Chapter 200: Absorbing the Ryumyaku, Hunting Toroi
The door banged shut.
Natsuki watched Uchiha Mikoto flee in a panic and licked the corner of his mouth. He could still feel the ghost of her lips.
He smiled faintly, gathered himself, and went back to his desk to work.
—
A new day.
Uchiha Mikoto appeared before him again. She seemed to have wiped yesterday from the record entirely—brewing his tea, handling his paperwork, exactly as always.
Natsuki wasn't in any rush. There were other angles to take with Mikoto.
Just then, he felt one of his Eyeball Clones wink out. The one he'd left with Pakura.
Natsuki's eyes narrowed. Rouran? Or the Third Kazekage?
"Mikoto, I'm stepping out for a bit." Natsuki stood, and opened an Air Door.
He reached the Hidden Sand Village in moments.
"The intelligence on Rouran." Pakura handed him a document the moment she saw him.
"Thank you." Natsuki took it—then looked up at her instead of opening it.
"Something wrong?" Pakura asked, puzzled.
"Change your clothes," Natsuki said.
"I'll go now." She didn't hesitate; she simply went to her room.
She came back in the low-cut, backless evening gown he'd bought her earlier.
"Satisfied?" Pakura turned a slow circle in front of him, offering the whole line of her figure without a trace of shyness.
"Not bad." Natsuki chuckled.
Then he opened the document.
Rouran was a small country buried deep in the Land of Wind's desert. Country was generous; it was an oasis city and little more. Rouran had no ninja and no real power—it scraped by.
But for reasons of her own, the Queen of Rouran had somehow formed a connection with the Ryumyaku, and could draw on its energy in a limited way. She understood perfectly well that owning a treasure invites disaster, so despite having it, she never used it.
Until Mukade came back from the future, took the name Anrokuzan, developed the Ryumyaku aggressively, and built a puppet army.
But... where was Mukade?
Natsuki noticed the document didn't mention him at all. Pakura wouldn't make a mistake like that. Which left only one explanation: Mukade hadn't traveled back.
Natsuki thought it through and understood.
Time travel through the Ryumyaku demanded a staggering amount of energy. In the source material, Mukade and Uzumaki Naruto managed it only because the Ryumyaku had been accumulating for a thousand years. But Natsuki already planned to drain it with the Black Grail. Absorb it successfully, and neither Mukade nor Naruto would ever make the jump—they were only some twenty years downstream, and twenty years wasn't remotely long enough for the Ryumyaku to rebuild that kind of charge.
Natsuki closed the document.
Given the state of Rouran as it stood, he could already confirm it: he would absorb the Ryumyaku's energy successfully.
Which meant there was no reason to waste more time.
"Are you free right now?" Natsuki looked at Pakura. "Let's take a trip to Rouran."
"Sure." She nodded. She was genuinely curious about his methods. Even the Third Kazekage had been unable to do anything with the Ryumyaku.
"So I have to change again," Pakura complained a beat later.
"It's fine. We've got time." Natsuki coughed lightly.
She turned and went back to her room.
Natsuki looked thoughtful. Pakura had changed a great deal, he felt. She was far livelier around him than she used to be.
That was a good thing. He had no interest in a lifelike doll with the feeling scraped out.
Before long she came back out.
Natsuki had never been to Rouran, so he used the Door-Door Fruit to jump to the nearest stretch of desert. On arrival he brought out Minazuki and released Shikai, and the giant manta ray took shape.
Natsuki sprang onto its back and extended a hand. Pakura took it and vaulted up, and the manta rose into the sky.
Pakura's face registered surprise. Minazuki was, frankly, an education. Though after the Blood Curse and the Blood Demon Arts, she found she wasn't as staggered as she might have been.
She still didn't understand why a secret art like the Blood Curse should exist at all. However she turned it, a ninja's blood shouldn't do that.
Her instinct was correct, as it happened. It wasn't a ninja's blood. It was a demon's.
The two flew out over the desert—until a great oasis rose in front of them, dense with buildings.
But Natsuki had no interest in Rouran. Only the Ryumyaku.
He triggered Observation Haki.
A moment later he found it: an enormous mass of chakra blanketing the entire underground on the oasis's northern side.
His heart lurched. This was Tailed Beast-class chakra. Considerably more than what Moryo and Satori had held between them.
And there was something else in it, too—an energy that wasn't chakra at all. He knew this one as well. Natural energy.
The Ryumyaku had formed naturally. That it carried natural energy was only to be expected.
For Natsuki, though, it was an unlooked-for gift. Sage Mode ran on natural energy—and his Sage Mode was a half-finished thing. Under ordinary circumstances he needed the three Snake Princesses to hold it for any length of time.
Now, perhaps not. Once the Black Grail swallowed the Ryumyaku, it could bank an enormous store of natural energy for him to draw on at will.
Natsuki patted the manta ray. It banked toward the oasis's northern edge and descended over the Ryumyaku's position.
"This Ryumyaku is a monstrous thing." The instant she landed, Pakura felt the vast, bottomless energy beneath her feet.
She understood now why even the Third Kazekage had wanted it.
But how could anyone use it? Pakura fell into thought.
"What are you thinking about?" Natsuki raised a hand, Earth Release chakra surged, and the ground split open, revealing a passage.
He dropped through—and a dragon came into view.
More precisely, dragon-shaped chakra. The head faced him. The tail ran off into the depths of the earth, its end nowhere in sight.
"How to use the Ryumyaku," Pakura said, landing beside him.
"Come up with anything?" Natsuki asked idly.
"Treat it like a Tailed Beast." Pakura replied. "Pick a ninja to be its Jinchuriki and use it the way you'd use a Tailed Beast."
"Good idea. Won't work." Natsuki shook his head.
"Why not?"
"The Ryumyaku isn't only chakra." Natsuki looked at the dragon. "And it isn't alive."
Natural energy is savagely volatile. To hold a balance inside the body, it has to be blended with chakra into Senjutsu chakra. Which is to say, the Jinchuriki would have to be a ninja who'd already mastered Sage Mode.
Even then, it would be suicidal—because the Ryumyaku isn't a Tailed Beast. It has no consciousness. It stays in a permanent rampage.
The danger of a berserk Tailed Beast doesn't need explaining.
Natsuki suspected that was exactly why the Third Kazekage had left it where it lay. Treating the Ryumyaku as a Tailed Beast isn't a hard idea to arrive at. The two are near-identical—one simply lacks a mind, and the other has one.
Namikaze Minato's handling of it in the source material proved the point. He used the Flying Thunder God Technique together with Uzumaki clan Fuinjutsu and sealed the Ryumyaku back into the earth. In theory, anything you can seal into the earth you can seal into a body. Minato didn't. First, he had no appetite for it. Second, it was too dangerous.
"What are you going to do?" Pakura asked, caught out by the shift.
"Tell the Queen of Rouran that the Hidden Sand has already taken the Ryumyaku. And that in exchange, the Hidden Sand will protect Rouran free of charge," Natsuki replied.
Pakura stared at him, faintly astonished.
She'd assumed he'd simply take it. At his strength he could have—and even if Rouran learned of it, they could do nothing but rage.
But Natsuki had more of a conscience than she'd credited him with.
A bandit's conscience, admittedly.
"I'll go now." Pakura spared the Ryumyaku one last look and vaulted back to the surface.
Seeing the Queen of Rouran was one purpose. Getting her out of the way was another.
Once Pakura had gone, Natsuki raised a hand.
The Black Grail flew from his forehead and drifted toward the Ryumyaku, halting at the dragon's head. A beam of light lanced out and enveloped it.
The Ryumyaku began to shake. In an instant the earth heaved and the mountains swayed.
But the Ryumyaku was an inanimate thing, and with the Black Grail bearing down on it, its resistance came to nothing. Soon it was drained away entirely.
Natsuki waved a hand, and the Black Grail returned to his forehead.
He took stock for a moment, and a satisfied smile crossed his face. It wasn't infinite chakra, exactly—but with a reserve this vast, he'd have real trouble ever spending it all.
There wasn't a ninja in the whole world with more chakra than he had now.
The Sage of Six Paths in the Pure Land and the sealed Otsutsuki Kaguya were arguable, of course. But neither of them was in the ninja world, so Natsuki felt he was on solid ground.
A moment later Pakura reappeared.
Her eyes went to the Ryumyaku on reflex—and found nothing at all. Empty.
How exactly had he done that? She couldn't work it out. And Natsuki felt no different to her than before. Had he just become a Jinchuriki, there would have been something.
"Finished with the Queen?" Natsuki asked.
"She resisted at first. Then she felt the Ryumyaku vanish and agreed." Pakura pulled her gaze back.
Natsuki gave a small nod. This was the ninja world. Strength decides.
In truth, losing the Ryumyaku was a kind of protection for Rouran. In the source material, the Ryumyaku was exactly what destroyed them—from a small country to a scattered tribe.
"I'll send you back." Natsuki raised a hand and opened an Air Door.
Pakura stepped through and came out in her own home.
The door vanished.
Pakura stood there, caught off guard. She'd assumed he'd follow her through and keep taking his liberties.
—
Time slipped by, and the year drew to a close.
From absorbing the Ryumyaku to December—some four months—Natsuki did three things. First, he spent his time with Yakushi Nonou and Uzumaki Kushina. Second, he teased Uchiha Mikoto and Pakura. Third, he took Might Guy, Yuhi Kurenai, and Shizune out on missions.
—
The first day back after the New Year holiday. Natsuki's office.
Uchiha Mikoto's mouth was dry as sand. An intoxicating flush covered her face, sweat beaded across her pale skin, her hair in disarray.
More conspicuous still were the marks along her collarbone.
"Good morning, Mikoto." Natsuki greeted her with a smile.
Mikoto kept her head down.
She'd been through the door barely a moment before Natsuki caught her up and kissed her for five solid minutes.
Her lips burned. Her neck, her collarbone, every inch of skin. And the marks.
If anyone saw this, how would she ever live it down?
Natsuki licked the corner of his mouth and crossed to his desk. Once he'd sat, he picked up the day's documents.
He read, and his gaze narrowed.
After half a year of skirmishing, the war between the Hidden Mist and the Hidden Cloud had escalated. Each side had committed a thousand ninja to the field.
A thousand doesn't sound like much. It is. Among the Five Great Villages, the number of ninja with genuine combat capability runs around ten thousand apiece—which made this a tenth of their strength. Outside a Great Ninja War, you'd be hard-pressed to find a conflict on a larger scale.
What surprised Natsuki most was that the thousand the Third Mizukage sent included the last two of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen.
Though at this point, they ought to drop the Sword and simply call themselves the Seven—only two of them still carried one.
Those two—or rather, the Blast Sword: Shibuki and the Twin Swords: Hiramekarei in their hands—were Natsuki's targets.
Natsuki looked thoughtful. His marks had surfaced. Time to make the trip.
Fishing in muddied water on a battlefield was easy work. And while he was at it, he could unlock the last ability of the Unohana Retsu template—Kaidō. It required killing three Medical Jonin, and he was one short.
He'd learned medical ninjutsu already, true. But an extra Kaidō in his pocket never hurt.
Still, he'd wait a few days. The reinforcements from both villages hadn't reached the front yet.
At that, Natsuki said his goodbyes to Mikoto and went to the Seven Warlords of the Sea's base in the great port city of the Land of Water.
The Seven Warlords had grown considerably—no smaller now than a major ninja clan. The Daimyo of the Land of Water, rich and open-handed, had simply handed them the entire street behind his own mansion for a base.
Natsuki arrived at the three Snake Princesses' residence.
The three were permanently stationed with the Seven Warlords now. There was no danger in the Land of Sea; the original Kuja Pirates were enough for that. The great port city was another story. The Hidden Mist had dropped its investigation into them, but only for the moment; the instant they found an opening, it would come as a thunderclap. With the three Snake Princesses here, the worst case could be headed off.
"The three of you—head for the battlefield between the Hidden Mist and the Hidden Cloud immediately and pin down Toroi's location," Natsuki ordered without preamble. "Summon me in a week."
That said, he stepped into an Air Door and returned to Konoha.
Natsuki had settled on his approach some time ago: wear a Hidden Cloud ninja's face to kill the two Swordsmen. It kept his identity clean and sharpened the knife between the Cloud and the Mist at the same time.
He had the Kibutsuji Muzan template's Complete Mimicry. He wasn't worried about anyone seeing through it.
After reviewing the Jonin fielded on the Hidden Cloud's side, Natsuki picked his mark.
Toroi.
Magnet Release might have been the Hidden Sand's signature Kekkei Genkai, but it wasn't theirs alone. Toroi was a Magnet Release ninja of the Hidden Cloud.
Natsuki chose him for two reasons. First, the man knew Magnet Release. Second, the Seven Ninja Swordsmen were formidable—it would strain belief for some ordinary Cloud Jonin to kill them. For Toroi, the Magnet Release user, it would look perfectly reasonable.
—
A week went by fast.
Sitting in his office, Natsuki felt the three Snake Princesses' summons. He stopped resisting it, and in the space of a blink he stood before them.
"Master." Tagorihime inclined her head. "Toroi's squad has been holding a stronghold not far from here these past two days."
"Take me." Natsuki nodded.
"Yes, Master."
"Master, there's no need for you to lift a finger. The three of us can kill the four of them easily," Ichikishimahime offered, falling in beside him.
"I'll handle Toroi. The other three are yours." Natsuki paused. "Memorize their faces and their ninjutsu. Once they're dead, you'll wear them."
The three Snake Princesses' Sage Art: Transformation doubled as a Transformation Technique. Being senjutsu, it wasn't easily broken. And under ordinary circumstances, nobody investigates their own village's ninja for no reason.
They soon reached the outskirts of the Hidden Cloud's stronghold.
It sat on an isolated island. The position mattered—behind it lay the Cloud's main camp, on another island.
The Hidden Cloud had no intention of fighting in the Land of Lightning, which left the Land of Water. They could have used the Land of Hot Water instead. But the Land of Hot Water sat too close to the Land of Fire, and both villages feared Konoha suddenly stepping into the war.
Natsuki raised a hand.
Concealment Barrier!
Enormous chakra surged out, spreading fast with him at its heart. In the space of a blink, the whole stronghold was swallowed.
"What's going on?" The moment it vanished, Toroi and the others felt something turn wrong. They came out one after another.
What met them were the three Snake Princesses.
At the sight of three strangers, Toroi didn't hesitate—he drew a giant shuriken half his own height and hurled it.
Driven by Magnet Release, the four giant shuriken flew at terrific speed, scything toward the Snake Princesses like razors.
The Third Kazekage used Magnet Release: Iron Sand. Rasa used Magnet Release: Gold Dust. Toroi used Magnet Release: Ninja Tools—every technique in his arsenal built around them.
His development had gone wrong somewhere along the line, plainly. It was why his strength fell so far short of either Kazekage.
Keeping Natsuki's words in mind, the three Snake Princesses didn't treat Toroi as an opponent at all. They simply moved aside.
Which left Natsuki exposed behind them.
Toroi's pupils shook at the sight—not because he recognized Natsuki, but because Natsuki wore a Konoha forehead protector.
A Konoha ninja, here, on a battlefield between the Hidden Cloud and the Hidden Mist. However you turned it, that meant a conspiracy of terrifying size.
But in the next second, astonishment overwrote everything on his face.
The world shifted, and he stood in a desolate wasteland studded with countless ninja swords. Every one of them identical.
Natsuki raised a hand.
Tsumukari Muramasa!
Crack.
Every sword snapped at once. Streams of light poured into Natsuki's hand and condensed into a single blade.
Gripping it, Natsuki swung at Toroi.
Toroi looked down on instinct.
His body had been cut in half.
"This... isn't possible..."
Toroi's eyes went wide. A Jonin—and he'd been cleaved in two before he could so much as react.
The Reality Marble shattered.
Toroi collapsed into a spreading pool of blood.
Natsuki nodded, satisfied.
The power of Tsumukari Muramasa really was terrifying. Any ninja below Kage-level: one stroke, and done.
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