Chapter 299: Pupil Power Exceeding the Eternal Mangekyō!
"The power of Yang Release?"
Uchiha Ikeizumi looked at the familiar system text manifesting before his eyes, confirming that he had indeed inherited a portion of Yang Release vitality from Hidan's demise. While it wasn't an absurd tier of immortality that would let him walk away from a literal decapitation, it firmly elevated him to a tier of cockroach-like resilience.
"Aside from the Yang Release energy, destroying four of the Six Paths manipulated by Nagato has also yielded a noticeable upgrade to my overall pupil potency..."
"Though there is still quite a linear gap required to naturally evolve my Eternal Mangekyō Sharingan into a full Rinnegan, it can undoubtedly be considered a solid foundational beginning."
If anyone had been observing Ikeizumi's eyes at this very moment, they would have discerned that the outermost ring of his Eternal Mangekyō design was faintly laced with a hazy, ethereal purple—though faint, it was undeniably the exact color characteristic of the Rinnegan.
"Curse him, meow!"
"It has been ages since I was last saddled with injuries this heavy. That guy named Obito is genuinely infuriating, meow!"
Cradled tightly in Uchiha Izumi's arms, Kojirō spent the entire journey back incessantly muttering and running its mouth off regarding Obito's underhanded tactics. It had merely voiced an absolute, objective truth; how could that bastard Obito treat an adorable little cat with such sheer brutality?
"I'm sorry, Kojirō... I was the one who dragged you into this," Izumi apologized, her voice heavily laced with guilt. After all, if Kojirō hadn't prioritized shielding her from those spatial sneak attacks, it wouldn't have sustained such severe cuts and bruises.
"It's fine, meow!"
Meeting Izumi's downcast, guilt-ridden gaze, Kojirō found it difficult to continue its dramatic venting, opting instead to sigh and settle comfortably into her embrace.
While Uchiha Ikeizumi and his companions pressed their march back toward Konoha, clusters of shadows began manifesting across the devastated landscape of the previous battlefield. These were scouting elements deployed from the Land of Earth, alongside the specialized contingent of Konoha shinobi dispatched toward the Land of Water.
"It's the residual footprint of Lava Release... the entire structural terrain has practically been melted into a colossal magma basin!"
Uchiha Akira—one of the three operatives originally tasked with neutralizing the tycoon Gato—stared out over the vast, bubbling crust of molten stone stretching across a ten-kilometer radius, his eyes reflecting an uncontrollable awe.
Even though the upper echelons and clans of Konoha were thoroughly acquainted with Uchiha Ikeizumi's devastating combat metrics, witnessing his Lava Release physically and permanently rewrite a natural geographic ecosystem still triggered an instinctual tremor of disbelief.
"The enemy must have been exceptionally formidable. Look closely at those shattered, collapsed mountain ranges in the distance; that sheer mechanical destruction could only have been carved out by Lord Ikeizumi's Susanoo," noted Uchiha All-Strike, the second operative from the previous deployment.
He furrowed his brows deeply. From his analytical perspective, Ikeizumi's operational output was already closing in on the historical peak of Uchiha Madara. He genuinely couldn't fathom what kind of hidden entity lurking within the current ninja world could possibly serve as a matching adversary to Uchiha Ikeizumi.
"Regardless of what kind of enemy stepped forward, the absolute moment they ran into Lord Ikeizumi, they were destined to be executed under the banner of Absolute Justice!"
"Personally, I believe our immediate cognitive priority should be focused on whether we can smoothly establish a Police Force infrastructure that meets Lord Ikeizumi's standards once we make landfall in the Land of Water."
Representative elements from the Ino-Shika-Cho clans were also embedded within this deployment force heading toward the Land of Water. The overall roster of this vanguard could be described as nothing short of luxurious; across the twenty-odd operatives present, there wasn't a single Chunin to be found—it was a deployment composed entirely of seasoned Jonin.
It was entirely due to the reality that the Land of Water had already been thoroughly scrubbed and standardized by Uchiha Ikeizumi's iron fist; under normal political conditions, a foreign battalion of this caliber entering their territory would have immediately drawn the hyper-vigilant military focus of Kirigakure.
"Who's there?"
Just as this specialized Konoha reinforcement battalion stood inspecting the crater, the scouting units representing the Land of Earth similarly crossed onto the margins of the battlefield.
After all, the Akatsuki organization had accepted a massive transaction from the Land of Earth—a staggering sum totaling three hundred million Ryo. No matter how broad or indifferent Onoki's temperament might be, he still needed to deploy Iwagakure scouts to confirm whether the Akatsuki mercenaries were actually performing the lethal work they were paid to do.
On the ash-laden ruins of Ikeizumi's battle, the Konoha column collided with the Iwagakure scouts without a shred of prior warning. And given the overwhelming, elite composition of the Konoha vanguard, neutralizing a small handful of scouting elements was a trivial exercise.
"The Land of Earth... actively financed a clandestine mercenary syndicate known as 'Akatsuki' to execute a coordinated ambush against Lord Ikeizumi."
Slightly less than half a day later, after entirely liquidating the Iwagakure scouts, an operative proficient in memory extraction successfully reconstructed the complete, unfiltered string of intelligence from the dead scouts' brains.
"Who among us will break formation to return to Konoha and relay this data directly to Lord Ikeizumi?" Uchiha Akira asked, falling into a tense silence for a brief moment before resolving to route the information back immediately.
From Akira's perspective, since the Land of Earth possessed the sheer audacity to underwrite a mercenary hit against Lord Ikeizumi, they were clearly trembling in fear of Absolute Justice. Toward this brand of existence that chose to position itself as an active enemy of Justice, a heavy, crushing blow was the only correct response!
Meanwhile, deep within the Akatsuki stronghold, Konan appeared visibly weighed down by an undercurrent of profound anxiety.
"Are you worried that Uchiha Ikeizumi will launch a direct assault against our front door?" Nagato asked calmly, his attention never wavering from the delicate process of reconstructing the damaged chassis of the Deva Path Pain.
"Yes..." Konan murmured softly.
"Uchiha Ikeizumi has personally infiltrated the Land of Rain before. At the time, I assumed Biwashi Juzo had compromised our operational logistics and sold out the organization's location."
"But looking back at the analytical sequence now, Juzo was likely entirely innocent. Uchiha Ikeizumi possesses an unknown, highly specific channel that grants him flawless access to our internal metrics—he was even perfectly aware of Uchiha Obito's authentic identity."
Konan's voice carried a distinct edge of concern. While Ikeizumi's physical combat prowess was terrifying, it was at least a tangible factor operating out in the open. However, if Uchiha Ikeizumi possessed a comprehensive, line-by-line understanding of Akatsuki's internal data, that was an entirely different tier of nightmare altogether.
The Rinnegan was peerless, and the Deva Path Pain was devastating, but they were far from flawless. The ultimate structural vulnerability of the entire system was Nagato himself!
If Uchiha Ikeizumi marched into the Land of Rain with a clear map, bypassing the proxies to strike directly at Nagato's physical location, even if Nagato successfully forced Ikeizumi to retreat, the overwhelming physical tax of the encounter would catastrophically exacerbate his already deteriorating health.
Such an escalation would likely result in Nagato's physical body collapsing entirely before he could ever live to see the realization of their grand blueprint.
Furthermore, based on the destructive thresholds Ikeizumi had demonstrated during their clash, there was absolutely no guarantee that what they had witnessed constituted the absolute ceiling of his personal power.
"If he breaches the borders of the Land of Rain, you will abandon the base and leave immediately," Nagato ordered after a prolonged silence, his tone carrying the weight of a definitive, unshakeable resolve.
In truth, he understood the structural limitations of his biology better than anyone else. The Rinnegan granted him god-like power, but that power actively used his own physical vitality as its primary fuel source. Excessive deployment of the Rinnegan's higher-tier mechanics would only accelerate the systematic decay of his body.
Yet, if a direct confrontation with Uchiha Ikeizumi became unavoidable, he would be forced to push the Rinnegan's output to its absolute absolute limits.
Konan didn't offer a verbal response, but her tight, unyielding expression made her intentions perfectly transparent. If Uchiha Ikeizumi genuinely descended upon the Land of Rain, she would remain by his side until the bitter end. Her entire world was tethered exclusively to Nagato and Yahiko. Yahiko was already gone; if Nagato were to perish as well, she harbored absolutely no lingering attachment to this world.
"However... before Uchiha Ikeizumi can focus his gaze on the Land of Rain, we will ensure he is provided with an abundance of immediate complications to manage!" Nagato stated, noting Konan's silent stance and deciding it was imperative to shift the strategic pressure back onto Ikeizumi.
As for how to apply that pressure?
Would the Land of Earth, the Land of Lightning, and the Land of Wind simply sit idly by and watch? Uchiha Ikeizumi had systematically executed Daimyo and liquidated entire aristocratic bloodlines with zero regard for political decorum; the nobility and ruling sovereigns of those three great nations would naturally corner and force their respective shinobi villages into action.
At this crossroad, Nagato's strategic focus underwent a subconscious, fundamental shift. He no longer needed a silent buildup; he needed the immediate, catastrophic outbreak of the Fourth Shinobi World War!