The clouds finally scattered. The ink black storm cover thinned, letting faint light seep through.
A petite figure wrapped in purple red lightning armor stood on the lake's surface with Samehada in hand. A razor thin beam of sunlight pierced the cloud layer and struck the water, turning the ripples into shimmering gold, as if someone had brushed the lake with molten foil.
Four Kage level powerhouses had come and gone, and that meant only one thing.
She was the final victor.
The purple red lightning around her skin slowly faded into the wind. The chakra spiral that had stretched out into the void gradually stopped. Samehada pulled its barbs in, collapsed weakly on the water with its tongue hanging out, looking like a dog stranded in a desert.
Konome Taketori squeezed out a thread of chakra from her fingertips.
"Mmmnngh."
Samehada instantly sprang to life. Its massive tongue rolled as it eagerly licked up that delicious purple energy, barbs thrashing like it had never been tired at all.
Konome shook her head, helpless against this act. It was obviously faking misery for snacks.
Fine. Eat.
Without Samehada, forget driving off Uchiha Obito. Kisame Hoshigaki alone could have handled her with ease.
Samehada was the biggest contributor to this victory, no question.
Rumble, rumble.
The lake's waterline dropped. Muddy water poured down the cliffs, carving channels through the reddish brown slopes of Raikōsan.
The bloodstains on the ground were already gone. Scattered chunks of flesh tumbled with the current. More pieces got caught on the jagged waterways, turning an eerie pale white under the returning sunlight.
Aburame Ryūma and the other three waded through the mud and hurried to Konome.
They stared at her, speechless.
After multiple lethal battles, she was not only uninjured, her chakra was already full again.
Less than two hours.
She had destroyed the defenses of Mine Site No. 1 by herself, casually killing Kumogakure's elite jōnin.
Then she and Orochimaru fought the blue skinned monster. She had forced him to his knees with a single blade, and if she had not been leaving him for Orochimaru's experiments, he would have been reduced to fish paste.
And just now, she had battled a mysterious shinobi who used space time ninjutsu, could revive, and seemed invincible. She had killed him repeatedly and forced him to flee in disgrace.
If word of this record got out, it would be enough to shake the shinobi world and earn her a name known across the seas.
What was truly terrifying was that she was still a child, not even seven.
The four of them surrounded her in silence, eyes fixed on her like they were studying an alien.
"What are you staring for? Go blow the mine."
"Yes!"
At Konome's order, Iwakuma and the others lowered their heads and quickly dispersed, not daring to look at her for long.
Chō closed his eyes to track any remaining Thunderstones. Arashi handled battlefield cleanup. Iwakuma used Earth Release to collapse the mine even further, finishing what the storm had already begun.
Their overly respectful attitude made Konome both amused and exasperated.
She knew she looked ridiculous.
But she had not cheated. Or if she had, it was only a little.
This strength was built with her own hands, step by step, through training and killing.
From Kirigakure to Konohagakure to Kumogakure to Root, she had drawn on the best resources each village could offer, and only then barely reached elite jōnin level. She had already hit the limit of this body, and likely would not improve much for years.
This time she had simply been lucky.
She met Kisame, obtained Samehada, the one tool that could patch her biggest weakness, and Kisame had practically donated an ocean of chakra to her. That was how she had pulled off forcing Uchiha Obito to retreat alone.
This was not her true strength.
"Yato, that arm…"
"I still feel like something's off about it. I'll study it for a few days. Once we're back in Konoha, I'll hand it to Lord Danzō personally."
"…Fine."
Ryūma could hear the brush off in her voice. He only nodded and did not mention the arm again.
Now that his old memories had awakened, Danzō's assigned task mattered less and less to him. What he wanted was to drag the completely fallen Danzō back to the man he used to be.
If he could not… then he had no choice.
The promise he had made with Itachi inside the Tsukuyomi space weighed on him like a storm cloud, dark and suffocating, yet shot through with faint gold light.
"Ryūma, do you have bandages?"
"I do."
He pulled out a thick roll of white bandages from a sealing scroll and handed it over. He watched as Konome crouched and wrapped Samehada into a two meter long greatsword, barbs bound tight.
Ryūma's head began to ache.
He did not know how deep Kotoamatsukami's influence ran on her. If it ever came to the day he had to move against Danzō, how was he supposed to get past Konome?
She was already this terrifying now. In a few years, once her body matured, even if he and the Uchiha teamed up, it might still not be enough for her alone.
Boom!
A violent roar came from the mine. Sand and rock slid down the walls, turning the water below even more turbid.
Iwakuma, his face and body coated in muddy brown, came over quickly and sealed several intact heads into a scroll. Arashi followed at his heels.
"Captain, Mine No. 1 has been destroyed."
"Battlefield cleanup is complete."
"Good."
Ryūma nodded grimly, mind racing, trying to find a way to keep Konome from being completely brainwashed by Danzō.
The Curse Tongue Eradication Seal meant he could not tell her about Danzō's Mangekyō. He needed another way, before Konome fell too far, to save Konoha's greatest genius from a Danzō who had rotted into something unrecognizable.
Otherwise, he and Itachi would be beaten to death by this absurd monster sooner or later.
Splash, splash.
Hopping across the water, Chō picked up a few lonely Thunderstones and stuffed them into a sealing scroll. Then he shook his head and returned to Ryūma.
"Most of the Thunderstones at Mine No. 1 look like they got washed away. I only found a dozen or so."
Ryūma's eyes flickered. Everyone's gaze slowly turned toward Konome, who had arrived first.
Rip.
Konome tore off a long strip of bandage and wrapped Samehada's barbs, pretending she had heard nothing.
"Maybe the flood carried them down the cliff."
"Then it'll be hard to find," Chō said, forcing out an explanation. Arashi nodded grimly beside him, backing him up.
"Forget it."
Ryūma withdrew his eyes and did not press further.
No one here was stupid. Everyone knew where those stones went.
Mine No. 1 had been Konome's responsibility. Before they arrived, she had already slaughtered the place clean. And given how perfectly Thunderstones matched Lightning Release Chakra Mode, it was obvious who had them.
If Konome had not held off the masked man, every one of them would be dead. A few missing Thunderstones were not worth arguing over.
Mentioning it at all was only meant to make Konome acknowledge the favor.
"Anyone injured?"
After finishing the wrapping, Konome lifted the remaining bandages, returning the gesture.
They looked at each other awkwardly. They had been so overwhelmed by her combat strength that they had forgotten she was also a medic nin.
"Iwakuma's badly hurt," Chō said, pointing.
Iwakuma's body was still covered in earth colored plating. Mud Healing Fake Body Technique could only replace flesh with earth temporarily, stopping injuries from interfering with combat. It did not truly heal.
Konome slung Samehada across her back. Green light ignited in her palm. Iwakuma silently canceled his technique, exposing the charred wounds underneath, seared black by lightning.
"No anesthetic. Bear with it."
"…Mm."
Iwakuma did not flinch, still cold and stubborn.
A moment later.
"Hiss!"
The expected pain did not arrive. Instead came a terrifying numb itch, crawling through nerves and skin. Konome pressed him down with one hand, the glow of the Mystical Palm Technique knitting the wound closed rapidly.
The other three frowned and quietly took out bandages, treating their own cuts.
Minor injuries were not worth wasting Konome's chakra.
When Iwakuma's wound finally healed, they moved down the mountain together. Ryūma fired a red signal flare into the sky.
Boom!
Dull thunder rolled through the Raikōsan range. The mountain shook. Falling rocks and mud mixed with the streams pouring down the slopes, burying the foothills.
Eleven special jōnin, spread across different mines, leapt down to regroup with them, handing Ryūma four scrolls packed with Thunderstones.
This insane mission had suffered very few losses.
Root shinobi, emotionless as they were, executed Ryūma's orders to the letter.
No matter how violent the battle on the summit became, they stayed at their assigned mine shafts, waiting for the detonation signal.
Luckily for them, they never got dragged into the Kage level clash overhead, or they would have become collateral.
Only one called Bakurin had been unlucky enough to run into Itachi and self detonate. His body had been blown apart, and the cleanup team found only a few fragments of his mask.
Ryūma looked up at the drenched Raikōsan.
The original mission to burn the mountain was likely impossible now. This operation could only end here.
"Return to the village."
Two days later, the primitive forest at Konoha's border.
Whoosh, whoosh, whoosh.
More than a dozen figures bounded through the trees. Behind and to the side came a rumble like distant thunder, though no trees fell this time.
They were retracing their path. The route Konome had cleared on the way in was still usable.
There was a folk saying about regions with elephant herds. Because elephants trampled the forest along their migration routes, they would carve out natural roads, called elephant paths.
If Konome traveled between the Land of Fire and the Land of Lightning often enough, she might actually bulldoze out a highway with her body. It might even boost trade between the two countries.
Rumble!
The ground trembled.
Konome sprinted through the forest, lightning crawling over her skin, Samehada strapped across her back. The blade was simply too large. Even fully compressed, it was still two meters long.
She was not even one point four meters tall. If she slung it diagonally, the tip dragged on the ground. After Samehada complained a few times, she had no choice but to carry it horizontally, making her look like a high speed division sign slicing through the woods.
"Main body, you have no idea how huge my haul was."
Her translucent chakra core bounced happily as this Yang Release shadow clone spoke to the original Konome far away in Konoha.
"If your so called haul isn't worth the life force I burned opening the Gate of Joy, then don't waste my time."
"Then get ready to receive the memories."
Konome sent everything from the last few days through the chakra spiral connection, smiling with confidence as she ran even faster.
She could already imagine the original's stunned expression.
Even she was shocked after tallying it up.
Nearly four hundred Thunderstones. Three pieces of Black Thunder Crystal.
Not just the small piece in Yotsuki Isao's hands. Two more had been hidden somewhere, and the flood had washed them out. Chō had picked them up and mixed them in with ordinary Thunderstones.
When Ryūma sorted the stones, she asked for them in the name of research.
She had no intention of giving them back.
In a few days, she could just hand over two ordinary Thunderstones and claim they were the Black Thunder Crystal. The excuse was already prepared. Those black crystals were simply Thunderstones full of impurities, and she had purified them.
Ryūma would not fight her over it.
Besides the stones, she obtained the secret Black Lightning technique from Yotsuki Isao, an attack that targeted the soul and mind, broadening her offense even further.
There were also notes on merging two natures. For her future goal of combining seven natures into a Kekkei Mōra, she was no longer completely in the dark.
Those gains were already massive, but they still paled beside what came next.
The number one prize was Samehada. A chakra devouring blade that fed its wielder, perfectly tailored to her. With it, she no longer feared group fights or opponents with overflowing chakra. It was like stepping one foot into the Kage realm.
Her endurance had been upgraded to something absurd.
Second was the arm taken from Shin Uchiha, implanted with Hashirama cells and Sharingan, able to ignore rejection. After research, she found it was basically useless.
There was no true cell fusion. It was not a Sage Body.
So called Hashirama arm was simply Hashirama cells grafted onto a normal arm, like installing a Wood Release attachment. It was far from her goal of obtaining a true Sage Body.
In the end, the only valuable parts were the Hashirama cells and the Sharingan as experimental material. She found nothing else and returned it to Ryūma.
And finally, the strange white sphere.
"So this is Obito's so called Six Paths treasure?" the original asked after a long pause.
Konome could not hear a voice, but she could sense the exhaustion mixed with excitement. She still did not fully understand the principle behind shadow clone memory transfer, but it worked.
"Probably. But I don't know how to use it."
While running, she played with the gray white sphere in her hand.
Two days of study gave her nothing.
It was neither metal nor jade. It fit in one hand but felt incredibly heavy, denser than steel. The shell was warm and smooth in an unnaturally perfect way. No matter how hard she squeezed or how much chakra she poured in, it would not react.
Her grip could crush steel into paste. This thing did not even flinch.
"When you get back, I'll test it with Dead Bone Pulse."
"Don't."
The Yang Release clone refused instantly.
"I fought like hell to steal this. It probably hides a huge secret. If Dead Bone Pulse destroys it, that would be tragic. And until you solve the life draining problem, don't use it casually."
"Relax. I've already found a way to suppress it."
Boom!
Several huge trees were smashed down, dust rising.
Konome's clone skidded to a stop, stunned.
"You solved it?"
"Yeah. It's complicated."
The original's tone carried quiet satisfaction.
"While you were out, I wasn't idle either. My gains aren't smaller than yours. I won't send you my memories yet. You're mentally exhausted, you won't be able to handle it. When you're back, I'll explain slowly."
"I hate people who talk in riddles."
Konome's clone cut the chakra call hard, then surged forward again, Samehada on her back, moving even faster than before.
Less than a week since leaving Konoha, and the original had already solved the Dead Bone problem.
She was desperate to get home.
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