"Kh… kh… kh… AAH—!"
The moment Rasa's soul slammed into the old shinobi's body, the man's eyes rolled back and his aura surged violently—like a lamp being force-fed oil.
But at the same time, Feiyu could clearly feel it:
a dead yin soul colliding with a living man's yang vitality.
It was a head-on clash.
And honestly, the only reason this even worked so smoothly was because the old man showed zero resistance. If he'd tried to fight it, forcing the soul-overlay might've failed outright.
Even now that the overlay had succeeded, the yin–yang conflict immediately began eating away at him. His swelling aura started to collapse.
Feiyu didn't waste time.
He seized control of Rasa's soul and made the old shinobi execute Magnet Release on instinct—before the body could reject the overlay completely.
"Magnet Release—Gold Dust Great Burial!"
In an instant, gold dust erupted from beneath the training ground, surging up like a buried river breaking the earth. It piled and pressed into a massive, tomb-like structure of glittering sand-gold.
The watching Suna shinobi went bug-eyed.
"Magnet Release… it's really Magnet Release!"
"That's the Fourth Kazekage's Gold Dust technique—Sunagakure has Magnet Release again!"
"Thank the heavens… I thought the Gold Dust line was going to die out!"
"If even old man Shirasuna can awaken it, doesn't that mean my chances are even better?!"
Feiyu's gaze slid across the crowd and lingered briefly on one kunoichi.
He didn't share their blind optimism.
Because the one who had just "cast" Magnet Release wasn't truly the old man.
It was still Rasa's soul doing the work.
Only after the soul left—only if the shinobi could fuse his own chakra into Magnet Release—would it count as a real awakening.
Feiyu lifted his hand and pulled Rasa's soul back out.
The "Great Burial" immediately crumbled, the gold dust losing cohesion and collapsing.
Shirasuna's body trembled. His breathing turned ragged. His aura shrank rapidly, leaving him looking like a man who hadn't slept in days.
Feiyu spoke in a calm, practical tone.
"Now, feel your chakra."
"Remember that sensation."
"Recreate the fusion yourself. If you succeed, you'll generate Magnet Release chakra—and that's your kekkei genkai."
Shirasuna, panting, forced his hands into seals. He desperately replayed the feeling of Magnet Release chakra moving through his body while Rasa's soul was inside him.
He was old. His stamina and chakra had declined heavily. The backlash from soul-overlay hit him harder than it would a younger shinobi.
But the long years had given him something too:
Among these Sand Control users, his nature transformation and chakra-shaping were top-tier. He had the "understanding," even if his body was worn down.
As his Wind and Earth chakra fused again, it felt like piercing the last layer of paper—
A new chakra quality sparked into existence.
His own Magnet Release chakra.
The moment it appeared, it dyed all of his chakra with a new attribute. His bloodline responded as if a locked gate had finally been opened. The withered aura in his body surged back up, stubbornly rising again.
Shirasuna's eyes widened with wild joy.
He didn't care that he was weak and trembling. He slammed his hands into seals again.
"Magnet Release—Gold Dust Great Burial!"
BOOM—!
Gold dust shuddered and gathered, rebuilding into shape.
But this time the scale and force were clearly far below what Feiyu had forced out earlier.
At best, Shirasuna's output was about one-third of what "he" had produced under Rasa's soul.
Feiyu wasn't surprised.
Shirasuna's "hardware" was too poor. Even when Rasa's soul had been piloting, it couldn't output full power—nearly half was shaved off by the host body's limits.
And now that Shirasuna was doing it himself…
His Magnet Release was roughly one-sixth of Rasa's peak.
That put him around ordinary elite jōnin level—likely the weakest Magnet Release user Sunagakure had ever produced.
But given that he wasn't truly a "bloodline-grade" candidate to begin with, this result was still normal.
Once he recovered from the weakness period—and once Magnet Release chakra fully reshaped his body—his strength would rise further. Feiyu estimated it might reach roughly double this level…
Which still only amounted to about one-third of Rasa's lifetime output.
Still, for Sunagakure?
Even that was worth celebrating.
Feiyu turned his head slightly and spoke to the crowd—cooling their excitement before it turned into delusion.
"Don't celebrate too early. The real test is whether he can fuse it himself."
He paused, then his eyes drifted again—back to the same kunoichi.
A woman watching Shirasuna's gold dust with a complicated, almost nostalgic expression.
Karura.
The widow of the Fourth Kazekage.
In the canon story, she died giving birth to Gaara. People remembered her as little more than "the mom of the sand shield."
But the chakra she left behind later had supported Gaara even on the Fourth War battlefield.
That meant one thing:
Karura's sand control had reached an extremely high realm—possibly already brushing the threshold of Kage-level.
As if sensing Feiyu's attention, Karura stepped forward gently.
"I'll go next," she said softly. "My chances should be better than most."
She watched the process with sharp insight.
"This method… it's using an external force to perform Magnet Release inside the body once, then letting the shinobi imitate it through stimulation."
"That's far more direct than reading a scroll."
"If you repeat it enough times, even a dull shinobi should eventually learn Magnet Release."
Feiyu nodded under his mask.
"Correct."
"The better your Wind and Earth foundations—and the higher your Sand Control mastery—the higher the success rate."
"With your level, madam… you're almost guaranteed to succeed in one try."
Karura's lips curved faintly.
"Then I'll take your blessing."
"Let's begin."
Feiyu summoned Rasa's soul again.
Usually, the souls he held were suppressed by Warden of Wandering Souls, their consciousness crushed down to silence. He didn't chat with them—if a thousand souls each spoke a single sentence, his head would explode.
Sakumo was the exception.
But now, as Rasa's soul appeared, it trembled faintly.
Feiyu clicked his tongue internally.
So he senses his wife.
Even dead, a Kage-level soul is stubborn. Or maybe he just… remembered her too deeply.
Even so, under suppression, all Rasa could do was tremble.
Feiyu didn't allow more.
He slapped the soul forward.
Rasa's soul shot into Karura's body almost eagerly.
Karura stiffened. A haze entered her eyes.
But unlike Shirasuna, Rasa's soul felt… gentle.
It reined in its yin aura as much as possible, easing her burden.
Even so, a bound soul's yin still harmed a living body, so Feiyu immediately made the soul cast the technique once.
"Magnet Release—Gold Dust Great Burial!"
Gold dust surged up again.
Feiyu pulled the soul out.
And the moment it left—
Karura's body swayed. She formed seals without hesitation and cast the technique again herself.
"Magnet Release—Gold Dust Great Burial!"
The gold dust gathered, stable and powerful—not inferior to the first cast at all.
Feiyu's eyes narrowed.
As expected.
Once Karura's bloodline fully awakened and her body stabilized, her strength would likely be close to Rasa's level.
Karura lowered her hands slowly, her expression drifting into a hollow ache.
She touched her cheek and froze.
Two trails of tears had slipped down without her noticing.
That feeling just now…
Why did it feel so much like Rasa?
Of course, she could never imagine the truth—that her dead husband's soul had just overlaid her body.
Feiyu's soul-tech didn't carry chakra, only spiritual force. Standard sensory ninjutsu couldn't detect it at all.
Feiyu spoke calmly.
"Good. You succeeded in one try."
Karura blinked, coming back to herself fully. She felt Magnet Release chakra reshaping her body and couldn't suppress a small spark of joy.
Most women withdrew to the rear after marriage and childbirth.
But Karura wasn't "most women."
In the current Sunagakure, she was easily top five—maybe top three.
With the village's situation collapsing, she demanded more strength from herself, not less.
Her eyes steadied.
"Rasa…"
"Your dream… I'll fulfill it for you."
Two consecutive successes massively encouraged the remaining shinobi.
Then reality slapped them.
One after another, seven or eight shinobi stepped up—underwent the soul-overlay stimulation—and still failed to awaken Magnet Release.
They left with nothing but drained blood and weakened bodies.
That was the normal outcome.
Even with Rasa's soul serving as a "template," if your foundation wasn't deep enough, you simply couldn't force a kekkei genkai awake in one go.
Only near the very end did one more Sand Control shinobi get lucky and awaken Magnet Release—
But his output was even weaker than Shirasuna's.
When the session ended, Feiyu retracted Rasa's soul.
Its glow had dimmed noticeably.
Soul-overlay didn't just grind down living bodies—it also damaged the soul itself.
Which meant that no matter how unwilling the failed shinobi felt…
Feiyu wouldn't give them another attempt in the short term.
Partly because a second overlay too soon would cause far worse harm.
Mostly because—
Rasa's soul couldn't take it.
Pakura, receiving the results, couldn't hide the joy at the corner of her lips.
"Three Magnet Release users…" she murmured, genuinely relieved. "That's a good success rate. This is wonderful."
Especially because all three awakened gold dust.
In raw combat, gold dust was weaker than iron sand.
But in Sunagakure's current situation, the ability to mine gold was far more valuable than a battlefield advantage.
Before the awakening session, Pakura had already set the rule:
The village would support their awakening—but after that, each of them must contribute a yearly quota of gold dust to patch the village's finances.
Even if the two non-Karura users were far below Rasa's level, three people together could generate more gold dust than Rasa alone ever did.
With that income, Sunagakure's collapsing budget could finally breathe again.
Feiyu looked at the disappointed faces and added, voice level:
"Don't despair."
"After half a year, this secret technique can be used again."
"And after experiencing it once, your chance of awakening next time will increase."
Half a year was the recovery period Feiyu estimated for Rasa's soul.
But even after recovery, this method had a ceiling.
Feiyu's own calculation was cold and clear:
First overlay: weakness, minor backlash.
Second overlay: heavier backlash, clear lifespan wear begins.
Third overlay: likely costs 3–5 years of life.
Fourth overlay: costs half your life—twenty to thirty years of lifespan.
Fifth overlay: almost certainly death.
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