Chapter 92 (Patreon)

This time, he was truly gone, leaving Mei Terumī alone with a head full of questions.

“I hope you’re smart enough to understand. I’ve already given you every warning I can. If you expose yourself and someone silences you, don’t come haunting me and complaining about how unfair it was.”

Roy watched the cargo ship gradually disappear into the distance before turning around and returning to the cabin.

Yakushi Nonō was still asleep. When it came to sleeping without moving, even Kushina, Kaorui, and the two little ones combined couldn’t compare to her. She was lying in exactly the same position as before, having barely moved an inch.

Roy settled against the wall beside her and closed his eyes to rest.

Mei Terumī, however, was having a far more difficult time aboard the other ship.

Even putting aside that bizarre technique, the information she had just received was enough to throw a thirteen- or fourteen-year-old girl into complete confusion.

Someone intended to take revenge on the Hidden Mist Village by controlling its future Fourth Mizukage. Worse still, that person possessed some form of space–time ninjutsu that allowed every attack to pass through them for five full minutes.

Did an ability that absurd truly exist in the shinobi world?

“No, why did I believe any of that bastard’s nonsense? The village hasn’t even chosen its Fourth Mizukage yet. How could he possibly know that Jōnin Yagura will be selected? It’s not as if he can see the future! And he said I would still be unmarried in my forties... Are all the men in the Hidden Mist Village supposed to be blind?”

The more Mei thought about it, the angrier she became. His claim that she would remain unmarried was enough to prove that everything he had said was a lie.

“You bastard... You’d better hope I never find your real body!”

Mei gently rubbed her still-swollen lips and declared fiercely, “Otherwise, I’ll melt you until there’s nothing left!”

Despite her refusal to believe Roy’s information, one possibility continued to linger in her mind.

What if he had been telling the truth?

What if someone who possessed space–time ninjutsu truly planned to control the future Fourth Mizukage and use him to take revenge on the Hidden Mist Village?

If Mei knew about the danger but failed to warn the village simply because of her personal feelings, the consequences would be unforgivable.

“According to that bastard, the enemy’s revenge will begin after the Fourth Mizukage takes office. If I can find him before then, perhaps I can get more detailed information... But how am I supposed to find him?”

Mei lay on her bed, tossing and turning restlessly.

“A handsome man with white hair, wearing a distinctive black robe resembling a samurai’s attire, with a sword at his waist... Could he be a samurai from the Land of Iron? No, that can’t be right. He must have used some kind of ninjutsu, and samurai don’t use techniques like that.”

She abruptly sat up, took out a sheet of paper, and began sketching Roy’s general appearance from memory. However, when she tried to draw his face, her pen refused to move.

She could remember his features perfectly, yet every face she imagined placing on the paper felt like an insult to the real one.

Mei helplessly tossed the pen aside and sat on the bed with her knees pulled against her chest, carefully recalling every detail of their encounter.

“Both times I was caught by that technique, I returned to the exact same place without my body shifting at all. But using Kai didn’t have any effect, so it shouldn’t have been genjutsu. Could it have been another form of space–time ninjutsu? Perhaps he transported me into a separate dimension before returning me to the same position.”

Everything Mei knew about space–time ninjutsu came from what the village’s senior shinobi had told her during the Third Shinobi World War.

Konoha’s Fourth Hokage, Minato Namikaze, had earned the name Yellow Flash of the Leaf through the Flying Thunder God Technique, a powerful form of space–time ninjutsu.

Unable to reach a conclusion, Mei decided that she would begin searching for information about space–time ninjutsu as soon as she returned to the village. Perhaps she would uncover one or two clues about the enemy along the way.

There was something else that bothered her deeply.

When Roy stopped her from attacking, he had pinched her lips shut instead of merely covering her mouth with his palm. He had even mentioned her ability to melt things.

That meant he knew exactly how her techniques worked.

There was also the information that Fuguki Suikazan, the wielder of Samehada, had betrayed the village.

Despite being a shinobi of the Hidden Mist herself, Mei had never heard even a whisper about it. How could an outsider know so much? Roy even knew that Jōnin Ao possessed a Byakugan.

“Could that bastard be a kekkei genkai shinobi from the Hidden Mist?”

As someone who possessed kekkei genkai herself, Mei knew that inherited techniques could take forms ordinary ninjutsu never could. Some shinobi spent their entire lives without mastering even a single nature transformation.

One kekkei genkai clan after another flashed through her mind.

To uncover secret information concerning one of the Seven Ninja Swordsmen of the Mist, a person would need stealth and intelligence-gathering abilities that surpassed even those of the ANBU.

That allowed her to eliminate clans whose kekkei genkai were useful only in direct combat, such as the Kaguya clan. Asking one of them to gather intelligence would be less reliable than trusting a drunkard in a tavern.

The Yuki clan’s Ice Release, particularly its ability to move between ice mirrors, could potentially be used for concealment and infiltration.

Crystal Release, however, was also better suited to direct combat than gathering information.

“That bastard mentioned Mangetsu Hōzuki, didn’t he? The Hōzuki clan’s Hydrification Technique is also extremely useful for infiltration. Could he be a member of the Hōzuki clan?”

Mei considered the possibility, only to dismiss it a moment later. Her thoughts were beginning to tie themselves into knots.

“Damn it! Why does a beautiful girl like me have to deal with something this troublesome? That man really is a bastard—an insufferable bastard!”

Roy had no idea that Mei was cursing his name from afar. By now, he had already pushed her from his thoughts.

Sitting cross-legged within the Mirror Space of his Zanpakutō, Roy gazed at the images of Kushina and Kaorui reflected across the mirror surfaces, missing them dearly.

Since arriving in the shinobi world, this was the first time he had ever been separated from Kushina. He missed her far more than he had expected. Both his thoughts and a certain less dignified part of his body seemed to long for her.

At that moment, the frame surrounding Kushina’s mirror had already turned golden-red. Her previously motionless image had also begun rotating slowly, displaying her figure from every angle.

Kaorui’s mirror frame was gradually changing from the second stage’s green to a vivid emerald.

A faint trace of gray had appeared within the pale-white frame surrounding Yakushi Nonō’s image, marking the beginning of its first-stage transformation.

Only Yugito’s mirror frame remained completely unchanged.

Captivated by Kushina’s image, Roy subconsciously reached out and touched the mirror.

The moment his fingertips made contact, ripples spread across its surface.

The solid mirror seemed to have transformed into water.

Startled, Roy quickly tested the other mirrors. Their surfaces remained as hard as stone. No matter how he touched them, not even the slightest ripple appeared.

“So the mirrors begin changing once the intimacy level becomes high enough? What happens after this? Will I eventually be able to pass through the mirror and appear beside them? Or will I be able to pull them into the Mirror Space?”

At the same time, Kushina had been staring blankly into space out of boredom when the Nine-Tails suddenly pulled her consciousness into the sealed mindscape.

The Nine-Tails looked as if it had seen a ghost. It raised one enormous claw and pointed toward the empty space before it.

“Just now, a spatial ripple appeared here. Something was trying to force its way inside!”

Kushina’s expression immediately changed.

She doubted the Nine-Tails had suddenly become senile enough to imagine something like that. However, she hadn’t sensed anything unusual herself.

Although Kushina had no talent for space–time ninjutsu, she had become familiar with the sensation of space twisting while Minato was learning the Flying Thunder God Technique.

She might have failed to notice a disturbance occurring far away, but there was no reason she should have missed one happening directly inside her own body.