"RAAAAWWWWR!"
The red giant threw its head back and let out a furious roar.
The sound startled Kimimaro and Yukihime. Yukihime's face went pale as she stared at the mountain-sized titan.
"What... what is that monster? And your teacher is over there! Will he be in danger?" she asked Kimimaro, her voice filled with worry.
"That... I think that is my teacher..." Kimimaro murmured, though he wasn't entirely certain. The Susanoo he had seen during the fight with Orochimaru hadn't been this massive. It also hadn't been clad in armor or covered in flesh; that night, it had been a mere skeleton.
But the immense chakra emanating from this colossal Susanoo felt unmistakably like Uchiha Nagi's.
Not enough. It's still not enough!
Uchiha Nagi controlled the enormous Perfect Susanoo and began to channel its energy outward.
Itachi Uchiha had once used his Susanoo to hurl a Yasaka Magatama at Nagato's Planetary Devastation. In the end, it was just another form of chakra nature transformation. Kakashi, later in his life, used his Susanoo to launch Kamui Shuriken, which was also a fusion of energy and ninjutsu.
Therefore, Uchiha Nagi chose swordsmanship.
The red Susanoo giant drew its Sword of Totsuka, crouched low, and unleashed a powerful attack into the distance.
"Destructive Death—Final Form: Blue Silver Chaotic Afterglow!"
The Sword of Totsuka swung, unleashing thousands of flying blades. The entire desert erupted as if it were being bombarded by modern fighter jets, a series of deafening explosions echoing across the landscape.
BOOM!
BOOM!
It was as if the desert was being hit by a barrage of miniature Tailed Beast Balls. Small mushroom clouds bloomed one after another. The intense energy and heat instantly crystallized the sand, leaving behind a vast field of shimmering, crystalline earth. The ground looked as if it had been plowed over, marked by long, uneven furrows. It wasn't a pretty sight.
"Hah..."
After unleashing that massive amount of energy through the Susanoo and his Destructive Death technique, Uchiha Nagi finally breathed a sigh of relief. Standing on the ground below, he could feel that the Ryumyaku's excess energy had been mostly vented. It was finally time to lock it down. A look of joy on his face, he began to form hand signs.
"Seal!"
After a few signs, the Yin Seal on his body began to lock, securely storing the converted and absorbed Ryumyaku energy. Unlike Tsunade, Nagi not only had the Five Elements and Eight Trigrams Seal on his abdomen but also a mark on his forehead.
Because this energy wasn't his own, he couldn't store it all between his eyebrows like Tsunade. In both Buddhism and Taoism, the space between the eyebrows is called the "Sea of Consciousness," which roughly corresponds to the spiritual world. The dantian, however, has been the traditional place for storing energy since ancient times. It's also where the Tailed Beasts are sealed—yet not exactly. Sasuke was able to enter Naruto's spiritual world with the Nine-Tails through his eyes. So it was hard to say for sure whether the Tailed Beasts resided in the spiritual world of the head or the dantian of the abdomen.
But the Yin Seal on Nagi's forehead was just a lock. The Ryumyaku's power was still stored in his abdomen. If someone wanted to unlock it, they would first have to break the Yin Seal on his head, then get through the Uzumaki clan's sealing jutsu he had learned from Minato, and only then would they reach the core—the formula Mukade had used to lock away the Ryumyaku's power.
With three different types of sealing formulas combined, an ordinary person would have no hope of breaking it. Only Uchiha Nagi, the owner, could undo it. And just like Minato, he had left a small opening in the seal to allow for circulation. If his body grew stronger, he could channel more energy into storage. If his chakra was depleted, he could draw power from it. Only in a true emergency would he completely release the Yin Seal on his forehead.
Uchiha Nagi created a shadow clone to examine the new mark. This pattern...
"Why does it kind of look like Erlang Shen's..."
On the surface, it resembled a human eye, but upon closer inspection, it was three interlocking formulas, their heads and tails connected yet distinct. It looked remarkably similar to the tattoo on Erlang Shen's forehead. [TN: Referring to the depiction of Erlang Shen by Jiao Enjun in a popular TV series.]
"Whatever. I'll just grow my bangs out a bit longer," Uchiha Nagi decided, dismissing it.
He glanced back at the Ryumyaku. He had drained over a decade's worth of accumulated energy in one go, but that didn't mean the Ryumyaku was gone. The energy within it was still slowly regenerating, nourishing the land of Roran. He was sure that in a few years, plants would begin to grow here again. It wouldn't even take a decade for it to return to the lush, verdant country it once was.
With the Ryumyaku as his personal backup nuclear battery, Uchiha Nagi finally felt a sense of security. He no longer had to worry about running out of chakra and being forced to flee. While the Ryumyaku's energy in his body couldn't automatically recharge like a tailed beast's, it was more than enough as an emergency reserve. He had never seen how much energy a tailed beast had, but he was certain that the Ryumyaku energy now stored in his Yin Seal was greater than that of the One-Tail.
That was dangerous. I almost got killed...
In the ruins of a building less than a kilometer away from Uchiha Nagi, White Zetsu's head slowly emerged from the ground.
White Zetsu had the ability to travel underground. Although moving through the sand of the Land of Wind was more difficult, it was still manageable. Uchiha Nagi's spatial awareness was incredibly unique, a kind of primal, beast-like intuition. The moment Zetsu got even a little too close, Nagi would frown and start looking around, scaring Zetsu into keeping his distance.
This time, he had nearly been caught in the blast of Nagi's Destructive Death technique, which had the force of a small Tailed Beast Ball.
Lucky, so lucky I ran fast. But being too far away, he couldn't monitor what Uchiha Nagi was doing.
Oh well. Tobi only told me to find him, he never said I had to listen to what he was saying, right?
After a moment's thought, White Zetsu decided it was best to just keep following from a safe distance, hidden deep within the earth.
An explosion of that magnitude within the borders of the Land of Wind naturally couldn't be hidden from the nation's Anbu. A blast comparable to a Tailed Beast Ball should have triggered an immediate investigation by shinobi.
But this time, strangely, nothing happened. The Kazekage of Sunagakure didn't send out a single person.
The reason he couldn't even be bothered to investigate a potential enemy invasion was because Sunagakure was facing a crisis of its own.
Most of the village was in mourning.
Since the plague—the one caused by the nano-sized insects—had started to spread through Sunagakure, it had moved with terrifying speed. The more chakra a ninja used, the more severe their poisoning became. Now, the majority of the dead were ninja. A third of their forces were already gone.
Finally, as white mourning cloths hung from every door, Konoha's medical support team arrived, fashionably late. It was hard to say if the Third Hokage had delayed them on purpose. Given a ninja's speed, they could have arrived a week earlier without any issue.
But beggars couldn't be choosers. Swallowing his pride, the Fourth Kazekage invited the support team into their hospital.
"Everyone, the most critical patients are in here, including my own daughter. I'm leaving them in your capable hands," the Fourth Kazekage said respectfully.
"You're too kind, Lord Kazekage. Just give us some time. I'm confident this won't be a major issue," replied the team leader, Aburame Shibi, the father of Aburame Shino.
After entering the hospital, he and several other members of the Aburame clan, along with the medical-nin, began to extract the nano-insects. Using the Aburame clan's own insects, they began to cultivate a counter-agent. Within a few hours, they had bred an insect that was immune to, or could even suppress, the poison bugs. They combined this with a specially prepared antidote, and after administering it to the first patient, he was quickly cured.
As soon as the first patient was healed, Sunagakure's medical staff anxiously requested that Shibi treat Temari. Because of her young age, she didn't have a large amount of chakra, so the nano-insects hadn't multiplied as much inside her. But after being poisoned for so long, she was on the verge of death.
Seeing that they had cured Temari, the Kazekage's precious daughter, they immediately invited Shibi to the Kazekage's office.
Because the Kazekage himself had also been infected. Sunagakure had used its limited medical resources to suppress the poison in his body, but he was not cured.
When they arrived at the office, Shibi released his newly bred counter-insects, which suppressed the nano-bugs in the Kazekage's body. After drinking the antidote, the poison was finally cleared from his system.
"Thank you all so much. Without you, I don't know what would have become of Sunagakure," the Fourth Kazekage said gratefully. "From now on, Sunagakure and Konoha will be allied as brother nations. If Konoha ever needs anything, Sunagakure will offer its unconditional support."
Shibi, his face hidden by his clothes and sunglasses, bowed slightly. "You are too kind, Lord Kazekage. Matters of alliance must be decided by the Hokage. Since you have recovered, I will return to the hospital to treat the other patients."
The Fourth Kazekage nodded. "Yes, I'll have to trouble you then. Baki, please see our guest out."
"This way, please."
Shortly after Shibi left, the Fourth Kazekage's face darkened. His hands clenched into tight fists, his eyes fixed with venom on the direction Shibi had departed.
"Hmph. Konoha. You hypocritical bastards. Don't think I don't know you were behind this plague."
"Sooner or later, I will make Konoha pay back this blood debt for every person Sunagakure has lost, with interest."
It's said that those who rise to the top are all masters of deception. Just moments ago, he had been the picture of tearful gratitude. Now, his face was a mask of irreconcilable hatred.
"It seems that even if Konoha didn't release those nano-insects, the Aburame clan is undeniably connected to them," a hoarse, elderly voice said. The figure of Chiyo slowly emerged from the shadows.
"Yes. No other clan could cultivate such small poison insects," the Fourth Kazekage agreed, his face grim.
"So, what are your plans now?" Chiyo sighed. "Sunagakure has suffered heavy losses this time. Most of our jonin have died from these insects. We can't win a war, even if we were to start one. Besides, they just sent a medical team to help us. If we were to attack now, we would have no moral high ground whatsoever."
Her own son and daughter-in-law had died at Konoha's hands. Her hatred ran deep, and her grandson was missing. But a war between nations was not something to be decided by her personal grudges.