*Konoha, Main Street*
Mitarashi Anko, Yuhi Kurenai, and Yugao Uzuki sat on the bench outside the dango shop, each enthusiastically working their way through a skewer of sweet dumplings.
"Now this is the life! This is what I call living!" Anko beamed, a smear of sweet bean paste clinging to the corner of her mouth. "I'd probably wither up and die of loneliness without my dango!"
"You're laying it on a bit thick, Anko," Kurenai said, her lip twitching in amusement.
"My love for dango is pure and true!" Anko blinked, her expression turning utterly serious. "Wouldn't it be wonderful if a person could marry a dango?"
"Marry... a dango?" Kurenai was at a complete loss for words in the face of her friend's bizarre fantasy.
"You two didn't go to watch the event on the back mountain either?" Yugao's gaze drifted toward the massive plume of dust still rising in the distance, her voice soft. "I heard the Root division developed something incredible."
"Orochimaru is there. Anko doesn't want to see him," Kurenai explained quietly.
"Hmph! I'm not scared of him!" Anko retorted, stiffening her neck defiantly.
"Nobody said you were."
"It's just... that bastard... it's better if we never cross paths again."
"Say what you want, but back then, you actually hoped he would take you with him, didn't you?" Kurenai said abruptly, her eyes fixed on the setting sun. "Your feelings then were probably a lot like how Yugao felt."
"Hey, let's not dig up the past!" Anko didn't deny it, simply shrugging with surprising frankness. "At the very least, I'm probably not in as deep as Yugao-chan was."
As she spoke, both of their eyes turned to Yugao.
As her closest friends, they could see all too clearly that she hadn't moved on. If anything, her longing for the leader of the Land of Waves seemed to have only grown deeper.
This wasn't a good sign. As her friends, they naturally hoped she could find her way out of this emotional fog.
Yugao, of course, understood their unspoken concern. A faint, wistful smile touched her lips before she turned her face away.
[No good?]
[Seems like it...]
Anko and Kurenai exchanged a silent conversation with their eyes. Just then, a beam of dark green light flared into the sky above the village.
"Is that a signal flare from the Hokage building?" Anko frowned, puzzled.
"Dark green... that's the first-level alert signal," Kurenai inhaled sharply. "What happened? Has the Land of Waves invaded?"
"H-Help! Somebody, help!"
A man came stumbling toward them, his face a mask of sheer panic. "A monster! There's a monster!"
Whoosh!
A violent gust of wind swept past as a massive goat, its body armored in white bony plates, crashed into the street before them.
Its eyes radiated savagery, its gaze locking intently onto Kurenai and the others.
"What in the world is that?!" Anko gasped, staring at the monstrous creature.
"Look out, it's coming!"
Kurenai's warning had just left her lips when the goat monster lowered its head and charged.
BOOM!
The front of the sweet shop was pulverized, the ground torn open into a deep furrow.
"Its strength is terrifying!" Anko exclaimed, her eyes wide with a mix of fear and awe. "Is this a new weapon from the Land of Waves?"
Clip-clop, clip-clop.
The goat monster turned, its hooves scraping the ground. With its horns aimed squarely at Anko and Kurenai, it charged again.
Hmmmm.
A sharp, chilling gleam of steel flashed through the air. The goat monster's body abruptly froze mid-lunge.
Splurch.
The creature was cleanly bisected from head to tail, its two halves falling apart as blood sprayed onto the street.
"I-Is it dead?" Kurenai's face was still pale with shock.
Rustle...
The two halves of the monster's body began to dissolve, not into gore, but into strands of silvery-blue light that dissipated into the air like mist.
"What was that?" Curiosity now overtook the fear on Anko's face.
"I don't know. Let's get out of here, now!" Yugao urged, her gaze suddenly snapping toward a rooftop nearby.
"Such keen perception."
On the rooftop, Orochimaru looked down at their retreating figures, his pale, vertical pupils fixed intently on the sword at Yugao's waist.
—
*Land of Waves, Main Office*
"Was the Original Zetsu plan a success?"
Kushina smiled as she looked at the large screen in front of her.
The screen displayed no specific images, only a red background dotted with countless white points.
These points, initially clustered tightly together, were now rapidly scattering in all directions.
Each "white point" represented one of the "Hollow-beasts" developed by Orochimaru and Danzo.
Most of them weren't wreaking havoc within Konoha's walls, but were instead fleeing their birthplace. Given the monsters' incredible speed, they would soon spread across the entire ninja world.
"Told you, everything is proceeding according to plan," Yuto said softly, gently stroking the foot the redheaded wife had propped on his lap. "Now we just wait for these seeds to take root and sprout."
"Hmph." Kushina's cheeks flushed, but she kept her tone nonchalant. "You're a real piece of work, you know. Those two worked so hard on their project, and you just swoop in and steal the fruits of their labour."
"You've got it wrong," Yuto shook his head. "What I'm doing isn't sabotage. On the contrary, it will actually accelerate their research into creating true Arrancar."
"So you're not ruining it, you're helping them?" Mikoto asked with an amused smile.
"I'm helping this entire world," Yuto responded with utter seriousness.
"How touching, oh Savior-sama!" Kushina plopped both feet onto his lap and turned her attention to the computer on her desk. "I'm sure Danzo and Orochimaru would be moved to tears if they knew what you'd done!"
Valley of the End, boot up!
Without hesitation, she instantly locked in Tsunade.
For the record, she was playing on a smurf account. Her main account was already in the Diamond rank, and at her actual skill level, she'd get slaughtered in Diamond tier matches.
To actually have any fun, she had to smurf and enjoy crushing newcomers.
"Oho, someone's already playing Uchiha Madara? He just came out!" Kushina raised an eyebrow. "And they're brave enough to take him into a ranked match?"
Uchiha Madara was the newest champion released in Valley of the End in these past few days.
He had an extremely high skill ceiling and was notoriously difficult to master. In the right hands, he was a god; in the wrong ones, dead weight.
At the moment, very few players could pilot him effectively, let alone risk their rank with him.
"He's on the enemy team? Then this match is in the bag for you!" Mikoto leaned over to offer her assessment.
"And they've got the ID 'IAmNotAMagicalGirl'? Pfft, hilarious!" Kushina snorted. "This guy... he doesn't actually think he is Uchiha Madara, does he?"
'IAmNotAMagicalGirl?'
Yuto, who hadn't been paying much attention, froze upon hearing that ID. His expression shifted slightly.
He remembered that he had provided Uchiha Madara himself with access to Valley of the End just a few days ago. A sliver of doubt crept into his mind.
'No way... it couldn't actually be that much of a coincidence, could it?'
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