"The power of that blast really is…"
The corner of Senju Hikaru's mouth twitched as he looked at the scene before him, which resembled documentary footage of a nuclear explosion.
Even he felt a lingering unease.
Still, that feeling quickly faded.
Back in his previous life, he had definitely been one of those people afflicted with a severe case of "a severe case of firepower obsession," so realizing that he now possessed this kind of destructive force naturally left him excited.
Especially because he knew very well that the Tailed Beast Bomb he had just used was nowhere near its true limit.
A real Nine-Tails Tailed Beast Bomb could probably wipe a city off the map in a single shot.
For a first attempt—one made purely by relying on the rough experience he had gained from fumbling around with the Rasengan on his own—reaching this level was already very impressive.
As for the true upper limit of a Tailed Beast Bomb's power—
the most terrifying one in his memory was still the Ten-Tails' Tailed Beast Bomb during the Fourth Great Ninja War.
That thing had flown hundreds of kilometers across the battlefield and erased headquarters in an instant.
And if Minato and Tobirama hadn't transferred the later ones away, the main battlefield itself would likely have been annihilated on the spot.
The one Minato redirected into the ocean had triggered a massive tsunami and earthquake after exploding.
Even from that far away, the shockwave had been monstrous.
It was easy to imagine what kind of sight it would have been if it had gone off right in front of someone.
Of course, Hikaru also knew that was the Ten-Tails' chakra.
There was a qualitative gap between an ordinary tailed beast and the Ten-Tails.
But that didn't mean he had no way of reaching that level one day.
After all, he was a thoroughly gifted cheater with a system.
"Even if I can't reach that level for now, the nice thing about having a cheat is that once I use something, my proficiency improves. I can already feel the effect. The next time I use it, it definitely won't be as rough as this."
Hikaru thought that to himself, but soon his expression shifted slightly.
He had been so busy marveling at the Tailed Beast Bomb's power that he had momentarily forgotten something important.
The shockwave from that attack was absolutely not something ordinary people could endure.
Even if the Tailed Beast Bomb he had just fired wasn't the most powerful possible version, if he compared it to the rough understanding of nuclear weapons from his previous life, the yield was still far from small.
By his estimate, even this comparatively low-end version could still obliterate a small mountain.
A blast like that was not something civilians could simply withstand.
The people of Rōran had already fled, yes—
but given their speed, they couldn't possibly have gotten very far.
And their physical constitution was nowhere near that of a shinobi.
Even shinobi would suffer under a shockwave like that.
Ordinary people stood even less of a chance.
"Good thing they were behind me. If they'd been in the other direction, that would've been a real disaster."
Realizing that, Hikaru immediately stopped hiding his abilities.
His body flickered.
In an instant, he vanished from where he stood.
When he reappeared, he was already beside Sara and the others.
He had left Flying Thunder God marks on the Rōran refugees long ago precisely to prevent accidents like this.
And now it seemed that precaution had really mattered.
His response had been fast enough.
There was still time.
"Earth Release: Earth-Style Rampart!"
Golden chakra exploded out under Hikaru's control.
A gigantic wall of earth burst upward from the sand in front of them.
It rose like a mountain, shielding everyone behind it.
But in the very next second, the terrifying shockwave slammed into it head-on.
Boom!
Almost the moment the wall finished rising, cracks began spreading across its surface.
And a pressure beyond description passed straight through it.
For an instant, nearly all the Rōran refugees were thrown off their feet.
Blood poured from the ears and noses of many people—and animals alike.
Sand blasted everywhere.
A scorching wave of heat swept over them.
The civilians of Rōran actually held on better than expected.
They were in terrible pain, but they still managed to endure.
The livestock, however, were another matter.
Their shrill cries filled the air as they panicked and bolted in every direction.
Some unlucky horses had their internal organs pulverized by the outer shockwave alone, collapsing to the ground and dying there.
Others were flung outside the barrier and instantly ignited when the searing energy spread over them, burning to ash alive.
The chaos continued for a while.
Only after some time did the force of the Tailed Beast Bomb finally begin to weaken.
At first, the reduction wasn't obvious—
but Hikaru still caught it immediately.
"This really is outrageous…"
He muttered inwardly.
Looking at the massive earthen wall he had created, he couldn't help but shake his head.
At this point, the wall was on the verge of collapse.
Countless spiderweb-like cracks spread across it.
If the shockwave had lasted even a little longer, this defense probably wouldn't have held.
"Is it over?"
When the tremors finally ceased, Sara couldn't help murmuring the question.
Her gaze was fixed entirely on Hikaru.
"What just happened?"
"A small accident. I didn't control my power well enough."
Hikaru shook his head calmly. He had no intention of hiding that fact.
"But overall, it should be fine now. Even if I can't see them clearly, the enemy can't be in much better shape. Clean things up and get moving. Quickly."
He really didn't know the exact state of the Akatsuki members—or that hidden spectator who had come to spy on him.
The Tailed Beast Bomb had thrown the entire battlefield into chaos.
It wasn't impossible for him to use sensory perception to search for them, but doing so would waste time and effort.
Dead or alive, those people were finished.
Following up with a kill was generally good practice—
but the commotion this attack had caused was far too large.
There was no way Sunagakure hadn't sensed it.
By the time Hikaru locked onto them and chased them down, who knew how long it would take?
By then, any nearby Suna shinobi might already have arrived.
So leaving now was the best choice.
"I understand. I'll get everyone ready immediately."
Sara wasn't stupid. She instantly understood what Hikaru meant.
Still, she hesitated before asking in a worried voice,
"Are you really okay? A fight of this intensity…"
"I'm fine. This kind of battle is still manageable for me."
Hikaru shook his head, though his expression turned more serious.
"But there's something I need to make clear. I am not a ninja from any village. I only came for the Dragon Vein. You don't know me. Understood?"
"This…"
Sara froze for a moment.
But when she met Hikaru's indifferent gaze, she immediately nodded.
"I understand. You only came for the Dragon Vein, and I only made a transaction with you. Nothing more."
"Exactly. Nothing more. It's been a pleasure doing business."
"A pleasure… doing business…"
"Cough, cough, cough…"
In the desert, a bout of coughing suddenly rose from beneath the sand.
As the wind blew the sand away, a section of the dune collapsed inward.
From within it emerged a half-spherical golden structure wrapped around a person.
That person was Rasa.
At this moment, he looked utterly wretched.
His clothes were in tatters, and blood was still seeping from his wounds.
The explosion earlier had simply been too terrifying.
Even though Rasa had sensed that something was wrong, he had still underestimated the aftermath.
"What… what kind of monster was that?"
He sat there weakly, unable to forget the devastation that single attack had caused.
At the same time, he couldn't understand how a single person could use a Tailed Beast Bomb.
As Kazekage, he naturally knew what a Tailed Beast Bomb was.
Even though Shukaku had never used such a technique, Sunagakure's predecessors had encountered other tailed beasts.
Relevant information absolutely existed in Suna's archives, and Rasa knew exactly how terrifying a Tailed Beast Bomb's power was supposed to be.
At that moment, he had truly believed he was going to die.
Fortunately, at the critical moment, he had made the right choice.
That was the only reason he was still alive.
Even so, he had been far too close to the center of the blast.
After all, he had been approaching from behind and had hidden himself behind the Akatsuki trio.
And Hikaru's Tailed Beast Bomb had been launched directly at those three.
Which meant—
Rasa himself had been well within the affected zone.
Taking a deep breath, he shakily pushed himself to his feet.
As the desert wind blew over him, his gaze instinctively drifted toward the blast zone.
And when he saw it, his whole body trembled.
In the middle of that endless sea of sand, a crater over a hundred meters wide and deep had suddenly appeared.
Flames still burned around its edges.
Chaotic, disordered chakra lingered in the air around it.
Death itself seemed almost tangible there.
This was not power that a human being should have been able to unleash.
It was so exaggerated that it bordered on the incomprehensible.
"A monster like that… no wonder he's terrifying. Why does the shinobi world contain something like that?"
Rasa stared blankly for a long while before finally letting out a low sigh.
Even now, he still didn't know who exactly had been fighting.
The only thing he had clearly seen was that one of them had been wrapped in pale golden chakra.
As for the other three, though, he did recognize one of them.
"Sasori… did he really kill the Third Kazekage?"
Rasa's expression darkened.
As a genius born in the village, Sasori was impossible not to recognize.
If that man had never left Sunagakure, there was no telling whether the Fourth Kazekage would even have been Rasa.
After all, the resources backing Sasori had been immense.
He had naturally possessed the support of Chiyo and Ebizō.
But there was no point talking about ifs.
And thanks to what he had seen now, Rasa could finally shatter what remained of Chiyo's fantasies.
"Besides Sasori, the other two…"
He recalled the brief glimpse he had gotten.
"One of them looked familiar. That should've been Kakuzu—the legendary bounty hunter."
Rasa truly didn't recognize Konan.
Nagato's isolationist policies had cut off nearly all information coming out of Amegakure.
On top of that, Akatsuki had kept a low enough profile that the shinobi world still believed Hanzo of the Salamander was the Rain's true ruler.
No one knew the Land of Rain had long since changed hands.
And they certainly didn't know Hanzo was already dead.
In the original course of events, Hanzo's death had been concealed by Akatsuki for years.
It wasn't until Jiraiya personally infiltrated Amegakure over a decade later that he learned Hanzo had been killed by his own student.
Kakuzu, though, had never really been low-profile.
A bounty hunter like him naturally appeared on the watchlists of all the great villages.
"Still, it doesn't matter. Those three are probably dead anyway. No one could survive that kind of saturation strike."
Shaking his head, Rasa turned to leave.
His injuries were not light.
He needed to go back and recover as quickly as possible.
More importantly, there were things he needed to report.
At this point, he had completely given up on chasing the Rōran refugees.
And he was no longer interested in determining whether that mysterious golden figure was a Konoha ninja.
After seeing everything, he wasn't even sure that man had been Senju Hikaru at all.
Because the golden figure's fighting style had been completely different from the Senju Hikaru described in all available intelligence.
But there was one thing he was very grateful for—
he had not issued a large-scale pursuit order.
If he had sent a full force to intercept them, and that golden-chakra monster had struck—
then the result would likely have been a repeat of that humiliating massacre Senju Hikaru had inflicted on Suna before.
Or even worse.
"That golden chakra… could that have been Dragon Vein chakra?"
Muttering to himself, Rasa limped away into the desert.
He had coveted the Dragon Vein's power for a very long time.
But he had always known he had no way to break Minato's seal.
So he had never had the chance to act.
At most, he had thought maybe, someday, if the opportunity arose…
But now it was all over.
Still, he was a true wolf among men.
Once something was impossible, he could let it go.
To keep obsessing over it now and bring more disaster upon himself would be the very definition of a bad deal.
In a hidden corner of the desert, after the sandstorm finally settled, Konan laid Kakuzu's and Sasori's bodies on the ground.
She herself was covered in wounds.
Her black cloak with red clouds had long since been shredded.
The explosion, and the unimaginable shockwave that followed it, was something she could not forget.
Even now, her mind was still replaying it.
What kind of attack was that?
What kind of power could produce something like that?
Even Nagato, in his current state, might not have been able to cause destruction on that scale in a single blow.
And worst of all—
that man had seemed to possess no obvious weakness.
His speed was so overwhelming that none of them had dared let him get close.
His raw power had been absurd.
More importantly, even after they shifted to a long-range defense-and-bombardment strategy, intending to exhaust him and eventually crush him—
it turned out he still had an even more terrifying method left in reserve.
That level of all-around capability was suffocating.
That kind of power was unbelievable.
That kind of enemy was enough to make anyone despair.
Most infuriating of all—
through the whole battle, he had behaved as though he were merely toying with them.
That left Konan with a crushing sense of helplessness.
"Even if Nagato had been here, he probably still wouldn't have had an easy time dealing with him. Not in his current state…"
She shook her head.
Nagato was in terrible condition.
Not only could he no longer walk because of his injuries, but according to the man calling himself Uchiha Madara, Nagato had not yet fully mastered the Rinnegan's power.
Under those circumstances, Konan could not help feeling that even Nagato might struggle against that golden-chakra enemy.
Still, she had faith in him.
Nagato was the wielder of the Rinnegan—
the man born to change the world.
Taking a deep breath, Konan forced herself to stop dwelling on that.
Her gaze fell to Kakuzu and Sasori.
Both of them had used their strongest defensive methods, and yet their condition was still this bad.
Even in the final moment, she had spread her paper into the thickest shield she could manage, grabbed both men, and flown away as fast as possible.
And yet what she seemed to have brought back were only corpses.
That attack had simply been too monstrous.
"But an attack like that seemed to need some time to prepare. If we don't give him that chance next time, then it can still be dealt with."
Looking at the two bodies, Konan slowly composed herself and began analyzing the battle more carefully.
At the end of the day, the reason they had fallen into such danger was a lack of intelligence.
If they had known more about that man's methods, they would not have been so passive.
And although the technique he used had terrifying destructive power, it had also clearly required a buildup phase.
That was an opening.
A critical one.
Unfortunately, they had learned that too late.
"But now we know. The next time we meet him, it won't be the same…"
Konan gritted her teeth and turned to leave.
This operation had succeeded in recruiting Sasori—
yet in the end, Sasori had died right in front of her.
The blow to her was not small.
But reality was reality.
There was nothing more to be done here.
She needed to report everything that had happened today.
"Hm?"
But just as she turned, an unusual chakra presence suddenly approached her at high speed.
She immediately went on guard.
Then—
the ground shifted.
A grotesque, malformed puppet crawled out of the sand.
It glanced at Konan, then reached into its own chest and pulled out something like a scroll.
The instant that scroll was removed, the ugly puppet went limp.
At the same time, the scroll itself seemed almost alive.
It leapt directly into the badly damaged puppet-body lying before Konan.
The next second, Sasori—who had shown no signs of life or chakra at all—suddenly opened his eyes and slowly sat up.
"So your body has already been fully converted into a puppet. That's why you survived."
Konan understood immediately.
"Though honestly, I'd have preferred this stayed a secret."
Sasori's voice was as cold and flat as ever.
"But I suppose there's no point hiding it now.
Still… thanks. You brought this body back."
"So you're alive. As for Kakuzu…"
Konan looked toward the other corpse and finally shook her head.
"It seems he really isn't getting back up."
"Probably not."
Sasori nodded slightly.
"That attack was truly terrifying.
And so was the Dragon Vein's power."
"Then perhaps now you should tell me, in more detail, everything you know about the Dragon Vein."
Konan looked at him coolly.
"And about that man too. I think we should have a proper talk now."
"Fine."
Sasori nodded.
"I don't know everything. But I want revenge for this. So I have no reason to hide anything."
Because one day—
he intended to repay that man in full for everything done to him today.
The words left him with absolute conviction.
He could not forget the figure wrapped in golden chakra.
That man had already become a nightmare etched into his mind.
This had been the closest Sasori had come to death in a very long time.
He was an artist who pursued eternity.
And that man had nearly destroyed his art in an instant.
How could Sasori not hate him?
How could he not despise him?
"I don't know who you are…"
His voice was cold and firm.
"But I've remembered you now.
I've engraved you into my memory.
And one day—
I will defeat you."
"Wind Style: Spiraling Tailed Beast Bomb!"
At the harbor in the Land of Wind, Hikaru stood wrapped in golden chakra as he shot forward toward a Suna shinobi.
In his hand was a black sphere, spiraling like a Rasengan, yet radiating a terrifying aura of destruction.
The Suna ninja couldn't keep up with Hikaru's speed at all.
And he had no defense capable of stopping what was coming.
So he could only watch as Hikaru closed the distance—
and the black sphere slammed into his chest.
"Aaaah!"
With a scream, the man was sent flying.
The next second, before his body had even finished leaving the ground, it broke apart in midair and disintegrated into dust.
Watching that, Hikaru shook his head slightly.
The power of this technique was truly absurd.
Thanks to the system, he had already grasped how to use it—
but the sheer destructive force still exceeded expectations.
He had intentionally lowered the compression level, trying to reduce the bomb's lethality so every hit wouldn't turn into total annihilation.
Yet even after weakening it to the point where, by all logic, the technique should barely have held together, the lethality had still remained outrageous.
There was really no helping it.
A technique involving Yin-Yang Release like this simply wasn't suitable for use against ordinary human targets.
As a battlefield weapon, it was perfect.
As a tool for restraint or capture, it was awful.
Still, Hikaru wasn't bothered.
At the very least, he now had a good sense of the technique's upper and lower limits.
He knew how to use it more effectively in the future.
"What's strange is Sunagakure's response. Up until now, they still haven't launched a large-scale pursuit. Did something happen inside Suna?"
He silently withdrew the Nine-Tails' chakra.
In moments, he returned to his normal state.
Honestly, the smoothness of this whole operation had been almost unbelievable.
The only real complication had been running into the Akatsuki members—
but thanks to this new power, he had crushed the three of them, which in itself counted as an unexpected gain.
In truth, Hikaru had long considered whether he should create a separate identity for himself.
He was already ANBU Minister now.
There were too many things he couldn't conveniently do in person.
Especially since the image he had built for himself was that of a "great and righteous man."
He stood in darkness, yes—
but only in service of the light.
A man like that wasn't supposed to do certain ugly things openly.
Unfortunately, in order to expand his influence, there had been almost no room for him to keep the identity of "Senju Hikaru" hidden.
The only thing he had truly managed to keep in reserve had been Sage Mode—
and even that had ultimately been revealed in order to gain Minato's trust.
As for Mokuton, Kagerōmaru, and Flying Thunder God…
those had already become his trademarks.
Even so, Hikaru had no regrets about exposing himself so thoroughly.
Without those abilities as support, he never would have climbed this far.
Besides—
in the shinobi world, power always came first.
Schemes and calculations were only tools to obtain what one wanted.
Without strength, relying on plots alone would only get one crushed beneath someone else's boot.
Hikaru had no intention of being crushed.
And he had no intention of letting others think he could be bullied.
So making sure everyone understood exactly how dangerous he was had always been meaningful.
"But now…"
He glanced back at the approaching Rōran refugees and slowly smiled.
"It looks like I really do have a second identity now."
That point had become especially clear after the battle with Akatsuki.
At first, the fight had been frustrating.
Without Flying Thunder God and without Mokuton, he had struggled to break through their defensive formation.
At one point, he had genuinely been ready to give up on subtlety and switch to the methods he was actually best at, just to finish the fight and keep his promise.
Fortunately, the little Nine-Tails had intervened in time and reminded him that he still had another path.
And because of that—
he had managed to avoid exposing himself as "Senju Hikaru" while at the same time acquiring an entirely different combat style to serve as a second identity.
"That definitely counts as an unexpected bonus."
With this new persona, he would be able to do all sorts of things that "Senju Hikaru" couldn't easily do.
For example—
he could go after other jinchūriki.
"Senju Hikaru" was a righteous figure.
He stood inside darkness, but his heart supposedly longed for the light of the Hokage.
This new identity, however, could use any means necessary.
So long as the identity itself remained hidden, that was enough.
"Once I get back, I'll need to think through the details. How exactly I'll use this identity, who the future targets will be, and so on…"
After obtaining Kurama's chakra and creating the little fox, Hikaru truly had begun to wonder—
could he, one day, actually create a Ten-Tails?
The power of the Ten-Tails was obvious just from looking at Madara and Obito.
Neither of them had completed a true Bloodline Snare, and yet both had stepped into the realm of the Six Paths.
Especially Obito.
Madara was one thing—his own strength had already reached a completely monstrous level.
Even without the Ten-Tails, his techniques and battle experience alone would probably have been enough to beat Obito down badly.
And after his resurrection, he had even acquired senjutsu chakra, giving him the means to kill Six Paths-level beings.
Ordinary chakra simply couldn't affect beings at that level.
Senjutsu chakra could.
Obito, on the other hand, before becoming a Ten-Tails jinchūriki, probably couldn't even have beaten Kakashi cleanly.
Sure, Kakashi was the king of even matches.
Sure, Obito had intentionally let himself get pierced through the heart.
But his actual combat record before that transformation had never been overwhelming.
And yet after fusing with the Ten-Tails, he used sheer force of will—thinking of Rin—to suppress it and step directly into the Six Paths realm.
The enhancement the Ten-Tails gave was simply ridiculous.
There was no way Hikaru wouldn't think about that kind of power.
And unlike Obito, who needed his own willpower to suppress the beast, Hikaru wouldn't need to worry about that at all.
If a Ten-Tails ever appeared under the system's assistance, it would be a product linked directly to his own will.
"Thanks for your help, sir."
Just then, Sara's voice interrupted his thoughts.
She had already walked over, looking extremely respectful.
"If not for your help, we probably never would have been able to leave the Land of Wind. Maybe we would've…"
"You don't need to thank me. You should thank yourself."
Hikaru shook his head with a smile and pulled out a scroll from his pouch.
"If you hadn't agreed to make a deal with me, I wouldn't have helped, would I?
All you did was make the right choice.
As for me, I'm a shinobi. Keeping my promises is only natural."
He handed her the scroll.
"This is the money I promised you last time. I added some extra. I think you'll need it for your new beginning."
Sara nodded and accepted it without protest.
She had no reason to refuse.
So many people needed to start over somewhere new.
Money wasn't optional for that.
But after putting the scroll away, she raised her head and looked at him seriously.
After hesitating, she finally asked,
"Even now, I still don't know your name. Even just a codename would be enough. That way, I…"
"Name?"
Hikaru cut her off before she could finish.
He seemed to genuinely think about it for a moment.
Then he smiled.
"Well… what do you think of Gin? Sakata Gintoki?"
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