Two Months Later — Uzushiogakure
From the summit of his dark tower, Sauron contemplated the work patiently shaped by his will.
Winds heavy with sea spray and ash swirled around the ruins of Uzushiogakure, obeying the artificial currents born from the ancient pits of Isengard. Where once stood a symbol of resistance and knowledge now rose the beating heart of a reborn power.
The Dark Lord was satisfied.
The Empire—once rotted by corruption, incompetence, and decadence—had been shattered… and then rebuilt. Esdeath had seized power with brutal efficiency, exactly as he had foreseen. Under her rule, the old nobility had been swept away without mercy, erased within mere weeks.
Grievous had overseen the military purges with surgical precision. Saeko, for her part, eliminated the last internal opponents—corrupt officers and venal bureaucrats alike. There were no trials. No debates. Only verdicts.
The remaining rebels were executed to the last.
All except a handful of Night Raid members who had managed to flee before the net fully closed. Sauron did not concern himself with them. Survivors are only dangerous when they still have a future—and he had already decided theirs.
The Empire was now an absolute meritocracy. Birth held no value. Only loyalty, competence, and the ability to serve his vision mattered. Soldiers fought with fervor, convinced they were defending a new order, free of the hypocrisy of the old regime.
And above all… they were preparing.
Blacksmiths, alchemists, engineers, and strategists worked day and night. Entire legions trained without rest. Armories filled. Banners bearing the Flaming Eye multiplied.
The Great War was approaching.
Deep within his fortress, Sauron turned part of his attention to his most recent success.
Akeno Himejima.
Through her, eight of his greatest servants had once more walked the world. The Nazgûl were no longer memories or legends whispered by trembling sages—they had returned as warlords.
Over the past month, the young priestess had left the Underworld to settle in Uzushiogakure. There, under the merciless gaze of her new masters, she had been broken… and then reforged.
The Nazgûl granted her neither mercy nor indulgence. They forced her to confront her fears, her anger, her deepest buried desires. They tore from her soul every useless weakness, leaving only fury, will, and absolute faith.
Now, she was capable of facing three Nazgûl at once—and surviving.
Lightning answered her call like that of an ancient deity. Her mana, once chaotic, had become a honed weapon. She fully embodied her title as Priestess of Thunder—and soon, that of Herald of the Dark Lord.
Sauron then turned his gaze toward the future.
Through his palantír, he saw old enemies stirring. The remnants of the White Council were slowly gathering their forces, still believing that light and shadow were locked in an ancient, understood struggle.
They knew nothing.
They believed they were facing a Lord of Light…
…unaware that a Dark Lord was pulling the strings from the shadows.
A cold joy filled Sauron at the thought.
Very soon, their faces would freeze.
Very soon, they would understand.
But it would be far too late.
Suddenly, something disturbed his fortress.
A presence.
Subtle. Slithering. Calculating.
A serpent.
Sauron slowly turned his gaze away from the palantír. He felt neither anger nor surprise—only measured curiosity. He had long known that certain beings would eventually sense the call of Uzushiogakure.
Kabuto Yakushi…
An imperceptible smile stretched across the shadow of his face.
In any case, his arrival was most timely.
A trial was necessary.
To test the vigilance of his defenses.
And above all… to measure the worth of his herald.
The serpent had entered the lair.
Now let us see whether it would emerge alive.
On One of the Beaches of Uzushiogakure
Kabuto froze, stunned by the spectacle before him. A colossal army—greater than anything the Elemental Nations had ever known—stood assembled from the most ancient legends. Thousands of Uruks and other servants of the Dark Lord rose from pits scattered across the island. This was no wild, chaotic horde, but a perfectly disciplined army, ready to deploy at the slightest command of its master.
Kabuto began to question his presence on this accursed land. Even he, accustomed to the darkest aspects of the world, felt a deep unease at the sight of so many malevolent creatures gathered beneath a single banner. And yet, the secrets hidden within the Dark Tower were far too tempting for him to turn back now.
Advancing under an invisibility jutsu, Kabuto moved with extreme caution. Every step was measured, every breath controlled. Still, despite all his precautions, he suddenly felt the ground distort beneath his feet.
The earth rippled like a restless sea, and several figures erupted around him simultaneously. Ten shinobi with blood-red hair emerged from the ground in perfect unison, their bodies seemingly sculpted by decades of training and discipline. They wore dark attire reinforced with light armor engraved with spiral motifs and ancient glyphs. Their eyes were cold—devoid of hatred, devoid of pity.
Kabuto instinctively tried to leap backward, but they were already moving.
Their arms rose as one.
Hand seals were executed with mechanical precision, and a translucent barrier instantly formed before their outstretched palms. It expanded and closed around Kabuto like a living prison, vibrating with dense, ancient chakra.
"Tch…" Kabuto thought as he unleashed a barrage of ninjutsu.
Chakra serpents, blades of wind, then an inverted medical jutsu slammed into the barrier—only to be absorbed, deflected, or dissipated without the slightest apparent effort. Kabuto tried something more brutal, pouring in even more chakra, but the barrier merely pulsed, unbroken.
He stepped back, heart pounding.
Watching it closely, he understood.
Uzumaki sealing symbols were engraved directly into the structure of the barrier—interwoven, layered, so complex that no other clan could have reproduced them. This was no simple defensive fūinjutsu… it was a cage designed to imprison monsters.
He could hardly believe his eyes.
So the Uzumaki clan had truly survived.
More than that… it was thriving. Organized. And judging by what he was witnessing, preparing a methodical revenge against the Elemental Nations that had once tried to annihilate it.
Before Kabuto could delve deeper into this revelation, a scream tore through the air—a howl so laden with hatred and power that it seemed to make the entire island tremble.
<< Cry of the fell beasts >>
Eight winged creatures entered the barrier without meeting the slightest resistance. Their serpentine bodies undulated with a sickly grace, their bat-like wings beating the air slowly, as though the world itself were compelled to yield before them.
Upon their backs stood eight riders.
Draped in dark cloaks and mantles, they revealed not a single inch of skin. Their presence crushed the space around them, suffocating the surrounding chakra. Kabuto felt the difference immediately.
"These aren't shinobi… they're something else."
One of them moved slightly forward. His voice echoed like a funeral toll.
"You dare tread upon the lands of our master, crawling vermin. You cannot begin to imagine how deeply you will regret this."
Kabuto forced a laugh, though sweat was beginning to bead along the back of his neck.
"Kukuku… there's no need for such hostility. Take me to your master, and I guarantee he will be delighted to meet me."
The rider tilted his head slightly, almost amused.
"Hmph. Bold words for a small reptile. But you possess nothing that could interest our lord."
The atmosphere suddenly grew heavier.
Kabuto understood that he had crossed a point of no return.
Without hesitation, he invoked the Edo Tensei. Five coffins burst from the ground with a dull crash—but the instant they appeared, a black energy coiled around them, crushing the lids and preventing any from opening.
Kabuto went pale.
"They're blocking even that…"
Panic slowly crept into his mind. Every move, every attempt, every calculation was being anticipated and neutralized. His options were vanishing by the second.
Khamûl slowly raised his hand toward the sky.
"You will not fight us…" he said coldly."…but her."
Raising his eyes, Kabuto felt his breath catch in his throat.
She floated in midair, motionless, as if the very laws of gravity refused to apply to her. A young woman of unreal beauty, suspended within a halo of crackling lightning. Long black hair flowed around her face, stirred by an unseen energy, while her dark priestess garments clung to her form with unsettling elegance.
From her back burst eight wings.
Four membranous wings, bat-like in shape, unfurled on her right side, pulsing with demonic energy. On her left, four vast black feathered wings spread wide—majestic, ominous—reminiscent of fallen angels.
Her skin was deathly pale, almost translucent, standing in stark contrast to the tattoo of a single eye etched into her forehead. The iris within that mark shifted slightly, as though it were observing Kabuto independently of her own will.
Under normal circumstances, even Kabuto—long accustomed to the darkest experiments and the most grotesque bodies—might have found such an appearance captivating.
But not this time.
No desire stirred within him.
Only a chilling certainty.
His instincts, sharpened by years of survival and manipulation, screamed in unison. This woman was not merely powerful.
She was beyond classification.
A slow, deceptively gentle smile curved the priestess's lips.
"Ara~ Ara~"
Her voice was a venomous caress—sweet, intimate—yet every syllable made the air tremble like a death omen.
"At last, I get to put into practice what I've learned… on someone. Please, allow me to thank you for your sacrifice."
Before Kabuto could even form a hand seal, lightning erupted.
Bluish-white bolts tore through the air with surgical precision. Kabuto barely dodged in time, feeling electricity graze his skin and gnaw at his chakra. His red cloak was shredded in an instant, reduced to smoking tatters, revealing his true nature: cold, scaly skin and a serpentine lower body writhing in the dust.
"Kuchiyose no Jutsu!"
With a thunderous crash, a gigantic serpent burst from the ground, venom dripping from its fangs as it lunged toward the priestess in blind fury.
Akeno smiled.
A genuine smile.
Sadistic.
With a mere flick of her hand, she summoned dozens of sacred energy spears, condensed from purified lightning. They rained down upon the creature like divine judgment. The serpent's scales shattered one by one, utterly unable to withstand such power. Within seconds, its body was riddled through and through, pinned to the ground in a spray of searing light and burned flesh.
Kabuto barely managed to activate a shedding technique, leaving behind an empty husk impaled by a lightning spear. But the maneuver came at a cost—one he felt immediately. His chakra reserves were plummeting.
He attempted a Katon jutsu, spewing a wave of fire—but the flames dissipated the moment they touched the lightning barrier now surrounding Akeno. The electricity formed a living, vibrating dome—impenetrable.
That was when Kabuto understood the magnitude of his mistake.
He was trapped.
The Nazgûl blocked his summons.The Uzumaki barrier sealed off all escape.Even the earth itself refused to answer his Doton.
And before him stood an entity who was playing with him.
Despite his genius, Kabuto could find no solution. He was difficult to kill, yes—but he had never been a true fighter. Not against an opponent like this.
Twenty minutes.
Twenty minutes of fleeing, shedding, desperate attempts.
Then his body gave out.
He collapsed to the ground, gasping, emptied, crawling through the dust like a wounded animal.
"Im… impossible…" he thought, panic drowning all logic."I can't die here… not like this! I am the heir to Orochimaru-sama's work… I don't have the right to die!"
A footstep echoed behind him.
Slow.Heavy.Inevitable.
Akeno placed her foot on his back—directly atop one of his still-open wounds. The pressure was unbearable.
"Ara~ Ara~," she murmured with amusement."Where do you think you're going, under my watch?"
Needles of lightning plunged into his wounds, racing through his nervous system with methodical cruelty. Kabuto screamed silently as his body convulsed in agony. He—who had tortured countless prisoners, dissected countless bodies—now understood in horror what it meant to be truly helpless.
Then the air shifted.
A presence older—far more oppressive—manifested.
Akeno straightened at once, her sadistic expression vanishing, replaced by a deep, almost reverent bow.
Sauron was there.
"You fought well, Akeno.I shall reward you by personally teaching you how to break the human mind."
Kabuto's heart froze.
This was not a threat.
It was a promise.
Had he been able to move, he would have taken his own life on the spot.
Akeno lifted her head, cheeks faintly flushed, eyes shining with genuine excitement.
"It will be my greatest pleasure, my lord."
And in that moment, Kabuto understood that death would have been a mercy.
Note author:
hi everyone! I hope you enjoyed the chapter.I'm very busy this week, but I'll do my best to release another chapter soon.
Please don't hesitate to comment, leave Power Stones, or write a review—your support truly motivates me and keeps me going.
If you have any character suggestions you'd like to see introduced, feel free to share them. Thanks to a friend's feedback, I've decided to introduce a few angels from the Diablo universe, so I'm absolutely open to your ideas.
Thank you all for your support—it really means a lot to me. 🙏