Boom!
A puff of smoke dissipated from her palm, and two strangely shaped longswords appeared out of thin air.
Their blades were long and straight, lined with hooked side-prongs like thorned branches. As they moved, tiny blue-violet arcs of electricity crackled over those jagged offshoots. They were none other than the twin blades once wielded by Kirigakure's Raiga, the Thunder Swords: Kiba.
The moment the long-coveted swords appeared, Sasuke's eyes lit up.
He had wanted these blades ever since the Land of Waves mission. After all that trouble, they were finally his.
With the Thunder Swords in hand, he would definitely pass the super Chunin Exam, and he would be one step closer to avenging himself on Uchiha Itachi.
Seeing the urgency rising in Sasuke's expression, Konome smiled and handed the twin swords over.
"They're yours."
"Thanks."
Sasuke took the Thunder Swords with both hands at once, like a child finally receiving the toy he had been dreaming about.
Konome had just been holding them, so the hilts were a little warm, but he did not care in the slightest. He gripped them tightly and sent Lightning Release chakra, already altered in nature, surging into the blades.
Crackle!
A sharp cry like the lament of birds echoed through the hall.
Kakashi's Chidori had earned its name because when he pushed Lightning Release nature transformation to the limit, the violent current screamed like a thousand birds at once.
But that sound was not unique to Chidori. Any Lightning Release condensed to an extreme would produce something similar.
Now Sasuke had only fed the swords the tiniest bit of chakra. He had not even needed to deliberately shape it, and already Kiba erupted with dazzling sparks, releasing a chorus of shrill cries.
Lightning raced wildly across the blades. He could feel that with the lightest swing, he could unleash a terrifying thunder strike.
"So strong."
The amplification from the swords left Sasuke stunned. The corners of his mouth curled up, showing white teeth, and with those sinister Sharingan eyes, he looked moments away from breaking into the classic Uchiha mad laugh.
"This is the council chamber. If you want to test a ninja tool, go to the training grounds yourself."
Konome cut him off at once. No member of the Uchiha Mad Laughing Quartet was allowed to start acting up in front of her.
Besides, her time was limited. She still had Anko and Morino Ibiki to deal with.
"Torune, take Sasuke to Tsubaki for registration first."
"Yes."
Aburame Torune bowed his head and answered. Then he tilted his chin toward Sasuke and turned to leave, not even waiting for him.
"He doesn't seem to like me much."
Sasuke sealed the Thunder Swords into the bandage wrapping along his inner arm and muttered quietly to Konome.
Even if she had somehow upgraded into the mysterious organization's final boss, and even if she was now his direct superior, in his mind she was still the furious girl with paper slips stuck all over her face during New Year games.
"Probably your imagination. Torune's personality is actually pretty good."
Konome looked toward Torune's retreating figure and did not sense anything unusual.
Torune had been lucky. He had not spent much time being brutalized in Panyan's training department before she took Root from Danzo in secret, so he had managed to preserve a good portion of his former humanity.
She quite liked that shy, quiet boy. His strength and loyalty were also worth cultivating.
The destructive cell-breaking power of his nano-sized venom beetles was incredibly vicious. Once they touched someone, it was almost certain death. They were especially lethal against taijutsu specialists like Guy.
Of course, they posed little threat to her.
Not only did her barrier automatically provide defense, her constitution itself had already changed. Any bugs that tried to invade her body would be killed by her extreme body temperature and immune response. If anything still survived, the Wind and Lightning within her flesh curse seal could clear it out.
All in all, with Sasuke newly added as a frontal combat specialist, Torune responsible for one-strike kills at critical moments, and Sai as an all-purpose support, the three of them already made up a standard secret-technique squad.
And once one considered that Super Beast Imitating Drawing could manifest giant eagles, Sasuke's lack of flight capability was effectively solved. On top of that, Karin would also be arriving for the Chunin Exam. When the time came, all Sasuke had to do was use a little male charm and that super healer, scout, and controller could be reeled into the team as well.
Root's version of Team Hawk was practically about to be born.
"Maybe."
Watching Torune get farther and farther away, Sasuke did not press the issue. He simply leapt off the platform instead of taking the stairs and quickly caught up.
Fate really was strange.
As she watched Sasuke's back recede, Konome could not help feeling that things were entering a cycle.
She had once been lured by Hashirama cells. Sasuke was now lured by the Thunder Swords.
She had joined Root under the eyes of the entire organization. Sasuke had done the same.
Both of them had been led to the equipment division by an Aburame.
Both of them would receive a mask, a codename, and a chakra registry there.
Maybe in the future, Sasuke would sit in her place, recruiting a new generation into Root, while Aburame Torune stood quietly beside him in support.
The vast council hall sank into silence.
Morino Ibiki and the others, who had sat through an entire Root meeting, were anxious. Looking up at the woman on the throne, they did not know whether they ought to speak.
Konome did not need to do anything herself. From the moment they had been stopped by Sasuke at the entrance, to the intimidation of Panyan's squad, to the dark sovereign presiding over the council chamber, their pride and defiance had already been ground smooth.
"Now it's your turn."
As if only just remembering they existed, Konome tapped lightly on the armrest of her seat.
"Yes, Lord Yato."
Clearing his throat, Ibiki unfolded the scroll in his hand, now slightly wrinkled with sweat, and instinctively slipped into the role of a subordinate.
"This is the proposed written test for the first stage of the Chunin Exam. It mainly examines intelligence gathering, teamwork, and most importantly courage..."
"Bring it up."
Ibiki froze for a moment. He was about to obey when he noticed the shadows on the floor begin to twist.
"This is..."
Anko shuddered and took two steps back. She realized that under the star-like lights overhead, every shadow around them had begun to writhe violently. The walls and ceiling shimmered with blurred, shifting shapes.
Genma, standing against the wall, suddenly felt the shadows behind him stir with a clammy chill. He sucked in a sharp breath and immediately moved closer to Anko.
A moment later, a strange black hand emerged from the shadow beneath Ibiki's feet.
The palm was a perfect, deep black, like a miniature abyss, yet it was oddly flat, as if a sheet of black paper had been folded into the shape of a human hand.
Ibiki swallowed hard and placed the scroll into that hand with both hands raised carefully.
The black hand sank back into the floor with the scroll, and when he looked up again, he saw the mysterious woman on the throne taking it from the shadow-hand before opening it in silence. Behind her, two twisted phantom silhouettes flickered vaguely in the gloom, each with a pair of faint blood-red glimmers.
This woman really doesn't look like one of the good guys.
With that thought, Morino Ibiki, whose scarred face already made him look like a wanted criminal, silently passed judgment.
Time passed quickly. In the blink of an eye, another half month went by.
The Chunin Exam was almost here.
Some of the smaller hidden villages closest to the Land of Fire had already begun arriving in Konoha.
To house all those foreign candidates, ANBU had specially built rows of dormitories in some of the more remote areas. Rumor had it that an elite shinobi named "Tenzo" had contributed a great deal to the construction.
Root operatives had already been deployed. Hidden and visible sentries were posted around the dormitories, and specialized barrier users had been assigned as well. If a fight broke out, they could make sure not even a fly got out.
That was no exaggeration.
The Uchiha could attest to that.
During this period, every stage of the exam had been finalized by Yang Release Konome and fed back into the mind of Konome the "candidate."
The official written tests had not yet even been printed, and she, as chief proctor, had already stolen all the questions.
Since Ibiki's old methods were too simple for a super Chunin Exam, most of the questions had been written by Yang Release Konome herself. As soon as the problems entered her mind, the answer key formed there automatically as well.
Though it was not as if it mattered.
After all, the proctors, judges, and graders were all her people. She could hand in a blank sheet and still score full marks.
Yang Release Konome and the clones were all busy.
Naturally, the original body could not spend every day slacking off either.
At the bottom level of Root's training chambers, the dim corridor flickered with orange-red torchlight. The Nara brothers still stood guard hidden in the shadows by the doorway. Normally they were only around ordinary jonin level, but in Root's permanently dim underground spaces, their shadow techniques were absurdly useful.
And because Konome's body was so heavy that it was inconvenient for her to move around too much, many routine matters had been left to these shadow guards.
Inside the stone chamber itself lay a pool set with countless lightning crystals.
Liquid electricity churned and burst like molten lava, throwing off scorching heat and the smell of something singed. Silver hair, metallic in sheen, floated over the surface like a fan.
Konome lay naked in the plasma with her eyes closed. Her full body glowed with the luster of polished jade.
Her figure leaned toward softness, yet it could not be described as erotic, sensual, or alluring. She seemed instead like some higher human-shaped lifeform, her flesh emitting a faint radiance like a rare mineral or refined metal. Even lying there completely bare in the pool, she inspired almost no sexual desire.
Electric plasma hissed across the lines of her skin. Lightning fierce enough to reduce an ordinary person to ash brushed over her like warm water. The damage it did to her cells was almost invisible.
Two years ago, her Lightning Release Chakra Mode had already reached maturity. Pure Lightning Release could no longer harm her in the slightest. Only natural lightning could injure her now.
To solve that, she had built a lightning pool entirely from the purest thunderstone.
Below the pool, endless cables connected it directly to Konoha's central power grid. The cost was beyond reckoning.
Even the electricity bill from a single session was astronomical, far more expensive than even training someone like Guy. If she had not taken control of Root, feeding off both Hiruzen's and Konoha's budgets while also sending men out to kill wealthy merchants and nobles for money, she truly could not have afforded it.
Even the thunder crystals stored in the warehouse had not been enough, so she had simply sent Root operatives to camp at Mount Raiko. Whenever Kumogakure came to mine lightning stone, she would dispatch shadow clones to rob them and, while she was at it, capture the Kumogakure ninja as new experimental materials.
Because she traveled between the two countries so often, a wide road had formed through the northern forests of the Land of Fire. In recent years, merchants had begun using that road to move goods.
Along the way, she had also run into several Kumogakure ambushes. Mount Raiko had been stained red with blood more than once before the Cloud finally gave up mining there. Only then had she barely gathered enough material to construct the lightning pool.
Thump.
Thump.
The slow, heavy beat of her heart filled the chamber with force.
Ripples spread through the plasma as Konome looked inward.
Three viscous green clusters contracted faintly. The cells damaged by lightning kept growing milky-white tendrils, and under the pressure of boundless life force, they devoured energy and regenerated wildly.
Even though energy was constantly being consumed to repair the body, the chakra inside her was actually increasing rather than declining.
Her heart gave a slightly faster beat.
The rate of chakra synthesis surged, and in an instant a violet sun rose within her heart.
Her Reversed Eight Gates had encountered many problems over the years. After swallowing the entire Forest of Death whole, the life force inside her had grown ever stronger, until her cells could no longer comfortably carry and absorb such an excess.
She also did not want the unstable progress of the Shikotsumyaku to accelerate too quickly. With all that power locked down, her internal life energy had become overwhelmingly dense. Sending outside life force into the "gates" was now like pumping air into a tire already filled to the limit: slow and laborious.
But the lightning pool not only aided her Lightning Release Chakra Mode, it also damaged her body to speed up her metabolism. Her evolving cells were becoming better at carrying power, and her rate of absorbing excess life force improved with each passing day.
The faster she absorbed life energy, the faster her body evolved. The more it evolved, the more rapidly it adapted to lightning.
It was a perfect self-amplifying cycle.
What had once been three gates packed so full of life force that they felt nearly solid had already been drained down to faint glimmers. After this session, perhaps they would vanish completely.
Konome opened her eyes.
In the dark stone chamber, it was like two stars had flared into being. Her pupils and irises were both deep gray, and within them some strange pattern seemed to be taking shape. Her Byakugan was on the verge of its final stirring, ready to give birth to something new.
And yet that was not the true purpose of this session.
Long before the Land of Waves mission, under Yang Release Konome's guidance, she had already fused chakra into Wood Release. Her chakra seed had undergone a strange shift, like swallowing a tailed beast whole.
Soon after, she discovered that the Wood Release bloodline was gradually remodeling her body. Her cells began to mutate. Their membranes developed structures akin to plant cell walls, covered with milky tendrils like root fibers.
These past days, that mutation had intensified. She was growing more and more like Hashirama's cells.
She could clearly feel that her body's tolerance for life force was increasing, and the rate at which she absorbed life energy changed by the day. She was beginning to evolve toward becoming a "plant person."
The Sage Body she had originally expected to reach only after the Chunin Exam had, after more than a month of mutation, finally reached a critical threshold.
The plasma twisted and boiled.
Konome's chest rose and fell, and the heavy beat of her heart began to accelerate.
The temperature of her skin kept rising. Wisps of steam escaped her mouth and nose, only to be ionized by the electric plasma before they could even reach open air.
Boom!
Boom boom!
The blazing current ignited the hydrogen around her into explosions, filling the air above the pool with bursts of light and heat.
Konome felt only a faint breeze.
She breathed in the searing air while the oxygen in the room steadily thinned.
Yet she felt no discomfort at all. Air hot enough to roast lungs and organs entered her body and vanished into it like mud sinking into the sea. Her cells seemed to be developing an entirely new energy-conversion system, one that no longer depended on the oxidative reactions of mitochondria.
A low humming wind began to rise inside the sealed chamber.
From the gap beneath the heavy door came a strange whistling sound, as though the world itself were announcing that she was about to step into Sage Body, Third Stage.
To become, after Senju Hashirama, yet another God of Shinobi.
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