Chapter 300: The God-Realm Paper Art Technique
Land of Rain battlefield
The Hokage looked down at Deidara's falling body, then turned her attention back to the distant figure in the black-and-red-clouded cloak.
The obstacles are cleared.
Now, for this woman.
Her green eyes settled on Konan, and something tightened in Konan's chest at the weight of that gaze.
But it hardly mattered anymore.
The God-Realm Paper Art Technique was already fully prepared.
Six hundred billion explosive tags.
Even accounting for the Hokage's defenses, absorbing something on this scale would take a serious toll on her.
That would be Nagato's opening — the perfect moment to strike.
"You are this world's darkness."
"And in a world without light, flowers can only wither."
Konan looked at the Hokage from a distance.
"Without light?"
The pink-haired woman seemed to find something amusing in that. She raised her hand.
The dark clouds Deidara's C4 Karura had blown apart earlier still hadn't fully reformed, and light fell across her upturned palm.
"Look. The light's right here, on me."
"You're the one who belongs to the dark."
Her pale skin seemed to glow faintly under the sunlight, and — as the last of the clouds scattered — a rainbow arced across the sky behind her.
In that moment, the pink-haired woman was the single most striking thing in all of heaven and earth.
The sight left Konan briefly stunned. But she recovered quickly, and cold words left her mouth.
"Regardless — you're the greatest obstacle standing between us and a new world."
"I will defeat you."
Konan had no interest in trading words further. Her wings, and her body along with them, dissolved into countless sheets of white paper, climbing higher into the sky.
Facing the pink-haired one alone.
Is she throwing her life away?
She wasn't.
As Konan moved, the very earth itself seemed to tremble.
A bottomless, terrifying chasm opened beneath the pink-haired woman, and at the same moment, the surrounding coalition forces pulled back to the edges of the battlefield.
Yuki and Han sensed the danger too, and both retreated at once.
Yuki looked up at the woman in the sky, a flicker of genuine wariness in her eyes.
A technique on this scale — even she couldn't withstand something like that.
"Everyone!"
"Fall back!"
Yuki immediately ordered her three hundred jōnin — who'd nearly broken through Kitsuchi's forces entirely — to retreat.
A pity, but if they didn't pull back now, this would be the end.
At that moment, countless sheets of paper surged skyward, seeming to sweep across all of heaven and earth.
No end in sight.
No edge visible.
No limit at all.
Paper filled the entirety of the sky between heaven and earth.
No — not paper.
Every single sheet was an explosive tag.
Six hundred billion explosive tags.
Divided evenly among Konoha's ten thousand shinobi on the Frost front, that would come to roughly sixty million tags per soldier.
And now, every single one of them was aimed at a single person.
Konoha's Fifth Hokage. Sakura Haruno.
Blanketing the sky, covering everything.
Truly, in every sense of the word, covering everything.
The clouds so recently blown apart were replaced instantly by a new "cloud" — one made entirely of paper.
In an instant, the Hokage's entire field of vision went utterly black.
"This is every explosive tag I have."
"Fall here, and be done with it."
"HOKAGE!"
Konan's voice rang out across heaven and earth.
There was, faintly, a tremor in it.
Even for her, controlling a technique of this scale was taking everything she had.
If the Hokage couldn't fly, Konan could have simply spread the tags flat across the ground. But since the Hokage moved through the air as freely as Konan herself, the only way to actually contain her was to surround her entirely, sealing off every possible direction of escape.
The Hokage looked out at the world of paper now enclosing her completely, and even she couldn't help but murmur, with something like genuine admiration:
"Quite the technique."
"I doubt there's more than a handful of people alive who could survive a barrage on this scale. Myself excluded."
Her voice stayed calm throughout, as though none of it particularly concerned her.
Meanwhile, far below, Inner Sakura noticed the massive sphere of paper — six hundred billion tags strong — forming in the distance.
She crushed Sasori's core beneath her heel and let out a sigh.
"What a pain."
Nearby, Kisame, breathing hard, watched her warily.
"What's a pain?"
"Care to fill me in?"
He hadn't merged with Samehada. The reason was simple — Samehada had been kicked unconscious by this pink-haired menace, leaving him no opportunity to fuse with it at all.
"Obviously — dealing with something this self-important."
The pink-haired figure turned to look at the towering man before her.
Her tone was cool, composed.
Nothing at all like Inner Sakura's usual arrogant swagger.
"This—"
Kisame started to say something more, but the shift in her expression was too pronounced to miss, and something clenched tight in his chest.
This feeling...
This feeling!
The one standing in front of him wasn't the clone anymore.
She was—
The Fifth Hokage.
When?
When exactly did they swap places with the clone?
Kisame wasn't a fool. He understood immediately, and moved to shout a warning to Konan, high above.
The one caught inside the God-Realm Paper Art Technique isn't the Hokage at all!
But—
"Shh."
"Don't move."
The Hokage raised a finger to her lips, silencing him.
"A fireworks display this grand doesn't come along often."
"I'd rather you didn't spoil my enjoyment of it."
The pink-haired Hokage smiled lightly at Kisame, and a sudden, crushing pressure locked his body in place, cold sweat pouring down his skin.
Move—
And I'm dead.
"You—"
Off to the side, Hiruko — beaten unconscious by three of Inner Sakura's punches earlier — struggled weakly, trying to get back to his feet.
"Hiruko, was it?"
"Genuinely talented, that one."
"Shame. Didn't I already tell you not to move?"
The words fell, and a flash of dark light shot from the Hokage's hand, punching straight through Hiruko's throat.
His so-called Shikotsumyaku shield was, in the Hokage's eyes, no sturdier than paper. And by now, he was already running on fumes.
"Kisame. Enjoy the show."
"This fireworks display."
Her green eyes turned back to Kisame, and he swallowed hard.
High above, Konan still had no idea the figure trapped inside her technique had already been swapped — or, more precisely, that no one at all remained inside it.
But watching, with her own eyes, the Hokage engulfed by the explosive tags, Konan was certain — certain — the Hokage was still trapped inside.
The explosion.
Began.
Flame lit up the sky, blast after blast rolling on without pause.
The pink-haired figure crossed her arms, watching the unprecedented, magnificent fireworks display unfolding above, and said, quiet:
"Beautiful, isn't it?"
"Kisame."
Kisame went cold all over at the question, forcing the words out through gritted teeth, trembling.
"...Beautiful."
The so-called "hunt for the tiger" had failed.
At the cost of four of the coalition's top fighters — Ōnoki, Deidara, Sasori, Hiruko — all in a row.
They'd believed, right up until the end, they'd trapped the Hokage inside the God-Realm Paper Art Technique — never imagining she'd simply swap places with a clone in an instant, defusing the entire technique with barely any effort at all.
Which meant Konan, having burned through everything to cast a technique that scale, would be left severely weakened, unable to fight at real strength for some time afterward.
And the Hokage in front of him now—
Looked like she hadn't lost a single thing.
So how, exactly, was Nagato supposed to bring her down now?
Kisame's feet edged backward, half a step, without meaning to.
"Didn't I say — don't move?"
Suddenly, the Hokage's eyes turned toward him.
!!!
Terror surged through Kisame in that instant, and without thinking, he turned to run.
But a hand had already torn straight through his body from behind.
Kisame's eyes went wide in shock.
Blood, mixed with shredded fragments of organ, spilled from his mouth.
"Ho...kage..."
He felt it — a hand-blade, driven straight through his back, punching clean through his heart.
"Why didn't you listen..."
A quiet sigh drifted from behind him. Kisame tried to say something more, opening his mouth, but no words would come.
As the hand withdrew from his body, his towering frame collapsed, lifeless, to the ground.
"...Fast. Really... fast..."
With his final breath, Kisame managed those last words.
Meanwhile, the explosions in the sky continued, unabated.
"Lord Hokage... will she be all right..."
Among the Konoha shinobi below, more than a few swallowed hard, staring up at the terrifying series of blasts overhead.
"She'll be fine."
Yuki said, calm.
Even the Sage of the Six Paths had come away worse for wear against her. What was a single Akatsuki member, in comparison?
The explosions continued for ten full minutes before finally, at last, falling silent.
Smoke hung heavy across heaven and earth, all that remained.
"Is... is she dead..."
Konan, breathing hard, stared out at the smoke-choked expanse in the distance.
No one — no one at all — could have walked away from the God-Realm Paper Art Technique unscathed.
Even survival, if it happened at all, should have left nothing but a barely-breathing wreck.
But—
As the smoke began to clear, Konan's amber eyes started, uncontrollably, to shake.
The person...
...where—
"Quite the fireworks show. Shame about all those explosive tags, though."
A cool, clear voice spoke from directly behind her, and Konan couldn't stop herself from trembling.
"That's not possible..."
She still couldn't bring herself to believe what was happening.
"Goodbye, then..."
Having exhausted so much of her chakra casting the God-Realm Paper Art Technique, Konan's reserves had dropped to a historic low — simply staying airborne right now was already taking everything she had left.
How was she supposed to face the Hokage in this state?
At that moment, the Hokage raised her hand—
Just as the blow was about to fall, a figure shot up from the coalition ranks below like a fired artillery shell, streaking straight toward Konan.
Or rather — he'd already been moving toward her the instant the God-Realm technique ended.
But—
"Take one more step, and she dies~"
A pale, delicate hand settled over Konan's throat.
Behind her, a pair of green eyes, glinting with undisguised malice, looked past her at the man who'd just arrived.
"Na... Nagato..."
Konan stared at the man before her, trembling.
Again...
It felt eerily, achingly familiar.
Once again, she'd become someone's hostage.
(End of chapter.)
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