Ryusei leaned back slightly and spoke again, calm but certain.
"There's another reason we should move now," he said. "We probably won't be the only ones attacking Konoha this time when we move."
Tsunade frowned.
Fugaku looked puzzled.
Even Orochimaru paused for a moment—before his eyes narrowed, already attempting to piece it together.
"You mean…" Orochimaru asked quietly.
Ryusei nodded.
"What better time," he said, "for those masked thieves covertly collecting the tailed beasts to strike at the Nine Tails—than when the strongest village in the world is split internally?"
Tsunade froze.
"Kushina…" she whispered.
Thanks to her grandmother, she had once been close to Kushina as well, ever since Kushina was a young girl.
Tsunade had even trained her personally, in some areas, for a time on the side.
She knew Kushina was now already deep into her pregnancy with Jiraiya's disciple, the prospective Fourth Hokage, whom their enemies now pushed.
She also knew this was the single moment when the Nine-Tails was the most unstable.
So, on top of everything their own battle would unleash, there was the danger of the Nine Tails now breaking free there as well.
Even if Tobirama surely had prepared for some level of destruction.
He wouldn't have lured them back otherwise.
Even he understood there was no point in ruling a village reduced to rubble.
Tsunade no longer counted on his 'morality'—not after how he handled everything involving Nawaki.
So she judged him pragmatically: Tobirama would act only to preserve what he wanted to control.
Yet the destruction could obviously still be very catastrophic.
Her hand tightened, but she forced herself to breathe. For the Senju name. For Nawaki.
For herself and Ryusei and whatever future they were trying to seize.
Even if it meant drowning her old home in blood.
It was necessary.
Fugaku, meanwhile, exhaled with something close to relief.
Not for the chaos—but for the opportunity.
If another faction attacked Konoha at the same time, his clan's chances of survival increased tenfold.
Ryusei continued.
"It's the same organization I mentioned before. Akatsuki."
Orochimaru's expression sharpened; Fugaku listened carefully.
Ryusei explained briefly, in simple terms:
"The true leader was Madara—both the real one and a fake one, as I mentioned before. They've been using Nagato, whom you all met around here as well, as their weapon for some time. Around half a year ago, they discarded him. That's when I intervened. I restored him, and he's stronger now than ever."
"They want to gather all the tailed beasts," Ryusei said. "For power. For a plan bigger than any village understands."
He counted on his fingers:
"Every tailed beast except three has already been taken. The Nine Tails in Konoha.The Seven Tails in a Fire Country vassal.And the Eight Tails in Kumo."
He continued:
"They can take the Seven and Eight whenever they want. And when we strike Konoha… they will use that opening to go for the Nine Tails."
Orochimaru understood immediately.
"They'll attack simultaneously."
Ryusei nodded.
"They have a global spy network—those white clones I mentioned. They'll see the fracture in Konoha the moment it appears. And they won't hesitate."
Tsunade looked down, then up again.
Fugaku's Sharingan glinted sharply.
And Orochimaru was already calculating a dozen scenarios.
Ryusei finished simply:
"So we won't be alone on that battlefield. Whether we like it or not."
In recent months, Madara had also taken Rōshi—Ryusei had confirmed that much.
And then the abductions stopped.
By now, every great village knew something was stealing their "nuclear weapons," but none of them understood who—or how.
For Madara, it was simple.
He had the perfect tools:
The strongest Sharingan on the planet, for control.
Six Paths-level power.
And Obito's space-time teleportation to enter and exit any territory instantly.
Stealing a tailed beast wasn't a challenge for him. It was child's play.
That was why Ryusei was almost certain:
The moment Konoha showed even a hint of internal chaos, Madara would move to seize the remaining three beasts—the most difficult ones to obtain.
And then Ryusei would find himself facing another potentially catastrophic enemy.
He didn't underestimate Madara.
He remembered very clearly what Madara became as the Ten-Tails Jinchūriki in the original timeline.
In truth, there were many reasons why, after thinking it through, Ryusei chose to bite down on this "trap."
It wasn't just because of Madara. And it wasn't only because the Uchiha clan was trapped inside.
Yes, entering enemy territory was dangerous—but there was another side to it.
Konoha's elites would have to fight him while also protecting the entire village from the level of power Ryusei and his allies had.
Ryusei remembered clearly how much destruction a single weakened Nagato had caused in the original timeline.
And Ryusei now was far beyond that.
Yet they likely had no choice.
Because the only solution to even get a chance to deal with him now was to force him into a specific, pre-prepared 'kill zone' of some sort, even if it was Konoha itself.
A dimensional anchor. Something made in advance and tied to Konoha's land itself.
Because with Ryusei's current sensing, speed, and near-perfect suppression of his presence, no one could lay a trap for him in open terrain, even with Six Paths-level power.
He had to be lured.
That was likely why Tobirama wanted the final confrontation in Konoha itself.
It was the only place where preparations could be made.
The only place where Hagoromo's hidden support could be concentrated.
And Ryusei knew it.
He also knew this: With Hagoromo forced to maintain whatever trap waited inside Konoha, and simultaneously protect the village from total collapse, a massive amount of the Sage's power would be tied up.
Ryusei had sensed Tobirama trying to peek into Hot Water Country a few times already—and had felt him escape with Flying Raijin the moment he realized Ryusei's level.
They were running out of time.
They needed to deal with him before his momentum grew any further.
And Ryusei understood that perfectly.
There were pros and cons to walking into Konoha at this time.
But he was sure of one thing:
Most of Hagoromo's attention would be focused on keeping that village alive and intact.
Because Konoha was the "village of destiny," the stage where the Sage expected his blond "chosen heroes" of the future to rise.
Hagoromo would never allow it to fall.
And that meant the Sage would be spread thin, and he was the one who made Ryusei worried the most, obviously.
Yet Ryusei wasn't foolish enough to attack Konoha lightly.
For years, his power had risen beyond comprehension, and time had always been on his side.
He didn't need to fight them.
Especially now with his current level of evasiveness and trickiness.
If anything, it would have been more advantageous to still sit back and keep growing as usual.
But not anymore.
He had finally mastered the last two gates.
He was sixteen, his body nearly eighty percent developed thanks to in part due to his brutal and ingenious training methods, and his potential had begun to fully settle into its true shape.
So waiting wouldn't give him much more improvement than before.
His growth curve had already reached the point where each new gain would be slow and incremental again, without the intervention like the one he was about to do.
And there was another concern.
Even if it was nearly impossible to target him now, Konoha had freed its hands after the war.
They were also getting desperate.
If they couldn't reach him directly, they might eventually successfully attempt something against the people around him.
Ryusei searched for them constantly and protected his allies in real time with his clones, which were copies of him, but he wasn't omnipresent; he was not them after all.
He couldn't guarantee that all of his allies—especially the women closest to him—would stay safe forever.
And he had grown attached to them.
More than he liked to admit.
He wasn't going to wait for Konoha to try something first.
And then there were things he needed there as well—things only Konoha could provide now.
Qualified sacrifices for his Yin–Yang ritual from some of the most powerful shinobi alive, he could find.
And, more importantly, the Tenseigan he had always planned to take, indirectly, as well.
He was certain that the mysterious man on the moon, with the Tenseigan, would appear once the Hyuga clan was thrown into chaos.
With Hyūga involved in this coming battle, the timing was perfect.
And then there was Madara.
Ryusei had always felt a quiet pressure in the back of his mind when thinking about him, especially with how close he was to the Ten-Tails.
The most potent source of energy in this world.
He needed to deal with Konoha first, strengthen himself further, and sort out the Hyūga-Moon situation long before Madara could reach the Ten-Tails.
He wanted to investigate and probe the Hyūga further, lure out the moon's guardian, steal the Tenseigan, and eventually turn Madara against Konoha, and eliminate him outright next.
Everything lined up.
This attack had countless layers of logic behind it.
But he also knew one thing clearly:
This would be the most dangerous battle of his life.
In preparation for it, he had made several more arrangements over the past few days and recently as well, in general, as he sensed what might come.
Because Ryusei understood perfectly well—
Everything he had built in the last three years of war could collapse instantly if he failed now.
He was walking straight into the lair of one of the strongest beings ever in existence.
Hagoromo.
Even Katsuyu had told him she could help him resist Gamamaru, but not the Sage of Six Paths.
Hagoromo was terrifying—
The silent conductor of shinobi history.
He was far more dangerous than Indra, whom Ryusei had faced months earlier.
This could end in his death.
And the death of everyone who followed him.
Or it could become the final broken wall between him and the absolute security he had been chasing since the day he arrived in this world—
A world where he had always been hunted by ever-stronger enemies.
Also, he no longer took other villages seriously.
Kirigakure was already collapsing under Madara and Obito's chokehold, their leadership gutted and their village reduced to a puppet-state overnight.
Sunagakure was barely a village at all anymore; after Ryusei and Pakura's last assault, Rasa and every elite worth naming were erased, leaving some ordinary elite jōnin as the new Kazekage. In the eyes of the shinobi world, they were a joke.
Kumo and Iwa had resisted Konoha the longest, but even they eventually folded.
Iwa, in particular, who recently also had both of their tailed beast stolen, had been crushed from the very start: their ranks shredded by Minato's presence, and, by sheer misfortune, Might Duy had fought there from the first year as well, alongside Jiraiya and Kushina.
By now, every other village besides Konoha had fallen off Ryusei's radar entirely.
They weren't rivals. They weren't threats. They weren't even relevant.
He understood the truth clearly.
The final game would be fought between forces far above the mortal shinobi world:
Hagoromo's chosen proxy, Konoha.
Madara.
And the mysterious guardian on the moon.
Compared to them, the hidden villages were nothing but scattered shadows.
So, he knew the truth.
Whoever won the battle for Konoha…
would win the battle for the entire world.
And Ryusei intended to sit on that throne.
Step by step, he had climbed.
And now, at last—
This was the final step.