Roar!
A beastly howl, shaking the hearts of all who heard it, suddenly echoed from a distant valley!
The animals in the forest, upon hearing the roar, froze in place, dazed and petrified, as if struck dumb with fear.
When they snapped out of it, every creature—beasts, birds, even lions and tigers—fled in panic. It was as though a terrifying predator lurked within that valley!
On a cliff overlooking the valley, Uchiha Shinji gazed toward the source of the beastly roar.
That roar didn't come from some wild animal—it was Naruto, unleashed in a tailed beast rampage!
Undoubtedly, Jiraiya and the others were in that valley, training Naruto to control the tailed beast's power.
The moment they unsealed Naruto's seal, the Nine-Tails erupted, instantly overwhelming Naruto's consciousness and sending him into an unconscious frenzy.
Boom, boom, boom!
Soon, a series of deafening explosions rang out from the valley. Even Shinji, miles away, felt the ground tremble beneath his feet.
"Looks like the Nine-Tails is throwing a tantrum," Shinji chuckled, musing to himself, I wonder how many tails Naruto's let loose this time.
The extent of a tailed beast's chakra leakage could be gauged by the number of tails manifested during a Jinchuriki's transformation. The more tails, the more chakra leaked, and the deeper the Jinchuriki's corruption.
In the original timeline, facing a rampaging Naruto with four tails, Jiraiya had barely subdued him at the cost of severe injuries.
Of course, Jiraiya had held back to avoid harming Naruto's body, but it still showed that a four-tailed Naruto already possessed strength rivaling a Kage.
The booming continued, but Shinji had no intention of heading over.
He knew that besides Jiraiya, Tsunade and Yakumo were in the valley. Even if Naruto unleashed four tails at once, the group had the power to suppress him.
Sure enough, the ground trembled again—this time not from Naruto's rampage, but from the Wood Release's sea of trees.
In moments, the valley was engulfed by a forest.
The soul-shaking roars from before soon turned into angry, mournful wails.
With Jiraiya, Tsunade, and Yakumo's Wood Release support, the Nine-Tails had no chance to fully erode Naruto's mind.
Not to mention, Naruto's parents—the Fourth Hokage and the previous Nine-Tails Jinchuriki—had left a failsafe within him. If the sealed Nine-Tails tried to cross the final line, they would intervene!
"It's over."
As the commotion in the valley subsided, Shinji prepared to leave.
He'd found this place thanks to secret intelligence from Yakumo, and his curiosity had driven him to take a look.
Naruto receiving Jiraiya's training earlier than in the original timeline was partly Shinji's doing.
It was he who, disguised as an Akatsuki member, attacked Naruto, prompting the Hidden Leaf to prioritize him. It was also he who orchestrated the Koryugan incident, leading Yakumo to unexpectedly master Wood Release, which set the stage for today's events.
Otherwise, Naruto's Jinchuriki training would likely have been delayed years, left to Kakashi and Yamato's training duo.
Back in the village, Shinji dove into his laboratory.
Accounting for the time to restore the fully damaged Mangekyo Sharingan in Karin's eye sockets and the fusion time for an Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan, he had at most two months to fully decipher Tsunade's fusion and suppression formulas.
He had to master those formulas within that window and replicate the fusion and suppression agents Tsunade used for the First Hokage's cell transplant surgery.
Otherwise, the Rinnegan Plan's progress would be delayed by his own hands.
A week passed in the blink of an eye.
During that week, everyone at the Shinobi Academy was consumed with intense training.
Sasuke and Neji tirelessly refined their tactics, sometimes strategizing from dawn until midnight.
Kimimaro continued his near-self-destructive solo training.
Yakumo was either honing her taijutsu at the training grounds or sharpening her Wood Release while assisting with Naruto's training, never idle for a moment.
As for Shinji, to outsiders, he seemed leisurely this week—either holed up in the medical team's lab or dashing to the archives.
But only he knew the truth: he'd been so busy his feet barely touched the ground.
The properties of dozens of herbs, complex extraction techniques, and Tsunade's near-miraculous medical ninjutsu were all obstacles to replicating her fusion and suppression agents.
And this was with Yakumo occasionally feeding him intelligence and answering his questions.
Without her secret information channel, forget two months—two years might not have been enough to replicate Tsunade's formulas.
That night, Shinji, as usual, activated Jikibi to contact Karin.
He'd barely greeted her when Karin exclaimed, "Leader, I did it!"
Shinji blinked. "Did what?"
"Restored the Mangekyo Sharingan!" Karin said, brimming with excitement. "I've fully restored this pair of Mangekyo Sharingan!"
"Really?"
With a whoosh, Shinji shot up from his seat.
Karin nodded eagerly. "Yes, I can feel they're restored!"
"Stay put. I'm coming to check!"
Shinji quickly tamped down his excitement, regaining his calm.
First, this was expected. Second, whether the fully damaged Mangekyo Sharingan was truly restored wasn't for Karin to decide—he needed to verify it himself.
Deliberately delaying a bit, Shinji, dressed in Akatsuki garb, arrived at Karin's apartment.
As soon as he entered, he said, "Show me quickly. Is that pair of Mangekyo Sharingan really—"
He froze mid-sentence.
Because at that moment, Karin's eye sockets glowed a vivid scarlet, her pupils displaying the intricate patterns of the Mangekyo Sharingan!
Karin, trembling with excitement, said, "Leader, I… I opened them myself!"
Shinji realized something, his heart surging with uncontainable joy.
Non-Uchiha shinobi, even with transplanted Mangekyo Sharingan, typically struggled to control their state—either unable to close them or unable to activate them.
When Karin used the Mangekyo Sharingan imbued with the dojutsuSusanoo Tomoshibi, Shinji had always opened and closed them for her.
But this time, Karin had, without his help, activated the Mangekyo Sharingan purely through her own will!