218 I Became a Jonin

Yamanaka Shinno left the Pure Land, bringing with him the souls of Hatake Sakumo, Sakumo's wife, and also Kakashi, Obito, and Nohara Rin.

After handing them—and the special spring water he'd obtained from Tonika Village—over to Orochimaru, he began preparing for his journey to another world.

The Shinobi World was now entering a phase of rapid development. The merger of the Five Great Shinobi Villages had triggered a massive migration of personnel toward Konoha and the newly established Five Shinobi Army bases.

Amegakure and Kusagakure, who had suffered greatly during past shinobi wars, were practically wearing a sign on their faces that read:

"Take us with you!"

Their eagerness couldn't have been more obvious.

Especially after Yahiko, Nagato, and Konan returned to Amegakure. With their overwhelming strength, they secured the Akatsuki's influence over the village leadership. After that, Amegakure's higher-ups were practically camping out at the Hokage Building every day.

Naturally, they became the first to be officially absorbed.

Kusagakure, long infamous for their "fence-sitter" reputation, was never particularly trusted by the major powers—hence why they had ended up as wardens of Hozuki Castle.

Seeing Amegakure successfully integrated, Kusagakure's leaders quickly warmed up even more, and they soon became the second village to be absorbed.

Sure, many of their elites lost some status in the transition, but as the saying goes,

"Better to sit in the shade of a tall tree."

Initially, all Kusagakure had hoped for was equal treatment for their shinobi and a chance for their top talents to earn a spot within the Five Shinobi Army. Being granted that was already more than they had dared to expect.

...

With Amegakure and Kusagakure setting an example, other smaller villages quickly followed.

The leaders of Hoshigakure from the Land of Bears, Hanagakure from the Land of Vegetables, and Yukigakure from the Land of Snow all moved straight into Konoha—literally refusing to leave.

In fact, even before the formal merger process began, shinobi from these villages were already dragging their families over, lock, stock, and barrel.

Not every village, however, was smart enough to read the room.

Take Takumi Village, for example. As traditional weapon smiths, they loudly proclaimed their "neutral" status, insisting they were blacksmiths, not shinobi, and that they would never join the Five Shinobi Army.

Following them was Takigakure, who, still holding a grudge against Kumogakure's Third Raikage for forcibly taking their Seven-Tails, openly questioned whether the Five Shinobi Army could truly treat shinobi from different villages fairly.

And then there was the Land of Iron.

The samurai, relics of an older era, couldn't even agree among themselves whether to join. They ended up literally killing each other over the issue—reports said that in just half a month, more than twenty high-ranking samurai and nearly a hundred regular samurai had died.

...

Root's investigations soon uncovered the real culprit behind the chaos.

Takumi Village, Takigakure, the Land of Iron—behind them all lurked the same shadowy force:

The Underground Exchange.

A festering pit of nobles and merchants, this organization wriggled through the cracks of society like maggots, constantly stirring unrest in the shadows. Their goal was obvious: fracture the Five Shinobi Army and drag the shinobi world back into chaos.

Luckily, most people weren't blind. They could see which way the wind was blowing and refused to be manipulated.

Originally, Shinno had planned to wait until all the major villages were merged, then gradually absorb rogue shinobi and clear out missing-nin.

After all, ordinary people who had stumbled into the shinobi path deserved a chance to live.

But since certain rats insisted on making trouble, he decided to speed things up—and cut down the world's "grain consumption" while he was at it.

...

A total of ten thousand shinobi from the Five Shinobi Army—those not suited for construction work but absolute killers on the battlefield—were split into two light assault teams.

Under the ruthless leadership of Senju Tobirama and Uchiha Izuna, they moved swiftly: one team targeted Takumi Village, the other Takigakure.

Both villages were practically wiped off the map.

As for the internal strife in the Land of Iron? Shinno couldn't care less.

Instead, the Five Shinobi Army launched a worldwide hunt for the Underground Exchange.

Nobles, merchants, rogue shinobi—all were slaughtered without mercy.

Leveraging that momentum, they made a formal announcement to the shinobi world:

The Five Shinobi Army was open to receiving all free shinobi and samurai.

Even former missing-nin, if proven innocent, could be properly evaluated and reintegrated.

Within days, the Land of Iron's civil war fizzled out on its own.

Mifune, the samurai leader, rallied the remaining samurai and eagerly joined the unification process.

As for those minor samurai leaders who had been stirred up?

Well, let's just say that the aging Mifune spent four whole days acting as executioner—and that told everyone exactly what happened to the traitors.

...

Once Shinno saw that everything had been handled, he quickly began discussing with Kushina where they would travel next.

He had already entrusted the golden, Six Paths-level trait [Six Paths Yin-Yang Samsara] to Uchiha Hikari.

With another Six Paths-level powerhouse now among their ranks, even if a member of the Otsutsuki clan descended, they wouldn't be able to stir up much trouble.

As for visiting the Otsutsuki clan's homeworld?

At one point, he had considered it.

But after finding out that—even with space-time ninjutsu—it would take several years to reach their star system, he immediately abandoned the idea.

Instead, he had the Nine Tailed Beasts donate a portion of their chakra to re-grow the God Tree—and planted it on the moon to fish for Otsutsuki members.

...

As for the moon's original inhabitants, the descendants of Otsutsuki Hamura?

After sensing Kaguya's resurrection during the battle a month ago, and realizing her presence hadn't faded, they had pooled all their power to forge a giant Tenseigan nearly four meters in diameter!

Their plan? Use the Tenseigan's might to blast the entire "small ball" (the moon) apart—taking Kaguya with it.

By the time Shinno sensed the disturbance and rushed over, nearly all the Hyuga descendants were dead. Only a handful had survived.

He had no choice but to bring the survivors back to Konoha.

As for that massive Tenseigan—it naturally found its way into Orochimaru's lab.

...

"Alright, time to draw lots!" Shinno said cheerfully, holding out two crumpled pieces of paper to Kushina, who was lugging several huge bags.

"Whichever one you pull—if it says 'Big', we go to a high-power world. If it says 'Small', we head to a weaker one."

Kushina, standing there with her finger tapping her chin, hesitated only a second before grabbing the paper in Shinno's left hand.

"Is it 'Big'? I really hope we're not about to get our heads kicked in..." Shinno joked, chuckling softly.

After all, with three Trait Duplication chances and five Trait Extraction chances in his pocket, he had more than enough firepower to handle whatever came their way.

...

"Y-You're joking... right?" Kushina's mouth opened slightly as she stared at the paper, her big eyes blinking uncertainly at the second crumpled note still in Shinno's other hand.

If her boyfriend—who was already this strong—could still get their asses kicked, wouldn't she just explode on the spot?!

"Pfft—Hahaha! Relax, I'm just messing with you! Let's go! Departure time!" Shinno laughed heartily.

With a wave of his hand, he stored all of Kushina's packed belongings inside the Boundless Weapon Realm space.

He left a sticky note for Tsunade, instructed Kushina to temporarily stay inside his newly perfected small world and immediately activated his [Multiversal Traveler] trait!