Chapter 142

His body, however, could not move a single step forward!!!

It was as if his body had been locked in place.

At that very moment,

Nara Sōki's face suddenly changed,

He shouted at Akimichi Torifu.

"Torifu!!! No good!!! Get away from there now!!"

In that instant just now,

He had caught the eerie smile that appeared on Shukaku's face.

Combined with the way Akimichi Torifu now could not advance even an inch,

He already understood what this meant.

Shukaku clearly had not been controlled by them,

In fact, Shukaku had deliberately waited for them to deliver themselves right to him,

It wanted to actively welcome Akimichi Torifu's attack!!!

It was just that Nara Sōki had not expected,

The three of them joining forces,

Would actually be unable to do a thing to Shukaku.

"Hehehe... You've come all this way, and now you want to leave?"

"You've all shown your moves, so this great lord ought to return the favor, no?"

"I've been cooped up for so long, and it's rare to find someone who can play with me — you better hold out a good while longer!!!"

After saying this,

Shukaku's body moved, and in an instant he broke free of the ninjutsu bindings of Nara Sōki and Yamanaka Mai.

The two of them turned deathly pale at this moment,

They now understood as well,

That Shukaku had not been unable to defend against their ninjutsu earlier.

Rather, Shukaku had simply not regarded their ninjutsu as worth his notice,

Their ninjutsu had been utterly ineffective against Shukaku!!

"Sand Waterfall Funeral!!!"

Originally Shukaku had wanted to give each of them a Tailed Beast Ball,

But remembering Hashirama Senju's instructions from earlier,

He immediately suppressed this thought of his.

If each of them took a hit from one of his Tailed Beast Balls,

They probably would not survive.

So after thinking it over,

He used this one technique — one that looked grand in scale, but whose actual killing power was not strong.

Looking at the sand,

That blanketed the sky and drowned the entire space.

The three of them opened their mouths,

Not knowing what on earth they could still say at this moment.

If they did not know clearly in their own hearts that they were inside their clan's training grounds,

They would probably have thought they had arrived in a desert,

Facing a ninjutsu that could alter the climate in an instant,

Only now did they understand why the Tailed Beasts could be hailed as monsters!!!

If an ordinary ninja faced a ninjutsu of this scale,

They probably would not even qualify as cannon fodder!!!

【Rasa: No matter how many times I see Shukaku use a ninjutsu of this level, it is still just as terrifying — the power of the Tailed Beasts is exactly that fearsome. A ninja village with a Tailed Beast and one without are simply not on the same level of existence!!!】

【Jiraiya: Sigh... A weapon on the scale of a natural disaster like the Tailed Beasts simply defies all reason. It is precisely because those great ninja villages possess Tailed Beasts that the smaller villages fear them.】

【Orochimaru: Hehe... But even a monster like a Tailed Beast, one that can alter the climate in an instant and bring about calamities and disasters, is helpless against the Sharingan and Wood Release. They were still toyed with in the palms of the First Hokage and Uchiha Madara.】

【Ma Ji: It seems we still underestimated Shukaku's true power. I had thought Gaara's rampaging state was already terrifying enough, but it turns out he never actually unleashed the full power of Shukaku!!】

【Temari: It... it can't be... Is this Shukaku's true power?】

【Kankurō: And here I thought that as long as I trained hard, one day Shukaku might not necessarily be my match. Looking at it now, it's simply impossible!! How could this be something humans could possibly defeat?】

【Rock Lee: Looking at it this way, the fact that I survived Gaara's hands in the Chūnin Exams was already a stroke of luck amid misfortune. If he had fully released this monster from within him, there are very few who could have stopped him.】

【Sakura Haruno: This is the most infuriating part of all — Gaara, Naruto, and the rest of them have such terrifying monsters inside them, and yet they still let us take the exams alongside them. They clearly don't see us as people at all!!】

【Shikamaru Nara: I guess there's no harm without comparison. It's not that Shukaku is too weak — it's because we've always seen him facing the First Hokage, my lord, so we assumed he was weak. Now swap in other ninja, and the gap is immediately obvious...】

……

"Cough, cough, cough!!"

"We... we surrender..."

With his entire body buried in the sand,

Leaving only his head exposed, Nara Sōki could only helplessly choose to concede.

Seeing this,

The Akimichi Torifu and Yamanaka Mai beside him could only accept this outcome as well.

GLOSSARY:

【Nara Sōki, Akimichi Torifu, Yamanaka Mai, Shukaku, Hashirama Senju, Rasa, Jiraiya, Orochimaru, Uchiha Madara, Ma Ji, Gaara, Temari, Kankurō, Rock Lee, Naruto, Sakura Haruno, Shikamaru Nara, First Hokage, Hokage, Tailed Beast, Tailed Beast Ball, Sand Waterfall Funeral, Sharingan, Wood Release, Chūnin Exams, the Root】

None of the three of them had imagined the gap could be this enormous.

In their conception,

the three of them working together would defeat Shukaku,

and then fight a great battle against Hashirama Senju.

Losing after that would still be a decent outcome.

But they never expected,

that the three of them combined couldn't even get past Shukaku's first wave of attacks.

And from the looks of it, Shukaku hadn't used its true strength,

only intending to restrain their movements and make them surrender on their own.

Otherwise, the three of them would have lost their lives long ago.

"The strength of the three squad captains is something I truly admire."

"Especially the coordination between the three of you — it's almost excessive."

"I'm afraid even three blood brothers couldn't achieve this level."

Hashirama Senju said sincerely.

These words were indeed heartfelt.

The coordination between the three of them didn't look like three people working together at all,

but rather like three secret techniques cast simultaneously by a single person,

with not the slightest sense of discord.....

Seeing Hashirama Senju wave his hand casually,

the surrounding desert vanished without a trace.

The three of them felt a jolt in their hearts,

and only now truly understood,

that for a ninja like Hashirama Senju,

he alone might be able to change the terrain and climate of an entire region.

This was no longer something an ordinary human could do,

it could be called a god-like feat!!!

"Sigh... if it weren't for Clan Leader Hashirama saying these words,"

"if it were anyone else, I really would've thought they were mocking the three of us."

Seeing Shukaku rubbing against Hashirama Senju's hand like a little kitten again,

the three of them gained a deeper understanding of Hashirama Senju's strength.