Six Paths Ninja Tools

Shin'yu controlled Susanoo to retract its fist, only to discover that a length of golden hemp rope had somehow wrapped around the bone hand's wrist.

"What is this?" Shin'yu's eyes revealed his surprise.

Then Ginkaku flew out of the dust-filled crater, clutching the other end of the golden rope as he swung onto a mountain rock like a gibbon.

His robes and soft armor were in tatters, and several bruises marked his forehead and arms, but he had no other injuries.

That fist, powerful enough to split mountains and shatter rocks, had merely left him looking somewhat disheveled. An ordinary ninja would have long since been smashed into pulp.

With the golden rope looped around him, Shin'yu vaguely sensed something was wrong. He immediately dismissed Susanoo's bone arm and regenerated a new one.

"Sharingan, Uchiha? Are you people from the Hidden Leaf Village?" Ginkaku stood above them with the Seven Star Sword resting on his shoulder. The thick golden rope automatically coiled around his arm as well.

"Light, do you have a chance?" Shin'yu asked quietly without turning around.

Uchiha Hikari shook her head. "No. This guy has been avoiding my gaze the whole time."

Shin'yu frowned slightly as well. Ginkaku was extremely cunning. Whether fighting or confronting them, he never made Eye Contact, leaving them no opportunity to use an Illusion Technique.

"Be careful. There's something strange about that rope. It should be the Purifying Rope I told you about. It's best not to touch it," he warned solemnly.

Light nodded cautiously.

The Purifying Rope caused anyone it touched to spit out the Kotodama of their most frequently used word. A Kotodama was the word a person had spoken most often since birth.

The Seven Star Sword had not been made for slashing, either. Its true purpose was to sever an opponent's Kotodama and place a curse upon them.

The Crimson Gourd could record and seal the Kotodama. If the target spoke the key word, remained silent for too long, or said something with a pronunciation similar to the key word, they would be sucked into the gourd and sealed completely.

Put together, these three were undeniably causality-based weapons.

As for the other two Six Paths Ninja Tools, the Amber Purifying Pot was an enormous jar. So long as someone responded to its holder's words, they would be taken into the pot. It could even suppress and seal the rampaging Eight-Tails. The Basho Fan, meanwhile, ignored the user's Chakra Nature and could unleash Fire, Water, Lightning, Wind, and Earth Style Ninjutsu all at once—a devastating weapon.

Thinking it over carefully, these brothers were Kage-level powerhouses in both raw strength and weaponry!

At that moment, Ginkaku grinned. "Not answering means you admit it..."

His expression gradually turned crazed, becoming somewhat ferocious under the enhancement of Tailed Beast Chakra. "You dared attack us brothers. Unforgivable! Whoever you are, get into my Crimson Gourd obediently!"

A gourd no more than three inches tall was tossed into the air. It expanded in the wind, becoming more than half a person's height in the blink of an eye before Ginkaku tucked it at his waist.

"Fire Release: Great Fireball Technique!"

Light attacked first. After five years of training, she had long become proficient in Fire Style Ninjutsu. A massive fireball shot forward, only for Ginkaku to split it in two with a single sword strike.

"Are you kidding me? How could a Jutsu of this level possibly hurt This Great One?" Ginkaku descended from the sky, the Seven Star Sword aimed directly at Uchiha Hikari's head as a streak of silver light tore through the air.

Light immediately dodged, but Ginkaku feinted and charged elsewhere. That was where Kinkaku was!

"He wants to release Kinkaku from the Illusion Technique!"

Shin'yu's gaze turned cold. He flashed before Kinkaku and controlled Susanoo Stage to meet him with a punch. The pitch-black bone fist surged forth like thunder, carrying a heavy Wind Sound.

"Draw it out, Purifying Rope!" Ginkaku suddenly said.

The expected violent collision never came. Shin'yu's eyes suddenly widened as his stomach churned like rolling waves. With his body temporarily out of control, his Susanoo skeleton flickered, its ribs and arm crumbling into Black Qi.

His mouth opened against his will, and he spat out a milky blue halo.

"This is... my Kotodama?" His eyes were filled with disbelief. "How is that possible? The Purifying Rope never touched me!"

"Be cursed, Seven Star Sword!" Ginkaku said softly. A triumphant smile crossed his lips as he swung his sword down vertically!

"Shin'yu!" Uchiha Hikari cried urgently.

At the critical moment, Shin'yu instead calmed down. He leaned back slightly and avoided the fatal edge, but the halo he had spat out was still severed by the Seven Star Sword!

Shin'yu's expression darkened slightly. He had thought he understood the Sage of Six Paths' treasures well enough, yet he had still fallen for it.

Ginkaku spun sharply, sweeping the Seven Star Sword in a half-circle and forcing the two of them back.

"Did you think you'd be fine as long as it didn't touch your body? If the Purifying Rope touches your Chakra, it can draw out your Kotodama too, brat!" Ginkaku laughed wildly and raised the Crimson Gourd. "Record it, Crimson Gourd!"

With a pop, the blue halo floating in the air was sucked into the gourd's mouth. Ginkaku lifted the Seven Star Sword, and Shin'yu's Kotodama appeared on its mirror-like blade:

"Lord Madara."

"Oh?" Ginkaku raised an eyebrow, looking intrigued.

"You saw my Kotodama?" Shin'yu lifted his eyes, two blood-red Mangekyo slowly turning within them. "If I'm not mistaken, it should be... 'Lord Madara,' right?"

At that moment, both Ginkaku and Uchiha Hikari widened their eyes. The former was delighted and immediately raised the Crimson Gourd, while the latter looked utterly shocked.

Earlier, Shin'yu had introduced each of the Gold and Silver Brothers' Six Paths Ninja Tools to Uchiha Hikari. What she had never expected was for Shin'yu himself to voluntarily take such a risk, as though he had forgotten all about it.

Sure enough, panic appeared on Shin'yu's face. His body seemed to lose control as he suddenly shot toward Ginkaku.

Yet just as he neared the gourd's mouth, a sharp blue glow suddenly emerged from his left hand and slashed toward Ginkaku's neck!

"Autumn Dew on Leaves!"

"What?!" Ginkaku could scarcely believe his eyes. In his haste, he raised his sword to block. With a screech, "Autumn Dew" scraped across the Seven Star Sword, sending out a string of sparks.

Seizing the opportunity, Shin'yu grabbed the sword's spine, flipped over, and landed behind Ginkaku. Blue halos gathered in his palm as the airflow raged. Accompanied by a buzzing sound, a rapidly spinning ball of Chakra appeared in his hand!

"Rasengan."

Holding the Rasengan in one hand, Shin'yu viciously pressed it against Ginkaku's back amid his panicked gaze.

Whirling currents expanded outward, and Ginkaku's body was blasted away by tremendous twisting force, crashing into the stone wall behind him.

"Interesting. Its destructive power is pretty good," Shin'yu said with a satisfied nod.

Mahoraga had given him powerful learning abilities. Besides, an A-Rank Ninjutsu like the Rasengan was not difficult to learn as long as one understood its principles and training method. In the Original Timeline, Jiraiya had achieved success after only three days.

Its only difficulty lay in manipulating Chakra's shape to an extreme degree, making Chakra flow continuously in different directions before compressing it into a high-density rotating Chakra ball.

Shin'yu's research into Chakra shape transformation far surpassed Jiraiya's. The Autumn Dew on Leaves that had made even Tobirama's heart tremble was proof enough.

Thus, he had completely mastered this signature Ninjutsu of the Original Timeline's protagonist in only one day.

"Why? I clearly severed your Kotodama!" Ginkaku was nearly losing his mind as he climbed out of the rubble in a sorry state.

"Did you? Why don't I remember that happening?" Shin'yu sneered.

After his Kotodama had been taken into the Crimson Gourd, he activated his eye technique. Mahoraga and Ame no Tokotachi were activated together. While adapting to the Purifying Rope, he rewound his own state to before the rope had touched him.

Judged from the perspective of all time and space, he had been "whole" at That Moment, unaffected by any external force. Therefore, this operation was equivalent to overwriting the fact that his Kotodama had been severed.

His choice had been wise. The prerequisite for activating the Purifying Rope, Seven Star Sword, and Crimson Gourd—the three causality-based Ninja Tools—was for the Purifying Rope to draw out the Kotodama. As long as the Purifying Rope's effect was removed, the latter two would collapse on their own.

"Damn it, what the hell is going on?!" Ginkaku was still going berserk, but no one was going to explain it to him.

This was the world of Naruto. Here, intelligence was extremely important. There was no such thing as openly explaining one's Jutsu, and Shin'yu had no interest in explaining the abilities of his eye technique.

"Amaterasu!"

Light seized the chance to attack. A mass of pitch-black flames struck Ginkaku in the chest!

"Not good!" Feeling that strange heat, Ginkaku's Pupils suddenly contracted. The dark crimson Tailed Beast Cloak wriggled frantically and gathered toward his chest.

To Light's astonishment, the man actually stripped the Tailed Beast Chakra from his body on his own initiative, letting it fall to the ground together with Amaterasu's black flames and burn into nothingness.

"He actually used this method to stop Amaterasu from burning?" Shin'yu was equally surprised. After all, this was how Naruto had dealt with Amaterasu in the Original Timeline.

"So this is the flame said to never go out. It truly is dangerous." Ginkaku gave a low laugh, his vicious gaze shifting to Uchiha Hikari. "It seems you're the enemy I should eliminate first!"