"This is bad, this is bad! Doto is dead. He... he was killed by divine punishment!"
"Was it really divine punishment?"
Sosetsu was surprised.
He did not believe it at first. In a rush, he hurried to Doto's residence, only to be confronted with the same horrifying scene.
The Ice Gate. The criminal bound in chains.
Most terrifying of all was that peaceful expression, as if all worldly thoughts had been released at the moment of death and he had returned to his beginning.
This could not be the power of a mortal.
Sosetsu looked up. The snow angel in the sky was dissolving, leaving behind a final message:
"Sosetsu Kazahana, you are a fine leader. My god is willing to grant you a small reward, on the condition that... you can find Kuraokami."
The deity vanished, but the Ice Gate remained standing in the manor, towering and solemn.
Sosetsu Kazahana's heart was a swirl of emotions.
On one hand, his younger brother was dead. As an elder brother, he felt some sadness. On the other hand, to learn that Doto had been committing so many atrocities behind his back, even laying hands on the grain Sosetsu personally sold to the commoners at cost every year, that crossed his bottom line.
And then there was this: what was Kuraokami? The dwelling of the gods?
"Everyone, has anyone ever heard of or seen Kuraokami?"
"No."
"Never heard of it."
They looked at one another, all shaking their heads.
Kuraokami? They had never even heard the name. Before today, they would have scoffed and dismissed it as some unrealistic rumor.
But now, the facts were laid bare before their eyes.
The other party had indeed wrought a divine punishment that was awe-inspiring and incomprehensible. That being the case, the existence of Kuraokami might not be fiction.
There really might be such a place in this world.
"My lord, are you going to seek out Kuraokami?"
"I haven't decided yet."
Sosetsu felt lost.
Gods, so distant, so venerable, and yet today one had descended upon the Snow Capital, punished his own younger brother, and even spoken of rewarding him.
It was absurd.
What if it was not real? He was the ruler of a nation. Without him, the country would be left headless. So even if he did decide to search for Kuraokami, he would have to make sufficient preparations first.
For example, if something happened to him, what would become of the country?
Outside the Snow Capital, the black cat used the Flying Thunder God to regroup with Nagato and the others, while Konan returned via her Dance of the Shikigami.
"Meow~ How was it?"
"Your jutsu is incredible. While flying, I spent only a fraction of my usual chakra, and I was much faster. It's amazingly practical."
"That's the Sky Dancing Technique, meow. But I was asking how it felt to act as a deity."
The black cat gave his head a little shake.
A deity descending to deliver divine punishment, that was the script he had come up with, and the "my god" in Konan's mouth was, of course, Takeshi himself.
It was well-deserved.
Compared with these ordinary people, Takeshi's power was already approaching that of a god.
Take the Ice Release: Gate of the Great God, for instance.
Before he purchased for the Sage Body, he could not manage such delicate, high-consumption combination techniques. Now he could do it easily, with fine control to the point of precisely sealing someone's thoughts using only the portion of the gate over their head.
And that was only his improvement in ninjutsu. His taijutsu went without saying.
"It was brilliant. If I didn't know the script, I might really have believed you were a god."
Konan was deeply impressed.
Nagato and Kanna nodded solemnly as well. Even though they were in on it, watching from the outside, the impact of that scene had shaken them.
But...
The black cat only gave a small nod, fixed his gaze on Nagato, and said, "Meow, foolish."
"Huh?"
Nagato was bewildered and a little indignant.
Why was the black cat staring at him? He hadn't even been the one answering, and what Konan had said was simply the truth.
If anyone had seen that overwhelming display without prior knowledge, they would absolutely have taken it for divine power.
"I can create miracles, but am I a god? No, meow. I'm only a somewhat stronger living being. Most so-called gods are the same. There are no true gods in this world, and we cannot rule others as gods would. Otherwise, I could just command Sosetsu to do exactly as I say."
As Takeshi spoke, he patted Nagato's head with his paw.
Nagato didn't really understand. Why say all this specifically to him?
"You hope Nagato won't lose himself because of his eyes?"
Konan pondered for a long moment, then ventured a quiet guess.
"Meow!"
The black cat nodded, his expression unreadable.
After Nagato's dramatic phase began, he would control the Six Paths of Pain and call himself a god. Takeshi wanted to nip that in the bud right now, before that persona ever formed. Otherwise, facing a kid who went around all day calling himself "god" and "making the world know pain"...
That mental image was far too unbearable.
"I understand. Thank you for your guidance."
Nagato still felt mystified, but he could sense Takeshi's good intentions. He nodded, half-understanding, and turned the black cat's words over in his mind, searching for their deeper meaning.
With that settled, the black cat casually picked a direction and started walking.
"My lord, are we going to look for Kuraokami?"
Kanna immediately followed.
She did not know what Kuraokami really was, but since Takeshi had spoken of it and promised a reward to the ruler, then he would never break his word, in her heart, the black cat was that righteous.
"Meow~ We're going to build Kuraokami."
Takeshi nodded.
Kuraokami was the name he had come up with for his super cat tower. A bit of a knockoff, perhaps, but harmless enough. It was not like this world had any real Cat Sages. The only Cat Sage was yours truly.
So he felt no burden at all. He didn't need to worry about some white Cat Sage coming after him over copyright infringement.
Nagato and Konan did not understand, but that did not stop them from following. In fact, Nagato had not been too keen on coming, but Yahiko had insisted over and over, so he had no choice.
The coast of the Land of Snow was also covered in heavy ice and snow, it was hard to tell where the true shoreline even was.
Takeshi had no fixed destination and wandered along the coast.
The three followed behind, constantly watching the surroundings to make sure no one was tailing or observing them. They walked for who knew how long until the black cat suddenly noticed a patch of mist further down the shore.
He dashed over and discovered a hot spring.
Water bubbled up into a pool, and the mist was actually steam rising from the warm water.
"A hot spring!"
Kanna and Konan's eyes lit up.
Nagato did not feel much about it, but he did think the place was nice.
The environment and location were both good.
"Meow! This is it."
Takeshi looked around, then enlarged his body. With a sweep of his tail, he cleared away years of accumulated snow along with scattered rocks, creating a broad open space around the hot spring.
Then the black cat padded into the clearing and pressed a paw to the ground.
With a thunderous *boom*, under the stunned gazes of Kanna, Konan, and Nagato, a towering structure erupted upward. The tower rose so high its top was lost from sight, its upper half vanishing into the clouds, while its base was enormous, occupying nearly the entire clearing.
This was...
Kuraokami?
Konan's mouth fell open. The word "miracle" almost slipped out, but she quickly remembered what Takeshi had said earlier and snapped her mouth shut.
"Is this your... your sacred ground?"
Nagato was shaken.
If he had not seen it with his own eyes, he could never have imagined a tower so high existing in this world.
How did it not collapse?
It made no sense.
"Meow! I call it Kuraokami."
Takeshi darted up the tower. Around it were narrow ledges made for climbing, they were clearly designed for cats. He sprang from ledge to ledge, quickly turning into a tiny dot in their eyes.
Kanna hurried after him.
But after they climbed for a while, they realized that higher up, the footholds disappeared.
They had to climb?
"Meow~ No walking on walls with chakra."
Takeshi's voice drifted down from above, very faint, almost inaudible.
The three hesitated a moment, then continued climbing.
It was hard.
This was a cat tower. Cats were natural climbers, this stretch of the tower was easy for them. But humans were another story. Since they were forbidden from using chakra to adhere to the surface, they could only coat their hands with chakra for grip and haul themselves up bit by bit.
It was exhausting.
After a distance, Kanna was reaching her limit.
She was about to fall.
But before she did, Konan was the first to lose her grip and slip. As she dropped, Nagato whipped his head around in alarm, reaching out with one hand despite his own precarious state, chakra surging.
A second later, Konan turned into a flurry of paper and rose back up in her angelic form.
Nagato himself, however...
"Ahhh!"
A moment later, Takeshi appeared at Kanna's side.
"My lord, quickly, "
"Meow~ No rush."
Takeshi narrowed his eyes slightly.
In a freefall, a person's potential could be forced out. If Nagato used the repulsive force of Almighty Push, he could stabilize himself and slow or even stop his fall before he hit the ground.
If Nagato truly could not manage it, Takeshi would intervene.
He had to admit, the way you trained boys and girls was different. Even if Kanna had the Rinnegan, he would never take this approach with her. It was simply that...
A man's shoulders had to be strong.
He licked his paw and watched below. By now, the black cat had already activated Sage Mode, if Nagato was in real danger, he would teleport to the rescue immediately.
Konan, hearing his words, could only wait where she was.
After a moment, Takeshi laid a paw on her and Kanna's shoulders. In an instant, the Flying Thunder God swapped their positions, and they saw Nagato suspended only four or five meters above the ground, his face ghost-pale, lips trembling.
He had been falling from over a hundred meters up.
If he had hit the ground, even a ninja would have been badly hurt. Fortunately, he had broken through his limits and stopped himself.
"Meow~ Not bad."
Takeshi stepped onto Nagato's shoulder.
Then, amid a scream, Nagato resumed falling.
With a *thud*, he hit the ground, but the repulsive force had offset the impact, so he was not injured, only disheveled.
"You-!"
Nagato glared furiously at the black cat.
Before he could erupt, Takeshi's gaze flicked into the distance. In the next instant, he vanished.
'White Zetsu.'
As he sprinted, Takeshi gathered chakra.
White Zetsu fled swiftly, reacting almost instantly and diving underground, but the black cat was faster. In a heartbeat, he had caught up, and with his tail reinforced by monstrous strength, he slammed it down at the earth.
With a deafening *crash*, the ground split open and a humanoid creature was blasted out of the soil.
===============
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