The Land of Iron was… boring.
Nothing special, really.
Lots of snow, lots of samurai, and not much else.
The only "highlight" was a certain samurai who, after spotting their "merchant" outfits, had the brilliant idea to shake them down.
Then Sasori stepped in.
Literally thirty seconds later, both samurai and problem had… evaporated.
"Didn't know you had something like that," Kenichi said, eyeing the spot where a whole human being had just ceased to exist. Not even a bone shard left. "That stuff is basically industrial-grade corpse cleaner."
And it didn't even smell.
Very professional.
Watching the empty ground, Kenichi's mind started spinning.
Efficient corpse disposal… no trace, no smell… this might be worth studying…
"Mm. All Sand shinobi carry it," Sasori said casually, already more interested in mentally rebuilding his Unit-01 puppet.
Kenichi looked at him.
Yeah. Of course they do.
The Land of Iron wasn't big, and soon they reached the border with the Land of Lightning.
Unlike the laid-back Iron guards, the Lightning border was much stricter.
Patrols. Checks. Questioning.
Unfortunately for them, Erase-the-Face Technique didn't care how strict you thought you were.
If Orochimaru could walk into Konoha with it, a border post was nothing.
They still got shaken down, though.
Two thousand ryō vanished into a chunin's pocket, and suddenly all that "strict inspection" melted into a bored wave of the hand.
Kenichi's eyelid twitched.
He'd almost wanted to praise Kumo for their professionalism.
Almost.
Once inside Lightning territory, Kenichi picked up the pace, sprinting over ridges and narrow paths with Sasori at his side.
"Hey, Sasori—you know about Kinkaku and Ginkaku, right?" Kenichi asked as they ran.
"Mm. The ones who're said to have killed the Second Raikage and Second Hokage."
Of course Sasori knew.
If you could take down two Kage in one incident, your name tended to stick in history.
Kenichi rubbed his chin.
That feat was insane, even in hindsight.
He wasn't arrogant enough to say he could beat a Kage 1v1 yet—especially not someone like Tobirama, who basically invented half the nightmare jutsu that defined the modern era.
One of those nightmares was currently in Kenichi's pocket: Impure World Reincarnation.
If it weren't for the fact he still hadn't completely mastered the technique—and Orochimaru was still upgrading it—Kenichi would've already Edo'd Kinkaku and Ginkaku back out of sheer curiosity.
Not for their personality.
For their bloodline as descendants of the Sage.
And for those ridiculous Six Paths tools.
Also, he still couldn't get over the names.
Kinkaku. Ginkaku.
In his previous life, those names had been everywhere in folklore. The Sage's tools too. It all felt so… familiar it was almost uncanny.
So what, does that make the Sage of Six Paths the Taishang Laojun of this world?
…Yeah, no. Even for him, that was a bit much.
"You want to find their remains?" Sasori asked, glancing over. He'd already put the pieces together.
"Yup," Kenichi admitted openly.
On the way here, he hadn't just been zoning out—he'd been planning.
Studying Edo Tensei plus what he'd learned about souls from the Shinigami masks had given him a bold idea:
What happens if I cast a modified Impure World Reincarnation with sage chakra… but instead of using sacrifices or targeting specific souls, I just… call everything in the area back at once?
No offerings. No precise target coordinates.
Just a mass recall of whatever souls were buried nearby.
Would they get mindless corpses? Wraiths? Something in between?
He really wanted to know.
Iron Country had been too inconvenient for a test run. Too many eyes, too peaceful, too much hassle.
But Lightning?
Plenty of empty land. Plenty of dead. And they were going to be blowing things up anyway.
"I heard they were finally killed by the Third Raikage," Sasori added. "But no one outside Kumo seems to know exactly where they're buried. If we want specifics, we might have to infiltrate the village itself."
"No rush," Kenichi said, flicking his gaze forward. "Look—there's a town ahead. Let's check its cemetery first."
He wanted to test the new jutsu before he started grave-robbing legendary brothers.
Sasori didn't object, following silently as they skirted around the town.
About a hundred meters from the outskirts, they found the cemetery: rows of headstones, some fresh offerings, a handful of families still burning incense and bowing.
Kenichi exhaled slowly.
Then he closed his eyes, drew in nature energy, and reopened them.
Lightning-like markings spread from the corners of his eyes.
Sage Mode.
Sasori watched with open curiosity.
He'd seen Kenichi fight. He'd seen that strange black-red lightning. But seeing him enter this state up close was something else.
Kenichi pulled out his Akatsuki cloak and mask, slipped both on, and in a blur of movement appeared in the very center of the cemetery.
Sasori joined him a heartbeat later, also pulling his mask on—Nagato had specifically ordered that they keep things anonymous in the early phase.
"From this moment on," Kenichi intoned, voice low and dramatic, "let this world feel pain…"
He couldn't resist. The line was too iconic.
Only Sasori heard him, though.
Sasori: (?)
He had absolutely no idea what Kenichi was going on about, but he stayed quiet.
Kenichi pressed both hands to the ground.
Sage chakra surged down through the soil, interwoven with pure yang chakra, spreading like glowing roots.
But this time, he didn't set a target.
Didn't prepare sacrifices.
Didn't bind specific souls.
Instead, he poured that power into every grave in the cemetery.
For a heartbeat, nothing happened.
The visiting families stared in stunned silence.
Then something moved.
Rustle…
…crack…
…scrape…
Sasori felt the ground shift beneath his feet.
A skeletal hand—mud-soaked and pale—burst out of the earth, clawing for the surface.
Then another. And another.
All around them, graves split open as corpses dragged themselves out, bones wrapped in soil and stone. The earth itself clung to them, forming crude armor of packed dirt and broken rock.
The mourners screamed and bolted, dropping offerings and incense in their panic.
Sasori's eyes widened behind his mask.
"…"
Kenichi watched the scene with a slow, satisfied grin.
"Success," he murmured.
One by one, the corpses fully emerged from their graves, earth-armor clacking and crumbling.
Then, as if guided by an invisible will, they turned—
—and dropped to one knee in front of him.
An entire cemetery's worth of the dead
kneeling to him in unison.
Just like that, without quite meaning to,
Amemiya Kenichi had gone from rogue scientist…
…to something very close to an Undead King.