Time slipped into October without anyone noticing.
Konoha already carried a hint of winter—the temperature had dropped quite a bit.
But the ninja academy's training field was still buzzing with energy. The Advanced Class students were all working hard at training.
Compared to the last few years, they'd become much more diligent.
After all, once next year passed, most of them would graduate and become official ninja.
Even though they'd already gotten an early taste of a ninja's life—doing missions and the like—they still weren't real ninja yet.
And after graduation, it would be hard for their squad leader to still be a heavyweight jōnin like Sarutobi Hiruzen, Kitazawa, Maruboshi Kosuke, or Hatake Kakashi.
Kitazawa stood on the field, watching Hyūga Neji and Hyūga Hinata, lost in thought.
After a long period of training, their World-Ending Arrow had become pretty polished—what they lacked was one real combat test.
After all, the World-Ending Arrow was comparable to a Tailed Beast Bomb. There was no way they could casually use it during training.
Kitazawa was thinking about two things.
First: should he let them use the World-Ending Arrow once in real combat?
But using it somewhere at random would be too wasteful—if they were going to do it, it would be best to create some real value.
Second: what should he teach them after the World-Ending Arrow?
He could continue with new archery techniques, or he could teach Gentle Fist—like Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven.
Kitazawa suddenly thought of a system mission reward: Sage Art: Wood Release: True Several Thousand Hands.
The requirement for that mission was to form the new Konoha Three Sannin.
Kitazawa felt the timing was ripe to do that mission now.
Because Uchiha Sasuke and Uzumaki Naruto absolutely met the conditions.
The former was about to awaken the Mangekyō Sharingan. The latter could already enter a half–tailed-beast transformation.
It wasn't an exaggeration to say their strength was no less than Tsunade, Jiraiya, and Orochimaru back when those three had just earned the title of the Konoha Three Sannin.
As for the third member, there were plenty of options.
If the World-Ending Arrow was included, then both Hyūga Neji and Hyūga Hinata would qualify.
Kurama Yakumo could also work.
After all, she had Mangekyō-Sharingan-level genjutsu.
And if they wanted to follow the standard ninja-squad setup by adding a medical ninja, then Haruno Sakura, Karin, and Shion were all good choices.
Since it was a medical ninja role, the requirements weren't as strict.
Most people naturally assumed medical ninja didn't have much combat power.
Across the entire ninja world, the number of ninja who were both medical ninja and possessed overwhelming combat strength probably wouldn't exceed five.
Kitazawa immediately found himself torn.
Sometimes having too many choices wasn't a good thing.
But he could start by building their reputation.
The fastest way to become famous was, of course, to step on a famous ninja as a springboard.
For example, now that Uzumaki Naruto could enter a half–tailed-beast form, he could go defeat a very well-known ninja.
Then Kitazawa could promote him in every way possible, and Naruto's fame would skyrocket.
Likewise, once Uchiha Sasuke awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan, he could use the same approach.
Once all three were famous enough, they could push the idea of a new generation of Konoha Three Sannin.
They could even have the original Konoha Three Sannin—like Tsunade—publicly praise them and so on.
"Hinata," Kitazawa said as he snapped back to reality. "Neji."
"Kitazawa-sensei," Hinata replied, reaching him first.
"Kitazawa-sensei," Neji followed right behind.
"I think your World-Ending Arrow training is basically there. You can pause it for now."
Kitazawa raised a hand and gently patted Hinata on the head.
"When we get a real chance, I'll let you test a true World-Ending Arrow."
"Yes, Kitazawa-sensei," Neji answered.
"Kitazawa-sensei, what are we learning next?" Hinata asked, lifting her head slightly to look at him.
"Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven," Kitazawa explained.
"Even though you mainly use bows now, Revolving Heaven can make up for your close-range defense."
In the original story, Eight Trigrams Palms Revolving Heaven was called an absolute defense that could repel all physical attacks.
Of course, everyone knew that anything called "absolute defense" usually wasn't truly absolute.
Still, Revolving Heaven really wasn't bad. Against the vast majority of ninja, it was more than enough.
Unless they ran into an actual monster—someone like Uchiha Madara—then yeah, it wouldn't hold.
"You two get a week off. Come back to school after you've learned Revolving Heaven," Kitazawa said after thinking a moment.
"Mm." Hinata nodded.
"You can head home now," Kitazawa said, withdrawing his hand.
After Hinata and Neji left, he planned to find somewhere to train.
But at that moment, three lines of text appeared before his eyes.
[Current Mission: Synthesize the Five-Element Parasitic Insects.]
[Mission Reward: Senju Hashirama's version of Wood Release.]
[Mission Completed. Reward Granted.]
Kitazawa stopped without meaning to.
Did Aburame Shino's parasitic insect mutation experiment succeed?
He checked the changes inside his body and found… nothing obvious.
This "Hashirama version" of Wood Release and Yamato's version really did seem identical—aside from chakra capacity.
Kitazawa tugged at the corner of his mouth.
He couldn't help feeling like this mission was a waste—like he'd gained nothing.
[Congratulations, Host: You have obtained Mastery-level Wood Release chakra nature transformation.]
Kitazawa let out a small sound of surprise.
Well—looking at it that way, this mission reward wasn't bad.
The mastery-level chakra nature transformations he'd gotten before were all single-element, like Lightning Release and Water Release.
But mastery-level Wood Release nature transformation obviously wasn't single-element.
In terms of function, though, it was similar.
In plain language: from now on, Kitazawa would learn Wood Release techniques much faster.
And in that sense, it was an excellent reward.
After all, it saved a massive amount of time.
"Kitazawa-sensei."
While he was thinking, Aburame Shino quickly appeared in front of him.
In Shino's hand was a parasitic bug with an extremely strange color—like someone had knocked over paint and accidentally splashed it onto its body.
"Congratulations," Kitazawa said with a smile.
"It's all thanks to you, Kitazawa-sensei," Shino said immediately.
If Kitazawa hadn't suggested it, he never would have gone off to do a parasitic bug mutation experiment.
"I think you should pause the experiments for now and learn the Aburame clan's secret techniques," Kitazawa said, looking at him.
"If I remember right, your clan has an extremely powerful secret art called Parasitic Giant Insect — Bug Bite."
"We do, but it's too difficult. I've never learned it," Shino replied. He wasn't surprised that Kitazawa knew—someone at the Hokage level would naturally know a few secret arts.
"Your strength is enough now. You can try learning it," Kitazawa said, then added, "I'm giving you a week off."
In the original story, Parasitic Giant Insect — Bug Bite was basically Shino's strongest secret technique.
Its effect was to parasitize the target and gnaw away at their chakra—so effective that even fragments split from the Ten-Tails couldn't withstand it.
"I understand, Kitazawa-sensei," Shino said with a nod. "Then I'll head back now."
After seeing him off, Kitazawa went to the Forest of Death.
He'd originally planned to train Sage Art: Myōjin Gate, but remembering the reward he'd just received, he switched to Wood Release: Wood Golem Technique instead.
After training for a bit, he immediately noticed the difference—his progress was much faster.
If learning Wood Release: Wood Golem Technique used to take about a year, now it would only take half a year.
Another day of training passed.
After the Advanced Class was dismissed, Kitazawa left the academy with Kurenai.
"The midterm exams are coming up soon. Any new arrangements this time?" Kurenai asked as they walked.
"No," Kitazawa shook his head. "Same as before—just do missions."
As he said that, he fell into thought.
His first instinct was to find Naruto a very famous ninja to use as a stepping stone to stardom.
But after thinking it through, there wasn't a suitable target.
More accurately, all suitable targets were inside the Five Great Villages.
In peacetime, that was troublesome.
And outside the Five Great Villages, the remaining ninja didn't have much fame—including the Akatsuki.
Akatsuki members were all very strong, but they hadn't fully become famous yet.
Only when they started capturing tailed beasts would the Five Great Villages realize that Akatsuki had gathered a whole lineup of elite ninja.
A vague plan formed in Kitazawa's mind:
Wait until Akatsuki became famous—then have Naruto and Sasuke defeat them.
With that in mind, he stopped agonizing over the end-of-term mission setup.
Any mission would do.
Time flowed on.
After December arrived, Konoha saw its first heavy snowfall.
On a clearing in the northern part of the Forest of Death, Kitazawa formed hand seals.
A massive torrent of chakra erupted, whipping the falling snow into the sky.
In the next second, a gigantic red torii gate crashed down from above, embedding itself deep into the earth.
This was Sage Art: Myōjin Gate.
As for the red torii gate—it was the red shrine gateway seen in front of shrines.
Kitazawa let out a long breath.
After training for so long, he'd finally mastered Sage Art: Myōjin Gate.
Myōjin Gate had two uses.
One was summoning a single torii gate.
That was mainly used against the target's head—essentially a head-seal.
The other was summoning multiple torii gates to seal the entire body.
In the original story, Senju Hashirama had once summoned multiple torii gates to suppress the Ten-Tails' ten tails.
Kitazawa casually dispelled the Myōjin Gate.
Now that he'd learned it, he could focus fully on Wood Release: Wood Golem Technique.
In terms of raw power, Wood Golem was probably second only to Sage Art: Wood Release: True Several Thousand Hands among Wood Release ninjutsu.
Just as Tsunade had said, he was getting closer and closer to Senju Hashirama.
Thinking about it… it was pretty absurd.
Even with a cheat system, it still took him this long to catch up to Hashirama.
In terms of strength, Hashirama was even more "protagonist-like" than Naruto and Sasuke.
If it weren't for the alien Ōtsutsuki clan, Hashirama would've been the peak of the ninja world.
Then again… Hashirama was also of Ōtsutsuki blood.
Kitazawa shook his head, tossing the messy thoughts aside.
He turned and headed deeper into the Forest of Death.
Before he even got close, he sensed the surging Nine-Tails chakra from Uzumaki Naruto.
Soon, he saw Naruto and Sasuke locked in an intense battle.
Under the onslaught of Naruto and countless shadow clones scattered across the hills, Sasuke was being chased everywhere, scrambling to evade.
A phrase suddenly surfaced in Kitazawa's mind:
This is the beauty of raw stats.
To be fair, Sasuke was also a stat monster—but unfortunately, he'd run into an even more ridiculous one.
Normally, as the reincarnations of Asura and Indra's chakra, they should've been evenly matched—if anything, Indra's side should have had a slight edge.
But among Asura's reincarnations, there were two freaks: Senju Hashirama and Uzumaki Naruto.
"I wonder when Sasuke will awaken the Mangekyō Sharingan," Kitazawa murmured, stroking his chin.
By his senses, Sasuke had already reached the limit of the three-tomoe Sharingan. He could break through at any moment.
And Kitazawa, of course, hoped it happened sooner rather than later.
Because he still had a system mission.
As long as Sasuke awakened the Mangekyō Sharingan, that meant Kitazawa could claim the Mangekyō Sharingan mission reward.
"Hope he awakens it before New Year," Kitazawa thought.
He withdrew his gaze, didn't disturb them, and found a spot to train on his own.
December 15.
The Advanced Class held its end-of-term exam for the semester.
The exam format didn't change: a team battle with restriction conditions.
In the end, Naruto's team won.
After the final exam came winter break.
But for most ninja in Konoha, the most important thing wasn't winter break—it was New Year.
Because New Year was basically the only time they could truly take leave.
Winter break, day one.
Kitazawa climbed out of his warm bed and went alone to the ninja academy.
As for Kurenai… she'd been "worked" far too hard last night and still hadn't woken up.
Which was also why, for so long, Kitazawa sneaking out in the second half of the night to see Tsunade had never been discovered.
Ahem.
Kitazawa quickly arrived at the academy training field.
He'd come today because a lot of students' training needed to be updated again.
First were the Advanced Class's four new students.
Kazematsuri Moegi and Ise Udon had mastered the Transformation, Clone, and Substitution Techniques, as well as Leaf-Style Swordsmanship, and could begin chakra control training.
Meanwhile, Hyūga Hanabi and Sarutobi Konohamaru—who had already completed chakra control training—could officially begin learning ninjutsu.
Hyūga Hanabi would naturally learn Gentle Fist: Eight Trigrams Sixty-Four Palms.
Sarutobi Konohamaru would learn the Sarutobi clan's Fire Release ninjutsu: Fire Release: Ash Pile Burning.
Next were the Water Release learners: Haku, Chino, and Hotaru.
The first two learned Water Release: Instant Water, while the last learned Water Release: Hard Whirlpool Water Blade.
Lastly were Kurama Yakumo and Yamanaka Ino.
Kitazawa grouped them together because he decided to teach them Super Beast Imitating Drawing.
Super Beast Imitating Drawing looked like a Water Release technique, but in essence it was a Yin Release secret art.
Only Yin Release could give form to what didn't exist.
No need to mention Yakumo—she was perfectly suited for it.
In fact, Super Beast Imitating Drawing was somewhat similar to Genjutsu: True Illusion.
Its advantage was speed: you could draw it on the spot.
In short, there was no downside to learning it.
Yamanaka Ino's drawing wasn't as good as Yakumo's, but she excelled at Yin Release secret arts.
For her, Super Beast Imitating Drawing would be a major upgrade.
After all, whether for combat or support, it was an excellent technique.
In the future, when she teamed up with Nara Shikamaru and Akimichi Chōji, it would let them perform at an even higher level.
While he was thinking, Kitazawa sensed a slightly violent chakra.
He reflexively looked up—and saw Rock Lee.
"This is the Eight Gates?" Kitazawa raised an eyebrow.
Even though it was only the First Gate, it was undeniably a great start for Lee.
In a sense, from this moment on, Lee had the qualifications to chase after people like Hyūga Neji and Aburame Shino.
If he could open the Eighth Gate, he might even be able to contend with Sasuke and Naruto.
Kitazawa glanced once and stopped paying attention.
After all, the ones teaching Lee all this time had been Might Guy and Master Chen.
Normally speaking, Naruto should've learned the Eight Gates alongside Lee.
But the cost-performance of becoming a perfect jinchūriki was obviously higher than learning the Eight Gates.
That said, there was no harm in learning it—if Naruto had the time, he could.
Kitazawa called over Hanabi and the others and began their winter break training.
After finishing, he headed toward the Forest of Death.
"Kitazawa."
Konan suddenly appeared in front of him.
"Need something?" Kitazawa stopped and asked.
"I'm going back to the Land of Rain for a while," Konan replied.
"Did the war with Sunagakure change?" Kitazawa felt a bit surprised.
Konoha had been keeping a close eye on the war between Amegakure and Sunagakure. ANBU delivered daily reports to him on schedule.
But the situation had been stalemated—both sides trading blows back and forth within a limited range.
"No," Konan shook her head. "I don't know what it is exactly."
"I see." Kitazawa thought briefly, then said, "New Year's coming soon. I'm giving you a month off. Come back after the holiday."
At this point, his relationship with Konan could be described as knowing each other inside and out—though they were still one final step away.
Since she wanted to go, he couldn't exactly be stingy with leave.
"Thank you," Konan said with a nod.
"Want me to send you to the Land of Rain?" Kitazawa chuckled. "I have the Flying Thunder God Technique. It'll save you time."
Konan had been at his side the whole time, so she naturally knew he'd learned Flying Thunder God.
When she first found out, she'd been shocked.
"No need. Flying back won't take me much time anyway," Konan paused, then refused.
She was worried that if Nagato or White Zetsu saw Kitazawa, there'd be no way to explain it.
"Alright. Go and come back safely," Kitazawa didn't insist.
"Mm." Konan responded and turned to leave.
When the weather shifted from clear skies to endless rain, she reached the Land of Rain.
Konan flew out from the clouds and looked at the familiar country, feeling a little dazed.
After staying in Konoha—where the seasons were distinct—for so long, returning to the Land of Rain felt oddly unfamiliar.
But no matter what, the Land of Rain was still her home.
When she arrived at Amegakure, Konan slowly descended onto a tall tower.
This time, White Zetsu had delivered Nagato's message telling her to return, and she truly didn't know why.
"Nagato."
Konan walked inside and soon saw Nagato—or rather, the Deva Path of Pain.
The Deva Path didn't say a word. He simply took out a scroll and handed it to her.
Konan felt puzzled.
She glanced at the Deva Path, then opened the scroll.
Her eyes narrowed slightly.
The scroll recorded the money earned from the water business and the silver jewelry business combined.
"This is what Kakuzu gave me," the Deva Path said flatly.
"From what's written here, both businesses are doing extremely well," Konan looked at him and asked, "Why are you showing me this?"
"The funds needed for the Eye of the Moon Plan are basically in place. We can begin next year," the Deva Path raised a hand.
"It's time for the ninja world to know that a god exists."
Konan's pupils contracted. She subconsciously gripped the scroll tighter.
She had always been working for the Eye of the Moon Plan, yet at this moment she felt an unfamiliar panic.
Because once the plan began, Akatsuki would become the enemy of the entire ninja world—including Konoha.
In other words, she would become Kitazawa's enemy.
"We'll start with Sunagakure," the Deva Path continued.
The precondition for the plan was reviving the Ten-Tails.
Put simply: have the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path—the Ten-Tails' shell—absorb the chakra of the nine tailed beasts.
And there was an order to it, starting with the One-Tail Shukaku.
Besides that, Sunagakure and Amegakure were competing over the water business, which irritated the Deva Path.
Previously, because the plan hadn't started, he'd let Sunagakure off for the time being.
But now there was no need to keep up appearances—so the first to be dealt with would be Sunagakure.
"Konan, after New Year, notify all Akatsuki members to return to Amegakure for a meeting," the Deva Path instructed.
"At that time, we'll assign the tailed-beast capture operations."
"Mm." Konan answered instinctively.
"For the Nine-Tails, I will personally handle the capture," the Deva Path said after thinking.
First, because the Nine-Tails was extremely strong, and not many Akatsuki members could guarantee a clean win against the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki.
Second, because he still had the blood debt of his parents against Konoha.
Konan's heart tightened. She opened her mouth, but couldn't find words.
She couldn't possibly stop Nagato.
For some reason, the one thing she felt relieved about was that Kitazawa had Flying Thunder God.
Even if Konoha were destroyed, he wouldn't necessarily die.
"My legs have recovered, which means Kitazawa didn't tamper with anything," the Deva Path looked at her and said.
"You don't need to go back to Konoha."
Konan froze in place.
"What's wrong? Is there something in Konoha you still haven't taken care of?" the Deva Path asked, puzzled.
"I think I roughly know who the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki is, but I need time to confirm," Konan said calmly.
"How long?" the Deva Path asked without much thought.
"At most half a year," Konan replied in a cold tone.
"That should be about right," the Deva Path murmured, then nodded.
Jinchūriki identities were confidential in every major village, with only a few people knowing the truth.
On top of that, some jinchūriki had already left their villages and wandered the world with no fixed residence.
And beyond that, capturing tailed beasts and jinchūriki could fail.
With all those factors, taking half a year was normal.
"Once you confirm the Nine-Tails' identity, leave immediately," the Deva Path reminded her.
"Once the Eye of the Moon Plan begins, Akatsuki will be the enemy of the entire world. Staying in Konoha will be dangerous for you."
"I understand," Konan nodded.
"Don't worry about me. If there's danger, White Zetsu will notify me."
~~~
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