Kiyohara placed the scroll on his desk and carefully unfurled it. Sealed inside the scroll was a fist-sized piece of flesh covered in patterns resembling a hard shell. The flesh was still twitching faintly, displaying the distinctive vitality of Tailed Beast cells.
Kiyohara picked up the piece of flesh and put it into his mouth. The chakra of the Seven-Tails surged down his throat and flowed into his network of chakra pathways.
The chakra of the Seven-Tails was quite different from that of all the Tailed Beasts he had adapted to before.
The Nine-Tails' chakra was violent and scorching, like swallowing a mass of burning lava.
The One-Tail's chakra was cold and sticky, as though countless grains of sand were simultaneously drilling into his chakra pathways.
The Seven-Tails' chakra, however, was light and airy.
Kiyohara could feel a strange sensation spreading across his back. Then, with a thought, the Seven-Tails' chakra burst outward and formed a pair of wings.
"It seems like this can increase my flying speed."
Kiyohara rubbed his chin thoughtfully.
This technique could improve his mobility, which was quite a useful ability.
Kiyohara then withdrew the wings and continued trying to adapt to the chakra.
He could feel his sensory abilities expanding in an entirely new way.
The Seven-Tails, Chōmei, was renowned among all the Tailed Beasts for its ability to fly and its insect-like sensory capabilities.
Its chakra carried an extraordinarily delicate perception of the surrounding environment.
Several days passed.
While adapting to the Seven-Tails' chakra, Kiyohara continued teaching Hinata, Naruto, Sasuke, and the others.
On this particular day, he was looking at the documents spread across his desk.
These were cooperation agreements sent over by Pakura.
Most of the documents concerned trade.
Suna would open its mineral and medicinal-material procurement channels to Konoha, while Konoha would give Suna priority access to food and timber supplies. The two sides would also mutually exempt each other's merchant caravans from transit tariffs.
Every clause had been arranged neatly, and every page bore the bright red seal of the Fifth Kazekage.
Kiyohara skimmed through the agreement once, picked up his pen, and signed his name on the final page.
Pakura's actions had been faster than he expected.
After Rasa was thrown into prison, the elders of Suna completed the entire trial process in less than half a month. On the day of the public trial, Chiyo personally presided over the proceedings. Rasa was stripped of his position as Kazekage and sentenced to life imprisonment.
With Chiyo's support, Pakura took office as the Fifth Kazekage. The first diplomatic document she signed after taking office was this cooperation agreement.
Kiyohara handed the signed document to an ANBU shinobi and instructed him to send it back to Suna.
Suna was only the first step.
Konoha's current sphere of influence already covered the three great nations of Fire, Wind, and Lightning. Kiri had also signed a strategic agreement under Mei's control. Although Iwa was still watching the situation from the sidelines, there was no way that the old fox Onoki could fail to understand the situation.
What truly restricted Konoha was not diplomacy, but physical distance.
From Konoha to the border of the Land of Wind, even a shinobi traveling at full speed would need several days. An ordinary merchant caravan would need half a month just to make the journey once.
If Konoha wanted its influence to truly penetrate every corner of the surrounding countries, relying solely on shinobi to carry messages and goods would never be enough.
After all, not everyone could travel freely between the great nations using space-time ninjutsu like Kiyohara could.
After thinking for a moment, Kiyohara ordered someone to summon Kakashi.
When Kakashi pushed open the door and entered, he still had that same lazy appearance. His silver-gray hair stuck out from beneath his forehead protector, while his mask covered most of his face, leaving only one sleepy, half-lidded eye visible.
He walked toward the desk with one hand casually tucked into his trouser pocket.
"Kiyohara, you wanted to see me?"
"I have a project for you."
Kiyohara took a roll of blueprints that he had prepared long ago from his drawer and spread it across the desk.
The blueprints were covered in densely drawn railway lines. They radiated outward from Konoha's main gate. One line led toward a coastal port in the eastern part of the Land of Fire, another toward a major mining town in the north, and a third extended southwest toward the border of the Land of Wind.
Every line had been clearly marked with cinnabar ink. The mountains, rivers, checkpoints, and other geographical features along the routes were all annotated in small writing.
Kakashi lowered his head and stared at the blueprint. The eye visible above his mask slowly widened from its usual sleepy expression to a normal size.
"Railways?"
He reached out and slowly traced one of the lines on the blueprint with his finger, following it from Konoha all the way to the border of the Land of Wind.
"You want to connect Konoha with the entire Land of Fire using railways?"
"Not just the Land of Fire. Once the main railway lines within the Land of Fire are completed, branch lines will extend toward the Land of Wind and the Land of Lightning."
Kiyohara tapped the marking representing Konoha.
"A train can travel faster than many shinobi moving at full speed. More importantly, it can keep moving continuously. It doesn't need to rest, and it doesn't need to change personnel."
"A single train can transport enough supplies and personnel to equal hundreds of shinobi making several round trips. Whether it's for missions, transporting military equipment, or ordinary commercial trade, efficiency can increase by more than tenfold, perhaps even several dozen times."
Kakashi remained silent for a while before rolling up the blueprint and placing it inside his shinobi pouch.
"How many people do you need?"
"All the Earth Release users in ANBU, along with the people from the engineering corps. First, repair the main line from Konoha to the capital. Once that's done, we'll proceed with the branch lines in batches."
Kakashi nodded and turned toward the door.
He took two steps before stopping and looking back.
"If we actually manage to build this thing, will shinobi have to buy tickets whenever they go out on missions?"
"ANBU rides for free."
Kiyohara answered calmly.
Kakashi smiled at that and pushed the door open before leaving.
Kiyohara leaned back into his chair once again.
He was confident about leaving the railway project to Kakashi. Although Kakashi was usually lazy and unmotivated, his efficiency when carrying out missions ranked among the best of Konoha's jonin.
Moreover, Earth Release shinobi had an innate advantage when it came to construction.
An ordinary group of workers might need several months or years to dig through a tunnel, while Earth Release shinobi could open one in only a few hours.
According to his estimates, the main railway line could be put into operation within two months.
A mass of black substance resembling ink seeped out from the crack in the floor.
Black Zetsu emerged from beneath the ground. Half of his pale white face was almost deathly white, while his yellow eye flickered with barely restrained excitement.
"We've found the whereabouts of the Six-Tails' jinchūriki."
Kiyohara's fingers stopped against the armrest.
"After Utakata defected from Kiri, he has been moving around the island chains surrounding the Land of Water. Recently, he settled down on an uninhabited island near the Land of Waves. He used his Bubble Ninjutsu to create a concealed hideout there."
Black Zetsu spoke considerably faster than usual, clearly eager to report the information he had obtained.
"The chakra nature of the Six-Tails, Saiken, is highly corrosive, like powerful acid. Combined with Utakata's Bubble Ninjutsu, it gives him both offensive and defensive capabilities. He's not particularly easy to deal with, but for you, it shouldn't be a problem."
"Excellent."
Kiyohara rose from the Hokage's chair and walked toward the window.
"The Six-Tails is the last one. I'm only missing this final portion of the chakra from the Nine Tailed Beasts."
Upon hearing this, a sudden glimmer appeared in Black Zetsu's yellow eye.
His usually gloomy half-black, half-white face actually revealed an uncontrollable expression of delight.
His body completely emerged from the floor.
"Then that means we're only one final step away? As long as we obtain the Six-Tails' chakra, the power of all Nine Tailed Beasts can converge within your body. At that point, all the conditions required to revive Mother will have been fulfilled."
"For a thousand years, I've been crawling through the bowels of this world. I spent decades cleaning up after Madara and more than a decade taking care of the messes left behind by that brat Obito. Everything I've done was for this day."
"Mother, after all these years, I will finally revive you."
Kiyohara watched Black Zetsu's uncontrollable joy, the emotions he had suppressed for a thousand years finally approaching their release, and nodded.
"Go for now. Come back and report to me if there are any further developments."
Black Zetsu's body slowly seeped back into the cracks in the floor before disappearing completely.
Kiyohara remained standing by the window, gazing at the stone faces of the Hokage carved into the distant mountain.
The Six-Tails was the final piece of the puzzle.
Only when the chakra of all nine Tailed Beasts merged within his body would the true final trial of creating an artificial Tailed Beast vessel begin.
Whether it was Kaguya or Isshiki, neither of them could escape the power of the Ten-Tails.
Several days later, good news arrived from Konoha Hospital.
Rin personally brought the experimental report to the Hokage's office, with Shizune following behind her while carrying a thick stack of experimental data.
Rin spread the report across Kiyohara's desk and turned to the page containing the conclusion. She lightly tapped one of the lines of data with her finger.
"First, we use highly diluted Hashirama cells for subcutaneous injections. This allows the subject's immune system to gradually develop tolerance under low-dose conditions. Once the tolerance response becomes stable, we then implant a suppression-factor cell curse seal developed from Kosuke's cells. This keeps the assimilation rate of the Hashirama cells within a safe threshold."
Rin spoke rapidly.
"In the third round of clinical trials, all thirty subjects passed the tolerance test. Not a single case experienced cellular rejection, and not a single subject developed facial-feature mutations. The success rate has increased by nearly three times compared with the previous round."
She paused for a moment and took a deep breath. Her brown eyes shone brightly as she looked at Kiyohara.
"More importantly, even when the inoculation fails, the subject only develops a slight fever and some chakra instability. They can recover naturally after resting for a few days, and there is no danger to their lives."
"Kiyohara-kun, we can begin mass production. The Hashirama cell vaccine has already reached the safety standards required for widespread distribution."
Kiyohara closed the report.
"From today onward, I'll place this entire project under your and Lady Tsunade's responsibility. ANBU members will be vaccinated first, followed by all jonin. After that, we'll gradually extend it to chūnin and senior students at the Shinobi Academy. You two can determine the specific timetable and vaccination plans."
Rin nodded firmly.
After all, the precise dosage still required further experimentation.
People of different strengths and different ages would naturally be able to tolerate different amounts, so the vaccine would also need to be divided into different dosage levels.
Not long after Rin and Shizune left, the office door was pushed open once again.
Kurenai walked inside.
Her slightly wavy black hair fell over her shoulders, and she was wearing a neat, fitted pencil skirt that ended just above her knees.
Her long legs were covered in extremely thin black stockings, emphasizing the smooth lines of her calves and the graceful curves of her thighs.
"There's news from Konan."
Kurenai placed an encrypted scroll in front of Kiyohara. Konan's Paper Release seal was still intact around the scroll's opening. Since the seal had not been damaged, it meant that no one had intercepted the message along the way.
" Akatsuki seems to be planning to attack other countries. The movements Konan intercepted at the border indicate that there isn't only one flying fortress."
"Shinno has built at least three fortresses of the same class within the ruins of the Land of Sky. Their core energy sources are all Zero-Tail chakra devices. One of them has already completed the installation of its weapons systems and is currently moving toward the Land of Earth."
"That fast?"
Kiyohara rubbed his chin.
Judging from the situation, they had probably deployed a large number of White Zetsu or reanimated shinobi. Otherwise, there was no way their progress could have been this fast.
Those resources had given them enough confidence to make this group believe they could openly challenge the entire shinobi world.
"There's one more thing."
Kurenai took out another document and handed it over.
"The roster of the major temples throughout the shinobi world has been compiled. The Fire Temple, Iron Temple, Mugu Temple in the Land of Rivers, as well as various religious and ascetic groups scattered throughout the other minor nations, make up more than a dozen organizations of various sizes. What do you need these for?"
Kiyohara accepted the roster and flipped through several pages.
It recorded the names of each temple's abbot, the number of monks, and their respective schools of cultivation.
Among the list from the Fire Temple, there was one name that Kiyohara lightly circled with his fingertip.
The young monk named Sora.
He was the junior disciple of Chiriku, one of the Twelve Guardian Shinobi, and a suitable candidate for the Nine-Tails' chakra.
However, Kiyohara was not looking for them.
He was looking for Ōtsutsuki Isshiki.
"The shinobi world currently has an extremely powerful enemy hiding among us. His public identity is that of a monk."
Kurenai nodded thoughtfully.
Kiyohara raised his head and looked at Kurenai.
The pencil skirt she wore today was more form-fitting than her usual secretary's uniform. The fitted waist emphasized the graceful curve of her hips, giving her figure a polished and elegant appearance.
Her black stockings extended from her feet to the hem of her skirt, wrapping around her long, straight legs. The fabric gathered slightly behind her knees as she shifted her weight and breathed naturally.
She stood in front of the desk with the folder held in her arms, looking down at the roster spread across the desk.
"You've worked hard during this period."
Kiyohara rose from the Hokage's chair and walked around the desk until he was standing beside her.
"It's time I gave you a raise."
Kurenai raised her head and realized that Kiyohara was standing extremely close to her, so close that she could feel the warmth of his breath brushing against her ear.
The tips of her ears visibly reddened. She instinctively took half a step backward, only to have her back press against the edge of the desk. There was nowhere else for her to retreat.
"I... I won't agree to that request of yours."
Her voice was much quieter than usual.
"Really?"
Kiyohara asked.
Kurenai did not answer.
She turned her head away, allowing her face to face the other direction. Her black, curly hair slipped from her shoulder, revealing the small patch of skin behind her ear that had already turned pink.
Kiyohara did not give her another opportunity to avoid him.
He placed one hand against the edge of the desk behind her while his other hand gently held her chin and turned her face back toward him.
A faint blush covered her cheeks. Her ruby-like eyes were filled with a layer of moisture, and her lips were slightly parted as if she wanted to say something, yet the words had become stuck in her throat.
Kiyohara lowered his head and kissed her.
Kurenai let out a muffled sound of surprise, and the folder in her hand slipped from her grasp with a soft slap. The documents scattered across the floor.
She placed her hands against Kiyohara's chest, her fingers gripping the collar of his robes, though there was hardly any strength behind them.
Kiyohara's kiss moved from her lips to her chin, then slowly along her jaw toward the side of her neck.
Kurenai's breathing gradually became more disordered.
She was wearing a white blouse underneath her clothes, and at some point, the top button had come loose, revealing a small portion of fair skin beneath her collarbone.
Kiyohara lowered his gaze and caught sight of more of the pale skin beneath.
"After looking at so much already, aren't you tired of it?"
Kurenai's voice was slightly hoarse.
"No matter how much I look, I'll never get tired of it."
Kiyohara raised his head and looked directly at her.
Kurenai pressed her lips together before closing her eyes. A soft, almost inaudible sound escaped from deep within her throat.
The corners of Kiyohara's lips curved upward slightly. He put an arm around Kurenai and led her toward the private lounge inside the office before closing the door behind them.
Kurenai buried her face into the pillow, her eyes brimming with tears.
Her first experience with such an unfamiliar form of intimacy had clearly been too much for someone as upright and proper as her to accept immediately.
At that very moment, Rin suddenly remembered that there was still one small matter she had forgotten to report. She decided to return to Kiyohara's office.
However, when she had just reached the staircase leading to the floor where the Hokage's office was located, she suddenly stopped.
There was an extremely faint chakra barrier in the air.
The barrier covered the entire floor, and at the entrance, a barely visible pattern of seals hovered in midair.
Only those whom Kiyohara recognized were capable of passing through the barrier.
Rin stretched out her hand and touched the surface of the barrier with her fingertip.
The seal pattern flickered slightly.
It did not repel her.
She was one of the people Kiyohara had recognized.
However, she did not continue forward.
Because she heard a sound.
It was extremely faint. Separated by a door and nearly half a corridor, the sound was so indistinct that it was almost impossible to hear clearly.
Yet Rin stood there motionless and listened for a long while.
Having already undergone the transformation that had turned her into a woman, Rin naturally understood what those sounds meant.
Rin bit her lower lip and subconsciously pressed her legs together.
Her body had already become accustomed to Kiyohara.
But even so, hearing such sounds was still something she found completely difficult to accept.
The more she thought about it, the more irritated she became.
Jealous, Rin turned around and quickly walked back down the stairs.
She held the documents in her arms tightly, pressing them so firmly that the edges of the pages left faint white marks against her fingers.
She knew that Kiyohara did not have only her.
Whether it was Lady Tsunade or Kurenai, she knew perfectly well what their relationship with him was.
Knowing it was one thing.
Hearing it with her own ears was another matter entirely.
She was not angry at Kiyohara.
She was angry at herself.
She knew exactly what was happening inside, yet she had still been unable to stop herself from standing there and listening for so long.
Rin silently scolded herself before quickening her pace and disappearing around the corner of the staircase.
Inside the room, Kiyohara was also completely aware of Rin's arrival.
He was deliberately helping them become accustomed to such situations.
If Rin truly could not tolerate it, she would have rushed over.
Since she had not done so, it was clear that she was still capable of accepting it.
Only after they had completely overcome their discomfort would it be possible to take things further with multiple partners.
After all, that was the only way to live up to his reputation as a master of time management.
Meanwhile, deep beneath the earth, Black Zetsu was traveling rapidly through the underground.
Soil and rock slid past both sides of his body like flowing water.
His mood was excellent.
Kiyohara's efficiency was indeed so fast that Black Zetsu could not find even the slightest fault with it.
Compared with that useless Obito, Kiyohara was practically someone Heaven itself had sent specifically to help him.
Now, only the final Tailed Beast, the Six-Tails, remained.
The day when his mother could be revived was already within reach.
However, just as he passed through a massive underground layer of rock, an unusual chakra fluctuation suddenly entered his sensory range.
Black Zetsu's body abruptly stopped.
In an instant, his entire body merged into the surrounding rock wall, leaving only a trace of consciousness outside to investigate.
That chakra fluctuation was unfamiliar.
It did not belong to any shinobi from the established villages, nor did it belong to any member of the Akatsuki.
More importantly, it carried a strange aura that clearly did not belong to the conventional power system of this shinobi world.
Black Zetsu was far too familiar with that kind of aura.
His mother, Kaguya, possessed a similar presence.
The aura of the Ōtsutsuki clan.
The earth ahead of the rock wall suddenly exploded outward from within.
Several figures emerged from the broken stones.
At the front was a middle-aged man dressed in a monk's robe. His face was thin, his cheekbones were prominent, and he held a string of dark-purple prayer beads in one hand.
Several burly modified humans followed behind him.
Their skin was an unnatural grayish-white, and their bodies were covered with countless densely packed seal patterns. Their eyes were empty and lifeless.
Amado Sanzu, the chief researcher of Ōtsutsuki Isshiki.
He pushed up the glasses resting on the bridge of his nose and looked toward the rock wall where Black Zetsu was hiding.
"Jigen-sama was correct."
Amado said calmly.
"Deep beneath this world, there really is a mole that has been burrowing around for a thousand years."
Several modified humans attacked simultaneously.
Their speed was far beyond that of ordinary shinobi.
Before Black Zetsu could activate his Mayfly Technique and escape deeper underground, one of the modified humans had already transformed its arm into a sharp bone spike and thrust it directly into the rock wall, forcibly driving Black Zetsu out of the stone.
Black Zetsu's body spun through the air once before separating directly from the White Zetsu body beneath him.
As soon as he landed, he transformed into a pool of black liquid and rapidly fled in another direction.
Only then did he understand why he had sensed the Ōtsutsuki's chakra.
Those modified humans had transplanted Ōtsutsuki cells into their bodies.
However, Amado remained completely unhurried.
He calmly took a dark-red chakra crystal from inside his sleeve.
The energy radiating from the surface of the crystal was completely different from ordinary chakra.
He crushed the crystal between his fingers.
A dark-red light immediately spread outward from him.
Wherever the light reached, the soil and rocks became covered by a thin layer of dark-red material, completely sealing off every route through which Black Zetsu might escape.
Black Zetsu crashed directly into the dark-red barrier.
His body was violently bounced back.
This was a fuinjutsu technique that Ōtsutsuki Isshiki had given Amado.
It naturally restrained beings like Black Zetsu, whose existence was fundamentally composed of chakra.
Several modified humans simultaneously pounced toward Black Zetsu.
Seeing this, Black Zetsu had no choice but to flee desperately.
In the end, he was forced to leave behind a portion of his black liquid body, while the remaining part rapidly disappeared into the depths of the underground world.
Amado watched the strands of black liquid escaping into the darkness but did not order his modified humans to pursue them.
He pushed his glasses up the bridge of his nose and turned around, walking back in the direction from which he had come.
The information they had obtained was already sufficient.
As for who was behind that mole, Jigen-sama had already figured it out long ago.
At the same time, in a distant underground estate, a middle-aged man sat on a balcony with a wineglass in his hand.
The red wine inside the glass reflected a deep crimson glow.
The man's face was thin, his cheekbones were prominent, and he wore a loose monk's robe.
He was the vessel of Ōtsutsuki Isshiki.
Jigen.
His expression constantly shifted between dark and uncertain.
The awakening of the "Jōgan."
The opening of the "Tenseigan."
And now Kiyohara's astonishing rate of growth.
None of these things could be measured by ordinary standards.
If Kiyohara was allowed to completely fuse all nine Tailed Beasts and complete the qualitative transformation of the Ten-Tails' chakra, then even if Isshiki possessed the remains of Ōtsutsuki Shibai, he might not be able to guarantee victory.
Jigen lifted his wineglass and drained the remaining wine in one gulp.
He then placed the glass back onto the table.
He had already waited for a thousand years.
He did not want to wait any longer.
Therefore, Isshiki made a decision.
He would strengthen his connection with another faction.
The Akatsuki.
A week passed.
Kiyohara traveled to the Land of Waves.
It was an island thoroughly saturated by the sea breeze.
The salty smell of seawater spread from the harbor all the way to the small hill in the center of the island. Even the wild grass growing along the roads carried a faint taste of salt.
When Kiyohara stepped onto the island, the setting sun was sinking beneath the horizon, staining the entire sky with a warm mixture of red and purple.
The fishing boats at the harbor had already lowered their sails.
Several dark-skinned fishermen crouched on the pier repairing their fishing nets. When they saw him approaching, they merely raised their heads and glanced at him before lowering them again and continuing their work.
The people of the Land of Waves were accustomed to seeing unfamiliar outsiders.
Whether they were shinobi or merchants, as long as they did not cause trouble, no one bothered to interfere with their affairs.
Kiyohara followed the island's only main road northward.
The dirt road had been heavily eroded by the sea wind and was full of potholes. Low shrubs grew along both sides, accompanied by the occasional pine tree that had been bent by years of strong coastal winds.
When he reached the cliff at the northern end of the island, he finally sensed that chakra.
Night had already fallen.
Moonlight reflected across the sea, broken by the waves into countless silver scales.
The waves crashed against the rocks beneath the cliff, producing a deep and muffled roar.
Kiyohara raised his head.
Floating across the surface of the sea were countless bubbles, each roughly the size of a fist. They were densely packed across the entire stretch of nearby water.
Under the moonlight, the bubbles reflected brilliant rainbow colors, resembling a vast carpet of pearls spread across the surface of the sea.
The bubbles gently rose and fell with the waves, yet none of them burst.
Inside every bubble, an extremely faint trace of chakra slowly circulated.
Kiyohara stretched out his hand and touched the nearest bubble with his fingertip.
The moment the bubble came into contact with his finger, it did not burst.
Instead, it trembled slightly before slowly floating away, leaving behind only a thin layer of moisture on his fingertip.
"The Hokage of Konoha came all the way here to find a missing-nin like me. What do you want?"
A man's figure slowly emerged from a cave beneath the cliff.
(End of Chapter)