The Shrine Maiden

The underground cavern never saw sunlight, only a few dim candles flickering in the darkness.

At its center lay a small island in the middle of a lake, where an ancient shrine stood. A stone path stretched all the way to the shrine's entrance, then continued onward without leading anywhere. Four vermilion Torii Gates stood at the cardinal directions, and a sealing barrier enveloped the entire island.

There was no doubt about it: this was a specially made prison.

Standing before the mouth of a passage in the cliff face, Yura looked down at the shrine in the heart of the island.

Through her senses, she felt two enormous sources of malice entangled with each other. One belonged to a Jinchuriki, the other to a Tailed Beast—and the Jinchuriki's hatred surpassed even the beast's.

A bigger body might mean a worse temper, but negative emotions couldn't be measured by size.

After all, Tailed Beasts were regarded by shinobi as natural disasters and embodiments of hatred and other such emotions. They were rather peculiar. In Yura's eyes, all Nine-Tails, from the One-Tails to the Nine-Tails, could be considered harmless pets. At their core, their personalities were quite kind and simple.

So why was there such an immense amount of negative emotion?

It couldn't be separated from chakra.

And what was chakra? It was a combination of spiritual and physical energy. As enormous concentrations of chakra, Tailed Beasts were essentially enormous concentrations of spiritual energy, so it was only natural for them to carry a jumble of emotions.

In other words, this Jinchuriki's spiritual energy might be even greater than the Tailed Beast's.

Just as the Uzumaki Clan could reliably suppress the Nine-Tails with their immense vitality and chakra, someone with enormous spiritual energy could also suppress a Tailed Beast. The Sharingan was a prime example.

Aside from Senju Hashirama, this was the strongest person Yura had ever seen with her own eyes.

"This is simply..."

"Wonderful..."

Hatred +1 +1 +1...

Resentment +1 +1 +1 +1...

Jealousy +1 +1 +1 +1 +1...

To Yura, it was like floating in a sea of honey and chocolate.

Through her senses, she could also detect two weak sources of spiritual energy, swaying like fragile candle flames. Their hearts brimmed with malice, irritability, indignation, jealousy, and resentment.

They were the two Jonin guards.

But their mental states were clearly abnormal. Ordinary people's minds didn't work like that. Negative emotions had peaks and valleys, fluctuating at any given moment. Even psychopaths were no exception.

These two Jonin, however, had maintained their emotions at their absolute peak for a long time, surpassing one high-water mark after another as they steadily climbed. If they couldn't maintain a dynamic balance by venting their emotions and letting them sink back to the bottom—and if they lacked the spiritual strength to bear them—then, over time, they would be driven by their emotions and destroy themselves.

In short, they would go mad.

This wasn't something a Tailed Beast could do. Although Tailed Beasts could cause similar effects, they only did so indirectly, by exerting mental pressure on their Jinchuriki.

This was the work of that Jinchuriki: a power capable of driving others mad and destroying them.

It was fascinating. Unlike Mochizuki Gen's hypnosis, this was a kind of direct mental influence and control—a power that could manipulate people's minds.

By the usual understanding, chakra was the energy source for ninjutsu, genjutsu, and taijutsu, as well as for matter formed from chakra. It was a mixture of spiritual and physical energy—a material existence. But on the other hand, chakra also referred to the power the Sage of Six Paths used to connect people's spiritual energy—in other words, their hearts.

The Sage of Six Paths used chakra to connect spiritual energy. In other words, spiritual energy wasn't part of chakra.

Later, when people stopped using chakra to connect with one another and instead used it to connect their own spiritual and physical energy, the chakra generally understood in the Shinobi World finally came into being. Like Kaguya, they used chakra as a weapon.

This meant chakra was actually a key, one that connected and released physical and spiritual energy.

Judging by the way Senjutsu worked, when chakra connected to spiritual energy, it became chakra; when it connected to Natural Energy, it became Senjutsu Chakra.

At its core, there were three primordial forces in this world: life energy, spiritual energy, and Natural Energy. Some sort of key was needed to convert them for use.

Yura had always wondered what her demonic power was. After much thought, she reached a conclusion: it was also a key, one that released spiritual energy. Because its mechanism worked differently, its manifestations naturally differed from chakra.

And unlike shinobi, who connected to their own spirits, Yura connected to the spiritual energy of others.

For this reason, the living were actually more valuable to Yura than the dead.

Yura wasn't some bloodthirsty demon, either.

She also had a theory about why her abilities had taken their present form. Based on her understanding, at the moment of her death, she had awakened all her abilities with an intensely powerful surge of negative spiritual energy, much like awakening the Mangekyo. Like the Eye of the Heart, her abilities made the things she desired most real—for example, an immortal body.

It didn't matter if she was right. For now, Yura strode to the edge of the cliff and stepped off into empty space. Her body dropped naturally from the cliff, more than ten meters above the water, and landed on its still surface with a thud.

The sound naturally drew the guards' attention.

"Who's there!!!"

The two shinobi looked toward the sound. At first, they saw nothing. But when a faint laugh rang out, their gazes locked onto Yura, who had appeared abruptly on the lake's surface like an apparition.

One of the Jonin roared.

"Anyone who trespasses in this forbidden place—dies!"

Two shadows rushed out of the darkness together with the Body Flicker Technique...

The instant they attacked, Yura could sense their malice. That meant no matter what kind of attack they launched, she could detect it.

It was a kind of mind-reading.

Yura turned her scarlet eyes. Years of swordsmanship had already honed her excellent eyesight, and her demonic power made it even sharper. Her terrifying dynamic vision captured the scene with perfect clarity, showing her the two men's forms as if time had nearly stopped.

One was a wrinkled little old man; the other, a tall, thin young man.

Ninja Art: Expansion Technique

Like an inflated balloon, the wrinkled old man swelled into a short, round cannonball and charged straight at Yura.

The tall, thin young man crouched and rapidly formed Hand Seals. He sucked in a breath, his belly swelling, then blasted a gust of fierce wind from his mouth.

Wind Release: Kamaitachi Decapitation Technique

In an instant, the attack closed in from both sides in front of her. Eight black blades hovered around Yura, circling her in silent menace.

The next second, the old man closed to within three meters of Yura and spun, whipping out a kick like a lash.

Ninja Art: Stretching Technique

His swollen little leg shot out like a spear, smashing toward Yura's face. She stood motionless, a trace of mockery in her eyes, and tilted her head slightly. But she wasn't dodging the old man's stinking foot.

She was dodging a roaring gust of wind—a blade of air, compressed to the extreme and barely a foot long. As it whistled past Yura's ear, her hair-blade scythe closed in faster than the old man.

A spray of blood burst through the air. One blade slashed across the old man's face. The swollen muscles there clamped down on the blade like a tire, holding it fast at the brink of life and death, but the cut left by its edge still went deep enough to expose bone. The old man's eyes shook.

"Hm?" Yura murmured.

That slash hadn't gone deep enough...

But the old man's whipping leg burst apart in midair, scattering into chunks.

Seeing that he had nearly lost half his head and had also lost a leg, the old man broke into a cold sweat. He still couldn't see his opponent's attacks. His extensive battle experience told him to retreat for now. His round body suddenly deflated, and a burst of air exploded around him. Still airborne, he knocked the blade aside and propelled himself backward.

"As expected of..."

The closer the fight, the greater the force behind Yura's hair-blade weapons.

"A Jonin."

The remaining seven black blades swept through the air without a sound.

In a flash, the old man's body stiffened in midair. Then countless thin lines of blood appeared across him. His body broke into pieces, which tumbled into the water below.

The tall, thin young man's pupils trembled, his face filled with terror. He continued forming Hand Seals, his hands blurring as he prepared to strike. Just as he opened his mouth, a black spear thrust up from beneath the water. It crossed the nearly fifty-meter distance and pierced through the young man's mouth, exiting through the back of his head. The impact carried him off the water and left him hanging in midair.

Only then did the wind blade crash into the cliff, carving a gash half a foot deep across the rock face.

The wound wasn't immediately fatal. A strained, gurgling sound came from his mouth as his trembling hands fell limp. The chakra he had refined within his body dissipated, and his terrified, bloodshot eyes fixed on Yura as she turned her head to look at him.

What... kind of being was she?!

"You form Hand Seals pretty quickly," Yura said with a faint smile.

"Guh..."

But he was already close to death.

His vision darkened. The hair-spear was casually flung aside, sending his body tumbling through the air to fall onto the water and sink beneath it.

Yura walked on, heading toward the barrier.

Inside the barrier, a girl with short golden hair sat on the steps in front of the shrine's main entrance. Dressed in red-and-white shrine maiden robes that gave her an air of mystery and sanctity, she watched Yura with curiosity.

Her smile was radiant, but there was something faintly sinister about it.