Kisame said, "Come if you want. Bring as many as you like—it's all delivery." That wasn't an exaggeration.
The Otsutsuki clan was weak. Even one of their so-called "Three Great Pillars," wasn't much better. So when the enemy showed up—over a hundred Otsutsuki—no one in the Akatsuki even flinched.
Even the weakest among them, Sakura, could send several Otsutsuki flying with a single punch.
Still, the Akatsuki's overwhelming coordination didn't come from strength alone.
It came from Konan's constant battlefield foresight.
"Obito—prepare Kamui. Itachi, Kakuzu—charge your techniques. Kita, three o'clock—defense ready. Nagato—Shinra Tensei on standby. Hidan—Deidara, aerial support."
Her voice echoed directly inside everyone's mind.
Obito phased into intangibility. Itachi's Susanoo manifested, the Totsuka Blade sweeping forward. Kakuzu merged with his masked beasts, unleashing a massive technique.
BOOM!
Attacks collided midair—one piercing through Obito's intangibility, slamming into another force behind him. Before the shockwave could spread—
BOOM!
Nagato's Shinra Tensei erased it all. In one coordinated chain, more than a dozen Otsutsuki were wiped out. Even Sakura briefly thought, aren't we bullying them a little too much?
But then the three Otsutsuki leaders finally became angry. The ones already shaken were compressed into unstable spheres before they could even regroup. And then, one acted alone.
Konan felt it. A chakra so immense it felt like the world itself had inhaled. She saw something, something she shouldn't have been able to accept.
The battlefield after devastation. Broken land didn't matter. It wasn't her world. But she couldn't accept it.
Not Nagato, shattered beyond recognition. Not Kita, reduced to ash. Not Obito, torn into fragments. Not Kakuzu, disassembled beyond repair. Not Hidan, reduced to a blood-soaked ruin.
Not Itachi, missing half his body. Not Kisame, down to bones. Not Sakura, collapsed and unmoving. Not Deidara, erased mid-explosion.
"Konan! KONAN!!" Nagato's voice broke through. She snapped back.
Everyone was still alive. Still breathing. Still here. Nothing had happened yet. Everything was about to.
Konan smiled faintly. Wind lifted her paper-like hair. Kita, this feels like that night again.
"NO, KONAN!" Kita's shout rang out. But Konan already knew.
She looked at them all. "Nagato, Kita, Obito, Deidara, Kakuzu, Hidan, Itachi, Kisame, Sakura, all of you, please make it home alive."
Then the world collapsed. And she rose alone into the sky. White paper wings scattered like falling petals, facing this Otsutsuki at the zenith of the sun, leaving everyone behind, leaving everything behind.
Kita reached out desperately, fighting gravity. But she couldn't reach her. Blood stained her teeth as she fell endlessly downward through stone, broken trees, blood-soaked paper fragments. "NO!!"
Konan. His final technique was mutual destruction, erasing an entire space along with everything inside it. So Konan detonated every explosive tag on her body first.
BOOM! Space itself fractured. Stars. The void. Endless cosmos.
To Konan, it almost felt beautiful. If death looked like this, it wasn't so bad. At least it was peaceful. I can wait for Nagato and Kita here.
Then panic struck. Wait, this isn't home!! Am I stuck here forever?!
Before her panic could spiral further, a figure appeared. Red clouds on a black cloak. Long hair. A face so familiar it hurt. Yet fundamentally different.
Konan stared. "So, you're the Shinigami?"
The figure shook their head. "You are not dead. I am not the Shinigami."
What kind of nonsense is this?
The voice continued, "I am you. You are me. I am your future. You are my past."
Konan's eyes twitched. If I ever talk like this in the future, I'll punch myself.
The figure changed outfits at will, first Akatsuki cloak, then a white patterned robe. Konan stepped back. "Don't use my face like that. Not Nagato's face either! Definitely not Yahiko's!! Then what do you want?"
"Stop talking like that and tell me where I am. Who are you? Am I dead or not?"
"This is the void realm. I am you. You are me."
"I don't believe you."
"I see everything you see." The world shifted. Battlefields unfolded around them. Konan refused to look.
"You're wrong," she said coldly. "If you were me, you wouldn't feel nothing. I would never abandon them. My love, my bonds, my will, those define me."
Silence. Then, "Life and the 'God Tree' cannot be seen without us. We are one existence split. I cannot see without you. You cannot manifest without me."
Konan stepped back further. "So my future has no one in it?"
"I do not know."
Konan smiled. "Then you're not me."
The space shifted again. Now Akatsuki lay submerged in a strange fluid-like void. Dying. Fading.
"Can they be saved?"
"I cannot save them. You can."
"Then how?" A hand extended again. Konan refused it.
"I won't become you. If that's my future, I reject it."
"Irrelevant. You will live forever."
"I don't want forever." Her voice hardened. "If I lose them to gain eternity, then I choose to die here."