Chapter 450: Catching a Turtle in a Jar
Bounce, bounce.
Masahiko extended his arms and legs, stretching playfully before conjuring a small mirror from out of nowhere to admire his current face.
"Me at eleven years old... handsome, crisp, a youthful genius, completely suave..." Masahiko swooned over himself.
A person's mentality heavily influences their appearance. Masahiko had always firmly believed that if he hadn't failed to adjust his mindset after turning twelve, he would have definitely grown up looking like Minato Namikaze. Eleven-year-old him was drop-dead gorgeous!
"If the heavens would grant me another chance, I would definitely slather vanishing cream on my face every single day," Masahiko chuckled. "And now, that chance has arrived!"
"Masahiko Uzumaki, does returning to a youthful appearance make you that happy?" The Deva Path spoke impassively. "Even when you are about to step into death?"
Masahiko paused, carefully scanning his status bar to confirm that aside from a tiny, age-related dip in his raw taijutsu capabilities, his actual strength hadn't changed at all. Why was the Deva Path talking like—
Right at that moment, the blind Chiyo Uchiha suddenly struck. With a swift flash of her blade, she instantly decapitated one of the Pain paths, then pivoted sharply to slash at the female Preta Path.
"Universal Pull!"
The Deva Path thrust out his right hand, releasing an intense gravitational pull. Chiyo's long blade froze mere millimeters from the Preta Path's neck, and her body flew uncontrollably toward the Deva Path.
"Chiyo Uchiha... why?"
"Masahiko Uzumaki, run!" Even while flying through the air, Chiyo's voice remained perfectly tranquil.
Masahiko was equally tranquil. His max-level Yin attribute sent his brain into overdrive, instantly calculating the absolute best 'solution'. He dashed forward like a lightning bolt, using his own head to tackle the flying Chiyo out of harm's way just as a black receiver rod was about to impale her...
Pfft!
The Deva Path's black rod pierced cleanly through his chest.
"Chiyo, you... must live... well...!" Masahiko's head slowly drooped forward.
Chiyo Uchiha: ???
Deva Path Pain: ???
With his head hung low, Masahiko was practically beaming, giving himself twelve thumbs-up for this spectacular hero-saves-the-beauty performance. He focused his mind to analyze the chakra flowing through the rod pierced into his torso.
The Four-Tails, Six-Tails, Seven-Tails, and a trace of the Two-Tails' chakra? He didn't seal them into the Gedo Mazo, but sealed them all inside his own body instead? Is it to vastly expand his chakra pool so he can control the Six Paths of Pain from a further distance? It really is incredibly far. The real body is located twenty-seven kilometers to the southwest. Chiyo said northwest—he actually managed to keep her completely in the dark too!
Masahiko looked up with a massive grin, causing the Deva Path's expression to instantly warp: "Almighty Pu—"
"Pull, pull, pull, pull! I'll pull your stubborn iron head!"
Masahiko shouted the trigger words five times for him, and all five remaining paths of Pain instantly collapsed into heaps of useless scrap metal!
Having finished the cleanup, Masahiko turned to look at Chiyo, who was sitting dazed on the ground. His gaze lingered on her blind eyes as he let out a soft sigh: "She can't even see such an exceptionally cool moment. Truly a shame."
Chiyo sat frozen for a long while before untying her dark-blue hair, letting it drape gently over her shoulders. A soft, beautiful smile graced her face: "Masahiko Uzumaki, send me back to the Pure Land, then go capture his real body. Also... apologize to that Uchiha junior on my behalf. This past period has really been..."
Midway through her sentence, Masahiko flickered directly behind her, his right hand gently pressing against the crown of her head: "I already told you, we'll talk about everything down the line!"
The Rinnegan spun, and Chiyo's soul was cleanly pulled out and deposited into his spiritual space, while her physical vessel slowly dissolved into dust.
"Twenty-seven kilometers. Hehehe, young man, you can't run away now!" Masahiko vanished in a flash.
Inside the Spiritual Space.
Hashirama held a dice cup in his hands: "Tobirama, Kagami, Kenji, are you betting big or small this time?"
Tobirama's face was a mask of sheer helplessness: "Brother, you guess first!"
Hashirama pondered for a moment: "Big!"
"Small!" the other three chimed in unison.
Hashirama scratched his head, feeling thoroughly ostracized. "This time it'll definitely be—eh?"
The ground within the spiritual space suddenly gave a violent shudder. The thick fog to the northwest rapidly rolled back, and a massive mansion slowly rose from the earth.
"A newcomer?" Hashirama's face lit up with a grin as he slammed his dice cup open. "Haha, Big!"
Tobirama shook his head: "Brother, the ground shook just now, which means the dice inside your cup definitely shifted too. This round doesn't count!"
"Right, doesn't count!" the other two echoed.
Hashirama: "..."
On the other side, Mito, Nanako, Yoko, and Masahiko's grandnephew walked up to the newly materialized mansion.
The front doors slowly swung open, and a blind, young female ninja with flowing dark-blue hair appeared before their eyes.
The four looked at each other, all shaking their heads in complete bewilderment. No one recognized her.
"Judging by her age, is she a junior?"
In the distance, Kagami suddenly bolted upright, startling Hashirama and the others. "That is Senior Chiyo Uchiha! How... how is Shisui?"
Thirty kilometers southwest of Konoha Village, Masahiko flickered into existence on a barren mountain.
By now, he had already donned his Sage cloak. Fortunately, this cloak automatically scaled to fit his physique; otherwise, he would have had to look for a tailor to alter it...
At eleven years old, Masahiko wasn't short, standing at roughly 1.5 meters. He was a solid five or six centimeters taller than that shorty Naruto, and a fraction taller than Sasuke—well, probably a fraction.
"Our heights are close, but the Great Ancestor is way handsomer," Masahiko smirked. "The mountain I sensed earlier is definitely this one!"
Forming the Tiger seal with his right hand, Masahiko was just about to activate his Kagura The Mind's Eye when a bright-blue barrier abruptly rose around the perimeter of the mountain.
Knitting his brows slightly, two soccer-ball-sized Truth-Seeking Balls floated out from his chest, smashing one after the other into the barrier. The barrier shattered with a loud crack, but the ground beneath Masahiko's feet instantly flared with a brilliant crimson light.
Boom!
Like an erupting volcano, a pillar of roaring fire soared into the sky.
"Ho! Placed landmines?" The corner of Masahiko's mouth twitched. Releasing a powerful repelling force, he firmly suppressed the blast wave, forcing the explosion to rumble heavily deep within the mountain's core.
The earth fractured layer by layer. The sheer kinetic force of the detonation reduced the top few meters of the mountain peak into absolute dust, instantly shaving five meters off this fifty-meter-tall barren hill!
"Cheap parlor tricks to buy time..." Formulating the Tiger hand seal once more: "Kagura The Mind's Eye!"
As his sensory grid expanded, Masahiko raised an eyebrow, turning his gaze toward the north: "Heading over that way? Mmm? Wait, no!"
Locking his eyes onto a spot twenty meters directly in front of him, Masahiko flickered over and drove an almighty punch straight down—BOOM!
Cracks spider-webbed through the earth. A punch capable of splitting the entire mountain apart merely excavated a three-meter-deep fissure here.
"A sealing barrier?" Masahiko paused, a broad grin curling up his face: "Hahahahaha! Incredible! To think you'd pull a classic misdirection play with the Great Ancestor? The most dangerous place is the safest place? The one fleeing north is a specialized White Zetsu clone, isn't it!"
"Orochimaru got caught like a turtle in a jar by Hiruzen and the others, and to think the Great Ancestor gets to catch one today too!"
Unleashing a massive gravitational pull, a three-cubic-meter boulder of solid earth tore out from underground, its surface densely covered in intricate sealing formulas.
Masahiko beamed as he tapped his finger against the boulder. "Hey! Come on out, the Great Ancestor is inviting you to have dinner in the Pure Land!"
A moment later, Masahiko shook his head helplessly, driving his right palm violently downward as the sealing formulas shattered tier by tier.
Boom!
The boulder exploded violently from the inside out, and an exceptionally domineering, regal face revealed itself: "A child? Where did you come from?"
Masahiko stood entirely frozen on the spot. How did trying to catch a turtle end up pulling out Madara?
Are you... spending your summer hibernation right here?
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