The night was silent.
Hagoromo picked up the brown-haired head, tossed it lightly into the air, then reached with his left hand to grasp the black chakra receiver still embedded in his right shoulder. With a smooth motion, he pulled the entire rod out.
Then he reversed his grip and thrust.
Fighting with only one arm was inconvenient—but the black rod still pierced straight into the center of the Rinnegan pupil on the left side of Yahiko's face.
Hagoromo continued pressing forward, one-handed, inch by inch.
Blood flowed down between his fingers.
The rod punched through the back of the skull and pinned the head to the tree trunk behind it.
"Shinobi are always used to lying…" Hagoromo said quietly.
"This is my real final strike."
After that, he pulled the remaining black rods out of his body one by one, discarded the heavy weights on his back, and—without looking back even once—turned and began walking toward Konoha.
His feet stepped through heaps of mangled flesh. The residual electricity clinging to his body caused blood, bone, and at to disintegrate on contact.
This wasn't because he had forcibly activated his power again—
From the very beginning, he had been unable to stop it.
His mind felt like an old monitor struck by a baseball bat—arcs of static flashing endlessly.
He didn't know whether Nagato still cared about this corpse.
And it didn't matter.
All he was doing now was ensuring that not a single fragnt remained.
Just like the other Paths of Pain.
After Hagoromo had walked several dozen ters, lightning flickered along the black rod nailed to the tree—
And the head exploded like a rotten lon.
"You really were in my way."
All this ti, Hagoromo had believed hatred to be a shallow emotion.
Now he understood—
Hatred was simply hatred.
Unrelated to position.
Unrelated to motive.
Unrelated to good or evil.
If one could kill soone 101 tis, then killing them only 100 tis was insufficient.
If one could make soone die 1001 tis, then 1000 was not enough.
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 erosion of every inch of skin.
Even if the price was the shattering of every bone.
Even if the price was the annihilation of the soul itself.
Hagoromo—
Had never possessed such killing intent before.
Sowhere on high ground near the shattered barrier.
"Nagato… Yahiko's body—"
To remotely control Pain and protect his true body, Nagato relied on special chakra-transmission devices. Because of them, his appearance was already sothing barely human.
Yahiko's body?
There was no body anymore.
Even the Rinnegan, even Naraka Path's restorative power, could not create sothing from nothing.
"The enemy has already burned himself out," Konan asked softly.
"Should I go deliver the finishing blow?"
"No," Nagato replied after a pause.
"Those eyes are too dangerous. Until we understand exactly what they are, do not approach him."
The sensation of Deva Path being torn apart—
Nagato could still feel it clearly.
"To be safe, we need to leave imdiately. He's already sensed our location… In any case, the other side should have succeeded by now."
Nagato's own condition was far from good. Resisting the super-sized Lightning Release technique had drained him severely, and now that their location was exposed, remaining any longer would be reckless.
"Can the preparations we made beforehand still be activated?" he asked.
"Most were destroyed," Konan replied, "but enough remain."
As a precaution, Konan had placed a massive number of explosive tags around Nagato's barrier. The Lightning Release technique had wiped out many—but not all.
Almost the instant her words fell—
A thunderous roar erupted.
Crimson fire illuminated the entire night sky.
Hagoromo was standing right inside that blaze.
Elsewhere.
The masked man was also gravely injured.
The plan to seize the Nine-Tails had failed.
His battle with the Fourth Hokage had left him with a crushing sense of being completely outmatched—tactically and intellectually.
Yet when he saw the figure approaching him step by step—
Only when the man drew close did he finally recognize who it was.
Shock flickered across his mind.
Then calm returned.
"Humans are truly pitiful creatures," the masked man said coldly.
"The more sothing doesn't belong to them, the more desperately they want it. The more unattainable it is, the further they reach."
"They distance themselves from it, loathe it—yet envy and crave it more than anything."
"Born into existence that is itself excessive and tragic, yet still struggling endlessly. This so-called refusal to give up—is it persistence?"
"No. It's just stupidity."
"No capacity. No strength. No knowledge. No vision of the future."
"They want to matter—yet only beco obstacles."
"Do you know what such people are called?"
"Things that get in the way."
The masked man wasn't wrong.
Stupidity was one of humanity's fundantal traits—rooted in every person. No one lived an entire life without error. If such a being existed, that would be sothing worthy of being called a god.
"So," the masked man said,
"You're still going to die here."
That Hagoromo was still alive was inconceivable to him. The outco on Nagato's side was unclear, but failure seed unlikely—this had been a carefully prepared ambush.
Hagoromo was strong.
Strong enough that the masked man had gone to great lengths to lure him away from Kushina.
But strength was always relative.
No matter how strong soone was, they could not oppose those eyes.
And yet—
Hagoromo was walking toward him.
That fact alone was undeniable.
Hagoromo had no interest in debating the nature of humanity.
So things weren't worth speculating about.
Facts existed independently of thoughts.
They said humanity was born with the Seven Deadly Sins:
Gluttony.
Greed.
Sloth.
Envy.
Pride.
Lust.
Wrath.
Hagoromo had always leaned toward sloth.
But he had never known wrath.
Because he cared too little about too many things.
There had never been anything worth getting angry over.
Until today.
Now he knew—
He could be this angry.
Like a volcano storing countless layers of molten rock, about to erupt.
He was beyond anger.
The masked man was badly wounded.
Hagoromo was near death.
It should have been inevitable that the forr would kill the latter.
And no matter how furious Hagoromo was, counter-killing seed impossible.
Impossible.
The masked man waited.
Hagoromo kept walking.
Because that was the direction he needed to go.
But the masked man wasn't his goal.
He wasn't even part of the process.
Hagoromo regarded him as nothing more than empty space and spoke only one sentence—cold enough to freeze bone:
"Move. If you don't want to die."
A shinobi's combat power was tied to condition—but that rule was not absolute.
So people were most dangerous when they had only a single breath left.
Hagoromo's right face was mostly gone.
And yet his eyes seed to exert a gravitational pull of destruction—
Like windows opening directly into the realm of death.
Hagoromo could see the masked man's manner of death.
And the masked man could see—
That Hagoromo could see it.
So the attack he had been about to launch stopped completely.
Hagoromo walked straight past him.
Through him.
Perhaps Hagoromo had truly lost all combat capability.
Perhaps his words were re intimidation.
Or perhaps—
He could still unleash a final, fatal strike.
There were three possibilities.
But only one choice.
The masked man could not move.
Because if he did—
Hagoromo would act.
Hagoromo never looked back.
What was that man's na again?
Masked man?
Tobi?
Uchiha Madara?
Or Uchiha… sothing?
It didn't matter.
Overuse of his abilities had reduced Hagoromo's mind to chaos. The ongoing overload and ntal pressure had robbed him of clear thought.
He might not even have a sense of ti anymore.
But he could still walk.
No matter the distance.
No matter the ti.
He finally reached his destination.
This barrier was not the one outside Kushina's delivery room.
It was near Konoha—
But in a different location.
Judging from its characteristics, it was unmistakably Minato's work.
Facing the obstruction ahead, Hagoromo raised his left hand.
Lightning surged once more.
With a single motion, he tore open a gap in the barrier and stepped inside.
His Electrokinesis was still rampaging.
The computational formulas, driven by inertia from overuse, continued running in his subconscious.
The power hadn't stopped.
But he could no longer control it freely.
Otherwise, it wouldn't be a rampage.
This unfamiliar, clumsy sensation—
Was sothing he had never experienced before.
When the thought "cut through it" surfaced in his mind, Hagoromo instinctively used Lightning Release.
Electrokinesis and Lightning Release—
For the first ti, two entirely different power systems overlapped within him.
He didn't even realize it.
Hagoromo's steps paused briefly.
Hesitation?
Then he moved forward again.
Beyond the barrier lay the result.
And the end.
Whatever awaited him—
Whatever he could or could not bear—
He would bear it.
Everyone wants to escape sotis.
And everyone eventually reaches sothing they cannot escape.
Perhaps Hagoromo could still do sothing.
Perhaps he could do nothing at all.
But now—
He had to go.
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