Kosuke immediately took out a brand-new scroll and wrote that they should recruit both of them into the organization, continue gathering similar talents, and perhaps search the Land of Snow as well.
Once the ink on the scroll had dried, Kosuke rolled it up and set it aside. "Deliver this scroll to Uchiha Tree immediately. Have him bring them back to the clan as soon as possible."
"Yes, Leader!"
A ghostlike figure silently emerged from the shadows in the room.
It was Uchiha Maki, who had pledged loyalty to Kosuke more than a decade ago alongside Madara's teammates.
Watching him accept the scroll and vanish without a sound, Kosuke could not help but laugh.
He had never expected that a casual remark Uzumaki Mito had made to humor him back then would actually come true.
He rose and walked to the enormous floor-to-ceiling window, gazing silently through the glass at the eastern horizon. "Mito..."
Night fell, and Kosuke stepped through his front door right on time for dinner.
What greeted him was Izuna, sitting alone in the courtyard and drinking tea.
"Did you come back for something today?"
Kosuke spoke evenly, without a trace of emotion. He walked straight over to Izuna, sat beside him, and poured himself a cup of clear tea.
"Mina missed Mother, so she came back during her break to spend more time with her." Izuna smiled as he set down his teacup. "Did you just return to the clan after finishing a mission?"
"Mm." Kosuke withdrew his gaze from the kitchen and looked at Izuna beside him. "How has Madara been lately?"
"Older brother?" A flicker of helplessness passed through Izuna's eyes at the sudden mention of Madara. "Ever since I married your sister, I've hardly seen him around the clan."
Thinking back to Madara's expression during Izuna's wedding gave Kosuke a headache.
Could Madara really be... you know, bent?
Shouldn't he have been happy that his beloved younger brother was getting married?
If Madara had not ridden the hundred-meter-tall Tailed Beast—the Nine-Tails—to the wedding and given it to Kosuke's sister as a pet, Kosuke would have nearly activated Susanoo and hacked him to pieces in fury.
With that poker face of his, everyone found him irritating now.
If his strength had allowed it, someone would have long since thrown a sack over his head and beaten him up!
"By the way, has the Nine-Tails been behaving?"
"Mm. Ever since you taught it a lesson, it has obediently stayed behind my family's training ground. Someone delivers its favorite grilled meat to it every day."
At the mention of the Nine-Tails, Izuna's heart ached. If Mina had not liked it so much, he would have sold that money-guzzling beast long ago.
"By the way, Kosuke, could you make the ingredients you sell to my family a little cheaper?" Izuna rubbed his hands together with a fawning expression. "Your brother-in-law's wallet is about to be drained dry by it."
Kosuke's expression did not change as he watched Izuna. He stood and headed toward the hall.
He had just seen his sister Mina emerge from the kitchen carrying dishes. "Lower the price? Keep dreaming. Dinner's ready."
Kosuke's response left Izuna sitting there in utter despair.
Only when Mina appeared in an apron and grabbed him by the ear did he realize it was already time to eat.
At the dinner table, Kosuke looked at his mother's still beautiful, youthful face, and a smile appeared on his own. "Mom, how have you been lately?"
Nearly fifty years old, Aoba held her rice bowl and replied softly, "Not bad. I just don't have the stamina I did when I was younger."
"Fifty already..."
Kosuke continued eating as if nothing had happened, steering the conversation away from that heavy subject.
He happily ate with his family, discussing when his sister would have a child.
Yet inwardly, he was thinking that he needed to speed up his research into Natural Energy...
After dinner, Kosuke's family sat down in the courtyard and chatted about all sorts of things.
"Kosuke, what is that in your hand?!"
At that moment, Mina caught a flash of white from the corner of her eye and stared intently at the "little person" floating above Kosuke's palm.
Hearing Mina's cry, Aoba and Izuna immediately turned their gazes toward Kosuke's palm, their eyes filled with confusion.
"It?" Kosuke paused, lowering his head to look at the "toy" in his palm.
Then he smiled softly. "This is a conception I came up with while trying to incorporate the principles of Dust Release into Shape Transformation. I reshaped Dust Release's original triangular pyramid exterior into the outline of a giant while imitating the structure of Susanoo."
"But right now, I can only maintain it at this size. Enlarging it even slightly is difficult, let alone having it cover my entire body and expand into something like Susanoo that I can control freely. The process is full of danger."
"Now I'm considering combining Dojutsu with Chakra control to reshape its combat form. The principle is somewhat similar to our Susanoo."
"Dust Release Susanoo?" The three looked at Kosuke's troubled face in surprise. "Dangerous? But aside from being a little cute, it doesn't seem dangerous at all."
"Not dangerous?" Kosuke froze, lowering his head to look at the little figure clad in Yin Release Chakra. Then he remembered that they had never seen Dust Release before.
With that thought, he had the "little person" floating above his palm slowly retract its Chakra cloak and face the wooden post standing in the courtyard.
Under the trio's puzzled gazes, the little figure's shape suddenly changed, and a dangerous, lethal aura instantly spread through the air.
It transformed into a dazzling white beam and shot fiercely toward the wooden post, carrying a terrifying presence.
The next second, the top of the wooden post was silently decomposed into particles.
"This is..." The three cried out in shock, their pupils shrinking sharply at the sight.
Izuna swallowed, his voice trembling slightly. "Kosuke, is this a Kekkei Genkai you developed?"
"No." A smile appeared on Kosuke's face. Whenever he saw Izuna shocked or upset, he felt incomparably satisfied. "This is a Kekkei Tōta."
"A Kekkei Tōta?!"
"Mm. It is formed by combining the three Chakra nature transformations of Earth Release, Wind Release, and Fire Release. Its core lies in fusing the Chakra of those three attributes to create a technique capable of decomposing matter."
As he spoke, Kosuke suddenly activated his Mangekyo.
A ripple suddenly spread through the space above the table, forming a pitch-black opening.
Before the three could even wonder what kind of ability it was, a scroll recording the method of training in Dust Release was spat out by the black hole and fell directly onto the table.
As for the claim that he had borrowed the principles of Dust Release from the Second Tsuchikage Mū and the Third Tsuchikage Ōnoki, Kosuke thought that was complete nonsense!
I don't even know them. How could I have borrowed anything from them?
"What is this..." Aoba, Mina, and Izuna looked at the scroll on the table, then at Kosuke in confusion. They did not understand why Kosuke had suddenly pulled a scroll out of some mysterious space while talking.
And judging by Kosuke's manner, this scroll seemed to contain the training method for Dust Release.
"This is a Dust Release training scroll. As for how to achieve what I have—without leaking even the slightest dangerous aura—you'll need to practice more on your own."
Before you continue