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Chapter 29 — Opportunity — Strike!
Bang. Konan slammed down hard on the top of the giant pillar.
The towering column shuddered, then—under its own massive weight—fell like a colossal shell, plunging down at high speed.
Below, Shinnō was still trading blasts of pitch-black beams with the pillar. The recoil from the falling column shoved him backward; he tumbled into the thick sea of clouds trailing behind him.
The spinning pillar churned the cloud layer into a long, rolling gray vortex, hanging on the horizon like a monstrous storm.
In the village, Amaru comforted a crying child in an open square. For over an hour, a series of massive detonations had been echoing from the ruined Sky-ninja ruins. She didn't know what was happening; she only prayed it wouldn't affect her own village.
Now the noise from the Sky-ninja side had quieted—but a louder, closer roar rose overhead, right above their settlement.
Amaru instinctively looked up. Her expression froze—the color drained from her face.
A gigantic gray whirlcloud had appeared high above the village, blotting the sun; the wind it drove downwards grew stronger by the second, tearing at hair and clothing.
Villagers began to run and shout.
"God— a tornado! Get out!"
"Quick! Run away from the houses!"
"Amaru, what are you waiting for? Pick up the baby and get moving!"
A villager sprinted past and the shout snapped Amaru back to her feet. She snatched the child, joining the fleeing crowd.
High in the sky, from the eye of the vortex, a figure dropped out of the cloud—followed by his twin black beams and the shrinking white pillar—plummeting downward at terrifying speed.
"Ke ke ke! White Tiger, your final trick is still only paper!" Shinnō howled as he fell, bloodthirsty and triumphant.
He stared up the pillar toward Konan, who was descending with it. His Super Activating Fist still maintained a ten-meter diameter. The kilometer-high white column had been reduced to barely a hundred meters and was rapidly shrinking—on the verge of collapse.
By any measure—consumption or destructive power—Shinnō believed he had won.
Paper shards and black ash rained from the shredded portion of the pillar, spinning around him like confetti. Proud, he watched the ruined fragments drift by, convinced they were proof of his superiority.
"White Tiger—soon you'll end up like these scraps!" he crowed.
He failed to notice—or ignored—a single battered sheet of paper drifting toward him among the flurry.
At first it followed the expected path, aiming to drift past his mouth. Then suddenly, the paper changed course.
It dove downward and slapped across Shinnō's wide open mouth—sealing it shut.
Got it! Alex's heart leapt.
The odd sheet was under his remote control. Hidden among the avalanche of ruined paper, Alex had steered this one close and seized the moment.
This sheet wasn't ordinary—it was the very white paper Alex had used to scoop up the Hero Water earlier; it now carried all the Hero Water he'd collected from Takigakure.
A sly plan formed in his mind. If Shinnō boasted endless chakra thanks to the Eight Gates and the Zero-Tail, Alex decided he'd add a little extra.
He triggered the release.
The Hero Water poured out like a released dam. The jade-green liquid gushed into Shinnō's mouth—some spattered on his lips and down his chin, but that loss was negligible.
"Cough...!" Shinnō choked and his eyes bulged. When the paper sealed his mouth, he instinctively bit down to stop whatever might enter. But the paper didn't just pour in liquid—it spat out a bundle of thick white threads that brutally tore through his front teeth.
The Hero Water slithered past the gap and shot straight down his throat into his stomach.
Mission succeeded, Alex withdrew the sealing paper—letting it fall and be ruined. He had no intention of reclaiming a sheet sullied by Shinnō's mouth.
Floating beside Konan, Alex's black script flashed: Get away from him—now.
He had no idea what drinking that much Hero Water would do to Shinnō; better to observe from a distance.
Konan nodded, beat her wings once, and vanished back into the thick clouds with a paper clone left behind to watch.
Shinnō paid Konan little heed—he was preoccupied. The Hero Water churned inside him.
"Cough—cough...!" he howled, clutching his belly as violent waves of pain tore through him. He curled midair like a boiled shrimp; only the auto-fly function of his pack kept him from plummeting.
"Wh—White Tiger! What did you make me drink—?!" he cried, panic flooding his features.
Black chakra flared across his body as he tried to force his dark medical ninjutsu into action—but it failed.
His famed control over his body, his insane vitality and healing—everything he relied upon—seemed to do nothing. He writhed, trying desperately to vomit, hands clawing at his throat. Yet the green liquid vanished the moment it hit his stomach—instantaneously vaporizing into a frantic, unstable energy that scurried through his insides like a living thing.