"Who are you people?"
Shinnō asked, puzzled. "And how did you learn of the Zero-Tails?"
"The Zero-Tails isn't yours. You stole Konoha's techniques to create it."
Natsume smiled, tone thick with mockery. "You don't deserve the name Shinnō."
Hatred twisted Shinnō's face, his eyes filling with murderous intent.
The Sky Village's fall was tied to the Second Great Ninja War—especially Konoha.
He built the aerial fortress to destroy the Five Great Nations and rule the ninja world.
The moment Natsume mentioned Konoha, he was an enemy.
Never mind the taunts.
"Kill them!"
Shinnō roared.
Sky ninja poured out from all directions, surrounding them.
Shisui and the others tensed, entering battle mode.
"I think you'd better go start your fortress," Natsume said, glancing around. Plenty of sky ninja, but few jonin.
Shisui alone could handle them.
"Who are you?" Shinnō froze, then demanded.
The fortress was as secret as the Zero-Tails.
Few among the sky ninja knew of it.
Even if Natsume was from Konoha, at most he should know about the Zero-Tails—not the fortress.
A traitor among us?
Cold light flickered in Shinnō's eyes. "Capture them alive."
He changed the order.
If he seized them, he'd get answers.
At his word, the sky ninja produced water-gun-like devices.
Squeezing the trigger fired volleys of shuriken.
The film's shuriken launcher.
"Scatter."
Shisui ordered.
In such tight quarters, those launchers were dangerous.
He himself wasn't worried, but others might be.
Natsume also dodged aside.
He didn't want to slaughter them—he wanted them to power up the fortress.
A spectacle not to be missed.
He could have used the Eternal Mangekyo to control them, but that might reduce Fate Points.
So he'd play it slow.
"Mikoto."
Natsume patted her head. "They're good practice. Kill them."
Mikoto obediently stepped forward.
Since there were many sky ninja, and Natsume looked like the leader, two jonin engaged her.
The young one weaved signs and spat compressed wind bullets.
The older one formed the same signs—and spat a massive fireball.
The Uchiha classic: Fire Style: Great Fireball Technique.
Looked like something Shinnō had stolen.
But it was a simple technique, not exclusive to the Uchiha.
Mikoto took a deep breath, a little nervous.
As the clan matriarch, she'd never been to war.
Back in her genin and chunin days she'd done missions and had some combat, but never against jonin.
Out of respect, she opened her three-tomoe Sharingan.
The previously blistering wind bullets slowed in her vision.
Slow enough to dodge.
With a few graceful movements, she ignored them.
She didn't dodge the fireball.
She opened her mouth and spat one of her own.
"Sharingan?!"
The older sky ninja paled.
The Uchiha name carried across the shinobi world.
The younger one was stunned.
Weren't the Uchiha wiped out?
Why were they here?
The weight sank in.
The clan's fame was due to real power.
The two fireballs collided, spraying sparks and igniting the surroundings.
They were fighting inside the village.
The flames alerted the villagers.
Ordinary people, faced with shinobi, could only retreat.
Natsume raised a brow, stomped, and blew a hole in the roof.
He dropped down to see Shinnō trying to carry off a red-haired girl.
"Put her down."
Natsume's tone was flat.
"Die!"
Shinnō spun. His unremarkable arm swelled into explosive muscle, splitting the air with sonic cracks.
His medical forbidden technique: Body Revival.
In a previous life, this would have driven people mad.
A perfect physique without training.
Thud.
Natsume caught his fist and held it.
"Impossible!"
Shinnō froze, then howled.
With Body Revival, someone blocked his punch barehanded? Absurd.
He could tell Natsume hadn't used chakra or jutsu—just raw physical strength.
In his mind, Body Revival plus Body Regeneration formed the strongest body in the world.
That belief crumbled.
"Nothing's impossible. You just haven't seen enough."
Natsume flicked his arm and sent Shinnō flying through the wall, skidding several meters.
Natsume stepped forward to protect the unconscious Amaru.
At this point, she had a strange illness that made the village ostracize her.
Shinnō later cured her; she followed him devotedly, even harboring feelings.
Natsume looked at the white-haired old coot and shook his head.
Only this world could birth something like this.
Shinnō rolled up. The injuries from the collision began to heal.
His face was already younger than before.
He glanced at the faltering sky ninja, swallowed his rage, and left.
He lacked dark chakra and needed the fortress.
And Natsume's punch told him he might not win.
"Shisui, follow him. Record his actions, but don't intervene no matter what."
Natsume watched him flee and ordered.
Shisui peeled away.
The battle neared its end.
Sky ninja weren't strong to begin with. Giving up their aerial advantage made it worse.
In the end only Mikoto was still fighting.
Izumi and the others tried to help, but Natsume stopped them.
The two jonin, baffled, pinned their hopes on seizing Mikoto.
They ramped up the pressure.
Wind Style: Pressure Damage!
Dense wind detonated.
The buildings beneath them collapsed at last.
As dust billowed, the older sky ninja flashed behind Mikoto with a short blade, stabbing for a vital.
Clang.
The blade was parried.
In his shocked gaze, Mikoto kicked—squarely into his "little guy."
A burst of blood.
He collapsed and blacked out.
Natsume sucked in a breath.
Not right!
Had Mikoto developed some mental issue under his care?
She was so obedient with him.
Well, not always. At night she went crazy.
The kind of pushing past her limits, trying to wring out the last drop of strength.
Afterward she'd lie there half a day.
With the older jonin down, only the younger remained.
He tried to run but couldn't.
Izumi and the others had him surrounded.
So many Sharingan on him; he had to grit his teeth and go for Mikoto.
Under pressure, he lost his edge.
Mikoto tilted her head, instant-shunned behind him, and drove a kunai into his kidney.
He screamed; she followed with a punch that burst his skull.
Blood splattered across her.
Mikoto felt a long-lost sense of freedom.
She'd been too repressed lately.
The Uchiha were obsessives by nature.
She hadn't felt it when she was weaker.
But as she approached the Mangekyo, her old nature surfaced.
Once unbound, she would, like other Uchiha, slip into a certain mental state.
She snapped back, her face suddenly soft again.
She walked to Natsume. "I… I completed your task."
"Mhm. Well done."
Seeing her revert made Natsume feel a little whiplash.
On second thought, not bad.
Gentle when needed, mad when needed.
He suspected it might relate to the Mangekyo she was about to awaken—eye techniques as reflections of the heart.
"Izumi, clean up the battlefield."
He pointed to the villagers. "And wipe their memories."
He didn't want the Sharingan back in the public eye yet.
"Yes!"
Izumi led the remaining eight to disperse.
"I'm curious."
Natsume wiped the blood from Mikoto's cheek. "If you awaken the Mangekyo, will you kill me?"
Uchiha tradition: the first blade on shore cuts down the beloved.
"No!"
Mikoto's pupils shrank; she shook her head quickly.
"Uchiha worship strength."
Natsume pinched her cheek. "Let me show you the limit of power."
Mikoto looked up at him, then lowered her head.
She hadn't thought about killing Natsume before; his words planted the seed.
If the chance came, she felt she might strike.
She'd been given too much lately—enough to make her break down more than once.
Natsume wasn't surprised.
She didn't like him yet.
Perfect time to leave another deep impression.
He looked at Amaru.
Still unconscious, wrapped in bandages, reeking of medicine.
In the film, there wasn't much detail on her ninjutsu—mostly a plot mover.
But apprenticing under Shinnō suggested some talent for medical ninjutsu.
A named character, at least.
He decided to toss her to Uzumaki Hinae to manage.
If talent could be exchanged—great, another medic. If not, she could work a desk job.
He cast Flying Thunder God.
He brought her to the Land of Wave Daimyo's mansion, explained things to Hinae, then returned to the Sky ruins.
[Because of your actions, Amaru's fate has changed. You gained 49 Fate Points.]
[Because of your actions, Shinnō's fate has changed. You gained 7 Fate Points.]
Not bad.
Shinnō would provide more later.
Natsume picked up a shuriken launcher.
Not as refined as a mechanical product—powered by chakra.
Ordinary people couldn't use it.
Made sense—no advanced tooling here, and no desire to serve civilians. How would they build precision mechanics?
With chakra power, the launcher wasn't that useful.
He thought of the Snow Country's chakra armor—more helpful for average shinobi.
After Izumi and the others finished, they headed for the nearby ruins.
The ruins were the structure atop the fortress's "head."
The main body lay underground.
The tech here was skewed.
From the film, the fortress was no smaller than a tailed beast.
Something that massive should be costly and technically formidable.
The Five Great Villages might not pull it off, yet Sky did.
No wonder Shinnō boasted he'd crush the Five Great Nations—until he met Naruto.
Natsume realized Naruto villains all had big dreams.
Everyone wanted to unify the ninja world.
The one who could have—Hashirama—gave up and did a feudal-style partition.
No, worse—an equal split of the world.
A saint indeed.
His successor, Naruto, had similar tendencies.
Maybe that's Asura's chakra at work.
…
Meanwhile, in the fortress—
Shinnō fled madly and, only upon reaching the control room, exhaled.
He sat on his self-made throne.
The Zero-Tails was in the sealing chamber below, providing endless dark chakra.
With that power, he feared no one.
But the fortress needed just a bit more to start.
A vicious light flashed in his eyes.
He'd planned to use Amaru's village as fuel for dark chakra. Now he'd sacrifice some sky ninja.
Beat Natsume and the others now; he could make up for it later.
Nearby, Shisui kept hidden and recorded his every move.
Soon, Shinnō summoned twenty sky ninja and led them to the power room.
"Get in."
He opened an iron door.
"Lord Shinnō, what is this…?"
They looked at each other, unrest spreading.
They knew what that prison was for.
Fueling dark chakra meant becoming fodder—and dying.
Shinnō didn't explain, just kicked them into the cells.
Some resisted, uselessly—he knocked them out.
He'd chosen genin and chunin who couldn't stir trouble.
"Lord Shinnō! Help!"
"No! Don't!"
"Damn bastard!"
Listening to the curses, Shinnō felt refreshed.
Dark chakra came from the darkness in people's hearts—negative emotion.
"Yes, hate me. Sink into the dark!"
He laughed and left the power room, returning to his throne.
More precisely, to a huge circular control dial.
He crouched and poured in dark chakra. The dial shifted, revealing Natsume's team on a display.
"Behold my ultimate masterpiece! A super fortress that can destroy the Five Great Nations!"
His face twisted with spite and triumph.
He could've used Eight Gates plus his medical arts to defeat them.
But after the humiliation, he wanted a grander funeral for them.
Shinnō stood, formed seals; arrays of light flickered across the dial.
"Awaken! Ancor Vantian!"
With his frenzied roar, the entire structure began to shake.
Shisui's heart tightened. This looked serious.
Destroy the Five Great Nations—intimidating words.
He hesitated, then remained still.
Natsume's order: no matter what, do not act.
Shinnō howled to the sky.
His outer robes tore; his hair lifted in the surge of air.
His exposed skin writhed and transformed into a super-muscled physique.
From a frail old man to a six-pack middle-aged hulk.
Shisui gaped.
What kind of ninjutsu was this—reversing age?
And then, something even more shocking.
He felt the structure rising skyward.
Outside, Natsume saw it clearly.
The buried ruins shed earth and revealed their true form.
Moments later, it lifted, floating into the air.
"What… is that?"
Mikoto's mouth fell open, eyes wide.
"An aerial fortress. Built by the former Sky ninja. A super-weapon that can fire attacks on par with Tailed Beast Bombs."
Natsume briefed her. "Scary, isn't it?"
Mikoto's expression shifted.
To many shinobi, tailed beasts were the strongest chakra entities.
And the Tailed Beast Bomb—a strike more insane than S-rank ninjutsu.
No one could block it.
"Maybe we should…"
Mikoto's nature hadn't fully flipped yet.
Shinobi didn't always fight to the death.
Even on missions, retreat was allowed in danger.
Faced with the fortress, she felt even the Mangekyo would be useless.
Ninjutsu and dojutsu couldn't reach; even if they did, such a massive fortress would barely feel it.
Even Izumi agreed, nodding gravely.
The other Uchiha needed no convincing.
People would die.
Most here hadn't seen Natsume's Wood Release, Shisui aside.