Konoha: Starting the Game as Yoriichi

Konoha, once bustling and prosperous, for the first time showed its exhaustion. Large numbers of civilians had been evacuated with the help of the Konoha ninja. The streets gradually emptied.

After releasing his tight grip on his sword, the crimson color of the blade receded, returning to its original silver-white. He turned his head and looked towards the forest outside the village.

BOOM! BOOM! BOOM!—

A massive commotion was coming from that direction. A sky full of dust was kicked into the air, suggesting that beings of immense size were fighting there.

Carrying his sword, Kusuo rushed towards his destination. If he wasn't mistaken, that should be the One-Tail, Shukaku, emerging from within Gaara.

The depths of the dense forest had now been turned into a field of ruins. Smoke, dust, and wood chips filled the air. The once-towering trees seemed to have been swept away by a gale force wind, their smooth, neat cuts indicating that this place had been hit by a wind-style ninjutsu of the highest caliber.

"What a terrifying battle scene," Kusuo remarked, arriving in a flash with his sword in hand. He glanced at the surrounding scenery, which was a stark contrast to the vibrant forest he remembered. It was like doomsday after a natural disaster. Everywhere was desolate and ravaged.

Before long, the One-Tail, with its black striped patterns, appeared in his sight, letting out one sharp, tanuki-like shriek after another. On its pale yellow body, Gaara, with a crazed expression, was charging at his opponent. And there, was the already injured Gamabunta.

"Hey! Boss Toad, are you still holding up? Hurry up and crush that guy!" Naruto yelled, jumping up and down on Gamabunta's head, repeatedly waving his hand towards the rampaging Gaara.

The ground was shattered. Trenches hundreds of meters long and dozens of meters wide were everywhere, along with nearly a hundred large and small craters. It was clear that the clash between the summoned beast Gamabunta and the One-Tailed Shukaku was terrifyingly powerful.

"You make it sound so easy!" Gamabunta retorted. "That's a Tailed Beast! A weapon of war, an existence that can easily destroy an entire country! The fact that I've been able to hold on this long is already pretty good!"

Hearing Naruto's thoughtless words, Gamabunta was so angry his nose was practically crooked. If the timing wasn't so critical, he really wanted to just fling Naruto off his head and let him take a big fall. It was easy for him to talk while standing there doing nothing.

Gamabunta's body remained tense. After all, the power of a Tailed Beast was simply too great. It was truly worthy of being considered a village's core strategic power.

At this moment, Gaara's body was buried within Shukaku's, his face contorted beyond recognition, a savage and cruel smile plastered on it.

"Hahahaha, I'll kill you all and destroy this place! Then, I'll go back and kill him!" That "him," he was referring to Hatake Kusuo.

Hearing Gaara's murderous words, Naruto and Gamabunta's faces paled.

POW!

A giant hand slapped down. Gamabunta's limbs were weak, but he leaped into the air with all his might.

BOOM!

It was world-shaking. A terrifying shockwave swept out. In that moment, the ground shattered, cracks spreading out like a spiderweb. All of it was too shocking.

"That force... if that hit us head-on, we'd be dead for sure! Boss Toad, you have to dodge it!" Naruto said, looking at the cracks in the ground from atop Gamabunta's head, unable to help but swallow hard.

"No kidding!" Gamabunta below knew better than anyone how powerful the One-Tail was. He gave Naruto a human-like eye-roll. Then, man and toad stared seriously at the One-Tail before them.

After Shukaku emerged, the current Gaara seemed to have become a completely different person. His willpower was terrifyingly tenacious, as if an invisible force was propping him up, determined to not stop until he achieved his goal. Naruto didn't know that Kusuo's existence had completely pushed Gaara over the edge, and a relentless killing intent was now supporting his very being. This was also the reason why, until now, Shukaku had not been able to completely seize control of Gaara's body.

Far away, under a tree, Sakura was carefully tending to the injured, blood-coughing Sasuke. They had suffered a major blow in the first exchange. Now that the One-Tail had appeared and was rampaging wildly, Sasuke found that his current self was completely helpless.

"Dammit! Naruto, just how strong are you now?" Like this... it's like this again. His classmates from the past, one by one, were all surpassing him. An intense unwillingness surged in Sasuke's heart, and he slammed his fist into the ground.

Gaara's madness was unexpected. This battle, which should have been won by Naruto with a single blow, had dragged on until now.

"What do we do? This guy has gone completely insane. If we don't stop him, we're all going to die here," Gamabunta said. Having followed the Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, his experience was extraordinary, and he saw Gaara's current state at a glance. They were no match.

"Not good!" Gamabunta and Naruto cried out at the same time. Gaara was already controlling Shukaku and charging at them.

At this moment—

"That's enough. It's time to stop."

A light laugh fell into their ears. Shukaku, who was already leaping into mid-air, suddenly paused. Gaara, on top of it, his eyes wide and bloodshot, paired with his heavy dark circles, roared like a mad dog.

"Hatake Kusuo! I hear your voice! Show yourself! I won't lose to you again this time!"

Amidst his hysterical roars, Kusuo drew the katana from his waist and, standing on the branch of the tallest tree, swung it down.

SWISH!

A powerful slash. A sky-high sword aura, like a Getsuga Tensho, struck the One-Tail's body.

"SCREEE!~"

A heaven-shaking cry of pain. Shukaku, who had been so arrogant and roaring just moments before, was now rolling on the ground in agony, wailing incessantly.

"That sword aura! It's Kusuo! Kusuo is here!"

"He came to save us!" Seeing the signature slash, Naruto's face immediately lit up with joy.

"This sword aura!" Gamabunta's face was grim, his eyes full of horror. He also used a sword, but he knew for a fact that he could never produce a sword aura of this scale.

"Do you know the one who swung that sword?" Gamabunta hurriedly asked Naruto on his head.

Naruto nodded with a slow smile and pointed a finger. "Look! That's him, Hatake Kusuo, my classmate and teammate!"

A figure in fluttering red clothes, standing proudly in the wind, entered Gamabunta's pupils. A temperament that was a world unto itself, a naturally formed aura. Sword pressure! Gamabunta, who had used a sword for many years, could feel the sword pressure coming from him.

Shukaku's wails gradually subsided. It had to be said, the life force and defensive power of a Tailed Beast were indeed formidable. A direct hit from that sword aura had only managed to break its skin.

Looking at the recovered Gaara and the Shukaku beneath him, Kusuo's gaze was focused. He was reminded of the Eight-Tails, a Tailed Beast with even more monstrous defense, and the Third Raikage, who had fought it one-on-one. Throughout the entire history of the Naruto world, ever since the birth of the Tailed Beasts, very few people could face them head-on. Aside from monsters like Madara Uchiha and Hashirama Senju, the best a ninja could do was fight a Tailed Beast to a mutual exhaustion, neither able to defeat the other.

But this was the One-Tail. The weakest of the Tailed Beasts.

Faced with this beast that would make anyone's scalp tingle, that would make them not even dare to think of resisting, Kusuo actually leaped forward. His steps were light and casual, as if he didn't even put the One-Tail in his eyes.

"What is he doing?"

"That's a Tailed Beast! Isn't rushing over like that just suicide?"

He's insane. Gamabunta couldn't believe it. Even he didn't dare to meet the powerful Tailed Beast head-on, yet that boy was charging straight for it. Was he not afraid of death?

Further away, a Sand Village ninja team was observing the situation from afar with binoculars. When they had seen the crimson-gold sword aura, their hearts had already sunk. But when they suddenly saw the boy who had unleashed such an astonishing slash seemingly courting death, rushing straight for Shukaku, a smile appeared on the faces of these Sand ninja.

"He doesn't know death when he sees it!"

"That's our Sand Village's trump card! Our ultimate weapon!"

"A power that even the successive Kazekage could not control, a power that could only be barely suppressed through sealing. On what grounds does this little brat dare to charge?"

"On the grounds of that sword slash that he might not even be able to use again?"

"Hahahaha!" they laughed uproariously, their faces under the binoculars full of mockery.

"Die!" Seeing Kusuo's face, Gaara instantly went berserk. A bloodthirsty thought supported him, a murderous intent welling up endlessly from the bottom of his heart.

With a shriek, Shukaku's giant tanuki paw slapped down, carrying a howling gale force wind.

Faced with this overwhelming slap, the stark contrast between Shukaku's massive size and his own body, a corner of Kusuo's mouth lifted slightly.

"Did you think I would dodge?" he murmured, as if speaking to Gaara.

A normal person, faced with such a disproportionate size difference, could only rely on speed and agility to barely skirmish with a Tailed Beast. But Kusuo was not a normal person. He drew the sword from his waist. The blade was crimson red, a deep red that emitted a heat so intense it was impossible to look at directly.

BOOM!

One slash. The meter-long blade was completely disproportionate to Shukaku's massive paw, like a mouse to an elephant. But it was this small sword that pierced through Shukaku's paw.

"ROAR—IT HURTS, IT HURTS, IT HURTS!!" Shukaku howled in Gaara's mind. The intense pain from its palm instantly awakened it from Gaara's suppression. Then, it seized control of the body.

The complete form of Shukaku had fully awakened.

In its complete form, it squinted its small, black eyes, staring fixedly at Kusuo. It was this little person who hurt it with a sword. Well now, I want you to die!

Swoosh!

A massive Wind Style: Drilling Air Bullet shot out from Shukaku's mouth, a cannonball comparable to an A-rank jutsu arriving in an instant.

Kusuo didn't dodge at all. Standing on a tree branch, he raised his hand and, with a light and understated slash, swung down.

BOOM!

The giant Drilling Air Bullet was cut in two, turning into a gale that shattered the surrounding trees.

Witnessing all of this, Gamabunta's heart was filled with both joy and worry. Joy, because this mysterious and powerful boy could cut down an A-rank wind-style jutsu with a casual slash. Worry, because of Shukaku's complete awakening.

Why were the Tailed Beasts so powerful? So powerful that every village regarded them as their most important asset, their trump card. B from the Land of Lightning. Gaara from the Land of Wind. And the others from the other villages, Utakata, Han, Roshi, and so on. Every generation had a Jinchuriki born, and every generation had a Jinchuriki die. But they still could not stop their experiments. Because the chakra of a Tailed Beast was practically... endless.

That Drilling Air Bullet from just now, any village could pull out eight or ten jonin to block it. But if they could block one, what about three, ten, or even a hundred? For a Tailed Beast-level of chakra, a hundred Drilling Air Bullets was simply child's play. Even if this boy had Kage-level chakra, there would come a time when it would be exhausted. That would be the moment of crisis.

The same thought rose in the minds of the Sand Village ninja watching from afar with their binoculars. They knew the monster from their own village best. The complete form of the One-Tailed Shukaku... no one could stop it. That toad, that sword-wielding boy... they would all die here.

"Puff, puff, puff!"

Sure enough. Shukaku's small eyes were filled with mockery. It didn't care at all that Kusuo had cut down its Drilling Air Bullet. Three in a row. Three more identical Drilling Air Bullets shot out, this time infused with even more chakra, their power even greater.

This time, let's see how you block it, you little brat!

Sensing Shukaku's mocking gaze, Kusuo's heart was unstirred. For him, a sword slash like that required no effort at all. He could unleash it whenever he wanted.

Sizzle!

A flash of white light.

POW!

Another one of those slashes. An easy overwhelm. He once again cut through the incoming Drilling Air Bullets.

RUMBLE!

The trajectory of the severed air bullets was completely changed. One of them actually flew towards the distant Gamabunta and Naruto.

POW!

A deafening roar. The entire earth shook. A terrifying blast wave ravaged the area, completely obliterating all the trees and boulders in its path, turning them into sand mixed with the gale.

"My leg! Oww!~" Gamabunta cried out. The aftershock of the impact had hit his front leg, and the pain was so intense he couldn't stand up.

"Boss Toad!? Are you okay?!" Naruto, who had been dazed by the impact, quickly asked after he had steadied himself.

"I'm fine," Gamabunta said, enduring the pain. At this moment, his heart was filled with shock. That boy, with just one more slash, had cut through three even more powerful Tailed Beast Balls.

Just then—

"You've been spitting bubbles for long enough. Shouldn't it be my turn to strike?" Kusuo said, caressing his blade, his faint tone directed at Shukaku.

"Tch." Shukaku looked at this tiny little person, and his sword that was like a toothpick, and didn't take his words to heart at all.

Then, swish—

With a graceful leap, Kusuo jumped onto Shukaku's head, calmly looking into its small, black eyes.

He stabbed down.

The deep red Crimson Blade sank into Shukaku's sand-like surface.

"AAGH!~~~ ROAR, IT HURTS, IT HURTS, IT HURTS!"

How can this be? How can it be like this again? In Shukaku's eyes, the katana, which was clearly just a toothpick, could actually stab it with a pain that reached the depths of its soul. The techniques of those other ninja had never had this kind of effect. This was impossible.

Feeling this kind of pain for the second time, the arrogant Shukaku's heart began to panic. Why? Shukaku didn't understand. Why was its body, which was made entirely of sand and chakra, being hurt by this brat's sword twice? That bone-deep, heart-drilling palpitation made it shiver with fear.

"Well? That was just a casual strike. I wonder if it was to your satisfaction?" Kusuo's faint words drifted over at the same time, making Shukaku's already small eyes shrink even further.

That... was just a casual strike?!

-------

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