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OPI Chapter 346: Kneel Before the King of the Desert
🕑 Added 2025-04-19 20:43:20 +0000 UTCAfter Crocodile's shocking declaration, the room fell silent.
The elders of Sunagakure exchanged glances.
Not surprising. After all, they had only just met the man a few minutes ago. How could anyone expect them to swear allegiance based solely on a few words?
Ninjas, by nature, were a suspicious bunch.
“Lord Crocodile… Your Majesty, we understand your intentions,” Rasa finally spoke up to break the awkward silence. “But… some things cannot be resolved by words alone.”
"And?" Crocodile raised an eyebrow, his eyes filled with amusement.
“So I’d like to ask if you would be willing to spar with me in front of the village’s elders and jōnin. If you defeat me, Sunagakure will submit without question.” Rasa’s expression remained calm.
Though he had personally witnessed the Third Raikage lose to this man, there were some things one simply couldn’t accept without putting up a fight.
Besides, here in the desert, he believed he had the power to defeat the Third Raikage himself—
It would just take more time. And as long as his opponent still had the stamina to spare, he could retreat at any moment.
“Then may I join in as well?” Chiyo’s sudden question drew gasps of surprise from those around her. Even Ebizō looked at her in confusion. “Sister?”
“I was just thinking…” she said, ignoring her brother and turning her intense gaze toward Crocodile, who stood like a giant in her eyes. “If His Majesty Crocodile truly has the strength to defeat both me and Rasa together, then all of Sunagakure will have the confidence to follow you in conquering the shinobi world!”
Crocodile burst into laughter, throwing his head back in his signature raspy wheeze.
“Kuahahahaha—!”
“Well, this just got interesting. Now this is getting my blood pumping again. But if all you can do is control a few puppets, then forget it—what’s the point?”
He brushed off Chiyo’s now sullen expression and turned to Rasa.
“You’ve got potential. If you perform well, the next Kazekage position is yours.”
His tone carried the arrogant authority of someone who already considered himself the ruler of the Land of Wind, as if he had the right to appoint Sunagakure’s next leader.
“Well then, thank you, Your Majesty. Shall we head outside the village now?”
Rasa gave a small nod.
All he wanted now was for Crocodile to leave the village as soon as possible.
Just standing there, the man gave off a suffocating sense of having the entire Sunagakure held hostage.
He truly believed that this man had the power to manipulate the raging wind and sand around them to completely destroy Sunagakure in an instant.
“Lead the way. You can pick the location. As for time, I’ll give you five minutes. Don’t think that’s too little—back when I fought the Raikage, I only gave him three.”
Crocodile grinned, the lit cigar dangling from his lips.
As expected—
The moment those words left his mouth, Rasa and the elders behind him felt a chill run down their spines.
The Third Raikage only lasted three minutes against this man—and that was because he allowed it?
“…Fine.”
Rasa gave Crocodile a long, deep look. In the next instant, a swirl of golden sand rose around him, and his figure vanished without a trace.
“Interesting. A mix of misdirection and high-speed movement…”
Before long, Crocodile also transformed into a swirling mass of yellow sand and vanished.
“Let’s go!”
Chiyo, her face grim, forced down the indignation of being underestimated and was the first to leap in the direction Rasa had gone.
At the same time, she couldn’t help but mentally analyze the moment when Crocodile vanished.
“That wasn’t Sand Body Flicker. Could it be… he actually has the ability to become sand? Like the Hōzuki clan from Kirigakure?”
She remembered—
Rasa and the jōnin who had returned with him had mentioned how the Lightning Release techniques used by Kumogakure ninja had failed to dispel that wide-range Sand Release jutsu.
Then how were they supposed to counter it?
Poison?
Would that work?
At that moment—
Ebizō was racing along rooftops with the others when he suddenly noticed that the wind and sand in the village were starting to calm.
He looked up.
Sure enough—the yellow sand in the sky was visibly dissipating.
That only made Crocodile’s power seem more terrifying.
Just his sand manipulation alone was enough to justify the title 'King of the Desert'.
...
Meanwhile—
Rasa had already arrived at a barren stretch of desert less than 2 kilometers from Sunagakure. He’d intended to keep running a bit farther, but suddenly, Crocodile’s voice echoed right beside his ear: “Let’s do it here.”
Rasa couldn’t help but curse internally: Weren’t you the one who said I could pick the location?
Still, he wasn’t the type to voice his complaints.
Golden sand flickered around him as he came to a rapid stop, his body reappearing in a brilliant flash beneath the blazing sun.
At the same time—
Roughly 50 meters away, a swirl of yellow sand condensed into form. In the blink of an eye, Crocodile reappeared, the smoking cigar still clamped between his teeth, that irritating smirk still plastered on his face.
“Let’s begin, shall we? Future Kazekage under my command. Oh, right—what was your name again?”
“Rasa!”
Rasa had barely finished speaking when his hands moved so quickly they left afterimages, forming seals in front of him.
[BOOM!!!]
A huge wave of golden sand rose up like breaking waves.
Its scale and spectacle defied imagination.
"Not bad. Looks pretty decent."
Crocodile, cigar clenched in his teeth, grinned with growing amusement as he watched the ‘golden sand tsunami’ rapidly take form.
He lifted his right foot and stepped on the ground. Instantly, the yellow sand surrounding him erupted into the air as if a volcano had exploded beneath it.
In the blink of an eye, a surging yellow sand tsunami rose to meet the oncoming golden one head-on!
[RUMMMMMBLE—]
The yellow sand and gold sand collided as if slamming into an unbreakable wall. Both shattered apart upon impact, creating an immense spray of golden and earthen-hued waves that splashed high into the sky.
Sand and dust churned, blotting out the sky. The earth quaked violently, as if thunder itself had descended.
"What?!"
But Rasa's expression darkened.
Although the clash in front of him appeared evenly matched, the truth was unsettling—his gold sand, being much denser than ordinary sand, should have held the advantage in restraining the other.
Yet that edge seemed completely absent.
"In that case..."
Rasa shifted his hand seals.
In an instant—
The gold sand around him floated high into the air, transforming into countless golden needles that rained down toward Crocodile in a dense barrage.
Each needle tore through the air with a piercing shriek.
"Is that all you've got?"
Crocodile, watching the curtain of golden needles descend, seemed almost disappointed. He casually waved his right hand upward—and a massive shield of yellow sand rose to block the assault.
"Hmm?"
Suddenly, he vanished from where he stood.
At that exact spot, a thick, sharp golden spear shot up violently from underground.
"You've used up two minutes already."
Crocodile didn’t seem bothered—he simply offered a casual reminder.
By now, Chiyo, Ebizō, and the other village elders, along with a group of jonin who had followed the disturbance, finally arrived near the battlefield.
Among them was the Scorch Release kunoichi Pakura—the same one who, in the original story, was tragically betrayed by these very elders.
Seeing that his golden sand torrents still couldn't overpower Crocodile’s yellow sand, Rasa unleashed a Magnet Release technique copied from the Third Kazekage.
It was a magnetic barrier jutsu designed to lock down a vast area.
In an instant—
The air within several hundred meters began to fill with countless long golden bars, interwoven in a chaotic pattern, each adorned with sharp, deadly spikes.
They resembled a tangled forest of thorns.
Once fully formed at lightning speed, the spikes launched inward from all directions, converging on Crocodile.
But instead of any look of surprise, Crocodile’s face only showed growing impatience—because none of this was of any use against a Logia-type user.
So he simply stood still, allowing those long golden spikes formed from gold sand to pierce through him, stabbing hole after hole in his sandy body.
All the while, he silently waited for the three minutes to be up.
To Crocodile, Rasa’s ninjutsu was far duller than that of the Raikage. At least the Raikage had speed—and some decent power behind his punches.
"How... how can this be?"
Across the battlefield, Rasa was beginning to panic.
Even as he pushed his chakra to its limit—
All it managed to do was increase the volume of gold sand, which was matched evenly by the growing tide of Crocodile’s yellow sand.
Rasa truly had no idea what to do.
Suddenly—
"Three minutes are up. Let’s end this boring little fight."
Crocodile kindly offered a reminder.
Just then, it seemed Rasa had a new idea.
All the incoming golden spikes suddenly exploded midair into clouds of gold sand—
Swarming from all directions, attempting to completely trap and envelop him.
“A good idea. Shame it’s too late.”
Crocodile muttered the words in a flat, quiet tone.
The next second—
He raised his right palm, and in its center, a small, high-speed whirlwind of sand began to spiral violently.
A booming whoosh followed.
The miniature sandstorm in Crocodile’s hand swelled rapidly.
In the blink of an eye, it devoured his entire body, scattering the approaching gold sand in every direction with brutal force.
And it kept growing—larger, higher, more ferocious by the second.
In less than two seconds—
A towering sandstorm over 100 meters tall had taken form in the desert.
Its powerful gales swept up the surrounding waves of yellow and gold sand, adding glittering brilliance to its churning mass.
And still—
The sandstorm expanded again, visibly growing even bigger—easily over 200 meters tall.
A force of such overwhelming scale… it was like a natural disaster.
Rasa could do nothing but hunker down inside a protective sphere made from dense gold sand.
He tried forming a ‘third eye’ outside to observe the situation—
But before it could take shape, it was torn away by winds beyond imagination.
“King of the Desert... he truly lives up to the name.”
Rasa clenched his teeth, his face filled with shock as he whispered to himself.
A sandstorm of this magnitude would normally require over a hundred—possibly several hundred—Wind Release users working together.
And yet the man before him had conjured it alone, effortlessly.
In that moment—
Rasa suddenly found himself believing that Crocodile might really have once fought the Sage of Six Paths.
"Could it be... that our Sunagakure… is finally going to have a powerhouse on the level of the First Hokage?!"
[CLANG!!]
As Rasa's emotions swirled—part despair, part awe—a deafening crash of metal rang out.
The sound made his ears ache, and his eyes widened in horror as he saw a clean slash mark form across the surface of his golden sphere.
[BOOM—]
The heavy gold dome split cleanly in two and collapsed to either side.
A massive shadow loomed over Rasa's body.
Crocodile stood before him, his right hand still in its flowing sand form, a half-spent cigar clamped between his teeth.
"You may kneel now... my Kazekage."
Behind him, the colossal sandstorm stretched from earth to sky, forming the most majestic of backdrops.
And in the next second—
Rasa knelt before him on one knee, head lowered in submission.
