"Sure."
Faced with Chihaya Tooru's invitation, Konome Taketori returned the same polite, fabricated smile.
If she wanted to learn medical ninjutsu, he was a useful stepping stone. But she had never forgotten what she'd seen above his head the day she came to the hospital, that terrifying greed and hunger.
That emotion had felt like a vast subterranean cavern, so dark not a sliver of light could reach its depths.
After leaving the hospital, she had even kept him under her Byakugan's watch for a long time.
The medical report about her on his desk, the unknown codes scribbled on white paper, all of it pointed to the same fact.
This man's identity was a problem, and he had some sort of plan involving her.
As a shadow clone, her job wasn't only to cultivate for the original body. At its most basic, it was also to clear obstacles, probe threats, and map danger.
If something happened to her, it was still infinitely better than the original being endangered.
"Sensei Chihaya… is your home far?" Konome Taketori asked casually, as if the question meant nothing.
"Housing in central Konoha is expensive."
He wore a bitter smile of poverty. The dimples in his cheeks sank in deeper as he took off his white coat. Then he led Konome Taketori out of Konoha Hospital, one behind the other.
They walked down the street.
Sparse golden leaves were crushed underfoot, cracking with crisp little snaps.
It was the weekend. The pedestrians had none of the usual weary rush.
A slightly plump middle aged man slung an arm around someone's shoulder and slipped beneath an izakaya's curtain. A girl in a short skirt laughed, her bare legs bright in the afternoon.
Chihaya Tooru didn't even glance up. Head lowered, he trudged forward step by step, like a camel hauling cargo across a desert.
Above him, two emotion glows, one black and one gold, churned and tangled like storm clouds colliding.
Behind him, Konome Taketori kept her hands behind her back. The chakra in her body flowed in thin streams.
"Academy Konome Taketori" had the least chakra, almost negligible. Next was "Yin Release Konome Taketori," not a priority for training.
But today, because she had class, she'd been given the most.
About a third of the original's reserves.
With her absurd chakra quality included, it was more than an ordinary jōnin's total.
Her pale Byakugan fixed onto Chihaya Tooru's withered body. His chakra was even less than this clone's, his physique weak to the point of being laughable.
If he showed the slightest abnormality, he would be met with a thunderous strike powerful enough to kill a jōnin.
"Sensei Chihaya," Konome Taketori asked, forcing down the killing intent that Lightning Release kept stoking, "the life energy produced by medical ninjutsu… how is it different from real vitality?"
Chihaya Tooru paused for a beat, then kept walking as he answered.
"The difference is simple. One is fake. One is real."
Konome Taketori narrowed her eyes. "Meaning?"
"It's the same as your Water Release. The water you create, is it real water? If you drink it, will it quench thirst? If it can, it's real. If it can't, it's fake."
He didn't stop, his voice flat.
"Medical ninjutsu is Yang Release. In essence it's just chakra that resembles vitality. It's still very far from true life force."
"But Water Release chakra can control water in the outside world."
Chihaya Tooru glanced back at her as if she were slow.
"You don't really think the entire healing effect comes from that 'fake life force' your chakra mimics, do you? How much chakra would it take to heal a single person then?"
He turned forward again.
"If someone has lost their life force, medical ninjutsu can't save them. There are exceptions, of course. If you're willing to pour your own life into someone else… you might be able to rebuild a life."
Pour life into someone else.
Konome Taketori's eyes flashed.
A technique like Chiyo's, the one that revived Gaara.
Turning chakra into life force was something only a handful of people in the entire shinobi world could do. But using medical ninjutsu to manipulate someone else's existing vitality?
That sounded… easier.
She had been fixated on converting bijū chakra into pure life force. That step was too huge, too ambitious.
But if she could temporarily bypass conversion altogether, extract life force directly from others, and inject it into the "Gate" within her Eight Gates?
That might be a path.
Borrow what already exists.
Lower technical difficulty.
And it didn't require human "materials," nor did it mean fighting tailed beasts head on.
Even a carp's vitality was lively when you looked at it.
If she slowly siphoned life force from ordinary animals first, she could blunt the Kaguya Bone Pulse crisis hanging over her head. Then, later, she could search for a true conversion method at her own pace.
Sensei Chihaya… you just did me a massive favor.
The tangled mess inside her head suddenly cleared. Sparks flew as new ideas collided, and both of them fell into silence, each wrapped in their own thoughts.
Crunch. Crunch.
Dry leaves whispered underfoot.
The autumn evening wind was clean and sharp, carrying a faint chill that crept into the bones.
Konome Taketori rubbed her arms and lifted her head.
Before she realized it, they had walked far beyond the busy streets. The people were gone. The road itself was fading away.
Under her feet, pavement had become a rough dirt path.
The plants along the roadside grew wild and dense. Massive canopies swallowed what little architecture remained, casting a lattice of black shadows across the ground.
Chihaya Tooru continued ahead, unhurried and relentless, showing no sign of stopping.
"Not there yet?" Konome Taketori asked.
"Mmm. My home's… out of the way."
His voice no longer carried that earlier warmth. It was cold now. Dismissive. As if this, finally, was who he really was.
Konome Taketori followed, her gaze sweeping the trees.
And then she felt it.
Twelve glaring chakra signatures had already surrounded them.
Crunch.
A leaf was ground into pulp beneath a black shinobi boot.
Konome Taketori stopped. Behind her back, fingers began to crackle with electricity.
"Doesn't seem that out of the way to me," she said softly. "At least you've got plenty of neighbors."
Whoosh.
A shuriken flashed out of the dense brush, spinning straight for Konome Taketori's cheek.
Test first with a shuriken before committing.
Was that some universal shinobi rule written into every tactics textbook?
Konome Taketori couldn't help the internal jab.
Lightning surged through her nervous system. Pure ocular chakra cloaked the space around her.
Hum.
Lightning Chakra Mode and the Byakugan reinforced each other.
Faster reflexes, paired with terrifying dynamic vision.
The rapidly spinning shuriken looked like a fan with its power cut, slowing to a crawl. She could count the nicks along the blade.
Four chips.
A battlefield veteran, no doubt.
Konome Taketori studied the twelve masked figures emerging from the shadows. Only when the shuriken reached her did she finally move.
Three fingers pinched it cleanly.
The shuriken's violent momentum vanished, docile in her hand, like a dead leaf falling from a branch.
She tightened her grip through the hole in its center.
Bzzzt.
Lightning poured out of her heart.
High energy particles activated her muscle cells into frantic motion. Fibers contracted in unison, condensing monstrous force into her fingertips.
Above.
At the very top of the canopy.
A woman blended into the leaves, perfectly still. Only her chakra core flickered like a firefly.
A peacock flaunting its tail.
Begging to be noticed.
And she succeeded.
Konome Taketori's Byakugan tightened, locking onto that core.
Tendons snapped taut like a drawn bow.
Power surged from her feet, through calf and thigh, through hip and torso, through arm, into the very tips of her fingers, forming a flawless chain of force.
A flick.
Bang.
Her tendons thrummed like a war bow releasing.
The shuriken became a blur.
Then.
"Uh…"
The masked kunoichi in the treetop lowered her head in disbelief.
Hair spilled over her chest, but it couldn't hide the fountain of blood.
At her heart, flesh had been torn open by an invisible, overwhelming force, leaving a starburst cavity the size of a bowl.
Blood sprayed.
Golden sunlight pierced through her back, illuminating her widening eyes.
This was the first time she had ever seen sunlight like this.
So… fast…
Boom.
Crash.
Her corpse dropped from the canopy, scattering dead leaves, then slammed into the ground. Blood splashed and stained the forest floor a dark red.
No mourning.
No roar.
The remaining eleven shadows stepped out and formed a fan shaped encirclement around Konome Taketori.
The spiral patterns on their masks turned slowly in the leaf shadows, like eyes peering into a heart.
Chihaya Tooru remained cold as ever. He moved forward through the crowd, leaving only his thin back behind.
Four jōnin level chakra signatures.
Seven special jōnin.
What a lavish welcome.
That suffocating silence.
Root?
Electric arcs snapped between Konome Taketori's fingers.
The silver haired "blind girl" tilted her head and smiled, a pure, innocent expression more chilling than cruelty.
"Everyone… need something?"
The answer was killing intent, sharp as a blade.
Whoosh. Whoosh.
Two ANBU charged with kunai.
Their sprint became two black lines, closing the distance in a blink.
At the same time, four jōnin formed seals in perfect sync. Their hands blurred into afterimages. A strange Yin Release power leaped across space.
Some unknown Earth Release, Water Release, and Wind Release lit up in tandem.
A piercing wind tore through the air.
Clatter clatter clatter.
Five steel cables shot from the sleeves of five special jōnin, striking from different angles. Pale blue chakra shimmered along the ends.
That glow outlined an absurdly complex construct, snapping toward the blue figure at the center like a mad beast.
Taijutsu, genjutsu, ninjutsu, sealing arts.
A net. A cage.
A perfect kill.
The pressure and precision, mixed with raw intent to murder, reached its peak in an instant.
Konome Taketori's heart hammered.
Byakugan.
Crack.
Like a glass cup shattering on concrete.
The sinister Yin Release was crushed by ocular power. Whatever genjutsu was about to bloom collapsed into fragments of light before it could even take shape.
Now the two taijutsu specialists arrived.
An arm carved a crescent through the air.
One leapt overhead, blade raised, stabbing for Konome Taketori's crown point. The other held a kunai in reverse grip, low and predatory, aiming for her abdomen like a starving wolf.
Bzzzt.
A blinding flash.
Their vision went white.
Konome Taketori's eyes turned vicious.
She tilted her head, letting the overhead strike whistle past. Her black shinobi boot stomped down midair, pinning the kunai aimed at her stomach.
Using that foothold, she spun.
Her right leg slammed into the ANBU's neck below.
A black arc cut the air like a new moon.
Crack.
Blood mist and bone fragments exploded.
The ANBU's neck snapped, head hanging at a grotesque angle, dripping like a crimson lantern under a New Year's eave.
Then Konome Taketori's mouth opened, a green gleam gathering inside. Her soft tongue flicked lightly toward the other ANBU, close enough to see his mask.
Hum.
In an instant, he split from the forehead down, torn clean in half by Wind Release.
Thud.
He hit the ground.
The wind had been too fast. His left and right brain hadn't even processed that they were separated yet. His limbs scraped the earth, each half trying to crawl in opposite directions.
In less than a quarter second, the two special jōnin had been erased.
Only then did the barrage of elemental ninjutsu and the iron lock sealing arrive.
Boom.
Wind, water, and earth collided. Chakra detonated into a terrifying shockwave.
The two corpses were shredded by leaking Wind Release, flesh mixing with dirt as it sprayed. The steel locks were blown apart.
Rumble.
Trees toppled. Leaves burst into the air.
A massive cloud of dust swallowed the center of the battlefield.
No one asked the useless question, "Is it done?"
The Wind Release shinobi quickly formed three simplified seals and exhaled.
Whooo.
A harmless gust pushed the dust aside, revealing a vast crater of yellow earth.
At the center was a smear of crimson, flesh and mud kneaded together, unrecognizable.
"She's dead," the Wind Release ANBU said, scanning the remains with the same indifference as a glacier.
"She won't die."
Chihaya Tooru stood among them, staring at the crater, voice utterly certain.
As Konome Taketori's attending physician, no one understood better how grotesque her survival was.
A wound so deep her lungs were exposed, and she could sleep it off. The next day, the Third Hokage could be pushing her around the hospital like she was on a casual stroll. Three days later, discharged.
And that chakra, saturated with Yang.
Just being bathed in its glow made plants sprout new buds.
He even suspected that monster could regrow flesh within hours even if you skinned her and broke her bones apart.
"Find her!"
The ANBU who had used genjutsu finally shook off the backlash, pressing fingers to his throbbing temples. His sensing technique spread across the area.
"She's there!"
His shout snapped everyone's attention to the direction of his pointing hand.
About twenty meters above the ground, on a bent branch near the canopy, a small figure stood balanced on one foot, looking down at them.
Black clothes.
Lightning draped over her like a cloak.
They couldn't see her expression at that distance, but the crushing pressure felt real, heavy on their chests, making it hard to breathe.
Genjutsu was useless.
"Tanuki," a master of concealment and assassination, had been killed by a single shuriken.
The speed based taijutsu pair, "Wolf" and "Hawk," one was kicked to death, the other split apart by something unseen.
And speed didn't even need further discussion. Ordinary ninjutsu and sealing arts could barely catch a high speed taijutsu user like this.
According to the intelligence Chihaya Tooru had provided, her recovery and defense were also top tier.
Besides that, she had the widely known hand signless Water Release, a bloodline ability of unknown nature, and possibly even the Eight Gates.
A foe with no weaknesses.
As the masked shinobi replayed the information in their minds like a lantern reel, their breathing grew heavier, more oppressed.
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