Shinichi parted his hands and pulled back his chakra in an instant.
The wood golem let out a sharp crack as its massive body crumbled layer by layer, breaking into fragments that rained down and kicked up clouds of dust.
Only the scaled wood dragon, clad in armor with wings spread wide, kept circling in the air, its wingbeats stirring gentle currents.
Shinichi walked over to the unconscious Fu and bit his right index finger.
"Summoning Technique."
Poof!
White smoke burst and quickly faded, revealing a three-meter-long Katsuyu. Her body wriggled slightly on the ground.
She raised her head, curiously taking in the ravaged clearing that looked as though it had hosted an army, before turning her antennae toward him.
"Lord Shinichi, what are your orders?" she asked in her soft, sweet voice.
Shinichi nodded and pointed at Fu. "Katsuyu, I need you to swallow her and take her back to Konoha. I have urgent matters to attend to and cannot leave right now."
"Oh? No problem, leave such a small matter to me!"
She turned toward Fu. Her antennae swayed gently, sensing the girl's condition, then suddenly paused.
"My, this girl..." Katsuyu's voice held a note of surprise. "Inside her... there are tailed-beast chakra fluctuations!"
"Yeah. She's the Seven-Tails jinchuriki of Takigakure," Shinichi answered bluntly, hiding nothing.
Katsuyu's body tensed visibly. "The Seven-Tails jinchuriki of Takigakure?!" She hesitated. "Lord Shinichi, you've captured another village's jinchuriki."
"This could cause serious trouble. Takigakure won't let it slide, it might blow up into a diplomatic incident, or even a fight!"
"Your worry is completely unnecessary," Shinichi said flatly. "Takigakure doesn't even know I'm the one who caught her."
Before Katsuyu could digest that, he added meaningfully...
"Besides... even if they knew I did it, it wouldn't matter. Not just their jinchuriki, if I snatched their village head, what could they do? Declare war on Konoha?"
Katsuyu froze.
Her antennae stopped moving, her whole body still, unable to process such a brazen way of thinking.
She'd lived for thousands of years and knew the political landscape of the shinobi world inside and out, yet she'd never seen anyone trample on its unwritten rules like this.
Treating another nation's jinchuriki so lightly, claiming he could kidnap their leader and be absolutely certain they wouldn't dare strike back... wasn't that just too tyrannical?
After a long moment, Katsuyu finally snapped out of it. Her voice came out stiff with worry.
"Lord Shinichi, your methods... the balance of the shinobi world is already fragile..."
"If you start this, will the Five Great Nations follow? If every country starts stealing each other's jinchuriki and threatening leaders, the world will fall into chaos again!"
Shinichi raised an eyebrow, clearly not expecting her to raise such geopolitical concerns.
"Relax. The 'countries' you're talking about don't include the Five Great Nations."
"The foundation of the shinobi world lies with them. As long as the Five Great Nations stay stable, the smaller countries can't stir up any real waves, and the shinobi world will naturally hold steady."
"Small nations like Takigakure can't shake the core of the world, and they certainly can't trigger a Great Ninja War."
Hearing this, Katsuyu's antennae gave a slight shake, and she stopped pressing the matter. "I understand, Lord Shinichi."
She wriggled closer to Fu, and an opening appeared at the front of her body to safely swallow the unconscious girl.
"Then, I'll set off for Konoha now." Katsuyu paused, a sudden playfulness entering into her tone. "But, Lord Shinichi... you do know I'm just a slug, and I travel very slowly."
"The trip from the Land of Waterfalls to Konoha is quite long. I'll have to pass through many human villages along the way..."
Her antennae drooped listlessly.
"Those villagers, sometimes when they spot a slug as big as me crawling on the ground, they panic and scream 'monster!'"
"And then they throw salt at me. Salt is really uncomfortable. So at that rate, safely delivering this young jinchuriki to Lady Tsunade would probably take..."
"Give me a break," Shinichi cut in, deadpan.
He'd almost forgotten that beneath her gentle front, Katsuyu could be pretty mischievous.
"You can just reverse-summon yourself back to Shikkotsu Forest and use your main body to contact Tsunade in Konoha. The whole thing won't even take a minute."
Once a summoning contract was signed, a willing summoned beast could independently open a space-time portal to go to their summoner.
"Oh my, you caught me." Katsuyu wriggled happily. "I just wanted to see if Lord Shinichi would show a little consideration for this old lady's hard work."
Poof!
White smoke exploded, and Katsuyu vanished, leaving behind only the fading cloud and an expressionless Shinichi. With Katsuyu gone, the ravaged clearing fell completely silent.
"Seven-Tails jinchuriki, captured successfully," Shinichi murmured. "Now then..."
He looked up, his gaze turning toward the Land of Rivers. "Next, the Six-Tails..."
He glanced at the scaled wood dragon still hovering above, and a hint of ease flashed in his eyes. "The road ahead will be much simpler."
Shinichi bent his knees, chakra bursting under his feet and shattering the gravel.
His body shot into the air, landing firmly on the dragon's broad head.
With a simple shift of his thoughts, the dragon's massive wings beat down.
Boom!
The sheer force of the downdraft whipped the dust along the riverbank into swirls.
The dragon accelerated instantly, tearing through the airwaves and speeding toward the skies of the Land of Rivers.
Fierce winds slammed into Shinichi, tearing at his hair and clothes.
Beneath him, the outlines of forests, rivers, and mountains blurred and receded rapidly. Air currents whistled in his ears, and clouds occasionally brushed past.
He looked down at the fast-changing landscape below, savoring the unprecedented speed.
'The feeling of flying... really is something else!'
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