Inside Sun Stream Plaza, the throne room was silent as Ryugetsu stepped in to join the other three clones. Each was standing still and watchful.
When he got in line, Hoshikaze said, "There's news that a strange bird was spotted heading in our direction..."
Kaito first looked to the right, as if confirming the presence of the enemy in his mind, and replied, "Clearly Konan…"
"Who should we send to defend against her?" John pondered.
They didn't need long to decide.
A moment later, where the sky was brightening with the morning sun, Konan's outline was against the light. She flew steadily as her paper wings guided her.
The moment she felt the air pressure shift, she sensed danger.
"Beast wave palm!"
Below her, a chakra strike sliced through the air, coming from the ground. She reacted instinctively by maneuvering swiftly to dodge.
Upon searching for the attacker, she paused briefly to see that it was a young boy clad in a monk's robe. His face was determined and unafraid, and on his hand were claws.
Who else could it be but Sora?
She descended onto the soft grass near him and asked, "They sent a boy to battle?"
Sora stepped forward with his claws at the ready. His expression was firm as he confidently declared, "I'm more than enough to handle you."
Konan raised an eyebrow but responded with a calm challenge, "I'd like to see…"
Without warning, she spread her arms wide. Instantly, a multitude of papers erupted from her, swirling in the air and spreading across both her and the battlefield. The papers shimmered under the morning sun, forming a complex web of white, some fluttering like leaves, others stiff and ready to strike.
Sora prepared himself in a combat stance. Yet in the blink of an eye, Konan moved with startling speed and appeared beside him. She didn't look at him.
His eyes widened. Before he could react, her papers wrapped around his body and bonded him completely. She then lifted her hand, preparing to explode her paper bindings.
But Sora was quick to act; he sliced at the papers with his claws infused with chakra. The paper shredded apart, freeing him just in time.
"I see you've got some skill," Konan grinned.
Sora didn't reply. Instead, he charged forward with his claws aimed at her. She sidestepped easily as he wildly swung at her.
Swoosh-swoosh-swoosh!
When he charged his weapon in a straight line, she formed a paper shield and blocked it. He tried again, going for a jab, but she blocked with another sheet of paper.
Frustrated, he glanced upward, only to see a spear of paper descending toward him. He therefore quickly rolled away just in time as the paper spear crashed into the ground where he once stood.
Panting, he looked at her and admitted, "Brother Ryugetsu told me you'd be trouble."
"Brother Ryugetsu?" she repeated in an unreadable expression. "I've never heard of him."
"Just be happy he's not here," he replied, straightening himself. "Otherwise, you'd be done for by now."
"If that's the case," she nonchalantly replied, "then why send you?"
"Because!" he said, swiping the air, "he trusts that I can take you down!"
"I see…" she said, watching him with a blank stare. Then she spread her paper wings to take flight. Higher and higher she rose as the morning light illuminated her form. "I wonder how long you'll last."
At her peak, she lifted one hand to gather papers in the air. A multitude of paper birds formed that blanketed the sky in a swirling cloud. Her face was impassive, and her eyes were fixed on her target.
Sora's eyes widened in alarm upon seeing how many massive paper birds were in the sky. Instinct kicked in, and he turned to run.
Then Konan's eyes flashed with sudden intensity.
Storms of paper rained down on him as edges screeched through the air like nails on a chalkboard.
"Beast wave palm!"
A powerful slash of wind aimed at her aerial assault. The wind cut into the paper storm, destroying a portion of the attacking birds. But it was only a fraction—less than a third.
The paper birds kept coming and eventually overwhelmed him. From above, Konan watched impassively as Sora was engulfed.
Krish-krish-krish-krish!
When the debris finally settled, Sora was flat on the ground with blood pooling beneath him. His breathing was ragged and his face pale.
Such was the power of the only female Akatsuki member.
"To think they trusted you could defeat me," Konan said.
But then, a pulse rippled through his body that surprised her. His eyes snapped open and sharpened like a predator's. Then his body convulsed, and he roared so loudly that it echoed across the battlefield.
From his form, the Nine-Tails chakra erupted, swirling wildly around him. His thin features then shifted from normal to feral.
Konan knew what this was, but she hadn't expected this level of power from an unknown boy. So she observed him carefully before trying to judge her next move.
Sora, now primal, looked up at her. The rage and raw chakra in him made him almost unrecognizable.
Suddenly, he extended his arm, which caused the Nine-Tails' chakra arm to race toward her. It aimed to grab her in the air, so she reacted quickly and descended as the chakra arm flung past her.
Sora continued to attack her, so at high speed she began dodging with precise maneuvers. Her paper wings fluttered to change her trajectory, just barely missing his advances.
Then he stopped and looked beyond the horizon as if distracted. Something or someone else had caught his attention.
From the side, a dozen shinobi from the Bird Country hurried onto the scene. They hesitated upon seeing Sora in his Nine-Tails form. To them, his chakra was both immense and terrifying.
"Sora, we're here to—"
Without hesitation, Sora launched himself at them. His claws slashed through the air, and three of the shinobi were instantly cut down as blood sprayed across the grass.
Konan was surprised; she now understood that the boy was not in control of the Tailed Beasts' chakra.
The remaining nine quickly drew their weapons. They threw shuriken, kunai, and other projectiles, aiming to stop him. But Sora's chakra flared again, and the weapons were caught by his chakra.
"It's acting as an automatic shield?" Konan thought, observing how his chakra seemed to absorb and repel the weapons.
One shinobi snuck behind him and attempted a kick, but Sora's chakra responded instantly and caught the shinobi's leg before flinging him backward—all without Sora needing to turn around.
The man tumbled across the grass, leaving the others stunned.
Konan decided it was time to intervene. So she summoned more paper birds and launched them at Sora to drain his chakra.
The birds swarmed toward him, but he paid them no mind as the chakra deflected the attacks completely. He didn't even look in her direction, for his focus was on the shinobi.
As such, Konan came to a daring decision. She prepared her final attack, knowing it might be her last chance to end things.
"Looks like I have no other choice," she said.
While Sora remained caught up in his primal rage, his claws tore through bodies and weapons alike, heedless of the pleas from the shinobi trying to reason with him.
"Why are you attacking us? Stop!" one of the shinobi cried out.
But Sora was beyond hearing. His claws slashed, and his attacks utterly demolished them so that no reinforcements escaped unscathed.
As the last of the shinobi fell or fled, Sora finally turned his head and looked in Konan's direction. Her body had been hunched over on the ground as if she had been preparing something during his rampage.
"This is the end," she declared. Sora launched himself at her in fury. But before he could reach her, she activated her technique. "Sacred paper emissary jutsu!"
The ground beneath her suddenly split open with a thunderous roar as the earth cracked apart and split into two jagged halves. Sora was caught off guard before stumbling in the terrain.
He tried to use his chakra arms to anchor his body, but the walls quickly transformed into a field of sharp, jagged paper spikes that prevented him from gaining any leverage; he simply couldn't hold on.
His chakra arms failed him as he plummeted into a small abyss. The walls of the pit were lined with countless tiny, explosive tags—millions of them, like a trap waiting to be triggered.
From above, Konan declared, "Now!"
At her command, the explosive tags began to activate. They all hissed before a deafening explosion took place. A series of successive blasts then erupted from the earth and shook the entire battlefield. Fire, smoke, and debris billowed upward, consuming everything in a storm of destruction.
Boom-boom-boom-boom-boom!
The explosions continued for nearly a minute—shorter than anyone expected.
The landscape was scarred, the ground torn apart, and the air was thick with smoke.
When the final wave of explosions subsided, silence returned. Konan flapped her wings downward to gently land at the bottom of the small abyss.
Peering into the darkness, she saw that Sora was still there, though barely. His body was battered, and blood seeped from wounds. His breathing was also ragged, and his chakra reserves seemed almost drained.
Even through the smoke and blood, she could see him trying to move.
Had Sora been an actual Jinchūriki and been hunted down, Konan alone would have been enough to capture him without killing the boy.
"So you're still able," she said in a measured tone.
Sora slowly looked up with sharp eyes. It was thanks to the Nine-Tails' cloak that he managed to even survive such a technique.
She watched him with an unreadable expression. That attack caused significant blood loss, so she knew he wouldn't last long.
Without a word, she turned away and unfurled her wings. Her final glance was one of quiet assessment, knowing her task was done.
Sora, still breathing heavily, managed to rasp out, "Aren't you going to finish me?"
"No," her voice drifted back, "I was only sent here as reconnaissance. Killing you might help, but you'll die there anyway."
He tried to lift himself, to protest. "I can still fight—" But his body betrayed him. His limbs trembled, and he collapsed. The effort to stay conscious was too much, so his eyes fluttered closed.
The last thing he saw was the distant figure of Konan disappearing into the sky, leaving him behind in the aftermath.
As he lay there, broken and battered, the battlefield grew silent again. The smoke drifted lazily across the scene, and the dust settled into an ominous calm.
High above, Konan considered that battle.
Sora had put up a fair fight. For someone like Konan to have used the Sacred Paper Emissary technique only highlighted how hard she had tried.
The last time she used that jutsu was against Obito, almost two years from now, because the latter tried to take Nagato's eyes—who had died during that time.
While Konan didn't have time to prepare the technique and hide it like what was written, she used that little moment to muster enough papers to create a small-enough abyss to win the fight.
As for her mission, it was only to scout the area and report back any crucial information.
Needless to say, she completed that task because of Sora's involvement.
Konan had always been wary of Arthur from the start. But to think that he had carried a pseudo-Jinchūriki like Sora in his village. Pseudo-Jinchūriki were not common in this world, so that was a revelation worth sharing with others.
Pain himself would surely find this fact interesting. It was a secret that could shake their enemies' foundations if revealed.
And who's to say that Arthur hadn't created more like Sora?