As the battle team returned with a great victory, the elemental spirit of the Fireblood tribe began to roar with all its fury. The spirit was connected to every member of the Fireblood tribe, so feeling the deaths of many of its members created a painful wound in its spiritual consciousness.
Knowing its tribe members were in danger, the fire spirit began to attack the captive wind spirit, making it increasingly difficult for the latter to maintain its connection with the elf tribe. The one having the worst time was the Elf Queen, who had to maintain the spiritual connection with the elves and the wind spirit. The fight between the two spirits only served to destabilize the channel that communicated the wind spirit's strength to its people.
Meanwhile, Itachi's eyes of spiritual consciousness were open. In this realm were unique beings, each seemingly intelligent and in search of their own truth and dominance.
Suddenly, he began to feel the spiritual fluctuations released by the two great spirits: fire and wind. There, he could see the form of both. One was a great crow with wings thousands of meters long, and the other was a great white stag surrounded by a white mist that slowly swirled around it like a huge tornado. The stag was chained to five posts that sealed it in a star formation at the center.
This seal limited its movement but not its spiritual control, so the attacks between the beings were elemental strikes that seemed to destroy the entire spiritual world around them.
With renewed resolve, I began to gather energy in my hand and generated a huge Rasengan the size of a large house. I then changed its nature to that of water and launched it toward the great yellow crow. The crow wasn't paying attention to my attack, but it immediately sensed an incoming energy, an energy as vast as the sea. It wasn't careless and spat out white flames that formed an arrow, which then shot out as if teleported, impacting the ball of water and energy.
In the spiritual world, the sight was strange. The Rasengan had always been a destructive attack, but what my eyes saw was something completely different. Like a furious sea, the Rasengan began to lose its aquatic properties, then completely destabilized, and bursts of energy flew everywhere like a runaway hurricane.
"Heavens," I said, surprised by the power of the opposing attack, as the majestic white arrow was still there.
After that attack, the white arrow returned to the crow, which swallowed it and continued its assault on the great white stag. It seemed I didn't exist in its presence; it didn't even attack me again. It likely considered me a weak, newborn existence in this vast spiritual world. I didn't want to attack again because I felt that another strike would provoke the wrath of this mythical being.
A Strange Mood
Returning to reality, the mood of the Elven city was strange. They had gloomy faces, yet sometimes sighed with joy.
On the way, I encountered a crowd in the main village square, and in the distance, I saw Shisui, Renji, and Agatha. When people saw me arrive, they made way for me to pass. In the center, Agatha was explaining everything that had happened in the previous battle.
When Itachi found out what had happened, he was truly happy. He had created a team that was truly capable and able to make their own decisions. Surely, if they returned to the world of Naruto, they could face a Madara and an army of White Zetsus without any problems.
On the other hand, I could see the dark circles under the eyes of the council members, who, after hearing Agatha's entire story, bowed to us.
"Thank you for interceding for this humble village," one of them said. "We are reaching the critical moment when it will be known whether we can survive or not, and thanks to your heroic act, we have bought ourselves a few days."
He then stood up and continued, addressing the people: "Your faith cannot waver in these difficult times. Our spirit is fighting with the Fire Spirit, which is now surely greatly weakened. In any case, the spiritual battle that is happening has caused our connection with the Spirit to weaken, but this is normal, so do not worry because there is hope."
With these words, the morale of the elven people was raised once again, but everyone knew how serious the situation was.
For my part, I approached to congratulate my team, and especially Agatha. "Agatha, you deserve to be one of the best women of your tribe. It would be an honor for you to accompany us beyond the stars when all this is over," I said with certainty.
She looked at me, and with a smile mixed with emotions, she said, "I would really like to, but I can't leave this world if my people perish. But if you truly manage to save us, I will gladly accompany you until the end of this universe."
"It's a deal," I said, knowing the difficult task ahead of me, one I didn't want to run from, as I knew it was the next step in developing my personal strength.
A New Path to Power
Then I went to Hilena to tell her about my encounter with the fire crow and to see if she had any idea how to develop my strength in that world even faster. When I told her what had happened, she couldn't believe how far I had come in my spiritual perception and then added:
"The Crow is a greater spirit that has lived for thousands of years. It is used to fighting, so it's not strange that it was easy for it to deal with you."
"As for how to increase your strength in the spiritual world, I couldn't tell you a specific way, because the strength of the spiritual world is born from the individual's consciousness and will. It's generally something in the plane of ideas and the manifestation of abstract things. Since I don't have a spiritual level as high as yours, I can't give you much advice," she said, apologizing for not being able to help more.
"Thank you. You've given me a point of view I hadn't thought of. Can you explain this 'plane of ideas and manifestation of the abstract' to me?"
"Of course. To awaken your spiritual consciousness, your spirit must have been born from your truths and knowledge. And to strengthen itself, it must make those truths absolute in the spiritual world and materialize the ideas of those truths so that they acquire form and function in the spiritual world. How to do that is a question I can't answer."
Her knowledge enlightened me and called me to a new journey of meditation.