The Evolution of Takamagahara

On the battlefield ravaged by Shinra Tensei, Kanna stared blankly at her chest, lost in thought.

Although he had tried to keep the jutsu's power in check, Shinra Tensei was an unconventional technique. Anyone it hit was repelled from the outside in. Long didn't know what had happened afterward because the monitors and jutsu had been destroyed, but Kanna could see it clearly: Yetsuki and the others were sprawled across the ground like heaps of mud. Every bone in their bodies had been crushed to powder, and their flesh and organs had been pulverized. There was no way they could have survived.

The results in actual combat had exceeded Kanna's expectations. Genin like Yetsuki had nowhere near enough chakra to withstand the repulsive force Shinra Tensei exerted inside their bodies, so they had died instantly. To be honest, Kanna hadn't meant to kill them. It was just his first time using Shinra Tensei on people, and he hadn't been able to control its power.

But Kanna wasn't stunned because this was his first time killing someone. He had long since come to terms with the possibility, and he wasn't the indecisive sort. What surprised him was that after he killed those examinees, Takamagahara on his chest suddenly gave off a strange pulse, as if something were about to happen.

He pulled open his shirt. Under Kanna's expectant gaze, one ring after another appeared across his chest. Complex, obscure runes emerged and flowed around the rings, eventually forming a pattern he recognized.

Takamagahara! Twelve new Takamagahara!

When he lightly touched his skin, Kanna instinctively understood what the new Takamagahara could do: hold C-rank or lower jutsu!

"New Takamagahara appear after I kill someone?" Kanna thought silently. "Their ability to analyze jutsu isn't as good as the original Takamagahara, but it seems I can still do this..."

Following the mysterious information that had appeared in his mind, Kanna closed his eyes, took a deep breath, and clapped his hands together.

In an instant, three C-rank Takamagahara began to disintegrate, splitting into countless lines. The lines then merged with one another, forming a Takamagahara one rank higher.

"Every three can fuse into one Takamagahara of the next rank." A smile spread across Kanna's lips, and his heart swelled with joy.

"Now I can hold B-rank jutsu. And next..."

Using multiples of three as his basis, Kanna fused the Takamagahara one by one. In the end, only three remained on his chest: one large, one medium, and one small.

Unrestricted! A-rank and below! B-rank and below!

Without hesitation, Kanna bit his finger and began drawing on the two blank Takamagahara.

A-rank jutsu: Human Path: Mind Reading! B-rank jutsu: Mayfly Technique!

Both jutsu were lower-ranked techniques with exceptionally powerful effects. Human Path: Mind Reading used chakra, willpower, and the soul to suppress an enemy, forcibly search their memories, and then strip away their soul. It bypassed physical defenses and killed the target instantly. Of course, it wasn't invincible. In the original story, Naruto had resisted Nagato's technique for quite a while. The Mayfly Technique, meanwhile, could be called the most powerful of all movement techniques. Other than environments dominated by fire, lightning, or storms, it could burrow through almost anything: soil, trees, rocks, rivers, and even oceans. White Zetsu's army, for instance, had once emerged from the sea to attack the Allied Shinobi Forces.

At last, the long-standing worry that had troubled Kanna was resolved. But now came another familiar problem.

Chakra. Even with these jutsu at his disposal, he still didn't have nearly enough chakra to use many of them at once.

Compared with his peers, Kanna had far more chakra. Shikotsumyaku strengthened his body, while the Third Mizukage's style of chakra refinement gave him an almost perfect chakra circulation system. His chakra reserves were growing quickly, but he still wasn't satisfied!

In the short term, there was only one way to greatly increase his chakra...

A Tailed Beast!

By Kanna's reckoning, Utakata was eleven or twelve this year, an age by which he might already have become the Six-Tails Jinchuriki. Since Jinchuriki were a village secret, Kanna couldn't be certain. But Kirigakure's other Tailed Beast, the Three-Tails, was definitely sealed away at this point!

In the original story, the first Three-Tails Jinchuriki was Rin of Konohagakure. In Year 47, during the Third Shinobi World War, Kirigakure implanted the Three-Tails in her, intending to use her as a "Tailed Beast bomb" to attack Konohagakure. After Rin's death, Yagura became its next Jinchuriki. So if Kanna wanted to get his hands on a Tailed Beast, the Three-Tails was his only option for now!

Besides that, Kirigakure had another weapon: Samehada, one of the Seven Ninja Blades. It could absorb a tremendous amount of chakra from anyone it touched, and could even knock a partially transformed Jinchuriki back to their normal form with a single slash! Getting his hands on that blade would be a good option, too.

Finally, if both plans failed, Kanna would have to rely on himself. Among the Six Paths of Pain, Preta Path's Sealing Technique: Absorption Seal could absorb chakra. Preta Path Pain and Madara Uchiha had each used it to absorb Naruto's S-rank Wind Style: Rasenshuriken. It was an incredibly powerful technique. But there was no telling when he might draw it, so it could only serve as a backup.

"I'll make the Three-Tails my primary target and Samehada my secondary one. Whether I get Sealing Technique: Absorption Seal is up to fate. I'll think carefully about how to proceed once I'm back." Kanna thought silently as he walked over to Yetsuki and the others' bodies to collect their belongings.

He had just finished gathering everything when his vision blurred, and Long appeared beside him.

Looking at the corpses strewn across the ground, Long's eyelid twitched. Then he asked impassively, "Is it over? Report your results."

"One attack. Twelve ID tags and two Coordinate Locators," Kanna replied without hesitation.

Long fell silent for a moment, then said, "With the five points for surviving, that brings you to 0.5 points. Deducting the ten points you spent in advance leaves you with 19.5 points, well above the requirement. You've passed the exam and can choose to leave the grounds early."

Leave? Kanna frowned slightly and fell into thought.

Having just learned how to strengthen Takamagahara, he had begun to feel an urge to take lives. If he stayed in the exam grounds, he could openly kill other examinees and use them to evolve Takamagahara...

But Long's next words quickly dispelled the idea.

"Stop, Kanna. I don't know whether you did this on purpose or lost control, but have you forgotten the bloody graduation exam two years ago? The exam has been reformed! Stop killing people!"

"They were supposed to be your future teammates, weren't they?" Long said softly at last. "Zabuza chose to kill all the examinees in his year. Amayuri chose to kill Hayashinaka Shigure, who couldn't fight back. Now it's your turn to choose. Think carefully. Should you let the urge to kill in your heart overwhelm your reason and turn you into the kind of person you hate?"

"Is that so..." Kanna looked up and met Long's gaze. His face was as calm as still water, and he spoke slowly in an even tone. "But sometimes, even when you know your choice goes against your heart, you have to follow through for one reason or another. Maybe it's temptation, maybe it's pressure. Whatever the reason, there's always a cause behind the choices we make."

Turning around, Kanna tossed all the ID tags, the Coordinate Locators, and the communication device onto the ground. Then he walked toward the forest, one step at a time.

"Of course, I agree with you. I really do need to calm down now. Otherwise, I'm worried I might actually kill everyone."

As he walked, the lower half of Kanna's body sank into the ground.

"Since I've passed the exam, I'll leave early. Let me know the results when the exam officially ends in seven days."

Kanna disappeared underground, his entire body sinking into the earth. Long was somewhat surprised by the sophistication of his movement technique, but he simply watched in silence and did nothing.

Under normal procedure, examinees who passed early were supposed to stay with their proctors until the exam ended. Then all those who had passed would hear an explanation of the final exam from the staff. The location was a tower on the coast, concealed by genjutsu. It also housed the monitoring room, and no one could enter without a map or a guide. Kanna's decision to leave alone was technically a violation, but Long let him go without stopping him.

After Kanna left, a group of medical ninja in white robes rushed out of the forest.

"Examine them," Long said, rubbing his brow and pointing at the bodies.

The medical ninja got to work. Before long, they had their results.

"There are twelve of them. Eighty percent of each person's bones are shattered, and their blood vessels, muscles, and internal organs are almost completely ruptured. They're beyond saving."

Long sighed and waved a hand. "Take care of the bodies here. I'm going to write the casualty report."

"Yes."