"You're fine with this?"
I really wasn't. But I couldn't show that as I shrugged in answer.
"They say they are fine where they are. I cannot force them to follow me to Kiri. They likely won't follow just anyone with red hair and a charming smile."
Konan searched my face before pointing out, "But you're not just anyone. You showed them the Adamantine Sealing Chains, a vaunted ability only reserved for the strongest of the Uzumaki. Plus, you're very strong… and respected."
"I have killed enough clans and stolen their children in this life. If they think they can protect themselves, I see no point in forcing them."
"Why not use genjutsu? Or suss out factions in their community and tempt those who want more strength with your pills and training? They don't seem to have a thorough grasp on sealing techniques, you could have told them about the scrolls you have back in Kirigakure."
I shook my head with a wry smile and answered, "And to what end? I'm not planning to rebuild Uzushiogakure or give anyone the means to do that. By all accounts, I have enough factions at my beck and call. These Uzumaki shinobi were too headstrong. Their civilians too fervent in their belief that the shinobi will keep them safe. And why shouldn't they? They got them this far. Half a dozen countries away from those who destroyed Uzu…"
These mongrels just wasted a few hours of my time. If those weaklings barely scraping by the special jōnin strength thought they could keep the other Uzumakis living in their small village safe forever, so be it. I'd be more pissed if I didn't have business in the Land of Iron anyway and actually wasted the entire trip.
"You're not planning to recreate the Uzumaki clan?" Konan asked innocently, though I know she was anything but.
"With knowledge of its destruction, the only thing I'd do differently from the Uzumaki clan that was wiped out was do what Senju Hashirama and his brother decreed. Encourage the Uzumaki to marry outsiders to make sure it would endure. Of course, with the hindsight granted to me by knowing how that went, I'd still keep a strong core of an Uzumaki main family to punish anyone going after my bloodline. Konoha is a really rotten place for allowing so many Senju descendants to get killed. Even the civilians," I muttered in distaste.
"Even the civilians?" Konan repeated with furrowed brows.
Oh? Akatsuki didn't know about the fate of the Senju clan? I could tell she wasn't pretending to see whether or not our information matched when I ultimately retold the events as I knew them.
"Personally, I suspect Danzō especially and Orochimaru by association. From what I know, Danzō tried desperately to recreate Hashirama's legendary wood release through inhuman experiments. For that, Danzō sought out strong Senju ninja who just as desperately wanted to gain that immense power with the Hokage's help. When the experiments failed to awaken the Wood Release in them and the volunteers were all used up, Danzō made the weaker Senju disappear in missions and on the frontline. Once that pool of resources was exhausted as well, Danzō turned on the civilians whose lineage he could trace back to the Senju."
Konan had disbelief written all over her face as we continued walking back to the capital of the Land of Iron.
"How do you know with such certainty?"
I shrugged and answered, "Pure conjecture. I was the darkness of my village. The things Yagura made me do align perfectly with what happened with the Senju clan's disappearance, except Yagura made me do it in the open through sheer overwhelming power. Danzō still pretends he has to answer to Hiruzen so he can't commit his atrocities out in the open. I'll know I'm right if the Uchiha clan is gone in the next four to five years, too."
"Four to five years? But they are different from the Senju. There's still so many of them," Konan pointed out with furrowed brows.
"Hiruzen is a coward that allowed Kumo to kill a jōnin after they tried to steal away the Hyuga clan heir, and he allowed for Hatake Sakumo to be shunned by his village until he commited suicide so that he couldn't take away the Hokage seat. Danzō has already succeeded in making the Uchiha the scapegoats without any concrete evidence for the nine-tails incident. Is it so unbelievable that Danzō will succeed in finding a way to cull the entire Uchiha clan?"
Konan shook her head and rebuked in a low voice, "Unlikely…"
I inwardly scoffed before reaching out a hand to stop Konan.
I didn't touch her so as to not offend her but she stopped in her tracks regardless.
"The mission is a failure, but you made your way all the way here. Who could have suspected none of those Uzumaki would want to follow me?" I explained with a shrug as I took a scroll from my plant dimension but pretended it came from my haori. Handing it over, I continued, "That was hardly your fault. As such, here is the compensation I consider fair for the trip you made. I'll go back via the northern route through the Land of Earth, I doubt you want to follow me."
Konan accepted the scroll with narrowed eyes, weighing my words carefully.
"You really are just going to accept their refusal?"
Taken aback, I laughed a hollow laugh and countered, "As opposed to wiping them all out for daring to deny me?"
I continued walking ahead with a shake of my head, "Tell Nagato I said hi."
The last Konan saw me, I was pointing in a certain direction. The direction where her partner in Akatsuki was hidden.
Him following her secretly was the only reason I didn't propose anything promiscuous in nature.
Well, that and the fact that I had only just bagged the high priestess and de-facto leader of a country to my own surprise. Even my desire for random sex had its limits.
Additionally, I could see it in Konan's eyes. Yahiko had only just died and she was genuinely in love with him. Or at very least she was absolutely heart-broken about losing him. She would not accept any new relationship at all at this time. Not with a stranger like me for sure.
I wondered for the shortest of moments why Nagato didn't want to see me, but quickly dismissed it. Whatever his reason, I had given him no cause to see me as an enemy.
After half a day of travel with my flame jutsu, I arrived at the border between the Land of Earth and the Land of Bears but made my way back to the ninja village of the Land of Bears: Hoshigakure.
At the border, I bought info on the whereabouts of Roshi and Han, the two jinchūriki of Iwagakure, but I also bought information on the Land of Bears and the other smaller countries close by like the Lands of Fangs, Claws, and Honey.
I learned that Hoshigakure had a special item in its possession, a strange meteorite. The Village Hidden Among Stars had created a special training method that worked with the chakra emitted by that meteorite and allowed the shinobi of that small village to gain untold levels of chakra control. It went as far as allowing them to create solid chakra constructs that they could freely shape as they wanted.
Naturally I wanted to steal it and see what happened if I chucked this meteorite in my dimension.
Finding the Village Hidden Among Stars was entirely effortless. The strange chakra that anybody who trained near that meteorite emitted lit up like a bright neon pink bonfire in my Mind's Eye of Kagura.
Even finding the meteorite turned out to be child's play, but observing these ninja who shone so brightly in my perception quickly showed me why the other ninja villages hadn't come to obliterate this small village and take the 'star' it was named after away.
These people who trained in the village's hiden – forbidden jutsu – were all sick.
All except for a single violet-haired young kunoichi. Her chakra shone brightest in the colors of that special chakra radiation, but she showed no signs of the exhaustion and frailty the others showed. She was hurt differently.
I was able to steal the meteorite despite this village's 'kage' being close by. The old man called Third Hoshikage barely showed chakra levels in the elite jōnin range and he seemed to be on the verge of dying. His vitality was as good as exhausted. He'd live no more than five years despite looking like he was in his late 50s.
With the meteorite sealed in my plant dimension, I walked back to the violet-haired woman with a Konoha ANBU mask on my face and revealed myself to her in her home.
"Who are you?" She immediately spat angrily as she took out a kunai once she sensed my presence.
"Why are you not showing any symptoms as the others do?" I asked as I ignored her question.
"Why should I tell you anything, bastard?" She defiantly cursed as her expression turned more feral.
"I'd like you to answer me, I don't need you to answer me," I pointed out with a sigh as I stepped closer with a body flicker and sealed her chakra by tapping her forehead.
She seemed to be almost at the level of a jōnin, but her reaction speed was sorely lacking. She only managed to bring the kunai to my heart when I had already completed the sealing and I casually stopped her wrist before she could try and stab me.
"Kill me then, you will get nothing from me," she angrily ordered, her grimace turning more and more angry.
With furrowed brows, I formed three hand seals with my free hand and put the woman in a genjutsu. A technique I learned from Kiri's hidden scroll during Yagura's tenure – an enhanced interrogation jutsu called False Ally Genjutsu.
In the hands of an ordinary ninja, you could ask a single question at best before the mind of the target would realise that it had been duped. And it had a ridiculously high failure rate, which was why it wasn't a very widespread technique.
But in the hands of someone with my exaggerated yin chakra affinity? If my target wasn't kage level or had extreme resistance to genjutsu or a plainly strong will, I'd be able to force the genjutsu to stay inside my target's head indefinitely.
I'd just fry the target's psyche eventually by doing that.
"Why are you so angry?" I asked with a tilted head.
"A shinobi from one of the five great villages appeared in my home as I was mourning the death of my family," the kunoichi answered with glassy eyes.
"How did your family die?"
"Ninja from Iwagakure at the border accused my husband Hotarubi of stealing rations at their border station. My husband would never steal. They killed him to get rid of the scapegoat and any evidence. To appease the Iwagakure commander who came to seek an explanation, a ninja from Hoshigakure called Akahoshi handed over my son Sumaru so that he may pay for his father's sins. Since the Hoshikage is too weak, he didn't intervene and merely put me on house arrest to stop me from seeking revenge."
'He'd never steal? What a shitty shinobi…'
"Why didn't they hand you over instead of getting rid of your son?"
"My husband and I both have a special constitution that allows us to stay healthy despite training in the Mysterious Peacock Method."
I narrowed my eyes, asking, "What does this hiden do?"
"It allows its user to condense a special form of chakra as long as you practice the initial stages near the fallen meteorite. In return, most shinobi training near the meteorite eventually die from organ failure and chakra exhaustion."
"So they want to keep you around in hopes you could birth more children capable of surviving training in that training method?"
The kunoichi nodded stiffly.
I had a faint inkling that this was somehow the part of a plotline in a few filler episodes of canon maybe. But I didn't care much about that as I walked around the woman.
"What is your name?"
"Natsuhi," she answered in a small voice.
Leaning closer to her ears, I whispered, "Do you want revenge, Natsuhi?"
The fire came back to her eyes, though she didn't move an inch.
"Yes, I want to annihilate Iwagakure and Akahoshi," she breathed out with a feral growl.
I once more touched her forehead and proposed, "Teach me that star training method and follow me. I will give you Akahoshi and burn down the border station."
—————
Natsuhi followed behind me with a horizontal cut going over her forehead protector depicting a star. She had officially become a rogue ninja after torturing a defenseless Akahoshi for hours once I abducted and then bound him completely with fūinjutsu.
She had only stopped when I expressed my boredom.
I didn't doubt that she would have otherwise spent another few hours with the unfortunate Hoshi nin. Days maybe.
"Watch closely," I instructed as we stood on a cliff near the Iwa border station. Between us and the fortification was a deep ravine.
Just for theatrics, I muttered the name of the technique out loud as I finished several hand seals, "Fire Release: Dawn of the Dragon!"
After a deep inhale, I breathed out an unending stream of fire chakra as a dragon made from blazing flames formed in its wake. The dragon continued to grow in size unceasingly until it could eventually fill the entire ravine between us and the target.
When it did, I saw several earth jutsu hurtling in its direction, but none of the rocks and boulders managed to even slow the dragon for a fraction of a second. The rocks and other projectiles were swallowed by the flames, superheated, and joined the massive dragon's power in the form of more molten mass.
The unparalleled jutsu continued on without slowing down as it devoured the entire border station in one swoop and killed everyone inside instantly.
Once it did, I made the dragon loop around and crash into the ground for a massive chain explosion just to get rid of any stragglers completely.
Down watching my apocalyptic jutsu, I turned to look at Natsuhi and asked, "Did you have something like this in mind?"
She looked dumbfounded for a moment before turning to me. Searching my eyes for a silent moment, she eventually asked, "Just who are you?"
I took off the ANBU mask with a chuckle since I was sure there were no survivors close by and introduced myself, "Terumi Yoshihiro, the Red Demon of Kiri."
She nodded after recognizing my name, gained a sweet smile and said, "Thank you."
Immediately after, she tried to plunge a kunai into her throat.
It didn't escape my notice and I stopped her hand. We struggled for a short moment before she conceded and looked at me sadly.
"Don't you think that you still owe me for services rendered?" I asked with an unimpressed glare.
Natsuhi shook her head in disbelief and apologized with a wry smile, "Forgive me, Terumi-sama. I wanted to join my family."
I calculated my best response for a short while until I offered, "Stay with the living a little while longer and you will see Iwakagure suffer some more losses."
She obediently nodded, now disarmed completely, and followed me while she kept looking back to the smoldering ruins of the border station.
The one where some corrupt asshole framed her husband for something he did and set in motion a chain of events that led to me wiping it from the map.
—————
"Stay behind," I ordered and once again put on my Konoha ANBU mask.
Shortly after, I walked to a clearing where two of Iwakagure's most powerful ninjas were currently having a barbeque.
"Oh?" Roshi asked as scratched the back of his head. "Did we invite any Konoha brats?"
The five-tails jinchūriki next to him narrowed his eyes and donned the red mask of his 'steam armor' once more, muttering, "He smells dangerous."
Roshi nodded and shouted, "Hey. Why are you here?"
Before I could answer, Han uttered, "Boil Release: Steam Explosion," and forced me to dodge the first attack.
When I landed, Roshi had finished using hand seals and declared, "Lava Release: Fiery Rock Barrage!"
Several molten rocks were shot in my direction and before I fully dodged, Han had already closed the distance with a flying kick.
Both the lava release jutsu and the taijutsu attack passed through my form completely and I was so annoyed with their instantaneous aggression, I decided to no longer pretend to be a Konoha shinobi.
"If that's how you want to play it, so be it," I drawled from where none of the two jinchūriki could see me.
"Boil Release: Hidden in Acid Mist," I spat as I released my first technique.
Immediately the surroundings were drowned in corrosive fog that was lethal for anyone who inhaled it and didn't have the chakra to shield their lungs constantly.
Done with that variation of Kiri's signature Hidden in the Mist technique, I targeted Roshi as I formed a single hand seal and angrily muttered, "Lava Release: Molten Death."
A rock so hot it glowed like the sun grew in the form of a spike beneath Roshi's feet. The four-tails jinchūriki dodged it easily but his eyes widened in horror when a second spike just as hot as the last grew where he landed and burned his leg. It took all his control and his own bijū's chakra to avoid losing the leg – but it didn't stop my acid mist from catching up to him.
Immediately he gained a tailed beast chakra cloak to avoid death, but he was coughing severely despite all that, bubbling blood joining every single painful cough.
In the meantime, a fire clone appeared in the mist behind Han and gave him an axe kick that the five-tails jinchūriki managed to sidestep, but my clone vanished into a flame and appeared from another angle to deliver an elbow strike to Han's midsection.
Caught off guard by the clone's overwhelming speed, that strike connected and immediately shattered Han's red armor.
I allowed the boil release mist to dissipate and looked at both jinchūriki now worse for wear with narrowed eyes. Sharing a quick look, both Iwa nin readied themselves to go all out with their tailed beast forms, but two clones of mine formed from atmospheric chakra I dispersed during the fight behind both opponents and sealed the chakra of their bijū before they could react. Then, the clones sealed the chakra of the two shinobi as well.
I walked forward as I heard Han ask, "You're here to steal our tailed beasts? Iwagakure will stop at nothing to hunt you down."
"To believe that I would have had to have trouble finding you. The black market in the Land of Earth sold you out quite easily," I countered with a scoff.
"Who are you anyway? There's no way Konoha has a shinobi with both lava and boil release at your power level. They'd have either killed you years ago or paraded you around like the second coming of Hashirama-sama," Roshi sullenly inquired.
I merely scoffed.
"Related to that Mizukage brat? She boasts both of our kekkei genkai," Han added as my clone forced him to kneel. I felt that he geared up for another last resort taijutsu attack before. For good measure my clone broke the rest of his steam armor.
"Who am I indeed? Orochimaru did plenty of illegal experimentation for Danzō. Who knows if he succeeded in granting someone your powers?"
Han turned thoughtful as Roshi shook his head in disbelief.
We all knew that I wasn't being truthful.
My clones forced down two sleeping pills into the two jinchūriki. Even with their chakra sealed I couldn't be sure they wouldn't get rid of any genjutsu I put them under immediately while still conscious.
After all, they both survived two ninja wars at least. And Iwa wasn't shy about using these two as weapons. They might have been caught off guard by my overwhelming speed and chakra control, but I kind of cheated by adding sage chakra to my lava release jutsu. It had no business working this fast over such distances originally. Their loss was sealed into stone before it started.
Obviously I would have won regardless, but not as cleanly, not against two of the stronger, experienced jinchūriki at the same time.
A fire clone of mine brought Natsuhi closer to me and I pointed at the two of them and explained, "You are aware of jinchūriki and their importance to a ninja village?"
The violet-haired kunoichi solemnly nodded.
It seemed my performance as I destroyed a border station with a single jutsu had impressed her much more compared to what I just did against these two powerful combatants.
"Will you kill them?"
"No, they haven't done anything to me. I'll just make it so they will lose a lot of their combat effectiveness," I waved away with a wry smile.
I walked over to Roshi who finally fell asleep – both had been put under a short term genjutsu that caused confusion and obfuscated their short term memory by my clones – and put my hand on his stomach.
Fuka had taught me her secret technique that she used on me on our first meeting. Obviously I wouldn't be kissing these two shinobi to get to the chakra of the tailed beasts, but I tweaked her chakra drain hiden and could now use it with any of my major chakra acupoints, like the one in my wrist.