For a country, what truly defines existence, and what counts as destruction?
Is it the land itself?
The cities it occupies?
The culture it preserves?
It's a complicated question, one without a clear-cut answer.
But before anything else, a nation must have people.
Without citizens, what nation could possibly remain?
And for a small country like Lōran ( Tsuchigumo clan territory ), when certain situations arise, protecting its people becomes the highest priority.
In the end, Queen Sāra did not show Hagoromo why flowers were "redder than red."
That was a rational decision—because she knew perfectly well she couldn't beat him.
Hagoromo first convinced Minato.
Then, he convinced Sāra.
Once personal emotions were set aside, his reasoning was solid. What he described wasn't alarmist nonsense—it was an entirely realistic future.
After all, Sāra herself had just experienced an incident caused by a shinobi coveting the Dragon Vein's power.
If the Konoha ninja hadn't appeared when they did, wouldn't Lōran ( Tsuchigumo clan territory ) have already been destroyed?
She had no grounds to refute him.
Hagoromo's judgment was frighteningly accurate. What Sāra didn't know was that in the future, Lōran ( Tsuchigumo clan territory ) would indeed perish in the chaos of war—and to protect her people, the one who would order the abandonment of the city would be herself.
Now, that choice was simply being made earlier.
And it wasn't hard to understand.
Titles like queen, throne, ambition—none of those things truly mattered to Sāra. Leaving Lōran ( Tsuchigumo clan territory ) meant losing only those hollow symbols, while gaining peace and safety for her people.
Especially since Minato had promised that the citizens could relocate into the Land of Fire.
It was, after all, just a town-sized population—ordinary civilians, without a single shinobi among them. There was nothing unacceptable about that.
The process itself was somewhat complicated.
First, Minato reported the situation to Konoha, detailing the threat posed by the Dragon Vein and the rationality of destroying it outright.
The Hokage aside, the proposal received unanimous approval from the other high-ranking officials.
In truth, the Dragon Vein could be seen as a tailed beast that couldn't be brought home—yet could be exploited by others at any moment.
From the perspective of a "despicable" great power, if a weapon couldn't be controlled and posed a threat, the optimal solution was obvious:
Destroy it.
With Konoha's approval secured, would the Fire Daimyō really object?
On Lōran ( Tsuchigumo clan territory )'s side, under Sāra's persuasion, the citizens gradually agreed to evacuate.
First, after recent events, Sāra had become a queen with genuine authority. People trusted her.
Second, relocating to the Land of Fire—a leading great nation—felt far safer than remaining in an isolated city like Lōran ( Tsuchigumo clan territory ).
Third—and most importantly—they now knew that their homeland contained a ticking time bomb.
Living every day in fear, wondering whether they might die in their sleep someday?
Who could endure that?
With a limited population, the evacuation itself was relatively simple: crossing the Land of Rivers and heading toward resettlement zones within the Land of Fire.
The resettlement process was more complex, but that wasn't Konoha's concern—the Fire Nation's civil administration would handle it.
Thus, the "Lōran ( Tsuchigumo clan territory ) Demolition Plan" officially began.
That night, the sky was heavy and overcast.
Rain had fallen earlier, leaving the city drenched in moisture. Water still clung to the buildings, and the damp earth carried a thick, pungent scent.
At the Dragon Vein site, Minato was engraving sealing formulas along the inner wall of the vertical shaft—dense, intricate, and overwhelmingly complex.
Hagoromo's task was much simpler.
He was responsible for covering the central pillar with special paper tags.
…Of course, "simple" was relative.
One mistake, and he'd blow himself to pieces.
Those pieces of paper were known as explosive tags.
"Hagoromo, are you ready?" Minato asked after a while. He had finished drawing the formulas.
"Just the final part… done," Hagoromo replied.
"Then we begin."
Minato took a deep breath. He couldn't quite describe his emotions. Without Hagoromo's suggestion, he doubted he would ever have done something like blowing up someone else's homeland in his lifetime.
"Before that," Hagoromo said, glancing up, "you double-checked the Flying Thunder God formulas, right? If we fail to teleport out, we're definitely dying."
Minato ignored him.
This kind of accident was not something that happened to him.
Without another word, his hands flew through seals. One by one, the sealing formulas lit up, functioning like delayed fuses—only when all were active would the true detonation begin.
They couldn't remain there any longer.
Minato grabbed Hagoromo's shoulder and executed several rapid space–time jumps.
Eighty kilometers away from Lōran ( Tsuchigumo clan territory ), on a hillside, Kakashi, Aburame Shibi, Akimichi Chōza, and Queen Sāra—who insisted on witnessing Lōran ( Tsuchigumo clan territory )'s end—were waiting.
Almost the instant Minato and Hagoromo vanished from Lōran ( Tsuchigumo clan territory ), they appeared there.
This location was already within the Land of Rivers.
"Sensei," Kakashi asked, "is it ready?"
"Yes. The formulas are active," Minato answered.
Everyone turned to face Lōran ( Tsuchigumo clan territory )'s direction.
Sāra was especially tense.
Minutes passed.
Nothing happened.
"…Don't tell me it misfired—" Hagoromo began.
Then—
A blinding flash erupted.
"Close your eyes!" Minato shouted.
There was no need to tell seasoned shinobi twice—they had already shielded their vision in various ways.
Hagoromo, while protecting himself, also helped the queen.
He kicked her down flat—face to the ground, perfectly aligned.
That level of brightness could cause instant blindness.
In some works, to amplify an explosion's power, multiple stick grenades were bundled together.
But the distant detonation before them was more like seven or eight Deidaras blowing themselves up at once.
The sustained brilliance turned night into day. A towering pillar of light rose into the sky, visible even from this distance, its peak beyond sight.
Then came the sound.
A deep, thunderous roar accompanied by violent tremors, majestic and oppressive—like a colossal hammer smashing into the planet itself.
And then came the real danger.
A scorching shockwave, compressed into a planar blade of wind, tore toward them.
At that moment, the six of them realized a serious mistake.
They were standing too close.
They had underestimated the blast.
"Hagoromo!!" Minato shouted.
The group wasn't clustered together—Minato couldn't teleport everyone at once.
Hagoromo couldn't hear him, but he read Minato's lips.
Defensive technique. Now.
Blood, hand seals, summoning—
Ninja Art: Summoning Technique — Rashōmon!
At the final moment, a massive demon-faced gate rose from the ground.
The wind blades screeched as they slammed against it, producing ear-splitting noises—but a safe zone was carved out behind the gate.
They took shelter behind Rashōmon.
No matter how fierce the storm, it couldn't slice through it.
Minutes passed before the hurricane finally subsided, and the sky began to dim.
But it wasn't over.
The explosion had turned Lōran ( Tsuchigumo clan territory )'s center into a vacuum. The resulting pressure difference caused the atmosphere to rush back in.
A second shockwave—slightly weaker—slammed into them from behind.
Caught off guard, all of them were smashed hard against the back of Rashōmon.
Hagoromo managed to catch Sāra amid the chaos. Otherwise, a normal civilian would've cracked her head open.
…Even though she had already fallen once.
As for how he was holding her—
Emergency situations didn't allow for etiquette.
There was a saying, after all: When in danger, princess carry the princess.
Surprisingly appropriate.
When everything finally settled, no one spoke for a while.
Then Minato leapt onto the top of Rashōmon and stared into the distance.
His face was filled with disbelief.
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