Super Saiyan God — and Super Saiyan Blue after it — both carried God Power, which meant they could charge right in and land hits at close range. An ordinary Saiyan, even a Super Saiyan 3, would crumble under the Demon Realm Supreme Kai's Dark Devouring without God Power to back them up.
Even in a one-on-one fight, Ino had no real confidence of winning.
The shrink ray could only be used on Cell. Earth's scientists weren't so absurdly ahead of the curve that they could knock out a god with a casual research project.
The Evil Containment Wave could seal away Super Saiyan Blue Vegeta — but that had mostly worked because Vegeta was too proud and completely off-guard. Both the Demon Realm Supreme Kai and the demonically corrupted Kuronoa had the ability to foresee the future. Even while caught in the middle of events, where every second could shift with each choice made, there were certain things that simply could not be changed.
Two days of racking her brain.
Ino still landed on ninjutsu as the way to break through.
The Warring States era had been centuries of endless slaughter — human brains ground down until they worked like a dog's. In that environment, ninjutsu as a killing art had been pushed to its absolute limit by ninja after ninja. Any clan that was bad at developing ninjutsu had simply been wiped out.
What remained now had been tempered through a thousand battles.
And somewhere in all of that was exactly what Ino needed.
She paid a visit to the Yamanaka Chamber of Commerce, spent a while haggling with Karin, and then obtained from Hidan the complete hand seal sequence and instructions for the Curse Art: Shishi Henge-chi — the Dead Demon Blood Technique.
I can't beat you in a straight fight, so I'll stab a voodoo doll and curse you to death. That's just the kind of refreshingly straightforward person I am.
The Dead Demon Blood Technique had never been able to reliably curse even Uchiha Madara to death, let alone the Demon Realm Supreme Kai. But Ino — as the God of Shinobi — could upgrade and modify the original technique on top of that foundation.
Wherever one passes, one always leaves a trace.
She didn't have any of the Demon Realm Supreme Kai's blood on hand, but that was fine.
She scanned back through the timeline, and quickly found three of the target's hairs.
"Mr. Orochimaru — take a look at this. Think it can be cloned?"
Orochimaru studied it for a while. "What an overwhelmingly powerful life-force... this feels a bit like that Otsutsuki God from before. Absolutely saturated with malevolent energy. But the level is so much higher — I can't guarantee a successful clone."
Hearing that, Ino actually felt more at ease. "It doesn't need to take human form. Even a lump of flesh — a deformed mass of something — will do."
You're setting the bar that low? After Ino agreed to give him one of the hairs for cloning while leaving the other two for Orochimaru's own research, the experiment quickly entered the cloning phase.
The clone was growing too slowly, so Ino packed up Orochimaru and his entire laboratory and sent them back ten years into the past — back when she was still serving as the Seventh Hokage.
Orochimaru spent ten years successfully cultivating that strand of the Demon Realm Supreme Kai's hair into a small, dark-red mass — still wriggling, like some mutated flesh that never stopped moving, like a lump of yadon.
Ino took a portion of it, minced it up, then extracted the blood.
Following the requirements of the Dead Demon Blood Technique: the blood needed to be applied to the target in a specific manner, after which any harm inflicted on the target could be transferred in equal measure.
But apply it to whom?
Ino stood there, one hand holding a vial of blood, the other holding a small knife. Her gaze drifted, entirely of its own accord, to Tonton the pig — currently rolling around happily on the floor.
Tonton was terrified. The little pig scrambled to Hinata's feet and trembled without stopping.
"Ino, you are not allowed to hurt Tonton!" After all these years of marriage, Hinata stared Ino down with a rare fierceness.
"That's right, that's right!"
"Daddy, don't hurt Tonton..."
Himawari and Kale both stood at their mother's side, making their contempt for their father perfectly clear through sheer solidarity. Tonton was so cute — and you want to hurt it? Are you even trying to be human anymore?
Ino thought about it for a moment. Fair enough — Tonton's health bar was way too low. A cut or two wouldn't show any meaningful results.
In her estimation, external injuries from blades and swords probably didn't mean much to the Demon Realm Supreme Kai anyway — a single breath and they'd likely be healed. Internal injuries were what would actually strike at the foundation.
"All right, I was wrong. Tonton, go play."
She went to find Might Guy.
"Guy-sensei — are you confident you can fully open all Eight Gates right now?"
Might Guy pumped his fist hard against his chest, sending out a solid thump. "Absolutely no problem!"
"What about combining it with the Seven-Breath Method?"
"That's no problem either." Might Guy paused. "Seventh Hokage — what exactly are you planning to do?"
Ino ran through the calculations and decided the damage output still wasn't quite enough. "Come on — I'm taking you to meet an excellent teacher. He has a method for pushing the physical body well beyond its limits."
Ino brought Might Guy to find North Kai, hoping to have Guy-sensei learn the Kaio-ken as well.
——
North Kai raised no objection to her request and taught with genuine care and diligence.
The monkey Bubbles fled in fright, cowering behind a wall and peeking over to watch Konoha's ferocious blue beast train.
Might Guy bellowed as he trained — he opened the Seventh Gate normally, breathed six times, and then, while his entire body blazed with red light, activated the Kaio-ken at five times its base power.
He was technically just an ordinary ninja, yet the battle power he erupted with at that moment was enough to take on the Vegeta who had descended on Earth.
"Ino... I'm a little scared. Nothing's going to go wrong here, is it?" North Kai couldn't help pulling out his handkerchief and wiping the sweat from his brow.
This green-jumpsuit maniac trained with absolutely terrifying intensity.
Even Son Goku, back when he was making his way along Snake Way, hadn't pushed himself this hard.
"Don't worry, King Kai — I can observe the future. Hmm... there will be a few minor bumps, but no threat to his life."
She had Senzu Beans and Saiyan recovery liquid prepared on her end — and if necessary, she could call in Dende and Kibito. As long as he didn't die, everything would be fine.
Pushing the body to its limits through training — that was Guy-sensei's dream too.
Expecting to master the Kaio-ken in just two or three days wasn't realistic.
So Ino sent him back to a point in the past. Might Guy wasn't Orochimaru — this one was far too reckless, and very likely to cause turbulence in the timeline. She picked out a primitive planet and sent him off to train there.
Training in the past for a total of two and a half years, Guy-sensei finally mastered the Kaio-ken.
Ino brought him back, and formally executed the Dead Demon Blood Technique.
She applied the blood of the Demon Realm Supreme Kai's clone to Guy-sensei's chest and back.
"Begin, Guy-sensei — open everything to the maximum, all at once!"
What had originally been the Dead Demon Blood Technique — once merely a curse art — had now been refined by her into something that could be called the Divine Curse Art: Dead Demon Blood.
The dark-red blood connected to Guy-sensei's Eight Gates — those eight chakra points — and Ino formed a one-handed seal, quickly locking onto a strange spatial coordinate point somewhere in the Demon Realm through the blood.
Mechikabura sensed it. Deep in meditation, he lurched suddenly to his feet, his gaze cutting straight through the barriers of space to peer toward her from a great distance.
"Puh——!" The next instant, he coughed up a jet of blood. Every cell in his body — his very soul — had just taken a powerful blow from some mysterious force that had struck him across the void.
He was completely stunned. What the hell was that? How had something managed to hit him?
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