Drip.
Drip.
Cold rain tapped against the pipes of the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path.
Inside an unremarkable cave, a gaunt man—so thin he looked like a skeleton wrapped in skin—leaned against a freezing stone throne.
His Rinnegan were dim.
Nagato.
When he wasn't fighting, most of his consciousness stayed asleep.
To preserve life.
To reduce consumption.
Only a tiny portion remained awake—just enough to control the distant Paths of Pain.
Whoosh—!
Just then, a flurry of paper swept into the cave.
The sheets spiraled and folded, quickly forming into a woman in a black cloak with red clouds.
Her features were delicate, clean, beautiful—on her forehead rested a pale-blue paper flower.
Konan.
But unlike her usual calm, her expression this time was heavy.
"W… what happened?"
Noticing the change, Nagato lifted his heavy lids and asked in a hoarse voice.
"There's…" Konan hesitated. "There are intruders—near the eastern entrance ruins."
"Intruders? Then that earlier sensing was probably mistaken."
Nagato's Rinnegan slowly focused.
"But… the chakra fluctuations on the east side are chaotic. The Rain Tiger at Will technique is being disturbed."
"It's where Kisame went. Don't use your strength—I'll handle it."
Konan spoke fast. A tiny paper crane spun at her fingertips.
That was her viewpoint.
"I can see it—the energy there… it's too strong."
"Or rather… that whole area is occupied by chakra. Even the air is full of chakra."
"And… this chakra is violently attacking someone… huh?"
Konan's body froze mid-sentence.
Her amber eyes widened slightly—full of disbelief.
"Hm? The one with huge chakra should be Kisame, right?" Nagato asked instinctively. "He's attacking… the intruders?"
But Konan hesitated.
Something was wrong.
She drew a breath.
"…It's Madara."
Just two words—
and even she didn't notice her voice trembling.
After several deep breaths, she forced herself to continue.
"The one being attacked is Madara. He's being suppressed—badly."
Nagato's Rinnegan snapped open.
"Madara is being suppressed?"
To him, it sounded like a joke.
"That's impossible! Even if Kisame is strong, even with Samehada, he can't suppress Madara."
"That man… even I find him troublesome to deal with."
"It's real. But—" Konan nodded hard. The paper crane's view still slammed into her brain. "But the one suppressing him isn't Kisame. It's a… it's a ten-year-old Uchiha brat… I think?"
By the end, even she wasn't confident.
He was wearing Uchiha clothing, yes, but—
Was there really a ten-year-old who could suppress Uchiha Madara?
And if there was…
Wasn't this basically a grandson beating his grandfather?
A masterpiece of "great filial piety."
Nagato fell silent.
He almost wanted to ask if Konan's eyes were playing tricks on her.
Then Konan's voice suddenly shot up again.
"This is—! It looks like the Hyūga main family's Eight Trigrams Vacuum Palm."
"Vacuum Palm? What's so surprising?" Nagato resisted the urge to spend energy controlling Pain and asked. "In front of him, that shouldn't work, should it?"
"Yes, it shouldn't, so I prepared six thousand—"
"…Hm? What did you just say?"
"A-ah!" Konan jolted, immediately switching tracks. "I mean—the boy has thrown nearly three thousand palms in a row! Each palm is comparable to an A-rank ninjutsu. He's been bombing the area for five minutes…"
Three thousand palms.
Each one comparable to an A-rank technique.
Nagato's eyes widened, then narrowed into a squint.
He looked at his friend and spoke gently.
"Konan… have you been under too much stress lately?"
"If you need rest, then rest. We're only short two people—there's no need to rush."
He truly believed she'd been pulling too many nights and was starting to hallucinate.
Otherwise, how could she say something this absurd?
That level of chakra—
even all Five Kage together couldn't pull it off, right?
"No, Nagato. It's real."
Konan shook her head in silence.
This time, Nagato didn't argue.
He understood.
Ame had likely welcomed a huge problem.
After a long pause, he finally rasped out:
"Then send the Deva Path to take a look."
"That Uchiha boy… may become our enemy."
"Okay."
Konan nodded, and in the next instant she scattered into paper and vanished.
Only the man in the cave remained—silent for a long time—before lifting his head again.
Ripples spread through the Rinnegan.
He stared forward, as if looking through space itself, locking onto a figure at the edge of the battlefield.
"This presence…"
"…It's Jiraiya-sensei, isn't it…"
"I hope you won't seek your own death…"
…
Splash—!
Outside Amegakure, the battle still raged.
Kai didn't speak.
He simply kept striking—palm after palm, relentlessly.
Soon, the five-minute mark arrived.
The original hundred-meter crater and the earlier crater from the Tailed Beast Bomb connected—
forming a massive pit nearly two hundred meters across.
Then, from the eight o'clock direction behind Obito, one of Kai's Body Flickers released an air cannon—
and hit Obito cleanly.
BOOOOM—!!
The sheer force slammed him straight down into the depths.
Boom—boom!
On the lake's surface, waves surged violently.
Only after a moment did the water settle—
but Uchiha Obito was gone.
All that remained was muddy water churning in continuous ripples.
A system prompt sounded.
[Uchiha Obito defeated. Attempting to copy traits…]
[Congratulations, Host has obtained Rare Trait: Wood Release—Old Tree Binding Roots (Blue). When activated, summons Wood Release bindings to entangle the opponent.]
"Wood Release? Entangling opponents?"
Kai frowned briefly, then relaxed.
"So I really became… Uchiha Tang San?"
But even if the trait itself was ordinary—
it could be fed to his high-purity Wood Release cells.
So Kai didn't hesitate. He fed the binding trait into the high-purity Wood Release cells.
[Stacking… Congratulations, Host's High-Purity Wood Release Cells analysis progress +5%. Current progress: 45%.]
[Note: When analysis reaches 100%, you may unlock Legendary Trait: High-Purity Wood Release (Gold)!]
"Forty-five percent, huh…"
"So that means I just need… eleven more rare Wood Release traits."
Kai's eyes brightened a little.
After all, he had a ready-made Wood Release "leek" back home—
Yamato.
But when he remembered the gap between Yamato and Obito, he forced himself to suppress the urge to grab Yamato and start shaving him bald.
Low-quality traits, no matter how many you pile up…
rarely restore the original.
That was a difference in quality.
Thinking that, Kai's gaze drifted down toward the ground.
And right then—
Zetsu, who had just started laughing again, suddenly shivered.
Read 50 chapters ahead on P@treon -> patreon.com/SorenSwiftTL