Chapter 360: Do You Remember How Many Ants You've Stepped On?
Still, Kenichi had to admit that old Danzo was quite interesting.
The man had managed to collect that many Sharingan, and among them were quite a few Mangekyō Sharingan. That naturally made Kenichi curious. Where exactly had Danzo gotten all of those eyes?
"Could it be that the old bastard started planning to collect Sharingan a long time ago?" Kenichi muttered to himself. "That's the only explanation that makes sense. There haven't been that many Mangekyō users in Konoha in recent years."
He thought it over and felt the possibility was very high.
After all, since arriving in Konoha, the only Mangekyō users he had known of were Shisui and Fugaku. There were only those two. Aside from them, no one else had ever shown signs of possessing a Mangekyō Sharingan.
Kenichi silently put Danzo's severed arm away.
To be honest, he no longer had much interest in the eyes on that arm. He already possessed the Mangekyō himself. What interested him far more now was something else entirely.
He lifted his gaze to Nagato, who had stopped ahead of him.
Nagato stood on a tree branch, Danzo's corpse hanging from one hand as he stared into the distance, lost in thought.
"Leader," Kenichi said with a smile, "speaking of which, can I take a look at your eyes?"
Nagato turned his head at once, his expression turning cold.
"Do you want to dig them out?" he asked, narrowing his eyes. Even now, he still held Danzo's corpse in one hand, his posture unchanged.
Kenichi shook his head.
He had no such intention.
Why would he dig out Nagato's eyes? Madara had chosen Nagato precisely because Nagato carried Uzumaki blood, a body capable of enduring the burden of the Rinnegan. And just look at what Nagato had become after summoning the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path.
Besides, taking those eyes by force would mean fighting Nagato head on. And Kenichi had long since come to believe that eyes not originally his own would never be as effective in his hands as they were in their rightful owner's. Nagato himself was the perfect example. His strongest techniques were fearsome, yes, but in terms of fully bringing out the true power of the Rinnegan, he still fell short of Madara.
"No," Kenichi said, licking his lips. "I just want to look."
As he spoke, his Mangekyō Sharingan opened.
An umbrella-like pattern appeared in his eyes.
Nagato stared at him coldly, unable to make sense of what he meant by "just want to look." He did not believe there was anything wrong with letting Kenichi look. After all, the one standing here was only a puppet body. Even if it were destroyed, it would not damage his real body in any substantial way.
What bothered him was something else.
Did Kenichi already know where his real body was hiding?
At that moment, Kenichi's full attention was focused on Nagato's eyes, or more precisely, on the Rinnegan.
Those unique eyes reflected a strange brilliance in his own vision.
"How interesting," Kenichi murmured, trembling slightly with excitement.
He was analyzing them.
Analyzing the most extraordinary eyes in the shinobi world, the Rinnegan, an existence hailed as one of the absolute pinnacles among all dōjutsu. The only other eyes that truly stood on the same level were the Tenseigan, but the conditions for awakening the Tenseigan were far more demanding.
The Tenseigan required the chakra of Ōtsutsuki blood and a Byakugan of extraordinary purity. It was another supreme eye, but Kenichi had no specimen to study. It did not exist before him right now.
The Rinnegan did.
So of course he would study the Rinnegan first.
Pain began to throb in his eyes.
Kenichi knew what that meant. The consumption involved in analyzing the Rinnegan was enormous.
"What are you doing?" Nagato asked, confused.
From his perspective, all Kenichi had done was activate those strange eyes of his and then stare at him while blood slowly began to leak from the corners of his eyes.
But then, in the next instant, a sudden and overwhelming sense of danger surged through Nagato's body. It was so sharp that every hair on his body stood on end.
Kenichi, meanwhile, stared blankly at him.
He had already analyzed the Rinnegan.
Or at least, he had analyzed part of it. He could not say with certainty whether he had fully grasped its essence, because what he had seen was so strange that it left even him momentarily speechless.
When he looked into Nagato's eyes just now, it was as if he had fallen into a different world.
A strange space.
Countless atomic nuclei flowed there, dense and endless, packed so tightly that they inspired a crushing feeling of claustrophobia. Yet mixed among them was something else, something far more important.
They moved in ceaseless streams.
At terrifying speed.
Like rivers.
Like currents.
They merged and converged, one after another, surging endlessly into an immense sea, and for one breathless moment Kenichi felt as if he himself had been swallowed by that sea.
Slow down.
That thought flashed through his mind.
And the current actually slowed.
Only then could he make out what he was seeing.
"Why does this feel familiar?" the thought crossed his mind.
He could not explain it. It was the strange feeling of walking through a crowded street, spotting a stray dog, and instantly realizing it was the pet you had once lost.
A bizarre and immediate sense of recognition.
Kenichi turned and looked around within that strange world.
Everywhere around him were those slowly flowing particles.
They seemed to be made from seven kinds of... no, eight kinds.
Eight strange forces.
Eight currents.
They flowed in from every direction like rivers merging into an ocean, blending into a single, immeasurable whole.
Just as Kenichi tried to look deeper, a force of rejection struck him.
The next instant, his consciousness lurched violently. He clutched at his head, and when he opened his eyes again, everything around him had become absurdly large for a split second before shrinking back to normal.
Nagato stood in front of him, one hand still lowered from where he had just used Shinra Tensei.
Kenichi himself was now hanging from a tree branch.
"What exactly were you doing?" Nagato asked, narrowing his eyes.
Just moments ago, he had felt a strange and inexplicable danger. He had not hesitated. He used Shinra Tensei immediately, blasting everything away, including Danzo's corpse and Kenichi.
And now, judging by the look on Kenichi's face, it was as though he had only just regained his senses.
"I got lost in a wondrous universe," Kenichi replied blankly.
He casually wiped the blood from his face and closed his Sharingan.
The consumption had been severe, but he had also discovered something new.
When this analytical ability was activated, the target generally did not notice anything. Yet when the process neared completion, truly powerful people seemed to feel a vague instinctive warning. Nagato had clearly sensed it and blasted him away at once.
None of that, however, could compare to the confusion filling Kenichi's mind.
What had he just seen?
Logically, he should have seen the Rinnegan broken down into its constituent elements. Instead, he had seen rivers. Streams. An ocean of flowing power.
"Nonsense," Nagato said flatly.
He drew Danzo's corpse back to himself, glanced once at Kenichi hanging from the tree in deep thought, and then silently concluded that he would probably never understand how the mind of a lunatic like Amamiya Kenichi worked.
After all, would any normal person suddenly do something like this?
And what was the point of continuing to hang there on that branch while thinking?
Even now, Kenichi's eyes were unfocused again, like he had slipped back into some world of his own.
Nagato shook his head and left.
His real body could not be too far from the puppet. As for Kenichi, he was not worried. Kenichi was strong enough to survive on his own, and finding their trail would not be easy anyway.
So Nagato departed, leaving Kenichi hanging there alone.
It was not as if it mattered. The man was still wearing a mask.
"Come on, Konan. Let's go see Yahiko," Nagato said as he opened his eyes and smiled faintly at the friend beside him.
Now that he knew who had truly caused Yahiko's death, the fury in his heart had finally begun to settle. At long last, he had made Danzo pay.
Konan smiled too.
"Alright, Nagato," she said softly. "But is Danzo really dead?"
She was still curious. She had heard Nagato mention before that Danzo could cheat death.
"He is," Nagato answered. "That arm of his was packed with Sharingan. It seems those eyes allowed him to evade death itself. But once the arm was severed, that trick became useless."
His face flushed faintly with excitement.
Just remembering Danzo's expression before he died made Nagato want to laugh. The old man had been stunned and incredulous when his arm was cut off. Then, when he realized death was really coming, he tried to launch some last technique, only for Nagato to see through it and stop him before it could even begin.
Even at the end, Danzo had still tried bargaining for his life.
That wretched, ugly display before death was almost laughable.
Now it was over.
Now he could finally go mourn Yahiko in peace.
Konan guided Nagato out from the hollow of the tree. Sunlight spilled over him, driving away the cold dampness of the hollow behind them. Nagato lifted one hand, shielding his eyes from the sun, and for an instant it looked as though he were holding the light itself in his palm.
Meanwhile, Kenichi had already climbed down from the tree.
As he walked, he continued writing down his thoughts.
"First of all, the analysis succeeded. Or at least part of it did," he muttered.
When he had used this ability before, he had never encountered anything remotely like what he had just seen. So why this time?
"Did I glimpse the very essence of the Rinnegan?" he wondered aloud. "Is it fundamentally made of chakra? Then if I gather the seven chakra natures and natural energy inside my own eyes, could I also awaken the Rinnegan?"
He touched his eyes thoughtfully.
He was not sure.
After all, he had never tested the idea.
Footsteps suddenly sounded nearby.
Kenichi lifted his head and saw a Konoha squad approaching through the forest. The leader was unfamiliar, and he did not recognize the other three either, though one of them clearly had the Byakugan.
What mattered more was that they recognized him immediately.
In an instant, the air became tense.
Kenichi looked at them in silence.
He had not expected to run into Konoha shinobi on a forest path of all places.
"Heavenly Demon! It's you!" the leader shouted, staring at Kenichi with bloodshot eyes.
His fists were clenched so tightly they trembled. Hatred radiated from every part of him.
"Oh?" Kenichi raised an eyebrow. "You know me?"
He truly did not remember this man.
"My best friend died because of you!" the man snarled through gritted teeth.
Kenichi scratched his head.
Had that happened? Probably.
He simply did not remember. He had killed too many people to keep count.
"Who was your best friend?" Kenichi asked with a sneer.
If the man had chosen to stay quiet, or even to run, Kenichi would not have bothered with him. He had no desire to kill anyone right now. His thoughts were still half consumed by what he had seen in Nagato's eyes.
Hearing that question, the man's rage deepened even further. One of the girls behind him tugged anxiously at his sleeve, clearly trying to restrain him.
Kenichi looked at him indifferently and added one more line.
"Do you remember how many ants you've stepped on?"
.....
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