"Shiori," Ryouma gave a quiet reminder.
The other party had no intention of hiding his presence, swaggering out of the dark forest and walking straight toward them.
"Ryouma, bounty: 110 million ryō. Shiori, bounty: 15 million ryō. Looks like I'm having a pretty lucky day."
Kakuzu casually tossed the corpse of a ninja he'd been carrying on his shoulder to the ground. He had only come here to exchange a bounty but ended up with an unexpected bonus. Although he would need to bring along the ninja swords that Ryouma had taken to claim the full 110 million, he was confident he could get information about the sword from his target.
At this time, the news that Ryouma had killed the Third Mizukage and destroyed Kiri had not yet spread. Only the major hidden villages that had placed high-level spies within Kiri were aware of what had happened.
That was, assuming their spies hadn't already been killed in Ryouma's indiscriminate Tailed Beast Ball attack.
Even if Kakuzu had known that intel, given how much he values money, he probably still wouldn't have backed down from attacking them, the underground bounty was just too good to pass up.
Seeing someone blocking their path, Shiori frowned slightly.
Kakuzu couldn't be bothered to say a single unnecessary word. He simply began approaching the two of them. Shiori let out a scornful sneer, her black pupils instantly shifting into the three-tomoe Sharingan.
She said coolly to Ryouma, "You're just here to assist me. Let me handle him."
That was a lie. In truth, she wanted to use this enemy to test the power of her Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.
Since he knew their identities and still wanted to attack, he had to at least be strong enough to serve as a real opponent, at least one worthy of drawing out her true strength.
Ryouma only needed to glance at Shiori's expression to guess what she was thinking. He offered a light warning:
"Just activate your Eternal Mangekyō directly. He may not be stronger than you overall, without it, it might not be enough to beat him easily."
"Alright… Wait, what?" Shiori looked surprised. "How do you know about that?"
She was sure she'd never told him about the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan.
Ryouma shrugged and replied honestly, "I've known for a while. Back during the battle at Kiri, the power in your eyes was far beyond that of a normal Uchiha with a three-tomoe Sharingan. Now that your ocular power has grown even more, it can only be the Eternal Mangekyō."
There was another reason, too.
He had known that Homura had awakened the Mangekyō. And now his daughter wanted to go out and buy a pair of "ordinary" eyes? Anyone with some understanding of the Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan could easily guess what was going on.
So once he realized her goal, whether because of their friendship or because of his relationship with his father and Homura, he had no reason to refuse to help.
As for Shiori, she figured that since Ryouma had inherited the knowledge of the Senju, it likely included records on the Mangekyō Sharingan. Combined with his long-standing, powerful sensory abilities, it wasn't surprising that he'd figured it out.
And to think, she had treated the Eternal Mangekyō as her trump card all this time, he must have been laughing at her behind her back.
With that thought, she turned her head, and stepped forward to face the enemy.
The three tomoe in her eyes began spinning rapidly, ultimately transforming into a snowflake-like pattern with six petals encasing three comma-shaped droplets linked end to end.
Kakuzu didn't bother interrupting the exchange between the two, to him, they were already just two walking stacks of money. Speeding up his steps, he used the Earth Spear to harden his arms, then accelerated straight toward the more valuable target: Ryouma.
Shiori noticed that he ignored her, so she formed hand seals and gathered dazzling lightning in her right hand, intercepting him midway.
Chidori perfectly countered his Earth Release hardening technique. In just a single clash, she severed Kakuzu's arm.
But surprisingly, his body was nothing like a normal human's. From the cut surface of his severed arm, tendril-like things resembling blood vessels surged out, weaving together like a spider's web, attempting to ensnare her.
Just as the threads were about to bind her, Shiori's left Mangekyō Sharingan slowly turned. The ability activated in an instant, her body melted like water and merged into her own shadow.
The tendrils struck empty space, slamming into the hard ground, flailing in confusion. From within the shadow space, she formed hand seals and exhaled a massive torrent of flames toward the outside.
"Fire Release: Great Fire Annihilation!"
The tendrils lying in wait at the shadow's exit were engulfed by the roaring fire and incinerated. Kakuzu quickly severed the connection to those Earth Grudge Fear threads and leapt backward to widen the distance between himself and the shadow.
With a swing of his severed arm, he extended fresh threads and reattached the dismembered limb to his body. He hadn't expected his surprise attack, based on intel advantage, to completely fail. As expected, anyone who could team up with the Leaf's Gale, even a young girl, couldn't be underestimated.
Behind them, Ryouma casually observed the scale of the fire jutsu and commented leisurely, "Hmm, not bad. It's about a third the size of Madara's fire jutsu."
Each evolution of the Sharingan granted the Uchiha clan an all-around boost, dynamic vision, reaction time, chakra control, and more.
The Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan especially provided immense enhancements.
A few seconds later, the flames subsided. Three Shioris emerged from the shadows, each charging at Kakuzu with Chidori crackling in hand.
"Shadow clones, huh?"
He rapidly formed hand seals and slammed his hands on the ground. From beneath his feet, an annular surge of mud and rocks erupted and spread outward, reaching the three clones in the blink of an eye.
Though the three Shioris came from different timelines, their reaction was perfectly synchronized.
Three towering white chakra giants materialized on the battlefield. The earthen wave Kakuzu had unleashed slammed into their legs, but didn't even leave a scratch.
Shiori had activated the third stage of Susanoo directly!
Kakuzu stared in shock at the Susanoo before him. Memories from his long life surged back violently.
A giant made of chakra… he vaguely remembered hearing about it long ago. Unwilling to give up, he formed another set of hand seals and spat out several bolts of lightning.
"Lightning Release: False Darkness!"
Multiple lightning strikes crashed down onto the Susanoo, but didn't even ripple its surface.
Shiori controlled her Susanoo to stretch out its right hand, gathering chakra in its palm. Countless yasaka beads, like cannonballs, shot toward Kakuzu, shaking the earth with thunderous roars.
In an instant, debris flew and smoke billowed.
Ryouma formed a few hand seals.
"Wind Release: Passing Typhoon!"
A powerful gust burst from his mouth, clearing all the smoke from the battlefield.
Kakuzu lay motionless on the crater-ridden ground, his clothes in tatters. Seeing the immense power of her Susanoo, Shiori smirked.
She then controlled a Susanoo-wielding clone to approach the enemy to confirm whether he was truly dead.
Susanoo extended its enormous hand, effortlessly grabbing Kakuzu's body, and then crushed it with a single squeeze.
That was Shiori's method of confirmation.
The enemy was obviously dead beyond any doubt. She relaxed, dispersed her Susanoo, and recalled her two shadow clones back into her shadow space.
With a trace of smugness on her face, she turned and walked toward her companion.
However, Ryouma, having watched the entire process, felt that Shiori was being a bit too careless.
Even though Kakuzu should have been completely dead by normal standards, the sight of those vein-covered arms earlier clearly indicated that he wasn't a ninja who could be judged by normal logic.
Sure enough, at the very moment Shiori dispersed her Susanoo and turned away, two masked black monsters burst out from underground.
From the mouths behind their masks, they released two incredibly powerful ninjutsu attacks!
"Fire Release: Intelligent Hard Work!"
"Wind Release: Pressure Damage!"
Wind fueled the fire, under the pressure of the wind jutsu, the raging flames formed a searing orange-red firestorm even more dangerous than Shiori's earlier Great Fire Annihilation.
Its scale wasn't small either, nearly covering half the sky, showing just how much preparation Kakuzu had made for this ambush.
"What?" Shiori hadn't expected the enemy to have allies. By now, it was too late to hide in the shadow space. It looked like she'd have to die once.
Strange as it might sound, for someone with Ōtoshi, dying once was exactly what it sounded like. But pain would still be pain.
Just as she braced herself to take the hit head-on, a figure suddenly appeared in front of her.
And among the handful of people in the entire shinobi world capable of intercepting such a combined ninjutsu attack in time, Ryouma, using the Flying Thunder God Technique, was one of them.
His blade flashed from its sheath, and a strange domain rapidly unfolded with him at its center. The moment the orange-red flame cluster touched the strange field, all chakra-related rules were reversed.
Both the pressure-enhanced wind and the fire were sent back along their original path, amplified. The violent return struck the two masked monsters directly, smashing their bodies and masks to pieces.
Fierce flames, mixed with thick smoke, billowed above the battlefield.
Ryouma spun his blade and slowly sheathed it. He softly rebuked Shiori behind him. "You've gotten a little arrogant since awakening your Eternal Mangekyō."
Thinking of the bold words she had boasted before the battle, she felt a bit embarrassed. Her lips pressed tightly together, her cheeks slightly flushed.
Still, she stubbornly replied, "That kind of attack couldn't defeat me."
Ryouma raised an eyebrow and was about to respond when he heard her add in a low voice, "…But thanks anyway."
He shrugged and shifted his gaze to Kakuzu, who was standing back up not far away.
Kakuzu had already discarded his tattered black cloak, which now lay crumpled on the ground. This revealed his grotesque body, stitched together with thick, rough seams, resembling Frankenstein's monster from Ryouma's previous life.
Taking advantage of the time they were talking, he tried to slip away.
After all, he had already lost three hearts, while the two enemies in front of him hadn't suffered a scratch. With only his water and earth hearts left, he had no chance of winning.
Then I'll use an earth jutsu…
Just as this thought crossed his mind and he began forming hand signs, several Flying Thunder God kunai whistled through the air toward him, interrupting his jutsu.
He instantly recognized these as the medium for Ryouma's space-time ninjutsu. He had once seen the Second Hokage use them in a battle against the Gold and Silver Brothers.
Reacting without hesitation, he swung his arm, using the tendrils of his Earth Grudge Fear to fling the kunai away as far as possible.
Meanwhile, Shiori glanced at the pool of black liquid left behind by the fallen masked creatures. She had originally thought the jutsu came from Kakuzu's comrades, but to her surprise, it had been just those two monsters.
It now seemed those creatures were constructs created through some secret technique of Kakuzu's.
Ryouma stepped closer, a curious look in his eyes, and asked, "You're the infamous Kakuzu, who treasures money like his own life, right? Mind telling me how much wealth you've accumulated living this long?"
He didn't ask out of greed. He had no real interest in money or to be honest, he simply wasn't interested in taking other people's money.
He was just genuinely curious.
But of course, Kakuzu had no intention of answering honestly. His eyes glinted with menace as he glared at Ryouma.
"Trying to get your hands on my money? Everyone who's asked that question is now buried six feet under. Even your precious First Hokage couldn't get that information out of me."
Ryouma curled the corner of his mouth. If Kakuzu didn't want to answer, so be it.
He wasn't bothered by Kakuzu's hostility, after all, he had brought up something more important to the man than his own life. A strong reaction was to be expected.
But Shiori raised her chin and asked, "You've met the First Hokage?"
If Ryouma hadn't known her so well, he might've thought she had been hired by Kakuzu just to set him up for dramatic lines. Sure enough, he naturally took the bait from her words.
"The very first Konoha ninja I ever fought was your First Hokage."
Hearing this, Shiori couldn't tell if he was lying or delusional. She was just about to retort mockingly when Ryouma's voice came from beside her.
"Huh? He's this weak and actually fought the First Hokage and survived?" Shiori looked at Ryouma in disbelief.
He could only explain, "You saw the forehead protector he's wearing, right? He was sent by Taki to assassinate the First Hokage. But he was captured alive by a Wood Release jutsu. Considering how small villages struggled to survive in the chaos of the era, the First Hokage decided to let him go. At least, that's what I've heard."
Come on, let's push the rankings!
Power Stones make me happy!
[email protected]/Malphegor