Sensing the Uji Clan's situation at the secret base, Yura looked at Shuichi, who stood solemnly beside her, and asked, "Has anyone in your family gone missing?"
Shuichi froze. "Even people in the village are talking about it?"
Three years after the village was founded, with the clans no longer fighting each other to the death, Kyoko didn't have a steady supply of fresh ingredients. What would she become, I wonder? How strange.
"Who is she to you?" Yura asked.
"My younger sister," Shuichi replied.
Yura nodded and smiled faintly. "Do you want to know where she is?"
His eyes first lit up with sudden joy, but the color drained from his face just as quickly. He'd had a bad feeling for a long time.
"She's on the dining table now," Yura said with a faint smile.
Huh?
Once he understood what she meant, Shuichi swayed, completely distraught. After a long moment, he began to laugh somewhat manically, tears and snot streaming down his face.
"I still underestimated how crazy the clan was. Akemi, I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I'm sorry..."
Well, there goes another one.
"In the Shinobi World, you're either sitting at the table or on it," Yura remarked ruefully.
Shuichi couldn't hear her anymore. He was broken.
She sensed Hour of the Ox Worship chasing down and slaughtering the sane people. It didn't even spare a glance for the lunatics, whose minds were already broken, simply avoiding them all.
Clearly, the Uji Clan had discovered this long ago. To control and drive Hour of the Ox Worship, and to protect themselves, they had deliberately moved toward madness. After generations, the clan's culture had come to glorify insanity. But it wasn't so easy for a sane person to truly go mad.
All things in this world had their causes and consequences.
So, who had created Hour of the Ox Worship? That secret would vanish along with the Uji Clan, lost forever to the history of the Shinobi World.
There were many forbidden techniques involving the soul in the Shinobi World. As a demon clan member, Yura could also control souls. Soul transference was a concrete manifestation of this ability; immortality was merely an incidental byproduct, an outward appearance.
Aside from her hair's abilities, the soul was another power Yura could focus on developing.
She still had no idea how to develop it.
But the use of negative emotions could, in any case, be classified as the use of souls.
Yura drew Onikiri from her waist and studied the resentment and negative emotions wrapped around its blade.
The sword's original name was Heshikiri. It was simply an extremely sharp blade. What allowed it to become Onikiri and cut through spirits was the resentment coiling around it—a way to use negative emotions to harm spirits.
All Yura needed to do was observe, and she could imitate it.
Perhaps she could call it soul nature transformation.
She'd only had the sword for a short time, so she hadn't had the leisure to explore it yet.
But Yura had other ways of using it, too. She simply hadn't realized it before and had underestimated this power.
A spark of fire flickered to life at her fingertip, then spread along the blade.
Yura's Demon Fire was the flames of hell, fueled by burning negative emotions. It could affect the physical world, but it could also harm spirits—a dual transformation of the soul's form and nature.
Both methods could be classified as the materialization of the soul. The opposite was the ensoulment of matter.
It sounded complicated, but both pointed toward the same ultimate answer: the immortality humans dreamed of.
Orochimaru's immortality technique was an expression of the process of materializing the soul. Though the paths they walked were different, the truth at their destination had to be identical.
But some things just weren't fair. Some people were already standing at the destination from the moment they were born.
Yura, for instance.
"If you're fine, then leave and infiltrate Kumogakure." She sheathed her sword, left Shuichi wearing a shattered expression behind, and walked out.
The remaining lunatics of the Uji Clan could only be killed by Yura herself.
Time passed. Before she knew it, the night was over. Dawn light pierced the earth, while underground another scene unfolded. Unfamiliar moss and mushrooms glowed faintly as Yura entered a secret base. It belonged to the Hero Clan, and she'd chosen it because it was nearby.
With Huan, the insider, providing cover, the Hero Clan held no secrets from Yura.
Without Hero Water, the only Jonin was currently guarding the elder in Takigakure's meeting room.
As she killed, Yura thought of something amusing.
In the Shinobi World, the line between life and death was blurry. What exactly was a soul? In Yura's eyes now, killing someone didn't mean their life had ended. It meant their body had been destroyed and they had become something else. Only when a person's soul and will were completely destroyed could they be considered truly dead.
What would happen if she told Madara about a plan to materialize the souls of everyone in the world?
Compared to the illusory world of Infinite Tsukuyomi, what consequences would a world of materialized souls bring?
The dead would come back to life, and the living would become immortal. The instinct to survive would disappear, and selfish desires would grow faint. Humanity would become a race of thinking spirits, without losing love or affection—they would simply never die.
Even then, "immortal" only meant freed from the limits of lifespan. The soul itself could still be destroyed.
As a side effect, it would probably create a world of everlasting peace.
Yura shook her head.
"What an utterly boring world."
Without human desires, how was Yura supposed to amuse herself? What would she do with her days? How could she play on the computer?
That was why Yura wouldn't accept Infinite Tsukuyomi, either.
No, that was too arrogant. How much contempt for humanity did it take to believe that people's selfishness and greed would fade away? After all, human dreams never ended.
Wasn't she proof enough? Even as an immortal, thinking spirit, Yura's desires were still strong. And some spirits, like Hour of the Ox Worship, were simply incomprehensible lunatics.
So, once the matter of Takigakure was over, what should she do?
Conquer the world?
No, no. What was fun about conquering the world?
Yura clapped her hands as the answer came to her. Behind her, a ninja charged desperately toward her, covered in blood and shouting, then collapsed. Looking up at the girl seated high in the air, he stretched out a hand, eyes full of resentment. His fellow clan members lay scattered all around him.
"If there's nowhere in the world where I can find rest, then I'll build a resting place of my own. My paradise, Gensokyo, will be so beloved that even the gods will envy it."
"So, I say, this Shinobi World needs monsters! Lots and lots of monsters!"
Instead of doing something for lofty causes like humanity's happiness and peace,
Yura would rather do something for her own small happiness.
As for peace in the Shinobi World?
Who cared about that? That was something only the protagonist of a shonen manga would worry about.
A new day began. Early that morning, Kakuzu slowly opened his eyes in the dungeon. His chest was still oozing blood, but Yura's earlier slash hadn't cut very deep.
Using a ninja's bone-dislocation technique, he slipped free of the restraints and climbed down from the torture rack.
He rolled his stiff neck, and it cracked loudly.
"It's time."
The agreed time for the operation was noon, but Kakuzu needed to check the situation in advance. He didn't entirely trust Yura.
Just then, the ninja on guard came to make his routine inspection.
The two faced each other across the iron bars, inside and outside the cell.
Kakuzu formed Hand Seals and opened his mouth toward the ninja.
Fire Release: Searing Migraine
A stream of orange flames burst out in a raging column, shot through the bars, and slammed into the rock wall at the end of the dim corridor. The fire surged fiercely in both directions down the passage.
In an instant, the raging flames died down. A hole melted through the bars, and molten iron dripped slowly to the ground.
The guard's body had been reduced to nothing.
At last, he'd gotten his revenge. That bastard should've died long ago!
The bitterness in his chest finally faded. Kakuzu raised a hand to the Forehead Protector on his brow. A blade of wind nature transformation chakra slowly scored a line across it.
From this moment on, he was a rogue ninja.
There was nothing left to hesitate over.
Before you continue