"...Tsunade, Orochimaru, are you two alright?"
Inside the hollow of a great tree in the forests of western Fire Country, Jiraiya—having just sent off the elder toad couple—looked at Tsunade and Orochimaru, who were in far worse shape than he was. Their battle armor was badly damaged, both were covered in blood, and one of them had even lost an arm. His voice was full of concern.
"I'm fine. Orochimaru, what about you?"
Tsunade, who had already released her Yin Seal to heal herself, first shook her head, then looked at Orochimaru's severed arm—which looked as though it had been sawed off—and asked.
Orochimaru said nothing. He merely let the corner of his mouth curl upward.
Then, suddenly, his eyes snapped wide open, blood vessels rapidly spreading through them.
His cold, handsome face twisted grotesquely.
The reason his features distorted was that his mouth opened impossibly wide, far beyond anything human.
Right in front of Jiraiya and Tsunade's horrified stares, a pair of pale, slime-covered hands reached out from Orochimaru's mouth—
and then an entirely unharmed Orochimaru crawled out from inside it.
Other than being covered in slime, this Orochimaru was completely intact. All four limbs were whole, not a single wound remained on his body, and even his battle armor had been restored to its original state.
Looking at the dumbstruck expressions on Jiraiya and Tsunade's faces, Orochimaru formed a seal with one hand and, with top-tier chakra control, converted chakra into flowing water to wash the slime off his body. Then he smiled with playful amusement.
"I should be the one asking that. Are you two alright?"
"Th-this... what...?"
Jiraiya stared at Orochimaru, jaw hanging open, unable to even form a complete sentence.
Tsunade, who had gotten the "inspiration" for the Strength of a Hundred Technique from Gojo Yoru years ago and had been researching it ever since, yet still hadn't produced much of anything, was also staring at Orochimaru with wide eyes. She couldn't help asking:
"How did you do that?"
"It's just an extended application of the Substitution Technique."
Orochimaru's answer only made Jiraiya and Tsunade even more incredulous.
"What? That was just a Substitution Technique?!"
"Don't be ridiculous. Since when can an extended Substitution Technique regrow severed limbs?"
A trace of pride flashed through Orochimaru's eyes.
"I got the idea for this extended Substitution Technique many years ago, based on the principle of how snakes shed their skin. I just couldn't make it work before."
"It wasn't until those white creatures appeared—their bodies contained extraordinarily pure Yang Release power, which greatly improved my mastery of Yang Release. And then, with Ryuchi Cave's Sage Mode pushing my control over my own body to an even higher level, I finally managed to develop it."
"I call this extended Substitution Technique the Orochi Style Substitution Technique."
After hearing Orochimaru's explanation, Jiraiya and Tsunade finally understood, and the way they looked at him became full of admiration.
Jiraiya—who had started learning Sage Mode back in his youth, yet still needed the assistance of the two toad sages even now just to improve its duration—spoke in a sour tone.
"You geniuses really are insufferable."
"And a chakra reserve like yours isn't a talent in itself?" Orochimaru shot the bitter Jiraiya a sidelong glance. "If I had your level of chakra, I wouldn't have had to wait until these recent years just to qualify for Sage Mode training."
That finally gave Jiraiya a little comfort.
Once she confirmed her old friend was safe, Tsunade let out a breath of relief—but her face quickly turned grim again.
"Those six people with the same eyes and all those bizarre abilities... who exactly are they? With that kind of strength, they shouldn't be nobodies."
At that, Jiraiya and Orochimaru both recalled the overwhelming power that group had displayed. Even they, despite having mastered Sage Mode, had nearly failed to escape. Their expressions turned equally grave and wary.
"They definitely aren't ordinary people."
Because his disciple had become the number one name on the black market's bounty list, Orochimaru had actually been keeping a quiet eye on the underground world for years. He spoke coldly:
"I recognize three of those six. They were minor names on the black market bounty list. Their original faces and eyes weren't like that."
"I recognize those purple ripple-patterned eyes too," Orochimaru said in a heavy voice. "Over the past few years, a very young but incredibly powerful duo appeared in the black market. More accurately, it was a girl who had mastered a secret Paper Release art. Because of her rare ability to fly, along with her masterful use of explosive tags and sealing techniques, she became known as the 'Angel.'"
"And beneath that Angel is a red-haired boy who acts as her enforcer. He's extremely skilled with the five elemental releases. His eyes are those same purple ripple-patterned ones."
He paused, then his eyes filled with deeper wariness.
"And after I entered Sage Mode, I caught the scent of corpses on them. I also discovered that the chakra signatures inside their bodies were completely identical."
"In other words... they were nothing but corpse puppets."
"What?!"
Jiraiya and Tsunade's expressions changed instantly.
Tsunade's eyes were full of disbelief.
"They were only corpse puppets? Then who in the world are they?!"
Tsunade trusted Orochimaru completely. She had no reason to doubt his words.
Which was exactly why this felt so unbelievable.
She wasn't even fixating on the terrifying fact that the one controlling them from behind the scenes might be just a boy.
What truly horrified her was something else entirely.
If Orochimaru was right—
then the mastermind behind all of this, the so-called enforcer beneath the girl known as the Angel, was only the subordinate. He hadn't even earned a title of his own in all these years.
If that was true, then just how powerful was the girl who stood above him—the girl who could suppress someone whose true strength could casually crush all three of them, and who had nearly wiped them out?
Just as Yoru and Kushina had risen to prominence, another pair like this had suddenly emerged in the shinobi world.
Could it really be that this world was governed by some kind of fate?
First her grandfather and Uchiha Madara—
then Gojo Yoru and Kushina—
and now this young pair.
For once, Jiraiya didn't interrupt.
If one looked closely, they would see his eyes had suddenly filled with fear.
Then, his voice trembling slightly, he said,
"Now that I think about it... don't you think those eyes look familiar?"
Tsunade and Orochimaru turned to him, puzzled.
When he saw they still hadn't realized it, Jiraiya swallowed and spoke again in a shaky voice.
"The legend of the Three Great Dojutsu..."
In an instant, both Tsunade and Orochimaru's faces changed.
In the original history, Hanzo of the Salamander, Shimura Danzo, Jiraiya, and even the later rogue Orochimaru had all recognized Nagato's eyes at a glance—they were the legendary Rinnegan.
And there were two main reasons they could identify it so quickly.
First, they had all read the myth of the Sage of Six Paths.
The story of the Sage of Six Paths was practically the bible of the shinobi world. Whether ninja or ordinary civilians, almost everyone had read it.
And for most ordinary people, it was through the tale of the Sage of Six Paths that they first came to understand beings like ninja at all.
Within that story, not only was the appearance of the Rinnegan described in text, but there were also illustrations of the Sage himself.
In those illustrations, only the outline of the Sage holding his staff was shown in black silhouette.
Only his eyes were colored in.
And those eyes were unmistakably the Rinnegan—the same eyes said to have created the moon.
Because the Sage's legend had been passed down for a thousand years, and because the legend of the Three Great Dojutsu had always existed, anyone in the shinobi world discussing the Hyuga clan's Byakugan or the Uchiha clan's Sharingan could never avoid mentioning the eye said to stand above them both—the Rinnegan, the legendary eye long treated as though it didn't truly exist.
Once Jiraiya said it aloud, Tsunade and Orochimaru finally remembered the legend, and a great many of their doubts suddenly made sense.
If it truly was the legendary Rinnegan, then corpse puppets that could move without chakra strings, with each puppet possessing a unique ability and terrifying combat power, and together beating the three of them so thoroughly they had no answer—
that suddenly became perfectly plausible.
Orochimaru said gravely, "It seems the shinobi world really does have something like fate."
"In the previous generation, it was the clash between the First Hokage's Wood Release and Uchiha Madara's Mangekyo Sharingan."
"And in this generation, first someone like Yoru—an incarnation of miracle itself—appeared, and now the legendary Rinnegan has emerged as well."
At that point, Orochimaru's face darkened again.
"I thought something felt wrong before. Now it seems obvious—Kirigakure, Sunagakure, and Iwagakure suddenly joining forces definitely reeks of something behind the scenes. They aren't even the real enemy."
"The most important enemy in this war is that red-haired boy hiding in Amegakure—the one pushed to the front as Hanzo of the Salamander's disciple."
"It's very possible that those villages suddenly attacked us only because they were threatened by the wielder of the Rinnegan."
Tsunade immediately picked up the thought.
"No, we need to send this information back to the village immediately. Sarutobi-sensei has to contact the daimyo and use the daimyo to secretly reach out to the other Kage."
The moment she finished speaking, all three of the Legendary Sannin suddenly turned to the same direction at once, their expressions filled with shock—and joy.
"That's Kushina's chakra," Orochimaru said, looking deeply relieved.
"So much chakra... so ridiculously much. Just how many shadow clones did she make?" Jiraiya stared in astonishment.
Tsunade, meanwhile, let out a long breath she hadn't realized she'd been holding, then said with a hint of reproach in her voice,
"That girl... she secretly subdued the Nine-Tails and entered the Nine-Tails Chakra Mode Grandma once told me about, and she didn't say a word to me."
Orochimaru abruptly said, "We should meet up with Kushina first and tell her about the Rinnegan."
Tsunade and Jiraiya both nodded, expressions serious, and the three vanished in a body flicker.
Now the perspective zooms outward, looking down over the Land of Fire from the sky like the eye of God.
To the east, west, and north, there were countless tiny golden ants—around ten thousand of them in all.
And when the view zoomed in, those nearly ten thousand golden ants were revealed to all be identical.
They were all Kushina Uzumaki, each one wearing battle armor and cloaked in golden chakra.
Every single Kushina had enough chakra to use a Rasenshuriken-level technique.
Though they were shadow clones, the chakra coating around them could still defend against extremely powerful attacks.
As long as an enemy couldn't break through that layer of golden chakra, they couldn't dispel a Kushina shadow clone.
And with the amount of chakra each clone contained—enough to cast an S-rank ultimate technique—even their super-strength punches made them each a weakened version of Tsunade.
Even a jonin would die instantly if struck by one of those punches.
And there were nearly ten thousand of them.
It was no exaggeration to say that Kushina Uzumaki's shadow clones alone were equal to the entire military force of Konoha.
That was the true weight of an adult Kushina Uzumaki—someone who had awakened all three unique Uzumaki clan abilities and was also the jinchuriki of the complete Nine-Tails.
In the original history, Naruto Uzumaki had only just defeated the Nine-Tails when he became able to seize its chakra, enter Nine-Tails Chakra Mode, and create thousands of shadow clones, all of which also entered Nine-Tails Chakra Mode.
And the Nine-Tails inside him was only half of Kurama.
Even without counting the Nine-Tails, the still-underage Naruto's chakra reserves were far below Kushina Uzumaki's, whose monstrous strength and Yang Release were naturally overwhelming—even if Naruto was Ashura's reincarnation.
And even if one did count the Nine-Tails, the version inside him was only half of it.
That made him, at best, only half of Kushina Uzumaki.
Despite inheriting the Uzumaki clan's bloodline, he had not awakened the Uzumaki clan's unique abilities.
Compared to Kushina, Naruto's build wasn't even good enough to carry her shoes.
Once Gojo Yoru got the idea of having Kushina absorb the Nine-Tails' chakra and enter a Kurama-like mode similar to the Perfect Susanoo on her own, he immediately began tailoring experiments around it.
Over the past few years, Yoru would occasionally possess Kushina's body and, with his twice-enhanced talent, help Kushina—already a sealing genius in her own right—master every sealing technique of the Uzumaki clan to near-perfect proficiency.
After that, he had Kushina learn chakra absorption, combine chakra absorption with certain sealing techniques, and develop absorption-type sealing variations.
Finally, he combined those with Adamantine Sealing Chains, allowing Kushina, the instant she bound the Nine-Tails, to begin rapidly draining its chakra.
With two prodigies of ninjutsu and sealing working together—both gifted freaks whose chakra control stood at the peak of the shinobi world—the experiment had gone extremely smoothly.
The moment Kushina defeated the Nine-Tails, she had already become capable of entering Nine-Tails Chakra Mode and creating five thousand shadow clones that could also enter Nine-Tails Chakra Mode.
And now, she could create ten thousand golden shadow clones.
That alone showed just how much of the Nine-Tails' chakra Kushina was able to draw out.
The current Kushina Uzumaki absolutely deserved the title of the greatest raw-stat monster in the shinobi world.
A true one-woman army.
And Kushina's arrival instantly changed the course of the battlefield.
Iwagakure's entire active military force was only a little over ten thousand.
As for the other villages, most of them didn't even have ten thousand shinobi in service.
Let alone ten thousand warriors all capable of using S-rank ultimate techniques.
Not only the Legendary Sannin—even the sensor ninja of the great villages felt a tsunami-like mass of chakra rushing toward them.
Konoha's forces, which had been getting battered because their manpower and high-end fighters were so badly split and had even seen some border bases breached, suddenly found the pressure on them drastically reduced.
For the first time, they once again had the strength to stand against all five enemy villages at once.