The sunset slanted low, and the daylight dimmed.
The two of them were not looking up at Kaguya Otsutsuki, of course.
If Konome Taketori could kill Kaguya Otsutsuki and feed her to the Ten Tails hatchling, then there would be no need to plant a Divine Tree at all. At this point in time, the softest target to squeeze was only Toneri Otsutsuki, born defective.
He had not yet taken Byakugan to awaken the Tenseigan. The only protection around him was a handful of Otsutsuki puppets. Perhaps he could barely draw on a sliver of the Giant Tenseigan's power, but even so, he would be far easier to kill than Kaguya.
Other than that, Konome Taketori vaguely remembered that Boruto mentioned some Otsutsuki named Isshiki.
But before transmigrating, she had never watched that so called "indestructible legend" in full. She had only scrolled past short clips about him, her information and memories blurred. She only knew he had some kind of ability that resembled an ant-man trick.
Truthfully, if the Tenseigan's abilities were not so absurd, if they had not hooked her curiosity so hard that she went and looked it up, she would not even have known about Toneri in the first place.
"By the way," the Yang Release clone withdrew her gaze and looked at the original, puzzled. "Why would the Otsutsuki bring two Divine Tree seeds?"
"A spare," Konome Taketori replied calmly, recalling the seal-script she had read inside the sphere.
"Not every Divine Tree can successfully produce a chakra fruit. It depends on the quality of the seed, the caliber of the Otsutsuki sacrifice it devours, and the energy density of the planet it parasitizes.
"They can observe and screen the sacrifice's aptitude and a planet's life energy in advance. But whether the seed can truly bear a chakra fruit can only be confirmed after it takes root and blooms.
"If the first seed fails to produce fruit, they activate the second."
"So that's how it is." The clone nodded.
The universe was vast beyond measure. Even the Otsutsuki, crossing the void, would have to spend an unknown number of years. They were not some slapdash outfit. For something as monumental as devouring an entire planet's energy, having a backup plan was only natural.
"If we plant the Divine Tree," the clone said with concern, "we'll probably become the enemy of the entire shinobi world."
"We don't need to plant it, and we can't afford to wait," Konome Taketori said, tightening her grip on the Divine Tree seed. A different light flared in her eyes.
"Six Paths Reverse Eight Gates is only a preliminary success, but it's still far from what we planned."
Planned?
The clone froze, then remembered. At the beginning, the reason they developed Reverse Eight Gates was not to ease the Shikotsumyaku bloodline illness.
Back then, she had not yet devoured the Nine Tails' chakra. The Gray Bone crisis had not erupted. She researched Reverse Eight Gates to devour chakra and convert it into life force, to solve her own lack of chakra.
Later, after discussing with Chihaya Tohru, she used medical ninjutsu's control over life force to bypass that hardest step, converting chakra into life, and only then did Reverse Eight Gates become possible.
Now Reverse Eight Gates could absorb life force, but it still could not absorb chakra and convert it into life. It was only half complete.
"Our Reverse Eight Gates still isn't perfect!" Konome Taketori squeezed the seed like a lifeline.
"The Divine Tree can absorb every kind of energy on a planet.
"Life force, chakra, natural energy, all of it. It converts everything into a chakra fruit that contains limitless power. Even the Otsutsuki can be devoured by a Divine Tree sapling.
"I used to worry that absorbing too much tailed beast chakra would cause Kaguya's will to awaken inside me directly.
"But if we can obtain the Divine Tree's power, then we can convert the chakra of the nine tailed beasts into pure life force, washing away Kaguya's imprint.
"It's like pressing the chakra fruit she once ate back out of her, and refining it into our own chakra fruit.
"No need to plant a tree and become the enemy of the whole world.
"And if my plan succeeds, Kaguya Otsutsuki will never be able to revive again. Instead, the whole world will have to thank me as its savior."
"But the premise for all of that," the Yang Release clone naturally continued, smiling as she fell into step with the original's logic, "is letting the Ten Tails hatchling devour an Otsutsuki sacrifice and become a Divine Tree."
"Nnnngh." Samehada sensed its master's delight and split its giant mouth toward the sky, as if it wanted to charge the moon with Konome Taketori and taste whether Otsutsuki chakra was truly delicious.
"Not yet." The clone patted Samehada's head.
"To reach the moon, we have to find that spatial passage first. We should reach Kage level, kill Danzō, seize Root's command authority, then use Root's intelligence network to find the route. Or we develop flight and force our way up there.
"Either way, with our current strength, talking about the Divine Tree is still too early."
Konome Taketori agreed.
Charging the moon now would be delivering warmth to Toneri.
Kaguya's revival was still far off. Her Byakugan was still in its "quickening" stage, and she did not know when it would fully evolve, nor what kind of dōjutsu it would awaken.
Her Sage Body had only just sprouted. Shikotsumyaku, however, was about to enter its third stage. The imbalance between them was still dangerous.
She needed to devour vast amounts of life energy and raise her Sage Body to the point where it could contend with the Gray Bone, before she dared let that terrifying Gray Bone evolve fully.
By then, with Gray Bone under her control, almost no one in the shinobi world would be able to stop her. Only then would she scheme for the Tenseigan and Toneri on the moon.
With the bloodline illness crisis stabilized, time was finally on her side. She no longer had to be as desperate as before.
She glanced at the dimming sunset. Without realizing it, evening had arrived.
Konome Taketori stretched lazily. The joints of her bones, harder than steel, rubbed together and rang out with a crisp metallic clang, like iron striking iron.
"I'm tired.
"The life force I devoured still needs time to be digested and absorbed. I've been busy with ninjutsu development for months. Now I can finally rest for a while."
"True." The clone felt the same.
They had used shadow clones to accelerate cultivation for so long that even Naruto, built like iron, would not last. Before, the Gray Bone had forced them to stay tense every second. Now everything was moving in the best direction. A real break was deserved, to ease mind and body.
Autumn passed into winter. In the blink of an eye, New Year's drew near.
The sky was a dull gray fog. Heavy snow drifted down like willow fluff, as if it meant to bury Konoha.
Hatake clan grounds.
Steam rose in the room. Konome Taketori wore a one piece white fleece pajama suit, with a little bear hood pulled over her head. Only her delicate, doll like face showed through the bear's "mouth."
Silver hair spilled down both sides of her face. She flipped up like a carp, but did not stand. Instead, she kicked the blanket away and sprawled out in a starfish pose on the raised tatami platform. Short arms, short legs, she looked like an adorable plush toy.
Creak. Crunch.
The stone beneath her complained unhappily.
Behind the blindfold, her Byakugan, now even more luminous, slowly turned. She was enjoying the snowy view outside from her own peculiar angle, only to find the world above and below coated in the same silver white.
"Konome Taketori! The snow is huge today. Aren't you going out to play?"
Might Guy pushed open the door, bringing in a gust of icy wind and snowflakes.
His resolute face was slightly red. Sweat poured off him, heat radiating from his whole body. He had clearly just finished training.
"Ever heard of 'wintering like a cat'?" Konome Taketori lay comfortably, her face already half hidden by the black cloth. With her flowing silver hair covering the other half, she looked ridiculously content.
"What cat winter?" Guy had obviously never heard the term, his sturdy face full of question marks.
"Cats are smart. When it's freezing outside, they don't run out. They stay curled up on the bed indoors. Back in my hometown, we call that 'cat wintering.'"
As she explained the phrase she had once heard from a northern friend, Konome Taketori rolled over.
Beneath her came another chorus of creak creak groan.
Guy eyed the newly built platform with worry, unsure how much longer it could survive under her.
The bed in this room had been crushed by her long ago. They replaced it, but it still could not escape the same fate.
When he repaired and checked it, he found the rebar beneath the bedboards had been bent out of shape. He had no idea how a body that small could be so heavy.
In the end, they moved all the tables, chairs, beds out. Konome Taketori used Earth Style to raise solid blocks of earth, poured chakra into them to harden and densify them, and even repaved the floor. Only then could she sleep in peace.
"You've slept for over two months," Guy insisted. "You should get up and move a little! Youth is all about exercise!"
He had no idea what happened to the former workaholic.
Ever since he and Kakashi returned from their mission, she had been sprawled on the bed. Occasionally she would vanish mysteriously for a while, then come back and "play dead" again. The scariest part was that she did not even want to eat. When asked, she always said she was not hungry, or she had already eaten. He and Kakashi had not seen her eat a proper meal in ages.
Later he could not hold it in and asked directly. She only told him it was a "side effect" from developing a secret technique, not a bad thing.
He even went to the Third Hokage for it. But the old man only sighed, patted his shoulder, and told him not to bother Konome Taketori. That expression looked like she had some terminal illness.
"Nope." Konome Taketori tugged the bear hood down and buried her face completely in the fleece. Warm all over, she felt like she was soaking in a heated bath.
The effect of Reverse Eight Gates was even more overbearing than she had imagined.
After devouring every tree and beast within a full kilometer around that waterfall, she had abruptly entered this state.
Her body turned soft and hot. Warm currents surged from the deepest layers of flesh. Her muscles writhed, exactly like when she first awakened "flesh manipulation." Even the hardened cells filtered by Lightning Release Chakra Mode grew lively and brimming with vitality under that warmth.
Her mind drifted as if she were riding the wind, weightless. Yet she could clearly feel something filling her intangible soul, compressing it, tempering it, as if loose cotton were being forged into steel. Tough, full, complete.
Her teeth, nails, hair all naturally shed, then grew back quickly, stronger and healthier. Even her skin began to peel and renew itself, replaced by a new layer that was softer and more lustrous.
Her Sage Body did not merely push her Byakugan into its quickening. It was as if her whole being had returned to the womb, evolving into a higher lifeform under limitless life force.
During this time, she had become addicted.
Whenever the effect weakened, she would sprint to the Forest of Death and "eat" again, then return to the bed to bask in the tide of life, waiting for her soul and body to ascend further.
The Yang Release clone had even asked Senju Tsubaki-hime for information about Sage Body, but got nothing resembling Konome Taketori's situation.
Sage Body was either something you were born with, or something you would never have.
Most of the Senju were born with it. No one awakened it through cultivation the way Konome Taketori did, so naturally there was no precedent.
Seeing how lazy Konome Taketori was, Guy shook his head, feeling like Konoha's number one genius was "falling" in the direction of Kakashi.
That guy, after returning from the mission, had also started "cat wintering."
He clutched the newest volume of Icha Icha Paradise and refused to let go. He lay in bed every day, yet dark circles formed around his eyes. Who knew what he was doing every night?
Was "genius" a curse?
A thought popped into Guy's mind, then he violently threw it away as ridiculous.
The man with world shaking wisdom had no idea he had brushed against a sliver of truth. Konoha's prodigies really did not have good endings.
"Konome Taketori! Ko no me!"
While Guy was still thinking of ways to drag her off the platform, a voice outside suddenly rang out, bright and excited.
From the voice alone, he knew who it was.
Ninja Academy was on winter break. That little blond brat had been coming here every few days.
Knock knock.
The newcomer was loud, but very polite when knocking. Guy thought so at first, but the moment he opened the door, he regretted everything.
"Hello, mister!"
A boy with a red scarf wrapped around his neck, wearing a yellow padded coat with the Uzumaki clan crest on the back, pushed up the goggles on his forehead. His blond hair was damp, the snowflakes on it melting fast.
Mister.
The two syllables hit Guy like a lethal strike.
He froze on the spot, turning gray-white like a statue.
I'm only twenty!
How did I become a "mister" already?
Do I look that old?
Konome Taketori was hiding under her blindfold on the bed, but the moment that abundant life force appeared in her perception, she already knew Naruto had arrived.
Byakugan pierced the cloth. She saw Guy being petrified by a single word, and she almost laughed.
There was an old saying. The more someone emphasizes something, the more they lack it.
Guy trained outside year round. Wind and sun had aged his face early. He was young, but looked older than Kakashi by a full generation.
"Naruto, why are you here?" Konome Taketori pushed her hair aside and propped herself up, the bear hood drooping with floppy ears. She looked like an oversized plush doll.
Seeing her adorable look, Naruto's ears, already red from the cold, flushed even deeper. His booming voice softened into a shy mumble.
"Tomorrow is the Spring Festival, so… so I wanted to wish you a happy New Year!"
As he spoke, he pulled out a small gift box tied with a bow.
His feet kept rubbing the floor, as if he wanted to grind a hole straight through the chakra reinforced ground.
Beside him, Guy, still half petrified, narrowed his eyes. His thick eyebrows pinched tight, suspicion flashing in the tiny slits.
This blond kid…
Something's off.
------------------------------------------------------------------------
Don't forget to add this story to your Library, drop a review, and leave a Power Stone if you enjoyed it!
Craving more chapters? Join my Patron to unlock advance releases and dive deeper into the story!
[email protected]/_theon
Change @ to "a"