After finally completing the absorption and conversion of the Nine-Tails' chakra, Uchiha Hikari retracted her Susanoo, and the group landed back on the solid ground.
But right before completely withdrawing the Susanoo, Hikari ruthlessly fired one final massive arrow.
This arrow directly blew off the head of Uzumaki Menma, who had just been lying on the ground with barely his last pathetic breath left.
"Just die quietly. There's no Sage of Six Paths ghost in this twisted world to hand you free cheats," Makoto said, coldly glancing over at the headless corpse.
The fundamental core of this world lay in the nine Tailed Beasts, even though this universe's specific "core" setting was disgustingly abnormal.
But regardless of the cursed lore, only the raw power of the Nine Tailed Beasts was truly real here.
The power of the previous Asura reincarnations that Uzumaki Menma had dramatically borrowed earlier honestly wasn't anything special either.
Moreover, there was absolutely no need to worry about the Eight Thousand Spears accidentally absorbing Asura's gross reincarnated chakra.
Those two specific types of reincarnated chakra belonged to a hidden, specialized category deeply concealed within the body and soul, meaning they literally couldn't be extracted by standard absorption-type techniques anyway.
"NO! MENMA!!!"
A figure suddenly rushed out from the temple ruins, screaming miserably.
He violently threw himself onto Uzumaki Menma's headless corpse and began to loudly wail.
"Ah, this is Uchiha Sasuke. He's the only... uh, one of the only two survivors of the Uchiha clan besides Itachi." [Konan] calmly introduced the sobbing teenager who had just run over, only hastily correcting herself mid-sentence about the "only survivor" part upon remembering Uchiha Hikari was standing right there.
"Uchiha Sasuke? How did he not get blown to bits along with the rest of Konoha? And didn't he defect to Orochimaru?" Makoto found it incredibly strange that Sasuke could just conveniently spawn here out of nowhere like this.
They hadn't even triggered the classic "two-person eavesdropping mechanism" yet!
"According to the intelligence our organization has gathered, the former Uchiha clan head, Fugaku Uchiha, was actually a genuinely good person." [Konan] spoke slowly and solemnly.
'Damn, do actual good people exist in this cursed world?'
Up in the sky audience seats, Kushina, hearing this incredibly rare glimmer of hope, frantically sent a voice message directly to Uchiha Hikari's mind, practically begging her not to stop [Konan] and to let the woman continue speaking.
Kushina desperately wanted to hear some normal wholesome stories to cleanse her bleeding ears and violently purify her traumatized mind!
Finally, there was a good person in this universe!
Even if it was her good friend Mikoto's stoic husband, she'd happily accept it.
As long as someone she knew was somewhat normal, that was more than enough.
"Tch."
Uchiha Hikari just curled her lip.
She quietly relayed Kushina's desperate request to Makoto, then immediately whipped out two thick earplugs and secretly stuffed them deep into her ears.
She even pumped her raw chakra directly into the earplugs just to completely block out any faint, residual sounds that might slip through.
Moreover, she deliberately deactivated her Sharingan to strictly prevent herself from accidentally lip-reading whatever the hell [Konan] was about to say.
"Fugaku Uchiha completely despised Tailed Beasts. He simply had a massive, unrequited romantic crush on Namikaze Minato," [Konan] continued without missing a single beat.
Kushina's hopeful smile up in the audience seats instantly shattered and froze.
'You call THAT a good person?! Hiss.'
But honestly, come to think of it... compared to the absolute, unhinged furry perverts running rampant in this world, someone like Fugaku, who merely preferred men, could actually be considered a shining beacon of normality here.
"But his clansmen were nothing like him," [Konan] explained. "The rest of the Uchiha clan repeatedly urged Fugaku to violently incite a rebellion, overthrow the strict rule of the Third Hokage Hiruzen and let the Uchiha clan completely monopolize the Nine-Tails for themselves."
"Fugaku, however, firmly understood that doing so would ultimately destroy Minato's family. His deep love was one of selfless devotion; he flat-out refused to disrupt Minato's peaceful life just to possess him."
"Thus, Fugaku only pretended to agree with his greedy clansmen, all while secretly participating in radical anti-furry protests, desperately hoping to awaken the village's lost conscience."
"But this rebellious behavior was eventually discovered by his own son, Uchiha Itachi. To ruthlessly maintain the village's stability, Uchiha Itachi slaughtered all the Uchiha clansmen in a single night—specifically because their sick desire for the Nine-Tails had grown far too intense."
"After all, the Nine-Tails belongs to everyone in Konoha, not just the Uchiha clan! He also mercilessly killed his own father, Fugaku—because his father's active participation in anti-furry protests had completely betrayed the sacred Will of Fire, leaving Itachi with no other choice but to uphold 'justice' at the heavy expense of his own kinship."
"Uchiha Sasuke was the sole survivor Itachi spared that bloody night. To ensure his little brother's 'growth,' Itachi even used the Tsukuyomi to violently force Sasuke to watch seventy-two uninterrupted hours of hardcore furry content. From that night on, the originally straight Uchiha Sasuke began rapidly developing furry tendencies."
"Fortunately, Sasuke still retained a tiny shred of conscience. He couldn't bring himself to actually harm small animals, so he began strictly obsessing over demi-humans instead—specifically, his classmate Uzumaki Menma, who possessed those distinctive fox-like whiskers."
"It's even said that in order to steal Menma's first kiss, Sasuke deliberately used the subtle wire strings of his shuriken manipulation technique to seamlessly trip him during a confrontation, ensuring they 'accidentally' locked lips."
"Not too long ago, Orochimaru invaded Konoha and the Third Hokage Hiruzen died—but he actually wasn't killed by Orochimaru's hand. After becoming Hokage, Sarutobi had completely neglected his loyal Summoning Beast, Enma the Monkey King, spending absolutely all of his free time creepily peeping on Namikaze Minato and the Nine-Tails using his crystal ball Telescope Technique."
"Enma, whose deep love had violently turned to bitter hatred over the neglect, ruthlessly seized the opportunity during the chaotic invasion to backstab Sarutobi to death using Orochimaru's dropped Kusanagi sword."
"Orochimaru heavily exploited his own creepy, half-snake demi-human appeal to successfully seduce Uchiha Sasuke into leaving the village with him. But the moment Sasuke learned that Uzumaki Menma had also left Konoha, he eagerly abandoned Orochimaru without a second thought."
"He must have frantically used gathered intelligence to track Menma all the way down to this temple. He desperately wanted to stop Menma and the Nine-Tails from fully reincarnating their historic bond, but he arrived way too late."
"Not only was the reincarnation bond already completely finalized, but both Menma and the Nine-Tails had just been brutally eliminated by you all."
Finally, [Konan]'s cursed story concluded.
The traumatized crowd up in the sky audience seats collectively exhaled a massive sigh of relief.
Each and every one of them was intensely grateful that they hadn't been heavily featured in that specific lore dump.
Even Orochimaru visually relaxed, though he actually had a minor supporting role in that story, at least he hadn't done anything too outrageously perverted compared to the others.
"This place... is absolute hell."
[Uchiha Sasuke] wept thick tears of blood, desperately cradling Uzumaki Menma's headless corpse as he slowly rose to his feet.
Then, overflowing with bitter, unadulterated despair, he glared murderously at Uchiha Hikari.
At this exact moment, the three tomoe in [Uchiha Sasuke]'s eyes began spinning wildly, aggressively beginning to evolve and mutate into the legendary Mangekyo Sharingan!
SQUELCH.
Makoto suddenly materialized right beside [Uchiha Sasuke], violently dug out both of his freshly awakened Mangekyo Sharingan with a swift brutal backhand motion, casually threw them to the ground, and ruthlessly crushed them into bloody paste under his heel.
"AHHHH————!!!"
[Uchiha Sasuke], who had just been about to dramatically unleash his brand-new chakra and ocular power, instantly clutched his bleeding empty eye sockets and collapsed heavily to the ground, screaming in sheer agony.
Before [Uchiha Sasuke] even fully hit the dirt, Makoto grabbed the hilt of the Kusanagi Sword holstered at the boy's waist.
As Sasuke fell, the sword was drawn out completely smoothly, and Makoto casually tossed the blade straight downward like a dart, perfectly piercing [Uchiha Sasuke]'s heart.
The screaming abruptly and permanently ceased.
"Alright, that's that. Let's move on to the next Tailed Beast. Where to? The Hidden Sand Village?" Makoto cheerfully clapped his bloody hands together.
"Let's go to the Hidden Cloud Village instead," [Konan] suggested.
She honestly hadn't expected the two new Akatsuki recruits to be this overwhelmingly powerful, to harbor such incredibly deep hatred for the Tailed Beasts, and to be so ruthlessly efficient and enthusiastic about their work.
If only absolutely everyone in the organization were exactly like these two newcomers.
They could have confidently started the Tailed Beast capture plan years ago, without her having to painstakingly run to Konoha every single day to secretly disguise the entire place with explosive tags.
"Starting from the hardest and working our way down to the easiest? Yeah, that works too," Makoto nodded slightly.
After all, the Land of Fire was situated right in the center of the continent, and the travel distance to the other four of the Five Great Nations was roughly the exact same no matter which one they chose to hit next.
"No, the Hidden Cloud Village is actually the easiest target," [Konan] shook her head seriously upon hearing Makoto's words.
...
Be cursed my brothers!