The night was deadly silent.
Hagoromo picked up the brown-haired head, gently tossing it into the air. Then, gripping the black receiver lodged in his right shoulder with his left hand, he smoothly yanked the entire rod out.
With a swift backhand motion, he thrust the rod forward.
Moving with only one hand was undeniably awkward, but he still managed to drive the black receiver precisely through the center of the Rinnegan in the left half of Yahiko's face.
Hagoromo continued to apply force single-handedly, pushing the black rod forward inch by inch.
Blood flowed between his fingers as the rod pierced through the back of the skull, securely pinning the severed head to a tree trunk.
"Ninjas are always used to lying... This is my final strike."
Next, he pulled the remaining black receivers out of his body one by one. After dropping his heavy gear, he turned and walked step-by-step toward Konoha, never looking back.
As his feet treaded through the pile of mangled corpses, the electrical currents he brought with him instantly caused the flesh and bone to disintegrate into nothingness... This wasn't him forcefully activating his ability again; rather, his ability had been continuously running since the very beginning and simply couldn't be stopped.
From start to finish, his head flickered with electrical arcs, like an old CRT monitor that had taken a baseball bat to the screen.
He didn't know if Nagato cared about this corpse, and his actions had nothing to do with that anyway. Right now, he merely wanted this corpse to vanish without leaving a single trace behind.
Just like the other Paths of Pain.
After Hagoromo had walked several dozen meters away, lightning suddenly flared along the black rod pinned to the tree. The head exploded like a rotten watermelon.
"You really... got in my way."
Hagoromo had always believed that hatred was a rather superficial emotion. But now he knew that hatred was just hatred—it had nothing to do with stance, motive, or morality.
If he could kill a person 101 times, he wouldn't stop at 100. If he could make a person die 1,001 times, he wouldn't stop at 1,000.
Even if the price was an arm, even if the price was a heart, even if the price was a head.
Even if the price was the melting of every inch of skin, the shattering of every bone, the obliteration of every fragment of his soul.
Hagoromo... had never harbored such overwhelming hostility before.
At a high vantage point near the barrier.
"Nagato, Yahiko's body..."
To control the actions of Pain while ensuring the safety of his true body, Nagato needed special tools for long-distance chakra transmission. Because of these tools, his current appearance could best be described as neither fully human nor ghost.
Yahiko's body? Of course it was gone forever. Not even the power of the Rinnegan or the restorative abilities of the Naraka Path could create something out of absolute nothingness.
"The enemy is completely drained. Shall I go deliver the final blow?" Konan asked, seeing Nagato remain silent.
"No... those eyes are far too dangerous. Until we figure out exactly what happened, do not approach him."
The tearing sensation the Deva Path had experienced was something Nagato had felt with terrifying clarity.
"Just in case, we need to leave here immediately. The enemy has already sensed our location... Regardless, the other side should have already succeeded."
Nagato's current condition was also extremely poor. Resisting the super-massive Railgun had drained him immensely. Given this situation, and with their location compromised, playing it safe and leaving immediately was the only option.
"Can the traps set up beforehand still be activated?"
"Although a large portion was destroyed, there shouldn't be a problem," Konan replied.
As a precaution, Konan had rigged a massive number of explosive tags around the perimeter of Nagato's barrier. The super-massive Railgun had destroyed some of them, but the rest remained intact.
And so, almost the exact second Konan's voice faded, the roar of explosions erupted, and crimson flames illuminated the entire night sky.
Hagoromo, naturally, was engulfed within that sea of fire.
The masked man was also severely injured, and his plan to steal the Nine-Tails had failed... The battle against the Fourth Hokage had left him feeling utterly suppressed, both tactically and intellectually.
But when he saw the person walking toward him step-by-step... it wasn't until the figure was right in front of him that he finally confirmed their identity.
That was why he initially felt a sense of disbelief, though he quickly steadied his mind.
"Humans truly are pathetic creatures. The more something isn't theirs, the more they want it. The further out of reach it is, the more they stretch their hands toward it."
"They alienate and despise others more than anyone, yet envy and crave more than anyone."
"Even though their very existence is superfluous and tragic, they still constantly struggle. Is this so-called 'refusal to give up' actually perseverance? No, it's merely foolishness."
"Lacking the capacity, lacking the strength, lacking the knowledge, and ignorant of the future. Trying to be useful, yet ultimately achieving nothing..."
"Do you know what people like that are called?"
"Just hindrances, nothing more."
The masked man wasn't entirely wrong. Foolishness was indeed a fundamental human trait, an attribute deeply rooted in everyone. From birth to death, there has never been a human who lived an entire life completely shrewd and without error. If such a person truly existed, they would genuinely be worthy of the title "God."
"So, as expected, you are going to die here."
To the masked man, the fact that Hagoromo was still alive was absolutely unbelievable. Although he wasn't clear on the exact situation of that battle, it was hard to imagine Nagato failing. After all, with all the prior preparations, it was a calculated ambush against an unprepared target...
Hagoromo was indeed strong; if he weren't, the masked man wouldn't have gone out of his way to lure him away from Kushina. But "strong" is always a relative concept. No matter how strong someone was, they couldn't possibly be a match for those eyes.
Yet Hagoromo was indeed still alive. That was an indisputable fact, because he was walking straight toward him, step by agonizing step.
Hagoromo had no time to debate the nature of humanity.
There were certain things he didn't want to blindly guess at, and even less did he want to make negative assumptions. But facts were facts, completely immune to the defenses of mere wishful thinking.
It is said that humanity is born with the Seven Deadly Sins: Gluttony, Greed, Sloth, Envy, Pride, Lust, and Wrath.
For Hagoromo, he excelled at sloth, but he had never truly experienced wrath. Because there were so many things he didn't care about, there was very little in reality worth his anger.
He had never felt wrath before, so it was only today that he realized just how furiously angry he could be.
He was like a volcano brimming with ten thousand tons of magma, right on the verge of erupting. He was angrier than anger itself.
The masked man was severely injured; Hagoromo was at death's door. It seemed almost inevitable that the former would kill the latter right here and now. Even with all his wrath, if the boy wanted to turn the tables, it seemed only one word awaited him:
Impossible.
The masked man waited for Hagoromo to walk over, and Hagoromo naturally did, because that was the direction he needed to go.
But the masked man was not his goal, not even a stepping stone... Hagoromo treated the enemy before him as if he were nothing but thin air. He only had one sentence to deliver, spoken with bone-chilling coldness:
"Get out of my way, if you don't want to die."
A ninja's combat strength is linked to their physical condition, but it's not an absolute rule. For some, the moment they are down to their very last breath is precisely when they are at their most dangerous.
Hagoromo was missing nearly half of his right face, but right now, his eyes seemed to carry a gravity capable of destroying everything, like windows to the spirit realm endlessly broadcasting death.
And so... Hagoromo could see the masked man's death, and the masked man could see that Hagoromo saw his death.
Therefore, the attack he had been preparing to launch came to a dead halt.
Hagoromo walked right past him without making contact.
Perhaps Hagoromo had completely lost his ability to fight; perhaps his words were nothing more than a bluff. But then again, perhaps he truly could deliver one final, fatal strike.
There were three possibilities, but in reality, there was only one choice. The masked man couldn't move, because if he did, Hagoromo's only option—and only capability—would be to take option three.
Having bypassed the enemy, Hagoromo never looked back.
What was his name again? The masked man? Tobi? Madara Uchiha? Or Uchiha-somebody?
It didn't matter.
For the current Hagoromo, the immense mental burden of overusing his abilities, combined with the crushing spiritual pressure of the ability he was currently using, had reduced his cognitive functions to chaos. Perhaps at this moment, he didn't even have a concept of time anymore.
But he could still walk forward.
Regardless of time, regardless of distance, he finally arrived at his destination.
The barrier present here was not the one originally set up outside Kushina's delivery room. Although both were near Konoha, their overall locations were different.
Judging by its characteristics... it was very easy to tell that this barrier had been set up by Minato.
Facing the obstacle before him, Hagoromo extended his left hand.
Instantly, his left hand was coated in crackling lightning. With that lightning-wreathed hand, he effortlessly tore a gap in the barrier, allowing himself to step inside.
At this point, his Electromaster ability was still rampaging. The "inertia" of his calculation formulas, caused by extreme overuse, continued to churn endlessly in his subconscious. Consequently, the power kept activating non-stop. However, the current Hagoromo couldn't fully control it at will—otherwise, it wouldn't be considered a rampage.
This was a stiffness he had never felt before as an Electromaster.
So, when the thought of "cutting something" popped into his head, Hagoromo subconsciously used Lightning Style instead.
Electromaster abilities and Lightning Style... For Hagoromo, this was an unprecedented feat of split concentration, a simultaneous blending of two entirely different power systems. Yet right now, he was completely oblivious to this fact.
His footsteps paused slightly. Was it hesitation? Then, he resolutely continued forward.
Past the barrier lay the result, the final conclusion.
No matter what it was, whether he could bear it or not, Hagoromo had to bear it.
Everyone has moments when they want to run away, but ultimately, there are times when running away is impossible. Perhaps there was still something he could do, or perhaps he could do absolutely nothing at all anymore.
But he had to go forward now.
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