The Dao Advances

An eerie silence covered the cave as everyone except for Yuna was staring at the place where Pain just disappeared from in disbelief. None of them understood what just happened. The only thing they saw was Yuna shooting a small icicle towards Pain's projection, and the moment it flew past him, his projection disappeared.

An arrogant sneer appeared on Yuna's face as her gaze wandered over the remaining people.

"What a puny god. I give him a little distraction, and his concentration breaks immediately."

Yuna noticed that despite her display just now, most of the people in the room were still looking at her with hostility clearly written on their faces. Yuna could only shake her head when she saw that and continued speaking.

"Honestly, I have no reason to be in conflict with most of the people inside this room, and if you don't attempt to hurt the people close to me from now on, it will stay like this."

The moment Yuna finished speaking, a dangerous glint flashed through her eyes as her gaze landed on Obito.

"That being said, the last time we met, you only survived because I had more important things to do, so the next time, I will turn you into a corpse."

Obito clenched his teeth as anger flooded his whole body when he heard Yuna's words, but moments later, he pushed it all down. It wasn't time yet to reveal his real self to the other members of Akatsuki.

"Why do you want to kill Tobi? Tobi is a good boy!"

Yuna gave Obito, who suddenly adapted a child-like personality, a weirded-out look, but after a short moment of contemplation, she "understood" the situation.

"Ah, I see; Seeing your beloved Rin getting killed right in front of you while being completely powerless to stop it has caused a split personality to emerge. Is that why you pretended to be Madara the last time we met? Dealing with a loss like that is rather unhealthy, so I advise you to seek some help to get over Rin's death, which you were too weak to prevent."

Yet again, an oppressive silence covered the room. Although no one but Yuna, Obito, and Zetsu knew what Yuna was talking about, her words were doused in sarcasm, so it was rather evident that she was mocking Tobi.

Before Yuna could say anything else, Tobi, or rather Obito, snapped.

"YOU DAMN BITCH, I WILL DEFINITELY KILL YOU!!! NOT JUST YOU; I WILL KILL EVERYONE YOU KNOW RIGHT IN FRONT OF YOUR EYES AND WILL LAUGH AS DESPAIR COVERS YOUR FACE!!!"

After seeing Obito losing control, Yuna chuckled a little and wagged her finger towards him.

"See? You lied! Tobi definitely isn't a good boy. Next time we meet, you better prepare yourself to get punished, hehe."

Without humoring Obito any further, Yuna teleported out of the cave, leaving behind the in-anger-steaming Obito and the remaining Akatsuki members who were looking at him weirdly.

Moments later, Yuna reappeared inside her bedroom inside the Uzumaki compound, and the moment she did, she staggered a little and fell on her bed face first.

[As expected, you overdid it again.]

'Haha, you are exagerating, Kurama, it wasn't that bad.'

[I can't even begin to understand how that cake attack worked, but what I know is that it must have cost you enormous amounts of mental strength. There is no way you are okay after doing something that ridiculous.]

'It really wasn't that bad. I used the icicle to establish a connection between him and me and then just send the cakes through. The hard part wasn't sending the cakes but establishing the link; that is why I used ice for it, which I am far more proficient in than cakes.'

[So we have reached a point where we use the word proficiency in connection with the word cake, huh?]

'Well, I think it is rather reasonable to do so at this point, hahaha *cough*.'

The moment Yuna started laughing, she coughed up some blood and splattered it all over her bed.

[...]

'...'

[Sooo~ Didn't you say you were fine?]

'Errr, that's just tomato juice?'

[WHY IS THAT A QUESTION!?]

'Tehe~'

[COULD YOU STOP WITH THE "TEHE" NONSENSE!?]

'Okay, okay, calm down, Kurama. It seriously isn't that bad. A day or two of rest, and I will be back to 100 percent.'

[That might be the case, but why did you even push yourself so far? You already confirmed that Hisoka's intel seemed to be mostly true, so there was honestly no point in making a move like that on Pain.]

When Yuna heard Kurama's words, she turned around, so she could lie on her back instead of her stomach and looked at the ceiling. After a few minutes of silent contemplation, a wry smile appeared on her face while she heaved a sigh filled with annoyance.

"Kurama, although I don't like to admit it, as someone who once reached the pinnacle of power, I have a lot of pride in what I achieved. Usually, I suppress it since overwhelming pride rarely brings any advantages, but when I saw that little brat proclaiming himself a god because someone plugged a pair of powerful eyes into his eye sockets, I had to teach him a lesson."

"Imagine spending millions of years refining yourself, meditating, training, researching to reach where you are, just to have someone proclaim that they have reached the same level because someone implanted some magic eyes into him. Unacceptable."

"A human might not care about the actions of an ant, but if the ant gets too annoying, it will still be squashed, and that is precisely what I did. I did something that even his eyes won't help him comprehend."

Kurama stayed silent after he heard Yuna's words as he thought about what she just said, and a few minutes later, he started speaking again.

[No, I can't imagine it. That kind of timeframe is too absurd for me to comprehend, but I more or less know where you are going with this.]

Yuna chuckled a little before nodding her head in acknowledgment. She was just about to stand up and teleport to Fuu to take a look at how she was doing when Kurama started speaking again.

[BUT, what I comprehend, to some degree, is you, so I don't believe for even a single second that the only reason you did that cake attack was that you lost control over your pride.]

Yuna couldn't help but chuckle yet again as a mysterious smile appeared on her face.

'The best way to advance your Dao is to push yourself. Great hardship begets great progress.'

[...so, in other words, you wanted to try if you could do it...]

'*Cough* Errr, the... err... T-The Dao moves in mysterious ways.'

[Right...]