After Shikamaru, Shino, Kuro, and Ino left for their mission, Tsunade called out to the same ANBU agent who had retrieved Kuro.
"Get me Sakura Haruno, Hinata Hyūga, and Karin Uzumaki."
The agent disappeared without a sound. It didn't take long before the office door opened again, and the three kunoichi entered, standing before the Hokage's desk.
"I have a mission for the three of you," Tsunade began, her expression severe. "You are heading out to the nearby village to provide medical relief. Sakura, Hinata, you'll be handling the medical side with the apprentice, Amaru, and this Shinnō.
She shifted her look directly to Karin. "Karin, your role is surveillance. I want you to keep your sensory abilities completely focused on Shinnō. Under no circumstances is he to know you are monitoring him. If you detect anything suspicious from his chakra, you take action immediately."
"Yes, Lady Hokage."
The three responded in unison. Sakura stepped forward, accepting the primary mission scroll from Tsunade's desk with a firm nod. Without wasting a single second, the trio turned and left the office, picking up the pace as they headed toward the village gate to meet Shinnō and Amaru.
Arriving at the massive wooden gates of the Leaf Village, Sakura, Hinata, and Karin spotted Shinnō and Amaru waiting by the exit. The doctor was rearranging his traveling pack, while his young apprentice stood next to him, looking anxious to get moving.
"Ah, you're here," Shinnō said, wearing a warm, benevolent smile as the three kunoichi approached. "Thank you for coming so quickly. My village desperately needs your medical expertise."
"We're ready to move out, Doctor," Sakura replied, matching his professional tone. She signaled toward the girls behind her. "This is Hinata, and this is Karin. They'll be assisting with the relief effort."
Amaru stepped forward, looking over the new addition to the group. "I'm Amaru, the doctor's apprentice. I met Sakura and Hinata at the hospital earlier, but I'd definitely remember someone with bright red hair. It's nice to meet you, Karin."
Karin offered a well-mannered, superficial nod in return. "Likewise."
As the group fell into formation and crossed the threshold of the village gates, Karin subtly shut her eyes for a split second, expanding her sensory perimeter. She locked her mind directly onto Shinnō's chakra signature, keeping it carefully pinned at the front of her awareness. Underneath his calm, grandfatherly exterior, that dark, heavy flow of malice remained wrapped like a snake. She kept her look completely neutral, ensuring her gaze didn't linger on him for too long as they picked up the pace down the main road.
The journey down the main road was tense, the group maintaining a grueling, rapid pace through the forest, the trees blurring past as they hurried toward the border.
Up ahead, Shinnō led the way, his steps steady and purposeful. Amaru kept close to his flank, occasionally looking back at the Leaf kunoichi with a combination of anxiety and relief. Behind them, Sakura and Hinata stayed alert, their eyes scanning the dense treetops for any lingering signs of the Sky Ninja.
Karin took up the rear, maintaining a precise distance. Her eyes were fixed open, watching the path, but her mind was completely detached from her physical surroundings.
Her main focus, however, remained on the man at the front of the line.
To anyone else, Shinnō's chakra signature would feel perfectly ordinary; vibrant enough for a former ninja turned practicing physician, but otherwise masking itself as nothing more than an average Chunin. But to Karin's refined perception, the deception was glaring. Hidden deep beneath that superficial facade of warm, grandfatherly benevolence was a dense, suffocating knot of pure malice. It was cold and entirely unnatural.
Karin mentally prepared herself to suppress the doctor at the absolute slightest hint of hostility. She would take him down if he made a single threatening move toward Sakura, Hinata, herself, or even Amaru. Karin had spent the last few miles carefully comparing their signatures, and it was obvious that Amaru didn't carry even a single hint of the smothering darkness that Shinnō was actively concealing. The girl was completely innocent, a clear contrast to the man she was apprenticed to.
Suddenly, Shinnō raised a hand, bringing the entire group to a halt at the edge of a wide clearing. The dense forest gave way to a rocky, uneven terrain, and a slight smell of smoke began to drift over the ridge ahead.
"We are approaching the perimeter of my village," Shinnō said, turning back to face them. His voice was heavy with worry, eyes wide in a perfect look of dread. "Please, prepare yourselves. I do not know what kind of destruction we are about to witness."
Cresting the ridge, the group met a wall of heat and smoke. The village was devastated. Buildings collapsed into piles of burning wood.
Before anyone could stop her, Amaru sprinted into the fire. "Is anyone there?! Answer me!" she screamed. She ran down the streets, checking every burning doorway, looking everywhere for a sign of life. "Please! Somebody!"
"Amaru, wait! It's too dangerous!" Sakura yelled, sprinting after her with Hinata right behind.
Karin moved to follow, but her sensory perception spiked. Up ahead, Amaru charged up a flight of stone stairs toward a damaged temple. Tied across the top step was a thin strand of ninja wire rigged to a cluster of hidden kunai.
Amaru's foot caught the wire. The cord snapped, triggering a volley of kunai straight toward her back.
Shinnō raced past Sakura and Hinata with incredible speed. "Amaru!" he cried out. He threw his body over the girl, taking the entire barrage of steel directly into his back.
The impact sent them tumbling down the stone steps. Amaru gasped, uninjured, but Shinnō hit the dirt below with a heavy thud. The kunai were buried deep in his flesh, blood collecting beneath his coat.
"Doctor!" Amaru shrieked, dropping to her knees and cradling his head, tears flowing down her face.
Sakura and Hinata skidded to a halt beside them. Sakura's hands gleamed green with medical chakra as she put her fingers against his neck. Her green eyes widened slightly, her brow contracting for a split second before her face smoothed into a guise of pure grief.
'His heart stopped, and his network is down,' Sakura thought, her thoughts whirling underneath her calm exterior. But the cell decay isn't right. 'The residual chakra at his core points isn't dispersing; it's locking in place. He's intentionally sealing his vital signs.'
As a master medical ninja trained by Tsunade, she knew exactly what she was looking at. This wasn't a death. It was a perfectly executed medical suspension.
"He's... he's gone, Amaru," Sakura said aloud, forcing her voice to crack slightly. She pulled her hands back, letting them drop to her sides as she looked down at the dirt. She needed him to believe his trick had worked. If he thought they were fooled, he would keep his guard down.
Hinata gasped, bringing a hand to her mouth, her Byakugan catching the sudden motionlessness of his body.
A few paces away, Karin walked up, hands in her pockets. Her glasses caught the glare of the fires, hiding her eyes. She had seen Sakura's brief hesitation. She knew Sakura had figured it out, too.
More importantly, Karin's mind's eye was open. She could feel his true energy coiled deep in his cells, acting like a concealed timer waiting to spark him back to life once they left. The calculation behind it was deliberate, playing dead to manipulate his apprentice.
A cold smirk flickered on Karin's lips for the briefest moment.
'So, you want to play dead? Let's see how long you can keep it up.'
"We should give him a proper burial," Karin said, her voice shifting into a soft, sympathetic tone that completely masked her thoughts. She moved past a weeping Amaru and looked down at Shinnō's rigid form. "I can carry him to a quiet spot nearby. We shouldn't leave him out in the open like this. That's no way to leave someone you care about."
Amaru looked up through her tears, sniffing as she nodded weakly. "Thank... thank you, Karin."
Karin took a half-step back. Without warning, four thick, golden Adamantine Attacking Chains sprang from her lower back with a low, metallic vibration. Amaru gasped, flinching slightly at the suddenness of it, but Karin controlled them with flawless precision. To Amaru's untrained eye, the massive chains snaked around Shinnō's 'corpse' with incredible, perceived gentleness, lifting him off the dirt path as if carrying a sleeping patient.
Sakura's eyes glanced toward the golden links. She didn't say a word, but her medical mind instantly knew what Karin was actually doing. Those chains weren't just lifting him. They were perfectly aligned with Shinnō's major tenketsu points.
The second the golden chakra coils fully wrapped around his torso, Karin silently channeled her dense chakra straight into his dormant pathway system.
The reaction was instantaneous and violent.
Shinnō's eyes snapped wide open, his pupils shrinking to pinpricks. The sudden and massive flood of Karin's chakra violently overrode his medical suspension, forcing his heart to spark back to life with a brutal, convulsive jerk. He let out a choked, agonized scream, his back arching off the ground as the chains actively clamped down on his chakra points, cutting off his ability to mold energy or heal his self-inflicted wounds.
Amaru fell backward into the dirt, her tear-stained face freezing in absolute horror as her supposedly dead master violently thrashed against the golden restraints.
Shinnō violently thrashed against the constraints. His heart beat wildly against his chest, but he could feel his own chakra pathway system entirely locked down under the force of her crushing golden energy.
'I knew she was an Uzumaki, but she can manifest the Adamantine Chains?!' Shinnō thought, his brain spinning through the sheer agony. He had been caught completely off guard. If he stayed under this true heavy suppression for even another minute, his self-inflicted wounds would turn permanent and kill him.
He had no choice. He had to stop holding back.
Deep in the depths of his soul, Shinnō forcefully tore open his connection to the Zero-Tails. He completely opened the floodgates. A massive, oily torrent of dark, purplish chakra violently surged outward from his body, expanding into a shockwave. The sheer volume of malice-filled chakra slammed directly into Karin's golden chains, forcing them to strain and rattle against the pressure of the dark entity's power.
The dark shockwave tore up the surrounding dirt as the Zero-Tails fully manifested, the massive, parasitic creature bursting directly out of Shinnō's back.
With a roar of dark chakra, a barrage of thick, shadow-like tentacles rushed through the smoke, driving straight at Karin.
Reacting instantly, Karin drove her heels into the dirt and wrenched her golden chains downward, slamming Shinnō into the ground with a bone-shattering thud. The violent impact briefly disrupted his focus, but the tentacles kept coming. Two more chains sprang from her back, intertwining into a thick, glowing barrier that met the onslaught head-on. The black appendages slammed against the golden steel with a flurry of deafening cracks, sending sparks of energy flying into the burning air.
Sakura bolted forward, grabbing Amaru by the collar of her shirt and violently hauling her backward just as a stray tentacle tore through the dirt where she had been sitting. Amaru thrashed against Sakura's grip, sobbing hysterically as she stared through the dust.
"Why are you letting her do this?! Karin, stop! You're killing him!" Amaru frantically screamed, her voice faltering with pure desperation as she watched the golden chains bind him. "Master Shinnō! Master!"
Up ahead, the dark chakra started to swirl violently, and a cruel, booming laugh broke through her cries. Shinnō was no longer in the right environment to play the kind, helpless old man any longer. He didn't need to.
"'Master'?" Shinnō mocked openly, spitting the word out with absolute disgust. His voice was deep, layered, and entirely devoid of the warmth she was used to as he cast a malicious glare at the girl. "A God has no need for those pointless titles. 'Master', 'Apprentice', pathetic."
As he stood, the kunai buried in his back popped out of his flesh one by one, clinking on the stone stairs as his body rapidly regenerated. The withered, fragile frame of the old physician began to expand and fill out with dense, towering muscle. His wrinkled skin smoothed over, and his dull grey hair merged into a deep, pitch-black, rapidly growing down to his lower back in a wild, lion-like mane that whipped around him in the dark wind.
Shinnō didn't give them a second to breathe. Deep within his newly expanded chest, the dense, oily energy of the Zero-Tails churned violently. He drew a sharp breath, and a massive, sweeping blade of compressed dark chakra unleashed directly from his mouth. The lethal arc slashed through the air, wide enough to slice every house in the village at once.
At the same time, the Zero-Tails didn't stop the relentless attacks; the massive tentacles sharpened at the ends like spears as they all came at Karin
Faced with a dual-pronged assault and a projectile that would cleave the entire squad in half, Karin had no choice. She abandoned her hold on Shinnō, snapping her chains back toward her to form a dense, reinforced shield of golden chakra. The compressed dark blade slammed into her defense with a screech, forcing her feet to slide backward through the dirt as the pressure of the blast endangered the whole clearing.
The dust from the explosion settled, leaving Shinnō standing tall in the center of the ruined courtyard. His black, lion-like mane whipped wildly in the dark wind as he stared down at the trembling girl Sakura was holding back. Amaru was completely frozen, her eyes wide as she tried to reconcile the monstrous man before her with the kind doctor who had raised her.
"Why…?" Amaru whispered, her voice trembling as tears ran down her face. "Everything you did for me… saving my life from that sickness… it was all a lie?"
Shinnō threw his head back, letting out a booming, cruel laugh that echoed off the burning stone walls.
"A lie? No, Amaru, it was a perfectly calculated investment," Shinnō sneered, taking a slow, heavy step toward her. He looked down at her with absolute disgust. "Do you want to know why I saved your miserable life? Because a life that is saved is a life that is forever indebted. A person consumed by gratitude is a pathetic, malleable thing. It makes them so much easier to manipulate."
Amaru choked on a sob, burying her face in her hands as her entire reality shattered.
"And don't look so tragic about your precious neighbors, either," Shinnō continued carelessly, gesturing out toward the burning, empty village. "The villagers aren't dead. Not yet, anyway."
Sakura and Hinata both tensed, ready to speak up when Shinnō jabbed his thumb in the direction of some ruins.
"They are locked away inside the ruins," Shinnō revealed, a sadistic grin spreading across his face. "To me, those pathetic peasants are nothing more than cattle. A massive, collective battery of negative emotions and life force waiting to be harvested. They are nothing but more chakra for me to feed to the Zero-Tails."
Before anyone could strike, Shinnō bent his knees. The dark, oily chakra of the Zero-Tails exploded beneath his feet, fracturing the stone courtyard into a spiderweb of deep craters. With a massive, earth-shaking leap, he launched himself high into the sky, soaring completely over the ridge and disappearing toward the ancient stone ruins nestled in the valley below.
"We have to move! Now!" Sakura barked, giving Amaru a firm squeeze on the shoulder to snap her out of her stupor before sprinting over the ridge. Hinata was right on her heels, pushing through the thick smoke as they pursued his dark chakra signature.
Karin went to bolt after them, but a sickening spike in the air made her skid to a halt.
Amaru hadn't moved. She was still on her knees, completely broken, drowning in her own despair. The oily sludge of the Zero-Tails' chakra was reacting to her agony. Sensing her ruined mental state, the parasitic dark energy rose like a living shadow, swarming around the defenseless girl.
'Damn it, it's possessing her!' Karin realized, her jaw tightening as she whipped around. With Sakura and Hinata already racing ahead toward the ruins, Karin was forced to stay back, her golden chains snapping out once more to try and contain the dark entity before it could fully hijack Amaru's body.
Meanwhile, ahead in the valley, Sakura and Hinata sprinted straight through the colossal, crumbling stone arches of the ancient ruins. But the moment both of them crossed the threshold into the central chamber, the world violently tilted.
A deafening roar echoed through the stone walls as the ground beneath their feet shook uncontrollably. Dust and massive debris rained down from the ceiling. Outside the cracks in the stone walls, the surrounding valley began to sink. Trees, rocks, and the burning remains of the village fell away as the entire mountain-sized structure broke free from the earth, defying gravity as it started to fly up into the clouds.
High above them, past a winding network of ascending stone stairs, Shinnō already stood in the center of the massive, cavernous throne room. Dark chakra coursed through the stone pillars around him, pulsing like a heartbeat into the walls of the flying fortress.
He slammed his hands onto the central control pedestal, his eyes glowing with maniacal triumph as he prepared the primary weapons system of the Ancor Vantian. Below the floating city, a massive, mechanical cannon began to shift and rotate, locking its coordinates and aiming its destructive barrel directly in the direction of the Hidden Leaf Village.
Deep within the ruins, the engine shuddered. Chakra raced down the conduits and fed directly into the weapon. The barrel glowed with a bright light, humming as it gathered energy.
With a loud crack that split the surrounding clouds, the cannon fired.
A massive beam of blue energy erupted from the barrel, cutting through the sky. The sheer recoil rippled through the structure, violently shaking the mountain-sized ruins. Shinnō watched in silence as the blast streaked across the sky, tearing directly toward the Leaf.
- Konoha Hospital -
Inside a quiet hospital room, Kakashi's eyes snapped open for the first time in days. He ignored the steady, rhythmic beeping of the monitor beside him, his gaze locking instantly onto the window. A massive, hostile energy was rapidly closing in on the village.
Moving on pure instinct, he didn't even bother to step out of bed. His body lifted off the mattress, hovering a few inches in the air as the medical wires and IV lines tensioned and tore free from his skin.
Without a sound, Kakashi drifted straight toward the concrete wall beside the window frame. The solid stone offered no resistance. The moment his body made contact, the wall exploded outward, concrete chunks bursting into the open air as he floated right through the fresh gap. He accelerated into the sky, flying directly toward the main gates of Konoha.
Landing smoothly at the threshold of the village, he looked up at the approaching sky and calmly raised his left hand.
The massive blue beam of energy tore across the horizon, finally breaking into visible range. It lit up the sky with a heavy, blinding glow, heading straight for the village with enough force to obliterate everything in its path.
Down at the main gates, a few Leaf ninja and civilians caught sight of Kakashi. They stared in absolute confusion as the legendary ninja hovered smoothly in the air, his hospital gown snapping in the wind, his left hand calmly raised toward the sky.
"Is that... Lord Kakashi?" a ninja muttered, taking a step forward.
Before anyone could call out to him, someone screamed.
The clouds above the tree line parted violently as the massive blue blast finally crested the mountain ridge. The sheer size of the approaching energy column cast a dark shadow over the entrance of the village. Realization hit the crowd instantly; if that thing made contact, Konoha would be wiped off the map.
Mass panic broke out in a heartbeat. Ninja began shouting conflicting orders, while civilians tripped over one another, fleeing mindlessly back into the streets as the deafening hum of the incoming blast filled the air.
Amid the absolute chaos below, Kakashi didn't blink. He kept his eyes locked onto the center of the blue energy beam, his left hand perfectly steady.
A sudden blur of motion signaled the arrival of Tsunade, Naruto, and Sasuke, all three skidding to a halt at the gates after rushing from the center of the village. Sasuke's eyes went wide at the size of the incoming blast, his right eye spinning into his Mangekyō, the susanoo already beginning to manifest.
Before the ethereal armor could fully form, Kakashi held up his right hand in a 'stop' motion, his gaze never leaving the sky. Sasuke froze, halting the jutsu out of sheer surprise as he tracked the older ninja hovering above them.
An instant later, the massive beam slammed directly toward the village gates and came to a complete standstill.
There was no explosion. No deafening boom. The second the destructive blast made contact with Kakashi's raised left palm, it simply flattened against an invisible barrier, its solid mass instantly dissolving into a fluid mist of raw energy. The glowing blue light bled straight into his skin, flowing up his arm like water down a drain.
Kakashi stood completely immovable, his left hand absorbing the entire mountain-shattering blast without breaking a sweat. Within seconds, the sky cleared. The beam was entirely gone, swallowed whole by his palm. Kakashi calmly lowered his hands into the dead silence of the gate.
The silence held for a moment, then a few moments more, before suddenly erupting into a wave of wild cheers from the surviving crowd below. Kakashi turned his head to look at Tsunade, Sasuke, and Naruto as they leaped up onto the village gate to his left.
Tsunade opened her mouth to yell his name, but the words caught in her throat the moment she saw his face. Sasuke and Naruto froze right beside her, completely stunned.
Kakashi waited for the Hokage to speak, his head tilted slightly as the purple, rippled eyes of the Rinnegan shone with a quiet and heavy power.
- Chapter End -
3.8k Words; decided to make this a really long chapter instead of breaking it up into two parts. I know the cliffhanger would've been a bit cruel if I ended it when Kakashi opened his eyes. (Not that I was ever going to do that…..)