At dawn the next day, with the sky just beginning to brighten—
Amid a series of system notifications, Kai slowly woke atop the wall.
He turned his head and looked back at the place he'd lived for so many years.
Perhaps it was the early hour.
Or perhaps it was because the struggle in Konoha had finally tipped in his favor.
The Uchiha compound was unusually peaceful.
The tension and sharpness were gone. In their place was calm.
From time to time, a few sleepy kids would scamper out, dash to the latrine, then hurry back inside, flop onto the floor, shut their eyes, and fall back into dreams.
For some reason, seeing this scene made three words surface in Kai's mind:
This is nice.
This kind of quiet life—that was how normal people were meant to live.
Tap.
At the same moment, not far away, a tall white-haired man in wooden clogs dropped down from a tree.
Seeing the dark circles under the man's eyes, Kai couldn't help but glance over twice.
Did he… go pick a fight last night?
But thinking about it—
In all of Konoha, who was actually qualified to fight Jiraiya?
And still beat him up this badly?
Unless—
Jiraiya hadn't fought back at all.
Didn't fight back…
Kai's eyes lit up.
In all of Konoha, there was really only one kind of thing that could make Jiraiya refuse to raise a hand.
He raised an eyebrow and asked directly:
"So… when you went back to the village last night, were you really 'looking for someone'?"
"Cough, cough…" Jiraiya cleared his throat, clearly guilty. "Sacrificing oneself for art."
Then, without missing a beat, he changed the subject.
"Let's go. Best to move while it's still cool."
Kai nodded and didn't expose the embarrassment of this lonely old bachelor.
He simply followed behind.
Rustle—rustle—rustle.
Before long, the two figures vanished beyond Konoha's outskirts.
Several days later.
At the border of the Land of Rain.
Inside a dense forest, two figures were rapidly weaving through the trees.
Up front, Jiraiya kept glancing back with his peripheral vision.
His breathing was growing heavier.
But what churned even more violently—
was his heart.
Unbelievable… that kid's stamina is this ridiculous.
Days of nonstop high-speed travel.
Even he—one of the legendary Sannin—was starting to lose rhythm in his breathing.
If this kept up, he wouldn't be able to maintain this pace much longer.
But behind him, Kai's breathing hadn't changed at all.
More than that—
The kid would sometimes stop in place and vanish entirely, only to reappear behind him again a short while later.
It honestly made Jiraiya suspect that Kai thought he was too slow and had gone off to play somewhere.
Boom—!
A sudden thunderclap tore through the sky.
The closer they got to Amegakure, the darker the clouds overhead became.
Sheets of rain fell like a gray curtain, draping the entire country beneath them.
The air wasn't just humid and sticky—
There was also a faint, metallic smell mixed in.
"Feel that?" Jiraiya lowered his voice, wiping rain from his face, expression grim.
"This rain… something's wrong with it."
"There's chakra in it. Extremely faint, but it's there."
Kai didn't respond, only gave a soft "Mm."
The reason he'd been disappearing along the way was simple—
he'd been leaving Flying Thunder God markers.
If one could see his vision, they'd notice a dense green area on the map in his pupils, stretching out into a long, thin green line.
Over a hundred kilometers long.
The cluster of green marked Konoha.
And that thin line was the route all the way to the Land of Rain.
More importantly—
Kai slowly activated the Byakugan.
Within a two-kilometer radius, every raindrop's chakra flow became crystal clear.
Hidden within the endless drizzle were countless tiny chakra threads—so faint they were nearly impossible to detect.
They wove together in the sky like a spiderweb, slowly falling with the rain.
Every scrap of information beneath the rainfall was being transmitted straight into the depths of Amegakure.
"So it is Pain's Rain Tiger at Will."
His thoughts stirred.
Casually, Kai scattered several strands of purple, nano-scale poisonous insects along the way.
Not many.
But perfectly concealed as they blended into the rain.
These were his extended "eyes" and "ears."
Crack.
Just as the insects spread out, Kai stopped without warning.
Jiraiya instantly tensed. "What is it?"
"Taking a break," Kai replied casually, leaning against a tree.
His eyes were already locked onto the system notification.
A brand-new prompt.
[Ding. Six days have passed. Congratulations, Host, you have obtained +1 Epic Enhancement Point.]
[Can be used to enhance Epic-tier and below traits.]
An enhancement point.
More precisely—
a bonus produced by his special trait Six-Six Fortune.
That was why Kai had paused.
"So… only purple and below can be enhanced right now?"
After a brief hesitation, he opened his status panel.
[Chakra: 3,591,015]
[Traits: Thousand Years of Pain (Black), Body of Light (Rainbow), Weak Presence (Rainbow), Six-Six Fortune (Rainbow), Three Meters Ahead (Gold)…]
[Tailed Beast Cloak (Purple), Mount Myōboku Toad Contract (Purple), Phantom Flash Step (Purple), Mangekyō Sharingan (Purple), Byakugan (Purple), Adamantine Sealing—Incomplete (Purple), Cloud-Flow Body Art (Purple), Mind Transfer Technique (Purple), Phantom Without a Trace (Purple)…]
Without realizing it, even golden traits—
things most people would never see in their lives—
had become almost too many to count.
But his real focus remained on the purple ones.
Finally, his gaze settled on Phantom Without a Trace.
A trait he'd nurtured for six years.
That ghostlike speed had helped him countless times.
And in unfamiliar territory, speed was everything.
"System—enhance Phantom Without a Trace."
[Ding. Enhancing…]
[Enhancement successful. Trait evolved into Legendary: Phase Rush.]
[Flexibility +100% → +200%]
[Speed +100% → +200%]
[Reaction +50%]
[Additional effect: Three-stage short-range blink. Leaves three afterimages at the origin. Re-activation allows the user to return to any afterimage and detonate the remaining two.]
Kai's brain stalled for a moment.
Isn't this just Dragon Dash plus Flash Step?
Only—
faster.
Shorter range.
And nastier.
He grinned, then activated it right in front of Jiraiya's stunned gaze.
Whoosh—whoosh—whoosh!
Three violet-blue streaks burst out instantly.
"That fast?!" Jiraiya rubbed his eyes hard, pupils nearly popping out.
This wasn't just "fast" anymore.
"Even that muscle-brained 'fastest man in the ninja world' probably couldn't keep up."
"And these three… shadow clones? No, something's off…"
"Maybe I should get closer and see—"
Muttering, Jiraiya followed his instincts and reached out to touch one.
Then—
BOOM!
BOOM BOOM!
The most brilliant fireworks often explode in the simplest ways.
"Sh—!"
Jiraiya's face twisted as he barely managed to retreat in time.
Still, his hair was blown into a pitch-black explosion afro.
"You—"
He was about to speak when his gaze froze.
A massive tree ahead had been blown apart.
And behind it stood a pale, naked, human-shaped thing.
The creature had been squatting there, munching happily on something.
It paused.
Slowly turned its head.
Its mouth—
smeared orange-yellow.
Chewing.
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