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Chapter 9 — I Will Guard This Snowy White!
"Madara!!"
Facing the sudden assault by Uchiha Obito, Konan howled in hatred and fury.
Regardless of the gap in strength or whether she could actually kill him—right now she only wanted to pour every raging flame of anger and vengeance onto the man before her.
Konan threw caution and stamina aside and poured every drop of chakra into forming thousands of white kunai hurled at Uchiha Obito.
Before the kunai could reach him, his insertion technique was already about to pierce her chest—less than five centimeters!
Konan ignored the imminent mortal threat and fixed her gaze on Obito stepping from the vortex. As Alex had warned, there were no visible injuries on him. Her six hundred billion explosive tags hadn't killed him; they hadn't even harmed him. Maybe they'd only cost him a single Sharingan…
With chakra nearly gone, Konan had no strength to defend against the insertion or to paperize her whole body.
But Alex would never allow Konan to die so easily.
"You cannot die yet!" Alex shouted inwardly. "This snowy white—I will protect it!!"
Of all places Obito might attack, he chose the very spot where Alex had been born—Konan's chest. This was his sanctuary, his place to belong, the snow-white he cherished.
Rage surged in Alex. His resolve to defend that whiteness reached a fever pitch. He would not allow a single blemish or damage to the white behind him.
"Block it for me!"
In a flash, Alex appeared at Konan's sternum and used chakra to frantically replicate sheets of paper, forming a barrier before himself. The papers matched Konan's creations—water- and fire-resistant, tough as hell.
In an instant, Alex thickened into a mass. Hundreds of sheets stacked together, covering him like the spine of a thick book—an armored volume.
Thud!
The sharp wooden branch slammed into the "book" and then jabbed, sending a spray of thorny branches in all directions. The stacked protective sheets were pierced, riddled with holes. Fortunately, they bought time and consumed the insertion's force; the technique exhausted itself before fully breaching the last layers.
But the danger wasn't over.
In a flicker, Alex discarded the torn outer layers, and a barrage of explosive tags streamed from within him—whoosh whoosh whoosh. Ten thousand in total—snatched from the six hundred billion earlier, saved for emergencies. Time had been short, so ten thousand was all he could pilfer. He had kept them for this exact moment.
Boom! Boom! Boom!
More than half of those tags slammed into Obito and detonated. Fiery blasts engulfed him; he had no time to evade and had to activate full-body intangibility. Alex did not expect to kill him—only to constrain him.
At the same time, the remaining tags shot upward and blew a huge hole through the ceiling. Rubble and choking smoke spewed out. Even buildings above trembled and creaked from the shock.
Alex accomplished all this in less than three seconds.
Only now did Konan, numbed by fury, come around from the explosion's shock.
"Go!"
Alex darted before her, the single crimson character "Go" flashing across his surface—blood-red and urgent—underscoring how dire the situation was.
Konan's forehead broke out in cold sweat; breath ragged, she looked at Yahiko and Nagato's remains.
"No. I can't abandon them. I won't let their bodies fall into Madara's hands!" Her voice was resolute—no room for negotiation.
There was no alternative: force. Alex understood Konan's state but could not allow emotion to lead to certain death. Every extra second here shortened their chance of survival. Nagato and Yahiko's bodies were under Zetsu control; he lacked the time and power to wrest them free.
Without a word, Alex pressed himself onto Konan's chest. White paper crawled from him, rapidly covering her body.
"What are you doing?" Konan snapped.
"I'm taking you away."
A huge crimson character appeared across the white covering engulfing most of her torso: LEAVE.
"No! I won't leave—Yahiko and Nagato are still here! You can't make this decision for me!!"
Konan tried to seize control of Alex, but the command sank into silence like a stone in deep water—no response. Unlike before when she could manipulate him, Alex had already preemptively sealed the sliver of spirit-power linking him to Konan. He acted without consent.
The white veneer kept spreading, already up to her neck, and her body rose, borne toward the blasted hole in the ceiling.
"No—don't!" Konan wailed, looking at the bodies on the ground, sobbing with pain and resistance. She could not leave them to be desecrated.
She thrashed violently, struggling to break free.
"Sorry—I want to live. I don't want to die here."
A white flash passed across the paper enveloping Konan; her cries abruptly halted. Her body stilled and fell into slumber, tears still clinging to her cheeks—grief and indignation frozen on her face.
Exhausted of chakra, Konan lacked strength; her thrashing endangered their flight. Alex's binding—and the sleep he induced—prevented her from sabotaging their escape.
With a whoosh, Alex wrapped Konan and surged through the ceiling hole, fleeing the danger with extreme urgency. Smoke filled the underground chamber; to prevent mishaps, Black Zetsu had already, at the moment of explosion, hidden the Rinnegan deep beneath the earth. For Zetsu, the Rinnegan was the top priority—no margin for loss.
"Konan!!!"
Less than ten seconds after Alex fled, an enraged roar split the subterranean air—Obito, having emerged from the blasts. Smoke clung to him; his right eye glowed blood-red and trembled with uncontrollable fury. His murderous intent toward Konan reached a new peak.
"Bring their bodies back to base!" Obito snapped, swallowing his rage as he ordered the Zetsu. In a blur he passed through the ceiling and burst outside. He scanned the sky, using the Mangekyō's keen insight to locate Konan. At first she was only a speck on the horizon; the next instant she vanished from sight.
Furious, Obito shattered a nearby telephone pole with a single punch, chest heaving.
"Konan! You will not escape!! I will kill you! Anyone who betrays Akatsuki must die!!"
"Obito—think about the plan from here on," Black Zetsu murmured from Obito's feet, voice cold and sinister.
Zetsu felt little concern for the fleeing Konan; a single non-bloodline Akatsuki-level shinobi posed negligible threat to its grand design. So long as the bloodline didn't connect to the Ōtsutsuki, it could be disregarded.
"Call me Madara!!" Obito snapped, looking down at Zetsu with an icy glare.
"Very well, Lord Madara. Now Nagato is dead—how shall we proceed?" Zetsu purred.
Obito's reply was imperious and curt: "I know what to do—no need for questions. Mobilize every Zetsu immediately. Find Konan and…" His voice turned into a demonic hiss: "…kill her!!"
Zetsu sneered inwardly at Obito's emotional flare—after all these years, he remained easily swayed by passion—a useless child. But he had use for Obito's body and so would humor him. With a slither, Zetsu sank back underground to execute the orders.
"Konan! For what you did to me, I will repay a hundredfold, a thousandfold!" Obito vowed, eyes fixed on the direction she'd vanished. He activated Kamui and disappeared from the spot.