Chapter 206 (Patreon)

Even while remaining in Konoha, Kizaru’s extraordinary perception allowed him to sense the changes in both the volume and intensity of the chakra erupting across the Land of Fire’s eastern and western fronts.

He immediately recognized the immense chakra surging from the western battlefield.

It belonged to the Nine-Tails.

The chakra that had suddenly erupted on the eastern front, however, was unfamiliar. Kizaru couldn’t tell exactly what had happened there.

The most likely explanation was that Orochimaru had used the Impure World Reincarnation to summon an exceptionally powerful shinobi.

Black Zetsu had already informed him that the Allied Shinobi Villages planned to launch their attack early that morning. As Hokage, Kizaru naturally had to work overtime and remain in his office, monitoring the situation on both fronts.

Standing before the window, Kizaru gazed in the direction of the eastern battlefield.

Had something gone wrong over there?

Was Kirigakure truly powerful enough to force Orochimaru to reveal his trump card as soon as the battle began?

Or had that secretive madman unleashed his strongest weapon immediately simply because he refused to be outdone by Jiraiya?

Between those two possibilities, Kizaru considered the second far more likely. After all, he could sense only one overwhelmingly powerful chakra signature on the eastern front.

“You don’t trust Konoha’s shinobi?”

The question came from Black Zetsu, who now inhabited the White Zetsu body Kizaru had provided and could move independently once again. His voice still carried its usual sinister edge.

“Nooo.”

Kizaru turned toward him with a relaxed smile.

“I’m worried they’ll win too quickly.”

Black Zetsu stared at him in silence.

“Even if you don’t intervene, Konoha will still have to pay a heavy price to withstand an assault from three major shinobi villages,” Black Zetsu said. “Kirigakure is especially dangerous. Madara personally guided their Fourth Mizukage, Yagura Karatachi.”

As far as Black Zetsu was concerned, Kizaru was merely putting on a brave front.

“Ooh... would you care to make a bet?” Kizaru suggested with a smile. “Even without my help, Konoha will win this war easily.”

“What are we betting?”

“The loser has to call the winner ‘Dad.’”

“You—”

Black Zetsu suddenly found himself unwilling to say another word.

“Ooh... what an adorable expression.”

Kizaru’s smile widened as he watched Black Zetsu bristle with anger.

Black Zetsu glared at him. He couldn’t tell whether it was because of Kizaru’s teasing or his own imagination, but he always felt that the man looked at him as though he were staring at his own son.

“You’re not going to accept?”

“What a ridiculous wager. I’m going to rest.”

No longer willing to entertain Kizaru, Black Zetsu turned away, walked to the resting area of the office, and sat down on the sofa.

Kizaru also left the window and returned to his desk. After settling into his chair, he leaned against the backrest and looked toward Black Zetsu.

“Black Zetsu, there’s something I’ve always wondered. Did Kaguya create you as an independent life-form, or are you merely an extension of her will? When placed beside Hagoromo and Hamura, can you truly be considered Kaguya’s child?”

“What are you trying to say?”

Feeling insulted, Black Zetsu answered coldly.

“I was born from Mother’s will. Of course I’m her child!”

“Then do you consider yourself an independent living being?”

Kizaru paused before continuing.

“Perhaps I should ask more directly. If Kaguya were resurrected one day, would your consciousness return to hers and become part of her once again? Or would you continue to exist separately as an independent life-form?”

“I...”

Black Zetsu opened his mouth, only to find himself unable to answer.

From the moment Kaguya Ōtsutsuki created him through Yin–Yang Release, Black Zetsu had existed as an embodiment of her will and carried a portion of her memories.

Ever since then, he had devoted himself to a single goal: resurrecting his mother, Kaguya Ōtsutsuki.

That task had been so difficult that he had never spared any thought for what might come afterward, much less for a question like the one Kizaru had just raised.

“That question is meaningless,” Black Zetsu declared. “My sole purpose is to resurrect Mother.”

“To exist solely for someone else... what a pitiful life.”

“Shut up!”

Black Zetsu’s cold shout made it clear that Kizaru’s words had struck a nerve.

“Ooh... we’re only chatting. There’s no need to become angry.”

Although Black Zetsu seemed genuinely furious, Kizaru paid no attention to his outburst. The easy smile never left his face.

“Then let’s discuss something else. Do you truly believe Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki, the Sage of Six Paths, is dead?”

“What do you mean?” Black Zetsu immediately asked. “Did you discover something?”

“When I was training in senjutsu and drawing in natural energy, I once sensed an extraordinarily powerful chakra. I suspect it belonged to the Sage of Six Paths.”

Kizaru wasn’t trying to deceive him.

Once his template integration had advanced far enough to grant him complete control over natural energy, he had indeed sensed an immensely powerful chakra within the gaps beyond the physical world.

There was only one thing he deliberately concealed from Black Zetsu.

He hadn’t sensed a single chakra signature.

He had sensed a vast number of them.

One presence had simply been so overwhelmingly powerful that it stood out from all the others.

“Chakra?”

After hearing about Kizaru’s discovery, Black Zetsu searched through everything he knew about Hagoromo, including the fragments of Kaguya’s memories that remained within him.

“Hagoromo stole Mother’s power. In theory, that power could have granted him immortality. His death only occurred because he divided and passed on most of what he possessed. He...”

Black Zetsu abruptly stopped speaking.

He seemed to have realized something.

Rising from the sofa in excitement, he quickly approached Kizaru’s desk. He felt as though he had uncovered an enormous secret.

“Hagoromo’s body may be dead, but his chakra might still exist. He could have continued living through chakra alone. The chakra of his two sons has reincarnated again and again, causing them to fight across generations. If they could do that, then Hagoromo could also use chakra to remain in this world.”

After reaching that conclusion, Black Zetsu felt his heart tighten.

Excitement and fear rose within him at the same time.

“But if his chakra still exists in this world, then why...”

“Why didn’t he stop your plans?”

“Yes.”

Black Zetsu couldn’t understand it.

He stared at Kizaru, hoping that this increasingly mysterious man—someone who seemed to know countless hidden truths—could provide him with an answer.

“Perhaps he’s no longer in this world,” Kizaru said thoughtfully. “He may have gone somewhere else... somewhere better suited to preserving chakra and souls.”

A contemplative light flashed through his eyes.

By combining what he remembered from the anime before his arrival in this world with the countless chakra signatures he had accidentally sensed, Kizaru suddenly formed a bold theory.

Hagoromo Ōtsutsuki, the Sage of Six Paths, had joined forces with his younger brother Hamura to defeat and seal their mother, Kaguya. In doing so, they had also stopped her plan to sacrifice humanity to the Divine Tree and create a White Zetsu Army.

Even so, Hagoromo had never dismissed Kaguya’s warnings.

He remained deeply wary of the unknown enemy that had terrified even his mother. In response, he developed an entirely different means of protecting the world—one that was more humane and capable of bringing people together.

He created Ninshū and spread chakra among ordinary people.

On the surface, Hagoromo had merely divided his own power and distributed fragments of it to others. It was almost as though he had deliberately weakened himself by giving away the seeds of his own strength.

When viewed across a far longer span of time, however, Hagoromo hadn’t been weakening the world.

He had been increasing the total amount of chakra across the entire planet.

What he shared with others was only a seed. For that seed to grow, those who received it had to train their bodies and minds, gradually increasing the chakra within themselves.

From that perspective, every spark of chakra Hagoromo shared resembled an extremely small and harmless version of a Divine Tree seed, while the people who received chakra became the soil that allowed those seeds to flourish.

More importantly, the potential to wield chakra could be inherited. When chakra users had children, their descendants were also likely to possess the ability to produce and control chakra.

As generations passed, those seeds spread and continued to grow stronger.

Eventually, the age of shinobi was born.

At that point, Hagoromo’s plan could be considered half complete.

The remaining question was how he intended to gather and unite that immense amount of chakra when the unknown enemy finally arrived.

The Divine Trees planted by the Ōtsutsuki Clan consumed the energy of an entire world, concentrating it into power that allowed a single being to approach godhood.

Hagoromo had taken the opposite path. He spread chakra among humanity, allowing countless people to surpass their natural limitations and continuously increase the total amount of chakra in the world.

But how could he reunite all that scattered power?

In the present shinobi era, chakra belonged to each individual. Gathering all of it within a single person would be extremely difficult.

If the shinobi refused to cooperate willingly, it might be impossible. Even if someone could forcibly extract their chakra, the resistance of countless individual wills would turn that tremendous power into a chaotic and unstable mass.

Kaguya Ōtsutsuki could revive by absorbing the chakra of every shinobi because she possessed the Divine Tree. The tree could absorb those different chakras, fuse them together, and convert them into pure energy, allowing Kaguya to return without being overwhelmed by the wills contained within them.

What would Hagoromo do instead?

Kizaru couldn’t be certain, but judging from everything the Sage of Six Paths had done in the anime, he doubted Hagoromo would choose such a brutal method.

So how could he unite all that chakra?

Kizaru recalled a particular detail.

Near the end of the anime, when the Sage of Six Paths appeared and revealed the history of the past, he explained that he had entrusted his power to his younger son, Asura.

While Hagoromo was weakened after passing on that power, his resentful eldest son, Indra, attacked Asura and the other followers of Ninshū with his Complete Body—Susanoo.

At the time, Asura had only just inherited his father’s power. He had yet to master or develop it fully, leaving him unable to match Indra.

Hagoromo then asked the other followers of Ninshū to join hands and gather their chakra together. By lending that combined power to Asura, they allowed him to defeat Indra.

That incident proved that when people were truly united, their chakra could be joined together and released as an immensely powerful force.

But how could the Sage of Six Paths unite every shinobi and gather all their chakra in one place?

Kizaru thought of a particular realm.

It existed between life and death—the Pure Land, where Hagoromo’s soul and chakra endured, along with the souls and chakra of countless deceased shinobi.

Perhaps Hagoromo had chosen not to interfere directly with the living world. Instead, every shinobi who died would eventually carry their soul and remaining chakra into that realm, where their power could be preserved.

When a genuine threat finally arrived, Hagoromo could unite the chakra of every shinobi soul gathered there. He could then lend that power to the shinobi still alive in the physical world—or perhaps even use it to intervene personally.

That realm would effectively serve as a different kind of Divine Tree.

It did not consume the living. It gathered only the souls and chakra of shinobi who had already died, accumulating power across generations as Hagoromo’s final defense for protecting the planet.

Thousands of years had passed since the foundation of Ninshū.

Kizaru had no idea how many dead shinobi now resided within that realm.

He was certain of one thing, however.

The amount of chakra gathered there had to be enormous.

Kizaru couldn’t confirm whether his theory was correct, but he considered it entirely possible.

To uncover the truth, he first needed to answer one question.

Had that realm between life and death, where the souls of countless deceased shinobi were gathered, formed naturally alongside the world?

Or had the Sage of Six Paths created it himself?

If Hagoromo had opened that realm, then Kizaru’s theory was most likely correct.

Why else would he create a separate dimension connected to this planet?

Surely he hadn’t done it merely to give himself somewhere to stay after death. Even if the realm had originally been intended as his personal refuge, why would it gather the souls and chakra of every dead shinobi?

After following that line of reasoning to its conclusion, Kizaru suddenly felt that Hagoromo’s preparations might be far more formidable than anything the anime had revealed.

“Ooh... now that’s impressive.”

“What’s impressive?” Black Zetsu asked in confusion, startled by Kizaru’s sudden remark after such a long silence.

“It’s nothing. You’ll understand eventually.”

Kizaru looked at Black Zetsu again and found the creature before him genuinely pitiful.

After plotting for thousands of years, Black Zetsu still couldn’t compare to the preparations Hagoromo had left behind. Worse still, if Kizaru’s theory was correct, the power Hagoromo had given his successors was merely the first layer of his plan.

Black Zetsu had never come close to forcing the Sage of Six Paths to reveal his true final measure.

“Did you realize something about Hagoromo?”

Kizaru’s habit of saying just enough to seize his attention, only to fall silent afterward, left Black Zetsu deeply unsettled.

“Something like that...” Kizaru replied, sounding every bit like an infuriating riddler.

“What exactly did you realize? Can you tell me?”

“If you’ve seen it, then you understand. If you haven’t, explaining won’t help.” Kizaru’s smile deepened. “All I can say is that there are forces at work here that go far deeper than you realize.”

“What are you even talking about?”

Black Zetsu felt as though Kizaru was about to drive him insane.

This time, Kizaru didn’t answer. He merely lifted one finger and pointed toward the ceiling.

“Are you worried someone is listening?”

Black Zetsu immediately extended his senses throughout the surrounding area.

“There’s no one nearby.”

Still smiling, Kizaru shook his head and pointed down at the floor.

Black Zetsu took a deep breath as he studied Kizaru’s movements.

Then realization seemed to dawn on him.

“You mean him.”

His mouth snapped shut, and he nodded solemnly.

“I understand. We’ll continue this conversation when another opportunity presents itself.”

Black Zetsu was convinced that he had understood Kizaru’s warning.

Kizaru continued smiling, though Black Zetsu’s response left him baffled.

What exactly did you understand?

I was only saying that Hagoromo could be anywhere—above us, beneath our feet... who knows?