What happens to a jinchūriki once their tailed beast is extracted?
That question needs no explanation.
Was Hagoromo a man who delighted in killing?
To be honest, he had never thought so himself. For a shinobi, killing could be categorized as work. But finding joy in killing? Going out of one's way to murder for pleasure? That had never been his way of thinking.
But if Kushina could die—
Then who, in this world, was truly untouchable?
The perfect jinchūriki fell.
The Eight-Tails rampaged through Kumogakure.
Hagoromo did not know that Orochimaru had once carried out a very similar operation.
As a researcher obsessed with results, Orochimaru's goal back then had merely been to obtain a fragment of the Eight-Tails for experimentation. That alone had been enough to cause the previous Eight-Tails jinchūriki to lose control and go berserk.
He had done it quietly.
So quietly that, to this day, almost no one knew the truth.
What Hagoromo had done now was, in essence, nothing more than repeating that act.
He was not here to fight.
In his current condition, frontal combat would have achieved nothing. He relied on calculation, planning, and timing.
Even the method he used to release the tailed beast had been something Kushina taught him long ago.
Using Five Elements Unsealing to dismantle the Eight-Tails' seal was not especially difficult.
What was difficult was mastering the technique itself.
In all of Konoha, only Jiraiya, Orochimaru, Hagoromo—and perhaps the Third Hokage—could use it. Not even Minato or Kushina themselves had been able to.
But more difficult still was rendering a jinchūriki completely unable to resist.
Only Kushina's Adamantine Sealing Chains could accomplish that.
As for trapping the Fourth Raikage inside a barrier—was that truly simple?
The answer was no.
It required perception, judgment, timing, and decisiveness.
Miss even one, and the attempt would fail.
Fortunately, with his combat strength greatly diminished, Hagoromo's focus had reached an unprecedented level.
No matter how powerful a shinobi might be, weaknesses always existed.
With the right intelligence and the right countermeasures, solving the problem was not impossible.
The Raikage's flaw was simple—
He was impulsive.
He favored head-on confrontation.
That much Hagoromo had already confirmed the last time they met.
Perhaps if he could fully control his newly awakened eyes, all of this would have been easier.
But he couldn't.
Not yet.
He couldn't even activate them at will.
Even if he could, the problem wouldn't disappear.
The Mystic Eyes of Death Perception demanded something vague, ambiguous, and impossible to quantify—understanding.
In theory, they could erase anything.
In practice, the burden placed on the user was absurdly high.
Hagoromo's mind excelled at logic, calculation, and rational structure.
But when using the Mystic Eyes, that logic often became useless.
Against simple, concrete existence—stone, flesh, living beings—calculation could assist perception.
But against things closer to concepts, calculation could become interference rather than aid.
Concepts were irrational, illogical, almost imaginary.
Only understanding could kill them.
So standing before the Eight-Tails now, Hagoromo knew his role here had already ended.
One day, he would kill the tailed beasts.
But not today.
"The Eight-Tails has been released!!"
"It's gone berserk!"
"Lady Yugito, stay back! He can解除 jinchūriki seals!"
From this moment on, Kumogakure's enemy was no longer Hagoromo—
It was Gyūki, the Eight-Tails.
And once the Eight-Tails was freed, the Cloud shinobi reacted instantly.
Their enemy's next target might very well be the Two-Tails.
The ability to undo even iron-clad jinchūriki seals was terrifying.
In truth, they were overthinking it.
Hagoromo no longer had the strength to repeat what he had just done.
Freeing the Two-Tails was impossible.
The Fivefold Rashōmon was one of the First Hokage's ultimate defensive techniques.
Using five gates simultaneously consumed an entirely different order of chakra than deploying them one by one.
Combined with the high-grade barrier sealing the Raikage, it had already drained most of Hagoromo's remaining reserves.
Even Orochimaru—who could use the technique—rarely summoned more than three gates at once.
After releasing the Eight-Tails, Hagoromo leapt back onto the Yatagarasu's back.
All remaining summons were dismissed.
With the Eight-Tails loose, the destructive power of summons no longer mattered.
Five minutes were enough for Gyūki to cause catastrophic damage.
Half an hour would leave scars Kumogakure would never fully heal.
After hovering above the battlefield for an hour, Hagoromo finally withdrew.
The task had been completed—perfectly.
Besides, this was enemy territory.
Between the Raikage's destructive struggle inside the barrier and the Cloud shinobi's desperate efforts outside it, the seal was nearing its limit.
After all—
What Hagoromo had deployed was neither the Four Red Yang Formation, nor the Six Red Yang Formation.
In truth, he was already forcing himself to endure.
At this point, he didn't even possess the strength to retreat safely—let alone fly away.
Satisfied with the devastation wrought by the Eight-Tails, and after witnessing the mounting Cloud casualties, he had no choice but to use Reverse Summoning to escape to Shikkotsu Forest.
From beginning to end—
Hagoromo spoke not a single word in Kumogakure.
Sometimes, he enjoyed talking.
This time, he hadn't come to chat.
Mount Myōboku.
Ryūchi Cave.
Shikkotsu Forest.
Toads.
Snakes.
Slugs.
The Three Great Sage Regions, and the most recognizable marks of the Sannin—far more distinct than their faces or their vices.
Each region was concealed within unstable space by immense barrier seals.
They existed physically in the world, with fixed coordinates—
But without reverse summoning, they were nearly impossible to reach from the outside.
If Tsunade had been in Konoha, Hagoromo could have returned instantly with a single summoning.
But she wasn't.
And this summoning could only be used by him and Tsunade.
So he would have to leave Shikkotsu Forest on foot and make his way back to Konoha.
Before that, he needed time to rest and recover.
Which meant—
Information traveled faster than he did.
And this time, the Konoha jōnin known as White Yaksha truly entered the sight of the entire village.
With the deaths of Minato and Kushina—
Reputation became something Hagoromo now needed.
The Sannin were legendary.
But the shinobi who had truly tipped the balance of the Third Great Ninja War—
Who had pierced straight through the enemy's heart—
Was the Yellow Flash, Namikaze Minato.
And now, with the Yellow Flash gone—
Konoha had the White Yaksha.
In that sense, what made Konoha truly terrifying was not a single genius—
But the endless emergence of them.
An old hero died.
And the void he left behind was filled instantly by a new one.
That psychological compensation, that restoration of morale, was more valuable than Hagoromo's actual combat power.
The intelligence report was brief:
White Yaksha infiltrated Kumogakure alone.
Fourth Raikage sealed.
Perfect jinchūriki neutralized.
Eight-Tails Gyūki completely rampaging.
Konoha jōnin.
Shirashi Hagoromo.
Age sixteen.
His name now echoed throughout the shinobi world.
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