After sealing away Uchiha Obito's Mangekyo Sharingan, Kaede looked around.
Roughly a few dozen meters away, over a hundred Kirigakure shinobi had scattered into a wide perimeter. Each of them stood frozen, weapons like kunai in hand or locked mid-hand seal, watching Kaede intently. But not a single one dared to make a move. All of them were tense beyond belief, paralyzed by fear.
The ones closest to Kaede were drenched in cold sweat, the droplets slipping down their cheeks and dripping from their chins to the ground.
Especially when Kaede's gaze swept across them.
Wherever his eyes landed, the Kiri shinobi involuntarily flinched, feeling a chill run down their spines as their bodies turned stiff with fear.
Kaede's gaze finally settled on Mei Terumi not far away. After pausing on her for a brief moment, he withdrew his eyes, and the piercing blue glow within his pupils shimmered once again.
Compared to the affairs of Kirigakure, retrieving Nagato's Rinnegan was far more important.
Activating the power of the Tenseigan, Kaede began to open a portal to a location near the Akatsuki base, using the rough coordinates he had extracted from Obito earlier.
A few seconds later,
The air in front of Kaede began to ripple like the surface of water. With a single step, he entered the spatial distortion and vanished from sight.
Shortly after Kaede disappeared, the spatial portal faded away as well. The surrounding Kiri shinobi, who had been too terrified to even breathe, finally let out a long, collective sigh of relief.
Someone glanced at the shattered cliffside at the rear of the village, where Fourth Mizukage Yagura had been embedded, uncertain whether he was alive or dead. Then they looked up at the sky, at the clouds that had been sliced apart with the precision of tofu. A bead of cold sweat ran down their faces.
They recalled how casually Kaede had flung Yagura aside.
They remembered the swing of his sword that had cleaved through clouds, at an unknown height, no less.
"…What kind of power is that…?"
A shinobi slowly loosened their grip, letting their kunai clatter to the ground. Their bodies trembled slightly as they murmured in disbelief.
Mei Terumi, too, only snapped out of her daze once Kaede had disappeared. She bit her lip lightly, staring in the direction he had vanished.
She understood now.
She finally understood why Kaede didn't even consider the other ninja villages a threat.
Forget about the spectacle of slicing the clouds, just the scene of him effortlessly tossing away the Fourth Mizukage, without even sparing him a glance, was enough to show that the difference in power had reached an unfathomable level.
Just as Kaede had said, he hadn't destroyed the other great villages only because doing so would plunge the major nations into chaos. The collapse of the shinobi system would send shockwaves through the civilian population, and the resulting disorder would also ruin the global economy.
"Unifying the ninja world…"
"It's only a matter of time, isn't it…"
Mei Terumi murmured to herself.
At this point, there seemed to be no reason to resist. Any defiance would only bring more death and destruction. Judging by the power Kaede had displayed, struggling was pointless.
If that's the case, then perhaps it's better to go along with it.
No, she couldn't just lie down and surrender either. She had to take action.
She would become the Fifth Mizukage of Kirigakure, and when the great upheaval of the ninja world came, she would do everything in her power to minimize the chaos and casualties for both Kirigakure and the Land of Water.
Mei Terumi took a deep breath, the light in her jade-colored eyes flickering with resolve.
She would become the Mizukage. Even if she, as Mizukage, had to ultimately submit to the ninja world unified under Kaede… at the very least, among all the women who admired and pursued Kaede, none of them could say they were one of the Five Kage.
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Land of Earth.
Iwagakure.
Onoki, the Third Tsuchikage, was slumped over his desk, rubbing his aching lower back. He groaned, "Guess old age really is catching up to me…"
He glanced at the mountain of documents piled up in front of him, almost all related to Iwagakure's recent economic troubles, and let out a sigh.
If it hadn't been for Kaede's interference, they might've squeezed more benefits out of the Land of Rain and smoothly transitioned into a stable recovery. But instead, under Kaede's threat, not only did they fail to gain anything, they actually had to cough up a portion of their funds.
Now the village was running a deficit.
Onoki ground his teeth in frustration. But the moment he recalled how Kaede had effortlessly sliced through two entire mountain peaks with a single casual sweep, that anger quickly gave way to helplessness.
Better to hurry up and choose a successor for the Fourth Tsuchikage and enjoy a peaceful retirement. That way he wouldn't have to deal with any more of this nonsense.
And hopefully, he'd never run into Kaede again in this lifetime.
"…Phew."
Onoki exhaled and slowly sank back into his chair.
But just then, his expression froze.
A ripple formed in the air before his desk, like a disturbance across water's surface, and a human figure emerged from the distortion.
"Who…?!" Onoki jumped up in alarm, quickly forming a hand seal to prepare a Dust Release technique.
But then he got a good look at the person stepping out of the portal.
And he froze.
"…Huh?"
Kaede glanced at the startled Tsuchikage with mild surprise, then looked around and quickly realized this was inside Iwagakure.
So the Tenseigan's spatial teleportation wasn't very accurate without precise coordinates, it could easily land him somewhere completely off target.
"Just testing a jutsu. Don't mind me," Kaede said calmly, then stepped back into the portal.
The spatial distortion rippled once more and then vanished completely.
His back pain just got worse.
=============
Somewhere in the Land of Earth.
A new spatial portal opened, and Kaede emerged again.
Though he didn't land directly at the Akatsuki base, after flying up into the air and surveying the terrain, he judged he wasn't far off. Instead of wasting time on another portal, he headed straight for the coordinates Obito had given him.
About thirty minutes later,
Kaede stepped out from an underground hideout.
This was indeed one of Akatsuki's bases, but Nagato wasn't here. Neither was the Geto Statue. Nor was Black Zetsu.
Judging by the traces left behind, it seemed they had abandoned the base long ago.
Kaede didn't believe Obito had given him false information, which meant the evacuation must have been Nagato and Black Zetsu's doing, without Obito's knowledge. Something else may have happened between them.
Kaede stared at the empty base, eyes flickering with thought. Then he looked up, the sky had already darkened.
Night had fallen.
Stars were scattered across the heavens, but the moon was nowhere to be seen.
Kaede shook his head slightly and let out a quiet sigh. Then he brought his hands together in a seal. The Tenseigan's radiance flared, and chakra surged within his body.
Zzzzztt!
Gravitational force rapidly condensed in his palm, forming a pitch-black sphere. Kaede raised his hand and sent the gravity orb hurtling into the sky, until it reached space itself.
This was Chibaku Tensei.
More precisely… it was Six Paths: Chibaku Tensei!
RUMBLE!!
The ground split and shattered. Nearby mountain ranges ripped free from the earth, drawn into the sky by overwhelming gravitational force. One by one, they flew upward and clustered together, eventually merging into a brand new moon, taking its place in the heavens.
With the technique complete, Kaede slowly lowered his hand, shook his head slightly, and then disappeared.
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Completed version available on Patreon Patreon.com/Veltoria