Izayoi had no idea that his actions had inspired Momochi Zabuza, pushing him onto a different path as a rogue ninja.
Having collected the materials needed to craft human puppets and chakra cores, Izayoi didn't immediately return to Konoha.
During this stretch of time, once every three days he would create a shadow clone with a massive amount of chakra and send it back to the village, swapping places with the nearly expiring clone. Apart from Hinata and Hanabi, no one knew that the "Izayoi" in the village was merely a clone.
Since Izayoi had already informed the Hyūga sisters of his plans, he wasn't in any rush to return. Instead, he adopted another identity and linked up with a clone that had gone around looting the rest of Gato's hidden treasures, so he could total up the spoils from this operation.
He discovered that it was impossible to even calculate the full extent of Gato's assets.
Within Gato's hoard, the most valuable items weren't the piles of bills or even the gold bars and jewelry, but rather all those property deeds. If Gato bothered to hide them, then obviously they weren't worthless. They included buildings and shops in premium locations across various countries.
Selling off just a few of those deeds would already earn Izayoi more than several times Sarutobi Asuma's bounty.
Well and truly wealthy, Izayoi first used the deeds to locate a villa Gato had purchased in the Land of Fire, then in the same city bought a tailor's shop, leaving a shadow clone behind to learn the craft from the shop's seamstresses and designers.
Meanwhile, his real body didn't return to Konoha. Instead, he carried two large, empty storage scrolls and left the Land of Fire for the Land of Rivers.
Rumble...
Dark clouds rumbled overhead in some mountain village. Before long, a light rain began to fall.
Even so, just outside the village, at the mouth of a mine, shirtless workers continued hauling cart after cart of minerals, and the sounds of digging still echoed within. A ways off from the mine lay a stretch of ground filled with tombstones. Now, several people in black raincoats were gathered around a coffin that had just been lowered into the ground, holding a funeral for the person inside.
"Ah... why did someone as good as you have to die? It pains me... it pains me so much!"
The person in the lead cried out in an exaggerated display, pouring his feelings out. But none of the surrounding onlookers felt sadness; their gazes revealed only fear toward that "head of the clan." In their eyes, the clan chief was a volatile individual who might bury someone alive at the slightest provocation.
"Hey, Raiga. I sense a powerful chakra heading this way."
Right then, as their chief was theatrically performing his laments, a childish voice spoke from under the bulge of a raincoat behind him, sounding a bit flustered: "Be careful—he can fly!"
Hearing this, the tearful leader, Kurosuki Raiga, promptly dropped his act, adopting a grim expression and looking to the sky.
Through the rain haze, a black silhouette descended.
"Lightning Release: Lightning Ball!"
Before the figure had even touched the ground or spoken a word, Raiga whipped out two oddly shaped blades, crossing them overhead. Lightning-natured chakra gathered at their points, forming a glowing blue-white sphere, which he then fired upward in a burst.
Watching the lightning ball approach, the descending figure simply extended a palm from within his sleeve, splaying his fingers wide. Instantly, it was as if that thunder ball had hit an invisible wall, exploding with a sound like fireworks. Countless arcs of electricity flared and vanished.
"Indeed, I wasn't mistaken—it's you, Kurosuki Raiga…and the possessor of that 'red-eye' Kekkei Genkai," Izayoi said with a smile. "I let the real ones slip away, so I guess you bootleg copies will do for my human puppets."
"I'm in a hurry—let's finish this fast. Universal Pull (Banshō Ten'in)!"
Invisible gravitational force, like a giant unseen hand, grabbed hold of Raiga on the ground and jerked him upward.
"No hand signs, and there's nothing visible? What on earth kind of jutsu is this?!"
Raiga's eyes showed alarm, but his movements were quick—he crossed his blades again, channeling a massive amount of chakra into them, converting it all into Lightning Release.
"Lightning Release: Fangs of Lightning!"
The twin blades crackled with electricity, launching arcs of lightning at Izayoi in rapid succession like laser beams. That was Raiga's signature technique—akin to Kakashi's Chidori. If the bolts missed, they would shoot into the clouds overhead and merge with them, turning into lightning strikes.
"Your jutsu's not bad, and your blades are decent…but that's all I can praise," Izayoi remarked, extending both arms. An emerald dome formed in the air, twisting as though under immense pressure from within.
"Shinra Tensei (Almighty Push)!"
At Izayoi's command, that dome—like a balloon filled to bursting—suddenly ruptured. The wave of repulsive force within surged forth, instantly dispersing the rain and slamming the now gravity-released Raiga back down, along with the fleeing Kurosuki clan below him.
Boom—!
The thunderous detonation reverberated across the mountain village. Everyone working inside the mine or living in the village could hear it. Those closest to the mine even felt the tunnels shake violently, though thankfully they didn't collapse.
When the rain once again started falling, and the wind cleared the dust and smoke, the once-crowded graveyard had been replaced by a gigantic crater. The entire Kurosuki clan was annihilated.
As for Raiga, who had intimately collided with the ground under that repulsive force, his limbs and ribs were shattered, and he bled profusely from his organs. Yet before crashing down, Raiga had hurled aside his twin blades to shield the boy behind him—Ranmaru—so the latter survived rather than dying on the spot, albeit severely injured as well.
Landing in the crater, Izayoi saw Raiga coughing blood, speaking feebly: "I beg…spare…Ranmaru…"
"And what about the people you killed—did they also beg you to spare them?" Izayoi scoffed. "You call yourself an elite rogue ninja, yet you're this naive?"
With that, Izayoi used gravitational force to pull Raiga's twin blades into his hand, but made no move to slay Raiga or Ranmaru right away. Instead, he grinned and said to Raiga, "Let's carry out a little experiment. Do something useful with your dying moments."
Izayoi formed a one-handed seal and created a shadow clone with only a small amount of chakra. The real Izayoi and his clone each clutched one of Raiga's blades and poured lightning-nature chakra into them—like grabbing hold of raw lightning.
Together, they hurled the electrified swords, skewering both Raiga and Ranmaru's bodies. Yet the spectacle Izayoi had hoped for never appeared.
Neither Raiga nor Ranmaru produced any skill-or-talent "entry."
"Shadow clones and killing them don't seem to raise the drop rate. Are there seriously no other ways to boost it?" Izayoi wondered inwardly. "Chakra definitely isn't the yardstick for power; otherwise, besides Jinchūriki and Naruto, who else could provide me with new entries? So how exactly is 'strength' judged? If it's purely about entries, the entire ninja world could only give me so many from age three onward. But back in class, some got entries anyway—so it's not about that. Is it about the jutsu they use, or their overall performance?"
Gazing at the corpses of Raiga and Ranmaru, Izayoi murmured, "I'll try this method one more time. If it doesn't work, I'll have to be more heavy-handed, maybe inconvenience the entire shinobi world."
"After all, with the loadout I've got, how could I let people with weaker setups catch up to my decade-plus of effort in just a few short years?"
No one could fathom Izayoi's anxiety.
~~~
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