Perched high in the mountains, Kumo was as close to the clouds as one could imagine.

  Puffs of silvery-white clouds drifted and flickered, floating with the wind. Looking down, thick mists rose like spshes of water in a ke, surging from all dires and swaying mid-mountain.

  The news of Orochimaru's defe, Tsunade's departure, and Jiraiya's injury, leading to the breakup of the Legendary Sannin, had already reached Kumo.

  The ninjas of this highnd vilge had begun to set their sights southward.

  Rumors suggested that the Fourth Raikage had vened multiple high-level meetings to discuss strategies for moving south.

  Whehe Kumo ninjas moved south, they had to guard against the Iwa ninjas. Those sneaky ninjas had ambushed them more than once, and the Third Raikage had sacrificed his life because of them.

  The Kumo ninjas craved the fertile nds of the Land of Fire. Though they had suffered losses over it, they didn't harbor much hatred.

  But when it came to Iwa, the entire vilge brimmed with animosity.

  All the great ninja nations coveted the Land of Fire, but Kumo had always been singurly focused—it wahe Land of Fire alone. Iwa, however, coveted both the Land of Fire and the Land of Lightning.

  Among the Five Great Nations, the Land of Fire, the Land of Lightning, and the Land of Water had the richest and most livable natural resources, with the Land of Fire being the most ideal: four distinct seasons, favorable weather, and minimal geological disasters.

  The other two tries came but were still gems of the shinobi world.

  The Land of Lightning, situated in the northeast of the ti, boasted sery akin to paradise. The sky erfect bright blue, like someone had ed it until it shohe highnds were thick with greenery, while meadows spread across the lownds.

  The residents could farm in the mountains or establish pastures in the grassnds. With access to the strait, their fishing industry was also thriving.

  The downside, however, was the deadly pteau winds, snowstorms, and thundercps that could shatter the tranquility and cim lives.

  "Thunder doesn't scare us! It's our lulby!" a local mert ughed at a visitor's ed face as thunder cracked overhead.

  "How do you sleep through suoise?"

  "Hahaha! In Kumo, if you 't sleep through thunder, you don't sleep at all!"

  Residents of the Land of Lightning were aced to hearing deafening thunder from the sky as they walked the streets. They were a people defined by resiliend a refusal to bow to fate.

  Obito emerged from a bar in Kumo, his face expressionless.

  He hadn't e to this vilge under a cealed identity for pleasure. Yet, for some inexplicable reason, he found himself entering this bar the moment he id eyes on it.

  Masashi, whom Obito deemed a potentially useful pawn, was still an annoying person in his eyes.

  But there was no denying one fact: he was incredibly strong.

  Obito sought to uhe secrets behind his strength. Based on all his observations, Masashi's life and training habits seemed to revolve around one pce: bars.

  "Something about finding three-tomoe in tea" or other nonsense like that hrase Obito had heard tless times.

  And so, he went in—with his usual deadpan expression.

  When he finally left, he felt… nothing. Enha drugs would expin the rapid progress, but something didn't add up...

  The guy's words had been as cryptic as ever. Despite drinking for a long time, he gained no insights.

  Could it be that Konoha's alcohol was brewed differently? Or… had Masashi been doping all along?

  He leaoward the tter theory. Doping among ninja wasn't unon. It was rare within the Uchiha , but not unheard of.

  Suinja often made rapid progress early on but ultimately paid the price as their bodies deteriorated.

  Obito cluded that Masashi must have been using enhas.

  Ag all mysterious—he's just a fraud... Feeling a bit better, he turo leave.

  "Wait, sir! Don't leave yet!"

  A dancer ran out and grabbed him by the arm, her face glowing with pyful charm.

  Obito almost flung her off but restrained himself. He couldn't blow his cover. Right now, his disguise was that of a fn mert, his face ed in bandages with a backstory of disfigurement.

  The Kumo ninjas weren't ed about whether merts were disfigured or not, as long as their goods were top-notch. This allowed him to ehe vilge smoothly.

  But the dancer saw something different in him.

  In the Land of Lightning, most men were either burly or pale-skihere wasn't mu between. The darker men were usually rugged and crude, and the paler ones often overpensated by ag overly mase.

  As for the women, they were fiery in both temperament and physique. And, as the sayi, people yearned for what they cked.

  Having grown aced to brash, rough men, this dancer was instantly captivated by the aura Obito exuded.

  Though he wore bandages, his hands were smooth and delicate—not something you'd see in a highnder. His polite demeanor arained gaze also set him apart.

  Here was a man with css. pared to the coarse vilgers, this gentleman was leagues ahead. Such a high-quality man—how could she not seize this opportunity to make him hers?

  In the Land of Lightning, women were bold and direct about love, uhe reserved women of the Land of Fire.

  "Why are you in such a hurry to leave?"

  "???" What the heck?

  Why was this woman, wearing so little, fawning over him now?

  He barely kept his irritation in check.

  "I'm sorry, miss. I have work to do," he replied.

  The dancer was momentarily stunned.

  She decided she had to make him uand—she wasn't just any dancer. She was a good girl, one who performed for art, not… other services.

  "Alright…" she finally said, releasing him relutly. For the first time, she felt her profession wasn't as wonderful as it seemed.

  Obito didn't notice the emotional rollercoaster she went through. But her tact pleased him, so he softened his tone.

  "I apologize if I was rude earlier. This is just the way I am," he said politely before striding away.

  ---

  Iraining hall within the Uchiha 's pound, Masashi was hard at work honing his skills.

  Blinding fshes of electricity revealed he was training in lightning chakra transformation. However, judging by the results oarget, it was not going well.

  He retracted the sparks from his hand and closely examihe target, looking disappoihe scorch marks were scattered and unfocused, nothing like the precise strikes he needed.

  As expected, proficy wasn't something that could be built up easily.

  Among the seven chakra nature transformations, the unique aspects of Yin and Yang aside, the Five Elements transformations were something every ninja could potentially master. These were sidered the standard chakra nature transformations.

  Mastery could be achieved in two ways: either one had an ialent, starting with a baseline proficy that required no begiraining—only steady improvement; or oarted with zero innate ability, relying solely orous training to brute-force progress, which was far more challenging.

  Most people naturally excelled in only one chakra nature, which was the norm. However, due to the strategic importance of elemental iions in ninja battles, a ninja needed profi at least two natures by the time they reached the rank of jonin.

  If they were naturally skilled in only ohe other had to be trained up the hard way.

  Take Hiruzen, for example—innately gifted in all five natures, a true anomaly.

  Masashi wasn't so fortunate. He was naturally adept in three natures, which still put him far ahead of most. Yet, by his own high standards, he sidered his elemental patibility inplete. Having maxed out his profi fire, water, and wind, he had long decided to focus on a fourth nature—lightning.

  For someone like him, who favored highly mobile bat, the offeure of lightning took prece over the defeential of earth. With sage teiques in his arsenal, his current enviro didn't demand much focus on defense.

  Still, starting from scratch with a new nature transformation was anything but easy.

  Siurning from Ryūchi Cave, he had been w on lightning. By now, it had been over half a year.

  Following Orochimaru's defe, Tsunade formally left the vilge, and Jiraiya also departed after a brief stay in the vilge for recovery. Sihen, Konoha had entered a period of calm, with no major is.

  The Hokage's office showed little urgen reestablishing tact with Kiri, and progress on that front was slow. This afforded Masashi plenty of time to devote to mastering lightning release.

  At first, he could only produce a few faint sparks. Now, he could at least unleash an attack, though it paled in parison to his fire, water, and wind teiques.

  Despite the slress, he was advang at a remarkable pace, thanks to employing a strategy inspired by Naruto from the inal timeline—using multiple shadow es to accelerate training.

  However, unlike Naruto, Masashi dared not go overboard. He capped his shadow es at ten, well aware of the risks associated with overusing the teique, which had been cssified as forbidden food reason.

  In the past, some had pushed themselves too far and died from chakra depletion or suffered severe mental trauma from the memory feedback.

  He had learhis lesson the hard way in his previous life.

  After training for a whole day, he had released two shadow es simultaneously, the sudden rush of memories and experiences had overwhelmed his mind, leaving him unscious for days. Though he had been lucky it was only two es, the experience had taught him to be more cautious.

  Now, he only released one or two es at a time, letting his mind properly process each wave of information before moving on to the .

  Naruto, with his massive innate chakra reserves as a reination of Asura and the ails jinchūriki, could afford such reckless training. By the te stages of his development, he had reached a monstrous level, capable of kig away Truth-Seeking Orbs with raw chakra power alone.

  Truth-Seeking Orbs, posed of chakra deo its ultimate form, transded the Five Elements and Yin-Yang transformations, embodying the pinnacle known as Yin-Yang Release.

  This was the realm Masashi aspired to reach.

  For an Uchiha, Yin-Yang Release held special significe—it was the sole pathway to awakening the Rinnegan. Given the choice, who would only settle for the Mangekyō Sharingan?

  Unfortunately, he had no examples to guide him on this path. He was left to experiment and fe his own way forward.

  In this life, however, he had mao analyze both Asura and Indra's chakra. Based on his observations of these a powers, he had devised a methodical pn.

  His chosen approach? Master every possible chakra nature transformation.

  Even if he never reached Yin-Yang Release, being profit in all chakra natures would still be a worthwhile aplishment.

  After all, being a "man of all elements" was undeniably useful.

  Masashi was ambitious. He wao be strong—strohan anyone—and still savor life's pleasures.

  For a ninja, he was insatiably greedy. Yet, he was alsmatiowing that not every good thing in life would e his way.

  His ultimate goal was simple: when the final battle came, he refused to be a helpless pawo a tree as someone's battery. He'd rather die at the hands of Madara in a great fight.

  If there was a sed ce, there'd surely be a third. Those with multiple ces had the luxury of being willful.

  Sensing his chakra reserves nearing safe limits, Masashi stopped his Lightning Release training. With caution, he began dispelling his shadow es o a time, carefully processing each set of memories and experiences.

  Iraining room, the ten es vanished in sequence, each puff of smoke separated by a few moments of mental iion.

  He punched forward, unleashing a brilliant burst of lightning that obliterated the target before him.

  Still, this was the best he could manage for now.

  The Uchiha library tained plenty of lightning teiques, but he had no iion of learning them all. Despite his ambitions, he wasn't indiscriminate about training, especially since he had a better-suited mentor in mind fhtning Release. It just depended oher they'd show up.

  After tidying up, Masashi left the training room a home to shower. With plenty of daylight left, he decided to take a leisurely stroll outside.

  Dressed casually, he left the pound. It had been a long time since he'd wandered around purely for enjoyment. The st time was when he'd been curious enough to explore every er of Konoha, just to see how big it really was.

  As he strolled through the ercial district, stopping occasionally to browse shops, he found the rexed atmosphere refreshing.

  Although he had suggested to Fugaku that they prepare an escape pn, leaving the vilge was a st resort. Who would willingly abandon Konoha?

  Resg Minato's family had its downsides. But the bes far outweighed the drawbacks.

  Along the way, Masashi entered some familiar faces from the police force. They said their hellos before each went on their way—some to work, others to rex.

  Suddenly, he heard a otion behind him.

  With a grilled squid skewer in his mouth, Masashi turo look.

  A ninja pushed through the crowd, running dowreet in a hurry. Judging by his appearance, he had just returned from outside the vilge. His expression was one ency.

  What's going on?