"Lord Hagoromo, this is the last one…"
An ANBU shinobi spoke quietly to Hagoromo.
Though they were both jōnin by rank, it was not strange at all for someone to address Hagoromo as "my lord." Hagoromo held no permanent council seat in Konoha, nor did he possess any administrative title. He could not be classified as part of the village's upper echelon.
And yet, based on strength alone, he already commanded a position of undeniable weight.
The mere fact that he had dared to infiltrate Kumogakure was enough to make most people willingly defer to him—let alone that he had successfully freed the Eight-Tails.
If anyone dared question him, Hagoromo could simply say, "If you think you can do better, go ahead."
Though given his personality, he would never bother saying something so pointless.
"That's enough."
Hagoromo nodded, signaling for them to proceed.
He was still completely wrapped in bandages, so some tasks had to be handled by others.
Only one eye was exposed, yet from his posture alone it was obvious that his mood was low.
And how could it not be?
The injuries on his face and body would heal eventually. That so-called "skin" of his only served that purpose. But some things could never be restored.
Compared to his face, Hagoromo was far more concerned about his hands. Being unable to form hand seals was deeply inconvenient.
What he was currently doing—with a squad of ANBU and a Sealing Team—was dismantling the Mutual Multiplication Four Symbols Barrier, a powerful sealing formation he had spent four months preparing.
In the end, it was never activated.
This was precisely why Hagoromo had remained by Uzumaki Kushina's side.
He had anticipated this outcome. That was why he had left a backdoor within the activation formula.
In that situation, Minato should have been able to successfully teleport both children away. Even so, Kushina would still never have activated the technique.
There were dozens of ANBU present—Hatake Kakashi included.
To say that Hagoromo viewed those ANBU as less than human would be excessive.
But when weighed against alternatives, they were part of the group that could be sacrificed.
Including Kakashi.
Including Hagoromo himself.
Risking death had long been part of Hagoromo's life. His first clash with the Eight-Tails had been a reckless gamble, an attempt to force the awakening of his eyes.
It failed.
Reality did not bend to will alone.
Nor could one person dictate another's choices. Given Kushina's personality, she would never allow so many people to die meaninglessly.
Even after the Nine-Tails broke free, she still didn't do so.
Partly because of her nature, and partly because her premature labor had likely been induced by drugs—her physical condition at the time spoke for itself.
In truth, the masked man had already seized control of the Nine-Tails. The Sharingan was simply that convenient—powerful enough to dominate a tailed beast.
Had Minato not suddenly used Flying Thunder God and activated a Contract Seal, severing the connection between the Nine-Tails and the masked man, the beast might already have been taken from Konoha.
After driving off the masked man and facing the Nine-Tails alone, Minato split the fox's chakra into yin and yang.
One half was sealed into Uzumaki Naruto.
The other half entered the Reaper Death Seal along with Minato himself.
He did not choose to seal it into the other infant.
That was easy enough to understand.
In Minato's view, the Hokage's son ought to shoulder a share of responsibility. The other child, after all, was a girl—not incapable, but undeserving of such a burden.
No one understood the suffering of a jinchūriki better than Minato. Was there truly no struggle in choosing to place that fate upon his son?
There must have been.
Even selflessness had limits.
The Fourth Hokage, too, had moments of selfishness.
Now that everything was over, leaving this sealing array behind served no purpose.
After returning from Kumogakure, seeing the twins, and organizing Kushina's belongings, Hagoromo finally decided to erase all traces of the technique.
He did not want this jutsu exposed to unrelated parties.
If possible, he would rather not have come here at all.
His role in the war was finished. To be honest, he no longer paid much attention to the broader conflict.
At present, neither Konoha nor Kumogakure had any will left to launch offensives. The war had effectively devolved into dragging out a rotten ending—only a matter of who could endure longer.
Hagoromo had heard rumors that Kumogakure had demanded him as a condition for peace.
He didn't even know how to evaluate such a demand.
But for Konoha, it was now impossible.
Not because Hagoromo could not be sacrificed.
Setting aside his strength, the dangers he posed under certain conditions, the possibility of him turning hostile, and the sheer unlikelihood of him submitting voluntarily—the real issue was that the demand ran completely counter to Konoha's strategy.
What truly ended the possibility was timing.
Hagoromo's image had already been shaped into the successor to the Yellow Flash. To hand him over now would be no different from demanding Minato himself a few years earlier.
Was that conceivable?
If Konoha accepted such a condition, it wouldn't deserve to be called one of the Five Great Ninja Villages—it would be a disgrace even among bandits.
As the war neared its end, Konoha's internal troubles surfaced once more.
The root cause was still the Nine-Tails Incident.
Shimura Danzō had made his move against the Uchiha Clan.
The Fourth Hokage had encountered a powerful enemy that night, and the Nine-Tails had clearly been under control. If blame was to be assigned, it had to land somewhere appropriate—somewhere unstable, and conveniently marginal to Konoha's system.
And so, almost overnight, everyone in Konoha "learned" that only the Sharingan could control a tailed beast.
The Uchiha's situation was easy to imagine.
They became the murderers of the Fourth Hokage and his wife—lacking only direct evidence.
The accusation wasn't entirely wrong.
After all, the one who acted was an "Uchiha."
With the balance of the war already restored by Hagoromo, and given the losses Kumogakure had suffered, large-scale battles were no longer possible.
Thus, in the eyes of the higher-ups, the hidden danger posed by the Uchiha outweighed whatever value they might bring in the remainder of the war.
Danzō seized the opportunity.
Hagoromo did not interfere.
He had his own plans.
As for Pain, the only information he had disclosed was the existence of the Rinnegan. He described the battle itself as nothing more than desperate flight in the face of those eyes.
He was neither magnanimous nor particularly fond of misplaced blame.
After completing the "teleportation," Minato's three guards had been swiftly killed by the masked man. From that man's perspective, anyone capable of space–time ninjutsu was better off erased.
If they had survived, it was hard to say whether Hagoromo would have acted against them. They were merely puppets under control.
But from a certain moment onward, it was impossible for Hagoromo to feel anything but hostility toward the Uchiha.
He would not participate in this affair.
Nor would he stop Danzō.
First, he couldn't.
Second—
Why should he?
Whether the Uchiha endured or were destroyed had nothing to do with Hagoromo.
So he remained silent.
In his heart, certain people and certain events had already been assigned a death order—a sequence that could not be disrupted.
Some things could only be done by specific people before they died.
Compared to the Uchiha matter, another development drew his attention far more:
Hanzō the Salamander, leader of Amegakure, had been sighted again.
So he wasn't dead?
On the contrary—this only reinforced Hagoromo's judgment.
Hanzō was dead.
Before openly pursuing their true goals, Akatsuki had spent a long time working as mercenaries. During that period, they might have hidden within Kirigakure, the Bloody Mist.
But now, the Fourth Mizukage was no longer the same man, and the masked man had neither the interest nor the reason to continue manipulating him.
Rain was just as isolated as Mist—an equally suitable place to lie low.
For various reasons, Hanzō's death had occurred at least ten years earlier than in the original course of events, and Amegakure had already become Akatsuki's refuge.
But it was not yet time for them to act.
So Hanzō had to reappear to stabilize the situation.
The "Hanzō" being seen now was either someone using Transformation Technique, or a corpse being manipulated as Pain's puppet.
Hagoromo could roughly piece everything together.
But he would not act yet.
First—his current condition.
Second—the disparity in strength.
Third—and always—
Things required order.
He was neither hurried nor hesitant.
But those meant to die—
Would not escape their fate.
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