"Damn it..."
Otsutsuki Urashiki, nursing his injuries, flew high in the sky, his face a mask of fury as he glared down at the three shinobi below.
The three legendary Sannin: Orochimaru, Tsunade, and Jiraiya.
After repelling the Sage-Mode-enhanced Jiraiya, Urashiki had once again tried to capture Naruto. Drained of his chakra, Naruto had been helpless.
At that critical moment, seeing Naruto about to die, Tsunade was finally touched by the protagonist's halo. She broke free from her fear of blood, returned to her senses, and saved Naruto.
Subsequently, as Tsunade and Jiraiya were locked in a fierce battle with Urashiki, he had unleashed his ultimate move.
A massive Tailed Beast Bomb, or a similar energy sphere, intended to kill both Tsunade and Jiraiya at once.
"Tsunade, look out!" Jiraiya's eyes widened, and he quickly moved to shield her. But an energy ball of that size would undoubtedly be incredibly powerful...
"Die!" Urashiki snarled. But just as he was about to unleash the energy sphere, a longsword silently extended over a dozen meters, aiming straight for his neck.
"Who?!"
In that crucial instant, Urashiki's Rinnegan once again foresaw his own death. But he was in the middle of charging the Tailed Beast Bomb and couldn't use Shinra Tensei.
He desperately dodged the sword, but while he saved his neck, he couldn't save his entire body. Orochimaru's sharp Sword of Kusanagi sliced off half his shoulder.
Wounded, Urashiki's energy ball went wide, grazing past Jiraiya and Tsunade and crashing into the distant earth.
"What a pity..."
A hoarse voice echoed from below. Two figures slowly emerged from the ground: Kabuto and Orochimaru.
Orochimaru had come looking for Tsunade to see if she could heal his arms, only to run into the mysterious man who had recently appeared. To be honest, Orochimaru coveted the Rinnegan even more than the Sharingan, though he had suffered a minor defeat at Pain's hands in the past.
After joining the Akatsuki, he discovered there were six Pains. Unsure of their true strength, he had never made a move, but that didn't mean he didn't desire the eyes of a sage.
And now, coming to find Tsunade, he had chanced upon this mysterious Rinnegan user fighting Jiraiya and Tsunade. Orochimaru had remained hidden, observing carefully.
Finally, when his opponent was charging a Tailed Beast Bomb and unable to use Shinra Tensei, he had silently unleashed his Sword of Kusanagi.
Orochimaru's sword was not only incredibly durable and sharp, but it could also extend for hundreds of meters. He had used its rapid extension to aim for Urashiki's neck, intending to decapitate him and take his Rinnegan.
Regrettably, he had failed.
And so, the scene at the beginning of the chapter unfolded. The three Sannin were gathered, not to fight each other, but to face Otsutsuki Urashiki.
Orochimaru coveted the Rinnegan. Jiraiya was protecting Naruto. Tsunade had been cured by the power of the plot. The three Sannin tacitly summoned their respective animal partners.
Poof!
After a cloud of smoke, a familiar scene appeared. Three giant summoning animals stood on the battlefield.
"Orochimaru, you'd better give me a hundred human sacrifices after this, or I'll eat you," Manda threatened his master with his usual defiance.
"Hehe, if I can get his eyes, a thousand people would be no problem," Orochimaru drooled, his face a mask of greed as he stared at Urashiki's eyes. Such beautiful eyes. Wasted on someone so weak... it's a crime against nature.
"Toad Oil Flame Bullet!"
Before they could say more, Jiraiya launched the first attack. A deluge of toad oil combined with his flame bullet, creating a powerful combination ninjutsu with power comparable to Madara's S-rank Great Fire Annihilation.
But its area of effect was even greater.
[Shinra Tensei]
A powerful gravitational force instantly repelled Jiraiya's combination jutsu. But just as the gravitational field dissipated, another attack arrived.
Katsuyu's powerful acid sprayed towards the sky, blanketing Urashiki. He hastily flew higher and tried to open a space-time portal, but it was too late. Before he could escape, the acid touched him.
"Ahhh...!" Urashiki glared down at the three of them. "Damn you!"
He didn't want to get any closer. They were too much to handle. One was an all-rounder, one was a close-combat master whose little fists could kill him, and one was cunning and treacherous.
"Your eyes are mine!" Orochimaru roared greedily. He and Manda coordinated to unleash a combination jutsu.
Manda spat venom while he used a Wind Style jutsu, turning it into a cloud of poisonous mist that flew towards Urashiki. But this time, it didn't succeed.
Otsutsuki Urashiki flew even higher, and the three Sannin could only watch helplessly.
Suddenly, another massive Tailed Beast Bomb-like energy sphere formed and flew towards them. Orochimaru rasped an order to his assistant, Kabuto, who understood immediately.
He drew a bit of blood from Orochimaru's arm, then formed the hand seals in his place. Orochimaru unleashed a defensive jutsu.
[Triple Rashomon]
BOOM!
A mushroom cloud erupted. The three gates had perfectly blocked the attack. When the smoke cleared, Orochimaru and Manda had already burrowed underground and disappeared, leaving only Tsunade and Jiraiya on the surface.
"Ma, we'll have to use that jutsu. Otherwise, with the enemy in the sky, we'll never be able to hit him."
"It's just a bit embarrassing. At our age, having to sing in front of the kids..."
The sage toads, Fukasaku and Shima, conferred and decided to use the Frog Song, the sage art sound-based genjutsu.
This time, they had made the right choice. Sound was inescapable. If the opponent didn't have prior intelligence on this jutsu, even a Rinnegan user would fall for it.
The Rinnegan was an evolution of the Eternal Mangekyo Sharingan; its resistance to genjutsu was unquestionable. But the Frog Song used sound as a medium to directly enter the target's brain, meaning it didn't need to make visual contact with the Rinnegan at all.
That was how it had successfully defeated three of the Pains. As for why it wasn't used again later, the jutsu was powerful, but once its properties were known, it was no longer so terrifying.
Just as Kakashi, after being stabbed by Tsukuyomi for three days, had Guy confidently declare that as long as you didn't look into Itachi's eyes, his genjutsu couldn't target you. Once the secrets of any jutsu were known, there were ways to counter and defend against it.
"What is this?!" Otsutsuki Urashiki once again foresaw danger.
His gaze was fixed on Fukasaku and Shima, because his Rinnegan's prediction showed that in a few seconds, he would be killed by these two toads. The method of death was unknown, but afterward, a lurking Orochimaru would swallow his corpse and drag it away.
"Damn it! What the hell is this?!" Urashiki, unwilling to accept this fate, opened a Yomotsu Hirasaka and fled.
He wasn't one to fight to the death after losing a single battle. Since he had foreseen the danger, why wouldn't he run?
"Huh? The enemy just ran away?" Jiraiya was perplexed. "Pa, Ma, do you think he got scared? Hahahaha..."
Slap!
Fukasaku slapped Jiraiya on the head with his tongue, his expression grave. "I don't think he was scared. I think he foresaw the danger. It's likely that his Rinnegan has some kind of future-sight ability. That's why he ran before we even started our jutsu."
Shima was also serious. "Little Jiraiya, the Great Lord Elder once awoke and prophesied that there was originally only one pair of Rinnegan in the shinobi world, but then another pair inexplicably appeared, and the entire future became hazy. I believe his eyes are one of those pairs."
The "Great Lord Elder" Shima spoke of was, of course, the oldest living toad, Gamamaru, who had lived during the same era as the Sage of Six Paths. His many years of training had given him some ability to see into the river of destiny.
So, while Gamamaru seemed to be sleeping most of the time, he was actually cultivating and peeking into the future while he slept. Of course, he also used sleep to slow his metabolism and thus prolong his life.
After all, if even the Sage of Six Paths couldn't achieve immortality, neither could he.
Originally, his prophecy had been about two children saving the shinobi world. But then one pair of Rinnegan had appeared, and then a second. The future of the shinobi world had become shrouded in a thick fog; no matter how he tried to foresee it, all he saw was mist.
The first pair of Rinnegan had appeared over a decade ago, belonging to Jiraiya's student from another village, Nagato. But now that a second pair had appeared, Jiraiya couldn't help but curse. Are Rinnegan on sale or something? How can two pairs just pop up out of nowhere?
"Tsunade, you see now. Konoha is in peril. We need someone to go back and be the Hokage. You..." Jiraiya had just walked over when he saw a sight that filled him with envy and jealousy.
Tsunade had taken the necklace from her neck and given it to Naruto, then kissed him on the forehead.
Jiraiya was instantly petrified.
[Ahhhh! That brat got a kiss from Tsunade!]
"Kabuto, it seems the enemy has fled," a hoarse voice said. Orochimaru and Kabuto slowly emerged from the ground.
He had planned to ambush Urashiki, but his opponent had foreseen that he would be killed by the Frog Song and had escaped.
Orochimaru had also analyzed some of his opponent's Rinnegan abilities. The fact that he had fled just as Jiraiya was about to unleash his jutsu clearly indicated that he had foreseen something.
[Shinra Tensei is the same as Pain's, but Pain doesn't seem to have the ability to predict the future. And that mysterious fishing rod can drain anyone's chakra.]
Orochimaru lowered his head in thought. The abilities his opponent had displayed—aside from the space-time ninjutsu, the Tailed Beast Bomb, and Shinra Tensei—didn't seem as powerful overall as Pain's.
Pain always looked down on the world with a cold indifference, like a god. But in all the time Orochimaru had been in the Akatsuki, he had never been confident he could defeat Pain.
But this Otsutsuki Urashiki... if this was all he had, he was no match for Orochimaru. Those eyes... he was determined to have them.
At that thought, Orochimaru looked greedily in the direction Urashiki had disappeared.
A week later—
Otsutsuki Urashiki had a grim look on his face. He had just captured a ninja in a black market and interrogated him about the whereabouts of the Tailed Beasts. Ninja below Kage-level couldn't resist his Rinnegan's interrogation.
But he had learned something new: the remaining Tailed Beasts had all been captured by a mysterious organization.
He had gone to all the trouble of traveling to the Land of Earth to capture the Four-Tails, only to find it had already been taken. And this mysterious organization hadn't just taken the Four-Tails; they had also captured the wandering Five-Tails.
Now, aside from the crippled Cloud Village's Eight-Tails, Konoha's Nine-Tails, and the Land of Iron's Three-Tails...
Three beasts were in the hands of three different shinobi villages. The first two villages had nearly gotten the better of him, and the third was home to that troublesome Uchiha who could fly and use space-time ninjutsu without coordinates.
Any fool could see the best course of action. He would go to the Land of Rain and take all three Tailed Beasts they held. With those three, he would have six. Then he could take his time with the remaining three, one by one, and his collection would be complete.
"After that mysterious organization captured the Tailed Beasts, where did they all go?" Urashiki interrogated.
He had captured a branch manager from the black market, so his intelligence was reliable.
The ninja's eyes were glazed over as he answered. "They all wore red clouds... and they were heading towards the Land of Rain. Based on the intel, it's probably the Akatsuki from the Land of Rain. It's a very mysterious place; our people can't get in."
Snap!
Urashiki twisted the man's neck, then frowned, looking in the direction of the Land of Rain. "The Land of Rain..."
For some reason, he felt a heavy sense of oppression in his heart, as if some primordial beast resided there, making him extremely uncomfortable.
He shook his head and laughed at himself. Impossible. The Otsutsuki clan could fly. The number of shinobi in this world who could fly was minuscule. That was why, in the other world, Namikaze Minato had been completely helpless against them.
"Their inability to fly... it will always be the weakness of these shinobi."
"Who told you humans can't fly? Are you the one with the Rinnegan? Was it you who captured Roshi?"
Suddenly, an old man's voice came from the sky. Urashiki was stunned. He looked up and saw a short old man floating in the air.
"A human? You can fly?" Urashiki's eyes widened in disbelief. He had just been thinking about how humans couldn't fly, and he was immediately proven wrong.
All the ninja he had encountered so far had used summoning animals or tools to fly. Even Uchiha Nagi had used Magnet Style to give himself wings. But this old man before him was using nothing at all, flying under his own power.
"Hmph. I asked you a question. Was it you who captured Roshi?" Onoki said angrily. Although he and Roshi didn't get along, they were classmates from the same era, with a bond similar to that of Orochimaru and Jiraiya.
That was why, even though Roshi, as a jinchuriki, was always wandering around outside the village, Onoki had never had him brought back or declared him a rogue ninja.
As he looked at Urashiki's ringed eyes, a flicker of greed appeared in the depths of Onoki's own eyes.