Konoha: Starting with Sage Mode

There was nothing he could do about it. He had already lost three of his five exquisite puppets, and his left hand was crippled, greatly weakening his strength. The fact that he could remain undefeated against Orochimaru was already quite remarkable.

"Orochimaru, are you really going to keep stalling me here? That brat has already captured Shukaku. He's a ninja who's proficient in sealing techniques. What do you think he'll do next?"

Ebizo manipulated the Buddha puppet to block the white Kusanagi sword that Orochimaru shot out from his mouth, and then manipulated the monk puppet to use Wind Release: Wind Blade to force back the black snake that Orochimaru summoned with his summoning jutsu. He shouted anxiously.

With his third eye, he saw Kirito trap Shukaku in a black pyramid formed by Magnet Release and rapidly plundering Shukaku's chakra in some way. If he didn't stop Kirito quickly, Shukaku would be doomed.

However, Orochimaru in front of him was too troublesome. He was a complete scoundrel. Although he was not fatal, he was very persistent.

"If Shukaku is taken away by Kirito, wouldn't that be a great thing for Konoha? And you, having lost the One-Tail, will soon only be able to tuck your tails between your legs and go back to the Land of Wind to eat sand."

Orochimaru smiled coldly.

He had no objection to Kirito taking Shukaku away. Kirito taking Shukaku was his own skill, so what objection could he have?

If he were to let Ebizo go here, that would be a huge problem.

He didn't want to be enemies with Kirito.

As he spoke, he once again used the Hidden Shadow Serpent Hand to attack Ebizo's main body.

"Orochimaru, don't you want to be Hokage? If you let him successfully take Shukaku, will you still have a chance to compete with that Konoha princess? I've heard that some very unpleasant things have happened in your Konoha recently."

Ebizo controlled the Buddha puppet to kill the attacking spirit snake, and continued speaking.

How could he, the Darkness of the Sand, not know about the conflict between the Senju clan and the Third Hokage within Konoha? Orochimaru was a member of the Third Hokage's faction, while Kirito Tohsaka was a member of the Senju clan. He didn't believe that Orochimaru was unaware of the consequences of letting Kirito Tohsaka take Shukaku away.

"Hmph, Konoha's affairs are none of your business as an outsider. Don't underestimate me, Orochimaru."

Upon hearing Ebizo's blatant provocation, Orochimaru's expression instantly turned even colder, and he spoke with murderous intent.

The next moment, he intensified his attack, attempting to use the summoned beasts to disable one of Ebizo's puppets.

He did have some desire for the Hokage position, but Orochimaru didn't need to resort to such despicable means as betraying the interests of his fellow villagers to become Hokage.

He felt that Ebizo had looked down on him.

He now had a great need to make this fool in front of him understand how powerful Orochimaru was.

You'll regret this.

Seeing that Orochimaru wasn't falling for his trick and still wouldn't give way, Ebizo roared angrily and then manipulated two puppets to prepare to fight Orochimaru to the death.

……

It must be said that the chakra of the tailed beasts is enormous.

Kirito used to think that the chakra stored in his Yin Seal was already quite large, at the level of a Tailed Beast, but it was still far inferior to the One-Tailed Shukaku. The chakra he painstakingly accumulated using the Yin Seal over nearly a year was probably only about one-tenth of Shukaku's total chakra.

This shows that his personal opinion that the Tailed Beast level is exaggerated is largely unfounded.

He needs to redefine what constitutes Tailed Beast-level chakra. If the amount of chakra of the Third Hokage is used as a reference, then the amount of chakra of the One-Tailed Beast should be equivalent to twenty Third Hokage.

If the chakra of the One-Tailed Beast is already like this, then what about the Nine-Tailed Beast, which has the most chakra derived from the Ten-Tailed Beast?

No wonder Naruto had tens of thousands of ninjas put on tailed beast suits during the final battle in the original story; the amount of Nine-Tails' chakra far exceeded Kirito's imagination.

"With so much chakra, I can afford to squander it freely in the future. Most importantly, the chakra recovery speed of tailed beasts is terrifying. As long as it is not excessively exploited, it can recover very quickly."

Kirito exclaimed in awe, sensing the terrifying chakra contained within the pool of chakra created by the New Yin Seal within his body.

He used to lament his lack of chakra, but now that he has sealed Shukaku within his body, he no longer needs to worry about insufficient chakra, and the pressure of activating Sage Mode will be greatly reduced in the future.

He could have extracted a large amount of tailed beast chakra beforehand, combined it with natural energy to create a large amount of sage chakra, and then stored it in the initial Yin Seal chakra pool between his eyebrows.

Barring any unforeseen circumstances, he will possess Sage Chakra at the Tailed Beast level in a short time.

In this way, his strength will take another leap forward.

Tailed beast chakra is obviously not so easy to absorb.

As Kirito absorbed nearly a third of Shukaku's chakra, Shukaku suddenly condensed from the bright red chakra liquid in the Yin Seal chakra pool in his abdomen, then began to roar wildly and destroy the outer wall of the chakra pool.

Shukaku is a chakra aggregate. When Kirito absorbed Shukaku's chakra into his body, Shukaku's consciousness also quietly mixed in, and then completed an alternative rebirth within Kirito's body.

"Humans, die!"

Shukaku roared and frantically attacked the outer wall of the chakra pool.

He could sense that if he destroyed this chakra pool, this damned human would definitely suffer a great loss.

However, the chakra pool formed by the Yin Seal was extremely sturdy. No matter how frantically Shukaku attacked, it only developed a few cracks, and these cracks disappeared in the blink of an eye.

"Don't be naive, Shukaku. Haven't you realized that the power of this chakra pool comes from yourself? Do you think you can defeat yourself? There's no way you can escape from here."

Kirito's spirit suddenly appeared in front of Shukaku and sneered.

What he said at this moment was half true and half false. The power source of the chakra pool formed by the Yin Seal did indeed come from the chakra in the pool. Theoretically, the more chakra in the pool, the more solid it would be, but there was an upper limit to this solidity.

If Shukaku's attack is powerful enough, it can still break through the chakra pool.

As for the maximum strength of the chakra pool, Kirito has no idea. Judging from the fact that Mito did not imprison the Nine-Tails in her Yin Seal, Shukaku should be able to break the chakra pool if he has strength comparable to the Nine-Tails.

However, Shukaku clearly does not possess the same strength as Kurama (the Nine-Tails).

It initially distrusted Kirito's words and continued to attack the outer wall of the chakra pool.

But as its chakra grew stronger within the chakra pool and its own power continued to recover, it still couldn't break through the chakra pool, and its heart finally began to waver.

This damned pool already contains nearly two-thirds of its chakra. If we can't stop that wretched human from absorbing its chakra from the outside world, all of its chakra will be sucked into this place if this continues.

At that time, Bunpuku will completely lose it, and as a Jinchūriki, Bunpuku will undoubtedly die.

"Humans, stop right now! Bunpuku has never killed anyone from Konoha. He is a great man among you humans. You cannot kill him."

Shukaku realized that if he continued to act impulsively, he might kill his good friend, so he finally softened his stance. He stopped attacking, turned around, and loudly addressed Kirito's spirit form.

Kirito saw that Shukaku's attitude had softened, but he ignored it and continued to absorb Shukaku's chakra as he pleased.

In the outside world, Shukaku's body has shrunk to less than a third of its original size, and it is still shrinking, just at a slower rate.

"Funfu, now that you're awake, stop pretending to be asleep. If you continue to obstruct me from absorbing Shukaku's chakra, I can't guarantee I'll spare your life. Shukaku says you're an important friend of its and is currently begging me to spare your life inside me."

Kirito noticed that the speed at which he was absorbing Shukaku's chakra was abnormal. He quickly understood what was going on and, staring at Shukaku's lifeless eyes, threatened him.

Bunpuku had indeed woken up. After Shukaku was under Kirito's Blood Dragon Eye Genjutsu, he broke free from Shukaku's mental suppression and quickly regained consciousness.

Through Shukaku's chakra, he could sense the anger, resentment, and sadness in Shukaku's heart at that moment.

As Shukaku's friend, Bunpuku naturally couldn't stand by and watch Shukaku die, even though Shukaku had just broken his promise to him. So, after he woke up, he secretly began to mobilize his own chakra to remove the sealing technique that Kirito had placed on Shukaku.

Unfortunately, his sneaky little tricks couldn't be hidden from Kirito in the end. He was discovered after only breaking a small part of the chakra chain that had the ability to imprison chakra.

“Benefactor, I have no ill intentions. I only want to save Shukaku. Shukaku is not as terrible or bad as you imagine. He did not harm anyone at first. It’s just that he has been hurt by humans too many times, which is why he hates humans so much. I hope you can let him go.”

Shukaku's previously dull and lifeless eyes regained their luster, and he uttered the sound of "Benfu".

“Master Bunpuku, I believe what you say is true, but I cannot agree to your request. No matter what Shukaku has done or what kind of experiences it has had, I have no interest in knowing for the time being. I only know that as long as it is taken away from Sunagakure, Konoha can quickly end this war with Sunagakure.”

Kirito sighed upon hearing Bunfuku's somewhat powerless request.

He was aware of the Tailed Beasts' plight; they would become extremely hostile towards humans because humans feared and coveted their power.

It can be said that the Tailed Beasts are victims.

But one's perspective is determined by one's position. As a human, he naturally has to stand on the side of humanity, just as he, as a Konoha ninja, cannot agree to the request of a Sand ninja.

"Can't we just live in peace? As long as we understand and support each other, we can sit down and talk about any conflicts and resolve them."

When Kirito coldly rejected him, he wasn't too disappointed, because he was used to rejection. But he didn't give up hope and continued to persuade him.

He personally felt that Kirito was a reasonable person, which was evident from the fact that Kirito, as an enemy, was willing to communicate with him calmly.

"I'm sorry, these are things I can't decide. I can only make my own decisions and can't help others make decisions. Your idea is good, but without enough power to support it, it's just empty talk. In the ninja world, there was once someone who brought a brief period of peace, but after his death, the conflict started again. It's too difficult to achieve a world where people can understand each other."

Kirito needed time to absorb Shukaku's chakra, so he wasn't in a hurry and calmed down to debate with Bunpuku.

Bunpuku and Tachibana were clearly surprised that Kirito, at such a young age, would be so mature and have such a profound understanding of the ninja world, as well as his own views on peace.

Bunpuku knew who Kirito was talking about and was aware of the impact that person had had on the ninja world. He couldn't refute Kirito's words at this moment and fell silent.

After a moment, he asked, "Your mission to create a world where people understand each other is very difficult to achieve. So, how do you think peace in the ninja world should be achieved?"

"do not know."

Kirito said very decisively.

Achieving world peace is too ambitious a goal for Kirito. He doesn't yet have the ambition or the ability to achieve it personally, so he won't be thinking about such a self-inflicted problem for the time being.

Achieving world peace? Instead of spending so much time thinking about that, you should spend more time becoming invincible in the ninja world.

When he is invincible, world peace should be easy for him.

“It was my oversight. You are still young, and I shouldn’t have asked you such a question.”

Upon hearing Kirito's straightforward answer, Bunpuku said apologetically, and then gave up trying to persuade Kirito.

He had already realized that Kirito, though still young, already had his own mature code of conduct. His words could not sway Kirito, much less make him let Shukaku go.

Now that even his persuasive skills have failed, he can only give up struggling and silently pray for Shukaku in his heart, hoping that he will not suffer any grievances under Kirito's care in the future.

“It’s alright, Master Fenfu, you are a person I respect.”

Kirito waved his hand, indicating that it was alright.

With Bunpuku giving up resistance, Kirito's absorption rate of Shukaku's chakra returned to its previous speed.

In just over ten seconds, Shukaku in front of Kirito had shrunk to less than five meters tall.

Soon, Bunpuku reappeared in front of Kirito.

"Human, what's wrong with sharing blessings?"

Inside Kirito's Yin-Sealed Space, Shukaku discovered that all of his chakra had been absorbed by Kirito, and that his special connection with Bunpuku had disappeared. He immediately assumed that Bunpuku was dead and roared angrily, frantically stirring up trouble in the chakra pool, shouting and yelling incessantly.

"It's so noisy! If you keep making noise inside my body, I'm really going to kill Monk Fenfu."

Kirito, feeling a headache coming on from Shukaku's noise, promptly issued a warning.

Even when this stinky raccoon is going crazy, it never forgets to make noise.

"Is Fenfu still alive?"

Upon hearing Kirito's warning, Shukaku immediately stopped shouting and exclaimed in surprise.

"Don't you know whether your own primordial chakra is depleted or not?"

Kirito said, somewhat speechless.