A man's figure slowly emerged from the cave beneath the cliff.
He stepped directly onto the surface of the sea. Before each foot came down, a bubble would spontaneously form beneath it, supporting the sole of his foot above the water.
He had a slender build and wore an open dark-blue kimono, revealing his lean chest and clearly defined abdominal muscles.
His features were handsome and refined, with the ends of his eyebrows slightly raised and a faint, almost teasing smile hanging at the corners of his mouth.
In one hand, he held a slender bubble wand. Several drops of soapy water shimmering with rainbow-colored light still clung to its tip.
This man did not look much like a missing-nin.
Instead, he looked more like a wandering samurai who had accidentally stepped out of an illustrated scroll depicting the Heian era.
He was none other than the Six-Tails jinchūriki, Utakata.
"I want a portion of the Six-Tails' flesh."
Kiyohara got straight to the point.
Utakata twirled the bubble wand between his fingers, and the smile at the corners of his mouth deepened slightly.
Unfortunately, there was no warmth in that smile.
"The Tailed Beasts. Again with the Tailed Beasts. You people talk about them as though they're things stored in your own warehouse. Whenever you want one, you simply reach out and take it."
"Back then, Kiri stuffed that slimy slug into my body, and then even my own sensei wanted to seize that power for himself. Tsk, tsk."
The Six-Tails jinchūriki, Utakata, wore a mocking expression.
If it had not been for that incident, how could he have ever betrayed the village?
The Utakata of today harbored hostility toward anyone who sought to seize the power of the Tailed Beasts.
The next moment, Utakata raised his bubble wand and pointed its tip toward Kiyohara. A mass of chakra-infused liquid film shimmering with rainbow-colored light condensed at the end of the wand.
"What if I say no?"
Utakata spoke calmly.
He knew that Kiyohara's current strength was extremely formidable.
Recently, Kiyohara had been making moves all across the shinobi world, and an oppressive atmosphere had gradually begun to spread throughout the various nations.
After all, the current Kiyohara could practically be considered the uncrowned king of the shinobi world.
Yet there was no one from the second tier of powerful shinobi who could stand against him.
"Then we'll fight."
Kiyohara did not expect Utakata to simply hand over a portion of the Six-Tails' flesh without putting up a fight.
The people of the shinobi world were basically all the same in this regard.
The person with the bigger fist was the one who had the final say.
Even Naruto's famous Talk no Jutsu required him to defeat his opponent first before he could successfully persuade them.
Otherwise, these shinobi would never listen to reason.
"If you lose, I'll take a portion of the Tailed Beast's flesh. If I lose, I'll turn around and leave."
Upon hearing this, Utakata did not waste any more words.
He blew gently into the bubble wand.
A gigantic bubble nearly half a person's height detached itself from the tip and flew toward Kiyohara at astonishing speed.
Rainbow-colored light flowed across its surface, making it look like a beautiful and fragile work of art.
However, the interior of the bubble was filled with extremely corrosive acid.
That was the true killing move.
Once the opponent was distracted by its beautiful appearance, the powerful acid inside would corrode everything it touched until nothing remained.
"Water Release: Bubble Technique!"
Kiyohara casually waved his hand.
A tremendous amount of Wind Release chakra appeared.
In an instant, it transformed into a powerful gust of wind.
The violently howling wind currents blew the bubble off course.
The bubble brushed past Kiyohara's shoulder before crashing into a pine tree behind him.
The pine tree began dissolving from the middle of its trunk.
Its needles instantly withered and curled, while the bark peeled away piece by piece like paper that had been scorched by fire.
In less than a second, the entire tree had turned into a pool of black liquid emitting white smoke, which slowly seeped into the soil.
Kiyohara did not even turn his head.
Utakata's expression did not change.
He had already expected Kiyohara to be an extremely difficult opponent to deal with.
However, witnessing Kiyohara simply wave his hand and release such terrifying power without even forming hand seals still caused his fingers around the bubble wand to tighten slightly.
The previous bubble had only been a test.
Its destructive power was not particularly high, but its speed was extremely fast.
Yet Kiyohara had still avoided it with such ease.
"Water Release: Bubble Dance!"
Countless bubbles of different sizes surged violently from the tip of the bubble wand, covering the sky and rushing toward Kiyohara from all directions.
Under the moonlight, the bubbles refracted brilliant rainbow-colored light, illuminating the entire cliff as though it had been transformed into a magnificent crystal palace.
Every bubble silently rotated in the air, its surface flowing with powerful acid capable of corroding flesh and even melting metal.
Kiyohara raised his right hand.
"Ice Release: Blizzard!"
Azure-blue Ice Release chakra erupted from his palm and transformed into a violent torrent of ice and snow.
The torrent of ice and snow collided head-on with the overwhelming wall of bubbles.
The moment the extreme cold and powerful acid collided, a vast amount of white mist erupted into the air.
A sharp hissing sound echoed throughout the entire cliff.
When the white mist finally dispersed, a thick layer of ice could be seen floating across the surface of the sea.
Every single bubble had been frozen into a crystal-clear sphere of ice.
They fell onto the frozen surface one after another with crisp cracking sounds, rolling across the ice in every direction.
Utakata frowned.
He slipped the bubble wand back into his belt and formed hand seals with both hands.
A mass of dark-red chakra surged violently from his body.
The chakra was incredibly viscous, and countless tiny bubbles continuously formed and burst across its surface.
The chakra condensed around his body into a translucent Tailed Beast cloak.
Six chakra tails unfolded behind him.
Acidic liquid continuously dripped from the tip of each tail. Whenever the liquid touched the surface of the sea, it burned through the water and produced wisps of white smoke.
Partial Tailed Beast Transformation!
Kiyohara did not give Utakata enough time to complete his transformation.
His figure suddenly disappeared from where he stood.
Utakata's pupils contracted.
Kiyohara had already appeared behind him.
One of Kiyohara's hands directly pierced through the acidic Tailed Beast cloak surrounding Utakata's body.
The moment the powerful acid came into contact with Kiyohara's skin, it was blocked by a layer of green "Tenseigan Chakra."
It could not even leave behind the slightest white mark.
Kiyohara's hand reached directly into Utakata's spiritual space.
His consciousness sank downward.
Water rose to just above his ankles.
In front of him stood a gigantic cage.
Behind the cage coiled an enormous creature whose entire body was milky white.
The Six-Tails, Saiken!
Its appearance resembled that of a gigantic slug.
Its body was covered in a layer of wet, viscous mucus, while six thick tails slowly writhed behind it.
Kiyohara could smell a pungent odor.
The mucus covering the Six-Tails was highly corrosive, and it also released a gas that caused anything it touched to decay.
"Your chakra reserves are truly astonishing."
The Six-Tails' voice sounded somewhat thick and slimy, but the shock within it was unmistakable.
During its thousand years of existence, the Six-Tails had never encountered someone like Kiyohara.
Or rather, aside from the brothers Hagoromo and Hamura, it had never seen a human possessing such an enormous amount of chakra.
"Even Asura and Indra back then probably couldn't compare to you."
The Six-Tails sighed in amazement.
Utakata frowned slightly.
He did not understand.
Why were the Six-Tails and Kiyohara suddenly chatting like old acquaintances?
And who exactly were Asura and Indra?
Utakata suddenly felt as though he had been thrown into a thick fog and could no longer understand what was happening.
However, there was nothing he could say about it.
Kiyohara was his enemy, while his own relationship with the Six-Tails was hardly a harmonious one.
"So, please give me a portion of your flesh."
Kiyohara spoke calmly.
Utakata immediately realized that something was terribly wrong.
"Six-Tails, help me deal with Kiyohara! If I die, you'll die too!"
Utakata threatened.
Seeing this, Kiyohara simply extended his hand.
An invisible force of repulsion suddenly emerged.
It directly pulled Utakata toward him.
A gigantic golden Susanoo hand grabbed Utakata in one motion.
"Ugh!"
Utakata immediately felt as though all of his internal organs were being squeezed.
"Utakata, neither of us is his opponent. There's no need to do this."
The Six-Tails, Saiken, shook its head.
"You're much more sensible than the other Tailed Beasts."
Kiyohara was slightly surprised.
He had assumed that he would have to go through the usual process.
Instead, the Six-Tails was surprisingly cooperative.
"Then give it to me."
Kiyohara approached the Six-Tails.
He reached out and gripped the slippery surface of Saiken's body before pulling outward.
A mass of milky-white chakra was forcibly torn from within the Six-Tails' body.
The mass of chakra continuously twisted and writhed in Kiyohara's palm.
Tiny bubbles rolled across its surface.
Eventually, the chakra condensed into a fist-sized piece of flesh.
"Be gentle."
The Six-Tails gave a lazy complaint.
Its enormous slug-like body wriggled slightly before its tentacles retracted and curled around its mouth.
Very quickly, the small wound had already healed.
Its six tails lazily swayed behind it.
Among the Nine Tailed Beasts, the Six-Tails was probably the most cooperative of all.
Kiyohara withdrew his right hand.
His consciousness returned to reality, and he immediately sealed the piece of flesh inside a sealing scroll.
The Tailed Beast cloak around Utakata's body disappeared.
He dropped to one knee on the ice and began breathing heavily.
However, there was not much unwillingness in his eyes.
Instead, there was a faint sense of self-mocking relief.
"You really don't show any mercy."
He stood up from the ice, picked up the bubble wand that had fallen nearby, slipped it back into his belt, and brushed the ice crystals from his kimono.
"You've taken the Tailed Beast chakra. You can leave now, right?"
"Thank you."
Kiyohara's figure suddenly vanished from the surface of the ice.
Utakata stood alone on the frozen sea.
He stared silently in the direction where Kiyohara had disappeared for a long while.
Then he pulled the bubble wand from his sleeve once again, placed it against his lips, and gently blew into it.
A string of tiny bubbles floated from the tip of the wand.
They drifted toward the sea beneath the moonlight, rising higher and traveling farther with the night wind.
Kiyohara placed the scroll containing the Six-Tails' flesh into his sleeve and prepared to use the Flying Thunder God Technique to return directly to Konoha.
The sea breeze swept along the coastline of the Land of Waves, carrying the salty smell of the ocean into the hem of his robes.
At that moment, an unfamiliar chakra fluctuation suddenly came from the depths of the forest on the opposite side of the island.
The fluctuation was not particularly powerful, but its nature was extremely unusual.
It was neither the ordinary Five Elements chakra used by shinobi nor the chakra of a Tailed Beast.
Instead, it was a slowly expanding fluctuation that was much closer to natural energy.
It was like a heart buried deep beneath the earth, beating slowly, once after another.
Kiyohara stopped walking.
The pale-blue pupils of his Tenseigan flashed briefly within his eyes.
His long-distance vision pierced through layer upon layer of trees, bringing the scene deep within the forest directly into view.
In an open area surrounded by enormous trees, a young girl was sitting beside a tree root.
She appeared to be roughly the same age as Uchiha Izumi.
Her long golden hair was disheveled and spread across her shoulders, with several pieces of dead leaves and dirt clinging to the ends of her hair.
The light gray clothes had been torn in several places, exposing her pale arms, which were covered in scratches.
She braced one hand against the ground and struggled to move backward, while her other hand remained pressed tightly against her chest.
Directly behind her chest, on her back, a mass of black markings was slowly pulsing.
Every pulse caused her brows to tighten in pain.
Her eyes were a pale green, and at this moment, they were filled with fear.
Yet she did not cry.
Her lips had been bitten until they were almost white, and her teeth trembled faintly, but she never uttered a single plea for mercy.
Standing opposite her was a young man.
He had short purple hair, with the ends sticking up in a messy fashion. His black eyes had unusually long outer corners, extending almost all the way toward his temples.
It was a characteristic of the Tsuchigumo clan, their long outer eye corners.
It was also a sign of the purity of their bloodline.
Shiranami's features should have been considered rather refined and handsome, but the faint smile at the corners of his mouth twisted his face into an extremely unsettling mask.
He held a kunai in his hand. Blood was still dripping from the tip of its blade, and the wound on the girl's left arm that continued to seep blood was clearly his doing.
"Hotaru."
Shiranami toyed with the kunai in his hand, his tone light and almost cheerful as he called out the girl's name.
"Hand over the forbidden technique. If you do, I can at least let you die a little more painlessly. You are guarding a forbidden technique powerful enough to flatten half a country, yet you cannot even fight properly. Don't you think that's ridiculous?"
"The Tsuchigumo clan's forbidden technique should naturally be controlled by the strongest person. I killed that stubborn old fool, yes, your grandfather. You should be calling me your leader now. Or, if you prefer, you can go down and keep him company."
Hotaru's fingers curled tightly against her chest, and crimson light leaked through the gaps between them.
It was the seal of the forbidden technique known as "Dohatsuten," a kinjutsu passed down through the generations of the Tsuchigumo clan. By using the user as its center, it could erupt outward and turn everything within its range into scorched earth.
The longer natural energy was accumulated, the greater the range of destruction would become.
If enough energy were stored, its power would be sufficient to erase an entire city from the map.
Hotaru had been born as the vessel of this forbidden technique. Her grandfather, En no Gyōja, the former leader of the Tsuchigumo clan, had spent his entire life protecting it.
And the man standing before her had killed him.
Shiranami carried the same blood as her, yet he had murdered her grandfather simply because the old man had refused to hand over control of the forbidden technique to him.
"I will never give it to you."
Hotaru's voice trembled, but every word was pronounced clearly and firmly.
"Even if I die here today, the forbidden technique will disappear with me."
The smile on Shiranami's face faded slightly.
He stopped spinning the kunai in his hand and began walking slowly toward Hotaru.
Hotaru closed her eyes, her fingers curling even more tightly against her chest.
She would rather detonate the forbidden technique and die together with Shiranami than hand it over to him.
But at that moment, a hand suddenly came to rest on her shoulder.
The warmth of that hand passed through her torn clothing and reached her skin.
Hotaru opened her eyes.
Someone had appeared in front of her without her realizing it.
Long black hair fell down past his waist, while the hem of his robes was still swaying slightly, as though he had just arrived from a distant place at incredible speed and the wind had not yet had time to settle.
Kiyohara stood between her and Shiranami, his tall figure completely shielding her from view.
The smile vanished from Shiranami's face entirely.
He had not even seen when this person had appeared, much less understood how he had managed to pass through the sensory barrier he had established around the area.
Instinctively, he took half a step backward and raised the kunai horizontally in front of himself. His long eye corners narrowed slightly as he carefully sized up this unexpected intruder.
"Don't interfere in matters that don't concern you."
Hotaru also raised her head.
From this angle, she could only see the newcomer's back. His figure could not exactly be described as massive.
Yet that back stood before her like a wall, completely blocking the oppressive presence emanating from Shiranami that had made it difficult for her to breathe.
She opened her mouth, her voice hoarse.
"Please, please leave quickly. I don't want to hurt anyone else. His target is the forbidden technique. It's dangerous here."
Kiyohara turned his head slightly and lowered his eyes to glance at her.
"It's fine."
Then Kiyohara turned his head back and looked at Shiranami.
Shiranami's pupils contracted.
He had caught the chakra fluctuation that Kiyohara had inadvertently revealed in that brief moment when he turned his head.
That single fluctuation was enough to make Shiranami's knees go weak.
He stopped hesitating and immediately formed hand seals.
The secret technique of the Tsuchigumo clan activated. Dozens of purple threads made entirely of chakra extended from between his ten fingers. Each thread was no thicker than a strand of hair, yet they possessed enough cutting force to slice solid rock into pieces.
All of the threads shot toward Kiyohara simultaneously, weaving together in midair and forming an enormous net.
Kiyohara raised one hand.
Repulsive force erupted.
An invisible wall unfolded before him.
Dozens of chakra threads slammed into that unseen wall, and every single thread stopped in place at the same instant.
Then, under the counterforce of the repulsion, they snapped apart and transformed into countless tiny points of light that scattered and disappeared into the air.
Shiranami's eyes widened in disbelief.
Before he could even react, Kiyohara had already appeared directly in front of him.
One hand seized Shiranami by the chin.
Earth Release: Rock Binding Prison!
The earth surged up from beneath Shiranami's feet, spreading rapidly upward along his legs.
As he struggled desperately, the earth covered his knees, waist, abdomen, and chest, finally locking both of his arms firmly against the sides of his body.
Shiranami twisted his body with all his strength, desperately attempting to break free, but the earth was harder than steel. His struggles merely caused the patterns on the surface of the earthen restraint to tremble slightly.
Kiyohara released his hand.
Shiranami's entire body had been fixed in a kneeling position by the Rock Binding Prison, his knees striking heavily against the soil. His short purple hair was stuck to his forehead with cold sweat.
The viciousness that had filled those long, narrow eyes was completely gone.
Only fear remained.
From the moment Shiranami attacked to the moment he was completely subdued, barely two breaths had passed.
Kiyohara did not spare him another glance.
Instead, he returned to Hotaru and crouched down in front of her.
Hotaru raised her head, her pale green eyes still trembling faintly.
Everything she had just witnessed was completely beyond her understanding.
She knew Shiranami's strength better than anyone.
This traitor had killed her grandfather.
She had thought that there was no one who could stop him.
Yet the man standing before her had merely raised his hand, and Shiranami had been forced to his knees.
"Wh-who are you?"
Kiyohara did not answer her question.
He extended his hand and infused a stream of warm chakra into her body, first calming the unstable state of the forbidden technique within her.
"The technique inside you is the Tsuchigumo clan's 'Dohatsuten,' isn't it?"
Kiyohara withdrew his hand and stood up.
This forbidden technique had appeared in the anime.
He had never expected that the shinobi world would actually possess such a forbidden technique in reality.
The next moment, Kiyohara extended his hand toward her.
"A forbidden technique that uses natural energy as its foundation. It shares the same origin as senjutsu chakra. The fact that you have been able to contain it for so many years means that your body possesses an extremely high affinity for natural energy."
Hotaru stared blankly at the hand extended toward her.
After hesitating for a moment, she cautiously reached out with her own hand, which was stained with dirt and blood, and placed it in his palm.
Kiyohara closed his fingers around her hand and pulled her up from the ground.
"Where are you going now?"
Hotaru remained silent for a long time.
She lowered her head and looked at her torn short robe. She looked at the wounds on her arms that were still bleeding slightly. Then she looked at the broken branches and overturned earth around her feet, all of which had been damaged by the battle.
She suddenly realized that she had nowhere to go.
Her grandfather was dead.
Her guards were dead.
She no longer dared to return to the village of the Tsuchigumo clan.
The forbidden technique was still inside her, and Shiranami would certainly not be the only person who wanted to seize it.
She raised her head, confusion filling her pale green eyes.
Then she shook her head.
"I don't know either."
Kiyohara looked at her for a moment.
He then ended Shiranami's life before turning his attention back to Hotaru, who was still standing there in a daze.
"Then come back to Konoha with me for now."
Hotaru froze.
Konoha.
That was the hidden village of the Land of Fire.
She had heard her grandfather talk about the Five Great Nations ever since she was young. Konoha was one of the strongest shinobi villages in the world, and its Hokage was a shinobi who stood at the very pinnacle of the shinobi world.
Hotaru opened her mouth.
"Who, who are you, exactly?"
Kiyohara stopped walking and turned his head slightly.
The sea breeze lifted his long black hair, causing it to flutter gently behind him.
"The Fourth Hokage of Konoha, Kiyohara."
Hotaru's eyes suddenly widened.
Hokage?
The Hokage of Konoha?
…
Konoha.
Hokage's Office.
When Kiyohara pushed open the door to the office, Kurenai was sitting in a chair beside the window, organizing the patrol reports of the Second Division of the ANBU.
She raised her head.
When she saw a filthy girl following behind Kiyohara, with several bloodstained scratches still visible on her arms, her red eyes narrowed slightly.
"You brought a child back?"
Kurenai put down the report in her hand, rose from her chair, and walked over to Hotaru.
"Her chakra fluctuation is quite unusual."
"The vessel of the Tsuchigumo clan's forbidden technique, the granddaughter of En no Gyōja. Her name is Hotaru. I happened to save her on the way."
Kiyohara walked over to the Hokage's chair and sat down.
"Arrange a place for her to stay. Somewhere close to the ANBU dormitories."
Kurenai nodded.
She took a clean handkerchief from her sleeve and gently wiped the dirt from Hotaru's body.
Kiyohara had returned to the village extremely quickly, and Hotaru had not yet managed to fully process everything that had happened in the forest moments ago.
Because of that, the sudden gentleness shown by Kurenai left Hotaru somewhat at a loss.
"Come with me."
Kurenai stood up and beckoned to Hotaru.
Hotaru glanced back at Kiyohara.
Kiyohara nodded at her.
Only then did she follow Kurenai out of the office. Her steps were still somewhat unsteady, but they were already much steadier than they had been in the forest.
The door gently closed behind them.
The office fell silent.
Kiyohara sat in the Hokage's chair and took a scroll from his sleeve.
The fuinjutsu formula on the scroll emitted a faint glow beneath his fingertips before automatically unlocking.
A fist-sized piece of flesh covered in milky-white, mucus-like patterns appeared in his palm.
Kiyohara brought the flesh to his mouth and swallowed it.
The chakra of the Six-Tails surged down his throat and entered his chakra network. At that instant, an extremely faint milky-white glow spread across the surface of his skin.
All nine types of Tailed Beast chakra now existed within his body.
Most of these chakras had already been completely adapted to his body. Within his chakra network, they flowed like rivers of different colors sharing the same riverbed, running alongside one another without interfering with each other.
A small portion of the Tailed Beast chakra, especially the chakra of the Six-Tails that he had just swallowed, was still rapidly adapting.
Kiyohara could clearly feel the Six-Tails' viscous chakra being gradually accommodated by his chakra network layer by layer.
The process was progressing even faster than he had expected.
His rate of adaptation was becoming faster and faster.
When he had first begun adapting to Tailed Beast chakra, it had taken him a considerable amount of time. Now, however, the Six-Tails' chakra was being assimilated at an almost visible rate.
Kiyohara leaned back against the chair and closed his eyes, sensing the vast sea of chakra within his body as it continued to expand.
No wonder everyone beneath the level of the Six Paths was nothing more than an ant.
A quantity of chakra like this was truly astonishing.
And one had to understand that even the chakra of all nine Tailed Beasts could not be considered the absolute limit.
Only by becoming the Ten-Tails could a qualitative transformation occur.
Once Kiyohara completely adapted to all nine types of Tailed Beast chakra, there would only be one final step remaining.
Fuse them within an artificial Tailed Beast vessel and give birth to chakra that belonged exclusively to the Ten-Tails!
(End of Chapter)