Yu and Tobi embraced and wept in the joy of their reunion, with a thousand things they wanted to say, when a dependable-looking grown man with pineapple-shaped hair emerged from the little house south of Jeta Grove.
His greeting was unconventional, too. "Hey... Lord Shadow, it's been decades. You've grown into quite the beauty."
Yu could scarcely believe his eyes. "Shikaku!!!!!!!!"
Shikaku Nara... a man the Shinobi World had almost forgotten, yet whose fate had always weighed on Yu's heart!
In the eighth year of Dark Hidden, during Konoha's great migration, Shikaku had been murdered by Konoha residents who believed Kabuto Yakushi's alarmist claims!
After that, neither Impure World Reincarnation nor Rinne Rebirth could revive Shikaku!
"Shikaku, how are you here!!!!"
Click!
Leaning against a pillar, Shikaku lit a cigarette and exhaled a thin wisp of smoke. His voice was low. "Well, that's a long story..."
As it turned out, when people with extraordinary talents or willpower reached the Pure Land after death, Youtan Poluo granted them new bodies and special missions. Jia Ermi Ōtsutsuki, for instance, had willingly forsaken his status as an Immortal God and used the Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique to revive his dear friend. Youtan Poluo had sacrificed a thousand years of cultivation to make an exception for him, allowing him to serve as his inside man in Takamagahara.
Ubiji hardly needed mentioning. His standing was equivalent to that of Yomi's ruler.
Unknown to the world, the heads of the other six ancient clans, who had perished before Kushaka Uddumbara during the Takamagahara Melee, also had their own sanctuaries in the Pure Land.
After Mifune fell in the battle of Jianzhou Country, he was granted a physical body and personally instructed by the Sōbichi Clan's sword master, the Death Luo God. Thus, he learned Death