Chiba couldn't ignore the unease settling at the back of his mind - not because he feared Takigakure, but because the village felt too perfect. Too hidden. Too lush. Too blessed for a place wedged between great powers. The more he stared at the enormous sacred tree and the more he recalled the existence of Hero Water, the clearer one suspicion became: this wasn't a natural miracle.
It was a remnant.
A leftover tooth from something ancient that had never fully let go of this world.
If his judgment was correct, then the giant tree of Takigakure wasn't merely "sacred" in the way small villages liked to romanticize their heritage. It might be connected to the God Tree itself - perhaps even a branch reborn from a buried root, a fragment that had survived underground and grown back toward the surface in a place where no one would think to look.
And the frightening part was that the theory had weight behind it.
Because the God Tree, historically, didn't disappear cleanly. In the original course of events, when Six Paths Uchiha Madara triggered the Infinite Tsukuyomi and invoked the God Tree's descent, its leftover roots erupted across the shinobi world. They didn't sprout politely - they exploded with violent life, spreading like an infestation, hoisting living beings into the air as though the planet itself had been turned into a field of harvested crops.
That meant the truth had always been there, buried beneath the skin of the world: the God Tree's remnants remained. Hidden. Coiled. Vast. Sprawled beneath the nations like a sleeping predator.
And Takigakure's characteristics matched that kind of hidden anomaly too neatly to be coincidence.
A village concealed behind an enormous waterfall, cut off from easy discovery, almost like a sanctuary beyond the world's reach. A place where the land felt unusually vibrant, where the air itself seemed cleaner, and where a "holy water" could multiply chakra reserves not by a small margin, but by several times - by dozens of times, if the legends were to be believed.
If anything in this world still carried the God Tree's scent, it would be something like this.
Shibuki, stiff with nervous reverence, guided Chiba deeper into the area where Takigakure protected its most sensitive secrets. The village leader moved like a man walking through a shrine, careful not to step too loudly, as if even the stone beneath his feet might judge him for disrespect. When they arrived, he retrieved a gourd-shaped bottle made of glass, sealed tight and stored with a degree of caution that spoke louder than any warning.
Inside was Hero Water - liquid so rare that it could only be harvested once every hundred years from the sacred tree itself.
Shibuki held it with both hands as if he were offering a relic to a god. Yet the tremor in his fingers betrayed something else: fear, not devotion.
Chiba took the bottle, unsealed it, and lifted it slightly. The scent hit him almost immediately, and with it came a sensation like invisible pressure against the senses - something sharp, domineering, and unreasonably aggressive for a mere liquid. It didn't feel like ordinary chakra. It felt like a concentration of hunger, a force that wanted to explode into something larger the moment it was allowed into a body.
Chiba didn't need it. Not personally.
But his thoughts moved in the way they always did: if he didn't need something, it became a question of who could use it, how it could be applied, and how it could shift the balance of power. In the hands of the right subordinate, Hero Water could create a decisive advantage - brief, dangerous, and potentially lethal, but decisive all the same.
After a quiet moment, he resealed the bottle and returned it to Shibuki.
"Take me to the tree," he said.
Shibuki's face tightened. He hesitated just long enough for Chiba to notice, then nodded - because refusing was no longer an option.
When they stepped before it, Chiba felt the pressure immediately.
The tree was colossal, its trunk thick and ancient, its canopy dense enough to blot out patches of sky. The air around it carried an oppressive weight, not the kind that came from a powerful shinobi's chakra, but the kind that came from something older - something that didn't feel human, and didn't feel like it cared whether humans existed at all.
It wasn't the full God Tree, the monstrosity that could suppress an entire world with its presence.
But it carried the same flavor of authority.
The same terrifying dignity.
Chiba's eyes narrowed slightly, and he extended his senses, letting a thread of Ryūchi Cave Senjutsu chakra seep outward - pure natural energy refined until it was clean enough to cut.
The response was violent.
The tree jerked as if struck by lightning, and the ground seemed to tremble beneath them.
Rumble… rumble…!
A deep roar echoed through the earth like distant thunder, and then the tree's roots, trunk, branches, and vines began to writhe. It wasn't the slow sway of wood in wind - it was frantic motion, like a living organism waking in starvation. The vines quivered and lashed, the roots pulsed beneath the soil, and the entire structure seemed to lean toward Chiba's released energy, greedily devouring it in thick, desperate surges.
Shibuki's legs gave out.
He dropped to the ground hard, staring up as if the sky had cracked.
"W-What…?!" he gasped. "How is this happening?! The sacred tree has never - never done anything like this!"
Chiba's expression darkened, not with fear, but with confirmation.
So it was true.
The God Tree was never meant to be worshipped. It wasn't a benevolent symbol. It was a tool - an Ōtsutsuki instrument designed to strip worlds bare. It fed on natural energy, swallowed it over time, converted it into chakra, then produced a chakra fruit that the Ōtsutsuki harvested and consumed to gain power beyond imagination - power that pushed them closer to becoming gods.
Ryūchi Cave Senjutsu chakra was among the purest natural energies that existed.
A remnant of the God Tree would react to it like a starving beast sensing blood.
Shibuki stared at the sacred tree, but the reverence in his eyes had collapsed into horror. The thing he had prayed to, the thing Takigakure called holy, now looked like a nightmare wearing the skin of a blessing. And in that terror, connections formed - ugly, unavoidable.
Hero Water increased chakra… but demanded life as payment.
His father had died from it.
Not because the water was "too strong," not because the ritual was "too dangerous" - but because it was never meant to be safe in the first place. It was a byproduct of something that didn't care about human limits.
Shibuki's voice shook so badly his words nearly fell apart.
"Is it… alive?"
Chiba nodded slowly.
"Yes."
And then, without softening the truth, he added, "And it's not something Takigakure can oppose."
He was understating it again. If this thing ever matured fully, Takigakure wouldn't be the one paying the price. The entire shinobi world would.
Chiba withdrew his Senjutsu chakra, letting the tree's frenzy gradually settle. But he didn't relax. Instead, a different kind of intent formed in him - cold, methodical, and sharp.
Once the matter with Akatsuki was resolved, he would return.
He would study this "branch" properly.
Because if it truly carried the God Tree's essence, then within it might lie a power that dwarfed even what shinobi considered monstrous.
After that, Chiba followed Shibuki into the true heart of Takigakure.
The village welcomed him like a storm of relief. Shinobi bowed, villagers crowded the streets, faces bright with hope that bordered on desperation, as if Chiba's mere presence could force fate itself to hesitate. The atmosphere wasn't celebratory - it was protective, clutching at him like a lifeline.
Jiraiya, Hatake Kakashi, Uzumaki Naruto, and the rest had already arrived earlier. As allies from Konoha - here specifically to protect the Choumei jinchūriki and reinforce Takigakure - they'd earned trust quickly. Still, the moment Chiba arrived, the village's tension eased in a way that was almost visible, like shoulders finally lowering after days of strain.
Then Fū stepped forward.
She was the Choumei' jinchūriki, yet she didn't carry herself like a tragedy. There was an innocence to her that felt stubborn, almost defiant against the world's cruelty. She still wanted friends. Still smiled easily. Still looked at people as if she expected kindness to exist somewhere, if she searched hard enough.
She was only a few years older than Naruto - only a year or two younger than Chiba.
And right now, she was practically buzzing with excitement.
"You're really Mizukage-sama?!" she blurted out, circling him, eyes shining. "I've heard about you so much! Everyone talks about you!"
Shibuki winced and forced a smile. "Fū… manners."
Chiba didn't mind. If anything, her straightforwardness was a small reminder that the world still produced people who hadn't been completely sharpened into suspicion.
He lifted a hand and gently patted her head.
Fū's cheeks reddened, and her excitement somehow doubled, like that simple gesture meant more than any praise or title.
Chiba then looked toward Jiraiya and Team Seven.
"Anything unusual?" he asked.
Jiraiya shook his head. Kakashi did as well.
"Not yet," Kakashi said. "And with how hidden this place is… even Akatsuki should have trouble getting in."
Chiba's voice remained calm, but the warning inside it was clear.
"They won't."
He met their eyes one by one.
"Kakuzu is from Takigakure. He knows this village's secrets. If Akatsuki wants to enter, it's easy."
"Don't lower your guard."
Shibuki's eyes widened. "Kakuzu…? A Takigakure shinobi? I've never even heard of him!"
"That's normal," Chiba replied. "He's from the era of the Shodaime Hokage, and he became a missing-nin long ago."
The shock that followed was immediate.
"The Shodaime Hokage's era?!"
"Then he should be over ninety!"
"How could he still be alive - let alone able to fight?!"
Chiba answered without embellishment, as if explaining something simple.
"He stole Takigakure's forbidden technique: Jiongu ("Earth Grudge Fear"). It allows him to take other people's hearts, extending his life indefinitely. It also allows him to take their jutsu and chakra."
The group fell quiet, as if the air had thickened.
Akatsuki truly was a den of monsters.
And at the same time, a familiar thought stirred again - unspoken, but shared: Chiba's "omniscience" wasn't just arrogance. It kept proving itself.
With Chiba present, the village's nerves softened. Even Jiraiya looked less burdened. Because no matter how legendary a Sannin was, watching over two jinchūriki at once - the Choumei and the Kyuubi - while preparing for an enemy as mysterious as Akatsuki wasn't something anyone could face with perfect certainty.
That night, the village finally slept.
But Chiba didn't.
He sat in the quiet and continued refining himself, the way he always did when the world gave him even a sliver of breathing room. Days filled with political upheaval and war preparations hadn't stopped his training; they'd only made it more necessary. Now, with Takigakure stabilized - at least on the surface - he resumed pushing his Devil Fruit's power beyond its previous limits.
And at last…
He reached something new.
A pinnacle.
Frozen Space.
The idea was simple, almost elegant. Freezing was the lowering of temperature, and temperature was the movement of molecules. Fast motion created heat. Slower motion meant cold. Slow it enough, and you approached a theoretical limit - absolute zero.
In a normal world, absolute zero couldn't be reached.
But this world wasn't normal.
It was a world where Kamui could warp space itself. Where dojutsu mocked physics. Where the impossible happened daily as a matter of survival.
So Chiba's ice no longer had to obey ordinary rules.
He tested the limits carefully, measuring with the same cold precision he used in battle.
At his current level, Frozen Space could be maintained for roughly 0.8 seconds.
Its range: a cube measuring five meters on each side - five by five by five.
Short.
Small.
And yet… terrifying beyond reason.
Because within that cube, Chiba could freeze everything - not just bodies, but the space they occupied. An enemy caught inside would have no time to react. Even less than a second was enough. Their entire body would lock, every molecule forced into stillness, all thermal motion extinguished at once.
It was not a "defeat."
It was an execution.
An instant kill.
And it offered something even more frightening: it could be applied against space-time ninjutsu. Used at the right moment, it could freeze the very action of a technique like Kamui, turning that "untouchable" distortion into something that could be interrupted, trapped, destroyed.
It activated instantly.
No hand seals.
No chakra cost.
It consumed only his Devil Fruit's power - drawing instead on stamina and mental force.
Chiba continued refining it, pushing for more range, more duration. Because even if he was already called the strongest, he understood the truth: "strongest shinobi" was still only a step on a much larger ladder. Gods were another matter entirely.
And he wasn't satisfied with being strong.
He wanted to be unreachable.
While Takigakure slept -
Two shadows moved beneath the night.
The man who called himself "A-Fēi," the mysterious masked figure, approached with Uchiha Itachi at his side, both of them slipping through darkness with practiced silence. The waterfall loomed before them, enormous and roaring, its curtain of water hiding what lay beyond like the world's own secret.
Itachi stared at it, and for a moment, something like genuine wonder crossed his face.
"So this is Takigakure's entrance…" he murmured. "Unthinkable."
The masked man nodded. "If Kakuzu hadn't given us a detailed map, even we wouldn't locate the true village."
Itachi's voice remained low, careful.
"I heard Takigakure sought Konoha's aid to protect the Choumei jinchūriki. The one truly controlling Konoha now - Mizukage Chiba - sent Team Seven, along with Hatake Kakashi and Uzumaki Naruto. And Jiraiya is here as well to protect Naruto."
The masked man gave a cold laugh, the sound sharp as metal.
"Perfect," he said.
He didn't sound worried. He sounded pleased - like a hunter spotting prey gathering conveniently in one place.
"Then we can capture two jinchūriki at once."
Itachi frowned, a rare sign of unease.
"Jiraiya and Hatake Kakashi aren't easy opponents," he said. "Are you really that confident?"
The masked man's voice turned colder, heavier - shedding the clownish Akatsuki persona completely.
"Uchiha Itachi," he said, "you still don't trust me."
A pause.
"You doubt that I'm Uchiha Madara."
Itachi fell silent, because silence was safer than admitting what he truly thought. The masked man's identity was a fog with too many faces. Pain and Konan believed he was Madara. Zetsu knew he was Uchiha Obito. Others assumed he was merely "A-Fēi," a late addition to the group.
And Itachi… Itachi had known him long enough to feel the cracks.
The masked man continued, voice steady with absolute certainty.
"Whether I am Uchiha Madara or not, you've seen my power."
He scoffed softly.
"Hatake Kakashi. A Sannin."
"I don't put them in my eyes."
Itachi nodded once, not because he agreed, but because he had learned that pushing back rarely changed anything. He was alive only because this man had saved him on the night of the massacre. Chiba had torn his Mangekyō Sharingan away. He had watched the Uchiha and Konoha destroy each other. Despair had become his normal state long ago.
The masked man had given him a new pair of Sharingan - ordinary ones, not Mangekyō.
Enough to restore his sight.
Enough to restore a portion of his strength.
But never enough to return him to what he once was.
And now, the two of them slipped into Takigakure's depths, moving during the darkest moment before dawn, searching silently for the Choumei jinchūriki -
Fū.
A tailed beast's chakra carried a distinctive aura - an imprint so abnormal it could be tracked like a scent if you knew what to look for. The mysterious masked man had learned that method long ago, passed down from the one he called Uchiha Madara, and he trusted it the way a predator trusted instinct.
In the stillness before dawn, he closed his attention around that faint, otherworldly presence, letting it guide him through Takigakure's sleeping silence.
It didn't take long.
His gaze snapped to a single building - ordinary on the outside, unremarkable in every way… which was exactly what made it suspicious.
"There," he said quietly. "It's here."
Before Itachi could respond, the masked man's body began to vanish.
Not by speed, not by stealth - by something far more unsettling. From his right eye, a distortion bloomed like a black vortex, swallowing him from the inside out. Flesh, cloak, even the air around him warped and folded inward, as if he were being pulled into a bottomless hole that had opened in the space where he stood.
Itachi didn't move, but his senses sharpened. He understood immediately: the masked man suspected a barrier - some kind of protective seal around the Choumei jinchūriki, Fū - so he chose the simplest solution.
He didn't break in.
He slipped through.
A space-time ninjutsu.
A method of infiltration that ignored walls, ignored locks, ignored ordinary defense like they were children's toys.
And yet -
The moment the masked man entered, something went wrong.
Because inside that room… the chakra he'd sensed wasn't Fū's.
It was heavier.
Hotter.
More violent, like a storm compressed into a human body.
The Kyuubi' chakra.
Uzumaki Naruto was there.
And he wasn't alone.
Jiraiya.
Hatake Kakashi.
Sai.
Haruno Sakura.
All of them positioned with the quiet readiness of people who didn't truly sleep - not in a village about to be hunted by Akatsuki.
The masked man's single visible eye narrowed.
Jiraiya's gaze was already locked on him, sharp and unmoving, like he'd been waiting for this exact moment.
"So you showed up after all," Jiraiya said, voice low, heavy with certainty. "Akatsuki."
Kakashi didn't waste words. He shifted instantly, the room snapping from "shelter" into "battlefield" in the span of a breath, and at the same time he roused the others with a crisp command - Naruto, Sai, Sakura - dragging them out of sleep and into alertness before confusion could take root.
The masked man glanced at Kakashi, and his voice carried an ugly, personal edge that didn't match the situation - something bitter, intimate, as if an old wound had been pressed.
"Tch."
His eye flicked over Kakashi like he was looking at something rotten.
"Looks like I made a mistake," he said. "This isn't the Choumei jinchūriki's room."
Kakashi's visible eye hardened.
"You were mistaken from the start," he replied evenly. "You shouldn't have ever considered laying a hand on a tailed beast or a jinchūriki."
The masked man threw his head back and laughed, loud and cruel, like the sound was meant to drown out any warning bells in the mind.
"Hatake Kakashi," he said, dripping mockery. "You're still as good with words as ever…"
His tone sharpened like a blade twisting.
"But it's a shame. Because right now, you're nothing but a piece of trash that can only wag his tongue!"
Kakashi's brow furrowed.
He'd felt it before - back during the night of the Uchiha massacre, when he'd encountered this masked man. Even then, the hatred had been strangely personal, unreasonably intense, as if the man had known him for years.
But Kakashi didn't know him.
Not at all.
He took half a step forward, preparing to speak - preparing to demand an answer, to force a crack in the mask.
The masked man didn't give him the chance.
His body began to distort again, rippling like a whirlpool forming in the air around him. Space warped, folding inward toward his right eye, the same black vortex returning - quiet, absolute, confident.
"I have nothing to say to you," he said coldly.
"My target is the Choumei jinchūriki of Takigakure."
"Goodbye."
A deep vibration filled the room, like the air itself had begun to hum.
Kamui.
The space-time technique activated instantly, and the masked man's form began to slip away, dissolving into distortion as he prepared to vanish into his private dimension - untouchable, unreachable, beyond pursuit.
But then -
A soft voice cut through the vibration, calm enough to be almost casual.
"Space Freeze."
Chiba was there.
No warning. No dramatic entrance.
One heartbeat, the room held only Konoha's defenders and the intruder - then suddenly Chiba stood among them as if he had always belonged to that space, his presence so steady it felt like the world corrected itself around him.
He didn't raise his hand.
He didn't form seals.
He simply thought.
And the moment that thought moved -
The warped, spiraling space around the masked man froze solid.
Not metaphorically.
Not "slowed."
It was as if a violently spinning wheel had been jammed with an iron rod at full speed.
Frozen Space.
CRACK - !!!
A thunderous impact erupted through the room, a brutal shockwave of halted distortion snapping outward. The masked man's Kamui was forcibly stopped mid-activation, the space-time pull cut off as though someone had severed the technique's throat.
The backlash was immediate.
His face twisted under the strain - then tore.
Blood erupted. Flesh split. The side of his face around the vortex warped into a grisly mess, as if the technique had tried to pull him apart and, when interrupted, had punished him for daring to exist half-in and half-out of reality.
"What - ?!!"
The masked man's heart jolted.
In that instant, disbelief turned into terror so sharp it almost felt like pain.
Because for the first time in a very long time…
His Kamui had failed.
And it hadn't failed because of timing.
It hadn't failed because of fatigue.
It had failed because someone had reached out and frozen the very space his power depended on.
His single visible eye widened, shaking.
Fear - raw, sudden, and uncontrollable - surged through him like ice water flooding the spine.
_________________________________________________________________________________________________
Additionally, more chapters exclusive content are available on Patreon: https://patreon.com/ImmortalEmperor?utm_medium=unknown&utm_source=join_link&utm_campaign=creatorshare_creator&utm_content=copyLink
- CHRONICLES OF THE ICE SOVEREIGN
-PLAYING ANIME LEGENDS
-THE OTHER WORLD'S ANIMATOR
Join now and help shape the future of the story while enjoying special rewards!