After he and his teammates finished their satisfying bowls of Chef Ichiraku's ramen, Hagoromo went straight to Kushina to ask about Minato's mission, since it had genuinely piqued his interest.
Once he asked the question, Kushina began her tale.
"A long, long time ago, in the center of this world, there grew a towering, colossal sky tree. Because of its magnificent and awe-inspiring presence, people viewed it as a miracle. Believing that gods resided within its branches, they gradually began to call it the Divine Tree..."
Kushina was in a very good mood recently, likely due to a combination of several positive factors. Therefore, in response to Hagoromo's question, she was prepared to patiently explain everything from the very beginning.
However, the moment she opened her mouth, Hagoromo sensed a massive wave of tsukkomi material.
"Wait a second, this setup feels incredibly familiar..."
It wasn't unreasonable for Hagoromo to feel a sense of deja vu. When it came to a "really big tree," there were several distinct possibilities.
First, this tree might be the current residence of a certain Ging Freecss.
Second, this tree might be the current residence of a certain Asuna Yuuki.
Third, this tree might be the current residence of the Sage of Six Paths' mother.
Hagoromo still understood perfectly well what the term "Divine Tree" actually meant in the context of the ninja world.
"You've heard of this, Hagoromo? No way," Kushina asked, sounding puzzled.
These kinds of ancient legends—or in other words, moldy, baseless rumors with absolutely zero historical evidence to back them up, which some people still treated as highly classified, hoarded intel—were generally only passed down within ancient ninja sects.
It obviously wasn't something a ninja of Hagoromo's background and age should know about.
After all, she had practically watched him grow up. She knew his background quite well.
"...No, it's probably just an illusion called deja vu. Please continue, sensei."
Hagoromo said. The true tragedy of life was that even if he did complain, Kushina wouldn't understand the references anyway.
"Anyway, a long time ago, people built a city and settled beneath this Divine Tree. Although the warring era back then was even more chaotic than it is now, and the town was destroyed and rebuilt by the fires of war several times, the Divine Tree itself was never damaged," Kushina continued.
"Wait, hold on again. That sounds familiar too."
This couldn't possibly be that "Treasure Tree" whose wood occasionally circulated on the black market, could it?
Hold it in. Absolutely do not make a joke.
The constant interruptions were clearly throwing off Kushina's rhythm. Suppressing her spirit of education meant igniting her spirit of pure rage.
"So, are you going to listen or not?" She shot Hagoromo a highly dangerous glare.
"I'm listening. Please continue, elder. I promise I won't interrupt again." Hagoromo decisively admitted his mistake.
"Elder?"
"No... I mean, please continue quickly, Kushina-sama."
Kushina finally managed to rein in her temper. Considering her disciple was already fourteen, she should try not to casually beat him up... Hmm, she'd limit it to less than five times a month.
So she continued, "But the chaos of war is unpredictable. One day, the Divine Tree and the town were destroyed together."
"Many years later, humans began to resettle the ruins of the town. Purely by chance, they discovered that residual energy from the Divine Tree still lingered in the place where it once grew. Gradually, some people learned how to control this energy... Later, people began calling this the Dragon Vein."
"This town eventually expanded into a country, establishing a small nation with a population of less than fifty thousand. The king of this country possessed the power to control the Dragon Vein."
"This small country, located between the Land of Wind and the Land of Rivers, is called Roran."
"And the power of the Dragon Vein has been passed down ever since."
Hagoromo: "..."
And a population of less than fifty thousand... That's not a small country; that's just a village-level settlement. Konoha is several times bigger than that.
However, Hagoromo also had doubts about Kushina's story. The Divine Tree wasn't destroyed; someone plucked the fruit of its midsummer labor accumulated over countless years, causing it to go berserk, right? It underwent a second-stage transformation into the Ten-Tails, didn't it?
As for Kushina's version... either the truth had been genuinely lost as the story was passed down through the generations of the Uzumaki clan, or she simply felt there were certain things Hagoromo didn't need to know.
The Nine-Tails knew all of this perfectly well. Kushina really needed to strengthen her communication and study sessions with him.
Nevertheless, Hagoromo still extracted a crucial piece of intel from Kushina's words. So Roran was the place where the Divine Tree used to grow? And there was still residual Ten-Tails energy there?
Regardless, he chose to tentatively believe it, even though Kushina couldn't confirm these things herself.
"So, Minato-senpai went to Roran on a mission because something went wrong with this Dragon Vein?"
"Yes. Konoha recently received intelligence regarding abnormal fluctuations and energy leaks from the Dragon Vein, so Minato went to investigate," Kushina said, adopting an expression of pride.
She looked as if Hagoromo's sharp mind was entirely the result of her excellent tutelage.
Hagoromo shifted his gaze away from Kushina's face and began to brainstorm.
There were inevitably certain plot points he didn't know. So upon hearing that Minato's mission was seemingly connected to the Ten-Tails, he began to suspect there might be a deeper, more sinister reason behind this operation.
Could it be related to a certain behind-the-scenes boss? Had he already begun to make his move?
Therefore, he felt he should go see for himself.
...
However, as a ninja, Hagoromo couldn't just do whatever he wanted. Leaving the village on a whim was impossible. A ninja leaving without permission was classified as a missing-nin.
So he had to wait until his current assignment—assisting Orochimaru's dissection research—was completed before he could make a move.
By the time Hagoromo had made his preparations, Minato's squad had exceeded their mission deadline and had not returned to Konoha as scheduled.
This gave him the perfect opportunity to submit a request to the Hokage to go and reinforce Minato.
The Hokage thought about it. Since this guy was just sitting around doing nothing anyway, he might as well approve the request... If he didn't, he was afraid Kushina would be mobilized to persuade him. Considering that possibility, he didn't dawdle and signed off on it.
Hagoromo's mobility was inherently incredibly high, so the Hokage didn't need to worry about travel time—after all, the kid could fly.
And so, six days after Minato's squad began their operation, Hagoromo also set out.
The Yatagarasu was clearly designed as a heavy bomber, yet Hagoromo constantly used it as a cargo transport plane, which left the poor bird feeling quite confused about its life choices.
Taking off straight into the clouds, Hagoromo kept the Yatagarasu's flight altitude strictly a very good distance above the clouds.
No one on the ground could possibly spot his tracks—it had to be noted that the Hidden Sand was always very eager to welcome the White Yaksha into their borders. If they spotted him, they would undoubtedly roll out the red carpet and use a dazzling array of ninjutsu to set off fireworks for him.
Following the map's directions, Hagoromo didn't lower his altitude until he was nearing the country of Roran.
It was currently early morning. The sun had yet to rise, but the refracted atmospheric light had already illuminated the ground.
Amidst the swirling morning mist, massive, towering shadows appeared before Hagoromo's eyes.
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