“What… what exactly happened here?”

Outside Kusagakure, a group of Grass shinobi staggered to their feet.

Their vacant eyes stared at the scene before them, each of them looking lost and powerless.

“You… you’ve got to be kidding me. How could something like this even happen?”

“Am I dreaming? If I am, then someone wake me up already!”

“Is this really something a shinobi could do…?”

“Damn it, why does a monster like that even exist!”

They looked again at the devastation before them—nearly half the village reduced to ruin—while memories of that earth-shattering explosion replayed in their minds.

One by one, their emotions teetered on the verge of collapse. They couldn’t imagine what kind of losses they would have suffered if the villagers hadn’t been evacuated in time!

Even now, the casualties were certainly not small.

Especially for this group of shinobi stationed outside the village, ready to respond at any moment—they had been caught in the blast and the damage was horrific.

“It feels like… this might be an opportunity.”

Most of the Kusagakure shinobi had already broken down, even their leader.

But Karin, who had sensed danger earlier and reacted in time, wasn’t as badly shaken. Even so, she dared not reveal herself now.

With casualties of this scale, she couldn’t even begin to imagine how those people would treat her!

She had long wanted to leave Kusagakure. This place had given her nothing but pain and torment.

She still remembered how her mother died. She never expected revenge—she only wished to leave this place and never return!

With that thought, Karin quietly slipped into the shadows.

...

“Black one… this place feels so scary.”

While Kusagakure drowned in helplessness and despair, the ground suddenly surged, and Black Zetsu emerged.

Seeing this doomsday-like scene, White Zetsu wasn’t grinning either. Instead, he pretended to be afraid.

“If we’re not careful, we might die here. And if I die, I won’t be able to—”

“Shut up!”

Black Zetsu cut him off harshly, his expression dark.

“Tell me what happened here, now. Stop wasting my time!”

After taking care of Hanzo of the Salamander, Black Zetsu had intended to come immediately, but there had been loose ends he had to handle.

With Hanzo reappearing, a chain of arrangements had to be set in place, otherwise Ame would face endless trouble.

Once he finished, he came at once—only to be greeted by this sight!

“They started fighting,” White Zetsu finally said after scratching his head and thinking.

“Obito and Hatake Kakashi ran off somewhere. Kitagawa Gen faced Raiga and Nagato alone, but now I don’t know where any of them are.”

“You don’t know either?”

“Nagato used a technique—made this huge, huge sphere. It forced all my clones to retreat.”

“A huge sphere… Chibaku Tensei?”

“Not sure. But Kitagawa Gen also used a technique and smashed that jutsu apart. A lot of my clones lost contact after that.”

“Smashed Chibaku Tensei apart?”

Hearing this, Black Zetsu’s eyes shifted sharply.

He knew very well what Chibaku Tensei was. His mother had been sealed away by his two so-called ‘big brothers’ using that very technique.

Nagato’s strength might not have been enough, but to have his technique shattered outright—wasn’t that absurd?

“Yeah, it really was broken apart,” White Zetsu nodded, then suddenly seemed to sense something.

“Ah-reh, ah-reh… I think I’ve found that Kitagawa Gen.”

“Where is he?”

“His chakra… it seems to be with Nagato.”

“…”

In that instant, Black Zetsu felt like he could die from sheer frustration.

But then another thought crept in—if Kitagawa Gen managed to seize the Rinnegan, could he possibly stand against Ōtsutsuki Genshiki?

...

Elsewhere, Obito and Kakashi’s battle had grown increasingly half-hearted.

'That’s Chibaku Tensei. Damn it… Nagato was forced that far by Kitagawa Gen?'

Obito understood the powers of the Rinnegan. Seeing such a technique, how could he not realize that Nagato had been driven to the limit?

“For him to even bring out that jutsu… is Kitagawa Gen really that troublesome?”

Troublesome or not, Obito knew all too well—he himself was already a victim. But Nagato, even with six Paths unleashed, ending up like this? That was far from normal.

'I need to get over there, quickly.'

Obito gritted his teeth in silence, but Kakashi was proving too much of a nuisance—especially his mastery of the Sharingan, which surpassed anything Obito had expected.

'No… I need to find a way to slip away. If Kitagawa Gen discovers Nagato’s real body, then…'

Obito hadn’t forgotten. If Kitagawa Gen managed to catch Nagato, the Rinnegan would be lost!

Still, even in this moment, a thought crept into his mind.

'If Kitagawa Gen has such talent and power at such a young age… then maybe he really could fight Ōtsutsuki Genshiki.'

...

While Black Zetsu and Obito each followed their own lines of thought, Kitagawa Gen had already stepped into Nagato’s hidden chamber.

The sight that greeted him was Konan, wings unfurled like an angel, sheets of paper swirling around her like dancing butterflies.

“Paper Release? Explosive tags? It’s all the same, really. But are you sure you want to make a move?”

Kitagawa Gen gave a slight shake of his head, the corner of his lips curling into a smile that carried a trace of mockery.

“But go ahead, try. Who knows? You might actually manage to hurt me.”

Konan remained silent, but her stance showed she was ready to attack at any moment. Before she could, Nagato’s voice cut through.

“Konan. Don’t be rash. Leave him to me.”

“Just as I thought,” Kitagawa Gen said. “Your true body really isn’t much. And you do have someone very important to you after all.”

His gaze fell on Nagato. The man was so gaunt he looked like a walking skeleton, his withered frame enough to make anyone question whether he was truly alive.

Yet despite that, Kitagawa Gen could still feel a vast vitality within him. Such a contradictory existence was startling.

'Did Uchiha Madara do something to the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path? Or maybe too much of your strength was consumed in cultivating the White Zetsu… leaving you trapped in this state.'

Kitagawa Gen wasn’t certain, but he suspected Nagato’s condition came from endlessly supplying energy to the Demonic Statue of the Outer Path. Even with such an exceptional physique, he had never been able to recover.

“She is indeed someone of the utmost importance to me,” Nagato replied coldly, unaware of what Kitagawa Gen was truly thinking.

“So what is it? As a member of Konoha, do you also intend to take away the person most important to me?”

“But honestly, I’m not even surprised!”

Though Nagato’s emotions surged, his Rinnegan fixed unrelentingly on Kitagawa Gen, his voice was unnervingly calm.

“Back then, during the war between Amegakure and Konoha, it was Konoha that broke into my home and killed my parents!”

“It was also your Konoha shinobi who joined hands with Hanzō to kill Yahiko.”

“Everything Konoha has done follows the same path—look at all your deeds.”

“Your so-called peace is nothing more than violence against us!”

Kitagawa Gen looked at him with a strange expression, tilting his head slightly as he asked curiously: “Isn’t it you who came looking for trouble? I was only here to deliver a letter to the Land of Rain, yet you came after me yourself—and now you blame us?”

“…”

Nagato was caught off guard by that statement. But thinking carefully… wasn’t it true?

“To be honest, I don’t enjoy wasting words with illiterates like you. It’s exhausting.”

Kitagawa Gen wanted to test the strength of his words, all while quietly gathering chakra. He couldn’t be sure if his verbal strikes would have any effect.

“You speak of the war between Amegakure and Konoha, but anyone with a working brain knows the Land of Rain launched the attack first. Konoha only struck back—yet you still blame them?”

“…”

“Is there any war without bloodshed?”

“…”

“And let’s be clear—personally, I actually admire Hanzō of the Salamander. At the very least, he saw the bottleneck in the Land of Rain’s growth. He knew something had to be done for the country to move forward.”

“…”

“His methods were reckless, yes, but at least he had the will to take that gamble. And you lot, who can’t even grasp history properly, talk about ‘changing the shinobi world’? Are you serious?”

From Kitagawa Gen’s perspective, Hanzō was indeed a bastard.

But still, that man had poured everything into the Land of Rain!

For such a broken place to develop, it truly embodied Ōnoki’s words: ‘ceaseless plunder and expansion.’

All Hanzō could do was wait for the right moment and bet everything on one decisive strike.

If he won, the Land of Rain could rise. If he lost, he himself would be buried.

Clearly, Hanzō—who was now nothing more than a chopped-up Salamander—had been the one to sink.

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I will post some extra Chapters in Patreon, you can check it out. /TitoVillar

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