"An obstacle? Heh..." Hikari sneered, the cold gleam in her eyes intensifying. "You're clearly protecting him in disguise! Don't think I didn't notice! I even went to the trouble of secretly turning several troublesome Anbu nearby into 'obedient' toys!"
During the brief lull in the tense confrontation, a small, trembling voice filled with unmistakable fear came from the side.
"Y-You... even if you kill Sasuke, what would that accomplish?" Sakura shrank behind Naruto.
Her face was pale, but she still summoned the courage to use the information revealed by the Heavenly Curtain to argue against Hikari.
"Isn't the Sage of Six Paths still in the Pure Land? A-And Indra too... They're Uchiha ancestors, aren't they? The Uchiha Clan... hasn't truly disappeared!"
Sakura's words immediately caught Hikari's attention.
Hikari abruptly turned around, her icy gaze falling upon Sakura. She froze for a moment before a cruel, mocking smile curled across her lips.
"Oh? And who do we have here..." Hikari's tone became almost playful, yet all the more chilling for it.
"So it's Haruno Sakura, a member of the future God's Knights."
She deliberately emphasized the word future, her gaze traveling over the nine-year-old girl trembling before her.
"What a shame. Right now, you haven't even reached the threshold of Shinjutsu. That punch you threw at me in the Heavenly Curtain... it really hurt."
She clenched her fist as though a phantom pain still lingered there, but her expression suddenly turned dangerous.
"Tell me, if I kill you right now, wouldn't that mean... getting rid of a major problem in advance?"
Sakura was struck dumb. The last of her courage shattered completely. Her entire body trembled violently, her teeth chattering so hard that she couldn't force out a single coherent sound. Never before had the shadow of death felt so real.
"Hey! You bastard!" Seeing this, Naruto acted without a second thought and rushed forward, placing himself firmly in front of Sakura. Though he was terrified himself, pure anger burned in his blue eyes.
He glared at Hikari and shouted, "Fine, you want to kill that stuck-up bastard Sasuke! But why are you scaring Sakura too?!"
"And turning people into toys and making everyone forget them! Y-You're absolutely horrible!"
Sasuke, who had only just managed to pull himself out of the turmoil of emotions stirred up by his confrontation with Itachi, immediately had a vein bulge on his forehead when he heard that.
He whipped his head around and glared fiercely at Naruto, forcing out a low growl through clenched teeth.
"Dead last... what do you mean, 'Fine if you kill me'?!"
The fear he had felt earlier and his complicated emotions toward Itachi were suddenly overshadowed by a fresh burst of anger at Naruto's careless slip of the tongue, making the situation even more chaotic and awkward.
"And you, Naruto Uzumaki."
Hikari's gaze finally settled on the blond boy glaring back at her. A flicker of unmistakable wariness flashed through her eyes.
Her eyes slowly swept across Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura as she spoke with an almost fateful, icy mockery.
"The 'protagonists' chosen by the Heavenly Curtain... How rare to see all of you together."
More than anyone, she understood what these three children—still so young and seemingly helpless—would become along the future path of destiny that had been revealed to them: figures capable of shaking the entire shinobi world.
That knowledge did not make her retreat. Instead, it stirred an even deeper killing intent—and a trace of defiance toward that so-called fate, one she herself was unwilling to acknowledge.
After giving the three of them one final, deeply meaningful look, a faint and strange shimmer suddenly rippled around Hikari's body, distorting the air like waves on water.
The next instant, her figure vanished completely and without warning, like a line erased from a page.
"She disappeared?!" Sakura cried out.
Almost at the exact moment Hikari vanished, two figures carrying powerful Chakra signatures arrived at the scene like a gust of wind!
Boom!
Tsunade landed first, fine cracks spreading across the ground beneath her feet. Her brows were tightly furrowed as her sharp eyes swept across the area. When she confirmed that there were no signs of battle and no trace of the enemy, her expression darkened even further.
Jiraiya landed beside her moments later. He quickly formed a series of hand seals and extended his senses. After several moments, he shook his head grimly.
"The spatial disturbance is unusual. There's a lingering trace of some kind of... non-Chakra energy," Jiraiya said solemnly, his tone carrying rare seriousness. "It's that Devil Fruit ability. Looks like she teleported away."
"Tch!" Tsunade clicked her tongue, her face filled with irritation and disgust. "An ability that uses those 'toys' as mediums or coordinates to teleport almost at will... It's troublesome and disgusting! You can't catch her, and you can't guard against her!"
She quickly suppressed her frustration and shifted into command mode. Her voice was firm and decisive as it rang through the area.
"Pass on my orders! Effective immediately, Konoha is entering Level Two Alert! No shinobi are permitted to leave the village alone on missions. All missions must be carried out in teams of at least three, with members watching one another!"
"Double the Anbu and patrol forces! Conduct a thorough search of the entire village! Any suspicious or abnormal toy—especially one capable of moving on its own—is to be isolated and reported immediately upon discovery!"
"Better to investigate a hundred false alarms than let a single threat slip through!"
"Understood," Jiraiya said with a nod. "At the same time, we need to issue an emergency notice to every villager explaining just how dangerous the Toy Fruit's ability is. It doesn't just turn people into toys—it makes everyone forget they ever existed! Everyone needs to stay vigilant, especially when it comes to their children and toys. This needs to be made clear to every person in the village."
The two quickly finalized their response and put it into action without delay.
It was easy to imagine that once those orders were issued, Konoha's toy merchants would face an unprecedented cold spell.
Every doll and toy would become an object of suspicion, and a collapse in business was inevitable.
But compared to the village's safety, that was a trivial price to pay.
Meanwhile—
"Itachi! Uchiha Itachi! Where are you?! Get out here—!!!"
Sasuke's roar shattered the temporary calm.
During the brief chaos caused by Hikari's disappearance and Tsunade and Jiraiya's arrival, Sasuke had suddenly snapped out of the anger provoked by Naruto's slip of the tongue and remembered his true objective. But when he turned back, the place where Itachi had been standing was already empty!
That man had appeared like a ghost and disappeared just as silently as a shadow.
Unwilling to accept it, Sasuke leaped onto a nearby rooftop. His Sharingan spun wildly as he desperately searched for even the faintest trace of Itachi, his voice filled with the fury, frustration, and bone-deep obsession of being abandoned once again.
Below, Tsunade and Jiraiya exchanged a glance. Both saw helplessness—and a trace of bitterness—in each other's eyes.
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