"Ugh—"
Yamanaka Shinno had barely taken one spoonful of the deer antler and goji porridge when his face twisted in disgust. He almost spit it out right then and there.
The strong medicinal taste hit him like a punch to the skull—he felt like it could've blown the top of his head clean off.
That bowl of "tonic" porridge didn't just have deer antler and goji berries floating on the surface. The broth had been cooked with a ton of herbs to supposedly balance out the effects and make it more "gentle" and "nourishing."
Yeah, well... about that...
Shinno paused, feeling a slow burn rise in his belly, followed by a wave of heat coursing through every inch of his body.
He quickly ran a self-diagnostic using his medical ninjutsu skills.
This thing hit harder than those little blue pills!
Come on—even if the Nara Clan had their own pharmaceutical lab and herb farm, wasn't this a bit too much?
He glanced up and saw Nara Shikaku eating spoonful after spoonful like it was nothing, all while sneaking glances to make sure he was eating too.
Shinno rolled his eyes hard enough to sprain something. Without hesitation, he activated his Infinite Arsenal.
The next time the spoon neared his mouth, he wrapped the contents with chakra mid-motion and shunted it straight into storage.
His body was already in peak condition. This stuff? Better to toss it later when no one's looking.
If he actually absorbed all that... poor Kushina might not survive the night!
"Shikaku, don't forget to wash the dishes. I'm heading to work~"
Nara Yoshino beamed in satisfaction after seeing Shikaku finish his bowl. She swapped out her house slippers for black high heels, pulled on a tailored qipao with black patterns on a white base, and threw a warm white deerskin cloak over her shoulders as she walked out the door.
"You just used space-time ninjutsu, didn't you?!"
Shikaku narrowed his eyes at Shinno, suspicion all over his face.
"What else did you expect? Walk out the door holding a stick like you?" Shinno raised a brow, voice dripping with mock concern. "Wait—don't tell me you're so drained you can't even pitch a tent anymore? No way, right? No way~"
With a flourish, he tossed the spoon back into the bowl and mimicked Shikaku's earlier tone, stabbing the verbal boomerang straight into his heart.
"...Let's get serious for a second."
Shikaku fell silent. With his intelligence, he knew full well this was a trap question—no matter how he answered, he was getting played.
Damn space-time ninjutsu... why couldn't he be born with that kind of talent?
"Hehe~ I've made a bit more progress recently. Remember how I told you Uchiha Madara's not working alone? I just happened to run into some of them on the front lines, so I unleashed some Wood Style and cleared the place out..."
Shinno gave a brief rundown of what had happened at the front and what he planned to do next.
He wasn't planning to interfere much with Iwagakure.
Sunagakure, though? That would require a personal visit.
And as for Konoha, the internal restructuring and power transition needed to be completed within the next few days.
Time was tight, and there was a lot to do.
Even with all his power, he was still just one person. There was no way he could handle everything at once.
"You're seriously telling me... you don't want to be Hokage?"
Shikaku stared at him with an unreadable expression.
"Positive. Absolutely. No thanks."
Shinno nodded firmly. Being Hokage? He wouldn't even wish that job on a stray dog.
"You're the one who scared Iwagakure into submission, and now you're heading to pressure Sunagakure. You're the cornerstone holding this whole three-village alliance together. And you still say you don't want to be Hokage...?"
Shikaku trailed off mid-sentence. He was starting to get it.
Shinno didn't answer—just smiled.
In the One Piece world, even above the Five Elders, there was someone named Imu.
In this world, above the Five Kage... was him. So what?
He didn't manage day-to-day affairs. He didn't show himself in front of the public.
As far as regular people were concerned, he might as well not exist.
But as long as he held absolute power, his authority stood unchallenged above the Five Kage. If he spoke, they had to listen—whether they liked it or not.
But if he became Hokage...
Then he'd be caught up in the bureaucracy. He'd have to care about everything. And why put himself through that?
"No offense, but... two things. One: are you sure you're strong enough to take on all five Kage if they teamed up? And two... are you immortal?"
Shikaku held up two fingers, voicing the real concerns.
Because if Shinno wasn't strong enough, all this "above the Kage" talk was just nonsense.
And even if he was, in a seemingly equal system, there would always be people who couldn't stand having someone above them. People who would try to overthrow him the second he showed weakness.
If Shinno ever grew old or his strength waned—or worse, if he died—the Yamanaka-Nara-Akimichi alliance would be wiped out overnight. The newly unified ninja villages would fracture almost immediately.
Knowing Shinno, there was no way he hadn't thought this through.
So... was he truly immortal now?
"First one's not a problem. Second... I wouldn't call it immortality exactly, but living for a few thousand years shouldn't be an issue."
Shinno rubbed his chin, calculating his remaining lifespan.
Thanks to the golden trait Yin-Yang Sage and his method of directly absorbing natural energy, he'd already undergone a fundamental transformation on the biological level.
Immortality was... a complicated word.
Some people thought living a few millennia counted. Others insisted you needed to be truly eternal to qualify.
But in Shinno's mind, true immortality meant something far greater—transcending life and death, housing the cosmos within yourself, living as long as the heavens and shining like the sun and moon.
He wasn't even close to that.
...
"Hoo... So who're you planning to make the Fourth Hokage?"
Shikaku took a few deep breaths to calm the pounding in his chest.
"Hmm... Tsunade or Danzo. Who do you think is better?"
Shinno mentally ran through Konoha's available candidates.
Jiraiya was too free-spirited and had his own code—definitely not Hokage material.
Minato had the strength, but his fame as the Yellow Flash hadn't fully taken root yet. Propping him up would be more trouble than it was worth.
Orochimaru? He could go play in his lab and stop dreaming.
That left Tsunade and... "Danzo."
The former had at least some independence.
The latter? No autonomy, but Shikaku and the others could steer him from behind the scenes. It'd probably work out.
"Danzo's only use now is to balance the books and take the blame. Putting him in power serves no purpose. Can Tsunade suppress the Third?"
Shikaku shook his head. First off, he shot down White Zetsu's Danzo impersonation.
Everyone knew Danzo came from the Root division and was a hardliner. Putting someone like that in charge during a village-merging transition would just be begging for chaos.
"Eh, does she need to? If she does, I'll just boost her a bit—it's no big deal."
"As long as she can overpower the Third, give me three days. I'll have Konoha's entire power structure locked down. No one will be able to slow you down."
"What about the village merger protocol?"
"Simple. I'll have it ready by this afternoon. You just focus on handling Tsunade."
"Got it."
Shinno nodded. With the serious stuff out of the way, he pushed back from the table and stood up to leave.
At the door, he turned back as if remembering something important.
"By the way—what I've got isn't true immortality. It takes serious talent, so you guys probably can't replicate it. But Orochimaru's research has been coming along nicely. I can't promise too much, but living for a thousand years? That's definitely within reach. Maybe more, in the future."
He'd thought about this issue a long time ago.
That's why he'd never gone all-out against Orochimaru, no matter how insane the guy got with his experiments.
Because if you lived long enough to watch every familiar face fade away... if one day, everything you knew and everyone you loved was gone...
That kind of immortality would be far too cold, far too lonely.
...
"Sh*t..."
Shikaku stared at the spot where Shinno had just vanished. He pinched his thigh hard, then used a clan technique to check his mental state.
Nope. Not dreaming.
Over a thousand years?
He wasn't just strong—he was spoiling them rotten!
"Guess I'd better start working on a population control policy, or else... ugh~~~"
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Pls Drop some Power Stones
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