Naruto endured so many hardships in the future, yet somehow grew into such a cheerful and optimistic person.
Minato had always assumed that was simply his natural personality.
But Kaede Kitahara claimed Naruto had been influenced by Otsutsuki Asura.
How could a father possibly hear that and not worry?
"Otsutsuki Asura and Otsutsuki Indra… Why do they keep reincarnating over and over again?"
Namikaze Minato thought of the Otsutsuki Clan's Karma.
Members of the Otsutsuki Clan could use Karma to reincarnate repeatedly.
That only made him more uneasy.
What exactly did the Otsutsuki want with his son?
"That kid did pretty well!"
Tsunade watched the end of the video, where Naruto stood at the center of Konoha's attention and received the love and admiration of the entire village.
No wonder he would one day become the beloved Seventh Hokage.
Even people who had already died could be revived through such a method.
"The Rinnegan truly is miraculous."
Tsunade thought of the Outer Path — Samsara of Heavenly Life Technique Nagato had used at the end.
She could only stare in disbelief.
Her skill in Medical Ninjutsu stood at the very peak of the Shinobi World.
Yet even she couldn't bring the dead back to life. At most, she could save someone who was on the verge of death.
Reviving people on such an enormous scale was beyond imagination.
Even though the price had been Nagato's life, the technique was still unbelievable in her eyes.
Nagato only had one life.
Yet that single life had been exchanged for the lives of everyone who died in Konoha.
If that wasn't a miracle, what was?
At the very least, Tsunade had never heard of anything like it in her entire life.
"The Rinnegan really is absurdly powerful."
Tsunade murmured to herself.
"Legend of Eyes?"
She suddenly remembered how Kaede Kitahara had once jokingly called this world a Legend of Eyes.
At the time, she had refused to accept it.
The strongest person of his era had been her Great Grandfather.
It was Great Grandfather's Wood Release that had brought an end to the chaotic age.
The Sharingan was certainly remarkable. According to the information passed down through the Senju Clan, Uchiha Madara had even evolved his Sharingan into the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan.
So what?
He had still lost to her Great Grandfather.
That was why Tsunade had always dismissed Kaede Kitahara's claim.
He simply lacked experience and had no idea how powerful her Great Grandfather had truly been.
But now, she was beginning to waver.
Of the famous Three Great Dojutsu, the Byakugan seemed rather ordinary and offered little beyond strategic value.
The strength of the Sharingan, however, had already been displayed in full through the Uchiha brothers.
The moment someone awakened the Mangekyo Sharingan, they were practically guaranteed to enter Kage Level.
That alone was an advantage outsiders could barely imagine.
Even then, the legendary Rinnegan still stood above the other two as the greatest of the Three Great Dojutsu.
Now Tsunade understood why.
It granted all kinds of bizarre ocular techniques, massively increased the user's combat ability, and allowed them to create multiple bodies through the Six Paths of Pain and send each one into battle separately.
It could even bring an entire village back from the dead.
Even Tsunade found an ability that blurred the boundary between life and death impossible to comprehend.
Calling this world a Legend of Eyes no longer seemed like much of an exaggeration.
After Great Grandfather died, only one person had managed to reproduce Wood Release.
But Yamato's strength was thoroughly average. He couldn't come close to displaying the true power of Wood Release.
No one even knew what had gone wrong.
As for the present and future eras, calling them the age of the Legend of Eyes seemed perfectly reasonable.
"Still, even if Nagato was pitiful and had his reasons, I have reasons of my own that I absolutely cannot compromise on."
Tsunade's expression hardened.
She had already seen the enormous destruction Nagato would cause in the future.
He might have revived everyone afterward, but the economic losses alone would be astronomical.
Just imagining how she would rebuild everything as Hokage was enough to make all her hair fall out and age her twenty years on the spot.
That was all money!
Decades of Konoha's accumulated wealth!
Even if the village could be rebuilt, the disaster would wipe out everything they had worked so hard to build.
So no matter how many reasons Nagato had, Tsunade could never allow it.
If possible, she had to prevent matters from ever reaching that point.
"Nagato… What a mess."
Jiraiya was equally troubled.
He had watched Nagato get pushed toward despair one step at a time.
Nagato had believed in Jiraiya's theory of peace, but he hadn't possessed enough power to protect that peace.
The price had been Yahiko's death.
Many members of the Akatsuki Organization who shared that dream of peace had also died one after another.
In the end, Nagato chose to inherit Yahiko's will.
He called himself a god and resolved to carve a path toward peace for the entire world.
Jiraiya couldn't accept Nagato's methods, especially the balance of terror he wanted to create.
Even so, he knew his student had been desperately searching for a path into the future.
Nagato had once abandoned the road Jiraiya showed him, only to pick it up again after Naruto's Talk Release.
At the very least, he had found his way back before the end.
That proved Nagato could still be saved.
His goal had never been world domination or meaningless slaughter.
He genuinely wanted to bring peace to the world.
That made him completely different from an ordinary mastermind hiding in the shadows.
Unfortunately, bringing him back onto the right path would be extremely difficult.
Jiraiya could tell that Nagato resented him.
As his teacher, Jiraiya had painted a beautiful picture of the future but never explained how they were supposed to achieve it.
He had never taught them how to make that dream real.
The final result had been brutal.
To persuade Nagato to speak again, they would first have to defeat him.
But Nagato's strength was obvious.
Even the future Naruto, with Sage Mode, had only defeated him after a long chain of events weakened him and created one favorable condition after another.
If Nagato had been at his peak and hadn't exhausted himself attacking Konoha first, Naruto probably wouldn't have beaten him.
According to the power rankings Kaede Kitahara used in his diary, Nagato was supposedly the gatekeeper of Super Kage Level.
Would that make the slightly weaker Naruto someone at the peak of Strong Kage Level?
When Jiraiya thought of it that way, it made sense.
Still, if teacher and student joined forces in the future, they might have a chance.
Kakashi would also reach Kage Level in the future, and there was Tsunade as well.
If the four of them went to explain reason to Nagato, Jiraiya was sure Nagato would listen very carefully to what they had to say.
"I failed all of you as your teacher."
Jiraiya sighed.
Even knowing that Nagato might kill him in the future, he had never regretted teaching those children for a single second.
He only regretted that he hadn't taught them well enough.
More than anything, he regretted not bringing them back to Konoha.
Otherwise, none of this might have happened.
"And Danzo. That bastard really is involved in everything."
Jiraiya ground his teeth.