With her own strength and abilities, even if Ino wanted to die, it would be very difficult.
"Although I'm weak, you don't need to go out of your way to protect me... because I also want to protect you," Rather than becoming a burden, Ino preferred quietly watching the boy she liked become a hero.
However...
How strange, there clearly wasn't that kind of atmosphere.
But somehow it felt like a mutual confession?
It was the first time Ino heard Uchiha Kage so firmly say he wanted to protect her.
It felt like joy smashed right into her heart, making her so happy it felt unreal.
"Kage, we…", Grabbing the boy's palm, Ino finally couldn't hold back and mustered the courage to go for it.
They'd already expressed their feelings to each other. Now if she just said the words, she could become his girlfriend, right?
Snap!
A dry twig broke underfoot.
At some point, the blue-haired girl who had been lying on the ground suddenly twisted her body strangely and started walking toward the cave entrance.
"You…", Uchiha Kage, of course, noticed Konan's odd behavior.
And at the same time, he also sensed more strange things.
Outside... there was something strange out there.
"Konan, where are you going?"
Seeing the blue-haired girl run out the moment she woke up, Ino couldn't continue her confession and quickly ran forward to block her.
But what made her even more confused was that the blue-haired girl didn't even glance at her, only muttered something softly and continued forward with a dazed smile.
"Genjutsu? Or…"
Had she gone insane due to the trauma from earlier?
Ino tried to grab the girl again, but the other suddenly sped up and left her grasp, her figure quickly vanishing into the darkness outside.
At the moment their bodies passed by each other, Ino finally heard Konan's whisper clearly.
"Mom is waiting for me"?
She really was mentally unwell…
"Kage, we…"
Just as Ino was about to go with Uchiha Kage to bring Konan back, he said something hard to understand.
"There are many soul bodies appearing outside."
"Soul bodies?"
"You can think of them as the souls of the dead."
"Huh?"
Ino looked completely baffled.
Do souls really exist in this world?
Why did it feel like Kage was acting strange too...
Could this still be just a dream?
Feeling a bit dazed, Ino followed behind Uchiha Kage and soon ran out of the cave.
But outside, she saw only the pitch-black forest and the equally charred village at the mountain's base.
Where were the souls?
"So this is why the mission data got corrupted?"
Though Ino couldn't see anything, Uchiha Kage's vision was different.
At the base of the mountain, the village and the nearby forest were filled with faint glimmers of soul light, like fireflies, weak yet numerous.
And these soul bodies now seemed to be gathering at the center of the scorched village as if following some command.
As for Konan, who had suddenly woken and strangely run out, she was also heading in that direction.
"So... she didn't just faint? She's close to death?"
Possessing fragments of the Shinigami and part of its power, Uchiha Kage could now clearly see Konan's condition.
Severely frightened and starving, now led by a strange energy, she was nearing death.
"But to think it would appear in a place like this. How strange."
Compared to Konan, Uchiha Kage was more surprised by what was appearing in the burned village's center. A tall phantom, vague and hazy but slowly taking form.
With purple skin, dressed in a white robe, long graying hair with two demon-like horns, and a strange dagger in its mouth…
The Shinigami, it had appeared in this world without anyone summoning it.
And it was drawing all the surrounding soul bodies toward it.
Like the opening of a grand "Night Parade of a Hundred Demons."
"The Shinigami? If I could kill it here, maybe I could get more Shinigami fragments?"
The Shinigami fragment he got from the mask earlier wasn't enough for Uchiha Kage to gain all its powers.
Just the one soul-absorbing ability wasn't satisfying.
If he could gain its sealing power, without the cost of life or soul, that would be ideal.
"What appeared? I still don't see anything."
Ino was still utterly confused.
"Wait here a while. I'll go bring Konan back."
Placing a special Flying Thunder God kunai in Ino's hand, Uchiha Kage vanished into the night.
"Kage…"
Still completely lost, Ino could only hold the kunai and return to the cave.
———
On the other side—
Just as Uchiha Kage used the Flying Thunder God technique to appear beside Konan, a new white figure emerged in the scene of the Shinigami and the soul parade.
"This is?"
Also with two horns on his head, also in a white robe, but with six black tomoe symbols on his chest, a white-bearded old man slowly appeared near the Shinigami.
And that black-ringed staff...
This scene reminded Uchiha Kage of the one he saw in the first dungeon mission.
The Sage of Six Paths… this guy, no, this "good son", why is he here too?
"Mom…"
In a daze, Konan saw everything around her turn into a pitch-black ocean.
Everyone looked like glowing jellyfish swimming in this dark sea.
All heading toward the warmest, most alluring spot ahead.
Among the glowing "jellyfish," Konan saw her mother. And she herself began to feel lighter, as if she were escaping gravity.
"So cold… take me with you."
Stopping made her feel unbearably cold, only moving forward gave warmth, only then could she see her mother…
But her body was too heavy. As she dragged her feet, it became harder to move.
She wanted to abandon her body and become a "jellyfish" like the others.
Thinking this, her body began to emit the same faint glow. A transparent version of herself started to emerge from within.
But just as it came out—
A hand suddenly patted her shoulder.
"Finally made it."
"..."
Konan, whose soul nearly left her body, felt herself slammed back into it.
Her consciousness began to return.
"So… so warm…"
But this warmth wasn't from the illusion ahead, it came from the hand on her shoulder.
A continuous flow of heat entered her body from that palm.
"It's not time to die yet."
Uchiha Kage used chakra to stabilize the girl whose soul had nearly escaped.
"Did you forget what you said before? I helped you, and you said you'd do anything. Are you going back on your word now?"
"I… but Mom… and everyone…"
In a daze, Konan saw her dead mother waving to her again, along with villagers smiling at her.
"That's just an illusion created by the Shinigami."
Uchiha Kage waved a finger before her eyes.
"Look again, what's really in front of you?"
"The… Shinigami?"
Konan snapped to attention, blinked her bright eyes, and looked around.
Everywhere was burnt ruins. The waving mother and smiling villagers didn't exist. There was only a towering phantom in the village's center.
And those glowing orbs around it weren't jellyfish, but souls.
The souls were lining up dazedly in front of the phantom, letting its massive hands pick them up and stuff them into its mouth to chew.
"It really is the… Shinigami…"
Seeing the massive phantom monster crazily devour souls like a starving demon, Konan was so horrified she almost lost her voice.
"No, if this continues, Mom will also…"
She'll be eaten!
Konan quickly grabbed Uchiha Kage's sleeve for help.
"Being eaten might not be a bad thing. They'll enter reincarnation."
Though the Shinigami now looked like a soul-devouring demon, Uchiha Kage knew, thanks to the fragments, that souls devoured this way had their memories and resentment cleansed, becoming pure souls to enter the cycle of reincarnation.
"Of course, if we follow that white-bearded old man's method, your mother's soul can stay in the Pure Land."
Which was better, Uchiha Kage couldn't say.
But seeing the Shinigami like this, it was clear the Sage of Six Paths had restricted it for a very long time.
Probably ever since he created the Pure Land where dead souls could exist, the Shinigami hadn't carried out its duty or instinct of devouring souls.
"White beard…", Instinctively, Konan looked and indeed saw another elderly man in a white robe beside the Shinigami.
"Shinigami! Back then, it was you who forced Asura and Indra into reincarnation, throwing the Shinobi World into chaos! I warned you not to devour souls again! Stop this at once!"
With the Sage of Six Paths' stern rebuke, the Shinigami clearly slowed its soul-devouring actions.
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