'Boom, boom, boom...'
The power of Six Paths: Chibaku Tensei continued to spread, pulling enormous chunks of earth into the sky and gradually forming a massive stone sphere. Eventually, the sphere drifted beyond the atmosphere and settled not far from the moon, creating the strange sight of two moons hanging in the night sky.
Moonlight poured over the earth. Despite the late hour, the entire battlefield remained clearly visible.
"All right, Tailed Beasts, listen up."
Seiryū clapped his hands and looked at the nine Tailed Beasts gathered before him, all of whom were visibly tense.
"Males on the left, females on the right!"
The nine Tailed Beasts fell silent.
They did not technically have genders.
Even so, they obediently lined up according to how they perceived themselves, looking almost like students waiting for inspection.
There was nothing else they could do. Seiryū was simply too terrifying.
Even Kaguya had been sealed by him almost instantly. None of the Tailed Beasts dared cause trouble in front of a monster like this.
"Is it really over just like that?"
Hashirama finally recovered from his shock, though disbelief was still written across his face. He had expected Kaguya's resurrection to become an enormous crisis, yet she had been dealt with almost immediately after appearing.
"This really is unbelievable."
Tobirama felt the same way. He had never witnessed anything like this before, and even his understanding of strength had been completely overturned.
He had once believed his older brother was already terrifyingly powerful, but being resurrected through Edo Tensei this time had shown him what true monsters looked like.
To think a shinobi could become this powerful.
And that person was apparently their granddaughter's husband from another timeline.
"Are shinobi from other timelines all this ridiculous? Just how did Jiraiya-sensei teach him?"
Minato watched Seiryū, who remained completely calm, and muttered to himself.
Jiraiya's teaching ability really was impressive.
His junior disciple from another timeline had become so powerful that he barely seemed human anymore.
Sage Seiryū truly lived up to the name.
"Although I'm not a shinobi from your timeline."
Seiryū swept his gaze across the surviving Allied Shinobi Forces and thought for a moment before speaking.
"Still, I think I can say this."
"The Fourth Shinobi World War is over!"
"The war is over!"
"Wooo! We survived!"
"Thank goodness! We don't have to fight anymore!"
Seiryū's voice spread across the entire battlefield, reaching every surviving shinobi.
After a brief silence, deafening cheers erupted from all directions.
This war had engulfed the entire shinobi world. Its scale had surpassed every previous conflict, and in the end, even beings at the level of the Sage of Six Paths had become involved.
Now, it was finally over.
Countless people cheered because they were still alive and because their comrades had survived with them. At the same time, those cheers seemed to carry a message to the people who had sacrificed themselves for this victory.
The war was over.
No one knew exactly how many shinobi had been injured or killed during the Fourth Shinobi World War.
But they had won.
They had survived.
Their efforts had meant something, and the sacrifices of the dead had not been in vain.
That was enough.
No one would forget those who had given their lives. The survivors would remember them.
Sasuke glanced at the cheering shinobi, then turned his gaze toward Seiryū.
"Can you return my eye now?"
"Of course. I'm a man of my word."
Seiryū nodded and restored the ocular power he had consumed.
Then he casually removed the tomoe Rinnegan from his own left eye and handed it back to Sasuke.
"To be fair, your eye is pretty useful."
Sasuke stared at him silently.
After taking back the Rinnegan, he pressed it into his empty eye socket. Once it settled into place, he checked it carefully and found no difference from before it had been removed.
Only then did he relax slightly.
He still needed this eye.
His plans would not be changed by anyone else.
Seiryū knew perfectly well what Sasuke intended to do, but he did not care.
"Use that eye properly. You should also find time to transplant Hashirama cells. Otherwise, the burden of the Rinnegan will eventually become a problem."
"I've met an older version of you from another timeline. Because of the strain from that eye, he eventually ended up with the same kind of problem Kakashi had."
"I'll consider it."
Sasuke nodded.
He had always been arrogant, but even his pride had limits.
In front of someone who could completely overwhelm him in strength, there was little point pretending otherwise.
Seiryū then raised his head slightly.
"Old man Sage of Six Paths, you've been watching this whole time, haven't you?"
He could clearly sense someone observing the battlefield.
"Come out. We might as well talk."
'Whoosh!'
As soon as Seiryū finished speaking, Hagoromo appeared out of thin air.
He floated in midair, his Rinnegan focused on Seiryū.
"Greetings, visitor from another space-time."
"It seems the version of me from your timeline has already met you."
"Of course."
Seiryū smiled meaningfully.
"If we're being technical, you and Hamura should probably call me Dad."
Hagoromo frowned.
"Dad?"
"Yes, good son."
Hagoromo fell silent.
What kind of ridiculous joke was this man making?
Still, Hagoromo was both knowledgeable and quick-witted. After thinking for only a moment, surprise and disbelief appeared in his expression.
"Are you saying that, in another timeline, my mother and you are... in that kind of relationship?"
Seiryū smiled like an overly pleased father.
"This was your idea in the first place. You asked me to reform Kaguya through love."
"And now Kaguya is my woman. She lives in Konoha."
Hagoromo fell silent again.
What exactly had happened in that other timeline?
His mother had actually ended up with this man?
And he himself had supposedly encouraged it?
"The history of my timeline developed differently from yours," Seiryū explained. "Kaguya never fell in love with a human. Hagoromo and Hamura were born from her power and the blessings of the people."
"She still desired Chakra, but she hadn't experienced the same betrayal as the Kaguya from this timeline, so changing her wasn't impossible. She's already given up those old ambitions."
"But the Kaguya here was different, so I had no choice but to seal her again."
Hagoromo still found the whole thing difficult to accept.
Even if it was another timeline, hearing that a descendant of the Uzumaki Clan had somehow become his mother's partner was simply too strange.
No matter how he thought about it, the relationship was absurd.
"Whether you believe me or not is up to you. I'm not lying."
Seiryū waved a hand dismissively.
"And if you came here to test my intentions, there's no need."
"I have no interest in staying in this timeline."
"Also, you don't need to worry about different timelines constantly interfering with one another. No one can freely travel between them. What happened this time was an accident, a coincidence. It isn't something that can be reproduced whenever we want."
That was indeed the truth.
Isshiki's treasure, Karasuki, was already in Seiryū's possession, and he had questioned the strange pink turtle about the nature of space-time travel.
Crossing between entirely different timelines depended largely on accidents and unusual coincidences. It was impossible to reliably choose a specific alternate timeline or destination.
More importantly, doing it too often carried serious risks.
Repeated interference between different timelines could cause what Karasuki described as "space-time friction." If the distortion became severe enough, both timelines could fall into chaos.
Yesterday might suddenly become January 1st, while tomorrow became September 9th. The sequence of time and space itself could twist without anyone even realizing what had happened.
That was far more terrifying than any Genjutsu.
Because of that, Seiryū had no intention of casually traveling between alternate timelines in the future.
He had always felt that separate timelines were better off remaining separate.
Some things happened in one world and never happened in another. Once history had taken its course, there was no point forcing different timelines to intersect repeatedly.
"I see."
Hagoromo nodded slowly.
He really had been concerned about the possibility of one timeline interfering with or even invading another.
But seeing how seriously Seiryū treated the danger finally allowed him to relax.
If conflict ever broke out between entire alternate timelines, it would be far more troublesome than even Kaguya breaking free from her seal.
(To be continued.)