Gojo Yoru went to chat with Konan almost every three days or once a week. Sometimes, when he was bored, he'd even go see her every day just to spend time together and deepen their bond.
Communication inside the mental world worked on a principle similar to the chakra connection the Sage of Six Paths had comprehended. It magnified emotions to the extreme. There was no room for deceit or hidden agendas there.
Naruto, especially in the original story, had been exceptionally good at this. Through spiritual communication via chakra, he saw Obito Uchiha's past and dreams, reached mutual understanding with Sasuke Uchiha, and ultimately completely conquered both of those Uchiha. He made the former willing to die for him, and the latter willing to abandon hatred and his ideas of revolution, becoming the Uzumaki family's ultimate enforcer.
Over these past few years, Yoru and Konan had never met in person, yet their relationship had advanced at astonishing speed.
Because conversations in the mental world were practically like conversations between souls, it became much easier for them to understand each other's thoughts, and their emotions were easily infected and resonated with one another.
Especially when Yoru took over Konan's body, it was like teaching her hand in hand. That only made the girl admire him more and more, and at an age when love had just begun to bloom, she naturally developed a hazy kind of affection for him.
That emotion, too, was amplified to the extreme in the mental world.
Yoru had already noticed that Konan's feelings for him had qualitatively changed, but he had no intention of exposing it or rejecting it. He was content to wait until things happened naturally.
If he hadn't felt anything for someone, he would never have taken the initiative to change their fate.
And there had only ever been three people whose original destinies he had actively altered.
The first was Kushina Uzumaki. To Yoru, her place was uniquely special. The feelings that had grown from childhood to now had long since shed any calculation and become nothing but pure affection.
Whether Kushina became some kind of enforcer or not didn't matter anymore. All Yoru wanted was for that "Tomato-Na" to live happily.
The second was Konan. Back then, he had reached out to this girl with both goodwill and calculation in mind.
But after all these years, with Yoru now standing at the peak of the ninja world in terms of power, emotion had already overtaken calculation. He no longer saw Konan as a tool.
Just as Konan would, without hesitation, choose to sacrifice herself if it meant Yoru could live, even if she were forced to pick between her own life and his.
Likewise, if there ever came a day when the immortality plan ran into trouble and Konan and Nagato were in danger, and Yoru had to choose between Konan surviving or preserving the Rinnegan, he would pick Konan without a moment's hesitation.
As long as the fated conflict between Asura and Indra hadn't yet ended, Yoru was confident he could create a second pair of Rinnegan.
And even if that failed, he could still wait for Momoshiki or the other Otsutsuki from outer space to show up, then use them to realize his immortality plan.
The last was Tsunade.
Yoru had originally assumed he would never have any real connection with a woman an entire generation older than him, someone of Orochimaru's generation.
Even though she was stunningly beautiful and absolutely deserved the title of the number one beauty in the ninja world, Yoru had never planned to get close to her.
But the mission to infiltrate Amegakure created a connection between them. What happened in that cave tore down the barrier of age between them.
Then after the whole Nawaki incident, their conversations drew Tsunade to him, and she kept coming back to ask how her reform ideas could be improved.
That was also when Yoru decided to alter her original fate, letting her master the Yin Seal years early so her beauty would remain frozen in the finest years of her life.
Later, teaching medical ninjutsu after the war, living together, and the whole "nesting in the magpie's nest" situation all caused his relationship with Tsunade to change in a fundamental way.
It was only because Kushina was always there, and because of the age gap, that the two of them subconsciously ignored that change.
On the third day after Konan, on her own initiative, accepted Yahiko's invitation and returned to Amegakure with Nagato, Yoru did what he always did: he used the space-time version of the Spirit Transformation Technique and appeared beside Konan via teleportation.
"This is…"
The moment Yoru, in spirit form, was about to enter Konan's mental space, he immediately sensed something was off.
Through the window, looking out at the steel buildings everywhere and the pouring rain over the village, Yoru recognized the place at a glance.
It was Amegakure, a place he had only ever visited twice.
Looking at Konan, who had simply arranged the room a bit, set up barrier seals around it, and was now sitting cross-legged on the bed as though refining chakra, Yoru's spirit form revealed an intrigued expression.
It seemed Konan had gone through quite a lot these past few days.
So he turned into a beam of light and slipped into her body.
"Yoru-sama!"
Konan seemed to have been waiting for him all along.
The instant she entered the familiar mental world that resembled a galaxy, her face bloomed with a dazzling smile rarely seen even by Nagato, and she threw herself into Yoru's arms.
Years had passed. The girl who had once only barely been able to hug Yoru around the waist was now only twenty-three centimeters shorter than him, about a head shorter.
Logically, with that height difference, acting like a little girl and clinging to him no longer really fit.
But the girl, who had already begun to develop certain feelings in her first stirrings of love, kept deliberately taking advantage of Yoru's indulgence and acting this way on purpose.
"And here I thought you were already the famous Angel-sama. Why are you still this clingy?"
Like always, Yoru wrapped one arm around Konan, ruffled her hair with the other, and teased her with a smile.
Unlike the simple girl she had once been, Konan had gone through tremendous change over the years.
She still refused to leave Yoru's embrace. She merely tilted her head up, smiling so brightly her eyes curved into crescents, then teased him back.
"If I didn't act all clingy, how would a bounty hunter like me ever trick the Number One on the black market wanted list—the miracle made flesh whose bounty's already gone past two hundred million ryo—into trusting me?"
"I see. So you only want my bounty. Looks like I'll just have to deal with you properly, then."
Yoru immediately put on a ferocious face and started tickling Konan.
"Hahaha—!"
Inside the mental world, their bodies felt exactly the same as they did in reality.
Konan rolled around laughing on the floor, tears coming out from how hard she was laughing, and begged for mercy again and again. "Yo-Yoru-sama, I was wrong, spare me, hahaha—!"
The cold and holy angel the world saw only revealed the lively nature she had never really lost in front of Yoru.
Yoru didn't immediately ask why Konan was in Amegakure. Instead, he played with her for a while. Only after that did the two of them lie down on the starry river of the mental world, admiring the scenery that never got old, and gradually move into the real topic.
"Oh? So all that happened?"
After hearing Konan's report, Yoru grew visibly interested, and even smiled as though he couldn't help himself.
In the original story, Yahiko had willingly died because of Hanzo's promise, and later Hanzo had in turn died at Yahiko's hands. You could say it was mutual fulfillment.
But now, under the butterfly effect caused by Yoru, Hanzo and Yahiko had become master and disciple, and yet Hanzo still hadn't escaped death.
And Yahiko, too, still couldn't escape becoming a tool.
The difference was that, in the original story, he became Nagato's strongest puppet. Now, he had become one of Uchiha Madara's pieces.
What Yoru hadn't expected was that Madara was this impatient. Even before Obito Uchiha, he had cultivated Yahiko as a piece and deliberately had him approach Nagato, teaching him Yin-Yang Release and the Six Paths techniques ahead of time. What exactly was his objective?
Could it be that, because Nagato had grown faster than in the original story under Konan's care, he had already become qualified to use Samsara of Heavenly Life, and Madara wanted to revive himself as quickly as possible?
Or did he have some other motive?
At that point, Konan's guilty voice reached Yoru's ears.
"Yoru-sama, I'm sorry… I made this decision on my own without discussing it with you first."
Looking down at the girl lying on his chest with a guilty expression, Yoru couldn't help but cup her face in both hands and rub it vigorously, praising her as he did. "Why are you apologizing? You didn't do anything wrong. In fact, you handled it perfectly. The only way to find out who these people really are and what they want was to get close to them. The fact that you chose rationally to cooperate instead of blindly running proves how much you've grown. I'm proud of you."
"Hehe, I knew Yoru-sama wouldn't blame me."
Konan seemed like she had already known he'd say that. Her face, squished out of shape from all the rubbing, broke into a grin again, and it instantly melted Yoru's heart.
After rubbing her cheeks for a while, Yoru smiled in a meaningful way. "Since he wants to recruit you, then go along with him. Let's see what he's planning next."
"Okay."
Konan nodded obediently.
Then, as if recalling something, her expression turned serious again, and her eyes filled with wariness.
"But he's very strong. Not only can he use the Wood Release that once pacified the world, even summoning a wooden Buddha giant as huge as a mountain, but the white substance on him seems just like the white creatures you mentioned before. It can merge with the earth and plants, completely erase its presence, move at high speed, and even Nagato's Mind's Eye of the Kagura can't detect it."
"And once he merges with the Wood Golem like that, even if Nagato and I work together, we wouldn't stand a chance."
"No need to make an enemy of him. Just cooperate with him," Yoru said with a disdainful smile. "It's only Wood Release. Nothing to worry about."
Just as Hashirama's Wood Release restrained Madara, Yoru's space-time bloodline restrained Hashirama's Wood Release and chakra.
No matter how tough Wood Release was, it was still as thin as paper in front of Dimensional Slash.
No matter how versatile it was, it couldn't do anything to Virtualization or Flying Thunder God.
By contrast, Madara's Sharingan, with its overwhelmingly powerful genjutsu, was still the kind of thing Yoru feared most, because his chakra reserves were still his weakest point.
And Perfect Susanoo could fly, something Yoru still had no real answer to.
He hadn't yet fought Limbo clones either, so he didn't know whether his Space Perception could detect them.
Even if it could, his space-time bloodline still couldn't completely kill them.
At his current level, Yoru simply did not treat visible Yang Release-type fighters as real threats. The ones he feared were the unseen Yin Release-type fighters with bizarre and unpredictable abilities.
"Yes!"
The moment she saw Yoru so confident, Konan—who worshiped him blindly—instantly stopped taking Yahiko seriously.
Then she lay back down on Yoru's chest and went on talking about everything she had experienced over the last few days.
Yoru, in turn, told Konan about his decision to become a jonin instructor.
The two of them talked until Yoru's space-time chakra was almost exhausted. Only then did he say goodbye to Konan, despite how reluctant she was to part with him.
This trip to see Konan had brought Yoru huge gains, but it also left him with a growing sense that a storm was coming.
The fact that Yahiko could use Wood Release: Wood Golem Jutsu not only meant that a massive amount of Hashirama cells had been implanted into his body, but also that Tobi was fully cooperating with him and had already handed over control of the body.
And how strong was Tobi?
Obito Uchiha and Yamato had already shown that in the original story.
Obito, just by putting on Tobi's body armor and without even using any of his own abilities, could still rely purely on his physical ability and Kamui to act silly and toy with Deidara and Team Seven, making even Itachi Uchiha and Nagato deeply wary.
Just by raising one forearm, he could casually block a full-powered strike from Suigetsu Hozuki's Executioner's Blade. That was a level of defense no human body should possess. Even Yoru's Earth Release: Hardening couldn't do that.
And when Tobi merely possessed Yamato, he could already use a downgraded version of the wooden Buddha giant and even cast five-element composite techniques through it.
If Tobi weren't lacking in intelligence and combat experience, his strength would have been squarely in the super-shadow tier.
Now Yahiko, who could use Wood Golem Jutsu and summon the salamander to unleash the strongest poison in the ninja world, was also a super-shadow-class fighter. In terms of strategic deterrence, he might well rank first in the entire world.
No wonder he had started thinking of himself as a god. He genuinely had the power and the qualifications to do so.
Yoru absolutely did not believe Madara had gone to all the trouble of killing Hanzo and turning Yahiko into his piece just to pass Yin-Yang Release and Six Paths techniques on to Nagato ahead of schedule.
He definitely had some ulterior motive.
But fortunately, Yoru still held the advantage.
No matter how clever they were, they would never guess that Konan was Yoru's person, nor that the two of them could meet in secret like this whenever they wanted.
As long as Konan remained his inside eye, no matter what move Yahiko made, Yoru would know immediately.
And Yoru did not believe Yahiko and Madara would be able to pose any real threat to him in such a short span of time.
Because—
In the living room, Yoru looked at the calendar on the wall and murmured, "Four months left…"
Four months was a long time—more than one season.
But within the scale of a year, it was also very short. After all, it was only a third of the whole.
Yoru's premonition was growing stronger.
In four months, his body—his entire world—would undergo a complete upheaval.
And those four months might well be their last chance.