Power Stone Goals from now on: I always post a minimum of 5 chapters. Henceforth the following are the goals:
Every 150 powerstones, I upload an extra chapter.
If we hit top 30 in the 30-90 days power stone rankings, thats 1 more chapter
If we hit top 10 in the 30-90 days power stone rankings, thats 1 more chapter
If we are top 5...well lets get to that first. Happy readings!
Chapter 81: Back to the 'Elemental Nations'
The Mime, expression still frozen in its theatrical grin, raised a hand and gently tapped the side of its own head.
Like clockwork, I felt my consciousness freeze.
Not the body—this wasn't paralysis. This was deeper. My soul stilled, like a crystal suspended in ice. Thoughts stopped mid-formation, fears halted in their tracks. Time became irrelevant.
And the Mime knew.
It smiled wider.
It turned from me slowly, with a dancer's spin and a showman's grace, and bowed. Not to me. Not to a crowd. But to the nothingness—to the empty air, as if something invisible had applauded.
I was gone.
But not alone.
...
Deep within the tethered space that bound me to Matatabi—the sealed mirror domain crafted by Jiraiya, refined by my own fuinjutsu—the storm rumbled.
The mirror stood quiet. But behind it, sitting as she always had, was Matatabi.
Massive. Elegant. Burning.
She had watched the entire performance with the eyes of a goddess and the silence of a storm. Her twin tails flicked behind her with slow irritation. Her breath shimmered with pressure.
And then she stood.
"I will take over for you now," she said softly, as if addressing a child already asleep.
She reached forward.
Her paw passed through the mirror like it was mist. Not shattered. Not broken. Ignored.
And with one step, she entered the world.
...
A wave of blue fire erupted outward from my body. The cloak of chakra did not flare—it erupted. It burned in absolute silence, bathing the colorless realm in radiant blue flame, shattering the illusion of grayscale for the first time.
The ground cracked.
Air screamed.
The laws of this place buckled.
Matatabi stood where I had been, her body immense but graceful, like a goddess forged from chakra and wrath. Her tails lashed behind her like living whips of fire, and her glowing eyes narrowed as she turned toward the stunned figure of the Mime.
She moved.
Not with hesitation. Not with weight. But with velocity that matched—perhaps even exceeded—the speed I once commanded at the peak of the Eight Gates.
The earth shattered beneath each stride.
The Mime staggered back, taken by surprise. Its face—still locked in its painted smile—twitched at the edges. It stumbled.
Fell.
For the first time since I had entered this world, the Mime lost balance.
Matatabi didn't let up.
She roared.
The sound tore across the skyless void like thunder punching through dimensions. Dust scattered. The ground split open in long, glowing fault lines beneath her feet.
She leapt back, body blazing, and landed several dozen meters away in a low crouch. Then she lowered her head, bracing herself. Her tails curled behind her, spiraling with raw chakra.
A sphere began to form.
Dense. Perfect. Condensing all of her chakra into one singular point.
The sky trembled.
Her voice boomed through the burning realm.
"Tailed Beast Bomb!"
The dimension around them trembled.
The moment the Tailed Beast Bomb launched, it wasn't just an attack—it was a declaration of war against the very structure of this realm. The void-colored sky above fractured with sharp, white cracks like lightning trapped in glass. The jagged mountains surrounding the battlefield groaned and split, the ground shattering beneath Matatabi's claws as the compressed sphere of chakra raced across the short distance with devastating speed.
Impact.
A blinding pulse of light swallowed everything, followed by a deafening silence—total and complete—as if sound itself had been disintegrated by the sheer magnitude of the blast. Then came the shockwave. It tore outward in all directions, carving trenches into the monochrome earth, reducing entire ridgelines to smoke and ash.
An immense plume of smoke rose into the air, towering and furious, its spiraling mass filled with static and shards of broken reality. The landscape was unrecognizable—scorched, warped, stripped bare of all shape and form.
Matatabi's form loomed through the settling haze, breathing heavily but steady, her tails flicking with simmering chakra. Her expression was unreadable—half judgment, half instinctual readiness.
And then the smoke cleared.
The Mime was still there.
But it was no longer untouched.
Blood—thick, black, almost oil-like—poured from its elongated limbs. It dripped from its fingers, its chest, its face. The white stripes on its twisted uniform were soaked, stained with its own essence. Its frame twitched as if struggling to remain cohesive, its body trying to remember how it was meant to stand.
Yet it smiled.
Always smiling.
Matatabi narrowed her eyes.
"How the hell..." she murmured.
But she didn't wait for an answer.
In a single motion, she blinked forward—a blur of chakra and claw—and reappeared inches from the Mime.
Her paw came crashing down.
But the Mime raised its hand.
A barrier formed, instant and translucent, shimmering like glass under moonlight. The paw struck the wall with a colossal crack, halted mid-air, vibrations echoing from the force of contact.
Matatabi's growl deepened.
Fine.
She opened her mouth.
Chakra condensed within her jaws again, the telltale hum of impending devastation swirling louder and louder until it screamed with spiritual pressure.
And then she fired.
Point-blank.
The second Tailed Beast Bomb tore through the barrier like it was made of paper.
The explosion didn't ripple—it detonated in place, consuming the Mime and half the battlefield in a sphere of obliteration.
Stone melted.
Air vanished.
And even silence fled the scene.
Smoke coiled at her feet, rising and falling like breath in the aftermath of the blast. Matatabi stood still, silent in the debris. The explosion had torn this place apart—whatever order held this realm together was crumbling fast.
She felt it in the ground beneath her paws, the way it shifted and cracked without sound. In the air, too—thick and stiff, like it was pushing her back not in anger, but as if it didn't know how to hold her anymore.
This place wasn't just damaged. It was rejecting her.
She narrowed her eyes. The grey world around her—the still sky, the fractured earth—was shivering at the edges. Black cracks split across the horizon, pulsing like veins on old paper. The ground felt like it was trying to breathe, but couldn't. And with each failed breath, her chakra felt more distant, more muffled.
She let out a quiet exhale. Not from fatigue. Not fear.
But because she understood something, she didn't belong here.
"My chakra is too strong," she muttered, not to herself, but to the dead silence that had taken over.
The ground buckled slightly beneath her weight. Around her, the space seemed to twitch—as if the realm was trying to erase her presence, to write her out of its script. But it couldn't. She was still here. She was still Matatabi.
But even she had limits.
Her chakra flickered. Not because it was weakening, but because something in this place was trying to untangle it, strand by strand. Not suppressing it. Just... separating it. Like her power didn't fit anymore.
And then she felt it in the soul.
Shikomu.
Still frozen. Still unreachable.
And now the seal—the one thing tying them together—was starting to unravel too.
She turned toward it. The mirror shimmered faintly in the distance, distorted and pulsing like it was being pulled apart from the inside. She could feel the bond fading, not in strength, but in clarity. Like forgetting something you know is important.
He couldn't survive this. Not like this.
Part of her wanted to keep going. To finish what she started. The Mime hadn't moved—maybe it was done. Maybe this was her chance to destroy this place entirely.
But that would mean risking him.
And no matter how much power she had, that wasn't a risk she could take.
This wasn't a battlefield anymore.
It was a trap.
She shut her eyes for a moment, centering herself. When she opened them again, her chakra pulled in tighter, more focused. Not for another attack.
But to get out.
"I'm not letting you die in this place," she said. "Not for whatever game this is."
She turned toward the mirror.
She began to walk.
And behind her, the sky split again—another jagged crack ripping through the horizon like the world itself was falling apart at the seams.
And Shikomu was brought back to the outside of this dimension.
(Authors note: What do you guys think, you should be able to answer it by now. Why does the Elemental Nations world exist?)
...
Authors note:
You can read some chapters ahead if you want to on my p#treon.com/Fat_Cultivator