Chapter 263: The Continuous Path

A heavy silence settled over the forest.

Kabuto adjusted his glasses and looked at the five shinobi arrayed against him.

"Support has arrived. That should be enough for today."

He had delayed them long enough. Remaining after Temari and Kankurō joined the battle offered more risk than value.

"You are not escaping," Neji said.

"Eight Trigrams: Vacuum Palm!"

Compressed chakra struck Kabuto squarely. His body burst into mud.

An Earth Clone.

The real Kabuto had already disappeared.

"Damn it," Kiba said.

Kankurō searched the surrounding branches. "Even with the opening, we could not keep him here."

Shikamaru released a long breath. Kabuto's pressure had dominated every exchange. If the spy had come to kill them instead of delay them, the battle might have ended before Sand arrived.

"His experience is far beyond ours," Kiba admitted.

Elsewhere, Lee forced open another Gate.

"Gate of Joy, open!"

Chakra surged against his skin until it turned crimson. Veins stood across his face. Across from him, Kimimaro had entered a monstrous Cursed Seal state. Bone shields covered his body, many already cracked by Lee's attacks.

For the first time, Kimimaro felt such pressure from someone younger than himself.

Lee vanished.

"Konoha Strong Whirlwind!"

His kick struck Kimimaro's raised guard. Bone shattered.

Lee followed with Rising Wind, Great Strong Whirlwind, and Reverse Lotus before Kimimaro could regain distance. The transformed shinobi could barely react to the speed. His Cursed Seal-enhanced perception and Shikotsumyaku defenses kept him alive, but they could not stop Lee from driving him into the ground.

A huge crater opened beneath the final impact.

Tonbo watched from concealment, his chest tightening.

"Lee truly does not know restraint. He will need another period of recovery. At least Tsunade and I are here."

The performance confirmed that Lee now stood in a class of his own among Konoha's young shinobi. The cost remained severe. Opening the Eight Gates still meant returning to the hospital, and his body needed further strengthening before that changed.

Massive chakra erupted beneath the crater.

Tonbo prepared to move. Then another presence entered his perception, and he stopped.

Bone spikes burst from the earth across the entire clearing.

"Dance of the Seedling Fern!"

Even Lee's speed could not escape such a wide attack after the Gates had exhausted him. Sand rose at the last instant, wrapped around his body, and lifted him above the forest of bone.

Gaara had arrived.

Tonbo relaxed. The remaining outcome depended upon Sasuke reaching Orochimaru after the reincarnation deadline.

Shikamaru's mission failed.

Sasuke escaped. Kakashi defied his orders and followed the pursuit, reaching Naruto after the final battle and carrying him home. Lee and Chōji returned unconscious.

Gaara, Temari, and Kankurō completed the assistance requested from Sand. Their arrival prevented further deaths even though it could not reverse Sasuke's decision or erase the distance he had gained. Shikamaru returned carrying the burden of failure despite every teammate surviving.

Lee entered the hospital again. Tsunade and Tonbo had experience with his condition now and restored him quickly enough that he only needed another period of rest.

Chōji survived as well.

Tonbo's nerves inside Sasuke showed no sign of a soul invasion. Orochimaru had been forced to reincarnate before the boy arrived. The deeper safeguards Tonbo placed in Sasuke's body—enough to resist one attempt at possession—had not been needed.

That timing preserved the path Tonbo wanted. Sasuke could learn Orochimaru's techniques and wait for the sannin's weakened moment without immediately losing control of his body. Tonbo's hidden defense remained available if the next attempt came sooner than expected.

The failed mission still gave Tonbo an extraordinary harvest of data. Within a year, he believed his Sage Mode would be complete.

Six months passed.

"Naruto went away to train. It is so boring."

Konohamaru had just finished practicing the Sexy Jutsu and wanted to show Naruto the improvements. Instead, Jiraiya had taken his rival away for several years.

His disappointment did not last.

"I can already defeat Tenyu and Maki now. My next target is Captain Tonbo."

Moegi and Udon looked at him with open pity.

"What is that look?" Konohamaru demanded. "I am strong. Those two are no match for me anymore."

His family lessons and six months under Tonbo had advanced him beyond almost every Academy exercise. Konohamaru decided that surpassing his classmates meant defeating their father could not be far away.

"Break Tonbo-sensei's Eightfold Flavor before you say that," Moegi advised.

Konohamaru swallowed at the name. The punishment genjutsu filled a victim's throat and nose with thousands of overlapping flavors and scents. Ordinary release methods failed, and protecting the throat before activation did nothing.

"It is enough to defeat Tenyu and Maki," Udon said. "If Tonbo-sensei hears you, he will use it again."

The longer they studied under Tonbo, the more impossible Konohamaru's boast sounded. Their teacher seemed able to pull any lesson from a limitless store of knowledge. The Academy now offered little that challenged the three of them, but Tonbo remained beyond comparison.

"Nonsense! I inherited Grandfather's will. I am the future Hokage who will revitalize Konoha. Of course I will beat him someday. He only picks on me because I am young."

Konohamaru pointed toward the training fields.

"Come on. We will challenge Tenyu and Maki to three against three and defeat them again."

In the forest behind Konoha, fine branching patterns covered trees, stones, and earth.

Tonbo's head emerged from the network along the trunk of a tree.

"Nerve Displacement is finally complete. The next step is displacement across a broken connection."

He sank back into the pattern and emerged from a rock several meters away.

Sakon and Ukon's Parasitic Demonic Demolition Technique had shown him how a body could separate to the level of cells and proteins. Tonbo combined that principle with the neural network created through Contact Evolution. Within a connected area, he could dissolve his body into that structure, travel along it, and reconstruct himself at another point.

The current limitation was absolute: the path had to remain continuous. If the neural network broke between two locations, Tonbo could not cross the gap and emerge beyond it.

Developing even this version required six months.

The brothers' ability leaned toward Earth Release, which was far from Tonbo's greatest affinity. If movement through the network had not mattered so much to his future plans, he would have spent the time deepening Yin Release instead of forcing slow progress from an element that offered him little.

The work produced other gains. Tonbo could now transform his body down to cellular scale, while the nerves generated by Contact Evolution became far finer and easier to conceal.

Each emergence tested whether every part of him returned in the correct arrangement. Shadow Clones had borne the early failures; missing tissue, incomplete sensation, and broken chakra pathways made the risks obvious. Only after the network reconstructed a clone perfectly again and again had Tonbo allowed his original body to enter it.

He finally understood why his future self, while controlling Boruto, had planted nerves inside the boy—and why the network had been repelled when it touched the Karma carried in Boruto's body.

At that earlier stage, Tonbo's technique had simply been too crude.

He passed through the forest again, one continuous pathway at a time, already considering how a disconnected jump might be achieved.