The throne room was still quiet as Brie began to recount more of Arthur's ventures.
During Orochimaru's invasion, a lot of the Leaf Village's military apparatus came down on his head. He defeated Sasuke, Rock Lee, and Kiba at their own games because they knew little about him.
But he didn't escape without consequence. A terrible mark was left on Jada after she had discovered his deeds.
To her, Arthur was a manipulator who pushed her to the brink and abandoned their dreams of correcting this world's failures. The trauma forced her Sharingan to mutate into the Mangekyō.
Arthur told Brie about the look in Jada's eyes before he fled: a promise to hunt him down and put him in the ground.
With the Leaf behind him, he was now free to roam the entire world.
His first destination was the Fire Temple, where he donned his first persona, calling himself Ryugetsu. It was there he had also found the boy named Sora. Arthur bonded with the lad because he knew that the Nine-Tails chakra inside Sora would be a massive asset down the line.
So he planted the seeds of loyalty and doubt in him before leaving.
Prior to having abandoned the Leaf Village, he had learned the means of performing the Reanimation technique from the Scroll of Seals. And rather than wasting it on foot soldiers, he went straight for the top by releasing Minato's soul from the Reaper Death Seal and then summoning him.
Armed with a dead Kage and Simian Sage Mode, he then went bounty hunting to collect much-needed money.
Who was worth his attention other than the famed Zabuza and Haku of the Mist Village? Those shinobi, as Arthur put it, were 'meant to be dead by now.'
So he eventually cornered them and killed the Demon of the Mist alongside his apprentice. Haku's body was also harvested for his cells. After Arthur merged them into his own bloodstream, it earned him ice style.
"That's when you and I met," Brie whispered to the empty room.
She remembered her career as a mortician in the Collection Office within the Water Country. The day the door opened, and a man walked in carrying two bounties, Brie had processed the paperwork and handed him the cash—having no idea the man standing across from her was restructuring the continent.
Arthur took that bounty money and went straight to the criminal underworld, where he tracked down Xavier, a mob boss who ran the construction business. Arthur had, of course, disguised himself as the affluent John to form ties with the syndicate and pour the cash into building Sun Stream Plaza.
The construction was going to take time, so Arthur traveled to the Land of Silence, where he secretly learned the Evil Illusion Flattery technique from a rogue named Gengo.
Still within that country, he found a very skilled samurai named Tatewaki and killed him. All for the purpose of reanimating him to learn the ways of the sword.
What Brie found most interesting about Arthur was that he also understood the political game. Because after hopping from country to country, he walked right into the capital and placed lord Hiromu under a genjutsu.
Hiromu smiled as he surprisingly named Arthur (who was John) his undisputable successor.
Doubts of Arthur's skills were put to rest when he proved to know how to manage the Water Country. He governed the hidden village, balanced budgets, established trade routes, managed civilian sectors, and secured borders—all with absolute authority.
Hardly anyone suspected a thing. If a minister or general started asking questions, he simply pulled them aside and placed them under a genjutsu.
Such a feat was by no means nothing to scoff at, for he had built an empire without a single act of real rebellion.
And because of his new political reign, he managed to secure five of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen weapons.
The only thing left for him to do with that much power was to acquire even more power. What better way to do that than to hunt down a Jinchūriki?
Arthur found Utakata within the country. The match was brutal, but his preparation paid off, allowing him to win the match. And the rewards? Full extraction of the Six-Tails.
The beast was most certainly not going to work with what it believed to be a child. So Arthur used sage-enhanced chakra to perform a genjutsu on it to comply.
One Tailed Beast down, more to go.
But by the time he reached the location of the Three-Tails, he discovered that Jasper and Alice were actively hunting Tailed Beasts as well.
Arthur ran the numbers: engaging them now would cause a premature war and would expose his location. So he put the beast hunt on hold.
These particular ninjas from the Leaf were undoubtedly trying to gather valuable resources like he was. That meant Arthur had to uncover the absolute peak of shinobi artifacts.
So he tracked down the graves of the Gold and Silver Brothers, reanimated their corpses, and secured the Sage of Six Paths' legendary tools from their possession.
On paper, Arthur was a shinobi of shinobi. He held four Kekkei Genkai, five legendary swords, a unique Sage Mode, Sage tools, a Tailed Beast, forbidden techniques, and an army of the dead.
But all that was just on paper. It meant nothing if his body was flawed and he lacked the necessary chakra reserves to use his acquired power all at once.
Arthur needed time to train.
He spent months governing his nation and conditioning his body. Then, word reached him that the Leaf Village was moving off script. Team 7 was growing too fast because others were accelerating their strength to disastrous levels.
Arthur knew they would put his plans into disarray if left unchecked. So he did the practical thing: he went to kill the threat.
In the Land of Tea, where they were stationed to help guide a boy named Idate to finish a race, Arthur disguised himself as a Leaf shinobi named Desmond. Then he suckered them into believing he was backup sent by the village.
By the time the race started, Team 7 was ambushed by Rain shinobi. They defeated them easily before they were expectedly met by a rogue ninja named Aoi. The moment Aoi fell, Arthur (as Desmond) made his appearance again and took the Thunder Sword.
Then he challenged them, saying, "Naruto… Sasuke… Sakura… Raise your guards, use everything you have, and don't hold back. Because if you don't, your deaths won't be remembered."
Naruto was awestruck at the betrayal, believing it to be a lie. But Sasuke recognized Arthur's eyes—eyes that screamed he was a killer.
Team 7 attacked him as Naruto fought with a refined taijutsu taught by his cousin, William. Sakura was a powerhouse thanks to Margaret, who taught the girl medical ninjutsu and chakra-enhanced strength.
As for Sasuke? He was no less the prodigy everyone believed him to be.
They were entirely different from the Genin he abandoned back at the village.
But their newfound strength wasn't enough.
Arthur broke their formation time and time again before he killed Idate. Just to prove a point.
Right at that moment, he removed his transformation to reveal who he truly was. They were shocked beyond belief as Sasuke urged his team to leave immediately. Of course, Naruto and Sakura were not going to back down despite such a dangerous shinobi in their midst.
Arthur further added insult to injury by revealing he had killed Haku. That caused the Nine-Tails chakra to rage out of Naruto as the boy stupidly charged in. Arthur brought him down with smoke style and was ready to execute him with the Executioner's Blade.
That is until Jada arrived.
She had learned the Flying raijin and marked the team for protection—something Arthur had not foreseen.
The chase between them that followed tore the landscape apart. And after Sasuke tried to intervene in their fight, Jada teleported him back to the Leaf Village.
No one was going to prevent their inevitable confrontation.
Jada was special. She was originally born as a blonde German, but her path took a dramatic turn when she became the black-haired Uchiha everyone knew.
She had perfected all five of the basic elements and developed an impressive arsenal of jutsus. From clones, to the Fire Ball technique, to the Lightning Blade, to the Super Water Shock Bomb, her skills exceeded many expectations.
Her proficiency was not limited to those either; she also excelled in almost all of the Leaf Village's taijutsu thanks to having taken advantage of her Sharingan's copying ability.
Add the fact that she was given the legendary Totsuka Blade from Itachi; it made her a truly exceptional ninja who carried both a fierce determination and wide-ranging skills to guard those most precious to her.
But in the end, Arthur brought her to her knees and beat her at her own game.
Then the unexpected happened: Jada finally activated her Mangekyō special ability and summoned four of her friends to the battlefield. Arthur was instantly surrounded with severely low chakra.
Now trapped closed, they mocked his skills and deemed him unworthy to be in this world. But Arthur never walked into a room without an exit.
Before he left on the mission, he had given a strict order to Koko to use the reverse summoning technique if a specific time limit passed. Arthur therefore vanished in a plume of white smoke, escaping their hands.
The whole world believed he had died in that clash as they celebrated his end.
They thought they won. In truth, Arthur was the biggest victor. Because during that event, he had collected DNA samples from both Naruto and Sasuke without anyone noticing.
Arthur, being content, chose to stay in the shadows as he focused on his country. The fight had allowed him to understand that hunting down certain threats would not be needed. So long as people believed him to be dead, it would allow him to continue operating freely.
Sun Stream Plaza still hadn't finished construction, and Orochimaru was still trying to capture Sasuke.
Arthur needed to keep that snake in check, so he tracked down the Sound Four and extracted one of their memories to pinpoint the exact location of Orochimaru's main hideout.
Infiltrating it was easy. He even managed to find the sickly Kimimaro and extract some of the Kaguya's cells. Yet Arthur couldn't integrate the Dead Bone Pulse Kekkei Genkai because the cells were too infected by the marrow failure.
All that was left to do here was plant hidden Flying raijin marks in the floorboards and ceilings to gain permanent eyes inside Orochimaru's house.
Since Arthur couldn't acquire Dead Bone Pulse at that moment, he went for the next best thing. He had extracted memories from the Sannin's subordinates, giving him the location of the Southern Hideout as well. So he traveled across the country, broke into the prison block, and found Karin Uzumaki, where he took her cells.
The process of integrating Uzumaki blood was relatively easy, granting him usage of their powerful Adamantine Sealing Chains.
Brie smiled after recalling these facts. She raised her hand up to count just how many Kekkei Genkai Arthur had by this point.
"Smoke. Ice. Crimson Gaze. Uzumaki Chains. You sure are something… lord Arthur."