Hiruzen persuaded me to die

"Is that… the Birth of the Tree World?"

Yamato stood stunned, watching an immense sea of trees explode from the earth like a divine force reclaiming the land.

Wood Style – Birth of the Tree World.

It was more than a technique—it was the signature of the God of Shinobi himself: Senju Hashirama.

The trees surged forth endlessly, their lush, towering forms expanding outward like a tsunami of life. They swallowed the shattered landscape whole, wrapping even the air in green suffocation. This wasn't just Earth Style—this was living chakra, devouring everything in its path.

Yamato knew the truth better than most.

Though he had inherited Hashirama's cells, the most he could do was Birth of the Sea of Trees—a diluted, much weaker version. His jutsu could catch someone falling from the sky.

But this?

This sea of trees devoured a tailed beast.

Eight Tails—Gyūki—was locked in place, each of his colossal tentacle-like limbs restrained by trees as thick as fortress walls. The Laughing Buddha Jutsu's massive wooden hands still gripped him tightly. And worse…

The trees were absorbing his chakra.

Hyuga Naraku's Tenseigan revealed everything in precise detail. The chakra of Gyūki—once a raging flood—was now being siphoned into the forest like water into thirsty roots. The longer he remained trapped, the stronger the Wood Style grew.

"The source of Wood Style really must be the God Tree..." Naraku murmured, eyes narrowing in silent understanding.

The God Tree—ancient, eternal, and parasitic. Its legacy coursed through this technique.

"Damn you!" Gyūki roared, voice echoing through the shattered forest.

The beast writhed, furious, desperate—but the effort was useless. Since being cleaved in half by Naraku's Golden Wheel Reincarnation Explosion back in the Cloud Village, Gyūki had yet to recover. His chakra, now stifled inside the Amber Purifying Bottle, had been isolated—no sensory input, no time, no energy recovery. Just void.

And now he was losing what little strength he had left.

"I have to get out!" Gyūki's mouth began to glow as he strained to form a Tailed Beast Bomb—pathetically small, barely the size of a man.

Naraku remained motionless. His gaze cold.

"Wood Style – Wood Dragon Technique."

RUMBLE!

A titanic wooden dragon burst from the soil like a god waking from slumber, its eyes glowing with life. It coiled through the air and crashed into Gyūki's form, constricting him. The half-formed Tailed Beast Bomb was absorbed by the dragon's jaws—then pressed back into Gyūki.

BOOM!

Smoke exploded outward. The trees around the impact zone burned and withered… but quickly regrew.

The Wood Dragon was untouched.

"…You've grown this weak already?"

Naraku's voice rang with disappointment.

Yamato couldn't believe his ears.

Even with Gyūki flailing like an earthquake in physical form, the Fifth Hokage acted like he was bored. The seal team around them staggered from the quakes, barely holding their ground.

Yamato's thoughts returned to that night—the Nine Tails' attack.

He had seen Toad Gamabunta, Fourth Hokage's summoned beast, face down the Nine Tails. And even Gamabunta could only restrain Kurama for moments—just enough for Minato Namikaze to act.

Compared to Gyūki, even in his weakened state, the sheer raw force was similar.

But here, Gyūki was nothing more than a target for practice.

"I finally understand why the First Hokage could collect so many tailed beasts..." the seal team leader murmured.

Wood Style wasn't just strong—it dominated chakra lifeforms. It fed on them.

Some truths were best left unsaid, but the squad leader couldn't help it.

The Fourth Hokage—once his hero—wasn't even in the same league.

The Fifth Hokage, like the First, treated tailed beasts not as monsters… but as playthings.

Yamato, heart pounding, remembered something from long ago. Back in Root, Danzo had once shown him descriptions of the legendary Wooden Golem Jutsu—a titan that dwarfed even the tailed beasts, hundreds of meters tall.

Beyond that?

True Several Thousand Hands—a deity of Wood Style, requiring Sage Mode to even attempt.

But even that wasn't necessary.

Naraku's Wood Dragon Technique alone had tamed Gyūki like a chained dog.

"...It's boring," Naraku sighed. "You may begin the sealing."

"Huh? R-right!" the sealing squad snapped back to reality.

They leapt into position, spreading out in a practiced triangle around Gyūki's immobilized form.

"Tripartite Seal!"

"Four Symbols Seal!"

"Eight Sign Seal!"

Black sealing marks burst from their palms, converging around Gyūki's body like shackles made of scripture.

"DAMN YOU, INSIGNIFICANT WORMS!" Gyūki's voice echoed through the forest, but the fury held no strength. His chakra writhed, then slipped from him like smoke through cracks.

Then—slam!

Yamato stepped forward, thrusting a square slab of wood marked with the kanji for "Seat" onto Gyūki's forehead.

"Hokage-style Elder Jutsu: Silent Strangle!"

It was a technique passed down to control tailed beasts—one Yamato had never dared to use.

Until now.

"YOU AGAIN?! I KNOW THAT MOVE!" Gyūki howled. "THIS WAS THE SAME DAMN TRICK THAT SENJU HASHIRAMA USED ON ME!"

Flashbacks seared through the beast's memory—the First Hokage standing above him with that same symbol of authority, sealing his fate. The same helplessness. The same humiliation.

Naraku watched the scene coldly.

"Still lacking."

Konoha had no shortage of sealing techniques. Their pedigree was second to none.

But technique alone meant nothing.

To seal a tailed beast, you needed power. Force. Authority. Either you overwhelmed it with chakra—Mangekyō Sharingan, Wood Style, or sheer brute strength—or you were crushed.

Without those tools, sealing a tailed beast was suicide.

Summoning beasts like Gamabunta weren't even close in power to the tailed beasts. Even One Tail Shukaku, the weakest, could rip a mountain apart.

Even the combined effort of five Kage could barely match a tailed beast if they lacked a specific counter.

In truth, taijutsu—raw strength—was more useful than most ninjutsu against them.

The Third Raikage, A, had once ripped all of Gyūki's tentacles off by hand.

Fourth Raikage had broken one of Gyūki's horns.

That was the level of force required.

Naraku raised his hand.

Chakra erupted.

From that power—infused with Yin-Yang Release and Wood Style—a gray-green gourd materialized out of thin air.

Creation from nothing—his mastery of the divine chakra.

"Seal Gyūki into this," Naraku commanded, his voice absolute.

"Yes, sir!"

The sealing squad didn't even blink. After what they'd seen, they knew better than to question the Hokage.

Gyūki screamed, thrashed—but nothing worked. The Wood Dragon held him. The sealing jutsu pinned his chakra.

And the gourd glowed.

A phantom-like chakra aura enveloped Gyūki.

He began to disintegrate.

Like dust in the wind, he flowed into the gray-green gourd—his will still shouting curses, his body no longer his own.

Sealed.

Silence fell across the battered land.

Even the trees had stilled, their work complete.

The monster was gone.

Naraku simply turned his back and walked away.

As if he had done nothing at all.