Chapter 409: From the Stars
Attack Konoha?
Now that was fresh. The last one who dared try that was Orochimaru, the next might be Pain—so who was it now?
The streets had already descended into chaos. Villagers' cries and running footsteps mixed together, smoke rising from various locations obscuring half the street's visibility.
And the source of the disturbance—was actually a giant puppet at least two stories tall. No, the metallic luster flashing at its exterior and joints made it closer to some kind of war machine.
"It's you again—! What a stubborn, obstinate man!"
The Nadeshiko kunoichi from earlier in the house rushed out first, recognizing the attacker at a glance. Clearly, he'd come for them.
Atop the puppet sat a bespectacled, plain-looking man. His eyes were fixed dead on Nadeshiko Shizuka behind the kunoichi, gaze churning with undisguised greed and desire.
"I'm not interested in you, move aside. Hurry up and let me compete with that 'Princess-sama.'"
The kunoichi was about to rebuke him when Jiraiya had already stepped forward, blocking everyone.
"Being able to make a puppet this scale... is indeed rare." His voice wasn't loud, yet carried the pressure unique to the strong.
"But do you know what you're doing? Publicly attacking Konoha, deploying large-scale weaponry, creating public panic—these charges are enough to execute you on the spot."
The man's face visibly paled. He clearly recognized this Fifth Hokage, but immediately stiffened his neck and shouted.
"W-wait! If anyone's going to stop me... it should be 'Princess-sama' who speaks before all of you!"
"Who is that guy?"
Satsuki looked at that uncomfortable face atop the puppet. She didn't recognize this person, but the sticky desire in his eyes as if wanting to devour someone alive stirred intense disgust from the bottom of her heart.
"A persistent pest!" The kunoichi gritted her teeth. "He keeps pestering Shizuka-sama demanding 'duels'—this is already the ninety-ninth time! He wants to defeat Shizuka-sama—that way, according to Nadeshiko Village tradition, the entire village will... be under his control!"
Simply put, a pervert who saw beauty and wanted to turn an entire village of women into his harem.
Naruto immediately understood this man's intentions. And he remembered this man's puppet seemed to have some troublesome characteristics... Forget it, he'd handle this himself and throw this guy into Konoha's prison.
"Please let me handle this."
Nadeshiko Shizuka's voice was calm. She walked slowly before Jiraiya, preparing to remove her white outer robe. "This is my fate."
She looked toward that steel puppet, her eyes holding only numb resignation. Just like the past ninety-eight times—she would step forward, defeat him, then wait for the next entanglement.
"That's right! Come on—hurry and become my wife—huh?"
The man sitting atop the puppet suddenly froze.
His gaze seemed yanked by something invisible, violently whipping toward behind Shizuka—past Jiraiya, past the kunoichi, nailing dead on Satsuki.
In that instant, all the greed and impatience on his face vanished, replaced by a kind of crazed amazement.
"This woman...!"
His breathing suddenly grew heavy, eyes behind his glasses bulging round like a bandit discovering priceless treasure. "She's even more beautiful than all the women in that village—combined!!!"
Satsuki was coldly watching him, black eyes filled with undisguised revulsion. But this coldness, in that man's eyes, became another kind of fatal temptation.
"Good! Excellent—!" His voice trembled with excitement as his right hand suddenly pulled a palm-sized metal puppet from his bosom, the number [1] crudely carved on it.
"You too—come be my wife!!!"
Chakra strings burst from between his fingers. The small puppet shot through the air with a "whoosh," diving straight for Satsuki's face.
Swoosh—!
A golden flash came from behind, arriving first.
Crack.
A trident-shaped Flying Thunder God kunai thrust out from the side, precisely piercing the small puppet's core, pinning it dead to the ground.
The metal shell twisted and deformed, emitting a harsh screeching wail.
"...Huh?" The man froze, then flew into a rage. "What are you doing?! This wasn't prepared for you—"
He couldn't finish his words.
Because Naruto had already moved.
He stood there in place, yet his right eye's azure instantly transformed into profound black base with golden pupils. The Star Eye activated, pupil patterns flowing like stars.
His right palm faced upward. Without hand seals, without gathering power, a pure white light sphere only the size of a table tennis ball condensed from nothing in his palm. It wasn't dazzling.
"Rasengan: Solar Core."
Naruto softly spoke the technique's name.
The next second, the light sphere disappeared.
It transformed into a pure white thread at a speed surpassing visual capture, penetrating the air, penetrating the smoke, penetrating the shock still lingering on that man's face—lightly touching the steel puppet's chest.
The man still maintained his posture of shouting in rage. The chakra metal on the puppet's surface still flickered with cold light.
Then—
It was gone.
Literally gone.
No explosion, no flames, no fragments, not even sound.
The puppet, along with the man sitting atop it, vanished as if erased by an invisible eraser from reality, leaving not a trace of ash, not a wisp of smoke.
Only absolute emptiness remained in place, as though nothing had ever existed there.
"...He, he ran away?"
The Nadeshiko kunoichi blinked dazedly, the words escaping her lips instinctively. She was stunned by this never-before-seen "ninjutsu"—no commotion, no traces, the enemy just... disappeared?
Naruto stood in place, unmoving. He slowly lowered his head, looking at his right hand. In his palm was still that diamond-shaped black mark.
Yet his heart was pounding heavily, belatedly, in his chest.
...Did I just... uncontrollably... kill that person?
---
Rasengan: Solar Core
The inspiration for this technique was born from deep enlightenment in Sage Mode. Over the past few years, Naruto had countless times used Yomotsu Hirasaka to tear open space and step into the depths of the cosmos.
He sat in meditation on barren planetary surfaces, using Aozuki Tsukuyomi to slowly absorb the energy of those celestial bodies—not natural energy, but more primordial cosmic force belonging to the stars themselves.
He compressed and sealed these powers from alien stars within his body, storing starlight. And that strike just now—
He'd injected solar energy into the Rasengan's form.
Anything touched by it wouldn't burn, wouldn't melt. In an instant, it would be enveloped by the solar core's temperature—the absolute heat of fifteen million degrees Celsius.
That was existence itself being utterly negated by physical laws. Even atoms would disintegrate into the most basic particle streams upon contact, scattering into the void.
No pain.
Because there was no time to feel pain.
And this entirely new energy system born from the depths of the galaxy, smelting the source power of the eight major planets—Naruto named it:
Stellar Chakra.