Pa treon - 38 chapters ahead.

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The deeper into the underground tunnels Konan went, the dimmer the light became. It would be actually spooky if, 'Wow, the one who designed this really had to have a big flair for dramatics. A pity I have the night-vision seal on me.'

Konan saw her surroundings as if it was a bright day with a clear sky. After ten minutes, she finally arrived at the door. Briefly glancing behind herself, Konan smirked at the sight of the tunnel littered by kunais, senbon, shurikens, many of them no doubt lethally poisoned.

'Looks like my little stroll set off every trap in here.' Konan shrugged. She was honestly too deep in her thoughts to notice that anything was trying to harm her. Suddenly, Konan's face lit up, 'This might be the very first potential flaw of Mei's Steam Cloak! I have to tell her about this when I return.'

Konan was using her own Wind Release version of the defensive Steam Release Jutsu Mei used to play with Minato. It was a bit iffy to use against strong high-level piercing attacks or something extremely destructive on a wider scale but kunai? Those had no chance of penetrating it. All in all, it was a good passive defense since the Jutsu was not hard to maintain. Naturally, this wouldn't reach the defensive power of what Mei used against Minato but anything classified below B-rank would be stopped which potentially rendered any sort of trap useless unless.

Konan carefully opened the door, making sure to prevent them from letting out any sound that could alarm anyone on the other side. This appeared to be a wasted effort however because the second she took a peek at what is on the other side, it was just an empty spacious room, resembling a laboratory. On the right side was unfinished chakra armor of unknown type, a new prototype, most likely, and on the left side was a singular cell where a woman of thirty was sitting on the floor and leaning on the wall. She had white unkempt hair, similar to those of the Kaguya bloodline but lacked their other tells. The biggest difference from them, however, were their icy-blue pupil-less clear eyes and complexion as pale as snow. One could even mistake her for a sick person. Her feet and wrists shackled with chains connecting her to what seemed like a box with cores for the chakra armor.

Konan quickly put it all together and understood that the woman she saw was essential to the production of the chakra armors because her chakra somehow activates the cores. 'I wonder how that works...' She blinked as she noticed the exhausted barely alive woman directly staring at her with a pleading gaze that just washed over her with almost no effect. 'Hmm, let's ask somebody who was present for the entire process, then.'

Konan simply walked towards the cell, crouching there be on the eye-level of the chained woman. "Hello," She smiled, plans forming in her head, "Let's make a deal, shall we?"

The chained woman opened her mouth but no sound came from her throat, telling Konan that it was a damn long time since she drank something. It was only then that Konan noted the transfusions in the corner next to the cell. 'Oho~, so she is not fed nor watered? Only receives nutritious transfusion? Heh, this will be easier than I thought, won't it?'

"Don't strain yourself. What about this?" Konan used her chakra to create a ball of water and levitated it into the cell where the chained woman almost pounced onto it while Konan analyzed her further.

'No signs of violence... well, if she was so important in the creation of the cores for the chakra armor, then I guess they would not want her damaged. Sunken cheeks and malnutrition...' Konan took another peek on the transfusion, 'that means whatever they are injecting into her veins is mostly spent on the production of chakra necessary for the cores, only leaving enough for her body to barely survive. Fortunately, I put quite a lot of nature energy and medical chakra into the water ball.'

The next second, Konan was stunned, however. She expected the woman to be slightly healed since her medical chakra was frankly crap but contrary to her expectations, the second the ball of water, a small amount of nature energy, and medical chakra was completely drunk, the woman underwent a mind-boggling change.

First to change was her complexion. It brightened up. While it was still snowy-white, it no longer looked sickly, instead, taking frosty shade. Her eyes acquired a spark of life in them and the black circles under them disappeared while an almost invisible snowflake-like pupil appeared in her eyes. It was so small, one would miss it without having a proper look. The woman's body noticeably filled up but the chakra was apparently not enough so she still looked somewhat malnourished.

What really shocked Konan was not the recovery though. As miraculous as that was, it had nothing on what exactly caused the recovery, 'She used Nature energy alongside her chakra! This... natural Sage Mode!? How the heck did a third-rate village such as Yukigakure catch somebody capable of the Sage Mode?' Konan couldn't comprehend what she was seeing.

What she could comprehend though, was that the crap that was supposedly the chakra armor actually ran on Senjutsu chakra... somehow. And that was huge! The morons of Yukigakure who invented this must have had no idea what this meant!

Konan suddenly froze, 'Wait... didn't Rei tell me there is some kind of a reactor to change this snowy shithole into a spring-filled fantasy-land? Oh... that son of a-' And that was when Konan understood that Rei knew the value of the technology invented in the Land of Snow all along. 'Of course,' She facepalmed, causing the still chained woman to look at her weirdly, 'there is no way Rei would come here only because it is the northernmost country, hence way out of the hand of anyone who could ever get curious.'

Despite them never becoming hostile with each other, the state-owned company of the Land of Snow was the only technology-oriented competitor of their Biri-Biri company. That meant their technology had to be spectacular but Konan never imagined it would be powered by nature energy! The scientist in the Land of Snow probably had no idea they created self-replenishing batteries capable of being powered by the Senjutsu chakra or nature energy. If they did, they wouldn't do an idiotic thing like make a power-suit out of it...

Konan's gaze snapped back to the woman behind the bars, now holding a bit of a predatory glint, causing the poor woman to scoot a bit back at the level of interest Konan was showing her. It was certainly reminding her of the crazy scientists who liked to experiment on her.

A clone suddenly popped up behind Konan and started to gather every research paper and equipment into a storage scroll. Konan certainly had every intention to completely clean the room, not leaving even a single paper behind.

The chained woman looked blandly as the equipment of the room was vanishing into storage scrolls, now sure the bluenette in front of her is certainly not a part of Yukigakure. The spark of hope renewed in her mind so she steeled herself and unsurely spoke, "Er, hello, I am Yukimi Yuriko, yo-you mentioned some kind of deal?"

Konan just widely smiled at the clearly desperate woman and chuckled to herself. "I changed my mind. You are coming with me no matter if you want to or not."

And with that, the distraught and bewildered Yuriko could only watch as her fate was decided for her. She only hoped she would be treated better than what she experienced in Yukigakure as the excited gleam in Konan's eyes didn't fill her with many expectations towards her future.

As for Konan... 'As if I would leave somebody like this roam free. Just imagine what we could do if instead of the girl, we used Rei's dimension as the power-source for the batteries. Hehe...'