"Kiyomi! Where are you?"
"Mom! Waaaaah!"
"Don't panic! I'm a chunin. Everyone gather around me!"
"No, don't move yet! Nobody move! Don't cause a stampede!"
"Yes, don't stampede!"
Endless ash-gray light filled the space. Voices crashed through the air like pounding waves, and bustling Konoha's main streets instantly dissolved into chaos.
Even as the number one ninja village in the world, Konoha's people were not magically composed in the face of a sudden disaster.
Many of them were survivors of the Nine-Tails' attack twelve years ago. The moment they were reminded of the loved ones they had lost back then, fear seized their minds and made the panic worse.
Thankfully, Konoha had a very high ratio of ninja among its population. Once the many shinobi with stronger nerves began shouting for everyone to stay still, the panicked civilians quickly started to calm down.
No one dared crouch down for fear of being trampled. On top of that, they could not see anything. So everyone simply stood where they were, motionless like a forest of eerie wooden dolls.
The gray light did not last forever. After covering Konoha for roughly three minutes, it finally began to fade rapidly.
There was a flash of white. People raised their hands to shield their eyes. Only after the light had vanished did they dare look around in terror.
The massive Hokage Rock was still there, its carved faces seeming to smile down upon the village. The evening clouds painted shadows across the visages of the previous Hokage. Street lamps glowed softly. People still stood frozen in place like nails hammered into the ground. Some women and children had tears on their faces.
"Kiyomi!"
A burly man threw his arms around his recovered daughter. A lost little girl was reunited with her mother with the help of the crowd. Men and women returning from work abandoned everything and rushed home.
The gray light seemed not to have changed Konoha at all.
"Did it really change nothing?"
Standing by the window and looking down at the village as it slowly regained order, Hiruzen Sarutobi's eyes reflected streaks of gold, like a lion hidden within them.
Only those who had lived through war could truly understand the value of peace. The familiar view before him, unchanged over ten years, was the greatest achievement of his life. He would never grow tired of it.
"Light… it really was light…"
Though this was not the first time Jiraiya had witnessed the Great Toad Sage's prophetic powers, he was still profoundly shaken. To him, that ability was no different from divinity.
Shocked as he was, he had not forgotten the strange gray light. Hearing Hiruzen speak, he immediately closed his eyes and pressed his palms together. Even his breathing slowed, as though he were preparing to enter Sage Mode.
Besides amplifying taijutsu and ninjutsu, Sage Mode also granted sensory abilities. The gray light's nature was unknown, and he had decided to use natural energy to figure out what had happened inside Konoha.
A long while passed.
He suddenly opened his eyes, and they were filled with astonishment.
"The natural energy in the air is gone!"
Hiruzen stood at the window with his hands behind his back, staring down at the noisy villagers. His brows knotted tighter, the grooves in his face deepening.
Natural energy was a secret to ordinary ninja, but not to him. He was the Hokage.
The Sarutobi monkeys, Hashirama, the Nine-Tails, the Uzumaki sealing arts, the gifted monks of the Fire Temple, the Three Great Sage Regions. There were many ways in the ninja world to use and manipulate natural energy. The Sage Mode of the Three Great Sage Regions was only one among them.
Could that eerie gray light have been some form of senjutsu, if it could directly purge all the natural energy from Konoha?
For some reason, Hiruzen felt a flicker of relief.
Other than himself and Jiraiya, the strongest person in the village was his final disciple.
She truly did like stirring things up. She was obsessed with researching Yin-Yang Release. And then there were those bizarre gray bones he had once seen five years ago.
The instant he saw that all-encompassing gray light, he had suspected Konome Taketori might be researching some terrifying Yin-Yang Release technique. The chakra within that radiance truly did contain Yin and Yang properties.
But if it was senjutsu, that changed things.
Konome had never received the monkey clan's teachings. She did not know about natural energy, nor did she have any channel through which to learn sage techniques.
If he could prove the gray light was some kind of senjutsu, then Konome could be cleared of suspicion to a great extent.
After the painful lesson Orochimaru had taught him, he was terrified of repeating the same mistake.
"Can you locate where the natural energy disappeared?" Hiruzen could not sense natural energy himself, so he could only place his hopes on Jiraiya, who had once again closed his eyes to sense it.
The place where the natural energy vanished was most likely the source of the gray light.
"I'll try."
Jiraiya's face was grave as well. The gray light was deeply unsettling. He sat cross-legged on the ground, relaxed his mind, and gradually merged himself with heaven and earth.
To enter Sage Mode, one first had to still the heart completely, empty and calm as water. On that basis, one had to continue emptying the self until reaching a state of unity with all things. Only then could one sense natural energy.
It sounded simple.
But that first step alone would stop ninety-nine percent of all shinobi.
Anyone with a complicated mind, strong desires, or anxious restlessness would find the state of inner stillness nearly impossible to achieve, much less the unity with heaven and earth that came after.
"I… I can't enter!"
Not even half a minute later, Jiraiya's eyes snapped open, and his face was full of horror.
"You still can't sense any natural energy at all?" Hiruzen picked up his pipe, pondering where the gray light might have come from, completely misunderstanding what Jiraiya meant.
"Old man, it's not about natural energy at all. I can't enter unity with heaven and earth anymore!"
Jiraiya shut his eyes again in disbelief, but no matter how much he emptied his mind, he could not enter that state. He could not establish any connection with the world around him, as though heaven and earth themselves had cast him aside.
He had never experienced anything like this before. His previously calm mind was beginning to unravel.
After spending years cultivating Sage Mode, to have it suddenly stripped away felt like working hard your whole life, only to lose not just all your savings overnight, but even the ability to earn money at all.
"What's the difference?"
Hiruzen took a pull from his pipe. He did not understand the subtleties of Sage Mode, so his face remained puzzled.
Jiraiya's mind was in turmoil, and he could no longer maintain inner stillness. He stood from the floor, frustration plain on his face, and tried to explain in simpler terms.
"In normal Sage Mode, I align my mental state with the natural world, and that lets me sense natural energy. Right now, I can't communicate with nature at all. It's like your lover suddenly dumped you out of nowhere, and no matter how hard you try to talk to her, she won't respond.
The world has rejected me."
That painfully vivid comparison made Hiruzen understand immediately. The wrinkles on his forehead deepened enough to crush flies.
"... The world has changed. So this is what the Great Toad Sage meant by the source of the coming upheaval in the ninja world?"
Jiraiya's white hair hung messily over his shoulders. His pupils were clouded with confusion. He had always thought the foretold upheaval referred to changes in the relationships between nations, villages, and shinobi. But now it seemed more like the very environment of the world had changed.
Was the light limited to Konoha, or had the natural energy of the entire ninja world been wiped away?
The prophecy had struck true. The natural energy was gone. He had been utterly abandoned by the world itself. Combined, those facts shattered Jiraiya's peace of mind.
The Child of Prophecy, the transformation of the ninja world, the destruction that might be coming. These were burdens he had carried for years. Beneath the persona of a wandering sage and shameless flirt was a heart weighed down by responsibility.
Because of the prophecy, he could never settle down peacefully in Konoha. He could never openly confess to the woman he loved. He could only drift through the ninja world, chasing the future the Great Toad Sage had spoken of.
And now that future had finally arrived, in a form he had never imagined.
He no longer knew how to face the destiny he had been waiting for all this time.
Silence fell over the office.
Jiraiya, unable to enter Sage Mode, had no way to pinpoint the source of the gray light.
Maybe they should ask Konome. Her mastery of Yin-Yang Release was profound. She might be able to trace the light's source, assuming it was not her.
After a moment of thought, a sharp light flashed in Hiruzen's eyes. He was just about to summon Suzaku, who was standing guard outside, when footsteps came rapidly from the hall.
"I have urgent business to report to the Hokage!"
The office door rattled under hurried knocking.
Could this be about the source of the gray light?
Hiruzen's spirits lifted, and he quickly called the shinobi outside in.
The door opened. A ninja in an ordinary chunin uniform rushed in, relief flooding his face the moment he saw the Hokage.
"A-Asuma-sama's first security line has encountered shinobi from the other four great nations. He has blocked them all outside."
"The shinobi of the four nations… the Chunin Exams… and at a time like this?"
Even Hiruzen Sarutobi, who rarely let his emotions show, could not help becoming irritable.
The gray light was like a time bomb buried inside the village. Now foreign shinobi had arrived to create even more problems. Every troublesome thing in the world seemed determined to happen at once.
The key issue was this: in the current situation, refusing them entry would only make it look like Konoha was in serious trouble. Letting them in would mean wasted manpower and resources, but refusing them would show weakness before the entire ninja world.
"Tell Asuma to let them in…"
Tap. Tap. Tap.
The messenger had been in too much of a hurry and forgot to shut the office door, so the footsteps in the hallway rang out with startling clarity.
"Who is it…"
Suzaku's voice rose outside, then abruptly stopped. A moment later came a puzzled murmur.
"Miss Konome?"
The sound of black heels striking the floor continued in a crisp rhythm. Dressed in a black ANBU-style long coat, tall and imposing, Konome Taketori walked through the corridor and stopped outside the Hokage's office.
Her trademark silver-gray hair spilled down to her waist. Her figure looked more mature than before. Her fair skin had lost even the faintest visible pores or texture, gleaming instead with a faint jewel-like luster. Her exquisitely beautiful features had fully matured, their splendor edged now with a sharpness that almost hurt to behold.
"When we're working, use my title. Call me Yodō."
"Yes, Lady Yodō!"
Her brilliant ash-gray eyes were hidden behind the band over them. Konome gave Suzaku a nod, then put on the raven mask of Root and strode into the Hokage's office.
The door shut behind her.
Suzaku looked down at the floor she had crossed. This time, it seemed the surface had not been eroded by Earth Release.
Inside the room, Konome ignored the random chunin messenger and swept her gaze over Jiraiya, whose curiosity was plain to see, before finally stopping on Hiruzen, whose expression had become complicated.
"You can leave now."
Hiruzen tipped his chin, dismissing the messenger. Once the man had gone, he looked at his changed disciple.
"This is… a transformation jutsu?"
"Something like that."
Konome's cool, lovely voice sounded from behind the raven mask as she looked down at the stooped Hiruzen.
Her body had entered complete maturity. Every flaw had been filled in. Everything had been refined to the utmost limit. Though she had not yet stepped into the Six Paths tier, her Sage Body and Gray Bones had begun influencing one another, giving her flesh a portion of Kaguya's immortality ahead of schedule. Under the awakening of her new dōjutsu, she had even found a path beyond that.
This was her perfect state.
Still, she was not lying.
Transformation Jutsu did not refer only to the E-rank Academy technique. Like sealing arts, body flicker arts, and clone techniques, it was a broad category. Any jutsu that altered appearance could be called transformation.
Since the original Transformation Technique was already so powerful, very few people ever bothered creating new branches of it. The only memorable developments were probably the Sexy Technique and the Harem Technique.
In a sense, Naruto really was a genius.
The cool, melodious voice made Jiraiya's brows jump. Just from the sound alone, he could tell that the silver-haired woman beneath the mask had to be breathtakingly beautiful.
"That gray light…"
Hope showed in Hiruzen's eyes. He desperately wanted to hear her deny it.
"My bloodline evolved. But the problem has already been resolved."
Konome did not want to lie to him, so she admitted it outright. She no longer had any need to hide.
Hearing that Konome really had caused the disturbance, Hiruzen's expression darkened. He wanted to lecture her, but the moment he remembered the Bloodline Disease that plagued her, and realized the gray light was likely not intentional, he found himself unable to be too harsh.
"Your… illness is cured?"
"Yes. Better than ever."
A beautiful smile, invisible to everyone present, spread across Konome's face. Her mood was exquisite.
All the bloodline limits she had nurtured over the last five years had evolved. Her strength had leapt in a single bound into the level of a super-kage. More than that, she had found a road that could one day surpass even Kaguya Ōtsutsuki herself.
Her eyes opened and closed slightly.
Within her ash-gray pupils appeared a miniature image of the entire village of Konoha.
The sky washed with evening clouds. The dark, profound earth below. The town streets crowded with countless people hurrying back and forth. Even the forest tens of kilometers beyond, and all the familiar shinobi now stalled outside the security line.
Danzo. Orochimaru. The One-Tail. The Five-Tails. And even… Ao.
The moment she saw the gray-blue-haired shinobi staring at Orochimaru and Danzo in horror with his stolen Byakugan, the smile on her face became even more radiant.
"Sensei, I'll go bring those foreign shinobi back."
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