Choices are painful.
The choice is not between a good option and a bad one, where you simply pick the better or more advantageous path.
It is between a very bad option and an especially terrible one, forcing you to choose the outcome that is, relatively speaking, less awful.
At this moment, the Senju clan had two choices.
One was to hand over custody of the Nine-Tails' jinchūriki to the village, losing their trump card.
The other was to reluctantly complete the Nine-Tails' seal themselves, risking the possibility of the Nine-Tails rampaging.
Senju Rinmu had witnessed the Senju clan's former glory. Even at great risk, he would never surrender their trump card or influence.
After the Senju ninjas left the clan grounds, Hiruzen Sarutobi followed with four Anbu squads.
Yoru was puzzled—where had Danzo gone? Normally, Danzo wouldn't miss an event like this.
Thinking carefully, Yoru realized he hadn't seen Danzo for a while; Danzo hadn't been at the Anbu.
Walking through Konoha, Yoru noticed many Jonin standing on distant rooftops.
The Uchiha clan, the Akimichi, Choji, and Inuzuka clans, the Hyuga clan, and more.
These Jonin sensed the Senju clan's unusual activity and had come out to watch them depart.
The Senju clan's procession carried a faint air of tragic heroism.
At Konoha's gates, the guards opened the gates in the middle of the night without worrying about exit permits. All the Senju ninjas passed through.
Far from the village, the Senju clan selected a good location.
Valley of the End.
Statues of Senju Hashirama and Uchiha Madara towered on either side of the waterfall.
The Valley of the End was the pride of the Senju clan, a symbol of Hashirama's unification of the warring world.
Uzumaki Mito slowly stepped down from the carriage.
Her once-red hair had turned pale as snow.
She gazed toward the waterfall and the towering statue of Hashirama, a trace of nostalgia on her face.
At this moment, she was no longer the jinchūriki who had sealed the Nine-Tails for decades, no longer the village's most senior ninja, no longer the Senju clan's matriarch.
She seemed to return to over sixty years ago, to the first time she had seen Hashirama, looking up at him in awe.
In her memory, Hashirama was a young man, full of vigor, leading the young Senju into the Uzumaki territory.
The entire Uzumaki clan had been electrified by the arrival of the young Senju, the village buzzing as if celebrating a festival.
The Uzumaki hosted the Chunin Exams, with the young Senju leading the team.
In that exam, Hashirama displayed incredible, almost absurd power and a unique tactical mind.
Standing in the center of the field, he proudly said:
"Pair up one Genin from the Senju clan with one from the Uzumaki clan. You have half an hour to adapt and devise a strategy.
Let's go! I'm in a hurry to deal with Uchiha Madara."
The Uzumaki clan leader, her father, did not think Hashirama was being reckless and cheerfully asked all Senju and Uzumaki ninjas to pair up.
Mito remembered being furious at the time. She paired with Senju Momoshina, swearing to crush Hashirama's arrogance.
Yet the two of them couldn't even last five seconds.
They could endure three or four seconds only because they were both female ninjas.
How could a ninja be so strong?
When the Chunin Exams ended, Hashirama became a hero to the young Uzumaki.
And she, his defeated opponent, became Hashirama's fiancée during the final ceremony, bowing her head, blushing, unable to look at him.
Now, seeing Hashirama's statue again, Mito thought: after a lifetime with him, she had never truly entered Hashirama's heart.
Before she died, she would give everything to Hashirama one last time.
Holding Kushina's hand, she said: "Kushina, I hope you one day meet a hero ninja who will fill your heart, resolve your doubts, and calm your fears."
Kushina stubbornly replied: "Great-aunt, I will become a hero ninja on my own. I don't need another man."
"Haha, good. Kushina, with the Nine-Tails' help, you will surely become a great ninja."
Mito led Kushina to the center of the Senju formation.
Over 900 Senju ninjas formed three concentric circles, with a ring-shaped sealing array on the ground made from large sealing scrolls.
The Senju stood before the unrolled scrolls, which were covered in intricate sealing runes.
The combined sealing array measured over 300 meters in diameter.
At the very center were Rinmu and his wife, their hands pressing on two large scrolls—books of seals from the Senju and Uzumaki clans.
Rinmu's wife was also from the Uzumaki clan. She whispered sadly: "Cousin…"
Mito grasped Rinmu's and his wife's hands: "From now on, the Senju clan and Kushina are entrusted to you."
Rinmu and his wife nodded repeatedly, promising to care for the Senju clan and Kushina.
Releasing Kushina's hand, Mito and Kushina stood three meters apart.
The elder and the young formed hand seals simultaneously.
The Nine-Tails' transfer seal began.
Mito and Kushina stood at the center.
Rinmu and his wife were on the sides.
Outside them were three circles of over 900 Senju ninjas.
The outermost ring consisted of four Anbu squads commanded by Sarutobi.
The Anbu stood with hands behind their backs, waiting for the Hokage's orders.
Yoru saw golden phantom chains appear around Mito as she slowly formed the hand seals, each chain tightly coiled like a ball of string.
As the seal loosened, the chains spread outward, the gaps widening. Red chakra of the Nine-Tails leaked through the gaps.
At a certain moment, a fox's pupils appeared within the chains' gaps.
Yoru felt an icy chill, his heart pounding. Though far away, it seemed the Nine-Tails' gaze was on him.
The chakra brimmed with resentment, directly affecting everyone's minds.
Next to Mito, the chakra surged, rippling across the ground like stones thrown into water.
The outward-spreading chakra carried a cold, oppressive sensation that stiffened everyone's expressions.
Yoru lifted his mask to let in air, feeling his face go numb.
Mito's seal weakened further, until the chains fully released, radiating outward like a peacock's tail.
Her back tore as the Nine-Tails' chakra erupted, coalescing in the night sky into the massive head of the demon fox.
The fox lowered its head and roared at Mito on the ground:
"Uzumaki Mito! You sealed me for over thirty years! Over thirty years!"
The chakra surged with the fox's words, pounding the ground in waves.
Mito's hair flew loose, white strands billowing.
Amid the howling wind, she said to Kushina:
"Kushina, it's up to you now. Restrain the Nine-Tails, protect Konoha, carry on the Uzumaki name. In my life, everyone around me has died for Konoha.
No one told me, but I wonder… have Tsunade or Nawaki already died?"