The Root base was cold and shrouded in darkness.
Shimura Danzō's shadow flickered against the candlelight as he stared at the confidential report in front of him, his eyes gleaming with an almost fanatical light.
"The Box of Ultimate Bliss that can grant any wish..." Danzō muttered slowly. "Is there really such a miraculous artifact in this world?"
"Perhaps... it's real. The Land of Grass has been wiped off the map. Such terrifying power... even the First Hokage couldn't have destroyed a country overnight."
A few nights ago, Konoha experienced a violent earthquake, accompanied by a wave of powerful mental shock. In truth, natural disasters had become extremely rare in the shinobi world; these days, most disasters were man-made. Konoha immediately launched an investigation to determine whether the earthquake was a coincidence or the result of human interference—and, of course, Root was involved.
However, according to the intelligence gathered, the higher-ups in Konoha soon realized that the tremors weren't isolated to Konoha. The Land of Fire, the Land of Earth, and several smaller neighboring countries had also been shaken—and the epicenter was traced back to the Land of Grass.
When shinobi were dispatched to collect information, they were stunned by what they found: the Land of Grass wasn't just damaged—it was gone. It wasn't just Kusagakure that had vanished—the entire country had been physically obliterated!
The landscape was marred by endless ravines and bottomless craters, as if the very surface of the earth had been flipped inside out. Less than one-tenth of the population survived—and most of those survivors were mentally shattered, unable to comprehend or explain what had happened.
Fortunately, Root managed to find one surviving villager near the ruins of Kusagakure. Though his mind was fractured, Root forcibly extracted his memories—and from there, they learned of a red-haired witch named Karin... and the Box of Ultimate Bliss.
"The witch offered a sacrifice to the Box of Ultimate Bliss and wished for the destruction of the Land of Grass. A monster was born from the box to grant her wish."
The moment Danzō received this information, he knew it: his opportunity had come.
The Box of Ultimate Bliss was a treasure gifted to him by the heavens! With it, he could definitely become Hokage!
No—Hokage was too small a dream.
If the Box truly had the power to grant any wish, Shimura Danzō would become the master of the entire shinobi world!
Even if the Box couldn't grant wishes, the sheer destructive force it displayed was more than enough to stir Danzō's ambition. That kind of power—even greater than that of the tailed beasts—was something he could not ignore.
Though activating the Box required live sacrifices, Danzō didn't care. Human lives, in his eyes, were just a renewable resource. If he needed sacrifices, he could easily obtain them in any number.If a few ants' lives could pave the way for him to ascend as Hokage, then it would be their honor.
"You foolish Hiruzen... This time, I'll be one step ahead of you! Hahaha..."
Danzō chuckled lowly, a stark contrast to the gloom he had been under after being forced to take the blame for recent incidents.
Thanks to the Yamanaka clan's secret jutsu for memory extraction—and the fact that Yamanaka, one of Danzō's trusted subordinates, was an expert at it—Root had an advantage. Other organizations probably wouldn't have used such brutal methods to interrogate the survivors, which meant Danzō was likely the first to obtain intelligence on the Box of Ultimate Bliss.
Root immediately sprang into action under Danzō's orders.
He issued two commands:
First, eliminate every survivor near the ruins of the Land of Grass and Kusagakure, to prevent further leaks about the Box.
Second, retrieve the Box of Ultimate Bliss at all costs.
It was his treasure—his cornerstone to realizing his dreams—and Danzō would not allow anyone else to lay a finger on it.
At the time, however, Danzō didn't know: by then, information about the Box had already spread everywhere.
...
Back on the day Karin and Nanami released the monster Satori from the Box of Ultimate Bliss, things had quickly spiraled out of control.
Satori was a strange creature. It had a rudimentary form of mind reading, a crude regenerative ability—and as long as the Box wasn't destroyed, it couldn't truly die.
Satori could communicate, but his rationality was fragile and often "disconnected."He had an unclear connection to the Sage of Six Paths... a mystery even the demon pulling the strings didn't fully understand. Still, the demon decided to exploit him.
The legend of the Box of Ultimate Bliss resembled the myth of a wish-granting lamp. However, Satori's destructive power was, frankly, pathetically weak compared to what the demon desired. Across the shinobi world, most ninjutsu were designed for pinpoint assassinations, not large-scale disasters. The demon craved calamities on a massive scale—earthquakes, tsunamis, plagues—catastrophes that could harvest countless lives.
Thus, a grand scheme was set into motion. Satori and Karin played their parts perfectly.
Karin's horrific wish gave Satori, the demon's pawn, free rein to destroy the Land of Grass.This was both a test and the first offensive.
The souls of the dead never reached the Pure Land—they were ruthlessly devoured by the demon lurking in the shadows.
On the surface, it looked like it was just Karin and Satori's doing. Satori seemed to be the one consuming the souls.The demon remained deeply hidden, pulling the strings from behind the scenes.
The massacre didn't last long.
Karin soon sensed a looming danger—a gaze, cold and alien, peering at them from across time and space. A chilling, eerie scrutiny bore down on her, sending a surge of primal fear through her.
The next moment, an overwhelming power burst forth from the Pure Land, ignoring the barrier between life and death, crashing toward Satori with the force of a mountain.
The very earth trembled.
That shockwave was what caused the widespread mental backlash across the Land of Fire and its neighbors.
Satori was obliterated almost instantly.
Karin should've been destroyed too—but at the critical moment, she fled into the Box of Ultimate Bliss, narrowly avoiding annihilation.
...
"The Sage of Six Paths really is still watching over the shinobi world..."
The demon became certain of this.
Even after Satori's destruction, that gaze lingered for a long, tense moment before it finally faded away.
During previous shinobi wars, countless had died, yet the Sage had never personally intervened. Why, then, had the destruction of the Land of Grass drawn his attention?
The demon speculated:Maybe it was simply because this catastrophe had killed too many. The death toll from this single event far surpassed all previous shinobi wars combined.
After all, the Shinobi World Wars weren't true world wars. Ordinary civilians in the Five Great Nations were rarely dragged into the conflicts. In a twisted way, it had been a strangely peaceful world for the common folk.
This time, however, was different.
Moreover, the Box of Ultimate Bliss had always been a relic tied to the Sage of Six Paths. Its sudden resurgence was bound to draw his attention. More crucially—the souls of the dead hadn't entered the Pure Land.
They had been stolen. Consumed.
That, more than anything, was probably why the Sage couldn't remain passive.
The demon even suspected that long ago, when the Uzumaki Clan developed the Dead Demon Consuming Seal and began meddling with the Pure Land, it might have been the Sage's silent hand that contributed to their eventual destruction.
Of course, these were just speculations.
Regardless, the demon wasn't about to abandon his plans just because the Sage had stirred.The Land of Grass had fallen, and the carefully released survivors would soon spread tales of the Box's overwhelming power to every corner of the world.
That was enough.
...
Karin was eventually ejected from the Box of Ultimate Bliss. Nanami, however, didn't come out with her.
Before parting ways, Nanami had given Karin two clear instructions:
"Throw the Box to Iwagakure. After that, find a way to join Akatsuki."
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Pls Drop some Power Stones
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