The next morning, at the Astronomy Tower.
"George, Fred, why do I feel a bit weird about this?"
"What's weird about it?" George asked, giving Harry a bewildered look.
"I mean, is this thing actually reliable?" Harry looked down at the iron ball resting by his feet.
An iron chain as thick as a man's arm was welded to the ball. Since it had been welded using Fiendfyre, its structural integrity was absolutely guaranteed. At the end of the chain was a heavy clasp. By the looks of it, it could securely lock a person in place.
Fred patted him on the shoulder. "Don't worry. We've traveled this way plenty of times."
George shrugged. "Safety is absolutely guaranteed."
"Alright, enough talking. Put on the Invisibility Cloak," Fred said, pointing to the cloak in Harry's hands.
Once Harry's figure vanished into thin air, Fred pulled open a nearby iron door. "Get in."
The iron ball at their feet was also covered by the Invisibility Cloak, disappearing right along with Harry. It was obvious that Harry had picked it up and carried it inside.
Ten seconds or so later...
Clang!
The twins heard a sharp metallic clank. It was Harry dropping the iron ball inside the chamber.
"Hey, Harry, remember to check if the clasp around your waist is securely locked before we launch," George reminded him through the iron door.
Fred chimed in at the right moment. "Wrap the Invisibility Cloak tight around you so no one spots you."
Harry's voice echoed back from behind the iron door, sounding muffled. "I know, I'm checking it now."
"Ready?"
A few seconds later, Harry's voice rang out again. "All good!"
George and Fred took two steps back. Only now could they fully take in the massive contraption before them.
It was a cannon—a massive, colossal cannon, large enough that its barrel could easily accommodate a full-grown human. The iron door Harry had just climbed through led straight to the breech at the bottom of the barrel.
Unlike conventional cannons that used gunpowder to propel ammunition, this giant cannon built by George and Fred utilized electromagnetic force. Because it was electromagnetically driven, the cannon required two massive energy storage devices to power it.
The brothers, with their notoriously wicked sense of humor, had fashioned these two power units into spheres and intentionally positioned them right at the base of the barrel.
When Kyle first laid eyes on its design, the very first word out of his mouth was—"Holy crap!"
His second sentence followed immediately: "Isn't this the bloody Neo Armstrong Cyclone Jet Armstrong Cannon?!"
To be precise, this thing wasn't jet-propelled; it was an electromagnetic railgun. So, after correcting the "jet-propelled" part, the name of this electromagnetic railgun was rather sloppily settled upon.
Because the electromagnetic railgun looked incredibly crude and indecent, completely unfit for public display, it was usually stored away in a hidden mechanism on the Astronomy Tower that had been enchanted with an Undetectable Extension Charm. Under normal circumstances, this cannon might not be fired once in decades.
But Dumbledore had miscalculated one thing. As the creators of this railgun, the twins had full authorization to operate it whenever they pleased.
Once they realized that welding a chain to a projectile and attaching a quick-release clasp turned it into a high-speed express transit system out of Hogwarts, the cannon was basically fired every few days. Compared to spending tens of minutes trudging through secret passages to reach Hogsmeade Village, traveling via railgun was infinitely more convenient. You could get there just by flying through the air for a few dozen seconds.
Landing wasn't an issue either; engraving Shock-Absorbing Charms onto the projectile perfectly solved everything, even dampening the G-force overload on the passenger.
As for the return journey, the brilliant twins certainly hadn't overlooked that detail. They had built an identical electromagnetic railgun just outside Hogsmeade Village. Since they were the only ones who understood how to operate it, they weren't worried about someone using the cannon to bombard Hogwarts.
After a series of complex operations by the twins, the Armstrong Cannon's two te—cough, energy storage units—began to hum.
Azure lightning crackled across the power units, continuously channeling into the energy tracks on both sides of the barrel. The moment the energy channels were completely filled with lightning, a dark shadow shot out of the barrel at breakneck speed, instantly shrinking into a tiny black speck against the sky.
Accompanying the shadow was a trailing, terror-filled scream.
"What did Harry just say?" Fred asked, looking at his brother curiously.
George hadn't heard clearly either. He shrugged. "No idea. Maybe he was thanking us."
Meanwhile, at Kyle's Akina Mountain Villa.
Looking at the seven large cylindrical glass vats before him, a thoughtful expression crossed Kyle's face.
Submerged inside six of the glass vats were the Six Paths of Pain, cloned from his own cells which he had collected over the summer break. Thanks to magically accelerated growth and incubation, these six clones had already developed to the physical age of a seven- or eight-year-old.
Under Kyle's deliberate control, there was absolutely no possibility of these six bodies developing an independent consciousness or intellect; instead, he would grant them personalities once they were fully matured.
To ensure the cloned bodies wouldn't suffer from any genetic defects, Kyle strove for perfection at every single step. However, doing so drastically slowed down the cultivation process. After all, these were complete human bodies. If something went wrong, fixing it wouldn't be easy.
If they were easily detachable like the Old Bat Snape's arm, Kyle's cloning skill proficiency would have skyrocketed after practicing on it once, allowing him to whip up the foundational bodies for the Six Paths of Pain before summer break ended. He wouldn't have had to wait nearly this long.
Though he was a perfectionist, the current speed wasn't exactly slow either. If things continued at this pace, these six big tin cans would be ready to be opened right around Christmas this year.
When the time came, he would just need to mechanically modify the Asura Path to turn it into a mobile arsenal, and then transfer portions of his own magical knowledge to the other five paths. With that, the Six Paths of Pain would be complete.
As for the remaining vat, it held the other half intended for Black Zetsu—White Zetsu.
To give Black and White Zetsu the same formidable stealth and infiltration capabilities as they had in the original Naruto series, Kyle had racked his brains before finally figuring out a way to integrate cells from the Whomping Willow into White Zetsu's body.
Cough. Speaking of which, the Whomping Willow cells used came from the very tree that had been smashed into splinters by a tank last year. Last year, Cedric Diggory had followed Professor Sprout to salvage the remains, picking up a lot of Whomping Willow branches, and Kyle had asked him for a few.
Under the influence of the Whomping Willow cells, although White Zetsu couldn't unleash world-ending Wood Release techniques—or even perform the Wood Style: Four-Pillars House Technique—he could still use his stealth jutsu to merge himself into a tree, masquerading as a camouflage tank.
Because of the integration of plant cells, White Zetsu's cultivation speed was the slowest; the earliest it could be opened would be Easter next year.
Although there was an incredibly important task waiting for White Zetsu, Kyle wasn't in any rush. According to his plan, the moment White Zetsu was fully cultivated, Kyle would immediately dispatch him along with the Six Paths of Pain to the forests of Albania.
As far as he knew, Lord Voldemort's main soul was currently hiding out there, scraping by on the brink of survival.
But capturing Voldemort right now would be useless. According to Snape's deductions, Voldemort had at least four Horcruxes scattered out in the world. The diary and the Resurrection Stone ring had already been destroyed by them, but the other two remained missing. Even if those two were found, how could they be sure that four was the total number?
Therefore, Kyle was in no hurry to kill Voldemort; rushing wouldn't help anyway. Sending the Six Paths of Pain to track Voldemort was merely to keep tabs on his movements, preventing a repeat of the previous school year where a Horcrux caused chaos inside the castle without them knowing a thing.
If possible, it would be best to send that double-crossing traitor, Black Zetsu, straight to Voldemort's side, re-enacting that legendary, heart-piercing scene he once shared from behind with Madara Uchiha.
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