason was consumed by fury.
Ignoring the attacks pelting its body, it opened its jaws wide. A surge of indescribable chakra gathered in its maw—forming a black-and-red sphere of annihilation.
Tailed Beast Bomb!
"Die… all of you… DIE!"
Without hesitation, the mightiest of all tailed beasts unleashed its most powerful technique.
The enormous Tailed Beast Bomb detonated at one corner of the Uchiha compound.
A blinding light—bright enough to turn night into day—swallowed everything in sight.
The air itself screamed as the earth-shattering explosion followed.
BOOOOOOM!!!
The blast expanded outward like a tactical nuclear strike, the first shockwave alone erasing an entire quarter of the compound from existence.
The scene was apocalyptic.
Flames spread across the ruins; scorching winds howled through what remained of the once-proud stronghold. Above it all towered the colossal beast, its vast form dominating heaven and earth.
The endless roar of explosions and the rumble of destruction never ceased, as nine massive tails—each one blotting out the sky—lashed outward, spreading ruin in every direction.
At that moment, the entire shinobi world finally understood… the true terror of a tailed beast.
"What a commotion… with this move, Shirakumaru has undone all the progress the Uchiha clan achieved during their years of recuperation."
Satsuki stood high in the sky, gazing coldly at the raging Nine-Tails wreaking havoc below.
"Host, aren't you going to stop it?" The golden light sphere floated beside her, its tone almost anxious. "Seeing those people die under the Nine-Tails' claws—do you really feel nothing at all?"
"To me, there's no need to stop it." Satsuki's voice was calm, detached as she hovered midair. "The Uchiha clan, for the sake of their own advancement, used the Sharingan to enslave the Nine-Tails. It's only natural they face retribution now."
"But many of those people below are just ordinary Uchiha—they haven't even awakened their Sharingan. They had nothing to do with the Nine-Tails' imprisonment!"
"Wrong. They do."
Satsuki's tone was cold. "When a clan expands its power outward for its own gain, its members and their dependents become a collective whole. If they truly wished to cut ties with the Uchiha, they could have done as the Tachibana clan or the Kaguya clan did—or, at the very least, left this compound. In doing so, they would neither enjoy the peace under Uchiha protection nor bear the burden of the Nine-Tails' wrath."
She continued, "But since they live under the Uchiha's shelter, benefitting from the clan's growth, they are—objectively speaking—participants in the oppression of the Nine-Tails. Therefore, their deaths are nothing out of the ordinary."
The system fell silent for a moment at her words. Then, with a flicker of light, it tried a different angle.
"Even if that's true, many of them don't even know the Nine-Tails was imprisoned by the Uchiha. Should they still pay the price for something they were unaware of?"
"To a being like the Nine-Tails, whose sanity is long gone, every Uchiha is one and the same. Whether an individual is innocent, pitiful, or kind means nothing. In the context of the Warring States era, such moral distinctions hold no real meaning."
Satsuki cast a sidelong glance at the glowing sphere. "What exactly have you been studying in the Akasha Records? You've started sounding awfully concerned about humans for a system."
The system paused to self-check. "Conclusion: it's highly probable that the Akasha Records were built under the influence of the Alaya System. Overall, humanity appears to occupy a higher ontological status than other life forms."
"You've been influenced too much by those tedious records," Satsuki replied coolly. "Sometimes you need to learn to think for yourself. For instance: to live peacefully with those who have harmed you, without any principles, is nothing but cowardice."
"You can use shallow moral ideals to deceive others and gain benefits—but don't be foolish enough to trap yourself in them. In every world, the fundamental rule is the same: the strong devour the weak, and strength commands respect. And strength… isn't limited to physical might."
"Heh, I was only trying to play the role of a moral guide for a moment. I didn't expect my host to be completely immune to moral kidnappning."
"You need to understand something…" Satsuki said, glancing once more at the system. "To survive or to perish—the choice has never been in the hands of the weak."
...
While Satsuki and the system conversed, chaos raged below.
The enraged Nine-Tails continued its massacre, charging and leaping with unstoppable fury. Its mountain-sized form carried unparalleled destructive force. Before its might, every structure and grove in its path shattered like brittle clay.
Cries of agony filled the air, bodies littered the ground. In just half a minute, the casualties had already reached into the thousands.
Most were civilians unable to flee in time, along with the shinobi rushing in from all directions.
From above, the Uchiha compound burned—a crimson sunset of destruction spreading across the green landscape.
Meanwhile, the "culprit" who had unleashed the beast—Shirakumaru—was already moving swiftly toward the underground shrine beneath the Uchiha stronghold.
The outbreak of the Nine-Tails' rampage, occurring just as Madara Uchiha was captured and Izuna Uchiha led forces to rescue him, struck a catastrophic blow to the clan, throwing their entire command into chaos.
The underground shrine was guarded by a team led by a Uchiha elder—each member a handpicked elite, entrusted with the protection of the clan's most sacred place.
Among the guards were even those who had once reached Kage-level strength, some of whom had awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan. Unfortunately, none possessed siblings who had also awakened it—thus, they could not evolve their eyes into the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan and had all eventually succumbed to blindness.
Still, since the underground chamber was perpetually dim, the lack of sight hardly hindered them; in fact, such an environment suited their combat style even better.
But now, every last one of them had been dispatched to deal with the chaos caused by the Nine-Tails.
Had they remained, even Shirakumaru would have found it impossible to infiltrate the underground shrine undetected.
That was, in fact, one of the reasons why, despite his immense power and progress over the years, he had been unable to access the Uchiha's sacred relic until now.
But this time—fortune favored him.
With the clan forced to focus entirely on containing the Nine-Tails, the shrine's defenders had no choice but to abandon their posts.
And almost the instant they left, Shirakumaru appeared.
Wasting no time, he crossed beneath the torii gate and strode straight toward the main hall of the shrine.
The path ahead was completely unobstructed—as if he were walking through his own garden—until he reached the most secret chamber beneath the shrine.
The room wasn't particularly large, but at its far end stood a half-man-tall stone monument, covered from top to bottom in twisted, indecipherable script.
Shirakumaru paid it little heed.
Though the monument was said to be a relic left behind by the Sage of Six Paths himself, its contents were also recorded within the Giant Tenseigan's archives—and, unlike the Uchiha's copy, those records had not been altered.
Even from the far reaches of the moon, Hamura's lineage had remained quite attentive to the bloodline of his elder brother.
He circled behind the stone monument, where another series of engravings adorned the back—depictions of ancient myth: from the creation of heaven and earth, to the divine struggles among the Three Precious Children of Shinto lore—Amaterasu Ōmikami, Tsukuyomi, and Susanoo. The tale extended further, chronicling the war between the heavenly gods (Amatsukami) and the earthly deities (Kunitsukami), ending with the victory of the celestial faction.
"I must admit, using such a method to conceal the Uchiha's heritage is rather ingenious," Shirakumaru murmured softly. "Had the Mangekyō Sharingan not reacted back then, I might never have noticed."
With that, his eyes shifted once more into their Mangekyō form. He focused, pouring a surge of immense ocular power into the monument.
At once, the mythic carvings behind the stone seemed to come alive, shifting and writhing in his vision. In the next moment, a blinding light erupted—and Shirakumaru's consciousness was pulled completely into an illusionary realm.
—
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