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Chapter 94: What the F*ck, Advancing Samui
Under Samui's horrified gaze, Konan activated the Sharingan.
A red light flashed across her eyes as she glared straight at her.
"Sharingan!! You actually—"
The Sharingan genjutsu triggered.
Samui's shout cut off mid-word. She went stiff, her expression empty and numb.
Konan walked up to her and asked coldly, "Where does the Village Hidden in the Clouds keep the biological samples of Kinkaku and Ginkaku?"
Samui didn't answer.
Her head began to tremble slightly, and a pained look surfaced on her face.
Konan frowned. She could clearly sense a sudden surge of chakra in Samui's mind.
It carried the nature of a sealing jutsu.
A muffled, choked sound caught in Samui's throat. She literally couldn't speak.
"Stop. Don't answer," Konan ordered sharply.
The flaring chakra slowly subsided. The pain faded from Samui's expression, and she returned to that blank, puppet-like state.
[As a core upper-echelon kunoichi of the Cloud, Samui definitely has some kind of seal in her mind to prevent intel leaks.]
Alex's voice echoed faintly.
Fortunately, it wasn't the kind of extreme seal that made your head explode the moment you touched it.
"I see. Then let's try the other two."
Konan turned around and dispelled the ice around Karui, exposing her head.
Before Karui could shout, those red eyes flashed again, pinning her in place.
Konan probed, "State the daily routine of the Fourth Raikage."
Karui's face instantly went pale, her features twisting in agony.
The sealing chakra rising in her mind was far more violent than Samui's.
Then—
Bang.
Her entire head exploded like a watermelon, red and white spraying out in all directions.
A sharp, metallic stench filled the air.
Standing a good distance away, Konan watched indifferently as the headless body toppled over.
The instant Karui's head began to swell and distort, Konan knew it was irreversible. She yanked Samui back with her, retreating out of the blast radius of bone and brain.
Alex's heart lurched.
It was his first time seeing someone's head literally blow apart. It was… eye-opening, in the worst way.
Karui had become a headless corpse. In the future, where was that big guy supposed to find a wife now?
The Akimichi girl from Boruto—Chōchō, or whatever—there was no way she'd ever appear now.
Still…
So what?
What did that have to do with him?
Konan's gaze shifted to the other block of ice, splattered with chunks of red and white.
She decided to make one more attempt.
Bang.
Three seconds later, after the exact same procedure, Omoi followed Karui down the same path.
His head exploded just as cleanly.
Konan looked back at Samui, hesitating.
As a high-ranking member of the Cloud, Samui definitely held far more intel in her head than the other two. Her mental seal was more complete, too, but there was no way it could withstand endless probing by genjutsu.
If she kept forcing it, it wouldn't take many attempts before Samui's head blew apart as well.
And this woman, whom she had already mentally classified as Akatsuki's "toy," absolutely could not be allowed to die so cheaply.
She turned to Alex, who was floating in front of her.
"Akatsuki," she asked, "what should we do with this woman?"
What should they do with her?
Alex was caught off guard.
What else could they do? Obviously she needed to be thoroughly "investigated."
Check every inch, see what she could handle…
He coughed inwardly. Those subconscious thoughts definitely couldn't be said out loud.
He answered, all seriousness:
[If we can't force intel out of her, then leave her to me for proper conditioning. I'll make her cooperate of her own will.]
With his mastery of Dark Medical Ninjutsu, Alex understood the human body better than anyone.
He could freely manipulate the body's senses—pain, pleasure, stimulation—cranking them up tenfold if he wanted, and put her through a very special course of "training."
With enough time, he was confident he could break Samui's will, make her submit, and have her willingly cooperate in dealing with the seals and restrictions in her mind.
"Conditioning?" Konan echoed, puzzled. "You mean teaching her? Like a sensei lecturing a student? You really think that alone will make Samui cooperate?"
[It should work. We have to at least try.]
Staaare—
Konan didn't reply. She just kept staring at Alex.
Even from the little black characters on the paper, she could feel how oddly excited he was, like he was raring to start.
He really was interested in that part of Samui.
Her earlier decision had clearly been correct—this was exactly the kind of thing Alex was into.
Konan finally looked away, a quiet happiness rising in her chest.
As long as Alex was happy, she was happy.
She had finally found a new way to repay him.
With a last glance around them, she said, "Since we're done here, let's go back."
Alex nodded and slipped back into her chest.
Wings of paper unfurled from Konan's back. With Samui half-wrapped in white sheets, she took off into the sky, heading back to the fortress.
———
On the deck.
Kameda stood like a statue, back straight.
At some point, Honoka Uzumaki had come up behind him. She couldn't help commenting, a little speechless, "Uncle Kameda, Lady Konan already went down. You don't have to stay this tense the whole time."
Facing this kind of rigid, ever-serious posture, she couldn't help feeling a bit guilty.
Maybe she was being too casual. Maybe she should learn from Uncle Kameda what being a proper subordinate meant.
Kameda shook his head. "Lady Konan said she would return soon. I must be ready to greet her at any moment."
"As for you, Honoka, you don't need to imitate me. Just be yourself."
He could see Honoka's inner struggle and anxiety, so he tried to reassure her.
"Lady Konan is very generous with her subordinates. This is just my personal choice. You don't need to take it to heart."
"I… I see… In that case, okay then."
Honoka relaxed. Trying to copy Kameda's way of dealing with people would be ten times harder than learning ninjutsu.
It would be exhausting.
Konan flew back through the clouds and landed smoothly on the deck.
"Lady Konan."
Kameda hurried to meet her, giving Samui just one quick glance before withdrawing his eyes.
Honoka, on the other hand, was very curious about who Konan had brought back. The moment she got a good look, her jaw dropped into an "O" shape.
She could probably fit an entire banana in there.
Her mind went blank, shaken by the sight of two gigantic things she had never seen before.
T-this… this was way too big…
Each one was practically the size of two of her.
They had to be at a terrifying G-cup at least!
How heavy were they? Her shoulders probably hurt all the time…
Noticing the white paper wrapped around Samui's lower body and her vacant expression, Honoka couldn't help asking,
"Lady Konan, she…?"
There was no way this could be a new ally. She looked much more like a prisoner.
"She's Samui, an elite jōnin from the Village Hidden in the Clouds," Konan replied coolly. "Go back to your duties. I'm taking her to the cells for interrogation. No one is to approach the outer area."
"Yes, ma'am. I'll see to it at once."
Kameda bowed and left with the still-baffled Honoka.
After a short while, Konan headed for the prison, Samui floating along behind her bound in paper.
Inside a special cell, the space was sealed off, the walls completely covered in sheets of white paper to prevent sound from escaping.
Samui's limbs were bound by four chains, suspending her in midair. She was still in that vacant, puppet-like trance.
Konan asked, "Akatsuki, is this setup enough?"
[It is. Are you sure you want to watch this here?]
Alex bobbed up and down in the air, visibly excited.
"I'm very curious about your conditioning methods," Konan said. "I want to see for myself whether they really can break an elite jōnin's will. I'll watch from the side."
With that, she released the Sharingan genjutsu.
The instant Samui regained consciousness, her emerald eyes locked in fury onto Konan below her.
The chains clinked as she pulled against them, glancing around. Seeing no sign of her teammates, she shouted,
"Where are Karui and Omoi? What did you do to them?!"
Konan said nothing.
Seeing her silence, Samui's heart sank completely.
Now that she'd fallen into the enemy's hands, none of their fates would be good.
Being captured instead of killed on the spot made the enemy's intentions obvious.
But from the day she'd become a ninja, she'd been prepared for this.
"White Tiger!" Samui roared. "You can forget about making me betray my village! Don't even think about getting anything out of me! I will never betray Lord Raikage!!"
Whoosh!
Her mouth suddenly opened wide as three pitch-black poison needles shot straight at Konan's face.
Konan merely tilted her head to one side and dodged them easily.
But that wasn't all.
A fourth, extremely well-hidden poison needle flew in from another angle and pierced straight through Konan's chest.
It didn't matter in the slightest.
With a body of paper, she didn't fear this sort of physical attack at all.
Alex, floating nearby, ignored the needle completely.
What he did focus on was where, exactly, the needle had been fired from.
In his heart, he could only think—
What the f*ck…
Ninja really were limitless when it came to methods and bottom lines, mastering all sorts of vicious assassination techniques.
It really was an education.
As long as it could kill someone, they could turn any part of their body into a weapon.
They could even hide poison needles in…