"Ninja-sama, is there something I can help you with?" Konan feigned the innocence of a naive young kunoichi, biting her lip and blinking at Makiya.
She and Makiya had never met. During the last invasion of Konoha, only Nagato's Six Paths puppets had appeared. From start to finish, the core members of the Akatsuki had remained hidden. Konan was certain her disguise was perfect, hoping she could simply bluff her way through.
After all, the gap in power was too vast; a direct confrontation was hopeless. She could only pray he was passing through by chance and wasn't specifically looking for her.
Makiya: "...Konan, how is Nagato's recovery? That Chibaku Tensei from last time must have drained quite a bit of his life force."
Konan: "..."
Her pupils contracted sharply. Makiya's words revealed too much information. Information about her and Nagato had somehow leaked out. Where was his source? Was it Master Jiraiya?
There was no time to think. Konan quickly formed hand seals, and countless white sheets of paper appeared out of thin air, forming a pair of angelic wings behind her.
Paper Style—or the Dance of the Shikigami—was a unique technique exclusive to Konan.
This ninjutsu allowed her to control paper, using chakra to manipulate it into various forms. She could turn them into explosive tags for massive destruction or harden them into shuriken for attacks.
The Dance of the Shikigami could disguise paper as any object with such precision that even the Mangekyo Sharingan would struggle to detect it. In the original series, this extravagant woman disguised 600 billion explosive tags as the sea, subjecting Obito to a continuous bombardment for ten minutes.
Unfortunately, it didn't kill him.
Luckily, Kakuzu was already dead by then; otherwise, he would have had several heart attacks from the cost alone.
"Dance of the Shikigami!"
A massive amount of white paper fluttered from Konan's body, filling the air like falling cherry blossoms. Makiya activated his Three-Tomoe Sharingan, instantly spotting the explosive tags hidden within.
Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom! Boom!
A series of explosions leveled the forest. Without looking back, Konan took to the sky, flapping her wings as she fled toward the horizon. She knew an attack of this scale wouldn't kill Makiya; she only hoped to slow his pursuit.
However, things didn't go as planned. In an instant, Makiya appeared beside her, riding his flying sword. "Don't be in such a rush to leave. If I wanted to kill you, I would have done it already. Listen to me—"
Before Makiya could finish his sentence, Konan shook her sleeves and flicked three pieces of paper from her robes.
"Paper Shuriken!"
The razor-sharp paper shuriken collided with the golden flames and were instantly incinerated.
Makiya swung the Kusanagi Sword. A brilliant flash of blade-light sliced through several more shuriken and cleaved Konan's wings in two.
Without losing momentum, Makiya closed the distance. With a flick of his wrist, the Kusanagi Sword followed the path of the wings deep into Konan's body, cutting her in half at the waist.
Konan, now a paper clone, showed no sign of pain. She simply abandoned her lower half to Makiya, while her upper half quickly reformed wings and accelerated.
In her paper state, Konan possessed abilities similar to the Hozuki clan's Hydrification. She was immune to physical attacks and could sustain herself even after losing half her body. As long as she had chakra, she could recover, much like a lizard shedding its tail to survive.
"You can't get away. Do I really look that scary? I just want to have a few words with you." Makiya shook his head, casually discarding the lower half in his hand. He wasn't some pervert; he had no intention of taking it back as a souvenir or household item.
One fled, one pursued. Two figures blurred through the forest, the wind from their passage tearing through the treetops and shredding the green leaves.
The lower half Makiya had discarded turned back into countless slips of paper and flew into the sky, gradually reassembling beneath Konan's torso to form her waist and legs.
Every sheet of paper contained Konan's chakra. If possible, she would recycle as many as she could to ensure her chakra reserves remained high.
A smile tugged at the corner of Makiya's mouth. His figure flickered and vanished from Konan's sight, reappearing directly beneath her.
In the center of Konan's sole, a mark for 'Justice' was clearly visible.
"Frugality is a good habit, but you should always check if the things you recycle have been tampered with." Makiya's voice reached Konan's ears. She realized something was wrong, but it was too late to react.
"This is Flying Raijin: Level 2. Five Elements Seal!"
Black chakra clusters flickered on Makiya's five fingers, burning like dark flames. They left five black streaks in the air as his palm slammed into Konan's soft abdomen.
"Ugh—!"
Konan's body doubled over into a V-shape, and she involuntarily coughed up a large amount of saliva. The agonizing pain in her stomach made it impossible to maintain her wings. The gathered paper disintegrated, and like a swallow with clipped wings, she plummeted straight toward the ground after a brief upward jolt.
The sealing formula spread from her abdomen throughout her body. Konan clutched her stomach, struggling to sit up from the leaf-covered ground. She instinctively tried to turn into paper and fly away, only to find she could no longer feel the chakra within her.
"Don't waste your energy. The seal has cut off your connection to your chakra. You won't be able to use ninjutsu for a while." Makiya stepped slowly out of the forest, standing before Konan with one hand on his hip. "Why did you run? I'm not going to eat you, and I didn't even start the fight."
Konan glared at Makiya, her teeth biting into her red lip in silence. After a long moment, she spoke defiantly: "Makiya Uchiha, what exactly do you want?"
"Didn't I tell Nagato before? I planned to have a chat with him." Makiya spread his hands. "He ran off quite fast back then. Since he didn't want to talk in Konoha, I can only head to the Land of Rain to find him."
Konan's pupils shrank. "You know we're hiding in the Land of Rain?!"
The news of Hanzo of the Salamander's death had been well-hidden; even Jiraiya didn't know the truth. How did Makiya find out?
Panic surged within Konan. The disparity in strength was one thing, but the fact that he seemed to have total knowledge of Akatsuki's secrets was terrifying.
"Not only do I know you're in the Land of Rain, I know Nagato is hiding in the tallest spire, paralyzed and relying on mechanical puppets to survive. Am I right?" With every sentence Makiya spoke, Konan's body trembled. These were the Akatsuki's most guarded secrets; she had no idea when they had been compromised.
The feeling was wretched. Makiya knew so much that Konan felt naked before him, as if she had no secrets left.
'Does he even know my code name is "White Tiger"?' she wondered anxiously. If he knew that, it meant there was a high-level mole within the Akatsuki.
"Alright, get up. The pain from the seal should have passed by now. I don't have any other business with you; I just want you to lead me into Amegakure to talk to Nagato. I can't very well slaughter my way in alone, can I? I'm not a monster."
Makiya grabbed Konan by the back of her collar and hoisted her up. "If I wanted to kill you and Nagato, I would have done it back in Konoha. I wouldn't have waited this long."
As he spoke, Makiya summoned his golden flames, shaping them into a platform before stepping onto it. "What are you staring at? Get on."
"Oh..." Konan lowered her head and replied softly, silently stepping onto the flying sword.
No matter what Makiya's goal was, she currently had no room for resistance. She could only take it one step at a time.
But Konan had her own resolve. The moment she discovered Makiya intended harm toward Nagato or the Akatsuki, she would immediately choose suicide to avoid becoming a burden.
Makiya pulled a scroll from his robes, checked his bearings, and took flight.
Finding Nagato could wait. There were still many debts to collect in the Land of Fire.
Half an hour later, Makiya arrived at another large city. Under Konan's horrified gaze, he used the same method to drop a massive "Unit 1" sphere, incinerating a noble, his family, and all their lapdogs.
Standing on the sword, Konan watched Makiya's back, her heart pounding.
'And he says he's not a monster? In just half a day, countless lives have vanished by his hand. How is that any different from a demon?'
Actually, there was a difference. Even demons might not be this bloodthirsty.
The slaughter continued. To Konan's disbelief, Makiya went through the list one by one, like the King of Hell marking off names. Every time he destroyed a noble's estate, he would place a checkmark on the scroll.
Shock, despair... eventually, Konan's expression became numb. She watched as Makiya conducted his massacre, truly understanding for the first time what it meant to 'know pain.'
Compared to Makiya's actions, Nagato's methods seemed like child's play.
After repeating this twenty times, Makiya harvested a mountain of blood debts and finally checked off the last name.
There were naturally more nobles in the Land of Fire than that, but the names on the scroll—collected by Tekka—were the die-hard supporters of the Daimyo.
Makiya rolled up the scroll and turned to Konan.
"Alright, my business is done. Let's head to Amegakure."
His tone was casual, but Konan could sense a skyrocketing aura of blood and slaughter.
She suddenly fell to her knees on the sword, clutching Makiya's hands with tears in her eyes. "Please... I beg of you, don't destroy Amegakure. Don't kill Nagato. I'll do anything you want, just please, stop the killing!"
Makiya: "???"