Read ahead of public release on P atreon at: p-atreon.com/Knockturn_Alley
Check out Chapter illustrations on Pixiv at unhinged_uchiha
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Hokage Office, Konohagakure
"Uchiha Kanzou slapped you?!" Hiruzen asked sharply, frowning as he raised his head to look at the man kneeling before him.
It was the same captain Kanzou had struck earlier at the village gate.
At the time, the man had swallowed the humiliation in silence. Kanzou had been standing right in front of him, exuding an oppressive pressure that left him unable to react. But inwardly, his anger had boiled. Being slapped, for what felt like no valid reason, was something he could not accept.
Worse still, it had happened in front of his subordinates.
What respect would he be left with if anyone could walk up and slap him? Even if that person was Uchiha Kanzou, it didn't give him the right to strike him for what appeared to be no reason at all.
He wanted justice. That was why he now stood in the Hokage's office, lodging a formal complaint.
Ordinarily, this sort of matter should have been reported to the police station, but only a fool would do that. The one who had struck him was none other than the Captain of the Military Police Force himself. Filing a complaint there would not result in justice; it would likely end with him being arrested, or worse.
So the Hokage was his only option.
Gaining an audience with the Hokage was no simple matter, but as the officer in charge of the village gates, he held special clearance. That was how he found himself here.
"Yes, sir," the captain replied, gritting his teeth. "I was only performing my duty. All I did was call out his name, 'Uchiha Kanzou' and for that, he slapped me!"
The imprint of Kanzou's hand was still visible on his face. Seeing it, Hiruzen immediately knew the man was telling the truth. But the slap itself was not what troubled him most.
"And this happened while he was entering the village?" Hiruzen asked slowly.
"Yes," the captain nodded. "We were about to close the gate when—"
He then proceeded to recount everything in detail: the halted gate, the sudden intrusion, Kanzou's arrival hand in hand with Uchiha Mikoto, and the slap that followed, right up until Kanzou walked past him and disappeared into the village.
"This matter… Worry not, I will question Uchiha Kanzou about it and you will receive justice," Hiruzen assured him. Whether he truly intended to act on it was another matter, but he had to offer his shinobi some reassurance.
"Thank you, Hokage-sama," the captain said, bowing deeply. He felt a surge of hope at those words. Truthfully, he hadn't expected much; after all, Uchiha Kanzou was no ordinary man, but the Patriarch of the Uchiha Clan. What was a mere special jōnin of civilian origin compared to someone like that? Yet Hiruzen's assurance lifted his spirits. It made him believe that, in the Hokage's eyes, even people like him still mattered, and that the Hokage would not remain silent if they were wronged.
"Alright… It's getting late. You should return home," Hiruzen said, waving his hand to dismiss the captain.
The man obeyed. He bowed respectfully, reminded the Hokage not to overwork himself, and then left the office.
Once he was gone, Hiruzen turned his attention to the register on his desk. He flipped through its pages, scanning the neatly recorded entries with a faint frown.
The ledger contained the names, times, and details of everyone who had entered or left the village.
"Uchiha Kanzou…" Hiruzen murmured. "When did he go out?"
He combed through every entry, yet found no record of Uchiha Kanzou or Uchiha Mikoto leaving the village at all. The only notation concerning them was their return, logged at the moment Kanzou had slapped the gate captain. There was nothing about their departure.
Hiruzen's frown deepened.
He summoned an ANBU, specifically the deputy commander responsible for monitoring the Uchiha clan's movements, and questioned him sharply. "Uchiha Kanzou and Uchiha Mikoto. Where were they for the entire day?"
"At the police station," the ANBU replied.
"Both of them?" Hiruzen asked, his eyes narrowing.
"Yes," the ANBU said carefully. "According to the reports, Uchiha Kanzou arrived early in the morning. Uchiha Mikoto arrived in the afternoon. Neither of them left the police station."
"That's not correct," Hiruzen said, shaking his head. "I just received confirmation that the two of them were outside the village and only recently returned."
"T-that—" the ANBU stiffened. "Hokage-sama, this is the report I receiv—"
"And that report is wrong," Hiruzen cut in sharply. "Neither of them was in the village for more than half the day. Uchiha Kanzou was out of the village for hours, and I didn't even know… at all!"
Anger flared in his chest.
How could he not be furious? He had been searching for an opportunity to eliminate Uchiha Kanzou. That opportunity might have been right in front of him, Kanzou, accompanied only by Mikoto, and no other subordinate of his, and yet he had received no warning, no report, not a single word.
This also made him realize that the reason Kanzou had refused to meet him that afternoon, when Hiruzen summoned him to discuss the matter of increasing the budget, was likely because Kanzou hadn't been in the village at all. The excuse that Uchiha Hazuki gave about adding Hiruzen's request to the list of appointments and coming when he had time was probably nothing more than a way to postpone the meeting without revealing his absence.
The ANBU didn't know what to say…
Hiruzen spoke sharply. "Check the condition of the ANBU who were on duty today."
He suspected they might have been subjected to genjutsu or some form of interference, which would explain the false report. If that were the case, it meant Kanzou already knew an ANBU was monitoring him. That, in itself, wasn't shocking; Uchiha Kanzou was no ordinary shinobi, but it was still deeply troubling.
"I understand," the subordinate replied, bowing before withdrawing.
Left alone in the Hokage's office, Hiruzen clenched his fist. The room was silent, yet he could almost hear Kanzou laughing at him.
'Monitoring him from the outside clearly isn't enough,' Hiruzen thought grimly. 'I really need someone inside the Uchiha Police Force.'
The problem was that the person he had assigned to monitor Kanzou, Seiji, was already struggling.
'It doesn't matter,' Hiruzen thought grimly. 'I'll deal with this issue during the budget discussion.'
Another realization followed, heavier than the last.
Kanzou and Mikoto had left the village without alerting anyone, not even the barrier squads.
Hiruzen was certain they hadn't left through the main gate. It had to be somewhere else, and that was the real problem.
The village was completely encircled by a barrier formation designed to detect anyone entering or leaving. Yet Kanzou had managed to slip out without triggering the barrier division even once.
In theory, people could enter or exit the village from places other than the main gate, by the forest around the village, through the river, underground routes, or even through the air. But the barrier rendered such methods meaningless.
Because the barrier was spherical in nature, the moment anyone crossed it, the barrier division should have been alerted. And yet, no such report had been filed.
That left only two possibilities. Either Kanzou possessed the barrier's access codes and could pass through freely, or the barrier division had noticed Kanzou and Mikoto leaving and deliberately chose not to report it.
Both possibilities were dangerous.
Hiruzen's thoughts raced. 'Does Uchiha Kanzou have someone planted inside the barrier division? Or has he found another way to bypass it, or even obtained the access codes himself?'
The barrier codes were known only to high-ranking officials and select ANBU members. If Kanzou truly had access to them, the situation was deeply troubling.
No matter which explanation was true, Hiruzen knew one thing for certain: he had to uncover the truth.
'And where did he go…? What did he do?'
The implications unsettled him. Kanzou could have contacted other villages, leaked sensitive information, and Hiruzen would have known nothing about it. While such an act would amount to outright betrayal, and Hiruzen doubted Kanzou would be foolish enough to take that kind of risk, he couldn't dismiss the possibility outright.
'No… I need answers,' he decided. 'I have to know where he went and what he did.'
With renewed urgency, Hiruzen quickly wrote a letter and summoned another ANBU. Handing it over, he ordered, "Deliver this to Danzō. Tell him to act immediately."
"Understood, Hokage-sama," the ANBU replied before vanishing, heading straight for ROOT headquarters.
…
While Hiruzen grappled with a growing headache over the whole affair, elsewhere in Konoha, Kanzou and Mikoto were enjoying a dinner date.
"Mikoto… say, ahh," Kanzou said, lifting the chopsticks toward her mouth.
"K-Kanzou-sama… people are watching," Mikoto protested, her face flushing with embarrassment.
They were sitting in a barbecue restaurant, one that Kanzou had brought her to. That part was fine. What wasn't fine was how openly affectionate he was being in public. When it was just the two of them, she could go along with it and even liked it. But doing something like this in front of others…
The stares around them made her acutely aware of herself. Her shoulders stiffened, and shame crept up her spine as her cheeks burned.
He said, "They're all just NPCs. You really don't need to care about them at all."
"NPCs?" she murmured, unsure what he meant by NPCs.
"Irrelevant people," he replied flatly.
"B-but even so—" she tried to protest, but before she could finish, Kanzou seized the moment and slipped the piece of meat into her mouth.
"Don't fuss over it. Just eat," he said lightly.
"Hmm…" she hummed as she chewed the meat, albeit with a flushed face.
Just then, several squeals rose from nearby. Curious, she lifted her head to find the source and spotted four kunoichi seated together on a table not far from theirs.
One was a middle-aged woman with brown hair, her jōnin vest marking her rank clearly. The other three were much younger, likely in their fourteens or fifteens, and were probably not even Chūnin yet.
Of the three teenagers, two were slim with dark brown hair: one had orange eyes and the distinctive features of the Yamanaka Clan, while the other had black eyes and the sharp, familiar traits of the Nara, making their clan backgrounds obvious at a glance. As expected of the Pig-deer-butterfly combination, they were accompanied by a heavier squadmate, a chubby girl with black hair who was unmistakably an Akimichi.
The three teenagers and their instructor kept stealing glances in Kanzou's and her direction, whispering among themselves, squealing softly, and blushing furiously. The middle-aged jōnin woman appeared to scold them, yet even she wasn't spared. Color tinged her cheeks as well, her expression shy and flustered when she caught sight of Kanzou feeding Mikoto.
Their reactions only made Mikoto more self-conscious. She could understand why those four kunoichi reacted that way. Public displays of affection were rare; intimacy between couples was usually confined to the privacy of the bedrooms. Seeing such affection so openly displayed was new to them and clearly overwhelming. Their embarrassment, however, only deepened Mikoto's own, making her feel just as shy under their watchful eyes.
"Didn't I tell you not to pay attention to others?" Kanzou said quietly.
"S-sorry," she replied at once, quickly averting her gaze. She opened her mouth and ate the meat he fed her.
Faint squeals and giggles drifted over again.
This time, however, she didn't raise her head to look at the source, but perked up her ears as she began making out fragments of their conversation.
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"Kohari-sensei, you're married, so you should be able to tell us… does Ikkaku-san take you out to restaurants and feed you like that with his hand?" one of the girls asked.
"Ahem, that's not something you should be asking about, Fuyumi-chan," Umino Kohari replied, her face flushing. "That's a private matter between a married couple…"
"Chee… judging by how you're reacting, Sensei, it doesn't sound like he does," Yamanaka Fuyumi said, sighing dreamily. "I've decided, I want a boyfriend like him. Someone who'd take me on dates and feed me like that…"
"You want a boyfriend like Uchiha Kanzou?" the other brown-haired girl, Nara Yoshino, asked.
"Haah… if he could be my boyfriend, I'd definitely want him to be," Fuyumi nodded dreamily before turning the question back on her. "Wouldn't you want him to be your boyfriend too, Yoshino?"
The question made Yoshino blush furiously. "D-don't be ridiculous! H-how could U-U-Uchiha Kanzou ever be my b-b-boyfriend? There's no way!" She then added, casting a furtive glance at Mikoto, "A-and… doesn't he already have her?!"
Yet despite her words, her thoughts told a different story. She couldn't help feeling a twinge of envy toward Mikoto, not only because of Mikoto's beauty, but also because of how lucky she was to have someone like Kanzou by her side.
Seeing the deep flush on her friend's face, Fuyumi said nothing. She simply grinned, which only made Yoshino turn away, avoiding her gaze. Clearly, both girls understood exactly what was really going on in each other's minds.
Just then, the heavier girl in the group, Akimichi Chōmi, spoke up hesitantly. "D-do you think guys like him… would ever like a fat girl?"
An awkward silence followed. Nara Yoshino was the first to respond, trying to sound encouraging. "Of course, there must be boys like that… you don't need to worry, Chōmi…"
Chōmi brightened a little at the reassurance and took a bite of her pudding.
And seeing that, Yamanaka Fuyumi shook her head. "Chōmi… if you keep eating pudding like that, you'll only get fatter. And then no boys will ever like you."
"Hey… Fuyumi, you don't have to say it like that," Yoshino protested, trying to stop Fuyumi.
"But it's the truth," Fuyumi replied bluntly. "Boys don't like girls who eat pudding all the time and get fat because of it. If you want a boyfriend, you need to give it up and start dieting immediately to become sexy~!"
"D-don't say that…" Chōmi said miserably. "I like pudding… I can't live without it…"
"Well?" Fuyumi pressed. "Do you want pudding, or do you want a boyfriend like Uchiha Kanzou? You can only have one."
"T-this…" Chōmi looked as though she were on the verge of tears.
"Alright, Fuyumi, calm down," Umino Kohari said firmly, lowering her voice, aware their conversation might be reaching Kanzou. "And Chōmi-chan, don't worry. There will definitely be a boy out there who likes a girl who enjoys pudding."
"R-really, sensei?" Chōmi asked, looking up at her.
"Yes," Kohari nodded reassuringly. "If a boy truly loves you, he'll accept that you like pudding, and he'll accept your body as well. Love doesn't discard flaws; it embraces them. It accepts everything. I'm sure you'll find love too."
"Hehe… is that really true, Sensei?" Chōmi asked brightly, her worries fading now that she no longer feared having to give up pudding or start dieting just to have a boyfriend.
Fuyumi pouted, convinced Kohari was giving Chōmi false hope, but she didn't argue. Instead, her gaze drifted back toward Kanzou once more. 'Haaah… Uchiha Kanzou-sama… why do you already have a girlfriend?'
…
While those kunoichi continued their discussion, clearly about Kanzou, it greatly irritated Mikoto. That irritation sharpened when she noticed the girl named Yamanaka Fuyumi staring at Kanzou dreamily, as though wishing she could replace Mikoto as his girlfriend.
It took considerable effort for Mikoto to ignore it and finish her dinner, but the experience forced her to confront an uncomfortable truth: girls really were drawn to Kanzou, almost obsessively so.
'Kanzou-sama… he's far too popular,' she thought. And it wasn't just women within the clan; even girls from outside were captivated by him. And why wouldn't they be? He was undeniably handsome, and his reputation carried considerable weight.
Mikoto herself had once been one of those women, deeply fascinated by him and fond of him to an almost painful degree, even if she had kept those feelings hidden and never told anyone about them.
'It's a pity they don't know what he's really like,' she thought. If those girls truly understood him, what kind of man he was, what kind of things he likes doing to women, perhaps they wouldn't want to be his girlfriend after all.
Yet she wasn't entirely convinced of that either. After all, there were women like Misaki and perhaps even Hazuki… women who clearly knew what sort of person Kanzou was and still chased after him regardless.
What Mikoto didn't know was that many girls were drawn precisely to men like him, dangerous, toxic, commanding. They were captivated by what men like Uchiha Kanzou represented and often believed, foolishly, that they could be the ones to change him into a better man.
It was a cruel irony: in chasing someone so destructive, they more often than not ended up ruining their own lives. And they rarely understood that truth until it was too late. The rush of dopamine in between keeps them convinced that they are happy, even as they quietly fall apart.
As they walked home, Mikoto found her thoughts drifting inward.
'I wonder if I'm one of those women too…' she thought, questioning whether choosing to enter Kanzou's cage had truly been the right decision.
At this point, she didn't really have a choice anymore; she had already stepped inside. Still, she couldn't help wondering whether she should have avoided it altogether.
'Sigh… what am I even thinking?' she chided herself. 'Did I ever really have any alternative? If I hadn't accepted it… There would have been no future for me at all… and even Sofu-sama might have…' Shaking her head, she reminded herself that her situation was far too different to compare so simply.
With that realization, she decided not to dwell on things beyond her control. Instead, her thoughts shifted to something else.
'The women Kanzou-sama is involved with…' Hesitating, she lifted her head and looked up at him, her voice soft as she spoke. "Um… Kanzou-sama…"
"Yeah?" he replied, glancing down at her.
"Other than Misaki-san… w-who else is there… w-with you?" she asked quietly.
Kanzou blinked, clearly caught off guard by the sudden question. "Why are you asking that all of a sudden?"
"J-just so I don't get caught off guard again… like what happened with Misaki-san today," she replied, lowering her gaze.
In truth, she didn't want him to have any other women around him at all. But he had made his stance painfully clear; whether or not he married her, he would still involve himself with other women. She didn't want to accept that reality, yet with the ultimatum hanging over her, what choice did she really have? Either she accepted that he would continue seeing other women… or she would be abandoned by him.
Abandoned, no, that was something she couldn't bear.
And since she doesn't want to be abandoned by him, she has no choice but to accept the reality, and she has to adapt to it. No matter how unwilling she felt, there was no other path open to her.
And if she had to accept it, then she wanted to know about the women he was involved with. At the very least, she didn't want to be caught off guard ever again.
"Hmm… is that so?" he murmured, wondering whether to tell her. After a brief pause, he shook his head. "I understand what you're thinking, but knowing their names would still be pointless. Even if I told you, it wouldn't help much, you don't really know any of them besides Misaki."
After all, some of them weren't even from Konoha, but from other places like Sunagakure. What would be the point of telling her about women she'd never met? It wasn't as if she would know who Sasori's mother is, right?
"E-even so…" she said, biting her lip. She still wanted to know.
"As I said, it wouldn't help you much," he repeated, making it clear he had no intention of telling her.
Mikoto clenched her fist, frustration and dissatisfaction knotting tightly in her chest.
Kanzou didn't seem to care. "Instead of worrying about that," he said casually, "why don't you help me with something?"
"Help you with something? With what?" she asked, frowning.
"You have a friend named Uzumaki Kushina, don't you?" he asked.
The moment he spoke Kushina's name, Mikoto's expression changed. Realisation struck her immediately; she knew exactly where his thoughts were heading.
"Kanzou-sama…" she exclaimed, her voice tight yet rising. "Y-you are after Kus—"
Before she could finish, Kanzou clamped a hand over her mouth, reducing her words to a muffled sound.
"Don't be so loud," he scolded quietly.
Mikoto swallowed and nodded. When he removed his hand, she immediately lowered her voice and asked, "You are after Kushina-chan…?"
"Indeed…" Kanzou nodded, making no effort to hide his intentions.
That was right, Kanzou had already set his sights on Kushina, Konoha's fiery redhead. Beyond the evil points he could gain from her, Kushina herself was a rare prize.
She is the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki, a living bearer of a near extinct Clan's powerful legacy in fūinjutsu; she is one of the few Uzumaki alive
Like the Senjus, Uzumakis traced their lineage back to the Sage of Six Paths, specifically through the bloodline of the Sage's younger son, Ashura.
Many of the most renowned and powerful Fūinjutsu in the shinobi world had originated from the Uzumaki Clan, a clan blessed with both exceptional vitality and advanced fūinjutsu.
Kanzou couldn't help but feel envy toward the Uzumaki's deep knowledge of fūinjutsu and their strong vitality.
'If I do to her what I did to Mikoto… I could probably obtain those things,' he thought. Then, turning to Mikoto with a smirk, he added, "Since you are friends with Uzumaki Kushina, how about you play wingman for me and help me get my hands on her, hm?"
"Wingman?" Mikoto froze, shock giving way to anger. Not only had he refused to tell her about the women he was already involved with, but now he was asking her to help him get his hands on someone she knew. How was she supposed to tolerate that?
She tried to refuse. "My friendship with Kushina-chan… it's not that deep," she said.
As for their friendship… it was actually there. But Mikoto lied, downplaying it deliberately, hoping to avoid being forced into this so-called wingman role.
"Really?" he murmured, doubt creeping into his tone, unsure whether she was telling the truth.
"Y-yes," she replied quickly. "She's younger than you, so obviously, we were in different years at the Academy, and we barely interacted back then. Even after graduation, we didn't have much contact. I only met her a few times after I returned to the village last year."
In a sense, she isn't entirely lying. Uzumaki Kushina is younger, Mikoto is nineteen, while Kushina is about four years her junior.
The age gap alone made regular contact unlikely, especially when considering their circumstances. Mikoto was a Uchiha and the daughter of one of the clan elders, while Kushina was the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki. Naturally, the two were kept apart.
On top of that, Mikoto had spent five years away in the capital. During that time, Kushina remained in Konoha and was rarely permitted to leave the village, making any consistent contact virtually impossible.
It's just that, in the canon, the two were portrayed as friends, but how deep that friendship truly was, and when it had developed, was never made clear.
Perhaps it had grown later.
"Tch… what a pity," he said with a shrug. "If you'd helped me play wingman, I might've considered you useful. But fine, I'll just get my hands on her my own way."
Those words made her stiffen. "C-could you not?" she said quickly. "Kushina-chan already has someone she loves…"
"Oh… so she has someone she loves, huh?" Kanzou murmured.
Of course, he already knew who it was, Namikaze Mini-toe, the future Yondaime Hokage, famed as the fastest shinobi alive… though not fast enough when it truly mattered.
At first, Kushina hadn't cared for him at all. She saw him as a weak and annoying person, someone who followed her around and watched silently as she was bullied for being an outsider. But everything changed after he rescued her from a kidnapping attempt by a squad of Kumogakure shinobi. From that moment on, her view of him shifted completely, and she developed a deep crush.
It was a pity, really. At the time, Kanzou had been too consumed by his own path, training relentlessly, growing stronger, fighting in wars, coping with the death of his jōnin instructor, and laying the groundwork for his future endeavors, to spare any attention for Uzumaki Kushina.
When the kidnapping incident occurred, Kanzou wasn't even in Konoha. He was on the battlefield in the Land of Rain, cutting down chūnin and jōnin from Amegakure, Iwagakure, and Sunagakure.
Had he been in Konoha then, he would have seized that moment himself, stepping in as her saviour and claiming her admiration instead.
But in the end, it didn't matter. So what if Kushina loved Namikaze Minato? If anything, that only made things easier and more amusing for him.
'Since Uzumaki Kushina loves Minato, he can be used as leverage to threaten her,' Kanzou thought, already outlining the script in his mind.
There was also another angle to consider, one that would twist the knife even deeper. Turning Konoha's famed Yellow Flash into Green Flash also held a great appeal to Kanzou.
'I wonder how Minato would feel if he knew what I plan to do to him…' Kanzou mused coldly. 'Even someone as sunny and optimistic as him would turn bitter and vengeful, wouldn't he? Fufu… that would be interesting.'
Out loud, he said to Mikoto, unconcerned, "So what if she's in love with someone? What does that have to do with me?"
Mikoto didn't know what to say. 'You claim you don't care… but did you ever stop to consider whether others do?'
Then again, was Kanzou ever the kind of man who cared about such things? If he were, would she really be here, fingers entwined with his, walking willingly toward a house that is her cage?
She pushed the heavy thoughts down and spoke softly instead. "C-can you… not target Kushina-chan?" She hesitated, then added quickly, "I… I'm willing to do anything you ask in her place."
Kanzou narrowed his eyes. "You claim your friendship with her isn't that deep, yet you know so much about her, especially that she's in love with someone. And you're even willing to sacrifice yourself in her place." His gaze sharpened. "I have to wonder why. Are you lying to me, Mikoto?"
"T-that's not true…" she said, hesitating as she looked down, afraid to meet his eyes in case he saw through her. "I… I just don't want her to go through what I did…"
As someone who had already suffered at his hands, Mikoto couldn't bear the thought of another woman, especially someone who genuinely loved a man, to be dragged into the same fate she herself is being made to endure.
"What do you mean by 'you don't want her to go through what you did'?" Kanzou narrowed his eyes, forcing her to look at him. "Hmm? Are you unhappy with me?"
"N-no… I—I didn't mean it like that…" she stammered, fear flickering through her as she realized she might have said too much.
Kanzou pressed his fingers into her cheeks, clamping them painfully as he leaned closer. "If that's not what you meant, then what did you mean?"
"I… I just—" she tried to defend herself.
He cut her off. "You know what? Don't say anything. Let's go home. You can pack your things and leave."
"N-no… Kanzou-sama… no…" Horror flooded Mikoto's face.
"Shut up. Let's go," he snapped.
Still holding her, he used the Body Flicker Jutsu.
In the next instant, they reappeared at the entrance of his house. Kanzou unlocked the gate while Mikoto shook her head frantically. "No… Kanzou-sama… no… please…"
"I said shut up," he snapped. "If you're unhappy with me, then leave." He dragged her inside, heading straight for the bedroom, and shoved her toward the cabinet.
"Go on," he said coldly. "Pack your things, and leave."
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The Power Stone Goal is 70 within the next 24 hrs. So, hurry up and drop your Power Stones!
Read ahead of public release on P atreon at: p-atreon.com/Knockturn_Alley
Check out Chapter illustrations on Pixiv: unhinged_uchiha