"How is it?"
Hagoromo asked Mirai…
He had been walking slowly just now not because he was calm, composed, and unhurried, but because he needed time to open his eyes.
What a truly painful setting.
As for what he was asking about? What else could it be? This place was now extremely empty. Shukaku's enormous body had already vanished.
Sure enough, Mirai nodded to him.
She was probably one of the few people who had no fear of looking directly into Hagoromo's eyes. She did not even feel any other negative emotions. After all, no matter what kind of eyes they were, Hagoromo was still Hagoromo.
Mirai's confirmation also let Hagoromo breathe a sigh of relief. At least all that work had not been for nothing.
Practice made perfect. Besides, when it came to dealing with tailed beasts, Hagoromo had already tried more than twice.
So far, the total mission progress was now 2/8.
After receiving a definite answer, the group did not speak for the moment. After all, a tailed beast had just faceplanted right in front of them. They would naturally have their own feelings about that.
After staying in place for a while, Hagoromo finally spoke again.
"The mission is over. Let's go back."
From arriving here to finishing the job, Hagoromo had moved very quickly and spent very little time. He had probably just created the fastest tailed-beast kill in the Guinness Shinobi World Records.
How do you permanently kill a tailed beast?
The White Yaksha's answer was: give it one slash, then give it another slash…
After finishing, Hagoromo did indeed want to return to Konoha as quickly as possible. After all, he did not know whether the Third Hokage and Orochimaru's battle had ended yet, and he was also somewhat concerned about the progress on his clone's side.
And so, the group turned around and began heading back to Konoha.
Hagoromo's condition was still fine, but Mirai and the other two were already rather exhausted. They had no problem dealing with Gaara, but blocking Shukaku for even that short period of time had consumed a great deal of their energy…
For them, this had once again been a battle where they first bullied someone else, only to immediately get bullied in return by another.
However, not long after they left, Mirai suddenly stopped again.
"What's wrong?" Hagoromo asked. From her current expression, she had clearly discovered something.
"Someone is coming…" Mirai said first, then immediately corrected herself. "No, they're not coming toward us. They're heading toward the battlefield from just now."
Hearing that, Hagoromo's first reaction was:
Someone is going to loot the corpse?
Was it Orochimaru, returning from Konoha after finishing his battle?
Or perhaps…
Akatsuki?
With the tailed beast gone, could they be targeting the tailed-beast chakra left inside the jinchūriki's body? Although that sounded pitifully desperate, it somehow felt quite possible.
Thinking of it that way, leaving the corpse there unattended might have been a mistake.
After thinking for a moment, Hagoromo immediately said, "Let's go back and take a look."
He was still somewhat uneasy. Hopefully, no messy problem had appeared. He also wondered whether they might conveniently run into one or two Akatsuki members next.
The four of them began doubling back, while Mirai reported the enemy's movements in real time.
"That's right. The other party really did go to that place just now… There's only one person."
"Wait. A new chakra reaction has appeared… It feels very familiar. It's Uncle Jiraiya's chakra."
"Uncle Jiraiya… Then the first person who appeared couldn't be Sunagakure's Chiyo, could it?"
At that moment, Hagoromo suddenly reacted. According to what Tsunade had said earlier, Jiraiya seemed to be pursuing Chiyo.
"…"
"It may indeed be that person. I thought it felt a little familiar earlier, but I didn't recognize it right away."
Too many chaotic things had happened today, making Mirai's brain seem a little sluggish.
It was neither Akatsuki nor Orochimaru. But if it was Chiyo of Sunagakure, then why had she gone specifically to the battlefield from just now?
To collect the body?
After all, the other party seemed to have a very clear purpose.
No matter what, Hagoromo decided to go back and see.
"Uncle Jiraiya is closing in faster, and the other person doesn't seem to intend to fight him. After appearing at the battlefield from just now, she immediately fled in the opposite direction."
Jiraiya was naturally faster. After all, this sort of behavior was rather like a strong young man chasing and beating an old lady, which was somewhat bullying. It was normal for Chiyo not to want to fight him.
And if he could not catch up to that old woman, then he really would have been called one of the Sannin for nothing…
By the time Hagoromo and the other three arrived at the scene, Chiyo had indeed long since vanished. Only Jiraiya remained there, looking somewhat baffled.
He could naturally see these obvious traces of battle, but what exactly had happened here? Why had Chiyo come here?
Before clarifying those things, he should not continue the pursuit.
"Hagoromo? Why are you here?" He was somewhat surprised by Hagoromo's appearance. Why did it feel like this person was everywhere?
Hagoromo did not answer Jiraiya's question at first. He looked around and discovered that Gaara's corpse had indeed disappeared.
In its place was a puppet lying face down in the exact same posture. However, this hasty disguise clearly would not fool any slightly careful shinobi.
Seeing that Hagoromo had noticed it, Jiraiya immediately said, "Don't touch it recklessly. That's a puppet trap."
Probably, if someone so much as touched the thing, it would either explode or launch a swarm of poisoned needles.
Fine. Hagoromo knew it was a trap. Of course he would not touch it recklessly. Jiraiya's warning was completely unnecessary, so he ignored the uncle again.
Could it be…
Suddenly, Hagoromo thought of a possibility.
And if that was the case…
He immediately turned to Jiraiya and said, "Uncle Jiraiya, take Mirai and the others back to Konoha first. The village's situation may not be good. I'll pursue Chiyo from here!"
"Mirai can explain in detail what happened here."
Hagoromo spoke extremely quickly. After finishing, he did not wait for Jiraiya's reaction and directly chased in the direction Chiyo had fled. At the same time, to avoid losing her trail, after running a certain distance, he directly entered Sage Mode, which had extremely strong sensing ability.
Jiraiya naturally had no idea what Hagoromo was suddenly rushing off to do. Not only did he not understand, even Mirai was confused.
What was he doing? Stealing a wild monster or kill-stealing?
But since Hagoromo had already run off, Jiraiya thought about it and could only accept his decision. Hagoromo chasing her might actually be more reliable than him doing it himself.
More importantly, Jiraiya was even more worried about Konoha's situation. What exactly had happened to the Third Hokage? Why had Hagoromo used a seal to lock down that place?
It was not that he suspected Hagoromo of being a traitor or anything like that. But no matter how one looked at today's events, the Third Hokage seemed to have made preparations in advance, and Hagoromo appeared to be one of the people in the know.
"We're returning to Konoha. Mirai, tell me everything you know," Jiraiya finally decided.
...
Two hours later.
In a hidden forest, Gaara, who should have died, opened his eyes again. At this moment, he had no idea what had just happened. The first thing that entered his vision was Granny Chiyo lying in front of him.
After reaching out and carefully checking her, he discovered that she was already dead.
At this moment, Gaara had not even noticed that he was no longer a jinchūriki.
After reacting and recalling things for a while, he prepared to leave this place. It was not safe here, and it should not be far from Konoha. Yet for some unknown reason, he decided to take Chiyo's body with him.
Only after he left did Hagoromo, who had been hiding in the shadows all along, reveal himself.
This time, he had come to the right place.
Hagoromo had personally witnessed Chiyo perform the forbidden technique, though he still did not know that the technique was called One's Own Life Reincarnation.
But he understood what this meant.
Gaara lived. Chiyo died.
It looked like this technique was a resurrection technique that used the caster's own life as the price. This should undoubtedly have been exactly the kind of situation Hagoromo hated, but at this moment, he felt delighted.
The One-Tail had died, yet Gaara had lived?
In other words, the tailed beast had died while the jinchūriki survived. That meant, since Naruto could live…
The Nine-Tails could die.
This was truly an unexpectedly lucky draw.
Hagoromo's mission progress could now be corrected to 2/9.
However, the caster, Chiyo, was already dead now, so this technique would probably be difficult to obtain…
As expected, Uncle Snake still could not die.
Hagoromo had always believed Orochimaru would prove useful at some point, and now it seemed he had been right.
He had to return to Konoha quickly. Hopefully, Orochimaru had not already been killed by now.
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