Chapter 107 – Chūnin Exams
〖Year Three〗
You and Deidara returned to Iwagakure.
Uchiha Itachi's head was severed by your blade. Ōnoki held a grand ceremony in your honor to mourn the Uchiha clan members who perished on the Night of Annihilation.
Afterward, you extracted and sealed both of Itachi's eyes for safekeeping.
You also absorbed the remaining blood from his severed limbs, and discovered that your bloodline concentration and Ocular Power had seemingly reached a new level.
You gained the ability to activate Susanoo in advance!
However, it's only a partial manifestation—either just armor or briefly forming a giant fist to launch at the enemy. The chakra cost on your eyes is still extremely high.
In actual combat, you figured it would only be viable in moments of sudden ambush or surprise counterattacks.
You suspect this is because you absorbed traces of Itachi's chakra when taking in his blood.
After all, your dōjutsu lacks the Yang Release, making its awakening incomplete. Your bloodline absorption is still crude and incapable of filtering out foreign chakra. That's also why, to this day, you've only absorbed blood from other Uchiha...
...
Some time later, Granny Yukina passed away peacefully in her sleep on a warm afternoon.
Her advanced age, along with the life force she once had drained by Wood Release, finally took its toll.
Fortunately, before her passing, she lived long enough to see both traitors—Obito and Uchiha Itachi—die.
It gave her some peace of mind.
...
Not long after, Ōnoki issued a new policy:
He called upon all Earth Country shinobi to participate in the "Great Land-Turning" campaign.
Regardless of whether they hailed from Iwagakure, belonged to an unaffiliated ninja clan, or were nobles raising their own ninja...
As long as they met Iwagakure's requirements and used Earth Release to conduct deep tilling, they would receive stipends once verified by the ANBU.
If they discovered anything suspicious, they were to report it immediately to Iwagakure—and could receive additional rewards like jutsu scrolls or ninja tools!
Of course, this wasn't out of the kindness of Ōnoki's heart.
The true goal of this campaign was to use Earth Release to eradicate the White Zetsu lurking throughout the topsoil of the Earth Country—and eliminate their major hideouts!
It was a strategic move to establish widespread information security within the Earth Country.
At the same time, it also functioned as a military training exercise.
The shinobi assigned to eliminate White Zetsu were specially trained in advance, educated on how to deal with them efficiently—ensuring minimal losses while maximizing combat experience.
Naturally, this further boosted Ōnoki's prestige throughout the nation.
Ōnoki hoped that, in the time he had left, he could completely strip the daimyō of power and transform the Earth Country into a centralized, militarized state under his full control.
And this campaign would also help build up the reputation of his future successor.
Ōnoki appointed Deidara as acting commander of the ANBU, putting him in charge of the demolition unit and the main assault force to destroy and purge the White Zetsu strongholds.
You, meanwhile, were assigned to train sensory ninja and use your ocular blood-sensing abilities to root out White Zetsu impostors disguised as shinobi.
Naturally, if any clueless nobles or ninja clans got in your way, under Ōnoki's tacit approval, you'd treat them as Zetsu in disguise and wipe them out all the same.
Under this movement, the Earth Country and Iwagakure began fusing together—gradually moving toward unification.
...
As for Akatsuki, due to your influence and the early discovery of White Zetsu, Ōnoki shifted his stance on the organization:
Originally, hiring Akatsuki had been a stopgap to make up for Iwagakure's lack of high-end combat power. But long-term reliance on mercenaries was like drinking poison to quench thirst.
Now, with the fresh blood of the Uchiha coursing through Iwagakure, and given just a decade or so, the next generation of elite ninja would rise to fill the void.
With Deidara and you becoming more capable by the day...
It was only natural to start dealing with the massive hidden threat that was White Zetsu, seeded into the Earth Country by Akatsuki.
That said, Ōnoki didn't go to extremes. He didn't aim to obliterate Akatsuki completely—first, because it was impossible, and second, because he wanted to leave room for maneuvering.
For example, he kept the existence of Akatsuki and White Zetsu classified.
And when it came to external affairs unrelated to Earth Country, like dealings with other villages or small nations, he was still willing to sit at the negotiating table with Akatsuki.
However, operations like killing Uchiha Itachi, eliminating Hoshigaki Kisame, and purging White Zetsu were Ōnoki's way of declaring Iwagakure's strength—and its bottom line.
...
Once you'd laid out the basic framework for training sensory ninja, you left a Lava Release shadow clone behind to continue instruction.
You yourself would only step in when large-scale White Zetsu activity or infiltration events occurred.
In your free time, you continued your training in sealing arts.
After absorbing Itachi's bloodline, your talent surged, and in just one year, you mastered the entirety of Uchiha Setsuna's lifetime of sealing techniques.
...
〖Year Four〗
Thanks to the large number of captured White Zetsu, Ōnoki activated Iwagakure's research and medical teams for in-depth study.
Many injured or retired shinobi had their strength restored through White Zetsu cell transplantation, rejoining the ranks as Iwagakure's new backbone forces.
Iwagakure's power skyrocketed in a short span of time!
Due to the ruthless purging of White Zetsu and root-like organizations, plus the diminished influence of the daimyō, hardly any word of these developments leaked outside.
Meanwhile, although they didn't get along personally, Ōnoki remained committed to pushing Iwagakure toward full military-political unification. He kept deploying ANBU agents in search of the village's perfect Jinchūriki—Rōshi.
Though there was still no sign of him, a spy embedded in another village returned with critical intel—
Konoha was inviting its allies to co-host the Chūnin Exams in two years!
The letter bore not only Hiruzen Sarutobi's signature, but also Jiraiya's and Tsunade's.
As expected of Konoha. Despite suffering heavy losses in the Night of Annihilation, they rebounded quickly.
With two Kage-level powerhouses—Jiraiya and Tsunade—back on the roster, Konoha's strength once again topped the shinobi world.
Hosting the Chūnin Exams was clearly a move to warn their more ambitious "allies."
Even knowing that Konoha, with Jiraiya guarding it, was essentially a lion's den, you—having slain Obito and Uchiha Itachi, and now a master of sealing—felt confident that you could leave Konoha with another unforgettable lesson... and get what you wanted, all while escaping unscathed.
While Iwagakure wasn't one of Konoha's allies and hadn't received an invitation, it would be easy enough to sneak you into a nearby minor village's team of genin.
You'd pose as one of them to infiltrate Konoha during the exams.
Still, the village couldn't be too weak—otherwise, your cover would be compromised.
So you set your sights on Takigakure...
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