Chapter 214: What? You Guys Mutated and Evolved Without Me?
"Senpai, is it really okay for us to just run like that?" Deidara asked as he kept pace beside Kenichi, his curiosity leaking into his voice.
"Of course it's fine," Kenichi replied, still moving at a steady sprint. "We're not sworn enemies. Jiraiya clearly wants to probe the Akatsuki's intelligence. Naturally, I can't let him get what he wants."
That was the clean explanation.
The real one was simpler.
Fighting Jiraiya was annoying, and if Jiraiya entered Sage Mode, it would become even more annoying. More importantly, Nagato was not paying Kenichi extra for this. So why would he bother?
No profit, plenty of drawbacks. Better to let teacher and student, Jiraiya and Nagato, sort out their own relationship.
Kenichi glanced at Deidara. "Remember this. When you meet an enemy, follow this guideline: if the enemy retreats, you advance. If the enemy advances, you retreat. If the enemy tires, you attack. It saves a lot of trouble."
If Deidara did not learn guerrilla tactics, his talent would be wasted.
There were not many shinobi in the ninja world who could fly. That alone made Deidara a nightmare for most opponents. The problem was, this unlucky kid was also stubborn. Guerrilla warfare suited him perfectly, yet he still resisted it.
Deidara scratched his cheek, looking embarrassed. "But my teacher always said a ninja should fight with everything they've got."
Kenichi could only give a wry smile.
Third Tsuchikage, Third Tsuchikage, what exactly have you been teaching this kid?
"And what if you run into someone stronger than you?" Kenichi asked, tone steady. "Harassment tactics can create strategic results too. Once you understand how to use flight properly, you can harass them from time to time, wear them down, weaken their fighting ability, then finish them. Isn't that better?"
Kenichi believed in victory above all else.
As long as you win, then poisoning, inducing cancer, and every other dirty method is acceptable. The winner takes everything. Only the one who survives to the end has the right to judge others, and even rewrite history.
If Kenichi fought the Third Hokage once, with no witnesses, and he killed him, then how did the Third Hokage die? What was he like in that battle? Was he a heroic leader, or a desperate coward clinging to life?
It would not be up to the dead man.
It would not even be up to Kenichi.
Whoever remained would define the story.
Let others question it if they wanted. Fine. Show evidence.
No evidence meant the official truth was whatever the survivor said it was.
It was the same logic as the ending of Naruto and Sasuke sealing Ōtsutsuki Kaguya. If Kishimoto had never drawn the battle and simply had Naruto and Sasuke step out in the next chapter and claim they won, readers would immediately explode with theories.
Ōtsutsuki won.
Naruto and Sasuke lost.
Or something even more ridiculous.
But as long as no later plot contradicted it and no evidence surfaced, Naruto and Sasuke sealing Ōtsutsuki Kaguya would still become the final, official conclusion.
So to Kenichi, methods did not matter. Only victory mattered.
Only those who lived were qualified to talk about tomorrow, to continue refining jutsu, and to keep chasing their dreams.
Deidara fell silent, clearly conflicted. Kenichi saw it and did not push further. Instead, he led Deidara back to where Natsuhi was tied up.
Kenichi summoned the airship, hauled Natsuhi inside, then poured Wind Release chakra into the mechanism to drive it upward. In a short time, they finally shook off the troublesome Jiraiya.
"You… you're the ones who destroyed our village…" Natsuhi glared at Kenichi and Deidara, eyes bloodshot.
Before she could finish, Kenichi dropped a genjutsu into her mind and knocked her unconscious.
He had no hobby of listening to people curse him.
He turned the airship toward the Hidden Rain Village. Inside the cabin, Deidara remained trapped in obvious self doubt. Kenichi did not speak to him. Instead, he took out the secret technique scroll he had recovered from Hoshigakure and began reading.
The name of this method really was the Peacock Method.
Just hearing it made Kenichi feel like something was off.
He remembered encountering a similar name during his travels once, but that had been a dance. A strange practice that emphasized training through movement, strengthening the body through choreography.
This was the ninja world, though, so the Peacock Method obviously was not about fighting with dance.
Kenichi read carefully and quickly realized the technique had research value, and also seemed useless.
Because cultivating the Peacock Method required reliance on Hoshigakure's secret treasure: the star that fell from the sky, that meteorite.
The notes were blunt. To train it, you needed a strong physique. Otherwise, if you could not withstand it, you would fail to train and end up crippled instead.
Kenichi's mouth twitched. "A strong physique? That's just a polite way of saying you need to survive radiation."
If you could resist the radiation from radioactive substances, you could train. If you could not, your body would collapse from exposure before you refined any chakra, and of course you would fail.
Still, the Peacock Method had some interesting traits.
For instance, it could absorb another person's chakra, but the scroll clearly stated it could only absorb chakra from someone else who had also trained the Peacock Method.
It could also shape the user's chakra into the forms of wild beasts and monsters to strike enemies, leaning toward physical style attacks.
But what interested Kenichi most was one specific section.
Training the Peacock Method allowed chakra to form wings.
It allowed flight.
Kenichi rubbed his face.
He had just been thinking about how few shinobi in the ninja world could fly, and yet this tiny village had a method that produced fliers.
"So," Kenichi murmured, setting the scroll down, "to summarize: all the shinobi of Hoshigakure train the Peacock Method. Ordinary people can also train it and become shinobi, but only if they can withstand the star's radiation. If they can't, they get crippled or die."
This was useless to normal shinobi.
Normal shinobi refined their own chakra. This was not the same. The Peacock Method required the chakra released by the meteorite itself to be refined. Only after obtaining that unique chakra could the Peacock Method be used at all.
As for the meteorite, Kenichi had no intention of taking it out until he had proper protective measures.
It was too dangerous.
Even when he eventually conducted experiments, he planned to have a Shadow Clone test it first.
He also needed to observe whether the meteorite affected a shinobi's chakra.
Judging by the condition of the people from Hoshigakure, the radioactivity was absolutely real, but it did not seem overwhelmingly strong. Still, that did not make it safe.
Radioactivity and radiation were related but not identical. Radioactivity produced radiation, and there were many kinds of radiation. Phones and computers had radiation. Even human bodies had radiation. The sun radiated constantly.
If it was not excessive, it caused little harm.
But the meteorite was different. It was clearly harmful. Long term exposure increased absorbed radiation and shortened lifespan.
Even the sun, if you stayed under it too long, would burn you.
Kenichi's expression tightened. "The people of Hoshigakure were originally ordinary. But by relying on this star, they became shinobi. Even if they can only use the Peacock Method, they've still surpassed normal people. Isn't that basically mutation?"
He truly did not expect people in his previous life to still be stuck waiting for mutation and evolution, while this world had already started.
And that made the meteorite in his possession even more fascinating.
It could release chakra, and anyone who survived the radiation could refine that chakra successfully. It was absurd.
In the ninja world, chakra was traditionally said to be passed down from the Sage of Six Paths. Some inherited it, and some received it after the Sage spread it across the world through unknown means, forming the chakra shinobi refined today.
Kenichi also knew other versions. For example, chakra came from the fruit of the Divine Tree, and Kaguya was called the progenitor of chakra.
But once, while casually watching videos, he heard another claim from Boruto: chakra was inherent to the planet itself and had nothing to do with the Divine Tree.
Kenichi sighed, helpless. "After Boruto came out, I always felt like a lot of Naruto got scrambled."
No matter what, the research value of this meteorite was undeniable.
By this time, they were already close to the Hidden Rain Village.
Kenichi found a suitable spot, landed the airship, then brought Deidara to report the mission.
"An extra one hundred and twenty million ryō?" Nagato looked genuinely surprised. He had not expected Kenichi to actually choose to hand this over. If Kenichi said nothing, Nagato would not have asked out of boredom.
"Yes." Kenichi smiled. "Convert it into contribution points."
He already had five hundred million ryō, so he did not particularly care about a mere one hundred million. Turning it into contribution points was more valuable.
He wanted access to things like researching the Gedo Mazo.
"Alright," Nagato agreed without refusing. The Akatsuki needed money everywhere right now. The more, the better. As for contribution points, Kenichi was one of the few people who actually had use for them.
Kenichi's smile deepened, and he rubbed his fingers together lightly. "Oh, right, Leader. I have some new research in mind. What do you think about the funding?"
Nagato took a deep breath.
Good grief. So this was what Kenichi was waiting for.
"Impossible. Absolutely impossible," Nagato refused on the spot. "The Akatsuki right now…"
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