Thunder and Black Wings! 70 (Patreon)

Chapter 70:

– Rias –

Rias darted through the night sky on leathery wings, banking sharply as another cluster of shuriken sliced through the space she had occupied a heartbeat earlier. The weapons struck one another in midair, changing direction with metallic snaps before climbing after her at angles that should have been impossible.

Her eyes widened. She twisted sideways and pulled one wing tight against her back. Two shuriken passed close enough to clip strands of crimson hair from beside her cheek. A third grazed the edge of her wing, drawing a thin line of pain across the membrane.

Itachi Uchiha stood on the rooftop below as if he had all the time in the world.

That composure was beginning to infuriate her.

Rias thrust out her hand. Three crimson-black orbs of destruction formed around her palm, each one humming with enough power to erase flesh, armor, and stone alike.

“Try dodging these!” She sent them screaming downward.

Itachi moved before she released them. His body blurred across the rooftop as the first orb struck, erasing a perfectly circular section of tile and timber. The second followed him to the next building, carving through the roof and several floors beneath it. He twisted around the third, his cloak snapping behind him as the sphere passed close enough to disintegrate one sleeve.

Rias smiled grimly. She had almost gotten him that time.

Then Itachi inhaled. “Fire Style: Fireball Jutsu.”

Flames erupted from his mouth in a roaring sphere large enough to swallow the rooftop. 

Rias beat her wings once and shot higher. Heat rolled across her legs as the fireball passed beneath her, close enough to leave her skin tingling. Before she could recover, a second barrage of shuriken burst through the flames.

She threw up a demonic barrier. Steel hammered against the translucent crimson surface in a rapid series of impacts. Most of the weapons bounced away, but several detonated in flashes of fire and smoke. The explosions rocked her backward through the air.

Rias clenched her teeth and stabilized herself with two hard beats of her wings.

Itachi was frighteningly fast. Every attack forced her toward the next one. Every retreat he made placed him exactly where he needed to be. Even the shuriken that missed seemed intended to herd her into a more vulnerable position.

Without her wings, she knew she would have had no chance against him. 

That admission irritated her pride, but Rias wasn’t stupid enough to deny what she could see.

Itachi was a far more experienced fighter.

So she would remain in the air and make him fight on her terms.

Rias spread her wings and summoned another cluster of destruction orbs. She released them in a widening pattern, forcing Itachi to abandon the rooftop entirely. He leaped through the bombardment, using walls, drainpipes, and narrow ledges as though gravity were merely a suggestion.

His face remained infuriatingly calm. 

Then his crimson eyes met hers.

The world lurched.

For an instant, the ruined rooftops disappeared. Rias felt something invasive reach into her thoughts, trying to seize the connection between sight and consciousness. 

Her demonic instincts recoiled violently from the intrusion.

Years of Gremory training responded a moment later. Her family might have denied her the combat experience she needed to oppose Riser, but they had never neglected the defenses expected of a highborn devil. Rias had endured countless lessons on resisting charms, compulsions, possession, contracts, and psychic domination. 

The illusion fractured before it could fully form. The rooftops slammed back into focus, leaving her dizzy but free.

Itachi’s eyes narrowed by the smallest degree.

Rias grinned down at him. “...Disappointed?”

"You resist the Sharingan without a dojutsu of your own," he said. His voice was quiet but carried perfectly. "And you use a technique I've never seen, one that does not burn or cut, but removes. Who are you?"

She rolled her blue eyes down at him. "I told you already."

"You told me your name." He took a single step towards the edge of the roof he was standing on. "You haven't told me why. I'll ask once more. Why are you attacking me?"

“You accused me of murdering my clan.” His voice remained level, but the stillness in his body had changed. “That cannot be your only reason.”

“Why not?” Rias held herself aloft. A fresh orb of destruction pulsed above her open palm.

“You are not from the Leaf. You are not an Uchiha. This has nothing to do with you. Is this revenge?" Itachi asked. "Was someone you loved among my clan?"

Rias felt the spiritual weight surrounding him even from the sky. It pressed against her devil senses like the stench of a mass grave. Every soul he had cut down had left something behind—parents, elders, cousins, children. Family. The blood of his own clan clung to him so heavily that she could scarcely sense the man beneath it.

Something flickered across his face and vanished. Itachi asked. “...Are you an ally of my younger brother, Sasuke?” His voice changed on the name.

It was nearly imperceptible, but Rias heard it. A hesitation. Itachi sounded uncertain.

Rias blinked. Why would a man who had butchered his family hesitate when speaking about the one brother he had spared?

She pushed the question aside. Whatever twisted sentiment lived inside him did not erase what he had done. 

“I don’t know anything about your brother,” she said, and watched genuine surprise flicker across his composed face. “I’ve never spoken to him. I don’t care about him. This has nothing to do with anyone else.” 

Itachi’s expression shifted, not much, but enough. His eyes sharpened with genuine surprise. “Then why?” 

“I want to end you,” Rias declared. “That’s all there is to it.” 

Itachi's gaze slid away from her for the first time since the fight had begun.

Rias followed it. 

Across the city, Amegakure was coming apart at the seams. Golden and violet lightning flashed across the western district, each detonation briefly transforming night into day. Entire buildings trembled beneath the force of Akeno’s battle. Farther away, a red-gold blaze illuminated the clouds from below, carrying a psychic heat that Rias could feel even at this distance. Jean was fighting somewhere near the central tower, and she clearly wasn’t holding back. 

Explosions rolled through other parts of the village. Shinobi raced across rooftops, shouting warnings and contradictory orders while smoke climbed into the newly cleared sky.

Rias smirked. Look at us, she thought. Look at all of us, kicking so much ass.

Whatever Pain and his organization had expected when they abducted Konan, it hadn’t been this. They had taken someone Blake loved, and now an entire family of furious women had descended upon their village to retrieve her.

Itachi followed another eruption of lightning with his eyes. Something resembling urgency appeared beneath his calm expression. "I can't afford to waste any more time on a foolish little girl," he said quietly. "You've chosen death."

Rias’s smirk vanished. Little girl?

His eyes changed. The three tomoe within his Sharingan rotated. They stretched, twisted, and merged into an unfamiliar pattern. 

The night disappeared.

Rias gasped as crushing darkness closed around her. There was no village beneath her, no wind against her wings, and no distant sound of battle. Her wings were gone. Her demonic power had vanished with them.

She tried to move and discovered that her arms had been pulled apart and bound to a wooden cross. Thick restraints wrapped around her wrists, ankles, waist, and throat. She strained against them, but her body refused to respond.

A blood-red moon hung above a barren landscape. The ground stretched endlessly in every direction, broken only by hundreds of identical crosses. Some stood empty. Others held shadowy figures whose faces she couldn’t see.

Itachi waited in front of her with a katana in his hand.

Rias forced herself to breathe. This wasn’t real. She knew it wasn’t real.

Her body was still somewhere above Amegakure. Itachi had caught her in a genjutsu, nothing more.

“I know this is an illusion,” Rias said. She reached for her powers but they weren’t there. She couldn’t feel anything except the rough grain of wood against her back and the bite of cords around her wrists and ankles. 

Itachi raised the katana. “Knowing that will not protect you.”

Rias jerked against them. Nothing happened. She couldn’t twist or lift so much as a finger. Her arms were stretched wide and bound tight, her ankles lashed together, and her whole body was pinned in place.

She was tied to a cross. Of all the things. A devil, tied to a freaking cross!

“Just because it isn’t real doesn’t mean you won’t feel it.” He looked at her without hatred and without pleasure. “Pain. Despair. You’ll experience all of it—until your mind breaks.” 

Rias pulled at the restraints again. “My family trained me to resist mental control!”

“This is not ordinary mental control.” More versions of Itachi appeared around her. One became ten. Ten became a hundred. Each carried an identical katana, and every pair of Mangekyō Sharingan eyes stared at her without pity. “Time, space, pain, and perception are under my control here,” they said together. “Just because this world is not real does not mean you will not experience everything that happens within it.”

The Itachi standing closest to her drove his katana into her stomach.

Pain ripped through Rias! Her scream escaped before she could stop it. The blade felt horribly real as it pierced her body and emerged from her back. She could feel cold steel inside her, feel every trembling breath pull the wound wider.

Itachi withdrew the sword.

There was no blood. No injury remained behind. Then he stabbed her again.

Rias clenched her teeth, but another scream tore from her throat.

The blade vanished, and the pain vanished with it—only for the next Itachi to step forward.

“How long do you believe your mind can endure this?” he asked.

“Longer than you think,” Rias spat.

The third blade entered beneath her ribs.

The fourth pierced her shoulder.

The fifth drove through her thigh.

Each strike hurt as much as the first. Her body never adjusted. The pain never dulled. Every stab arrived with perfect clarity, as if her nerves had been created solely to experience it.

Itachi’s expression never changed. “This will continue for seventy-two hours.”

Rias stared at him in disbelief.

The next blade punched through her abdomen.

Minutes became hours.

Or perhaps they didn’t. Time had no meaning in this place. There was only the cross, the red moon, Itachi’s emotionless face, and the endless rhythm of steel entering her body.

Rias tried every mental defense she had been taught. Rias Gremory. Daughter of Zeoticus and Venelana Gremory. Sister of Sirzechs Lucifer.

She rebuilt the walls around her mind. She searched for contradictions in the illusion. She focused on the knowledge that her physical body remained untouched.

None of it stopped the pain.

Itachi stabbed her again.

Rias screamed until her throat felt raw, even though the illusion restored her voice every time it broke. She cursed him, threatened him, and promised to erase every piece of him from existence.

Itachi simply continued.

The helplessness was worse than the pain.

She couldn’t move. She couldn’t fly. She couldn’t defend herself. Her Power of Destruction refused to answer her call.

She was trapped.

Again.

The cross became Riser’s marriage contract. The restraints became her family’s expectations, binding her into a future she had never chosen. It didn’t matter what she wanted. It didn’t matter whether she loved him. Her worth had been measured by her bloodline, her peerage, and the children she could produce for a man she despised. 

I’m so tired of this. She was tired of being trapped and helpless, a pretty thing for other people to arrange however they liked.

The blade entered her stomach again.

Her family had never trained her to become truly strong. They had trained her to be graceful, obedient, and just capable enough to uphold the Gremory name. They had prepared her to survive attacks and resist control, but never to stand against the people making decisions for her.

They had wanted her powerful enough to be valuable.

Not powerful enough to be free.

Another Itachi stepped forward.

Rias glared at him through tears.

She thought of Akeno standing above Amegakure with ten black wings spread behind her, wielding every part of herself she had once hated. Akeno had shattered the seal on her own power because Blake needed her. She had stopped denying what she was and become stronger than anyone had known she could be.

She thought of Blake.

Blake had lost his name, memories, home, and family. Someone had reached into his soul and decided who he was allowed to be. He had still rebuilt himself from nothing. Then, when his memories returned, he hadn’t chosen between Akira and Blake. He had taken both lives and made them his own.

They were powerful because they refused to let anyone else define them.

Rias loved them both.

She loved Akeno’s warmth, her teasing, and the terrible sadness she hid behind her smile. She loved Blake’s reckless kindness, his absurd courage, and the way he made impossible futures feel reachable.

She wanted to stand beside them.

The katana pierced her chest.

Something inside Rias cracked.

No—something opened. Something surged through the center of her soul. A reservoir of power that had been buried beneath years of fear, restraint, and carefully cultivated weakness—it came pouring out of her all at once!

The endless Itachis paused.

Rias lifted her head. Crimson-black light leaked from beneath her skin. The restraints around her wrists began to smoke.

Itachi’s eyes narrowed. “This world is under my control.”

Rias laughed breathlessly. “Then you shouldn’t have brought a Gremory into it!”

Power exploded from her body. The wooden cross vanished first. It ceased to exist, erased by the Power of Destruction. The restraints followed.

Rias floated upward as a vast aura erupted around her, spreading across the crimson landscape like an expanding sun. The nearest versions of Itachi disappeared the moment the energy touched them. Hundreds more drew their swords, but the wave consumed them before they could move.

The red moon cracked down the center.

Rias screamed and released everything!

The illusion came apart. The black sky split into pieces. The barren ground dissolved beneath her. Every cross, shadow, and katana vanished into crimson light as her power tore through the foundations of the genjutsu itself.

Reality slammed back into place.

Rias found herself floating above Amegakure, her wings spread wide and her lungs dragging in desperate breaths. Only an instant appeared to have passed outside the illusion, yet her mind carried the memory of hours of agony.

Rain—or what remained of it—cooled the sweat on her skin.

Power poured through every part of her. Her aura had become dense enough to distort the air. Crimson-black energy rolled off her body in waves, making nearby rooftops groan and crack. Every beat of her wings sent pressure rippling across the district.

She stared at her hands. She had never felt this strong. Not even close. The power wasn’t wild or unfamiliar. It felt like something that had always belonged to her and had finally been given room to breathe.

“Is this Ultimate Class?” she whispered. The situation was terrifying. She had nearly had her mind broken by a kin-slaying murderer in the middle of a war-torn village. Still, another thought forced its way through the fear. “Did I just have an anime power-up moment?”

A laugh escaped her.

Of course she had. A traumatic revelation, memories of the people she loved, an internal declaration about freedom, and a sudden explosion of previously inaccessible strength? It was practically textbook!

Somewhere, Sona would be appalled by how perfectly Rias had embodied a magical-girl protagonist…

A wet cough drew her attention downward.

Itachi stood on the rooftop beneath her, one hand covering his mouth. Blood seeped between his fingers and dripped from his chin. His Mangekyō Sharingan remained active, but his composure had fractured. Disbelief flickered in his crimson eyes.

Rias slowly smiled. “Hm? You seem to be having trouble breathing all of a sudden. Coughing blood isn’t good for you, you know. Maybe I should put you out of your misery...”

A sphere of destruction formed above her palm. This time it was far more dangerous and powerful than anything she threw down at him previously. 

Itachi looked at it, then at the aura surrounding her. Whatever quick mental calculation he made, he evidently disliked the result. He wiped the blood from his mouth and pressed his fingers against the rooftop. His hands moved through several signs. “Summoning Jutsu!”

White smoke exploded across the building. Thousands of black crows burst from it! They filled the sky at once, shrieking and beating their wings in every possible direction. Feathers struck Rias’s face. Black bodies swarmed around her, completely obscuring the streets and rooftops below.

Rias released a pulse of demonic power, but the flock scattered before the destruction could consume it. Some crows dissolved into smoke. Others fragmented into smaller flocks, multiplying the confusion.

She shielded her eyes and climbed above the swarm.

By the time the last crows vanished, Itachi was gone.

Rias searched the rooftops with every sense she possessed. She found traces of chakra, the fading imprint of his sin, and a few drops of blood—but no sign of the man himself.

He had fled.

“Fucking coward,” she grumbled. For a moment, she considered pursuing him. With her newly awakened power, she might be able to catch him before he left the village.

Then another burst of holy lightning flashed across the western district.

Akeno is finishing up as well…

The mission came first. Konan came first. Showing off her new power by chasing Itachi through the countryside could wait.

Rias turned toward Akeno’s presence and she shot across Amegakure, leaving a crimson-black trail in her wake.

– Akeno –

Akeno floated above what remained of the western district on ten feathery black wings.

Calling the area ruined felt almost generous. Rooftops had been split open by lightning, stone walls had collapsed into the streets, and deep craters smoldered between the buildings. Water poured from shattered pipes and broken gutters, carrying dust and debris through the alleys. Steam drifted through the air wherever her holy lightning had struck Kisame’s water techniques.

The man himself was gone. Akeno searched the devastation with every sense she possessed, but she could no longer feel his chakra. Kisame had concealed his presence and slipped away through the maze of canals beneath Amegakure before she could finish him.

How irritating. She would have enjoyed punishing him a little longer.

A light sheen of sweat covered Akeno’s body, cooling beneath the wind that moved through her feathers. Her breathing was elevated but controlled. 

Her battle with Kisame had awakened something hot and restless inside her. Hunting him through the rain, breaking through his water techniques, hearing Samehada scream beneath her holy lightning, and watching his confidence slowly turn into caution had been exhilarating.

Her blood still hummed with the thrill of it.

Delivering punishment to that shark-man had gotten her terribly worked up. It was too bad he had escaped before she could achieve a more satisfying conclusion.

Akeno shifted in the air, pressing her legs together as subtly as possible. A slow, delicious shiver ran up her spine. Her whole body was humming, tingling, throbbing. She’d been aching since last night in the hot spring, when Kaa-san had stopped her an inch away from Blake’s lap. 

Perhaps Blake would help her with that later… The memory of the hot spring returned and she blushed.

‘After the mission,’ Shuri had said. Akeno intended to remember that promise.

A powerful presence suddenly entered the edge of her senses.

Her pleasant thoughts disappeared. Akeno turned sharply, her wings spreading to their full span as holy lightning crackled around her hands.

The approaching aura was familiar…?

A crimson blur shot toward her. “Akeno, I’m glad you’re okay!”

Akeno gasped. “Rias—?”

Rias slammed into her before Akeno could finish. Her King wrapped both arms around her and hugged her tightly in midair, nearly sending them tumbling out of the sky.

Akeno instinctively folded several wings around Rias to steady them.

Akeno returned the embrace. “I’m glad you’re safe too,” she murmured.

Then she felt it. Power rolled beneath Rias’s skin like an ocean held behind glass. The difference was so dramatic that Akeno pulled back to stare at her.

Rias had always possessed enormous potential. Everyone with any knowledge of the Gremory bloodline knew that. Her Power of Destruction was among the most dangerous inherited abilities in the Underworld.

But this was different. Rias no longer felt like a sheltered heiress with great potential and inadequate training. Her aura had crossed a threshold. The power surrounding her was heavier and more complete, possessing the same overwhelming quality Akeno had experienced when she shattered the seal on her fallen-angel heritage.

Akeno’s eyes widened. “Rias, what happened to you?”

Rias’s expression became insufferably pleased. “I had an epic anime power-up moment!”

Akeno blinked.

What…?

Rias placed one hand against her hip and lifted her chin proudly. “Apparently, all I needed was a hopeless situation, emotional trauma, an internal declaration about freedom, and thoughts of the people I love!”

Despite herself, Akeno laughed. “You cannot be serious.”

“I am completely serious.” Rias’s confidence faltered, and she rubbed her stomach with a grimace. “Although it hurts considerably more in real life. Anime leaves out that part.”

Akeno’s amusement faded as she noticed the strain around Rias’s eyes. “What did Itachi do?”

“He trapped me in an illusion where I was tied to a cross and stabbed repeatedly for seventy-two hours.”

The air around Akeno crackled. Her smile remained in place, but every trace of warmth disappeared from it. “...He did what?”

“It was an illusion,” Rias quickly added. “Only an instant passed out here, and my body wasn’t actually injured.”

Akeno’s anger didn’t go away. “That does not make it acceptable.” 

“No, it doesn’t.” Rias’s eyes hardened. “But I broke out of it. I destroyed the entire illusion from the inside and hurt him badly enough to make him run.”

Pride swelled in Akeno’s chest so intensely that it nearly hurt. Akeno reached forward and cupped Rias’s face. “I’m so proud of you.”

“Really?”

“Of course.” Akeno stroked her thumb across Rias’s cheek. “You broke a technique designed to destroy your mind and reached Ultimate Class while doing it. I would say that deserves at least a little praise.”

Rias smiled, radiant and relieved. Then she looked past Akeno at the ruined district. Her eyebrows climbed. She released Akeno, turned slowly in the air, and surveyed the broken rooftops, flooded streets, and enormous scorch marks running across several buildings.

Rias whistled. “You’ve been busy.”

Akeno folded her hands demurely in front of herself. “I may have gotten—slightly carried away.”

“Slightly?” Rias grinned teasingly. 

“My opponent was very durable.” Akeno let out a huff. 

Rias glanced at a building that had been split from roof to foundation. “Did your opponent run away too, or did you simply vaporize him?”

“The shark-man was durable… and slippery.” That said it all.

“The kin-slayer got away too,” Rias grumbled. “He summoned thousands of crows and disappeared while they were blocking my view.”

Akeno tilted her head. “Crows?”

Rias folded her arms beneath her ample chest. “But I still beat him.”

“Yes, you did.” The smile Akeno gave her was completely sincere. Feeling that new power inside her King filled Akeno with more joy than destroying Kisame ever could.

Rias was becoming free.

Akeno abruptly sensed another presence approaching.

She and Rias turned together.

Her heart leaped.

Blake flew toward them on eight black wings. His armor was damaged, and blood stained one shoulder, but his flight remained steady.

He wasn’t alone.

A beautiful blue-haired woman rested in his arms in a princess carry. One of her arms had curled around Blake’s neck for support, while the other was pressed against his chest.

Looks like he found Konan…

Jealousy followed immediately after that thought. It was embarrassingly childish. Blake held Konan securely against his body, one arm beneath her knees and the other supporting her back. The woman’s cheek rested close to his chest. Although confusion and exhaustion remained visible in her face, she also looked happy.

And flustered. Very flustered.

“Ara, ara,” Akeno murmured.

Rias glanced sideways at her. “Behave...”

Akeno pouted playfully. “I haven’t done anything!”

“You were thinking very loudly…” Rias poked Akeno right in the boob…

Rias was right. Her otouto was holding another woman close against his chest. Akeno’s thighs were still tingling, her body was still aching from last night, and she hadn’t been held like that in—

She took a slow breath and pushed it down, deep, where it belonged. Then she smoothed her hair, put on her most serene smile, and spread her wings to meet them.

– Blake –

“...Another angel,” Konan murmured in awe against my chest. Her voice was so soft that I almost didn’t hear it over the wind rushing past my wings.

I followed her gaze and saw Akeno hovering above the ruined western district on ten feathery black wings. Rias floated beside her on demonic wings, surrounded by a crimson-black aura so dense that I could feel it pressing against my skin from several hundred feet away.

Akeno looked slightly winded, and parts of her clothing had been damaged during her fight, but I couldn’t see any serious injuries. Rias appeared even less harmed but something in her eyes suggested she had endured more than her body showed, but she was upright and radiating more power than I had ever felt from her.

I slowed and hovered directly across from them, keeping one arm beneath Konan’s knees and the other securely behind her back.

Akeno’s attention immediately settled on Konan. More specifically, it settled on the way I was carrying Konan. Her eyebrow twitched.

I pretended not to notice.

The power rolling off Rias was impossible to ignore. It felt heavier and more complete than before, as if someone had taken the vast potential I had always sensed inside her and finally torn away whatever had been restraining it.

Her aura had reached the same terrifying density I associated with Ultimate-Class beings.

Rias lifted her chin and placed one hand on her hip. The expression she gave me basically screamed, Praise me.

I had learned enough from Tsunade, Shizune, Pepper, Emma, Jean, Hestia, and every other woman in my life to recognize when praise was—not optional.

“Holy shit, Rias,” I said. “You got stronger! You’re glowing.”

Her smile widened.

“A lot stronger,” I continued. “You feel completely different. Whatever you did, it was incredible.”

Rias tried to appear dignified, but the pleasure on her face ruined the effect. “I had an epic anime power-up moment.”

I stared at her. “Seriously?”

Her whole face lit up brighter than her hair.  “Completely seriously. Itachi trapped me in an illusion, tortured me for what felt like seventy-two hours, and I responded by destroying the illusion from the inside and breaking into Ultimate Class.”

My relief dimmed. “...He tortured you?” He was a dead man…

She noticed my worry. “It wasn’t physically real.”

I stared at her in concern. “That doesn’t make it better.”

“No, it doesn’t,” she agreed. “But I still beat him!”

I wanted to ask for every detail, but Akeno had already begun moving toward us. She approached slowly, probably because Konan had gone tense in my arms. Her ten wings folded inward to make her look less imposing, although there was only so much a woman surrounded by holy lightning could do to appear harmless.

Akeno stopped a few feet away and smiled. “Hello, Konan. My name is Akeno Himejima.”

Konan stared at her wings. “Himejima?”

Akeno nodded. “I’m Blake’s older sister.”

Konan’s eyes widened.

Akeno’s smile softened. “I’ve heard a great deal about you. I’m glad we were able to bring you back to where you belong.”

Konan glanced up at me before returning her attention to Akeno. “Where I belong?”

“With our family,” Akeno said as though the answer were obvious. “I’ve always wanted an older sister. I’m looking forward to getting to know you.”

Something vulnerable flickered across Konan’s face. She blushed and lowered her gaze, her fingers curling more tightly into the damaged fabric over my chest. “I’m sorry,” she whispered.

Akeno’s smile faded. “Why are you apologizing?”

“I still don’t remember any of you.” Konan’s voice went lower. “Blake has told me things—things I apparently said and did—but they feel like stories about another person. I don’t remember leaving Nagato. I don’t remember following Blake. I don’t remember calling him—my angel.” Her eyes closed. “I don’t remember being part of your family.”

The words hurt more than I expected. I adjusted my hold on her, drawing her a little closer. “That’s okay,” I told her.

Konan opened her eyes.

“Your memories were taken from you. None of this is your fault.” I could never hold that against her. 

“But if they don’t return—” she started to say.

I cut her off. “They will.” I made my voice as certain as I could. “That’s why we brought Jean. She’s one of the most powerful telepaths in my world. If the masked bastard sealed or altered your memories, she’ll find the damage.” I glanced around the broken skyline. “Now we just need to find her.” I looked at Rias and Akeno. “Did either of you see where Jean went?”

They exchanged a glance.

“Sorry,” Rias said. “I was busy being mentally tortured and achieving my final form.”

“I was occupied with a shark-man and his unpleasant sword,” Akeno added.

“Did you kill them?” I asked.

Rias folded her arms. “Itachi escaped using an… excessive number of crows.”

“Kisame escaped through the canals,” Akeno said, sounding personally offended by the fact.

“Of course they did.” I expanded my divine senses as far as possible. I found traces of my mother’s power scattered throughout the village—burned talismans, fading chakra, and lingering spiritual energy—but I couldn’t sense Shuri herself nearby. Either she had concealed her presence, moved underground, or traveled beyond the range of my perception.

Jean was even harder to locate. Normally, the Phoenix felt like a second sun whenever it emerged. At that moment, I could only sense a faint psychic pressure somewhere beneath us.

Konan shifted in my arms. “...Nagato’s real body is hidden underneath the city.”

We all looked at her.

“There are caverns beneath the central tower,” she continued. “He controls the Paths from there. If the red-haired woman followed the chakra receivers back to their source, she probably found him.”

“Can you guide us there?” I asked her.

Konan hesitated.

I felt the tension enter her body. Nagato had taken her memories, allowed the masked man to control her, and ordered her to kill me—but some part of her still regarded him as her oldest remaining family. “I can,” she said at last.

I didn’t push her for anything more.

Konan pointed toward the remains of the central tower. 

I turned in the direction she indicated and beat my wings.

Rias and Akeno fell into formation beside me.

We flew above the city in silence for several moments. Konan remained nestled against my chest, one arm around my neck and the other resting over my heart. She looked embarrassed by the position but made no attempt to ask me to put her down.

I wasn’t going to volunteer. After everything she had endured, I wanted her to feel safe.

Rias gradually drifted closer. She was smiling. That should have warned me. She was smiling at Konan with the full force of her considerable charm. “So,” she began brightly, “I don’t believe we’ve been properly introduced.”

Konan turned her head.

Rias placed one hand against her chest. “I’m Rias Gremory.”

“...A pleasure?” Konan said cautiously.

Rias’s smile became unbearably pleased. “I’m Blake’s fiancée!” she just came out and said it. 

I nearly missed a wingbeat.

Akeno made a choking noise that she disguised as a cough.

Konan looked up at me. “Your… Fiancée?”

“It’s complicated,” I said.

“It isn’t that complicated,” Rias replied.

I stared at her. Rias stared back with the full confidence of a woman who had apparently decided the future and saw no reason to consult me about the details.

Konan’s attention shifted to Rias’s leathery wings. She studied them with visible skepticism, then looked at Akeno’s feathers and mine as though comparing three different specimens. Her lips pressed together. “Are you,” she asked slowly, “an angel as well?” she asked Rias.

“Nope!” Rias said proudly, and I swear she actually puffed up her large chest. “I’m a devil!” She said it with the same pride Tony used when telling someone he was Iron Man.

There was a beat of silence.

Then Konan turned her face away from Rias, buried it against my shoulder and let out the smallest, primmest, most indignant little “hmph” I had ever heard come out of a human being. “Then I have nothing to say to a devil.” 

Rias sputtered so violently that she lost altitude. Rias’s mouth fell open. “I—you—excuse me?” she sputtered. Her glowing hair puffed up like an angry cat. “I just introduced myself! Politely! I said fiancée!”

Akeno covered her mouth, but it did nothing to hide her laughter.

Rias recovered and shot back up beside us. “What do you mean, you have nothing to say to a devil?”

Konan didn’t even look at her…

Oooof.

Our group followed Konan’s directions toward the shattered eastern foundation of the tower.

We descended through a wide crack in the stone and found a narrow passage hidden behind the remains of a collapsed wall. The tunnel sloped beneath the city at a steep angle. Old pipes ran along the ceiling.

The air grew colder with every step.

I landed on the first broad section of the stairway and carefully set Konan on her feet. Her hands lingered on my shoulders for a moment before she released me.

My eight wings folded inward and vanished into my back. Akeno’s ten wings disappeared a second later, followed by Rias’s leathery devil wings. 

Konan looked strangely disappointed. Her gaze remained fixed on the empty space behind me. Then she reached out as though she expected to find my feathers still there. Whatever they’d done to her memories, apparently some part of her still loved my wings.

I smiled gently. “It’s a little cramped for them down here, but you can touch them later if you want.”

Konan’s hand stopped in midair. “Really?”

“Sure.”

“Ara ara,” Akeno purred from behind me, her voice dripping with honey and mischief. “Just be gentle when you do, Konan-nee. Angel wings are erogenous zones, you know.” She leaned in conspiratorially. “Very sensitive ones.” 

Konan’s eyes widened. Her hand snapped back so quickly that she nearly struck herself in the chest.

I felt heat crawl up my neck. “AKENO!”

“What?” my sister asked innocently. “She deserves to be properly informed. It’s important information. For safety.” 

“Whose safety, exactly?”

“Yours, mostly. Ufufu.”

Rias looked between Konan and me before smiling in a way that made me nervous. “That is useful information.”

I glanced at her. “You already knew that.”

The redheaded devil smirked at me. “Yes, but I enjoy hearing it confirmed.”

Konan’s gaze dropped toward the stone floor. A pink blush spread across her cheeks, making her look more flustered than she had while I carried her through the sky. “I only wanted to touch the feathers,” she murmured.

“And you can,” I assured her. “Ignore them.”

“I never said she couldn’t,” Akeno replied.

I rubbed a hand over my face.

We had just invaded a sovereign nation, battled several S-rank criminals, and possibly destabilized the entire government of the Land of Rain. Somehow, my family still found time to embarrass me in an underground death cavern.

It was almost comforting.

Konan took the lead again. The playful awkwardness gradually disappeared as we descended.

The tunnels became less natural the deeper we went. Rough stone gave way to sections reinforced with rusting metal plates. Thick cables disappeared into the walls, carrying chakra toward an unknown point beneath the city. Black receiver rods had been driven into the rock at regular intervals, each one humming with the same unsettling energy I had sensed from the Paths of Pain.

Konan moved through the passages without hesitation. “This was once part of an older drainage system,” she explained quietly. “Nagato expanded it after Hanzo died. Only a few members of the Akatsuki knew where his real body was kept.”

“Did you come down here often?” Rias asked.

Konan’s steps faltered. “I think so…?”

The uncertainty in her voice hurt to hear.

She placed one hand against the side of her head as if she could force the missing memories back into place. “I recognize every turn,” she continued. “I know which passages are trapped and which doors no longer open. But I don’t remember learning any of it.”

“Muscle memory,” Jean would probably have called it. Her mind had forgotten, but some deeper part of her still knew the way home. Or what used to be home.

I moved closer and rested a hand against Konan’s shoulder.

She stiffened, then relaxed beneath my touch.

“We’ll fix it,” I said.

Konan nodded without looking at me.

As we continued downward, I extended my senses through the surrounding rock. The density of the earth distorted them, but two familiar presences gradually became clearer.

My mother’s chakra burned like lightning trapped beneath the ground.

Jean felt like a star someone had buried under a mountain.

“I can sense them,” I said.

Akeno’s expression brightened. “Kaa-san?”

I smiled at her. “And Jean. They’re close.”

Konan led us through another narrow passage and stopped before a heavy metal door hanging crookedly from one hinge. The center had been crushed inward, as if something had struck it with enough force to fold several inches of reinforced steel.

Jean had probably… knocked.

We stepped through the opening into a vast cavern.

The ceiling rose high above us, lost behind pipes, cables, and shadows. Water dripped steadily from stone formations and collected in shallow pools across the floor. Broken machinery lay scattered near the walls, some of it still spitting sparks. The air smelled of wet stone, blood, burnt metal, and the sharp ozone left by chakra attacks.

A man sat in the center of it all. Black spikes protruded from his back and arms, connecting him to a grotesque mechanical frame. His limbs were painfully thin. Ribs pressed against pale skin, and long red hair hung in greasy strands around his face. He looked as though he had been starving for years while the machine slowly consumed whatever remained of him.

He was genuinely fucked up.

Was that Pain? No. Pain had been the six corpses. This had to be Nagato. He sat completely motionless, his head resting against the frame behind him. For one second, I thought he was dead. Then I noticed the shallow movement of his chest.

Blood ran down both cheeks. Where his eyes should have been, there were only dark, empty holes.

Konan stopped so abruptly that Rias nearly walked into her. “Nagato…” The name came out as a whisper. She took a step forward, then another. Her face had gone pale.

I moved with her, ready to catch her if her legs failed.

Shuri knelt beside Nagato with her hands glowing green. A clear flask rested in her left hand. Suspended inside a preserving solution were two unmistakable purple eyes marked with concentric rings.

The Rinnegan.

My mother lowered the second eye into the flask. She sealed the opening, wrapped the entire container in several layers of paper talismans, and placed it inside a storage scroll.

Only then did she look up. Her eyes found me and Akeno. Relief transformed her face. She vanished from beside Nagato. The air cracked as she crossed the cavern at ninja speed and wrapped both of us in a crushing embrace. “My babies!”

“Kaa-san,” Akeno breathed, immediately returning the hug.

I had eight wings, had fought gods and monsters across multiple dimensions, and had just beaten a man who could turn intangible. Apparently, I was still one of my mother’s babies.

I hugged her back anyway.

Shuri’s hands moved over us even while she held us. She checked my shoulders, neck, and the dried blood on my armor. Then she inspected Akeno’s face and arms, looking for wounds. “You’re both all right?”

“We’re fine,” I said.

“The shark-man escaped,” Akeno added with obvious irritation.

“I’m sure you’ll get another chance.” Shuri declared.

Akeno smiled at that. Her sadism came from the woman right in front of her after all.

Shuri leaned back and examined us one more time before finally releasing the hug.

“I captured the masked Uchiha,” I told her. “He’s unconscious and sealed inside one of the reinforced containment scrolls you gave me. We can interrogate him later.”

My mother’s eyebrows rose. “You captured him alive?”

“I wanted to know who he really was. He had one Sharingan, severe scarring across half his body, and Wood Release.”

Shuri’s expression became shocked. “That combination shouldn’t exist.”

“Yeah. He also panicked when I told him I was taking him back to Konoha,” I explained to her.

She put her finger on her lips. “That narrows the possibilities.”

“We’ll deal with him after Konan is safe.” I nodded toward the storage scroll containing the flask. “What are you doing with Nagato’s eyes?”

Konan stepped forward before Shuri could answer. “Yes! What have you done to him!?” Paper rustled around her body. Several white sheets peeled from her clothing and sharpened along their edges. Her aggression was instinctive. She might not remember Blake, Akeno, or the life she had begun building with us, but Nagato remained embedded in whatever memories the masked man had left intact.

Shuri didn’t reach for a weapon. Instead, she looked at Konan with a soft, almost maternal smile. “It’s good to see you again.”

Konan flinched. Her paper blades wavered. “You know me?”

“Very well.” Shuri’s smile became sad. “You lived in my home. You ate at my table. You protected my son. Whatever was done to your memories doesn’t change any of that.”

Konan looked away, shame crossing her face as she allowed the paper to fall harmlessly around her. “I’m sorry. I shouldn’t—have threatened you.”

Shuri’s warm look didn’t change at all. “You’re frightened and confused. I’m not offended.”

Konan turned back toward Nagato. “Why did you remove his eyes?”

Shuri rested one hand against the sealed storage scroll. “Jean and I have a plan for the Rinnegan. One we’ll explain after we leave this village.” 

I noticed my mother’s eyes flickering to me for just a brief instant. Wait a minute… Were they wanting to—

Shuri noticed my look. “Later, Blake.”

I didn’t like being kept in the dark, but she was right about one thing, we were still beneath Amegakure, surrounded by however many Rain ninja remained loyal to Nagato.

We needed to move.

I noticed what Jean was doing on the other side of the cavern. She knelt beside an unconscious Jiraiya with one hand pressed against his forehead. A faint red-gold glow surrounded her fingers, pulsing in time with the psychic pressure filling the room.

Jiraiya lay sprawled on his back with his white hair spread across the stone. His forehead protector had been knocked sideways, and a large bruise was already forming along his face.

Two old-looking toads were asleep beside him. One wore a dark cloak and had wild white hair. The other wore a small cap and lay face down with one arm stretched toward Jiraiya. Both were breathing, but neither reacted when I approached.

I blinked. “What’s the story there?”

Jean’s eyes opened. For a moment, they burned with the Phoenix’s light. Then the glow receded, leaving her familiar green irises behind. “He attacked me! He entered Sage Mode, concealed himself inside the surrounding natural energy, and struck me with a Rasengan while I was confronting Nagato!”

I stared down at Jiraiya and seriously considered kicking him.

The three of them had clearly gotten their shit wrecked by Jean and the Phoenix Force.

That was the only reason I didn’t add a few kicks of my own for good measure.

I had never particularly liked the man. He treated Tsunade’s relationship with me like a personal insult and acted as though everyone else needed to respect his judgment while he rarely extended the same courtesy in return.

But this was worse.

Jean was here because of me. She had crossed dimensions and entered a war zone to help rescue someone she had never met because Konan mattered to me.

My foot shifted toward his ribs.

Jean glanced up at me. “Blake… Don’t.”

“I’m not going to kill him...” I reluctantly moved my foot back.

Akeno looked disappointed.

“Tsunade isn’t going to be happy about this,” I said. That was an understatement. Tsunade had threatened to break every bone in Jiraiya’s body if his jealousy or distrust compromised the mission. Attacking one of my companions from behind probably qualified. 

Then again, Tsunade was the Hokage. She couldn’t always respond as my girlfriend, no matter how furious she became.

I looked from Jiraiya to the two unconscious toads. “He’s one of the Legendary Sannin. He’s popular with a lot of ninja inside the village, and those toads probably have an entire summoning clan behind them. If he goes back to Konoha claiming Jean attacked him and we stole the Rinnegan, this could create a major problem for Tsunade.”

Rias scoffed behind us. “That sounds like bullshit! He attacked Jean first!”

“That won’t necessarily matter. He’s Jiraiya, and Jean is an outsider no one in the village knows,” Shuri pointed out. “People don’t always care about the truth when one of their heroes looks bad.”

I knew that lesson better than most. The foster system had taught me how quickly adults protected other adults when acknowledging the truth would make their lives inconvenient.

Jiraiya had decades of friendships and accomplishments behind him. Jean had arrived in the Elemental Nations only days ago, possessed powers no one understood, and had helped remove the most dangerous eyes in the ninja world from their owner.

The facts might favor us. Politics wouldn’t.

My attention returned to Jean. “You said he hit you with a Rasengan? Where?”

Jean gestured toward her abdomen.

I crossed the distance between us before she could say anything else. Her clothes were dirty and slightly damaged, but I didn’t see blood. That didn’t mean much. A Rasengan attacked beneath the surface, tearing through muscle and organs with rotational force.

I placed my hands against her sides.

Jean’s cheeks turned pink. “Blake, I’m fine.”

“I want to make sure.” I slid my hands carefully down toward her stomach, feeling for swelling, unnatural heat, or any sign that she was hiding pain. Her abdomen was smooth and firm beneath my palms. I pressed gently around the point where she said the Rasengan had struck.

Jean inhaled sharply.

“Did that hurt?” I asked her quickly.

She squeaked at me. “No.”

“Then why did you make that sound?”

“No reason...” Her blush deepened.

I was genuinely trying to check her for injuries, but the process felt considerably less clinical when my hands reached her hips. Jean’s body felt warm beneath my fingers. I moved lower, checking the muscles along the tops of her thighs.

Jean shivered. A quiet moan escaped her.

Akeno’s amused hum came from somewhere behind me.

I froze…

Jean closed her eyes for half a second, visibly composing herself. When she opened them again, amusement had joined the embarrassment. “I’m beginning to suspect this medical examination has become slightly less medical.”

I blushed at her. “I wasn’t trying to make it erotic.”

“I know.” Jean leaned toward me and kissed my cheek. Her lips lingered long enough to send warmth spreading through my chest. “It’s sweet that you’re worried about me,” she murmured.

I kept one hand against her waist, partly because I still wanted to make sure she was steady and partly because I liked having it there.

“But the Phoenix gives me super-regeneration,” Jean continued. “Even if someone manages to break through my aura and injure me, I’ll recover almost immediately. Jiraiya’s Rasengan surprised me, but it never came close to doing permanent damage.”

Rias made an offended noise. “That is absurd.”

Jean smiled. “The Phoenix is very protective.” A faint red-gold light flickered through her green eyes.

That didn’t make me any happier about Jiraiya attacking her. “Regeneration or not, he still betrayed us.”

“Yes, he did.” She spared him another glare.

“And if he remembers this, he could cause trouble for Tsunade…” I let out a sigh. This fucking old man was always causing problems. 

Jean’s expression changed. The warmth remained when she looked at me, but something colder settled beneath it. It was the same look Emma wore when someone threatened a person she considered hers. “You don’t need to worry about Jiraiya causing trouble in Konoha.”

The certainty in her voice made me pause. “What did you do?”

Jean glanced toward the unconscious Sannin. “I erased this all from his memory. The ugly toads too…”

“So what do they remember?” I asked.

Jean’s mouth curved into a vindictive smile. “As far as Jiraiya is concerned, he was a complete waste on this mission.”

I blinked.

“He remembers separating from us after we entered the village,” Jean explained. “He tracked Nagato to this cavern alone, attempted to confront him, and was—immediately overpowered. Basically he tried to be the solo hero of this story and got his shit wrecked…” Jean added with a smirk, obviously having read my earlier thoughts.

Shuri appeared entirely unbothered. If anything, she looked impressed by Jean’s thoroughness.

“Sensei…” Konan stared at Jiraiya, then at Nagato’s unconscious body just for another moment.

“That’s mean,” I said.

Jean’s smile became almost cheerful. “His shame will probably keep him from asking further questions.”

I looked at her for several seconds. Part of me was disturbed by how easily she had reached into three minds and rewritten their version of reality. I knew Jean was powerful, but knowing something in theory was different from watching her casually remove an event from someone’s life.

Another part of me was relieved. Tsunade wouldn’t be forced to choose between defending us and protecting one of Konoha’s most celebrated ninja. Jiraiya couldn’t turn the village against Jean. The rescue mission wouldn’t become an international argument over who had legal authority to possess Nagato’s eyes. 

In fact, we could just lie and say the eyes were destroyed. He could suspect we were lying but he’d have no memories for proof.

Jean took my hand and threaded her fingers through mine. The Phoenix’s light briefly flickered around her hair.

I squeezed her hand. “You did amazing!”

Jean smiled.

…I turned to Konan.

She was standing a few feet from the machine/chair with her arms wrapped around herself, looking at the wasted man wired into it. The cavern lamps threw harsh shadows across her face, and for a long moment she didn’t move. 

She just looked at him, at the rods in his back and the dark streaks running down from his empty eye sockets.

“Konan,” I said quietly. “You ready to go?”

She didn’t answer right away. She took a slow step toward the machine and reached out, hesitating with her fingertips an inch from his bony, limp hand where it rested on the metal frame. Then she touched it, just barely, the way you’d touch something you were afraid might crumble.

“He was the gentlest boy I ever knew,” she murmured. “When we were children, he cried for a whole night because Yahiko stepped on a frog by accident.”

Nobody said anything.

She drew her hand back and pressed it flat against her chest, over her heart. Then she turned to face me. Her eyes were wet, but her shoulders were straight. “There’s nothing left for me here,” she said. Her voice was sad, but underneath the sadness was something lighter, something that sounded like relief, like a weight she’d carried so long she’d forgotten it was there had finally been set down. “I can go now.”

Mom didn’t wait for anyone’s permission. She crossed the cavern in three quick steps and pulled Konan into a hug, squeezing her tight and tucking Konan’s face against her shoulder.

Konan let out a startled little squeak.

“Welcome back, Konan-chan,” Mom murmured into her hair. “You were missed. More than you know.”

Konan stood stiff as a board for a second, arms pinned at her sides and her eyes wide. Then, slowly, she relaxed into it and let her forehead rest against Mom’s shoulder.

I gave them a moment. Then I rolled my neck until it cracked and turned toward the open floor of the cavern. “Okay. I’ll open a portal back to the Leaf, then. Tsunade’s going to want a report, and we need to hand the masked guy over before he wakes up and gets cute. We’ll drop Jiraiya off at the hospital, and—”

“Wait, otouto.” Akeno sauntered across the cavern toward me with an unhurried sway in her hips. She stopped right in front of me, close enough that I had to tilt my head down to meet her eyes, and laid one finger against my lips to shush me. “Before you do that,” she said sweetly, “look at me.”

I looked at her.

She pointed at herself, and more specifically, with one deliberate fingertip, at the tops of her breasts, where they swelled over the neckline of her miko top. Her skin was glistening. A bead of sweat was rolling slowly down from her neck into the valley between them.

My eyes followed it. I couldn’t help it.

“I’m sweaty,” Akeno announced, sounding tragic. “I’m hot, I’m sticky, I’m exhausted, and I smell like burnt shark. And I’m not the only one.” She waved a hand vaguely at everyone else. “Rias got stabbed in a dream dimension. Jean took a Rasengan to the stomach. Kaa-san has been elbow-deep in eyeballs. Konan-nee has been through who knows what. We’re all filthy and miserable.”

“Uh-huh,” I said slowly, dragging my eyes back up to her face. “And?”

“And,” she said, “instead of taking us straight back to the village so we can stand around in Tsunade-sama’s office for three hours giving reports, you should take us back to the hot spring town instead.” She smiled, slow and sweet. “We can toss Jiraiya in a room somewhere to sleep it off. Jean can fix Konan-nee’s mind somewhere quiet and comfortable. And then...” She trailed her fingertip down the center of my chest. “We can all just… relax.”

Across the cavern, Jean snorted. It was loud and undignified and completely un-Jean-like, and it echoed off the stone walls. 

Everyone turned to look at her.

“Those are some very relaxing thoughts you’re having, alright, Akeno.”

Akeno went perfectly still. A slow pink flush crept up her throat and into her cheeks, all the way to the tips of her ears. “Jean-san,” she said with enormous dignity. “Reading other people’s surface thoughts without permission is very rude.”

“I’m not reading them.” Jean wiped her eyes. “You’re broadcasting them. Loudly. In color.” She paused. “With a soundtrack.”

I didn’t need to be a telepath to have a pretty good guess what those thoughts were…

Behind me, Mom made a small, delighted sound, like a woman watching her favorite drama finally get good.

“Honestly,” Rias said, stepping up beside Akeno, “I’d like to go back too.” She’d gone a little pink herself, but she lifted her chin and met my eyes squarely. “I really liked that hot spring yesterday. The water was perfect, and the inn was lovely.” Her gaze dropped, very briefly, then came back up. “And I wouldn’t mind going one more time before we head back home.”

It was decided then.

XXX

Konan is finally home! Well, almost. She still doesn’t remember Blake, but Jean’s on the case.

Akeno has been very patient. Ufufu. 

And the Rinnegan has been acquired. Jean and Shuri have obviously already made plans to give the eyes of god to Blake. 

Written: 10/28/2026