Konan: Is It Already Not Working?

"Um, wait a second. If I leave without saying goodbye, the village chief will worry. Could you come back with me so I can tell him?"

Fū tugged at Shirozumi's sleeve.

"Sure."

"Oh, yeah~"

Fū skipped over to the waterfall's edge and waved at Shirozumi. "Come on, come on! I'll show you the way~"

"She's certainly full of sunshine and energy."

Shirozumi remarked, then followed her.

Kakuzu silently followed as well.

If the current leadership of Takigakure had no sense, Kakuzu had decided he would clean house again.

Fortunately, he didn't get the chance.

The village chief of Takigakure was a young man who cared about the villagers and was a little timid.

He didn't have much ambition, so he had no objections to Fū wanting to leave. He was just worried about her safety, especially since one of the people in her group was Kakuzu, a Rogue Ninja from their village.

But after Shirozumi told him that the leadership of Takigakure had once sent Kakuzu on a suicide mission to assassinate the First Hokage, the young village chief understood why Kakuzu had betrayed the village.

On top of that, Fū gave a vivid account of how Kakuzu had just saved her and Shirozumi had treated her wound. That settled it.

The village chief agreed. Some of the others wanted to object, but when they met Kakuzu's gaze, they didn't dare say a word.

Kakuzu could see that the people in this village were kind and easily bullied.

Before leaving, he declared in front of everyone, "This village is pretty good now. If it goes back to how it was before, I won't mind cleaning house again and taking your hearts."

The three of them emerged from the waterfall, while Kurotsuchi was still standing there in a daze.

When she saw Shirozumi come out, she turned toward him with a vacant stare.

"Kurotsuchi, what are you doing standing around here? Did you need something?"

Shirozumi asked, puzzled.

"Shirozumi, tell me—do you think this little girl is cute?"

Kurotsuchi pointed at Fū and asked with a grave expression.

"Uh, she's pretty cute. Why?"

"What about me?"

"You're okay."

"What the hell does 'okay' mean... Never mind. Do you think the Raikage is cute?"

After asking, Kurotsuchi watched Shirozumi's expression nervously.

"...Is something wrong with your brain?"

Shirozumi looked disgusted. He even felt a little sick.

"Good."

Kurotsuchi sighed in relief and patted her chest.

"Bye, then. I've got a lot to do. I'll get in touch when I have time."

Kurotsuchi waved and left too.

"What a weirdo... Kakuzu, let's head back too."

Kurotsuchi's question had left Shirozumi completely baffled.

"Strategist, you and Fū go on ahead. I'll walk back."

"Hm? Why?"

"We finished this mission too quickly. If I go back now, Deidara will probably come bother me again. I'll stay out here for a few more days."

"...All right."

Shirozumi took Fū by the hand and leaped into the air.

Fū instinctively spread Chōmei's wings. The wings at her waist flapped a few times before she realized she didn't need to control them to fly.

"Huh? How are we flying without wings?"

Fū curiously peered behind Shirozumi, tilting her head in confusion.

On the way back, Fū kept chattering and asking questions.

Shirozumi didn't mind. He also took the opportunity to tell her a few basic things about Amegakure and the Akatsuki Organization.

When they returned to Amegakure, Shirozumi left Fū with Konan. Konan arranged a place for Fū to stay, then went to find Shirozumi.

Konan led Shirozumi to an open space outside the village.

"I thought of a way. Let's try it."

Konan handed Shirozumi a cup of milk with a straw in it.

"What do you mean?"

"Take a sip."

"..."

Shirozumi did as he was told and took a sip.

Then Konan took back the milk Shirozumi had drunk from, turned away, blushed, and quickly took a sip herself.

Before Shirozumi could say anything, Konan threw two Explosive Tags at the tree in front of her.

Boom—

The tree exploded and split in two.

"Did it work?"

Konan looked at Shirozumi expectantly.

Shirozumi raised a hand, and two Explosive Tags appeared above the tree's broken trunk. They flew back into Konan's hand.

"It worked!"

Konan was thrilled.

This was a new ability Shirozumi had gained over the past month. It was also the ability Kurotsuchi had mistaken for Medical Ninjutsu when he had healed Fū earlier.

As mentioned before, before going to Nagato to test whether he could awaken an ability, Shirozumi had considered asking Itachi.

This ability had been awakened by Itachi's Mangekyō Sharingan.

Over the past month, the Land of Waves had also seen some basic improvements and development.

Of course, it still lagged far behind the changes in the Land of Earth.

Following one of the steps in Shirozumi's plan, Kisame had contacted a film crew. As it happened, someone in the crew also wanted to commission an escort mission.

So Shirozumi went over again.

He spoke with the person in charge of the crew and reached a cooperation agreement.

He also chatted with the person who wanted to commission the escort mission and accepted it for half a month later.

The reason it was half a month later was that they still planned to film in the area for a while.

Once all that was taken care of, Shirozumi had accumulated almost enough Natural Energy. He found Itachi and asked him to use his "Kindling of Goodness" Amaterasu on him.

Itachi was surprised, but did as asked, aiming at Shirozumi's left hand and ready to withdraw the flames at any moment.

Those flames, said to burn eternally and never be extinguished, awakened another kind of "undying" power in Shirozumi.

The ability had only two words in its description: repair.

It could restore anything that had been damaged to its original state.

Shirozumi named the ability "Crazy Diamond."

However, this new ability was quite different from Crimson King, New Moon, and the original Crazy Diamond from JoJo.

The original Crazy Diamond couldn't heal its user. That was one of its most fundamental rules and limitations.

But Shirozumi's repair ability could.

His ability had been born as his body was repeatedly repaired while Amaterasu burned him without end.

After returning to Amegakure, Shirozumi experimented with developing the ability.

He'd found that simply infusing an object with Natural Energy could only enhance the repair rate, at the cost of greater consumption.

No matter what, he still had to touch something to repair it.

Konan also helped him train and experiment during this time.

Clearly, she had a little scheme of her own in mind.

Especially after Shirozumi mentioned that repairing inanimate objects took very little energy.

If only the six hundred billion Explosive Tags could be instantly restored after they were used up. Wouldn't that be wonderful?

So Konan began trying all sorts of methods.

First, she had Shirozumi infuse her with Chakra, hoping to use it as an extension of his body.

That clearly wasn't going to work.

Shirozumi wasn't using Chakra at all. He was using Natural Energy.

His Natural Energy was unlike Chakra or the Natural Energy of the Summoning World; it didn't take on his own aura.

His Natural Energy was no different from the energy found in nature.

Even with Dance of the Shikigami active to shield herself from Natural Energy's effects, Konan couldn't make the Natural Energy Shirozumi passed to her function as an extension of him.

And now, Konan had thought of another possibility.

The reason Natural Energy couldn't act as an extension was that it lacked Shirozumi's aura.

The Natural Energy inside Shirozumi was only fuel he consumed when using his ability.

So the key, in other words, was to get it to take on Shirozumi's aura.

That was why Konan had come up with this little plan.

By sharing a cup of milk with Shirozumi and indirectly sharing a little of his aura, she'd managed to make it work!

Shirozumi didn't even need to touch anything for it to be repaired. Her Chakra had temporarily become an extension of him!

"This principle is a little like how Tailed Beast Chakra works."

Shirozumi rubbed his chin as he analyzed it.

In the original story, Naruto shared the Nine-Tails Chakra with the Ninja Alliance, then connected the Yin and Yang halves of the Nine-Tails Chakra by bumping fists with Minato Namikaze. That let them use Flying Thunder God to teleport everyone.

"Is it not working anymore?"

Konan threw another Explosive Tag, but when nothing was restored after a while, she turned to Shirozumi.

"...Konan, that sounds pretty ambiguous."

Shirozumi was at a loss for words.

It really had stopped working.

There was only so much of his aura she could pick up from sharing a straw. Naturally, it had run out quickly.

Could she please find another way to say that?