"Yes…" Konan let out a soft sigh and walked to the window, standing beside Nagato as they gazed at the endless rain.
"The God's Knights… those beings are already beyond anything within our understanding of the shinobi world. The power system of the Devil Fruits is completely unheard of. And that Karin… she's even more unsettling."
She paused, her voice dropping lower.
"In a game like this, can the peace we've pursued—peace enforced through pain—really be achieved?"
Nagato fell silent for a moment before speaking.
"The organization… hasn't been stable lately, has it?"
Konan nodded. "Hearts are wavering."
The reason was obvious.
On the Heavenly Screen, "Pain" had lost—completely.
More importantly, there was the Devil Fruit mentioned by the projection.
Power—who wouldn't crave it?
Especially power that shattered convention and seemed almost divine in nature.
"Forget them for now," Nagato said with a slight wave of his hand. "We'll lie low."
"And then…" His voice lowered, carrying a cold foresight. "We wait for our guest."
Konan's slender figure stiffened almost imperceptibly.
After a moment of silence, her cool voice carried the faintest tremor.
"You think… Jiraiya-sensei will still come?"
Sensei.
It had been many years since they had spoken that title aloud.
Nagato exhaled deeply, the sigh tangled with emotions even he could not fully untangle.
"Who knows," he finally said. "But Jiraiya-sensei… might want to see for himself."
To see the disciple who had strayed from the path, who declared himself a god, yet was destined—according to the Heavenly Screen—to fall in such a humiliating way?
To see the so-called Child of Prophecy, once entrusted with hope, who chose to spread pain in the name of peace?
Or perhaps… to see whether there remained even the faintest possibility of redemption?
"Then…" Konan started, as if to ask something—if Jiraiya came, would it be war or peace?
But in the end, she said nothing.
She simply stood beside Nagato, just as she had countless times before.
No matter what he decided—whether to unleash another storm of blood across the shinobi world, to choose a different and perhaps more difficult path, or even to face their former teacher with either mercy or a blade—she would stand behind him.
Nagato said nothing more.
Because he did not know the answer himself.
Within the Kamui dimension, the masked man—Obito Uchiha—sat slumped upon a floating slab of stone. Even the red clouds on his Akatsuki cloak seemed dim.
Confusion—unprecedented confusion—swirled within him like the vortex of the Kamui space itself.
The once-clear "Eye of the Moon Plan"—his ultimate goal of creating a perfect dream world where Rin still lived—now seemed childish and fragile in the face of the chaos revealed by the Heavenly Screen.
He felt like a fool, chasing after the grand illusion Madara Uchiha had painted for him, walking toward a future that might never have been possible.
"Even Madara… probably didn't foresee the shinobi world becoming this absurd," Obito muttered bitterly.
The feud of Uchiha and Senju. The Infinite Tsukuyomi to save the world…
Compared to the sudden emergence of the God's Knights, the incomprehensible Devil Fruits, and that terrifyingly powerful "Demon Child" Karin, it all felt like children playing pretend.
What chilled him further was the image of Naruto in the future—
Those Rinnegan.
They were Nagato's—no, they were originally Madara's. They were the core of the plan.
And the White Zetsu army… if Naruto could command them, what would that mean?
It would mean Obito Uchiha was likely already dead.
That realization sent a cold wave through him.
He wasn't afraid of death. The real Obito had died the moment Rin fell to Kakashi's Chidori.
What he feared was failure.
Failure of the plan.
Failure of the world where Rin existed.
"Can I still… achieve it?"
The despair nearly suffocated him.
He once believed himself to be the one moving the pieces from the shadows. Now he suspected he was merely a slightly more conspicuous piece on a much larger board—one destined to be sacrificed.
For now, he only wanted to remain here, in this warped space that belonged solely to him, hiding from the increasingly incomprehensible—and increasingly hopeless—world outside.
Meanwhile, in a shadowed corner of the shinobi world, a mass of pitch-black, viscous will wriggled silently.
Black Zetsu—the third son of Kaguya Ōtsutsuki, the mastermind who had schemed for a thousand years—felt no better than Obito.
In fact, he was even closer to collapse.
A thousand years.
For a millennium, he had hidden carefully in the shadows, manipulating the reincarnations of Indra and Asura, fueling the hatred between Uchiha and Senju, orchestrating wars and tragedies.
He believed he understood the shinobi world completely. Every powerful existence, every potential variable, had been within his calculations.
Madara Uchiha was his most perfect creation.
Obito Uchiha, a qualified substitute.
Nagato Uzumaki, an excellent battery and tool.
Everything had progressed step by step.
And then—the Heavenly Screen appeared.
God's Knights?
What kind of nonsense was that?
Judging by the name alone, they sounded even more imposing than Mother herself.
Where had they come from?
What were they after?
And the Devil Fruits—what were those supposed to be?
Granting such bizarre and overwhelming powers?
None of it made sense anymore.
Worst of all was that "Demon Child" Karin.
Freely extracting and injecting the powers of Indra and Asura?
Treating Sasuke Uchiha and Naruto Uzumaki like playthings?
Who was she? What was the source of her power?
All of it reduced Black Zetsu's thousand-year scheme to a crude joke.
"Mother…" His formless body trembled as if in silent lament. "This world… runs too deep."
For the first time in his existence, a rebellious thought surfaced—
Maybe… it's better if you don't come back just yet.
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